The Gift of Knowledge

 Supernatural Knowledge and Research

There are several advantages that can grant knowledge in GURPS, though most are going to give vague answers. Blessed and Oracle take an hour each and typically come from a deity, though other possibilities such as Oracle (Digital) are an option. Precognition and Psychometry let you see through the curtains of time. Visualization can be used for a skill bonus, possibly representing supernatural or cinematic focus. Finally Allies, Contacts and Patrons can provide valuable information.

That is all well and good and especially good for the GM who can use these abilities to create plot hooks or clue the players in on a promising lead. But waht about providing more details or answers to specific questions?  Magic has a lot of options, so why not Powers or something else?

The Akashic Records

The Akashic Records store all knowledge, events, thoughts, words, literraly everything that has or will ever occur. It originated from an Indian word Akasha found in scripture and later defined by the Theosophical Society. A similar concept comes from the Australian aboriginal people in their explanation for the Dreamtime. The 42 Tablets of Knowledge owned by Thoth (Ancient Egypt) were said to possess all knowledge of the universe. Gnositic magicians believed in a universal consciousness that could be explored. So we can see that the concept of all knowledge residing in a special place, state of being or reality, or even an object is cross cultural and actually pretty common.

GURPS Thaumatology: Ritual Path Magic even has a spell called Hall of Records (p. 44) inspired by this concept and submitted by yours truly.

How to do something like this without magic though?

Blessed, Very Blessed, and Oracle give only vague information, except possibly on critical successes. Precognition has the similar problem and is limited to events.

We should probably have an enabling advantage such as Blessed, Oracle (Akashic Records), or Jumper (Spirit) to access this storehouse. Dreaming or Meditation seem like appropriate skills, possibly a special version of Research (Akashic Records) to find and interpret the information. We could then make a skill roll and the GM assign a penalty. 

Determine the penalty!

This can done by GM fiat, based off how widely known the desired information is or something else. One option is to borrow from the New Inventions rules (p. B473) using the Concept modifiers. So if the question were deemed Simple the roll is -6 (-0), Average -10 (-2), Complex -14 (-4), and Amazing -22 (-8) with the second lower penalty requiring Researcher (see below). This takes a full day per question or 1d*10 minutes with Researcher. These skill penalties can be pretty hefty so Time Spent for a bonus is often a good idea and bonuses from complimentary skills or other knowledge may be needed.

Determining the Complexity level can be pretty tough but the skill and price listings offer a decent guide. Broader questions with vague answers should be easier, especially if they forward the plot! 

Patron God of Knowledge

A god of knowledge, powerful A.I., programed database searching program, even a cooperative spirit or ghost could be purchased as an Ally, Contact, or Patron and provide information. Ally is typically for combat but even a low cost Ally can have incredible skills and abilities to find things out. Contacts are limited to one skill or wildcard, Contact groups increase cost but cover related skills GURPS Social Engineering: Keeping in Contact expands on Contacts and is useful here. In particular the modifiers Disparate, +25%; Highly Accessible, +25%; Patient, +20%; Less Helpful, varies are all useful here. Patrons should have Minimal Intervention, -50% or something similar if all they do is provide information.

Researcher

25 or 50 points

You have an innate knack when it comes to finding things out. When using Research, exploring your subconscious for clues using Meditation or Dreaming, phrasing search phrases, or even questioning supernatural powers your ability significantly reduces penalties and saves time. Use the rules for Gadgeteer or Quick Gadgeteer (p. B56, and pp. B475-477) for Analyzing a device, accessing the Akashic Records or similar things. Where those rules do not specifically apply, halve the typical penalties to find your answers. This can take the Focused, -50% limitation when applied to a single area such as questions about magic or a particular science.

Research!

This wildcard skill completely subsumes Research and replaces Computer Operation, Dreaming, Forensics, Intelligence Analysis, Interrogation, Meditation, and any other skill when it comes to sifting through data, poking through books, or even asking people the right question.

Wildcard Benefits: Exchange points for Favors in Play for information only. Powering abilities bought with Costs Character Points, or reaching Contacts for information requests. If purchased at IQ counts as Gadgeteer and Quick Gadgeteer at IQ+3 for analyzing devices or researching plans for an invention. Alternatively grants Researcher instead of Gadgeteer.

