Conos - The Last Day

I am really sad today.

It is with considerable sorrow that I let you all know that the Japanese online store Conos is permanently closing. Today is its last business day. 

Conos is a Japanese online gaming store, catering to TRPGs, board games, and numerous other gaming-related items, akin to our DriveThruRPG.

What makes it, or has made it, important to me is that this is one of my two primary sources I for getting ahold of Japanese RPG titles. Without it, well...I really don't know what I'm going to do. 

The store is closing for a number of reasons, most notably the mental and physical health of the stores head manager Yumiji. In addition, the store has been experiencing an increasing number of operational inconveniences, relating to delays in receiving product shipments, poor communication with their distributors, and POS system instability. Their difficulty in resolving these issues combined with their fearless leader's medical concerns have convinced them that closing down the operation is their best choice.

You can check out their site and use Google Translate to read the closing notice if you wish.

Yumiji's final message to their customers and the gaming community is this:

"Thank you very much to everyone who has supported us for so long.

We also sincerely thank everyone who helped us and cooperated with us in the establishment and operation of our store and we apologize for any inconvenience caused."

I am definitely going to miss this site. My quest for an alternative source of new product news and of course the games themselves, begins. 

Goodbye Conos, wishing you well,

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Barking Alien

Aerth - The World of The Winghorn Guard

Aerth is the fictional world that serves as the focal point of nearly all of my Dungeons and Dragons-esque Medieval Fantasy RPG campaigns, especially those featuring The Order of The Winghorn Guard.

The World of Aerth and its moon, Luna

Aerth was first created in 1982 for a campaign originally titled 'PEGASUS' and later changed to The Winghorn Guard. The main idea behind the game was straightforward if a little unorthodox; run a Dungeons and Dragons campaign using the Gamemaster advice from a Superhero game.

Instead of using the Advanced D&D Dungeon Master's Guide to foster the development of a Fantasy game, I based my outline for the campaign on what I'd learned from years of reading comic books, particularly Marvel's Avengers and DC's Legion of Superheroes. Having purchased Villains and Vigilantes [2nd Edition], I used the Gamemaster advice in that that rulebook to set things in motion.

The catalyst for designing the world itself was a desire to integrate elements from the existing games my players were coming from into a single milieu. At the time, my Summer Camp friends wanted me to run an AD&D 1E game for them but they wanted to use the PCs they'd been playing in their School Year campaigns.

I said OK on the condition that the Aerth version of each character was, starting in our first session, a seperate and distinct entity from their School game variant. Essentially, they would play alternate versions of their established PCs who were identical up to the start of The Winghorn Guard campaign, at which time their histories diverage. Nothing from their School campaigns would effect their Aerth characters and nothing that happened in our game would effect their other adventures going forward.

The thing of it was, the games these PCs were coming from were very different from each other in terms of setting, style, and even tone. I had to incorporate real world mythology, Dungeons and Dragons lore, and original material into a single, unified cosmos.

And so, Aerth was born.

The Divisions of The Winghorn Guard and where they are on Aerth.

The Rangers and Nautica do not have a single, set location.

Aerth is an Alternate Earth and as such has many similarities to our real world's geography, weather, lifeforms, cultures, history, and especially folklore and mythology. The world does vastly differ from Earth in many ways however. As is plain to see on the maps, the continents and seas are not identical in shape or position. The world's axial tilt is slightly dissimilar, as is its distance from its sun, resulting in cooler overall temperatures and harsher winter months. 

Continents and Oceans

There are eight continents in total: Arcticus (roughly Antarctica), Bulan Ka (roughly Africa), Corindel (Australia), Gehennes (somewhat analogous to South Asia and the Middle East), Ledgorna (Europe and Asia), Loreia (North America), Pacifica (South America), and Polaria (a largely unexplored Greenland/Iceland/North Pole region). These aren't exactly one for one, though they give you a good idea of where many of the peoples and their myths can be found.

There are five oceans, commonly referred to as seas by Aerth's inhabitants, all of which can be quite dangerous for the unprepared. In addition, the lands are dotted with lakes and rivers of varying sizes, depths, and significance to the locals and sometimes beyond.

While a great deal of exploration has occurred over the centuries, much more of the world  remains undiscovered. Numerous mysterious peoples, places, and things are still unknown to the vast majority of Aerth's denizens. 

 

Major Nations

Population wise, Aerth is home to easily 600 million intelligent people, though probably much more as no census has ever been taken for the Gnomes (the least numerous) and Goblins (the most numerous). I'll go into more detail on the various citizens of the world in an upcoming post but I just want to point out there are more people on this world than 13th Century Earth. 

