Blackwood: This Wasn't Always Our Shape

 Whether they're the playthings of fey that got away, vicious seductresses who fall in love, immortal tricksters, or men becoming beasts to hunt/fight better; animals transforming into people and people transforming into animals run deep in folklore around the world. They echo in modern media with films like Green Snake, Sorcerer and the White Snake, and Brave.

Here's transformed animals for the Blackwood's elf haunted wilds for Errant Deeds (Forged in the Dark) and the OG Savage Worlds setting. I'm calling them Shapestrong to avoid "skin walker" and other loaded terms.

SHAPESTRONG FOR ERRANT DEEDS:
If you select Shapestrong as your culture, then choose an animal for your ancestry. You can briefly manifest that animal's qualities in exchange for Stress.

0-STRESS - Minor abilities that don't directly impact the game in a significant way. Example: Follow tracks using keen sense of smell (dog). Adopting a surefooted stance on a narrow ledge (goat). Subsisting on spoiled food with your iron gullet (pig).

1-STRESS - Abilities that are temporary and require concentration or exertion to summon.
Example: Manifesting a scaled hide to resist a crushing blow (snake). Rapidly regrowing teeth as you gnaw through rope and steel wire restraining you (rabbit). Sprout a prehensile tail for a third hand swing through the branches (monkey).

2-STRESS - Abilities beyond the ken of man. If it only allows you to take an action, roll an additional die or increase the effect.
Example: Plow through a solid wall (ox). Shout across a city (rooster). Slip through a narrow crack (rat).

These are reskinned xenos abilities from the excellent game, Scum & Villainy.

SHAPESTRONG FOR SAVAGE WORLDS:
If you select Shapestrong as your culture, then choose an animal for your ancestry.

My Other Skin Is A... - Spend a Benny to temporarily gain an Edge (you must meet the requirements) or 3 points of Racial Abilities that reflects your animal ancestry. It lasts for a scene.

Example: Screw your courage to the sticking place and facedown an elf with the Brave Edge (tiger). Run incredibly fast for a time with the Fleet Footed Edge (horse). Dash up the surface of the sorcerer's tower with Wall Walker while sprouting Claws (dragon).

Hello My Fellow People - Shapestrong are acutely aware of their heritage and how that agitates  superstitious folk. To compensate they adopt an annoying behavior to blend in. Because people are annoying. Treat this as the Habit (Minor) Hindrance.


The 7 Errants are a fellowship of heroic martial artists and wanderers for Eli Kurtz' Blackwood setting - a mash-up of Wuxia action and frontier fairy tales. You can find the book for sale here and a free quick start bundle here. 

Mixed Bag

 

****Quick Update****

Bad News: I haven't been actively blogging since mid-January because I lost my job and for the past two months my computer has solely existed to submit job applications. That hasn't changed, I'm still looking. You can ease my financial stresses by buying the Monster of the week Tome of Mysteries out in May. You can read about it here and buy it wherever RPG products are sold.

Good News: The Monster of the Week Tome of Mysteries is being published! It's out in May!
I've already mentioned two-three times in this blog post but it's still kinda unreal to me. It's pretty cool. I'll also start blogging again with regularity, Google+'s absence will be felt.
I'll probably post something about that.

tl;dr: I'm not dead, just sidelined. But I contributed to a book coming out in May. You can learn more about it here.

TORG: No Place Like Home

With Torg Eternity's release, Tharkold is my favorite cosm. This mash-up of Terminator, Dark City, and Hellraiser is even more interesting because the savage frontier of the Blasted Land is on its doorstep. I want it to be more Stalker/Roadside Picnic than Mad Max. 
Here's my first step towards making that happen. Because everyone needs a cool home base. 

With the Federation allied with the Reality Raiders, everyday Russian life adopts levels of scrutiny and suspicion rivaling the Cold War. The cities close off as the military seizes transit ways while fleets of surveillance drones scour the countryside. Outside the Wolf's piercing gaze, the Blasted Land is an Ostern dream. The rugged mix of taiga and arid waste awash in  nano-weirdness makes surviving here a rough proposition. Even if insurgency is the best/only way to oppose Tharkold without sparking World War 3. To operate in the Blasted Land, you need an outpost.
First you pick 3-5 features, followed by 2 internal conflicts, and 2 external threats.

