Tag: orc

#Lore24 – Entry #228 – Helica Month #16 – Raiders from the Untamed Lands

Excerpt from the Journals of Azita Gaji, Explorer of Helica, Seeker of Knowledge, Blessed of Saghirah

Our return to San Granalle was a somber one.  Though the city had begun to heal, the devastation was still as an open wound.  There was but a single dock that had been rebuilt, much of the remaining populace was living in tents and poorly constructed hovels, and the sense of loss was overwhelming.  Even with the aid of the Church and its Beasts, recovery was slow.  Worse, there was a new threat to the town, one that perhaps sickened me more than that of the Transgressor and its spawn:  bandit raiders from the Untamed Lands, who had smelled blood, and were now emboldened to sweep across the vulnerable lands once held quite secure and guarded by San Granalle.

We did not tarry long in San Granalle, for the sight of the suffering people spurred us forward on our Crusade against the Transgressor.  As we headed north into the Kinarrora Highlands, our group would be a formidable one, as, at the behest of Esekia, we had joined forces with Tephysea and her retinue, and would remain thusly tied through the next long leg of our journey.  We would make a detour before we would reach the next Amaranth’s temple, though, for a fire was burning in Esekia’s heart, and we would see these bandits dealt with quite harshly in the name of Phyresis.  Tephysea seemed more amused by this than sympathetic to the plight of the weakened survivors but decided that she and her people would assist our endeavor.

We joined with the forces mustered by the Church of Phyresis on the far western edge of the Highlands, arriving to the sounds of battle as mounted forces clashed, the shear numbers of the raiders, bolstered by the might of many monstrous tribes, orcs, kobolds, goblins, and gnolls, threatening to overwhelm the defenders rapidly.  Neither side expected the coming of two Amaranths upon the field of battle, the combined might of Cinza and Makani tearing through the horde’s ranks without mercy.  With the aid of Zubayr, myself, and the Sylvanae warriors and mages of Tephysea’s retinue, our summoners were quite safe.  The horde was forced to retreat from the front, giving us time to recover and aid our allies.

Seeing our intervention as a sign from the One True God, the bloodied forces of Phyresis had their morale bolstered, and so, after a few days to recover and refortify the borderland, we drove into the Untamed Lands like a dagger into the heart of the raiders.  Though our journey was filled with dangers:  from the sheer numbers of monstrous foes to powerful tribal shamans and even former members of the Order of the Tamers, and not the least of which were several attempts to assassinate our summoners, requiring us guardians to be ever vigilant, we would prove victorious in the end. 

Along the way, we would see signs of the devastation of the Transgressor, either from past battles, or more recently destroyed settlements.  I believe I may have been the only one amongst the Phyresian forces that held any sympathy for our enemies, for they were driven by desperation, the need to flee the devastation of the Wicked One just as much as any other peoples.  Did that give them the right to invade a broken land and ravage its people?  No, certainly not, for they could have attempted to ally with us.  Perhaps they had tried; I am not privy to the details of prior negotiations, if there were any, but Phyresis has long held that the monstrous races were inferior to humanity and Sylvanae. 

Once we finally claimed the head of the leader who had spurned the raiders ever forward, our task was mostly done.  Our ranks had continued to be bolstered by the Church as we drove deeper into the Untamed Lands, and though occupation was not on the table, the Church would take much in its wake.  All monstrous races who were found were killed outright, and the humans who were captured or surrendered would be reeducated as Beasts to serve the One True God.  Many treasures would be taken, and though I took little for myself beyond books and scrolls that I had found intact, I did claim a runic blade from one of the commanders we had faced.

It had been a long and bloody affair, taking several months, but with it done, we could at last return to the Crusade we had originally set out upon, to attain the remaining Amaranths and ultimately to face the Transgressor.  It will be some time before I can come to terms with the horrors of this campaign, and what its long-term implications may be.  I will have many sleepless nights to come, I am certain.

