LARA System Random Alien Generation Charts

Fill in your cantina with otherworldly strangeness. Just some notes I came up with for the LARA system or general alien whimsy while trying to concentrate on other things. Art by Peter Violini, used with permission for this post.

SIZE - STARFARER KOSMOS RANDOM ALIEN GENERATOR (1d6)
1. Tiny (Size of a House Cat or Smaller) - 1d6+6 HP
2. Small (Size of a dog or a child) - 1d6+8 HP
3. Medium (Size of an average human) - 1d6+10 HP
4. Large (Size of a hulking supersoldier or corpulent sluggy crimelord) - 1d6+12 HP
5. Huge (Size of a speed vehicle or mammoth) - 1d6+14 HP
6. Gigantic (Size of a small building or tyrannosaurus) - 1d6+20 HP

APPEARANCE - STARFARER KOSMOS RANDOM ALIEN GENERATOR (2d6)
2. Reptillian - Talent (4xp): Regeneration (After suffering a critical hit you regain your PHYS in HP once per scene)
3. Avian - Talent (4xp): Flutter (You can move vertically to scale buildings or vehicles by flapping your wings. You may roll 3d6 and keep the highest two when doing trying to get vertical)
4. Mineral - Talent (4xp): Rocky Hide (Once per scene you can shift your "flesh" to add your PHYS to your DEF until your next turn)
5. Aquatic - Talent (4xp): Swimmer (While in water you can move an additional number of spaces equal to your DEX.)
6. Mammalian - Talent (4xp): Hotblooded (While in a Cold environment you gain a +2 on any roll made to stay warm.)
7. Amphibian - Talent (4xp): Skinbreather (You can breathe through your skin on both water and on land, and you can roll PHYS if poisoned to try to secrete the toxin from your flesh.)
8. Mechanical - Talent (4xp): Mechanoid (You are immune to poison and mental influence, but you take a -1 on Social checks made to appeal to emotion rather than logic.)
9. Energy - Talent (4xp): Energized (Your HP and MP are one and the same, add the two sums together to determine your HP/MP combined total. You cast spells and take damage from the same source).
10. Insectoid - Talent (4xp): Buzzmind (Anyone trying to read your mind takes a -2 to any attacks on their next turn due to the insectoid buzzing of your brain.)
11. Parasitic - Talent (4xp): Lamprey (When you successfully make a Melee Attack, you gain 1 HP back. If you roll a Critical Success, you instead gain back 1d6 HP)
12. Plant/Fungus - Talent (4xp): Pheromones (Once per scene you may roll SOCIAL to send someone into a sneezing fit, or roll 3d6 on SOCIAL rolls and take the best two of the three dice).

BUILD - STARFARER KOSMOS RANDOM ALIEN GENERATOR (1d6)
1. Biped (Two legs, two arms; like a person)
2. Arachnid (six legs, two arms; like a spider)
3. Hoverer (Legs are likely atrophied because you can hover, if you have legs at all)
4. Quadruped (Four-legged/armed, like a dog or a lizard).
5. Centipede (Lots and lots of lil'legs)
6. Serpentine (Serpent-like body, likely still two arms for game purposes; works for slugs too).

NATIVE ENVIRONMENT - STARFARER KOSMOS RANDOM ALIEN GENERATOR (2d6)
2. Dead World (No more resources, maybe no more atmosphere, might be nuked to heck and back)
3. Desert (A desert world, big sand dunes, very very hot).
4. Arctic (A frozen world, big snow dunes, very very cold).
5. Badlands (A wasteland, little vegetation, but not a desert. Might be postapocalyptic wastes).
6. Jungle (Lots of moisture, trees, rain, and trees. Like an Amazon Rainforest world)
7. Forest (Lots of trees, not always a ton of moisture. Like a Canadian Wilderness world).
8. Grasslands (Endless fields of grass for nomads. Like a Mongolian World)
9. Ocean (A water world, or maybe just an ocean).
10. Urban (A big city world, where the city has taken hold of nature itself).
11. Swamp (A big nasty bog. Like just a terrible smelly Dagobah world).
12. Void (Space. You are from Space. Probably a space station or a derelict ship colony).

