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Chaosium Digest Volume 18 Number 08
Chaosium Digest Volume 18, Number 8
Date: Sunday, March 2, 1997
Number: 1 of 1
Contents:
Adding Magical Flavor to CoC (Peter Devlin) CALL OF CTHULHU
Announcement: Great Old Ones (Toren Atkinson) CALL OF CTHULHU
Feinting! (Patricio Gonzalez) ELRIC!
Review: Liber Ka (Doyle Ramos-Tavener) NEPHILIM
Editor's Note:
This issue, articles for a variety of Chaosium systems.
Shannon
NEW ELECTRONIC RESOURCES
Reader's Guide to the Cthulhu Mythos
http://www.toddalan.com/~berglund/
Indexes of Mythos stories in electronic and paper publications, put
together by the editor of _The Disciples of Cthulhu_. Also,
interviews, and a bunch more.
The King in Yellow Home Page
http://www.worldnet.fr/~c_thill/chambers/
A variety of info on Chambers and the King in Yellow. Mostly in
French, but if you search down through the page, you'll find "The King
in Yellow: An Introduction", a long discussion of the book in English.
The Call of Computer
http://www.muohio.edu/~marquajd/paracoc.html
A Paranoia adventure centering around the Cthulhu mythos.
Opifex Bi-Monthly Random Universes #6
http://user.aol.com/ontologist/web/opifex.obm.html
The March-April issue of Opifex Bi-Monthly Random Universes has just
been released. This issue features two CoC adventures ("A Most Awful
Plant" and "The Exhibit") and one Dark Conspiracy adventure. Mike
LaBossiere's Mac experienced a rather hideous failure taking with it
his mailing list for OBMRU. His backup files on ZIP and floppy disks
also were damaged and could not be recovered. If you wish to
resubscribe, please send him email (ontologist@aol.com). He has bought
some new ZIP cartridges and will be storing backups on a second
computer, and apologizes the inconvenience.
Tsathoggua Press Catalog
http://www.creative.net/~alang/lit/horror/tsathoggua_press.sht
A complete catalog of all of the items put out by Tsathoggua Press. I
just picked up a complete collection of them, and they're pretty good,
especially the Cannon and Smith related chapbooks.
--------------------
From: "Peter Devlin" <pdevlin@scotsys.co.uk>
Subject: Adding Magical Flavor to CoC
System: Call of Cthulhu
Following are some suggestions on players beginning as sorcerers, and
keepers adding side effects to magical usage. They are intended to add
magical flavor to the Call of Cthulhu game.
STARTUP SORCERERS
It is common in CoC for PCs to begin as novices. Why shouldn't PCs be
able to begin their careers with spells? This is not a naive question,
but a serious one. Anyone who has played CoC for any length of time
will soon come to know a bit more about Mythos workings than a
fresh-faced new investigator character. The standard argument that
good roleplayers will be able to suppress their own knowledge of the
genre is still relevant, but there is also a flip side. Occasionally
players will get hacked off playing naive investigators and may want
something more.
I personally believe that if an experienced player wants to run an
hoary old scholar who is an expert in arcane lore then they should be
able to do so. A GM-player talk should be used to establish limits of
knowledge and character experience. Also, the player should be savvy
enough to run the PC properly and not shaft the hardworking GM.
Startup sorcerors are not common in my long-running campaign; in fact
of a retinue of thirty or more PCs over a long (very long) period of
gameplay there have only ever been two such PCs. Additionally, no
other characters have bothered to take the time and effort to learn
many spells during game time.
MAGICAL SIDE EFFECTS
If handled properly then magic should have serious side effects on
PCs. It should be more than just a loss of a few SAN points. I would
encourage GMs to inflict nasty skin diseases on characters who study
mouldy old books; to suggest nervous habits and get these PCs
constantly looking about to see if someone is watching them from
behind; and to make components for spellcasting both difficult to find
and nauseating to carry.
For example: In my campaign, the spell Flesh Ward requires a mummified
severed hand to be worn on a thong around the neck, close to the
spellcaster's heart. When the spell is cast the hand twitches and
clutches the caster's chest. A visible side effect of the spell is
that the caster's skin solidifies to the consistency of aged leather,
and his DEX falls to zero for purposes of DEX rankings. Keep the spell
going too long and this nasty effect may become semi-permanent! The
mummified hand has a bad habit of falling apart after a few uses,
requiring replacement. Unfortunately the caster must prepare the hand
himself; he cannot use a "tainted" hand. Therefore sorcerors who make
frequent use of this spell get familiar with anatomy, embalming, and
chemistry; carry surgically sharp knives; offer to help other PCs when
their hand has been hurt in an accident; smell of embalming fluids;
and act in such a way that they are generally looked upon as weird.
