I just finished “The Night Watch” series of books by Sergei Lukyanenko, a Russian urban fantasy that rocks socks (if you like urban magic action books that is).

They follow (mostly) the story of Anton, an “Other” or more specifically a Light Magician, as he works in the Night Watch. The Night Watch patrol the actions of Dark Others, Vampires, Werewolves, Dark Magicians, etc. (The Dark Others have their own watch called “The Day Watch”, hence the name of the second book). Sounds all black and white, but nicely isn’t. For a Light Other to do good, they have to let the Dark do something bad, for example the Night Watch give licenses to Vampires to hunt.

They also share several similar concepts with Lost Heroes, which is why I’m talking about them here. If I had read these a few years I’m pretty certain they would have been a big influence. But now instead I can point to them as being examples of what Lost Heroes is about.

In the world of Night Watch, there are humans and their are “Others”, those who are supernaturally different. And so too in Lost Heroes, though I haven’t differentiated between “Light” and “Dark” per say and the types of Others are different too.

There is also the “Twilight”, a realm that lies across mundane reality but only accessible to Others. In the movies (did I mention there are two movies based on the books?), this is translated from Russian as “the Gloom”. I like the word Gloom, it conjures up some great mental images of a sticky grim alternative world but Twilight makes more sense within the world of the books; a multi-layered spiritual planes of existence. In Lost Heroes there is the “Veil” and crossing the Veil you enter the Spirit World. In these books, there is a complex relationship between Others and this Twilight and similarly in Lost Heroes there is a power-play between Others and the Veil (which will affect how powers work too).

I’m amazed there isn’t a PnP RPG based on this world. It’s nearly crying out for it and I’d certainly pay for it. (I do believe there is a Computer Game RPG though).

Oh and by the way, there made two movies. I’ve seen the first one and thought it was good (but the book is infinitely better and more compelling). I haven’t seen the second one.

The internet does throw up some wonderful things:

• Are anagrams the key to the Voynich Manuscript? The Voynich Manuscript Decoded?
• A lost culture? Culture of Old Europe Is Uncloaked in an Exhibit at N.Y.U. – NYTimes.com
• Christmas wasn’t really a pagan feast originally you know: How December 25 Became Christmas
• The Ancient Greeks had incredible devices! Advanced Imaging Reveals a Computer 1,500 Years Ahead of Its Time
• Was there really a race more intelligent than us? What Happened to the Hominids Who May Have Been Smarter Than Us? (Note: a good friend pointed out to me that the evidence for this “smarter” race is pretty dodge and has long been discredited. Still the idea is quite cool)

A week into 2010, and I’ve finished the first draft of “Lost Heroes RPG: Book of the Gods”. I just wrote and wrote until I finished and that journey was 13,000+ words long! My. Hopefully parts of are actually decent.

There is a lot to do before I release it publically. I’d love to just put it online in it’s current form, warts and all, and let people tell me what’s wrong with it. This being a first draft however it’ll be unreadable. (Just read my blog for an example on how bad my grammar and readability can get!). It’ll be plagued with unnecessary “junk” words (“actually” is one of my particularly overused favourites), mixing up “their” and “there” (I drive my wife mad with this one), past and present tense and “effect” versus “affect”. And with such a big load of words to read through, everyone who read it would be just telling me what I already know, but not what I need to hear. At this stage I’d rather hear about if the ideas work, as a whole is it good, do the character concepts grab you, encouragement and so on, not the pedantic grammar and readability issues. (Though if there is anyone out there who wants to read it and willing to ignore the grammar and readability stuff, I’d be more than happy to share it).

I don’t have an editor and I don’t have the funds to hire one, I’m going to have do it myself. Even if I consider this version to be a “beta”, I still need it feeling professional when I share with people. So my plan is to do a read-through and fix up anything I find. Then put it aside for a week and start reading it again. I found this trick really useful, it’s like you’re reading someone else’s work (whose writing style is very familiar).

And once I get through that, I’ll read it backwards. Well when I say, read backwards, I mean read the chapters in reverse order. I know that during writing it, some concepts took shape later in those 13,000 and got a name, but apply across the board. This way I can make sure concepts and ideas are consistent throughout the setting.

*phew*

And then I get to lay it out. Again I don’t have an art director or a graphic layout guy on hand. So again, I’ll be attempting this myself. I’m going to keep it simple however. Rob Lang’s guide seems like a very good starting point for me. Plus I have some artistic ability.

So hold on to your britches, Book of the Gods may be out soon… ish.

