No Hit Points? No Problem!

Following on from the very rough combat playtest I did in April, I’ve been having a think about how to handle Wounds in Legends of Alba. Characters don't have HP in this game, but they can take Wounds! I’m trying to keep the game light (in terms of rules) but it feels just a bit too vague to say a Character has a Major Wound, or a Mortal Wound, and leave it at that. How has the Character been Wounded? Cracked skull? Stabbed in the guts? Lost a finger?

Thinking about how I’d run this, as a referee I think I’d have a hard time improvising something. I’d worry about it feeling vindictive if I interpreted a Mortal Wound at the table as “Your leg is broken, there’s bone sticking out - you need treatment soon and even then you might lose the leg.” I think dire consequences like that should be possible for Mortal Wounds, but personally I’d need a nudge from the game to follow through with it.

The Death of Olaf by Joseph Freely

I thought about Wounds as temporary or permanent Truths e.g. “Your hands tremble” to reflect a traumatic Wound, or “You move slowly and carefully” for a fragile Wound that’s still healing. But these are so specific, I’d need a big table to give a good range of them, and I don’t want Wounds to take up a whole page on their own. I still quite like this idea of Truths applied like this though, I could see using this for unique magic weapons or items.

What I’ve settled on for now is this D12 spark table:

D12	What	Where
1	Torn	Skull
2	Ruptured	Eye
3	Fractured	Jaw or Nose
4	Crushed	Spine
5	Pierced	Ribs
6	Gouged	Gut
7	Cracked	Shoulder
8	Severed	Arm
9	Split	Hand or Finger
10	Maimed	Thigh
11	Bruised	Knee
12	Sliced	Foot or Toe

Now here comes the pain!

Let’s roll up a Minor Wound, a 5 and a 6: Pierced Gut. A close call but the sharp pain quickly subsides, thankfully it’s not too deep and hasn’t punctured anything vital.

For a Major Wound it’s a 4 and a 12: Crushed Foot or Toe. Major Wounds are a bit more severe so let’s crush a foot rather than a toe. It’s not going to kill you but you’re going to have trouble putting any weight on it, and might end up with a permanent limp if you don’t get it seen to to get the bones set and rest up. This would definitely cause a Hindrance for Tests that involve moving quickly or nimbly on foot. There’s of course the opportunity for Characters to mitigate this if they have a mount or something they can use as a crutch.

Lastly a Mortal Wound, a 10 and a 6: Maimed Ribs. Oh dear. This sounds like it’d be an horrific mess. A crippling chest wound that steals away your breath. Probably a Hindrance to most things requiring any sustained physical effort. You might live if you get help but because this is a Mortal Wound we’re going to apply the most unforgiving definition of the maimed result, i.e. an injury so bad that the injured part no longer works properly. So best outcome for this Character might be that they gain a Truth “You struggle to lift heavy items” to represent this wound that never properly healed.

What a grisly affair. I’m happy enough with this for now though, and more than happy to move on from thinking about these horrible things happening to the heroes of Alba for a while!

Till next time!

Building a Kingdom of Alba

I've been working on a guide for referees to build their own Kingdom of Alba, which is now in a state that I can share it here! Check it out and discover how to go about Building The Kingdom for a game of Legends of Alba.

There's a couple of dependant documents which I've not written up properly yet (the pages for Crossings and Cairns refer to separate guidelines for creating an Otherworld Realm and a Barrowdeep Delve - I have some WIP for creating Otherworld Realms but haven't covered the Barrowdeeps yet) but there's enough to produce the map and background details.

Here are the results I came up with following the procedure myself. This is the player facing map for The Storm Isles (since we've got full Character Creation and Legends for that Kingdom)!

The player-facing map shows just the terrain and Settlements (the numbered towers). The ref's map shows the locations of Legends and Features

Here's some accompanying notes for the keyed locations:

Settlements

1: Fort Stormbreak, the Capital, held by Clan Wavesplitter
2: Reivers' Return, stronghold of Clan Seawolf

3: Deepharbour, stronghold of Clan Darkwater
4: Dun Firinn, smallholding, held by Clan Arrowmender
5: Mirthall, smallholding, held by Clan Greenmoor
6: Windvale, smallholding, held Clan Thunderhawk

Legends

(Marked in Red)

