Further thoughts on Ascendancy in Shadow World. PT.2

For PT. 1 see HERE.

Over the last 6 years (barring the gaming break during COVID), I’ve had a chance to really experiment with high level gameplay via my “Legends of Shadow World” and another adventure I’m testing that also takes place on Charon.

Part of that game testing was introducing hard rules for Ascendancy that I was pondering back during that blog post in 2017. I think that post covered most of my thoughts, but there are really two parts to this:

  1. Additional vested powers that are gained at higher levels.
  2. The ability for characters (PCs or NPCs) to gain worshippers.

I’m still playing around with #2, but I’ve started instituting some specific benefits per #1. I’m generally starting these at Lvl 20, but I may bump that up to 25th lvl. Here are a few benefits that we’ve tried:

  1. Character is treated as +1 size.
  2. Stun reduction
  3. Magical resistance
  4. Disease & Poison resistance
  5. Essaence sensitivity
  6. Inherent spell ability (as appropriate)
  7. Self-healing
  8. Acute senses
  9. Heroic stat gain

Of course one obvious benefit is that this helps the disparity between casters and non-casters at higher levels. It also helps the “drudgery” of high level advancement where the marginal increase to skill ability is di minimis.

I don’t see this as a rule change for Rolemaster, instead I see this a natural progression of Terry’s implied rule setting in Shadow World. SW already “bent” the rules for multi-classing, clearly needs a benefit for ascension to local God hood, and in general SW is seen as a high-level setting. Ascendancy provides a new paradigm for high level adventuring, not unlike the 1983’s D&D Immortals supplement and can make high level Shadow World “post-level” in some aspects.

Would this differentiate Shadow World even more? Provide a different style and purpose of play at higher levels? What other game systems include rules for ascension?

Shadow World Earthwardens and their Works.

Most of the major works of the Earthwardens are dated throughout the Interregnum 50,000 to 70,000 in the past. The planet was still in turmoil from the Galactic Civil Wars so it’s expected that some of their work has been lost to the still changing planetary surface.

Xa’ar has some new material on the Earthwardens, but I thought I would explore the most significant endeavors built by the Earthwardens.

Coral Roads:

  • Ancient submarine “highways”
  • Above ground entries to the network are cleverly hidden in rocky coastlines or lonely atolls. follow island chains and undersea ridges, always in shallow water.
  • Inside, the roads are arched corridors made up of coral and shell; some areas are translucent to allow filtered sunlight to illuminate the tunnels by day.
  • Access via Earthwarden artifacts.

I hope that many GM’s have introduced the Coral Roads in their SW games/campaigns. Not only is it a great SW “element”, but it does allow the players to travel safely from one area to another and enforces the broader concept that Kulthea has many secrets.

Inspiration for a Coral Road

ENIGMATIC ANCIENT STRUCTURES:

The Earthwardens left many mysterious structures around Kulthea. Some have been repurposed or cities and towns have sprung up around them without the people even knowing the age or provenance of these buildings. Almost all are built with interlocking stones of Cavarite.

Essaence Towers. Often built at the nexus of an Essaence Foci, the towers can be seen as power conductors or antennae: they can focus and control nearby Flows. The use of these towers is beyond most today, but a few hold this secret knowledge…

Essaence Spheres. It’s believed that the Earthwardens built undergrounds complexes to store and protect powerful artifacts and knowledge.

Block Tombs. It’s not clear what their original purpose was, scholars believe they were actual tombs for Earthwardens (they don’t date back to the 1st era) or they could be an artifact of some unknown Interregnum civilization. Either way, the surviving ones have been co-opted by the the Z’taar Priests to be used as their Chapter Houses.

