Mord im Arosa

The GURPS Monster Hunters game I play in is on hiatus for now. So last Thursday we played board games instead.

The first game was Through the Desert. This was new to me, but it's well known enough that I don't think I need to say much here. I enjoyed it. Next time I won't spread myself out so much.

Then we played a game I hadn't heard of before. Mord im Arosa has a murder mystery theme. You are an investigator trying to solve two murders that have taken place at a hotel. You are also a suspect in these murders, so you are not really trying to solve them so much as trying to cover up your own involvement and implicate somebody else. Make sense? Well, it's pretty abstract, so don't worry about it.

The hotel is built from eight paperboard boxes stacked to make a tower. The boxes are bottomless, and each has a square hole in the middle of the top. The holes are all lined up, so that things dropped into the hole on top could theoretically fall all the way to the bottom, or they could stop at any other floor.

There are two red wooden cubes, to represent the dead bodies, and each player gets twenty wooden cubes of the same color, which represent clues. The cubes are about half the size of the holes in the boxes. There is also a board representing the investigation file, also divided into eight floors.

To begin the game, someone drops the two red cubes (the dead bodies) into the top of the tower. It's important to listen, because the cubes could stop on any of the floors. Each player in turn then drops two of their own cubes into the tower. In general, we found that they fell farther than it sounded like they did.

The meat of the game, then, is guessing where the cubes landed. During the first part of the game, you're trying to guess where the two murder victims are. On your turn, you name a floor and then lift up the box for that floor and see what cubes are there. If there is a murder victim (a red cube), you place that cube on the investigation board on the appropriate floor. If clues from any other players are also on that floor, each of them must put a cube from their supply on the board on the same floor. If one of your own clues is there with the dead body, you get to simply ignore that evidence. All the clues that were on that floor are then dropped into the top of the tower again.

If you were wrong, and you revealed a floor with no bodies, then this is sloppy investigation on your part, and you end up leaving more evidence implicating yourself behind. You take whatever clues were there and drop them back into the top of the tower, adding one cube from your own supply.

Once both bodies have been found, the second part of the game begins.On your turn, you pick a floor, and either declare that you are cleaning up after yourself, if you think you can find your own cubes, or you say that you suspect some or all of the other players, if you think you know where theirs are. If you suspect other players and you are correct, each other those players must put a cube from their supply on the investigation board for each of their clues found on that floor. If you are trying to clean up after yourself, you must pick a floor where you already have cubes on the investigation board. If you find one of your own clues, you get to remove one of your cubes from the same floor of the investigation board for each clue you found in the tower.

Either way, all the cubes found on that floor are dropped back into the tower once again. And if you were wrong on your guess, whether you were suspecting someone else or trying to clean up after yourself, this is sloppy investigation, and you must drop another cube from your supply into the tower.

The game ends when one player has ten cubes on the investigation board, or they completely empty their supply of cubes. Then each player counts their score according to where their cubes are on the investigation board: three for a cube on a floor with a body, two for a cube on a floor adjacent to a body, and one for a cube on any other floor. Highest score is the murderer and loses. Lowest score wins.

If my explanation has not been entirely clear, here is a video explanation of the game, though the reviewer skips over some points. It's really very simple: cubes in the tower always get dropped back into the tower. If you guess right about where they are, you get to take your own cubes off the investigation board into your supply, or make other players add cubes to the board from their supply.

I didn't win this one either. Most of us focused too much on trying to implicate someone else, but that's not how you win. MK was smart and focused on cleaning up after himself, so he finished with only two points and won.

In summary, it's a fun, fairly quick game with a clever mechanic. I'd play it again.

Game Session 2003/01/13

The party:

Sophie O'Griffin, human, the leader and ringmaster. Played by EM.

Esmond Gellert, human, trick-shot archer and dog trainer. Played by MK.

Ganz, elf, stage magician and wizard. Played by JC.

Quexechetl, lizard man, strongman and wrestler. Played by KF.

Talman, half-elf, acrobat. Played by JM.

Fiorio, human, a peasant with a knack for playing to the crowd that the circus picked up along the way. Played as an NPC.

