Rob

Three more pieces up at DiDFactory: a scrivener by Leo, and two pieces by Fern.

Still revising Narbohring. When I get back from the meeting, I'll get an artist on the world map.

Double damage.

Holy crap. That's so very cool.

Very much looking forward to seeing this thing in its final form.

Rob

Okay, the first bit of art is rolling in. Go check out the DidFactory email. You'll see the Handmaidens doing what they do best. I love it.

I think that it will help in the guide to have short titles under each piece of artwork. This one will be associated with the Murdyne entry in the Vehrlands, and titled: Love, Hope, and Charity visit the Ixians.

Leo Lingas is the artist on this piece, and I've got four more coming from him: an Ixian Scrivener, the Antiarch of Aguierre, Torsche, and Thenzor Deep.

Mark.

Version 6.4 is up on the gmail account. (For some reason I wrote 4.3)

It has Rob's fixes of the creatures/realms/relics. The rest of the text jives with these changes. -I think the flavor is much improved. I also like just having demons, no devils.

I changed Feint, Last Stand, and Feat of Strength as I mentioned. Rolling high is always good, now.

As for the ability/skill point thing. Does everyone agree with Paul? I have debated this for some time. Yes, abilities may only be bought with ability points. So it does makes sense to make the distinction. But does it confuse the proficiency point/skill point issue at all, or make it less clear?

I just want consistency, any nomenclature is cool with me. I still wonder if there is a better way to name them. Anyone?

Rob, I saw you got 50 bids on his last project. That's kind of funny. I'm anxious to see the work. Any preview scans? BTW, you sure you don't want that Jon Sid. guy? His stuff is crazy rich.

Oh, I nixed alligators. I felt crocs were enough. Same stats, different name. However, you might want to change the Myrin Dragon's pet to a croc, Rob.

We are getting there.

ok back to it.

Mark in you game you have ability skills listed and then you have the "skill point cost". This should be relabeld "ability point cost" page 13.

Page 29 has

-almost traces of the Archons have been obliterated

also

- She is among the less malicious of the Maxinays, especially compared to her young nephew Quenlin (6th level human, 2nd Circle Hermetic), vacationing with his aunt in Yseng. Quenlin, named for his formerly-doting aunt, is a charming albino, but sociopathic and sadistic, and obtains the girls that his aunt requires.

this sentence is uh, well you know, bad. sorry.

page 30

-Zostig became the location of the new “parent church” (of Western Narbohring for the Church of Zhol)

should "of Zhol for Western Narbohring.

Include Black Ichor in the alchmist's listing of supplies.

tutorage is actually tutelage,

page 31

Here, though, are described many of the outlying regions of the area known colloquially as “the East”.

awkward.

. Ringing the gong summons a mighty roc, carrying a gondola ustd for transport of one or a few giant-sized humanoids or goods.

used is spelled wrong. as is specific in the next sentance.
ah the hammer of storms.

on page 33
does Orms Dhalgang really have enough skillpoints to have 8th circle hermetic and 5th ritual? the system seems to make this very hard to do at that level, 16th.

page 36

should Slavepits have a space in it?

headache clan sounds a bit, uh bad.

should smok dragon be smoke dragon?

page 38 Toxicology is spelled wrong as toxocology.

done for now. I can't read about more cities.

Mark.

Thanks Paul, I sent Rob my edits last night. -Yours were more substantive.

I'm debating this strength check (Feat of Strength) thing right now. Rob makes a good point. It is one of the few instances where you need to roll low. Last Stand and Feint are the other two I can think of. It would be nice to have high rolls always be desirable.

How about this?:

Feats of Strength are a d20 with a target number (like a Willpower or Fortitude check) plus a modifier due to the strength attribute score.

Last Stand: Make a Fortitude check of 10 at the top of each round. -that's easy.

Feint: Roll a d20 with a target number equal to the opponent's dodge score. Apply your agility score skill modifier. (I kinda like how it reflects the opponent's agility.)

well there it is.

I found my notes so I should have some herbs and shit for you to use if you like. I have more to post but I'm done for now.

I'll finish reading tomorrow maybe and post the results of the read through, then do another post on stuff from my game notes that might be of interest to you.

I like Slavers' guild myself. I think I missed the point about why some tect is blue, but I liked the blue text so keep it. I think the origins of the slathar and giants and the like could be better laid out, but I know it's a bitch so I wouldn't worry about trying to get everything in, I just wouldn't by doing my job if I didn't say so. I hope you don't mind I'm being honest here about some stuff, I'm not trying to be a critical jerk as much as help.

he's got the whole world in his hands he's got the whole world

pg 4
Most others continue to fight against their infernalism of the Church, believed to be the original source of Hermetic magic in Narbohring.

this seems poorly worded. perhaps - against the infernalism in their Church

Nice intro though. Loved the Shadowsfall quote at the beginning.

Nar-bering? Nar-bore-ring

Page 5
Although since the earliest days, Narbohring has contained a large number of cults, political factions, and secret societies, the history of Narbohring is the history of the Vox Duur, the first organized religion.

Perhaps -the history of early Narbohring is the history of the Vox Duur.

The Antiarch is dropped a bit quickly Caradoc is named but who is the Antiarch?

The new nations of Khaedor, Verlainen, Nycene, and Vasqueray began to fight over control of the south and west. In 700 F.E., a group of Thainist widows, aggrevated at their order’s lack of response and grieving over the deaths of their families, took up arms and crossed Narbohring, trying to suppress conflicts by slaughtering all in their way.

Perhaps mention that they were colonies that revolted, or cities established by exiled houses. It give the opportunity to mention a war by name. I was left with the feelings these nations popped up.

I have a battle called the Battle of Purple Fields, named after the flowers that bloomed wild there, and the purple(noble) blood that was lost there. Feel free to have it.

page 6

While the First Era was dominated by the rise and fall of Irendor and the major religions of Narbohring, and the Second Era detailed the struggles of the outlying colonies to assert themselves and be recognized as mature states, the Third Era has seen the global unification of Narbohring in the hands of great merchant Guilds and trade organizations.

how did the major religions fall?

The Slavers were the first of these Guilds, incorporating in 1 T.E. immediately after the Vehrlands Covenant made reliable international transport a reality

perhaps instead of immediately after the -as part of the Vehrlands Covenant, or something like that

page 7
Black Rose Rebellion is nice perhaps a -so named because of explanation is needed.


Page 10
Church of Winter
Just to mention that maybe we don't need to have a demon worshiping cult use the symbol of the 6 pointed star. I don't care, but, well you know. Especially since you already have a modified menorah as a symbol. Don't piss off the Jewish Lobby, no wait that's free publicity.

you say that the names Rhiannon and Breyana are essentially the same in Irendi, I suggest that you make them sound more alike in English if that is the case. Maybe you need Breyana to be Breyanan if you are going to assert this. Maybe I'm being picky.

-Priests of Breyana regularly traffic with demons and other infernal creatures, imparting upon them hidden knowledge.

that makes it sound like the Priests of Breyana are teaching the demons.

-It is conscience, fear, intellect, and awe.
perhaps this would work better as -Ixus is conscience, fear, intellect and awe. I am surprised they have fear as opposed to bravery as a definition.

On an aside I hope Sterling founded the way of Xeres for them. He did assert that he was a priest of Ix pretty strongly.

-The Order of Ixian is more esoteric, elitist, and well-mannered than the Church. The Order believes that Ixian is the true wellspring of power and will within men.
perhaps within people. Not to get on the gender crazy bandwagon, but I like gender neutral signifiers.

page 13 grueling has only the one l not gruelling.

The Slavers will pay a sum of money for anyone- old, young, dead, alive; this is at their discretion, of course. They don’t want just anyone.

really? a system for this needs to be explained. I can't just grab a big guy of the streets and sell him can I, cause if I can then it would happen a lot and then people get pissed and the whole thing falls apart, or if it doesn't why?

page 17 minutae is spelled minutiae.

page 18 practitioners is spelled wrong, as practioners

page 16 through 18 are great. thanks, the kids I hope will use it well.

what does the time rating on the drugs signify is it how long it takes to get the shit in your system?

guild of thorns and the sea kingdoms are dropped on us on page 19.

should naga be capitalized on page 24?

page 25 pronunciation of Venoshua seems weird.

I don't know why, well ok I do, but I love the astromancers tower section.

I also like the optics guild section.

lost courier good.

page 29 could include some descriptions of the protections or reasons why these tombs have not been violated.

I shall pick up where I left off later.

Mark.

Still reading through N3. -It's damn good. One thing that struck me however, was that many cities were described as 'high magic', but Narbohring itself was described as low magic. -It doesn't feel too 'low magic' when you read it.

As to Elves and Dwarves. -That's fine if you don't dig them. They don't even need to be in Narbohring. In fact, it might be better if they aren't included in the setting. Wayfarers is a system to be altered.

I'd rather Narbohring not have Elves and Dwarves, than they be changed drastically in the system so as to fit in Narbohring. I think making them too different from what people know would seem artificial. You want a different kind of elf-like creature? That's fine. Invent one for your world. No elves at all? That's cool too. Talking bears? Sure thing. -I really want the rules to go beyond flavor preference. Just because I don't like selkies doesn't mean I should make them vampiric. Selkies are selkies. Some people (I think) dig them.

