I'm looking forward to breaking my players into Sorcerer, but before playing with the Mythic Past/Haunted Present setting, I'm going to start them off with the Charnel Gods setting, which I think is a great entry for most conventional players to get into Sorcerer. So good in fact, that I think it should be part of the Sorcerer book! Anyhow, I'm using the Armageddon Clock setting (props to the person who came up with the name...) mentioned in the Actual Play forum. While reading the book, a few ideas came up, things worthy of further discussion and development.

Charnel God Questions

Race to Zero Humanity
Ideally, players won't do this, and initially I'm not informing my players of the Harbinger, but despite this, I suspect that its possible that some people might be in a race of debauchery and inhuman acts to be the first to reach this point. Now I have some ideas to avoid this, but I'm curious to hear what others think and how they would encourage their players to reconsider such options.

The Conventional Nature of the Weapons
Is the Charnel Gods setting by default Sword and Sorcery? Can guns and others be Fell Weapons? They're simply ignored on account of the fact that the people venturing into the fields simply don't recognize them as such? In the Charnel Fields, would there be a rail gun made of bizarre hand-crafted alloys with a baroque demonic barrel? What about a briefcase? One you open up with strange dossiers inside (Hint) or vials of biological agents (Special Damage: Lethal and non-)?

A Ranged Weapon Question
Could you get a bow with Link and then fire arrows over obstacles or over hills and trees and Link with the arrow, getting an arrow point view of the world?

Dominion Weapons
I had toyed with the thought of themed weapons, "Dominion" weapons that give you powers over the elements. For example a Sword (or to be cliche - a Trident) that gave you Dominion over Water? "Protection" against drowning? "Travel" for swimming or walking on water? "Warp" for shaping and altering water, "Shapeshift" into a fish or dolphin? "Special Damage: Lethal: Dehydrate Foe"?

Communicating with an Object Demon
Now generally object demons don't talk... but what if you pulled off some sort of Ouija Board thing, throw it down, ask your demon a question, and let it spell out the answer, or throw bone runes down for it to point and indicate at, or asking your blade that can bleed to stop bleeding for a "yes" answer to a question?

End game – how does it play out?
I'm more interested in past experiences. Does it end in waves of biblical plagues in your game? Rampaging hordes? Does all life sentient life merely have to die or does the entire world have to fracture and come tumbling to pieces for the new world to make sense of it? When designing the world, should you hint at potential ways for it to come to ruin? Huge smoking volcanoes, comets that seem closer every night, apocalypse rumors, or should this devices be left entirely to the players?

I guess what I'm asking is: What's the line between foreshadowing the end and some built in possibilities to inspire players for them to draw upon and integrate within their own epoch endgame?

Continuity Between Worlds
Its a shame there wasn't more effort made at drawing out continuities between worlds. When wandering into the Charnel Fields, its a great opportunity to maybe hint at future settings and show some elements of previous settings - familiar architecture and the like. And even within the new epoch, there might be some themes from one world or another that seem to endure across a couple of themes. Some people may look familiar, some buildings may endure between epochs, and some strange geologic anomalies present to hint at past and future epochs.

Sample worlds
Charnel Gods seems like a world builder's dream (that's part of my draw to it). You can run all those settings you ever wanted to in quick succession! So how come I don't see more sample settings for it? Does anyone want to share any of the ones they've used or would like to use?

Weapon's Stamina and Power
What's to keep a player from lowballing Stamina to keep the power of their weapon reasonable and within control of the players, or is there a suggested limit?

Weapon being destroyed…
I don't see any mention of Fell Weapons being destroyed - when reduced to that many penalties, do they melt into goo? Does something catastrophic happen? Is the weapon merely inert? The gods did build these to last? Are they treated as a normal demon or do they represent something greater than your average summoned demon in Sorcerer?

Multiple Harbingers
Just musing - what if two characters involved in the same atrocity both bottom out at zero humanity - is it plausible to have multiple Charnel Gods? Sort of a Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse scenario?

What if the Harbinger is killed?
There's nothing to stop this from happening - but let's say the Harbinger is killed - do they still narrate the end of the game, or is that epoch given a momentary reprieve?