NATIVE CULTURE - STARFARER KOSMOS RANDOM ALIEN GENERATOR (2d6)
2. Pirate Culture (Thieves, Bandits, Brigands, and Criminals)
3. Warrior Culture (Honorable Warriors, Knights, Samurai, and Klingons)
4. Theocratic Culture (Worshippers of something superstitious.)
5. Tech-Worshipper Culture (Worshippers of technology and machines,)
6. Primitive Culture (Cavemen, Wookies, savage types.)
7. Supremacist Culture (The Imperium of Man, the First Order, Terran Empire.)
8. Cannibal Culture (They eat the weak, only the strong survive)
9. Merchant Culture (Everything has a price.)
10. Bureaucratic Culture (Everything has a proper place)
11. Fallen Ancient Culture (Everything was great once but that was awhile ago.)
12. Rebel Culture (We're gonna be great once we're in charge mentality.)

NAMES (Pronunciations) - STARFARER KOSMOS RANDOM ALIEN GENERATOR (d66)
11. Vorkian (Vor-key-in)
12. Lemballian (Lemm-bal-in)
13. Bozrak (Boz-rak)
14. Watabian (Wa-tabe-ian)
15. Avakki (Av-ak-ee)
16. Yuush (You-sh)
21. Therrosi (Thur-o-see)
22. Graf (Graff)
23. Holoca (Ho-lo-ka)
24. The Templar
25. Del Rago (Del Rah-Go)
26. Stenkrampl (Sten cram-pull)
31. Dnag Irb (Den-ag Erb)
32. Gorkel (Gore-kul)
33. Tuan (Too-N)
34. Adendo (A-den-do)
35. Riaga (Ri-guh)
36. Kaloum (Ka-loom)
41. Shesha (Ses-ha)
42. Uruli (Oo-rool-e)
43. The Inquisitors
44. Maj Iuk (Maaj Eye-Uck)
45. Rysaat (Rye-sott)
46. Lostaka (Lost-ah-kuh)
51. Qalquan (Kal-kwan)
52. Vishtago (Vish-taa-go)
53. Honoo (Who-new)
54. Ocois (Oh-swah)
54. The Firstborn
56. Haimao (Hey-mow)
61. Tarqin (Tar-kin)
62. Astrollian (Ast-roll-ian)
63. Karthian (Kar-th-en)
64. Ritzer (Rit-zur)
65. Smarn (Sma-rn)
66. The Light

UNIQUE ITEMS - STARFARER KOSMOS RANDOM ALIEN GENERATOR (2d6)
In case you wanted to give someone something cool for a cultural raid or to represent a hero of their species; consider these weird things.
2. Fearmaker - An ancient mask with a chem filter that exhibits Fear Gas on a verbal command. Anyone outside of a sealed suit or a gas mask needs to make a MENTAL check or become confused and terrified for 1d6 rounds.
3. Lazersaw - A white metal mechanical grip that powers up a brightly glowing orange chainsaw of light. It cuts through ice and metal like butter. Damage is doubled against machines, ships, rocks, or environments. Loses charge for 1d6 days on a Critical Failure.
4. Warglaive - The honorable tool of a warrior culture. If you make a formal challenge to your enemy while wielding this weapon, you may add your SOCIAL to Damage whenever you make a Critical Success.
5. Truthseeker - A mechanical implant that connects to ones heart and eyes. You may roll MENTAL rather than SOCIAL when trying to discern if someone is lying or portraying falsehoods with a +2 bonus.
6. Thunderfist - This gauntlet removes your ability to hold anything with one of your hands but in exchange it grants you an overcharge beam. You gain a single 1d6+3 Damage shot you can use once per scene, after which the gauntlet deals Unarmed Damage and cannot be removed until you're out of combat.
7. Taurian Blood - An injector of a terrible substance that grants you +2 to any one ability of your choice for one turn, but continued use turns you into an addict. If you are slain in combat while under the influence of Taurian Blood, you rise as a Taurian Zombie (a zombie that vomits up black blood and occasionally hulks out in insane ways).
8. Slagthrower - This gun shoots a mixture of tar, cement, and bitumen; slowing anyone it hits and making them flammeable. Anyone who is "Slagged" suffers a -1 DEF penalty, and +2 Damage if hit by fire.
9. Blaster-Skull - A skeletal implant that places an energy cannon in the back of your mouth. Wires and cords run under your skin and are visible on the back of your neck. Blaster-Skulls deal 2d6 damage to anyone they hit, but suffer 1d6 damage from the stress of use.
10. Shattergrip - A pair of mechanical gauntlets built for breaking bones, weapons, and armor. You deal 1d6+1 damage when attacking with Shattergrips, and you cannot be disarmed if you're holding anything with the Shattergrips. You cannot make fine manipulations while wearing the gauntlets (like typing or pulling the trigger of a small gun), but you can hold something like a bazooka without feeling any recoil.
11. Herbholster - A floating glass globe that can quickly adapt to hold any plant-life at its ideal conditions for harvesting.
12. Nanoneedler - This shotgun blasts out tiny crystal needles from a rare material source. Nanoneedlers have 1d6 ammo which is only expended upon a critical failure or a critical success when someone attacks the weapon. Nanoneedlers deal 1d6+1 damage and any electrical damage against the target does +2 damage.