#Lore24 – Entry #131 – Muckenmyre Month #10 – Harsh Discipline at The Bloated Floater

From the journal of Takara, Slave Inquisitor of the Stellae Illustris.

As I attempted to express the council’s lack of interest in the glassware to the merchant, there came shouts from the Bloated Floater.  Though I had not been to the dockside bar myself, I was aware of its reputation for being a place for sailors, and that it was not for the faint of heart; the owner, a dwarf by the name of Hafus Blackjaw, had something of a reputation involving his pet crocodiles, and though I was not privy to the details yet, I could certainly guess.  There were a larger than usual number of ships in the port this day, and as I would soon find out, some of the crews of these vessels were not on friendly terms. 

It was the crashing of wood, followed by a loud battle cry that drew our attention to the bar.  A moment later a dozen sailors ran out, and the sounds of broken glass, more snapping wood, and angry shouting followed.  A few more stragglers ran out, one with a bleeding head staggered out, only to be pulled back in by a muscular orcish arm.  The mayor commanded some of those gathered to seek out the constable and some of the town watch and hurried toward the bar.  I followed, though he tried to dissuade me from getting involved.  I shook my head and continued alongside him, a few other council members following us.  As kind as he had been to me, I would not allow harm to come to him if I could possibly stop it; it was my duty in a way, or at least, I considered it to be so.

Another bleeding man came crashing through a window as we approached, and the sound of battle within was intense.  The mayor called out for an immediate halt to the fight as he entered the front doors, but as I entered, I could see that there was little hope he’d even been heard, and none that anyone involved would have listened.  As Mayor Pleasence again tried to shout down the fury of two dozen drunken sailors, one of them hurled a bottle toward him. 

I reacted without thought, caught the bottle before any damage was done.  I heard one of the councilmen gasp in surprise.  In the next moment, I shoved him away from us while forcing the mayor aside as a tabletop was flung at us.  Though I felt little in the way of anger, I could see the mayor was outraged, and had already set himself to get involved.  Given the fact that I’d seen him practicing his swordplay several times now, it was hardly unexpected.  As I caught his eye, I nodded my understanding and led the way into the chaos; better to let them focus on me first.

It was my first battle in some time, and I was perhaps a bit out of practice despite the exercises I performed daily with Satella.  I only managed to disable three of the sailors during my initial attack, catching the first in a nerve cluster on his back with a strike that left him whimpering upon the floor, while I struck his companion with a kick that shattered his knee, while I caught the third with a flurry of quick strikes to disorient him, then landed a solid punch to his gut that had him doubled over on the floor.  I managed to deflect several poorly aimed strikes from fists and improvised weapons from others as I stepped back to provide cover for the mayor, caught a few blows myself, but the blows were hardly anything for me to worry about. 

The mayor was not skilled in the Arts as I am, but he was no stranger to brawling.  He dealt with several in his own way as I continued to provide cover and strike as opportunities permitted, leaving many broken bones and painful nerve strikes in my wake.  I probably took as many blows as I landed, none that were terribly serious, though, the worst being a broken rib as I stepped in front of an enraged orc and blocked a blow to the mayor’s head from the table leg he had been wielding as a club.  I then took it from him, struck a blow that knocked out several teeth, and proceeded to break both of his arms and one knee.  It has been my experience that orcs do not go down easily when angry, so one must be thorough, doubly so when they’re also drunk.

The fight had mostly left the remaining dozen or so sailors by this point; the arrival of the constable and a half dozen of the town watch helped settle their ire further as they looked upon the many disabled fighters on the bar’s floor.  Though I remained watchful, I had little doubt there would be further trouble as I gazed at them and watched them shrink away from my glare.  With the watch moving in to secure the troublemakers, I noticed that Satella had followed them, and had leaned in through the front door, smiling pleasantly as she took in the scene.  She came in, stepping over the destruction, atop one of the unlucky sailors who lay groaning on the floor, to my side. 

