(IR) Announcing a New Strategic Roleplaying Campaign of Epic Proportions!

[Edena_of_Neith]

Airwhale, Bugbear, and the rest of you: may I post your e-mails openly on my megathread above?

 

[Creamsteak]

Ok guys, I have a Megapost to post. It took the last 3 hours just to create it. It is intended to clarify things. Your specific power is in this post: just scroll down through it until you find it.

Edena, for the good of your own health, please slow down. I firmly believe that perhaps your taking a bit "too much" on if your putting 3 hours into a post.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

To Melkor: Again, urgent

Again, welcome to the IR Melkor! Hey there, nice to see you.
You expressed an interest in running the Solistarim earlier.
I created them, and a complete description of them is on pages 7, 8, and 9 of this thread.

They are quite evil, xenophobic, and consider the Flanaess their backyard, with a bunch of trespassing louts and riff-raff tromping on the grass. And since the louts and riff-raff refuse to leave when asked, they will just have to be removed.
The Solistarim are not one race. They are a cosmopolitan nation of many lawful and neutral evil races coexisting under rigid laws, strict law enforcement, and deeply propagandized loyalty to the leadership (magical, in some cases.)
A hierachy of mages rules the Solistarim, so the Solistarim could be called a Magocracy. The High Leader of the Solistarim is considered a diety by the Solistarim, and he might just be a diety in this IR.

Like the Martians in War of the Worlds, they are looking south from their cold, forbidding mountains and caverns, at the green, lush, warm lands of the Flanaess, with vast intellect and unsympathetic thoughts, and greed is in their hearts.

 

[Bugbear]

Airwhale, Bugbear, and the rest of you: may I post your e-mails openly on my megathread above?

Yes You may. Litberg@Yahoo.com Please put [IR] in the subject line so I may spot them easier.

And Edena, get some rest, there's allways tomorrow.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

I'm ok. And yes, I will slow down.

I am still puzzling through the rules. They are posted on page 13 of this thread.
Obviously, Serpenteye will repost them on the new thread, as well.

I'm guessing everyone is puzzling through the rules, and that some players haven't read them yet.

- - -

Airwhale, are you claiming the Celestial Imperium, then?

 

[James Heard]

Right now I'm organizing my own sort of "mega-thread" and compiling everything into a hopefully coherent document that everyone can use. You know, with headers, footers, and a format that's easy to read. Forums are nice and all, but there's an awful lot of info being passed around here. Having something to read offline and even maybe print could be useful. So I'm trying to be useful.

Right now I'm working out with Serpenteye on if my formula for figuring out how many Power Points to invest into IC each turn has turned horribly wrong, clarifying some other talking points, desperately trying to catch up with everyone's factions (because hopefully once it's nice and formatted it won't be a problem to do it ever again), and trying to figure out where to slash some of those pesky addendums into the Rules portion of the document. If anyone wants a preliminary copy of the thing, send me an email at dunlandor@earthlink.net with I WANT THE 5TH IR in the header (please). There's bound to be significant, horrific errors in my editing - so please be gentle if you find out that I've mistakenly accorded you control over the cows of Oerth.

 

[Airwhale]

I'm curious how the game will handle Spelljamers before I make my final choice... waiting to hear back from SE. Also seeing if Zelda chimes in with his thoughts.

Oh, I think I'm okay with having my e-mail up, but I am afraid of e-mail mineing... has anyone had a non-obfuscated e-mail adress up here and not gotten spam? These boards may be hard to traverse with a bot...

Doing something like scgeerTHISISNOTPARTOFTHEEMALADDRESS int he gmail.com service is okay.

edit: It seems that individual posts here are able to be picked up by google, so, as I have had to abandon one email due to spam, I'm going to have to say no to having my raw e-mail adress posted. Obfuscated is fine though.

 

[William Ronald]

Airwhale, Zelda is a woman ... and a better player than she thinks.

Everyone, go to the new thread at http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=109539 for a mega post. First, Bugbear and Melkor, it is good to see you here!

 

[Serpenteye]

I've been directed to join this by a friend, and damned if it don't look too cool not to. That being said, is there still room open?

