Month: May 2019

A Heart for Madness

I’m running a Barbarians of Lemuria adventure, A Heart for Madness, at UK Games Expo. The characters start the adventure in the employ of the merchant Rustus in the old trading city of Oomis, acting as guards for him and his family.

The heroes are a hard as nails ragtag band of adventurers. Like all such heroes they have blown the fortune from their last adventure on carousing, and now find themselves in gainful employment. They are:

  • Bisara the Mercenary
  • Crixas the Gladiator
  • Gyllana the Barbarian
  • Rovena the Priestess
  • Sevrik the Thief
  • Zuri the Hunter

Barbarians of Lemuria is a classless system, in addition to their attributes and combat abilities characters are defined by careers. The titles above are there just to give an indication of the careers the characters have and perhaps their archetype when I created them.

Barbarians of Lemuria is a simple system, the key elements are:

  • Roll 2d6 + attribute + career (if any) vs target of 9 to succeed
  • Roll 2d6 + attribute + melee/ranged – targets defence vs target of 9 to hit
  • Every roll is against a target of 9
  • Bonus die; roll 3d6 rather than 2d6 and drop lowest
  • Penalty die; roll 3d6 rather than 2d6 and drop highest
  • Boons give good stuff and often a bonus die on certain actions
  • Flaws are bad stuff and often give a penalty die
  • Heroes start each session with 5 hero points, these can be spent on cool things in the game

That’s about all you need to know to get started, the rest is so easy to pick up in play. Can’t wait to run this!

BurritoCon3

Saturday 27th July, 10am-5pm, Fanboy 3, Manchester

Wasn’t sure that it was going to happen, but the happy circumstance that lead me to organising the first BurritoCon last year has happened again (my daughter wants a lift to Manchester ComicCon with her mates and I’m on taxi duty; rather that driving to Manchester and back to Liverpool twice I thought it’d be nice to get some gaming in).

As at previous events it’ll be held at the fantastic Fanboy 3. I really love that store, they have a great attitude towards small events like this and also have a load of great gaming stuff to tempt you while there. If only they’d relocate to Liverpool…

The event be held on 27th July and will run from 10am to 5pm with two three hour slots (10-1 and 2-5), maximum 6 players plus a GM per table. That’s space for 21 to attend, and I already have quite a few names on the list. The only cost is the regular £3 per game for players to Fanboy 3, GM’s get £1 store credit for each player in their game (at least it was last year, I’ll double check with them). The store is only 5-10 minutes walk from Picadilly station and there are loads of food options nearby (including but not limited to Burrito’s).

Games on offer:

Morning (10am – 1pm)

  • Table 1:
  • Table 2:
    • System: The Code of Steam and Steel
    • Title: The case of the missing Prince Albert – a Detective Inspector Rabbit mystery Her Majesty Queen Victoria’s IronClad, the Prince Albert, is missing. Last evening she was tied up at London Dock’s. This morning she was gone! Disappeared into thin air. Time for Detective Inspectors Rabbit, Mabel Wisbech, Strauss and (3) other characters from the recent TV series to investigate.
    • Tags: Turn of the century, Victoriana, Gritty East End Police Procedural Romp, Dockyard language.
    • GM: @squadronuk
  • Table 3:
    • System: Old School Essentials
    • Title: For the Honour of the Tribe (from Imagine magazine Issue 2)The tales of your ancestors tell how your tribe has lived forever in harmony with the land. Even when the wizard moved into his nearby tower many years ago a status quo was established, with your natural distrust of magic ensuring your people kept their distance. However the recent theft of a tribal relic is blamed on the sorcerer and you are tasked with recovering it – for the honour of the tribe!
    • GM: @OldScouserRPing
  • Table 4:
    • System: Monkey
    • Title: Peaches Fallen From Heaven
    • Chang’an is the cosmopolitan capital of the great Tang Empire. Here Chinese citizens, brush shoulders with Turkish traders, and Buddhist Monks discuss the finer points of religion with their Taoist counterparts. All while an invisible department of the Celestial Bureaucracy made up of diverse immortals, such as yourselves, ensure the smooth day to day running of the city.Today is an unhappy day. Peaches of Immortality have fallen from Western Heaven and one has landed in the city. Your department’s initial divinations are not good. They indicate the involvement of Triads, magical secret societies, a high risk of Kung Fu fighting and even Demonic interference! Nervously your boss the City God looks to you to find the missing peach and restore harmony to the city.
    • GM: @Newtus

Afternoon (2pm – 5pm)

  • Table 1:
  • Table 2:
    • System: WEG Star Wars D6
    • Title: Everyone Comes To Squig’s
    • In a town at the edges of an increasingly totalitarian state, the arrival of a fugitive freedom fighter and his partner causes a cynical bar-owner and a corrupt police chief to question their loyalties and perhaps take a stand. Casablanca 1941? No – a galaxy far away…
    • GM: @fechtbuch
  • Table 3:
    • System: Project Cassandra
    • Title: Ich bin ein Berliner
    • June, 1963. With the Cold War at its height, the subjects of Project Cassandra foretell of a perilous moment for the future. A tipping point on the scales that holds in its hands the fate of the West. With reports falling on deaf ears within the sprawling bureaucracy that controls the intelligence services the Projects risks everything with an unauthorized black-ops mission – Airlift the subject into West Berlin and ensure that President Kennedy survives long enough to tell the world Ich bin ein Berliner…
    • GM: @whodo_voodoo
  • Table 4:
    • System: HeroQuest Glorantha
    • Title: Wyrmghost Ruins
    • GM: @ian_h_cooper

I’ll post more details about the games on offer as they come in, if you fancy getting along contact me on Twitter @OldScouserRPing or in a reply to this post.