BRP Resolution Facelift: TN 100, Roll Over

Now, I'm not that big a fan of d100 systems. Most of the time, I'm not wanting or needing the granularity of something on the scale of percentage points. However, because I play games with people who are not me, I get involved in systems that use d100s.

For systems such as Chaosium, you roll a d100 and try to get under your skill rank; so being forced to make check with your Driving at 46% means you succeed if you roll a 46 or less. This works a lot like THAC0, in that once you start dealing with modifiers, degree of success (how much you succeed by), or opposed rolls, there are going to be extra steps that are not intuitive by nature.

I hold that it would be an easy situation to change the system to taking your skill rank and ADD it to your roll, success occurs when you exceed 100. You chance of success is still the same, and any modifiers, comparisons, or degree of success can be done very quickly and easily.

To top it off, just for the heck of it, include a chance of 'critical' success by declaring one of the numbers on the 1s die to be special (I suggest the 9 or 0). If you both succeed and that number is rolled, then you have a critical success on top of it.

Pony

Fluttershy, currently in costume for her role as Private Pansy in the Hearth's Warming Eve play.

Ferrous Fortune-Hunters: Session XIII

They then began to trek back to the trading town after allaying the fears of the mining town that they were safe to leave. The party was greeted by half the city guard and the Collector himself. He held them under arrest for multiple charges, and brought them in for trial, including Flynn and Antric for association (at least until they ascertained their innocence).

A day or two later, they were brought out of jail and before the judge. During their wait, Flynn was given access to the law books and was allowed to present their case. With masterful use of debate, all charges but the killing of the guards from when they left the city were dropped, and that charge only levied against Megan's character and Audrius. The punishment for killing a city guard is two score years of enslavement. They agreed to do a service for the city to help pay for Audrius's freedom (Megan left for good, so we're letting her rot as a slave)

Their job was to keep low and investigate a possible homicide by one of the arcanists in the city. There had been a major writing competition, and the usual winner was found killed by his girlfriend (who then committed suicide with bottled poison), and the arcanist won the contest with a masterful work of fiction; despite his 7 prior attempts that weren't fit to be on paper.

In their investigation, they discovered that the girlfriend had minute traces of a poison that is used to make the victim much more vulnerable to mind-control magicks. There were also rumours of the dagger the woman used to kill the writer was holding a demon, which possessed the woman. They also found evidence of someone leaving the writer's home after his death.

Before they could investigate further, they were greeted by a sociable fellow, who in his conversation revealed himself to be a creation of the Black Lotus Eaters. They tapped into the Dreamscape to recreate one of the Beast Folk (rival race to the Melniboneans), for the purpose of getting the prophesized flower from the party. The creature, Saireen his name, told the party they didn't know what the flower metaphorically represented, but guessed it to be either Ino or the Shield of Chaos. He also told the party that the Black Lotus Eaters believed Audrius to be the most powerful member, unable to get enough information (all agents have died) to realize this to not be the case.

He told them that he didn't want to take it by force, and was willing to perform a trade, but it was revealed neither side was either capable or willing to provide what they had. With that, his two idiot-looking guards turned into scree and Saireen dropped his disguise and turned into a tiger headed man with reversed hands and a large runed sword.

When Kagemane pulled out his Mender (which alerted Saireen and made him decide to take that too), he tried to stab him with it, but missed soo poorly, he created a breach to another world. The inn was filled with a howling wind and filled the area with an aura of chaos and destruction. Amidst the howling wind, Saireen spoke a spell of domination, and Kagemane fell under its influence and began to attack Jorn. Flynn took a noticeable amount of time to come to the decision to help the party in the fight, uncertain as to whether to attack Saireen whom he had gained a healthy amount of respect for. Eventually, he decided to help and taunted the violent Kagemane away (who was immediately cowered into a corner to cry by Audrius). It was a vicious battle, as nobody could reliably harm Saireen. Audrius refused to use magic, out of hope of cleansing himself of taint, while Jorn could barely hit/harm Saireen in the howling wind, and Antric wasn't doing much damage to begin with. Eventually, Audrius was convinced to actually use magic, and took out Saireen in a single shot of his magic missile. They finished off the remaining Sscree and called it a night.