May 13 to May 27, 850

The first part of this session was taken up spending character points and money. The circus had just finished a long adventure, for which they were well paid. They decided to replace their wagon mule with a younger, stronger one, and they bought a pendant that allows the wearer to see in the dark. This is a rather specialty item, but Sophie  shopped around and they found a mage willing to part with one. Quexechetl bought some vambraces to protect his arms when trying to grab an armed opponent. Ganz bought a powerstone. They also stocked up on healing potions -- no trouble finding those, because the city's alchemists were anticipating a great deal of demand for them.

Sophie decided to pay more attention to her appearance, styling her hair and dressing to impress with more care than she used to. Ganz practiced his sleight-of-hand and pickpocketing skills, mostly on other circus members.

After a few weeks of performing around town, frequently for the many foreigners who were in the city, a messenger called upon Sophie at their inn, inviting them to the grand temple of Teän, goddess of motherhood and the home. There, an acolyte showed them to a private chamber, where they were presented to Queen Luccola, grandmother to the young king, and a high priestess of Teän in her own right.

Although they did not know about her involvement at the time, the Queen had entrusted the care of her grandson to the circus once before, prior to his coronation, when they escorted him to Castle Storol so that he could receive the blessing of Teän in the Orphan's Cell. Today, she proposed a slightly different arrangement.

The men of the court, she explained, had decided that King Miklo must do the King's traditional summertime duty and lead an expedition against the orcs of the Bekel. But since returning from Storol, he had been taking advantage of his newfound ability to blend into crowds and escape the notice of anyone but his own family. It seemed that he enjoyed running away from the palace and getting into all sorts of trouble. In the city, this was likely to lead to no worse than a black eye or a split lip. But in the wilds of the Bekel, with orcs, goblins, and other monsters all around, it could lead to much worse.

So the Queen proposed that the circus accompany Miklo's army on its campaign, in order to give Miklo somewhere to run away to when he decided to elude his bodyguard, which she certainly expected he would. There were always some traders and entertainers who marched with the army, so they circus should have no trouble blending in.

As for their payment, they should look to Lord Fels. After the circus agreed to the Queen's request, they learned from Lord Fels that this was the favor that he owed to the Queen, in return for her assistance in getting King Miklo to sign the scroll they used to take control of the Gondan golem. Fels agreed to cover their traveling expenses, since they could expect to make a fair amount of money entertaining the many foreign knights who would be riding with the King.

"The trouble with fighting orcs is it always comes down to killing orc babies."

 KF (Quexechetl)

May 28, 850

King Miklo rode out of the city along with some of his own knights and most of the foreign knights. Including men-at-arms and archers, the army numbered about 2500. The majority were human, with a solid contingent of dwarves, and a few elves and even some gnomes along as well. Small for a foray into the Bekel, but this year's expedition was supposed to be a brief one. The army marched slowly north, and as it climbed the foothills at the edge of the wild, most of the traders, artisans, and entertainers fell away. The performers of the Circus Sophia were among the few that accompanied the army into the Bekel itself.

June 20 to June 22, 850

On the twentieth day of June, the army passed the last village, farm, and keep. They climbed the old dwarven road into the mountains, and soon were surrounded by peaks on all sides. Quexechetl, raised in the wide-open desert, felt hemmed in and anxious.

On the second night, the drums started. Somewhere in the darkness, a handful of orcs were letting the intruders know they were being watched. The following night, there were dozens, and the drumming lasted until dawn. Still the army marched on.

Esmond took advantage of the new night-vision pendant, which he wore tucked under his shirt, to watch the movements of the orcs in the darkness. They gathered by the hundreds, but made no attempt to engage the King's army. Once, in the company of a couple of other scouts, one of them asked him "Have you been long on the road?" He said he had been with the army since Nalfavor, and the conversation turned to other things. and it was only later that he realized that this was the third or  fourth time that a traveler, met by chance, had asked him exactly the same question.

June 24, 850

On the fourth day in the mountains, Lord Fels called the circus to his tent. Some of the travelers who marched alongside the army, he said, had been seen paying a suspicious amount of attention to the King. Fels suspected assassins. He explained that the previous year, two Turrians had infiltrated the castle in Nalfavor and attacked the royal family. The rumor was that Queen Luccola had been injured.[1] It was shortly after this that the Queen arranged for Miklo to travel to Castle Storol.

