[Adamant Entertainment] CORSAIR released, plus contest

[barsoomcore]

Looking at Corsair has me going over Skull & Bones again. I really need to come up with a plotline.

Feel free to steal from my Skull & Bones Story Hour, "Dead Man's Chest" -- though the plot as yet hasn't emerged too clearly.

Crystal Skulls, Mayan Vampire Concubines and the Lords of Hell...

 

[trilobite]

Feel free to steal from my Skull & Bones Story Hour, "Dead Man's Chest" -- though the plot as yet hasn't emerged too clearly.

Crystal Skulls, Mayan Vampire Concubines and the Lords of Hell...

Hey you stole those ideas from me.....

So..

Feel free to steal MY ideas from Barsoomcore's Skull & Bones Story Hour, "Dead Man's Chest"!

 

[barsoomcore]

Doh! Busted!

It's true. It's all true.

Oh, except for the bit about trilobite's sister. That bit's not true. They made me say that, I swear.

trilobite's the architect. I'm the carpenter.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

...or Innsmouth...or Dunwich...



Hm. There should only be one file....unless...

Oh, I know what it probably is. I'm in the habit of taking the preview image of the cover graphic and replacing the standard PDF icon on the file (I'm on a Mac)...Perhaps that doesn't work with Windows files, and it included the data doing that as a separate thing? I dunno.

What is the file called?

._ADM2001.pdf is the title.

As for Innsmouth and Dunwich... If I recall aproper Innsmouth was Portsmouth, New Hampshire, kind of Yuppie these days, but scuzzy in Lovecraft's. Devil's Reef is based on Henderson's Reef, which the Navy destroyed in the 1920s as both a means to get rid of a hazard to navigation and as artillery practice.(It partially blocked the Piscataqua River.) smuttynose is visible from there. I lived in Portsmouth for quite some time in my youth. The city was reformed largely by the works of the Prescott sisters, there is a park named after them on the waterfront - replacing a very active redlight district. During the 17th and 18th centuries it was already picking up a bad reputation.

So Innsmouth (under one name or another) is in. And don't think I didn't notice the reference in 'The Bottoms' of Saba Island either. I am also thinking about Kingsport, with its ties between the Terrible Old Man and the South Seas. (Hmmm, a Bokor perhaps?) So I may have both Blackwater and Bluewater pirate themes in a single troupe style game, with Saba as the common point. Dunwich is too inland, but Innsmouth and Kingsport have possibilities. Or even use both D20 CoC for the 1920s with flasbacks to S&B. (Reincarnation can be a very disturbing plot device...)

I am also thinking that I may make magic weaker the further away from the South Seas you come, or at least having the rules change.

The Auld Grump

*EDIT An a song I plan to use for the game... Old Fid by Bill Lowndes.

I'll sing you a song of the rolling sky
Of lands far beyond the main
Of the ebb tide bell and the salt pork meal
That I'll never know me again
I mind the times as we were becalmed
With never a breath for the sheets
The red sun was so hot that the water would rot
And the decking would blister your feet

cho: So don't ask me where I've damned well been
And don't ask me what I did
For every thumb was a marlinespike
and every finger a fid

And then there's the times that we rounded the Horn
With cargoes of silk for Cadiz
The swell roll was so high It were lashing the sky
Lord the whole bloody world's in a fizz
Whether spices from Java or copra from Yap
Or a bosun too free with the cat
It was haul up the anchor and roll out that spanker
And dammit move faster than that

I've loved the proud women from Spain's dusty plains
I've seen where the Arab girls sleep
And the black girls as well though they're fiercer than Hell
Have all kissed me when silver was cheap
Lord, how the man's changed from that young cabin boy
to the old man who sits on this bench
for I'm too old to fight or to stay out all night
In the comp'ny of some pretty wench

Just an old clipper man who's long past his best years
And I know that I'll never be free
From the smell of the tar that once braided my hair
Or the salty old tang of the sea

 

[TDRandall]

Looking forward to seeing a review. (I don't find Adamant in the full publishers list. Are they new and/or too small somehow?) I'm in the market for a new ships book and there are several to choose from. I'd buy them all, but available funds do not allow that. As it is, I peruse the reviews and try to figure out which one has the pieces I'm really looking for (which I'm not sure I can define explicitly myself) - so far none of them have cut it, but I realize that could be the fault of the review rather than the book/file itself.

