Likewise, the layout is clean and crisp. The real tragedy is that none of these otherwise excellent production values redeem the game in terms of it finding a wider audience. Ultimately, I think that this could have been a reasonably successful game with the right people at the helm. The promise is definitely there. Sadly, I feel that Ms. Constantine chose the wrong people to breathe life into this particular project. Tags dark-fantasy , horror rpgs. Print This Post. Click here to cancel reply.
Name required. Mail will not be published required. The new Review Guidelines have been posted on the Flames Rising website. We are currently seeking a few good reviewers to help us expand our collection of horror and dark fantasy reviews. Armed Forces, but as it stands the gun list is just terribly, terribly inadequate. In addition to a damage range, each implement of death is rated for Armor Penetration and Speed.
Clearly the designer of these charts is a weapons expert of Gygaxian genius, because otherwise it would be the height of silliness to try to convince me that a halberd has an Armor Penetration of 8, while a voulge has an Armor Penetration of This means if you happen to be wearing steel plate armor Armor Value 10 and you see a guy with a voulge you better try to parlay. But if he has a halberd you can probably punk him, because he can only do Minor Wounds to you.
If your armor is rated double the penetration of a weapon, then you can essentially ignore the attack. Weapon Speed is usually a fractional number between 0 and 4, the lower the better. You'll probably have second thoughts when you encounter the table that allows you to calculate your total attack actions based upon Weapon Speed, Base Actions, and your deep breath Weapon Skill Speed Combat Action Modifier.
Finally, the weasely guy with the daggers get more attacks than the oaf with the sledgehammer. Too bad I have to wrangle this crappy chart to make that dream come true. Guns capable of autofire are given separate Speed ratings for single shots, three round bursts, and fully automatic fire. If you use a three round burst your Speed roughly doubles, but you get to make a single to-hit roll that does triple damage. Fully automatic fire can only be done 5 times per turn, once each Slice.
If you have more than 5 actions you have to use the rest of them for other actions. Damage is equal to the normal damage for one shot, plus the 'A' for automatic rating in the Speed column. You can then split the burst among multiple opponents by splitting the damage evenly. Example: My PCs fires an Uzi on full auto at a trio of mere humans. If anyone's defenses beat the success level of my rolls, the shot misses them but might still hit the others. I think I've covered all the basics you need to know for your transexual posthuman to go postal on the security guards in the lobby.
The rest of the combat section covers miscellany such as healing rules suddenly, your guy who has taken 15 Major Wounds has a chance to live , the charts for lifting, jumping, and running, and rules for dangerous stuff like drowning and falling. If you fall more than 11 meters you take extra damage based upon your own body weight. Good thing your Wraeththu is no longer Overweight. Finally, we hit Lexicon 2, which is a glossary of combat rules treminology. Unlike the first glossary, this one is in alphabetical order.
Yay for that. Now we've come to the money shot, er, I mean the magic section. There's an awful lot of expository text at the front of this that I just can't bring myself to read right now. In fact, I'm off to pour myself a gin and tonic just to steel myself for a discussion of the mechanics. Ah, Bombay Saphhire. You'll be the last against the wall when the revolution comes. So you think I'm not making any damn sense now, do you? Well, my gin-induced fantasies have nothing on the Wraeththu magic system.
The following five paragraphs distill down 60 pages of the most unnecessarily verbose magic system I have ever encountered, and I've read actual Victorian-era Golden Dawn initiation ceremonies.
Skipping a bunch of crap, we find that according to the section entitled "How Does Magic Work? You might be saying to yourself "But Jeff, that's fourteen forces.
You said there were twelve total. Frankly, I feel totally lost as I try to navigate the magic rules. There's a whole lot of words, but in many passages I'm picking up more noise than signal. There seems to be two types of magical methodology: Magari, the art of casting spells on the fly, and ritual magic, known as Majhahn.
These methods can produce two different types of effects, Subtle and Vulgar. Even I know that was swiped from Mage: the Whatever. Everytime you use Vulgar Magic that is, every time a witness can tell you're screwing with the universe you pick up a point of Probability. Each point of Probability is a coupon for the GM good for slapping a penalty onto your next critical dice roll. At low levels the penalty is to the roll.
At Probability 4 the penalty becomes At Prob level 7 the penalty becomes and the GM is authorized to generally pimp you over as the universe punks you for screwing with it.
Each roll that is futzed with eliminates one of your accumulated points of Probability. Getting a tenth point of Probability costs you 25 points in skills and other stats. The world really is a vampire. So how do I cast a spell? First you figure out exactly what you want to do. Then you negotiate with the Storyteller over what forces you need to use to achieve the effect desired.