Even better, keep elves the same in the system, but create 'Narbohring' elves, in the narbohring creature list. Indicate how they are different and why.

That's why I think a Narbohring-specific creature list is a good thing. It shows GMs how you can modify or extend the rules to create your unique vision. As much as I dig Narbohring, I don't want Wayfarers to completely reflect it. That's the spirit of the system.

I hope you keep that in mind as you tweak the creatures, Rob.

I agree, angels and devils were too christian to fit the system. Making extra-planar being jive with the ritual spheres was a great idea. However, I didn't think angels and devils weren't 'Narbohring' enough.

do you have rights to the MMORG?

It's not so much about interspecies marriage, it is about why are there different sentient races? The basic d&d answer it seems may have been that there were racial gods. That doesn't seem your answer. You have Ogres right? Why? My game is a mash up up worlds, literally. So you have various beings with different origins brought together on a single plane of existence. They have different explanations as to how they came about because they came about in different ways. There are very few people who know this, because of one reason or another, but the DM should know. Giants, Dragons, and Gods in my game are older than the world. Their origins are something I have not had to place in the world because they are it's basis, they are the primordial. I have ideas on them, but I don't have to share them BECAUSE they are the primordial, I do have to make clear what came immediately after because THAT is the beginning of history, and I need to know a thing or two about the gods and dragons a giants, but not as much as their effect. Some of the gods made humanity using the giants as their model. The god of the elves became the queen of the underworld to shepard the souls of the dead who died in HER world, it was hers then the other beings showed up when she rang a very beautiful bell that was a gift to her and accidentally summoned the horrible great evil to her world, then the other races and gods showed up as refugees to continue the good fight. Centaurs in my world are the result of a cursed witch interacting with the sentient animals in my world and being cursed by them, yes I have talking bears. Where does magic that doesn't come from the gods come from? I think that is one of the most important questions for a dm to have some kind of answer to. In my world the God of Truth became the God of Lies and gave humanity the ability to lie on a scale never known before.

Talking animals are awesome. I know you don't believe me but they are. I mean who should druids worship if not the great animal spirits. Plus you can have people hunt sentient animals for spell components etc, and who does rule the wilds? What's in charge outside of the city walls? I have a world that is really mysterious when you leave the road or village. That's because all the sentient races and their gods are an aberration according to all the "forces of nature" who have some spokespeople. If you are going to have werewolves explain them, if you have ratlings explain them. Mine were made by Marivhon Blackfalls in a misguided view that what makes a person a God is their ability to create a race.

Just some more thoughts after having a bottle of wine.

I'm glad you liked some of what I wrote for you.

Rob

Paul- great, great stuff. With your blessing, I'll put most of those items into Narbohring. Some of the names will be changed. Most of the swords of the Antiarch right now are pretty dull, but the phoenix blade's ability is perfect for that.

Good point about death rituals. I need to talk more about the other planes, where the dead go, and such. As for interspecies mating, well if I had my way, there wouldn't even be dwarves or elves in the system because I think they're the worst things about D&D. While I have some creative control over Mark's monsters, I might go and edit dwarves and elves in the monster listing to give them some spice. All I've done so far is flip angels and demons- right now, angels are asshole servants of the mindflayers who basically hate people, while demons feel pity for mankind. And elementals all hang out together on the same plane.

...

Right now, 27 freelance artists want to draw my picture of the first key of Typhon. One of these guys, in his online portfolio, has a drawing of Captain Crunch, but dressed as a pirate. Yikes.

some of my brain for you.

Dairivens Cage- Basically a little cage on a chain that you throw towards someone. It grows in size and attempts to capture them and then bring them to you. It had a DC of 20 in my game. Dairiven was a bounty hunter.

The Phoenix Blade. Longsword used by some weird guys in my game. Whoever you kill with it is then raised from then dead the next round and is now "good", or who they
should be, according to the sword. It makes people essentially paladinic, if that's a word. The thing is it thinks you should kill everyone and make them good. It's actually more like a Lawful Evil paladin sword. The priests that you have killing people and raising them from the dead might benefit from a sword like this Rob. I had it so that it had very little bonuses and all damage had to be dealt by the sword for it to raise the person.

Valhonessa's Shame. It was a thin blade used by a queen in a long story to kill her husband. A mage, who was her lover had enchanted it so that it would urge her to kill the king. Whenever it's held in the hand it hides the mind of the wielder from scrying. It also gave some bonuses to backstab, and a lot of bonuses if used in an act of betrayal.

The Coin. It never had a name other than that. You flipped in and if it was heads it gave you a plus 1 to everything, if it was tails it gave you a minus 1. There was no way to cheat on this. The effects were cumulative. People were very afraid to use it.

The Oil of Absolution. Basically a salve that when applied purifies the subject and returns it to it's pure state. It was sought in my game to remove very powerful curses, geas and the like. A vampire used it to become human again. It was made by an alchemist named Herios.

Mirafay. Was an herb that some people used to leave their body and travel astrally. They couldn't interact with the world and had to return to their body before the effects of the drug wore off, or their soul with start to decompose (lose skills then stats then hp, then well their character).

The Soul Spade. Used to bury the body of the first person murdered in the world it would make a person buried with it permanently dead dead dead soul gone.

The Anastasis. A sword that could cut the fabric of time and allow the wielder to step out of time. They could not affect the world around them but they could move through it. It gave some init bonuses and to hit bonuses.


Still Water. It's water from the deepest parts of the world. It's pure and ancient and makes potions better. It is actually 100% not magical, in my game that's rare. Most things have some small amount of magic because of the gods or whatnot. Still Water can be used to make things that inhibit or cancel magical effects.

Something to think about for the Narbohring thing. How are dead bodies handled? I had a lot of different stuff in my world about burning or burial, what the undead are and how they can come about. I think that you probably should avoid interspecies marriage shit, but burial traditions are I think really important in a game with as much death as these tend to have. Yes I did do some work on birth customs and that was some weird shit, but I had weird players too. Goblin children are born with teeth and makes for some weird nursing, they are born wild and are literally weened from their demonic nature. Female elves cannot get pregnant from human males, but human females can become pregnant from elf males, It caused some wars....blah blah it's better than that but I'll spare you. So some of that stuff is game based, but it's exactly what my players wanted and it made the world more realistic for them. People put candles in their windows to keep spirits from coming into their homes. Criminals are buried and their souls don't find peace (they become undead) until dug up by priests of death who burn the bodies after they have served their time. Hence their ability to control and destroy undead. Horrible criminals are never exhumed and burned, and some cults dig them up, which may be a bad move. Unburied/unburned corpses of sentient beings become undead. What is the Sun, stars? I have a cult of stars that believes when really important people die they become stars. When a shooting star is seen it's a really big deal to these guys. What are the philosophies that compete in the world as to how it was created. What are the pantheonic breakdowns on those philosophies. In my game one breakdown is thus.

Those who pass through the world- pacifists, watchers, your druid types mytics etc. They think that the world is only there to be understood. Prime goal understand.
Those who alter the world- aggressive actors, people who think there is shit to be done, that the world is a work in progress. Prime goal change.
Those who accept the world. People who think that for the most part the world is set as it is for a reason. They're just there to enjoy what the gods have made and the order they gave it. Prime goal enjoy.

I don't remember the names I gave the different outlooks, but having them and thinking a little bit about them made the groups I came up with make more sense in the game, I think. Plus it let me come up with philosophers for the game and schisms that made sense in religious groups. Now maybe all that is a lot to put in a book, but it could perhaps be eluded to so that dice commanders more fully understand the task that is potentially before them. I believe that you have done some of this work Rob and just invite you to share it in your section.


and since I can't find my gaming notes still, after having bought the house, that's all I've got right now. They're here somewhere.

Mark.

Alright, that's a lot of stuff. On first read, I think I agree with all your suggestions.

I'll start in on things and let you know what comes up.

I do think 'feats of strength' happen all the time, and I wasn't sure how else to account for them. Any ideas? I think a strength skill is kinda weak. (ooh pun.)

What about 1d4* for every 'grade' of strength? 1-4: 1d4*, 5-8: 2d4*, etc,
to make strength checks? Could it be generalized? Hmm. I don't like that though, because it makes prof skills easily circumventable.

Anyway, I am putting Narbohring into the main system and tweaking the format. After incorporating your system suggestions and revisions to come, Rob, we'll have version 6.4, which I'll post to DiDfactory. I've got some time this weekend, which it looks like I'll need.

Off to dinner.

EDIT: Just noticed something in N3. In the system, Faith Magic goes either Primary: one domain, Secondary: two domains, Tertiary: 3 domains, or primary in two domains. -You've got one extra domain for each in N3.

Rob

Narbohring 3 is now posted in DiD Factory.

Again, your preference of Word or pdf, and comments and criticism, of the sort that Paul and Justin have offered, are very much appreciated.

...