SEA TUNNELS:

It is believed that dozens of tunnels were created to facilitate travel, but only a few survived and some remain hidden or their entrances blocked by tectonic activity. The Tunnels are a marvel of ancient power–their flows reversing direction on a regular schedule and allowing for ship transit in both directions. The Tunnels resist damage and blockages. Three of them are:

Imarij Sea Tunnel in Agyra. The southern entrance is found at the base of Nontataku and is a major hub of commerce for Agyra.

Grotto Path in Emer. A critical path for trade, the Tunnel is now a dangerous transit due to the presence of Krylites.

Naichon Tunnel. East/West tunnel between Bokorean Kingdon and Ur Jujuy in Falias. Hidden and rarely used.

Guardians:

One of the final legacies of the Earthwardens was the creation of guardians placed throughout the hemisphere.  Five of these Golems were built, powerful enchanted warriors who could be utilized by those with access to ancient knowledge.

GuardianTypeLocation
Zarin DeyroainKregora GolemEarthwarden ruins in Red Dawn Pass, Falias
Arestiis LanedriLaen GolemIsle of the Turning in Mythenis
Elezyii Ankyra,.Diamond GolemEarthwarden ruins in NE Kelestia
Renia AthosTitanium GolemEarthwarden temple under Nontataku in Agyra
Yanie SteraiadEog GolemEarthwarden temple in Vog Mur

MEGALITHS, STANDING STONES AND CIRCLES:

These structures are found throughout Kulthea, mostly in wilderness areas. They are mysterious and avoided by locals, although they are meant as safe havens against dark forces; especially Demons. These structures can be single monoliths, dolmens are stone spirals but typically have similar powers. The stones will often glow whenever a Demon or servant of the Unlife is near…

These are just a few examples of the legacy of the Earthwardens but the possibilities are endless!

Should players have an entourage? Using followers in your Rolemaster game.

One of the features of early AD&D was the use of various types of “followers” that the PCs could obtain. Most are defined by the level of loyalty they have to the PC character; ranging from a mere hired helper to a devoted sidekick. These NPCs are often interchangeably termed as followers, hirelings, retainers and henchmen, and their use can have significant impact on gameplay. As a primer, I would suggest reading this post from the OSR perspective.

It is notable to me that early Rolemaster rules (Character Law or Campaign Law) didn’t address PC followers of any type: even the cost of hirelings is absent the early charts in Character Law and Campaign Law (did any of the Companions delve into this?)

Looking back on the 1st ED. DMG, you can find a number of pages that cover these types of NPCs:

Page 16. “Followers for Upper Level Player Characters”.

This section alludes to a powerful characters obtaining followers of one sort or another. The mechanism isn’t addressed, except for the reference to “reaching a certain level” or “building a stronghold”. So while there is no real rules around the “how”, there are certainly a lot of charts about the “what”! For instance, Clerics can obtain up to 200 men-at-arms, ranging from light infantry to heavy cavalry. Fighters will obtain a military commander/leader between 5th and 7th lvl and a company of soldiers. Rangers have one of the more interesting follower charts, and can get humans, demi-human classes, animals, mounts and special creatures including were-beasts, giants or even a copper Dragon! Thieves and Assassins will attract a dozen or so followers upon reaching “Guildmaster” status and of course the Paladin will receive a special warhorse. And that’s just the start to the topic of “followers” in the DMG!

Page 26. “Hirelings”.

This section delineates between normal Hirelings and Expert Hirelings. All are various NPCs that provide labor, low-skilled services or specialty or niche abilities but are differentiated from henchmen by being “employees”. There is extensive material on various hirelings: soldiers, mercenaries, sages, engineers and beyond; the section starts on page 26 and runs onto 3/4 of the way through page 34.

Page 34. “Henchmen”

Retainers, like Hirelings, are also employed and paid, but they function along a system of loyalty based on many modifiers. It’s also inferred that henchmen act as a secondary PC, and can be used in place of the main character.

Page 103. “Hiring NPCs to cast spells or use devices”.