Welcome Nac Mac Feegle! There's still a lot of room open.
(I hope nobody had to break your knees )

Hi all! Edena has informed me of this game, and i am considering joining, despite being absorped by studies, girlfiend and three other onlne games. I am considering playing either a Solistarim or some Underdark races. Where can I find info on the Solistarim? Serpenteye, maybe I could create a joint power with someone else, like you and Mr Draco did in 3rd IR?

Hi Melkor, welcome! Great to see you again.

Edena made a post about the Solistarim a few pages ago. The underdark under the Flannaes only has two factions so far so there's plenty of room, and then there's a lot of underdark in the West with pretty much anything you can imagine.
You can create a joint power, certainly. It's both easier and harder to play the game that way, in my experience.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHH!! IT'S HIM!!!

Serp, Edena, Will, Thom, GP. I love You all guys for the heart and effort that You are putting int our epic achievment.

And since my comp is broken, I cannot contribute as much as I want ... and apologise humbly for that.

No need for apologies, your RP-ing is quite a contribution. It really helps set the mood for the game.

I think that one issue needs explaination. Other was picked up by rest of the maginificient Players.

Armies need Upkeep ! Even Undead ones ... Necromacers need expensive resouces etc. Vampires need fancy coffins, ghouls need meat. Army need fresh corpses ... for replacement of rotten ones.

War should be expensive ! Very Expensive ! Guess why Iuz is living in backwater wasteland ? Not just because he's evil ... He's living in perpetual state of internal war with everything that breathes. So much evil races, evil humans, demons, elves and evil Boss just for good meansure. His hold is maybe seeming peaceful ... but in fact all it need to explode with violence is tiny spark. These huge armies, that I will posess to balance my ... unproductive country. Are mostly serving as medieval equivalent of police forces. But Theocracy will be crushed, and Wolf-God would learn meaning of "Teufelkrieg".

Let's say that you all pay resources to create your armies (though your militias creates and maintains itself and need not be payed). A part of those resources are the costs of training and equipment and another cost are the 1-year cost of paying and maintaining the army. One year is a long time in an IR, so problem solved.

Anyone ... who understands rules, how about short term gains ? Pillage and juice out someone ... ( Permamently Burning out the land's PL's) to push out faster resouces, money, slaves etc. And leave desolated ruin behind ...

I think that it may be achieved that way: You need army to pillage province, and this army would be useless for other actions ... troops are busy.

At the start of next turn You are gaining additional Pl's but amount of additional PL's is destroying productivity of pillaged province by amount 1 to 1. And when it would reach 0 PL potential ... it meant that the province's economy in question was simply destroyed, not left even one standing stone ... woods cut out, or burned every people fled or killed or taken into slavery, or as cusine. And to rebuild it You need to allocate PL's from other sources. What od You think of this ?

We don't really need rules for that. It's all pretty intuitive and I'll handle it when it comes up. Of course looting and pillaging is a source of wealth, historically that's how armies got most of their pay until the 18th century civilized warfare somewhat.

Issue 2: Population. I would put it simply ... use spare PL's to improve wellbeing of Your people. For example, Iuz might build Colloseum so citizens might watch spilled blood and return home content ... and don't kill neighbourn out of boredom, today.

Less deaths, imigration by fools who heard that in particular place streets are made of gold. Or that Iuz's soldiers eat warm meal every day !

-"Why would Iuz the Cruel care about the wellbeing of his people?"
-"Because they taste better marinated in endorphines."


Again, that's a bit detailed for most people. I myself think it would be neat, but I can already picture a lot of our players groaning about the additional rules.

You can do most of this stuff for free (always within reason). And if you want something really spectacular for role-playing purposes I'll let you pay a few PLs, as I find appropriate at the time. It probably won't have a major effect on the mechanical aspects of the game, but it will sure impress some NPCs.

Since setting is almost medieval, how with such quietly devastating magics like "Contagion" ? Disease spreading like wildfire may ruin many countries ...

And without Clerical Magic ... one word, without Iuz.
Read history books about what Black Plague did to medieval Europe, sweetcheeks.

