The Campaign Builder's Guild

Quote from: Rose-of-Vellum
Love the update, particularly the info/mechanics on Omens (and would be enthused to see some sample monster/omens).

Thank you! There's definitely going to be a couple of Monsters (and associated Omens) posted over time, I just didn't want to overload people with way too much information at once.

Quote from: Rose-of-VellumI'm indifferent on the Town rules; perhaps a sample generated town might elucidate the process, and more importantly, the quality of its output.

The town rules I quite understand the indifference towards - they're a crude and not particularly polished tool mainly just designed to avoid me repeating myself too often considering this campaign runs on new villages/towns with new problems and rural horror requires small-town social politics to be fully effective.

I'm currently away from home and don't have the maps I've been able to generate thus far but once I'm back in town (Wednesday/Thursday) I'll scan one and put it up here, presuming I am in fact that technologically competent (which is questionable).

Quote from: Steerpike
The town rules are quite interesting. Did you happen to get the idea of using dice-as-layout-generator from the sublime Last Gasp Grimoire?

Last Gasp Grimoire was certainly one of the places I've seen it used before (and it wouldn't surprise me if it was the innovator in this regard).

Quote from: SteerpikeWhat are you planning on running this with? I know you were debating between possibilities before.

At this point I'm running with a homebrew system. It's written up mostly in discrete chunks all over the place, but in summary:

• 8 Attributes (Strength, Agility, Vigor, Perception, Insight, Charisma, Cunning, Composure on a 3 - 18 scale
• 5 Derived Characteristics (Fatigue, Health, Face, Sanity, Will in a similar range to Attributes)
• A long list of Skills that add minor bonuses to rolls where they're relevant (the emphasis is pretty squarely on Attributes as the main contributor)
• Vague Class-like archetypes that give a small set of extra Skill points
• Skill lists for each Tribe that players get to spread points in to reflect the cultural knowledge/practices that they've normalized as part of their upbringing
• A resolution mechanic that's pretty standard d20 fare - roll plus a relevant Attribute plus a relevant Skill and try to beat your opposition/the DC
• 6 Castes, each of which is linked with a couple of Rights from which the character gets to choose one
• Rights, expressed in the form of "you have the right to ______", which mean that other characters/NPCs must roll to challenge that right rather than the character rolling to acquire whatever is described

Example Rights:

• You have the right to pray to your ancestors for guidance and protection. (Peasant)
• You have the right to speak truth to a crowd of your fellows. (Peasant)
• You have the right to the hospitality of hall, hearth, and board, wherever you go. (Craftsman)
• You have the right to take an apprentice. (Craftsman)
• You have the right to slip under the notice of the proud and the foolish. (Untouchable)
• When you look closely at another person, you have the right to see them clearly. (Untouchable)
• You have the right to write the Imperial Court for aid. (Noble)
• You have the right to seize authority over a council of war. (Noble)

It's an incomplete list and not all of the Castes are represented, but you get the idea.



Plus, for Rose-for-Vellum, here is a sample Monster:

[ic=The Thing in Okakome]Monster
The bloated and wicked spirit of a once-loyal fox familiar, unseen and without form but still able to bite and rake and bleed
-Strength 15, Agility 20, Vigour 18, Insight 12, Perception 18, Charisma 15, Cunning 17, Composure 10 (Health 18)
- Acrobatics +4, Bite and Rake +4, Evasion +4, Listen +4, Stealth +4
-unseen and formless:  the Watch skill never applies
-bloated: 1d4 armour (if all damage is soaked, then the weapon fails to connect with the spirit-creature)
-bite (1d6+2) and rake (1d4+1)

Omens
-statues of Inari defaced, smeared with blood and bile, and with their heads smashed off and replaced with skulls
-white teeth bared in the dark, shining ghostly out of the blackness with something dark staining them
-graves being dug up, corpses losing digits and limbs
-vocal chords being stolen at dawn from those who over-indulged in sake the night before, ripped out to leave them voiceless and choking on blood
-sparks rising from fires in lurid greens to hang and burn like flaming orbs in the air
-dreams of being trapped in the dark, scrabbling at unseen bonds in a desperate attempt to reach the light and companionship beyond
-people clawing at themselves and surfaces around them until their flesh is raw and bloody and their fingernails break
-people setting fire to their possessions (and eventually, in the case of the Ono family, the ryōkan) to drive off the gathering dusk of evening

Lair
-catalpha bow painted scarlet in clotting and drying blood
-pieces of long-dead bodies lying scattered on the floor, starting to be sewn together with thread made from rice into a half-body
-the mummified corpse of a fox-kit with a slit throat
[/ic]

Thanks for the monster posting, HD. I like the flavor.

Since the game is an investigative one, how are you handling clues? For instance, will the focus be on the interpretation/synthesis of clues or the finding of clues?

A little of column A, a little of column B. The Omens act as clues in and of themselves and there's no need to go looking for them, so in that instance the emphasis is definitely on interpreting and synthesizing that information with everything else being learned. On the other hand, this is a game about rural social politics and Japanese social dynamics, so prying factual information out of insular and intensely-private villagers is a central task.

