Uncle...

Found a new way to take pictures with my phone that is easier than before... Shame they look like crap... The sweater is dark green, the tie is gold, and the shirt is blue in reality.

Yeah, the hits just keep on coming this year. Had a good friend pass a couple of weeks ago. The funeral and memorial services have all passed, and everyone is getting on with their lives. Me? I haven't grieved yet. I expect it to come at the most inopportune time. That's the way the year has gone.

Game-wise, things are decent. Most of my recent issues stem from the morass of depression that I cannot seem to get myself out of...

Side note... I've seen Guardians of the Galaxy seven times now... I have a problem... Also, if you haven't seen it, do so... NOW!

Back to games... Tai'eres is in a good place story-wise, though I am about ready to "publish" another revision. I need to figure out where that will fall, as I don't like to change rules on players too much in mid-campaign, and this is looking like a significant update/change.

The Champions game has gone through yet another reboot. This time around, I've given it more structure from my end. There is still one more character to introduce (his player has been out of town on business for a bit), but things are looking better than they were. I am also looking at taking my villain write-ups and collecting them up in a "Enemies"-style sourcebook. That would take me a lot of work on my end, as many of the backgrounds are lost to old file formats and the physical copies were most likely tossed in one of our many moves over the years. I started on this a bit, and created a nice "government file" format that looks good on the screen. Unfortunately, it looks like crap printed out, so I may just chuck the whole government aesthetic of what I am doing and put it together in something that is basic, readable, and appealing. The basic idea is to do booklets that cover a villain team of four to seven bad guys, and perhaps compilations of solo villains with five to ten in each. This is still in the working stages...

Tootles for now...

-- GopherDave

Successful Re-Entry...

Hey, all...

This past (or is it passed, that one always throws me) Thursday, I fired up my world of Tai'eres for the third time. Out of six players, we had four at the table due to one having a medical emergency and the other not being back in the state yet.

Of the players, only my son has ever played in the system before. I don't know if he is trying to butter up the old man or not, but my spawn claims that Tai'eres is his favorite setting and game system that he has ever played. When we were done Thursday night, I might have had two more people joining him in that chant.

Our adventures start in the village/encampment of Sword's Chance. The characters either don't know each other, or know each other in a cursory fashion. To keep things simple, I started the group out with a simple "guard the caravan" mission. It's a very small caravan (one wagon), but the pay is good, and the merchant they are working for seems friendly and amenable.

On the "trail", the point man pretty much stumbles over a pile of sticks obscured by the long grass. This alone has the group paranoid, so they spread out, trying to figure out what the hell a pile of old, dried sticks and twigs are doing just lying in the grass. That is when the lurking giant trap-door spider attacks. During the surprise round, the arachnid envenoms one of the player characters and takes him totally out of the fight in one hit. That is when the players other than my son realized they were not in Kansas/D&D-land anymore. The group manages to fight off and kill the spider, plus keep their fellow caravan guard alive long enough for him to recover on his own some four hours later.

The group manages to make it to the village of Xinq'ua. In the village, Lor'kath (the merchant) sells a few of his wares and pays the group for the day. While in the village, the party here's the flapping of large, bat-like wings during the night. As a group, they surmise that is a pack of Qu'oll (think Stirges from D&D) that is out on the hunt. The Qu'oll are kept away from the village with the smoke and light coming from the communal fire lit in the village center.

In the morning, the group heads out for the next stop, which is the village of Gor'ath. The span from Xinq'ua to Gor'ath is a bit longer than their initial venture from Sword's Chance to Xinq'ua, so it will take them just over a day and a half finish this leg of the journey. During the first day's travels, the group runs in to a collection of what turns out to either be the world's worst bandits or the world's best sword fodder. Either way, in short order four out of the five bandits, including their leader, are very, VERY dead. One poor guy did run away and managed to escape the wrath of the group.

The session ended with the group camping for the night with just over a half a day's worth of distance to Gor'ath.

Overall, I felt the session went pretty well. I don't really have a story plan yet on where I want to take these guys, but I figure the first few runs are really more for getting them up to speed in the system and for me to get an idea of what they want to accomplish as a group and as individuals.

Now, I have a Shadowrun 5th edition character to make for myself...

-- GopherDave

Revisiting And Re-imagining An Old Friend...

Later on today, I will dip my proverbial toes into a world that has been haunting my psyche through seven years and at least two campaigns.