Paul, thanks for the comments. Most of the pronunciations, along with the damn spelling of pronunciation, have been changed. Handmaidens’ and Knights’ special skill left as-is… Knights just don’t have to spend the skillpoints to buy the highest grade, a savings of at most 32 points. Handmaidens are supposed to be tough, and I’m eschewing balance on purpose- what they gain in power they make up for in restrictions, which is now more clear. Same with priests of Xeres. Thanks for catching the lack of things for the Church of Silence and Suvan Azule, fixed.

As for Amanda and Sterling, alas these changes come from in-game events. The short but sweet Sarpagal 3 game found Brandmoor’s emporium was run by three demon brothers calling themselves the Halifaxes. The real Sterling made an appearance pretending to be Lazarus, the master of Narbohring’s Iron Labyrinth (the guy you had to ask your question twice to), at the end of Sarpagal 5 with Jon and Jessica, and then took off with an undead skull and a talking rat named Mr. Rags. Amanda, she was doomed from the moment she met you guys in Sarpagal 2. Sarpagal 4 and 5 had great closure for her story and the Arcanos; I’ve smashed Sarpagal 2-5 together for the recent pre-history of this Narbohring.

And if you think Amanda was maligned, take a look at Slath (and his gay little mouse pal), the Covenant (an insane fop), Baalphegor Pheng (disintergrated himself), and Garrison Bones (fat drunkard).

…

Mark, yeah, the realms design is better. You’re right about the realm of Gaea, I think I like your names better. ‘Realm of Gaea’ sounds like it was designed by a 10th grade girl, not 34 year old scientists!

I thought you told me that there was no general mechanism for making things like INT checks or CHA checks. Yet you have feats of strength. Seems pretty arbitrary, system-wise. For the Sampo relic, you’re basically asking the character to make a ‘feat of intellect’.

You still don’t need to list every monster in the ToC… just have a master list at the beginning of that section.

Any animal or monster that gets summoned should have a listing in the monsters list. Golems, alligators, etc.

What happens if I’m wearing three Rings of Protection that are all +1 absorption? You need to make a ruling about stacking modifiers (and stacking penalties, as in multiple Klutz spells), and make it generally, not special case it in every location.

Mark, do you capitalize Fortitude and Willpower? I capitalize types of magic (e.g., Hermetic), ‘Circle’, and abilities (e.g., ‘Counterattack’). What is your standard for capitalization?

I think Jack-of-all-Trades should be 1d8, not 1d6. Otherwise it’s a total waste of ability points. It still sucks, but not quite so painfully.

Hedge Magic spell Imbuement is so short-durationed as to be useless too. Make it 1 day per Circle I think, if not 1 week. You can have the added restriction that a Hedge mage can only make so many trinkets as they have Circles.

Changes to 6.3:

Artifacts: Codex of Enlightenment, Elemental Stone, Paladin’s Sword
Potions: Extra-planar Protection, Shadows, Undead Control (just bolded the name)
Relics: basically all, and the list was updated too.
New monsters: carnivorous plants, dogs, harkumen, oozes, ratkin, undead (apparition, ghost, shadow, wight)
Modified monsters: angels, archons, devils, demons, daeva, deva, undead (lich)

After you’re done re-planing/realming the spells, don’t forget to go through and search for all instances of hell, devil, paradise, hades, etc. That includes monsters too. Just to be clear, now ALL instances of home planes has been removed from the angels, archons, devils, demons, daeva, and deva. I also got rid of their society structures, as it seems needlessly artificial and D&D or Danteseque.

I really hate the green = delete thing, so everything changed is just in blue. Note that I also deleted example names, as it’s kinda cheesy to have a bunch of Hebrew angels.

…

Here are the changes in the third version:

Big formatting update to be consistent with Mark’s guide. Also, now all the points of interest are extracted in bold for each geographical entry.

Stories and organization descriptions are now ‘sidebarred’ (shaded in gray, currently at 20% so my eyes can see it), meaning that in the final layout, they will be removed from the flow of the main text, and given anywhere from a half page to several pages.

Magic items and monsters, on the other hand, have been ‘appendicized’… removed entirely from the main flow of content and relegated to the very back of the guide in separate sections. I think this helps. Magic items and monsters are done.

Descriptions of how to join churches (you just do it in-game) and Guilds (you really don’t do it). Each Guild grade now has separate skill bonuses. Faith magic is now restricted depending on your religion.

Long description for the GM about the different religions of Narbohring and why they all hate each other.

Long description of the services offered by each of the Guilds.

New locations: Westgate, Moorcrest, Nightfall (not the most imaginative names, but completing the trade route through Armech). Also Port Haras. Each of these is interesting in their way I think. Some of those might be from N2 update also. Roads throughout Narbohring have been added to city and region descriptions. Swords of the Antiarch have been placed.

New plots and ideas: the heir to Irendor, prison ships of Gorgos, extensive description of the story of Ixondr and Muriel. Thorneskeep has been greatly expanded.

One-page background to the world of Narbohring.

…

Questions:
1) Should the ‘dungeons’ like Zolace and the Shadowsfall Tower be removed? And either set as another appendix, or removed completely and be published online or as a supplement?

2) If you guys could go through and flag which points of interest (the bold items under each city) are the best, I’d appreciate it. Feedback, telling me which are lame would also be great, but even if you don’t have time to read and write a lot, just saying: “here’s the 10 most interesting things” would help a lot.

3) What do you guys think the correct grammar is: Slavers Guild (currently used), Slaver’s Guild, or Slavers’ Guild?

4) More Alchemical compounds- poisons, drugs, etc- would be great. Any suggestions welcome.

…

Changes coming in version 4:

Appendices finished: monster lists, two campaign ideas, and glossary.
Maybe some artwork, if artists are finished by then.

Mark

Justin, thanks for the catches. I'll fix them tonight. It's good to have some fresh eyes looking at this thing. -Wyverns are just really into the arts.

Also, I agree with Rob. Mystic is good. So be it.

Keep it coming.

Rob

Justin- awesome, thanks for catching all the typos. That's brilliant and exactly what we need. I like mystic better also... while Ritual mages basically are druids in Narbohring, and Hedge mages are alchemists, they don't have to be.

Mark- I say we switch the name. And yeah, the layout looks damn good. Dude, use your golem illustration in the next layout update and show the world.

Paul- the 'tele' prefix is a little too blatant for me. I think all of this stuff could be implemented if thoroughly obfuscated. 'Wikipedia' or 'teledex' is for me a thin volume called "Esoterica". It contains lots of faerie tales, gives you information, and drives you insane.

It sadly does not have orly owl though, so I guess the internet wins.

...

Major update coming soon. I'm revamping the planes, Mark's planar creatures, and the whole layout of Narbohring, plus tons more GM info. I've started to hire artists.

This is now my goddamn full-time job. It's almost noon and I've yet to do any science today.

Justin

I'm still reading through 6.3, haven't tried making a character yet, but I'll get around to that.

Anyway, I haven't done a throrough readthrough yet, but here are a few things I noticed which could use some attention:

p 235- The Abraxas stone stops you from aging, but does it really make you immortal? Some GMs are going to want clarification.

p 247- Under the description of the "Agnostic" optional ability, the word "Chance" is missing after 50%.

p 278- Entry for Agni mentions his magical bronze weapons, for which stats are given in his block, but also mentions his magical armor, though his Hide/Armor entry is None (or by armor). I suggest at least giving his armor stats.

p 333- In the wyvern entry, it mentions that they could live in "artic" conditions. Simple typo.

p 302- Entry for the Hraeth monster mentions claw and bite attacks, but doesn't give damage for them. Or at least it doesn't give damage for the claws, the bite seems to only do 1 damage, which seems strange for a monster of this calibur.

Another thing, really a personal peve, I think "mystic" is a better, broader term for users of ritual magic. I don't like making them inherently tied to nature, as ceremonial magic seems like it could be the perview of people other than typical D&D druids, which is what the current label brings to mind. Lemme know what you think.

I like the art. This is definitely shaping up to be the 3rd edition that should have been.

Mark

I'm kinds digging the teledex. I think I'll make an artifact based on it. -Maybe it can make some knowledge checks at grade III or IV. A campaign is like a series of tubes, eh?

I was scanning art last night. Here's an early version of formatting:




















Kinda has some old-skool flavor. -Any thoughts?

Huh. It lost the bottom border in the transition. Anyway, there is one.

speaking of that

In some of the games I have run I have had a company called Teleco.

I know, I know, but that is why it works.

A guy named Telemir started employing mages etc coming out of the schools and made some stuff.

Basically it's one of the things that NPC mages do instead of adventuring, they work for Teleco.

They make the following for people.

Telemeter- It measures distances from set points that can be dialed in to aid in navigation and the like.

Televox- It lets people talk to each other. Basically headsets and more you can dial in connections.

Teledoor- It is for mostly the Conveyors guild in my world to move shit around. It's a door that you can setup that works with another door keyed to it. They are easily set up and can be taken with you when you use them.

Teledex- THE thing to have if you are wealthy. It is like a magical encyclopedia. Think of the d&d version of wikipedia. You can enter in subjects on a tablet and it will tell you about it. Different versions are availble for a price that can include magical text for those willing to pay for it.

