There has been some clamor to hear about my impending Hero Wars game, so I thought I'd post the general outline. Josh and Julie, and possibly one or two others will be playing. We've only gotten through making up Josh and Julie's characters so far.

As promised, the game is placed firmly in Terry Amthor's Shadow World, which I've always been enamored with, but felt was not served well by the Rolemaster system. As we develop the characters, I realize that Hero Wars is perfect for the setting. High Magic, but all political and such with epic goings on all about. In fact it's interesting how easily the Mythic side of Hero Wars can be dumped without impact, IMO. Shadow World is historic more than Mythic.

What Hero Wars really does better than a system like Rolemaster is to link the characters to the setting. With Rolemaster's "Professions" you never really had an idea of what it was that the characters did where they came from. How did my friend Dave's character end up being an "Archmage" coming from the Blue Forest (Lu Nak)? Never did seem to fit all that much. And once that character did leave his home, he never had a single urge to return. Well, now I get to play characters who are intrinsically linked to the settiing.

My original Narrativist Premise has been altered somewhat. Originally I was going to have the characters start in one of the various secluded hinterlands of the setting, and the idea was that in discovering a larger world, they were going to have to decide whether involvement in that world was worth more than their homelands, etc. But Josh mentioned that he'd been reading Lankhmar of late, and wanted to start in a Cosmopolitan urban environment. That threw me for a moment. I mentioned the large cities available, Lethys, Sel-Kai, and Kaitaine, etc. As soon as they heard the description of Eidolon the floating neighborhood of Sel-Kai, they were hooked in classic Sim premise fashion. But what about my Narr premise?

It dawned on us that urbanites often have a similar problem to the provincial. That is, they see their city as the center of the universe, and don't understand that the world outside is at all important. We noted how lot's of New Yorkers feel this way. So the Premise remains largely unchanged. The characters are going to discover that there is a wide, wide world outside of the cities that they've never left, and they are going to have to decide if they think it's worth anything to them or not.

Julie's character is a young daughter of a merchant house (Elgata, if you must know) of Sel-Kai. The house has roots in another foreign culture, and as such she has adopted some of the magic and religion of that region as passed to her by her mother. Actually quite dark. She is also a member of a somewhat underground organization of young women who use their association to ensure that they all do well in society (think of debutants who organize like the Skulls). She's young and petulant about many things at the moment and uses her considerable social skills to get her way.

Josh's character is actually from Kaitaine, the other "most important port" in the world. LA to Sel-Kai's New York. He's a member of an order of Sorcerers from that city. But in contrast to the typically stodgy, gruff, and dangerous types that usually belong to the order, he's a kinda happy-go-lucky yong man, and very curious. Not out to destroy the world, or anything nefarios at all, but rather just looking to see what's about with regard to magic. He's kind of roguish in fact, and has some interesting survival skills learned on the mean streets and a mall amount of travel.

Anyhow, the most interesting thing, of course, was trying to come up with defintions of Keywords for the characters.

For Julie's character, she ended up with Sel-Kai Cultural Keyword, Dilletant Occupational Keyword, and the equivalent of Initiate of Klysus as her Magic Keyword. Cultural Keywords are fairly straightforward (politics and the standard Culture and religion skills), but it was hard to think of any physical skills for someone in Sel-Kai. We settled on Sports, as this is a common activity in Sel-kai. It evoked for me the image of the girls playing croquet from the movie Heathers.

For her occupational Keyword, I was ecstatic to find that there's a Dara Happan Keyword for just that in the HW book. Then just as downfalled to learn that it's listed skills were "any". Lot's of help there. I told Julie to just take several skills that she thought that she would have learned from being a wealthy layabout. Which she did just fine, taking stuff like "Influence People" and the like.

We have yet to lok at the specific feats that being a member of her dark lizard god cult will give her. I'm sure she'll come up with suitably weird stuff.

Josh's Keywords were Kaitaine Culture, Sorcerer of the Order of the Ninth House (which Josh just invented after learning about sorcerers) for Occupation, and Sorcery for his magic Keyword. Culture was easy with the physical skill being Knife fighting which every kid learns on the streets of Kaitane, and the ability to Haggle the mental skill that every Kaitaine citizen learns about the same time they learn to breathe.

