Spes Magna Games

Of the available race choices, the feinos are the only true aliens, having entered our universe at the same time as the dragons. Feino populations suddenly found themselves shunted from their native realm into ours. Hundreds of thousands feinos perished as they appeared in environments incapable of supporting life, such as in the void of space or in Bellatrix’s argon-rich atmosphere.

On those worlds where the feinos could survive, they quickly found themselves embroiled in terrifying war. Viewed as invaders by native populations and viewed as insignificant by rampaging dragons, the feinos who didn’t quickly organize for war were hit hard. Today, few worlds have sizeable feino populations (the notable exception being Duke Níðhöggr’s throneworld, Ylli).

Appearance and Biology: A feino appears human only with the most casual of glances. This race tends to be tall, averaging an inch or two more than homo sapiens, with long, thin arms and legs. The torso is broad across the shoulders and chest, but isn’t thick and tapers to narrow hips, giving most feinos a somewhat emaciated appearance. The feino cranium grows long from chin to brow with pronounced cheek bones and a narrow, downward turning mouth, which sports about two-thirds as many teeth as found in a healthy human mouth. Feinos do not have canine teeth. Their ears are pointed. Hair color ranges from pure white to light blue to gold. A feino’s eyes appear to swirl with liquid color because the fluids which lubricate the eyes are pigmented. Hormones related to emotional states alter the fluid’s colors.

Feinos cannot easily metabolize proteins found in animal tissue. As a result, most feinos are vegetarians, and those that aren’t still consume only small portions of meat. The equivalent of the liver in a feinos is hyperefficient at metabolizing alcohol. Consequently, a feinos can consume enormous quantities of libations without adverse effects.

Psychology: The feinos are almost insatiably curious. They constantly pry into the affairs of others. While a feinos may seek privacy for certain activities, he is also likely to assume that these activities will end up being observed eventually. Feinos love to explore new places, to experience new sensations, and to observe new creatures. Feinos societies tend to operate in a profoundly transparent manner. Many feinos view the keeping of secrets as an automatic indication of malicious intent.

As a consequence of a feino’s intense curiosity, he is also likely a rapacious consumer. This is especially true of food, drink, and artistic experiences. Most feinos will do almost anything to increase access to these resources, and more than a few can be deeply indifferent to the needs of others to the same resources. Extreme consumption is viewed as a source of honor and glory for the feinos. The greatest and most respected feinos tend to be those who have the greatest stockpiles of resources to consume and/or share with their followers.

The pigmented fluids in a feino’s eyes interfere with his ability to accurately perceive colors. Feinos are not color-blind, but instead perpetually view the world through a tinted medium. This species’s native tongue has an ornate vocabulary related to color as the definitions for such words must account not only for hue but also for emotional state. For example, feinos have one word for “red” when perceived in a happy state of mind and another word for the same color perceived when angry.

Flavor: The feinos can be difficult to understand. Their extreme psychological traits, extradimensional origin, and alien view of the universe often conspire to make a feino unwelcome anywhere except among his own kind. Consequently, most feinos tend to be insular, even xenophobic. Feinos encountered away from their native society are often exiles, usually criminals whose behaviors were unwelcome by other feinos. Such feinos tend to live short, violent lives in the Empire.

A minority of feinos, however, embrace the realities of living in a new universe. They learn to moderate their more extreme psychological traits in order to live among humans. Derisively referred to as Passers by both human and feino purists, these feinos can be intensely loyal to those who accept them as friends.

Racial Traits: A feino character must have at least a 14 in Dexterity, and cannot have higher than a 13 Constitution.

Feinos have a knack for finding hidden doors. They gain a +1 bonus to Perception skill checks to notice such portals. Feinos cannot be psychics, but they can be wizards. In fact, they excel at the arts of wizardry. By spending one extra mana point when casting a spell, a feino wizard imposes a -1 penalty to the save against that spell. This extra mana point does not count against the mana point limit imposed when using Kouranism to modify spells.

A feino cannot become intoxicated by consuming alcohol. He also enjoys a +1 bonus on saving throws against organic toxins.

Tags: Tiamat's Throne

In preparation for Tiamat’s Throne, I’ve been doing research into science fiction. Most recently, this has meant watching Space: 1999 on YouTube. While I am old enough to have been alive, walking, and talking when this show first aired in the mid-70s of the last century, I seldom watched it. Back then, Mom determined what we watched during prime time, and that didn’t include this British-import sci-fi series.

For those of you not in the know, the first episode, “Breakaway”, recounts events leading up to a massive explosion in a lunar nuclear waste storage facility that knocks the Moon out of orbit and sends it hurtling through space toward adventure. Space: 1999 is wildly improbable if not downright silly, but it is played out with such gravitas by good actors such as Martin Landau (as Commander John Koenig) that there is something compelling about the show, no matter how absurd some of the plots are.

