Designing an Ad for Deluxe USR Sword & Sorcery

Common refrain I hear from potential buyers of new game stuff, besides a smart question to ask, which I have tried to tackle with this ad is "What does it offer that I don't already have?" Game Masters and Crypt Keepers alike are skeptical of the latest dark brooding thing. And they have every right to be. I think the blurby, what's inside pitch I make is a decent one. Go ahead let me know what you think.

Daniel Hernadez Delivers!

Another artist finished their commissioned work for Deluxe USR Sword & Sorcery, Daniel Hernandez. He completed six black and white line drawings of the signature mascot for Deluxe USR Sword & Sorcery; Dor Stryker! A reaver of blood red rivers and blood red passion, she embodies the wild freedom of the Sword & Sorcery genre I have built into the game. 

Dor Stryker earning a night's pay

I should probably keep these under wraps, make folks pay for a view in my book, but I am so excited by the whole experience; searching, contacting, negotiating, and waiting for finished product, f#@%ing exiting I tell you.

Daniel Hernadez is an artist in San Diego, easy to get a hold of, and charges appropriately. You can trust him with your project. You heard it here from the tower.

Here is my current list of reliable artists for hire:

Michael Gibbons, Aos, Metal Earth; if you are a fan of black and white illustrations and want them fast then Aos is your guy. Themetalearth@gmail.com.

Jeremy Hart; monster stock art and commission work. He does solid, detailed line drawings.

and Daniel; makestuffsd@gmail.com

All DIY'ers can get some great art in your games with this bunch. It also will also prompt you to start drawing your own illustrations. You'll want to see your own stuff in your books for sure, and damn, your art budget will thank you.

World of Xoth Official USR Sword & Sorcery Setting!

Vanishing Tower Press is happy to announce The World of Xoth is now the official setting for Deluxe USR Sword & Sorcery! 

As this was the birthing place of my USR hack for Conan inspired adventures, I am pleased to incorporate this rich sword and sandal setting to the new edition!

In all actuality this just means the use of proper and place names found in Xoth, but allows me to set the three adventures in the new book in a proper setting. With Thulsa's free Players Guide to the World of Xoth any new referee will have all they need to start running pulp fantasy adventures in a lightly-realized game world begging for the heavy hand of an inspired Crypt Keeper!

Where in the World is Xoth?

Xoth is here actually. Well, only in my multiverse. The World of Xoth is Morten Braten's creation for his Pathfinder game. I took his setting material and used it for my playtesting of USR Sword & Sorcery. This, an the "Known World" of Mystara from B/X D&D, are my touchstone campaign worlds when I got back into gaming five years ago. With some regular play it didn't take long to start  daydreaming about intersecting gaming worlds and gaming groups with each other. The Flailsnail's conventions showed me that I didn't even have to be thaaat concerned about different systems mashing with different system PC's. Running some Classic Traveller and keeping a Clockwork & Cthulhu campaign going the pieces of my multi-verse are mostly full-formed now. Mystara, Xoth, 1646 C&C Earth and the super-future of my Outer Frontier Traveller Universe I'm placing all in the "normal", terrestrial universe, with only Clockwork & Cthulhu and Traveller necessarily being separated in time.

I quickly populating the different campaign worlds with many different "doorways" out of the terrestrial universe and into other "realms", the multiverse of my game world; "Murph's Multiverse"! Mystara PC's ventured into the far future, Mystara's the-end-of-time (my Ro'Myr setting?) as well as crossing over into A Red and Pleasant Land. Xoth, these PC's activated ancient devices which connected to beings in Outer Frontier Traveller Universe, as well as through Lotus poisoning in the far-east they ended up in a strange mushroom-dreamland. The PC's from my current C&C game have entered the realm of The Pale Lady (shares space with A Red and Pleasant Land) and became acquainted with "trans-arcana" penetrations. In the Outer Frontier that PC group investigated and activated more troubling powers started in another time and place on Xoth which brought my multiverse its first glimpse of horror-scarred Carcosa...

