Ever Deeper

 It is spoken of in the Grand Archives of the Timecentred Capital, of the Deep and its beginnings Above us. Before Time, existed the Stars, tiny points of Light in the Deep that took comfort in its embrace. Then one, whose name is lost to time, fell from the Deep into the world, no longer satisfied with the peace that immortality brought him. He wished for power, for worship, and so shone his Light upon the world, creating Time and Mortality. From the Pit, he dragged Man from their sleepless dreams and there they marched upon the Demons that resided in the World, their timelessness stolen by the Light.

For years beyond measure, the wars between Man and Demon raged, until the Star Who Fell committed the Second Sin. He created the First King of Man, Varchic, who took upon himself the Light and bested the Demon Knight Sin’Jakhta in combat, stealing from the Demons the Rite of the Sea. With it, he befouled the World by raising up Land, a cruel mockery of the Deep in the Light’s image. The Demons, nearly extinct, fled into the Oceans, away from the Light, where the Deep could once again restore their immortality. The First Demon, Trelmar’ga, allowed their escape through his sacrifice, and with his dying breath spoke of the Ocean Child who would rise and deliver the Demons back to their ancestral home on the Surface.

And so, the Demons rescinded from the Light, and Man forgot their existence as they basked in the fruits of the Light, unknowing that they too had lost their undying lives in exchange for a falsehood created by the Church of the Star and Varchic himself. The world itself trembles as the Children of Varchic raise more and more Land with the Rite of the Sea. The Church, unsatisfied with that which they have stolen, prepare to march against the Demon King of the Undersea. The Demons await the birth of the Ocean Child to be returned.

Some Quotes from the Conversation that Spawned this:

“You will never "know" the road until you accept that you cannot know it, that it is DEEP.

This is indeed the way of the DEEP, fellow child of Trelmar'ga

The road is ever-winding.”

“The DEEP is below, the DEEP is above, the DEEP is about

The Ocean Child will rise, and Land shall be struck down

the DEEP shall be all once more.”

“The power of the LIGHT is in its finitude, you say, and then with the next breath say that it can overcome the infinite. Even the basics of all things escape your puerile thought.

Upon the sacrifice of the God-Emperor Trelmar'ga, we have been infinite and endarkened.

The DEEP demands that you hear its bells, loud and clear, each passing moment it signals that your life is just a reflection of a reflection, until you are a mere husk of yourself.

That which is finite is flawed.

That which is infinite may strive to remove its flaws.”

“The LIGHT's heat shall boil your depths and remove your DEEP.

And you shall be exposed for what you are, creatures.”

“Fool! For it is exactly the above that first cast it's LIGHT down to the PIT from whence Varchic rose to bless us with the stability of land!

The LIGHT pierces both soul and darkness. It covers the worlds beyond and the Heavens above.”

“You stand on shifting sands heretics. We Men of God stand upon the Rock and bask in the Light.

The Land is our bastion, and it will increase ever onward.

The DEEP offers lies and darkness. It reveals nothing; it teaches nothing; it produces nothing.

You die eternally in vain.

When you lose your bastion in meaning and trip down to the deep will only then you truly see the foolishness of the path you've chosen?”

“I know well my place, Child of Varchic

my abomination is beautiful in the darkness.

Revelation, an abject falsehood. True knowledge is not revealed by some wish-washy power, but is sought for, strived for, and approached by effort in the voids of the DEEP.”

“The DEEP takes your soul every day, another nugget for the beast's eternal dining table, but it cannot do this without your trust. The DEEP knows what you want, it demands that you believe that its offer is the most pleasurable, wonderful and earth-shattering to your soul;

It's infinity can and will be cut short, for its evil and chaos must be stopped.

It is the LIGHT who shall do it.”

“Seek thee not the warm blanket of the Ocean and the DEEP, where all things are peaceful?

Peaceful until Varchic came, indeed.”

“Varchic is Man, the greatest form given by the Light. And Man, as the servant of the Light, alongside the Stars themselves, will pierce and destroy the DEEP.”

“Never have we been meant for something limitless and formless like the deep. That is but poison for men. We put our faith in things finite, and thus find stability.”

