Letters From the Front

[quozl]

I just signed up for Gencon Online. No cost!

[Tornado]

Cool. Will be interested to know how that goes.

[Tornado]

Decided to start GMing again. Ran into some old character sheets I created for an idea I had for a game like 22 years ago before I started to create my own RPG.
So I am going to convert them to my system and let my group run them.

The whole thing is based off of Metallica songs. The leader that brings the group together is the Master of Puppets, a Priest of the Thing that Should not Be and his personal guard is a one armed Frey(Minotaur) Paladin known as Blitzkrieg.
There is a Thief, Fade to Black. Dark Healer, Leper Messiah. Ghost Dancer, Phantom Lord. And a female Assassin, Creeping Death.
Together they form Damage Incorporated.

Here is the history for the Thief.

Fade to Black

Life, it seems, will fade away
Drfiting further, every day
Getting lost within myself
Nothing matters, no one else

Those words, that song, rang so true, it was you. It was your salvation.
An orphan, your parents were victims of the White Plague that exploded in Climax and spread throughout the realm. You were born in the city of Blood Oak and the losses were heavy. Blood Oak was an up and coming town, with a growing infrastructure and commerce. This was mostly due to the unique Herbs that grew in the area and the industry arising around their cultivation.

Then the plague hit. You were taken in by the local Blue Bonnet Gang. Surprisingly it was these former dregs of humanity that helped the community that remained and taught them to be survivors. Eventually things began to recover but were never the same. Blood Oak became a village of drifters, a way point for adventurers.

You grew up on the streets and stole food just to stop the hunger pains. You never had a real name and was always called simply "Boy". As your skills grew, you were able to make a living for yourself and climb your way up through the ranks of the Gang. You even once met Gov'nuh Tommy from Climax. You boldly picked his pocket and palmed a black ring. Taking it to a local alchemist, you were informed that it was a Shadow Ring.

With this you were able to pull off bigger jobs and found yourself quite well off and were pondering what to do with your life. You had never left Blood Oak. You were contemplating your future at the local Left Nut and getting yourself and some friends quite loaded on dwarven ale while enjoying the music from a traveling Bard. One of your friends was a Wilder and tried to learn the tune, it went wild and he released some sort of magic EMP that shorted out all the magic devices in the tavern including the Bard's magic guitar. She was bitter and drew her blade. The owner was not pleased and ordered his bouncers to secure your friend who used his thief-ly skills to escape. You were held responsible and being too drunk to run, were facing a hefty bill for damages when suddenly the magic devices were functioning again, though the Bard did have to re-tune her guitar.

You bought rounds for the crowd until their spirits were no longer sour which was just before your coffers went dry. The next day was the worst hangover ever and you were once again broke but this was nothing the Shadow Ring could not handle. When you placed the ring upon your finger you became a shadow with no way to return. That was sixty years ago.

Your time since then has been rather bleak. You cannot seem to be able to go past the city limits but have thoroughly explored every nook and cranny in the town, except one. Some were only recently breached, such as the old alchemist's safe room. The magics protecting it were too strong to get get past until he died. When his Family came, you were lying in wait and were able to view the rather meager collection of artifacts. Of course it did you little good.

You spent your time exploring and listening. The daily gossip was all you really had and each new visitor was new stories. You had felt like you had explored the realm yourself at times but then you would be reminded that you were a prisoner of this city and this ring and you blamed the Wilder. It was learned that other items in the Left Nut that night were also a little glitch-y afterwards but they all started functioning normally within a few weeks as far as you know. You shadowed your friend for a long time and found sometimes in your rage you were able to affect the physical world in a minor way like knocking a plate off a table or causing glass to crack. You used this ability a final time to cause your former friend to trip down a long flight of stairs. You were never able to summon enough rage again though had come close in the presence of a Wilder.

Life as it was getting harder to accept and you were contemplating just curling up in a dark corner to await the madness. And so you did.

I have lost will to live
Simply nothing more to give
There is nothing more to me
Need the end to set me free

That music, it speaks to you.

Things not what they used to be
Missing one inside of me
Deathly loss, this can't be real
I cannot stand this hell I feel

You pull yourself up from despair and seek out this song. It takes you to the edge of town to Lonely Mound and the city cemetery. The door to a mausoleum, the one door you have never entered was cracked open, the music louder.

Emptiness is filling me
To the point of agony
Growing darkness, taking dawn
I was me but now he's gone

Inside an open crypt reveals a staircase descending into darkness. Below is a cave that leads to a bend. There stands a large one armed Frey, you swear he glances in your direction.

No one but me
Can save myself
But it's too late
Now I can't think
Think why, should I even try

Beyond the Frey lies a small cavern, lit by a single torch, kneels a robed man before a black stone. He stands and sings.

