[whY] The Shards

1. All Shards revolve around some kind of central location, a place where immense power can be found.
2. Not all Shards are inhabited - conditions on some of them are quite lethal…
3. Shards that are left unprotected may vanish. Sometimes they reappear, twisted beyond recognition.
4. An artificial black hole is located in the center of all Shards. And all Shards are somehow connected to it.
5. Boundaries of some shards are clearly visible, while others seem to stretch infinitely.
6. Shards that are uninhabited by humans are sometimes home to some unspeakable monstrosities, much better adapted to particular fragments of reality.
7. From time to time, particular Shards seem to overlap. There was a clan who possessed a method of determining when and where it will occur. Or maybe it was just another myth.
8. Some shards are artificially lit, while others seem to be surrounded by dim glow. Night-day cycle is extremely rare.

The very first Ortix Podcast!

THE GUILTY FUCKER

Well, it happened. I recorded my very first podcast ever.

I was really nervous, the hum of the laptop can be perfectly heard (even though I recorded using the contraption presented above!) and my English is shitty. But I felt the urge to record it and I did it.

In this - the first ever - episode, I'm talking about the whY setting, its background, some basic features and the form. It's not very long, and most likely not very good as well! But I hope you'll enjoy it :)

Ortix Podcast S01E01 - Introduction and something about The Game Called... whY

[whY] doodle #1

I'm not good at drawing.
But I don't care.

Krshal Trilogy Bundle

If you want to grab the whole Krshal Trilogy (Towers, Tombs, Legends) in PDF format for reduced price, click the link below :)

The Krshal Bundle @ DTRPG

One rule to rule them all... Or not?

Do I need any rules? That's the question I ask myself everytime i run the game. And now, when my gaming group is no more, I ask it when it comes to write down the ideas for something new, be it Perilous Frontiers, whY or something else. I ask myself even if I know the answer.

Please note that I speak for myself and everything depends on multitude of different aspects.

I do NOT need any rules. In fact, I ran game sessions for years (and we had them on a daily basis, back in the late 90s) without a single dice roll. Character sheets were used to track PCs belongings - and nothing else.

Did it worked? Yes. But you must remember one extremely important thing.

YOU MUST NOT BE AN ASSHOLE.

When there are no dice and no stats, you - the GM - are the only arbiter of any actions. And I guarantee you that it will work out for almost any GM/DM in 99% cases - except combat. During combat, things may get ugly really quickly. And they will get ugly if you are an asshole. And - most likely - no one would participate in your diceless / rules-less games anymore.

This is how I determined the results of combat:

• PCs are stronger than ordinary mortals. They are not ubermenschen but they are significantly stronger, faster, more agile and/or more skilled.
• Description of the actions means everything. It was the most important factor.
• Wounds were the most difficult part of the game, as descriptive nature of all damage caused many problems, such as bleeding, broken bones etc. It was extremely gritty but we liked it.
• As we were gaming in the more or less Sword & Sorcery setting, PCs were healing pretty fast - although there were portions of the game that were fast-forwarded (or railroaded, heh), when all the player characters were so fucked up that players decided to let it go for two or three weeks to let them heal their wounds. Also, even though there were little spellcasters, healing potions and/or healing items were relatively common.

These things caused my players to be pretty skilled in descriptive combat and the overall survivability of their characters was really good, maybe except the fact that we were teenagers and peeps tended to slaughter each other on a daily basis, over slightest argument :D

Now - if I will be lucky enough to assemble a new group of players - I plan to go back to similar method of running games, except some addidtional features:

• Most likely, Diamond Diceless will be my weapon of choice, too keep track of the stats and abilities...
• ...but I will use the dice. Solely for the random content - I love random tables! I always add some randomness to the story / module, so I need the dice.
• I'm also considering to give players something in the shape of Fate Points from WFRP/40K RPGs, to allow them to cheat death - or, in some cases, my decisions.

Of course, I'm not sure if it will work - it all depends on the players. Some people prefer this kind of "storytelling", some prefer dice chucking. We will see (or not!).

Rats (half of the table from Tombs of Krshal)

This is the 50% of the table from Tombs of Krshal. Vicious, unsettling rumors about the Vermin. Chuck yer fucking deesix!

1. We must kill them all. They are in fact parts of the soul of the Great Flayer. When there are enough of them, he will be reborn.
2. There is an artifact, buried somewhere beneath the oldest ruins at the fringe of the Palatial District, which allows its user to look through the eyes of a rat. Of any rat.
3. There is a new breed of rats in Krshal. Slightly smaller, with darker fur and much longer tail. They say that they were designed by mages, to get rid of the monsters living in the city’s vast underworld.
4. The Thieves Guild is using rats as spies for years. They also use them to steal small objects but people are saying that they can steal almost anything.
5. Beware of the Silver Rat. It's a very powerful magical creature, a true god of rodents. They say that it can turn gold into mud - and vice versa.
6. There is a homeless girl, living in the Leper's District, able to communicate with rats. In fact, mages protect her, as they cooperate with her quite often.

Perilous Frontiers - some changes in the idea of the booklet

So, can you spot the difference? Probably not, as you must click the image to see it.

If you ever used any of my releases, you probably noticed that they are extremely raw in terms of form. Little or no artwork, dry descriptions, very informative tone. To be honest with you, I still suck at English and I don't feel comfortable with procuring any lengthy descriptions. Also - I just like it the way it is. No bullshit, 100% creative content. You don't need to pay extra for pages full of meaningless garbage.

Numero due - there are fuckloads of game systems, rulesets and so on. Even the percentile ones (if you're unaware - the whole "Perilous" family is NOT about yet another clone of the Original Game). Even though Perilous Ages was more or less "complete", I do not think it's a complete rulebook. I suck at rulebooks - moreover - and when I managed to assemble the whole BandB game, I was totally drained of the creative energy. For weeks. Even though the feeling of getting job done was absolutely amazing. That's why I dropped the idea of creating another complete rulebook.

What does it mean for you - the potential user of Perilous Frontiers? Most likely nothing. Or even it will make the book better, as sometimes I get tricked by myself and constrained by some (imaginative) barriers or requirements that new release must meet. And - obviously - more constraints mean less fun from the creative process. And I want to have fucking fun from writing new stuff. Having fun is the most important thing that should come from any hobby. Because it's a hobby, not a fucking day job. Even if I work on board games as my day job.

If you're not familiar with the Perilous Ages, which will be the basis for the Perilous Frontiers, you can grab it here. Also, I've set a 50% discount to make it easier to get the copy :)