I picked up the Seafarer's Guide used, but it ended up not being quite the right fit for what I wanted. I wanted more ship building options so that I could have a world's worth of different ships if I had the time and inclination to make them. Then actually using the ships you made with their engagement rules seemed somehow clumsy.

Until someone can sell me completely on a book I guess I remain in the "wing it for effect" club.

 

[GMSkarka]

(I don't find Adamant in the full publishers list. Are they new and/or too small somehow?)

What "full publishers list"? Where are you looking?

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Look under Green Ronin. Skull & Bones was published as part of their Mythic Vistas line (as I believe was also planned for Gloriana.)

Reviews for Skull & Bones are found here: http://www.enworld.org/reviews/index.php?sub=yes&where=currentprod&which=SKBO

The system in Corsair is largely taken from S&B with a few additions.

The Auld Grump

 

[TheAuldGrump]

What "full publishers list"? Where are you looking?

He is reffering to the Full Publishers list in the D20 Reviews area of this site. *EDIT* Here http://www.enworld.org/reviews/publishers.php

The Auld Grump
*EDIT 2*

Looking forward to seeing a review. (I don't find Adamant in the full publishers list. Are they new and/or too small somehow?) I'm in the market for a new ships book and there are several to choose from. I'd buy them all, but available funds do not allow that. As it is, I peruse the reviews and try to figure out which one has the pieces I'm really looking for (which I'm not sure I can define explicitly myself) - so far none of them have cut it, but I realize that could be the fault of the review rather than the book/file itself.

I picked up the Seafarer's Guide used, but it ended up not being quite the right fit for what I wanted. I wanted more ship building options so that I could have a world's worth of different ships if I had the time and inclination to make them. Then actually using the ships you made with their engagement rules seemed somehow clumsy.

Until someone can sell me completely on a book I guess I remain in the "wing it for effect" club.

I am pretty sure that the ships were not built with the Seafarer's Handbook, rather they are built around the ships in Mongoose Publishing's Seas of Blood, and actual real world ships. And I would not use the term 'clumsy' at all, at all. (You can find the corresponding ship types with very little work, the number of guns, length, draft, beam, rigging, etc. is from the actual ships, only the game stats are assigned from SoB.)

However if you are looking for ship building rules, that are at least mostly consistent with those used in Corsair, look up Mongoose Publishing's Book of the Sea.

When S&B came out these rules were not yet available so there will be some minor discrepencies. Plus BoS is intended for mostly for ships before the advent of blackpowder, while Corsair and S&B are for a specific, gunpowder heavy, period. Until cannon came into existence naval battles consisted mostly of ramming and boarding, catapults, trebuchet, etc. take up a lot of space on ship compared to cannon, and otherwise are a very bad iidea aboard ship. (Yaw, pich, and roll do not make for accurate fire, then add in a counterweight driven trebuchet and you have a nightmare.)

The Auld Grump

 

[GMSkarka]

(as I believe was also planned for Gloriana.)

Actually, no---that was going to be the first print release from Adamant on its own. (In other news, the project might not be entirely dead. We're discussing the possibility of removing those elements that made it specifically "Elizabethulhu"--which remains Cam's property--and seeing if we can do it as "straightforward" Elizabethan fantasy.)

He is reffering to the Full Publishers list in the D20 Reviews area of this site.

Ah. Yeah, nobody has reviewed BUCCANEERS & BOKOR here, which is released solely under our name, so we don't appear on that list yet. The most recent issue of D20 Filtered has a review of the latest B&B, if you're interested.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Oh, so Gloriana was going to be your first solo print project. Double bummer. (I really was looking forward to it, the Elizabethian period through the reformation is my favorite historical period. I really wanted that book.)

Right now I am trying to figure out what to do magic wise for the New England portion of the game, I can time it to coincide with the Salem Witch Trials (Or Kangaroo Court) but for the magic... Running it without magic would likely leave my players saying something like 'Wow, the New England part of this is just like S&B only boring!' I am likely going to have something for the witches (not one of whom ever saw trial - they let others take the fall.) I am also wondering if I should have something akin to the magic attributed to St. Albertus Magnus... slower, safer, but less reliable, most spells accomplishing naught. (Plus how many 'wizards' are considered saints on the Greek Orthodox calendar?) Any ideas as to where I might start? Having something to hand the players other than a bunch of home written rules would be nice.

The Auld Grump