Finally, later in the Guide is a section on cost of hiring specialists to cast specific spells . This should have been included under the “Hirelings” section; but as it’s been noted by many others, the original DMG is an organization wreck.

Returning to Rolemaster, there are certainly times when the group will need to hire specialists, spell-users to cast spells or pay for magical healing, but there is not real attention paid to building a posse or retinue of hirelings or loyal henchmen and retainers. Is this an important angle overlooked by Rolemaster? Do you use followers in your campaign? I’ve written about a similar situation on this blog regarding familiars–I think they are pain in the ass and a constant source of abuse by the players. But perhaps there are other reasons:

  1. RM character development allows a broader skill set among the party compared to the structured approach of D&D. There is less need to add specialists to fill ability gaps.
  2. Complexity. If every PC had a retainer, you would effectively double the party size and add a considerable work load onto the GM. Even if you allowed the player to develop the retainers personality, the GM would still need to control or direct the NPC to some degree.
  3. D&D’s foundation in wargaming was the impetus for followers and henchmen. Rolemaster doesn’t have that pedigree and thus ignored it. Alternatively, RM was influenced by LoTR and that setting had less of a medieval approach to social organization?

I’m not a lazy GM, but since I already run a human-centric (or at least an anthropomorphic) game, I’m already managing a number of NPCs. I don’t need too, or want too, keep any eye on the use of a handful of retainers or henchmen. (I can handle hirelings). But I am intrigued by the concept being built into the game system. Certainly Shadow World’s emphasis on organizations implies the need for guild like systems: mentors, trainees, followers, squires etc. It’s seems natural to have higher level characters access human resources of the organization in some form or another–whether it be a trainee or a devoted believer.

Certainly this issue might be setting specific, but it might be cool to add some follower tables for use in Rolemaster. What are your thoughts?

Summary of Miscellaneous Musings on Spell Law, BASiL and RM Magic.

53 Chaos' Magical Languages ideas | runes, book of shadows, ancient symbols

With RMu seemingly close to release, I’ve left my BASiL project on the back burner for quite some time. As I mentioned in previous posts, I’m focusing more on game content rather than rules or rule hacks. Rolemaster & Shadow World needs more game support, not more Companions or optional rules. Plus, I’ve found everyone is fairly set in their ways using their own house rules, are waiting for RMu, or I rapidly change my own house rules as I progress. In fact, my participation here on the Rolemasterblog has slowly shifted me to more “rule light” than my previous drift to rule density. I like grittiness but am pushing back on complexity.

Eladans participation here on the RMBlog and over at the Forums, has re-opened some of the broader discussions on spells, lists, base lists and spell functioning. I had some thoughts rolling around, so I thought I would excise them via a blog post! An older summary can be found HERE.

  1. Revisting Spell Law Mechanics.
  2. Essence. Mechanics. The skill bonus is the appropriate Magical Language Skill. You can read more thoughts on this HERE.
  3. Channeling. You can read some thoughts HERE, and I’ve written extensively on this blog about channeling.
  4. Mentalism. I probably tinker with Mentalism more than any other “realm”. Here are my last thoughts about this. There were some comments and concerns about the impact of concentration on gameplay. Lately, I’ve been allowing the total number of spell levels cast not to exceed the total ranks in Mental Focus. So 10 ranks of Mental Focus would allow the caster to have 10 1st level spells “running” or 2 5th lvl spells etc. It’s less complicated but still models the appeal of “partitioning” that comes from Mental Focus.
  5. Notational Magic. Eladan’s posts over on the Forums, made me revisit some of my thoughts on Notational magic. You can read my original post HERE.
  6. Investiture/Enchanting. I haven’t done a deep dive on my solutions for imbedding and creating magical items. Mostly because the spell lists are fairly simple, much of the sausage making takes place out of game time and I built a very simple system for making magic items in game time. Some thoughts can be found HERE.
  7. Rendered/Performance Magic. I haven’t written much about this at all. First I need to put a lot more time into this, it’s potentially the most complex and interesting realm and it could add a lot of new magical layers to the Spell Law system. The concept of magic as performance is not new or novel, but utilizing it in gameplay can be.