So Lord Fels asked the circus to keep a closer eye on Miklo, directly the opposite of what Queen Luccola had asked them to do. He hoped that they would have more success at this than Miklo’s usual bodyguards, since they had been with him to Storol.

In fact, the performers were no better than anyone else at keeping track of the King, but by chance later that day Esmond noticed him wandering away from the road in the company of a couple of other boys. He, Ganz, and Talman followed him, and when they caught up, the King explained that they were looking for orc tracks. Esmond tried to help, but there was no sign orcs or any other monsters among the rocks and scrubby trees, and they gave up after a while. Talman showed off a little of his juggling skills, and then he and the boys practiced their knife-throwing. Afterward, they all rejoined the marching column on the road.

June 25, 850

The next day, hundreds of orcs were seen on the mountainside to the west, on the left side of the road, but they kept their distance form the much larger human-led force. Around noon, the army came upon a deep mountain stream, where the bridge had been destroyed long before. An advance party of fifty or so knights went upstream and crossed at a ford, and then the King’s royal miners erected a portable bridge, using timbers and planks brought along for the purpose.

Once the army was across and the bridge had been broken down again, the orcs who had been pacing the army fell away. But then the army was suddenly abuzz with a new concern – no one seemed to know where the King was.

Esmond, Ganz, Talman, and Quexechetl immediately left the road and began to search the mountainside, while Sophie rode forward towards Lord Fels’s pennant to warn him that the King was missing, if he was not already aware. Sharp-eyed Esmond soon spotted Miklo, and called Sophie back. Fiorio called out to a boy in the pack train to take the reigns of the circus’s wagon, and he and Sophie trotted up the slope after the others.

The King, along with a couple of his friends, had found an old dwarven lookout post built into the mountainside, just at the point where the slope increased and walking would have to give way to climbing. It was a small, low stone building, with a short door and three dwarf-height arrow loops at the front. The boys had gone inside by the time Esmond, Ganz, Talman, and Quexechetl reached it.

Esmond entered, and the King smiled at him, turning away from the arrow loop he had been watching from. “We saw you,” he said. “If we had been archers we could have shot you.”

“I’m glad you weren’t, then,” said Sophie, as she entered. The inside was small, dim, and rather dirty. There were only the arrow loops and a doorway without a door at the front. But at the back, there was a closed door in good repair. “Your Majesty, you shouldn’t leave the road like this. No one knows what might be lurking about.”

“Oh, there are no orcs here,” said the king.

Ganz thought he’d better make sure, and improvised a quick spell to find enemies in the area. After a minute of concentration, he stretched out his magical senses…and found, to his surprise, that hostile creatures were right at hand!

Quexechetl pushed the King behind him, as he and Talman faced the door that led into the mountain. Esmond drew and nocked an arrow. Footsteps sounded from behind the door.

 Wrapping it up

So, how did that go?

I was dissatisfied with this session. We got off to a slow start, because there was some shopping and character upgrading at the beginning, and then I never got things moving along a very good pace afterward. There was too much of me telling the players about what was going on with the army on the march, and not enough of the players telling me what they were doing. I need to work on a faster pace and less exposition.

Still, it was fun to end on a cliffhanger.

[1] This was a one-shot adventure that four members of the group played once when others couldn't make it. I made up palace guard characters for them and they got a look at a different part of the campaign world that week. I also got to push the plot along a little, giving the players (if not their characters) an explanation of why the royal family would be fearful enough of Miklo's life that they would send him off with a group of circus performers.

Motherland -- A Game I'll Probably Never Run

Title: Motherland

Genre: Modern Post-Apocalyptic Action

Inspiration: Larry Niven's "Inconstant Moon," Afterburn by Red 5 Comics, and, to a lesser extent, Darwinia by Robert Charles Wilson.

Scenario: On December 16th, 2013, the sun erupts in a colossal solar flare. The entire eastern hemisphere is killed off nearly instantly, from Morocco to Japan. Every satellite in orbit is destroyed, and gigantic storms cover the entire planet, making travel into the dead zone nearly impossible. In April, the weather finally quiets down, and the surviving population of the New World begins to take the first its first steps into the graveyard of the Old World.