Food for Savage Flower Kingdoms (Part 2/2)

Had a bit of pressure sickness yesterday, which gave me time to think of how to incentivize recipes better. They should be something you seek out a chef to learn from, something you travel from town to town to learn about (thus giving you a desire to travel and to also fight monsters in between). Learning a recipe makes enough food for everyone in the group (additional ingredients for each person give a +1 per person to the cooking roll with a max of +3), and recipes allow you to cook interesting things. A fumble is still a fumble, and we'll get to that below.

So.
Importantly!
Recipes all grant a +1d6 to any recovery attached to them.

These are proper and lovely meals, and when made correctly they are mighty fine.

If you fail a recipe you waste the materials but can still eat a "Misbegotten Meal" which gives you back 1 HP per ingredient added to it, but also a 1 in 6 chance per ingredient to make you sick.

Misbegotten Meal - Don't Eat It Unless Desperate

In terms of recipes, eating more than one serving of a recipe food does not stack any benefits beyond the healing! Eating a serving of this food counts as just that; a single serving, so you still need to eat a lot to become Bloated, but you gain a lot more back so it is less of a risk.

As for specific recipes, I've provided some below but really you should come up with your own stuff that fits the world you're working with. For me, I view SFK as being like if Toriyama worked on Dofus/Wakfu; a bright and colorful place with beautiful food, weird monsters, and where the two should meet: strange but magical gourmet creations.

Blue Buttered Noodles - TN 7
(Slime + Milk + Any Common or Uncommon Meat/Vegetation | 2HP/2MP, +1 Reduction from Poison for 1 Scene)

Stretched out slime cut into noodles. Slight bit of dairy buttering. Meat or Vegetables make for a heartier meal. True chefs make the meal look like a jellyfish wrapping up bits of meat. Popular in the criminal underworld due to how easy it is to make once you know what you're doing, and because it instills a bit of poison resistance; which is always a good thing to have when you spend time with criminals.

Brain Devourer Bar - TN 9
(Brains + Bean Powder + Slime + Sugary Spices| 3HP/3MP +1 Mental for 1 Scene)

A nutritious bar of dried brains, injected with slime and coated in bean powder to harden it. An easy to consume treat that is good for ones studies, but perhaps not to be eaten in the company of squeamish. True brain food. Those who dwell in the Darklands often make use of this project due to the habits of certain alien races there have in removing brains and just leaving them laying about.

Now in Candy Form.

Fried Firedrake - TN 11 (9 if you've made it successfully before)
(Dragon's Flesh + Grease + Oil + Breading | 6 HP, +1 Damage with Fire Spells, Can smell out Treasure and know its exact value for One Day)

Fried to a crispy golden brown, a favorite treat for successful dwarves who have recently slain a dragon and need to account for every last piece of gold in the reclaimed hoard. If you consume this too often your face will take on a shiny sheen and break out in red pimples. Dwarves have beards for a lotta reasons.

Bouillabaisse d'Banshee - TN 13
(Mandrake Screams + Nightmare Fuel + Dried Songbell + Big Fish | 6 MP, Next Spell Cast costs no XP and also adds your Social Score to the Damage)

A truly horrific dish, Bouillabaisse d'Banshee combines the hoarse screaming heads of decapitated Mandrake specimens, raw nightmare in liquid form, ground up songbell, and a big meaty fish to make a goopy bit of fish stew. Those who consume Bouillabaisse d'Banshee turn pale and their voice sounds horrific to anyone who hears them speak (-1 Social until a spell is cast or 1d6 days, whichever happens first). When a spell is cast by one who has consumed this vile stew, the words that conjure the spell into being spew out of the casters mouth and turn the spell into a dark and corrupt looking blast of energy.

The Red Sultan's Curry - TN 13
(Emperor's Rice + Dragon's Flesh + Demon's Heart + Hot Spices + Djiinimotes | Full MP, Fire Spells deal +2 MP and cost -2 MP to cast for a day. You grow horns and can speak to fire itself to know who started it and for what purpose. May reroll 1 roll this session.)