This is just a summary of a handful of relevant posts I’ve made over the last 5 years! My thoughts and views evolve, but I always enjoy other thinking “outside the box”!

The colors of magic in Shadow World.

Chaos Magic and The Pagan Year | The Blog of Baphomet

I can’t recall when visible colors we added to the Shadow World setting, each color or “tinged colors” assigned to the various realms, hybrid realms and aspected magic (evil spell lists). I think it was one of the Master Atlas editions but I would also guess it was included in one of the Rolemaster Companions as well? (If anyone knows feel free to comment.)

For reference, some of the language in the Master Atlas:

The Colors of Magic
Most common of the three realms, Essence colors are based
on the rainbow of light. The colors are more down-to-earth, as
would be expected for a power which comes from the earth itself.

Other colors:
Blue: The purest Magic, often associated with the Iylari. Its appearance would be more common than ‘good’ Channeling except in powerful magic items created by pure Alchemists.
Green: More suspect than golden Channeling, Green Essence implies a certain selfishness or impurity of spirit. Certainly not evil, but not necessarily to be trusted as a brother, either.
Red: Those who have fallen to the Shadow cast spells with a luminous red hue. Evil Magicians such as the Dyari wield the red light of dark magic with skill and ease.

So when I first encounted this concept I was intrigued and I rather liked it. But now I am of two minds:

  1. It’s cinematic. As a GM any flavor or dressing is helpful to the narrative, especially during combat which can turn quickly into rolling dice and rote damage recitation. I think one of the enduring appeals of RM critical tables are the actual critical descriptions–they too are cinematic in nature and were more interesting than D&D roll 1d8. The visual spell manifestation also works well with Terry’s writing: both the vignettes and in his fiction.
  2. It adds flavor to the Shadow World setting. While spell law gets accolades for the sheer number of spells, they are often considered “dry” both in names and in effects. Certainly different than the Vancian spell types established by Gygax. Adding spell colors gives additional depth to spellcasting and density to the concept of the Essaence.

but…

  1. It breaks Spell Law and render some spells obsolete. There are spell lists in all 3 realms that allow a caster to detect a spell’s realm, it’s type or even specifics. Having color codes for realms, alignment and even type eliminates the need for some analysis spells.
  2. There is a bit of “alignment language” imputed into colored magic. For instance: “Those who have fallen to the Shadow cast spells with a luminous red hue. Evil Magicians such as the Dyari wield the red light of dark magic with skill and ease.” Should the GM hide the red hue of an evil caster for narrative purposes? Spell trickery or mastery may allow a caster to “hide the hue”, but isn’t this just adding complexity where it isn’t needed?
  3. Meta gaming. Providing a visual reference allows imparts important spell information to the players–even non-caster PCs who may not “know” anything about magic even if the player does.
  4. It feels a bit simplistic and “young adult”. Good magic is “white” bad magic is red with black tinges, neutral magic is green etc.

What do you think? Do you use colors of magic? Something similar?

Rolemaster at Gen Con 2020

Gen Con went down last weekend as a purely virtual affair, and there was quite a lot of Rolemaster activity. I ran two sessions of RMU via Roll20 and there were several other official sessions (I believe of RM2) on Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds. There was also a lively Discord chat that included Nicholas Caldwell, Terry Amthor, our own Peter, and various other luminaries. So let’s get right into it.

First, the biggest news, which came through the chat:

–RMU is advancing through the editing process. Arms Law and Character Law are pretty much done, aside from some examples, and about to move to layout. Spell Law is being edited as we speak. Art is now being commissioned. The developers wanted to know whether customers would prefer black and white (cheaper printing), standard colour, or premium colour (the most votes seemed to be for colour). The timelines outlined suggested that the books could be published as early as the end of this year, but likely early next. A condensed version of the rules will likely appear before this. So we are really getting very close to the publication of RMU rules.

