The Status of Bryn Mawr and sundries

     Ive done the bulk of my posts on the blog about the world containing the land of Bryn Mawr. However having finally gotten to run Lamentations of the Flame Princess I've discovered the system I want to use for my world, as it definitely lets me play up story elements that tie into the Great Cataclysm. So until James Raggi gets the non limited edition of LoFP out, or I just create a pdf so the Players Guide, Referee's Guide, and Magic book are all ready to print out and hopefully have bound, Bryn Mawr is on hold.

     Which leaves me at a quandary of what do I run at GASP? Top options are

1) Call of Cthulu - I have several time periods I can run, and I got the rule book at the prize table at the con.
2) Savage Worlds - still need to re read the damage section, but the rules are cheap and flexible and Ive got a batch of campaign ideas
3) Gamma Worlds 2e - I have it, I love it, why not run it?
4) Dark Heresy - people enjoyed it, I enjoyed it, though this time people are making thier own characters
5) Alternity - good skills game but it might have limited appeal.

Before I go and toss the list on the GASP forums I have to see about how much space we will have for rpgs next year - I may end up finishing my Ambush Alley minis and run some 15mm counter insurgency play

back to work - religious thoughts

Well life has gotten in the way, again. But back to developing Bryn Mawr.

Thoughts about the gods
1. They do exist, but they manage the affairs of world with minimal direct actions.
2. They do not fight amongst the family but conflict between the family and the old ones is rather common
3. The family represents different aspects of a general philosophy, which is one of reasons honor is viewed relatively similar between races.
4. There is no afterlife in the land - the tribute a person has after they die is how they are remembered
5. Priests of the family are common and popular among the human tribes, but priests who serve a single diety are respected but considered odd.

We're all one big family or the Gods of Bryn Mawr

Well it seems that my plan to post something short every day is not going quite as planned. It is interesting to notice that the blog is turning into a development blog for my world building experiment - which I may have to split into a separate blog.

Anyways onto the meat of the post

The Gods of Bryn Mawr
One of my problems with most traditional fantasy games is how the gods are handled. In a game where clerics can perform miracles, which when you read the oldest versions of games like D&D is what clerical spells should be like, the religion and gods they serve is barely explored. These divine beings that give the power to change the world are reduced to minimalist descriptions that seem to exist in a vacuum from all the other divine beings. And I dont like that...

An idea I do like is from the novel the Curse of Chalion, where the gods are 4 members of a single family with one being outside the group who is responsible for everything that doesnt fit into the portfolios of the 4 main gods. So blatantly stealing that concept I'm going to write the religion of the core humans of Bryn Mawr as a collection of 5 divine beings; mother, daughter, father, son and the outsider.

Axla, the goddess of Flesh and Change - goddess of all the aspects of flesh like; healing, illness and mutation.She is directly inspired by this article by Zac over at Playing D&D with Porn Stars then just shifted some into my vision of the world I want to present. Oh and yes the blog has the adult content warning for a reason.So I plan to shift her a little towards milf status, so she'll be beautiful but not in a girlish way, but very much the ripe, fertile woman image of the traditional fertility goddesses.She'll most definitely rule over the growing season.

The Allfather - Im going to draw heavily from Odin here, so the Allfather is as much feared as worshipped, even the goddess of war is more well liked than he. He will have power over the winter, which should make him atleast somewhat a death god, in addition to covering those things which are expected but unpleasant. However to maintain the double edged theme I want to stick with he will also be the god that gives a man his courage, much like Crom does in Conan stories.

Master of the Hunt - The young man of the divine family, Im most unsure of what I want with this god. I want to cover either hunting, farming or trade and push him towards covering the spring season, the time of rebirth, not in creating but rather renewal.

Goddess of War - I just enjoy the image of the young female goddess who is the image of blood thirsty patron of blood and conquest. A major influence will be the Morrigan of Celtic legend, perhaps even as far as including the dark and disturbing images that go with that. The goddess will be ruler of harvest (much like war can be thought of as the harvest of man)

The Outsider, Hoarden The Other Seer-

Among the dwarves is a practice of ancestor worship. More tonight

Kobolds have their own pantheon, but it bears a suspicious similarity to the human pantheon

Kerpans are an animistic people with ancestor heroes

And there will be dark and terrible beings that some of the evil races worship.

