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Old 07-12-2011, 09:50 AM   #1
Harry O'Gane
 
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Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Zagreb, Croatia
Default [OOC] The Marching Storm

THE ROSTER IS CLOSED. If anyone else is interested, PM me, and in case someone drops out, we'll think of something to replace them.

"Hear ye, hear ye! His Royal Majesty, King Conall VI, summons all ye devout and loyal men of Caithness to aid His Majesty in the war against the rebellious villains, the usurpers of his Divine Right and destroyers of this kingdom! Sign up today and join the conquest of liberation!"
Text written on posters posted all over Caithness

Hello and welcome to OOC thread of "The Marching Storm" campaign. At first merely an idea now turned into realization, and here we are, at the PbP section of SJGames Forums, testing it out.

To make this intro as simple as possible, I made it into a questionnaire of a sort, where all the interested players can simply add a question which shall be put in this first post. Let us start off, then!

What is this campaign about?

The setting of this book is Yrth (Yttaria), from GURPS: Banestorm 4E. Specifically, the action takes place in Caithness, a human kingdom divided by the Civil War. The year is 2005 by Christian calendar in Yrth, and the Civil War in Caithness is still being fought. So basically, this campaign is about waging a war. Therefore, another book that is highly implemented here is GURPS: Mass Combat 4E, which might look intimidating at the first glance, but trust me, it makes battles of these proportions playable and well-balanced.

What is Yrth? Banestorm? Caithness?

Yrth is a fantasy world, full of wonders, mysteries and beautiful landscape. At first, only elves, dwarves and orcs inhabited this planet. After a lot of wars between the orcs and other "old" races, a group of elves (Defenders of the Shaded Woodlands, now called Dark Elves) thought of a plan to get rid of the orcs for all eternity. They devised a spell, a "bane" of some sort, which was either supposed to erase the orcs from the face of Yrth, or bring something which would do so to them. The spell backfired, scorching a massive amount of land and creating the so called "Banestorm."

The first Banestorm brought beings from many different realms and planets. Kobolds, Goblins, Reptile Men and Hobgoblins from Gabrook; centaurs, halflings, giants and minotaurs from Loren'Dil, merfolk and shark-men from Olokun and many, many other races. But those who made the greatest impact on Yrth were without doubt - the humans from Earth.

According to the Christian calendar (yes, humans that came from Europe were from medieval times, and yes, most of them were Christians), the date of the first Banestorm was around 1050. A.D. Since then, a couple more Banestorms occured, with each of them bringing more and more people from various lands.

The Yrth of today is mostly populated with humans. Europeans, Arabs, Vikings, even members of the Asian society found their place here. The biggest Empire in Yrth is Megalos, a gigantic autocratic government, based on the old Roman Right and Laws, and mimicking its power from the Roman Golden Age.

As the centuries went by, many new lands rose and came to being, including Caithness. At first a Megalan colony, Caithness is now a feudal kingdom, ruled by Conall VI. The year is 2005, and the land is in a civil war. The main incident which triggered the war occured in 1999., when King Conall publicly accused one of the lords of Caithness, Lord Marsden of Donlis, for profiting from river piracy, and imposed a huge tax increase. This led Deneral, one of the former lords, to start a rebellion, namely in Sterling, which is why the Civil War is also called "The Stirling Rebellion."

Map of Caithness.

Also, some mechanical info on Yrth: It's a TL3 world, with some parts being TL4 (Araterre). I just thought you might ask that.

Who are we in this Civil War?

Caithness is divided in two factions: the Royalists, fighting under the King's flag, and the Rebels, fighting under Deneral's command (former Lord). Some baronies of Caithness, however, remained neutral, namely Simonton, Blythe and Harkwood. Blythe fell under the attack of lizard men from the Great Desert, Harkwood is pretty much ruled by elves nowadays, who refuse to have any part in the war.

Your characters start in Simonton. Lord Walton of Simonton, current leader of the barony, refuses to join either side. He will never join rebels as long as Lord Cabble of Denton is alive, and he doesn't trust the King at all. He does pay taxes to him, but feels too busy with other stuff to even think of going into war.

PCs are his acquaintances. More specifically, they are under Lord Walton's command. They could even be related to him. All in all, PCs have some kind of connection to him. A mage working in his castle, funded by Walton. A good friend of Walton, who might be a merchant, a bard, or whatever.