Which gets me all thinking about a visual map of all this. Where all these great settings get placed and their linkages get tracked.

So now I know where Xoth is, Trappist-1, and Earth. Mystara can be place anywhere in the known universe (or beyond) and right now there really isn't a pressing need at this point to pin it down. The Outer Frontier will eventually get mapped back to "original" Earth. Oh yeah, I even have some modern-day adventures from Anthropomorphic USR and Fear & Loathing USR to bridge all my imaginings to the here and now!

The inspiration for my map is coming from that great map of Kamandi's world by Kirby. Now I guess I just got to draw it :) 

The Why? of doing this is to hone a functional DM'ing device to tap crossover opportunities by retaining, recognizing and cataloguing mentally them for later use. If I have a multidimensional model of my homebrewed gaming universe I can hang cool ideas like ornaments on a christmas tree. Or stars in the night sky I guess.

Hobbs & Friends talk USR Sword & Sorcery Podcast

+Jason Hobbs released his first episode of Hobbs & Friends with an opening discussion on my World of Xoth campaign I run with my USR Sword & Sorcery rules.

Enjoy!

World of Xoth NPC's for USR Sword & Sorcery

Off and on I have been putting together a Bestiary. Saving the stats of the animals and people I had to come up with as my online players chewed through the campaign world over two and a half years of play.

The PC's thrashed their way from the forgotten city of Akhlat the Cursed, to the tea shops of Taikang City and probably saw more Deep Water Belly Fish then they cared to.

Here is a sampling of some of the NPC's the players have come across in these past adventures...

Town & City NPC's

Agrapurian Thugs,
A8 W6 E4 H07
S. Hand to Hand +1A, Intimidate +1W.
Leather Vest, +1DR. Club +1A.

Now this is a tough mountain town (ripped from the pages of REH) found on the Khazistan side of the Kharjah Pass and the PC's had just survived a hard seven days march through wasteland. The only reason they didn't get their ass handed to them is because they went straight to the fate of carousing heavily and they rolled well and the Crypt Keeper's NPC's rolled poorly.

Ghazorian Town Guard,
A8 W6 E4 H07
S. Hand to Hand Combat +1A, Authority +1W.
Leather Vest +1DR, Small Shield +1DR. Spear +1A, Knife +1A.

In the pay of Sea Lords the PC's made fools of them when hired as assassins. They left town before retribution could be exacted by the next paying pouch of gold.

Corrupt Sorcerer,
A6 W10 E8 H09
S.Ancient Lore +3W, Bind Demon +2E, Move Silently +2A, Connections +1W.
Dagger +1A,

Once again the PC's channeled the Conan vibe of this Sword & Sorcery campaign and struck quickly against a formidable foe. It is hard to command your giant snake and female vampire slaves with your head blown off by an ancient ray gun.

Khazabad Pit Fighting Champion, A10 W6 E8 H10
S. Unarmed Combat +3A, Intimidate +1W.
Leather Arm Band and Greaves +1DR. Spiked Knuckles +1A.

The PC in the pit straight up rolled better than the NPC. That is what I liked best about adapting the USR rules to try a simultaneous combat method and a critical hit table. I as the Crypt Keeper never new how any combat was going to play out. I felt I had the best of both worlds. A combat could end quickly in unmitigated savagery or turn into a brutal exhausting contest. Another PC bet heavily on the right side of this fight.

Dipurian Flesh Peddler,
A6 W10 E6 H06
S. Connections +2W.
Robes and oils.

There is so much hate in this crowd towards the PC's they will never know it unless they return to the Grand Inquisitor's city.

There is a bunch more scattered throughout the three ring binders of campaign material I generated during the run. I want to keep working on compiling them into a "Monster Manual" for USR Sword & Sorcery but I am a bit weepish about stripping them of their World of Xoth trappings because it is not a campaign setting of my own creation. It has the best name for a Sword & Sorcery campaign setting by far. I took the small map and superimposed it on a modified map of Venus with much of the surface covered in water. Irregardless of my world building I was smart enough just to spend time on where the PC's were currently exploring and making that important. I was extremely gratified to see my judgement validated by the Tales To Astound post about making the action where the PC's are at. I didn't know that was what I was doing at the time, it was done out of necessity. But it gelled so well. It made sense cause it was built adventure by adventure and all I did was feast off of the player's actions and acceptance of the genre tropes.

