The Amulet of Fire (AAR added!)

[Wirelizard]

Fighting Tales: The Amulet Of Fire by WireLizard, on Flickr

This season's .45 Adventure pulp scenario for use in conventions is coming together, and being the strange person that I am, before I wrote the scenario I designed the cover for an imaginary magazine containing the scenario as a pulp story.

More details on the actual scenario as it's written, but I figured I'd share the graphic now!

[magokiron]

More, more, MORE! 

Great teaser WL. Waiting to see the campaing.

Best wishes.

[Wirelizard]

The scenario gets it's public debut in just over a week at our local convention; I should have it written by Saturday then we'll get one chance to playtest it before next Saturday when it runs...

It's British Indian Army vs White Russian Raiders vs Red Air Pirates vs a Suspicious Safari, possibly with a cult and some outright mercenaries thrown in for extra players, in two Acts on two playing areas.

'Red' Lily, Red Air Pirate Extraordinaire, will be making a return appearance. A few other old regulars will likely also be reappearing. New regulars will likely be created.

The first Act is titled "The Missionary Position", and many of the character names are... formed along similar vein. White Russian heroine Ivana Rumpalotski and the White (but sinister) Col. Plotzenov will be introduced.

Just to add to the teaser:
"1921. The Whites are losing the Russian Civil War. The British have established a fragile peace on the North-West Frontier. And in the jungles of southern India, a missionary scholar has discovered something amazing in a ruin near his mission station..."

[Wirelizard]

This evening's project - Encounter Cards for both Acts of "Amulet of Fire"!

Some of Act One's possible Encounters:


... and some of Act Two's possible Encounters:

[HerbyF]

Love the encounter cards.

[UncleRhino]

Looking good, your players will be in for a treat.

Ryan

[joroas]

 

[dyscordya]

The encounter cards are 

[Wirelizard]

Glad people like the Encounter Cards.

They were whipped up in Inkscape, and a lot of the spot graphics are from OpenClipArt (OCAL), which is a Public Domain archive of all sorts of graphics in SVG format. (I give back to OCAL by uploading a lot of the graphics I do myself, too)

The card template is designed to be used with those pre-punched business card sheets for home printing (from Avery or other companies) but of course they work just as well printed on plain card and cut out manually.

If you've never tried Inkscape and you have ideas for encounter cards or other graphical play aids, give it a shot. It's a very easy program to get into, and there are lots of high quality tutorials and such around.

One of the long posts I'm working on over at The Warbard is a guide to Inkscape, OCAL, pulp-period fonts and other resources for gamers with a graphical bent. Your gaming aids don't have to be ugly! (and if you really have no graphical skills whatsoever and still want non-ugly gaming aids, PM me and we'll talk! I'll take payment in pewter from LAF members...  )

[magokiron]

Thanks for the OCAL link, WL.

Lots of useful images there.

I'll try my hand with some adventure enconter cards myself.

And of course, I'm waiting to see more about the amulet story.

Best wishes.

[Wirelizard]

So, I ran it for the first time. And I saw that it was, on balance, pretty damn good.

Act One, The Missionary Position, saw the British military and the White Russians come to a tentative agreement, mostly based on mutual dislike of the damn Bolshie Red Air Pirates. The suspicious safari skulked suspiciously; the mercenary sailors sniped in mercenary fashion. Mustafa Lataganz got lost, and was promptly renamed Mustafa Bettamap.

Act Two, The Mesa of Fire, saw the Red Air Pirates blow up the White Russians and their car with a grenade. The sailors later rammed the burning car off a cliff to clear the road that lead to the mesa-top. Pierre LeMembre, untrustworthy Froggie leader of the suspicious safari, met the only irritated scorpion in all the desertes of India. The floor of the tomb fell in on the British, and the roof fell in on the safari. Mustafa Lataganz got lost again, this time underground. The White Russian Colonel Plotzenov double-crossed the British in a magnificently blackguardly last-minute (and futile) betrayal. Lt. Smoething-Aeful, British Army in India, displayed excellent stiff upper lip (what, what!) and a willingness to ignore the Marquess of Queensbury's rules in a pinch.

The infamous Red Lily wound up captured by the White Russians, which might just put paid to her long and varied career of Red banditry. Fittingly, she was captured after a magnificent brawl that included falling off cliffs, attempting to scramble up rope ladders back to hovering zeppelins, and a White Russian countess with a sword and a bad attitude who glories in the name of Ivana Rumpalotski.

The Amulet of Fire itself ended the game in British hands. As would only be right and proper, what what?

Pulp, in other words, was committed. As were terribly bad jokes disguised as character names.

I managed not to get a single photograph. I didn't even remember to take the camera out of my bag. Sorry. One of my players got a few shots, hopefully I can get them off him to share.

[Burgundavia]

And I managed to miss the debut of two pieces of my scenery: the large mesa that is the centrepiece of the 2nd act and the three 6"x6" underground dungeons, because my job as RPG coordinator meant I had to step in for a judge who was late. Gah...

[Wirelizard]

Slightly expanded writeup on "Amulet of Fire"'s debut outing, more notes from the game, and some thoughts on the tweaking Amulet needs before it's next outing all up at my wargaming blog.

Still no word on whether the photos one player was taking turned out, but hopefully they did. The scenario certainly turned out!

[Supercollider]

You have one too many dots in your link.

[Wirelizard]

You have one too many dots in your link.

Sorted! Thanks for the heads up!