After all, not all of them are even from here...

Capitals and Important Cities

Another key feature of the setting is that practically all the fairy tales and legends from our Earth are true on Aerth. The truths aren't all known but they all exist. There is a Minotaur in a Labyrinth off the coast of Gretha-Nova, Ghosts haunting the outhouses of Nihon, and a princess somewhere who's able to tell if there's a pea seven mattresses below her. 

Monsters are, for the most part, only found in their native lands. While there are exceptions,  the Wendigo will only be encountered in the Northern Woods of Loreia, El Trasgu pranks shopkeeps in Esperanza and no where else, and of course the Great Sphinx riddles travelers in the desert of Aegyptra. 

Legendary and Mythic Sites

This extends to strange and mystical sites as well. Mount Olympus can be climbed, the Bifrost Bridge crossed, and one best avoid rings of mushrooms when passing through the Sylvan Veil, all in their native lands.

Mount Oblivion is a towering mesa, possibly a dead volcano, made of obsidian rock that rises out of a lake of lava. The Bridge of Grief in a wall-like structure that extends from the Southwest of Ledgorna to the Northwest of Bulan Ka, its top walkable and lined with peculiar sarcophagi. The Cornerstone of the World is extremely difficult to reach but supposedly the last unfinished piece of Aerth the gods left untouched following its creation. 

Aerth is magical and strange from its core to the edge of the sky and perhaps beyond. 

Terrain Features

As a Gamemaster who enjoys placing the PCs in different environments and seeing them deal with the benefits and difficulties of diverse terrain, it was very important to me that my setting wasn't merely endless European forest. 

One thing I am quite proud of is that not all of the world has been explored as noted above. I really love that even after 40+ years of running campaigns on this planet, my players and their characters haven't been everywhere. Not even close.

In fact, a big factor in my excitement over this upcoming Northern Wing game is that very few PCs have spent any time in the city of Nouveau Lutettia and the nation of Allebeque, let alone the Great North. Welcome to chilly tundra, snowy mountains, icy waters, and the mythology of the North American Indigenous Peoples.

Can't wait.

More to come as the campaign develops...

Until then,

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Barking Alien

Northern Wing and Division 6

October has ended with the blog frightfully low on 'Host of Freaky Ghosts' entries for my tastes. The project got away from me as Real LifeTM and my 'next big campaigns' began haunting more and more of my time.

A little disappointing perhaps but it ain't over until the banshee screams. Expect to see more on the work of parapsychologist Prof. Sebastian Pott throughout the rest of the year. 

Right now though, I'd like to talk about something else. 

Up until pretty recently I was running two seperate [and thematically different] Superhero campaigns and feeling burned out and slightly miserable doing so. I have since let the players in both groups know how I was feeling and asked that we switch to doing something else.

Group A, after tossing a variety of ideas back and forth, chose to go with The Winghorn Guard, my Dungeons & Dragons-But-Not 'Medieval Fantasy Superhero' setting. I know, I know, 'I thought you were burnt on Supers'. I am. The Winghorn Guard, while having some Superhero genre sensibilities, is quite a different beast, far closer to an Action/Adventure heavy Ars Magica campaign (kinda sorta).

I was actually planning on running a Winghorn Guard campaign next year for my 50th TRPG Anniversary so for me I'm just getting an early start. I'll be using my High Fantasy Heroes hack of Space Opera Heroes for this campaign. You can look forward to periodic posts about the campaign starting fairly soon. 

As for Group B, we also had a long discussion about what to play next and after going over a variety of ideas, I came out of left field with the suggestion of doing a Men In Black campaign. It's a game I've always wanted to take a crack at but never have. Turns out, that was the winner! 

Some time ago I purchased a PDF of the Japanese TRPG Trouble Aliens, which is essentially MIB from the perspective of the aliens. Borrowing from this game and maybe Meteor City as well, I should be able to generate a good amount of material. System wise I am not sure whether I want to go with the original West End Games D6 RPG, use the rules from Free League's ALIEN game, or do yet another adaption of Space Opera Heroes. Damn I love that game. 

UPDATE: Going with the same gestalt homebrew system I use for Ghostbusters AD, basically a hybrid of the original Ghostbusters RPG, InSpectres, and ALIEN. Just seems to make sense for this sort of game.  

More to come as ideas progress...

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Barking Alien

The Smurfs and The Happy Halloween Hazard

Hello my little Smurfs! A spooky and smurfy Halloween season to you all! 

