Axes, Hammers, and Runes - Oh My!

As the self-appointed chronicler of Risus awesome, I am hereby obligated to point you towards Brent Wolke's latest 8-page setting. Head over to the engine of thwaak for Axe, Hammer, & Rune. According to his designer's notes, it was originally 40+ pages of material for D20 and then D6. At 8 pages (and with the minimal space required for Risus stats) the setting is *tight*. It details a decadent dwarven society in exile where a mysterious benefactor recruits a secret team of specialists to take back the homeland. It would make for a great little fantasy campaign with a different focus that your typical dungeon fantasy. It's a little bit like Warhammer crossed with the A-Team with some Dirty Dozen thrown in for good measure.

Weekend Update: Honoring Fallen Heroes

For all my American readers, I hope you enjoyed your Memorial Day weekend. Mine was awesome but totally exhausting (thus the lack of blogging). We did manage to get in a pretty great session of Gurps Knights of the Astral Sea on Saturday night (the first in a couple of months) and I'll post an update when I get the write-up from one of my players. Otherwise, it was non-stop family stuff that included taking in Kung Fu Panda II (a hell of a lot of fun) as well as a strawberry festival at Sky Meadows State Park (one of my favorite places in the country).

Today, I took the family down to Arlington National Cemetery to visit the grave of my grandfather. He died about six years before the birth of my oldest son, so it makes me sad that he'll never be able to share stories of his exploits as a Marine Corps aviator during World War II, especially with my son's growing interest in history. But Finn (pictured below) was thrilled to be reminded that he shares a birthday with the old Leatherneck. 

It was a challenging outing due to the heat and the difficulty of locating the marker, but our efforts were rewarded with a surprise close-up encounter with the Presidential motorcade just as we began to head back. Pretty darn neat! 

Finn meets his great-grandfather

Resuming My Solo Games: Microscope

Perhaps the highest priority item on my list of things to do during my blogging spring cleaning is to resume my solo Mythic GME games. Regardless of how interesting the play reports are to other people, I really enjoy the play that goes into them. It's like writing fiction and reading it at the same time (and by that I mean I don't know what is going to happen next). And putting it out there for the public to see somehow makes the experience more real to me.

So, without further ado, I'm going to pick things up with my Microscope game (last seen here). I'm going to take this in small bites until I can get back in the swing of things and clear more time in my schedule. So until then, expect a series of irregular posts. I will, of course, continue to post non-Mythic content as well as I have a lot of ideas swirling around in my head that I'm itching to get down on the page.

***

Note: Recall that I am using the Mythic GME to simulate three other player personas other than myself. This should produce more surprises during play and keep the game from becoming a straight-up world building exercise.

This time I'll be documenting calls to Mythic. Chaos Factor depends on the player that I'm simulating: Max is 5, Kate is 6, and Ian (the most unpredictable) is 7.

Q: Does Kate go with the Spear of Polhansur [50/50]? Yes.
Q: Does Kate create a dictated scene within her Spear of Polhansur event [50/50]? Yes.
RANDOM EVENT: NPC Action "Delay Leadership". (It is handy that this came up since I was going to go to the Mythic Event Meaning Table anyway to come up with a topic for the scene)
CQ: What's up with the Spear (New Mythic Description table)? "Positively fresh"... ugh, ok. It's is charged with positive energy and always looks like it was made yesterday.
We know that Old Hob is present in the scene, but what about his companions?
Q: Is there at least two other [Likely]? Yes.
CQ: What are they like...
    1. Mythic Description Table: "mysteriously watery"... a "water bender"?
    2. Mythic Description Table: "efficiently abnormal"... a higly trained freak of nature... or alien
    3. Mythic Description Table: "lazily remarkable"....a golden boy who has lived a charmed life
Q: Is there a sympathetic hireling [Unlikely]? No (there goes one idea that I had...)
Q: Is the spear buried in the heart of a monster [50/50]? Yes. Cool, now I have a different idea...
[Plus various calls to name generators]

We return to the table with me and and my imaginary fellow players: Max, Ian, and Kate. I just concluded the first pass around the table and now I hand things over to Kate to create a Legacy before moving onto turn #2.

Kate...
I'm going to create a Legacy for the Spear of Elector Polhansur that was featured in my event last turn. I imagine it as being an indestructible legendary artifact that was discovered by Polhansur as he was cleansing his land of Nagari Cultists (most likely dating it to the Age of Enlightened Emperors). In fact, I'm going to say that his campaign against the Nagari (which may or may not have coincided with the Suppression of the Nagari Cult Event) and his discovery of the Spear is what led to him being elevated to Emperor in the first place. Even among the rest of the Enlightened Emperors, Polhansur stands out as a paragon.

Anyway, Polhansur's mythical weapon was eventually lost. During the Second Age of Darkness, a party of heroes quested to recover the weapon, hoping to use it to restore the glories of that lost age.

Leading this group, is the Nemur Prament, a handsome landed knight, a natural leader, and a bit of a jerk. His surviving companions are Zinatu Schwiger-Bettor, a matronly water wizard whose adventuring days are largely behind her and Gemo Timbrosta, an alien fighting monk. There is, of course, Old Hob (who is mostly employed as a lowly porter in complete ignorance of his fighting skills).

The question that I will answer is "Why does Nemu Prament, the obvious leader of the dungeon delvers, fail to take possession of the Spear of Polhansur?"

The scene opens with the four companions descending a series of wide stone steps into an airy, underground temple. The air is warm and humid and purple vines descend from cracks in the ceiling. Lying on the floor, in the middle of a blood-soaked magical glyph, is a humongous bat-like creature with the Spear of Polhansur embedded in its chest. The creature appears recently slain, though it is obvious that it has been here for centuries. There is a distinct odor of burning animal fur and the creature seems to radiate an unsettling heat.

"Well, we've finally made it," exlains Nemu Prameint, striding forth triumphantly in his exquisite etherium plate armor.

"Hold, Nemu!" pleaded Zinatu, her face dripping with sweat. "All is not as it seems. This beast looks like it was slain on this day, yet surely that is not possible. Give me a moment to decipher the thaumic energies."

Exasperated, Nemu says, "But we've survived the challenges of the Vault of Lerosathur..."

"And lost three companions," Gemo says is his distinctive monotone voice.

"Yes, all the more reason to claim our reward. We've made the proper sacrifice. I've... we've earned the right to claim the Spear." Nemu's blue eyes are practically afire with excitement.