The Mission: The Russian Federation, or what remains of it, has mourned its dead. Now it is time to exercise some control over its sovereign territory. Vitaly Ivanovich Churkin, formerly Permanent Representative to the United Nations and now acting President, needs money to keep up any pretense of a functioning government. You have been chosen to travel to the Moscow to retrieve treasures from the Kremlin Armory -- the Russian imperial regalia, the Fabergé eggs, and the Russian Diamand Fund. Your country needs these to act as collateral for loans to keep the government running so that resettlement may begin. Otherwise, the Yankees or the Brazilians will simply move in and claim the place for their own.

You will travel on one of the Russian Navy's surviving submarines to Kaliningrad. There, you will acquire an airplane for the flight to Moscow. You should expect to encounter treasure hunters -- there are rumors that the Louvre has already been looted -- and possibly foreign government forces. You will do what is necessary to complete your mission.

The Team: You are are a Russian citizen, most likely a current or former member of the armed forces. Because you were out of the country, you happened to escape the flare that killed your compatriots, your friends, and your family. Many volunteered for this mission, but you were chosen because you have essential skills over and above your combat training. Perhaps you are a survival specialist, a qualified medic, a mechanic, or a communications expert. You have been outfitted with the best weapons and equipment your country can provide for you, and you will not let your people down.

What to Expect: Travel in the worst winter Russia has ever known. Encounters with unknown hostile forces. Tactical decisions on whether to engage or avoid said hostile forces. Guns, guns, and more guns. Wondering whether you will bleed or freeze to death first.

What not to Expect: Backup.

I envisioned this scenario as a one-shot, mostly to play with the GURPS firearms rules. I suppose it could be made into an ongoing game. It avoids what I think is one of the pitfalls of the post-apocalypse genre, in which the PCs simply become a roaming psycho killer gang, because there's no one to stop them. With this setup, only half the world was destroyed, so if the PCs go crazy, there's still a mostly-intact civilization back in the Americas to step on them.

I'll probably never get to run this, though. I think the guns-guns-guns aspect would really only appeal to one member of my gaming group.

Campaign Background

Bah. I've been trying to write up last week's game session, but I keep tripping over essential background items. So, before relating the event of the game, here's some of what happened before.

The setting

Lodea, the setting for my campaign, sits just west of the ithsmus between two continents, each dominated by a different civilization. In the west is the Gondan Empire, which rules, directly or by proxy, nearly the entire continent. In the east are the Hevrian nations, some larger than others, but none anywhere near the side of Gond. Lodea is a part of the Hevrian civilization, united with it by a common religious, cultural, and linguistic history, despite the fact that it is much closer to Gond than to most Hevrian nations.

Centuries ago

Hundreds of years ago, the Third Gondan Empire invaded Lodea, intending to incorporate it into its territory. Hevrians from dozens of lands rallied to the defense of their brother-nation and repelled the invaders at the Battle of Rossato. Ten kings or future kings took part, and it was this legendary engagement that earned Lodea the soubriquet "the Shield of Hevria."

The Gondans might have tried again, but they were soon faced by more troubles. Orcs, long ignored in the wilderness, began to invade previously peaceful parts of the Empire. This began a period of about twenty years in which Gond had other things to worry about than Lodea.

And then the plague came. Gond might have survived the orcs alone, but the plague devastated the countryside, making it impossible for Gond to keep up its armies. The Empire fell apart under pressure from the orcs, the depredations of the plague, and internal divisions.

Lodea and the other Hevrian nations didn't escape the orcs and the plague either. Orcs and dragons overran the Bekel, a mountainous region of dwarves kingdoms just north of Lodea, and the refugees, formerly rich and powerful clans, humbly pledged themselves to the service of human lords, mainly in Lodea. When the plague rose up in Gond, the Lodeans rejoiced -- until it began to strike them down as well. The plague, descending on the people "like a black wolf from the hills," as the chroniclers wrote, killed men, dwarves, elves, and gnomes alike. Even the orcs were cut down. The plague ravaged Gond and Hevria alike, and two civilizations crumbled, bringing in a dark age over the known world.

