Celtricia

[Weave]

If it makes you feel any better, Vreeg, I know little enough as is but I'm still having tons of fun. :)

[LordVreeg]

If it makes you feel any better, Vreeg, I know little enough as is but I'm still having tons of fun. :)

Well, that's what we want.

Igbar was rough last night. 2 PC deaths and an NPC death.  The NPC, Hajubin, a young female blue turtle warrior got nailed by an arrow,  the PCs got it from a killer set of steps.  PCs should remember their rope, as well as remembering their magic items.  Falling in GS causes 3d6/d6 per 10' falling.  It was a 400' ancient, icy set of steep steps with almost no handholds, making one roll per 100'.  Kiko and Igli both missed at inopportune times.  But Kiko forgot about her belt of air...which could have saved her.  
New PCs being rolled up for new session.  Too bad, Kiko was the longest lasting PC.

[Nomadic]

NOT KIKO! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[LordVreeg]

Tine to go home and get ready for Igbar.

I have a second half Ograk playing in this group now.  What are the odds?

The wife chose a 'Hunter of The Shade', not great defense, but ass kicking offense, decent outdoors skill, and some spells.  

[LordVreeg]

At times, various and sundry may verbally accost the author (yours truly) as to why pile on layer after overdone layer onto this setting.  Why not push a breath of fresh air past their jaded, setting-nostrils, something unique, or failing that, something different and less hoary.  Perhaps something more witty or nouvelle, less standard?

While there are actually answers manifold and various, one particular answer is that through dint of familiarity and overwork, I can sometimes feel Celtricia.  Feel how it is supposed to be, how it is, not as how I want it to be. I am in the trackless wastes and gigantic spaces between settlements, not writing it, existing in it and perhaps reporting on it.  The complicated relationship between race and culture, mixing over the encroaching centuries and millenia, tastes astonishingly real to me.  The layer and strata of ruinous history, of pathos and tragedy played and replayed, crushes down on my writer's psyche at times, not as a creation, but as an object I uncover, piece by voide-beast guarded piece.


I still remember the first time this feeling of being, of cross-referenceable logic as opposed to preference, overtook me during a session.  Celtricia was by no means my first creation...but it was the first that I knew the answer to questions based on knowing what was already real, and what should come from it.  

And unlike those that look back to their hallowed gaming days of their youth as unreachable heights, gaming in Celtricia just keeps getting better.  Live and on the IRC, there are times when the reason the groups and your charming expedition-director get sucked into the finely grained detail of a hairstyle or the right clothes or the type of food being eaten is due to the shared unconsious urge to push that shared reality to that immersed level, or if one preferes, a more immersed level, as if the immersion is the actual, secret dirty satisfaction we are all seeking.
And what can one say when one can feel the unseasonable warmth of Tribin and Gerin as they rise over the Bazaar of Steel Isle Town, and can feel the this glory mixing with the sadness of lost comrades shared over an early drink in a rooftop cafe?  One can only be glad of the road taken, and the strange solidity underfoot of this road as one delves deeper into discovering what is in Celtricia, together.    

[limetom]

So me and several others always thought that the height and weight calculation was wonky if you got outside of the 5' to 6' range.

I did some work on it tonight and came up with a different formula:

((21.5 x (0.04 x (ST + HE))) / 703) x (height^2)

Here's some rationale: This formula is based off finding weight, given BMI and height. It allows for some variation based off of the character's Strength and Health; with a score of 12 in each, it is fairly close to average BMI (21.5).  Average adventurers (with a score of 14 in each) are higher up, but that corresponds to more weight in terms of muscle.

The rest is merely finding weight given BMI and height.

Things it doesn't do well: you cannot really generate emaciated and morbidly obese characters like you used to. I'm sure this part is the most disappointing. :P

I also don't think it works too well for very small characters. The smallest possible GS character, a 2 foot Deep Gnome or Shrum Hobbyt woman with ST 14 and HE 14 would weigh, after gender and racial mods, 7 lbs.  (However, without the mods, she would weigh 21 lbs, which is right in line with averages for infants/toddlers around 24 inches in height.)

I believe it doesn't suffer this same problem for very tall races (i.e. Ograk Strain); the racial mods should put them right up into the "correct" weight (as BMI and this formula would be a little too low for them anyway).

For comparison, Moss, my current character, is 6 feet, 2 inches tall, has 17 Strength, and 14 Health. Under the current formula, he weighed 209 lbs. Under my formula, he weighs 207 lbs. I am told Hamish would gain 20 pounds. For most characters, I think, this wouldn't really do much of anything. But for those outside of the 5-6 foot range, it might help some of the "oddities" that come up.

[Llum]

Hamish is 5'9" with 17 STR and 16 HE. He goes from 173lbs(Vreegs formula) to 193lbs(limetom's formula).

[limetom]

Hamish is 5'9" with 17 STR and 16 HE. He goes from 173lbs(Vreegs formula) to 193lbs(limetom's formula).

Hamish goes from just overweight (BMI of 25.5) to the mid to high end of overweight (BMI of 28.5). With a ST and HE that high, Hamish would probably carry most of that weight in muscle, and these, I think, would be realistic numbers.