To my mind the progression of an investigation would go something like this: the investigators arrive in the town, they are exposed to a few Omens, and they start mundane investigations based on the vague direction/impression those Omens give them. During the course of those mundane investigations they get enmeshed in the social network of the village and its tension and problems and petty emnities. They continue to face more Omens along the way, both putting stress on the investigators and intensifying existing tensions in the village, until they realize the geographical source of whatever is going on and are able to go (more or less ignorant of its nature and dangers) and confront it there. They're then forced to put together all the information they have and rationalize it into a narrative that they can accept, because any damage inflicted/debilities caused by witnessing Omens (particularly to Sanity and Will) that can't be made sense of becomes permanent.

On the balance then I'd say that the focus is on interpretation/synthesis - the characters can have all the information that they'd like as long as they're willing to work at it and get dangerously close, but they get no narrative to make sense of it all from the GM and have to make their own explanations and create their own sense of closure (or lack thereof).

That's the plan, anyway - we'll see what happens once I come into contact with actual players :P

Another monster, since I'm in a writing mood today:

[ic=The Thing in the Granary]
Monster
The once-bound spirit-servitor of an Onmyōji, set in the earth inside a granary to ward off vermin and disaster but awakened to malevolence by neglect and abandonment
-Strength 20, Agility 0, Vigour 0, Insight 18, Perception 22, Charisma 16, Cunning 18, Composure 8 (Health 1, Will 16)
-Dismantle +4, Listen +5, People-Reading +6, Swarm and Tear +2, Watch +5
-once-bound: the Exorcism and Conjuration skills never apply
-anchored in the earth: the creature's continued existence is bound to the survival of the origami incantation through which it was bound, buried five feet deep, and only the destruction of this object can do it any harm
-summon rats (1d3 swarm) or dislodge beams (1d8+4)

Omens
-winds that shriek and moan and wail like madmen springing up out of nowhere and deafening farmers in their fields
-tears raining down from the sky in a sudden but terrible storm, damaging roofs and poisoning fields and fouling the village well
-dreams of being swarmed by rats, tiny feet and leathery tails dragging all over naked and tender flesh
-cutting into cooked meat to reveal a core of rot infested with burrowing insects
-lightning striking from clear skies to destroy the local watchtower and starting spark-carried fire
-morbid urges lingering at the edges of awareness, causing idle curiosity about self-mutilation and autophagy
-vermin breeding uncontrollably, growing lean and sleek and dangerous
-people growing frail and vulnerable, their skin tearing more easily and their bones breaking like twigs
-people hoarding the strangest things – perishable food goods, teeth, old and stained clothes – against some perceived impending disaster
[/ic]

It's been a long time since I wrote anything in this thread, between the campaign in question collapsing (under the weight of university) before it really begun and just life continuing to move as it is known too.

I've soured on the  mechanics of the system I was proposing to accompany this campaign but am still very keen on the ideas and the setting, and am considering ways to cannibalise it for new projects. There's possibly a cathartic systemless module for the local gaming convention for next year, and a Princess Mononoke/Mushishi-inspired RPG I'm writing for possible self-publication. Some of that might make it up here, I guess?

In the meantime, as a farewell to this project and to celebrate it's brief moment back in the sun via the chatbox, I'll post the third monster I wrote (which never got posted before).

[ic=The Thing at the Crossroads]
Monster
-Strength 18, Agility 9, Vigour 22, Insight 8, Perception 10, Charisma 16, Cunning 8, Composure 4 (Health 22, Will 16)
-Endurance +5, Crumble Earth +2, Listen +5, Sicken +4
-stone-bodied: the creature has access only to the senses of sound and touch
-delights in misfortune: the creature heals 1d4 Will for each journey it brings to a tragic end and 1d3 Health for every soul who perishes to the fever it spreads
-break earth (1d3 and knock prone) and strike with fever (1d3 Fatigue)

Omens
-parchment grows parched and brittle and books and other written objects become tinder-dry and ready to kindle at the slightest spark
-people's tempers flare in the heat, exploding out of proportion in response to imagined slights in savage violence that leaves its victims bloody and broken
-dry thunder rolling through the heavens as oppressive heat and humidity settle in and clouds threaten but never break
-fever spreading like wildfire among the people of the village and any who venture close, flushing their cheeks and glazing their eyes and painting them in sweat
-travellers who pass through the crossroads and remain too long on the road and under the creature's power catch aflame, burning slowly and painfully to death
-pine trees grow with unnatural vigour but grow burned and charred, their bark scarred by unreal flames and their leaves falling with each gust of winds as ash or embers
-people stop noticing the pain of heat and burns, absently sitting too close to cookfires or coals and ending up singed or badly burned
-the sun baking the roads to cracked clay, rendering it so unstable under foot that one can plunge in up to the knee after breaking the surface

Lair
-a bundle of personal belongings that have clearly been out in the elements for months: tattered straw sandles, a worn cotton hakama, the mon of a far-distant clan with a deep line scored through it, a poorly-repaired wakizashi, an empty bottle of sake with a thin layer of congealed blood clinging to the inside
-an indistinct layer of teeth and rice and clay among the dust, scorched and crushed so thoroughly the three are near indistinguishable
-a cut length of old dry bamboo, still sprouting verdant green leaves
-wrongly-shaped bones that lie scattered in natural patterns that nonetheless resemble kanji for infection, inflammation, and plague
-a great stone waypost, with thin trails of concealed pus and vomit running down from cracks and chunks where stone has been removed
[/ic]

Love the omens and lair details.