Telessist- Basically an unseen servant, but it can be upgraded to include all of the other offerings from Teleco. So in theory you could have an invisible buddy there to look things up for you telepathically, communicate the findings to you telepathically and just be a great helper.

Teleco frowns in my game in being involved in violent action, and it's rumored that they trace all uses of their technology. They may also have something bad about them. Since potential players of my game may read this I'll leave it there.

Just a few thoughts, which are now recorded on the internets.

Mark

Fun new artifact. Might be good for Narbohring.

Portal boxes: Portal boxes are always created as a pair of identical ornate coffers, typically no more than 1 cubic foot in volume. Due to the powerful enchantment upon the boxes, any item placed within one may be drawn from the other regardless of the distance in-between the two. For example, an apple placed within one portal box could subsequently be retrieved from its twin receptacle, thousands of miles away.

Portal Boxes do not duplicate the items placed within them. Once an item is drawn from one box, it cannot be found within either. Due to the function of Portal Boxes, they are commonly found individually, the pair being separated by a substantial distance.

Note: One Portal Box must be closed in order to draw an item from the other.

Mark.

Rob, Ed and I got together on Friday.

Some minor changes were made. I think the most significant is that now all skills, ability and proficiency may only be improved once per level. Profs seemed to be too high and to few at low levels. I think it's a good change. Characters will have a much broader prof skill set at creation.

Optional firearms rules were added with some words of caution about introducing gunpowder.

Zombies are funny tough, and they kicked Ed and Rob's PC's asses.

Version 6.3 is up on the didfactory gmail account. -I also emailed it to Justin.

It seems the next step is to incorporate Narbohring with the system, and then do some fixing/expanding of creatures, items and planes.

It seems the new planar setup is something like this:












An ether or an Astral plane would connect them all.

Blood, Gaea, Dreams and Stitch refer to the 4 ritual magic spheres. I think some work needs to be done regarding the names, however. 'Realms of Stitch' sounds silly to me. Maybe if the translations weren't all literal.

Maybe the 'realms of stitch' could be called: the void, the wastes, perdition, the abyss, abaddon, or the infernal realms. Any ideas?

Realms of Gaea sounds funny to. -Maybe Veridian Realms?

Finally, we were thinking the elemental planes might be less literal. However, I'm not sure how. Maybe they could have proper names? The inferno, the heavens, the deep, and the alluvium. Perhaps we could maintain an ambiguity as to whether or not these referred to literal places or not.

Something like:












Anyway, I'll leave it ultimately to Rob, as the layout is going to be presented in Narbohring. Just some thoughts.

Rob

Gamers are a mixed lot, ya? There are those who really do want to find Mjolnir, and that's awesome. God knows I've gone to great lengths in a video game or two to get the best stuff. And then there are those for whom my slums campaign wouldn't have been gritty enough.

So, if you check out the 'Game Master's Guide to Narbohring' page, I've got a few sentences about random encounters. I've got Common (80%) and Rare (20%) encounters and a bunch of monsters; and then there are things listed for each of the main regions in the main text below. Not done with the regions yet, because god is it tedious.

Is this successful? If you look, you can see things like 'hunters', 'Duurans', 'performers' also in the encounter lists. Anything else I'm missing?

I think we're of like minds on this- I already have a few words on the role of random encounters in the game, on the same page. See what you think. But from the discussion below, I think I'm going to add something to the effect of: while yes there are ecosystems, and fish live in the water and ogres in the hills, the GM should, rarely, throw something incongruous out there. I think I have maybe even too many examples of this, shit like the ogre postman, the dwarf lumberjack were-jackal, and the small iron golem stuck in the mud in the middle of nowhere.

But I'm thinking now about all the shit in the Narbohring listing, and wondering if most of it is NPC- or monster-based... if so, could some miscellaneous stuff more place-related lend some additional depth? A small trapped tomb... a chasm with a broken bridge, etc.

Thanks guys, is helpful.

EDIT: Mark, the guide shouldn't be too much larger. The bulk of the entries is done, and I don't have a ton more time to spend inventing new stuff in the near future. Still- in the longer future, sure. Maybe we should have a, I dunno, a blog or something? Seriously, a wikipedia-style page? Maybe we can hire someone, pay 'em like $500 and have them turn the book into a wiki.

Mark.

I'm confused. I know random monsters is bad, but how can random terrain be good?

There's always this beauty.

The monster-terrain thing might serve as a quick reference for a GM as to what he might place. However, rolling for it is pretty uncreative. Sorry, I think the same goes for terrain.

I guess my questions were: Is it worthwhile to put a creature-terrain chart? And if so, should I toss in some numbers since it's already there. -You've got me thinking no. Just the spirit of the thing seems wrong.

Forward to adventure convinced me to nix it. And here's how, I quote: "Can you use FtA! for serious sophisticated stories, with lots of politics, intrigue, romance or character development? Well, sure, you can, but really why would you? FtA! is the game for when you are tired of all that junk, and just want to go back down into the Gnomish mines, travel through the dangerous wilderlands in search of ruins, steal from shops, try eating a wraith corpse, and maybe, if you're really lucky, find Mjolnir."

It's got a nice ass-shot on the mainpage, however.

Justin

Glad to be on board!

Mark- The raindruid address should work just fine, I'll let you know if it doesn't. I'll also send you my name for the credit- I appreciate that.

I think a short player's intro is a great idea, one which could really help GMs who want to run a game in this world.

On Mark's comment on how one inherently creates a world through the core rules: I agree, I just want to make sure we avoid the White-Wolf paradigm here- making the rules completely inseparable from the setting- it made great games but ruined countless others, including D&D in the 90s. Narbohring isn't as tight with the core rules as I first thought, so I think we're avoiding this.

Monsters by terrain is a terrible idea, in my opinion. In fact, anything that restricts when a monster could potentially be used is awful. People are going to want a basic ecology, but I say keep it as broad as possible- some GM who wants to put Owlbears in a jungle adventure shouldn't have to fear rules lawyer reprisal cause the MM says their environment is "Temperate Forest Only" or whatever.

That being said, terrain is important. I was reading a post on therpgsite.com earlier today where a guy was talking about random terrain generators for a fantasy game he's published (called Forward... to Adventure! It's basically D&D for poor South American kids). The idea seems needless at first, but from what I saw, I think it'd be invaluable for open-ended wilderness adventure, which should be featured in a game called Wayfarers. Here's the link- http://www.therpgsite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9087

I'll reserve other comments about mechanics/core rules till I've seen them.

Mark.

Got it.

You freaked me out with the 93 pages. However, when I format it adjust the page size, etc, it's 50-odd pages. That's fine.

Size is not yet an issue, but it could be eventually. The text is 340 currently. Plus Narbohring, plus some quick reference charts at the end, it will probably hit 410-430 I'd guess.

Then there is a small bump up due to a font change (going to Futura, which doesn't read well on Word, hence Tahoma). Then there are 80-90 illustrations.

I think we should try to bring it in around 500 pages max. -That's a lot of book to handle. My 3rd Ed GURPS is 256. Anyway, 740 is the max the printer will allow.

I am cool with demon/devil changes. -I am most happy with the general mechanics and spells. Items and creatures have some gems, but more duds.

I am also cool with optional rules for firearms. -As long as they are simple. Optional directions is the spirit.

I'll give the gnoles some love.

I can be a bit of a control freak too. I'll do my best to stay open-minded about everything. However, what's here represents a ridiculous amount of time and effort. -Try making up 566 spells. -It takes longer than you'd imagine. So, in advance, forgive me if or when I happen to get stubborn. Especially if you imagine a major overhaul.

There is no way this will be exactly what everyone that is involved wants it to be. But it can be something we all like very much. -Just, forgive me if it ends up to be just a teenie bit more of what I like.

That said, thanks for the tremendous effort thus far, Rob. You've brought this thing to a whole new level.

Ed thinks there should be a monster-terrain encounter list for GMs. I've never used it, and I don't advise random encounters. Thoughts? A list of monsters and terrain could be helpful. It won't include all the monsters, just those likely to be encountered in a forest, plains, swamp, etc. I made a chart. It was easy. However, as long as I've got the list, why not add a column for a die roll? Maybe with a note that says random encounters are ill-advised?

Rob

Okay, version 2 of Narbohring posted to the gmail account.

Version 2 is 17 more pages (93 total), containing:

A description of why each Guild might hire PCs.
A few new regions and sub-areas here and there: a road, a swamp, etc. Fairly harmless.
A standard format for each location: towns, landmarks, regions, listing who’s there. Includes the main leader(s) for each damn city.

This is the big one- if you guys are looking at it, see if it makes sense. There are likely to be mistakes from the tons of cut-n-pasting I was doing. Any problems with the population sizes, makeup, resources, or governing bodies? Lots of bureaucratic-sounding institutions; does it work or fail?

Next up is:
A one-page description of the world
Extraction of monsters and items to appendices in the back
Describing where roads lead to and from
More advice for the GM about different places and people.

…

Justin- nice to hear from you, welcome back and glad to know you’ve still been checking this site. You make a great point. At the top of the to-do list for the world guide is a one-page players guide to the world, a summary of what Narbohring is like, along with the major nations and religions. I’ll email you the gmail account information, so you can get the system book and the world guide whenever you want.