So a USR Sword & Sorcery Bestiary is worth it and should be seen through to the bitter (roll 1D10) end.

USR World of Xoth Ref Sheet

Working on some referee sheets for my USR Sword & Sorcery game set in the World of Xoth. The untold misery I have caused my players flipping through my homebrew notes for the necessary game materials may now come to an end...

This document is now available on RPGNow. I've added Wilderness and Sea Travel information as well as a Wilderness and Civilized Encounter checks, not to mention a USR Sword & Sorcery Character Sheet!

The full random tables have Wilderness and City encounters, Magical Research Encounter table, and a table to see what happens when your PC's start fires within a city!

Burning Sword & Sorcery Cities

How do you determine the results of arson in an ancient city? Here is a table I created to figure this out in my World of Xoth campaign.

For fire damage the most important factor will be time. Given that the structure, and possibly the surrounding structures are flammable, once a fire starts it is only a matter of time before it burns everything around it. The following table uses an ascending order of magnitude (from sputtering out to reducing the city proper to ash) to try and model this.

1d12 City Fire Table (numbered result also reflects the number of hours the blaze burns):

Negative modifiers from -1 to -6 are applied to the initial fire roll to reflect any number of factors the Crypt Keeper deems appropriate for the current game situation, such as weather, available fuel, citizen response, etc. This modified result becomes your initial fire roll. This initial roll establishes the ferocity of the fire within the first hour. Any result of 6 and over requires an additional roll at the end of the first hour. If this second, unmodified roll is greater than the initial fire roll # than roll the 1d12 again. Either way, you finally end up on the final degree of damage caused by the fire at the conclusion of the number of hours the fire burned for.

Any result of 1 or less obviously means the fire didn't get very far and may certainly cause more problems for the PC than it was intended to solve. Then again, the same can be said for the other end of the table too.

01. Put out quickly by the city watch and concerned citizens. The evidence of arson is plain to see.

02. A small portion of the structure is damaged before the fire is quenched. Evidence of arson can be deduced by the wise and the experienced.

03. At least half of the structure is damaged, with some of this resulting in a total loss to items within the building. If the building was occupied there is an excellent chance there was loss of life. It will take some investigation to uncover arson as the reason for the blaze.

04. While the structure is still standing, there isn't a part of it which has not been ruined by fire or smoke damage. The locals may have their suspicions, but the damage makes it difficult to discern if the fire was deliberately set. Unless inhabitants of the structure were awake, or extremely lucky, many inside will have died in the blaze.

05. The structure is a complete loss, dangerous even to walk through after the fire is doused. Nothing of value would have survived and those who were unable to exit quickly will have perished in the flames. Only those who have had their suspicions aroused would be able to discern a deliberate act of arson is the cause.

06. The initial structure has become completely consumed and nearby structures have been damaged. At some point during the conflaguration the locals have given up on saving the original building and put all their efforts into stopping the fire from spreading further. Occupants of the neighboring buildings would have had time to escape harm.

07. Residents and shop owners near the blaze will begin to move valuables away, emptying out the silver cabinet and grabbing the livestock. The streets are clogged with frightened people and animals. Half the city will be aware of the fire at this point.

08. The initial fire has burned hot and bright enough to start multiple buildings on fire. Entire neighborhoods will be alarmed and these residents will rush to extinguish the fire. Who knows if their efforts will be successful?

09. The neighborhood watch appears in force. They will order citizens to risk their lives in putting out the fire if they half to, turning out common houses and gambling halls. People caught near the fire will be hard pressed to reach safety. Large numbers of people will start to move out of the neighborhood.

10. The city will muster all its resources in a final attempt to save the city. Property damage is now severe and countless lives are certainly lost. At this point the fire can be easily seen from a distance from the city.