I will most likely write some more about this setting in the future. For further reading, here are some other blogposts about the DEEP and the LIGHT:

https://steppedonad4.blogspot.com/2020/11/light-land.html

https://coloursofpentagrams.blogspot.com/2020/11/of-sea-and-creation.html

Pandaemonium: Six Misguided Lives

 I have fallen silent for far too long on the content front. Thus, I think I will tease my next project: Pandaemonium, a GLOGhack set in the depths of Hell. All of your characters are already dead, pitiful creatures with nowhere to go but up. And up they will go, backstabbing and betraying their way to Dukedom. Or perhaps they will cling on to whatever virtue they have left, seeking salvation for their crimes and a path to Heaven. Either way, you had better be sure it’ll be fun to watch them squirm against their shackles.

And thus, here are 6 backgrounds for you to draw inspiration from. I may release a table of Dark Gifts and Miracles soon as well, to make some of these more usable. These are some of the more interesting backgrounds, since every game has your Assassins and Failed Adventurers. I wanted to show off my worldbuilding prowess a bit. Steal liberally and unapologetically, friends, and godspeed to you all.

1. THE CHOSEN ONE

You were Chosen by the Overseers themselves for a divine purpose, a mission to complete above all else. You were the key to Balance, to the continued existence of All. And you failed.

What was your purpose? [1d6]

1. Overthrowing the God-Emperor of Hagishka.

2. Reclaiming the Lost City of Doum from its Rakshasan rulers.

3. Leading the Armies of Heaven against the Chimaeric Hordes.

4. Gathering the Pieces of Ten to seal the Seventh Gate.

5. Destroy the tyrannical Black Dragon Khatrixis upon Mount Kysolthis.

6. Prepare yourself to be the Avatar of the Glorious One, Overgod of the First Church.

EQUIPMENT: Medium Armour, A weapon of your choice, Light or Heavy Shield, a mark of being chosen (can be an item or a mark on your body)

SKILLS: Leadership, Speechmaking

MAGIC: 1 Miracle or Dark Gift

2. DIRGE-IMPARTER

You took upon yourself the art of Dirge-singing, listening to the eternal songs of the 11 Spirits and soaking in their laments. With that, you cleansed yourself of extraneous emotion and became a Dirge-Imparter, layering your haunting voice with the sadness those songs instilled in you in order to lead the souls of the departed to the Last Home. But this ancient art is heretical, impure in the eyes of the First Church, and so you were put to death along with the serial murderers, the timelost children and the witches.

EQUIPMENT: Light Armour, an instrument (violin, lyre or flute), a Light Medium weapon, a tuning fork that tunes to the nearest source of sadness

SKILLS: Performance, Pensivity

MAGIC [1d8]:

1. The Lament of Good King Terman: He led his people from the wrath of the gods toward the Horizonland. While playing this song, you travel across land at three times normal speed.

2. The Ballad of Nostric Bearheart: The greatest warrior of his time, he was said to have fallen to the hundredth warrior after killing 99 others. While playing this song, your allies who can hear you ignore one Advantage during their attacks.

3. Three Sisters’ Threnody: Through foul magics of the fae, each threw themselves off the city walls thinking the others had died. While singing this song, all who can hear it take half damage from falls.

4. Coronach of the Fallen: Upon the Battlefield of Vigrid, Modi sings for all the warriors fallen. While singing this song, all allies who can hear you can ignore one Minor Wound.

5. Lost: A song sung by a forgotten spirit, whose name will never be remembered again. While singing this song, you will find yourself somehow turned towards your destination.

6. Elegy of the Wolf Child: A child, abandoned by the civilised world, stands weeping above the corpse of the wolf that raised them. While singing this song, you may summon to you the ghost of a wolf who can lead you in the direction of a safe haven.

7. The Failed Requiem: The greatest composer of his time, died before he could finish his greatest work. You may sing this once per rotation, and any allies who hear it may treat one dice in a single roll as a success, regardless of its actual result.

8. Death March of the Dragons: The final thing heard by humanity from a Dragon as they flew into the East, never to be seen again. While singing this, any roll to find you has their number of dice reduced by one (to a minimum of one).

