Welcome to the new Realmcrafting

Welcome to the new Realmcrafting. This blog is undergoing a bit of a rebranding. No longer devoted specifically to the creation of the City of Lives RPG, you will now find a variety of essays and updates related to my escapades in game design.

Let's set the stage: since I ceased updating, I've changed focuses. The City of Lives is still on the docket for a future project, but the game formerly known as Terra Incognita (see my series of posts starting here) has been my life since December 2012. The game, now known as Strange Voyages, will be published by Occult Moon in early 2013, with a Kickstarter coming next month to fund cover art and a few other things.

For now, Realmcrafting will update sporadically, with a few essays related to gaming and (gasp!) how it relates to real life, and then probably the site will focus on keeping folks up to date on the progress of Strange Voyages as it moves through editing, playtesting, layout, etc.

Welcome! I hope you stick around.

Terra Incognita -- lettercolumn

I have received two comments regarding the plot of Terra Incognita's first adventure, one e-mail from @anonymous and one Blogger comment from @Kelly (both of whom I know IRL, by the way -- I know there are some lurkers here. Comment! I'd love to hear from you!) The comments are as follows:

@anonymous says: "Of your two drafts of them getting to the island, I like the gypsy version better because it seems more plausible (I realize this is not terribly important in fantasy), and because I like that character. I don't get why the faerie would want to get revenge on Atlantis."

I find, oddly enough, that I agree. I removed the gypsy witch character from the character roster because a Fae princess was more interesting from a dramatic standpoint. The thing is, her presence radically shifts the entire nature of the story, and skews the game balance badly towards supernatural characters -- which, as noted, I am largely against. This leads into our comment from @Kelly: 

"I like the idea that the PCs are specifically being sent to this island to find the Eye of Polyphemus. It might not necessarily be that the Queen knows the Atlanteans are on their way--it could be that the Atlanteans and the Queen's advisers have the same sources, or the Atlanteans have been tipped off that the English are on their way. The nice thing about that is that it gives the PCs good reason to be exceptional, and maybe even (if you're willing to have these sorts of PCs) a bit supernatural. If this is just some random ship, it would really strain credibility if your PCs end up as, say, an expert in ancient languages, a priest with True Faith, a half-fae, and a gypsy hedge wizard. But if this is a mission to Polyphemus's island, that makes perfect sense."

He has several very good points: most notably, he points out that a diverse group of heroic experts like a PC party is much more believable as a group gathered together for an important mission than as a random ship's crew. So if we remove the Fae and reorient the crew as a group of specialists, I think we have some ideas on how to set things up: 

Let's say that Polyphemus has learned how to use his Eye, or possibly some ancient Cyclopean magic, and found a way to protect his island not only from the mundane world, but also from the Atlanteans themselves. However, once every hundred years, or when there is a particular astrological alignment, or whatever, the island is accessible. Both King Azaes of the Atlanteans and Queen Elizabeth's astrologer John Dee predict this event and send a group to Polyphemus's isle to fetch the Eye during the brief window they have. In this group, there will be soldiers, sailors, diplomats, explorers -- and even a few men and women who claim knowledge of the magical arts. That is to say, I've decided, based on my resounding 0 votes either way on my poll, to allow low-level magical characters into Terra Incognita: Only half of a True20 character's levels can be in the magical Adept class, and a FATE character can start with no more than 2 stunts' worth of supernatural abilities (maybe 3).

Excuse me, I have an edit. Since I wrote the previous paragraph yesterday, I have actually gotten a massive sample size of two (2) (II) (dos) votes! Both for... restricting magic entirely to the mythic realm. Hm. Now my life is complicated. I thought I had come to a decision, thought I knew what folks would want, based on my own hunches and past history. And apparently, my hunch was wrong, at least for these two people.

I shall have to ponder more, it appears. Perhaps we can use the same "John Dee sends them" premise, with either him deciphering an ancient forgotten text or getting a visitation from "angels" (he was all about angels), whether said angels are Fae, rogue Atlanteans, or... actual angels. Hell, it is a fantasy campaign where all the myths are real. Who's to say Enochian isn't really the language of angels? Just cut out the PC wizards.

Anyhoo, we're going to be all over the map with this project from now on (as if we weren't before). Next time, we'll start the actual writing of the adventure, examining the behind-the-scenes as we go, and going off on tangents as necessary. Allons-y!

Terra Incognita - Worldbuilding Part 3 (backgrounds)

The question of supernatural 'races' as player characters in Terra Incognita has been addressed, and the consensus of the voices in my head is that, barring an individual GM's proclivities, PCs should be restricted to ordinary humans. However, this doesn't mean that all characters will have the same origin -- rather, questions of nationality, religion, and social status will define the characters, in ways much more profound than they would in our modern multicultural society. In short, there will be Italians instead of Elves, Protestants instead of Dwarves, peasants instead of Half-Orcs (or whatever -- they certainly don't correspond properly that way).