If I want to light a campfire, then no doubt I would need at least one rank in the Fire magic. If I wanted to throw a fireball then I would also need at least one rank in Kinetic energy as well.
If I wanted to throw a fireball to prevent Lincoln from being assassinated, then I'd also need at least one rank in Temporal to send my attack back in time. The Storyteller insists that sending a fireball all the way back to will require at least Temporal 4. Assuming my PC has at least one rank in Kinetic, four ranks in Temporal, and 5 ranks in Fire, then I should be able to cast this spell. I then need to get with the GM and decide if the spell is a Chaos or Order spell.
We can debate the political ramifications of Lincoln serving the rest of his term as well as the morality of crosstemporally incinerating assassins, but the real issue is probably that setting people on fire tends to increase the Chaos in a system. Since the highest attribute of our spell is 5, that means we would need Chaos 5 to cast the spell in the most efficient manner possible. If our magical counterassassin has less than 5 ranks of Chaos, the casting time of the spell spell increases.
On one hand it makes for an interesting way to make some spells require longer casting times, on the other hand this looks like an unnecessary game mechanic that has no function but to piss off players c. There's a chart for how much Agmara spell points a spell costs. Looking at that chart I see that an effect with three forces ranked 1,4, and 5 costs a total of 41 points of mojo.
Fireballing people is definitely against Hoyle, so the spellcaster would pick up a point of Probability for his trouble as well. I really ought to spend a sentence or two ragging on the section entitled "The Units of Elements, Forces, and Changing States".
It's here that magic and science collide, forming an utter trainwreck. We are told crazy things like a point of Fire magic produces a cubic meter of fire, while a point of Plasmatic energy produces one kilojoule of "power".
Does this make any fucking sense? I'd sure like answers to questions like "How hot is that Fire? More importantly, I don't understand why they were set at all! I don't want to estimate how many liters of liquid are in something before working out a Water spell.
If you run short on Agmara there are some nifty rules for ruining your body to power spells by transforming wounds to power points. Also, friends can contribute Agmara to an operation. You can steal power points from people too, but they find out about it if you take more than half their ju-ju. The universe hates Agmara thieves, so taking the stuff without permission also earns you a point of Probability.
Majhahn ritual magic works pretty much as described above, except that you need all the normal magickal stuff and a place to work. The nice thing about ritual magic is that you can do all the probability-shattering stuff without penalty. There's other stuff in here, like using lunar phases to your advantage and summoning spirits, but most of it is too sketchily defined for my tastes.
The magic section ends with some sample spells None of which are particularly earth-shattering. I've seen some Call of Cthulhu PCs with more useful spells.
Finally, after the magic section are five Appendices. The first two are the equipment lists, including the weapons charts I griped about when I was droning on about the combat system. Appendix three is all about running your own game, including a mini-scenario. There's some reasonably good practical advice here, but the scenario looks like a lesson in railroading. There's a nifty little chart for following the five scenes in the mini-adventure, kinda like what you would see in the modules Mayfair used to churn out for DC Heroes.
Unfortunately, the idea that there are many alternative ways for the PCs to negoatiate this adventure is a total sham. Another thing that annoyed me is that the Storyteller advice here tells you to start "In media res: This means in the middle of the action" but then the first scene of the sample adventure has no action whatsoever! In fact, the whole 'adventure' is nothing more than an overstuffed adventure hook.
I could sum up the action of the whole thing in one sentence and then build a real adventure starting with Scene 5. After the crummy adventure are some notes on running Wraeththu diceless. We run into the same problem here as with Victorian Age Vampire : someone can't distinguish between 'diceless' and 'freeform'.
Appendix 3 ends with a page and half of anemic adventure ideas and 8 sample PCs, one of whom is a totally rad blind-fighter. Appendix 4 contains even more GM advice. At this point I'd gladly trade half the GM advice in the book for a decent example of play. The article here "Aruna and the Single Gamer" is not without merit, though, as it contains guidance on how to not squick out players with all the flowertentacle sex.
Apendix 5 is a how-to guide for filling out a character sheet, followed by a 2-page char sheet, a couple maps, and the index. We did it! We made it all the way through! Before moving on the my conclusions, I need to address three global aspects of the game. First, most of the interior art by Bruce Wells is really good.
The Wraeththu as he depicts them are all evocative of mysterious power and allure. Some of the other line art isn't quite so good, like the full page pieces between the chapters. I was surprised by the numerous realistic gun illos peppering the book. They seem reasonably well-drawn to me, but their presence conflicted with my expectations that this isn't just another game about blowing shit up.