–Nicholas wants people to write adventures and modules for RMU. There was also talk of providing RMU stats for old modules such as the Shadow World line as well (which I think would be fabulous), so if anyone with a good knowledge of Shadow World and RMU is interested in that, I think you should contact ICE.

–One person asked about the possibility of a Spacemaster Unified in the future, and the response was that writers would be needed for that. I was kind of excited about the idea, and confess I was even tempted to take a stab at it. I wonder if anyone else (such as Peter?) might be interested as well, given the recent appearance of his Spacemaster-inspired game.

–ICE is working on establishing its own permanent Discord server. I think one silver lining to all of us having to play by internet is that it has shown the powers that be in ICE land the importance and potential of Discord and the Virtual Table Tops.

In addition to the chat, there were also several Rolemaster sessions. I ran two sessions of RMU and was quite happy with how they turned out. I got to meet some people I hitherto knew only via the Blog and the ICE forums (such as Siltoneous and Amano), as they played in my games.

One interesting fact was that of all the classes available to play, the Warrior Mage was the most often chosen: two players chose him first, and a third had him as their second choice. The class is still very popular! Also popular were the Paladin and the Lay Healer (so each party in my two sessions had a Warrior Mage, a Paladin, and a Lay Healer). The other characters played were Sorcerer, Fighter, and Mystic, though the guy who played the Mystic was a bit underwhelmed by its abilities. Other classes that players contemplated playing were Druid, Magent, Ranger, and Thief.

The players who had not had prior experience with RMU were generally impressed with the speed of RMU and the simplicity of things like spellcasting (no more need for BAR and RR charts!). One player who I think was an RM2 guy was also very happy with the way RMU allows semi spellcasters to cast spells while also attacking (remember that in RM2, casters have very few hit points and instantaneous spells use 75% activity). So that I think is a real selling point for RMU: casters no longer need three rounds to cast a shield spell, and semis can cast a lot more while fighting.

That’s all I can think of now, but I’d be happy to answer any questions anyone else has.

Combat in 3D environments.

3D Combat Risers - Deluxe Set - Clear Mithril
3D Combat Risers for Game Simulation

Back in 2016 I wrote this BLOG that I want to revisit a bit due to some recent work. I wanted to start a discussion on combat in 3D environments with a focus on 3 “terrains”: underwater, aerial. and zero g. While there are specific challenges to each of these, they all share 1 specific trait–the ability of characters to maneuver and fight in 3 dimensions. Before I delve into this, a small disclaimer. There is probably rules for each of these in one of the dozens of RM supplements. I don’t have any of them and I’ve read even fewer. I might be going over “old ground”, but for purposes of this blog, we can also discuss how this might work in RMU. I’m not aware of any rules in the new version for 3 dimensional interaction.

Rolemaster combat assumes combat will occur on a hard surface and attacks will come from front, flank and rear (and maybe overhead on occasion). When you add in a third level of coordinates AND the ability of a players to rotate, turn and pivot simultaneously then things can get more interesting. How should this be handled? There might need to be a separate set of rules for each situation, but conceptually they are similar enough that a shared mechanic might be possible.

Underwater. For anyone experienced with snorkeling and/or diving knows that it can take time to feel comfortable with varying degrees of orientation underwater. But with some skill it’s easier to swim upside down, inverted or rotate comfortable and maintain perspective. But non-native swimmers don’t move through liquid easily or quickly. The resistance of water, lack of fins or flippers and encumbrances of clothing and equipment make movement slow, fast weapon attacks extremely difficult and thrown weapons entirely useless. From a pure movement mechanic perspective, perhaps a simple approach is to set a underwater movement rate/rnd and then establish a % of activity from normal baseline. Other rules could be developed around increased damage from vacuum spells, decreased damage from heat/fire etc.