Over at the rather cool "The Free RPG Blog", Rob Lang posted a new article called "How to turn your stock fantasy RPG into a unique delight".

The Lost Heroes setting is basically a fantasy setting and it does include elves, dwarfs, magic and has the potential for adventuring. So as a mental exercise I went through each of Rob’s points and see how it compares to the setting that I’m working on.

Write a Setting

This one is the easiest to answer. Seeing I’m concentrating on writing only the setting first, I can check the box straight away.

Avoid standard fantasy elements

Oh dear. I’m not sure I’m checking this one. Lost Heroes has dwarfs and elves. But hopefully I offset this by the fact that I also have giants, valkeries, amazons, satyrs, meanads, demons, angels and many more.

Also elves and dwarfs fell out of the rest of the setting, they are not a fundamental part of it. In fact I’ve twisted the concepts around a lot, as in you can have Sidhe (the celtic fae versions) and Light/Dark Elves (the elves of the Norse Freyr) and as for dwarves, they are based of the Norse mythic version, dark greedy master craftsman who live deep underground. This might annoy folks, but dwarves and elves are actually the same type of being: Dreamlings.

Go back to the folklore source

Big tick for this one, though I’m less interested in “folklore” but in “mythology”. Angels and Demons, Greek and Norse Gods, Celtic heroes and others form the basis of Lost Heroes’ setting.

Read other games

Fail for me. I’ve read many, but I’m pretty certain, I haven’t read enough. We’ll see if this brings down Lost Heroes RPG.

Invert a popular theme

What makes Lost Heroes different from other mythic-like settings? It’s set in the modern day, not an ancient or “golden age” like the few settings I have managed to read. I’ve done my best to try and keep the modern day as much as possible like the real world yet allowing a place for gods, heroes and magic to exist without breaking suspension of disbelief yet also maintaining internal consistency.

It also brings together four distinct mythologies too, not just focusing on one mythos. I think it works and hopefully others will think so too.

Optional Mechanic Crunch

This one isn’t applicable to Lost Heroes right now, seeing I’m only writing the setting. But I guess it will feature in the next part of Lost Heroes when I start putting together a system.

Borrow from outside the genre

Do I do this? I’m not sure. I think I have done so, but not overtly. The point of taking old gods and putting them in a modern context is a similar process to taking them “outside of the genre”, I think. For example Hephaestus and his love of technology or Hermes and his duty to a truly open market.

I’ve also always considered Lost Heroes setting to be a mashup of “mythic” and “modern day” too.

Take from the natural world

This one sounds more like advice than a general guideline to me. I haven’t really delved into nature as a source of inspiration. Legends and myths provide more than enough weirdness and freakiness for me.

Get feedback

I’m working on it!

Once I get the “book of gods” done, I’ll be able to get some real feedback.

Conclusion

I’d recon that is 5 out of 8. Pretty good right?

Krampus, the nastier version of Santa

I came across this today from wikipedia: Krampus.

According to wikipedia:

Krampus is a mythical creature who accompanies Saint Nicholas in various regions of the world during the Christmas season.

Krampus acts in conjunction with Saint Nicholas; the latter gives gifts to good children, while the Krampus gives warnings and punishments to the bad children…

Traditionally, young men dress up as the Krampus in the first two weeks of December, particularly in the evening of December 5, and roam the streets frightening children and women with rusty chains and bells…

A rather cool seasonal monster!

While St. Nick doesn’t actually feature in Lost Heroes RPG, he could easily exist as a Dreamling or even minor God-like being with his home being an icy Island on the Sea of Dreams. The Krampus would be his Nightmare equivalent.

This week we look at ‘The Chosen’. The Chosen are the main type of characters available for players in Lost Heroes.

The Chosen

The Chosen are humans (or animals) that have been chosen or touched by a God and divinely transformed.

There are five types of Chosen characters: “True Chosen”, “Bloodlines”, “Soulless”, “Fallen” and “Renegades”. Every type of Chosen has a “Patron”, which is normally a God or some other powerful supernatural entity or force. There are a number of groups of Patrons (called “Pantheons”) described within this setting but they are certainly not the only ones. Each Patron offers different types of advantages and disadvantages. A Patron may not be a conscious or intelligent entity, but a powerful mystical force such as the Dreamlands or the randomly forming stuff of the deepest Void. The relationship between the Patron and the Chosen depends on the type of Chosen however there is always a relationship. The Chosen can send mental messages as “Prayers” to their Patron. They can also sense what things or events are important to their Patron and can always sense when one of their Patron’s Avatar is in play.