Full Bonus: Offsets penalties for Time spent when using the above skills.

Half Bonus: Apply the half bonus to IQ rolls when using Blessed, Very Blessed, Oracle, Precognition, or Psychometry to find answers.

Summary

Information abilities can short circuit mysteries and bypass obstacles so are often feared by GMs. However they can also greatly help when used appropriately, such as when players are stuck or missed a vital clue the GM wanted found. Another important consideration is that often information gathering is a time consuming task and a solitary one!  So while one player is gathering valuable information the rest are sitting idly by. If the player and the GM are entertaining about it this is typically good with the players, but if its boring, takes too long, or feel they have no stake in the results it can ruin a game session. Consequently these abilities often just come down to a few die rolls in play, where in a book or show they are often an important part of the entertainment. Also many of these advantages and skills require substantial pint investments.

A good GM needs to work with the information based player and both have mutual trust so that quick die rolls handle routine matters or speed up pacing when needed but the player still has their time in the spotlight. Remember any player who invests a lot of points in something, expects to get good value for those points and a good GM will either forbid those abilities upfront or honor the social contract.

It is also helpful to not consider this an adversarial task that bypasses the carefully set up plot or mystery but enhances it and makes it more interesting for everyone. This last bit takes practice and GM creativity, but if you can master that skill your games will be much more fun for everyone involved - including you.

My Week in Gaming

 This is the first of this type of post and so it shall be a bit longer. The day of the week might change but its hard to find the perfect day.

I shall cover my games, writing, and whatever seems relevant in these (hopefully) weekly posts.

Games

I am currently playing in 4 campaigns. This is fun but has derailed some of my other activity, along with other things that have come up.

Monday is normally A Thousand Tiny Gods or ATTG but were on hiatus as one of the players was saddled with a lot of overtime over the holidays, actually putting him the hospital. The temporary replacement is a Hylen campaign for which I blogged a bit on Realm management and is a fun campaign that started as a one shot and we play a couple times a week.

The campaign is fun but hit or miss as one of the players is unsatisfied with various retcons and changes and that carries over. The players and GM are fun to hang with and when the game is on its great. When it crashes I get depressed for a few days.

Friday is a new campaign. The GM is running a noncinematic Technomancer campaign. We have had one session and a couple of session 0s, lost a player, the GM is trying to learn Foundry as we go and get used to running again. Its rough but has potential and I expect it to work out.

Saturday every other week (roughly) is the only non GURPS game.  Dresden Files using FATE.  Good group, love the setting. It has had a few rough spots where we had too many players but things seem to have settled down and I generally like it.

Sunday another every other week campaign. Been a very slow start as my character was premade and already in a game thats been running for two years.  Taken me awhile to get a good grasp of what is going on and how the character works. I spent most of the first few games just listening while everyone else did something and my character was not involved.  the last two sessions my character started formally meeting people and hopefully she will become more active in the game. Its a political intrigue game with Book/Path magic - a system I never played with before and heavily tweaked.

Writing

I have GURPS Template Toolkit: Spirits still waiting its turn in playtest behind GURPS Fantasy Folk: Goblins and Hobgoblins (Phil Masters), and GURPS Fantasy Folk: Winged Folk (Anders Starmark) and hope to see it get some eyeballs in April. Who knows though.

I have my next project waiting to pitch, think I need to wait till after my book is done with the Final Draft though. So hopefully I can pitch that by the end of the year. Its going to be short and very light on crunch, a change from most of my material.

Working on a magic system for a friend who wants to do something based on Earth Dawn and Shadowrun but were having trouble (me and another writer) trying to understand what he really wants and help him with it.  However its helping me reevaluate some of my magic systems, especially Affinity Magic which I just rewrote the intro for and had an inspiration on how to streamline two systems into one.  It was loosely based on Book/Path magic and Ritual Magic (Not RPM) with a dash of Realm magic thrown in. I just figured out how to use one system with two different methods of casting that feels like a nice blend of everything.  Now I need to go rewrite my grimoire to work with the changes.

GURPS Powers: Totem and Nature Spirits continues to trickle out a couple of sales each month, after being out for 2 years or so that feels kinda nice. Its a very niche book but an important part of upcoming projects.