A race traditionally gives PCs a few bonuses in a few specific areas, showing specialties of the species and culture they come from. First off, I'm not going to go into the ethically murky area of providing attribute adjustments according to culture -- physically and mentally, a human is a human. However, each culture can show certain proclivities and specializations in skills and abilities. So, how does one figure out what nation excels at without diving into rampant stereotypes? Well, I think I have an answer to that. Perhaps not the answer, but an answer.

I've looked into the history of the major European, Middle Eastern, and Asian nations active in Europe in the 16th century, and identified a few notable historical personages from each active in the 16th century and throughout the Renaissance. Modeling the nation's cultural baggage after these famous people gives at least some evidence behind my reasoning, and makes it clear that not everyone from these cultures follow the example of their "models." For example, Italy is famed for its intrigue and politics, as epitomized by Lucrezia Borgia and Niccolo Machiavelli, so Italian PCs will gain bonuses to those areas.

How to address these cultural 'races' depends on the system we're looking at. i've pretty much narrowed things down to True20 and Free FATE, so let's examine them in each system. True20 has a concept called 'backgrounds' -- a background can be a race (elf), a culture (Norseman), or an occupation ('military'). Each background gives a PC extra skill points in two specific skills, two feats (for non-d20 players, feats are small advantages that allow bending the rules), and two "favored feats" that are always available to the PC, no matter what their class. For this concept, I would allow a PC to identify with one of the following as their background : a nation, a religion, or a profession, with the other identifiers providing no bonuses. For example, an Italian character would gain two of the following three feats: "Connected," "Contacts," or "Well-Informed," gain bonuses to two of the three skills "Bluff," "Diplomacy" or "Gather Information," and have their "favored feats" as "Fascinate" and "Well-Informed." He could also be Catholic and an Explorer, but would gain no mechanical benefit from that.

In FATE, things are a little murkier. In base FATE, there is no provision for "races," except perhaps as an Aspect to be invoked -- "Elf of Lothlorien," "Survivor of Italian Politics." However, the rules for Bloodlines I have worked out for City of Lives -- essentially, that a PC gains an Aspect related to their Bloodline and a single free stunt (remember, stunts work like feats, minor ways to break the rules) associated with the Bloodline -- will work fine for Terra Incognita backgrounds as well. Essentially, this is the FATE way of doing the same thing True20 does.

One difficulty I face is that I like the idea of defining a character by religion. Religion was a very important part of a person's identity in 16th century Europe, with the difference between Catholics and Protestants causing wars (let alone Christianity vs. Islam), and I really like the idea of defining a character by their religious denomination and how that influences their world view. However, while I have no problem finding ways that a Catholic might gain an important Aspect ("Earn My Paradise Through Good Works") from their faith, I'm having more trouble coming up with feats, skills, and stunts to provide mechanical benefits that are thematically appropriate. What is a Catholic actually better at than a Confucian, and vice versa?

In any case, these backgrounds provide a further sense of differentiation and individuality to Terra Incognita PCs, without bringing supernatural beings into the mix. Join us next time as we answer a few letters/comments and make a few decisions about the first adventure's plot.

Terra Incognita - Worldbuilding Part 2 (Magic)

Magic is a thorny issue. Everyone has their own preferences on how it should work: Vancian or mana points, freeform or structured, low power or high. And people put a lot of thought and stock into the rules of their magic systems, to the point where certain systems, otherwise OGL (Legends of Anglerre comes to mind), still protect their magic under copyright. so where does Terra Incognita fall on these axes, and what is the best way to represent those abilities rules-wise?

Well, the first point of difficulty is the dichotomy of the setting. There are fundamentally two settingsin TI: the civilized, mundane world we learned about in history class, and the savage, lost world of high magic from mythology. In Europe, there should presumably be no functional magic whatsoever, thus restricting starting characters from throwing spells around. According to this model, PCs will not be ble to take any levels in spellcasting classes or gain magical stunts (d20 and FATE, respectively) until after the story begins and thy are able to find a supernatural teacher with the help of Polyphemus's Eye.

On the other hand, people of the time still did believe in at least a small, limited form of magic -- the kind of visions Nostradamus and John Dee had, witches' curses, and demon possession. So perhaps those things were real, and while nobody is going to be casting Fireball or Magic Missile in the middle of London, perhaps the subtler magics were real and simply hidden. In this model, PCs would be able to start out as magic-users, but perhaps with certain restrictions -- no flashy spells, PCs restricted to one or two spellcasting levels/powers before encountering Polyphemus, and absolutely no magic items.

In fact, it was this latter system I used in the first TI campaign -- the d20 Modern characters were all 4th level, which is the level they can start taking Advanced classes (including spellcasters), and we had one 'Mage' (gypsy hedge wizard), who hid his spells as natural occurences while still in civilization, and an Occultist, who had been studying the supernatural for years and was just now finding and deciphering ancient magical scrolls. Additionally, later on they discovered a European character (a player we invited in late) who was rules-wise an 'Acolyte' (Cleric, basically), but pitched the idea as a person who had mysterious abilities he ascribed to God, who kept them quiet in case the Church cast a disapproving eye.