Eventually, over the centuries, order returned. The Fourth Gondan Empire emerged from the chaos and began to bring its former provinces under rule. The Hevrians continued as a patchwork of smaller nations, often squabbling amongst themselves, but united in their identity as Hevrians. And at long last, Gond's attention turned to Lodea again.

In the past year

In the spring of the year 849 (Hevrian Reconing), the Fourth Gondan Empire launched a surprise attack against Lodea. The Lodean monarch, King Gormondi, was mortally wounded in battle on the first day of the war. He dictated one last order to his personal priest, Hullon, entrusted it to a newly-knighted messenger, Sir Kerrals, and died.

Sir Kerrals was intercepted and murdered, somehow, and our heroes, the Circus Sophia, were initially suspected as the killers by the late king's spymaster, Lord Fels. But they convinced him of their innocence, discovered King Gormondi's last wish was and helped to fulfill it. Young Prince Miklo, a boy of ten years and Gormondi's heir, has underwent a sacred ritual to protect him from Gondan magic. The ritual has had the side effect of making him extremely hard to keep track of, except by members of his own family, and he often sneaks away from the royal castle and mingles with the common folk in some of the worst parts of the capital, Nalfavor.

A year later, Prince Miklo has been crowned as King Miklo. Lord Fels continues to employ the Circus Sophia for spywork and sabotage from time to time, and they have twice helped blunt Gondan attacks on Nalfavor. First they fomented a revolt among the lizard folk slaves who manned the oars of the Gondan galleys, depriving the enemy of river transport that they were counting on. And just recently, they infiltrated an occupied city in the north, Salnon, where the Gondans were building a golem they planned to use to smash the city walls of Nalfavor. The performers subverted the golem to Lodean control by inserting a magical scroll at a critical point in the process, and also stealing a horn that the Gondans had made as a backup control device. The Golem of Salnon now stands outside the western gate of Nalfavor, where it smashes any enemy of Lodea that dares to approach.

Rumor around town is that King Miklo snuck away to Salnon and personally stole the golem from the Gondans. That's the trouble with spy work -- you never get proper credit.

With the Gondan army in disarray, but the Lodeans unable to mount a siege to retake any of their cities, the war is effectively at a standoff. The Lodean court is now preoccupied with the annual expedition agains the orcs in the mountains to the north, one of the chief duties of the King. This will only be possible because of the many foreign knights who have flocked to Lodea from all over Hevria, hoping to relive the glory days and save Lodea from the Gondans once again. Since a decisive battle with the Gondans has proved elusive, most of them have decided to seek what booty they can find by fighting the orcs. The Regency Council has decided that the capital can spare the young king and a portion of his knights for a short foray into the mountains. They expect to return before the Gondans can recover themselves and threaten the capital again.

It is that this point that the most recent game session starts. Who knows, I may even get it posted tomorrow.

My Weather Generator is the Earth

In a post at Gaming Ballistic, +Douglas Cole mentions the use of real-world weather records for your in-game weather, which is what I do. The game is set in Lodea, which is more or less like Italy in climate. I set game year 850 to be equivalent to real-world year 1990, and use Rome for the center of the country, Palermo for when the party is in the south, and Turin when they're in the mountainous north. (Scroll down to find the "History & Almanac" box on the left where you can look up weather records going back decades.)

You can check the temperature, wind, precipitation, and so on, and also the time the sun and moon rise and set, which has been important on several occasions in my game. And if anyone ever casts Predict Weather, I'll have answers ready at hand.

My game's world, Mond, just happens to have a year that is exactly as long as Earth's, so this works out just fine for me. If your world's year is a different length, you can cut out some day to make it shorter or repeat some days to make it longer. On Earth, about two-thirds of the time, tomorrow's weather is pretty much the same as today's, so this is reasonably realistic.

Today was a game day. Hopefully I can get a write-up of the session done tomorrow.

Risk

Last weekend I played Risk with some of the family, using the 1959 rules that come with the 40th anniversary edition. I haven't played the game for 15 or 20 years, I think. So what were my impressions after all that time?

