Sertorius: Musical Inspiration

Like a lot of GMs, I listen to music when I prepare for a game session. I find the right song helps get me in the mood and inspires ideas as well. When we worked on Sertorius I was going for a particular feel so there were specific types of music and artists I tended to turn on when I was mapping or planning things out (as a general rule though I never type while listening to music as it distracts me). Here is a sample list of the artists, albums and songs that helped inspire Gamandria. Usually I was going for a kind of sound that helped me think of Gamandria or something where the subject matter was relevant. I am sure I have left some key ones off the list here: 

Bach, St. John Passion 

Beyonce, Sweet Dreams (Song)
Bill Withers, Ain't No Sunshine (Song) 
Bolt Thrower, War Master (Album)
Carabao (Band)
Cathedral, Forest Equilibrium (Album)
Candlemass, Tales of Creation (Album)
Daft Punk, Get Lucky (Song)
Destiny's Child, Say My Name (Song)
The Doors, Riders on the Storm
Ennio Morricone, The Ecstasy of Gold (Song)
Ennio Morricone, The Mission (Soundtrack)
Gorillaz Demon Days (Album)
Henry Purcell, Funeral Music for Queen Mary
Henry Purcel, Sonatas in 4 Parts for 2 Violins, Bass Viol and Continuo
House of the Rising Sun (The Animals)
Huun-Huur-Tu, Old Songs and Tunes of Tuva (Album)
Iron Maiden, Number of the Beast (Album)
Iron Maiden, Powerslave (Album)
Iron Maiden, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son (Album)
Kanye West, All of the Lights
Kanye West, Heartless (Song)
Kim Young Dong, Traveling of Korean Meditation Music (Album)
Led Zeppelin, Houses of the Holy (Album)
Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin IV (Album)
Mario Winans, Hurt No More (Album)
Maurice Jarre, Lawrence of Arabia (Soundtrack)
Monteverdi, Vespro Della Beata Vergine
Ozzy Osbourne, The Ultimate Sin (Album)
Patrick Doyle, Frankenstein (Soundtrack)
Phil Ochs, Crucifixion (Song)
Phil Ochs, Pleasures of the Harbor (Song)
Phil Ochs, Rehearsals for Retirement (Album)
Phil Ochs, When in Rome (Song)
Queen, Queen II (Album)
Queen, A Night at the Opera (Album)
Queen, Innuendo (Album)
Rihanna, Diamonds (Song)
Roy Orbison (Artist)
Sia (Artist)
Tan Dun, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Soundtrack)

Dungeon Arts

Later today I will blog about music in gaming. But first I want to give a shout out to our friend Greg Taylor who makes some pretty stellar virtual tokens and dungeon tiles for online gaming. If you use online tabletops, these sorts of things can come in handy. Here is a link to his work: DUNGEON ARTS.

THE SERTORIUS SETTING: GAMANDRIA PART ONE

Today I want to discuss Gamandria, the fantasy setting where Sertorius takes place. I will talk a bit about the nature of the world, what sources inspired its development and how it was created by the design team. 

Gamandria is a geocentric world where present-day city-states and empires are built upon the ruins of an ancient Ogre civilization that collapsed about fourteen hundred years ago. It is a complete continent with tons of interesting locations to explore, and they span a broad range of cultures, from northern coastal raiding Gru tribes who worship the bear lord Sur Vanker, to the river culture of Matruk who worship their king as a living god. It is a place where deities walk the earth. 

It is also a place where magic has made a large impact. This happens in a number of ways, but the most striking is through features called Grims. These are places where powerful Sertori were overcome with their magic and transformed into powerful beings that infect the local landscape. Some might a sentient pool of water that rewards those who please it, others might be haunted woods where time flows chaotically with a dark entity at its heart.

When we designed the world, we drew on a wide variety of sources for inspiration.  As you can see from the introduction of the book, there are quite a few:

I am a history buff and read more history books than I do novels, so I was initially inspired by cultures like Rome, Carthage, Byzantium, Persia, Scythia and Mesopotamia. However we wanted it to be a setting capable of supporting a number of different campaign styles, so I also drew from other periods and places. I think in the end we were striving for something more in the realm of Conan than say Game of Thrones. 

Biblical stories also had an influence on the setting. As did Star Trek and Life of Brian. I mention Life of Brian, not because the game is silly (it isn't) but because it provided a useful model for the Followers system in the game where Sertori can become the focus of a cult and increase in Divinity. Jesus of Nazareth and Agora also provided helpful models for this as well. 