• The Dark Gods: the Mad Ones of the Outer Darkness

• The Fair Folk: Fairies, Nightmares, Wardens and other Chosen of the Dreamlands

• Tuatha Dé Danann: People of the Goddess

• The Fomorii: Servants of the Deep Ones

• The Angelic Choirs: Children of Fire

• The Legions of Hell: Demons and Devils

• The Olympians, the Underworld and other Gods

• The Aesir: the Warrior Gods of Asgard

The Patrons of the Chosen are discussed in detail later.

All Chosen undergo a “Transformation” from their mundane Mortal selves to their new Chosen forms. This can also be referred to as the “Change” (the “Soul Rape” is a more derogatory description). The extent of the Transformation depends on the type of Chosen.

After the Transformation the Chosen suffer an emotional drain each day while under the Veil (i.e. in the mundane world). This is called Passion Bleed and it saps at their ability to use their divine powers and abilities. Also, as their divine powers increase over time, so does the Passion Bleed and can get to the point where a Chosen can no longer live permanently under the Veil. The Chosen also do not age normally after the Transformation. Age occurs as a matter of experience, the more they experience (and harder) the more they will age. They could live ten years without any ageing if there is no struggle or worry but could age decades in a matter of a few short years under constant harsh struggle. But Chosen can live much longer than Mortals. Rather than die from old age too, they fall into a deep sleep that they can barely be roused from. Sometimes such aged Chosen are carried from the mundane world into the Dreamlands where they slumber forever in peace. In the case of Bloodlines this slowed ageing only kicks in once they have reached the physical peak of their adulthood, around 25 to 28 years of age.

Chosen can have family like any human. There is a very small chance that the offspring of a Chosen will be a Bloodline, but most of the time the children are completely human. Most Chosen who do have children, do their best to raise the child in a mundane environment, but it is a near-impossible task. The Chosen by their nature cannot prevent the supernatural (such as their Patron) coming into their lives.

The True Chosen

You’ll have to wait till Book of the Gods is available to find out more…

The original Clash of the Titans movie had an impact on my imagination as a kid and is indirectly a source of inspiration for Lost Heroes RPG, so I’m quite excited to see how this remake!

Happy Halloween everyone! In the spirit of the creepy and dark, here is a new extract from what I’m currently working on. It is a description of the magical properties of the “Void”, the great darkness surround everything. Enjoy!

The third magical Element is the Void; the undefined darkness that lies at the root of everything. Yet it is also the destruction of everything. It is the shadow and the fear and the source of inspiration and all creation. The Void cannot be taken as Elemental Ability or Magic, instead it is broken into three sub-elements. The Near-Void which is the Void close to the Earth, can be used as a magical material using the path of Stygian Forging. Cosmic Forging is the Element of the Deep-Void, which is the true pure Void, existing beyond the Wall. It is the stuff of Dark Gods and universes but it is heavily restricted. True manipulation of the Deep-Void is beyond all known beings. The final sub-element, Chaos Evocation, is the relationship between physical existence and it’s origin Void. By playing with this relationship, things can be made to go out of phase, make things more real and even slip between the shadows.

There is a terrible dark-side or cost to using Void Magics. Casting very powerful effects, making mistakes, “brutal” uses (like blasting a person out of existence), intensive over-use and so on have a side-affect on the caster and sometimes the rest of the world. The caster can lose a piece of their mind, sometimes permanently, mutations may appear on their body, they become sick or a lesser version of the effect also affects the caster. This is because a caster gets very close to the Void when creating an effect and in a sense becomes like the Void and thusly it has an awful influence on the casters mental and physical self-identity. Alternatively it can create tears into the Void and all sorts of Darklings can climb in before the tear is naturally closed by the Veil and Dreamlands.

