NeoDogs and Neodolphins

   Since the topic has come up in the Federation-Apocalypse campaign, here’s a detailed description of the history of, and the racial modifiers for, NeoDog and NeoDolphin characters. As usual, these are set up using the point-buy rules for Eclipse The Codex Persona Classless d20 (available in print HERE or in a shareware version HERE). [...]

Legend of the Five Rings: Ivory Kingdom Schools

   The Asuras and Devas from the previous L5R post use a lot of new schools. While the Meditations of Unity is the only one to be fully posted so far – if only to preserve some surprises for the players – here are some capsule descriptions of the rest of those schools. Which of [...]

Asuras and Devas in the Ivory Kingdoms

   Well, given that the party in the Legend of the Five Rings campaign is currently messing about in the Ivory Kingdoms, here’s a quick accounting for the various Asuras and Devas they’ve encountered so far. Note that EVERY Asura and Deva is normaly a past master of the Meditations of Unity. Some basic notes [...]

The Meditations of Unity: an Ivory Kingdoms Advanced Courtier School

   In any given life, with each turning of the wheel, a soul may accumulate powers and techniques, memories and secrets, skills and lore, good and evil, links with other souls and strange affinities.    In death, as souls transmigrate between the realms, from the prospective of those trapped within time and the turnings of [...]

Federation-Apocalypse Log 36a: The Mecha Debating Society

   With the last of it’s internal checkups finally completed – a few things had had to wait until a hot drop for final testing – Mirage turned it’s internal sensors to a full pre-combat evaluation of it’s pilots, in case medical attention was needed later. There was no sign of serious opposition, and there [...]

The Return of Marty

   Today it’s a possible upgrade for Marty, for the Federation-Apocalypse game. This version presumes that he has at least 2/3′rds as many experience points as Kevin, and will have accepted a bit of physical enhancement courtesy of Kevin’s transformation powers. Note that this version is using two fairly powerful relics, and therefore is an [...]

Shadowrun Penumbra: Primitive Magic

   Here are a few speciality magical skills from the dimension-hopping Shadowrun Campaign. In this case, they were the arts practiced by a stone age shaman of the People of the Hawk. Thanks to their being less specialized than the seven modern magical skills, it proved possible (if expensive in terms of Karma and the buying [...]

Federation Apocalypse Session Log 36: New Assignments

   Gantrithor the Balrog got a lot smaller – and less shadowy – upon his arrival in the Forgotten Realms. A Balrog should fit in well enough in the Underdark, so evidently Middle-Earth was one of the realms that amplified particular roles. Should have expected that from the way the one kid got the One [...]

Federation-Apocalypse Session 35 Log: Bothering the Balrog

   Despite Marty’s belief that there was only one way to handle competition – beat the tar out of it – Kevin felt that it was time to give some attention to Vekxin and this “Rosary of Memory” thing. The battles in the underdark had turned into a sort of stalemate: The Thralls had persuaded [...]

The Basic Optronic Deck

   Second for today, it’s something simple, but pretty fundamental in Shadowrun - the basic structure of an “Optronic Deck”.    Unlike it’s programs, the physical architecture of an optronic deck is fairly basic; the motherboard contains the power supply (a rechargeable battery, with a socket to connect a charger), a standard plug-n-play bus, clock and [...]

World of Darkness Merits: Generic and Specific

   First up for today, it’s the Merit Listing – outside of a few specialized Merits which are included in the relevant sections – from the World of Darkness General Point-Buy Rules. If you want a better-formatted version, or the complete rules, look there. Generic Merits (All ! to !!!!!) Acculturation: You know the language, [...]

Shadowrun Penumbra: Traditions and Initiation

   For today, it’s the basic magical skills and mage types available under the Penumbra rules. This information is also available in a better-formatted version in the character-creation PDF for our local games, but a couple of the players have requested posting the material (and some other stuff I may get to later) online for easy access [...]

Shadowrun Penumbra: Edges and Flaws

   Most of the edges and flaws were originally “Advantages and Disadvantages” that made a series of adjustments to the priority system for SR1, effectively treating the “A” priority as 5 build points, the “B” as 4, and so on. Each advantage cost a level from a priority and each disadvantage boosted one. Naturally enough, [...]

Gandalfs and Balrogs: Wanderings In Middle-Earth

   For today, since I’ve converted a Balor, it’s time to convert the original characters. What would Gandalf and the original Balrog look like in Eclipse the Codex Persona (available in print HERE or in a shareware version HERE) Classless d20?    When you do things like this, it’s always best to look at the [...]

How to play a Balor – or other large flaming things.

   Today we’re going to see about converting a Balor to Eclipse: The Codex Persona classless d20 Point Buy. This classical giant, flaming, demon-lord is a mighty creature which has risen through the ranks of demons to it’s current form and powers based on success, exceptional abilities, and sheer ruthless malevolence and treachery.    Why [...]

Shadowrun Spirit Imbuement II

   Well, the original rules for Spirit Imbuement in Shadowrun can be found HERE. This is a slightly boiled-down version of a discussion provoked by those rules – which is enlightening enough that it was worth posting as well as appending it to the original page. J: About the elemental spirit binding: are the problems [...]

Federation-Apocalypse: The Realm of Kadia:

   Today it’s something for the Federation-Apocalypse campaign: Kevins personal realm. Since Kevin has qualified as a minor deity, and bought the ability to create an afterlife-dimension for his followers, here it is… Anyone interested in the mechanics of becoming a deity can be check the classless d20 rules in Eclipse: The Codex Persona (available in [...]

Federation-Apocalypse Session 34 Log

   With the ring-supernova wavefront only about a month away from Pictsome, and Yoda still on vacation on Thriss (no wonder the empire could never find him on Dagobah), it was time to go and try to save a planet… If Yoda needed the gate opened when he was done, all he’d need to do [...]

L5R Log Update: Sessions 80 and 81

   The Planar War: A Sea of Troubles, In Black and White. Kochige, Ninsei, Okari, Michio, and Najite.    The Mantis had more information on the Ivory Kingdoms – the locations of some of the major ports, the major languages, which ports welcomed foreigners, the entry procedures, and a fair amount of information about the [...]

Aetherial Ways

   This time around we have another Rolemaster spell list – in this case one designed to draw on the massed minds of the world around you. Why put this up? Well, there are still some people playing Rolemaster out there – possibly even the older editions – and (far more importantly), the list contains [...]