The next morning, while they investigated the prior crime scenes, a vrock (bird demon of chaos) began to assault the city, screaming out cries of freedom from 'that accursed blade'. When they tried to take it down, it summoned 16 dretches (minor demons), and began to tear into the party. Because they were such minor creatures, they repeatedly struck Jorn's Shield of Chaos, causing a number of wild surges. One dretch turned to stone, another turned into a trumpet archon (angelic creature of Law, retained the dretch's mind), the immediate area in a 30' radius exploded in fire for a minute, and Jorn gained a charged aquatic field of energy around his free hand which he used to punch out the vrock.

Ferrous Fortune-Hunters: Session XII

   They began their trek to the town to begin their attempts at returning to their home. Finding a nice spot at the edge, Kagemane stabbed the boundary and sundered the town from the planar fabric. Like the parting of a curtain, the party saw behind them a regular town and landscape, but in front of them was the vastness of the multiverse swirling around. It was as if staring into a galaxy in all its splendor, yet every pinpoint of light they could see an entire universe. Their movement inundated them with intersections of each dimension they passed through, existing coterminiously with them and glimpsing a tiny bit of another reality.

Meanwhile, Audrius began the incantation to guide their adrift patch of land to its home dimension and they began to feel a primal 'push' towards their home dimension. While Audrius chanted, Flynn (Slater, newcomer) warned the rest that if the landscape behind them changes, they should not be alarmed and think they've gone adrift from the town. Partial intersections will give the appearence of them being seperated from the main body of the 'planar island', yet dimensionally they are safe.

With that, it seemed like a 100' wide section of land they stood on completely seperated and spun away, into an interstellar asteroid field, far out of sight from their town. A large humanoid-shaped blob of reflective metal 'walked' into view, as if reality parted to allow it to enter. The entire party felt their insides being twisted, and found themselves scattered all over the place, and Antric (Jon, armored warrior) was out of sight. Random spots around them rippled strangely, as if space itself was unstable. In fact, when Jorn tried to fire an arrow at it, the arrow shrunk and slowed to a crawl for a full second before reenlarging and then missing its target.

Kagemane tried to charge it, but experienced a 'stretching' of space, making the entire movement take noticeably longer. The fight continued like this, even with Antric reappearing as a colossal entity that would've blotted out the sun had their been one, only to shrink to normal size the moment he left his specific position. The creature itself effortlessly moved about and manifested its claws inside the party, harming them every which way.

After it was defeated, their asteroid spun back and reattached to the main town. A short time later, they suddenly found themselves standing in a 20th century city park, down to the joggers and sidewalks and skyscrapers in the background. One of the people walking their dogs saw the party, screamed out "grass treaders!" (sign saying 'Do not walk on grass' nearby) With that, half a dozen black suited soldiers marched in, holding futuristic nightsticks with glowing red tips. They told the party to surrender, and unleashed giant balls of flame, incinerating the grass around them and harming the party themselves.

Antric shouted aggressively, making one pause and shortly run away, while the rest of the party charged in and decimated them while also getting drastically injured from their gouts of flame. Flynn showed off his skill by backflipping over three of them and knocking all of them out in a flurry of punches with his gauntlet.

After this, they finally saw a prick of light that seemed familiar, turning out to be their home dimension and began to direct towards it. By the skin of their teeth, they landed properly, and let it fall to Kagemane to use The Mender to seal the planar breach permanently. It proved to be too difficult, and several holes were left scattered around the perimeter of the town. Not wanting the possibility of the boundaries to weaken and seperate, they wandered around and resealed them, running into a couple Sscree along the way. A Sscree is a creature of Chaos that seems to be a man-sized toad with two large snake like tentacles coming out of its shoulders and spits acid.

Ferrous Fortune-Hunters: Session XI

Very short session.