A decadent plate of golden and mystic race, topped with seared flesh from a dragon, diced up heart from a demon, and coated in spices both mystical and too hot for mortal consumption. Not for the weak of heart and generally only consumed in the Realm of Fire by the Efreeti Sultan and his royal harem.

But with more fantasy and amazement.

Closing Notes
I might make more of these from time to time just because they're cute. But right now I gotta make some maps for a game this Thursday. Just finished writing a 33 page manuscript for a client, so I've had a pretty busy day. Doesn't help that it is so damn hot out. Happy Summer Solstice though.

Food for Savage Flower Kingdom (Free RPG Day post, 1/2)

Talkin' bout the good delicious stuff.

I like the LARA System used in Savage Flower Kingdom and I like Dungeon Meshi. I also like most games where you can cook, even World of Warcraft had the good sense to make cooking sound interesting even if you’re just making the same basic regen items. There is a difference between eating Spider-Leg Fritters and Beer-Basted Boar Ribs, and as an adventurer one should certainly seem more appealing than the other.

Given SFK’s sort of Toriyama-inspired monsters, I feel playing into the anime trope of how often the party seems to be starving is also important. By making cooking (which in SFK has some presence anyway) a more fulfilling option, it helps give the world some more immersion as well as play into the pitch which directly states that the enemies of this world want to make you dessert.

First things first!

Everyone can cook, but not everyone can cook well. Cooking is a TN 7 to just sear or stew some things together. If you are out in the field, things are still going to require a roll because burning the salamander-kabobs you desperately need is part and parcel with any other resource risk in adventuring. But in town, when you have a kitchen, you can sear or stew stuff without issue (still roll to see if you Fumble up some purple gunk or Critically make a gourmet soup).

Recipes have TNs, like spells. Failing a roll to cook wastes the resources. Cooking a recipe in town, in a kitchen proper, grants a +1 bonus to the roll. You can always screw up a recipe.

Next!
There are two skills that need to be amended.

Chef – As a skill, Chefs reduce the TN of any Cooking rolls by 2 (effectively lowering cooking by one degree of difficulty). A chef is a trained cook, they’re used to whipping things up even in the field. You want a chef in your party because they’re far less likely to burn that food you so desperately need. Chefs can also make a TN 9 Mental test to know the benefit of an ingredient (TN 11 for anyone else).

Make a Sandwich! – The maid class reserved skill is interesting and part of the reason why this is being written up at all. But, rather than removing an important skill from them let’s give them a new one to replace this.

New: Made With Love – When a Maid cooks they may spend 1 HP to add their Social Attribute to the HP/MP recovery to the food they’ve cooked. Only the Master of the Maid gains this bonus, or anyone the master specifically appoints the Maid to cook for. 

So now that everyone can cook, the Maid can make cooking –great- but really only for another character in the party or someone that other character says deserves such great food. Getting a nice meal cooked by the cute maid rather than by the greasy dwarf certainly makes a social impression. Helps keep some of the flavor of the class. 

What Happens When You Eat?

Well, both good and bad things. Most notably you recover HP and MP. If you eat something that is barely cooked or just raw you get a flat HP/MP amount back. Combined with a good night’s rest under the stars and you’ll be a bit less worse for wear come tomorrow.

But, if you eat well; then some good things happen. If you eat a cooked meal and it recovers your HP in full you are Well Fed, which gives you a +1 bonus you can add to any single roll in the following scene. You’re feeling great, you’ve eaten well, and nothing bad is happening.

Now let’s say it is a cold and nasty day and you’ve spent most of it out fighting goblins. Luckily the cute maid and the greasy dwarf have enough ingredients to make a fine soup. This soup gives you a Warm Belly, which lowers the TN level to resist the cold/chills/sickness for the scene. A nice hot meal does wonders for morale and for shaking off the nasties.

Of course this could also apply to a blistering day in the wastelands or the deep deep jungle where the humidity is thick enough to drown you in the face. So your party prepares something satiating and cool, which leaves you feeling Refreshed, which lowers the TN level to resist heat/exhaustion for the scene. Sure it might be awkward to suck down a coconut shake with a little umbrella in it while you walk the dunes, but it sure makes you feel better.

But there are downsides. You can only eat a number of food items equal to your Physical rating before things take a turn. Sure you might need to gorge yourself to heal up your HP to full, but the consequence of this is being Bloated. Your guts hurt, you feel all loagy and tired. You also can’t add your Physical score to your Initiative roll because you’re over-stuffed, and if you roll a fumble in a social situation you’ll probably have to pay for someone’s drycleaning.