3. PIT THING

With effort, you were called a human, though a monster by most. The Chimaeric Hordes dragged your lifeless cadaver from The Pit along with the rest of primordial humanity and shoved your protosoul back into your chest. Evolution has overtaken your strain of ape people, though you were by no means harmless. The Pit Things’ effectiveness in the Razing of the Holy City proves that much. But the world had changed since you had first crawled from the Veins of Reality, and the Pit Things could not survive for long. You died again, along with your people, at last free from the pull of the Pit. By comparison, Hell is a paradise.

EQUIPMENT: Heavy Armour of the Chimaeric Legion, Heavy Shield, a weapon of your choice, a shard of pure darkness from the Pit that can be wielded as a Small Weapon

SKILLS: Any 2

MAGIC: Gain 1 mutation from the Demon Mutations table. Effects that give you extra mutations do nothing.

4. STITCHER

You were an artist, weaving beautiful pieces from the endless piles of corpses the Hordes left in their wake. Sewing needles flowed thread through flesh into yet more golems, unfeeling hunks of meat with all the force of a siege engine. Your children punched through the walls of the Holy City, laying waste to the once-proud spires of the Veddrhorn. But like so many others, you were captured in the counterattack and put to death. A waste of talent, really.

EQUIPMENT: Light Armour, a Heavy Medium or smaller weapon, a set of sewing needles, a butcher’s knife

SKILLS: Sewing, Butchery

MAGIC: You have golem retainer. Roll 1d4 times on the Biped Nature table to determine what creatures you created it from. Your golem has a Body of 1d4+2 and no other attributes. It follows your orders unquestioningly. It has 8 + Body HP. If it reaches zero HP, it is destroyed and the magic is lost, and you must spend 7 rotations continuously working on it to get it working again.

5. CORSAIR OF THE SEVEN ARMADAS

The Great South Sea is your home, the cold ocean breeze your closest companion. You sailed the great blue yonder with your crew of ruthless pirates, cutting down captains and taking their goods for yourselves. With the protection of one of the seven Pirate Kings, you were unstoppable. The Golden Age did not last, however, and the arrival of The Maw marked the abrupt end of your career.

EQUIPMENT: A Light Medium Cutlass inscribed with 3d20 notches for every ship you stole in life, Light Armour, a compass that points towards the nearest source of substantial treasure

SKILLS: Sailing, Thievery

MAGIC [1d8]: All Corsairs can breathe underwater.

1. You were part of the Armada of Drarik-Il, controlled by the great Sea Serpent of the same name. You can turn your skin scaly, giving yourself +1 Armour and becoming entirely waterproof.

2. You were part of the Sharkbite Pirates, terrors of the sea who would bite through the ships they sank. You can cause your teeth to become serrated, dealing 1d8 damage on a hit. You can bite through wood and similarly solid materials with this ability, though not stone or metal.

3. You were part of the Sage Corsairs of Carraig Claíomh, famous for your abilities in writing the Ancient Languages. You can speak Swordsong, the language of blades, through which you can create nonmagical swords of any kind with your voice. These swords last 1d6 hours after their creation.

4. You were part of the Monks of Blue Ascendency, a splinter group from the Third Church that took to the seas to make a living in accordance with High Thurmani’s guidance. You can move up to 1 metre cubed of water with your mind, and may use it as a ranged weapon dealing 1d6 damage on a hit. You cannot move water that is inside a Fleshcage.

5. You were part of the Ice Queen’s Navy, riding through the waters on ships of ice, the cold winter breeze in your sails. Any water you touch with your bare skin instantly freezes. You cannot slip on ice, and you move at twice speed while sliding. You can slide on ice no matter where gravity should be, allowing you to slide up walls or on ceilings. You are not affected by slope while sliding.

6. You were part of the Maelstrom Rats, who travelled into the hearts of storms to destroy the foul Storm Drakes, while using the resulting powers to raid ships and plunder the Great South Sea. If you decide to stay in one place, there is no power in the universe except death that can move you. You can change the direction of the wind as you wish and cause short bursts of gale force winds at will.

