Addendum - Costly Deeds

I've liked the Costly Deeds SS article. I think the premise shows... promise. Some things need some work or reworking, but I like the visions I have in my head that illustrate the setting.

I liked the idea so much that I devoted nearly 30 minutes to a sketch solely for it. This bad boy is an example of a typical human. I get this kind of Jin-Roh/Helghast feel off of it, and that makes me giddy.

Soapbox

So Alex will be MC for next week, if he's still up for it when the time rolls around.

In the meantime, I'd like to take this opportunity to provide some links for the Tomes Series rules supplements I've grown so very fond of.

For the threads containing the Tomes individually, look no further.
Tome of Fiends
Tome of Necromancy
Races of War
Dungeonomicon

Or, if you'd like it compiled into a nice, easy to read PDF, I can supply that too.
Direct from the source: Zam.

Or a Rapidshare, for those not wishing to burden AlphaNerd's site: Pow.

And a quick reference document for the mechanics presented within: Frank and K SRD

Sowing Seeds - Costly Deeds

Roots: Faust and thematically similar works, Alternate Earth stories.

Premise: It's Earth as it will be after the collapse of humanity. In a couple hundred years, the current crop of humans will be wiped off the face of the planet, giving rise to the next generation of human evolution and history. Gods and Demons walk the earth alongside Man, denied their divine providence. Stripped of their powers, some have turned to the nether in the hopes that they might regain their lost grace. The abyssal spawn that inhabit the chasms below the earth are happy to oblige, all the while laughing behind a veil of lies.


Branches:

-Magic comes at a terrible price. Although the costs of its use are not readily apparent, the effects of even the most mundane use of arcana make themselves known in due time.
-Only those called Gods or Demons are able to use magic. Humans are completely shut out of the loop, having only technology to rely upon.
-Seeing as they aren't able to use magic out-of-the-box anymore, Gods and Demons have to make pacts with the shadowy spawn of the netherworlds to acquire a new source of power.
-During whatever deal is made for a God or Demon to use magic again, the Netherspawn requires a list of deeds to be performed in its service, as they cannot enter into our realm. In case this list of requests cannot be performed or acquiesced, the Netherspawn requires an item of considerable value to the God or Demon be placed in its care. (Usually a heart, or soul. Something vital. Not your Corvette.)
-Seeing as thousands and thousands of Gods and Demons are making deals with the Netherworld, the properties of that place are starting to seep into our realm in the places magic is used. These places are getting bigger every year and are host to strange and ferocious beasts.

Canopy: The basic idea was that you are one of the divine who is now stripped of whatever it was that made you more than Human. With nowhere else to turn, you'd either embrace your mortality and live it up with the hume's or deny your current lot and make some shady deals to regain your power.

Some Hapnins.

Got nothing really stellar to add to any article, so I'm just padding the blog with a quick review.

In tabletop gaming:

Monster Manual 5 is supremely bad. It left a malodorous stench that pervaded the entire store when I set it back down, reeling from the immense failure I had just born witness to. Not only is each monster detailed in the irredeemably long thousand line breaks format, but every single creature in the book is beyond salvation. I'm not going to grace it with further attention.

I highly recommend you don't get it. Unless you want septicemia. In that case, have at it.

Soapbox

So, next week's game will be Alex's responsibility. He's due for some anyway.

You know, what with being him and all. Always slacking off that one. He's gonna be the death of himself.

Actually, scratch that.

Forget what I wrote in the last post. Now that I think more on it, (having given the idea a grand total of 2 minutes before I started typing it), it wouldn't make sense for there to be areas where there's no magic and areas where there's heaps of it. At least, not the way I've explained it.