So I did it that way before, but one reason I recast the occultist character as a pure scientist and replaced the gypsy witch with Fae in the TV pilot was to create a greater dichotomy between Europe and the magical world. So I question which way to go...

And then there's the question of magic in the mythical realm. How powerful is it, and how does it work? D&D-style wizards are rare (though not unknown -- see Solomon and Merlin) in mythology -- most non-gods have very specific powers (Cassandra's ability to tell the future, Siegfried's ability to talk to birds) or monstrous features (Medusa's stone gaze, a kitsune's shapeshifting), or relied on magical items, as discussed last post. Other forms of magic common in mythology involve complicated recipes, long rituals, or complex writing/rune structures, all interesting but ill-suited for most PC use (combat being the most obvious example). I think that for the most part, characters and monsters gaining "powers" makes more sense -- both from a mythological and playability standpoint -- than "spell lists." This means that I'm leaning much more towards True20 over d20 Modern, as True20 gives characters broad powers like "supernatural speed" and "wind shaping" over more specific and limited spells like "fireball" and "feather fall" (which d20 Modern, like D&D 3e, uses). On the opposite side, this model is more focused than the magic system in The Dresden Files RPG, and more like the stunt/gadget system of Spirit of the Century or the magic system of Legends of Anglerre. Since I really don't want to design a brand-new full magic system for what is supposed to be a side project (remember City of Lives? I am getting back to that at some point!), I suppose I'll adapt my City of Lives adaptation of Legends of Anglerre's system.

So. Some thoughts, some conclusions, and some... not. Next time, we'll look at cultures and backgrounds. See you then!

Terra Incognita - Worldbuilding Part 2 (Magic Items)

Welcome back to our (hopefully) short series on the worldbuilding and core assumptions behind Terra Incognita. We've looked a little at supernatural creatures ("races" in the terminology of D&D), and now we'll take a look at another component of D&D that is... let's say "different" -- in the world of Terra Incognita: magic items.

Magic items are a staple of D&D, and many other fantasy roleplaying systems (and especially computer RPGs/Diablo clones/MMOs). Who your character is often depends as much on the gear they're carrying around as their race, class, and background -- and that +5 Defender Longsword is likely to come into play a lot more often than the fact that you're an elf or that your father beat you as a child. This is something that I, as a player and especially as a GM, have never really liked. For one, I like giving my characters an iconic look and items that are important to them -- I don't want my hero to look like a patchwork quilt because my matching boots absolutely need to be replaced by "boots of the wind" that only come in the wrong color. One of my favorite D&D characters, an ex-paladin named Arvor, carried with him a +1 Bastard Sword that had a name: Jaeger ("hunter" in German, which in that game represented Dwarvish) -- and I was very worried that one day Arvor would have to replace Jaeger for purely mechanical reasons. As a GM, I hate figuring out what kind of magic items my players "need" to have in order to match the monsters' threat level (I also hate dealing with treasure and PCs buying new stuff, but that's a different story). In short, I don't much care for D&D-style magic items.

Interesting, D&D's style of magic items doesn't actually have much in the way of history. In myth and legend -- hell, in fantasy literature and film -- heroes almost never have some generic magical items, their artifacts are almost always unique and distinct (and often named). King Arthur's Excalibur, Perseus's helm of darkness, Thor's Mjolnir, Bilbo and Frodo's Sting, Captain America's shield, and while Harry Potter doesn't have an iconic magic item himself, he spends the whole last book looking for the "Deathly Hallows." These kind of distinct and unique items exist in D&D, known as "artifacts" -- the Hand of Vecna, the Wand of Orcus, but they are by far the exception and not the rule.

My solution in most games I run has been to minimize the importance and availability of magic items, keeping the PCs fairly mundane (unless they're spellcasters, of course). This will not work for Terra Incognita. There are two primary goals for the heroes, one given to them by Polyphemus, and the other, that sets them out on the initial quest, is to make alliances and gather items of power for the glory of the British Empire. So magical items have to play a fairly large role in TI.

However, the way they do so is likely to be very different from D&D. In TI, most of the magical artifacts are likely to serve primarily as MacGuffins, that is to say objects that drive the plot but are ultimately unimportant to the audience (in this case, the players). In the original TI campaign, the PCs collected such things as Nuada's Silver Arm, Clarent (the Sword in the Stone). and the Sefer Raziel (a book which contains all knowledge), none of which were much use to them except in that they presented them to the Queen. They also quested for Excalibur and Beowulf's armor, creating several adventures despite the fact that they never got either piece. In fact, many legendary items are far too powerful to allow in the hands of ordinary PCs, so a canny Terra Incognita GM will find ways of keeping them away from the PCs or require them to hand them over to a monarch or other NPC straightaway.

