Twilight Isles – Shadow Elf Houses II

   Next up, we have a few more Shadow Elf houses…    Aiscaire House Talents: +2 Con, +3 on all nautical skills (Balance, Climb, Knowledge/Nature, Knowledge/Geography, Survival, Swim, Use Rope, and appropriate Crafts and Professions), and Sea-Sense (allows the user to sense the local currents, find fish, tell if they’re approaching shoals, predict the weather [...]

Federation-Apocalypse Session 83b – Balrog Disco

   Corrigan decided to let Mr Balrog consider things for a few moments. There was nothing like a Disco to try and discover your true inner self in! And, if Mr Balrog got tired of that, there were lots of other people to get involved with!    Besides, there was no point in his missing [...]

Twilight Isles – Houses of the Shadow Elves

   The Shadow Elves are organized around a few basic principles: Bloodlines and family names are passed on through the female line; children may be born with wild talents on occasion, but the vast majority of the time, they will be born with the talents of their mother – and thus the techniques for best [...]

Federation-Apocalypse Session 83a – Corrigan and the Balrog, Part One

   Corrigan was getting pretty exasperated.    Confound it! Mr Balrog was stalking him with a butterfly net again! Trying to catch his sparkles!    It was really starting to bother him! Here he was, trying to read these reports from Advertising, and the hunk they put in charge of Operations was STILL trying to [...]

Exotic Languages of the Twilight Isles

   There actually aren’t too many of these. While there are a lot of minor island dialects, the people of the isles tend to be long-lived, and there aren’t all that many of them – so the number of major languages is relatively limited. Just as importantly, the number of other dimensions that can be [...]

Eclipse – the Rhynsin Dragonslayer Martial Art

   Here we have another sample martial art – in this case, another rarity; a Specialized form. The Rhynsin Form is indeed designed specifically for use against dragons, and cannot be used against other opponents – and thus any skill points invested in the form count double, providing a +2 bonus, rather than the usual +1 – [...]

Eclipse – Compiled Martial Arts Forms

   Here we have an additional fifty-plus Martial Arts skills, compiled from the sample characters and offline sources, to add to sample martial arts in Eclipse (available in print HERE and in a shareware edition HERE).    The Eclipse martial arts rules were designed to bridge part of the gap between the broad-based combat abilities [...]

Commerce of the Twilight Isles

   Long-range trade in the Twilight Isles operates almost entirely by sea. Thanks to the wild magical distortions generated by the Elemental Storms, the Sieltufan, the Jav-Sabok, and the Underworld, attempting long-range travel or cargo transport via magic or psionics – teleportation, gates, shadow-travel, or what-have-you – is extraordinarily dangerous and becomes more so as [...]

Twilight Isles – Ahriman Malchior, Level Two Thunder Dwarf

   Here we have a possibly-temporary replacement character. Ysmir has – thanks to the massed efforts of the parties various spellcasters, a magical storm, and a near-suicidal self-sacrificing tactic, been transformed into a giant, firebreathing, magic-resistant, snake-monster. The party does have a plan to try and change him back – but at the moment, the [...]

Twilight Isles – Maps

   First up for today, it’s a (very) basic set of Twilight Isles maps – hopefully enough to get everyone oriented.    To forestall the inevitable silly question, the lettering is not actually a part of the landscape. For the maps with grids on them, each square is fifty by fifty miles. They’re at a higher [...]

Monetary Systems of the Twilight Isles

   The Twilight Isles are rich in metals. Indeed, some of the volcanos which form their basis will occasionally emit “lava” which is primarily nickel-iron rather than molten rock. Gold, silver, and platinum are found in relative abundance (at least compared to earth), as are a wide variety of gems, including diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, [...]

RPG’s, Shadowrun, and New Technologies

   Since Shadowrun has been coming up again, it’s reminded me to post this bit from my old notes…    It’s always wise to be cautious when throwing bits of new technology into a game system. As an example, here’s something from Shadowrun Four – a quick rundown of the thoughts that went through my [...]

Federation-Apocalypse Session 82: Otter Nonsense

   Ruth went off to do something – and Gelman leaned back against a tree to think.    The park was still fairly quiet, although there was some sort of enthusiastic ball game going on, and the carnival area was a bit noisy. There was some sort of super-mecha-battle tournament going on at the moment. [...]

Twilight Isles Questions-and-Answers I

   To answer some recent player-questions from the Twilight Isles:    Dwarven “Firearms” are actually steam-powered devices, rather than explosive-based devices. The mechanism is actually pretty simple; the trigger simply discharges a small quantity of water into a heavily-reinforced Najmhan-plated reaction chamber. There, the energies of the Najmhan turn the water into a superheated blast [...]

Twilight Isles – Peregrine, Level One Veltine Companion

   Here we have another very highly-specialized character – in this case, a Veltine wolf-creature who’s currently serving as a guard dog. He’d make a really lousy and boring player-character given that he’s pretty much a total monomaniac (“I jump on things and bite them”), but he’s an excellent guard-companion – and that’s what taking [...]

Eclipse and the Twilight Isles – Mystic Martial Arts

   Next up here we have a couple of Martial Arts from one of the current players. You can find his original writeup of these, and some of his characters, diaries, and other materials, over HERE at his blog – but he’s allowed me to copy these arts over to the primary blog here for [...]

Latest Material Index

   It’s once again time to get the latest material index updated and to transfer the material from the old one to the main index tabs at the top of the page. If you want the very latest material, it may be necessary to either scroll down or consult the “Recent Posts” listing-widget on the [...]

Eclipse – Level One Sample Twilight Isles Character, Rudra Mogzul

   Here we have another character for the Twilight Isles – in this case one Rudra Mogzul, a young Thunder Dwarf with some more-or-less fortunate connections. As usual for the Twilight Isles, she’s very powerful for level one – but many of her abilities are fixed bonuses, that will not increase, or will only increase [...]

Twilight Isles Subindex

. Since the Twilight Isles are now the most active d20 subsetting, here’s an index for the relevant material. Naturally enough, this section is going to be expanding quite a bit as the game continues – but here’s what’s up for the first two sessions. Background: The Historical Background and Physical Realm. Maps of the [...]

The Magical Languages of the Twilight Isles

   Magical Languages:    The “Magical Languages” have inherent supernatural effects. Linguists claim that all languages have a certain amount of power, which is why they shape the worldviews of their speakers and why speaking makes magic easier to work, but these languages are blatant about it. Sadly, this generally means they’re either difficult to [...]