This is post #4 of what began as a three part series inspired by the fictional work Ol’ Cob’s Webs, the Spell as well as Eruditio de Sodalitas des Occultus Aranea, the Mythos tome which describes the history of how the forbidden knowledge first came to man’s attention. – KO

Cob's Web Guardian in Cobweb Form

The casting of Ol’ Cob’s Webs summons these Cob’s Web Guardian creatures to lie in wait while they perform the task of guarding a specific item or location. Once triggered, a Guardian will transform and hold an individual fast until further commands are given by the summoner. If the command is to feed, the guardian will consume the creature they have grasped in a horrific fashion. If the command is to release, the guardian is also released from servitude and leaves the plane of existence. As summoned entities, these nightmarish creatures are tied to the caster; should the summoner die, the spell will be broken and the creatures will leave this plane of existence.

Cob's Web Guardian in Spidery Form

KORE version:

A continuation of the discussion of Luck Point usage in the KORE rpg, we now turn our attention to the Blaze of Glory action.

While Pushing your Luck is performed in response to, and to augment, spectacular success, Blaze of Glory actions are performed in response to, and to augment, spectacular but catastrophic failures or events. They are the role-play equivalent of martyring oneself for the cause.

Any character with Luck Points may declare a Blaze of Glory Action as the result of a catastrophic failure or in the event of imminent death, in doing so they must transfer all the Luck Points currently in their Luck Point Pool into the Glory Pool. These Luck Points now become Glory Points that must be either spent immediately, or lost forever.
The Player must declare that he is performing a Blaze of Glory action immediately before his turn is over and all results of the Blaze must be determined before play can continue.

Note that the Player, not the GM determines if a “Blaze of Glory” event occurs.

Once a player declares a Blaze of Glory Action, any other player may spend one additional Luck Point to add to the Glory Pool. However, only the Glory Blazing player may stipulate the result of the Glory Point expenditure. If points are left unspent in the Glory Pool, they are lost forever.

Essentially Glory Blazing is an extension and continuation of a simple Luck Point expenditure to keep a character alive. However, instead of stipulating that the character lives, the character still dies (unless additional Glory Points are expended to keep the character alive) but the player chooses instead to stipulate benefits of their Luck Point usage for another individual.

Note that even if the player stipulates that death is somehow averted, their character is removed from play until the completion of the story arc.

Example of a Blaze of Glory:
Already in the clutches of the mad leader of the cultist group, Odie’s girlfriend, the lovely Ms. Sera, knows that she has no hope for escape from the cellar. To make matters worse, Sera has just overheard the cultists discussing how they intend to leave soon and intercept her true love as he makes his way to some abandoned lighthouse. It seems the villains are on some timetable and are attempting to tie up all the loose ends before some appointed time. The cultists begin to perform a ritual, summoning something horrid from beyond the realms of reality… Sera immediately realizes that she is to be a sacrifice…

Sera’s player scans her character sheet one last time for some means of escape. Finding none, but realizing that she has a Luck Point at her disposal, she resolves herself of her action. Sera’s player declares that Sera’s not going out quietly, rather she’s going out in a Blaze of Glory.

Play stops as Sera’s Luck Point is immediately moved to the Glory Pool. Immediately 1 point is subtracted from the pool as a cost of beginning the Blaze and declaring the outcome of the event. Sera’s player must now declare a stipulation that must benefit another player. She declares that the summoning will, as a result of altering the fabric of reality, transform the bottles of wine stored in the cellar into a highly flammable liquid, which will subsequently explode, killing everyone in the house.

Killing the cultists benefits Odie who will not have to meet them during his investigations. – KO

Seeing an opportunity to perhaps save his character’s girlfriend, Odie’s player subtracts 1 Luck Point from his character sheet and adds it to the Glory Pool. With points now remaining in the pool, Sera’s player writes a note to the GM declaring that somehow Sera’s proximity to the burgeoning portal protected her from the explosion by transporting her to an alternate realm for a time. Sera is removed from play and the game resumes… only Sera’s player and the GM know that at some point in the future Sera will return…

A long while back (nearly a year now) I posted about Luck Points, their usage and how they came to be added to the KORE rpg. In that post I eluded to some optional uses for these points. And while I haven’t yet changed their name from Luck Points or Hero Points to Awesome Points in the alpha version of the KORE rules, I wanted to post about some of these options.

