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 thereThe 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 hereOverall, 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 frayI'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.
11 March 2011, 04:07:23 PM