11. Most people try to abandon the city. The fire has burned large enough that the inhabitants of the city have lost all ability to contain it. Whole neighborhoods are burning at the whim of the gods and the terrorized screams of man and beast ring out.

12. City engulfed. At least 60% of the urban landscape has been destroyed or effected by the raging inferno. The death toll is staggering. Many surviving citizens have been displaced by the fire.

.

The Hyborian Age Calendar

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?368265-Conan-Hyborian-Age-calendar

http://theblogthattimeforgot.blogspot.com/2011/12/hyborian-musings-conan-calendar.html

Taikang City, word on the street

While the PC's have only been in Taikang City for a short while, crew members have noticed the following about this large, old city:

• A bureaucrat caste sits astride a teeming underclass of tradesman, merchants, laborers and slaves. Pretty much the same as every city you have been in so far in the world of Xoth.
• From the magnificent houses of the Butterfly Palace shrouded servants tend to the city's spiritual leader who issues confusing edicts for the city's poor to follow. 
• Mercenary warrior clans serve at the will of the city's treasury. 
• Some tea shops sell lotus, all lotus dens sell tea and rice wine.
• The inane chatter of members of the various philosophical societies fill up the air of most tea shops and lotus dens.
• Tea shop can also be a euphemism for an assassin's poison workshop.
• Large cockroaches the size of chickens have been seen being herded through the city streets at night.
• Inns are very expensive, and have set dinner times with inscrutable prayers and gestures mumbled throughout the meal.
• The local guard favors 9' pole arms.
• The fishing is poor in the harbor, but clams seem plentiful on the tidal flats south of the city.
• The Harbor Master dropped off a voluminous pile of scrolls stamped in ornate insignia.

Lotus Politics in the World of Xoth

The PC's have come across several types of Lotus during their adventures in the World of Xoth, and I thought I would jot down this quick reference to these dangerous plants as is so far known in the campaign;

Yellow Lotus is most common and like most of the different lotus plants, must be turned into a powder before it can be used effectively. It is grown in Khazabad, Amanti, as well as some of the far western nomad nations. Favored by thieves and cultists, Yellow Lotus is highly addicative, can cause incredible hallucinations, and makes one susceptible to suggestion.

Red Lotus; a highly addictive powder which when smoked gives one increased physical and sexual attributes beyond normal ken. This lotus is also found throughout Khazabad and the other decadent western nations. The Red Lotus is favored by gladiators, and pleasure slaves for "seeing red" is one of the only ways to blot out the pain of their fates.

Silver Lotus; can only be found on the Silver Lotus Isles. Reported to give the user enhanced powers of the mind. This is all considered nonsense as none of this miraculeous powder has ever been seen in the markets of Xoth

Purple Lotus; the mysterious lotus of the far east. Known to deliver exquisite ecstacy beyond the comprehension of mortals, and produce the most powerful and subtle poisons in the hands of master poisoners. This powerful narcotic is grown only amongst the high peaks of the island kingdom of Taikang. Only the truly powerful have access to the hidden trade for the fruits of this elusive plant.

Black Lotus; the stuff of legend and mythology. It is believed that through alchemical formuli derived from the inscrutible texts of ancient gods the purple lotus can be transformed into black lotus, the essential ingredient of sorcery.

Sailor Hiring Table for Taikang City in the World of Xoth

When PC's need to hire additional crew members amongst the tea shops and lotus dens crowding the busy wharfs of Taikang City, roll on the following table to see who responds to their job opportunity. 

Don't forget to consider how the PC's go about their hiring campaign. While Taikang City is busy harbor town, foreigners can misstep and cause difficulties within the teeming streets. 

Whether running afoul of the inscrutable bureaucrats which hold power, alchemical assassin guilds, or lotus drenched sorcerers, pulling off a successful recruiting drive can be an adventure in itself.

Taikang City Sailor Table; roll 1d12+4 for number of applicants. For each applicant roll 1d12 to determine who he is.