First up: Pushing your Luck

Upon rolling a Flash of Brilliance (FoB), any player with Luck Points in his Luck Pool can declare that for the next declared number of actions, they will “Push their Luck.”

After subtracting a Luck Point for declaring the action, Pushing your Luck automatically declares that the same action be performed for up to as many turns as the player has Luck Points remaining and wishes to Push his Luck, but also decreases the player’s Luck Point Pool by the declared turns. The player forgoes the immediate FoB check and instead declares that he is pushing his luck for a specified number of turns.

Note that the GM must agree that the action can be pushed.
Your GM is the final arbiter for ascertaining if “Pushing one?s Luck” is possible for an action.

The character must perform the action for the specified number of rounds or forfeit all benefits of the “Push” and loose the declared number of Luck Points. While the player need not roll any dice to determine success of the action, if at any time the action becomes impossible to perform, the push fails.

At the end of a successfully pushed action, the results are always spectacular and beneficial. While the nature of how spectacular is determined by how difficult and how long the player pushed his luck, the pushed action always results in an immediate improvement of the skill pushed and places a check beside the skill for end of game Trial and Error improvement possibilities.

Special cases/rules:

• Flash of Brilliance resulting from “Pushing your Luck”
  Successfully pushing an action always results in an immediate FoB improvement of the skill pushed.
• Trial and Error resulting from “Pushing your Luck”
  Successfully pushing an action always results in placing a check beside the skill pushed for end of game Trial and Error improvement possibilities.

Pushing one’s luck is always a gamble, and a decision not chanced lightly. However, it is also the best way to immediately improve a skill and net a cool result in the process.
Cautious players may decide to push only non-opposed checks in hopes of never fearing that the action will somehow become impossible. But as demonstrated in the following example, even what appears to be a non-opposed event can turn out to be opposed.

Example of “Pushing your Luck”
Odie has been spending days pouring over the dusty forgotten books and tomes in the Library Archives of the local University. Hot on the trail of some otherworldly creature, his previous research indicated that some secret is buried in the chaotic mass of parchment and papers – a secret that might lead to the current resting place of a monster.

Odie’s player declares that he will attempt an investigation roll to hopefully glean some forgotten bit of lore from the ancient manuscripts.

Odie’s current investigate score is 4, giving him a good chance of finding something so long as it isn’t too obscure. But the GM decides that the task is somewhat difficult with a modifier of 2 determining that Odie must roll a 1 or a 2 to succeed.

Odie rolls a d10 and gets a 1! A success and a Flash of Brilliance too! Seeing an opportunity to improve his skills as well as gain some valuable information, Odie immediately declares that since he has 2 Luck Points, he will spend 1 and “Push his Luck” for his next turn. The GM agrees that Odie may indeed “Push his Luck”. Odie immediately subtracts 1 Luck Point from his Pool, reducing it to 1.

Unbeknown to Odie, this round Mark-H is also temporally searching for clues to the location of the same monster, but his search is occurring temporally. Since both characters are searching the Library Archives at the same time, but only one can find the information hidden within, the GM declares that each player determine their Action Initiative score – the GM decides that Declaration Initiative isn’t necessary in this case since both players have already declared their actions prior to the conflict.

Odie rolls an 8 and adds this to his DEX for a result of 12. Mark-H rolls a 2 and adds this to his DEX for a result of 8. Odie will get to the information before it is whisked away to some future time-line.

However, had Odie failed to act before Mark-H, Odie would have lost all the benefits of “Pushing his Luck” since the action he had chosen (namely investigate) would have no longer been possible. He would have still had to expend the Luck Points, but no benefit would have been realized – including FoB, Trial and Error improvements.

Another turn goes by in which Odie performs the same investigative action and is automatically considered successful; requiring no roll. Odie’s remaining Luck Point is now subtracted from his Pool.

At the beginning of the next round, the GM declares that Odie uncovers a host of information including the diary of the last Lighthouse Keeper. Within the diary is a dried sprig of holly and a dried four leaf clover. Odie’s player increases his Investigate score by 1 to 5 and places a check by it for a possible Trial and Error improvement at the end of the story arc.