Of course, some of the majesty of the hidden magical world might be lost if the heroes don't get a chance to claim and keep a few items of power. Perhaps a powerful warrior might get his hands on Durendal, or a mage the Key of Solomon -- but only once they've truly earned that right. Additionally, there are some mythical materials that would make good opportunities for PCs to "upgrade" if the GM wants to go that way: Orichalcum, Adamant and such, or the PCs might go to legendary smiths like the Norse Sons of Ivaldi or Greece's Hephaestus to forge entirely new magical artifacts just for them.

Whew! Way too many citations for one post! See you next time as we discuss magic and spellcasting in the world of Terra Incognita.

Terra Incognita -- Worldbuilding Part 1

Sorry for the lateness. 'Nuff said.


Okay -- so, the systems. The votes and my own internet research put three systems near the top for my purposes: 1) FATE (Spirit of the Century version), 2) Some d20 system game (D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder voted for, True20 often mentioned online) 3) Savage Worlds. So -- as I'm trying to make this salable, I'm going to stick (for now) with the free systems, which cuts Savage Worlds out. And then d20 -- Pathfinder and D&D 3.5 are just simply too magic-heavy and medieval for my purposes, so I'm going to have to go another way. The question now is d20 Modern, which is perfect for low-magic and has very similar rules to D&D 3.5 but is less well-known (and apparently there is a lot of argument on various forums saying it's unbalanced -- I never noticed that, but I'm no rules lawyer) -- or True20. True20 is arguably more elegant and has an interesting magic and damage system that fits Terra Incognita's themes, but has no free System Reference Document, so while I can publish under its rules system for free, anyone who's not already running True20 would have to purchase the book (as opposed to d20 Modern, which has a free SRD online). Additionally, True20 is quite a bit different from D&D/Pathfinder, potentially causing confusion in the readers/players. And once again, I don't know which one is more popular.


And for the world:
Races/Creatures: This is a campaign where most, if not all, of the PCs should be mundane humans (at least at the beginning of the story). However, for GMs who decide to be contrary, and for PCs entering later (new players, players whose characters died), we may want rules for various supernatural creatures as PC races. And certainly, a few supernatural species are likely to dominate the campaign world, becoming recurring, if not ubiquitous, allies and villains.


The most important supernaturals are, of course, the Atlanteans. Corrupt, arrogant, imperialistic and paranoid, they are unlikely to be suitable as anything but villains. Then again, that's what they said about the Drow before Drizzt Do'Urden, right?


After the Atlanteans, the most powerful species are the Fae. These are not D&D elves here -- I'm taking inspiration from the oldest myths and recent interpretations (Discworld, Changeling: The Lost) that emphasize that the Fae are alien, incapable of understanding humans or their morality. They may often also feature as antagonists -- but they are also capable of being allies, as they don't like how powerful the Atlanteans have become.


Though not powerful politically, the Cyclopes/Kyklopes are nigh-ubiquitous since the Atlanteans enslaved them all. They act as the Atlanteans' grunt troops as well as physical laborers, and those small pockets who've managed to free themselves are likely to show great kindliness to the PCs (once they definitively prove they're not Atlantean).


I feel conflicted about Satyrs, Nymphs, and Centaurs. All are interesting creatures, and it would be intriguing to explore their cultures. However, I don't want to overload the world with all-Greek mythology, as the central conceit is that all myths are true.


A few other creatures worth mentioning, mostly as enemies (most of which I used in the original campaign run):
Grendel's Children: Yes, so what if Grendel and his mother died in Beowulf? What if Grendel had, as well as a mother, a widow? What if Grendelkind have litters? By the 16th century, there could be a small population in the hundreds or thousands, hiding in the depths of Denmark, continuing to quietly massacre villages.
Fir Bolg/Tuatha de Danann: Two sides of the same coin, the Fir Bolg are, according to legend, the original inhabitants of Ireland, a savage race and, according to my take, hideously deformed mutants. The Tuatha de Danann are the interlopers, godlike "perfect humans" who were later worshiped by the Irish. Who's the hero and who's the villain in this piece is up for debate.
Jotuns: The Ice Giants of Scandinavia, the Jotuns (YO-tuns) are the traditional foes of the Norse gods (especially Thor). Unlike the Cyclopes, they are often seen to be civilized and intelligent, if rather too focused on destroying the gods and bringing about the end of the world.
Tritons: Children of Sea God Poseidon (as the Cyclopes also are), Tritons are the archetypal mermen/maids, and rule under the ocean. They are likely to fight the PCs, but could also be reasoned and bartered with...