Yesterday seems as though
It never existed
Death Greets me warm
Now I will just say goodbye

And with that you take solid form for the first time in over half a century. You seem to have not aged but have a much darker, dusky complexion. You try to remove the Shadow Ring. You cannot.
The human introduces himself as Rex Reeves and welcomes you into his fold and names you John Black. You are eager to repay him for giving you new life and long to explore the world beyond Blood Oak.
You find that over time, you start to fade away again. You must return to Rex Reeves to be sung solid again.

Bye...

The Shadow Ring
Shadow Meld: Costs 1 Yen and an Other Action to activate. Essentially the same as the Assassin Other Action, Ghost.
Shadow Equipment: You can create normal equipment, clothes, weapons, etc. out of shadow and it takes solid form.
It costs 1 Yen to make a simple item like a mug or an arrow, 5 Yen to make a weapon or something more complex like a set of lock picks. 10 Yen will create a full set of clothes and 20 Yen will create a suit of Shadow Armor that looks like leather. These items are solid and real but if they are exposed to direct sunlight while not in your posesion, they will dissolve.
Shadow Form: Costs 1 Yen and an Other Action to activate and also costs 1 Yen and an Other Action to deactivate. While in Shadow Form, you are much like a ghost but cannot pass through solid objects. You can slip through gaps at least an inch wide or larger, this takes a full round to accomplish. All of your Shadow Equipment changes with you but all normal equipment is left behind. While in Shadow Form you can disapear into the shadows at will and only the most powerful magics have any hope of detecting you. While in Shadow Form, you cannot be harmed by anything but magic and cannot attack or interact in any way with the physical world. You are a shadow.
You try to avoid using Shadow Form as there is a lingering fear you will become stuck in that form again.

Insanities:
Phobia: Fireflys. This is rather severe, they terrify you. You know they want your soule.
Phobia: Flying Monsters. Like who isn't? Right?
Phobia: Drowning. Willpower check to cross water.
Kleptomaniac: Gems. Willpower check to resist. The more valuable the gem the harder to resist but you do not bother with the cheap stuff.
Wilder Hatred: This is not really strong enough to be considered an insanity but you really despise them.

[Pumpkin_King]

I'm working on a Savage Worlds game for my friends, and I'm running with a modern-day "secret government agency fights the supernatural" theme. I made up 8 "dossier leaks" for NPCs the players will encounter in the organization. I've put one below, the rest are found here - warning for swearing in the context of quoting someone else in one of the dossiers.

[Dad_Scaper]

Oh that is *so cool.* An RPG podcast I listen to (Glass Cannon) ran a few sessions of Delta Green, and I luuuuuved it. I would so love to find a play by post RPG that's outside of the fantasy stuff I've always played before. The Expanse, or Delta Green, or something like that. I just don't have time in my life to play (another) RPG over Google Hangouts or whatever.

[Tornado]

That is neat. I did something like that for a Bounty Hunter campaign.
It had last known address, hangouts, associates, etc. Then the group could choose how they wanted to hunt down their bounty.

[Pumpkin_King]

Yeah, I’ve always wanted to play something outside of fantasy too, especially something roughly modern. This setting is my favorite type, a “kitchen sink” approach where there’s multiple different varieties of supernatural going on. Look at the difference between ALICE and Barb. I wasn’t subtle about Barb, haha.

[Dad_Scaper]

The adventures of Del, the wild magic sorcerer, have been brought to a close. At least for now. Del started at level 3 - he was level 4, when this thread started - and we wrapped the campaign a few weeks ago, shortly after hitting level 10. In all my years, I'd never put so many hours and levels into a single character!

My brother, the sort-of-forever-DM, was itching to start a new campaign, so we rolled up new characters. Now, instead of a handsome rake of a half elf sorcerer (though he had matured into someone quite serious, by the end of the campaign), I am a curious, distracted, Encyclopedia Brown of a tiefling wizard. Euripides Xavier Parsonage, at your service.

We started in Daggerford, and the role playing in the party was the best it's ever been. We continuing players have gotten better at it (really, *they've* gotten better at it), and we added a new player who brings good RP energy. Demons are at the River Gate, and we're off!

[Tornado]

Huzzah to Del. Always fun to be able to play a PC through a campaign like that.

[Dad_Scaper]

Yup. And he was the only survivor, of the original 4.

[Tornado]

Icing on the cake.

[Tornado]

GM'd last night for the first time in awhile.

Was fun. The group was running characters I created over 20 years ago and the dungeon crawl was even older.

They are a hodge podge group with an Assassin, Thief, Dark Healer and a Ghost Dancer so it was interesting watching them figure out how to work as a group.

They got hold of these spheres that absorbed spell magic then armed themselves becoming grenades. They blew up the basilisk in one room a Giant archer and his Neanderthal buddies with them along with a Crossbowman and a Kraken so they were productive and destructive.

They got lucky with the Basilisk as they really stood no chance against it and accidentally armed the first grenade a moment before they would have been ripped to shreds.