Carrion Fields Descriptions
Anyone have any they would like to share?

Humanity and the Nameless: what’s the connection?
I suppose this is a question for the Author:
“But if the PCs keep their Humanity up, the Nameless may never rear their ugly heads…leading some to speculate as to whether the Sorcerer’s Heresy is more than just idle chatter.” p.33
This makes me wonder - what is the connection between low humanity and the Nameless? Do they only appear near the end of an Epoch when Humanity is plummeting? Are they only evoked during the end, and are they a means of that Epoch being destroyed? Or does a High Humanity merely represent a world far from the Nameless emerging from the Void and thus there is no need for their corpses to join the pile yet... But even if that is true, some of the Nameless are already about in the world, having been trapped there between incursions. So could you elaborate further upon this idea, Scott?

Hey,

Lot of questions. I'm curious to hear other peoples' answers, so I'll limit my response...

Fell Weapons Of The Non-Traditional Variety: I wouldn't do it, but I can't stop you if that's what you really want.

Fell Weapons And How They Communicate: I wouldn't do ouija boards or runes, but the "yes"/"no" thing might be possible. Generally, a Fell Weapon communicates by granting or not granting Abilities at a given time, and it's up to the sorcerer to figure out what it's trying to say. Remember, miscommunication is fun.

Dominions: If you look at the sample Fell Weapons, they more or less follow themes already. My favorite Fell Weapon to not make it into the book was a club studded with shark's teeth that had a lot of water-based stuff going on. I ditched it because the "water"-theme wasn't as interesting and potentially conflict-laden as the other Weapons I had created, but I really liked the imagery associated with it.

Foreshadowing The End: Remember how, when a hero loses Humanity, the rules instruct the player to "darken" the setting a little? That can possibly include things like comets appearing in the sky or volcanoes suddenly rumbling to life, and gives the players a great opportunity to foreshadow doomsday (and whoever ends up with the mantle of Harbinger can actively play off of that stuff once the end game is set in motion).

Multiple Harbingers: Sounds cool to me.

Weapons Being Destroyed: In my games, it can't happen.

If The Harbinger Dies... In my games, it can't happen unless the Harbinger wants it to happen. Even so, no reprieve is granted. The Harbinger is as much a title for the player as it is for character, a position in the game distinct from a regular player, similar to the GM, but with specific responsibilities.

Sample Worlds: Bryant Durrell wanted to host a Charnel Gods fan-page, where we'd have people submit their own Epochs, Weapons, and Nameless. He did some work on the page, and I just never got around to getting him some initial content. Maybe someday we can still do that though, if there are people out there interested in such a thing.

The Connection Between The Nameless And The Fell: I'll never say for certain if a connection exists, or what exactly it may be, but the Nameless are an ever-present threat in the setting. Their numbers may grow or wane with a decrease or increase in Humanity, or at the GM's whim, or whatever else seems appropriate...so there you go.

Hmmm...a longer response than expected. Hopefully I didn't kill the conversation.

- Scott

Wow, this thread really stretched my ideas of what one could do with Charnel Gods... which I still haven't gotten around to buying, but definitely plan to.
I has an interesting idea after reading it:
Operation Goetterdaemmerung

Basically, this is Charnel Gods, except that the Epoch resembles our own world, circa 1939 or so. The Nazi occultists (yes, them again) have deciphered ancient prophecies leading them to the Wunderwaffen, the ancient weapons of the Aryan gods -- in other words, Fell Weapons.

The Allies, having cracked the German military codes, are able to intercept some of the German military expeditions to far-flung places, and recover some of the Wunderwaffen for themselves.

It would be almost the opposite of the game Godlike -- the PC's are superhuman character who *are* bigger than the war.

If WWII seems to cliched, you could run the same scenario for WWI -- I like the image of two guys hacking at each other with Fell Weapons in the middle of No-Man's-Land.

I was wondering myself why limit it to fantasy - doing the wierd odd sci fi or historical game (suggesting that our own world was Naur Tier) would be interesting.

As a play on your WWII thing, clearly the Spear of Longinus, used to kill Christ and sought out by Adolf Hitler is just such a fell weapon - used to kill an Ancient (or one of the last living Old Ones or perhaps even a Nameless: Christ).