As much as I claim to hate role-playing in a fantasy setting, my self-made world of Tai'eres clings to me like a ghost I cannot exorcise. Granted, Tai'eres owes *FAR* more to R.E. Howard than it does to J.R.R. Tolkien, but it is still fantasy, a genre I have played to death.

I honestly cannot explain why I keep coming back to this world. It's never been more than half-baked in any of its incarnations, and its main purpose has always been more of a vehicle for my latest set of game mechanics. This all said, chunks of Tai'eres live in my brain, nestled in nooks and crannies with bits of it springing forth whenever it damn well wants to. Tonight, mostly out of force, a one-page starting gazetteer sprung forth for my players. I figured I'd post it here for posterity...

--------------------

Bahn'Mer (Ruins) – The former city of Bahn’Mer makes its home along the coast of the Meraba Sea, east of the Wretched Fens. Bahn’Mer, at its height, was a larger city than Mer’Kahl, boasting as many as 18,000 citizens. The city was home to the Meragan Navy, and was of particular importance to the As’kali during their time here.

Bal'Khal (Ruins) – Situated on the northern banks of Liquid Death, Bal’Kahl is the ruined capitol of the province of Balos. Once, this city was home to over twelve thousand people. Now, like any of the cities affected by the Rain of Shards, danger surrounds and encompasses the area.

Cra'naa (Village) – Population: 150

Gor'ath (Village) – Population: 95

Liquid Death – Formerly known as Kal’vashn Lake, Liquid Death is a body of water that is home to many fowl, As’kali-tainted creatures due to its proximity to the shardfall that destroyed the Balosian capital of Bal’kahl. It is fed fresh water from the Taint Spur.

Lor'Drax (Town/Fort) – A military encampment along the coast of the Meraba Sea, approximately 40 miles northwest of the Wretched Fens. Lor’Drax is ruled by Drax Relk’aat, a beast of a man with aggressive designs of uniting the area under his iron-shod fist. The number of warriors under his command is said to number almost six hundred, with more being conscripted daily.

            Lor’Drax, the town, has a population of just over two thousand people, and it has a vital and thriving market. The greatest drawback to living in Lor’Drax is in dealing with Drax himself. The laws, such as they are, and the enforcement thereof, varies greatly with the mood of the soldiers one deals with and the amount of silver in one’s pocket.

Mer'Kahl (Ruins) – On the eastern bank of the Spikefin Flow, near where the Taint Spur breaks, lays the ruins of Mer’Kahl, Meraga’s former capital. The shardfall here devastated the city, and changed those who still lived into denizens most dangerous. Rumor has it that the Royal Treasury of Meraga still lies untouched beneath the ruins of the emperor’s palace. Rumor also has it that it is still being guarded by the royal family.

Pi'Kraati Forest – An area of woods about eight miles north of Sword’s Chance, the Pi’Kraati is the region’s main source of lumber. The flora and fauna within the Pi’Kraati is relatively untouched by shard-taint, though areas near the stretch of the Spikefin Flow that travels through are beginning to show signs of being inhabited by creatures that are less than natural.

Relk (Village) – Population: 120

Shatterers, the (Faction/Sect) – The Shatterers are a group of individuals who share an unflattering view of magic and shardcasting. How their agents operate in an area depends on the views of whoever is in charge there. Their best agents are highly-skilled and dangerous foes, each of whom have several shardcaster kills to their name and credit.

  

Spikefin Flow – The Spikefin Flow is a river, and an original natural border between the former provinces of Balos and Meraga. The Flow starts at Pol’kra Lake, and travels south to the Meraba Sea.

Sword's Chance (Town/Fort) – More fort than settlement, Sword’s Chance is really just the largest gathering of people in the fairly immediate vicinity. With the garrison of warriors, the population of Sword’s Chance is just shy of 1200 people, most of whom are artisans and merchants, with a smattering of farmers thrown in.

The town is governed by Melek De’Tariz, a soldier/warlord with roughly 175 warriors under his command. Melek is a fair and just man, who does his best to see that those who count on he and his band for safety are taken care of. Melek is a pragmatic man who cares little for military rankings or titles; instead placing people in charge of various tasks as he feels befits their skills. However, it is very well understood when Melek himself is not around, a woman by the name of Jer’ai Vanas is the one calling the shots. Jer’ai is a capable warrior, though quicker with her temper than Melek is entirely comfortable with. Both Melek and Jer’ai are disdainful of shardcasting, and those that practice it. Melek tends to be more diplomatic about the subject, while Jer’ai is openly hostile in regard to her reactions and dealings with it.