Historically, witches and sorcerors were accused of numerous unsavoury
practices. Why shouldn't those practices actually be necessary for
spell-casting? It certainly adds color to the game, and it keeps the
bad guys from being one-dimensional and disgusting when the odd PC is
too. PCs have to start collecting odd items for spellcasting and their
studies soon resemble Vincent Price's workroom from the movie _The
Raven_.
Take the case of one sorceror in the campaign, an M.D. and expert on
blood disorders who has an aversion to being snuck up on or touched
without warning. He sleeps poorly also has a rather blackly humourous
bedside manner which many patients and peers find disturbing. This
worthy also lectures in forensic science and biology, and his students
and fellow lecturers are quite rightly rather wary of the mad
doctor. Isn't that kind of result better than a straight SAN loss?
Remember, role-playing is not about rolling dice and playing with
numbers. That statement goes double for CoC games. You get out what
you put in. Make the effort.
Peter Devlin (c) 1997
pdevlin@scotsys.co.uk
--------------------
From: "Toren G. Atkinson" <thickets@uniserve.com>
Subject: Announcement: Great Old Ones
System: Call of Cthulhu
Toren McBoren Macbin, here. Some of you know me well and some not at
all. My wee Cthulhu-punk band, The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets,
known to the screaming void for our previous CD release, CTHULHU
STRIKES BACK ("Goin' Down to Dunwich," "Shoggoths Away," "Cthulhu
Dreams," etc) have something to confess. We've printed one thousand
NEW little compact discs, under the name GREAT OLD ONES. This cd
contains the songs from our two out of print demo tapes, HURTS LIKE
HELL! and CTHULHURIFFOMANIA! plus a few brand new ne'er before heard
tracks.
GREAT OLD ONES FAQ:
Q: How many songs are on the cd?
A: 22.
Q: Why to you have a FAQ list with only two questions?
A: Because we're not entirely stable.
Some of the songs on the CD of particular interest to Lovecraftiannes:
"One-Gilled Girl" - A Deep One's life is saved by a Deep-One/Human
hybrid, and they fall in love; "Chunk" - an oddly titled song singing
the praises of Cthulhu, the Fungi From Yuggoth, and Azathoth;
"Yog-Sothoth" - you tell me; "Please God No" - our tribute to HPL's
"The Haunter of the Dark"; "Six-Gun Gorgon Dynamo" - Shub-Niggurath
visits Sesqua Valley; and many more!
Our website is currently being revamped to coincide with the Great Old Ones
motif.
--
GREAT OLD ONES is, like, totally available now, dudes.
THE DARKEST OF THE HILLSIDE THICKETS http://www.holycow.com/thickets/
THE PEOPLE OF INNSMOUTH: for concert dates, news, song samples
the most recent People of
100B-2575 SPRUCE ST, VANCOUVER, BC Innsmouth newsletter...
V6H 2P8 CANADA. mailto:thickets@uniserve.com
UPCOMING SHOWS: Tuesday, Mar 4 at Greg's Place in Chilliwack, BC
Fri, Mar 21 Chase Suites Hotel, Fullerton, CA (GAMES UNIVERSITY CON)
Around Apr 4-6 at Gamefest '97 in Calgary, Alberta
DragonCon, 27, 28 or 29 of June in Atlanta! It looks like we'll be opening
for Gwar.
--------------------
From: Patricio Gonzalez <bn884465@intbba1.buenayre.com.ar>
Subject: Feinting!
System: Elric!
FEINTING IN ELRIC!/BRP
I, as a player, always wanted to do something to decrease a foe's
defense roll. After reading rules from other RPGs I got an idea.
How to Feint?
The attacker declares he will make a special Feint attack. Make the
attacker and defender roll against DEXx5% to see who reacts faster and
how. Unless only one of the two opponents criticals this role, nothing
happened because either no one did anything remarkable, or the feint
was canceled by an equally fast reaction.
If just one of the opponents criticals:
* The attacker rolls a critical: A successful feint. Halve
defender's parry skill for this attack.
* The defender rolls a critical: You may use the failed feint of your
foe to strike him in a non-protected area. Make an immediate free
attack, with the attacker parrying at half. (Note: this works like
responses, which are free attacks)
Whether the Feint is successful or not, the normal attack roll is then
made.