The thing about an epidemic is that you never know where it's going to spread... But yes, that's a viable tactic. A mere Contagion spell won't do much, though, the effect will fade as it spreads to a greater amount of people and DnDiseases are kindof lame anyway. Few of them are lethal. However, when the strategy is used on a greater scale...

But it is concerning me greatly in other possible fighting point. Battles ... For example, here is list of troubles that I spotted:

-What if enemy is fighting with superior tactics ? Iuz might destroy supply lines of overhelmingly stronger Fuoryndy army of expensive medieval Knights. During this time his goblin worg riders, being cheap and mobile would harass their enemies from afar, mostly by shotting voleys of arrows from safe distance and retreating out of sight of the Knights. Im open combat, Fuoryndy Elite units will crush Iuz's Regular gobbos packs. Fev days without supplies, no cleric to create food and water, morale dropping frustration growing ... all wells poisoned, no livestock to plunder. They sta to eat their own horses ! Goblins well fed, after many "wictories" as Iuz said morale hig ... And when my godling feel safe in knowing that Fuoryndians are too exchausted to put much a fight, slaughter them during the night ! :\

I will write more later. Kisses for Eclavdra.

Hmm. I cannot create rules detailed enough to reflect that very well and even if I could they would just be a major head-ache for most of our players.
But there's actually few lines in the rules that should do a lot in this regard.
The attacker, that would be you in this case, in a specific area of the battle rolls to damage the defender before the defender rolls to damage the attacker. That makes the first strike rather important since the damage done depends on the relative strength of the two sides. The side who uses the best tactics or has the best position will generally count as the attacker.

The rest I'll simply rule on the spot.

Duergar are almost non existant if they are existant in Greyhawk at all. For the rest... Kua Toa are weak and low in numbers. In canon that is. But it's the IR so that's easily changed. I was just thinking in canon hehe so yup that's true and could make a cool Underdark alliance.

The Duergar most of all would fit brilliantly in the IR.... NE and LE dwarves who are OBSESSED with their crafts and works. They live endless lives of toil and craft deep under the world above them caring for nothing else. They could most singlemindedly chase after the secrets of technology and invention... Now I think of it, Duergar would be the perfect IR race and civilisation, even moreso then dwarves and gnomes due to the singlemindedness of their persuits. Where Kuo Toa fit into that, I don't know but still.

Hmmmm seems like the Duergar would make a fine faction indeed Melkor, just one that might fit some more dicipline, restraint and single mindedness then your last endeavour

Grtz TFO.

Quite right. The Duergar are very appropriate. That is, unless you want to play Greater Nyrond or (possibly, depending on what Eluvan decides) the Kevellond League?...

Rules can be broken, a GM's judgement not. Keep it simple is my advice.

Ahh, Forsaken One, your confidence is reassuring .

Greetings and salutations,

I recived WR's E-mail earlier this week and have been pouring over the thread and decifering the rules and have decided to say hi. I haven't decided if I want to partake in the festivites as of yet.

Oh and Eluvan, The 'Kevellond League' was an alliance of William's factions, consisting (IIRC) of Keoland, Gran Marc, The Duchy of Ulek, and the County of Ulek. It does not exist outside of the 3rd IR.

Hi. And you are very welcome to the 5th IR .

Please partake. Getting a hangover i's a worry for another day.

I don't think the Ulek states were ever menbers of the League, they had their own faction under Dagger (?).

I'd just like to say that I'm working on a document compiling and um, clarifying (I hope) the rules, maps, and faction list for the 5th IR. I'm not sure what to do with it exactly. I started working on it so I could stop bouncing around the thread looking for things and so that I could understand the rules better. I'm loathe to post it for fear that I've made some error and because it's as unfinished as of right now, but if Serpenteye would like the file for review or if a significant amount of people think it's ok I might be convinced to post the WIP version here or in another thread. I'm unfamiliar with what ENWorld does to copy/paste formatting from rtf docs when you plop it down in the forum reply box, is it bad? Magnificent? Not worth the trouble? Is there a word count maximum on forum posts?