Taint Spur, the – The only major tributary of the Spikefin Flow, the Taint Spur was originally known as the Miha’an River. It feeds into the lake now known as Liquid Death. The rapid flow of the Spur keeps most things from Liquid Death from travelling upriver, but a few dangerous species have made their way upstream to the Spikefin Flow and have now begun to populate the banks of that river as well. 

Vou'Shou (Village) – Population: 140

Wretched Fens, the – A patch of marsh that lies on the southern edge of the region, the Wretched Fens are fed by the Spikefin Flow, which splits and floods the Fens near the coast of the Meraba Sea. The word is that, despite the name, the Wretched Fens are as safe as any swamp could be.

Xinq'ua (Village) – Population: 110

Back on Track..?

I ran my Champions: Circle City game this past Saturday, and things were different than usual...

If anyone has actually read previous posts, they will recall that this is the game I took to a really dark, and adult, place. A place much darker than a superhero game should ever go. It went to place so dark that a player deemed his character unplayable. While the player in question did try to assuage my guilt over the situation, I rightfully felt like an ass. I can honestly say that it was the lowest point in my thirty-six year history of game mastering. I was not certain I would be able to recover the campaign and bring it back to a point where it could be fun again, let alone would be.

Saturday... well, Saturday was probably the most fun I had GM-ing a game session in a couple of years. While the players were confused, and a touch frustrated, they had fun dealing with the situation I had been handing them, and by the end of the session (which ended on a cliffhanger) we, as a group, were smiling.

There is a chunk of work I have to do on the back end that I hope to have completed by the next session that will aid to where the story leads. If I don't get it done, it won't be the end of the world, but it might delay the climax of things by a session... perhaps, two.

For now, I have a Tai'eres campaign to get ready for. One that I have been perpetually frustrated in dealing with due to mapping software and mental block issues. Stuff for that needs to run this Thursday, and I have a *CHUNK* of work to get done for it...

...if I can get past the blockages...

-- GopherDave

Coming Out Of Hibernation...

Okay... I've been away for a while. My apologies for that, but all the drama bombs I had spoken about previously pretty much paled in comparison to what has been happening lately... A great deal has happened as of late, much of which has had my guts tied up in knots.

I wish I could put things in nutshells to explain, but most of them are not short stories... Here are some highlights, though...

• Mostly due to the two of us being very much alike, I almost completely destroyed my relationship with my son. It is on the mend now, but it is not out of the woods, yet...
• We have another game store joining us in the confines of C-U. It is a franchise of a chain not known to be amiable to their competition. In this case I know one of the franchisees on a cursory basis, and we welcome healthy, friendly competition, as it makes the scene better as a whole. This does give us three game stores in the area, and I've never known the local scene to support that many for too terribly long. We shall see...
• In addition to trying to fix my Champions game, I am gearing up to run yet another set of games in my home-brew fantasy setting, Tai'eres. Yeah, because I have TONS of spare time lying around for that...
• One of my ex-roommates passed away in his sleep at the age of 52. We haven't been close for a while, but his passing was a blunt reminder of my own mortality. Stupid mortality...

In the middle of everything, I have become a big ball of stress, which makes me very prone to a heart attack. I have had heart issues all my life, and I can pretty much recognize when my heart is prime to start giving me problems. I am not where I was roughly fifteen years ago, but I am at a close enough stage where I could will myself into a heart attack should I desired to.

I did that a couple of times as an adolescent, with one time requiring defibrillation. I can say this with the certainty that comes from personal experience... Avoid being defibrillated at all costs. It sucks the high, hard one. Basically, every muscle in your body is electrically forced to contract simultaneously at the moment of shock, and let me tell you... That. Shit. Hurts.

So, as I have typed this, and writing has become catharsis, I have come to the resolution to care about only what I can control, which is the direction I take socially with my family and friends, how I react to adverse situations that require my attention, and the direction our business takes. Beyond that, well...

...it just isn't worth the stress and the energy...

peace... GopherDave

Winter War Re-Cap (2 of 4)...

[NOTE: This entry was started on February 8th. Still playing catch up...]