7. You were part of the Pescathropes, a small group of pirates empowered by the life below the waters. You can at any point turn into any fish or sea mammal. You possess all your mental faculties while in this state, and can speak telepathically to anyone within far range. You remain at the same HP, and are reverted to your previous form upon reaching 0 HP.

8. You are a deserter, a betrayer, or perhaps a double agent. Either way, you moved between one armada into another. Roll twice on this table and gain both abilities. You cannot gain this effect more than once.

6. PALADIN OF THE ALDRIC ORDER

By the words of St. Aldris, you fought back those who were plagued. You waded through their still-rotting corpses as they clawed at your feet, but you did not flinch. The corruption of Black Annis had to be snuffed out, even if you were called a heretic and a monster for it. Or at least, that was what you thought once. Now, in your eternal punishment, perhaps what you had done was indeed wrong. Perhaps those children you slaughtered in Aldris’ name were innocent after all.

EQUIPMENT: Medium Armour, Heavy Shield, a bladed Heavy Medium Weapon with a serrated edge to cause the maximum amount of pain possible, the Book of St. Aldris, a human eye

SKILLS: Genocide, Theology

MAGIC: [N/A]

Gretchling Review #2: B44L of Bugbear Slug

 I am seriously regretting using the ‘I am become death’ quote at the start of my last review, but here I am, living with the consequences of my own actions. Also learned that whiskey does wonders for maintaining motivation. Very useful information. But enough of my ramblings. This week on Gretchling Reviews: B44L (or BaaL, going to go with the more letterful one for the remainder of the review) of the Bugbear Slug blog!

Overall

Reading BaaL’s blog is a glorious experience in watching growth happen before your very eyes. If you ever want to see how much someone can improve with time, look no further than the Bugbear Slug blog. In my head, I split BaaL’s writings into two eras: pre-Abattoir God and post-Abattoir God, for reasons I will go into later. For now, all you need to know is that the quality of BaaL’s writing jumped massively from that point onwards, culminating in the triumph of setting and theme that is Bonepunk. All in good time, however. First we must look at the pre-Abattoir God blog.

Before the Rise

Now, by no means is pre-Abattoir God BaaL bad, let's get that out of the way first. It just isn’t… outstanding like the rest of it. The Spellhost is a good first class, but lord knows I can’t read any further to find its quality. That font is so damn small. The Scoundrel is a class I’ve seen done better by BaaL himself, later in the blog. It really does nothing to make me want to play it. The Handler is interesting, but is very much building upon the Ranger that was linked as inspiration, and I can’t really judge BaaL’s writing in that context (though the mutations are cool as all hell).

I’ll skip the Warrior for now, you’ll see why later. That brings us to probably my favourite pre-Abattoir God class: the Oathbound, probably the only one out of them I’d actually go and play. The idea of replacing Mishaps and Dooms with Oaths is a very flavourful ability, and I do have a soft spot for restrictions like that. It always leads to very interesting roleplay, if you’re into that sort of thing. Also forcing my friends to join me in my masochistic promises is great.

The Inventor gives some really cool magic items but I’m not sure if I’d let any of my players play one. It seems slightly too strong for my tastes, though of course I have no idea how it plays.

And skipping yet another fighter, that leads us to the tipping point. The Rise begins with the Oathbound, true, but it is the Abattoir God where BaaL shows his true prowess at writing interesting shit.

 The Abattoir God

I love this. More than you can ever possibly. I gave out about the Inventor being too powerful earlier but I never made any claim at being consistent. This is just flavour upon flavour, a juicy class that I want nothing more than to stick my teeth into. Like a well-prepared meal, it fills the imagination just thinking about eating or, in this case, playing. I want to walk into a town and have hordes of followers, I want to turn the local villagers into cattle for my harvest and enjoyment (this is in game, just in case you were wondering). There is so much meat on the bones here, so much substance to steal from, not least because cursed classes are cool anyway. Yes, I will become a vengeful vampire flesh god. I have absolutely no complaints.