The mayor declined Satella’s offer to heal him, said that his wounds were not so serious, but I could tell he was nursing a broken rib of his own, and his head had a nasty gash from a broken bottle that I had not managed to intercept in time.  Feeling that I had failed in some way, knowing that allowing my charge to be wounded was not acceptable for a member of the Stellae Illustris, I nonetheless offered to heal him myself.  He was surprised that I had suggested it, as I hadn’t told him I possessed such abilities.  I assured him he would not feel the same agony as one would when healed by Yurisaya.  He agreed, and I placed one hand upon his torso, the other over his head wound, and called upon the magic I had been taught by the Stellae Illustris. 

It was indeed healing, of a sort.  I felt the skin on my brow tear open as if it was I who had been struck by the bottle, felt another two ribs break.  My vision blurred momentarily as his pain flowed into me, my breathing becoming labored, but I did not make a sound aside from a grunt.  The mayor seemed more disturbed by this than the prospect of Satella’s healing as I eased myself into a nearby seat.  The wounds would heal eventually, faster than natural healing, but it would still take a few days.

Satella had other ideas, though; she lay her hand upon my shoulder and uttered a healing prayer, and I felt the fiery healing of Yurisaya erupt through me.  I did gasp then, my broken ribs resetting themselves, my flesh feeling as though it was being flensed by a razor as it knitted together.  As the merciful agony began to fade, I thanked her, and as the mayor fixed me with a quizzical look, I assured him that I would answer any questions he had when there was time.

For now we picked ourselves up and spoke to Blackjaw about what had transpired within his bar.  He’d spent most of the brawl safely behind his bar, and was quite vocal about who was ultimately responsible for getting the sailors riled up:  “’Twas a pair of mazoku wenches, it was!  One of them red, the other blue, flirting with one man after another, using their damned demon charms on them, they did!  Wasn’t five minutes passed after they had shook their asses through my bar that the fighting started!  ‘Twas the twin twats from Tempest Tor!”

LORE24 ENTRY #29 – The Badaxe Clan

Category – Cultural / Organization

Historically, the Badaxe clan originated upon the world of Andyllion, forged through many generations to be the strongest and most prosperous of orcish clans, eventually earning the honor of serving the High Emperor himself as his most loyal and trusted soldiers and bodyguards.  This was further bolstered through strong leadership within the clan and their embrace of ancient Aerian combat training methods.  Even after they cut ties with the Empire, the clan remained strong, and became a unifying force for the orcish people of Andyllion, especially during the Age of Legends when their clan chief, Mantok Badaxe, ascended to godhood.

In modern times, the Badaxe Clan has evolved into something much different.  Though the descendants of the original clan still exist and control their own nation on Andyllion, they have continued evolving with the times.  Today, many know the Badaxe Clan as an elite private military company, now open to any of orcish blood from any world, and still holding its members to strict training based upon the old ways, adapted to modern weapons, technology, and tactics.  The Badaxe Clan mercenaries pride themselves on their ferocity, endurance, and adaptability, and are often seen as rivals to even the aerians, and while both are fiercely competitive, the rivalry between orc and aerian is mostly friendly…as much as a rivalry based upon combat can be.

Organizations across known space employ Badaxe Clan mercenaries for the most dangerous operations or to protect their high value targets, assuming they can afford the premium rates the clan demands for their expertise.  Even DSM is known to employ several units of Badaxe Clan members, with some working directly for Rivalle Volcari herself, even though the company has long been elf-dominated and the enmity between elf and orc is still not entirely extinguished.  Though members of the Badaxe Clan are trained to always put the job first and foremost, the strong sense of honor that is imparted to them have resulted in a few incidents over the years in which the work they were brought on to perform was deemed far too distasteful for even them, and they turned against those who hired them, echoing what happened when the great Mantok Badaxe himself led the clan against the High Emperor on Andyllion.