L1: The Fire Fish

L2: The Grey Neighbours

L3: The Master Wyrm

L4: The Mound Dweller

L5: The Seal Hunter

L6: The Silver Tower

Strangers

(Marked in Blue)

    Hags

    H1: The Ossuary, home to The Bright Shell Hag

    H2: Grave of Whispers, home to The Doom Spear Hag

    H3: The Crystal Hollows, home to The Silver Horn Hag

    Abhainn

    A1: The Cold One's waterfall

    A2: The Nourishing One's shore

    A3: The Salmon River delta

    Shellcoats

    S1: Eyecoat, collector of heart whelks

    S2: Shinycoat, adorned with painted periwinkles

    S3: Smoothcoat, connoiseur of purple urchins

Sites

(Marked in Green)

    Crossings

    X1: Unicorn Falls

    X2: The Warrior's Stack

    X3: The Giant's Ford

    Cairns

    C1: Cairn of The Gloom Lord

    C2: Cairn of The Red Champion

    C3: Cairn of The Kelp Prophet

    Wasteland

    (Lands spoiled by the Blight of the dreaded Nuckelavee)

    W1: Reclaimed tower where mortals are stricken by The Hollowing Blight

    W2: Dead forest where trees have fallen to The Liquefying Blight

    W3: Dismantled bridge where the soil is tainted by The Blackening Blight

That's it for this one, We might take a look at expanding some of these basic notes next time!

Creating an Otherworld Realm

One of my Legends of Alba groups has just started their second foray into one of the realms of The Otherworld. I’ve been refining my process for creating these realms since their first one, so I’ve recently had the opportunity to put the latest version to use. I quite like where it has ended up, so thought I’d share it here, and walk through the process to create a brand new realm in this very post!

Here is the Otherworld Creation process I’m following.  Let’s get started!

Step 1. Name and Describe the Realm

Results: Hope, Decay*, Whispering, River

OK this is quite interesting. I like having hope and decay both in there, those are quite contrasting ideas. Is this place the River of Whispering Hope? Maybe the Whispering River of Decay? I think I’m going to go with The Whispering River of Hope. Though it runs through a dying land, those souls who have lost hope might seek the river to hear a whisper of the truth, so their journey may continue.

* I originally rolled Roots for the nature element, but chose to re-roll this result because the realm I’ve just created for my players is called The Heath of Hateful Roots. I'd like to have something with a different natural element. It’s totally fine to re-roll or ignore results from these tables in pursuit of a spark of inspiration.

Step 2: Create Locations

Results: The Reaper’s Table, Mossy Stairs, Afflicted Tunnel, Infested Tower, Speaker’s Court, Pristine Barracks

The Reaper’s Table - how sinister! A place for a gathering or a feast? A rotten banquet laid out on this table would certainly emphasise the decay aspect! Perhaps the Reaper is willing to impart information to anyone who joins them in their disgusting feast.

The Mossy Stairs - I’d change the name to The Green Stair, but keep the fact that they are covered in moss. That suggests they are very old and seldom trod, so it’d be a challenge to climb them and claim the treasure that lies at the top.

Afflicted Tunnel - Probably a dangerous place, maybe the source of the affliction is a real problem in this realm?

Infested Tower - Another dangerous one I'd say! Is the owner of the tower still around? Maybe they are stuck inside, or they could even be the cause of the infestation.

Speaker’s Court - A source of power in the realm. What sort of proclamations does this Speaker make? Being known as a Speaker contrasts nicely with the river being said to whisper.

Pristine Barracks - This is a decaying land, so the presence of an order of warriors at a pristine barracks is interesting. Why are they pristine? Is it a mark of strict discipline? Are they magically so? Or perhaps they’ve never actually seen combat… I think these are good candidates for a wildcard faction, so whether they're enemies or allies would be up to the characters.

Step 3: Populate the Realm

Results:

• Beast - jaded goose
• Fuath - lizard, loch, laughter, strangling roots
• Sith - merry princess, stardust, must marry a mortal

Jaded Goose - I normally think of geese as being noisy and aggressive, so the idea of a fed up, sulking goose plays against this expectation. A couple of things to think about though - like why are they so jaded? And is this one goose or a flock?

The Loch Lizard - Fuaths make great adversaries because they are driven by hatred, so they can be manipulated by the characters, or fought without inviting too much of a moral quandary. This giant reptile has scales like sodden bark, and claws that are gnarled and twisted like tree roots. It lives in a loch, perhaps a corrupted offshoot of the River that runs through this realm. If it hears so much of a hint of merriment it attacks the source, choking the life of it with its strangling root claws.