What part do the Sorcerers of the Order of the Ninth House play in Kaitaine society. Essentially theirs is a grand protection racket. The city supports them generally, and they ostensibly help protect the city from raiders, and such (but really they "protect" the citizenry from themselves). I love the idea of such an institutionalized and culturally accepted racket. Reminds me of the Praetorian guard through much of late Roman history in Rome itself. It's the price Kaitaine pays for is cosmopolitan and open attitude to all religions and cults. As such, Josh's chracter knows a lot about magic languages, runes, demons, etc. Also some about how to boss people around and such.

Again, we're going to have to put together a grimoire for his spells to fill out the Magic Keyword. That should be quite interesting.

All in all, I can only recommend this process. It wasn't easy, but it was rewarding. If you have an urge to play Hero Wars in some setting that you don't have Keywords for, just wing it, and come up with it all the stuff on the spot. Loads of fun.

Now to create a Relationship Map so that these characters can collide somewhere in the vast city of Sel-Kai. :-)

I'll post play to this thread as it happens here with an eye to how the system works in a non-Glorantha setting. But at the moment I anticipate only smooth sailing.

If you have comments or questions, I'd love to discuss this little experiment.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: My original Narrativist Premise has been altered somewhat. Originally I was going to have the characters start in one of the various secluded hinterlands of the setting, and the idea was that in discovering a larger world, they were going to have to decide whether involvement in that world was worth more than their homelands, etc. But Josh mentioned that he'd been reading Lankhmar of late, and wanted to start in a Cosmopolitan urban environment. That threw me for a moment. I mentioned the large cities available, Lethys, Sel-Kai, and Kaitaine, etc. As soon as they heard the description of Eidolon the floating neighborhood of Sel-Kai, they were hooked in classic Sim premise fashion. But what about my Narr premise?
Mike

AndyGuest wrote: I'll be interested to see how the game progresses. There seems to be a potential for a clash of desires on the players part. If the players are captivated by the idea of the urban setting, especially in its magical/entrancing manner, then they may well want to focus entirely on the urban setting, making it difficult for you to show them things which suggest the city isn't the centre of the world.

Mike Holmes wrote:

Hey, as long as we're on the subject, what are some more urban-only sorts of premises that come to mind? In case they do want to make it a wholy urban thing? "Corruption vs. Civilization"? Any ideas?

Mike

Hi there,

1) I suggest that Sorcery in the current rules is ... well, boring. I think that re-tooling the special-effects and using the Theistic magic mechanics (although calling it and thinking about it like sorcery) would be a lot more fun.

2) I don't think the stated Premise is very interesting or useful in Narrativist terms. There's no passion in it, no tearing or stress on personal ties or self-image, and no conflict of interest. Perhaps these things are there in your interpretation, but as written I'm not seeing it.

In Glorantha, hands-down, characters' lives are being ripped apart as the Hero Wars begin. Even if you don't plan to have the situation be that catastrophic, the lives part of that statement should still be present, especially as prompted/dictated by the setting.

Best,
Ron

I dunno, Ron. The premise grabbed me. I'm not all that worried about my character's life being ripped apart or not, as long as he's in situations that require him to make important decisions. Whether lives are being ripped apart or not, I think the mechanics will work well for us.

As for Sorcery...as Mike explained it, sorcery in Shadow World is sort of a mix of Theistic & Sorcerous Magic in Hero Wars. So...we'll probably go with something along those lines.

It's looking to be interesting, regardless.

...it certainly is INTERESTING to be mulling all of this over, thinking of things to be and know with a fever and images of Meadow Soprano (more of a White Hand thing, of course, right out of the book) and Kelly Osborne (the Uber-dilettante nowadays) running rampant in my head.

Hybridizing is always a little awkward at first, but heck, that's why we were given brains. Yes, that's the only reason. To hybridize gaming systems. Now you know.

Mike...you didn't tell us there was CLAMOR about this! Aggh, must bring out best Forensic dual-acting skillz...must...be...in....character....aaagh!

(this is the fever talking)

OK, I'm convinced. You guys were there, after all; I was goin' on Mike's brief description.

Best,
Ron

I was being brief with the premise. I should elaborate a bit.

The reason Shadow World is called that, is that there is a rather cliche creeping darkness thing going on. Cliche on the surface, but handled in a prety neat way in the setting. Anyhow, not to get into that too much, the idea is that I want to get the characters hooked on being concerned with encroaching darkness. Do we sit idly by as the darkness consumes the rest of the world, knowing that we will, at least, be only the last to go? Or do we take a care about those outside of our personal circles?

