Need help in preparing campaign

[Dutch_Wolf]

FIrst post here anyway:

Inspired by Wolves of Time (by William Horwood, The Sight, Fell, (and also Firebringer by David Clement-Davies) and works like Watership Down (by Richard Adams) I am planning to run a (short?) campaign featuring the PCs as a pack of wolves.

Short description of my idea:
The world floats somewhere in the void protected by the gods/spirits and the chosen from the nothingness that is the void. Legends tell that long ago humans almost succeeded in letting the void destroy the world and where banished from the world for that transgression. As the players get know the are to become the next pack of chosen wolves, portals open to a strange world and humans return to the world...

Currently my problem is that for the feeling I want in the game a combination of Path magic and realmbased magic seems to be great, but path magic does a lot with charms which per default do not work without opposable thumbs also I need some advice in creating new paths and rituals (preferably travel magic).

Also some general campaign advice is also welcome

[hari]

I can't say right now without anything in front of me. But I think you could do path magic just fine without thumbs. What are the three components of it again? Time, place and ritual trappings? Something like that, right? So, let's think of some examples. The members of a pack take turns to watch over a special outcropping of rock that overlooks a large area. The rock was mysteriously carved into by some previous inhabitants and counts as a special place to preform rituals. The wolves take turns watching over it and doing something at some kind of regularish interval, like say, they howl each time a cloud passes the sun or the moon, or something like that. At night they all gather to howl together and chase one another's tails (or whatever). There we have an element of time in it. And while they do their nightly routine, they bring with them bones defeated from dangerous beasts or passed down the generations or given as gifts by worshipful humans or monkeys or something. So we have a place, an amount of time it takes to do the ritual, and some ritual trappings. It's just an idea.

On the other hand, it seems like you want them to be a little less stuck in one place. All three of those time, place and object requirements are hard on you if you want to be very mobile. I think the argument could be made that the real purpose of path magic is to slow down mages and leave them tied to a place. So it really might not be the right fit for you. I might suggest to instead simply group spells from Magic into groups as you like and come up with your own alternate prerequisite chain of some kind.

It's a good idea! This is your first post? Don't feel bad if people don't respond too much. This is generally a rather nice forum. But I still don't know what to say and often feel like I put my foot in my mouth. Or... yeah... anyways. I might not be the best one to say welcome but, well, welcome.

[Dutch_Wolf]

Originally Posted by hari

I can't say right now without anything in front of me. But I think you could do path magic just fine without thumbs. What are the three components of it again? Time, place and ritual trappings? Something like that, right? So, let's think of some examples. The members of a pack take turns to watch over a special outcropping of rock that overlooks a large area. The rock was mysteriously carved into by some previous inhabitants and counts as a special place to preform rituals. The wolves take turns watching over it and doing something at some kind of regularish interval, like say, they howl each time a cloud passes the sun or the moon, or something like that. At night they all gather to howl together and chase one another's tails (or whatever). There we have an element of time in it. And while they do their nightly routine, they bring with them bones defeated from dangerous beasts or passed down the generations or given as gifts by worshipful humans or monkeys or something. So we have a place, an amount of time it takes to do the ritual, and some ritual trappings. It's just an idea.

Well doing the rituals isn really the problem the problem is that a lot of example rituals have as result an object (called a charm in thaumatology), I can ofcourse rule that it is something intangible something that is done to an individual (e.g. infused into someones aura)

On the other hand, it seems like you want them to be a little less stuck in one place. All three of those time, place and object requirements are hard on you if you want to be very mobile. I think the argument could be made that the real purpose of path magic is to slow down mages and leave them tied to a place. So it really might not be the right fit for you. I might suggest to instead simply group spells from Magic into groups as you like and come up with your own alternate prerequisite chain of some kind.

Well the PCs will do a lot of traveling but that is because they are special (they will also have access to realm based syntactic magic), but the normal magic the wolves will have is more subtle.

For example a mother digging a den while intoning a charm/spell of protection
to protect the den of harm (digging being part of the ritual of course), a pack howling to the moon for a good hunt, a wolf asking the stars in a howl for the quikest way to the meeting place of the pack or a pack doing a ritual to claim a teritorium.

Most (if not all) of those things will be higly ritualistic and won't be things that can be done during combat maybe there are some rituals that help to prepare for combats but those are probably not used much. (Maybe in some ritual for claiming a part of some other packs teritorium)

It's a good idea! This is your first post? Don't feel bad if people don't respond too much. This is generally a rather nice forum. But I still don't know what to say and often feel like I put my foot in my mouth. Or... yeah... anyways. I might not be the best one to say welcome but, well, welcome.