While my series of catch-up entries did not start as Winter War recaps, they slot in nicely as content, so here we continue...

the Depths of the Rainbow (Post Apocalyptic Fantasy)

The world of Tai'eres is one I've run before. In fact, the current iteration of DICEBAG was born of needing a system to run this awesome fantasy world in my mind.

Here, the Player Characters were "nameless" adolescents whose time it was to either "hunt or get out". I did not name the characters on purpose, so as to avoid gender bias among players/characters, and to give the players some investment, however minimal, into the characters.

The elders of the village gather PCs together and task them with now pulling their weight. They are to either find food for the village, or at least find something tradable with another village for food. Once these directions are expressed, they are given a proverbial swat on the backside and told to skedaddle in the direction of the Bloodmist Peaks, where a number of pre-"Rain of Shards" (the cataclysmic event that caused the apocalypse) artifacts can still be found.

Our intrepid party heads out into the plains heading for the Bloodmist Peaks. About ten miles out, the encounter two edible (!) creatures. A pair of Spearcats. Think Displacer Beasts with only four legs, a lack of image-shifting, and 2-feet long, pointed bone shards at the end of the tentacles. The fight is on as hungry villagers fight hungry cat-things.

Mighty blows are landed by both sides as a couple of the PCs become heavily wounded, but manage to kill one of the beasts and hurt the other enough to drive it off. Here's where the epic moment of the game comes.

Two of the PC's (the Tank and the Generalist/Leader of the group) decide they would like to eat *REALLY* well that evening. So, in an effort to slow the fleeing beast (who can easily outrun them), the Leader throws his sword at the creature. He barely misses, with the sword landing point first in the ground next to the spearcat. Next, the Tank grabs the Leader and hurls him onto the animal, actually hitting what he is aiming at. A new combat round begins, and it starts out with the Leader grabbing his sword and further wounding (but not killing) the trying-to-flee bag of meat. Next up in the round is the spearcat, who is trying to impale the idiot on top of it...

I (the GM) rolls *REALLY* well on the attack die while the Leader rolls very poorly on his defense. Checking hit location reveals that the cat has scored a head shot. Final damage determination indicates that this shot would have killed any of the characters, save the Tank, if they were fresh and unwounded. So, the leader dies horrible to a bone spear that impaled his skull.

The tracker of the group uses the "opening" that the death of his friend has provided to hurl his javelin and finally kill the spearcat, reasoning that if the guy was still alive, he wouldn't have chanced a throw.

So, laden down with the carcasses of two fresh kills, the party is joined by a straggler from the village (I had 6 characters made, but only five players. So I let the player of the dead Leader take the leftover character.), and begin to make their way back home.

As they approach the village, an odd light appears the sky. A rainbow forms on a clear day, arcing between a point in the Bloodmist Peaks and what looks to be... ...the Village. The PCs race back to the village as quickly as they can manage to find the entirety of it wiped to a person. The lone survivor has been impaled on a pole in the center of town. Protruding from his body are several shards of crystal.

After a small rest, the PCs head for the Bloodmist Peaks. Since we were pressed for time, I excised one of the planned encounters.

Once the party gets to the Peaks, they make some climbing checks, and find an interesting sight. In a shallow in the hills, three bi-pedal crystalline beings are seemingly repairing a larger, crystal structure. In an attempt to get closer, some of the characters try to quietly move through the rocks,but they end up being as stealthy as Paul Bunyun. The creatures react and the fight is on.

As the fight happens, the party is taking it on the chin when the large structure gets bumped in the fight, and resonates with a disturbing, disharmonic sound. Making a few intelligence checks, the PCs realize that if they push the structure out of the light of rainbow, it not only makes the hideous sound, it *REALLY* agitates those they are fighting. One good shove from the party Tank and...

Everything crystalline explodes... The PCs take some shrapnel damage (less than I should have made them take, but it was a great idea), but are pretty much alive enough to keep on existing and make their way in this harsh world...

[If you're sensing a theme, you're not wrong...]

-- GopherDave

Old Maps, New Work...

This is a much reduced image of a map I have going in Adobe Illustrator. It represents roughly one quarter of the land mass known as Tai'eres. I also have the other three quadrants in various stages of completion. I have a few places marked on the maps, but they may not stay where they are currently placed. I have made the decision to work on this thing if it kills me. I've also decided to ask for help.