I've been preparing to run a Halloween-themed Smurfs RPG One-shot for months now and I finally got the chance. I was so smurfing excited to play this scenario and hoped to share all the creepy and kooky Halloween fun with all of you.

It went over well enough with the players but I wasn't all that pleased with how it turned out. My pacing was off, the Players/PCs took a while to interact with each other and with the story, and things just didn't feel smurfy until the very end. The whole thing was just not as good as I'd hoped for given how much thought, energy, and time I put into creating the adventure.

Group #1: Sir Smurfsalot (Questing Smurf), Smurfanise, Smurfevergreen,

Smurfnightshade (who ended up not joining us sadly), and Spelly Smurf.

Luckily, I got to run the adventure a second time with a different group and it worked a lot better, at least for me. The Players/PCs in this second attempt got what I was going for early on and that helped a lot towards making the execution of my intended ideas easier to pull off. 

Group #1 consisted of four of the five players in that usually make up our mid-week gathering.

Group #2 had six players - 6! - which proved tricky towards the end of their session. At the same time, I am traditionally better with more players [up to a point], which might be another factor that enabled me to run the second team's game somewhat more smoothly than the first. 

Group #2: Brash Smurf, Smurfhoneysuckle, Apathy Smurf, Smurfhawthorn, Smurfgrevillea, Conscientious Smurf.

I'll focus my discussion on the scenario itself and refer to the play throughs only to point out what worked, what didn't, and maybe how it could be improved. 

The Smurfs and The Happy Halloween Hazard!

(Alternatively 'The Smurfs and The Hazardous Happy Halloween)

Premise: The Smurfs of Smurf Village and Smurfy Grove are joining together for their annual Halloween Celebration! 

In addition to a smurfy party thrown in both locations featuring costumes, treats, dancing, and decorations, each group of Smurfs have their own unique Halloween tradition. 

The Smurfs of Smurf Village have Spooky Smurf; each year a random Smurf is chosen to be Spooky Smurf, the Spirit of Smurfy Hallow's Eve and serves as the Master of Ceremonies for the holiday festivities. Since they wear the Spooky Smurf mask and costume, no one knows who they are until the end of the night. Remember, everyone else is in disguise as well!

The Smurf Girls of Smurfy Grove have the All Hallow's Tree; an old, naturally hollowed out tree is decorated with cobwebs, jack o' lanterns, candles, and other holiday appropriate faire. The tree's hollow spaces are filled with little gifts, treats, and even some tricks. Everysmurf is welcome to reach in and see what they get.

While the Smurfs are all enjoying the party, strange occurances start happening that threaten to ruin the fun. The weirdness escalates until Spooky Smurf summons five ghosts to spread fear throughout the smurflands!

Who is under the Spooky Smurf mask and why are they doing this? How can they be stopped? Can this horrendous holiday hassle be transformed back into a Happy Halloween? 

Overview: For the most part, I had this idea for a Spooky Season Smurf adventure that might have had too much going on or there were too many expectations on my part. 

I started by introducing each Smurf PC and their costume. I intended to give each Smurf a +1 Stat bonus related to their outfit, treating their disguises as Special Items. Unfortunately, an early action by one of the Players/PCs in Group #1, a humorous bit they wanted to have with...themselves, would've been smurfed by having such a bonus, so I never included the idea in that group's outing. 

Hoping to prevent a similar situation, I let Group #2 know about the +1 Costume bonus from the onset. This made them lean into the gimmick a lot more. 

Their costumes were:

Group #1: Sir Smurfsalot came as a Dragon (one hunting for Sir Smurfsalot - very cute), Smurfanise came as Azrael the Cat (voted 'most frightening' costume), Smurfevergreen came as a Mouse/Rat (a cheaply made, poorly assembled costume she made herself), and Spelly Smurf came as Smurfalf (basically a parody of Gandalf the Gray).

Group #2: Apathy Smurf came as a Ghost (just a burlap sack with two holes for eyes - whatever. Who cares?), Brash Smurf came as a Superhero, Conscientious Smurf as a Clown, Smurfgrevillea as a Witch, Smurfhawthorn as a Fairy Princess, and Smurfhoneysuckle as a Scarecrow.

Hawthorn didn't like her costume, which was made by Grevillea. It was too frilly, too colorful, and she felt silly. Meanwhile, Grevillea was dressed as a Witch because she borrowed Hawthorn's regular clothes...without telling her. This made me laugh and started us off on a great note given these were both brand new characters. 

