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[Galloglaich]

Originally Posted by Jack7

Good luck and Godspeed with your project.
I've got to hit the sack.

Hi Jack,

First of all thanks. I really appreciate somebody taking a thoughtful look at these ideas and it sounds like you and I have similar tastes in gaming. Your setting is a fascinating era / corner of the world, I often thought what a cool milieu that would be when reading of Harald Hardrada in the Varangian guard. The Rus states remind me of the Voyaguers in Canada, only more wide-open and scary. The decadant Khazar empire is like something right out of Conan.

To answer your question, I guess it depends what you mean exactly by combat but yes I have been in a few pretty hairy fights as a punk in the deep south back in the 80's. That far back before it was cool or socially acceptable, it kind of went with the territory.

The Codex is primarily oriented toward the kind of individual and small group combat you have in most RPGs though there are some rules for mass missile combat and cooperative fighting Martial Feats which have to do with group combat. Due to the nature of the Martial pool getting ganged up in is much more dangerous using the codex rules, and the emphasis is on the individual and small group, though you might be able to play with the system for larger scale fights.

We do include some emphasis on your period. A lot of the shield-fighting and missile combat feats in the Codex were taken directly from the Icelandic Sagas, and there is some kit like lamellar and klibanion armor for example, and some specifically Norse and Roman weapons (the bearded axe, hurlbat, pilum, the Gastrophetes bow).

I tried to make a system which would work with every historical period that I was familiar with, so a Varjag group should fit in, but it's a generic combat system and only 40 pages. We may do some more expansions if it does well of course, there are a lot of interesting directions to go in with the historical angle, even into Magic and Alchemy etc. (I'll be posting something about Berzerks on this thread a bit later)

If you ever do get a copy let me know what you think of it ,

G.