Category: RPGS

Remember: Deadline for the Unspeakable Oath is tomorrow, kinda.

Details here: I need to double-check whether they want the pitches for fiction tomorrow, or the actual submission. I have finally written it out (been thinking about it for a week), so I’m good either way. Still, the sooner it’s submitted the sooner I can get it either accepted, or rejected and thus ready to go out into the great wild world of the submissions merry-go-round.  This one’s never been published, too, so it’s nice and fresh and has a better per-word rate.

Item seed: The Lost Mace of Columbia.

I’m not sure what to use this one for, actually.  I guess mostly local flavor? It’d work for that.

the-lost-mace-of-columbia-google-docs

The Lost Mace of Columbia

 

Very few people really pay attention to the fact that there is in fact a ceremonial weapon for the United States of America: it’s called the Mace of the House of Representatives, and it’s (theoretically) wielded by the House Sergeant at Arms. The current incarnation of the Mace is a reasonably hefty silver-and-ebony ceremonial item, so-called because it’d probably fall apart if somebody tried to use it as an actual mace for too long.  A magical or esoteric scan of this particular Mace would reveal that it’s got a reasonable amount of power; but precisely the power that you’d expect from a normal item used in mundane rituals for a couple of centuries. Nothing really esoteric, in other words.

Continue reading Item seed: The Lost Mace of Columbia.

I ask Settlers of Catan / Skyrim players: would you buy this?

Because it looks like something that people who play both Settlers of Catan and Skyrim would buy. And I figure that there’s got to be some overlap, there. Via Constant Reader JAB in comments:

Bad News / Good News on the online playtesting thing.

The bad news is I’m not doing it this weekend for the Unspeakable Oath thing.  Not enough time, and while I have some decent ideas for what to do I think that they need to be more intensively tested before I submit them. I’m competing with serious people, here, so I gotta be just as serious about it.

But that leads to the good news!  I think that the basic idea of having a monthly online playtest/gaming session would actually be fun! Also, obviously, useful.  So I’m going to try to figure out the best day to have one, and then have whoever show up run through stuff that I’ve written.  Or maybe I’ll pick a best day from whoever’s interested that month, and use that instead.  Still thinking about that part. But, definitely, I need folks who might be interested in horror or mystery-themed games.

GURPS Infinite Worlds: Titanic-1.

titanic-1-google-docs

Titanic-1

 

On this world, the Titanic did not hit an iceberg and sink in the Atlantic, although possibly some of its owners might wish that it had. But that’s a backdrop to the real situation, which is this: there’s a lot of research to be done on Titanic-1 into the nature of timelines and divergence points, but unfortunately there are two broadly incompatible lines of research to be done.  And each line of research has its own bureaucratic partisans. …Really, it’s almost enough to make one wish for Centrum to show up. At least they can be more directly thwarted.

Continue reading GURPS Infinite Worlds: Titanic-1.

In Nomine Revisited: Superior Relics (Justice and Mercy).

This one actually is still on the Internet, at an old site of mine – but when I looked at it I realized that the layout needed fixing. Put the stats for the item next to the description, not at the end where people have to flip through the entire thing to look them up.  Sheesh, younger-me.  Sheesh.

Anyway, since it needed editing anyway…

superior-relics-justice-mercy-google-docs

Superior Relics: Justice & Mercy

Justice & Mercy

Superior Relics: Judgment

These two relics are considered by many to be symbolic of the larger struggle within Judgment; whether this is actually True, or just propaganda, is up to the individual campaign. Both relics are exceptionally old; they, in fact, date back to the First Rebellion. They are also both exclusively associated with Dominic’s female persona Dominique. Justice and Mercy are otherwise very different. Continue reading In Nomine Revisited: Superior Relics (Justice and Mercy).

Item Seed: Haw River Vampires.

Blame this.

haw-river-vampires-google-docs

Haw River Vampires

Haw River, for those wondering, is located in North Carolina, and is one of the tributaries that feed into the Cape Fear River; it is also the site of the one of the most vicious and relentless clandestine cryptozoological eradication campaigns in American history.  To give you an idea of how long the fight’s taken place… it started under the aegis of the Confederate Secret Service, got transferred to the Pinkertons when that group quietly brought in the remnants of the CSS in 1871, and was only taken over by the FBI in 1938.  The Feds officially closed the books on the fight in 1970, but the entire operation is still deeply classified and the documentation for it has been thoroughly and deliberately lost in the archives. Preferably until everybody involved is safely dead of old age.

Continue reading Item Seed: Haw River Vampires.

Item Seed: The Book of Incipient Words.

the-book-of-incipient-words-google-docs

The Book of Incipient Words

 

This artifact superficially manifests as a standard child’s black-and-white composition book.  It appears to be about twenty years old, bound with aged rubber bands, and about to fall apart — but it never quite does.  In fact, the Book is functionally invulnerable. To give one example: it  has stopped a fifty caliber machine gun round on at least one occasion (the force of the bullet still killed the person trying to use it as a shield, though).  Needless to say, The Book of Incipient Words will register as magical in standard identification spells.  With that particular tint of esoteric color that denotes “Here Be Dragons.”

Continue reading Item Seed: The Book of Incipient Words.