Ponderings on Bryn Mawr pt 3

Wow... I really need to start writing on the previous ponderings before I keep adding more to the list...

Anyways, here's some more thoughts;

• Cattleraiding in BM
• The gods as a family unit in BM
• Symbols found on coins - perhaps marking purity and weight of coins
• statuary of the past in the land
• Carved items as treasure
• what is drinking like
• what are the clothes of different groups like?
• what is the basis of the economy of the the land? Barter, coin or a mix
• tendays instead of weeks
• ceremonial weapons in the land
• roads
• offerings and sacrifices to the gods
• How does magic directly affect the economy?
• How does magic affect agriculture?
• How does magic affect food sources?

One of the reasons I keep trying to pound out these short posts is to get in the habit of posting, and consequently writing, a little bit each day during the week. Let's see how that works

Ponderings on BM pt 2

A short list of more random thoughts on the setting

• Building a deeper story through the judicious use of food
• How does food and drink differ among the races?
• are there religious taboos involving food, like Islam and alcohol or Judaism and pig products
• The cunning man of a town lives beside a sacrificial tree, on which hangs animal sacrifices and tokens
• "He will keep who can" philosophy amongst humans
• do props have a place in BM games? Propinomicon blog
• Cave filled with pictures of headless beasts and dancing figures - what does it mean and who made it?
• Could BM be on a ring world?
• What is the feel of BM?
• Are there any dungeons that are not normal, for example a crashed spaceship in the ringworld idea, but no one knows of it as a ship
• A Cutter goes to kick a rock down on adventurers and stubs his foot instead. As he hops around in pain his companion laughs and then brains the wounded Cutter, throwing his body down at the adventurers.
• Division of control in BM - players control the story and the DM controls the setting
• How are words found in BM pronounced? Pronunciation guide for BM
• How is family treated mechanically
• Allegiances instead of alignment
• Someone who wants to do you harm counts for the protection from evil scrolls

Cutters pt. 2

More on Cutters

• Cutters reproduce rapidly, grow unnaturally fast and if unchecked will pour forth in hordes periodically
• They can live on virtually anything, even stones for a short period of time
• They worship the Dark Mother, the Goat of the Woods
• their worship of this dark god(dess) centers around the slow ritual cutting of a victim, siphoning away their soul in small increments
• Victims of this sacrifice are then hung as trophies or totems on the edge of the area considered cutter territory
• these victims also do not rejoin the endless turning of the wheel of time as far as anyone can tell

Origins of the Cutters

Just one post this morning

Well the story with cutters begins 250 years before the game time. An invasion of orcs (think Uruk-Hai) was threatening to sweep aside the Great Empire that was in Bryn Mawr. The most powerful mage of the empire, his name was Borron, bargained for access to the Grand Library of the Dwarven capital. As the Orcs shattered the last defensive line that the Empire had created Borron cast a massive spell. It struck down every orc in the world, wiping the species from the world. Mad with the power he had drawn on to cast this spell, or as they whisper because it was his actual goal, Borron strove to become a god. No one knows exactly what happened but the upper half of the tallest known mountain in the world, and the site of the capital of the Dwarven Underkingdom, detonated. A rain of raw magic fell as the clouds blocked out the sun, and a star fell from the skies and struck the capital of the Great Empire, believed to be a punishment on those people from the gods. All the holiest sites of Dwarfdom, thier entire recorded history and most of thier leaders were all destroying in an instant.

But the rain of magic changed the world the most. Most creatures that it felt on were changed. For example, Kerpans were created from squirrels doused in this warping rain. However Cutters were once normal forest goblins. But something more than just the rain affected them. As they started to warp their bodies stayed much the same but thier heads shifted into horned goat heads. At first this was believed to be the result of the rain, until evidence of sacrifices to the Dark Goat of the Forest, an ancient god like being thought long dead or gone from the world. Even more frightening, none can contact the souls of those sacrificed, as though they were consumed by some other being...

