The Echoes of Dreams

[Matt Larkin (author)]

I've made some updates and have the system and some world info on the wiki. I'm hoping to run this soon, so I'm eager for some additional feedback.

I have made some changes since the pdf; the wiki version is current. Among other things, I toned down the fatigue rules to make bookkeeping less and streamlined the advantage/disadvantage mechanic.

The Echoes of Dreams
EoD is a game system designed for a specific fairytale world (Roaa). Beneath Roaa is the Dreamworld--men can dream themselves there, and the faeries in the dreamworld can dream themselves to Roaa. The basic principle of the system is that all creatures are embodied by an element (the classic, Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Light, and Shadow). There aren't different races or classes, but your element can affect what things you are best at and what magic you can use. It is a high magic world and a system I hope can be used for fairytale games. Enjoy.

[spoiler=Original Post from 2007][note]If you would like to have a look, I welcome it.  The pdf should be accessible here:  The Echoes of Dreams

The map: as a jpg, or in pdf (you have to zoom in a lot on this one.

I don't intend to publish this, but I thought it might be of some interest to the community.[/note]
Back when I had only just begun to conceive of Kishar (around 1999?), I threw myself into another project; this project became the dark fantasy world of Roaa.  For this world and the campaign I was designing for it, I created a new game system: Echoes of Divinity (Queleschi).  Friends and I played out the game, which lasted about 2 years (real time, 5 years in game).  Over the course of the game I learned a lot about design and made modifications.

By the end, my interest in the project had waned as I had begun to truly develop Kishar in depth.  However, I had wanted to revise the system and world.  Most of you know how it is when you get such an itch; it rolls around in the back of your mind, distracting your other projects, until you finally get it all down.

For some time, I have also been wanting to create fairytale setting.  The two seemed to merge nicely together.  I re-created Roaa, now a flat world on a disc.  Beneath the world, was its mirror, Zoein.  Roaa was the human world, Zoein the world of the supernatural.  Later, while I was considering the connection between these realms, I stumbled across WitchHunt's latest Nightmare rendition, and that (or at least a few lines in his cosmology) inspired me towards my answer.  Beings in either world can dream themselves to the other.

The system itself is heavily influence by The Riddle of Steel (the greatest RPG ever!), and also by The Burning Wheel, and to lesser extent Shadowrun and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.  Credit to the fine authors of those games, and to WitchHunt/Troll for the inspiration that finally allowed me to complete the project.

A forum wouldn't be the ideal medium for posting an entire game system (better for brainstorming, I'd say), but I'll leave a link to the pdf, and maybe eventually add some mention in the Wiki (I don't know much about Wikis, really).

The basic principle of the system is that all creatures are embodied by an element (the classic, Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Light, and Shadow).  There aren't different races or classes, but your element can affect what things you are best at and what magic you can use.  It is a high magic world and a system I hope can be used for fairytale games.  Enjoy.[/spoiler]

[SA]

The system itself is heavily influence by The Riddle of Steel (the greatest RPG ever!), and also by The Burning Wheel, and to lesser extent Shadowrun and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Credit to the fine authors of those games, and to WitchHunt/Troll for the inspiration that finally allowed me to complete the project.

Ooooh.  Your influences are of an impeccable breed. I am thusly hooked.

[Numinous]

It seems everyone is working on fairy-tale wolrds these days.  Good thing everyone here knows originality doesn't exist, or I might look like a copy-cat!

Anyway Pk, I'll download and look at this once I'm home and on a cable-connection again.  My grandparent's house has dial-up. *shudder*

[Tybalt]

Interesting, I too will download it and read it over the next couple of days.

[Ravenspath]

Very nicely put together. I haven't had a chance to read it all, but I really like what I have read so far. I really like how you used the elements and tied them each to for specific skills for doing magic. Maybe I just missed it (or haven't read it yet) but how easy is it to pick the other skills for your element? Or would most mages focus on one or two skills for that element.

The Heroic Traits section seems to balanced and well thought out. But I/m not a crunch guy.

Prophecies! I love prophecies! More on the prophecies.

Very easy to read and the format is very clean and crisp. Look forward to seeing more!

[Matt Larkin (author)]

Very nicely put together. I haven't had a chance to read it all, but I really like what I have read so far. I really like how you used the elements and tied them each to for specific skills for doing magic. Maybe I just missed it (or haven't read it yet) but how easy is it to pick the other skills for your element? Or would most mages focus on one or two skills for that element.

Thanks Raven.

As far as picking skills goes, you get some skills from whatever Backgrounds you choose (see the Building a Hero chapter).  You can purchase additional skills at a cost of 1 BP each, per rank (to a maximum of 4 starting ranks).

Skills aren't really tied to your element (other than the spellcasting skills), though abilities are.  However, each element has strong and weak skills.  Strong skills give you a TN bonus, and weak skills a TN penalty.  You don't automatically get these skills, but if you have them, these modifiers can make a moderate difference.

There are 2 examples of character building in the Examples chapter at the end of the book.  My hope is that that chapter can make the whole process pretty straight-forward.

Because skills advance automatically through use, I'd say it's worthwhile to have a lot (it's not like they cost anything after the initial BP or Hero Pool to unlock them).  Strictly speaking, I would expect almost all characters to have magical abilities (eventually), so I wouldn't call characters "mages," though I know what you mean.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

So a little basic information on Roaa (Zoein is a physical mirror, though some buildings exist only on one).

[spoiler=Danger Huge Map]
 
[/spoiler]
I also added links to a map in the main post.