Wonderful, I think since I haven't seen it. It saves me the trouble of having to look trough my own rambling posts.
I'm not sure about the copy/paste formatting, but I'd certainly like a copy.

Ah, that explains it just beautifully, thankyou. Well, if it's generally felt that it should also exist in the 5th IR, I'd be happy to take it on.

It does fill in the map nicely, and the countries are similar in culture and general alignment. Mostly Neutral (humans usually are) with plenty of Good.

The gospel of Serpenteye:

In other words, they don't. Heh, puts the theocracy of the pale at distinct disadvantage dontcha think.

That puts pretty much everyone at a distinct disadvantage .
No, really, it fit with my first outline of what I would like the game to be like. I wanted the players in the centrum and not overshadowed by the Gods (something I stole entirely from Edena, btw). I wanted there to be form a spiritual void in the hearts of mortal men because their prayers would go unanswered. Who then would they turn to if not the most powerful and prominent people in the world, the PCs?
I also wanted to remove the ability to raise the dead. I find that in a lot of high-level games, and an IR is a high-level game if anything, Raise Dead and Resurrection screw up the plot. Those spells make a lot of the actions of both players and opposition irrelevant since it's almost impossible to get somebody to stay dead. Then what's the point of killing someone in the first place?

Ergo, no clerical spells.

I don't think it's entirely necessary for it to exist, personally. While the 3rd IR should be remembered and revered, it shouldn't necessarily restrict our options for this game.

Indeed. It's not necessary at all, but it does make a big and powerful Good/Neutral faction on a continent that sorely lack such things. It will be a source of conflict, and conflict always makes things interesting.
It's not merely a relic, it actually serves a purpose.

Yes, quite, you can expect me to play. Nothin' quite like getting to be a conniving bastard AND getting free XP .

Out of curiousity, is it accepted to make up a new faction? If so I have my eye on a powerful psionic group, if not, I'll take another look at the current factions.

Heh, there's no lack of XP to be made here either.

Paxus and Knight Otu answered that pretty well.

A number of new factions have certainly been created, but one thing that we seem to be worrying about is making sure that all of the existing factions get assigned, so Serpenteye doesn't need to worry about running them as well as the game overall.

Yeah.

You could always choose to combine the two - for example, while the Cult of Ashardalon is (semi-)made up, it is the real power behind the throne of the United Kingdom.

The United Kingdom? God save the Queen! Poor Tony Blair, I always thoght the power behing the british throne was GWB

(Sorry, sorry. No real world politics, I know.)

Okay, I need to read the whole thread so that I'm up on the rules, but I think I like the idea of combining two faction/ideas, so I'm thinking a hidden cabal of powerful psionics behind a current faction (which faction, well, I haven't read enough to decide).

Give me a day or so and I'll be able to be more specific.

Greater Nyrond (+the Urnsts) is a major faction in a good position. You'll be quite powerful with them.

How about this?

Gallador`s Concord: Gallador The Undying King, Master of The Night Eternal is an ancient Vampire who was banished to the Underdark centuries ago . For ages ha has waged a war of conquest and deception, and now with the current dramatic events, his attention is brought back to the surface world!

I would claim:

-Duergar( they have autonomy, but their leaders are bribed, terrorized and compelled by Gallador, like Roman divide and conquer)

-Kua -Toa

-Goblinoids and other servitor races not yet claimed by Creamsteak or Edena.

-Court of The Eternal Night!- Vampire Children of Gallador, organized in feudal/dynastic system-power is usually based on proximity to Gallador, like generations in Vampire RPG).

Lesser Undeath Armies.

Sweet!

"From beneath you it devours."

Melkor: Most of the goblinoid servitor races actually fall under the purview of the Wolf God. Any that you could find would be from the deepest parts of the Underdark, such as quaggoth or grimlocks.

You control a lot of Goblinoids Paxus, enough goblinoids in fact that the vast majority of them are under your rule. But you do not own an entire race, no faction does that, and there are Goblins under Melkor, and Creamsteak (slaves+food) and Edena (more slaves) and others to a lesser degree.

Edena does not control all Drow, Creamsteak does not control all Illithids, Thomas does not control all Elves and so on.