Well, I had forgotten what Risk is all about. Risk is not a game about taking and holding territory. The game is presented as if that was the smart strategy, and the designer (Albert Lamorisse, a French film director) may even have though of it that way, but it isn't. Risk is about amassing an army that you can use to wipe someone out, so that you can take their cards and turn them in for yet more armies and wipe out the next player, and so on until you have killed everyone off in one long chain of conquest. Victory goes to the one who pulls this off -- or, if that player fails, to one of the survivors who can next turn in a set.

And that's exactly what happened. I played against my sister and her son, any my other sister's husband, son, and daughter. After some messing around in which no one really solidified a position, my brother-in-law saw his chance for that chain reaction, and knocked out first his daughter, then my sister, then me. He had enough armies and to finish off either of my nephews, which would net him enough cards to finish the other one and win. Unfortunately, he listened to my sister's advice on the route he should take through Asia and Australia, and ran out of steam before finishing off the next player. That next player, his son, then turned in a set and took out first his cousin and then his dad for the win.

So, does that mean Risk is a bad game? It is if you want a game that's about taking and holding territory. You can fix this by capping the number of armies you get for a set at 10 or so, or enforcing some other sort of limitation. There have been many revisions to the rules over the years, and the most recent version of the rules doesn't have progressive set bonuses.

Still, what about the original rules? I think they still make for a good game, if you understand what kind of game you're playing. It's sort of like a reversed game of chicken, seeing who has the guts to jump out first. In effect, the game asks you, "Could you win if you got 12 armies right now? No? How about 15? 20?" Then you make your calculations, and hope that if someone else tries before you do, they'll come up short before they kill you. So, sure, you can change the rules to get a different game, but there are a lot of games that are about taking territory. There aren't many that are about constantly ratcheting up the danger until someone makes their grand play.

Random Animal Table

Hey, who doesn't like a giant random table? Here's one for animals, restricted to those that can survive out of water at least temporarily. You probably want to roll high.

The wizard waves his magic wand and turns you into a...

Roll 1d, 1d, 1d.