Eating a hot meal in a hot place is going to increase the TN to resist heat exhaustion, and having a cold meal in a cold place is going to increase the TN to avoid cold, the chills, or sickness. So don’t eat ice cream when you’re scaling a frozen mountain peak and don’t try “throat-thrashin’ chili” when you’re in the middle of a barren wasteland. Common sense.

How does this effect recovery?

Characters recover 1 HP/MP per night, assuming they rest. If you go more than three days without eating, you lose 1 HP/MP per day; so assuming you still rest things remain the same. Sleeping in an inn grants +1d6 HP/MP back per Gold spent.

Eating food that is barely cooked or uncooked gives you back a flat amount (usually 1 or 2 HP/MP) and you don’t get to enjoy any benefit the food might otherwise give. Given that you’re eating it raw and it doesn’t give a lot back you might have to eat a lot and risk being bloated.

But if you cook; you add the HP amounts of the flat ingredients together. If you combine at least three ingredients together or make something off a recipe, eating it makes you Well Fed. Cooked food (without a recipe) grants you one bonus from the ingredients; whichever is strongest. Cooked recipe food grants you two bonuses. You can eat cooked food made up of multiple ingredients and have it count only as 1 item when counted for the purposes of being bloated. There’s a difference between having hearty soup and eating three pounds of acorns.

Ingredients
Common ingredients can be picked up in almost any town or foraged for. They should be cheap but useful in making better recipes or more fulfilling foods.

Uncommon ingredients can be found in large cities, weird wizard places, remote and tiny towns far away from the main roads, or in a dungeon. They cost a few gold and might be awkward to cart around and keep fresh.

Rare ingredients are -rare-, hard to come by, or very expensive. They are treated sort of like loot, in that they are an additional bonus item the players should be happy to receive. Slaying the Dragon doesn't just mean looting his hoard, it means you have a lot of fresh meat that can help you sense any treasure he might've hidden elsewhere in the lair. 

Meats

Common Meats (All Heal 1 HP, 1 in 6 chance of making you sick if eaten raw)
Small Fish, Mussels, Oysters, Ham, Hare, Chicken, Beef, Eggs.
Uncommon Meats (All Heal 2 HP if cooked, 1 HP if raw).
Big Fish, Shellfish, Tentacle, Boar Meat, Bat, Snake, Scorpions, Snails, Tongue, Salamanders, Lizards.
Rare Meats (Heal 2 HP but must be cooked for benefits):
Dragon’s Flesh - Fire Spells do +1 Damage, Can Smell Treasure.
Demon Hearts - +1d6 MP for one scene but you grow horns.
Beast Meat - +1d6 HP Recovery and +1 to Track by Smell.
Brains - +1 Mental Attribute for one scene.
Ambrosia - +1d6 MP for one scene, but you shine with heavenly lights.

Kraken’s Tongue - +1 Damage when fighting unarmed, and can talk to fish for one scene.

Vegetation

Common Vegetation (All Heal 1 MP)
Peas, Carrots, Cabbage, Onion, Beans, Potatoes, Field Mushroom, Apple, Melon, Orange, Cherries, Berries, Turnip, Radish.

Uncommon Vegetation (All Heal 2 MP if cooked, 1 MP if raw.)

Cave Mushroom, Cave Tuber, Lemon, Lime, Banana, Mango, Sunfruit, Moonberry, Angelfruit, Pomegranite, Trollswort Mushroom, Puffball.

Rare Vegetation (All Heal 3 MP but must be cooked for benefits):
Myconid Slice – +1d6 HP/MP Recovery, 1d6 field mushrooms grow on your body over the next week.

Mandrake Screams – May cast your next spell without MP cost, but lose your voice for one scene.

Audrian Meatplant – +2d6 HP recovery but you reek of raw meat. Flies are attracted to you.

Harvest Fruit - +1 HP recovery from rest for one week.

Snowplum – Halve fire damage for one scene, but anything you touch gets slick with ice and your clothing/weapons stick to you with frost.

Liquids
Common Liquids (All Heal 1 HP or 1 MP, imbiber’s choice.)

Water, Milk, Juice, Tea, Grease, Beer, Wine.
Uncommon Liquids (All Heal 2 HP or 2 MP, or 1 HP/MP; imbiber’s choice.)