Thanks to a misread on the title of Risus Monkey’s Chronossar, which I honestly read as Chronosaur and thought, “Hmm there’s an idea. Time travelling dinosaurs… that’s got some merit.” I give you the Chronosaurus.

Cousin of the Kronosaurus which was the largest marine reptile that ever lived. The Chronosaurus belonged to the category of plesiosaur, which is a meat-eating reptile. Scientifically speaking, neither Kronosaurus nor Chronosaurus are considered dinosaurs, rather they are a type of plesiosaur belonging to the Dolichorhynchopidae family known to have lived in the early cretaceous period around 110 million years ago.

Chronosaurus or Kronosaurus? Only time will tell.

Unlike their more mundane relatives, the Chronosaur is a highly-evolved, terrifying creature with a bizarre mutation – the ability to warp time, jump timelines, and “swim” the temporal waves. Highly intelligent, Chronosaurs have perfected their ambush predatory attacks by slipping out of their prey’s time and only at the last moment reappearing in the timeline. Naturalists theorize that the Chronosaur has a temporal gland that allows them to travel the timestream that if harvested could provide limited time manipulation to an enterprising scientist. However, no Chronosaur has ever been captured to validate this claim.

Though long-lived, fortunately for other species, the Chronosaurus is a sterile creature that is apparently a genetic abnormality resulting from the mating of two normal Kronosaurs. Unfortunately for their prey, the lack of a mating instinct leaves the mind of the Chronosaur free to hone its skill in hunting and time manipulation. Very large (and therefore presumably aged) Chronosaurs have been observed rolling-back a failed attack for another attempt. Though this minor time alteration is extremely localized.

KORE stats for the Chronosaurus:

Inspired by David at Tower of the Archmage and his creepy yet interestingly compelling Fungus Spider and in the vein of the classic Owlbear, I give you the Fungant.

Fungant

Likely the creation of a mad wizard, the Fungant is part fungus, part insect. Current theories contend that the creature is a magical hybrid of the Fungus Spider and a Giant Ant. However, some scholars claim that, considering the population size of some colonies and the geographic diversity of the creature’s habitation, this cannot possibly be the case. These sages believe that the Fungant is the result of some natural interaction between a Fungus Spider and a Giant Ant – possibly one feeding on the other. While those who believe the magical experiment theory claim that the creatures likely reproduce by spore as a means of explaining the sizable numbers of the creatures.

Whatever their origin, the Fungant is a challenging and dangerous foe. Like common giant ants, they live in a colony. However, unlike their more mundane cousins, Fungants have a hive mind that is constantly aware of the actions and interactions of every member of the colony. Meet a single Fungant and you’re likely known to the entire colony immediately. How this is accomplished is, as of yet, unknown.

Constantly in need of food, Fungant colonies will ravenously denude an entire region of all flora and fauna. Any living thing in their territory is seen as a source of sustenance. To assist them in gathering living creatures to feed upon, the Fungant has the capability to exhale a small cloud of mildly-hallucinogenic spores. The effects of these spores acts as a mild mental numbing agent for a period of up to one hour. During this time the victim will feel sleepy and detached from reality.

KORE Stats for the Fungant:

Kalek stared into the fresh grave and sighed. The small, slime coated tunnels that radiated out into the fresh dirt were a clear give-away that he wasn’t dealing with a simple bone-snatcher; no undead ghoul would he face tonight, no fledgling necromancer would be his foe. The corroded flesh and gnaw-marks on the bones of the recently deceased villager were an indication that the situation had to be remedied immediately. The size and number of the warren runs from this new grave concerned him greatly; though he was mindful not to let his worry show to the onlookers. Tonight he would send for help. Though his faith could be a potent weapon against a simpler foe, this problem was beyond his skill. He needed a tracker with a strong arm… another glance and a quick count of the holes and he thought again, perhaps he should seek two or three… and a mage as well.