Role-playing games we played growing up also shaped how we developed the setting. There were many but for me, Ravenloft probably had the largest impact. This isn't very apparent at first if you read the setting material, but as you think through some of the implications of how magic works and if you looks at some of the central monsters like Grim Beasts, you can definitely see echoes of it. 

Designing Gamandria required we have a solid foundation. To the right is the map of Gamandria. It was created by Rob Conley who did an excellent job in my opinion. Below this image is a shot of my original hand drawn maps he worked off of. 

This map took quite some time to make because we wanted to have an entry for each named area. It took two giant poster sized sheets in the end for the final hand-drawn version. Prior to that I worked on a single sheet with about 7-10 versions of the map over the course of its history (to get a sense of how people had moved and events had occurred). Then I used the last of those maps as a basis for this one. 

I also did this as we were running multiple campaigns in the setting. I even ran several using other systems just to get a chance to test out some areas with players who were more familiar with other RPGs. Normally I would target places I knew I wanted to expand. So going in I decided the Perlova Valley province of Caelum Republic would have a robust description. I played a small campaign there with my cousin and her boyfriend, which really helped me flesh the region out. I rand it like a sandbox because that really forced me to think of everything that was there. 

Entries in the setting chapter range in size from a sentence or two to several pages. Perlova Valley is a large sub-entry in the Caelum Republic section, going from the bottom of page 268 to the top of page 269 (see images to the right). It may not look like a lot, bit it is a result of adventures played there by two different groups of people. 

Not every entry in the book got this level of treatment of course, but Perlova Valley was one among many that did. Places like The Marite Kingdoms, The Ronian Empire, Caelum, Sardona, Donyra, Belvar and several others were given this sort of focus. 

We think this resulted in a great setting with lots of adventure potential. Hopefully in the coming weeks I will follow this entry with a part two. 

Wuxia Inspiration: The Swordsman II (Film) and Swordsman (TV Series)

I have been going back and watching a lot of movies from the shelf that I haven't seen in a while as we work on Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate (a free RPG based on Sertorius). In that stack are a bunch of Jet Li movies from the 90s. The Swordsman II (sometimes called The Legend of Swordsman) is my second favorite Jet Li film from that period right after Tai Chi Master (Twin Warriors). Watching this film also prompted me to finally track down and view a chinese TV series from 2013 called Swordsman, because they are both based on the same source material. I am going to discuss both briefly and talk about how they influenced the design of Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate. 

The Swordsman II is a Tsui Hark produced film (Zu Warriors, Once Upon a Time in China and Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame) released in 1992 and is the second movie in a three part series based on Louis Cha's The Smiling, Proud Wanderer. While watching the first film (The Swordsman) is helpful to understand the context of the second, it isn't necessary in my opinion as it is fairly easy to follow a long and figure out the important stuff. The film stars Jet Li as Linghu Chong, Brigitte Lin as Dongfang Bubai, Rosamund Kwan as Ren Yingying, Yen Shi-kwan as Ren Woxing and Michelle Reis as Yue Lingshan.  

In Swordsman II Linghu Chong and Yue Lingshan, disciples of Mount Hua Sect plan to leave Jianghu (the martial world) but get drawn back in through a conflict within the Sun Moon Holy Cult (the sect that Linghu's love interest, Ren Yingying belongs to). The former leader of Sun Moon Holy Cult, Ren Woxing, has been deposed and imprisoned by a usurper, Dongfang Bubai (his former deputy). It should be noted here that Dongfang Bubai is called Invincible Asia in the subtitles of my version of the film. I am told this is just a literal translation of the name Dongfang Bubai. Dongfang Bubai now leads the Sun Moon Holy Cult, working with Japanese allies to seize the power from the Ming Dynasty. 

Ren Yingying, the daughter of the cult's former chief, leads a small band of followers still loyal their previous master. The plot basically begins when Linghu Chong, Yue Lingshan and other members of their Hua Sect promise to help and in the process come into conflict with Dongfang Bubai. Because of an earlier encounter on the road where he mistook Dongfang Bubai for a village girl, Linghu Chong falls in love for the new leader of the Sun Moon Holy Cult, adding an interesting complication to the plot. 

Some explanation of this last point. At the beginning of the movie, Dongfang Bubai is beginning to master something called the Sunflower Manual, which contains powerful martial techniques invented by an Imperial Eunuch. The first requirement of mastering the manual is castration, which Dongfang Bubai does, causing him to become more and more feminine as the movie progresses (the part is played by Brigitte Lin the whole way through but her voice softens considerably by the end). 