The game mechanics are pretty much solidified. There are more areas to cover, but the mechanics as they stand only need some number tweaking to bring them more into balance. For me, mechanics are easy.

No, where I need help is with the setting. I have some concrete ideas in mind, and skeletal structure of the framework of the setting, but it desperately needs to be fleshed out, and that's just not something I am good at. I admit this now. I'm great at concepts and plot, but lousy at details and description.

Yep... just what the game world needs... another fantasy heartbreaker setting...

-- GopherDave

Day 146 of 362

Okay... something about Blogger is not liking the home machine. It's still giving me the whole "server rejected" thing when I try to upload pictures. I know how to fix it, but I think Blogger/Google has changed some things around a bit since up until a couple of days ago, I had ZERO problems with it all.

Tonight, on the agenda, we have a Pathfinder game, we have an Emperor MtG group and we have my Deathwatch game that has nor run in four weeks. Overall, a good slate. After the store closes, the family and I might go to see X-Men, but I haven't decided yet.

On the Tai'eres front, I discovered that Windows 7 DOES NOT like Campaign Cartographer 2 Pro, so I cannot look at any of my old maps for the world. I did, however, finds some print outs from those days in my archive of notes, so I can recreate the maps in Adobe Illustrator. Work on the setting proceeds slowly as I reconstruct things from old files, notes, printouts, and memory. As I am cementing bits about the setting down, things about how the game system works and what it should contain are also coming into sharper focus.

I feel so good about things right now that I believe I'll leave you with a bit of rules text that I wrote back in the day involving fire and how damaging it can be. I understand that it will mean little outside the context of the rules, but I like it...

Fire

Fire is a wonderful thing. It was one of man’s first tools and we still use ideas derived from it to this very day, namely the cooking of food and keeping warm in the cold. Yep, good stuff that fire.

Being *ON* fire is... not recommended.

Whenever a character is exposed to a heat source warm enough to ignite him, that character may catch flame. For each turn of exposure, the character has a 1 in 6 chance of igniting. This chance increases by one for each continued turn of exposure the character endures. Thus, if a character sticks his hand in a campfire for six turns, he’s going to be on fire.

Once a character is on fire, the flame may spread to other parts of his body. For each turn that a character is on fire, all adjacent body parts have a cumulative 1 in 6 chance of having the fire spread to those parts. Once a body part is on fire, it begins its own incremental upward count of fire damage from 1d4 to 5d4. Fire spreads along a character’s body in the following patterns.

Origin Point

Head     Fire Spreads To... Chest
Vitals     Fire Spreads To... Chest, Left Leg, Right Leg
Chest     Fire Spreads To... Head, Vitals, Left Arm, Right Arm
Leg, Left     Fire Spreads To... Vitals, Left Foot
Arm, Left     Fire Spreads To... Chest, Left Hand
Leg, Right     Fire Spreads To... Vitals, Right Foot
Arm, Right     Fire Spreads To... Chest, Right Hand
Hand, Left     Fire Spreads To... Left Arm
Hand, Right     Fire Spreads To... Right Arm
Foot, Left     Fire Spreads To... Left Leg
Foot, Right    Fire Spreads To... Right Leg

Of special note, the addition of an accelerant (such as alcohol or gasoline) increases the initial ignition and spread chances from 1 in 6 to 2 in 6, plus increases the ignition/spread increment from 1 to 2, thus guaranteeing that a character with a body part soaked in alcohol WILL catch fire in no more than three turns.

Each turn the character is exposed to fire he suffers 1d4 damage, applied to whichever body part happens to have the flame applied to it. This damage increases by 1d4 per turn, up to a maximum of 5d4 worth of damage a turn. Like all other damage dice, these dice ARE open-ended.

It is important to note that, unlike falling, Toughness derived from external armor DOES apply to fire damage. Chain and Plate armors, however, only provide +2 and +3 Toughness respectively in regards to fire. Metal does get hot, you know. Also, Location Modifiers do apply to fire damage.

EXAMPLE: Bob the fighter isn’t especially bright. On a dare from his friends, Bob has decided that placing his right foot in a campfire is a good idea. Silly Bob.

On the first round, Bob’s right foot suffers 1d4 points of damage, and has a 1 in 6 chance of catching fire. Bob is wearing Hard Leather Boots which add three to his natural Toughness of two, giving his right foot 5 points of fire protection. The GM rolls a 3 on the 1d4 and Bob scoffs at the heat. The GM then checks for ignition, rolling 1d6. This die comes up a one, so Bob’s right foot will remain on fire whenever he decides to remove it from the campfire.