At the end of “Breakaway”, Koenig orders that Moonbase Alpha’s computer process how to execute Operation Exodus given the new parameters of the Moon no longer being held in the Earth’s orbit. The computer explains that new parameters exceed its ability to determine whether it is possible to abandon the Moon and return to Earth. Ominously, it declares that a “human decision” is required. Koenig provides that decision, commanding that no escape attempt will be made from the Moon, thus setting up the whole careening-through-space premise of the series.

Something struck me while watching “Breakaway”. One of the common complaints about certain RPGs is that the player characters end up being little more than the sum of their equipment. Solutions to scenario problems become less about the characters and more about having the right gizmo. I’ve seen this play out many times, and the results are often less than satisfying. I’ve also seen situations where the players deliberately try to hinge their success on elements external to their characters.

For example, I once ran a short-lived Mutants & Masterminds campaign. The first plot arc the heroes confronted involved a serial killer preying on adults who victimized children. What I had planned on being a sort of mystery/police procedural quickly turned into the tech hero sitting in front of a keyboard and using a combination of search engines and hacking to gather information. While this certainly fit the hero’s schtick, it didn’t make for exciting roleplaying. I didn’t GM the situation well, and for an unnecessarily large hunk of play time, most of the other players had little to do but feed the tech hero’s player suggestions about the next thing to type into Google.

Which leads me back to Moonbase Alpha’s computer. When we start playing Tiamat’s Throne circa February 2013, I want to avoid the problems associated with over-reliance on tech. At the same time, I don’t want to hamstring character options. If a player makes up a tech-skill heavy character, that player deserves to use those skills in meaningful ways. This must mean that adventures be crafted so that player decisions are required. No just feeding a bunch of data into a computer and then letting the machine make the decisions. Technology should assist, not replace, player character actions to the greatest extent possible.

As my players (well, one of them) have expressed interest in a Firefly-esque campaign, concerns about over-reliance on technology seem even more relevant. It is appropriate that tech assist the player characters in their various heists and capers, but the tech shouldn’t remove the dramatic tension.

Consider a common plot element in heist stories: stealing vital data from a computer. What I don’t want is for a single Computer skill check to accomplish this task. That’s not how it works in the genre. Instead, the heisters have to get into the facility somehow, evading security, slipping past checkpoints, entering secure areas, et cetera, in order to get to the computer system, at which time the Computer skill check comes into play, preferably with a complication, such as the head of security showing up for a surprise inspection or a mishap in another area triggering lockdown protocols.

Tags: adventure design, Tiamat's Throne

If you’ve not see it, you need to. It looks awesome. “What the deuce are you talking about, Mark?” you ask. I’m talking about Sine Nomine Publishing’s under-development Spears of the Dawn, “an old-school RPG that provides an African-flavored take on traditional fantasy adventure gaming.” I’ve long enjoyed what little African history and myths I’ve studied over the years, which is often very different than the more familiar (to me, at least) history and myths of the West. If you want a fantasy setting that truly is different than what you and your players are likely used to, why not go for a brand new set of cultural assumptions?

As I mentioned in my previous post (see below), work on Tiamat’s Throne has slowed down a bit. I hope to remedy that next week when I’m off for Thanksgiving. (Huzzah! to my pilgrim forefathers.) Until then, here’s another beast for my Stars Without Number-inspired setting that mixes fantasy elements with the sci-fi.

Magovore Invader
Armor Class: 6
Hit Dice: 3
Attack Bonus: +6
Damage: 1d10 plus special
No. Appearing: 1
Saving Throw: 14+ (+4 versus magic)
Movement: 30 ft. flying (see below)
Morale: 7

A magovore invader resembles a dense gray, leathery lump of tissue and muscle roughly three or four feet in diameter. It undulates via flight through the vacuum of space as easily as it moves through an atmosphere. Its serrated beak is surrounded by a ring of fleshy growths that detect heat, electrical activity, and magical dweomers. (Otherwise, a magovore invader is blind and deaf, and has no olfactory senses.)

Magovore invaders, as their name implies, feed on eldritch energy, which they tear from magic-using creatures (such as wizards) by biting. A magic-using creature bit by a magovore invader loses mana points equal to half the damage inflicted by the bite (round up). (Mana points lost in this manner are recovered normally.) Also, the magovore invader gains bonus hit points equal to the number of mana points consumed.

This creature is particularly resistant to magic, enjoying a +4 bonus on saving throws against magical effects. If a magovore invader makes its saving throw against a magical effect, the beast is completely unaffected by the magic (even if there would normally be a reduced effect with a successful save, such as against a fireball). Even worse, the successful saving throw against a magical effect also grants the magovore invader bonus hit points equal to the level of the spell it saved against.

When bonus hit points gained by biting magic-using creatures and/or making saving throws against spells equal the magovore invader’s original hit point total, the creature immediately reproduces by asexual fission, and the new creature reaches its full size three rounds (gaining one Hit Die per round).