As of now, not yet- but that’ll be the first thing in the third version. Fortunately, Narbohring’s not like Planescape. While cool, there was so much jargon that it wasn’t for part-timers. The world of Planescape was just alien front to back, so it wasn’t even clear some times what morality and physics were like, or if you walk into a bar and can get a beer. Narbohring’s basically your average fantasy world, with all the crazy and sick shit I can think of thrown into it. Thenzor Deep is especially out there, which is why there were so many ideas hung off it. Most of the other places have one or two quirks, but a lot of it is minor in comparison: a dude’s in love with Missy the gremlin. 20 bugbears live over there. Etc.

Still, there’s lots of religious stuff and secret demon worshipping going around, maybe par for the course, but a bit of GM help could also be useful. Mark’s also been encouraging me to add GM notes throughout; version 3 will have more of that hopefully.

A glossary is also a capital idea. That and an index are going to be fucking awful to make, honestly, but I think it would help immensely. I can never remember shit, so I’m always looking stuff up in the index and glossary even of the 3rd Ed books.

Also, the initial conception of this was a 20-page, flavor only guide. It’s not that, anymore. So I can take out all the game-mechanical descriptions of items, creatures, and maybe even the organizations and dump them in the end. I’m envisioning the final layout will have sidebars for longer descriptions of, e.g., the Guild of Optics and the various stories, that can be extracted from the main text but still there on the next page if you care to read.

Mark makes an interesting point: that you can’t make a system without making a world. Not just by adding spells like Bigby’s Giant Finger etc, but by delineating weapon tech levels, races, etc. I think we’re basically at the point where Mark’s game intro as to what an RPG is, is sort of redundant, the culture’s pretty well-saturated.

Which makes designing a world a bit of a problem. Almost everything’s already been done. All of my ideas are at least partially derivative, and many of them are completely derivative and cliché.

(A lot of this is inspired by the greatest D&D world ever made: the Wilderlands of High Fantasy by the Judges Guild. Just re-released, it’s great, great stuff. If you ever get to see a copy, you’ll see just how derivative my stuff is.)


…

Mark- the demons and devils I think should be overhauled. Along with maybe the angels, deva, and archons. I like angels, deva, archons, and demons, but the devil/demon distinction seems totally AD&D based, and I think that demons and devils should be combined. Also, the lesser/greater/common distinction doesn’t quite work for me. I’m making a list of stuff to discuss when I’m there on Friday, and this is on it.

Just so we’re clear, I like the archons you’ve got. Those are different than what I’m calling Archons in the Narbohring Guide. I’m going to say that the archons in your handbook were a servitor race of the Ethereal Archons, that took their masters name when the latter disappeared.

What do you guys think about firearms as an optional rule? Every time I’ve had them in a game, and every time I’ve played in a world with them, they were well-liked. In Narbohring, they wouldn’t be common, about as rare as magical weapons, and it would be a new technology developed by the Alchemists Guild.

Two minor things:
On page 280: “This common devil appears…” should probably be “Common devils appear…”. Otherwise it sounds like you’re talking about a specific common devil.

On page 293: how about making gnoles wolf- or hyena-headed? A bit better than jackal. Or, add variety. Say that gnoles appear as wolf-, jackal-, or hyena-headed depending on region.

…

If anyone is serious about wanting to help, here’s the three big things in order of importance: editing, playtesting, and design. They’re also contingent: can’t really design if you don’t know the system, and to know the system you have to read the book.

1. Editing: Look over the text and table layouts with a critical eye. Spelling mistakes, grammar, awkward or embarrassing phrases. The layout itself is not final- we’ll get to that probably, I dunno, by the end of the year if I had to guess, so don’t worry if there’s a page break in the middle.

2. Playtesting: Make some dudes, roll some dice. Anything broken? Anything too weak? Anything lacking? Anything too complex?

3. Design: While a guidebook, and a world, will form the core, there can always be more. Ideas are cheap so send em in if you got em. I’m a control freak, so I can’t promise that stuff will make it into the Narbohring guide, but a stand-alone dungeon or island or even another world would be fine and help increase the salience of Wayfarers once it’s out.


Just to make my position on this clear, I view this as a vanity project, but one that’s 100% awesome. I expect to pay whatever it takes out of pocket to get the art and book format that looks good and professional. Like all of us, I’m a pretty busy guy, but I’ve committed to this for the long haul… a year or more of work isn’t unreasonable, assuming I can get all the big stuff out of the way now while I’ve got a tad of free time, and then tweaking the editing over the next few months.

Also, please, please do not hesitate to flag something as lame. That’s the best thing any of you could do for my end of things. Some of the shit in Narbohring is meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but not utterly slapstick and retarded. I’m also trying to go beyond my comfort zone and have things like, you know, balanced encounters, happy endings, treasure. There’s even a few damn love stories in there.

Raise Dead: Justin.

Damn, Justin. Good to hear from you.

Yeah, I've got no problem sending you the PDF of the rules. -Scout's honor.

Is your email the raindruid... address? -I've got that from DiD.

Rob is coming into town to work on it with me and Ed (Cinder, long since dead) on Friday. I'll likely wait until this weekend to send it to you, as there might be some significant changes/additions at that point.


As for the setting, I agree with what you are saying. The Narbohring setting is going to be presented as an example setting only. -What can be done with the game. It doesn't suppose that everyone or anyone will play in it. If it were, we'd just call the system Narbohring. More correctly, it's there for readers to get an idea of what could be done with the system, and for GM's to steal some really cool ideas.

One of the reasons I created this thing was to put out a system that supported RPG play as we always knew it: intellectual, creative, and rich. -A system that wants you to do your own thing. Of course, this could be put out without an example setting.

That being said, I think the example setting does a lot to set the tone of the game. It's like an arrow in the right direction. Being completely honest, I think the kind of stuff Rob kicks out is more like an ideal GMs can reach for. And for that reason, I don't want it to get too much like a module or game-based setting.

Consider that even ostensibly 'setting-less' systems like 1ed AD&D brought their own settings. The AD&D corebooks had a Tolkeinesque thing going on, mixed with some Greyhawk and whatnot. Bigby's spells, etc...

I believe the system will be better for having Narbohring with it.

The Narbohring setting is going to exist as its own chapter in this rulebook. Some bleed-over will be apparent, but it won't be clear which way the bleed-over is going. In any case, the mechanics will never consider a specific setting. A spell or magic item might be common to both, however.

EDIT: Oh, and thanks for the offer. I'll be glad to add your name or alias of your choice to the credits.

Justin

The setting stuff looks great so far. However, there is an issue which I feel needs to be addressed-

Namely, just how much of this stuff do players need to know in order to go on adventures in this world? A lot of RPGs these days invest so much time in creating detailed settings in order to fascillitate "shared experience" and "good role-playing" that the setting becomes completely unrelatable to anyone who hasn't read every damn sourcebook and novel and whatnot (Planescape and Exalted, I'm looking at you).

I agree with Mark that the setting info needs to be a little more broken up and compartmentalized- Out of that huge chunk on Thenzor's Deep, I saw a lot of cool stuff, but didn't really have time to catch my breath in between things. I have a vague impression of the cool stuff there- the cult which kills/buries/ressurects its holy people, the cavern with the magic gems, but what really sticks in my mind are the Arcanos-- the last thing to be mentioned. Maybe it should be more like a glossary- just say they worship the Arcanos (q. v.). The GM can look them up if and when necessary.

This really isn't a problem if you expect GMs to ignore lots/most of this stuff, but it all seems pretty heavily integrated. I'm wary of that, both as a GM who has tried to run overly developed settings and as a player who has tried to play in them. Still awesome though.

Hey Mark- mind if I look at the mechanics? I think blogger will let you send email to me through my profile, but otherwise I can just post my AOL address here. It gets enough spam anyway.

I don't mind if you'd rather keep this thing under wraps for now, as we've never met and all, but I can offer some good critique as the sort of kid who's actually going to be buying and playing this sort of thing. Let me know if you need help playtesting the rules, I'd be into that.

Mark.

Yeah, Blood-water, Gaea-Earth. -That's fine. We'll lay it out when you get here.

The ritual spheres and deck of cards was a pleasant surprise. Thanks.

Like I said, feel free to add to the item or creature lists. Leave the table adjustments to me on the master copy. I know you had a little problem using 'relics' for all religious items, but I hate to do a 'misc. magic' instead of artifacts. The Faith and Hermetic item creation spells play in to this.

As for PC races, you don't need to include them all. Really. Especially the optional races. Those are just examples of how the GM might want to convert creatures to PCs, or make up entirely new ones. -I'll make that clear in the section.

As for monsters and skillz, I think a small discussion of bringing monsters into PC/NPC status is enough. One of the biggest complaints I hear about contemporary DnD is the slow speed of combat, and the complexity of monsters. -I don't want to have to think about one of my 10 attacking kobolds doing a greatstrike/vital strike. I want a GM to be able to make an extraordinary kobold into an NPC if he wishes, but have a average kobold template to run with. -Part of the spirit of Wayfarers is freedom for the GM to fuck with things. I want to make this very clear.