Simeon Todorov

Features (pick 3-5)- an abandoned prison, shanties, crude farming, all these pigeons, tunnels into underground vaults, moldy tarps and re-purposed plastics collecting rainwater, feral kids, trailer park chemistry lab, wrecked automobiles or airplanes, rail yard with a working yard goat, Orthodox church sanctuary, heavy industrial remains, eerie totems and graffiti, glowing algae, bustling marketplace, motor pool worth bragging, a fine coating of rust, a well-stocked infirmary, a rickety still made from a radiator, alien flora in bloom, sophisticated armory, an autofactory running on fumes, a library with mixed knowledge, a high frequency radio antennae, exercise bike generator, at a crossroads, so much barbed wire, watch towers with good sightlines

Conflicts (choose 2)- squalid conditions breed sickness, you owe protection tribute, there isn't enough work to go around, scant weaponry, you're a bunch of jackals, too many mouths to feed, potable water is scarce, there aren't very many of you, you provide protection to other outposts, plans of action, faith traditions or lack thereof, psychic privacy, people come and go as they please, your technology is finicky and fragile, the desperate escape with a needle

Threats (choose 2)- two Tharkoldu prides fighting over territory, a labour of bear-sized moles, "Krokodil" a predatory trader, psychic raiders threatening your food and secrets, man-eating anomalies triggered by iron, packs of pangolin scaled wolves, deniable military personnel, gray goo breaking down organic matter, a borganism calling themselves "Zmei", Koschie necrotechnicians were drawn by a recent battle, a recently seeded gospog farm, cenobites worshiping the Blast, weird weather like skyquakes and acid rain, a squad of "Laika" Retrievers stalk the area, cracks in Reality's sidewalk

Fallout 4's Pilgrim mod

On Top of Mt. Shasta: The Goblin Market

The Goblin Market - Getting lost's an easy thing in the Park, finding is often the hard part. Plenty of treasure hunters and mystics have wandered off the beaten path surrounding the mountain. Never to be seen again. Most become ensnared in the Goblin Market's wheeling and dealing. Squirreled away in the rough country, you can find vagrant tent cities intermingled with market stalls and vendors hawking a range of goods. Some human, some not. All are welcome to barter in the Goblin Markets. Just remember that money doesn't spend here. They're interested in baubles and ephemera, refusal gets the Gobbomeister Flim-Flam involved.
And nobody wants that.

Goal: They want more people to come to the park. Some to trade, some to lose.
Move: Constituents of the Goblin Market may take Sticky Bandit as an advancement.
Sticky Bandit - When you turn out your pockets looking for something, roll +Sharp. On a 10+ then you have what you need. On 7-9, you have something that's not quite close enough. On a miss, you had it but someone stole it from you.
Leader: Flim-Flam - At the intersection of snake oil and used cars salesmen, you'll find Flim-Flam. His loud suits and greasy hair camouflage his Otherworldliness, something he'd rather not discuss. The greedy goblin has grown fat and happy with the Underdim Compact and maintains it as best he can. If the Mole King wants a girl with green eyes, then that's what Ualichu gets.

Like this but WAY more flea market.

On Top of Mt. Shasta: The Wireless Church

The Wireless Church- Settled by Italian immigrants in 1905, the city of Mt. Shasta was fertile ground for fringe beliefs and folk traditions. Later this century the New Age Movement declared Mt. Shasta a sacred mountain, a lodestone of spiritual energy, or a refuge of lost Atlantean civilization. The Wireless Church is a culmination of all these beliefs and more. Claiming lineage from the benandanti and guidance from Saint Clare of Assisi, patron saint of television. They espouse the belief that the soul is an eternal part of the electromagnetic spectrum. That when you die, you're dispersed into the ionosphere and have a unique frequency. With proper diet and prayer, you can tune into the Saints and maybe even the voice of God. For a faith movement so heavily predicated on communication through the ages, they are heavily invested in human cloning, President Clinton's ban on 3/4/1997 has thrown leadership into a tailspin.

Move: Members of the Wireless Church may take the move Divine Protection as an advancement.

Divine Protection - The Saints grant you 1-armor, impenetrable. If you wear armor  use that instead.
Goal: They seek the lost Refuge the Saints say is in the park, so they can shelter against the turning of the millennium.

On Top of Mt. Shasta: The Groundskeepers

Groundskeepers - You won't find park rangers friendlier than those working at Mt. Shasta State Park. Under the keen supervision of Chief Ranger Carson Ranger, the park's volunteer and professional staff have become the envy of the National Park Service. The saccharine shell of smiling faces and ever helpfulness hide a secret. Several of the park rangers formed a druid cult around the"Stareek." Following its guidance they plant juniper saplings around the park and on neighboring properties. In exchange they have purpose and command over the park's wildlife. Park Lieutenant Rodney Womack is the self-appointed leader. A sprig of juniper in his hatband.
Goal: They want to expand the boundaries of the park. By any means.
Move: A Groundskeeper Initiate can take the move Wild Tongue as an advancement.
Wild Tongue - You can speak and understand the speech of animals. You may also issue simple one word commands and they obey the best they can.
Leader: Park Lieutenant Rodney Womack - A once athletic guy, now gone to seed. Park Policeman Womack crawled inside the bottle after his divorce. Since communing with the Stareek, his life has found new purpose. No one will take it away from him.