Magovore invaders are completely immune to the hazards of outer space, such as the vacuum, cosmic radiation, et cetera. Extreme conditions, such as flying too close to a star, still prove disastrous to a magovore invader. A magovore invader can fly through outer space as if it were a drive-1 rated starship. These creatures always succeed at Navigation checks.

Tags: Stars Without Number, Tiamat's Throne

In a comment to this post, krys remarked, “Only 4 dragons eh? I was hoping there’d be more with different factions, orders (both secret and open) and sects of followers. I like what I’ve heard though.”

I felt this comment deserved some clarification. Yes, Tiamat’s Throne as a campaign setting has its astropolitics dominated by four dragons, but Tiamat and her dukes are more like plot devices than monsters. Each one is roughly equivalent to a planet-smashing interstellar battleship.

The presence of Tiamat and her dukes does not preclude the existence of lesser dragons more suitable for use as challenges for the PCs. I envision these dragons working more or less the way such monsters did in Old School RPGs. Sure, they’re apex predators, but a sufficiently experienced and well-prepared gang of adventurers could take one on and win.

When it comes to factions, which is a topic I’ve barely addressed in blogposts, rest assured that there will be a major faction dedicated to the worship of Tiamat and her dukes. I’m thinking of this faction being a cross between the Templars and the Gestapo. Splinter dragon cults are also likely. What’s more, since I want Tiamat’s Throne to be a science-fantasy space opera sandbox, customization from individual GMs is not only to be expected but encouraged. The sector is a huge place with 18 known, inhabited worlds. There’s easily room for any number of additional factions, orders, et cetera.

Work on Tiamat’s Throne has slowed down a bit lately, due in part to one of my seasonal funks, but I can feel the itch the write more building up in my brain and fingers. My self-imposed playtest release date of February 2013 is still in effect. I’m also considering going Kickstarter, but I don’t want to do that until I have the playtest document(s) ready for release.

Tags: Stars Without Number, Tiamat's Throne

Excerpts from my first non-Pathfinder project, Tiamat’s Throne, a sci-fi/fantasy setting using the Stars Without Number core rules:

The Rage of Dragons

In 2665, the time-space continuum ripped. What I mean is this: A hole was torn from another universe into ours. This was no accident. Forces beyond human comprehension purposefully rent asunder the fabric of reality separating the two universes.

And through this tear came the dragons.

Hundreds of them, each one with the size, speed, and power of a frigate. They rampaged across the sector, raining down death and terror on world after world. Humanity — reeling from the sudden disruption of technology and the psychic chaos of that metadimensional “shriek” — rallied as well as could be expected. Some dragons died in combat against armed spaceships. A few worlds managed to lessen the destruction wrought by the dragons.

Then, the dragons turned on each other. By the end of 2675, only four dragons survived, and the weaker three combined could not match the power of Her Draconic Majesty Tiamat the Unconquerable.

…

Kouranism: Many wizards suffer from Kouranism, a magical condition that mutates the body and mind while making it possible for the sufferer to manipulate eldritch energies in ways not possible for the unafflicted. Rules for this new skill are found in the Kouranism section below.

…

When the Eugenics Commissars finished designing the duonos genome, the plan was that the new species would be genetically predisposed toward obedience. Thus, genome manipulation aimed at docility and timidity. The first two or three generations of duonos functioned well in their various roles as compliant domestic servants too afraid of their masters’ authority to be disobedient. In the fourth and following generations, however, a genetic instability evidenced itself. Centered in the amygdala, this instability resulted in a minority of duonos exhibiting the binary psychological traits of fear or wrath. Put more simply, some duonos were typically docile and timid, but only up to a point. After that, these aberrant duonos — called koleros — became violent, sometimes shockingly so as they fell into the grip of rage verging on psychotic in intensity.

…

Wizard Class Traits

Prime Attributes: Intelligence or Dexterity
Hit Dice: d4
Special Ability: The wizard is the only class that can learn to cast spells.
Wizard Class Skills: Artist, Combat/Magitech, Culture/Any, Kouranism, Language, Religion, Perception, Profession/Any
Additional Skill Points per Level: 2

…

While most worlds have intermittent problems with the undead, Castor is overrun with them. Her cities exist in a state of constant siege. The most prominent undead menace are the hordes of zombies. Tens of thousands of zombie surround the cities, and more wander the wilderness between Castor’s urban centers. Other undead monsters are less common, but more dangerous, especially those that can fly such as ghosts and spectres. These types of monsters can not only bypass city walls, but they can also threaten the dirigibles that link the cities via the airways.

Despite the planetary quarantine, groups of adventurers sometimes travel to Castor. Caches of pretech can be found in ancient ruins by those willing and able to brave Castor’s the undead terrors.

Tags: Stars Without Number, Tiamat's Throne