I wouldnt' do this very frequently, but I think it would be a nice ploy to do every once in a while when a group is in the fantasy doldrums.

I've got a few other responses, but I'm mulling them over. I'd like to hear other people weigh in though...

I got one thing to say in response to Danny's idea: Spear of Destiny.
Because, wow, that whole scenario idea floats my boat: it's like Indiana Jones meets the Day of Judgement meets Sorcerer. I can sooo see myself running some freelance archeologist hired by the Allied forces, fighting Nazis with wit, fist and my Fell Weapon's sorcery, and trying to beat them to these ancient buried weapons, stumbling across demons and fallen gods and...yeah...

Man, that just rocks.

Sorry to hijack for a moment, but:

hardcoremoose wrote: Sample Worlds: ...Maybe someday we can still do that though, if there are people out there interested in such a thing.

It would be particularly cool to run this for players who aren't familiar with (or don't realize they're playing) Charnel Gods, because it would take them a while to realize that by actively using the Fell Weapons, they're moving closer to the end of the world. (Of course, if they don't use them, then some Waffen-SS freak gets to be the Harbinger.)

Man, I am starting to regret having started another Nobilis game online. I really, really need to get some Sorcerer action going.

(RPG.Net just started a Play-By-Post forum, by the way; there have been several requests for someone to start a Sorcerer & Sword game.)

Old Scratch,

Do not hesitate, do not mull over. Vomit your wonderful ideas onto the forums whenever you feel the need to put one finger down your imaginations throat and the rest onto the keyboard.

Nice image.

Less mulling, more posting.

Judd

Longinus, obviously.

But other possible Fell Weapons, particularly in the Germanic heritage.. Excalibur, Tyrfing, Gram, Nothung... oh, and Mjolnir (!!) I'd love to see someone flatten a tank with one swing of that puppy. ^_^

And of course if you include legendary weapons from other cultures, the list becomes wonderfully expanded.

There was a David Brin story, "Thor vs. Captain America" (which was later turned into a rather silly comic called "The Life Stealers") which featured this idea -- the Nazi occultists (TM) have summoned the Norse gods back to Earth (although there is a strong suggestion that the "gods" are either aliens, or some alien force that has been molded into the shape of the Norse Gods by the expectation of the summoners). There's a a rather nice scene where the allies sneak an attack force into Europe, and suddenly there's a massive explosion! Was it a mortar attack? A landmine? No, it's Mjollnir!

But, in keeping with the cosmology of Naur Tier, it seems very appropriate for this to be a fallacy. The explorers find an ancient hammer with dreadful powers and assume it belonged to Thor, when actually it's much, much older than that. A bit of elemental flavor might be nice also -- I picture the guy with the air-flavored Fell Weapon taking on Stuka dive bombers single-handed.

Anyway, I'm going to buy Charnel Gods tonight so I can see what Scott actually wrote before I go much further with this. Maybe I'll actually try to run this puppy this summer when my RL workload drops a little.

The Spear of Destiny/Longinus seems a popular idea. I think after running a couple of games, it would be great to drop the players into a WWII or real world game, just to sort of hit home that the worlds being destroyed are full of people, and what if our own world turned out to be merely another epoch of Naur Tier. How I would run it would be to swap out... First a sort of Elric game... then a Chinese-influenced game... then swap over for one night to a Napoleonic Era game in our own world - make up the characters and start it and after one night switch over to a Ghost Haunted Medieval campaign... then the Napoleonic realworld adventure, then some sort of Aztec-Tekumel game, and then back to the real world Napoleonic game... After all, everyone knows that Napoleon was keeping his Fell-Dagger hidden within his uniform and drawing upon it to empower his strategies...

hardcoremoose wrote: Hey,

Lot of questions. I'm curious to hear other peoples' answers, so I'll limit my response...

Fell Weapons Of The Non-Traditional Variety: I wouldn't do it, but I can't stop you if that's what you really want.

Scratch,

I'm torn, really.

On one hand, I want to say that it's just a matter of Color, and you should add or adjust anything you want. It's your game, you should do what you need to do to have fun.

On the other hand...