Another global issue is the way the book is organized. Maybe the arrangements make sense to somebody else, but to me I felt like was reading the Choose Your Own Adventure of Doom. For the information you actually need, go to page And some things should be listed alphabetically that aren't such as Lexicon One and the skills list. This issue hardly makes or breaks the game, but anyone wanting to play this puppy will probably spend an inordinate amount of time flipping through the book. The index and table of contents are useful enough to help when that happens.
So kudos for that. Finally, I should mention the crazy quotes. The outside margin on each page the one opposite the spine is pretty large. In this huge white space Lampooned in Andy Kitowski's Spulturatorah! Almost every page has at least one of these quotes and often the quote has abso-fucking-lutely nothing to do with the main text it sits next too. I suppose these quotes are meant to evoke the mood and themes of the setting, but the whole thing comes off to me like the short bus version of the excellent marginal nanoficition found in Rebecca Borgstrom's Nobilis.
Here, I'll lay on y'all a trio of honest-to-Grodd selected-at-random quotes: "Who's this? Another poor sap who did the bleeding for you? Well, I have had enough.
It's your turn to do some bleeding. I am here to slap some sense into you both for being too like each other. Overall, this constant stream of nonsense makes me feel like I'm accidentally eavesdropping on a bunch of ficitional characters who are trying to have a horribly hip conversation and failing to be the least bit cool.
I've participated in tragically uncool confabs like that before, but that don't mean I want to overhear someone else similarly humiliating themselves.
In a word, no. It does not. In my opinion Wraeththu doesn't come close. Unlike any of these games, I can and would play Wraeththu and probably get some enjoyment out the experience.
I think RPGnetter Destriarch hits the nail firmly on the head, writing in response to a thread started by a newbie looking for help with the Wraeththu rpg: My advice would be to get a universal system and adapt it. The new World of Darkness stuff might be suitable given that the plots in Wraeththu are largely romantic or political with less action to worry about.
I might also suggest trying to adapt Nobilis if you can stomach diceless systems or if you can get your hands on an old copy of Everway which would probably be perfect for this style of thing. Honestly though, if you're new to the hobby you will almost certainly have trouble with Wraeththu: fEtF.
I can't understand half of the systems described in the book, and I've been RP'ing in many different systems for more than fifteen years now. Another perfectly viable tactic would be to adopt the Wraeththu to your game. Send in these folks. Want to really make your Feng Shui players wince? Have the next critical shift eliminate the Buro timeline and instead make the world of into the Juncture of the Wraeththu. Your monster hunter PC may wake up already pre-incepted! I'm sure folks running Nobilis , Exalted , or Call of Cthulhu can find uses for the Wraeththu as well.
I think the possibilities are tremendous. If anyone knows of any other Wraeththu reviews online, please pass the link on to me so that I can post it here. Posted by Jeff Rients at PM. Kuma AM. Jeff Rients AM. Anonymous AM. Anonymous PM. Jay Dugger AM. Darv AM. Victor Raymond PM. Blair PM. Vance AM. Newer Post Older Post Home. Subscribe to: Post Comments Atom. Gameblog-O-Rama 3. Run From Kelvin's Brainsplurge! Mince Pie Fest Plant Pioneers Sainsbury's in Disguise - I found these hidden in the corner of a bottom shelf of the bakery section at Sainsbos, almost as if they were ashamed.
It seems that the more specific the Box Full of Boxes. I know it's been a bit, but I have been super busy with school Regardless, here's the second part to my expansion of Thousand Thou Another Cube World available! Chaos Magick-User. Beyond the Black Diamond Gates — weird magick spell - Ah, the dreaming, the last frontier, the door to the impossible. But sadly, dreams are not real, therefore they leave you with a bittersweet feeling in the Charlie's RPG Musings.
Spooky Rusty. Pretty Paleozoic Pals part 4 I invited a friend to play a session with me! Ramblings of a Flame Princess. The Sword of Sorcery. What happens when a ritual summoning goes wrong? A small town in Colonial Maryland is about to find out. Can your characters survive the Captain Ahab's Leg. Jack-O'-Dungeons Returns! Some of the piec Tolkien's Albtraum. Heute sind sie rar geworden. In der aktuellen Version de I got some art and several articles in these new classes mostly.
Download them and check them out for your Aaron The Pedantic. Adventures in Parn. Roll Sanity. Well yes! Colin Evan and Colin Games this one is for you!