And a host of other creatures abound in mythology, ready to be plopped in with a minimum of fuss, including: the Ankou (British), Baba Yaga (Russian), Banshee (Irish), Black Dog (English), Catopeblas (Ethiopian), Cerberus (Greek), Charon (Greek), Chimera (Greek), Djinn (Arabic), Dryad (Greek), Ghoul (Arabic), Drude (Germanic), Fachen (Scottish/Irish), Gorgon (Greek), Harpy (Greek), Hobgoblin (English), Hydra (Greek), Ketos the sea monster (Greek), Kraken (Nordic), Leprechaun (Irish), Leviathan (Biblical), Homonculus (Alchemical thought), Manticore (Persian/Greek), Minotaur (Greek), The Nuckelavee (Scottish/Orkney), Red Cap (Scottish/English), Roc (Persian), Scorpion Men (Babylonian/Sumerian), Selkie (Irish), Siren (Greek), Svartalf (Norse), Talos the Automaton (Greek), Tengu (Japanese), Troll (Scandinavian), Umibozu (Japanese), Werepanther (African), and Will o' Wisp (English)

So you see, there are a lot of options. Next time, I'll examine the unusual role of magical artifacts in Terra Incognita

Terra Incognita - The Plot, Part 2

Okay, so where were we last week? Ah yes, I laid out the basic history of Polyphemus the Cyclops and his magical stone Eye, which can pierce illusions and translate languages. The PCs have stumbled across Polyphemus on his mysterious island, and are fighting him.

Here I use a narrative cheat, encouraged by some RPGs and GMs and hated by others: Polyphemus won't just die. When he reaches 0 Hit Points, uses up his Stress and Consequences -- whatever -- he surrenders instead of dying. At this point, of course, he loses his plot-induced immortality, and the players are free to either finish him off or, preferably, let him talk. This is the big plot exposition scene, where the players/PCs learn all of Polyphemus's history and how evil the Atlanteans are. Whether the PCs believe him is, of course, up to them -- my original group took him at his word, while my TV characters were less trusting of a giant who had just tried to kill them, and wanted to trade with the Atlanteans. If the PCs do kill Polyphemus, then I suppose there will be an alternate way for them to get the relevant information -- a room of ancient documents, perhaps, or maybe the Atlanteans will give their take on the story when they arrive...

Did I not mention the Atlanteans arriving? In the original run of this adventure, it ended just after the fight with Polyphemus, as he died of his wounds from the fight. Of course, he gave them his eye (tearing it out of his head) and coerced a promise from them to fight against Atlantean tyranny, before he finally succumbed. It was only much later that the PCs in the original campaign would encounter actual Atlanteans, much less the evil king who leads them. For the TV pilot, however, I wanted to establish the Atlanteans as a real threat right away. Hence, I had them happening to arrive on the island just after the heroes, also after Polyphemus's Eye... and yes, I realize it's a horrible, unbelievable coincidence, that I just never got around to fixing. I suppose I'll have to explain why the Atlanteans arrive just as the PCs do.

Perhaps the timeline is that the Atlanteans were always about to go see Polyphemus, finally taking back what's theirs (the eye, that is) on order of their new King, and the PCs are sent to intercept (either by the Fae NPC or John Dee, Queen Elizabeth's magical adviser, depending on which way I decide to go). This makes sense, and adds narrative thrust to the opening -- but I like the idea that the heroes just stumble across this hidden world while trying to go elsewhere. Actually, now that I think about it, I've done a terrible job deciding between these two ideas in every version of this story: it has always been that the heroes are sent by Queen Elizabeth to "find Atlantis and gain the treasures of hidden lands," and then have no idea how to go about their goal until they happen across Polyphemus's island. That's awkward. For the new version, I should decide between a definite quest by Elizabeth that directs them at the island (its location lifted from a piece of ancient magical literature, Fae information, or somesuch), or have the PCs on an entirely different mission -- a diplomatic mission to Greece or what have you -- before they stumble across the island and have this new world opened up to them. I'm not sure which I like better (hence the awkward balancing before), but I think I need to make a definite decision.

Anyway, the alternate reason for the Atlantean arrival could be that they detect the PCs' arrival and want to know who's messing around with their island. This makes sense, and would work well to be less coincidental -- but it does necessarily lose one piece I want to include: the arrival of the Atlantean King.

You see, according to Plato, Atlantis had ten kings, each of which controlled one-tenth of the island (except Atlas, who was the "high king" and had power over the others). I posit that as Atlantis's power grew, each of these kings added other mythical lands into their holdings, and each became a dynasty. By the time Terra Incognita takes place, King Azaes the 54th is one of the most powerful kings in a constantly contentious, backstabbing royal family. Azaes is the one who made the deal with Polyphemus, and is intended as the Big Bad for the series (or at least, the first one -- like Apophis of Stargate SG-1, he may eventually be eclipsed by a larger threat).

In the original campaign, the PCs never encountered Azaes until they met him at his palace in Atlantis and overthrew him. While the players had plenty of venom for Atlantis, they didn't much care about the central villain, having never met him or heard much about him. In contrast, I ensured the PCs in my current City of Lives campaign encountered the Big Bad in their second session -- and though they never actually spoke to her, just heard her behind a door, seeing her villainous behavior so early helped them care and really want to foil her evil schemes time and again. Hence, I'd like Azaes himself to visit Polyphemus's island and encounter the PCs.