EXAMPLE: Markus from Vilmir tries to feint Dafgar of Dharijor. Markus
rolls and succeeds normally, but Dafgar makes a critical roll. Dafgar
makes his free attack, Marku failed the parry and marks off some hit
points. The battle now continues regularly.
NOTES: Feints can be done or tried only once per foe per battle (once
he feints you learn his movements and you can not be feinted again).
- Patricio Gonzalez -
Sorry for my English! !:)
--------------------
From: st670@Jetson.UH.EDU (Ramos-Tavener, Doyle Wayne)
Subject: Review: Liber Ka
System: Nephilim
First off, please be aware of my biases. The day after Liber Ka was
announced on the Nephilim mailing list, I posted to the same list a
system intended to accomplish several of the same design goals as the
Liber Ka system (hereafter LK). In all fairness, you should be aware
of this fact as you evaluate what I say here.
Secondly, I recently posted a review on RPG.NET, a webzine devoted to
games. I reprint it here in its entirety:
Liber Ka
Author: John Snead
Category: game
Company/Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Reviewed by Doyle Wayne Ramos-Tavener on 02/08/97.
Like many others, I was intrigued by the both the premise and promise
of Nephilim, Chaosium's newest RPG. However, there were certain
elements that were, shall we say, problematic.
Foremost among these was the element of spell casting, which should be
paramount in a game that purports to be about the occult. Much though
not all of the system seemed to be the standard whiz-bang approach to
spell casting. None of it seemed to correspond to actual Western
Occult principles or methods.
However, with the arrival of Liber Ka, these concerns have evaporated.
Magic in Nephilim now follows traditional Western Occult ideas, in
both form (how spells are cast) and the effects (what they can do).
Needless to say, magic in Nephilim is now far more subtle in its
effects, but potentially more potent in its capabilities. Most
importantly, magic is now a role playing catalyst, rather than a
black-box problem solver.
If you have been interested in Nephilim in the past, or already own
it, this is a must-buy book. Even if you are merely interested in how
the real world occult might be portrayed in an RPG context, you
definitely want to check this book out.
Style: 4 (on a scale of 1-5)
Substance: 5 (on a scale of 1-5)
This review can be found at <http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/rev_0008.html>
Now on to a slightly more in-depth analysis.
HISTORICAL FIDELITY AND THE NEPHILIM CAMPAIGN BACKGROUND
The explicit reason for Liber Ka's existence is to present a
historically based magic system for Nephilim. Since the game itself is
more about the story of the Nephilim than about history and the real
world occult (a 60/40 split?), whatever systems Mr. Snead came up with
had to adhere to two criterion: some fidelity to the Current Nephilim
Rules set (Ka, three ranks of magic); and fidelity to the basic truths
of the Nephilim background (five essential elements, humans may not
use magic, etc.).
I believe that, under these conditions, the system is about as
historical as could possibly be hoped for, without resorting to
endless reams of detail. Western occult principles are adhered to, and
the whole system seems to be very smooth in operation. That is, while
the effects are very broad, the mechanics involved seem very easy to
use.
In particular, I very much like the stress placed on the magic circle,
which is itself a metaphor for the central principle of Western
Occultism: the Macrocosm and the Microcosm.
The three levels of magic seem at first very ahistorical, but the
history that Mr. Snead has provided for them dovetails into the
history of Nephilim so well that I find myself unable to complain.
This seems to be the general tone for the whole of Mr. Snead's work.
Where deviations from real history were called for, he has made sure
there are adequate "Nephilim" explanations to cover the gap, which I
consider to be a rather adroit piece of work.
POWER LEVELS AND TACTICS
The effects of the spells seem to have been powered down, but have
they? Closer examination of the effects of the new system, such as
manipulations of Potentials, the causing of instant sickness and
death, and the manipulations of emotions reveals that the system may
be _more_ powerful than before, just not as flashy.
Immediate damage-causing spells are not as prevalent, and that is
certainly the most significant change. As a consequence, it seems much
easier for me to suspend my disbelief in the campaign background. The
world of the Nephilim now seems much more of a mirror of the Real
World, rather than a funhouse distortion.
Some have commented that the change seems too extreme. In _Chronicle
of the Awakenings_, when one uses the Personality Trait/Metamorphosis
system, there are powers that accrue for having a high Trait. This has
been suggested as a stopgap measure for a balance between the two
systems.
I must say this I agree with this approach, with one caveat. There are
usually only two traits out of five that grant powers, and them only
at the higher levels of the Trait in question. If we could rework the
system so that the powers are _activated_ by a successful Trait roll,
or so that a power is gained for each trait, or some combination of
the two, that would be more to my liking.