The Golden Age

This era.. actually doesn’t have that much in it. No, post-Abattoir God is nearly entirely a glorious buildup to Bonepunk. There’s a few house rules that I’m going to yoink maybe, a thief class that interested me no more than the Scoundrel and a very good post on Organically Grown PCs that I recommend everyone read. But hidden there are snippets of Bonepunk, little drops of glory that hint at BaaL’s grand project. We’ll get there in time. For now, we must go to the second most important topic, that I have put off for too long:

The Fighter

Five. He has written five different fighters. I’m not sure how he does it really. I can barely stomach one. And yet here we are, another example of his progression as a designer. If there is anyone I would ask for advice on how to write fighters, it would be BaaL. From humble, fairly lukewarm beginnings with the Warrior, which felt just far too normal without any risk, to the Possum Knights and Fleshwrought, adding spice to the already refined equation, the improvement is undeniable and commendable. Unfortunately, I will not be satisfied until he has iterated at least five more times. The Bonepunk fighter, while still miles better than his first attempt, still needs more. I wish you luck, my friend, in your battle on the Fighter frontlines.

And Now, The Main Event

BOOONNEEEPUUUNNNKKKKK (imagine like that one bitconnect meme). Oh my god I love this thing so much. The use of backgrounds to establish setting is masterful and shows just how much work was put in to perfect the writing. The druid being a parasitic force that hijacks dead animals is inspired. Ivory Engineers are just… cool. I know I’m supposed to be reviewing this, just give me a second to gush.

If there is one thing I’m not a fan of, it’s the combat system without attack rolls. Very much a personal thing, but making everything automatically hit kind of takes away from the tension for me, and I say this from experience having played in the very first game of Bonepunk ever run. I think if I was to ever run it, I’d hack attack rolls in somehow. Other than that, do yourself a favour and read or even play Bonepunk. This is in my top 3 GLOGhacks and easily within my top 20 rpgs.

The Worst

I included this title for effect, but I actually take very little issue with any of BaaL’s stuff. I find some of it kind of eh, but nothing here is particularly egregious. If I was to pinpoint the post I enjoyed the least, it would be the first Warrior, but even that wasn’t bad. It just wasn’t very interesting. Perhaps in time BaaL will surprise me and release some truly woeful content, but I find that incredibly hard to believe, especially now as we move into the post-Bonepunk era. All will be revealed in the fullness of time, I suppose.

A Conclusion

I love BaaL’s stuff, if I haven’t made that clear enough already. Bonepunk is a triumph for the GLOG as a whole, a glorious marriage of system and setting to create something truly unique, and I eagerly await future content in this new era of Bugbear Slug. I rate the blog an arbitrary Bonewheel Skeleton/10, and encourage you all to read Bonepunk and the Abattoir God. Godspeed to you all, and keep yourselves safe in these yet trying times. This is Anni, signing off until next week for my next victim: the Oblidisideryptch.

Gretchling Review #1: Vayra of the Mad Queen's Court

 ‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds’. Or perhaps just destroyer of blogs in a very niche area of the internet. Greetings everyone, and welcome to this first of my Gretchling Reviews, a (hopefully) weekly thing I’ll be doing, though I promise nothing on the consistency front. I’ll be taking a different blog each time, looking at their complete body of work and giving my thoughts on them as a creator. Of course, all of my opinions are objectively correct, and if you disagree, well then I can’t help you. Our first lucky contestant: Vayra of the Mad Queen’s Court!

Before I truly begin, I must say that during my gretchling gestation period, Vayra was very much a staple of my reading, especially her post on the GLOG as a whole. She is one of the newer blogs in the GLOGosphere, compared to contemporaries such as Skerples or even the Oblidisideryptch, but there is a reason she features on so many of the other blogs’ list of recommended creators. Now then, let us get started.

Overall Focus

One goes to the Mad Queen’s Court for one thing and one thing only: content, and quite a bit of it. Classes and setting stuff, all of it very workable in a play setting. If there is one thing I can say about her content as a whole, it’s that there is not one thing I would consider unusable (though I would certainly not use all of it). In true GLOG blog fashion, there is a certain air of classic fantasy allergy around the blog, with few exceptions. Every post comes as an avalanche of trope-breaking or avoidance, best seen in the article ‘Mountain: On Fire, The Elements, and Old Gods, Oh My’. Fish, Bones, Ashes and Bones being the Four Elements of the world tells you really all you need to know about what you’re getting yourself into.