Thanks! Your reply has at least helped me formulate my ideas better.

[aesir23]

Yes, I think that you can ignore the Charm in most cases. The charm is mostly there to be used up; infusing an area of a being works just as well. The only thing necessary for play balance is the time and preparation required.

You may want to give your wolves Adept (Ignores Ritual Elements). This way their rituals take place in a sacred space or a place where the wolves have made some preparations (even running around a circle for a while and howling to scare away bad spirits), and it takes the requisite amount of time to cast the spell, but they don't need candles or representative dolls or any of the the like.

I'd also consider making a Book of the Wolf. It seems that you would only have a few Rituals, but that they would come from several paths.

[aesir23]

Originally Posted by hari

I think the argument could be made that the real purpose of path magic is to slow down mages and leave them tied to a place. So it really might not be the right fit for you.

I strongly disagree. The purpose of Path Magic is to create powerful and subtle effects more like the magical beliefs of real people. Even if you give a character with Path magic Adept 3 so that they can cast anywhere, ignore ritual components and cast any spell in minutes, you end up with a spell caster that feels completely different from a standard GURPS spellcaster.

I think it's definitely what you want, you'll just have to use Adept to get around the thumbs

[EDIT] I think this campaign sounds awesome, btw. Please post whatever you decide on in this thread, especially as it relates to Path/Book magic. I could even see using a wolf shaman in a campaign with ordinary humans!

[Dutch_Wolf]

Originally Posted by aesir23

Yes, I think that you can ignore the Charm in most cases. The charm is mostly there to be used up; infusing an area of a being works just as well. The only thing necessary for play balance is the time and preparation required.

Thoughts so as well thanks for confirming that tought.

You may want to give your wolves Adept (Ignores Ritual Elements). This way their rituals take place in a sacred space or a place where the wolves have made some preparations (even running around a circle for a while and howling to scare away bad spirits), and it takes the requisite amount of time to cast the spell, but they don't need candles or representative dolls or any of the the like.

You are right and then it might be interesting if the returning humans do need ritual elements.

I'd also consider making a Book of the Wolf. It seems that you would only have a few Rituals, but that they would come from several paths.

More food for thought, but this might indeed be the way to go. And then of course other animals will have access/know other rituals that can be quite interesting.

[aesir23]

Originally Posted by Dutch_Wolf

And then of course other animals will have access/know other rituals that can be quite interesting.

Yes, I like this a lot. After all, why would a wolf know the same spells as a raven?

[Dutch_Wolf]

Currently I have the following idea for the book of the Wolf. Sugestions are welcome

Book of the Wolf:
Hunter's Blessing
Book of the Wolf-2; 1dx10 minutes (p.T156)

Chaperone
Book of the Wolf-5; 1 hour (p.T152)

Wariors Blessing
Book of the Wolf-5; 1 hour (p.T150)

Lay to Rest
Book of the Wolf-0; 20 Minutes (p.T162)

Protection of the home den
Book of the Wolf-?; 1 hour (selfmade)
While digging the (most of the time female) wolf intones a prayer of protection to the spirits
Succes for the duration of the ritual finding the den has the margin of succes as the penalty and the client always instinctivly knows if there are intruders near (near is the area of effect)

Travel the stars ways
Book of the Wolf-?; 1dx5 Minutes (selfmade)
The wolf howls to the stars (or the sun) for help in traveling to a specific location.
Succes means that for the duration of the ritual gets the client gets +2 on rolls in finding his way and getting there as fast as possible (survival, navigation, etc).

Claim teritorium
Book of the Wolf-?*; 1-3 hours? (selfmade)
The pack of wolves howls in the centre of the teritorium declaring that they take this place as their teritorium
*if the teritorium is already claimed by pack(s) add the highest margin of success divided by two as penalty
Succes means that creatures entering the teritorium needs a per+margin of succes on ritual roll to know they are entering the teritorium.

[aesir23]

I'd suggest Succor (licking wounds instead of bandaging them).

IDHMBWM, but I'd say, you could base Protection of the Home Den on Ward against Dark Beasts (or what ever that ritual is called.) If I recall correctly it's similar but has a more dramatic effect (keeping them out entirely) against a more limited type of foe (supernatural evil). It should give you a benchmark for the difficulty, though.

[EDIT] I was mixing Charm Against Dark Beasts and Ward

[hari]

Well, like I said, I sometimes put my foot in my mouth. That, and I don't have Thaumatology in front of me and haven't looked at it for some time.

It may only be semantics, but the statement that something can be argued is not something to disagree with. Notice that I worded it like that because I understood my knowledge on the matter to be somewhat lacking.