 

LORE24 ENTRY #17 – Kanna the Crusher

Category – Person

Kanna “The Crusher” is a famous pit-fighter known across multiple systems for being the most skilled fighter around.  Based on the planet Ruvale, she runs “The Crush”, a spacer’s bar and fighting arena where she is the reigning champion with an ongoing challenge to anyone willing to accept it:  beat her in a fight, win the big prize, which is currently over 200,000 credits.  Though many have tried, none have managed to defeat her in a fight.

Kanna is a massive female orc, standing over seven feet tall and is built like an equinarian (meaning she’s loaded with muscle and appears to be amongst the strongest humanoids walking), her green skin covered in intricate tribal tattoos in red and white inks, and below those dozens of scars from her many fights, her shoulder-length hair also white, unkempt and wild, her eyes a distinct reddish tint.  Kanna’s muscular form is rarely covered in more than a furry bikini with matching furry bands around her wrists and ankles.  She is not known to have ever been spotted wearing shoes, either.  Outside the ring, she is friendly and outgoing, often mingling with her customers and getting to know them as they enjoy some food and drink and the other entertainment her establishment offers.

In a fight, however, she is all business.  Kanna can certainly be vicious, but unlike many orcs, seems to control her bloodlust, never letting herself get flustered or out of control.  Her movements are always intentional, no movements wasted, as are her strikes.  To date, there hasn’t been a challenger who has managed to best her in battle, her knowledge of unarmed fighting styles seemingly unmatched.  Depending on the attitude of the challenger, she may not hesitate in simply putting them down for the count, or she may play with them, trading maneuvers and wearing them down, drawing them in to see if they have predicted her feints.  Though Kanna is a master of many styles, as her moniker implies, she has a preference for grappling.  A vast majority of her fights end with her opponents being crushed in her arms or between her legs, or even underfoot, with her twisting their limbs in a painful submission hold.  Rumors persist that she gets quite excited having smaller beings under her feet, but thus far, nobody has been brave enough to confirm the rumors.

Unbeknownst to nearly everyone, Kanna is not only amongst the deadliest unarmed fighters in the known galaxy, but she is also a skilled arcanist, casting spells of moderate power, though her true talents are in tattoo magic; many of her tattoos were created through her own efforts, and provide various benefits to her.  Those who are aware of her arcane talents assume that she has enhanced her body with her magics, and it is her magical tattoos which are responsible for her impressive combat abilities.  The truth of the matter is known to only Kanna herself and Shi Sukimori, the kerryn arcane gunslinger whom mentored Kanna in the mystic arts, though there are rivals who, having found out about Kanna’s magical tattoos, are plotting to find out the truth for themselves, whatever it may take. 

 

So, in the great cluster-fuck that is the modern world, who would have thought that there would have been the equivalent of a nuke dropped on the tabletop RPG industry and the community around it?  I mean, I’m not surprised that it came from Wizards of the Coasts/Hasbro, but I was shocked when it actually happened.

The Great OGL Disaster of 2023

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll give you the quick version.  There’s this thing called the OGL 1.0a, the Open Gaming License, which has existed since the early 2000s as a part of the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons.  This license has literally been used for over 20 years by a vast majority of TTRPG creators, allowing their works to be referenced by other creators and to use the game systems created by WotC and others basically by just putting a copy of the OGL into the back of your product.  This is why there were so many d20 System games back in the early 2000s building off of the D&D 3e rules, and why you’ve seen a similar explosion in popularity of D&D 5e the last few years (and why Paizo created Pathfinder, though that’s a story entirely its own).  Without the OGL, the massive community would never have grown to what it is today, and D&D and other TTRPGs would be nowhere near as popular as they are.

So, late in 2022, like right before Christmas, WotC/Hasbro decided that they weren’t happy with this.  They wanted ALL THE MONEY, instead of just raking in a large portion of it with their subpar books and merch (the books in particular have been sliding in quality for years, not that I ever really liked 5e from the get go, but I digress).  So, they sneakily tried to force a new OGL on several larger creators with rather draconian requirements (like reporting your earnings to WotC, and if you make over a certain amount, they take 25%, and have the right to use your stuff without recourse to prevent them from doing so).  They wanted to strangle the community by revoking the OGL 1.0a and replacing it with this new version, which would basically have given them total control over the RPG space.