You know, all that other stuff occurred to me while I was writing it. But I was in love with certain things, and that's what I wrote about (although sometimes it took restraint). Now, you can use Charnel Gods as inspiration, use it as a jumping off point, and take those ideas somewhere else, but it won't be Charnel Gods anymore. And to my way of thinking, if you haven't played it straight at least once, give it chance before getting to crazy. To me, a great deal of the game's appeal is its restraint, that it's not all over the place.

But that's just me.

In other news, I'm talking to Bryant right now about the Charnel Gods fanpage, whether it's doable or not. I'll keep you guys updated.

- Scott

hardcoremoose wrote: Scratch,

I'm torn, really.

On one hand, I want to say that it's just a matter of Color, and you should add or adjust anything you want. It's your game, you should do what you need to do to have fun.

On the other hand...

You know, all that other stuff occurred to me while I was writing it. But I was in love with certain things, and that's what I wrote about (although sometimes it took restraint). Now, you can use Charnel Gods as inspiration, use it as a jumping off point, and take those ideas somewhere else, but it won't be Charnel Gods anymore.

Hi Scott, I finally read it (and am re-reading it). One thing that really strikes me about Charnel Gods is how complete it seems... almost as if it were based on a movie or book. But I can't think of any clear antecedents, except the Elric stories. And in C.G., everybody's Elric!

I'll have something more coherent to say later, I think. Maybe even a review at some point.

I do have a specific question for those of you who have played it before, though. It seems to me that part of the fun might be playing the discovery and binding of the Fell Weapon, but the default option is for the PC's to start out with their weapon already bound. Has anyone tried running a game where nobody has a Fell Weapon at the beginning? The ramp-up of power level might be tricky to manage.

Another question: how have people handled the number and strength of NPC Sorcerors? Some of the sample settings make Fell Weapons seem scarce, while the pseudo-Japanese setting suggests that there's a horde of warlords armed with Fell Weapons on the mainland.

DannyK wrote: It seems to me that part of the fun might be playing the discovery and binding of the Fell Weapon, but the default option is for the PC's to start out with their weapon already bound. Has anyone tried running a game where nobody has a Fell Weapon at the beginning?

Hey guys,

First thing's first...

The Charnel Gods Resources page is live. Not much there yet, but you can change that in a hurry! Look for me to post some new stuff there soon, maybe even scraps that didn't make it into the main book, or setting stuff from the GenCon demos I've ran the past two years. And give Bryant Durrel some love for hosting and designing the whole thing.


Scratch,

Thanks for listening to my little rant and then being so smooth as to gently roll past it. Occasionally that subject comes up and I just want to tell people: "Play the damn game before you try to change it, or go find a different game." But I don't want people want people to go find a different game really, and if Charnel Gods does in fact inspire, that's a huge compliment.


Dan,

Thanks for the kind words; a review would be great!

Raven's got it right with the first question. What I typically do, as part of the chargen session, is have the players narrate to me - and each other - how they first encountered their Fell Weapon, and what they did to Bind it. It's pure oral storytelling, and depending on how well they entertain me and the group, I give them bonus dice to that initial Binding roll. Now, that's not typical Sorcerer for you, but it helps mitigate the Power discrepancy on the first Binding, gives me (the GM) a whole lot of extra content to play around with should I choose, and allows us to get right to the good stuff without ignoring the characters' noble pasts. It's worked great so far.

As for the number and power level of NPC sorcerers...you got it right. Some Epochs may have one or two sorcerers total, while in another just about everyone might be one. In play, I lean more toward the former than the latter, but the Epoch you reference was my attempt to play around with the concept of institutionalized sorcery, and I think it ended up being my favorite in the book (although I have yet to use it as a setting for a game...maybe this year at GenCon).

Thanks,
Scott

hardcoremoose wrote: Raven's got it right with the first question. What I typically do, as part of the chargen session, is have the players narrate to me - and each other - how they first encountered their Fell Weapon, and what they did to Bind it. It's pure oral storytelling, and depending on how well they entertain me and the group, I give them bonus dice to that initial Binding roll. Now, that's not typical Sorcerer for you, but it helps mitigate the Power discrepancy on the first Binding, gives me (the GM) a whole lot of extra content to play around with should I choose, and allows us to get right to the good stuff without ignoring the characters' noble pasts. It's worked great so far.