Zero G. In some respects, Zero gravity is the opposite of underwater: inertia, momentum and mass over enhance basic movements and there is no real force except hard objects or force to offset momentum. Not having real life experience in zero gravity it’s hard for me to intuitively model game mechanics. One idea I have is to leave movement rate the same, but require MM roles to maintain orientation, change or stop an action and orientation roles anytime a change occurs.

Aerial. It’s easy to think of aerial combat in terms of our own experience with lift and thrust. Assuming a magical flying mechanism does not require momentum to generate lift, than aerial combat is a combination of underwater and zero g. A bit of limitless rotation and orientation but with two resistance forces: gravity and inertia.

There are really two overarching issues to tackle: environment specific mechanics that effect movement, combat, spells, breathing etc and the resolution of player orientation, attack vector, environmental awareness and perceptual capacity. This last piece feels like it could be dealt with using a simple unifying mechanic.

In my own adventures, Priest-King has a significant amount of underwater adventures, Empire of the Black Dragon has both underwater and zero g and Legends of Shadow World has some zero gravity as well. I generally GM it with a loose hand and the players tend to find fixed “anchors” to launch from, provide protection from some directions and minimize disorientation.

Does anyone have any thoughts or innovations?

RMU: Pregenerated Characters of (Almost) Every Class

Bored at home? Looking for something to do? Check out these RMU characters I made by hand. You can find them in the Downloads>RMU dropdown menu above. They were done in Excel, on my own homemade character sheet. They include two of almost every class (at level 2 and at level 5).

I built these characters for several reasons. First, I wanted to have a stable of pregens for any playtestests I run, like the one I did at GenCon last year. I also wanted to include them in the introductory adventures I am writing. I find that one of the barriers to playing Rolemaster for new groups especially is the complexities of the character creation process, so having characters ready to go I think might entice more people to give the system a try. Another thing I wanted to do was to see which classes are viable in combat, and which might need help — and indeed this process was quite enlightening. Finally, I wanted to have a list of ‘Templates’, or a set of skills to buy for 60 DP (the allotment each character gets each level), as a guide to players for how to make a viable build. That too can be overwhelming for new players: not just making a character, but levelling her up.

I built characters of almost every class. I didn’t include the non-PC classes Laborer or Scholar, nor did I try my hand at a No Profession (though a heavy armor Mentalist semi would be a very good class indeed in RMU!). I also didn’t build a Dabbler, because I simply could not make a combat-viable one; I preferred instead to make my own (homebrewed) Warrior Mage, which is much more capable. I also didn’t make a Healer, since I think players already have lots of Healing options, most notably Cleric and Lay Healer.

A few things to note about my characters:

–‘RAW’ or ‘Kosher’ means characters built according to the RMU beta2 Rules As Written. Homebrew means I have included either my own new spell lists (for the Bard, Druid, and Ranger) or both my own new spell lists as well as my own new class (the Warrior Mage is one I made from scratch).

–I built these characters without using the Footwork skill or Knacks, since I don’t need or use either of those. I also didn’t much use the Grace skill, since the mechanics of it are still in flux, and I worry it is a bit overpowered. But I did use it for a few classes that I thought could make the most use of it.

–Some of the later costs for Combat Training skills are a bit of an estimate, since the released beta2 rules only include costs for the first four Combat Training skills.

–The full list of talents for each race involved a bit of guesswork, since the talents are changing as we speak (as Creature Law reduces the number of them). JDale was very helpful however in giving guidance on the talents for the new races I used (High Men, Hvasstonn, Idiyva, Nycamerith, and Sstoi), though, so those should be accurate,. Thanks very much to the always helpful JDale!

