Things to do with GURPS Banestorm

[LoneWolf23k]

So, been curious, what have people done with GURPS Banestorm and the world of Yrth? What kind of campaigns have you run, with what tones and in what regions? Have you added/removed/changed anything of note in your take on the setting?

[Kax]

Originally Posted by LoneWolf23k

So, been curious, what have people done with GURPS Banestorm and the world of Yrth? What kind of campaigns have you run, with what tones and in what regions? Have you added/removed/changed anything of note in your take on the setting?

In the game I started in 1992 I had a Demon War in the game year 2001 (real year 2000) that did rather a lot of devastation, tainted a lot of land, and bent the universe a bit. The PCs pushed the boss demon out of the world--a fitting retirement for them, as a couple had been around at the start of the campaign and were a bit point-heavy.

Then I had about a 20 year gap and had another group off Ytarria stop an asteroid strike while fighting remnant demons.

Then a 180 year gap, so the next lot were back on Ytarria in 2201. The population's still recovering because a lot of land is still tainted, the Ministry Of Serendipity is struggling to maintain feudalism and couldn't get firearms back in the bottle after using them on demons, and one of the PCs is both a 4' dragon and runs a tea house in Tredroy.

[korbeau]

After a Onclysm in a futuric world, a new celestial race appear in Yrth, bringing a new type of magic; Clerical. After a 2 years intestine war between mana-users (the "Magery") and the prayer-users (the "Power Investiture"), some others Divinities began to emerge. An angelic Croisade began, leading by the Archangel Uriel who try to eradicate all "magical folk" and blasphemous divinities.

This war decreased the Mana of the world and the technology begin to rise again. The Ministry Of Serendipity failed and Yrth cross a new TL level. Yrth-4 was born (Standard TL4 Yrth. Guns begin to appears)

Meanwhile, with the help of the Sheldrake division, Octavius de Tyrvo opened a gate to a parallell world where Uriel have lost his war. But this world have MORE magic than the original. (This is my way to introduce the Dungeon Fantasy Box Set into Yrth).

All this occurs in a 10 years campaign. This automn, players will explore this new magical DF-Yrth. To be continue...

[Michael Cule]

I've run three quite long campaigns there and a quite short one that was none the less fun.

The first begun shortly after I got my first copy of GURPS Fantasy (1st Edition) was what has become known as The Deed of Sir Alisande de Lacey, Knight of the Stone, and Her Several Companions. This is based around the noted knight, heroine, virgin and world-trotting celebrity of the same name who has travelled many lands and even more dimensions, returning home to expose the Jesuit connection with the Black Woods conspiracy and assassinate the Demon Emperor at his New Millenium Ball. Friend of Dragons, accidental creator of the talking albion variant of the dreaded sinuous leopard and thrice voted Woman with the worst dress sense on Ytrarria, Sir Alisande is a high powered, high achieving heroine who is what Jerry Cornelius might be if he were female and a devout Christian. Sir Alisande's adventures are simply on hold for now and not at an end.

The second was more a low life affair, started with another group shortly after that and consisted of the traditional motley crew of mixed species and lowly social class. Included a Dark Elf who spent much of his time keeping his background secret and the rest of his time trying to find reasons not to slaughter the other characters. Last seen (I think) accompanying a trade caravan into Sahud.

The third was built around a group of 'Practicals' working for various good and bad causes in Tredroy with occasional side trips to other lands. They too were a fairly high power bunch the most extreme example being the Northlander Archmage with the ability to improvise magic. They also got to assassinate the Demon Emperor but at his hunting lodge which made me resolve that the two campaigns were on different timelines. On indefinite suspension since Bjorn the Archmage is currently doing a couple of years working for the Caliph's Army as a portable Weapon of Mass Destruction. (They refused to issue him a Mage's licence unless he did it and as he wants to settle permanently in Tredroy along with the half a dozen wives he rescued from the Mandarin he went along with the deal.)

The fourth was a little more grounded: I ran Yrth 1100 for two seasons with an English village (based on Bourne End in Buckinghamshire where I used to live) being transported to Ytarria. The players were busy as the leaders of the village, making alliances, fighting orcs, discovering that not all their new neighbours were from the same time line as them and holding Church Councils to figure out what it all means. Not as high powered as the others... Oh, who am I kidding? There were several encounters with the Angel of Rescues who had brought the last survivors of Atlantis to Yrth, at one point the village priest (a werewolf but that's another story) got to visit hell and pull a soul out of it, they put an arrow through the eye of the Black Dragon who was the ancestor of the Emperors of Megalos... Not as much dimension hopping as my other Yrth games and only one example of time travel.

I had fun! Must get back there sometime.

[JMason]

Hm, let me see. I've run a few games:

1) A game that was suppose to have the players join with a group of vampire hunters in Cardial, but ended up having them (a) kill the last of the vampire hunters order, (b) help out a demon, (c) burn down a forest, (d) slay a demon dog... and collect it's blood because "it's got to be worth something to someone", and (e) accidentally kill the vampire when they used the demon blood on the vampier's magic relic that was powered by (human) blood.