Two potential problems:
-How to keep him alive? In the TV pilot, the heroes wounded him and he got one of his magicians to heal him while the heroes ran. I can't count on the players to run -- they're much less predictable than fictional characters -- so I'll need to make him invulnerable or able to escape somehow. Eh... either one is easy enough to fudge. He'll just have Damage Resistance 30 or something absurd like that, and if the players don't figure out they're not yet powerful enough to defeat him, they deserve to die.
-Can he come across as evil enough in this short encounter to earn the players' everlasting hatred? I suppose I'll have him heartlessly murder Polyphemus, a few of the PCs' crew, and maybe even some of his own men, let him monologue for a bit, etc. Workable.

In any case, Azaes finds the PCs and they fight -- either the PCs attack him, or he derides any attempt to be friendly by saying they have nothing he needs, and he sends his men to kill them. During the escape, Polyphemus hands off his Eye to the PCs, preferably in exchange for a promise to end Atlantis's tyranny, and the PCs escape. Cue credits, and the heroes sail off to their next adventure.

I've realized, by a discussion with one of my IRL friends, that before I run off and write the adventure, I'm going to have to write up some rules hacks and world-building to prepare people, because no system is perfectly designed to handle Terra Incognita. Join me next time to build some foundations!

Terra Incognita - The Plot, Part 1

Okay, welcome back, folks. I’ve laid out the basic premise of Terra Incognita and taken a look at possible systems to adapt it for. We've had one person vote in the poll so far (other people! Take a few seconds! A sample size of one is terrible!), and so I think now is the time to lay out the basics of what the first Terra Incognita adventure will look like.

It began like this: the premise involves investigating the mysteries of mythical lands. So, the question in my head was: why haven't these lands been found before? This tale is set in the 16th century, when most of the globe had been locked down on maps (the American continent notwithstanding), so it would be hard to justify simply "nobody found them before." So I concluded these lands must have been hidden, cloaked in illusions and something akin to the "Somebody Else's Problem field" to make everyone ignore the fact that they've just taken a roundabout route to avoid something that they're not even aware exists. So -- how can the PCs pierce the illusions? Some form of magic, of course -- but what kind? As this point, somehow I came up with the idea of "Polyphemus's Eye." 

Polyphemus, as you surely all recall from being forced to read The Odyssey in high school, was the Cyclops that Odysseus and his men encountered. According to the tale, Polyphemus ate several of Odysseus's men, Odysseus told him his name was "No Man," and then Odysseus and his men put out the Cyclops' single eye with a sharpened stake. They then escaped by tying themselves to sheep (really! look it up!), so that Polyphemus, dependent on touch, wouldn't realize they were leaving. As Odysseus sailed away, Polyphemus shouted to his brethren "No man has hurt me!" -- and they all said "Okay, so nobody hurt you. So?"

That is the tale of Polyphemus as told in The Odyssey. I wondered what happened next -- and came to the conclusion that he became wise and the chieftain of the Cyclopes, and then the Atlanteans came and gifted him with a magical stone eye to start off trade. And then, because my Atlanteans are pure evil, they stole his entire tribe for slave labor and left him alone for the next thousand years -- and then come the PCs.

Polyphemus's Eye has two properties -- it sees through illusions, and it translates languages, thus justifying the PCs' ability to find these lands and removing the language barrier much in the fashion of Star Trek's Universal Translator. This is kind of a narrative cheat, as it's a little hard to justify why the Atlanteans would give him something that did both of these things -- but the in-universe explanation is that otherwise he would be unable to trade with the Atlanteans, without being able to see them and speak to them. 

So -- the question is, how do the PCs get a hold of the Eye? This is the function of the first adventure -- to get them to the Island of the Cyclopes, have them encounter Polyphemus, and get his Eye. How exactly to manage this has varied in my several versions of the first adventure:

-In the first time I ran this campaign, I had the PCs' ship pursued by pirates, and gave the gypsy hedge wizard a single-use ritual spell called "Safe Harbor" designed to find a safe place to land, no matter what.

-In the first draft of the TV pilot script, I had my own gypsy hedge witch do essentially the same thing.

-In the second draft, I had a Faerie trickster (who was to replace the gypsy as the team's magic-user) divert the ship to the island, with her intention to use the human crew to get the Eye, as her Faerie blood made her allergic to the Eye's magic -- and then she would join the crew with the intention of using them to get revenge on Atlantis.

-I've been considering keeping the Faerie, either as a pregenerated PC or as an NPC, and having her actually come to Queen Elizabeth's court (probably in disguise) and propose the mission to search for Atlantis, guiding the PCs to find the island.