On Top of Mt Shasta: Shaggymen MC

Shaggymen M.C. - Founded in 1972, the Shaggymen drew mostly from the reclusive Sasquatch community in Northern California. Originally a way to hide in plain sight, the idea caught on and other Bigfoot communities across North America started their own chapters. The world has shrunk over the last 25 years and Shaggymen M.C. feels the crunch as the open road becomes the big empty. Peanut, the Shasta Chapter's sky pilot, experienced a spiritual revelation that Mt. Shasta is the paradise for all Bigfoot and it's their Manifest Destiny to seize the park.
Goal: They want to take over the park for all Bigfoot kind.
Move: If you're a sasquatch then you may take One Man Gang as an advancement.
One Man Gang - You count as a small gang when you Kick Some Ass
Leader: Rubble - An enormous Sasquatch standing a bit over 8 feet. His intense gaze draws the eye away from his piebald appearance. Swathes of his fur were burned away in a fight with a rival Bigfoot M.C. - The Mountain Devils.

BONSAI

LONG BIT

Drifting through space, on the edge of no tomorrow sits mankind’s last and greatest city - BONSAI. Housing a zillion and a half souls, the city is threatened from without (alien warlords, grey goo, interdimensional incursions, etc.) and within (exploitation, oppression, system failure, etc.). As the ZOKU, the city’s freelance guardians, you patrol the skylanes clad in hardlight armor and fight to prolong the future.

SHORT BIT

You’re a sentai of holo-armored space ninjas tackling the Syssiphisian task of defending a humongous arkship that has no destination. Whether that means fighting an alien invasion, handing out vigilante justice, or holding a bake sale.

STRAINS

The citizens of BONSAI fall into four broad categories:

CRISPY - After millennia of compulsive gene editing the CRISPies are on the knife's edge of post-humanity. Build a race using Savage Worlds Deluxe no abilities worth more than +1.
Baseline - Normal people with minimal genetic tampering. +1 Edge.

Robotnik - Machines built to serve, their sentience and it’s relevancy are often debated. Hardy but Outsider.

Endling - Alien refugees, often the last of their kind. Build an alien using Savage Rifts. Be weird.

WHAT YOU BRING TO THE TEAM
Use Sean Bircher's 5 Man Band roles. Found here.

ZOKU KIT

Hardlight Armor - The customizable uniform of the Zoku grants Heavy Armor 4, environmental protection, and low light vision. The armor shuts down if you’re Wounded by a Heavy weapon. Make a Repair check at -2 to get the system up and running in combat.

No Strings- In BONSAI’s reduced gravity you can leap 7 yards horizontal and 2 yards vertical with ease. With a successful Strength roll you can add your Pace die.

Space Ninja Technique - Reduce the required traits for combat edges by 1 die type. Also each sentai member gets one of the following powers at a d8:

quickness, deflection, smite, entangle, boost/lower trait, bolt, speed, shapechange, summon ally

These require an activation roll.  Jutsu style hand motions grant a +1 to activate. On a raise you get the Mega version. These are just examples, if you wanted a buster cannon then bolt would be an appropriate power.

ZOKU RANKS

S // The highest rank

A //

B //

C //

F // The lowest rank< You start here

The higher your rank the more favor you can pull from those below you.

DISTRICTS -

BONSAI contains countless Districts, they mostly exist to provide some cool set pieces. Also Campaign Rules change based on the District. Some examples below with keywords.

Zigguraut - Temple of Government + Escher staircase pyramids.

Torii - Samurai + Lightcycles. Blood & Guts

Spaghetti Junction - Wild West + Forking. All guns have +2 ROF

Axolotl - Mesoamerica + Waterworld.

Red Velvet - Beyonce's Antebellum. Social Tricks can cause Wounds on a double Shaken result.

Perhonen - Fragile + Sharp + Tron. Everything here explodes in razor edged polygons. Large blast template when you miss, 2d8 damage.

Palace of the Dogs - Asylum

Kamehameha - World turtle + Jellyfish,
Cagliostro - Gankutsuo + Old World Opulence

Courthouse -

Zenosyne - Acceleration +

Pixel - 16-bit + Scott Pilgrim

Niffleheim -

Gun Barrel -

Afterlife -

ENEMY FACTIONS -

INNER

Enki Collective - Lingual hackers. Urge the destruction of the Zigguraut District.

Mammon Cabal - Stock brokers and soul traders. Quietly advocate mass upload of the population.

Great Divide - Spin doctors and access merchants. Divide and conquer while reaping rewards.