This is the part that introduce a new player, Lynn (RL name, Slater), an exceedingly well-travelled individual that always wished to learn more. He was working with the scavenger people in the Realm of Dead Angels, and came upon a fascinating tome from one of the angelic corpses that detailled many things. Just out of the fraction he was able to decipher, he found a system of probability for melee combat (Grammaton cleric style from Equilibrium), as well as schematics for a semi-sentient clockwork war golem. He inscribed the equivalent of crib notes on some plate gauntlets (seems like runes to the uneducated), and refers to them in the heat of battle whilst pounding the enemy. Statistically, he was a thief with some magical fighting styles and a semi-useful golem trick.

When the party arrived at the camp, they said one of their numbers had tired of this work and wished to return to the mortal realms, even though it wasn't going to be the home world he came form (doesn't seem to mind). Agreeing, the party let him in, though he turned out to be very cautious around them as they were all quite dangerous looking.

Pony Day

In terms of musical talent and fame in the land of Equestria, Sapphire Shores brings shouts of glee in the pop star scene.

Ferrous Fortune Hunters: Session X

We should likely consider Mary's character a lost cause, as she hasn't shown up to either of these two sessions and the regularity is about on my last nerves.

They rested a moment, and reached the camp of the scavenger people, who all camped in the bottom of a chasm with an optical illusion excellently hiding the entrance to the cavern. Warned of the dangers of wandering the area alone, the party convinced the band to tell them where they might be able to find the Mender (minion of Law mentioned last session it would possess the means to send them home).

The Mender, assuming he hadn't already continued on into the Mounts of Eternal Grief surrounding the plane, would likely be in the Citadel of Reminiscence. The head of the band of men asked Jorn (Adam, archer) to keep an eye out for any strange bits of information he might 'remember', and handed a tome for him to carry for when it happened and assured Jorn that he would know what he was talking about when it happened.

So they travelled, eventually reaching the small forest surrounding the Citadel, which turned out to be bruised and diseased in ways similar to that of human flesh. Open sores, purple bruises, flaking dead skin, all covered the plant life of this forest. After a short time within, they were interrupted by a humanoid, demonic vulture that stood a full 11' tall. It attacked the party, and was eventually taken down, though the spores thrown Kagemane (Pat, Executioner) & Antric (Jon, Armiger) damaged them severely when it finished growing into a veritable bush on them. They rested for an hour, which was enough time for Audrious (Jon, Arcanist) & Antric to contract a vicious form of Demon Fever. Stumbling out of the forest, they reached the Citadel.

It seemed to be a massive crystalline citadel, with an open entrance, that was filled with a fog-like mist and many large floating bubbles. Each person constantly heard small whispers in the back of their minds, and when Jorn touched a large bubble (which popped), he suddenly remembered viewing a hamlet from a bird's point-of-view and watching the townspeople pointing at him as he moved by. Fascinated, he began to poke many more bubbles, gaining various memories of what seems to be various angels/minions of law performing deeds both great and small. He jotted down in most every detail what he gleaned from these bubbles. It would seem even the mist was actually countless minuscule bubbles that popped and granted tiny snippets of memories (syllables, the sound of a word, etc).

It was then that they heard/felt a shaking in the hall, "Who dareth disturb the Citadel of Reminiscense?!" With a Jurassic Park moment, the ground shook and a 12' tall human giant with angelic wings & a massive crystal maul in one hand turned a corner into view of the party and walked towards them. The bubbles didn't ever pop, but simply slid around him. He asked why they were there and stealing memories they were not worthy of having. The party apologized profusely, and said they merely wanted to have an audience with The Mender before he passed on into the Mountains of Eteranl Grief. The giant was swayed and told them to stay there, blowing at them such that suddenly none of the bubbles would enter the immediate area where the party was standing. Without much more response, the giant turned around to fetch The Mender.

After a time, an angelic ghost floated before the party and was informed of the party's plight and that of the town where they were trapped in this realm of dead angels. It felt sorry for them, and gave them his weapon, a dagger sized sewing needle with a golden thread wrapped around the base for a handle and a tip so fine and sharp you couldn't even see it. He informed them to be careful, for the fabric of the planes is as sensitive as their flesh and it needed to be stitched back home. With profuse thanks, the party ventured forth to the stranded town to fix its dilemma, stopping by the scavenger camp to return the tome with Jorn's recorded memories.