In any case, the PCs are to find the island, preferably in a shipwreck that will strand them there temporarily as the crew fixes the ship... and then the exploration begins. They will examine various parts of the island, discovering evidence of giants living there, and get attacked by gigantic versions of common animals. In the TV pilot, and in the original adventure, there was simply one short scene examining the Cyclopes' village, and another in which they are attacked by a giant boar -- but that adventure was designed to take a single evening to run, so as I'm planning to expand this version of the adventure, I'll have to come up with some more interesting island features for them to encounter.

Finally, the PCs find a temple to Poseidon (Greek god of the sea, and Polyphemus's father), and, bypassing a number of classic dungeoncrawl-style traps, find Polyphemus, who attacks them in a blind fury!

Join me next time as I lay out the plot to the second half of Terra Incognita's "pilot" adventure!

Terra Incognita - which system?

So, we've now looked a little at the mood and premise of Terra Incognita. Today, we'll look at it in terms of role-playing: what systems fit, what difficulties should we expect?

The mood we are trying to establish here is cinematic, swashbuckling, low fantasy. Like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Dresden Files, The X-Files, or Supernatural, Terra Incognita is about ordinary people discovering a world of magic hiding behind the normal world. This allows the characters to discover this new and bizarre world at the same rate as the players. Thus, most if not all Player Characters should be mundane humans, at least to start with: sailors, diplomats, scientists and soldiers. It is only after the campaign starts and they discover the supernatural world that they should start gaining magical items or abilities.

The campaign is set in the 16th century -- unlike the medieval or far future settings favored by most RPGs -- a time when firearms have rendered armor obsolete, and giant weapons with them. The favored weapons are the rapier and cutlass, the favored fighting styles emphasizing mobility over brute strength or endurance. It is a time when urban centers have just recently become the center of the world, where cosmopolitanism has just become practical and the concept of nations over city-states just taking hold. Magic and religion are losing their power to the burgeoning methodology of science.

First, unsurprisingly, is FATE. It's my favorite system, and it's under OGL (Open Gaming License), so I can publish stuff for it with no legal or financial problems. Then again -- which FATE? Spirit of the Century? It's free, and well-known, but it's got some problems that have been fixed by later system variants. The Dresden Files? Well, it's the latest work by the original FATE designers, Evil Hat, but a) it's actually not under OGL, because it's based on a licensed property, and Evil Hat hasn't worked out which parts should be OGL and which parts shouldn't, yet; and b) its ruleset is pretty married to its setting, which while also being low fantasy like Terra Incognita, is decidedly modern. Starblazer Adventures/Legends of Anglerre? Well, it's a fantasy system, so that's good -- but the magic rules are the one thing in the rulebook that's not OGL. Then there's the new kid on the block, Strands of Fate, which is elegant and versatile, but markedly different from the rest of the FATE variants and kind of hard to understand. Or I could use my own City of Lives variant -- but nobody but the handful of people who RP with me or read this blog are anywhere near familiar with it.

The problem with all the FATE variants is that I don't know which version most people are playing. I want TI to be accessible to the greatest number of people, but I'm not sure what system that means.

Originally, Terra Incognita was run with d20 Modern, a variant on the d20 system used for D&D 3rd Edition, with the d20 Past supplement. This worked remarkably well -- all characters in d20 Modern have to be at least 3rd level in basic classes before they can start gaining levels in classes with supernatural abilities. This allowed me to start off all the PCs as mundanes before exposure to Atlantis showed them the existence of magic, and they started gathering magic items and levels in 'Mage' and 'Acolyte' (basically, Wizard and Cleric). The problem is, d20 Modern was at best a modest hit, and hasn't been supported at all in five years or so -- so I don't know if anyone is still playing the darned thing. Besides that, there's not much of a problem -- the rules are flexible enough to easily accommodate the Elizabethan setting and inclusion of magic.

This brings us to D&D 3rd Edition, and its 3rd-party successor Pathfinder, both of which are OGL. I need to find out whether more people are playing Pathfinder or just running with their old D&D books, but for now we'll discuss these two systems as one, since they're so similar. Well -- D&D is designed for a faux-medieval, high fantasy setting. It is ridiculously difficult creating mundane heroes -- Barbarian, Fighter, Monk, Rogue, and Ranger are the only options, and the Monk is decidedly Eastern in style, Barbarians have little place in 16th century Europe (okay, maybe some African or Native American characters, if you want to characterize them as "barbarians"). And rogue excepted, they're all fighter variants. You can't create a balanced, let alone interesting, party out of just those classes, so players (and me, for pregenerated PCs I plan to include) will have to either a) feel ridiculously restricted, b) make half the party supernatural creatures, which kind of ruins the mood, or c) venture into obscure supplements to find character classes that kind of work.

Still, a workaround might be possible -- a simple restriction that human characters can only take non-spellcasting classes until after the first Terra Incognita adventure (which I envision taking place at 3rd or 4th level) -- and perhaps impose a limit on non-humans to one or two per party. Restrictive, but perhaps workable. After all, the world of Terra Incognita isn't actually low-magic, it's just that the PCs grew up in the non-magical portion of it.