Dwarves in Bryn Mawr

more notes written down as I think of ideas at random times

• Dwarves are now a xenophobic, bitter race, still shamed by the loss of capital in the Sundering War that destroyed the Great Empire.
• The actions of the archmage Borron during the war, which obliterated the royal lineage, the Great Library, and the holiest sites of Dwarvenkind, have made all dwarves deeply mistrustful of all humans
• The only dwarves who leave the Underkingdom are the traders and those who are desperate or misfits.
• Two main things drive these dwarves, the desire to obtain that which can not be grown or mined beneath the surface, or the desperate urge to earn glory and acceptance by recovering a fragment of what was in the Great Library.
• Finding a runestone or memory crystal will guarantee status for the desperate and acceptance for even the most undwarfish dwarf.

Orcs in Bryn Mawr

Orcs

• Orcs are all dead
• they were wiped out by the epic spell that Borron cast
• The reason for Borron's access to the grand library of the dwarves was research into the foe threatening the Great Empire. From across the sea to teh southwest the orcish horde came, slaying or enslaving all who stood before them. It was only at teh shores of what is now Bryn Mawr, near the current location of the Great Mere, that the Orcs were stopped and even by only the barest margins. This was in time for winter to make the sea impossible to an armada of such size.

While orcs themselves are gone the stats will live on as one of the major tribes of natives that still inhabit the land even after humans have taken control of it.

The Sidhe in Bryn Mawr, or where did the elves go

As an experiment Im going to try and list some of the material Ive pondered up already in little bites that I can go back and expand later.

So first up are the Sidhe, the elves of my world.

• the Sidhe are mysterious and insanely powerful
• common folk leave them offerings to appease them
• immortal except for violence
• cant lie, but they have thousands of years experience manipulating the truth
• non Sidhe life is viewed like animals
• very much like nature spirits, linked to the land and showing the condition of the land
• spend most of their time living in their own lands/little world
• occasionally they steal children, leaving changelings in their place

What is Bryn Mawr, or why do I keep babbling about this stuff? Pt. 1

I've mentioned ideas for Bryn Mawr without describing what Bryn Mawr actually is, so rather than keep babbling I'm going to take time to define it.

Bryn Mawr is a fantasy roleplaying setting that has been rattling around my head for years. At its core Bryn Mawr is intended to be a land inspired by what is now the United Kingdoms during the Dark Ages with a bit of the culture of the Vikings blended in. Blending some of the legends of the lands with some fantasy races should provide an interesting sandbox for players to explore. So here's some of the most important facts.

• The land is intended to have a distinctly Celtic/Viking world view, without the baggage that the Christian monks and priests brought to the islands of the UK.
• The major races that exist in the world are;
• The old human tribes - heavily influenced by the Picts and early Celts
• The humans in power - culturally this folk is based on a slightly more agrarian version of the Vikings, mainly in the sense that their farms are a little more productive and the forest provide more food than usual.
• The Dwarves - the dwarves are heavily influenced by Warhammer Fantasy and Terry Pratchett's Discworld. This puts a different spin on Dwarves while mostly still being familiar
• Kobolds - Kobolds are a race trying to claw their way into respectability as a people that stand on their own.
• Kerpans - Kerpans are a anthropomorphic race of Squirrels that were created by a magical disaster. Living in hunter gather tribes, these are the "people of the woods" in the game.
• Elves - Elves in Bryn Mawr are the Sidhe rather than Tolkien's elves, terrible and haughty in their grandeur and power Elves thankfully rarely are involved in the life of everyday people.
• "Cutters" - Goblins that were horribly twisted by the same disaster that created the Kerpans.
• More will probably be added as I expand the land but this will still primarily be a human dominated land with Kerpans and Dwarves as common as Elves and Dwarves in classic D&D worlds like the Judge's Guild Wilderlands and Gygax's Greyhawk.
•  The land will intentionally be less fantastical than some retroclone game worlds but still with an old school bent, as thats what I enjoy playing.
• Characters will be presented with a world that exists independent of them, but that they can influence through their actions.
• Personal honor is more important than anything tangible
• The old traditions of hospitality will be important, as Inns will not really exist as people are used to them
• Family bonds will be really important, Im just not sure how to make it happen in mechanics terms

 The world was originally inspired as running under Classic or Original D&D, however I'm planning to focus on systemless description and make rules appendices for the following;

• Classic D&D (Mentzer, Holmes and Rules Cyclopedia)
• Savage Worlds
• Hackmaster Basic
• Harp
• potentially Gurps and Castles and Crusades

My eventual goal is to create a PDF of the game world thats sytemless and several appendices with the different rules systems and how they handle the world.