When I introduced the party itself in the very beginning of the session; bobbing for 'Appleberries', telling scary stories, dancing, and eating lots of sweets, I got very little energy back from Group #1. One fellow got into it but not many of the others did and none with as much investment as that first fellow. This meant very little talking with the other PCs, any NPCs, etc. Definitely some but the mood just wasn't very festive or smurfy and it kind of through off my momentum.

My buddy Nick - who plays Sir Smurfsalot - came up with the idea of Appleberries, basically Smurf scale apples. That's what the Smurfs use to make Candied and Caramel Apples and for the purposes of bobbing. I thought that was pretty clever. 

Group #2 on the other hand acted like the party WAS the adventure! They were having so much fun competing with each other, making up drinks and foods, and drawing items from the All Hallow's Tree, that they were genuinely surprised when the ghosts showed up and Spooky Smurf went all supervillain on them. 

There were hints as to who was dressed up as what so the PCs could figure out which Smurf was in the Spooky Smurf outfit. Booth groups did a pretty good job determining who was who and Spooky Smurf's true identity.

Baker Smurf - A Cupcake

Brainy Smurf - A Ghost

Grouchy Smurf - A Mummy

Handy Smurf - A Werewolf

Hefty Smurf - Frankenstein's Monster

Papa Smurf - Santa Claus

Smurfbegonia - A Clown

Smurfette - A Witch

Smurfstorm - Robin Hood

Smurfwillow - Mother Nature

Vanity Smurf - A Vampire

And this year's Spooky Smurf?

Jokey Smurf!

While both also used that knowledge to counter the effects of the mask that was possessing the wearer, Spelly Smurf from Group #1 came up with a really creative way of using magic to trap the evil spirit and the other ghosts [turning jack o' lanterns into Spirit Jars]. In addition, Sir Smurfsalot delivered the final blow by starting to sing the Smurfs' theme, 'La La-la la-La La', and getting everyone to participate. No evil can survive that song . Singing a happy song was the perfect defense against a fear based entity.

Group #2 initially thought it was a prank, a Halloween 'trick', and not a true spirit possession. Eventually they got what was happening and, when they figured out it was Jokey under the mask, used laughter to fight the fear generated by the sinister spook. As it turned out, Gargamel had summoned the frightful fiend in hopes that it would drive the Smurfs out of their homes and into the surrounding woodlands. 

As for the ghosts that were summoned, there was a Fiery Fiend, a Lantern Phantom, a Screaming Spectre, a Slimey Spook, and a Stinky Spirit. All had an Effort Max of 5 and were Difficulty Level 5D6. 

Each had a weakness of sorts that would reduce their DL. Water for the Fiery Fiend or blowing out the candle in the Lantern Phantom's lantern for example. 

In the end, as already noted, both groups had a lot of fun and so did I. I just felt, deep down, that I didn't execute the adventure as well as I could have with Group #1. A PC action early on through me off my smurf, I just couldn't get my smurf back the way it needed to be. 

With that, a Very Happy Halloween to all my readers!

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Barking Alien

It's Our Mortality That Defines Us

It is with great sadness, and honestly no small measure of disbelief, that I acknowledge the passing of Sir Patrick Stewart, an actor best known to those of us in the fandom community as Captain Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation and in related films and projects, as well as Professor Charles Xavier in the various X-Men franchise movies.

In addition, he was an accomplished voice actor, often collaborating with Seth MacFarlane and appearing in a reoccurring role on American Dad, as well as various guest appearances on Family Guy. Further, we was the narrator on the two Ted films. This is just a tiny sampling, the full scope of which would take volumes to properly convey. 

Of course, all of this is just a small portion of his acting repertoire. His work on stage and screen includes numerous Shakespearean plays, including playing Prospero in The Tempest in New York City in 1995. It was at Central Park's Delacorte Theatre and I was lucky enough to have seen it thanks to a friend of mine knowing a friend of his. 

The thing that makes this even harder, even more difficult to fully grasp, is that fact that only a few days earlier we lost Walter Koenig, another Star Trek alumni who played Pavel Chekov on the small and big screen, as well as a number of other memorable roles. Most notably, he played Psi Cop Alfred Bester on Babylon 5. 

That's a lot of loss to our collective geek consciousness in a very short period. It seems unfair almost but as we must all realize, it's not about us. These two men weren't only entertainers, they were humanitarians and people of excellent character. The world we live in is lessened by their departures. 

"But if the while I think on Thee, dear friend, / All losses are restored, and sorrows end."

-William Shakespeare, Sonnet 30

To Patrick Stewart and Walter Koenig, Rest in Peace and Live On in Memory.

Do not forget them and be inspired by them. 

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Barking Alien