Slime, Oil, Honey, Mineral Water, Rum, Ale, Syrup.
Rare Liquids (All Heal 3HP or 3 MP, or 2HP/MP and 1HP/MP.)
Liquid Courage – Inebriates completely, makes you immune to Fear until you sober up.
Gold Slime – Makes the user appear to be gold (along with anything the liquid touches).
Royal Jelly – TN 9 Social roll to control insects when imbibed.

Valkyrie’s Mead – Can see ghosts and tell if a weapon or person has killed within the past week.

Goblin Punch - +1 Damage when fighting Goblins, +1 Social when treating with goblins, makes you sound like a goblin, makes you smell like a goblin.

Grains

Common Grains (All Heal 1 HP)

Wheat, Whey, Acorns, Breading, Barley, Oats, Wood, Bean Powder, Millet.
Uncommon Grains (All Heal 2 HP)
Mixed Nuts, Roasted Grain, Black Rice, White Rice, Fancy Grain.

Uncommon Grains (All Heal 2 HP)

Grains - Wheat, Nuts, Breading, Barley, Oats, Wood, Bean Powder.

Rare Grains (All Heal 2 HP, must be cooked for benefits).

Emperor’s Rice – Grants one free reroll for the session it was consumed in.

Elemental Seed – You gain Damage Reduction 2 against elemental (Fire/Water/Ice/Wind/Earth) damage for one day.

Pureseed – Purifies the consumer of any influences, poisons, or diseases.

Enigma Grain – Consumer may make TN 9 Mental/Social rolls to confuse enemies for one day.

Dried Songbell – Consumer gains a beautiful singing voice and +2 on Social rolls made to romance, sing, or perform for one day.

Additional Materials

These items are needed to cook certain things but are not otherwise things you can eat. Just spitballing some examples:

Sugary Spices – A blend of cane sugar, cinnamon, and ground up mint. It makes anything taste amazing.
Autumnal Herbs – A blend of mint, pumpkin spices, cinnamon, and syrup. It makes you feel like spending time with family.
Soothing Spices – Calming spices, aloe and acai roots, some mint spring and dandelion. Calms the savage and beastly.
Bitter Spices – Horseradish, radish-horse hooves, a bittering soil, and some powder that makes your face curl inwards.
Hot Spices – Every kind of pepper known to man and six known only to dwarves, ground up and made to burn.
Northern Spices – Spices from the deep north, made from everfrost sugar yams and Viking herbs ground to a powder.
Aged Spices – A combination of spices used to make aged ingredients taste of a vintage pedigree.

Lovely Memories – Memories of romance gone by, nostalgic childhood dreams, and safer times.

Dreamfluff – Fluffy cloud-like puffs that makes you feel like anything is possible.

Nightmare Fuel – A horrific green and black bile that will keep you awake for days on end.

Cosmic Stardust – From a place beyond the world, it makes anything it touches glitter.

Djinnmotes – The leftover puffs of a genie that lingers where their magic has touched.

Tomorrow

Recipes, likely. Have a few down, but the day got away from me. Relatives visited and dogs needed walking. 

Fluff out some things for this, help better denote what rare ingredients look like and where they come from.

Does it all look a bit complicated? Eh, maybe a little. Ultimately it comes down to basic addition and with recipes, maybe a set static bonus. More of an issue of lists, but I like lists. Will eventually put this and the next part in a proper pdf with formatting for use; this right here is just thought processing and putting it to paper. 

Here's hoping I can devote more time to RPG stuff. I run two games, write two comics, and do manual labor most days.  Free time is hard to come by properly.

Aww yeah, vegetables.

Mass Effect D6 NPCs

Back in 2012 I ran a Mass Effect game, which if I recall correctly had really only one great session to it, but fuck it was a good session. Party ended up getting forced to join Eclipse on Omega after washing out of the Alliance military while on shoreleave (they majorly fucked shit up). Whole thing was a spot of fun. Some fist-fights, some violence, a lot of gambling and smut and sleaze.

Good times.

For one I can really see how I've improved as a GM in 3 years, even if I've been running shit since 2000. I'm only 24. That's some good time spent doing this stuff. Also can really see how my buddy Pete's evolved as an artist in the 6 years I've known him.

Anyway! There's a Mass Effect D6 game floating around out there. And here are some NPCs/Baddies from a campaign that never got off the ground!

--------

Vazzha aka Mr. Bliss is an infamous Quarian scoundrel who runs a series of cons throughout Council-Space, mostly getting himself entangled in high stakes heists and white collar crime. He considers himself to be a patriot of the highest order to the Migrant Fleet, though he speaks of other Quarians as though they are petty rabble and scum waiting to mug you in private. Due to his more high society look, elegant manner of speech, and kind nature, Vazzha has managed to carve out an estate for himself on Berkenstein.