If it were working like I had explained it, wouldn't the low-magic zones have accumulated a great deal more magic that previously thought? Since I gave no auxiliary method for the magic to diminish other than its direct use by someone, there'd be no reason to assume the magic just "seeps" out and fades away. For example, one of the climate zones I mentioned was the desert. Now, obviously there's little magical input by way of the wind or occasional raining season, but what does accumulate stays there for centuries and centuries before being used in exceedingly rare occasions. Not only that, but I said that the sun heaps magic down onto the world's surface. The sun's been active far longer than any organic magic user, making it increasingly unlikely that there is any chance of magic from an area being drained.

So forget what I said. After 5 more minutes of thought and a modicum of debunking, that idea's just silly. Besides, I wasn't going anywhere with it anyway.

Funny how nobody thought to challenge me on that one. Makes me think you guys aren't reading these. Not that I mind or anything, but I'd appreciate some input. Why else do you think I put these up here? To flaunt my ability to pad a 1 minute idea with a paragraph of text? I think not.

Again, I'm asking for some challenges to be brought to light for me to work over if my idea presents any. I'd also like some secondary addenda if you've got any to provide. Work with me people. With me.

Setting Ideas - Magic

Alright. Time I got to explaining the way things work in the setting.

This time around, I'll be talking about the Ken. It's the idea of "magic" for Agartha and is sort of like a local well. When a Wielder taps into the well, he's drawing out an amount of magic from the surrounding area to fuel whatever his spell needs. Over time this magic replenishes, much like a puddle drying up and filling in again when it rains.

What this means for the game is that casting spells can only be done in areas where there's enough magic to fuel the spell. In D&D, this means that there are areas where there's only enough residual magic to fire off 1st level spells and that there are areas where you could cast 9th level spells all day not worrying about a damn thing. In SAME, it means that available maneuver levels are determined by how much magic there is in the area. Expert to Awesome are the maneuver levels where spells typically fall under, and the Ken is supportive of different levels for different areas. (To make it so that you can still do stuff in the game even in a low-magic zone, you can cast an infinite amount of spells up to the maximum level with only limited Xth spells available. X being the maximum level in that last phrase. There'd also be special items that siphon magic to hold in gems or something.) These low-to-high magic zones are much like precipitous areas of natural climate; where there's a lot of energy being put into an area from flowing water or wind currents, there's going to be a lot of magic. Where there's very little activity, (like a desert) there's not so much. Thankfully, the sun provides a lot of energy to all spots on the planet, so there's nowhere on Agartha you wouldn't be able to cast at least some spells. Except underground. But thankfully there's nothing so stupid as the Underdark to make that all that important. Dungeons are another matter altogether, as they are typically crafted with magic anyway. They'd have residual magic buildup from decades or centuries of going unused and whatever junk was going on in the area (Magic portals, etc.). Anyway, on with these ideas.

For example: Rei has gotten himself into a bit of a mess with some Fyrian Lycans. They assault him on the beach. The area is flush with magical energy, as it is constantly replenished by the sea and winds. He feels pretty confident that he can use his Dark Arts abilities all he likes without worrying about running out of juice.

Obviously there are other little details attached to these general ideas about how magic works, such as below:
You are able to use higher-level magic in low-magic zones, but doing so requires concentration. When you cast a high-level spell without sufficient magic in the area, it takes twice as long to cast. (D&D would be just moving the casting time up one step in actions; Move to Standard, Standard to Full, etc. SAME would just be taking two actions to cast a spell.)
Teleporting is tricky business with the Ken, as you have to do it from one specially prepared high magic area to another. You can get lost in the intermittent space between worlds (eventually ending up at Flotsam, but that's another story.)
There are creatures, instinctively connected to the Ken, that deposit raw magic in their bodies as food or fuel for their supernatural feats of magic. Dragon's breath or the Lycan's transformation would be two readily apparent examples for this natural defense mechanism at work.

But, we'll leave it at that for now.

Here's a picture of somewhere that might qualify as a "diamond in the rough" of sorts. I.E., a high-magic zone in the middle of a large low-magic zone. Plus, it looks really cool.