Recognizing that look, Zinatu drops her head, takes a breath to calm herself, and says, "Fine. Whatever." She then begins to open her invisible third eye anyway so that she may perceive the magical knots of energies that might illuminate the magical affect that must be present. That there was magic, she was completely certain. But the magic was hot and foreign and it would take her utmost concentration to figure it out.

Meanwhile, Nemu strides forward, places a boot on the dead creature, and grasps the spear with both hand. His face is suddenly radiant with the realization of its power. He draws it forth from the monstrous corpse and holds it aloft, shouting at the top of his lungs, "Behold, the Emperor returns!"

The very next instant, Nemu is consumed in a pillar of fire as the gigantic fire bat returns to consciousness and regains its natural, blazing state.

Ignoring the screams of his companion, Gemo spring into actions. Dancing to and fro to avoid blasts of fire, he concentrates on using his sablewood staff to keep the creature at bay. Though he can certainly hurt the creature, he knows that their only hope is Zinatu's water magic.

Already on the edge of a trance to unravel the mystery of the creature's stasis, it is no hard feat for Zinatu to begin working her magic. But heat from the beast is already driving away much of of the moisture in the air, so Zinatua works furiously to concentrate what remains into an aura close to the creature's body. Its flames reateat and a cloud of steam begins to form in response.

Then, Zinatu draws on the moisture from her own sweat-drenched clothes and half-empty water skin. Shaping small ball of the purest water, just inches from her concentrating face, she freezes it solid and sends it smashing into the creature with the force of a bolt of lighting.

The creature flies back, its flames momentarily extinguished. Gemo seizes the opportunity to snatch up the Spear. With an uncustomary flourish, he spins it around and thrusts it back into the belly of the beast. The blowback incinerates him instantly, but the fire bat falls to the ground, dead or at least incapacitated once more.

Zinatu drops to the ground in grief, her sobs failing to bring forth tears from her water-starved body.

Loaded with the packs of the fallen, Old Hob looks on silently as a statue.

Updated Corkboard detailing the Microscope structure is here.

Fantasy Language Generator Update

As the May spring cleaning continues, I now revisit one of the earliest tools that I made available on the site. Back in April of 2010, I first posted my Fantasy Language Cypher. For those of you have have come to the site since then (or who may have missed it the first time around), the tool provides an easy way to create pseudo languages for your fantasy or science-fiction world.

Here's how it works:

1. Inside the guts of the script, the Risus: The Anything RPG rules are are used to generate phoneme frequencies for English. The actual text doesn't matter so much as that it was always the same. This model is hidden from the user.
2. The user supplies a model corpus (in the Latin alphabet) that should produce very different phoneme frequencies. I particularly like the works of Clark Ashton Smith (in English or in translation).
3. The script then maps the most common phonemes in Risus to those of the model text.
4. The user enters text to be "translated". The script replaces phonemes using the map generated in the previous step.

Here is an example:

Model Text: Esperanto "translation" of The Witchcraft of Ulua.

Text to Translate	Output
January February March April May June July August September November December	Floluaro Maruaro Roj Ankid Ria Flula Flugo Eecurgh Tambrapan Betapan Damapan
one two three four five six seven eight nine ten	ola zi knua mien mita tij tatas iej bila kas
spring summer autumn winter	lil tullan eenuj fikan
map mapping mapper mapped	roj rognil rognan rognajn

As long as the model text is the same, the "translations" will be consistent. As you can see above, the "-uary" suffix maps to "-uaro" and the "-ember" suffix maps to "-apan". The faux-conjugation of the verb "to map" also produces an interesting simulated grammar.

Note that "march" and "map" both translate to "roj" due to a mismatch in the number of phonemes in the different model texts.

Anyway, this isn't a real language but it may be close enough for your roleplaying needs. Simply pick a different corpus for each language and you can always go back and generate more words as you need them.

UPDATE: Today's update adds support for many (but not all) accent marks that appear in English and other languages that use the Latin alphabet.

Inside Information

The May spring cleaning continues with another installment of The Hobbit reread (last seen on April 9th). After some delay, I just finished reading it to the boys so the book is once again fresh in my mind. 

Inside Information

"dwarves are not heroes, but calculating folk with a great idea of the value of money; some are tricky and treacherous and pretty bad lots; some are not, but are decent enough people like Thorin and Company if you don't expect too much"

-The Hobbit 

Yeah, the dwarves of The Hobbit are in no way heroes. Over the course of the story, they repeatedly prove that they are mostly just self-serving regular folks who are on a fool's errand to reclaim what was taken from them. They are not particularly brave. They are certainly not very well prepared. The most that they have going for them is that an old wizard saw merit in their adventure and convinced them to bring along an extraordinarily lucky and resourceful hobbit.

As someone who is used to their portrayal in fantasy role-playing games, I continue to find this fascinating. Until they have recovered their treasure and are faced with losing it again, these dwarves are nothing like the axe-wielding heroes that have become the norm in recent years. They are certainly nothing like Gimli in The Lord of the Rings. Yet they would seem to be perfectly suited for a really old-school game that featured scruffy and disreputable treasure seekers.

And about that hobbit...

Bilbo reaches the fullest of his potential in this chapter. Venturing down that passage was "the bravest thing he ever did". And it wasn't like he just popped the ring on and sauntered down to the dragon's lair. He legitimately struggled to overcome his fear, even when the signs of the dragon were unmistakable.

I love how Tolkien introduces us to Smaug through a string of sensory impressions. First, there was a red light. Then the temperature rises. Then there is throbbing heartbeat and a "gurgling noise of some vast animal sleeping."

And then there is the mound of treasure...

Aside: There was an article not too long ago about what the net worth of Smaug's hoard would be in modern terms: read about it here.

But without fine manipulators, how on earth did the dragon gather all that treasure to himself? And how did he fit into the smaller treasure vaults in the mountain? My annotated version of the Hobbit mentions that Tolkien derived the name for Smaug from the past tense of the primitive German verb "smugan" (to squeeze through a hole), which makes me think that Tolkien considered this issue as well.

It occurs to me that I've never had an encounter with a dragon like this scene, where a lone character sneaks in and steals an item of treasure from something that is so hopelessly out of their league. Man, dragons needs to be scary and I herebye resolve to use them in a proper fashion the next time they appear in a game of mine! It would be super cool to use a sleeping dragon more as problem to be solved and an obstacle to be passed than a creature to be fought.

Finally, there is Bilbo's iconic dialog with Smaug, which relates nicely to his dialog with Gollum in "Riddles in the Dark". As in that chapter, Bilbo uses his wits to get the better of a nasty opponent... though, in this case, his victory is of the pyrrhic sort - Bilbo barely escapes with his life and Smaug will later go on to wreck fiery vengeance on Laketown.

