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February 8, 2012

Category: Electrum Pieces

March 26, 2011

Tiezerakan

by John Payne — Categories: Electrum Pieces — Tags: , , — 2 Comments

Closer to my roots in D&D in regards to 2e is all the settings. I loved Dark Sun and Spelljammer particularly. Beyond these two there were many more available to suit just about any taste.

At the time I got Spelljammer, I didn’t use proficiencies at all. I didn’t have the 2e PHB at the time, so aside from THAC0, if I didn’t understand it or couldn’t create a rules-hack for it, it was tossed.

Yet in honor of the setting I loved so much, no 2e clone would be without rules for outer space adventure.

This title is a placeholder for any post about fantasy adventures in space. Tiezerakan will not be a clone of Spelljammer. The setting and physics will be quite different. For example, anyone can pilot a ship, not just Wizards, Priests or psionicists. For another, there will be no race of beings that exist only as merchants of technology. For the love of all things holy, there will be no giant space hamsters, despite my love for tinker gnomes.

Unlike a lot of my settings, it will be grim n’ gritty. You may even characterize it as soulless. It’s more than just a lack of effective priests, it’s an ennui from seasoned spacefarers that have seen too many things that defy explanation. It’s an acceptance of magic arms dealers, xenomages on an eternal quest for more alien DNA to build living constructs, snake oil salesman taking advantage of backwater planets and the trade companies that determine the fate of galaxies on a daily basis.

Next step: either Psionicists Kits, Wizard Kits III or a vignette about Tiezerakan.

March 24, 2011

Nine Pointed Magic Star

Wizards Part II

by John Payne — Categories: Electrum Pieces and OSR Project — Tags: , , — Comments Off

A really quick post about the magic schools.

Oppositional schools work really well if there are an odd number of schools because every school can have two oppositional schools.

Being visual, though, here is a star to show every school and its two oppositional schools. Pick a school, say Conjuration/Summoning. Following the lines away from Conjuration/Summoning, you find that the two oppositional schools are Invocation/Evocation and Greater Divination.

Many of the schools have the same oppositional schools as printed in the PHB. I added a school, so not all of them are the same, but enough do that it feels right.

Yes this makes it harder to add more schools, but I’ll upload that diagram soon.

Let me know what you think.

March 23, 2011

Wizards Part I

by John Payne — Categories: Electrum Pieces and OSR Project — Tags: , , , — Comments Off

I’m on a roll with consistent posts for the first time in a long time. With another project that is ongoing, I’m hoping to parlay my output here into output for it. Generally, once I start writing, I keep writing. I have the other project more outlined than the 2e project…

But I digress.

The one change that I plan to make (we’ll see how it playtests) is to change the schools of magic from opposition to more of an Wu Xing generation cycle. Instead of schools in opposition to each other, every school has one that can overpower it and another that it can overpower. Although the effects are more subtle than this, it would be like wizards of a given school having a +2 effect on wizards of one school and a -2 on wizards of another school.

The rationale for this is to allow GMs to easily add new schools of magic. With oppositional schools of magic, a GM can only add an even number of schools. Then he/she will have to determine how the new schools interact with the older ones. With a generation cycle, find a place to insert the new school and the GM’s work is done.

A minor rationale for this is ascetic. I think a nine-pointed star is more mystical than an asterisk. (This is a reference to the PHB). You can find them in a lot of places or use Gfig in The GIMP to generate one.

Finally, I may or may not add the school of time. It is quite tempting, but not because I want to define a chronomancer. I just like the spells that deal with time.

More soon, I hope. I am hoping that I can get a lot done on my other project.

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