The world is flat, with the oceans running off the edge of the world.  Zoein is on the flip side of the disc.  With the barriers (created accidentally when the Dariszun were cast into the Void) between the worlds failing, contact is now possible.  Theoretically, sailing off the edge of one would dump you on the edge of the other (but it would probably also destroy your ship and maybe kill you...).

The world gets warmer as you draw closer to the edge.  The coastline closest to the edge is called the Tropical Rim.  The sun and 2 moons orbit the world, creating night/day and the tides.

At the heart of the world is Heartspire Mountain, from which four rivers run.  All the water in Roaa is fed by theses four rivers.  They run eternally (fairytale worlds don't need to follow laws of logical water systems).  Around Heartspire Mountain is the Frozen Tundra - the coldest location in the world, growing colder as one draw nearer the mountain.  Atop this mountain the Ancients built their ultimate fortress, Quintesin.

Around the Frozen Tundra lies a great plateau called Ovec Mesa.  Ovec Mesa is encircled by branches of the four great rivers connecting them, called the Circle River.

Roaa is roughly divided into East and West, with a great nation and several minor nations in each.  In the East, the great nation is Loindai.  In the West, Solein, land of the moon, oldest nation in the world.

Sozydat does, the desert land, does not clearly fall into East or West.  Flosuar, land of Viking-like people, is generally considered part of the East.

Solein - kingdom of the moon
Andair - tropical paradise; ally of Solein
Marmai - oppressive expansionist regime
Jyndai - tower city in the Wild Lands
Okael - Asian-themed archipelago
Nurya - India-themed Rim country warring with Marmai

[Ravenspath]

PK, I have to say one thing about your map.

Oh my #@%@# god! That is so cool!

How did you design it! It looks so fantastic and I love how you described that it gets warmer towards the edge.

[Numinous]

By downloading and opening the map in a picture-viewing program, I'm able to see it on a large scale, and I am forced to agree with Ravenspath.  

The construction as a fictional world is clearly visual, and yet it appears organic in a way that many maps do not.  This is fitting for a fairy-tale world, good job.

[Hibou]

I'm liking what I'm seeing here (that map is wicked) and am glad I could help push you in the right direction.

I'll be keeping an eye on this.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

I made the map using layers in Photoshop.  Each landform was mostly solid color, but applied filters and styles change the look (sometimes several times).  It is the third map I have made in this style (first was the Kishar map on my website, second Alsa-Eru for Ishmayl), and I think I've been slightly improving with each (for example, Ishy pushed me to improve my forest style and I like this one better than the flatter one I used for Kishar).

Some aspects of this map were more difficult than past attempts, such as the waterfalls of Ovec Mesa (which I'm still not totally thrilled with, but I hope it's clear what they're supposed to be).

It takes time and patience, but it's not really all that difficult.  I think I made a mistake in working with so high a resolution, though.  It makes the file size huge.

[Numinous]

I think I made a mistake in working with so high a resolution, though. It makes the file size huge.

I'm fairly sure that this can be resolved by exporting the file from PS as a jpeg, and lowering the quality to a reasonable amount.  Since most viewers will be looking at the map at a much smaller scale anyway, things shouldn't be affected too greatly.

[Tybalt]

I've finally read through a good chunk of your pdf so I'm ready to comment at last.

First of all, it is probably one of the best organized games I've ever seen. Almost every game system known follows some rather cumbersome models that make my head ache every time something new and interesting comes out--I have to admit that I've sort of stuck with 2E for D&D though I make some use of 3.5 simply because I have little choice in the matter for that reason. However I liked reading yours. You didn't have to flip back and forth to figure out how to get magical powers, you found all the descriptions of actions in the same part of the book and so on. Made it easy to read and comfortable to look for information in.

Two: while in a way it seems like typical fantasy I like that it is a storytelling game principally that does not have all the baggage that say Glorantha has with it or the difficulty of being tied heavily to already known stories like Conan or Elric--you would feel free to make of it what you wished.

Three: I could already imagine one of my players enjoying 'tailoring' a character's abilities. He tends to prefer to do that even if it might mean not taking a power that would actually make his character tougher--he prefers to have experiences within the game or background determine what a character is like. Your system is pretty much made for that kind of thing, and for a gm with players that prefer story to powergaming it is very good.

Finally I love the map.

Phoenix, I may come up with some actual criticisms soon but I found it overall a pleasant surprise so far, not because I'm surprised at your ability but because of my experiences over the last few years with supposedly new rpgs.

[Thanuir]

I have around 2/3 of the PDF (and reading on). The influence of BW is quite clear. I'll read it through and offer more detailed comments after that.

Are you interested in critique concerning the game?

[Matt Larkin (author)]

I'm fairly sure that this can be resolved by exporting the file from PS as a jpeg, and lowering the quality to a reasonable amount.  Since most viewers will be looking at the map at a much smaller scale anyway, things shouldn't be affected too greatly.

Yeah, I tried this, but it made the text a little hard to read, so I left it the way it is.

<snip>
Two: while in a way it seems like typical fantasy I like that it is a storytelling game principally that does not have all the baggage that say Glorantha has with it or the difficulty of being tied heavily to already known stories like Conan or Elric--you would feel free to make of it what you wished.
<snip>

Thank you for the compliments.

I have a pretty definite vision of the world in mind, based on the original world, but I don't really have time to post a lot of details on it.  That said, I would like to think it works fine for others to use the world as they choose, as you say, making what they wish from it.