Given the scale of the characters this will be seen in miniature (to start, I plan on giving away loads of HP to players who dive in; hear that y'all?). And, yes, it may be subtle in some ways, especially to start as I want things to build a bit over several sessions. While I like over the top drama at times (lives being ripped apart, etc), I also like the little stuff. Anyhow, it'll be up to the players to decide how in deep they want to get. There certainly will be opportunity for them to get in deep; deep enough that not only their lives will be torn apart but whole cities, nations, etc.

As for Sorcery, I sense a bias somehow Edwards! ;-) As Josh mentions, we're using Sorcery as defined in Rolemaster (which at first might seem to be even more drab, but stick with me). There's this interesting parallel between RM and HW in that Theistic, Animistic, Mystic map out fairly well to Channeling, Essence, and Mentalism. As it happens, Sorcerers are a hybrid of Chanelling and Essence. Or Theism and Animism. Essentially, in Shadow World, Sorcerers employ the dark creeping force which serves as a semi-sentient diety (hunger) for the "Theistic" side, and has demons of it's own for the "Animistic" side.

Interestingly, Julie's character's cult worships a god who is allied with this force as well. People in Shadow World don't always realize what they're dealing with. That's part of the whole parochialism angle (we're educated, refined city folks; don't tell us that magic is dangerous, we know what we're doing!). Essentially, Josh and Julie's characters think they're nice people who just use the magics they've come across oportunistically. But there will be a price. As long as they remain in their ivory tower of a city, they can ignore the problems their lifestyles cause on a larger scale. But things will be arriving to inform them that ignoring the rest of the world may not be such a great choice.

Is it getting any more compelling now?

Mike

Hi Mike,

I'm compelled! Play, play. I'm interested.

Best,
Ron

I'm also interested in how this goes since I played in Shadow World the standard RM style (with a bad GM I might add) and playing it that way it's a very boring experience. However, written up HW style I suddenly see that there's a lot of hidden premise one could suddenly play now that the constricting sim mechanics are dropped.

As I'm looking at something a little HW inspired for my sim game, I'm exteremely interested in the differences in actual play between the two games. Especially how the HW might enchance the experience of a game world which I have a solid reference on in terms of how it plays out in standard sim.

I definitely want to hear how this goes. I've been taking abortive stabs at adapting Hero Wars to alternate settings, but you're a lot farther than I ever got. Get it on, Mike!

Best,

Blake

Mike,

how are the Lore Masters? (they are called Lore Masters right? I have the main book but it has been a while) inoled in all of this? That might be a neat way to lure them city folk out their territory...

Nice thing about Shadow World is that there is SO much history to work with.


As for adapting HW... well I am not as much a fan of the system as some and thats a topic for a different place anyway but two come mind...

In a Space Opera way, Adapting Dune or a Dune-like setting for HW might be a neat idea

For fantasy, there was a book series where the first book was, I think the Forge in the Forest? or maybe that was book two, and I cannot remember the author but it was a nice Mythic setting, very real Celtic, and a nice system of Magic.

SMH
ADGBoss

Edit: Michael Scott Rohan, Winter of the World, Anvil of Ice, Forge in the forest, Hammer in the Sun, and Castle of the Winds

ADGBoss wrote: how are the Lore Masters? (they are called Lore Masters right? I have the main book but it has been a while) inoled in all of this? That might be a neat way to lure them city folk out their territory...

Nice thing about Shadow World is that there is SO much history to work with.

In a Space Opera way, Adapting Dune or a Dune-like setting for HW might be a neat idea

For fantasy, there was a book series where the first book was, I think the Forge in the Forest? or maybe that was book two, and I cannot remember the author but it was a nice Mythic setting, very real Celtic, and a nice system of Magic.

Edit: Michael Scott Rohan, Winter of the World, Anvil of Ice, Forge in the forest, Hammer in the Sun, and Castle of the Winds

Played the first session last night.

We had, via email, adressed a few of the kinks in the character creation, but there were still acouple of things that we needed to talk about. For example, not having played in the setting for about eight years, I was a bit rusty, and had made some informational errors. And in my typical Sim setting GM style, I wanted to get it all right before play. And as play started, it went pretty slow as I interjected here and there with notes about the world, and how things work in general. I do want this to be a long term sort of game, and I want certain precepts (such as how different types of magic work, etc.) to be pretty well established. As such, with my constant exposition, things went slowly. But not badly, I felt, as the players got into character right off, and dove into the simple situation I'd set up. And in any case, I want these things to develop a bit slowly for pacing's sake.