Speaking of clarity, don't feel a need to explain everything. Especially the poems and things. It's cool when there is obviously more going on behind the scenes than you are privy to. It gets the imagination going.

Town, landmark, region sounds good to me.

The only other resources I can think of are:
Artistic schools
Trade (bazaars, etc)
Tourism (probably not so Narbohring... La Badlandza! So nice!)

Lions, cougars, tigers etc, are together under 'cats', but that Boruta is a freaky unnatural thing. It's got 4 eyes for Christ's sake! It's a freak! -I can't do that to the noble lion.

Do up the dopplegangers if you wish. It sounds cool to me. If not, I'll get to it.

Some name confusion and mystery are a good thing. -Don't feel a need to spell everything out. Really. I've got some thoughts along those lines about modules. I think they were way too explicit. A GM just wants some good stuff to steal and mold to his own purpose. I'd much rather get a new name or a cool new item rather than the dimensions of a church. Storytelling and creativity. We assume the reader is as smart as we are, and uses the game as we would. -That's the spirit of Wayfarers. I want to make the reader understand this.

Rob

Okay, here's what I'm thinking:

About the planes, sounds good. Mainly, the planes should be a place where things come from, not a place the PCs go to. If you guys recall, you always hated the planes, and spent most of your time trying to come back. The exceptions were when it was basically just a crazier kind of dungeon than the normal world could realistically offer. That's why Petrarch's crypt is in the 'Dream realms'. I think that having them be plural- not the Blood realm, but the Blood Realms, is an important distinction.

How about shifting the elemental associations though? Gaea is earth to me, and Blood is water. Zhol is the god of death and the sea in Narbohring, and besides the hell = fire thing is sort of old fashioned, eh? Stitch is fire and Dreams air.

Kind of nice how the Ritual magic domains mapped onto playing card suits, eh? Honestly, I thought you designed it like that on purpose, and I was trying to make it a bit more obvious to new GMs.

I'll add a note to the guide that says that alchemists are not necessarily Guild Alchemists and vice-versa.

Agreed about adding some of the items to the main text. You've got a list of 'normal' magic items, shit like Magic Rope, which I really like. I started to change the names, but realized it was better if the list was entirely generically named. The artifacts and relics, on the other hand, will require a big overhaul and will need to be re-alphabetically ordered. I'll start revising those.

Likewise, agreed about monsters- some of them (the special demons, conjuring eyes) should be in the Narbohring section. I'll add others to the main listing.

Despite what the intro said, I'm now going through and giving statistics of population size, religious makeup, and the major leaders for all the towns. Also adding lists of typical and rare monsters for each region of the world. Kind of dull, but I'll try adding some flavor where possible. After that, I'll go back through the whole thing, and add some GM suggestions.

Finally, yeah, 'Wayfarers' as the name has grown on me.

...

Questions that I want to discuss with you guys this weekend:

Races. Right now I don't have elves, gnomes, or harkumen in the world. What do you think about that? I feel somewhat obliged to have everything in the system, somewhere in here to show how it can be used. I do have, e.g., a gremlin mage, which makes me wonder why some races (ogres, ratkin) are possible but others aren't. If you can be an ogre, why not an ifreet? Or really, why doesn't the system support giving ifreet some Hedge circles or a level of Armor Use? I'm wondering if we want to add a couple sentences about character-making to those monsters for which it makes sense.

World descriptions. This one is pretty academic. The guide is organized geographically, and items, stories, dungeons and NPCs are all linked under major areas of interest.

Here's an example city descriptor:

Thenzor Deep: (THEN-zor) Major city and landmark (underground shrine); moderate to very high difficulty (levels 7+). Population: 40,000, (2,000 in Thenzor village); 76% human, 12% orc, 2% dwarf, 2% ogre, 10% misc. Resources: very wealthy, very high magical and technological levels; mining (most precious and heavy metals), metalworking, stonecraft, libraries, military and magical academies. Religion: Duuran, Aguierre, Thainist, Ixian, Xeres, Typhon. Guilds: Alchemists, Slavers. Government: uncaring; militaristic control by House Maxinay, led by Martin Zhennovich von Maxinay (17^th level human, 7^th Circle Hermetic), well-trained army of 2,000.

I've divided all areas into three types: Town, landmark, or region. Towns get divided into castles, villages, and cities. Landmarks have a short descriptive phrase and, as they're usually the dungeons, the suggested challenge level. Do those three classifiers cover it? Or have I missed something?

Then I've got the population, with the largest city having around 100,000 people and the smallest villages having around 20-100. I've got the rough percentage makeup of town, so far with no elves, gnomes, or harkumen (who also aren't in the monster list). Do those town sizes seem realistic? So far humans are dominant, orcs are around 10%, and dwarves 1%, given that as of now, they're basically a slave race of the ogres. That was an arbitrary decision, let me know what you think.

Resource descriptions has given me the most trouble, I start out with a general indication of the upper wealth level: very poor, poor, modestly wealthy, wealthy, very wealthy, or extremely wealthy. Then the tech level available for magic and equipment: low, moderate, high or very high, with magic and tech considered separately (the same here in Thenzor). Then a listing of the big resources around town. Ugh. I didn't want to list every fucking thing, so even if there's a cheese shop in town, I don't say 'cheese' in the list. If the cheese is especially notable, I'll include that in the flavor text. Here's the stuff:
mining (precious and/or heavy metals)
metalworking
stoneworking
woodworking
clothmaking
shipbuilding
agriculture and/or husbandry
libaries
magical and/or military academies

Have I missed anything major?

Religion is next, with a listing of the main temples available. Still struggling if a temple is secret or not, is it listed... right now, I'm saying yes, and if it's a big deal I'll also describe it in the text. The order here is the order of prominence in town.

Guilds is easy enough- which Guilds (of the big four) are in town.

Finally, government. A simple descriptor of how fascist the town is: uncaring, relaxed, strict, oppressive, violent. Who's in charge. Not everyone is an arch-mage king you'll be glad to know, Thenzor's just like that. The general form of government: democratic, oligarchical, militaristic, monarchical, despotic. Have I missed anything? Then the military: well-trained, trained, or untrained, militia, army, navy, how many. Again, I'm just making up arbitrary numbers here.

...

Okay, other things: Mark, I think lions, tigers, boruta, etc should all be classified under 'big cats' or something in the listing.

I think that doppelgangers can use weapons, but steal stat points with their touch attack- 1d6: 1-5 one point off a random stat, 6 one grade of a random prof or ability. They slowly morph into who they're attacking that way. Stat pts and abilities come back only when the doppelganger is killed, at a rate of one per day.

Finally, should everything be explained, to make the weirder stuff in the world totally transparent and obvious? I kind of like some mystery, but it could also be annoying to just say something like 'it is rumored that Slath is still a virgin, but no one knows for sure'. On the other hand, explaining everything (such as the poems and paintings in Petrarch's tomb) can make everything seem just-so, insipid, and mundane.

I'm having some things with the same name (e.g., right now there are two Barrowsreichs) on purpose, for one because duplicity and recurrence is the main theme of Narbohring, two because in terms of the game, it makes it easier for the GM to control the story, the PCs and their information about the world, and three because that's how the world really is- how many fucking Newports and Tom Browns are there on earth?

Anyway, think about it; opinions from anyone welcome.

Mark.

Rob,

I'm awake. To expand upon the edits I sent you last night, I think the background is fantastic. As mentioned it could use a few more smatterings of GM advice to break it up here and there. I think the incorporation of the system creatures and mechanics so far is very good. -Now we can take it the other way, and tweak the system a bit.

I think you mentioned having Narbohring-specific creatures/items in the setting, but I think it would be good to add at least the most universal of these to the main text. Thus, the Book of Bad Dreams might be best to stay in the setting alone, but something like the Cloak of Blades or Hammer of Storms could fit in the system. A little bleed over would be good.

I’ve changed shamans to druids and theurgists to alchemists. I like it.

After reading through the setting, I think the name ‘Wayfarers’ is actually pretty apt. –It’s got a slight desperation or darkness about it in addition to the explorer/adventure connotations.

As for the planes and such, I want to keep the idea of Tellurian planes, but like you suggest, outer planes based on the 4 ritual spheres is a great idea. I’m not sure what you are thinking exactly, but I was on the notion of something like:

Dreams: Angels, Archons, jinn, air weird paradise-like, surreal or quiet

Gaea: Deva, marid, Lush, Nirvana-like, water

Blood: Devils, fire, infernalism, ifrit

Stitch: Demons, waste, abyss, constructs, earth

Here, the elements are wrapped into the outer-planes. They could be the glue or ether between them. Like the planes of dreams are set within an air-like ether, planes of blood within fire. The planes themselves don’t have to defined by them, just influenced.

Then you get something like:

Tellurian encompassed by astral
Dreams encompassed by air
Blood encompassed by fire
Gaea encompassed by water
Stitch encompassed by earth

However, the elemental stuff could be less literally defined.

Ok. I’ve got to do some science.

Mark.

I'm still reading. There's a lot here.

