Banestorm

[d10tavern]

I'm interested in the Banestorm setting. Would some people be kind enough to share their experiences and adventures with the setting?

[johndallman]

It's big and complicated. This is good - one can do a great many different things with it. The only campaign I've played there involved a germanic longsword fighter, a half-elf heroic archer*, a second-story man from Araterre and a Muslim magician from Tredoy getting together to explore ruins on the fringes of the Great Forest. It was a kind of proto-DF, before DF was published, but the world gave us a lot of scope for character back-story and motivations.

* Yes, this was shortly after Martial Arts came out.

[Purple Haze]

Only played in Caithness: high chivalry, no magic (except healing potions). Basically SCA or a ren-faire.

[Jovus]

There are lots of different ways to play Yrth. In fact, pretty much any flavor you want can fit.

The campaign I played in Yrth was originally a cyberpunk-banestorm that dumped people in Megalos, and settled ever-so-slowly-down into a troupe-play dynamic based loosely in Tredroy (where a 'retired' character had a manor house) as a sort of proto-DF that took itself seriously, stopping through various locations and scenarios on the way. (I'm looking at you, Sahudese Fire Drill.)

It eventually ended up spiralling into a world-spanning plot about beating back the undead army on the one hand (headed up by three PCs former Mordag had turned into vampires) and trying to 'fix' magic, which had gone wonky after three mages drew over 2000 points from the aether within a week of one another.

The whole thing took fourteen years and ended when a former-PC-turned-archnemesis 'accidentally' irrecoverably blew the world into millions of reality shards.

So, you could do that.

Or, you could focus geographically, thematically, politically...really, however you like. Personally, at some point I'd love to go back and set a game purely in Megalos (the city), playing either as street rats in the urban sprawl or minor Megalan nobles playing realpolitik in the capital of the decadent empire.

[Bruno]

I ran my group through the Harkwood adventure, which is REALLY excellent. You'll have to do some tweaking to make it for 4e, but not much and it's REALLY good.

[DAT]

Here is a link to an older thread that covers this same topic:
http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=21887

As a recap:

Here is the chain of adventures that I have worked with in the (retro) Banestorm/Yrth.
Start in Caithness in 1985 with:
1) GURPS Orcslayer (available at e23, a 1e *sic* that can easily be converted to 3e or 4e),
the survivors can then “celebrate” by going to a tourney with:
2) GURPS Fantasy: Harkwood (available at e23, a 3e that can be converted to 4e – I agree with Bruno’s recommendation of it)
the party can then join a caravan (i.e, I stole situations from Caravan to Ein Arris, available free from e23 in both 3e or 4e versions) and travel to Cardiel, where they can earn some money with:
3) Lost Inheritance (from GURPS Fantasy Adventures, available at e23, a 3e that needs converting to 4e),
the party can then stay in Cardiel or move on to Megalos and have fun with:
4) Mordag’s Little Finger (from GURPS Fantasy Adventures, available at e23, a 3e that needs converting to 4e),
at this point, travel to the big league of Megalos is in order, and (if your player can handle some humor) you can knock your player’s confidence/sanity down with:
5) Sahudese Fire Drill (from GURPS Fantasy Adventures, available at e23, a 3e that needs converting to 4e),
staying in Megalos, but becoming deathly serious, you can throw, the now very powerful characters, into:
6) Purple Rage (from GURPS Fantasy Adventures, available at e23, a 3e that needs converting to 4e),
beating a haste retreat, any survivors can make there way south and have some fun with situations in:
7) GURPS Fantasy: Tredroy (available at e23, a 3e that needs converting to 4e), this last one is just a well defined city and not a coherent adventure.
and for various reasons the players can be drawn back into the Megalos area and have a very scary time with
8) GURPS Banestorm Abydos (available at e23, 4e, so no conversion necessary), this last is a city setting too, but there are a number of adventure seeds

At this point you will have exhausted the ready supply of major published Yrth material (unless you flush out adventure leads in GURPS Banestorm or if you are doing the retro version GURPS Classic Fantasy, at e23, a 3e that needs converting to 4e).

- Dan

[dcarson]

Played in a several year long campaign. The campaign was generally light hearted although quite a bit of drama also. The goblin in the party becoming a pop star in Yibyorak and we were paid to leave by the town fathers because of the daughters throwing themselves at him. Smuggling the Caliph of al-Wazif out of the country after an coup by disguising him as the Caliph. We were travelling as a troupe of entertainers and made him the announcer dressed as the Caliph in theatrical versions of his real robes. Everyone commented on how much he looked like the real Caliph except he was so much happier looking.

For me, Banestorm has always been a mixed bag. But then I'm a bit of an odd-ball in that I don't like magic mixed with technology unless we get closer to modernity with it - no Muskets & Magic for me, but I'm fine with Shadowrun, strangely.

So I tend to play a more constrained game, with no "new arrival" characters, and no "heretics" from Araterre with their gunpowder knowledge. Sometimes I just do this by fiat, and sometimes I do it by setting the game early in the history, before gunpowder came to Yrth in the first place.

Short answer - if you don't assert control in character generation, it might not be "fantasy" enough for you, unless you're after "Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"-style games.

[patchwork]

Make sure you and your players are on the same page regarding religion. I've had a campaign collapse into recriminations over it. In my opinion, the use of real-world religions is one of the most interesting parts of the game, but it can pose problems.

The core of it is that my regular troupe have always lived in secular society, don't know much about Christianity or Islam and are accustomed to treating both with contempt. Most fantasy settings have a dozen made-up religions competing in a way that leads to none of them having much temporal power. So it was a very unpleasant shock to some people when an Inquisitor burned a PC alive for blasphemy and the crowd cheered and clapped. I'm sure it would be possible to play an Yrth campaign with religion in the background, but at that point I have to ask why play Yrth instead of some other setting.

Originally Posted by patchwork

Make sure you and your players are on the same page regarding religion. I've had a campaign collapse into recriminations over it. In my opinion, the use of real-world religions is one of the most interesting parts of the game, but it can pose problems.

This is a remarkably astute observation, and I wish I'd made it myself. :)

I would be less inclined to downplay the real world religions than I would be to make sure that everyone understood that **** gets real on Yrth when religion enters the picture. I'm as hard-core an atheist as you're likely to meet, but even I can play a pious knight or zealous clergyman with a great deal of enjoyment.