Other Notes/Observations

• I love how Smaug sows dissension in the ranks. Most of the great villains can do this.
• The fact that Bilbo "was in grievous danger of coming under the dragon-spell" is really intriguing. It shows that the Smaug had magical powers of persuasion as well and that Bilbo was able to resist them somehow.
  
• The old thrush is a return to the theme of talking animals, which gives The Hobbit so much more of a fairy tale feel.
• Who the King Blandorthin and why is he not mentioned anywhere else in Tolkien's writings?

Warring Clans of Cajun Elf Ninjas (vs. Pirates!)

Click on the image for the Corkboard.me notes

Saturday night's Microscope game was the first time that I ever played the game in person. It's also only second time that I've ever played a face-to-face roleplaying game without a GM (never-mind the dispute as to whether or not games like Fiasco or Microscope can even be called roleplaying games to being with). I was supposed to run a game of Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG but I failed to find sufficient time to develop the idea kernel that I had floating in my head. Even after my wife's graduation, life's been a whirlwind of activity and it has been hard to find peaceful moments that are free of distraction.

I floated the idea of Microscope because it doesn't require any advance preparation (indeed, advance preparation would be mostly pointless). One of my regular players was enthused about the game when I mentioned it earlier because he said (and I'm paraphrasing) "that it sounds like the fun of GMing without getting stuck with running an actual game session". This particular player really digs world-building and I totally understand where he is coming from. The other two players are both writers and I imagined that they would appreciate the game for similar reasons.

For the uninitiated, Microscope is a game of creating a world's history. You define the starting and ending points and explore the bits that interest you in non-chronological order. There is a roleplaying element, but at least in the games that I've played, it is largely subsumed by this world building aspect. That's not to say that it doesn't scratch a certain roleplaying itch. For me, at least, Microscope really taps into my GM's urge to create while at the same time wanting to not be in control of the creation. The interaction of other players offers the potential of huge surprises and building on those surprises allows me to create things in turn that I would never have thought of otherwise.

The Initial Agreement
Before the game even got started, we needed to agree to a set of ground-rules.  As facilitator (the guy who explained the rules to everyone else), I worried that we'd get hung up on this part. As I expected, nobody really wanted to step forward and say "I want to play X". Instead, we mostly tossed out vague preferences.

This is where my GM nature asserted itself (and not for the first time in the evening). I wanted to get a Big Picture selected in a hurry, so I asked everyone to volunteer one concept (the game itself provides a whole page of examples). The idea is that we could always roll.

Here is what we game up with:

1] Magic returns to the world
2] The rise and fall of an Ancient Civilization
3] A tranquil suburb is transplanted into a sword & sorcery world
4] "Kalabar spoke the world into existence."

Looking at this list, it became apparant that we didn't have to role at all. Concepts #2 and #4 clearly went together and everyone settled on that fairly quickly.

Then we moved onto creating the Palette. In Microscope, this is the part of the game where each player can specify things that are explicitly present in the setting or that are absolutely forbidden. This part was fun, easy and immediately led to an evolving sense of the world as some kind of Earthdawn-meets-Wuxia kind of place.

The Map
A really unexpected addition to the palette (see above) is that one player proposed that we use the I.C.E. map of Middle-Earth, minus all the familiar bits. The map is beautiful and comes pre-labeled with exotic place names. While not appropriate to all Microscope concepts, I strongly recommend the approach for similar fantasy games. Every event or scene was fixed in the world's geography and it was geography that often suggested details that surprised us.

Periods and Events
Before the start of the regular turn cycles, we came up with our Start and End Periods:

"KALABAR THE BARD SPOKE THE WORLD INTO EXISTENCE" [Light]

THE FALL OF THE FIRST CIVILIZATION [Dark]

As it turned out, we never get to explore that first period during our session. The idea of a mortal(?) singing/speaking the world into existence seemed pregnant with possibilities. But play has it's own rhythm and riffing off other players can lead you into very unexpected directions.

As per the rules, each player then asynchronously contributed one Period or Event to the history. It didn't take long for the players to jump into this enthusiastically, though I felt a little like a GM as I asked questions of the players to elicit more detail. In this stage and during the regular turn order, there was also a fair bit of unsolicited suggestions from other players when it came time to define Periods and Events. While the rules advise against this, I think it was unavoidable for a first game

First Turn, First Scene
To my knowledge, Microscope is unique in that is gives explicit advice for teaching the game to other people. Part of this advice is that the facilitator (the guy who knows the rules) should go first and dive in with a scene right off the bat. I followed this advice by creating a focus of "Dragons" and an Event in which Dragons turn the tide of the Pirate Rebellion Against the Empire (using another player's Period as suggested). I then proposed the following question for our first scene:

WHY DID THE DRAGONS ENTER THE WAR?

So here is where play became a little tricky. As the player proposing the scene, I set the stage and suggested characters that could be played (I only required the Dragon and at least one pirate captain petitioner). From that point, we had to roleplay until the question was answered. It worked and produced an interesting scene but it felt a little uncomfortable (in much the same way as I found Fiasco to be uncomfortable). Lacking the traditional structure of a roleplaying game (not to mention the traditional Player/GM divide), I had this little internal panic that the entire game would collapse right there. Of course, it didn't and we went on to have a great time. But there was that moment of fear...

I'm still trying to figure out my feeling about scenes in Microscope. It seems to me that they are an awesome way to really make a history personal. But they take much longer to run then then rest of the game. In an approximately three hour session, we only managed one full scene and one dictated scene. Ideally, I'd like to see one full seen for each pass around the table and I'd love to give every player a chance to be the Lens. Without playing for at least five hours, I'm not sure how that could happen.

Play By Post?
After the game, we talked about how things went and we all agreed that the game would be great for the Play-by-Post format. It's almost ideal for it, actually. Other than scenes, turns are completely sequential. Players could take as long as they liked to compose their posts and there would be a nice written record of what transpired. You could probably even manage a player or two more than the recommended four-player maximum.

Citymorph #3

I'm being run a little ragged at work and at home right now. I find that making geomorphs helps me settle down. It's also easier than composing thoughtful text when your brain is racing and you feel pressured by life deadlines.

I had the idea that this tile would be a very undesirable section of the city. Water (and filth) flows freely into a drainage ditch and tents form an improvised market or shanty town. There is a partially collapsed building in the southwest and other buildings are mostly small and cramped. I imagine that the large building in the southeast is a remnant of former grandeur or a recently renovated criminal headquarters.