1, 1, 1  Earthworm

1, 1, 2  Slug

1, 1, 3  Snail

1, 1, 4  Leech

1, 1, 5  Tick

1, 1, 6  Louse

1, 2, 1  Aphid

1, 2, 2  Gnat

1, 2, 3  Fruit Fly

1, 2, 4  Termite

1, 2, 5  Mosquito

1, 2, 6  Bedbug

1, 3, 1  Housefly

1, 3, 2  Firefly

1, 3, 3  Crane Fly

1, 3, 4  Cicada

1, 3, 5  Grasshopper

1, 3, 6  Cricket

1, 4, 1  Dung Beetle

1, 4, 2  Cockroach

1, 4, 3  Weevil

1, 4, 4  Ladybug

1, 4, 5  Stag Beetle

1, 4, 6  Scarab Beetle

1, 5, 1  Scorpion

1, 5, 2  Spider

1, 5, 3  Tarantula

1, 5, 4  Centipede

1, 5, 5  Wasp

1, 5, 6  Dragonfly

1, 6, 1  Hornet

1, 6, 2  Praying Mantis

1, 6, 3  Ant

1, 6, 4  Bee

1, 6, 5  Moth

1, 6, 6  Butterfly

2, 1, 1  Pond frog

2, 1, 2  Tree Frog

2, 1, 3  Toad

2, 1, 4  Newt

2, 1, 5  Salamander

2, 1, 6  Skink

2, 2, 1  Lizard

2, 2, 2  Rat Snake

2, 2, 3  Coral Snake

2, 2, 4  Python

2, 2, 5  Viper

2, 2, 6  Cobra

2, 3, 1  Chameleon

2, 3, 2  Gecko

2, 3, 3  Iguana

2, 3, 4  Gila Monster

2, 3, 5  Monitor Lizard

2, 3, 6  Tortoise

2, 4, 1  Freshwater Turtle

2, 4, 2  Sea Turtle

2, 4, 3  Crocodile

2, 4, 4  Alligator

2, 4, 5  Raven

2, 4, 6  Vulture

2, 5, 1  Crow

2, 5, 2  Penguin

2, 5, 3  Sandpiper

2, 5, 4  Seagull

2, 5, 5  Pelican

2, 5, 6  Albatross

2, 6, 1  Duck

2, 6, 2  Goose

2, 6, 3  Heron

2, 6, 4  Crane

2, 6, 5  Stork

2, 6, 6  Swan

3, 1, 1  Emu

3, 1, 2  Kiwi

3, 1, 3  Canary

3, 1, 4  Parrot

3, 1, 5  Toucan

3, 1, 6  Ostrich

3, 2, 1  Hummingbird

3, 2, 2  Starling

3, 2, 3  Robin

3, 2, 4  Sparrow

3, 2, 5  Swallow

3, 2, 6  Finch

3, 3, 1  Wren

3, 3, 2  Cuckoo

3, 3, 3  Dove

3, 3, 4  Pigeon

3, 3, 5  Lark

3, 3, 6  Kingfisher

3, 4, 1  Magpie

3, 4, 2  Cardinal

3, 4, 3  Mockingbird

3, 4, 4  Bluejay

3, 4, 5  Thrush

3, 4, 6  Owl

3, 5, 1  Partridge

3, 5, 2  Pheasant

3, 5, 3  Quail

3, 5, 4  Grouse

3, 5, 5  Chicken

3, 5, 6  Turkey

3, 6, 1  Woodpecker

3, 6, 2  Peafowl

3, 6, 3  Osprey

3, 6, 4  Hawk

3, 6, 5  Falcon

3, 6, 6  Eagle

4, 1, 1  Seal

4, 1, 2  Walrus

4, 1, 3  Sea Lion

4, 1, 4  Kangaroo

4, 1, 5  Opossum

4, 1, 6  Sloth

4, 2, 1  Anteater

4, 2, 2  Armadillo

4, 2, 3  Bat

4, 2, 4  Muskrat

4, 2, 5  Marmot

4, 2, 6  Capybara

4, 3, 1  Mouse

4, 3, 2  Vole

4, 3, 3  Hamster

4, 3, 4  Gerbil

4, 3, 5  Guinea Pig

4, 3, 6  Rat

4, 4, 1  Chinchilla

4, 4, 2  Chipmunk

4, 4, 3  Squirrel

4, 4, 4  Hedgehog

4, 4, 5  Porcupine

4, 4, 6  Beaver

4, 5, 1  Prairie Dog

4, 5, 2  Mole

4, 5, 3  Gopher

4, 5, 4  Hare

4, 5, 5  Rabbit

4, 5, 6  Mongoose

4, 6, 1  Skunk

4, 6, 2  Otter

4, 6, 3  Ferret

4, 6, 4  Weasel

4, 6, 5  Badger

4, 6, 6  Wolverine

5, 1, 1  Elk

5, 1, 2  Roe Deer

5, 1, 3  Red Deer

5, 1, 4  Whitetail Deer

5, 1, 5  Moose

5, 1, 6  Reindeer

5, 2, 1  Pronghorn

5, 2, 2  Eland

5, 2, 3  Antelope

5, 2, 4  Impala

5, 2, 5  Gazelle

5, 2, 6  Okapi

5, 3, 1  Giraffe

5, 3, 2  Gnu

5, 3, 3  Bison

5, 3, 4  Yak

5, 3, 5  Musk Ox

5, 3, 6  Bull or Cow

5, 4, 1  Cape Buffalo

5, 4, 2  Water Buffalo

5, 4, 3  Hippopotamus

5, 4, 4  Goat

5, 4, 5  Ibex

5, 4, 6  Mountain Goat

5, 5, 1  Wild Sheep

5, 5, 2  Domestic Sheep

5, 5, 3  Onager

5, 5, 4  Dromedary Camel

5, 5, 5  Bactrian Camel

5, 5, 6  Rhinoceros

5, 6, 1  Zebra

5, 6, 2  Donkey

5, 6, 3  Pony

5, 6, 4  Mule

5, 6, 5  Draft Horse

5, 6, 6  Racehorse

6, 1, 1  Pig

6, 1, 2  Wild boar

6, 1, 3  Giant Panda

6, 1, 4  Black Bear

6, 1, 5  Brown Bear

6, 1, 6  Polar Bear

6, 2, 1  Lapdog

6, 2, 2  Scent Hound

6, 2, 3  Retriever

6, 2, 4  Sheepdog

6, 2, 5  Grayhound

6, 2, 6  Terrier

6, 3, 1  Mastiff

6, 3, 2  Hyena

6, 3, 3  Fox

6, 3, 4  Coyote

6, 3, 5  Jackal

6, 3, 6  Wolf

6, 4, 1  Housecat

6, 4, 2  Bobcat

6, 4, 3  Caracal

6, 4, 4  Lynx

6, 4, 5  Ocelot

6, 4, 6  Cougar

6, 5, 1  Cheetah

6, 5, 2  Snow Leopard

6, 5, 3  Jaguar

6, 5, 4  Leopard

6, 5, 5  Tiger

6, 5, 6  Lion

6, 6, 1  Rhesus Macaque

6, 6, 2  Baboon

6, 6, 3  Gibbon