In terms of the play of the campaign, it now is painfully obvious that
physical confrontation with various secret societies is now totally
out of the question. It could be argued (with some success, I imagine)
that this was never really the point anyway, but the absence of the
flash-bang spells makes this option much less palatable to player
characters than before.
When I have run demos and one-shots for Nephilim, PCs intuitively
understand what these spells (1st Ed.) were meant for, even if they
were less flash-bang than, say, AD&D. They were meant to harm the bad
guys, and that is exactly what they were willing to do with them.
There are still spells which can help in combat, but the specter of
the 2d6+DB Sword of Sun Tzu will never again darken _my_ campaign.
This shifts the focus to more proper areas of the Campaign: the
investigation of secret societies and magical mysteries, historical
and otherwise.
INTEGRATION INTO CURRENT CAMPAIGNS
I have only run Nephilim as demos, one-shots, and two mini-campaigns,
so I can only guess the effect on currently active long-running
campaigns. My personal advice would be to scrap what you have got and
start from scratch, but my players would lynch me if I suggested this
to them. I frankly have thought all along that the wholesale revision
of the three magic systems was going to be necessary, and this was
part of the reason why I resisted commencing an active campaign.
My personal advice: wait until second edition to run a campaign. Run
demos and one-shots until then.
EXPECTATIONS
As good as Liber Ka is, I now expect the Alchemy and Summoning books
to be just as good. John Snead's writing the Alchemy book, so I have
few if any fears regarding the quality of that supplement.
As for Summoning, I never thought of it as bad as the other two
systems, so I am very curious as to what will be done with it. I
recently tried to trace the idea of Summoning in Western Occultism,
and found some very surprising (to me, anyway) facts. I hope to post
these in the future, for the examination by all.
IMPROVISATIONAL SORCERY FOR NEPHILIM
In Nephilim Digest Vol 2 #002, I posted a system that would allow for
the creation of sorcery according to Western Occult principles. I had
been working on the system for some time before I first heard about
Liber Ka. The system that I devised placed no stress on the magic
circle, was complex and seemed to me to be time consuming. It was also
designed to supplement rather than replace the current Sorcery system.
I consider the LK system to be far superior to the system I posted. LK
has more guidelines for what can be done and not done, is far bolder
than the system that I posted, and the effects of the LK system seem
far truer to Western occult ideas than the effects of my system.
If you are currently using some form of the system I posted, I would
strongly suggest that you abandon it and move to Liber Ka.
WHY PUBLISH AN INCOMPLETE SYSTEM?
So why did Chaosium publish Nephilim as it was? Any answer to this
question remains the twin provinces of Hindsight and Speculation. Any
answer that I might think I have should be clearly labeled as
such. Caveat emptor.
I think that Sam Shirley's main focus in his treatment of Nephilim
could be termed Mystical, rather than Occult. Let me explain that
further, if I may. (Shirley was the main editor of the US version, as
well as contributing to most of the changes from the French version)
In Philosophy and Religion there is a profound gulf between Mysticism
and Magic. A magician seeks to compel God, the mystic tries to achieve
union with God. (This is simplifying greatly, I might add.)
I believe and assert that Shirley's main interest in Nephilim was the
primary metaphor of the game: the Simulacrum. In gaming terms, in a
way that anybody who played the game could experience, this provided
the insight of slowly becoming aware of the spiritual world around
us. Various quotes in the main rulebook, as well as Shirley's comments
led me to this conclusion.
It is my further assertion that to one so inclined the use of
historically-based magic systems does not rate as much on the Big
Scale of Priorities. Ironically, this approach is itself historically
valid, as many historical magic systems begin as philosophies and
schema of mysticism.
CONCLUSIONS
Buy Liber Ka because it is an excellent work.
Buy _anything_ that Chaosium produces labeled Nephilim, regardless of
content so that more material will be published.
Propagandize Nephilim by posting reviews and discussion on UseNet and
the Web in general.
If you are in or about to begin a Nephilim Campaign, be prepared to
use your own solutions to fill in the gaps. Then be prepared for when
the published rules do arrive. Don't become overly frustrated at
this. Use whatever set of rules pleases you most.
Regards,
Doyle Wayne Ramos-Tavener
--------------------
The Chaosium Digest is an unofficial electronic 'zine about Chaosium's
Games. In no way should it be considered representative of the views
or beliefs of Chaosium Inc. To submit an article, subscribe or
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