Cajun Elven Ninja Clans (Microscope in Action)

With a low-turnout and lacking time to prepare adequately for our regular Slaying Solomon session, I decided to host a game of Microscope instead. This is something that I had been hoping to do for several months now. I had played the game solo (with the Mythic GME) and online via corkboard.me, but I had no idea how the game would play at a real live table.

I'm happy to report that it went very well. I have some thoughts to share on the experience, but they will have to wait until tomorrow. For now, take a look at the read-only corkboard that assembled from our hand-written notes. Starting from a fairly typical "dawn of mythic history" premise, we quickly veered into unexpected directions. The "Cajun Elven Ninja Clans" clearly was the highlight of the night.

The Spear of Destiny (for Otusworld)

The spear that pierced the flesh of Christ came to be known as the Spear of Destiny. Strange indeed that such a supposedly holy weapon would cross the veil between worlds and be used to slay Destiny itself. 

The Ophidian Oracle laired in the perilous Caverns of Koronus, rewarding heroes who passed though a gauntlet of savage monsters and deadly traps with unerring personalized prophesies of greatness. Since the onset of this Fallen Age, the Oracle had anointed dozens of heroic saviors to protect islands of civilization from the predations of bloodthirsty warlords and nihilistic necromancers.

It was perhaps inevitable that the more astute servitors of Chaos would ascertain the Oracle's role as an Agent of Law and Weaver of Destiny. Many a dark priest or sorcerer had recruited henchmen to plunge into the depths of Koronus so that the mighty Serpent could be slain. But how do you fight a creature that can see into the future and of this world with perfect certainty? On every occasion, the champions of evil found themselves facing heroes with just enough knowledge of their plans to stop them cold before they entered the presence of the oracle.

The answer was a weapon from another world. The Spear of Longinus, also known as the Spear of Destiny, sat anonymously in a private collector's basement when the town a Point Sterling was swept out of its own world by a gigantic Banestorm and deposited in the hills above the Greenshadow Forest.

Infused with the magical energies of Otus, the somnolent spirit of the Spear woke to its true purpose. The reclusive old medievalist sold off his collection to those desperate for weapons in world where bullets were a rapidly dwindling resource. From buyer to buyer, smuggler to revolutionary, and brigand to marauder, the Spear finally found it its way into the hands of Sklent the Unrelenting, an unusually large and intelligent kobold warrior looking to make a name for himself in the service Chaos. After the spearhead passed without notice through countless unsuspecting hands, it deliberately revealed itself to the promising killer and guided him to the Serpent's lair, past monster and questing hero alike. The Ophidian Oracle never saw it coming.

***

The Spear of Destiny is an artifact of terrible potency with many undiscovered powers. At the very least, the weapon is completely obfuscated from scrying and divination, passing this protection on to its wielder and allied companions. It is also capable of mortally injuring anyone and anything.

Risus Monkey Goes Mobile

Another "spring cleaning" task that is on my list is a site redesign. That's not going to happen any time soon, but I did manage to enable the mobile template that some of my favorite bloggers have started using. If you are like me, you do a lot of blog reading from your iPhone or other mobile devices. The streamlined template definitely cuts out the clutter and makes navigating posts easier on a small screen.

Thanks to Jason at the Wasted Lands for the tip!


(And yes, I have more substantial posts in development. Work's been crazy and I've been unable to steal dedicated time for writing. So much for the hope of getting more time now that the wife is done with grad school...)

Last Call: DungeonMorph Dice

We're four days away from the funding of Joe Wetzel's DungeonMorph Dice. If you are one of the many people who first saw this project and thought "that looks kind of neat...maybe I'll contribute" then now is the time to do it! The dice will be made available for sale afterward, but project backers will get first dibs, along with all the cool pledge items that may not be available to latecomers.

If you are unfamiliar with the project, the basic idea is that you get a set of dice that looks a little something like this (fill pattern will change slightly in the final product):

Project backers have the option of purchasing additional sets (for caverns and what-not), as well as a custom font or a deck of geomorph cards.

The 90 unique geomorphs include those created by various members of the Dyson Logos-inspired geomorph community (myself included). Having seen many of the designs, I can't wait to get my hands on the physical product!

Revised Play History

Continuing with my theme of "spring cleaning" in May, I finally got around to revising my play history to include what I have been playing since I resumed blogging back at the tail end of 2009 (has it been that long already?). It's a lazy post, but not entirely useless given that a handful of readers might be interested in this sort of thing, if only to help place my posting in context. 

Play History (Click to enlarge)

Key

   E (Elementary School '82-'83)

   M (Middle School '83-'85)

   H (High School '85-'89)

   C (College at the University of Michigan '89-'93)

   DC/NoVa1 (DC and Northern Virginia '94-97)

   CV (Charlottesville '97-'03)

   NoVa2 (Northern Virginia '03-'09)

  RM (Risus Monkey Blogging '09 to present)

The colors indicate what I have played (blue), run (red), or both (purple) while the intensity/darkness of a color roughly indicates the amount of play (lightest colors indicate a single session). Games played without a GM are blue as well.

High on my list at this point: Traveller, Gamma World, Apocalypse World, Risus(as a player), PDQ/PDQ#, Weird West RPG, more Microscope, more ICONS, and more Old School Hack.

Risus Falkenstein (Part III): Sorcery

Wherein Tom Olam continues to describe his thoughts on how to adapt the Magick system of Castle Falkenstein to Risus: The Anything RPG. Previous letters in this series can be found here and here.

***

SORCERY CLICHES
In Castle Falkenstein, most practitioners of Magick are members of semi-secret Sorcerous Orders. Membership in one or more of these Orders can be represented by Sorcery Cliches, denoting Talent, access to Lorebooks, stereotypical member abilities, and the various social benefits.