----
To recap, Julie's character is Selani, the daughter of a wealthy merchant family of Sel-Kai which we determined is socially just below the upper eschelon of families that form the ruling council of Sel-Kai (and thus have houses on the floating city of Eidolon). She is intelligent, but potentially manipulative. She also belongs to two secret organizations, one which is a benign group of wealth girls who are into empowerment through manipulating men, and a cult from her ancestors homeland in which she worships a god called The Bringer (thanks to Bret Dalager for his write up which can be found here. The Cult's main goal is empowering their god by making sacrifices of souls to him. They remain hidden as the religion is not recognized by many in Sel-Kai.

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Anyhow, things start off with Selani's brother returning unexpectedly from a foreign business venture that he's supposed to be running for their father (who is not happy about seeing his son away from his duties). Julie decided that Selani likes her brother, and she tries to pull the baby girl thing to calm her father down. But he's just too furious, and storms off.

Her brother has brought back with him an exotic foreigner named Esto, who works as his scribe. Selani eyes him up and treats him in a sexist manner that one sees only in the elite looking down on their inferiors. Cool.

Mom, of course, throws a "welcome back" party for the prodigal son, and, predictably, everybody crashes. Including Josh's charcter Killian (the not so Red), at the behest of his Sorcerer friend Jarek. At the gate Killian bluffs their way past the guards, putting out the fact of their occupation as, well, license to do anything they want (to paraphrase, "We're Sorcerers, damnit! Of course we're invited!").
----

To recap, Killian is a Sorcerer from an order in Kaitaine that is accepted as a form of socialized racketeering (interestingly, of late, they've been seen in a more positive light as a potential barrier against powers that seem to be threatening the city). He's learned that dangerous magical power and threat of it's use is definitely a way of getting what he wants. But he's maintained a bright enough outlook on life that he's far from falling into the "Curmudgeonly Sorcerer" stereotype.

-----

Once inside, the standard "social dance" occurs as the young adults all size each other up. Despite GM attepts to interfere by having other characters make plays for them, the player's characters end up heading off into the house together (talk about yer author stance). Selani is waylaid by a priestess of her cult who has, unusually, decided to attend this party. Off to the side, the priestess informs her that there is a spy in their midst, and he might be here tonight looking for certian magical scripts that Selani has hidden in the house. They both agree that Killian may be their man (foreign, interested in Magic, a gatecrasher, etc).

Another character with a lot of plot potential, Selani's adventurous Uncle, arrives and is summarily ignored by the players. Cool; as I said, the players are definitely authoring here.

Selani takes Killian to a more secluded spot in the mansion, and on the way, she tries to wrangle information out of him with her wiles. Killian remains tight lipped, however. As a note, this was done as a standard contest. Afterwards we all agreed that this could well have been an extended contest. Still getting used to the rules; but it's good that we at least noted it for future reference. In fact all rolls that evening were simple tests, or standard ccontests.

As they reach the other end of the house, they hear some sort of commotion coming from the street. As they look out the window, they note a local gang of ruffians harrasing a bunch of Sulinni (Half-Elves), making fun of their half-breed appearance, mannerisms, dialect, etc. Killian decides to get confrontational, and exist through the window to face the ruffians (Selani follows, and actually makes the leap from the ten foot window looking much more dignified). Killian scares them off (again with that bluster that he manages), but they just circle around to confront the Sulinni further down the street. As Killian and Selani circle back around to the front they see that the gang is now chucking garbage at the Sulinni. Having enough, and possibly to impress his hostess (who had asked before that he "sing for his supper" by showing some magic; to which he had declined stating that his magic was not for parlor tricks or the like), Killian fires up the power of the "Unlife" and blasts the head thug's knees. He's only dazed, but the effect is impressive enough that they all take off. Selani is secretly impressed.