Can Openers - Anti-Robotnik militants. Feel Lowborn labor is being replaced by tireless servitors.

Also there’s rival sentais within the ZOKU

OUTER

Heart Machine - Swarms of nano machines that seek to reconstruct their eons dead space god.

Uluru - Temporal evacuees from the war that destroyed Earth.  Seek to colonize BONSAI.

The Thin Man - Monofilament rubber band alien cat burglar. Seeks a treasure hidden in the depths of BONSAI

REPO - robot lawyers representing alien intelligences that claim controlling interest of BONSAI.

INSPIRATION

Gatchaman, Transistor, Gatchaman Crowds, Janelle Monae's Archandroid Suite, K, Voltron: Legendary Defender, Karnak: The Flaw In All Things, Metropolis, Karl Schroeder's Lady of Mazes, Summer Wars, Outkast’s Stankonia, Hanu R.'s Quantum Thief, Charles Stross' Scratch Monkey, Anonymous420's CORNER DOT, Pluto: Urasawa X Tezuka,

Borchardbriar

 As long as anybeast can remember, the Foxlord Reynard has lived atop the Heart of the Woods in Borchardbriar, a tottering castle assembled from stone and bone. Lounging on the 4-Sided Throne he laughs at Death, that feeble reaper unable to take him. An unnatural autumn shrouds the Land in perpetual harvest and the crop rots but never ripens, The Furred Folk of the Four Corners pay his levy of youth and march their children into his castle when the Moon hides its face.  In his halls they draw painted stones from his cooking pot.

Some draw gold and join his army. Others draw red and join his larder.

Resistance to his tyranny grows in the West and South. They gather in secret and plot; gathering weapons, lost history, & arcane secrets. Killing Old Mad Craw is the goal, but what happens when the Throne sits empty?

The Four Corners

The Vault, the Western Corner- Down below the loam, the Rabbits' warrens grew together into the Vault. The largest holdfast in the Land, everyone who is anyone comes here. Resource management is an ongoing concern and resulted in a coup recently. The Public Safety Committee runs the show now. As long as their youth keep coming, Reynard doesn't care who's in charge. Many believe that without the tithe, the Vault will starve.

Whistler, the Northern Corner - Residents like to joke that if Autumn's entropy poisoned the North, you couldn't tell the difference. Only the toughest Folk brave the harsh tundra. Their bravado conceals fear that the world has left them behind, a weakness the Prophet has exploited.  A wanderer returned to her hometown, she's revived a return to the faith of Tooth & Claw. The nihilistic faith that predates Thumb & Fist, when all Folk were born to their place and hope was a luxury. With starvation a constant threat, some among the Alpha Council wonder if they should be taking the tithe. Rather than the Old Fox.

Clowdertown, the Southern Corner - Second largest holdfast in the Land, Clowdertown is a study in contrast. A semi-communal matriarchy of insistent individualists, the Cats question the tithe but don't avoid it either.  The Resistance started here and it's control of the local government is an open secret. Which may explain Reynard's escalating demands for kittens. 

Stonebones, the Eastern Corner- Known for its extensive mines and foundries, the Ironlords' stranglehold on the indentured Rodens mirrors Reynard's grip on the Land. Promised good and shelter the Rodens risk their lives amongst the leaning buildings, crafting tools of exceptional beauty for their Lord's credit. Outnumbering their masters, the Rodens bear the brunt of Reynard's tithe. The Resistance sought recruits among them, but the rewards for collusion in their own oppression have been too tempting.

Setting Rules

Born Heroes, Blood and Guts, Extra Effort, No Power Points, Sanity

Inspirado
Armello, the Redwall saga, Mouse Guard, Disney's Robin Hood, Thomas Covenant, Dark Sword Miniatures, The Builders, Abhorsen, Riddle of the Wren, The Wizards & The Warriors, Over the Garden Wall, The Book of the Dun Cow and sequels

Bloggin' Forecast

 

Life's been incredibly hectic but all that's behind me.  I'm back on the keyboard, looking forward to posting with greater regularity. To that end, you can find the blog outline below:

Mystery! - Unraveling deceit, smut, vice, and base criminality kicks off the week.  Largely systemless, I'll tag any specifics in the title and the footer.  Expect a criminal, a method, and the last time the bastard screws up.

Night Gallery - Most previous posts revolved around world building in bullet points.  No reason to change, these posts will be system specific and run as long as interest holds.  Maybe I'll collect them into a pdf or something.

Fight Night - Have you watched Every Frame a Painting's "In Praise of Chairs"? If you haven't, you can find it here.  I'll wait.  When was the last time you had a fight in you campaign and the environ told you something?  Let's fix that and have the setting reflect character even in abscence.