Examples include:

• Adept of the Illuminati (Promoting Enlightenment ideals; egypytology; being highly educated; manipulating nations, events, and people through elaborate conspiracies; Lorebooks: Manuscriptum Mentallis, LeRoeunís Scrolls of Dimensional Movement)
• Hermetic Brother of the Golden Dawn (plotting to take over the world; meeting in secret; egyptology; being all sinister and spooky; Lorebooks: Dark Libram of Necromancy, Libram of Summonation)
• Theosophic Master of the White Lodge (Being a connoisseur of crystals, self-help manuals, and therapeutic incense; believing in kooky theories; leading protests against technological innovations; subverting other lodges through mystical dreams; chanting and meditating; Lorebooks: Megronís Realm of Dreaming, Manuscript of Paranormal Divination)
• Freemason (Infiltrating democratic governments; at least talking about the craft of stone masonry; performing works of charity; Lorebooks: The Manuscriptum Universal Alchemic; Agrivicca Rexus’ Realm of Illusion)

LOREBOOKS AND SPELLS
Beyond a handful of trivial and nearly universal cantrips, it is an Order's Lorebooks that define what spells a human sorcerer has learned and is able to cast. Most sorcerers will begin the game with complete mastery of their own Order's Lorebooks and will only need to access the physical books (in whatever form they take) to conduct thaumaturgical research. Knowledge of additional Lorebooks must typically be aquired during play, as the various Lodges, Brotherhoods, and Cabals jealously guard their occult secrets.

Each Lorebook contains one or more spells (typically four) that can be used to create a specific Magickal effect. The elegance of the Castle Falkenstein system is that you don't need a game mechanics to describe spells. A simple descriptive phrase (which may be the name of the spell itself) is usually enough. The original rules also assign a base energy cost for each spell, though for this adaptation it is not required. Noting the Magickal Aspect in the spell description is also optional (and it is usually obvious anyway).

Examples:

• Mental Command allows for the sorceror to give simple or complex mental commands to others.
• Animation of the Dead
• Universal Alchemic allows the caster to change the material structures of objects
• Clairaudience allows the caster to mentally listen to conversations far away from his position.

COMBAT
Various rules options for casting spells in Risus Falkenstein are detailed below. It should be noted, however, that these rules are generally not required, nor are they desired when resolving conflicts using the Risus combat system. For one thing, working Magick is a time-consuming affair that generally operates outside the time-scale of traditional combat and would therefor be considered inappropriate. But even if there is sufficient time for spell casting, such as during large scale battles, patient games of court intrigue, conflicts against slow-moving impersonal forces, or wizard duels, the abstract Risus combat system is perfectly capable of handling spell-casting combatants. All that is required is that characters describe their actions in terms of Lore that they possess and restrict the effects to their intended target.

It should be noted that a skilled sorcerer (especially one employing an Artefact or Focus Item) can use their Sorcerous Cliches in regular martial combat so long as the spell that they are casting is one that they could normally cast without drawing additional energy (through Sorcery Dice or the Sorcery Deck, see below). Spellslingers (from Sixguns & Sorcery) are perfect examples of this. Pumping can also simulate the unraveling of one's self to power more powerful spells.

SPELL TARGET NUMBERS
Outside of Combat, the following the following Target Number chart should serve as a guide for assigning difficulty to Spells.

Cantrip (TN3-4)	Amusing or nuisance effects. Examples include warming a beverage, cleaning your room, staying dry in a light rain, or producing small flame.      Includes effects that would otherwise rate as TN5 but are more easily resisted or avoided.
Simple (TN5)	Any effect up to and including that which helps the party achieve something as a whole, or that acts as a tool to facilitate another activity. Generally, an single bonus or penalty die that applies to a specific task. Can also create/summon temporary sidekicks that assist in a single task.
Ordinary (TN10)	A standard effect that is meant to overcome a single obstacle that faces the character, or handle the character's share of an obstacle that faces the party. Examples: eliminate an regular opponent, weaken an group of enemies, or provide automatic success/failure on a single task.
Complex (TN15)	The effect would hog the scene a bit. Eliminate a group of opponents, kill/disable a single tough NPC, avoid/neutralize several obstacles.
Difficult (TN20)	The effect would entirely upstage the other players, turning the other characters into bystanders for the rest of the scene and then some. Teleporting into the Mastermind's secret chamber and escaping with the Princess that he was threatening to marry definitely counts.
Dangerous (TN25)	Regional magic on an epic scale. Time to enter a montage sequence as the character raises an entire castle or decimates an entire army.
Impossible (TN30)	Effects on a global scale.

Simplified Modifiers (+5 TN each change)

• # Targets: One target to a group of targets; group of targets to many targets.
• Area of Effect: one small room to a wide are; a wide area to a small region
• Duration: One task to many tasks; many tasks to lasting (almost permanent) effects
• Nature of Targets: Wizards or Dragon among the targets; Dwarves among the targets (+10 TN)

NOTE: The Spell Target Number Table serves as an imprecise shorthand for the Spell Definition tables in the original Castle Falkenstein rules. Should the Host (Game Master) desire to use the original tables along with the listed energy costs for various spells, the final cost of a spell assumes that a Sorcery Deck is being used (see below). Divide this number by two to calculate a Target Number if dice are used instead.

ADVANCED OPTION: SORCERY DICE
Casting spells in Castle Falkenstein involves slowly gathering thaumic energies and tying them into complicated etheric knots. It's a process that takes takes time and thus is limited by the total amount of available energy in a given region. Energy is Aspected and if it does not match the type of spell that is being cast, undesirable Harmonic effects may result. And Wild Spells are a constant danger, especially as the amount of available thaumic energy is reduced.

To fully simulate the Falkenstein approach, Sorcery Dice can be used. In this system, the character's dice are not rolled all at once. Instead, the sorcerer follows the following procedure:

1. Calculate the Target Number according to the Spell Target Number table (or use half the energy cost of a spell calculated using the original Castle Falkenstein rules)
2. The character begins with an amount of energy equal to their current cliche level (adjusted for Pumping, Questing Dice, or Bonus Gear). If this number exceeds the TN of the spell, it is successfully cast.
3. Every two minutes, the sorcerer can roll a single Sorcery Die, rolled on a quartered surface or with a reference die to determine suit (see this post). If the suit of the die matches the Aspect of the spell (see below) then the full amount can be applied to the total. Otherwise, the die counts only as a 1. If the die is not discarded then Harmonics (see below) associated with the suit will occur.
4. With every roll of the dice, there is a chance that a spell will go horribly wrong. Wild Spells are more likely to occur depending on how many spells are currently being cast by all characters. Consult the table below for the odds. 

Aspects and Harmonic Effects

♥ Emotional & Mental Magick: Causes a passionate emotional response in the target, caster, or bystander; stuns the target or caster or bystander; causes illusionary effects

♦ Material Magick: Illusions/spirits take physical form; material properties are altered.