1. Fleeing acrobat.

2. Disturbed psychotic.

3. Visionary beggar.

4-12. A seasoned clam harvester who is good with a net and knows how to trim a sail. 

Crappy World of Xoth Character Sheet

An idle scribble. I will post it on the Summonings page for those who like it ragged.

USR Sea Encounter Mechanic

In this post I talk about how I've hacked together sea faring rules for my USR Sword & Sorcery campaign utilizing Sailing on the Seas of Fate by Chaosium and Zack S's Wavecrawl Kit.

I've modified how I roll for daily encounter in the following way; for every week of sea travel I roll seven d10's. Only events which get 2 or more results are considered and will come up in play sometime during the week. 3 to 4 matching numbers mean the event is significant and watery doom could be at hand.

The ten event categories are also further subdivided if they spurred decent ideas, but I have to say, custom tables for your game world are a lot of fun. But they take some time to lovingly craft. Fortunately the internet has all these resources available to help you out. Like the products I mentioned above, there are literary thousands of free PDF's available online which can help you make your own gaming tools.

BRP World of Xoth

If I ever run another group of PC's through a Sword & Sorcery campaign I think I'm going to go with Chaosium's Elric!. I'm sure I would modify it with mechanics from the BRP Gold Book, mostly with defining the magic system, but for the rest of it; gritty combat, incredible stunts, fearless dimension hopping, etc., I think the rules set gets the job done.

I could recycle my World of Xoth campaign material for any Heavy Metal minded troop of PC's who want to turn their sword swinging savagery up to eleven. The flexibility of Chaosium's mechanics makes it possible to craft your own brand of Sword & Sorcery. You really can conjure any world of post-apocalyptic or pre-cataclysmic savagery and super science your imagination can devise.

LotFP Language Rules for USR Sword & Sorcery

My players came upon a book, and, after a year of play, for the first time I had to know if any these motley louts could read. True to their sword and sorcery roots these adventuring heroes have yet to approach any task without crushing blows, and flashing blades. Illiteracy among them all was a real possibility, so I ruled that none of them could read. But that didn't feel complete. I mean, what is the chance that they are all illiterate?


I needed a mechanism to decide an unknown question such as this and James Raggi's LotFP rules for language is the only one which ever struck me as a functional, in-game method for literacy and language questions. So the following is how I've hacked them to suit my USR Sword & Sorcery game.

Language Rules for USR Sword & Sorcery

Most PCs are assumed to begin play being fully fluent in their native tongue.

They are literate as well if they can pass a 6+ difficulty roll against their Wits.

Any specialism which can modify the results, good or bad, should be applied. Any specialism which implies literacy (scribe for example) would confer automatic literacy in the PC's native language. Any other modifier the CK wishes to impose can be added to this initial literacy roll.

When a PC comes into contact with another language their chance of speaking the language is determined by passing a 6+ difficulty roll against their Wits. Did they make it? If they did then you need to determine if they are literate too. Make another Wits roll against a 7+ difficulty.

To learn an unknown language takes six months of full immersion, fluent in two years. A language can be taught by a tutor, but that takes two years of at least five lessons a week (at 3sp a lesson) to become comfortably conversant, and fluency does not come until being immersed in the language.

Lost in the USR Makan-e-Mordan

Our favorite band of low life barbarian scum failed to get the upper hand on Gomer of Akaharia, and were staked out to die in the trackless wastes of the North West Desert.

After they escaped their bonds the desert threatened to swallow their lives

beneath an unrelenting sun, but they endured the unforgiving waste to eventually wander into the accursed city of Akhlat.

Here the land is sustained in the grip of an ancient demon which demands the essence of living beings for food. A city elder believes the newly arrived PC' s are the prophesied saviors destined to slay the gorgon terror.

 

Hard scrabble Times in the Zorab Mountains

My players have made their way from the harsh ranges and stony adventures against bestial hillmen of the Zorab Mountains to once again retire among the wine shops and money lenders in the city of the Grand Inquisitor, Dipur.