Magic

Speaking of my magic systems, I now have at various stages of development: Affinity Magic, Symbol Enchantment, Sigil Magic, Social Magic, Spirit Magic, Shamanic Powers, and Faerie Magic, 

Hopefully you will get to see all of them someday!

General GURPS Stuff

Mook died :( 

Lost several good people these past two years and I am getting rather tired of it. Sadly at this stage of life it just will happen more and more, till its my turn.

Depression from COVID, deaths, struggles with my health, the VA, politics, etc. have made the pat few years very exhausting and its hurt my work on some projects. For example the W23 Digital Speculation Thread got behind because I broke the code and as I was reluctant to ask the owner of the code to fix my mistake it got way behind while I kept tweaking it trying to fix it and I never got over the hump to restart it last year. No one volunteered for this year so I need to get at it.

Gaming Ballistic has released a GREAT Bestiary, and though GURPS has several already this is a very welcome addition and its expansive.

I am eagerly waiting on two other projects to be released that I hope will bring a nice influx of players.

Realm Management: New Widdershins Part 2

 OK, lets take a look at possible modifiers shall we?

Able Populace, +25% Could fit as a greater portion of our population is able and willing to work towards building our community.  later on this may settle down though as survivors age and new children are born.

Advanced Infrastructure, +25%/level to buy up our IR rating would be very useful and likely considering we have a very good city planner and are building from scratch at TL8 so can plan ahead. Not something we have now though, unless the GM says it works with our initial vehicle and equipment are impressive. Sure we have no roads but the land for the town itself is pretty flat and we have a gadgeteer and several excellent mechanics to modify say our snow plow into a grader, a tanker water truck, and other options.

Clear Routes, +10%/level for good roads. Certainly planning on good roads!

Conventional Populace, +2%/level for a level or two seems appropriate.

Defensible Terrain, +10%/level is pretty much a must have for the valley as described. Surrounded by mountains with 3 narrow passes we can pretty easily fortify.

Educated Populace, +10%/level seems like a must.

Famous for (), varies is something for the future. The NPC from an organization called the Guard has been very impressed with our town and plans on recommending them to the Guard for recruiting. Further we have very rare individuals in our population; a necromancer (untrained), a RPM mage with a legendary book as his teacher, a gadgeteer, and perhaps most famous and desirable of all a world walker with the blood of the ancients who can thus activate ancient technology. It might have enough of an effect early on that we should get this and its something I would like to see our town further develop.

Fertile Territory, +15%/level Represents more fertile or arable land than normal. We dont know the long term conditions but  given what we have seen so far this seems very likely. Especially since it is for just a small realm. Also we have a river running the entire length of the realm and advanced irrigation should not be a problem.

Habitable Land, +10%/step is pretty much a must have.

High TL, +25% (or less)/level seems likely given that NPC teaching the gadgeteer. Also with such a small population we can start education early on advanced tech compared to a more established and large realm.

Higher Quality of Life, +25/level I am planning on making this town a wonderful place to live and very comfortable for everyone.  I doubt the other players want different so this might also be taken.

Ideal Climate, +10$ or +50% Too early to know and so will be totally up to the GM to decide.

Loyal Citizenry, +15%/step This fits the current situation and works with my personal long term plans. Up to the group and especially the GM though.

Quick Deployment, +20%/level (up to four) represents our citizen militia and could be added.

Reflexive Realm, +5%level for a very responsive govt is useful and easier with a smaller realm.

Unique Resource, +100% We have something called the Pillar of Creation which is a super science ancient tech matter converter. It can only be operated by one PC and his brother, both so far reluctant to use it but its potentially very powerful if it gets used. Our NPC guide/exposition person knew what it was right away and basically said we just stuck gold. This could be a temporary boon and after our group leaves or the brothers die (hopefully of old age a long time from now) its useless.  But they may have kids who carry the gene (though its more on the mothers side) or word gets around and someone else comes to live here (as opposed to an invasion) who has heard of it the town may continue to keep it.

Scarce Resource, -25%/type If the Pillar of Creation remains unused we are likely lacking access to many minerals needed to sustain a TL8 society.  Also are currently light on dairy and breeding meat, though very possible we can solve that as we explore the local terrain.