♣ Elemental Magick: Storm or natural disaster; elemental creatures summoned; ambient elemental powers strengthened or dampened

♠ Spirit & Dimensional Magick: Spirits or demons invariably summoned to the area

# Spells Being Cast	A Wild Spell Occurs On...
1 or 2	Roll a 1 of the aligned Aspect
3	Roll a 1 of the aligned Color (black or red)
4	Roll a 1 of unaligned Aspect
5	Roll a 1

ADVANCED OPTION: SORCERY DECK
As with the standard Castle Falkentstein rules, a regular deck of playing cards can be used to determine the amount of energy drawn in a given turn. One deck cards, called the Sorcery Deck, is shared among all spell casters in the geographical region.

Spell Target Numbers are doubled, as is the amount of free energy that a character starts with (i.e. a 5 dice cliche yields 10 points of free energy). Cards of the proper Aspect contribute their full face value (with Jacks equal to 11, Queens 12, Kings 13, and Aces 14). Jokers indicate Wild Spells.

I highly recommend this approach as it seems truer to the spirit of the original game and better simulates the odds of Wild Spells.

Cowboys and Indie Bands

This Risus Monkey is proud to host three micro-settings from Dan Suptic: the fantastic Arcadomai; the post-apocalyptic wu xia Dao Sheng; and the tequila & bullets Risus Mariachi. His most recent effort (hosted at the Risusiverse) is an emo twist on that last setting called Cowboys and Indie Bands. "Only in Risus..." is a phrase that immediately springs to mind.  

Blogger Down, Monkey Mapper Updated

Blogger crapped out at exactly the right time. My wife has been working hard on her masters thesis and the break from blogging has given me plenty of time to wrangle the kids and help proof-read her paper. Work has been crazy as well and it turns out that I needed a few days without distraction to hit some key deadlines.

But I did manage to make progress on my check-list of boring stuff that needed to get done. First on the list was an update of the Monkey Mapper. I had stopped adding new tiles around Geomorph #105, mostly because Dave's Mapper did everything so much better. But the Monkey Mapper still has its uses (its the fastest way to get a quick dungeon of only my geomorphs), so I wanted to make sure it had my latest dungeon geomorphs.

Anyway, we have graduation activities all weekend so posting will continue to be light. But I have a bunch of cool content in the works (including more Otusworld posts, the completing of Risus Falkenstein, and some new PocketMods).

Sidemorph #3: An Experiment in Hatching

I've been floored by the quality of the sidemorphs being produced by Stonewerks, Dyson, and Matt Jackson at lapsus calumni. These guys are absolutely on fire.

So I decided to give hatching a try. On paper, with the right kind of pen, I've managed to produce some tiles that I'm really proud of. Alas, completing the following tile with my drawing tablet doesn't look quite as good (and it was a pain in my wrist to boot). Oh well, it's a start. I suspect that I'll be evolving my own technique as a complete more of these. It may be that I just end up switching to scanned hand-drawn maps.

Anyway, for this tile I went back to White Plume Mountain. You really do get to add more details on these sidemorphs and for this one I added a gargoyle, some kind of altar, a pile of gold under a lantern, and a drainage valve at the bottom of the lake of hot something.

By the way, I also experimented with a higher resolution on this tile. I'm not sure it really added anything this time.

Weird West RPG

At the same time that I was revisiting the world of steam-age fantasy for my Castle Falkenstein adaptation (which will continue in a day or so), Stuart Robertson ventured into related territory for his Weird West Roleplaying Game Basic Rulebook. Available for considerably less than a fistful of dollars, this little (and I do mean little) game distills an entire old school D&D-style rule set onto a single PocketMod. 

I just can't stop thinking about this game.

The design choices almost perfectly match what I would do with a D&D game if were to take it out of its natural dungeon fantasy environment. Ability scores are gone and with them any barriers to envisioning your character the way you want. The characteristics of the core D&D classes (fighting, hit dice, magic use, and "skills") replace ability scores and a nice mix of four classes ("Paths") allow these to advance in different ways. Thinking of my own weird west setting, I could imagine converting most of the native characters to this system.

The combat stuff is pretty cool too. The turn sequence has been drastically simplified yet there are seven interesting actions/maneuvers that give combatants meaningful choices. And I love the inclusion of a stunt action as it seems loaded with possibilities. Defense (AC) now tracks with Skill, making unarmored characters viable. That change also corrects a nagging issue I have with old school D&D combat - namely that a character's offensive abilities improve while a character's defensive abilities (outside of hit dice) do not.  And speaking of hit dice, I really like how hit points ("stamina") are handled in the game. One of several novel stamina-related rules is that interesting stuff happens to a character when they are reduced to 0 (death being only one possibility). Stamina points are also rerolled every session.

All in all, this is a fine "rulebook" that can be carried in your back pocket or on your phone (if you haven't already  memorized it). It's broadly compatible with D&D and my first thought would be to use this in a B/X-style setting with weird science thrown into the mix. It would also be great for Trey Causey's upcoming Weird Adventures (teased on From The Sorcerer's Skull).

On Dice and Cards (Risus Falkenstein Part II)

Wherein Tom Olam continues to describe his thoughts on how to adapt Castle Falkenstein to Risus: The Anything RPG. Once I've posted the remaining installments, I'll edit things down into nicely formatted PDF (a PocketMod if I can manage).

***

Like most roleplaying systems, Risus uses dice to inject an element of chance into the game. I am comfortable with that and on the other side of the Faerie Vale, I don't think it would have occured to me to do anything different. But here in New Europa, gentlemen don't play dice! Ladies especially don't play dice. Period!

The purpose of this letter is to help you play Risus in the style of Castle Falkenstein, so I'd be remiss if I didn't at least attempt to convince you to use playing cards for certain game situations.

ADVANCED OPTION:  FORTUNE CARDS
An ordinary deck of playing cards (including Jokers) can be used in lieu of dice. For every die that a player would normally roll, a single draw from a common deck of cards (henceforth called the Fortune Deck) can be made instead. Use the card's actual value, with face cards rated at Jack [11], Queen [12], King [13], Ace [14], and Joker [15]. Since this gives a much greater spread than a standard d6, Target Numbers should be at least at doubled.

Example: A Gentleman Thief (3) tries to scale a castle wall for a discrete assignation. In regular Risus, the GM thinks the Target Number would be about 7. Using Fortune Cards, the GM bumps the Target Number up to 15. The character draws a 3♣, 8♦, and a King♥ for a total of 24, for a rousing success.

Other than being acceptable in polite company, cards offer another advantage. They possess suit, which can be used to help interpret successful or failed actions as well as the effects of a round of combat.