[Nomadic]

Thing is he isn't actually overweight, with 12 str as the base line and 20 str being olympian hamish is pretty well bulked up, I kind of view him as a younger looking marine with maybe even a bit of extra muscle definition. Something a bit like this:



Carmen has a str of 18 which is pretty intense but she's of course female which means that her body is more round and less squarish like a guy like hamish would be. On top of that I imagine that as a bowyer the reason for here strength comes from constant use of a bow and thus most of it is focused in her back and upper arm muscles. On top of that she is really petite... if she ever got in fisticuffs with someone like hamish she would probably get flattened.

Anyhow back on topic I like the formula. Will have to bring up my character sheet later and run carmen (maybe kellik too) through your calculation.

[LordVreeg]

Limetoml, let me play around with it...I really have no problem incorporating in other formulae, though I might tweak it a bit to give a bit more variablity.

[LordVreeg]

More Igbarian Action tonight...

[spoiler=GM view] I have a really huge amount of work already done for this section of the world.  Thw Wibble Hills adventure set was originally written for the Grey Legion.  So much of it was already done or at least loosely finished.  K1 was atop a plateau overlooking the Recum Road on the Eastern edge of the Wibble Hills.  It included the ruins of the Killraven Manor house (Now held by the FireHazers), and the the basement/escape of the Old Manor (which is actually reproduced earlier in this thread somewhere).  It was also a 'prep' adventure to make sure the surviving characters would have stuff, and would introduce them the the history of the Orbian exiles. [/spoiler]

The group is in the basement area under the old manor house.  Since the Grey Legion already conqured this, and started building a new manor house to take over this plateau, things were somewhat different, with some of the Antroo Vampyre's influence (Like the uncompyre Harack Don Faden), but I decided to let the New Legion group replay the basement area as if it had not been cleared out.  Most of the players have changed, and the 2 who were there will not remember from 2002.  
It's more important that the threads of the adventure and the lore hold together, and that the newer characters (and there are a lot of those, my Kill rate is still pretty high) can find the old Orbic and Venolvian Whiskanis League armor and weapons.  They should finish the basement this session (along with grilled salmon, Chicken 40 cloves of garlic, and the obligatory wine)  and start to move on.

The rest of the Wibble Hills adventures will await them.  I layered the new wrinkles of the Antroo Vampyre on top of the old 'Orbian Exiles' adventure set, that Kexiol Antroo ('ne Anginar, his orignal surname) the Vampyre used the Uncompyre's of the old Grey Legion and took over the Firehazer Humanoid tribes, which were living in the Old Orbian Exile Ruins.

There is an Old Road that goes by the manor, and continues to K2 (the Underworld of the Orbian Exiles)and K3 (The Fallen Temple Devilkin).  In between, there is Ka1, Ka2, Ka3, and Ka4, the sub adventures.   Last time I ran this with the Grey Legion, they went right by the blackened valley of Ka1 (the Vale of Erringt) and right to K2.
[spoiler= The Temple of the Orbian Exiles]  Ok,  I have issues.  I do enjoy creating well built, well written adventures.  The Underworld of the Orbian exiles is one of the bigger adventures I've written.  The front part is the cavern areas where Clan Antroo and Clan Antroo (and more of clan Killraven) actually settled, included building structures within the caverns.  In this front area, most of it has been taken by the Firehazers, though there are a few secret areas.  The Back section, over a bridge, is part of the Oscatel and Clan Herald area, but is now mainly owned by a tribe of Scalik and trogs.  Under this is part of an older Klaxik Mine.  [/spoiler]
Ka2 is the Hole of the Worm Scylla, a literal dragon hunt.  In K2, the group finds old notes about a caravan between the underworld and the Monastary that was set upon by a young Greeen Sauroid, back 500 years ago, and the location of his cave.
Ka3 is the Entrance to the Forge, a literal entrance that leads underground for miles, to the Ancient Forge under the Old Temple complex in Ocodig.
Ka4, the ancient Portage, is actually after the Fallen Temple Devilkin.  It is the cave Port that the orbian tribes used, with a Trireme of Air, with 2 Frennis Air elemental magically bound to it.

[LordVreeg]

Great session last night
chicken 40 cloves of garlic by Joe, soy glaze salmon and cayenne steak tips on the grill...6 bottles of wine, including some really nice cabs...

group mainly continued exploring K1.

Lines of the Night..."I still have pieces of Kiko in my crotch"
"you put your finger in there after you peed in it?"  

[LordVreeg]

In other news, thanks to Limetom's Page on the disbursement of treasure for the SIG, the Celtrician Wiki just hit 1000 individual pages. (yes, Limetom had the magic post)

I actually cannot tell you how much of a milestone this is for me.  There is still a ton to do, but that is something of an accomplishment for this old campaign.  

He's to the future...

[limetom]

In other news, thanks to Limetom's Page on the disbursement of treasure for the SIG, the Celtrician Wiki just hit 1000 individual pages. (yes, Limetom had the magic post)[/size]

I actually cannot tell you how much of a milestone this is for me.  There is still a ton to do, but that is something of an accomplishment for this old campaign.  

He's to the future...

As much as I would like to steal the credit, Llum created the page. I just fleshed it out a little more.

But onwards and upwards.

[LordVreeg]

In other news, thanks to Limetom's Page on the disbursement of treasure for the SIG, the Celtrician Wiki just hit 1000 individual pages. (yes, Limetom had the magic post)[/size]

I actually cannot tell you how much of a milestone this is for me.  There is still a ton to do, but that is something of an accomplishment for this old campaign.  

He's to the future...

indeed....I am more just thrilled that the site has grown that much...