2) A follow up game where the remaining PCs actually managed to join a group of monster/vampire hunters. They killed a spider demon that was going to destroy the world.

3) A group of heroes that saved a cathedral in Cardial (and met an Archangel), traveled to hell in a magic haunted house (in Caithness), saved a tribe of cursed "werewolves" in the Blackoods (Megalos), and killed a necromancer that had possessed a long time ally.

4) A follow up to the previous game where the children of the heroes take over and continue to explore the Blackwoods and it's mysteries.

And many other games, that I don't recall the details about.

The first was a bit 'slap-stick' but the rest played more or less straight, and often a bit dark. I don't know if I changed much about the setting. Religion a background element most of the time, but I didn't bother playing up the "crusades". And NPCs mostly ignored any gender issues, until they didn't for plot concerns. In fact most of my games could have been run in any fantasy world, but having a light sprinkle of "Yrth" flavor did add to the experience IMO.

If I were to start a new game today, I'd probably play up the religious elements a bit more (just because I am more comfortable doing so), probably setting it in Tredroy.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by LoneWolf23k

So, been curious, what have people done with GURPS Banestorm and the world of Yrth? What kind of campaigns have you run, with what tones and in what regions? Have you added/removed/changed anything of note in your take on the setting?

I had Yrth adopt a form of polytheism where the main pantheon were the ascended characters from the first campaign I ran there.

[LoneWolf23k]

Just to keep this thread from falling into obscurity, I'd like to post some of my own ideas.

-A Dungeon Fantasy-ish campaign, albeit more strongly integrated into the lore of the Banestorm setting; Priest-Wizards instead of Clerics, for example. Generally, an approach inspired by the Elder Scrolls series more then D&D.

-Making Pre-Banestorm Yrth a distantly post-apocalyptic world; the Elves, at their peak, once ruled over the world with a powerful magitek empire: floating castles, airships, robot-like golems, and even utility wands for everything. This ancient Elven Empire was brought low by the cataclysm that caused the Great Desert, and the Elves just declined further until the current generation are basically living as wilderness survivalists around the last remnants of their civilization.

-The Orcs and the Dwarves were also creations of this ancient Elven Empire, biologically engineered servant classes, that have since freed themselves and thrived in the post-Empire world.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by JMason

Hm, let me see. I've run a few games:

1) A game that was suppose to have the players join with a group of vampire hunters in Cardial, but ended up having them (a) kill the last of the vampire hunters order, (b) help out a demon, (c) burn down a forest, (d) slay a demon dog... and collect it's blood because "it's got to be worth something to someone", and (e) accidentally kill the vampire when they used the demon blood on the vampier's magic relic that was powered by (human) blood.

...

The first was a bit 'slap-stick' but the rest played more or less straight, and often a bit dark.

The one where the characters slay vampire hunters and help demons is the one that isn't dark? Never thought I'd hear that!

------------------------------

I've used Banestorm twice in my games.

Once was for Lost in Dreams, a series of one player one GM world jumping games where IW is at one end of the cosmos. Yrth was the primary world for dragons, who could create puppet bodies on other realms are rule vicariously. The bane-storm and resulting quantum sargasso weren't actually about orcs, but about trapping a major rival powers to the elves on a single world. The PC who traveled there could jump in and out of Yrth without penalty, and a dragon tried to use her as a way to escape Yrth. We visited the dragon's cave in the mountains above Zarak, and later a port in southern Megalos as part of the deal buy off the dragon.

My current online game is very much based on the book, but is set right after the banestorm and while the elves and orcs are pretty similar, the humans are early republic Romans (or their Greek and Egyptian equivalents) and some other races have been thrown in.

[sir_pudding]

I started a campaign set in the Templar Battle Magic College at Ayers, a few years before Worminghall and Back to School would have made it easier. We didn't get past character creation and players constantly calling it the "Harry Potter game" for no apparent reason other than it being a school for wizards. I did come to the conclusion that I really don't care about the core premises of the setting, which strikes me as a solution to a problem I never even imagined having, and nobody I currently game with is enthused about it, or even really aware of it.

[dcarson]

I played in a long running campaign where for a large part of the campaign to avoid the kind of suspicion a group of unattached armed PCs attracts we travelled as a troupe of entertainers. Started with the musical group Two Elves and a Goblin. which led to the creation of the first goblin pop star and being asked to leave Yibyorak by the concerned fathers of Yibyorak.

The highlight of odd was the trip to Al-Wazif to compete in the Great Games. We ended up up helping the Caliph to flee the country by disguising him as the Caliph. He acted as the MC of our traveling show wearing a theatrical version of the Caliphs official robes. Lots of comments from people about how much he looked like the Caliph but happy instead of dour.