Realm Management: New Widdershins

 GURPS Realm Management  is a supplement that lets a gamemaster create a "realm" with some fairly simple stats that can be used as background flavor or part of a political type campaign. Players can even play the leaders of different realms as a competitive political campaign. As a playtester I built a couple of kingdoms for my Chalice World setting using it.

In one of my current games our group are playing leaders of a band of refugees from a small town in Colorado in modern day that escaped from a world ending event by Elder Things. The group just reached a nice place ot settle down and build anew and the GM will use GURPS Realm Management to help run this portion of the campaign. So lets see what happens....

Starting Out

The valley we have arrived at is a modest one, about 10 miles across and maybe 50 miles long with a river running from a north pass to a south pass and a small lake in the middle. We had several days to ransack our old town for supplies before the gate to this world was complete and picked up more supplies from a National Guard Armory along the way here. Oh, the valley is somewhere along the trunk of the world tree and magic is now a thing.

Were going to say our new town is about 50 square miles for a realm Size Value of +6.

Our population is 306 people, money is kinda weird at this point  but lets base it on our old standard, especially since it most impacts our starting costs. lets say average wealth for $2,600/month.

Our base value (p. 29) is thus $1,560.

Adding up our collective  goods we have $2,214,494 plus a bunch of vehicles and material not currently priced. This includes a lot of canned and dry goods as we had planned for a long trip with no idea what the terrain was going to be like. Frankly our vehicles could have been a waste too but they helped us haul as much as we could during the short time we could keep the gate open. We basically piled everyone and everything we could into vehicles and lined them up like the starting line at NASCAR or something then rushed the gate when it opened.

Starting Resource Points cost (Base Value *0.5) or $780 each, giving us a whopping 2,839 RP to be divided up among Agriculture Points, Luxury Points, Natural Resource Points, and Workforce Points. That influx of capital makes sense for spending heavily on starting resources to build our town. One might wonder why or how it should apply to Natural Resource Points but consider that it helps us get what we want out of the ground or water in a quicker manner than if we had fewer people or less equipment. Also processing it will be much easier with our tools, generators, and solar panels.

Misc Starting Stats

Lets list some general stats before getting to the meat of building New Widdershins.

Population: 306 all healthy and mobile. We do not need ot worry about carrying capacity at this point as we have plenty of food stores and the land is likely to support a much larger population once we start farming.

Citizen Loyalty: Very Good (+3) seems appropriate here. Leadership just saved about 1/3 of the old town from an apocalypse and the towns people are remarkably resilient, self reliant, and practical. We also have that small town loyalty to each other and everyone is wanting to work for the common good, at least for now.

Infrastructure Rating: 0 Not good! This gives us -5 (improvised equipment) for most things.

Control Rating: 2 is I think about right, we have a frontier situation but a strong leader in the town sheriff and he has 23 deputies and staff for 7% of the population. People are also used to obeying the laws of modern USA.

Conformity Rating: ConR3 fits our town pretty well, though an easy argument for ConR4 could be made.

Openness Rating: OR4 Mildly Open is the highest we can have without spending anything so lets call it that.

Government Type: Right now it is arguably Anarchy with a small group of leaders most of the town respect and trust to get things done and keep them alive. We will probably go to a representative Democracy like everyone is used to at some point.

Economy Type: Traditional is probably where we are at for now.

Education Rating: Should be 4 based on TL8 but our town seems very educated and includes a lot of military vets.

Management Skill: Default is 12 but we have high point leaders and overall a lot of very competent people in town. Each +1 costs +5% to Realm Value and we likely have Usually Reliable Management for another  +25%.

Habitality: Good (14; +1) We just got here so don't know the seasons but we have a couple of people with Naturalist so can make a good guess. Excellent fishing, something called pig apples that are very plentiful (kinda like potatos), nearby forest with game (already hunted some deer), and plains grass that smells like water melon and is edible. We also brought some grain of our own and have chickens for eggs and eventually meat. Plus cats and dogs to keep vermin under control.

Reaction-Time Modifier (RTM): +1; Adding things up we get 0 from TL8, +1 from Management Skill, and +0 from Complexity for a net +1.