I don't want to give anything away, but the film ends with an epic battle between Dongfang Bubai and all other characters I have named. There are also a number of excellent swordplay scenes throughout the movie. Even though it is not terribly long, the movie manages to cover a lot of character development (at least regarding Linghu Chong, Ren Yingying and Dongfang Bubai). 

From what I have been able to gather, Brigitte Lin pretty much set a new standard for the character of Dongfang Bubai with this performance. 

The television series Swordsman was released in 2012-13 and stars Wallace Huo as Linghu Chong, Joe Chen as Dongfang Bubai, Yang Rong as Yue Lingshan, Chen Xiao as Ling Pingzhi, Yuan Shanshan as Ren Yingying, Howie Huang as Yue Buqun, Deng Sha as Yilin, Yang Mingna as Ning Zhongze and Heizi as Ren Woxing. Those are just some of the key characters in the show, there are countless others. Like The Swordsman film series it is based on The Smiling, Proud Wanderer by Louis Cha, but because it is 42 episodes it covers more material from the book (though it apparently deviates from it plenty as well). 

The story follows Linghu Chong as he struggles to balance the sometimes conflicting demands of honor in the martial world as a member of the Mount Hua Sect. Linghu Chong is a skilled swordsman who loves to drink wine and is more open-minded than the leader of his sect. This is against the backdrop of a larger conflict involving the "good sects" and the "demon sects". Mount Hua Sect is part of an alliance, made up of five other good sects which have the stated aim of eradicating the demon sects. The alliance (called the Five Mountain Sword Sect Alliance) is unofficially led by Zuo Lengshan, head of Mount Song Sect. He is ambitious and uses the conflict between good sects and demon sects as an excuse to become head of the entire martial world. 

I don't want to give too much away here, but one of the key points of the series is this sort of hypocrisy being used by various "good" sects, enabling them to resort to evil means. Another key plot point is a coveted set of martial skills contained in the Sunflower Manual and Bixie Swordplay Manual. The desire to obtain these skills dominates the motives of many characters in the story, even those who are ostensibly good. 

Again the Sun Moon Holy Cult is important in this version as well. They are the chief opponent of the Five Mountain Sword Alliance, but also a source of personal tension for Linghu Chong who falls for two of its members (Dongfang Bubai and Ren Yingying, the former chief's daughter). As with The Swordsman II, Donfang Bubai takes control of Sun Moon Holy Cult and imprisons its chief, Ren Woxing. Ren Yingyin manages to gain the trust of Dongfang Bubai and becomes a highly respected person inside the sect. 

The character of Dongfang Bubai is treated differently than The Swordsman II. In this version Dongfang Bubai is born a woman but dresses as a man in order to hide her identity and become the leader of Sun Moon Holy Cult. It is quite different from Brigitte Lin's performance but also interesting on its own with more focus on redemption as she comes to understand the true meaning of love. 

The name The Smiling, Proud Wanderer simply refers to a song composed by two men, one from a good sect and one from an evil sect. Linghu Chong is charged with protecting the song by its composers and is deeply moved by the melody. The song also features in Swordsman II. 

I highly recommend Swordsman to anyone with an interest in the genre. It is long and like a lot of these shows it dips in and out of romance, comedy, action and suspense. The swordplay is spectacular, and I really liked how they get into the politics of the various sects. I should warn people that there are several self-castration scenes in the series (though they are not graphic and more suggestive than anything else) and some of the humor (especially that involving the character Tian Boguang, a notorious rapist) might be considered inappropriate by some western audiences. 

Both Swordsman and The Swordsman II have a lot of material to inspire a wuxia setting. Mainly I was thinking about the different martial arts techniques that could be used in Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate. In Swordsman II there one character demonstrates the ability to slice a person in half from a distance with a sword swipe and I would like to be able to somehow make that work mechanically (I think we may have figured out a way). The series and the film both feature Dongfang Bubai using an attack with multiple thread spools and needles. We already have needle attacks but I would really like to make this sort of thing work as well, so long as I can differentiate it from the regular needle techniques. 

In terms of setting material, I like the idea of The Sunflower Manual and would like to have something similar. I also found the way the sects were handled very instructive. 

There were also lots of supernatural elements I'd like to draw on. In particular a group of bronze monk guardians who materialized to protect an underground shrine in Shaolin Temple. 

The big challenge is creating new techniques that are different from existing ones mechanically in the game (I am not a big fan of re-skinning mechanics with different surface flavor). 

For more information on Swordsman and shows like it, I strongly suggest checking out Wuxia Edge. It is a very good Wuxia site that focuses on the positive aspects of fandom: Wuxia Edge. 