So, it's sort of like the prologue of a Vampire game, where player and GM work out who the character was in mortal life and how they came to be Embraced. (Sorry if that analogy makes you grit your teeth). I can see how that would work. Between that and the Kicker, the GM has quite a bit of player input to work off of.

I just bought Charnel Gods, and haven't run a game of sorcerer yet (my group tends to be a bit gun-shy around new systems, but now I’ve got my chance), so I was just looking for a bit of advice on how Charnel Gods works out mechanically. While the fell weapon stats definitely seem powerful, to me they don’t seem “harbinger of the apocalypse” powerful. I know mood and imagery are going to present this image better than a couple of game stats (and I plan on hiding most of the game mechanics from my players anyway. Some of they tend to get rules-lawyerish) but after I set up the whole “you are the avatars of long dead gods” motif I don’t want to get anticlimactic. In actual game play do the fell weapons come off larger than life? Could anyone throw a couple tips or examples of past games my way?

Secondlaw,

Mechanically, Fell Weapons break down this way:

With the average Power of a Fell Weapon being around 9 or 10, you're going to win a straight up fight just about every time* (unless you're fighting something really nasty, like Gutterblax). Groups of opponents are somewhat nastier, but in Sorcerer, a big advantage goes to the person who acts first in a given exchange, and in fights against lesser opponents that'll almost always be the sorcerer.

Outside of combat, 9 or 10 extra dice and a nice Ability set will allow you to perform some truly astounding feats. Like being able to influence armies and whatnot.

As far as being anti-climatic, I guess that depends upon your expectations. Your sorcerers are still mortal, and there may be times when they find themselves in real mortal danger and fighting for their lives. That's just one of several seemingly contradictory motifs that were written into the game; there's lots of bluster about how powerful the sorcerers are, but at times in play they're going to seem kind of fragile. That's on purpose, to create a game where the myths don't quite ring true (which pretty much sums up my experience with real-world religion).

But the game should still feel epic. The rules for establishing tone are there for that reason, and should not be ignored. And once a Harbinger is crowned, the power structure entirely shifts in the game, so if the game feels anti-climatic, the players have only themselves to blame.

- Scott

* Regarding Fell Weapons, the biggest question often isn't whether you can or can't do something, but whether the Weapon is on the same page as you. For me, that's where the best drama comes in, and the GM should really play the Weapons to the hilt (nice pun, eh?). They're the most important NPCs in the game, period.

I still haven't played the damn game, although I may be in a online game which lets me try out the system, so take this with a grain of salt:

I think the conferred Cover is the really mindblowing part of the Fell Weapons. I mean, if you've got that evil dagger, you're automatically just about the best spy in the world, even before you add in the funky powers like Cloak and Perception.

The neat thing (from a GM's perspective, anyway), is that if the Demon gets pissed off, your character goes from John the Master Spy to John Q. Normal, just like that.
EDIT: duh, the author of the game just said the same thing.

Hey Dan...I'd rather have you guys talking up the game. You know, being the author, I'm obviously biased and all.

- Scott

Ok, i think i fell into the whole DnD mentality for a minute ("Wait, you mean the One Ring's just a cursed Ring of Invisibility? laaame...") This isn't Greyhawk, with a uber-wizard on every corner. Now the real challenge is going to make sure my players avoid the same pitfalls, which may be tough. My group is pretty much right out of Knights of the Dinner Table. Are there any game write ups of Charnel gods here in the forums? i didn't see any in Actual Play. I'l look again. Thanks for the advice!

There are a couple actual play posts out there, including my original playtest posts (in the Actual Play forum). Here's a link to a short discussion about a game Alan ran and Clinton played in:

Beastmasters

- Scott

Forgive me for returning to an older thread, but there's still a few more things I'd like to hash out here...

I’ve been thinking of some of the tweaks I’ve been doing to my own setting, and some of them have prompted some further speculation on my part. I thought I’d share them to see if anyone plays off of any of the ideas or has anything they’ve thought of they’d like to expand upon.