The Realm of Lord Mhor. Regardless of certain tedious controversies surrounding the publis Kyorou's House of Games. The circular ruins. Xenchraat's Journal. Recent going's on - I've not been sat mindlessly slaving away at the hack and system all this time, I've had some new books turn up and a mountain of pdf's to go over as wel The Walls of Uruk. Rules are on the House - Herein a compilation of my house rules for when I run games. Tomb Of The Wandering Millennial.
Blog Reboot - How starting over feels After the disaster that was I decided it would be best to start over on a new blog.
Wipe the state clean as they say. Save vs. Player Agency. I have already used it in several ways during games and have enjoye Fantastic Dimensions. Dreams in the Lich House. The Creepatorium. Ten Fearsome Pit Fighters of the Grand Arena - There are many fighting pits in the city, but none of them compare to the Grand Arena in terms of prestige, showmanship, and skill of the fighters.
The fig Anadiel's Black Book. Finally, a review! I rate products in these categories: Writ The Grue Next Door. Sometimes the module is too deadly, the players too green, the GM too evil The Brookmere Chronicles. It ended a year ago and I'm just now getting around to finishing off the write Doc Schott's Lab.
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This game holds nothing back: it features a ton of custom battle systems, a quest-based storyline, stylistic graphics, and nearly 30 hours of gameplay. If you're looking for inspiration on how to make something completely atypical for RPG Maker, then look no further! These four games were selected for their technical prowess, popularity, and critical acclaim. They are a sample of what advanced users can do with the simple-yet-powerful tools of RPG Maker.
Your game could be one of those included! The world of Aetherion, a strange place where dreams and reality are closely intertwined, is under threat from otherworldly entities called Raythe. To protect the world from the Raythe, the ARC Institute was founded: their goal is to study and protect against the Aether, the mysterious realm from which Raythe originate. Take on the role of Edan, a new initiate at the ARC Institute, as he learns the secrets of the Aether and takes up his mission to protect the world from the looming nightmares that threaten it.
Take part in a life simulation game with an emphasis on dungeon exploration, completing quests, crafting new equipment and items, and befriending the people in town! Created by Diedrupo and Ronove, Homework Salesman tells the story of Reniat, who returns to her home village after years away at boarding school to find that the village is nearly deserted.
The mine that the village depended on heavily for boosting its economy and tourism has been overrun by monsters and no one has bothered doing anything about it. Having trained as an adventurer, she decides to see what she can do about reviving the town and making a name for herself in the world.
Featuring strategic battles, player-created weapons, and unique gameplay around every turn, I Miss the Sunrise is an RPG experience like no other. Featuring an atypical health system, character creator, deep NPC interaction, fast and strategic turn-based battles, and more!
They said I'd die and go to heaven. One man, the Wanderer, has decided to brave the village and figure out what is going on - why the people are vanishing, and why those who don't are going insane. Enter the village, if you dare - but who are you do stop the apotheosis of a madman?
Game Character Hub. DLC of the Week. Start by selecting what you would like to download. Free Trials. Manga Maker ComiPo! Visual Novel Maker Latest installment to the 'Maker' series of game development tools, Visual Novel Maker: a revolutionary new tool for Visual Novel Creation aimed towards aspiring artists and writers to bring their stories to life.
To contact the site owner, see this page. What happened to the old Forever site? The original, and first-ever Wraeththu fan fiction web site, Forever , was created by Mischa Laurent, an ardent fan who drew many fan fiction writers to the fandom and inspired many stories. Mischa himself was the author of an impressive number of Wraeththu stories. Several years after starting the web site, Mischa turned over maintenance to Wendy Darling, known in fandom for taking on any web-related volunteer job she can plus editing for Immanion Press and writing fan fiction.
Wendy kept the site up to date as much as she could but eventually decided a new format was called for, so that stories could be added more easily and also sorted by character, tribe, themes, etc. She set up an account in WordPress one Sunday afternoon and within a week the new site was born. Wendy created the tags as she was posting, adding characters, tribes, themes, story types, etc. If you have a suggestion, use email Wendy.
You can subscribe to feeds many different ways, including news reading softweare, news reading services Google Reader, Newsgator , feed widgets, and more. Can I receive notifications by email when new stories are posted?
Yes, you can thanks to Feedburner. Click here to subscribe to Forever Wraeththu by email. Nifty, huh? How do I submit a story to Forever Wraeththu? Send it in by following the directions on the Wraeththu Fanfic Submissions page. What format should the story be in? Forever Wraeththu accepts stories in a variety of formats. The key is submitting a story in a clean text format that is easy to copy and paste into a web form.
There should not be hard returns spaces between paragraphs, because otherwise all the text has to be fixed before it can be entered into the site. Preferred formats: Microsoft Word.
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