Similar problems occur with D&D 4th Edition (which is not OGL, which causes problems). On the one hand, I like the idea of a "Captain" character, able to lead his sailors and give bonuses in combat -- and the Warlord class is perfect for that, much better than anything in D&D 3e or Pathfinder, but practically every other class is filled with magic, even more so than 3rd edition. And multiclassing is much more difficult in 4e, making my proposed 3e workaround... not work.

Then there are the systems I'm not familiar with. There's another d20 variant, True20, that folks say is much more flexible and capable of running low-magic campaigns -- but I know absolutely nothing about it, nor how many people play it. GURPS, of course, can run anything -- but I'm intimidated by the massive rulebook and have never even looked at it. A new generic system, Savage Worlds, is supposed to be flexible and easy, but I've never looked at it. Burning Wheel is perhaps a good bet, as the little I know about it indicates that it's character-focused in a way that would fit Terra Incognita well, but it's also reputed to be ridiculously complicated.

So -- what do you think? What systems should I translate Terra Incognita into? Is it worth learning a new system to transplant it to, or are the chances anyone would care too slim? Is it practical to adapt it to D&D, or is the high/low fantasy dichotomy too far? What games do you play, that you would want to see it in?

Sound off in the comments, and visit the homepage to vote in my poll!

Terra Incognita - An Introduction

As promised, we now enter a new and hopefully diverting chapter of this blog. There is a campaign I ran several years, ago, one that I adapted into a television pilot script during my stint at film school, that I still think is really cool and worth revisiting. The problem, the reason this blog wasn't about this campaign from the start, is that it's not a complex and dense world filled with mysteries and infinite possibilities -- it's an episodic concept, a series of adventures and explorations with a logical endpoint.

And then I had a thought, not too long ago -- why not publish it that way? As a series of adventures, capable of being run independently but designed to go together in sequence and have a metaplot. So I'm going to give it a shot -- you will watch as I attempt to flesh out the first adventure I ran in this arc into something someone could play without my input. What happens then, I'm not sure -- maybe it stays on this blog, maybe I publish it somewhere else online for free, maybe I try to do some desktop publishing and try to sell it for a couple bucks per pdf. We'll see.

So, to begin, let's introduce you a bit to the basic premise of Terra Incognita.

The year is 1575, in the reign of Elizabeth I. All of Europe is eager to find new lands, new sources of fame and wealth, and belief in myth and legend is still alive. TERRA INCOGNITA will tell the story of Her Majesty's Ship Veritas, Captain Terence Blake, and a crew gathered from the furthest reaches of known geography. Their travels take them to lands that no-one has ever recorded: islands made of living rock; the country of the mythical Amazons; the Cyclopes' caves; and even sailing down the river Styx.

The mood of Terra Incognita is one of high adventure and exploration, a fusion of classical mythology, swashbuckling action, and Star Trek on the high seas. However, along with the explorations come dangers, primarily in conflict with the tyrannical kings of Atlantis, who have ruled over many hidden mythological lands for millennia. The ship itself is not free from conflict, as religions, cultures, and sexes clash onboard at the rise of the modern age. 

Elizabeth I was a monarch of a nation hobbled by political infighting and the sad state of the Royal Treasury. In an age of exploration and expansion, she was able to do little to expand her Empire. And this is where Doctor John Dee and Lord Francis Walsingham enter. Dee was the Queen’s Astrologer and Mystical Advisor; Walsingham, her Spymaster. Together, they conceived of a hidden mission to explore the lands of myth and legend and claim them for the crown—a plan which, if successful, would bring England untold riches, and if a failure, never officially existed. Terra Incognita is about their venture.

Terra Incognita is a series about the truth. Even the name of Captain Blake’s ship, Veritas, is Latin for Truth. Its purpose is to uncover the secrets hidden by the Kings of Atlantis, who are, in essence, the ultimate liars. They are both reminiscent and diametrically opposite to our own parents—where Mom would tell stories about Santa Claus, cloaking ordinary things in the extraordinary, the Atlanteans do the exact opposite. They cloak the extraordinary in the mundane. Like The X-Files, Terra Incognita seeks to find the truth. However, in contrast, Terra Incognita will also deal with the dangers of the truth, the question of whether humanity would be harmed by knowledge of the supernatural creatures in their midst—and whether the supernatural can survive contact with humanity.

Terra Incognita is swashbuckling with a brain, fantasy with a grounding point in reality. Every adventure should keep a sense of fun for the players, a new amazing world to discover, but it is all deadly serious for the crew of the Veritas. This is not to say that there will be no humor, but the tone of Terra Incognita is closer to Battlestar Galactica than Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The visual style is lavish and fantastical, but grounded in the dirty, grime-filled reality that was the real 16^th century.

Next time, we'll explore in brief the premise of the first adventure and what kind of game system(s) this is appropriate for.