The Classes

Vayra has not put out a bad class, that I can easily attest to, though not all are great. The TIME KNIGHT, an adaptation of the Echo Knight from 5e (one of my favourite subclasses in that game), doesn’t really capture the same feeling I get from the Matt Mercer version, probably due to how useless the Echoes feel. They seem like little more than jumped up illusions.

The GLOGSTAR post, however, funnily enough released just before the TIME KNIGHT, shows off everything she can do and far more. A Carrier spaceship as a Wizard equivalent? Pure creative genius, and exactly what I come to the Mad Queen’s Court for. Each class is like sci-fi drugs for my Gundam-addled mind.

The last one I want to touch on, though, another example of Vayra’s glorious mind, is the Witch from the Mountain Player’s Handbook. The Evil Eye being another form of familiar, created from negative emotions, adds some serious flavour to the Pathfinder ability it shares its name with. I always found myself asking whether or not I was just staring at them really scarily, or if there was actual magic going on. This answers that question and adds a whole new dimension to my character. Do Witches internalise their emotions in order to weaponize them later? What kind of effect does that have on them as people? When classes make me ask questions like that, I know they’re a keeper.

That is, of course, without even mentioning the familiars. I think the Gun familiar speaks for itself. Arcane firearms are the best thing ever and I hope to see more of them. I will definitely play a Gun Witch the next time I do anything. Lead Wind is an amazing ability.

The GROG (Goblin Ruins of Gaming)

This is Vayra’s big GLOGhack and… eh. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fine system, but when I’m as spoiled for choice as I am in the GLOG, I just don’t think I’d run it over say, Bonepunk or Vain the Sword. The GROG’s saving grace is the Mountain Player’s Handbook, which contains a brilliant setting and some amazing stuff, but even with that I’d just take the Mountain as its own thing and play Many Rats or something. I rate it Eh/10. Play it if you love 3.PF but there’s not much more reason than that.

The Mountain at the End of the World

By far Vayra’s most extensive work to date, the Mountain is a glorious exploratory setting based around a mountain where few dare tread. Strange lands and people abound, and it is great. The Player’s Handbook is worth looking at for one specific concept I will touch on later. The classes (one of which I already spoke about) are all easily takeable, and the Rat Warrens is a brilliantly written dungeon that exemplifies what this setting does best: weird shit though just close enough to normal fantasy to avoid being too gonzo. Rat mutations are brilliant. Why is there a barely functional rat mech? Paladins having to make up saintly days to access their magic is inspired. I will be stealing extensively from this for future campaigns.

Red Air

The very first thing ever posted by our illustrious subject, and what a great start. ‘Communist space fighter jets’ is an amazing pitch for anything, though as a relatively old thing and it doesn’t have the same polish that the rest of her stuff does. I could personally do without the communist bits, as the humour really doesn’t land for me, though that’s definitely chalked up to personal taste. I am captured by the images of fighter jets arcing through the air that the system conjures in my mind, locked in an intense dogfight that spans the entire atmosphere and beyond. That’s what really makes me love this. I’d play it if Vayra ran it, but I don’t think I'd run it myself. 

My Favourite Post: ‘Mountain: Satans at the Crossroads’

Of everything here, this is easily the second best thing Vayra has ever come up with. This is just… ahhhhh. I have no words for how much joy it brings me. Demons and devil deals are my favourite thing in fantasy fiction, and this way of it coming about, by meeting a weird old fucker on a crossroads and then boom! There goes your firstborn. Have fun with your immortality. Read this post. Take it and put it into your games. Challenge a Satan to a game of 5D Chess with Multiverse Time Travel. Profit.

The Worst Post: ‘GLOGtober 1st: Modern Fiddly Firearms’

I could not make it through this one. Fiddly indeed, and flying completely in the face of why I love the OSR: its simplicity. I admit I am not a gun nerd, but if I wanted this level of modifiers I’d go back to playing Pathfinder. ‘You and your players only have to calculate this stuff once per gun’ she says in the post, but fuck me if I’m going to do that even once. Hard pass on this post. Just give me a ‘small gun’ or ‘large gun’.