Bone Beetles are large underground-dwelling insects that feed on carrion. They tend to inhabit more temperate regions though some have been found in colder climes. The presence of Bone Beetles is usually discovered when the graves of a town or village begin to go empty. Often misidentified the work of undead or the like, a bone beetle infestation can quickly overtake a town in a short order. As their life-cycle takes them from grub to pupae to beetle, their dietary requirements change from flesh to bone (from which they partly garner their name.) They are somewhat solitary creatures, preferring to seek out a graveyard to feast upon, but they do not appear to be exclusively territorial – more than one bone beetle can inhabit a graveyard but each beetle will avoid feeding in the same grave as any other.

As grubs, the bone beetle worms use an acid in their saliva to break down flesh for consumption. This acid is quite strong when reacting with non-calcified organic matter such as flesh and most clothing, but nearly powerless against materials rich in calcite such as bones and the slime coating of the grub. This slime coating gives the grub extra protection against any grabbing actions as well as providing ample resistance to fire.

Bone Beetles pupate deep underground within a shell of solid calcite that is many inches thick. Alchemists conjecture that the shell is formed from the slime coating of the grub, but this is only a theory. Generally a beetle pupates for a season (winter, fall, etc.) before emerging as a beetle. The final mutation of the beetle completes when it consumes the calcite shell and begins the process of hardening its shell.

As adult beetles, they use their acid to strip the flesh from the body of their meal to access the bones. Powerful mandibles break and grind the bones into a powder that is then digested. As the calcium is pulled from the bone a beetle feeds upon, it is transferred into the carapace of the insect and emerges as large, cancerous, extremely hard growths on the creature’s shell. These growths, which give the beetle a horrific appearance, make the beetle nearly impossible to defeat with any slashing or piercing weapon and deflects the full force of most bludgeoning weapons as well, but also hinder the beetle’s reflexes and range of vision.

The lifespan of the Bone Beetle in the wild is currently unknown. However, so long as a supply of food is available, these creatures continue to grow throughout their lifetime. Rumors of massive beetles, while uncommon, are not unheard of. Bone Beetles reproduce by the female laying eggs in a corpse hoping a male will come along and fertilize the eggs without destroying them first. Anywhere between one and three dozen grubs will emerge after an incubation period of only a single week and begin to feed upon the flesh of their host. Most females will drive males away from a nest of grubs or a fertilized egg nest as they will oftentimes feed upon both to consume the calcite in the shells or the slime. In some cases females will do the same, but no other food sources will likely be present in such a situation.

Female Beetles are known to confront living creatures to protect their young and both larger males and females have been known to hunt living prey if not enough dead ones are available to sustain it.

KORE Stats for the Bone Beetle in its various life-cycle stages:

I still do not have a working title so the post titles will be ad hoc until I come up with something. For the confused, it is part of a futuristic/modern setting I’m developing for our semi-annual gaming event, dubbed Convergence.

Apparently, I am not alone in thinking about alternative futures but most are focused on variations of Cyberpunk. DataFortress 2020 was relaunched late last year focusing on R. Talsorian’s Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. Additionally, there is a new contest focused on the general genre. Additional discussion is available at 1km1kt.

My setting isn’t focused on cybernetics but will feature the Internet as a significant element of the modern world. I’ve been focusing on defining society within a pretty narrow geographic region within Colorado. Most of the state has been covered and I sent the notes off to Kevin, who has generously undertaken to depict my setting in his words for the state of Wyoming. I’ve not yet focused on Denver, which will be a likely focal point for my campaign. I’m holding off letting the rest of the setting take hold in my mind before transcribing my thoughts.

Several trends within the setting are becoming apparent. I didn’t specifically focus or dictate them but they keep rising up. If you consider the overall breakdown of societal expectations, the trends should be obvious but make for a completely playable setting.

The trends are microcosms, communities and regional. The previous influence of the national government is present but not universal. The ability to remain a stable portion of society is largely defined by the culture of communities and the natural resources available. Mixed economies that are inherently stable prior the break suffer less than those requiring complete importation for survival. They respond and adapt far better than insular communities supported only by a broad, national economy. Localized ability takes the forefront.

Regions with disparate cultural views fracture. Ones with a shared culture, viewpoint, and outlook remain more intact. Communal survival overshadows greed in many areas and dominates patriotism for a fallen nation. Localized focus is exactly what I was trying to achieve.

