Songs of Gods and Glory - Path of Glory for ASOBH

[affun]

Oi' what's this all about?

Steel-clad champions clash on the fringes of the world, wreaking havoc on the lands and each other as they unleash baleful magic and tear at each other, screaming the praise of their fickle patrons. With them are their retinues. The outcasts, mutants and warriors of chaos. All hungry for power, but without the ambition necessary, they follow in the wake of the mighty. And all live, fight and die for the rewards of their patron gods and the ultimate price of ascension.

Songs of Gods and Glory (SOGG?) is a fan-made add-on to Advanced Songs of Blades And Heroes that I have been writing. It started out as a conversion of the venerable Path of Glory and Slaves To Darkness into the system. My intent was initially for it to just be around 4 pages of tables and a few notes. Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans.


We've just started playtesting an initial draft, focussing on champions and retinues of Pestilence and Change. More posts about the retinues to come later – For this initial post I'll be focussing on what the add-on is about and the glory system.


My opponents, Kaiser, warband of foul followers of the Great Schemer. Looking forward to when he starts posting some better pictures of them. they may not be painted yet, but there's some great conversion work in there

The core of the focus is the champion and retinue generation tables, starting from a random starting race and profile (eg. A human commoner or an elven mage or some more exotic possibilities), and then swearing fealty to one of an eventual for main powers. After this, random mutations and rewards are applied, overall generating some very varied and colourful champions

Retinues are generated randomly as well, and some followers can start out with mutations and rewards of their own.


Here's a short article about champion generation from my blog
And about the retinue generation here

Overall, randomness is a theme of the add-on. A core goal is for the system to generate interesting games and retinues. The kinds which create narratives of their own, and which challenge the players, both in game play by requiring them to use unusual forces, and in modelling; providing characters the player otherwise would not likely have imagined.
Theme is important here, and thus each power will have its own distinct rewards and retinue tables, as well as a dedicated spell selection – Using both spells from Advanced Song of Blades And Heroes, as well as some new ones. (My personal favourites so far are the pestilence spells Scourge – a powerful flesh-melting plague – and the miasma cloud.)


Testing out the Plague Wind spell – A cone of disease, putting little green glass-beads next to people and granting them a -1 to quality checks and a chance to catch the dread plague: A disease that persists between games and slowly erodes its host.

What about the glory-part then?

Once a champion is rolled up, and their retinue gathered, they set out on the path of damnation, trying to earn glory and catch the eyes of their patron deity. As players play out scenarios, their characters gain glory, allowing them to obtain further rewards. Thus, they progress on their path, towards either ascension or until they are overcome by uncontrolled mutation and turn into abominations.

This is meant to provide an ongoing narrative campaign system, telling the story of the rise and fall of mighty champions, and, most importantly of all, make for some fun gaming.
Retinues start out pretty small and slowly expand. This makes for very achievable but unique modelling projects that can eventually grow into larger warbands and forces.


”Taste my axe!” - Everything devolves into a messy brawl as my minotaur joins the fray

I've still got a lot of work to do before I share an initial version. The current plan is to split the add-on into 4 parts, one for each god. Pestilence will be the first, and is almost done, then followed by change.

This thread will chronicle my design-notes, hopefully some AAR's from our play-testing, and our general related hobby: Warband modelling and painting.

I hope you will find it interesting to read along!

Best regards
Affun


Two retinues decide to raid the same village at the same time. Things quickly get messy for the villagers, as both seek to prove themselves worthy of their patrons favour. Great fun in a scenario rolled up on the actual venerable Slaves to Darkness Narrative generator-table.

[hummus]

great idea hope to see more

[kaiser]

So, I would like to present the warband I rolled to demonstrate some of the oppertunities you can get from the random generator.

My patron god is The Great Schemer
My warband is this:

Dwarf Arch Wizard, Olí of Vetsmanna

Q 3+ C 2
Abilities: Spell caster, hero
mutation: Horns (gives him the headbutt ability)
Gift: Cackling demon.

Cackling demon named Disco

Q 4+ C 3
Abilities: Good shot,
Mutation: Spout fire (counts as javelin)
Gift:

Chosen, Agnar (this guy is awesome)

Q 3+ C 4
Abilities:
Mutation: Weird blood (smoke)
Gifts: Voyager (gives him difficult target and danger sense)

Three beastmen, Bill, Rane and Aksel
Q 4+ C 3

Grinning Demon, TjipTjap
Q 4+ C 2
Abilities: flame jet
Mutation:
Gifts: Fusion (the demon splits into two lesser versions when killed)

[Dr. Zombie]

Awesome stuff!

[LeadAsbestos]

Path to Glory was my favorite WH game. If you need playtesters, I'm your man!

[affun]

Thanks for the comments y'all. There's definitely more to come, I'm just off for the weekend.

Path to Glory was my favorite WH game. If you need playtesters, I'm your man!

I hold the original Path to Glory in very high regard - The definite tome on the WH take on "Chaos" to me. There's still a bit to go before eyes that are not my own get to look at the core -pdf, but I'll keep you in mind. A set of eyes not from our local group would be really great.

Out of interest, is there any particular god you'd be specially interested in testing out?

[LeadAsbestos]

Out of interest, is there any particular god you'd be specially interested in testing out?

Well, I've always been a Khorne man myself, but I'm open to anything!

[affun]

Well, I've always been a Khorne man myself, but I'm open to anything!

Neat. I've actually just started throwing around ideas for that. It's still in a sketch sate, but its something I am looking forward to start working on as well. When Pestilence is done, I'll get stuck in proper.

[DivisMal]

Go for it, dude! My favourite after-work-beer & brezel-skirmish and the best Chaos-campaign system in the post tLatD/SoD-age?

I cant wait to see/read more!