My Favourite Thing That Vayra Has Made: Swordsong

Music and swords. Both are in my top ten favourite things ever. Also writing, but that one’s obvious. What do you get when you combine them all? Swordsong, the language of the blades in the Mountain at the End of the World. Speaking to swords is already a great thing, but what really makes it is that you can sing swords into existence through ancient magics. ‘In a pinch you can whistle yourself a dagger if you know what you’re doing’ is such an evocative line that I actually cannot control my excitement thinking about this. I imagine great warriors of ages past who would incorporate singing into their fighting styles, conjuring swords as they fought to the beat of their own tune, their combat akin to a dance of whirling steel leaving blades all around them in the wake of their Swordsong. This concept is my favourite thing and I want an entire new class based around it. Goddamnit I’ll write the damn thing myself if I have to. GIVE ME MORE SWORDSONG!

Did I skip anything?

I skipped the post on the Mass Effect rpg entirely. It did not interest me and Vayra herself warned against reading it, so I took her advice and got on with the rest of the blog.

Interview Time!

Yes, I am going to try and include an interview with whoever I am reviewing in each post! Vayra was enthusiastically cooperative in this, and I must thank her again for taking time out of her day to bring you this small insight into her mind. Without further ado, here you go:

A: We're beginning with the obvious stuff. How did you get into RPGs in general?

V: My parents bought me the Red Box basic set when I was 7ish, I believe, would have been my first exposure. Then later in middle school some friends and I played elaborate games without rules, then by high school it was 3.0/3.5e since there were other people around who played that.

A: Was there a specific point that started you GMing and writing your own stuff, or were you the GM from the beginning?

V: Hmmmm, I actually don't remember when the first time I GMed was (my memory is a sieve), but the first campaign of any length that I ran would have been in 3.5e when I was about 14, and it was extensively homebrewed.

A: What then drew you away-ish from 3.5e et al and towards the OSR?

V: As much as I love 3.5e, I've always been of the opinion that it needs hacking to really be great, so past a certain point it just made more sense to write my own thing. As for what pulled me towards the OSR… At some point I came across a particular blog, which was okay, and linked to several other blogs like Goblin Punch, Middenmurk, Straits of Anian, all of which were excellent. This was in... 2013-2014-ish? I just read them for inspiration, mostly, though, and still played mostly my own weird d20 system hack until very recently when I decided I wanted to write a Fantasy Thing again and joined the OSR discord.

A: How did the GLOG then cross your radar?

V: Since Goblin Punch was one of the first blogs I encountered (and easily one of my favorites among all that I ever read - my bookmarks folder is full of that lime green 'G' favicon), I was aware of it just from being a regular reader, and it seemed like a natural choice coming from a sort of 3.5e/d20 system mindset as I was. I feel like GLOG captures all the best parts of that system and none of the bad ones, which makes sense as it was apparently at least somewhat inspired by it.

A: We know what happens if we say that in the server though.

V: It’s correct! I swear!

A: What prompted you to begin your blog?

V: Well, before I had even really started working on my fantasy stuff (the GROG, my GLOGhack; and the Mountain, my setting) I joined the OSR discord - and at some point I mentioned Red Air, the interplanetary communist fighter pilot RPG I had written a few years earlier as an attempt to exorcise the leftbook demons from my head, and someone demanded access, and I realized I didn't have anywhere to post it really, and so the blog was born.

A: That brings me neatly towards the contents of your blog. First of all, the GROG. What about the GLOG at the time prompted you to write it above what was already there?

V: I'm a firm believer that the GLOG exists to be infinitely iterated upon, and part of the attraction to me is writing my own thing. I'd never been a fan of the original GLOG skill mechanic (too complicated! pah!) and at some point someone got me to read about Whitehack sandwich AC resolution and I was set on including that, and by that point it basically made sense to start making my own hack, haha.

A: And where did the idea for the GROG's accompanying setting, the Mountain, come from?