This experiment is also useful to pretty much any other setting. Why does this community exist where it is? Under stress, who are they and how will they respond? How do they respond to outsiders who might have the power to destabilize the local society? What natural resources are they leveraging, if any, to maximize the chances of the community surviving?

Kevin’s pointed out numerous things I need to consider but there are many more.

• Is local law enforcement present? Is the military an influence? How and what impact do they have?
• Crime is going to be present. Who responds and what are the penalties?
• On that same bent, organized crime is going to re-emerge. What influence do they have and now far can they bend the laws?
• Refugees from other areas are constantly arriving. How are they treated? If accepted, how they are accommodated?
• Bartering is back with a vengeance. What is necessary for import? What goods are now desirable for that community in particular?
• Are corporations taking indentured servants? Are the gangs who control most of the supplies? Is slavery back in fashion?
• Disease outbreaks will occur. Medical treatment will not be universal and masses will die. How do communities and corporations respond? How about the gangs?
• Technology is also going to be closely controlled. How do modern standards of watching what you do play out? Are corps able to retain control of their own infrastructure? Are they exposed? What is the new “hacker” community focused on?
• Medicine and medical capabilities will also be highly sought after assets. The ability to immunize everyone to prevent long forgotten diseases will degrade. Lack of general hygiene and clean water will shift hordes of refugees back into 3rd world situations.

Having more questions than answers makes the setting very appealing. Having it localized rather than global makes it playable and transferable. So many elements are open to interpretation. Players will have the ability to define many elements but not all.

Feel free to poke at any element you like or dislike. What would your local community become after a series of global disasters? How would you respond as the blows keep coming in?

We managed to finally set a date for the Spring Convergence. Trying to pick a single weekend that everyone can attend is getting progressively more difficult. Gaming takes a back seat to birthdays, family commitments, holidays, and careers. It is very difficult to find the narrow window everyone can manage.

I’ll admit to being frustrated on several occasions. Getting everyone together is worth the mental anguish. Even if it feels like you are herding cats during the process. All the planning had some pretty great results.

For the first time, we have a player flying in from across the country. He was a fixture in Kevin’s Top Secret campaign among many others a two decades past. He’s also the first of many players we’d like to invite and play with once again. Another will be back in the U.S. within a couple of weeks. Doubtful he’ll be involved but who knows.

Game wise, I’ll be taking the hot seat for the bulk of the weekend. My game will be based upon a completely new, original setting I wrote about unintelligbly a few days back. Kevin’s been poking at me to think deeper about the setting and I’ve enlisted him to aid in the development. I’ll also be using the KORE rule system. I could have chosen several that work because the campaign will be rules light . However, it presents the opportunity to really play test the system so Kevin can achieve his New Years Resolution. He’s also offered to aid in the development of the mechanics to support the game idea but I think overall we’ll be focusing on the setting. If the setting isn’t clear yet, it will be in the coming weeks.

The group will also be expanding our horizons by getting to play a Cthulu Session or two. To my knowledge, none of us are familiar with the rule system but we’ve been introduced several times to Kevin’s interest in horror settings. It should be fun. Unsurprisingly, it only took one sentence in a single email to get him to agree to run it.

We also have the potential for a CP2020 session from R. He claims to suck at GMing but has all the skills he needs. That might shift a bit based on my broken earth futuristic setting but I aim to put him in the hot seat for at least a few hours. He’s far better than he thinks he is.

It may be difficult to get old groups together but I am ecstatic about the group for spring. None of them have failed and they progressively get better as we understand what we want out of them.

Happy New Year all your gamers.
May this year find you well and happy.

My seven lucky resolutions for the 2010 year are simple:

1. Game Design Category, I resolve to finish Politics: The Board Game.
2. Game Design Category, I also resolve to finish The Mad Scientist card game.
3. RPG Design Category, I resolve to release the Beta version of the KORE rpg.
4. RPG Play Category, I resolve to make Convergence bigger and better.
5. General Category, I resolve to post more on this blog than I did last year.
6. General Category, I resolve to have fun in all my endeavors here and in my gaming life in general.
7. Family Category, most importantly, I resolve to spend more time with my family and continue to introduce my kids to the wonders of gaming.

Happy New Year everyone!