More later....

The Grand list of Ponderings on Bryn Mawr, Pt1

Before Ive mentioned briefly that I have a fantasy RPG campaign world that Ive been thinking about a lot called Bryn Mawr. If Im listening to a podcast or reading a book some part of my mind is wondering; how can I apply this to Bryn Mawr, what can I learn from this?

So here's the current list of things Im pondering for Bryn Mawr - and the more interesting will probably become blog posts as I mentally delve into the political and social traits of the the game world, perhaps to the point of splitting the posts off into thier own blog. But thats all in the future... for now I just need to get the ideas out of my head and into some sort of physical form. So with no further ado...


The grand list of ponderings

1. What are the real world parallels of the cultures of the races?
2. Ice houses - how is food preserved among the major races of the world? How is it prepared?
3. Is there an Aurora in the world? How far south does it show, what colors?
4. What sort of drinks (especially alcoholic) do the different races make or brew? For example Rat Lager of the Dwarves
5. How big are the fields of the world? Perhaps the size of an American football field
6. How common are tornadoes?
7. Is there Ergot? do people know what it is?
8. The "Town Cryer of Carnegie Towers" as an NPC.
9. Mental illness, how common and how is it treated?
10. How common are taverns? Are they just places to drink or something more
11. Are there any cows or are deer, elk and fish the main sources of meat?
12. What are the standardized units of the kingdoms?
13. How is death and burial treated by the races
14. What are the unifying cultural meals of the races
15. What spices are in the land?
16. Does millet or sorghum exist? What are the grains and staples of the races?
17. Are there city states in the world?
18. What founder crops are there for each race?
19. Are there any military colonies?
20. What amount of the houses in the world are also storefronts and shops?
21. Skiing in the land?
22. Where are the canals from the Great Empire?
23. What is know about the lake that exists at the site of the former capital of the Great Empire? What is weird?
24. What sort of mines are in the land?
25. Are imperial gifts, ala the Chinese, in the world? Gifts that are part bribe part grease to maintain the government, known as pander diplomacy
26. What is the link between crafts and government?
27. Is there an incarnation of the memory of the land?
28. What is the religions of the land like? Dualistic, monotheistic, or pantheistic?
29. Do the Nephillum have a place in the game? The children of man and angel.
30. Is Borron treated as a great betrayer or a cleanser of iniquity? Are there differing views? Does anyone worship him?
31. Are there fairs in the land?
32. How are markets handled?
33. How are family feuds handled?
34. How is magic like polymorph treated in the legal system
35. Do fish ponds exist in the land?
36. Whats Breakfast or Childs ale like? How common?
37. Do people eat seafood? How often and what sort?
38. Are there deer parks?
39. How heroic are PCs expected to be?
40. are there Equinox ceremonies?
41. does the fairy realm exist?
42. How common is Human Sacrifice?
43. What is the role of Anchorites in the land?
44. Are there any special rules or folk lore on how magic might or might not work?
45. What sort of architecture does each race favor?
46. Do chariots have a role in the world?
47. How rare are diamonds?
48. the importance of genealogy and who you are related to
49. are sacrifices offered in times of natural disasters
50. do the gods need appeased or hornored
51. whats paper like in the world?
52. are there sacred mountains?
53. What role do titles have in the land?
54. Whats food like? What sort of food?
55. Are there healing wells? Is there worship at these wells?
56. Are there fae and do they live in the hollow hills? What lives in the hollow hills instead?
57. What symbols are worn by different groups in combat to avoid fraticide
58. Do swords tell of their achievements and uses when cleaned?
59. Is there a Plain of Pillars from some ancient battle?
60. Are there merchant houses?
61. What are taxes and dues like in the land
62. Are there faerie doctors?
63. What is the role of the giant in the land? Are they in decline, have they become corrupted?
64. Is there an equivalent to the Fomori?
65. What role do Doorkeepers have in the land?
66. Are there bloodfines?

 And this is just what is partially rattling around my head...