Efreet emissaries

On the coasts of the Sea of Burning Sand lies a city ruled by a council of mysterious men. They are known as the Emissaries, and they secretly work for the City of Brass on the plane of fire. As their efreet lords cannot easily enter the material plane in sufficient numbers to conquer it, they have created their own breed of lawful evil humanoids by magically mixing devil and human stock.

These emissaries of the efreet are exceptional diplomats due to their infernal blood, and most have some talent in simple sorcery. Most of their talents lie outside of combat, however, and they prefer to conquer cities with their silver tongues rather than their swords. While they have some resistance to fire, the efreet do not allow the emissaries to grow too powerful lest they decide to invade the plane of fire next. The emissaries are easily identified from their stubby horns and the stripped brass half-plate that has been branded permanently to their arms and breast. All emissaries radiate an aura of law and evil.

Quick Pathfinder stats for a typical emissary:

Dark Sorcery PDF

I have finally finished the new and streamlined and shiny version of Dark Sorcery rules. They are for now in condensed pocketmod format, but I will probably create other versions as well when I have the time. I really think this new version is a lot more robust and extendable than the other abominations I have created but only time will tell.

Get Dark Sorcery Pocketmod version!

Faux-Persian mini-skirmish thing

Going through my archives I found this little skirmish type of rules-skeleton that I think was inspired by Dungeons of Dredmor of all things.
These rules have holes I'm sure and are pretty raw, but I think the idea of only rolling if you dodge, block or counter an attack instead of rolling if you hit is pretty cool. Cover/concealment could be implemented with a 'miss-chance' type of thing. Also I think the health system is redundant. Maybe only for larger monsters/heroes? The weapon categories can be combined, I think, so that you can be armored and have a shield and light weapon or unarmored with a heavy spear.

But yeah, bare-bones, as I found it, rules for Persian combat:

Smooth Criminal = Bard ?

So I was watching the music video for Smooth Criminal by Michael Jackson the other day, and I started thinking that this is what bards really should be like. Then I started thinking how you would go about turning MJ into a D&D bard.
Perform(Dance) is a given. Most of the effects in the film fit the bard spell list or perform abilities with some minor wrangling.

The Black Wheel Casino

Samael Black is the owner of the Black Wheel casino and a minor demigod of (mis)fortune. He is Neutral Evil, and uses his powers to alter the chances of players so that he comes out with the biggest profits possible but so that there's always at least one person with a magical winning streak. After all, it's excellent marketing. He can also use his powers for the good of other people. For a price, of course.

Black's powers as an aspect of luck allow him to re-roll dice for any action done in his presence. This includes all actual dice or drawn cards in the game world as well. However, the second roll once rolled has to be accepted and cannot be re-rolled.

Kill it with fire!

Holy hell my update schedule has been dead lately. Sorry about that.

Sometimes mundane weapons are not enough. Sometimes you have to kill it with fire! Some methods of dispensing fiery death follow:

Emergent Backstory

So we're back in business after the unannounced, overlong christmas hiatus. I've been doing some serious game development during this down-time, however. Though I don't like to publish anything until it's final, so I don't have to grimace as I look at my previous posts.

Anyway, on to the topic at hand. I've been thinking of a new mechanic for creating backstory during the gameplay itself. Basically, every time your character fails a sanity roll (or equivalent) and thus gains a point of insanity the player must narrate a small detail/vignette/flashback of backstory that explains why the event affects him specifically. Maybe he's seen the alien diagram before, in his father's basement or the dead taxi driver reminds him of the murders he investigated in Paris twenty years ago or something.

Now, the main problem here is that in some games, sanity loss is much, much more common than in my design. Also, it could prove problematic if the player's narration doesn't fit the GM's plans. Though you could argue that a specific type of horror/weird gameplay doesn't need to have a coherent plot or timeline.

Also, it seems my use of the label system is woefully inadequate and really weird so I might rethink it.