The Merry Princess - I’ll admit I had to have a little think about this one. ‘The merry princess’ gives a clear description of a character but sounds lame as a title. I googled the etymology of merry, which led me to the old English word ‘myrige’, which sounded like it could be a name. So this character is instead known as Princess Myrige, The Unburdened Heart. Her skin is as the night sky glittering with starlight, and she seeks a mortal spouse.

4) Create Magic Items

Results: Vagabond’s, barbed, bow, wisdom

Mashing these around I came up with: 

The Barbed Bow  - arrows fired from this bow sprout barbed vines to entangle their target; and

Vagabond’s Wisdom - bottle of strong, magic liquor, consume it to get drunk but you are guaranteed to find your way to a warm bed tonight.

I made another round of rolls to get a third item:

Results: Thief’s, whispering, flute, sight. 

That led me to:

The Flute of Whispering Insight - appears to make no sound, no matter how hard you blow. But play it somewhere you’ve never been before to have it whisper a truth about your surroundings that only you can hear.

5) Make Connections

This is the “Draw the rest of the f***ing owl” step of the process where everything magically fits together. I like to start by writing a heading for the realm. Then the locations beneath it. Then I can start placing inhabitants and magic items in the locations based on a combination of idea fragments, intuition and (if all else fails) randomness. So I get something like this:

The Whispering River of Hope

• The Speaker’s Court
• Jaded Goose - why not have a goose in charge?
• The Pristine Barracks
• The Tunnel of the Afflicted
• Princess Myrige, The Unburdened Heart - maybe the afflicted are sort of a cult that worships her?
• The Infested Tower
• The Loch Lizard - this is a tower on an island in the middle of the loch
• The Barbed Bow - the barbs sort of tie in with the Lizard's strangling roots
• The Green Stair
• The Flute of Whispering Insight - not sure what this is doing here but I'll think of something
• The Reaper’s Table
• Vagabond’s Wisdom - it's liquor, so goes with the feast

From here it gets a bit harder to walk through the process. I jump around between locations, characters, factions, zoom in and out to consider locales and the realm as a whole. The aim is to get to the point where the realm ‘emerges’. I should be able to picture it clearly when I think about it. Everywhere should at the very least have something interesting going on for the player characters to get involved with. You should feel free to make changes to your results, discard results or generate extra ones to help you reach something you can imagine more clearly.

Here's where it got to when I decided to call it done.

The Whispering River of Hope

A wide, deep river runs through a stinking bog. Folk cower in waterlogged shanties, half-sunken amongst rotten trees and spongy moss. The river itself is clear and pure, and said to whisper truths that inspire hope in those who need it most.

The Speaker’s Court

Once a power in this realm, the old goose has gone deaf. Many years have passed since she last heard the river. Much of her time is given to silent sulking, indifferent to the tawdry depths of scandal and intrigue into which her once-proud court has sunk.

• Her Eloquence The Speaker, jaded giant goose, wants to be left alone.
• Vapid goose courtiers, want to know what everyone else is up to.

The Immaculate Barracks

A fortress of white stone. Knights in white plate mail practise archery and swordplay. They await orders from The Speaker. They have been waiting for some time.

• The Immaculate Knight-Captain Arnol, forgetful, wants the best for his Knights
• Immaculate Knights, constantly fussing over their weapons and armour, want to be in a real fight
• Erudite squires, not enough to do, convinced this will change when they finally become knights

The Tunnel of the Afflicted

The Afflicted are those blessed by Princess Myrige, whose beautiful laughter issues from the bowels of her dank tunnel city. Her subjects are immortal beyond the bounds of flesh, their rotting bodies host to myriad invertebrate life and mycelia.

• Princess Myrige, The Unburdened Heart. Her skin is as the night sky glittering with starlight. Light hearted, laughs easily and often. Refused her coronation and never looked back, wants to bless as many as she can so others can share in her freedom.
• The Afflicted. Content in their loyal service, tenacious in their search for a mortal spouse for their beloved Princess.

The Infested Tower

Long ago the island sanctum of a forgotten druid was swallowed by the loch that once protected it. Now it is the lair of The Loch Lizard, infested with its filth. The vile Fuath offers The Barbed Bow to whoever puts an end to the Princesses insufferable mirth.