Epoch Telltales
The Fell Weapons are one of the features that defines an Epoch, but it seems to me that there’s another thing that could be used to define the feel of each epoch: the fact that the Epoch itself is born of a particular cosmology: a world built upon the dead. What if a GM thus introduced “Telltales” for each Epoch, some very subtle in origin, others perhaps more dramatic to help define the unique nature of Naur Tier? Thus an Epoch Telltale would be something that betrays each Epoch’s unnatural origin and nature.



*Perhaps in one Epoch, those who die all utter the same last words in a language none understand; these very last words were those that the gods themselves spoke during the ritual creating the Fell Weapons.

*Dig deep enough and one hits giant maggots that squirm beneath the soil, betraying the nature of the Carrion Fields beneath. However, the people of that Epoch merely believe that the maggots come from hell beneath, and to ensure that their loved ones do not go to hell, they cremate the dead and scatter their ashes.

*Perhaps the draw of the void is strong in this particular epoch, and it resonates in the minds of the living, and the religious practices sprout up around it – some welcome the void, believing all things usher from it and will return to it, taking up trance meditation to touch the void, while others see the void as an absence of life and meaning and fear it. Then there are those cults who have heard the voices in the void and have learned that the void itself is not empty…

*Historically some ancient hero, like Prometheus, may have wandered into the Carrion Fields and returned with fire or the first weapon from which all other weapons were copied and duplicated. The story has not attained mythical status, but the truth is unknown to all but that first hero and perhaps a band that keeps his secret.

*The earth is torn and rent, islands slip into the sea and new mountains force themselves up. The nomadic peoples of the world believe that the gods are warring in the heavens and the earth and each people chooses a side. In truth, the earthquakes are the rumbling caused as the Nameless dig their way up through the corpse blockade from reality.

*All the saltwater oceans are blood, the blood of the gods shed in battle.

*A Nameless lies trapped beneath the earth dreaming and calling out to the minds above. Consequently most people have tormented nightmares, claim to hear voices even in the daytime, and many people have gone mad. Thus when anyone dreams, there’s a good chance they touch the alien mind of a world eating monster. Sleep is thus feared and nightmares perhaps the words of the gods or premonitions of the future.

*The earth itself is fraying and thinning, and only shallowly covers the gods, thus many of the mountains and features appear organic in nature. Hills have faces, mountains appear like outstretched arms, and rivers seem to cut out the forms of bodies in the earth.

*Sometimes what are called “Dragon Bones” are unearthed and used as talismans or ground down for herbal preparations, offering something akin to magical potions or deadly poisons?

*Perhaps when sailing to the ends of the earth, one discovers that the oceans tumble off into the battlefield below, and near the ends of the ocean are the wreckage of countless ships and dead sailors who fell to their death as they sailed off the world.

*The Nameless near the mouth of the void, biding their time, have the power to command and awaken the dead, and thus using Perception and their command of the dead to fulfill their own dark designs, and thus the dead walk and wreak havoc on the living. Thus all dead are immediately beheaded upon death and carefully disposed of. People with terminal illness are killed and destroyed as quickly as possible. The dead are considered contaminated and there are all number of rituals of purification conducted.



Sorcerer and Fell Weapon Telltales
Why don’t the players bear Telltales of their transformative experience in the Carrion Fields or their relationship with their demons? I’ve requested that each character in my own game come up with a character telltale in addition to their weapon’s telltale.

Fleeing to the Carrion Fields
What happens if someone is hiding in the Carrion Fields when the world ends? Are they crushed in the rubble, do they witness the appearance of the Nameless and get devoured just as the reality crashes down upon them? Do they starve to death waiting a hundred thousand years for the next Epoch to slowly progress? Can they lead a small band of disciples into the Carrion Fields and re-emerge in the next era?

What if the Carrion Fields are discovered and viewed as hell – couldn’t people be exiled there and there be communities – wouldn’t it be possible to play a couple of sessions as Sorcerers in the Carrion Fields and the weird communities that appeared in the Carrion Fields?

Death of the Gods?
What if not all the gods are dead? What if one is mortally wounded, asleep or unconscious? What if one of the gods is somehow awakened as the undead? What potential consequences would this have for an epoch. What if there is a god still chained to some unholy anvil and still forging fell weapons?