I have cat people? I fucking hate cat people. Tell me where. I can't believe I'd do that. -It has been going on 2 years, however.

I'll get back with comments, etc. Tonight I hope.

BTW, the writing is much better than you suggest. I'm making notes, but they are sparse.

Narbohring

So, the first draft of the Narbohring guide for the system is done. While all the possibly interested parties have been emailed, if you want to see the word doc or the pdf, just log onto didfactory@gmail.com. Email Mark or me if you want the password, as it's really Mark's thing and I'll let him regulate access. Also happy to email the damn file directly if that's more convenient.

Anyway, version 1 has a number of errors, mistakes, and cheesy writing that I'm trying to correct. Also, while I think there's enough weird mystical and magical shit going on, there's not enough suggestions for political intrigue and small-stakes kind of adventures. Trying to add that now.

Also trying to make it more GM friendly. There's a lot of stuff in Wayfarers that doesn't jive with Narbohring, and I was also at a loss on the demon and monster front. I'm not a huge fan of cat and dog people, and artifacts named after Egyptian gods. I'm cool with that being in Mark's giant sourcebook, because if you want to play a catman pharoah, well here's the game for you. But it just ain't Narbohring. Hell, I didn't even have dwarves or elves, which I hate about as much as Mark hates airships. Why does every fantasy world have to have forest-dwelling fags and mountain-dwelling white trash? It's more derivative that dy/dx. No offense Mark; again, it just ain't part of the world I wanted to provide.

I'm also going to codify cities and dungeons better- have stats for population size, governement and resources, and suggest the challenge level of the violent places.

I'd like to say I'm open to suggestions about what to put in, but the truth is that I'm pretty picky about how this thing looks. More important, if any of you care and have time, is to read it and tell me what is cheesy, stupid, or incoherent. If I've been a good GM at all, it's in large part due to you players who quickly and loudly bitched or bitch-slapped me when something just wasn't right.

Anyway, version 2 should have:
-changes to the historical intro, as some of that writing is just repetitive and atrocious
-GM's section on suggested house-rules for Narbohring
-stats for each city
-a lower-level dungeon description in the style of Petrarch's crypt

Specific questions I have:
-we have a bunch of named spells in the spell lists, Fess's this and Nael's that. In a couple places, I've added those NPCs into the world... good idea? Or should some shit like that be left unspecified?
-I'm too close to it: is the whole demon-archon-Duuran-Aprill clone thing retarded? I'm going for poetic/bizarre. I just don't want it to be too cliche.

Also, there will be a map. Hopefully, a nice professional quality one.

Mark

Excellent stuff. -That's crazy rich.

Are the Duurans explained in any place specifically? It's just not clear what they are. -Never mind, I'll wait until you've finished rather than you have to explain things in the works.

As for the general nature of it, I think it's extremely good. There are going to be a few example characters in the book. Some of them should be from the Narbohring setting. Vox Ebeneezer might need to be higher than 10th. I think 5-6th circle is the best he could do at that point. Maybe 13-14th level?

Tie-ins to the rules, creatures and items are great.

After the setting is complete, perhaps we should commission a couple of illustrations specifically for the setting section. Possibly a rendering of Threnzor deep, etc. We should definitely get a good map, too.

...

One thought I had last night: As it stands, the system allows you to build NPCs that can be high level, but have little martial skill. For example, you could make a sage that has crazy knowledge proficiency skills, but little to no combat potential. (i.e. he just pumps his APs into Proficiency skills) It's not a big deal, but it is something that bothered me about D&D. Experience always meant improving saves, THACO, hps, etc. However, some NPCs should be very uneven. Here you can make a 11th level NPC that's basically a 1st level mundane, but maybe he has some crazy magic resistance or willpower or something like that.

Basically, what I am getting at is that you can imagine an NPC personality, and pretty much make it happen, regardless of how quirky it is. I guess that's the upshot of most skill systems.

BTW, the GM section has skill cost matrices to make NPC creation easy. (For example, Weapon Mastery I, II and III costs 36sp straight-up) Also, NPCs aren't tied down to the "improving an ability skill only once per level" as PCs are. -It allows for much quicker NPC generation, some GM fiat, and quirkier personalities. The difference in NPC/PC possibilities isn't huge, however. It just reflects the fact that NPCs don't need to be so practical in their advancement.

...

I made a fun Hedge spell last night: Simulation. It temporarily makes an individual illusory. As a result, the individual's attacks and spells may be disbelieved. -Oof.

Rob

So, Narbohring is coming along pretty well. It's up to 42 pages, and I'm guessing it'll hit 50-60 by the time it's done. Basically it's an encyclopedia of different places, showcasing some names and magic items. It's Sarpagal, but with a few additions and a name change because 'Sarpagal' ripped off Might and Magic's 'Sorpigal'.

Here are two example entries:

Longiron Road: The Longiron is the ruined remains of a prototype railroad that ran between Bludszech, Thenzor Deep, and ruined citadels in the north. Originally known as the Kray-Gauntre Rail-Line, it was built by House Kray for moving ores out of the rich deposits down to the smeltering operations in Bludszech and the Deep, and traveling across the Ered Wastes to Szondarch. The Rail-Line was in partial operation, but with the Fall of Irendor and constant raids from Andukar goblin- and giant-kin, the whole operation was dropped. Much of the Longiron Road remains though- parts have been picked clean and overgrown with wildlife, but sections of railroad are intact in places, as are abandoned rail carts and engines.

Near the border between Armech and the Ered Wastes is a ruined station-stop and switching point once called Brennoch. Brennoch is now a miniature ghost-town, just a few empty buildings, including a loading crane for moving crates from cars on one line to another. Brennoch is home to a crazed Ordog (a Lesser Devil with animal shape-shifting abilities) that believes itself to be a Duuran druid named Renald Ossiter. Additionally, one of the intact cranes has been taken over by a Spirit-of-the-Land, a malicious animistic possessive spirit (treat as a Lesser Golem, per the 6^th circle spell) that will attack newcomers with two supply hooks attached to movable winches. Ossiter may warn or aid friendly-seeming strangers, join with the spirit-of-the-land, or simply watch and laugh. Notably, the section of track from Brennoch into the Wastes might still be workable for several leagues, with some clever engineering.

Some sections of the Longiron are in fact still in use, such as a stretch not far from Brennoch, between the bordertown of Tzalborg and a set of ice caves called Lhondoss. Tzalborg is one of a few small independent city-states that eke out survival just beyond the patrolled borders of Armech (although there is some friction between the border militias and these encampments). Tzalborg is set within the crumbling walls of an old stone citadel. The line is operated by three orcs calling themselves the Tzalborg Engine, and runs through a tunnel into the Wastes, to the oasis village of Sunday. Another section of the line goes underground, usually not in operation, runs along an underground stream and ends deeper in the mountains at a series of ice caves called Lhondoss, not far from Venoshua. The presence of ice and crystals makes this an attractive site for some of Tzalborg’s braver sorts, but most of Lhondoss is sealed by Duuran wards (including an Oread Ice Nymph named Laana), as this was once an watchpost of the Vox Duur against the suspected evils of Venoshua.

Venoshua is not part of Armech proper, but is found in the northeastern reaches of the Valstach mountains. Venoshua is a citadel of ice, built into an extensive series of caverns and tunnels within the mountain, and was one of the first strongholds of the Church of Winter after they left the Vox Duur. It remains a small Breyanic enclave, under the Abbot of Venoshua, an enormously fat frog-like T’suggha demon, and his companion, Sister Betca. Betca was formerly a Knight of Aguierre, now turned to the Church.

and:

Thenzor Deep: Thenzor Deep, the third city of Armech, is a massive underground city and mining complex, dating from the earliest days of Irendor. Thenzor Deep has long been controlled by two Great Houses, Zouthan and Maxinay, and their descendents continue to plot against each other in modern Armech. Thenzor Deep is on the shores of Lake Thorass, called the Lake of Spires for the tall natural rock formations, and is extremely murky and deep. Just outside the huge cliff-side cave opening is a village and warehouse complex called Thenzor. Most citizens live underground though; ‘Deep’ refers not to the depths of the lake, but the depths of the mines and caverns below. Generations have lived in the caverns below, and members of some of Thenzor’s long-standing families look a bit different- slightly larger heads and eyes, and skin tones tinged with gray or pale blue.

The first three underlevels comprise the city itself, a sprawling, almost unmappable place full of grime, corruption, and ancient goods and money. In the center of the first main level is a tall clocktower that serves to regulate light-dark cycles in the city through magical means. Next door is the Deep’s most popular inn, also called The Clocktower, a sprawling multi-leveled establishment. Just about anyone or anything can be found in Thenzor Deep, for trade, sale, or other means of procurement. The rest of the main underlevels- ten in total- are sealed off by the Houses for mining and exploration purposes. While dark things can be found beneath, the Houses try to tightly control who comes and goes from their mines. One large shaft, the Elevator, descends all the way to the bottom, but this is guarded by an army of House soldiers. Other, smaller elevators and passageways connect various levels, some on the maps and some hidden.