In Risus Falkenstein, all Target Number "rolls" or contest/combat actions are assigned one or the four standard suits accordingly:

♥ Hearts: Emotion, Romance, Courage, Spirit

♦ Diamonds: Intellect, Knowledge, Perception

♣ Clubs: Physical Endeavors

♠ Spades: Social Status, Wealth, Connections


For Target Number "rolls" (renamed to Target Number "draws") and standard combat or single-action contests,  suit can be used to help describe how something succeeded or failed. On a success, choose the suit of the highest card and use it to identify what was the deciding factor. Alternatively, name some additional side-benefit associated with the suit. Similarly, take the suit of the lowest card to help exlain a failure or describe the consequences. If there are multiple cards of the same value, the GM can select a single card or apply multiple effects. Jokers can be interpreted as any suit and the most interesting or surprising result should be used.

Example: Succeeding on his roll, the Gentleman Thief (3) in the previous example had a King of Hearts that put him over the top. Obviously, the character is being driven by romantic obsession and easily vaults up the wall without considering the danger. The character will make a dramatic entrance through the window and his romantic interest will swoon over his manly competence.

When the rules for Teams are used (outside of Deadly combat), team members only contribute Face Cards of the appropriate suit to the results. Jokers are always considered to be of the appropriate suit.

Finally, the Deadly Combat rules (from the Risus Companion) are especially well suited to using Fortune Cards. Instead of adding values, characters compare their highest cards. A card of an appropriate suit to the task at hand always beat other cards of similar value even before the Goliath Rule* is taken into effect.

* The Goliath rule states that the character with the lowest number of dice (cards in this case) wins in case of a tie. 

ADVANCED OPTION:  SUITED DICE
If Risus doesn't seem like Risus without rolling dice, then some of the feel of Falkenstein can be achieved by assigning suits to the dice that are rolled. This can be achieved by rolling an additional reference die of a different shape or color. The position of the other dice around the reference die determine their suits.

In addition to supplying narrative color to regular rolls, suits can now break ties in Deadly Combat (as for Fortune Cards).

***

In the next installment: Falkenstein-style Sorcery

Risus Falkenstein (Part I)

During the A to Z Challenge, I professed my love of R. Talsorian's 1995 masterpiece, Castle Falkenstein. While I detailed my own personal history with the game and many of the reasons why I found it so appealing, I ran out of time before I could describe my thoughts on running Falkenstein adventures using using Risus. I have a lot of thoughts on the matter, so I'm going to break this down into a series of posts (which I'll assemble a single PDF when I'm done). Here's the first installment... 

***

Dear Tim,

I'm not dead!

I apologize if my correspondences across the Faerie Vale have been few and far between these days. My responsibilities as an agent in the Royal Secret Service have me constantly on the move. But as I find myself with a few rare moments of peace here at the Castle, I thought I'd take a lazy afternoon to detail my own thoughts on using Risus to simulate fantastic steam-age adventures. That is your system of choice these days, is it not? A fine system, if I may say so, even if the whole dice thing would get me thrown out of the better salons and clubs of New Europa.

Tom Olam
Castle Falkenstein, Bayern
March 5th, 1885

***

CHARACTER CONCEPT
The original Castle Falkenstein rules and supplements can suggest numerous types of characters that you can play, but any heroic archetype from adventure fiction would be appropriate. Victorian and Edwardian literature is particularly helpful for coming up with suitable concepts, though perhaps more contemporary "steampunk" movies, TV shows, and adventure stories would be more accessible to modern sensibilities. Western and pulp resources should definitely be considered as well.

***

SUGGESTED RULES OPTIONS
I would recommend all of the advanced options in the Risus rules except Funky Dice, which don't seem necessary given that even Dragons are rated on the same scale as human characters in the original game. The various options from the Risus Companion can also be used, though possession of the Companion is no way required (as stipulated in the IOR Charter).

I'll detail additional rules options to help capture the Falkenstein feel below.

***

CHARACTER CLICHES
The following list of dramatic characters from the original rules is provided to give players examples of cliches that are especially suitable for the setting. Players are encouraged to customize these or invent new ones of their own. Note that many of these cliches can be combined and I refer you to the "Anatomy of a cliche" section of the Companion [excerpted here] for additional advice/inspiration.