The next round, Bob’s still being dim, so the GM checks for damage. This being the second round of exposure, the GM is now rolling 2d4 for the damage. After the dice are rolled,  4 points of damage are applied to Bob’s right foot. With the location modifier applied (x1/2), this damage is reduced to two points. Not bad, but not pleasant, either. Also, since Bob’s right foot is now on fire, the GM must check for spread. This being the first round for that, the spread chance is only 1 in 6. The die rolls and Bob’s unlucky again. The fire has crept up to his right leg.

On round three, things get hairy. Bob’s right foot suffers 3d4 points worth of fire damage while his right leg suffers 1d4 points. Bob’s finally figured out that this is not a good thing and runs screaming to a horse trough to dive in and put out the flames.

Have fun kids...

-- GopherDave

A Taste of Tai'eres...

     I wrote this piece as a sort of a guideline for myself on what the history of this wild, new game world was, and what it would become. Much of it is confusing without some sort of context and/or glossary, but I first want to see how the piece stands on its own, under the scrutiny of others eyes. Enjoy...

Tai'eres Now...

…as scribed by Sonran, the wandering sage.

            Lo, I have traveled the width and breath of the land during this, the fourth age of Tai’eres. Now, as my body ages, but with my mind still sharp, I place my knowledge to parchment for all to peruse and take wisdom from.

Before Now…

            In that this is now the fourth age of our enduring land, perhaps it would be best to provide a glimpse of what came before.

            The fist age of Tai’eres was rather unremarkable from all accounts. From whence we sprang, no one truly knows. Some say nebulous beings called the Creators placed us upon the land while others state their belief that humanity just is, and was born either from nothing or from the land around us. However, by all accounts, humanity was quite tribal and squabbled over the smallest of issues. None of that really matters now, as this time of chaos and disharmony was quelled with the arrival of the As’kali in their vessels of crystal.

            The second age of Tai’eres began as the invaders from the sky descended with their strange devices and even stranger beasts. They herded humans like we would the Hara-beasts of the Surati plains. The As’kali gathered us into groups, and they educated us in some of their ways. Through their rule we learned the concepts of government and of coin. The As’kali tutelage also brought advancements in metalworking and some industry processes that we were many years away from discovering on our own. Despite their benevolence, the As’kali were exploiters at their very hearts. With their organization of us came the subsequent siphoning of our land of its resources, most notably salt, gold, and a silvery-black metal sometimes called CurseIron due to the proclivity of those who mined it to deteriorate and die faster than what was normal for the time. It was during the end of this age that an alliance of former slaves and fugitives gathered together to fight the As’kali and drive them from Tai’eres. These fugitives had discovered an unusual byproduct of the crystalline substance so prevalent among the invaders; the ability to absorb energies from the land and focus it into spectacular effects. In short, Shard-magic was born.

            Banded together, Mardok, Garatek, Vankilar, Harmekai, and Zanibasque, marshaled resistance and waged war against the As’kali. Zanibasque, with his eye of diamond, peered into the past, present, and future of the land. Harmekai, with his glove enchanted, spewed forth energies powered by land and spirits. Vankilar, with his shard-encrusted crown, gathered peoples near and far to throw off the chains of their captors and fight. Garatek, with his pen of truth, scribed tales of the future, and thus they were so. Finally, Mardok, with his axe of curseiron, shattered the crystal sky fortress of the As’kali, and began the Rain of Shards. The resulting downpour of fragments laid waste to the land and all those at the battle, save five. There, each impaled with pieces of the destroyed As’kali vessel, stood Mardok, Vankilar, Zanibasque, Harmekai, and Garatek. The battle was over… the war was won… and the five allies each ascended skyward, one by one, left their mortal bodies behind, and became the Walking Gods.

            So began the third age of Tai’eres. With the As’kali gone, humanity was left to fend for itself. Out of comfort and simplicity, each region organized itself around the provinces that the invaders had formed. There were those who took up the nomad’s life, that of Mardok and his people, the Memok’qwai. They moved within the heart of the land guarding the wastes created by the first shardfall, proclaiming themselves guardians of said region, from then until Tai’eres is no more. Beyond that, only the human agents of the As’kali remained separate, forming the mountain tribe known as the Daskari.