• The Loch Lizard, Strangleclaw. Scales of sodden bark, claws gnarled and twisted like tree roots. Hates the sound of laughter.
• The Lizard’s Filth, reeking mud clumps, vaguely sentient, hungry for mortal flesh.
• The Barbed Bow - arrows fired from this bow sprout barbed vines that entangle the target.

The Green Stair

These stone steps once led to the seat of coronation, where the Kings and Queens of the realm were crowned. Forgotten by most and engulfed by moss, the seat at its peak lies empty, a strange flute is all that remains of the crown jewels.

• Engulfing moss - deadly hazard to anyone climbing the stair
• The Flute of Whispering Insight - appears to make no sound, no matter how hard you blow. Play it somewhere you’ve never been before to have it whisper a truth about your surroundings that only you can hear.

The Reapers’ Table

A spoiled banquet moulders on a great rectangular table. There are some empty seats, the rest filled by Reapers. Stymied by the longevity of The Afflicted, they recoup what they can from the souls of the bog folk. They offer a bottle of Vagabond’s Wisdom if their gratitude is earned.

• Reapers, tall crow-headed soul collectors. Having grown tired of one another, the only thing they love more than their rancid grub is sharing it with good company. 
• Vagabond’s Wisdom - strong, magic liquor, consume to get drunk but you are guaranteed to find your way to a warm bed tonight.

Alba: 24XX

Still on the road towards an original ruleset for Legends of Alba, I took a side path into the world of 24XX. For the unfamiliar, 24XX is the SRD created by Jason Tocci to accompany his 2400 series, a collection of modular, rules-light RPGs. They all follow the same 4-page format, designed to be printed double-sided on a single sheet of A4, with a cover page for art, the middle pages for the rules and character creation, then the back page devoted wholly to random tables for creating adventures. I absolutely LOVE these games! Each one is so packed with ideas and the setting comes through so clearly through the wild cover art, character options and adventure tables. It's impressive and inspiring stuff.

I'd already been thinking that it might be worthwhile trying to write up Legends of Alba using a few different SRDs, sort of like trying on a bunch of different hats to see which hat suits you best. Or maybe even just to get an idea of what you actually want in a hat. It can be a hard question to answer if, like me, you're not really a hat person. So over the last couple of weeks I've done a treatment of Legends of Alba using the 24XX SRD, and you can check it out here!

Fingal's Cave, Island of Staffa, Scotland by Thomas Moran (public domain)

I've not play-tested the game (maybe someday?!) but it's at a point where I'm happy to leave it for a bit. It was a lot of fun to write, and a really useful exercise. I wanted to record and share some of the things I learned from it, so here we go:

SCOPE: When you've only got 4 pages, the scope wants to be narrow and specific. Probably more so than what I went with. This will be my D&D background showing, but Legends of Alba is quite a big setting in terms of scope. There's clans, kingdoms, there's the hags, there's The Legends, The Otherworld, there's deities, there's history, there's the land of Alba itself... any one of these could be a 24XX game on its own probably. I'd like to try again and do a 24XX game based around the clans of Alba, where its all about reputation and community; then maybe another separate one on weird and wonderful Otherworld adventures. I think either of those ideas would fit the format well.

TIME: Part of the appeal of 24XX is how small the games are, but I deluded myself a little into thinking I could rattle one off in no time at all. These games are small, yes, but they are dense. The lower word count doesn't necessarily mean less stuff, it just means each word is doing more. Games take time to make.

SKILLS: Most of 24XX games use a wide set of skills (15-20). A lot of these games are set in strange sci-fi settings so I think the skills really help in nailing down some world-building (what sorts of things can people do in this setting?). But even though these are fun and flavourful, I found myself spinning on them when it came to writing character options. With the wide range there's a temptation to try and cover everything. But you're never going to cover everything, so I think embracing that there's going to be some blurred lines and fuzzy edges, and keeping with a narrow set of abilities (3 or 4) is the way to go for me, or certainly for this game.

FIRE: Following on from my last post about a core resolution mechanic, I've been thinking about what else the game needs to start to come alive a bit more. The sort of fire Lucy H Pearce talks about in her book Burning Woman is an idea that's really stuck with me; a righteous inner fire, the burning of which will lead you to yourself. I thought about bolting on a rule for Fire and, though I decided against it to keep in the minimalist spirit of 24XX, I want to write it down here as I might come back to it. Characters would gain Fire by enacting a virtue or ideal that is sacred to them (e.g. their Clan virtue, or something more personal). Fire could then be burned to get help on a skill check, or as defence.