Stygian Forging is the manipulation of the Element of the Near Void. Just outside the physical world there is the great unending Void, but the Earth gives off an aura that tempers the raw Void close by. This is know as Near Void. Unprotected exposure to the Near Void is lethal, it either destroys the mind or warps the physical body. So casters using Stygian Forging learn to protect themselves against exposure. Near Void can not be creating out of nothing, instead it must be pulled into reality and as soon as it enters, it must be given a form. Near Void can be formed into any sort of material with nearly any combination of properties (though the more unrealistic the material, the harder it is to form) such as silk as strong as steal or a metal as light as wood. When Magic Practitioners refer to making something out of the light of the moon, the spittle of the stars, the shrieks of cats in heat and so on, they are talking about forging Near Void into a practical form. Unlike the stuff of Dreams, once forged the Veil accepts it as mundane material. However Near Void cannot have any of the fantastical properties of the stuff of dreams, except for one. Near Void material can be alive (but not sentient, at least not initially). When a caster forms Near Void into an actual mundane form, they can give it any sort of shape (though the more complex it is, the more difficulty). They can create instant machinery and also living things. These living things can have drives and impulses and feed off nearly anything, but no initial mind. The caster need not worry about the organic or mechanical details, reality takes care of that. Some casters take ordinary machinery and add a living component to it, such as a beating heart that feeds on gasoline that can power a customised car. Stygian Forging also brings with it a great risk of creating tears into the Void. Aborted or botches can be disastrous as leaked Near Void is poisonous to all things. Stygian Forging cannot be used to merge or transform. But existing materials can be modified, to a degree. Properties can be shifted, improved or weakened, but it requires a lot of Mana.

Darklings that get close to the physical world can be sensed by casters using Stygian Forging. They appear as “living knots” in the tapestry of the dark Void. Casters can summon them into reality, giving them a physical form to exist. Casters can try to summon something out of the Wall but the summoned Darkling must get to Earth under their own steam. Most Darklings are primitive critters, full of hunger and instinct and the caster who brings them into reality will have no control on them. More powerful Darklings may be bartered with and they will require more Mana to stabilise under the Veil. But once their here they are here. Like all supernatural beings, extreme forms will suffer Passion Bleed.

Chosen with a high Stygian Forging Ability can sense the Near Void nearby at all times and they find it easy to work with all materials as they are pliant in their hands. However Magic Practitioners and Chosen develop unhealthy interests in weird natural mutations, freakish psychological disorders and bizarre sexual desires. They are drawn to disturbing art, weird mixes of human and machines and so on. To most other people, such Chosen are disturbing.

Cosmic Forging is the path of the Deep Void which is the purest form of Void stuff known to existence and as such it is only available as a Magic, never as an Ability. In fact it can only be learned up to only a few basic levels. Deep Void is free of the constraints of reality such as time, physicality, causality, etc. Deep Void is the origin matter of universes and worlds. In theory Dark and Mad Gods can be summoned but the caster must have a huge amount of Mana and the right set of circumstances (dependant on the caster, what is being summon and the context of the time). Some manipulation of Deep Void is also possible but the Deep Void can not be brought into reality. To do so would rip the world apart. Some casters, who get lost to the Void, use Cosmic Forging for the Dark and Mad Gods to build/form Dark Moons beyond the Wall. Those who practice or spend a great deal of time learning Cosmic Forging will be insane and their bodies will have strange and foul mutations, such is the influence of the Deep Void.

Inbetweens shift between the shadows, part of this reality, part not. They do this through the use of Chaos Evocation, the manipulation of the relationship between physical existence and it’s original form: the dark undefined substance of the Void. Chaos Evocation can be used to sense space and physicality, and as such can allow the caster to see through walls or have a “3D” sense of their immediate locale. Casters can also make physical things go “out of phase” such as coins falling through a pocket or hands passing through bonds. Skilled casters can slip bigger objects, like themselves, through solid objects, but a cheaper method is Shadow-walking.

At higher levels, a caster can slip into the Void and emerge somewhere else. This is achieved by the caster becoming like the Void and then jumping through the Near Void, remaining close to Earth. As distance is simply an impression on infallible darkness, long distances can be made short, but this requires much Mana. More powerful casters can bring others through and even open temporary portals. Such portals can bridge different Shard Worlds, circumventing the need to travel though the Dreamlands (some Shard Worlds have even developed technology to do this). But a caster must know exactly where they are going. Mistakes during Shadow-walking can lead to all sorts of problems, from getting lost to the Void, to arriving on a different world.

The Void, or rather chaos, inherent in all things can be played with. Insanities and fears in people can be given strength temporarily or the mad can be calmed. Darklings, Dreamlings and other shape-chargers can be forced to take one form. It can also be used to strengthen forms against the wearing of the Veil for periods of time. If the caster can see Spirits, they can also give them physical form or break apart a Spirit’s temporary form. They can also make unbreakable bonds for specific creatures, even for the Gods. They can make areas magically blocked, preventing Spirits, Astral Projectors and Shadow-walkers from sneaking in or prevent magical viewing, such as from the Gods. They can even erect ’shields’ against the wearing winds of the Spirit World (without having to know anything about the Spirit World). This can make it useful to many Magic Practitioners.