They return to the courtyard, and Selani encourages one of her friends (daughter of the priestess, actually) to go after Esto ("After all, it's just a dalliance with a servant; not like it counts or anything). They dissapear together someewhere. Jarek returns and asks if he can have Killian alone for a moment. Selani tries to use her wiles on him again in order to be allowed to come along, but again Killian rebuffs here (this all just has her more and more intrigued, essentially). Alone, Jarek tells Killian that he's here to get some magic stuff from the girl that he suspects is the head of the cult (he erroneously thinks the priestesses daughter is the priestess). He wants Killian to distract the girl for a moment while he uses a spell to capture Esto. He has (correctly) surmised that the girl is in love with the foreign lad, and he assumes that he can get what he wants from her by holding him captive. Safer to kidnap a servant, he reckons, than a noble.
----

And that's where we ended, with dual cases of mistaken identity. Selani's "side" thinks that Killian is the agent when, in fact, it's his companion, and Killian's "side" thinks that Selani's friend is the priestess, when, in fact, it's the girl's mother (who won't give a damn about some servant that's not even hers).

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm extremely curious to see what happens next. There is a tension between them as (as the rolls would have it), they can't seem to be able to use their impressive social and mental abilities to influence each other. They remain mysterious to each other to an extent. As the session ended, it looks like Selani is actually starting to trust Killian. Just as he seems to have decided to betray her by hurting her friend. Cool.

All-in-all, I was very satisfied with play. But then, I got to just interject Sim notes into play as the players took the plot reigns and ran with them. I think that this is by far my prefered form of play. I hope the players are getting as much from it as I am. :-)

Mike

I was not at my best during last night's session. The kids were distracting me a bit & my car had started to overheat on the way over to Mike's, & that was worrying me. (By the way, Mike, the fluid you gave me did the trick. My car was fine all the way home. Thanks.)

Nevertheless, last night's session was really good. Both of our characters have their primary traits as "wits" essentially (my 5W trait is "Quick Wits" & Julie's character has a 5W in "Cunning"), which, as Mike noted, makes for some interesting gaming, as we both tried--& failed--to outwit & out-manipulate each other.

The Hero Wars mechanics work really well. Making up stuff on the fly (like my character's basic magic) is dead easy. The simple contests are...well, simple. I'm looking forward to expanding into extended contests.

And elaborate parties are always a hoot to roleplay.

Those kids! Jeez, won't someone funnel a bottle of Benadryl into 'em? Especially mine. No, seriously.

Solani Jinya (for that is her name) is a character that is considerably more high-born and status conscious than the characters I usually play, and thus a challenge. At her core is a 5W cunning (yes, broadly defined), a 1W attractiveness and 1W flattery/influence. Selkai 90210. She has yet to prove her own mettle...I suspect that is forthcoming, right?

Her interaction with Killian started out as a cross between irate snobbishness (just because we met once doesn't mean you're invited to my house and won't even tell me what you're REALLY doing here), evolved into grudging amicability (ahem, would you like the 'grand tour?') and then some admiration (heh, our parties don't usually involve jumping out of windows and kneecapping people, but they could, that was kind of fun) with a touch of suspicion (a superior told me to keep an eye on him...). Complex, complex complex.


I don't mind the hemming and hawing over what you call the sim details at all. I find it hard to make a character act if the setting isn't fully developed.

Pacing is not a crucial matter here yet, and first session is a better time to hash out the "by the way" and "oh I forgot this" than later on when there's chase being given or extended contests, or firmly mentally ensconced lists of people to know and places to go. We forgive you, Mike.

Good pilot episode.

Julie wrote: Those kids! Jeez, won't someone funnel a bottle of Benadryl into 'em? Especially mine. No, seriously.

She has yet to prove her own mettle...I suspect that is forthcoming, right?

I don't mind the hemming and hawing over what you call the sim details at all. I find it hard to make a character act if the setting isn't fully developed.

Good pilot episode.

I cannot wait read about the next session... it seems that no matter which way they go someone's side will end up betrayed... (perhaps bothsides)
Could be interesting if a few double crosses get pulled off..

SMH
ADGBoss

P.S. I was actually surprised that ICE has more Shadow world supplements coming out... have you seen any of the new stuff Mike?

ADGBoss wrote: I cannot wait read about the next session... it seems that no matter which way they go someone's side will end up betrayed... (perhaps bothsides)
Could be interesting if a few double crosses get pulled off..

P.S. I was actually surprised that ICE has more Shadow world supplements coming out... have you seen any of the new stuff Mike?

Not to get too far off topic but I was considering something similar just to see what the quality and if the rules had changed any in the SW printings. There have been so many Reisions and Editions of RM over the past decade its hard to keep score.

Something you mentioned in one of your previous replies, about Dune being mostly about Humans. I agree and any keywords for "magic" would be restricted... but I still think it could retain that Mythic feel.

Anyway I await the next episode with alot of anticipation

SMH
ADGBoss