His code name of Mr. Bliss comes from an ill-attempt to appear as a human in high-tech armor early in his career. He still rather likes the handle and uses it during online transactions. His major goal is to purchase himself a lovely space station for his own nefarious greedy purposes.

Rak-12 is an unfortunate creature, something the kooks on Omega whipped together in the hopes of creating a more easily controlled Vorcha. Pack enough chemical anti-psychotics and eugenics into a few generations of easily executed xenovermin homonids and eventually you'll get something worth your while. Rak-12 is calculating, utterly intelligent, and a junkie for a number of chemicals he needs to stabilize his species anger issues. He can speak articulately, and he knows he's been used; and he knows his offspring would be able to carry on his superior genes. If Rak-12 gets off Omega, intelligent and tactical Vorcha might become a new cosmic norm and that is a horrifying prospect.

Bonoui - A Drell sniper, saved from the homeworld by way of being a political prisoner in need of prosecution. Turian justice saw his vocal chords split and shredded, the exact reasons why lost into the minutia of the justice system. Formally a poet, Bonoui fell in with mercenary work out of anger and desperation once he lost his voice. This has led to him operating a one man genocidal campaign against the Turian race, with him acting as a suspect in at least three assassinations which led to race riots between Turian and other species.

Bonoui lives the life of minimalism, operating out of various bolt-hole hotels. He carries a copy of his old works, a violin, and an award he won back when times were good. He is known on Omega but mainly be the prostitution circle. He throttled a Turian hooker to death when she mentioned her homeworld to him.

"The Operative" - an Elcor female who was created by their government to deal with situations privately and appropriatly. Encased in thick assault armor and run through with suppressant chemicals, the Operative is not held back by the thought and careful consideration her species is known for. Her eyes are inscrutable, cold and dead and absorbing every detail as though they were coming at her like a mile a minute.

Given her mass, her chemical dependency and her augmented armor, the Operative moves much swift than any Elcor ought to. Her only known public incident involved bashing a Krogan to death on the Citadel after some trouble at an Embassy. Most of the finer details have been redacted. The Operative does not specify her emotion when she speaks, she simply says a few words without tone.

Bajnathi-Clan - A Volus Seperatist movement in the Terminus System who have money and power enough to back up their crimes, namely bioforming worlds to suit them despite already hosting colonies of other races. The Bajnathi-Clan are Volus supremacists who believe they posess a divine mandate to expand and rule the worlds they view. They willfully skirt anti-AI laws in order to make use of drones and mechs that serve them as their personal army. Dirty bombs and chemical weapons are the order of the day for the Bajnathi-Clan, and while the Council has run a good media campaign to paint them as little more than a minor faction they are fully aware of the very real threat they represent to the fringe worlds.

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Man, I totally forgot Mass Effect Lore post the second game. I played the third and was really bothered by it. Mass Effect: Andromeda looks like it'll be meh at best. Ah well, that's Bioware for you now. You'll like a small fraction of what they put out there.

Also still moving, tomorrow. My mind is all over the place.

petarvee.tumblr.com - art buddy. If you think these were okay, or even bad, check out his link. This is old stuff, his new stuff is lovely.

Nentir Vale #1: As I think while moving.

Hello my long abused and abandoned blog. Today you're getting some attention, primarily because I can't post you anywhere else and frankly you deserve to get some goodness in this world. So what's going up here are some notes, for a potential 5e campaign I want to run in the Nentir Vale of 4e D&D.

Why that? Because if you are willing to scour through 100+ Dungeon and Dragon magazines, you can find some really cool setting lore that if presented in a different light; is actually fucking awesome. 4e D&D suffered heavily under how it presented things, but the Nentir Vale had just enough info about it to make it a decent sandbox to play in.

Things to rip off for the campaign: Over the Wall's encounter packages and countdown clocks for the various factions. Old School sensibilities. 2e and 3e-3.5e levels of monster lore; provided you're willing to do the research. Simon Swermer is the soundtrack. https://soundcloud.com/simonswerwer

How I want to see the Nentir Vale? As the wild west fallen on hard times. Imagine if the East went silent during Westward Expansion. That's the Nentir Vale. Except the Empire it was part of was pretty much Rome, and thus the Nentir Vale is a nice combination of Roman and Russian designs and motifs. Men and women wear heavy fur-lined toga and stola respectively, patterned with  Dwarven motifs the closer you get to their ancient mountain holds. Their language an food habits are Slovenian and Slavic rather than purely Punic; though that's the height of fashion if you have it.