• Adventuress (fencing, shooting, performing feats of “derring-do”, being charismatic, flouting social conventions)
• Anarchist (Ranting against authority, inciting riots, writing inflammatory screeds, pontification on the finer points of political theory, throwing bombs, blowing up buildings, assassinating public figures)
• Brownie (Performing great works of household labor; shooting elfshot; being twelve inches tall and hard to hit and notice; playing riddle games; having faerie powers of glamour and etherealness) (Includes Faerie vulnerabilities as a built-in hook)
• Calculation Engineer (Solving mathematical problems; programming punch-cards; building and repairing calculation engines; being the smartest person in the room; being socially akward; being obsessed by pop-culture trivia)
• Consulting Detective (Noticing clues; solving crimes with the power of deduction; knowing obscure facts; defending against criminals with fisticuffs, pistols, or fencing)
• Dashing Hussar (Performing feats of “derring-do”; riding warhorses; fighting with gun and sword, on foot or on horseback; looking good in uniform; commanding others in battle)
• Demimondaine (Being beautiful, being charming, getting other people to buy you things; knowing just the right person)
• Diplomat (Being familiar with other cultures; being a master of etiquette; having government connections; successfully navigating complex negotiations; reading faces; speaking French)
• Dragon Lord (Being inhumanly long-lived; having a vast and specialized collection; having a cool and calculating intellect; transforming between human and dragon forms; being fantastically strong; having an instictual command of sorcery; breathing fire)
• Dwarf Craftsman (Creating amazing inventions; building and repairing machines; possessing an ability to shape metal into any form; being a scrappy fighter; being strong and tough; being completely immune to fire; being highly resistant to Magick in all forms)
• Explorer (Finding one's way, chatting up natives, surviving in the outdoors, not taking a bath; being ruggedly athletic; speaking many languages)
• Faerie Lord/Lady (Being beautiful, being the center of attention; fighting with silver swords; bending the wills of mortals; having faerie powers of glamour and etherealness) (Includes Faerie vulnerabilities as a built-in hook)
• Gentleman Thief (Being suave and sophisticated; being athletic; having uncommonly good taste; high-stakes breaking and enterring; detecting and avoiding or disabling security; making off with the best loot)
• Gentleman/Woman (Associating with the right kind of people; knowing proper etiquette; being well-dressed and well-equipped; riding and shooting under controlled circumstances; duelling; not having to work for a living)
• Inventor (Creating amazing inventions that are either anachronistic or that strain the laws physics; understanding and repairing machines of all kinds, often with inappropriate parts; always having just the right gadget handy)
• Journalist (Having a list of useful sources, gaining people's trust, conducting interviews, observing from a distance, having an eye for details, embellishing facts)
• Mad Scientist (Creating diabolical inventions that blatantly violate the laws physics; being extraordinarily well educated; being a master of Science!)
• Mastermind (Creating extraordinary Infernal Devices, being extremely well educated, having a fortified secret lair, megalomaniacal ranting, recruiting minions)
• Nobleman/Woman (Being famous throughout the land; having vast holdings and almost limitless resources; knowing proper etiquette; setting fashion trends; riding and shooting; avoiding scandal; being related to other members of the aristocracy)
• Performer (Being famous; captivating others through your art; having legions of adoring and sometimes useful fans; setting fashion trends; being wealthy; avoiding stalkers)
• Physician (Being a well-educated professional, performing surgery, diagnosing illness; prescribing restorative therapies)
• Pixie (Frolicking in idyllic sylvan venues; harassing mortals with tiny weapons and practical jokes; shooting elfshot; being twelve inches tall and hard to hit and notice; "assisting" young lovers; instilling passion with faerie love charms; having faerie powers of glamour and etherealness) (Includes Faerie vulnerabilities as a built-in hook)
• Rogue (Being charming; having all sorts of useful and often seedy connections; gambling; cheating; seducing the innocent; talking people out of money; posing as someone above your station; getting out of scrapes; shooting a hold-out pistol; running away)
• Scientist (Being extraordinarily well educated; being a master of Science! in all its forms; being the foremost expert in your field; being famous among a very small number of people; teaching others; winning research grants; getting published in prestigious journals)
• Secret Agent (Inventing and maintaining a cover identity; shooting; brawling; fencing; participating in cinematic chases; being equipped with just the right gadget; assassinating enemy agents; sneaking around after dark)
• Soldier of Fortune (Fighting with fisticuffs, firearms, and various melee weapons; negotiating contracts; getting out of trouble when a job goes bad; being strong, stern, and one tough hombre)
• Steam Engineer (Creating amazing inventions using the power of Steam; coaxing more power out of engines that "can't take it anymore"; fixing just about anything mechanical in nature; working in smokey, uncomforable environment; getting dirty)
• Wizard (Knowing occult lore; reading and speaking arcane languages; dueling other wizards; percieving and manipulating magickal forces; being a member of a Sorcerous Order and casting the spells in associated Lorebooks) (See the rules on Sorcery below)
• Writer (Writing stirring tales; having interesting and varied life experiences; people watching; being well educated; being a charming conversationlist; getting into dangerous situaions and living to tell the tale)

***

In the next installment: On Dice and Cards!

Brave the Impossible!

After an unfortunate  delay, Brent Wolke is back with another awesome 8-page Risus setting. This time, it's a cinematic steampunk world of high adventure in the aftermath of a failed Martian invasion. Check out the engine of thwaak for Brave the Impossible as well as updated versions of his previous work. Each of the settings are handsomely presented and contain cool little nuggets that you can important into all sorts of Risus games. For Brave the Impossible, I particularly like "Society Dice" (a neat little Questing Dice variant).

Incidentally, the timing of this couldn't be more perfect given the long posts that I'm still trying to assemble.

Citymorph #2

In the middle of composing a much larger post, I thought I'd take a break to squeeze out another urban tile. I'm still evolving my technique and this time I added chimneys, a few skylights, a well/fountain, and a market tent (that thing that looks like a spider web). The cluster of buildings in the center of the tile should be a good area for roof-hooping and there are hints that the buildings in the lower left of that section are taller than those to the immediate northeast. There are three fenced/walled in areas that are more or less clear (the area in the central area is perhaps less clear than the other two).

I'm thinking that this tile is another relatively well-to-do area. My next tiles will need to start focusing on more ramshackle parts of town.

Sidemorph #2: Jumping Down Floating Rocks

It's spring cleaning time here at the Risus Monkey. With a goal of making progress on some of my "to do" lists, I hope to build a critical mass of the new side-view and urban geomorphs. The following side-view tile is specifically designed to take advantage of the vertical dimension. Five free-floating pillars of rock hang suspended in a large cavern. The only way to descend from some of the upper passages is to find a way down across the gaps. An unrelated cavern in the lower right contains brazier that can only be accessed by navigating a series of ladders.

The Bin Laden Compound as Gaming Fodder

Not a lot of game blog commentary on the big news that broke last night, which is perfectly cool. For the most part I try to keep the real-world out of my blog if it doesn't have any relevance to gaming. But while surfing the Intertubes at lunch, I came across a military presentation detailing the physical area where Osama bin Laden was hiding. It includes this map of the compound:

Osama bin Laden's Compound (click to enlarge)

I don't know about you, but the first thing I thought of when I looked at the map is "wow, I could use that in my games". The place is realistically fortified and would make a great target for an assault or heist scenario.  Just add an evil mastermind, his gang of thugs, some non-combatant human shields, and (optionally) sharks with frikkin' lasers.

Map Image from Talking Points Memo.

May: Spring Cleaning and Alphabet Soup

May is here and I can finally kiss that A to Z Challenge good bye. I must say that it was a good run, though. Some of my posts surprised me and I think I really benefited from the externally-imposed structure. I really liked how it actually made me plan my posts in advance (though I did pull a few last minute switcheroos).

Thanks to everybody that stopped by and commented, especially those non-gamers who wandered in from the outside because of the challenge. Here is the final list of posts:

A is for Actors
B is for Borders
C is for Corners
D is for DungeonMorph Dice
E is for Empty Room Table
F is for Falkenstein
G is for Geomorphs
H is for Hobbit
I is for Immortals
J is for Just-In-Time Characters
K is for Kids
L is for Ledges
M is for Microdungeon
N is for Appendix N
O is for Otusworld
P is for Play By Post
Q is for Questing Dice
R is for Risus Companion
S is for Spatial Relationships
T is for Tribute
U is for Urban Tiles
V is for Voodoo
W is for WilderWords
X is for Xander Harris
Y is for Y: The Last Man
Z is for Z-Coordinate Geomorph

I have no grand theme in May. My main goal for the upcoming month is to do some "spring cleaning" and finally move some blog-related items off my "to do" list. I want to return to some of my old Mythic GME games, continue the Otusworld project, complete the Karst Chantry, draw more maps and geomorphs (of all types), and finally catch up on The Hobbit reread. In the real-world, I'd love to resolve my scheduling issues and resume my regular face-to-face gaming (and try out a few new games here and there).