–These characters are built for combat. My players are classic Hack and Slashers, which means that in my group, any classes that can’t contribute in combat simply don’t get played. That’s why I needed to add new spells lists (many of which were reworked versions of old RM2 spell lists) for the Bard, Ranger, and Druid. Otherwise, these classes really did not offer much in terms of combat ability. If you play a more combat-light style, you would probably want to exchange some of the combat skills for more spells, and Lore, Crafting, and Social skills.

–I have built Clerics and Druids as both healers and as more battle-versions, so that’s why you’ll see multiple Clerics and Druids, with some focused more on healing and others fighting. I found that even the battle Cleric could still heal quite well though (the Druid wasn’t as effective at that, since he doesn’t get Lifekeeping/-Giving spells like the Cleric does).

–The characters are all Shadow World characters insofar as their languages and lore go, so as long as you are ok with some of the new RMU races being in Shadow World, these should be ready for Kulthea.

I have also added my templates for each class. You will find them in the Downloads>RMU>Templates for RMU Classes file. I also plan to blog soon on what I’ve learned about which classes in particular need help. But for now, enjoy!

Shadow World Spin Cycle: Umbar, Haven of the Corsairs

Image result for umbar haven of the corsairs

Welcome to another “Spin Cycle” blog post! If you aren’t familiar with my previous entries on re-purposing MERP products for Shadow World. You can find my take on the Court of Ardor HEREHERE and HERE. and the MERP adventure module “Thieves of Tharbad” 

Today we are going to be looking at Umbar: Haven of the Corsairs. Like The Court of Ardor, Umbar was one of the first MERP products put out by I.C.E. and like Court of Ardor fits very easily into Shadow World. Cover art is by Gail Mcintosh–I always like this art for representing my idea of Rolemaster combat: gritty, dangerous (they never have much armor on!) and this is cool because it’s on a boat that’s tilting!

So why is Umbar such a useful module and a good fit for Shadow World?

  1. Strip away the Middle Earth material and you have great adventure content. The city of Umbar with city maps, sewer maps, tavern maps, 6 city towers of various “Captains”, info on the Wizard Guild, smugglers, merchants, Thieves Guild, City Milita, healers, Armorers Guild, Dark Religion and ships and sailors. Plus there layouts for 6 small castle/keeps that are great drop in plans for any adventure. This is classic RPG material. The Middle Earth info is just window dressing.
  2. Where does this fit into Shadow World? Plasidar. There isn’t much material on Plasidar in the Jaiman source book but a few data points:

Piracy along the Melurian Straits is on the rise…..the lords of Plasidar, and the Xooba raiders all increase activities.

Generally considered a ‘wild land’ filled with thieves
and pirates
, Plasidar most likely is not quite as bad as it is
made out to be.

The Duke of Plasidar….is an Elven merchant-lord who
commands an impressive fleet.

Gûl is the capital city of Plasidar and certainly Umbar is a good stand in for the port city. Umbar has the 6 “Captains of the Havens” while Plasidar has it’s Sea Captain “Lords”. Umbar has Corsairs, Black Numenoreans and Haradrim raiders, (plus smugglers and merchants) while Plasidar has thieves, pirates, raiders and merchants. All in all, a pretty good fit! Given that the new updated Jaiman source book is complete and unlikely to be revised again, using Umbar fills in a fairly large chunk of southern Jaimain that’s close to other important areas: Lethys, Nomikos, and across the sea from Emer and Eidolon.

Since this isn’t meant to be a straight up product review, I’m going to skip down to page 11 where the content starts becoming usable for Shadow World.

Lords of Umbar

3.1. There are 6 Captains the rule the city, each has their own fleet, tower in the city and castle with liege lord outside the city. The names themselves are “Tolkien” style, but dropping the accents, and putting in apostrophes convert to “Shadow World” style. Each lord gets a paragraph with a good description to flesh them out as NPC’s. The Lords are in the 20-25th lvl range, so they make great higher level bosses. There are also stats and info on each lords Chief Captain; these NPC’s are 10-13th lvl.