The Guild of Optics is one of the more unusual organizations to get their start in Thenzor Deep. The ‘Guild’ is an international collection of tradesmen, nominally interested in optical supplies- lenscrafting, mirror construction, and fine metalwork. The Opticians pursue a number of scientific interests, in physics, materials, astronomy, perception, anatomy, physiology, and psychology. However, the tradework done is mainly a front for the magical investigations and mystical beliefs of the Opticians. The Guild focuses on necromancy, infernalism, and divination. This reflects the interests of the current Guildmaster, Edrac Reeves, who as a younger man, tried to make himself immortal through strange magic. He succeeded, and now as an old man, falling apart and thoroughly disenchanted with immortality, he has members of the Guild searching across Narbohring to find some way to allow him to die.

These interests of the Guild have led them towards the cult of Breyana, although the Guild itself is strictly nonreligious, and thus the Opticians have been violently attacked by the Vox Duur and the Ixians in times past. The Guild is also on bad terms with other groups doing similar kinds of research, i.e., the Bone Trade and College of Names. For these and other reasons, members of the Guild tend to be extremely paranoid about being discovered as magicians. Membership to the Guild of Optics is quite exclusive, usually by invitation only to magicians of the highest intelligence and with similar philosophical outlooks. Once a Guildsman, though, members enjoy a number of privileges, including access to the Guild’s extensive library of magical and scientific research: members gain a +1 bonus to skill checks for arcane or knowledge skills. Additionally, a few members of the Guild who are practitioners of Hermetic magic have worked out an elaborate acupuncture-based system for spell memorization, in order to forego the use of spellbooks (which would invariably reveal them as casters to their enemies). Guildsmen indoctrinated into this system of meditation- and pain-based spell storage can spend one skill point per spell to encode that spell permanently within their body (spell casting and daily memorization, though, remains the same- this simply allows the Guildsman to not need a spellbook for that spell). It takes one day per circle to encode a spell in this fashion, and a Guildsman can have as many spells encoded in their body up to their Endurance score.

Level Five of the Deep contains a mining facility using undead workers. Referred to only as Level 5B, the Lich Vox Ebeneezer (10^th skill level) oversees not only the mining operations but also the acquisition of new workers, using corpses obtained from the Slavers Guild or other more nefarious means. Vox Ebeneezer’s operation is strictly financial.

Found in Level Seven of Thenzor Deep is a large crystal-filled cavern, Maerswinter. The crystals of Maerswinter are resonant in the range of humanoid voices, and thus they produce otherworldly sounds when loud speech or singing is nearby. Maerswinter once housed a lavish theatre in the First Era, but the theatre has not been used since the lower levels of Thenzor were sealed to the public. A side-chamber in Maerswinter was later used by the Duurans as a means of entry and exit to the depths of Thenzor: when the correct piece of music is sung in front of a certain sheet of crystal, a portal opens to part of the Ether which appears as a small quaint cottage floating in the void. Access to other parts of Narbohring have since been sealed, but other portals within the cottage lead to two bizarre pocket dimensions, the Age of Glass and the Age of Bronze, beyond which lies the Crypt of Petrarch, the greatest of the Duuran hierophants who is now a somewhat bored and deranged Lich. The Age of Glass seems to be a small village in the mountains, bathed in the violet light of an enormous sun and two radiant moons. Weapons and crafts of magical glass can be found here, as can a small garden which Petrarch infrequently comes to tend. The Age of Bronze is a ruined forge and workshop, full of rusted implements and half-built constructs. Keys and information found in both Ages can penetrate the Void to reach Petrarch’s tomb, an unreal and lush garden.

Within Level Eight is Ulung Village, built around the cavern-wall crypts of the Tzoultentomb. Ulung is the site of the Cult of Gayla, led by Brother Iivians, Brother Odd, and Sister Jennifer. As opposed to most other religious sects, in which Resurrection is taboo, heretical, or the means of last resort, members of the Cult of Gayla are ritually murdered and are entombed in the Tzoulten, only to be resurrected 100 years later. In this way do they come to know god.

House Maxinay controls the very bottom, the tenth level, which hides the remains of Narbohring’s first organized group of Hermetic magicians, a pedantic sect of the Cult of Winter who called themselves the Tavash Morn (the “Children of the Word”). This is a large temple complex, now referred to as the Zoran Academy, and contains a sealed Gate to the realm of the Arcanos, legendary wolf-headed demons who first taught the Duurans the secrets of Hermetic magic. The Academy is past a complex maze of unmapped caverns, the Honeycomb Labyrinth. The Gate is sealed by three ancient Duuran gemstones, the Keys of Zoran, now lost across Narbohring. Members of the Vox Duur who know about Zoran and the Keys consider it a prime objective to keep the Tavash Morn from finding these stones and returning them to Thenzor Deep. The Gate was originally created and sealed by the Order of Nhull, a splinter group of the Tavash Morn consisting of proto-Ixian sorcerers, opposed to the infernal means and ends of the Tavash. The Order took their name from ‘nhull’, the rune of anti-magic. Both the Tavash Morn and the Order of Nhull have long since disappeared; however, some of the Breyanic cultists have now returned to Zoran and taken this name again, headed by Master Virgil and Sister Ghislaine.

Arcanodaemons, usually called Arcanos (both the singular and in plural), are the most powerful of Narbohring’s demons. They generally appear as eight-foot tall wolf-headed humanoids, dressed in long red robes, clutching a massive tome shackled to their wrist. It is believed that they are six in number, and are the mortal embodiments of the Six Princes of Breyana. Trapped in the Lower Planes, sealed away by the Order of Nhull, only the whispers of the Arcanos have crossed to Narbohring. In the earliest days of Duuran recorded history, it was the Arcanos who contacted the Vox Duur and taught them the mysteries of Hermetic magic using their own language. The Arcanos are not necessarily malicious, but seek to return to Narbohring, which was their original home. While the Zoran Gate is their main means of permanently returning, three times in the past an Arcanos was summoned to Narbohring, only to be quickly imprisoned or banished.

...

Lots more where that came from. I'm slowing down on the number of new groups like the Guild of Optics, but having fun adding some of Mark's monsters and magic items here and there.

Will post the first full draft when it's ready, for proofreading, editing, and creative advice. All suggestions welcome.

I appreciate it.

First off, I appreciate the thoughts.

Second, I kind of pulled 30-70 from my butt. It could be 40-60 as far as I know. I do know it is not 80-20. -I guess I could keep track.

Nevertheless, I think I understand where you are coming from. Levels are silly in that sense. In this system, each skill level provides just two things: 2 health points (until 10th, where it drops to 1) and 20 skill points. Depending on how you spend them, they could have little martial effect.

In fact, there's another facet to it that makes the level difference even less drastic. -Stick with me here:

Skill points are subdivided into Ability points and Proficiency points. Here's how they are awarded:

2nd: 12 ap, 8 pp
3rd: 13 ap, 7 pp
4th: 14 ap, 6 pp
.
.
.
10th: 20 ap

Ability points can be spent on Ability or Proficiency skills.
Proficiency points may only be spent on Proficiency skills.

Ability skills include things like Weapon Mastery, Spell Circle, etc. Proficiency skills are Climb walls Perception etc.

Anyway, the result is thus: Low level characters get less APs per level. Thus, their martial improvement is less per level. Higher level characters get more AP per level, however, their martial skills are more expensive (Ex: Weapon Mastery I costs 10, Weapon Mastery III costs 14), and due to the characters' increased power, these martial skills have less overall impact level-to-level.

As a result, it's a smooth slope up in power, rather than an exponential.

Does that make sense?

In short, I am saying that I also think levels should provide some, but not too much improvement. Two 3rd level guys should definitely be able to take one 5th level guy.

...

On a related note, there is also one important development caveat: Ability skills may only be improved once per level.

Ex: Even if Increased Willpower I costs 3 sp, and Willpower II costs 6 sp, a character can only get Willpower I upon a new level, even if he has the 9 skill points to spend.

As a result, a character can change direction of development, but not too abruptly. This causes some planning pressure which rewards thoughtful and gradual development. -A 8th level can't just realize "Hey my, Willpower sucks. -I'll make it awesome this level."

Interestingly, (to me anyhow) additional health points are an Ability skill. As a consequence, you can only buy 1 hp per level. ...kind of. You can also improve your endurance score once (+1 hp), and/or have a hp bonus due to a high endurance score. All in all, a character could gain a max of 6 health points upon achieving a new level. Ex: 2hp base, buy 1hp (cost: 2 sp), increase 18 end. to 19 end for 1hp (cost: 15 sp), and get the +3hp per level from the 18 endurance.

Players start with hp equal to their end. (4-16), so starting hps can make a big difference.

My biggest fighter has 50hp at 12th. The weak spell caster has 29hp. However, Olaf, who has 50hp easily wears banded and has a shield (absorbs 2-5 per attack). Artemis with 29hp can't wear armor very well. He has a low strength and no armor skills. If he wears armor, his spells might fail, and he's very easy to hit. He just takes it. -That's not considering any magical protections for either, however.

Maybe that's a bit thick.

Anyway, I do appreciate the thoughts. Let me know if you have anymore.

If you are ever inclined to peruse the latest version, let me know.