They left behind in the flinty peaks high hopes of renown, valor, treasure, a hireling and not much of a pay day. They also left behind a dead, corrupt Count of Castle Highfrost, but instead of glory have been painted with the traitor's brush.

And now I have to get all the prep done for a wide open, sandbox style sword and sorcery opportunity in a sprawling city for tomorrow night. I'm putting on a pot o coffee, pulling out my Conan paperbacks and listening to some Black Mountain.

Anyone is also encouraged to throw me some ideas on generating a pile of adventure hooks and adventure seeds to send these scurrilous heroes into the mouth of hell!

Equipment List for my USR Sword & Sorcery Campaign

Equipment List for the World of Xoth

The common coin of the realm is silver, and following equipment list costs are in silver. 10 silver pieces make for one gold. Copper is the lowest coin, needing ten of these beggar chips to make one silver. Copper is usually only good for buying moldy bread, and cheap clothing. The sourest of wines can be had for a few copper, but only slaves would be found drinking such foul fare.

Gems are the most concentrated form of wealth, ranging in value from 100 to 1,000 gp’s and up! Most cutthroats would sell their soul for a chance to steal but a few gems.

Player characters start with basic equipment relative to their character backgrounds, and therefore get to list three such items for free. They also get to roll 3d6x20 starting silver to purchase some additional gear. Remember to keep some silver on your person to by that first nights round of ale, and mutton.

Rules for the game using Scott Malthouse's USR mechanics can be found here!

Weapons

Dagger                                  20           +1

Mace                                    50          +1

Sickle                                    60         +1

Club                                      2           +1

Heavy Mace                       120          +2           2H

Morning Star                       80           +1          

Spear                                  20           +1           ranged weapon

Long Spear                         50           +1           first strike opportunity, set against charge

Quarter Staff                      5              +1

Heavy Crossbow               500           +2           ranged weapon

Light Crossbow                 350           +1           ranged weapon

Dart                                    5                           ranged weapon

Sling                                    1                          ranged weapon

Throwing Axe                    80           +1            ranged weapon

Miners Hammer                 10          

Hand Axe                          60           +1

Light Pick                          40          

Short Sword                     100         +1

Battle Axe                         100         +2

Flail                                    80           +1           first strike opportunity

Long Sword                      150         +2

Scimitar                            150         +2

War Hammer                    120         +1/+3 vs. Plate

Pole Axe                            85           +2           2H, first strike opportunity, set against charge                   

Great Axe                          200         +3           2H

Great Sword                      500         +4           2H

Long Bow                         750         +2           ranged weapon

Short Bow                         300         +1           ranged weapon               

Armor

Leather coif                       100         +1           head only

Steel Cap                          100         +3           head only

Leather Jerkin                   600         +1           body and arms

Quilted Jerkin                   400         +1           body and arms

Chain Shirt                       600         +2           body

Leather Leggings               350         +1           legs

Quilted Leggins                 250         +1           legs

High Leather Boots           250         +1           legs

Chain Cowl                      250         +2           head

Full Helm                         350         +3           head

Chain Jerkin                     1,500     +2           body and arms

Hide Coat                         900         +1           body and arms

Scale Corselet                  1,500     +2           body and arms

Bracers                           100         +1           arms

Armored Gauntlets           200         +2           arms

Greaves                           100         +1           legs

Chain Skirt                      100         +1           legs

Breastplate                      900         +3           body

Banded                           750         +2           body

Fully Armor Suits

Quilted                          1,500     +1           all

Leather                         2,000     +2           all

Chainmail                     5,000     +3           all

Scale                            5,000     +3           all

Plate                            15,000   +4           all

Shields

Buckler                        150         +1           you may use a bow or crossbow while equipped

Small Shield                 70           +1

Large Shield                 100         +2

Tower Shield               300         +4           provides cover from aimed ranged weapons

Mundane gear can be bought using the same prices in the Dungeons and Dragons Player’s Handbook. Keep in mind that most of the prices there are listed in gold coins, so multiply the cost by ten to determine the price in silver!