Needless to say, most of those involved in the initial attempt didn’t sign on, and thankfully, the details got leaked (cause nobody could discuss it due to NDAs), and a fire was ignited across the TTRPG space.  Not only was Youtube lit up, but the original creators of the OGL, such as Ryan S. Dancey, had come out and expressly stated that the original intention of the OGL was that it was irrevocable and intended to be that way, even though, 20+ years ago, the specific language was neither included nor considered as needed.  That’s the detail WotC/Hasbro’s lawyers latched onto, using a more modern interpretation, even though the 20+ years of common use by the community says otherwise.

That’s about as specific as I’m going to get on the matter.  There are tons and tons of videos all across Youtube if you want more details about what happened; just check your favorite TTRPGer’s vids from January this year and you’re sure to see something about it.

The short of it is:  Wizards of the Coast done fucked up (again), and this time it was seen as a personal attack on the TTRPG space.

The Fallout

With that having been said, the reaction was swift and loud.  People who had been using D&D 5e for years, including some who perhaps had never even known or considered that there were other RPGs out there, were suddenly looking to the OSR (Old School Renaissance/Revival) systems, or looking to Pathfinder 2e or Starfinder or Castles and Crusades or Call of Cthulhu, or any number of other systems.  Paizo came out almost immediately and announced that they were working on a new open gaming license, the ORC, which is intended to become the new standard license to replace the OGL, and which they would pass over to a third party to hold, keeping it open-source (similar to how Linux operates).  Kobold Press announced their Black Flag project, which seems to be on track to be D&D 5.5 currently.  WotC saw thousands of D&D Beyond subscriptions canceled in a matter of days.

I could go on, but I’d be here forever.

Personally, it did spark a new creative interest within me.  I have been playing TTRPGs since the late 90s when I first came across them in high school, literally at least once a week (up to three or four times a week in the early days) for most of the last 20+ years.  Even though I’m more the type to buy a rulebook then homebrew my own stuff, time doesn’t really permit that like it used to, especially the last few years, so my group had leaned more into published adventures.  I tried running an old school D&D 2nd edition campaign using the 5e rules (as that’s what we were using at the time), but it petered out as my interest in using the system steadily declined from its already low level to absolute disgust with it, even before WotC dropped the OGL bomb.   We recently finished up the Savage Tide AP, which another GM in the group had converted to 5e, and in his place I’ve stepped up and started running a Pathfinder 2e game (the Abomination Vaults AP).  There is currently only one other 5e game I’m involved in (a conversion of Reign of Winter), though I’m not sure how much further that one is going to make it as it seems to be limping along at a snail’s pace, but that’s another story.

In addition to getting the Pathfinder 2e core book, before the Pathfinder stuff became scarce due to Paizo selling like 8 months of inventory in SIX WEEKS (if that’s not a major backlash against WotC/Hasbro, I don’t know what is), I picked up the Castles & Crusades starter bundle from Troll Lord Games, and probably a dozen other games and dozens of other supplements through various OSR and non OGL bundles that suddenly appeared online.

Even before this, last year, I had been working on making my own homebrew system, using the Star Wars Saga Edition system as a base (I always enjoyed this one, even though the D&D 4e that came out of it was so very different, to the point I never wanted to play it and went to Pathfinder 1e), mixing in other ideas from various other games I’d been researching.  While that has been put on hold for the time being, in lieu of testing how other systems work, specifically Pathfinder 2e and the old-school feeling Castles & Crusades, it remains on my roadmap, just further down the line.