            As other nations traded freely amongst each other and humanity enjoyed peace and prosperity they had never freely known before now, the Daskari retreated to their mountain strongholds, unaware that they would almost lead to men’s undoing. For deep within the mountains, chambers of young As’kali slept, waiting for the right opportunity to reveal themselves. That opportunity came with a young, Daskari shardcaster named Ren’sap Xeristhon. Ren’sap uncovered a birth chamber of As’kali larva, and fell prey to their mind-warping abilities. With their help, Xeristhon devised a plot that would lead to the return of the As’kali. As’kali have no concept of gods, however, and were unprepared for the intervention of Garatek, and the rest of the Walking Gods. The Walking Gods now lacked physical form, so each chose an avatar to fight this new menace…

Old Work In Progress

This is the northwest section of a ginormous map I had started working on for Tai'eres. I have most of the physical features of the land in my notes and have electronically sketched out he major features in three of four sections.

Rules wise, I am having trouble finding some of earliest work with the system and setting. I have the files somewhere, and I should have hard copy of at least some of it. Trouble is, trying to find where I've put it since there was a house move in between when I put the stuff away and when I am now looking for it.

I've run two campaigns with the setting, with major changes to the rules in between them. Looking back, there were a lot of things I liked about the the earlier rule set better than the revision. There are still some warts with it, but I think I've figured out ways around them.

If I can find an earlier electronic file of the rules, then that will save me from having to recreate the version from memory, which I'm not entirely certain I could do. I am getting older, after all...

I do believe that this will be my project du jour for the moment. I enjoyed my time with Tai'eres. More than I originally thought apparently, since I keep going back to it in my mind.

-- GopherDave

Looking Back...

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            Imagine, if you will, a land not too unlike our own. Yes, the land masses are different, but the humans there are pretty much the same as you or I.

            It is a time of hardship and toil. A time when steel is new, and kingdoms are forged like irons in the flame. It is a time when we, as people, create borders… and alliances… and monuments to the gods above… only to have those gods come down in vessels of crystal and enslave us all.

            The gods were not like we imagined. Instead of benevolent presences that brought all that is good, our gods were alien and inhuman. Our gods oppressed us and made us work the land until it was bled dry of resources. Our gods tainted our crops and our animals, making those things dangerous in their own right, filling us with fear and dread.

            Until one day, one of us said “no more” and lashed out at one of our gods. Yes, the originator died, struck down not two moments after he snapped, but he had done the damage that we needed him to do. He had taken one of the gods with him, and that’s when we realized these creatures, these… As’kali… were not gods, but beings much like ourselves… More learned, and with different physiologies, but they were a people of sorts, and people can die…

            We fought the As’kali for decades, not knowing that time really was our ally. For in the crystalline structures of our oppressors vessels lay the key to the power of our lands, and gave us our ability to wield it. The fragments of crystal that fell off their ships and war machines during battles lay in the fields of blood and bone, slowly absorbing the ambient energies of Tai’eres. Energies that, until then, we never knew about. Magic.

            Different types of crystals created different sorceries, and we relentlessly wielded that power in our fight against the As’kali, until a band of our mightiest heroes took the fight into their main sky-fortress… and it all exploded in our skies.

            The Rain of Shards killed thousands in its wake, reducing cities and nations to ruin. The As’kali were no more, but they had left their mark on Tai’eres. We are now just recovering…

            Welcome to Tai’eres, the land of shards.

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            This is an introduction to a fantasy heartbreaker world I came up with a few years back. Basically, I took the premise of Evernight (a Savage Worlds setting) and extrapolated it with different aliens doing the oppressing, and the end result of it all.

            I threw the characters into the world pretty much cold turkey. They didn’t know much beyond their own little farm village, but they were full of adventure and willing curiosity. This group had stout fighters and sneakier archers. They even had a novice shardcaster with them. The group ran into dangerous animals such as Screamtoads and Spearcats, mercenaries working for would-be nobles, and even members of the Shatterers; a group dedicated to wiping out the As’kali influence on Tai’eres by any means necessary.

            I ran this using a home-brew system of my own. Yes, it was incomplete, but it was complete enough to run the game for a time. The system has its warts, but it had a lot of good things going for it as well. I often find my mind wandering back to that system and that setting, and I do have plans to revisit Tai’eres… …if time allows.