Alright. I've done some reading, and in the spirit of community and helping out the IR in general (well, that and I think it would be cool ) I hereby relinquish my claim to the Sepherds of Darkness. Instead I would like to claim Keoland, the Gran March, the Duchy of Ulek, and Sterich - collectively, the League of Athyr. I don't want to take the Kevellond League per se because, as Anabstercorian said, it would be nice to pay the 3rd IR the respect it deserves and then move on and come up with our own ideas. If anyone feels that I've screwed this up (or my understanding of the politics and geography of the area is somehow flawed), please tell me and I'll revise my ideas. I realise that most everybody else here knows more about the setting than I do, so any and all input is appreciated. Similarly, if people have a problem with the Kevellond League failing to make an appearance in this IR, tell me and I'll start over.

...
...
...

Granted.

(Nice post )

Mmm. Good point. Perhaps it simply allows them to spend pure PLs, as opposed to sacrificing epic units. It's not much of a benefit (all they really save is the trouble of converting PLs to units to elite units to epic units), but it's there. Perhaps combined with the "Each epic unit counts this much more when casting epic spells" it could work. Again, I don't know if the magic factions actually need a boost.

Huzzah!

Glad to be of service.

Perhaps PPs should be done away with altogether- it's all PL's (or you could call them PPs, I suppose) and you can either use them or not use them, but you can only use them for certain things (industry, tech, magic, regular units) at the beginning of a turn.

It may or may not be an issue, but you could theoretically have someone stockpile LOTS of PL's and suddenly research 4 years worth of Tech in 3 months... not likely. But you may want to say the maximum number of PL you can invest in any given turn in any given field is equal to your total PL production on a turn (so if you get 15 PL/turn faction-wide, you can invest a maximum of 15 PL each per turn in Industry, Technology, or Mobilization of your armies). This represents your maximum capacity for improvement. The rule doesn't disallow any rate of improvement that couldn't be achieved under the original system, and prevents large infusions of cash from buying everything. At least all at once.



I figure it this way: Take the US and, say, China. In roleplaying terms, the two set up a trade agreement that gives Chinese companies more hold in the US stock market and the US companies are allowed to develop some of rural China.

In game terms, the US gives China partial control of a really highly developed area- say, New York City- with lots of IC (perhaps the maximum for the tech level). China gives US partial control of an underdeveloped, high-population area that's no where near full IC for the tech level. China gets a boost of PP's from it's new territory, and the US pours its resources into developing its new real estate, hoping to eventually make back their investment.

Or another situation: The US and a third-world nation. The third-world nation wants an army; the US wants access to the third-world nation's natural resources. They trade. In game terms, the US gives the third-world nation PLs which it turns into military units, and the third-world nation gives the US some control of a territory, which they then proceed to develop heavily.

The less we have to change in the rules the better. It gives us all a lot less new information to learn.

Stockpiling PPts for multiple turns would be counter-productive, better to invest them quickly and reap the rewards over a longer time. (Better to have money in the bank than in the matress.)

This kind of trade seems quite complicated. I think I'll just rule it on the fly.

 

[Zelda Themelin]

Okay,

So, I'm curious, If I were to pick the SpellJamers, how would the game mechanics work? Would the land I have clamed be off world? Would that make things harder/easier when I war? Would I be like a corner power in diplomacy? (Hard to kill, but hard to win the game)

All this failing, sure, I'll be the Celestial Bureaucracy/Imperium. Them orental dragons and immortal monks look fun.

Or I'll be anything Zelda wants to be. Whatever, I'm easy.

I really don't feel so comfortable playing neither of them. But if you want to, pick either, which means I will remain in backseat, until I pick up the theme.

My idea of oriental is mostly based on Hongkong movies.

Spelljammers, mmh, that's kind of even more confusing, especially since the funky rules. I can probably pick that up too, eventually. That would work fine after they are clered out. There is also many factions of spelljammers and they are less than friendly compared to one another.

Good questions by the way, not my favourite picks, but failing to come up with the master plan myself, they sound fine.

Claim which you like best.