Summary

That gives us a starting point.  Next up are modifiers and tweaking the numbers above as the GM provides more input (or GM Fiat).  I'll likely post some of that tomorrow.

GURPS Madwand

 I have a friend trying to convert Earth Dawn and Shadow Run to GURPS, one thing hes trying to get is pattern items and thread magic. Trouble is the description I am given is not helpful towards building a system.  So I asked him if he ever read Madwand by Roger Zelazny as that might be where they got the idea. I read this book as a teenager so hopefully remember it well enough.  Here is my attempt to describe that system.

Magic is both a force and a material. Magicians can see it as threads floating in the air and will it to move. Sophisticated mages can even learn to tie it in knots and anchor these threads to objects so they can carry the threads with them and not be so dependent on what happens to be nearby.  Later on in the book the protagonist learns to perceive and shape the threads as clouds and possibly other shapes, granting new ways to use them. Some of my inspiration for converting this system is The Stuff of Raw Magic (GURPS Thaumatology, p. 277-229)

Magery (Thread)

Magery allows mages to see these threads and manipulate them.  Roll Per + Magery to see threads and Will + Magery to move them.  Threads come in different colors, essentially aspected mana with different colors having different capabilities.

The problem is the threads are common but not ever present and they need to be in contact with something to achieve an effect. Threads can be moved at Magery/yards per turn.

If other magic systems are in the setting this can be purchased as an alternative ability to other forms of Magery.

Thaumatology

Thaumatology allows a mage to skillfully manipulate threads to achieve various effects. Anyone with Magery (Thread) can see and move threads around, even activating them. But that is child's play.  Real magicians learn how to tap the energy in a thread to actually cast spells or move them around.

Bind Thread (Raw Mana)

This advantage allows the mage to bind and store 1 point of raw mana or a thread per level. It costs 5 points per level and a mage is limited to Thaumatology/2+Magery in levels. See Raw Magic Store, GURPS Thaumatology, p. 228.

Using a Thread

A thread is essentially stored energy and can be tapped for many effects. Each thread is aspected and works best for similar effects.

A single thread can do one of the following things...

• Provide 5 energy to power a spell or magic working.
• Fixate or stabilize and enchantment by providing 100 energy to an appropriate enchantment or the duration of an appropriate spell.
• Grant a +3 skill bonus to casting an appropriate spell.
• Directly affect a subject it is in contact with. Each thread counts as a Thrust attack (ST5 +Magery) or effect effect for the purpose of manipulating something or doing damage to it. The exact effect varies by aspect.

Threads of Many Colors

Every thread has its own color, which tells the mage what aspect it has.

• Black is water aspected and can extinguish fire, cool, or even freeze things.
• Blue is air aspected and manipulates the air, it does damage as a gust of wind and can clear things, its especially suitable for area and cone attacks.
• Brown is earth aspected and can physically crush or move objects without harming them.
• Green is life aspected and especially suited to healing. Treat damage as healing.
• Red is aspected towards fire and can do burning damage
• Yellow is spirit aspected and can manipulate emotions. Treat as a QC between its effective ST and the Will of the subject to incite or inspire a given emotion.

These are obviously just a small list of examples and what aspects are available in a setting is up to the GM. The frequency of appearance of threads is also an important choice. In some settings they may be everywhere, in others they may only appear in certain areas or distilled from magical beings or items and need to be carried around for use. As a rule of thumb each thread should be worth about 5 character points in effect and cost a FP to activate for a single turn. This is envisioned by mages as causing the thread to pulsate. Multiple threads can be bound together to create more powerful effects, but cost 1 FP per level used.

Dueling With Thread

Mages can move threads they see towards someone and once the thread touches them activate it by spending 1 FP.  Since non mages cant see them until they pulse this can be a nasty surprise! However once a thread is pulsed or energized it beeomes clearly visible and can be dodged, blocked, or even parried. The threads have a physical form and will not pass through things, though they appear weightless.

Mages can fight each other over a thread, this is a Quick Contest of Will + Magery (Thread) with the winner moving the thread as they desire up to the lower of margin of success or Magery.

Experienced mages have learned that slowly moving threads around the battlefield, while subtle and hard to defend against is rather slow and awkward. Mages can thus learn to bind threads and swing them as weapons, typically using Whip, Lasso, or Net  to hit. They can also be bound into an object such as a sword or staff and pulsed for extra effect when they strike a target.