Evil Characters Part One

I was involved in a discussion the other day about evil characters in RPGs. The original topic was another subject entirely but evolved into a debate over the merits of allowing evil player characters in a campaign. I think this is a complicated discussion, one that is largely subjective and a matter of taste. For some people, evil player-characters are a non-option, something that not only ruins the game but is the last thing they want to deal with in an RPG. For others it is a good way to spice things up, another flavor to give the campaign more depth. And for some, nothing beats an evil party of adversarial PCs bent on rising to power. My take is that evil characters can be lots of fun provided they fit the play style of the group and they are not used as an excuse to be a jerk to other players. So here are some observations based on my own experience with evil player characters. 

All Evil Parties
I have run several evil campaigns as a GM. In most cases these were for systems like Crime Network, where the players are all supposed to be criminals. In a few these were standard fantasy campaigns and the players had agreed to all be evil prior to play. While this would appear to be a recipe for disaster, it actually works out pretty well. In the case of the Crime Network the characters were all members of the same mob crew, so there was a hierarchy in place and a common goal. For the most part this meant the group functioned like a team. But because it was the mafia there was a certain acceptable degree of conflict within the party itself. Picture a movie like Goodfellas or show like the Sopranos and that is basically how this party functioned. Most of the time everything was fine, but if somebody got too greedy or too paranoid, that could turn. What was interesting was how self-regulating the evil characters were. While it was a group of thieves and thugs, we didn't run into the classic problem of the guy who picks the pockets of other party members. Part of the reason for this was because these were all seasoned mobsters, justice within the group was swift for such transgressions. The other members of the crew simply wouldn't put up with it. This brings me to my next observation. 

Evil Has Consequences
I think one of the key reasons people run into problems with evil PCs is a lack of consequences for evil actions. Whether it is betraying members of your own party or robbing every magic shop you come across, things can spiral out of control if there are not setting appropriate consequences for such actions. When a member of the party itself turns on his friends, they ought to react appropriately. Mainly this is a player issue, where the players have to be willing to draw a line in the sand. If a character is that disruptive to the party, why are they still traveling with him? On the other hand, sometimes the GM needs to make it clear that it is okay for the players to police themselves in that way. 

When the evil is directed externally, then it falls on the GM to handle it. This isn't about preventing the player from doing what he wants to do. It also isn't about penalizing the player for playing an evil PC. It is more about encouraging smart play. There is evil, and then there is stupid evil. A strong evil PC is characterized by self interest and desire to put his own needs ahead of societal conventions or laws. He may even resort to cruelty and murder to get what he wants. But he isn't going to last long if he behaves with zero caution and discretion. If the character murders anyone who gets in his way, bullies his way into free inn rooms and items, then eventually consequences will occur. It is only a matter of time before a group of heroes come after such a person to dispense justice. 

Evil Characters Still Have Friends and Loved Ones
This relates to the previous point but evil characters can still have strong connections to members of their party, their family, etc. They may be more volatile, require more careful handling, but they can still have loyalties and values. An evil PC may not respect property laws or laws against doing bodily harm to others, but he might adhere to a code of loyalty to those inside his circle. So he might steal a magic ring from some guy in the street but not from a person in his party. 

Adversarial Play
Not all evil campaigns are adversarial, in fact in my experience most are not. However there is a style of "everyman for himself/Spy Versus Spy" evil party play. This can be a lot of fun if everyone is on board and works best in short term campaigns. It doesn't work though if people take things too personally. The GM also needs to make special effort to be impartial because so many of the calls are between player characters. 

I have had both good and bad experiences with this approach. The worst experience was when I was younger, in a group where it slowly dawned on me that the gaming style was adversarial (and I had been approaching it as a normal game up to that point). Once I realized what was going on, I enjoyed myself more. 

As a player in a campaign like this you have to strive to be a good sport. If you are a sore loser, an adversarial game is going to be difficult for you to enjoy (and behaving like a sore loser will actually make it harder for the GM to be impartial in your case, because may avoid making calls against you just to avoid issues). 

On the other hand, adversarial play is competitive in nature. Getting a little frustrated when things don't go your way, or a little excited when you stomp the other players, is just part of the game. 