V: So, after playing 3.5e throughout highschool and for a while after I was pretty thoroughly tired of Generic Fantasy, but around 2014 I started gearing up to run an online game and write a big setting document. The game never actually happened, but it serves as the basis for a lot of the Mountain stuff, particularly the background details. Then more recently I remembered I had all these OSR blogs bookmarked and started reading them at work, and that prompted a new wave of inspiration - particularly, to make it weirder.

I guess it was really born from a set of basic assumptions: 

• No humans, every 'human' is a goblin or an orc or something. 

• The thing is going to be set on a single, gigantic Mountain. 

• The four elements of nature, from which everything is created, are Fish, Blood, Ashes, and Bones, and the fifth (opposed to them, and to nature) is Fire.

 And then everything else about it pretty much sprung outward from there.

A: Are there any elements of system/setting design that you absolutely deplore and would throw into the Pits of Tartarus if you could?

V: Oooh, that's an interesting one. Like elements present in works, or elements of the design process itself?

A: Elements present in works first, then the latter.

V: Hmm, okay, let's see. Here's a short list of things I have claimed I 'can't stand' over the past little while: 

1) Fantasy 'races'. I'm sick of 'em. Give me humans and nothing but humans (maybe some monkeys and GIANT SPIDERS AAAAAA as well) or no humans at all. 

2) Magitech/magical renfaire settings. I feel like magic should be weirder and less predictable than that. 

3) Tieflings that are just red people and it's cool and they're a bit edgy and nobody really cares. I think renaming them to HELLBASTARDS is a good start to fixing this. 

4) XP for failures. This is a particular gripe I mostly have with PbtA systems - I find it incredibly 'gamey' and that it encourages 'playing the sheet' and rolling as much as possible, since you're rewarded for doing that in an extremely short-term sort of way. 

5) Ability use limits like "once a day", etc. I don't really mind MD depletion, since that's abstracted a step or two out, but plain "X/day" abilities really grate on me for some reason. 

6) Character sheets, despite knowing that they can be useful for new players to see, basically, what they need to write down.

I could go on... I am a very opinionated goblin.

A: I do find myself agreeing with a lot of those statements more and more as I play. Only a few more questions left, I promise. Is there any place you tend to draw creativity or inspiration from, say a place or a style of music or other blogs etc?

V: I've already mentioned Goblin Punch, Middenmurk, and Straits of Anian as big blog inspirations, to that I'd add Udan-Adan, As They Must, and Coins and Scrolls as more strong influences on me. I read the Belgariad and Malloreon at a formative age and I think they had a strong effect on me as perfectly generic fantasy novels - I think some of their influence is visible in the background details for the world the Mountain is set in. The Mountain's four elements were inspired by the title of a witch house mixtape by ∆AIMON which has, apparently, disappeared from Soundcloud. Ultimately, I steal liberally from anywhere and anything that manages to catch my interest, a process which I highly recommend to anyone.

A: I would have to agree wholeheartedly with that thought. To bring this to a close, I must ask if you have any large projects in the works at the moment.

V: I managed to get about 8 days into the GLOGtober prompts (by SunderedWorldDM of Sundered Shillings), and am determined to finish them by the end of 2020. Besides that, of course, the Mountain is my big personal RPG project - I'm setting up to run a short playtest this month, and intend to eventually publish adventure booklets for each 'zone' present on my map... That, though, is definitely a longer-term goal.

A: And that brings me to my final question. Magical Girl Red Air when?

V: Perhaps for a later GLOGtober prompt, or a future GLOG week. But don't hold your breath.

A: Thank you for your time! It has been a pleasure indeed!

Conclusion

As I have said, there is a reason Vayra features on so many ‘Great Blog’ lists. Her stuff is eclectic yet somehow focused, and her flashes of brilliance are truly glorious. However, some of it can get rather bogged down in the gonzoness of it all, and she sometimes suffers from not going far enough with an idea (TIME KNIGHT). The firearms post marks a blemish for me on an otherwise triumph of a blog, full of workable material. Please go and read all of her stuff, do yourself that favour. Your games will be all the better for it. And if you don’t, at least put Swordsong in everything you do. I rate the Mad Queen's Court an arbitrary Psychopomp/10.

This is Anni, signing off for now! Keep yourself safe, and stay tuned for more RPG content and Gretchling Reviews! Godspeed!