Summary

This is obviously a bare bones magic system but it does have an interesting flavor and can be used with other magic systems for more variety.  The Raw magic Store advantage allowing threads to be used as temporary attacks (or relying on one just happening to be where you need it) is a nice perk but probably not over powered.  Essentially your using them as limited attacks of about the same point value at the cost of 1 FP/use and have to spend points on other abilities such as Thaumatology and a specific variant of Magery.  Pretty equivalent to a use of alternative abilities and Abilities at Default from GURPS Powers. This also factors in the the cost in time and effort in find and capturing the threads in the first place.

In Madwand threads were the initial use, but later he could see and manipulate them as clouds and perhaps other shapes.  This can be represented by adding Area Effect or treating threads as nets.

 Skills as Powers

So I have been pondering this idea off and on for awhile now and two recent interactions over the past few months have brought some of this to the fore and coalesced a few things.

I like GURPS Powers and a powers based magic system is intriguing.  It has the benefit of being inherently balanced when compared with other powers based character types. It does have disadvantages compared to tech based types though, especially as tech level increases.

GURPS Supers was probably the first book to attempt top deal with the disparity between buying stuff off the shelf and building it with powers. Basically you paid for the difference between the starting equipment and what it could do better.

I later suggested and others have debated the value of a cost reduction for powers that duplicate gear such as dividing the cost by 5 (based on the internal payload only, alternative ability pricing, or costs character points modifiers). We also have the Accessory perk.

GURPS Power-Ups 1: Imbuements by Sean Punch aka Kromm also approaches this in a way with using powers to modify weapons. Later expanded on in Pyramid articles to include armor and other gear.

Christopher Rice also created Metatronic Generators, first introduced in Pyramid #3/46 Weird Science. Its seen a few additional articles and more in his campaigns and hopefully will someday see a full treatment as a standalone supplement.

Recently someone asked for help in converting Shadow Run and Earth Dawn to GURPS and he wants to use Sorcery as the core spell system but a skills based magic system for additional subsystems.

Also I have started playing a non cinematic gadgeteer in our "one shot" campaign while one of our regular players has been working extra hours during the holiday season. This is a horror campaign where we started off as 75 point everymen and progressed very rapidly to 150 point characters and have only just started to slow down in growth.

Combining both these things for inspiration and looking over old material I thought I would post this as yet another example of how GURPS can do something in many different ways, depending on what the group wants.

Basic Premise

Take a power and create it on the fly as a penalty to a skill roll. We have seen a couple of examples and different ways to do this, go read Boil and Bubble: Magical Ability Defaults from Skill by Christopher Rice for instance.

You back? Good, here are some related ideas....

• Its Pure Chemistry, Pyramid #3/28 Thaumatology II by Christopher Rice allows Temporary Enhancements for potions and such.
• The Magic of Stories, Pyramid #3/13 Thaumatology by Kelly Pedersen is built around Book/Path magic but could be inspirational here.
• The Daughter of Necessity, Pyramid #3/46 Weird Science by Roger Burton West is a powers based approach to invention and Gadgeteer that is also inspirational. Specifically it has a way to determine Complexity (used for invention) based on the trait costs and then applies that to skill rolls.
• Sufficiently Deranged, Pyramid #3/122 All Good Things by Phil Masters. The first half of the article works well with devotional magic and time spent and could be a useful part of the converted magic system for my friend. The second part is based on Syntactic Realm Magic (GURPS Thaumatology, same author).

These ideas can be merged into a skills as powers system, including magic, weird science, alchemy, story telling, etc.

The Story Teller

This individual can tell a story, sing a song, recite a poem, or even give an impressive speech that can shape reality! Take an appropriate skill such as Enthrallment or Musical Influence, add in supporting skills such as specific story specialties (The Magic of Stories), music, poet, or writing specialties (perhaps even Artist) taking the role of weird sciences (Sufficiently Deranged) and determine effects and skill penalties using Boil and Bubble: Magical Ability Defaults from Skill, Daughters of Necessity, or one of the other systems above.

This lets a character achieve effects based on the story told, mood generated by music or art, etc.