Humans exist in spades, they're the race that runs this shit. They are tribal, each village has a rivalry with another but all come together to celebrate the annual owlbear hunt. Hunting culture is the sport of heroes and every Nentirite thinks himself a hero too tied to his land to make himself a legend. Dogs are man's best friend, but they are strictly for family protection; to teach a dog to hunt is to let the Lord of Beasts into the animal's heart. Gnolls under the sway of Yeenoghu laid waste to Nerath, the Old Empire. Nentir citizens fear gnolls coming up from the south to take slaves and sack cities. Rumor has it the Capital is still occupied by the horde a hundred years later, and nobody up here wants to risk confirming that.

The Dwarves of the Dawnforge Mountains are isolationist and cruel in their judgments. They are not welcome in the land proper, they shut their gates on humanity during the Bloodspear Purges. They are the most pious of their kind and look down on any outlander dwarf who come to pay homage at the World Forge beneath their holds. Clerics of Moradin who are not natives here are assumed heretics.

Elves are firmly denizens of the realm of Fey. They cannot hold iron without losing their sense of touch and hearing; all becomes numb save for pain. Elves are broken into seasons based on their age, and they do not dwell in the realm of Man. An Elf could be 4 as much as he could be 4000, he lives in all Springs concurrently until he lives in Summer, Autumn, and Winter. Elves in the mortal world slowly but surely lose their ties to the realm of Fey and their season become pronounced. An Elf changes seasons with the world of Man, in the realm of Fey he must change houses or make a bargain to change. No Elf is new at being an Elf, though he might not remember being of a previous season unless the shift was in the Realm of Man.

People find Elves confusing but beautiful, though rarely are they seen.

Halflings aren't native up here, and while I have a warm spot for hobbits; they don't belong here.

Tieflings exist, but you can't play one unless you want to roll on a chart.

Dragonborn are from across the sea and they're a lot nastier and unpleasant than usual. If you run into one, he's in service to something you don't want to deal with.

Gnomes wear pointed hats (all Gnomes consider it part of their uniform), and the can wildshape into a very ugly turkey/guinea fowl/chicken at will. It can't fly, it can speak to other forest creatures, and it loses this ability if its hat is removed. Gnomes are at war with Goblins (a hodgepodge of nasty fey backwater genetics) and Kobolds (dog-men with burrowing lizard features; Gnomes who gave their hats and cloaks to the King of Greed, Kurtulmak). Gnomes are associated with Autumn, and no Gnome has ever been Spring or Summer; though a few old old Gnomes claim to be in Winter. Elves dislike this stability, Humans don't much understand it but  they consider Gnomes good luck.

Orcs are a scourge upon the world, a living leprosy, corruption given form. Orcs manifest from black boiling bile that leaked from the eye of Gruumsh when it was plucked out at the Dawn of Time. Orcs hear the thrumming of his great black heart and march to it as though it were a drum beat. Orcs corrupt the world around them, and Goblins appreciate and love this and often serve the Orcs. A Half-Orc is made, not born; the vestiges of a man who fell to the Orcs and suffered torture and torment because he gave in to the evil Orcs bring out of men. Orcs are rotting and pig-headed, Half-orcs are lepers with a mark of Orcishness about them; most wear masks and heavy robes. Half-Orcs are rare and shat upon for fear they'll corrupt others to the road of Evil with a capital E. They cannot do that. To become a Half-Orc means to secede free will for the sake of Evil and victory.

Lake Nen is now the Sea of Nen, which extends north to the edge of the world.

Alignments are Cosmic. You are unaligned unless you swear yourself to something. Paladins swear themselves to Good (not Lawful Good, or good), Orcs are a product of Evil. One cannot swear themselves to Chaos, they must become entropy itself for that to happen. One does not swear oneself to Law lightly, as it is an oath ironclad and can only be made at great proof of submission.

All creatures of Good can understand one another on some level, as can all creatures of Evil; if they so choose. To lose oneself and fall from Good to unaligned is at a cost of great sin (and sins of omission/weakness/sloth); to lose oneself from Good to Evil requires absolute devotion to darkness at the cost of all that made you Good. You do not come back from that.

All I got so far in my brain. Busy packing up to move down town. 8 boxes of heavy ass books, only a briefcase of clothing. I got my priorities in order.