4.0. City of Umbar. Like most ICE products, Umbar has great color maps with building color coded as well for Alchemists, Lay Healers, Mentalists, Magicians, Herbalists and other professions. Umbar is pre-MERP so all the RM classes are used in these early products. Another bonus for Shadow World use.

Sewer Map

There are layouts and information on two taverns, The Drunken Goose and The Red Sunset. These are perfect hang-outs, meeting places and starting points for a group of adventurers.

Middle Class Establishment…
….dive bar.

5.1. Describes the 6 city towers of each lord. There are floorplans and layout keys and are perfect for a thieving expedition.

8.0 Organizations. Several pages are dedicated to city organizations that the players could interact with or even belong to: The Wizards Guild, Smugglers, Merchants and Merchant Houses, Thieves Guild, City Guard, Healers and Healing Orders, Ships and Sailors, Armorers Guild and a Dark Cult. There are stats for key NPC’s of each, some building or lair layouts and certainly enough information to easily build adventures.

10. Castles of Umbar.

Umbar contains the layouts and keys for 6 keeps, each controlled by one of the lords. Nearby are farmlands and villages that support each keep and the city.

Finally there are the usual and useful summary charts for NPC’s, master military chart, herbs, key people, magic items and some supplementary adventure info.

Umbar is a fantastic “mid-size” campaign module that easily fills in the blanks of Plasidar. The format is easily understood by SW and ICE players, the art work is cool and the stats are straight Rolemaster. The additional info on ships is a great bonus for ocean adventuring, pirates and smuggling scenarios.

While Umbar is OOP, there are multiple online sources for usable PDFs. Check it out and enjoy!

Box of frogs

It is a rare day that I don’t know what I am going to blog about. Today is not exactly one of those days but one where there is so much I could write about that I am not sure where to start.

This could turn into one of Brian’s whiskey rants, but without the whiskey.

Value of Words

In the directors briefing Nicholas “Terry has now produced 26,000 words of new content for Haalkitaine”. When Terry releases these Shadow World books they sell as PDFs for $15.

Sean Van Damme, who you have probably never heard of but he is an independent writer for D&D 5e, Zweihander and other systems, has updated his Concordance series. This time adding 23,230 words of new content. The retail price? $2.99.

The problem is that I think $15 is exceptionally good value for money so ICE is not overcharging. The problem is that indie developers cannot sell equally good quality content at similar prices without some kind of big name behind them, which kind of defeats the entire definition of being an indie game developer.

Shadow World or Calidar?

Staying with Shadow World for a bit…

I don’t know much around Shadow World. I have played in the world but my GM asked me not to buy any Shadow World books because of the potential for spoilers.

So from a players perspective I remember sky ships, we visited a sort of bunker with modern day fluorescent tube lighting and I met a pretentious git with six fingers that our elven mage was fawning all over. I know about Essence storms, dragons, loremasters, that it takes place in the Space Master universe and you cannot sail around the world.

Converting from D&D or Pathfinder to Rolemaster is a dead easy task. Calidar is, in the author’s own words, ” Although written with role-playing games in mind, contents are non game-specific, therefore easily adaptable to most RPG systems. Guidelines are nonetheless provided in the book for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.” Each core book is only $9.95.

On Calidar the races arrived from the moons that orbit the planet, there are threats from space that overarch the petty threats that darken most people’s days. You can read more about it all here https://bruce-heard.blogspot.com/p/a-word-about-calidar.html

The maps look pretty and there is plenty of source material.

It seems to me that most of what makes Shadow World unique is all the crap going on behind the scenes that the players will probably never get to hear about.

How big a leap would it be to, for example, take The Grand Campaign and remap it to a system neutral setting?

If you are curious you can read a bit more here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/221899/Game-Mechanics-for-the-World-of-Calidar

Maybe there is something else that makes people really buy into Shadow World that I missed?