What I’m Working On

I’ve been working on several things the last couple months.  The biggest was getting myself familiar with the Pathfinder 2e rules.  My early impression of the game is good; it seems to be much more along the lines of what I enjoy in games, such as a more tactical combat system (most 5e fights devolve quickly into “beat with sword until dead” territory) with very tight mechanics, where +1 bonuses and -1 penalties actually make differences; saw it multiple times in the first game I ran, in fact.  There are so many character options with PF2e that you’d find it nearly impossible for two characters of the same class to be identical.  I’m starting off with the Abomination Vaults adventure path, and incorporating the Beginner Box adventure (which is where we’ve started) and the Troubles in Otari adventure book, since they’re all in the same area.  Though the AP is only 10 levels, this should provide several months of gameplay (since we alternate our weekly games) and give us all an honest test of the system.  I’ll be adding my own custom content and changes to the AP as we go and I get more familiar with the intricacies of PF2e.  If we enjoy how things go well enough, it’ll transition to the higher level Fists of the Ruby Phoenix AP later.

I have two secondary projects at the moment which keep me busy when I’m not prepping for the game I’m running.  

First off is the #Dungeon23 Challenge.  This is basically creating a megadungeon over the course of the entire year, with twelve different floors and a number of rooms on each floor corresponding to the number of days in the month.  The idea is to create a room a day, which should generally take like five minutes, though I’m bad to forget or get distracted by other things I’m working on and have to do a few days at a time to get caught up.  The concept I went with is for a post-apocalyptic setting, ala Fallout/Mad Max, but in a more fantasy world that went through its ‘modern’ times, so elves and orcs fighting mutants with machine guns and rocket launchers, basically.  The idea itself is that of a massive interstate, I-89, that had a very unique feature:  a fifty mile long tunnel through the mountains, with a tourist trap in the center.  The first floor of the megadungeon itself is this tourist trap, featuring a diner, clinic, gas station, and an amusement park.  Further levels will include things like the Firefly Caverns, the big draw to the tourist attraction, as well as secret government facilities hidden in the mountain above, as well as old mines and mutant-filled warrens going deeper into the earth. 

I have not yet decided on a system this will be using; initially the concept was to use the post-apocalyptic setting as the test bed for my homebrew SWSE system, but since that’s on hold, I’m just being very generic with certain things in the room entries for now.  If I don’t use the homebrew system, I’m considering creating the megadungeon using the Savage Worlds system, or maybe using an OSR game.  We’ll see how things develop over the coming months.

The second big project, and the one that I’m actually more excited about at the moment, is what I’m calling “The Curse of Cypress Isle”.  The concept for this one is an old-school island hexcrawl adventure, in the vein of the old D&D Isle of Dread adventure.  My intention is to have this ready to go by the time the Abomination Vaults game ends, so that I can then transition into trying out the Castles & Crusades system within this setting.  Castles & Crusades has a lot of similarities to the old 2nd edition AD&D rules, but modernized (no THAC0 for example), which really appeals to me.  I’m curious to see how some of our players will handle a wizard with d4 hit dice and only gaining a single hit point after 10th level.

This project is actually going to be part of a larger worldbuilding endeavor I’m doing relating to those two pieces I wrote a couple years ago about the city of Arcavarlon.  I want to more fully develop this world and setting in the ‘fantasy’ era; I’ve already done quite a bit of galactic development throughout my stories over on the main UrbanVerse page, but wanted to go back and focus on some of the original characters and stories I have to tell in what I’m tentatively calling the Age of Legends, which is when most of my fantasy stories involving the Kerryns take place.

I’ll get more into that later on, but for now, the main idea behind this adventure is based upon the legends and stories swirling around Oak Island (you’ve probably heard of it; they have a TV show that has been running for like TEN seasons now).  I’m in the midst of reading one of the books about the island’s history, and intend to incorporate some of its aspects into my own treasure-filled island, though mine is going to be filled with much more danger, many of which will have nasty big pointy teeth.  

So, stick around for future entries on these projects and updates on my setting in the coming days and weeks.  I’m tentatively scheduling the first major update and post on one of these projects for early next week, so keep your eyes peeled!

You can find me over on DeviantArt or on my Discord server if you’d like to chat.  I also have a Twitter I’m trying to actually use more often, though I’m not great with the social media stuff.

Till next time, Urban out!