My first GURPS campaign- Dark sword and sorcery with stone age elements.

[Rskennan]

Hey everyone,

I just emailed this to my new game group. I'm a first time GURPS GM and this will be hard, but this campaign has been begging to be run for a while. It would be great to get your opinions on the write up and what I might be leaving out for a fun campaign, and help about what to keep in mind when running the game. I'd like it to be cinematic but grim.

Thanks in advance, I appreciate it.

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BACKGROUND

It is a merciless age of bronze, stone, and blood, when demons that wear flesh reign and mankind's fate will be decided by those with the will and strength to seize power.

Here, life is struggle, from the warring stone age clans of the wilderness who must contend with fiend-blooded terrors, to the deadly politics and corruption of the demon-controlled city-states. For most, the world is bleak and terrifying-promising only pain and early death-, but for the few, untold power and riches await.

MAN

The world is filled with rich and exotic cultures, both in the wilds and the cities. Every tribe or clan, and every city has its own culture driven by the unique forces at work in the world. From the northern beast clans that trek across the glaciers, to the jungle tribes of Karkala, the desert slave kingdom of Solehar, and the seagoing race of Tharlun, mankind has adapted to fit every environment.

SPIRITS

Spirits are primal beings comprised of pure sorcerous forces. Most spirits are either too weak, too unintelligent, or too alien to create vessels for themselves. Even without form, some possess staggering power. Spirits often have power over the natural forces of the world, be they elemental or spiritual. They are less likely to actively seek the destruction of life than Demons (see below) but they are hard to control and can cause suffering simply by acting within their natures.

DEMONS

A demon, simply put, is a spirit within a vessel. They come in a multitude of forms, bloodlines, and dispositions, intelligent and unintelligent. Some are bestial, and some are refined. Most sentient demons see mortals as inferior beings to be enslaved or destroyed, but some are benign. Some take forms like those of men or animals, while others are like nothing else in existence. They come in all power levels, from the lowly Nallock- a demonic shellfish with a deadly poisonous barb- to the mightiest god commanding armies from the city-states. Demons can attain a more refined control of sorcery than spirits usually do. While a spirit might command the forces of air to blow down a city wall or fire to burn a forest, a demon might command the power to make men die for her or to stop time.

Demons often mate with mortal creatures, to create subject races or to fulfill their dark lusts. Their halfbreed descendants are more suited to survival in this brutal realm than their mortal parent. Each is gifted with sorcery in some way, possessing strange powers and enhanced capabilities. Some human half-breeds can become true sorcerers, called Castigators, who are able to command the primal spirits of the world to cast true spells.

GODEATERS

Man cannot naturally use magic. Only those who have come to the brink of death and been brought back by sorcery can hope to command it. Such men and women become Godeaters, with the ability to take the souls of defeated demons into themselves, and if they survive the ensuing battle of wills, to command their power for their own ends. Power doesn't come without a price, however. With the bonding of souls comes a cacophony of wicked voices inside the Godeater's mind, and all of the weaknesses, needs, and desires of the enslaved demon. Some demons require blood sacrifices before they can do their work, others feed on emotions or pain. Every demon is different, and the Godeater is always faced with a difficult choice before taking a spirit in.

A Godeater may face minor sabotage from his host of demons, but it is in their best interests that he ultimately survive. Unless the Godeater releases a demon, their fates are forever intertwined.If the Godeater dies, so does the demon, and so an intelligent demon will try to ensure its host's survival or to secure its own release.

YOUR ROLES

You may play a normal human, a Godeater, A demon-blooded mortal, or even a full demon (if you have a *really* good concept). All of you will have the same (pretty high) point value, which I haven't fully decided on, and GURPS is well balanced, so there will be no *inherently* optimal choice- only trade offs.

I should note now that there are differences in the available powers between Castigators and Godeaters.

Castigators generally (but not always) have a more primal power at their disposal, but it takes training and personal sacrifice. They must devote character points and the energy of their own soul ("Mana" in the GURPS rules) to the effort of commanding the spirits that achieve their ends. They use this energy to inflict pain upon spirits in order to make them submit. Unlike Godeaters, they don't receive the disadvantages of the spirits they command.They use the more straight forward (but not necessarily weaker) spells from the GURPS Magic system with some flavor tweaks.

Godeaters, on the other hand, potentially gain access to more sophisticated powers than Castigators do. They also don't need to invest the energies of their own souls to achieve their ends. Since they don't ever run out of mana, they always have any powers at their disposal that the demons within them possess, provided they can maintain control or perform the required ritual. They use the GURPS advantages, disadvantages, and Powers rules.

Make your decision based on your character concept- if you want a mundane barbarian type who survives on martial strength, feel free to choose a "normal" human and know that you won't be at a disadvantage compared to a Godeater or Demon. There is a bit of thought required in building your character- it's possible to build a character that doesn't use his or her points well, but I'll try to help and will offer respecs for the first few sessions. The game will be gritty but cinematic, meaning that you can expect a lot of danger, but I'll give you enough points to deal with it, and the rules I use will favor exciting action over grim realities (at least for PCs).

As for what you'll end up doing, there are a lot of possibilities- be it righting the overwhelming wrongs in the world, seizing power for yourselves for your own purposes, simply seeking fortune and glory, exploring and surviving... the list goes on.

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