Monday, April 1, 2013
ON THE ROADS - WANDERERS in KOS
ON THE ROADS - (some) WANDERERS in KOS
When traveling the roads, PCs will encounter many other people traveling from place to place. The Incantation for Safe Travel only prevents
non-sapient monsters and Bleed-Throughs from treading upon the road; other humans and beastmen are eager to relieve travelers of their valuables.
Make a check every 2 turns
Near a city: 85% of 1 encounter, 40% chance of 2 simultaneously
Near a town: 50%
Near a village: 25%
Near a bridge: 25%
Everywhere else: 5%
Most of the time, there will be a visible dustcloud to indicate the presence of another party at 1/4 miles. however, if the encounter roll was double-digits (as in, 77, 88, etc)
then a curve in the road or a hill pass blocks the other party from view until the last second, at which point you will be in Close Encounter range. Characters with survival training
or extraordinary senses may be able to avert surprise; this is left to the DM's imagination of circumstance
i
1. HOSTILE
2. CARAVAN
3. ADVENTURERS
4. PILGRIMS
1. HOSTILE ENCOUNTER
1. slavers
2. raiders
3. brigands
4. louts
5. local villain
6. "toll keepers"
7. con men
8. monsterfolk raid
9. Dust Devils
10. Wayward Knight
2. CARAVAN
1. 1d20 freemen to market, +1d10 tradesmen, 50% chance of 1d6 youths armed with simple weapons, 25% chance of local authority figure (elder, warrior, etc).
2. 1d20 farms from market, same as above but with smaller, more valuable possessions (+1d20 gold)
3. moving away - 1d3-1 freeman and his family carting all their posessions on an pack lizard. eager to know road ahead, know little of area
4. messenger - carrying an important message of some kind. Heavily armed, well-paid and with an ill-tempered and very fast riding-bird
5. 1d4 x 1d4 haunted-looking people. they have seen ghastly things and wander without purpose
6. LOCAL FIGURE & RETINUE
7. surly locals - pretend to be traders/huntsmen, unwilling to trade, will give deliberately false and dangerous advice
8. mishap - blocking the road and causing annoyance is an overturned cart, vicious donkey, etc. delay of 1d4 hours (checking for encounters meanwhile)
9. Slaves for sale
10. Jon Mith
11. "Rooster"
12. rich folks traveling with large retinue
13. Soldiers - templars, knights, light infantry, cavalry, heavy infantry, mixed units, mercenary band, militia, free companies
14. evil caravan in disguise - yellow morths wait in the carts among other horrors
15. giant mammalian creature carries a small town on its back
16. fortune tellers! forecasts! lucky charms!
3. Adventurers
1. 1d2 MERCENARIES. Currently looking for work (50%) or already on a mission (50%). friendly with any other members of
the Mercenary Brotherhood. In general, their advice can be trusted. Mercenaries often travel together for mutual protection.
2. 1d3 Skalds, willing to play for money or teach new song for 100 Lunars
3. traveling smith
4. Philosopher a) looking to hire somebody to get something, b) visiting a special and dangerous place, c) visiting a local friend, d) seeking muscle to take somewhere dangerous for little reason
5. peddler / tinker
6. woodsmen
7. prospector(s)
8. adventuring gang
9. Enigmat
f the encounter roll is 00, you have encountered one of the Six Slain Thanes or the Pale King himself. Pray to your Gods for clemency
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So I found and read your whole blog today.
ReplyDeleteI like this system where HP = Endurance; seemingly anyone can learn a spell or two or if not that some awesome songs and incantations; there are no levels but stats increase with training. Also excellent Irish hero-tale style feats. And overall just metal, sorcerous murk and danger everywhere.
I wouldn't ask you to spend time on it but if you have a chunk of notes about the basic system and character generation, however chaotic and unedited, I'd be interested. I like it when hit points stay low and characters grow freely and unpredictably. That's fun shit.
thank you! that's so awesome. the wildfire season just started up here in Alaska so unfortunately i don't really have the time or even the internet access to check or update this blog as much as I'd like but i'll try to get the basic character generation rules up at some point (it's on a laptop in a barracks at an army base right now and there's no internet there, i'm posting from an office building).
Deletethe basic system is pretty much a mash-up of OD&D, 3rd Edition, LotfP and RuneQuest 2nd Ed. roll d20 to accomplish things and add or subtract any relevant stat modifiers or skill bonus. skills go more by the HeroQuest rules, ie, anything you can think of is a skill. so for example, you could have "Music: +1" or "Healing: +3". usually, these are gained through training from various NPCs or factions in the game-world. obviously, an NPC can only train you up to their own bonus, so like if you are learning drinking songs from some lout in Lowest Loe you probably won't be able to get more than +1 (unless the lout is secretly a soulful crooner of the most legit variety). the maximum bonus for most skills is +5, and the human maximum for any stat is 20. once you get above 20, you have HEROIC status in that stat and automatically succeed at anything you do with that stat. i'll usually have a vague DC in mind and then adjucate results as they happen. other times if i can't think of a good DC i'll just have the player roll under the relevant stat.
i've considered implementing some sort of death-and-dismemberment table for when HP/Endurance starts getting low but in my experience it's too complicated. instead i have a die that has different body parts on it, that i roll when somebody gets hit, and if you get hit multiple times in the arm or whatever then i might start giving you penalties to hit, test to keep hold of your weapon, or something like that. 0 or negative HP rsults in unconsciousness but the character can still be revived if he's dragged to a Temple or a very competent healer (but there will definitely be consequences - new epithets like "The Scarred" or "Rag-Throats" or "One-Arm"). on the other hand, you gain POW every time you get a new epithet, so even near-death experiences can help your legend grow. if you get coup-de-graced or dropped off a cliff or slain by a critical hit or swallowed by Ancalagon the Black or something, though, you get to roll up a new character. so far, shockingly, Kos has only killed 2 characters
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