One of the PCs, however, plays his nephew/niece. It doesn't matter what he/she does for living, but he/she is related to Walton. Why I need a main PC has its reasons, but I won't reveal them. Yet.

All right, so I have an idea for a character. Where do I post him/her?

Either here or via PM. However, there are some rules:
  • PCs are 150-pointers, with -40 disadvantages and -5 quirks. Maximum attribute is 13, maximum skill is attribute+2.
  • PCs may take any of the following races without hesitation: Human, Dwarf, Gnome, Halfling, Elf, Half-Elf, Goblin. PCs may take any of the following races if they come up with a very, very, VERY good backstory: Orc, Half-Orc, Lizard-Man, Centaur, Kobold. All other races are out of the question.
  • PCs may make mages, but be warned. There are a lot of impediments in front of them. First of all, Caithness has low-mana area. Second, Mana Enhancer as such is prohibited. Third, Magery is limited to Magery 1 at the start.
  • PCs may not make Psionics.
  • PCs CAN play people from Earth. However, it is not very smart to walk around and speak that you are in fact from Earth. Some will be interested, but some will try to snatch you and take every kind of information they can from you. If you're interested in playing something like this, PM me.
  • Almost all of the Exotic and Supernatural advantages/disadvantages are banned. The exception goes to playing a race that actually possesses any of those in its template.
  • Not a rule, just a piece of advice: Do not make a "munchkin" type of character. You guys will be fighting a war, and most probably you will be the commanders of the army. Although they need not be fully fledged commanders, it is wise to make them as much as suitable for war as possible. Someone to handle the Administration and provisioning of troops, someone to choose a Strategy and have a good skill of Leadership, and someone with a good skill of Intelligence Analysis is what the team will need. Yes, one guy could take on all of these things, but it'll take the fun away from the others.

Okay, good. Now, what about this GURPS: Mass Combat?

Well, the campaign will use a lot of rules from it. It is highly reccomended for you to at least skim through the book. Simply because when we come to the point of handling a proper full-scale battle of two armies, it will be hell of a lot easier to use MC as a meta-system. Things go smooth with it, and once you get used to it, picking strategies and making plans for attack become a very simple thing to do.

Hey, I don't want to spend the whole campaign just rolling around Strategy and Int. Analysis!

HA HA! Too bad! Just kidding :P

Do not worry. You are not obliged to make a tactician or a strategist or a master spy. You may take on a role of a knight, per se, and simply have him as a hero unit in a big army. Since you're fighting along with all the others, I'll provide zoom-ins into battlefield, where your PC can act individually and shift the flow of the battle. E.g. your PC faces one of the opposing team's officers. In a hand-to-hand combat, you single handedly slay him and rally your troops' morale! Or - you sneak with your Reconnaisance team all the way to the enemy's tent and steal their battle plans! Hah! No more ambush attacks, at least not from their side!

Ok, cool. You mentioned that it is possible to play the main PC. Can I play him?

If you're interested and willing, PM me and I'll brief you on the details.

How often are you going to post?

As much as possible. I am free all the way to the end of August. College starts off then, but until mid-terms in December I will be able to GM this.

How often should the players post?

Well, the rule of the thumb is, there's no need to rush. One thing, though. Do not post too many posts at once. Should you forget something, rather edit your previous post and note that you added something. I'll notice it, no need to worry. Keep in mind that I live in Croatia, so Time zone here is GMT+1. If you need something really urgent from me, feel free to e-mail me, since I can access my gmail anytime, anyplace: ragelance@gmail.com

When do we start?

Soon. When all the players who applied have their characters ready and everything they need to know explained to them, I'll open up the IC thread.

Who's applied so far?

So far, I have:
Epic Kobold, as apothecary Grok.
Lamech, as ranger Ezreal Smith.
Skullcrusher, as mercenary leader Duncan Blackwell.
zoncxs, as hedge wizard Alonso Funchess.
Hannes665, as Sir Green Heathwood.
Grey_Fox, as guard captain Godfrey Stonegate.

Okay, one more question...

!... before you finish that, I'll just note that you can post whatever you want to ask right here in this OOC thread. If the question seems important enough for everyone to know, I'll enlist it here in this thread. Just repeating myself.

Cool, thanks!

You're welcome.

Marko

Last edited by Harry O'Gane; 07-14-2011 at 01:20 AM.
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