 

The Spirit Worker

This individual works by gathering spirits of various types and persuading them to do specific things. Take an appropriate skill such as Ritual Magic (Spirit Worker) and add specialized skills based on types of spirits, Otherwise, see Story Teller above.

The Ritualist

As above but start with Thaumatology and add different magical specialties. The colleges in GURPS Magic are a perfect example and already suggested as Hard skills using the Ritual Magic option (p. B242).

The Chi Specialist

Why not something similar for martial artists? Go with Esoteric Medicine (manipulating your Chi) or perhaps Body Sense and various Chi skills, perhaps treating the five Taoist elements as separate sciences with optional specialties.

The possibilities are endless, but this is a blog post not a GURPS article or supplement. Besides most of the mechanics are already described in the referenced material!

Insiders Peek: Nordland Bestiary

 Douglas Cole of Gaming Ballistic launched a kickstarter for a full color bestiary for the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game (Powered by GURPS). I knew from prior experience this was going to be a very good book and went in as much as I could afford, even adding the VTT tokens for Foundry as an add-on though I don't have a license (I'll give my copy as a late Christmas present to someone who does). Also bought the hard copy as I know it will be excellent in quality and appearance, even if I am unlikely to be playing face to face instead of over the internet. His products are just that good and well worth supporting!

The author shared a preview copy with some people to get feedback and gave me permission to post this sneak peak.

Overall Impression

As expected the layout is very nice! I like that each entry gets a good picture and each picture includes a shadow of a Viking to help scale things. The descriptions, stat blocks, and summaries all are easy to read and pleasing to the eye. Also included is just enough humor to make reading it fun. The way an entry is laid out it will be very easy to just turn to a page and have the relavant information jump out at you. The addition of the creature reference cards, standup art, and Foundry tokens will also be very useful in helping the GM and players get a fast feel for each creature.

As should be no surprise to anyone who has bought material from Gaming Ballistic, were getting good value for our money here!

Introduction

Honestly? This was a pleasant surprise!  I expected the standard bit, but what I saw was so much more useful and fun. As this is for a specific setting the author was able to tailor some things. The "Not Norse Mythology" cosmology section was brief but gave a good feel for the Nine Worlds and had me thinking for a moment "I didn't realize the void was like that!"  The entry blends together the Lovecraftian Elder Things into the setting in a very fitting manner that suits the mythology. The origin and function of each of the Nine Worlds works well and is very evocative, while being fairly close to the source mythology as I recall it.

But you know what really stood out and made me take notice?

The section on faerie and how it blended with Irish and European folklore as well as common tropes into what feels like a cohesive cosmology.  Also the trait descriptions for various advantages and disadvantages really works for me. It made me want to play in the setting.

The Creatures

The bulk of the bestiary is of course the creatures, and I have only seen up to the letter E in the sneak peak. 

• Aesir: What would a Norse bestiary be without some Aesir? So far only the Dark Pack are here but boy do they stand out as fearsome and fun foes! Not just wolves, but undead wolves that keep coming back!
• Alfur and Faerie: We get some standards from folklore but also some new, or at least relatively unknown critters as well. Further the examples fit together in a way that gives is chaos and diversity, yet flows well enough that new creatures are easily inspired. Frankly, they just make better sense as a whole than I have often seen.
• Animals: Each animal entry covers several known species, typically with a collage of pictures. Animals are often overlooked but they provide not only low level foes but also useful companions and background. We have the staples here, and a few odd ducks that you wont always see.  Also of course there are dire and giant versions.
• Demons and Elder Things: They have a set place in the cosmology and we get to see some interesting and scary varieties.
• Dragons: A nice variety here too, with more to come; These are typically creatures of Jotunheim and come in a good variety of scariness.
• Elementals: They hail mostly from Nifleheim which I found an interesting choice and contrast with the typical elemental and para-elemental planes we see in That Other Game.

I wont go into detail on the specific creatures, we have so many good ones and some nice creatures to bring a gleam to any DMs evil or appeal to the avarice of most delvers.

Summary or Buy This Now!

This project promised a great deal, and no surprise its delivering on that promise. I am confident that not only is it going to be well worth my money, it will help generate even more goodness for GURPS, The Fantasy Trip, and Dragon Heresay in the future.