I think that's it for now. Until next time!

A Hundred Thousand Hags

Last time I talked about hags in RPGs and how cool it would be to see a hag that wasn't just another wicked witch. This time I'm putting my money where my mouth is and sharing my take on hags! Generally I wanted my hags to be ancient and strange, to know useful things, and to be having a fantastic time themselves. So this is what I came up with and am using in my games, which are set in a sort of mythical version of Scotland. So far the players have only met one, but she left such a strong impression that the quest to find another hag is one of the main threads driving the characters forward.

The Hags

These venerable wise women are a law unto themselves. They are not beholden to clans, monarchs or even one another. Even Kings listen when they speak. 

Each hag has achieved, through decades of questing, planning and ritual, a sublime and unique self-actualisation. Changed beyond the bounds of mortality, it is the bold, the foolhardy and the desperate who seek them in their distant sanctuaries. For the hags know how all that is will be lost, how all that was will be again, and how all that is to come may yet be changed.

Creating a Hag

Roll 2D10 on the tables below and combine the results to generate a name for this hag.  

D10	Element	Aspect
1	Blind	Bone
2	Bloom	Eye
3	Frost	Fire
4	Moss	Horn
5	Prism	Moon
6	Salt	Shroud
7	Shadow	Skin
8	Thistle	Stone
9	Thunder	Water
10	Wither	Wind

Next roll 3D10 on the tables below to answer the following questions about this hag:

• How has she chosen to express her physical form?
• What does she surround herself with?
• What is her manner towards visitors?

D10	Feature	Surroundings	Manner
1	Animated hair	Animals	Cheery
2	Astounding age	Carvings	Cryptic
3	Distributed form	Crystals	Direct
4	Round body	Insects	Excitable
5	Magnificent wings	Mushrooms	Flustered
6	Many eyes	Rags	Grim
7	Many limbs	Roots	Prickly
8	Menacing size	Skeletons	Relaxed
9	Terrible beauty	Whispers	Tender
10	Unashamed decoration	Wisps	Weary

Example

I roll a 5 and a 3 for the hag's name, conjuring forth The Prism Fire Hag.  Haha! She sounds pretty cool already! I'm immediately getting a mental picture of some crystalline glass or rock formations with multi-coloured fires dancing inside.

For her physical feature I get a 3 on the D10: She has a distributed form.  Now we're talking - this hag lives as a gestalt network of crystals that pulse and glow with magic fire from within when she speaks.

For her surroundings it's a 2, she has lots of carvings around her.  This fits well with her distributed, mineral-based form: I was already thinking she probably dwells in a cave. As to what the carvings are, this seems like the ideal way for her to answer the important questions the players surely have for her: The truth is revealed in a new carving! And the carvings that are here already tell the stories of the people who've sought the hag's guidance before, so this is also a good place to reveal some unexpected info that could be useful to the players when they visit. I'd probably leave this undefined until the last possible moment, so whatever is written here is relevant to the characters' current situation.

(I pause briefly to find a d10 because I realise I've actually been rolling a d12 so far...)

Finally a roll of 8 tells me this hag is relaxed when she has guests.  Amazing: She's super-chill.  You feel right at home in her warm, crystal caves.

So here's our hag:

The Prism Fire Hag

• Her essence is contained within an extensive crystal network that glitters in the depths of her subterranean home.
• The crystals glow and pulse with chromatic inner fire to the calming warmth of her voice.
• She bestows her wisdom in the form of carvings that form on the surrounding cave walls.

I'd be pretty excited for my players to meet this hag!

What's Next?

Ideally the description of a significant NPC should include something they want. What can the characters do for the hag in return for her council? I've left this out here as this is usually the sort of thing I'd base on the state of the game and the characters.  Here are some examples of things the hag might want though:

• An agreement sealed
• A debt collected
• An event witnessed
• A message delivered
• An ingredient found
  
• A prophecy fulfilled

Other than that I would like to expand these tables to be D20-based for even more unique hag variations, but I'm pleased with the results from the D10 tables.  And a hundred thousand hags seems like plenty for the time being!