A very powerful use is to obliterate something from existences. It’s brutal and violent and has consequences on the caster, but anything can be destroyed this way, even humans. It can be used to destroy someone’s mind, their entire memory or recent memories or shatter them from existence completely. Physical objects such as stone walls or even just parts of objects can be destroyed. But it has a blow-back on the caster.

A clever use of Chaos Evocation, is to shift machinery into a Void-like state and then using Stygian Forging, making the machine alive. This same trick can be used to attach machinery to living beings, though it requires also the Element of Life. This can be used to replace lost limbs with powerful magically enhanced ones and as long as they look like the real thing, the Veil doesn’t wear them down. Though those of the Others will sense the wrongness of the form.

Regular use of Chaos Evocation has a strange effect on the caster, they can become lost between reality and non-reality. If they are unlucky it becomes permanent. While lost, they are like Inbetweens, having to find some other, often unnatural, way to survive while stuck. Chosen with high Chaos Evocation find that they are always covered by shadows and shadows around them move of their own accord. Those of the Others will sense something wrong or disturbing in the presence of such Chosen.

I’ve been letting this blog languish for what feel like months while I’ve been busy writing “Book of the Gods”. So I’ve decided to post some extracts from the current work in progress, a way to wet appetites and to get over my own procrastination.

I’ll probably try to do this once a week if I can. So the first extract I’m going to post is from the “Other Worlds” chapter and specifically the intro to the “Dreamlands”.

The great Dreamlands, home of the Gods, the fantastical and the afterlife exists beyond the thin layer of the Spirit World. You know when you’re in the Dreamlands because everything appears or feels more real. The truth of everything is vividly more apparent and this leads to a sense of “hyper-realism”; colours are more startling, feelings are more passionate, sounds more stunning and so on. To humans, things take on personality because there are more true; flowers are more alluring and delicate, storms more violent and malignant, architecture belies more of the personality of the creator or designs of its architect, the way clothes hang on someone tell more about them then the choice of clothes and so on. The hidden meaning of things is less hidden and more explicit and it leads to an over-saturation of senses and meaning to humans. When people return from the Dreamlands, their memories and experiences there don’t seem real within the pressure of the Veil in the Mundane World, they take on a dream-like quality and many people forget them, just like night-time dreams.

Time moves differently in the Dreamlands, though it always marches forward, it can move slowly or quickly. A few seconds in the Dreamlands, several lifetimes may have passed on Earth and vice-versa, decades may go by in the Dreamlands, but the travellers discover they have lost only moments when they return. No-one can predict or control this, but certainly some Islands have more stable ratios of Dreamland time to Mundane time. It can make trips to the Dreamlands a risky busy, because the travellers do not know when they will return. The Sea of Dreams connects the various Islands in the Dreamlands. Most visualise and experience the Sea of Dreams as a great wide open ocean. Beneath the waves the fleeting dreams of sleeping humans can be seen and it’s possible to dive beneath the waves and seek out these temporary treasure houses. Sandmen harvest these dreams for trade and sale. Sometimes the dreams rise up out of the waters like great ancient sea monsters or whales before mutating and dissolving back into the sea. But the Sea of Dreams can manifest in a variety of ways, it can appear as a great wide forest, with mysterious and secretive animals/dreams hiding between the trees or a universe of doors hanging in space, great dream-animals floating through them or even the great tree Yggdrasill. It depends on the culturally conditioning of the travellers, but can be the strongest willed of the group of travellers or the most common expectation. By default, it manifests as the great open sea. Dreamlings and other travellers build fantastical crafts to move across the Sea of Dreams, from sky boats to giant cows.

The results of my effort for the The One Month Fudge Adventure Challenge that I mentioned in my last post, can now be downloaded from the fudgecommunity yahoo group.

I didn’t finish it sadly and there is quite a lot left to do before its playable, but the framework of the adventure is there. Comments and feedback welcome.

It’s going under the working title of “What is Lost” and it’s actually part one of a two-parter. It’s set in a pseudo-Celtic-historic period (a mix of Celtic romanticism, heroic age and historic elements i.e. you can make it up). Best to think of it as Celtic-fantasy. In contrast the second part adventure (with the working title of “What is Found”) will be set in the modern day. The purpose of the two part adventure was to give an introduction into some of the themes of Lost Heroes RPG. From the end of the second adventure, players and GM could start their own campaign.