When things become adversarial that may also change how you handle the mechanics and how you manage adventure. Finding the right system or the best premise for a campaign is a good idea. Paranoia sort of sets the standard here. In that game players often have secret missions or goals that put them at odds with the other characters. I have seen some adversarial adventures in some of our own games. My friend Steve has been running an adversarial campaign using Sertorius and it is interesting to see how this affects the utility of different spells. For example Obliterate Magic becomes much more useful in a game where the players are competing with one another than in a standard campaign (where cooperation is the norm). Our game Crime Network is friendly to adversarial play. In Crime Network each character has Personal Goals and as with the game Paranoia these can put characters into conflict with one another (including being instructed by the boss to "whack" a member of their crew). I contributed to a d20 game a while ago called Conflict PvP and while the focus is on skirmishes, it may be of some use to anyone seeking a more adversarial campaign using Pathfinder or d20. 

Know Your Group
This advice applies to pretty much anything in RPGs, but doubly so when it comes to evil characters. An evil campaign that works wonderfully with group A might sink with group B. This is also an area in gaming where personal beliefs and values will be a factor. Assess what your player's feelings are on the subject before embarking on an evil adventure. 

Evil in a Standard Campaign
Even in a regular campaign where most of the characters are good, you may have a player or two who want to be an assassin or necromancer. I find this works so long as the group treats it realistically. By that I mean if you have a character who is evil to the bone traveling with a party of paladins and Lawful Good clerics, there ought to be a darn good reason. If the characters are behaving as they would were the situation real, then they either wouldn't be traveling together or the evil character would not allow his nature to disrupt the party. Otherwise he would just be booted out or killed. A smart character might conceal his actions from the rest of the group, but if it is a d20 fantasy game, then things like Detect Evil might make hiding his nature impossible. 

There could be a more complicated reason for the evil character traveling with the group. Perhaps the Paladin has been commanded by his god to redeem the evil PC. This is basically the plot of the film A Chinese Odyssey which some GMs may find helpful to watch. Except in that it isn't a paladin, but Longevity Monk (Xuanzang) trying to take Monkey King (Sun Wukong) on a redemptive quest to obtain sacred sutras in India. Monkey King is a real bastard but the compassionate Longevity Monk defends him, instructs him and stands by him. 

I will finish these thoughts in another post. What are your thoughts on the subject? 

Sertorius Sample Player-Character: Enos Ozihel

Here is a sample Sertori from our most recent campaign, Enos Ozihel an orc devotee of the lich-god Ozias. This was made using our fillable character sheet available on the Bedrock Games website (Fillable Character Sheet). We are still working out the details of the fillable character sheet (for now open skills need to be defined by hand) but it has really made things easier. 

Enos is a fur trader and shaman from the Cantian Forest. He worships Ozias, a lich who commands the respect of the Orc tribes from his palace on the Isle of Atroxis.  For skills I tried to give him a broad base and made a point of taking Divination, Medicine and Ritual to reflect his shamanistic nature. He uses Divination to cast the bones and gain insight into the will of Ozias. He uses Ritual to seek the blessing of Ozias and he uses Medicine to treat the followers of Ozias. He also has ranks in Creatures (Undead). You can see his other skills below. 

For Emotion Ranks he has 2 in Agape and 2 in Deimos. 

We have been play testing the first Book of the Archon so Enos' spell selection is mainly taken from that book. The Book of the Archon I will be free and available in the coming months. He has Heal (which is in the Sertorius core rulebook) but his other three spells are: Guardian, Spirit Bind and Awakened Death. These are all fairly powerful spells that are difficult to cast and pose more risk than normal to the caster. With Spirit Bind he can create undead minions. Guardian enables him to create a glowing silhouette replica of himself to protect a person of his choosing. Using Awakened Death he can raise a person from death to undeath as either a Zombie or Ghoul to seek out and destroy an enemy. 

Obviously this character is somewhat necromantic in nature. The reason for this is our current campaign takes place among the northern Orc tribes, who worship a lich (Ozias) and are accustomed to things like undead. 

Beneath the Banshee Tree

Beneath the Banshee Tree is just about ready to go to layout. Hopefully we will have it out in PDF soon for fans. This is the first in a line of free supplements for Sertorius. Here is what you can expect to get in the module. 

Beneath the Banshee Tree is an investigative adventure set in Talyr, a city controlled by the Troll king, Tauq. Without giving too much away (so we don't spoil the adventure for players) it involves a mystery in the wake of the arrival of a large group of Sertori. As the PCs search for clues and try to discover the person behind the plot, a series of events occur each day, complicating their efforts. 

Beneath the Banshee Tree is more than an adventure, it is also a sourcebook with plentiful information on the city of Talyr. It includes:

• A chapter on Talyr and its most important features
• A new monster
• A complete adventure
• A thorough section of detailed NPCs
• Advice for running the investigation and a random daily event table allowing it to play differently each time you run it