6, 6, 4  Orangutan

6, 6, 5  Chimpanzee

6, 6, 6  Gorilla

State of the Campaign

My GURPS fantasy game has just finished an adventure, so here's a State of the Campaign summary.

The campaign is set on the world of Mond, in the Kingdom of Lodea.* The player characters are performers in the Circus Sophia, a group of traveling entertainers. The roster:

Sophie O'Griffin, a human, the leader and ringmaster. Played by EM.

Esmond Gellert, a human, trick-shot archer and dog trainer. Played by MK.

Ganz, an elf, stage magician and wizard. Played by JC.

Quexechetl, a lizard man, strongman and wrestler. Played by KF.

Talman, a half-elf, acrobat. Played by JM.

Fiorio, a human, a peasant with a knack for playing to the crowd that the circus picked up along the way. Played as an NPC.

There are two former members of the circus who decided to quit the traveling life and settle down: Galina, Talman's sister, also an acrobat, and Cullen McElroy, a knife thrower.

In addition to roaming around performing, the circus sometimes does does work for Lord Fels, spymaster of the kingdom. These jobs usually concerns Lodea's war against the Empire of Gond, which invaded the country about a year ago.

Most recently, Lord Fels sent the circus to the northern city of Salnon, which the Gondans had captured the previous year. They rescued two of Fels's other spies and discovered that the Gondans were building a bronze golem. They subverted the golem to Lodean control and escaped after a horribly bloody fight with a squad of Gondan soldiers. The golem, when it was broken out of the mold, marched on Nalfavor, the Lodean capital, with the Gondan army all around it, thinking that they still controlled it. When it reached the walls of Nalfavor, it took up a station outside the western gate and smashed any Gondan who tried to approach it, much to the delight of the Lodeans watching from the walls.

Afterward, the circus performers heard the rumor around town that King Miklo, who is a boy of only eleven years, had snuck off to Salnon and stolen the golem from the Gondans. That's the problem with spy work -- you never get proper credit.

So, how stands the campaign right now? I've learned that the party has grown in power to the point where I can throw well-armored soldiers at them and they'll win without taking much damage. Even when the bad guys outnumber them. Even when it's dark, Quexechetl is suffering penalties because he's stiff form the cold, and Ganz is completely tapped out on magic. Even when they burn through half their fatigue and a second wave comes at them.

This means that for combat, I'm going to have to step up the competition by quite a bit. More numbers, higher skill, better protection, different tactics, more magical attacks, more situational penalties. We'll see.

Outside of combat, the circus isn't much changed on paper. They've increased their non-combat skills, such as Riding, a little, and they've acquired a few minor magic items. They're still all Status 0, without Patrons or Allies or even Contacts. They have, however, met some interesting people -- the two spies Porrecho and Mala, for instance -- and while these aren't things that show up on character sheets, they'll pay off as plot hooks sooner or later.

So while the party rests up in the city of Nalfavor and tries to find ways to spend their money, I'll be looking for new challenges for them. Next game is this Sunday.

* Lodea is pronounced Low-DAY-uh. My players's habit, in the early days of the campaign, of calling it LOW-dee-uh was only the first in a very long string of mangled names for NPCs and places.

Introduction

Everyone else is starting a gaming blog, so why not me?

Hi. I'm Grouchy Chris, and I run a GURPS fantasy game every other week, play in a GURPS Monster Hunters game somewhat less regularly, and play other games from time to time.