Creating Iconic Races

I tried to create a set of races that cover all archetypes and are somewhat generic. They probably are most useful for science fiction, but essentially fit in any new fantastic world.

My general design pattern followed the Monkey, Robot, Pirate, Ninja, Zombie model. But obviously we will need Vikings as well.

Will the Liefeldians fit?

Part of the challenge will be to decide what "skin" to use for the archetypes.

For example, you obviously will need the huge, strong Goliath archetyp. But nothing is harder to decide: give this archetype a skin a yeti/wookie/fur skin or a stone creature skin or a plant/ tree creature skin?

My reply should probably be: why not both?? why not all of them? Maybe just make it a plant creature with some kind of grass fur and stone limbs? I am not sure about that approach yet.

Or how about a flying race archetype? Probably they should be small. Probably nearly fairylike. But then you can still go insect or lizard or plant creature, etc.

One solution would be to have a body type selection cross referenced with a origin section.
E.g. human, insect, lizard, plant, furling, stone, robot vs. goliath, flyer, agile race, bighead, ubermensch, psionic, shapechanger etc.

But is "grey" a body type or an origin? Probably it is the combination of bighead with lizard creature? Most likely we will end up with dozens of races this way. For player character creation would be probably better to let them pick/ roll just two of the origins and intersect themselves.

And then there is the idea for the Generazeeons.

Savage Synnibarr: The Lizard Club

This is the original write up. In the actual game the ghost was dropped, to make the adventure not run over time. (The police did not show up either.)

The Lizard Club is a gentlemen's club in Bwer-Rock's Waterfall Tower.

It's on the lower floors. The entrance is on the opposite site of the waterfall. Entrance is invitation only. 5 giant bouncers protect the shiny door and also serve as valets. They are normally shrunk, but take their normal size in case of fights. (FightD8;SpiritD8;Tough13;DmgD12+2fists)

Behind the entrance is an elven butler who is always subservient. A hallway leads to 8 different lounge rooms and at the end: a main room with a huge statue and a big red mirror.

Inside the club are 2d4 members at any time. They are predominantly human. In case of a fight outside the door and aggressors entering, they will flee through secret passages.

The statue is 4 metres tall and of a dwarf. A plaque reads Tomor, founder of the Lizard Club.

A poltergeist named Cindy Patchville took residence in the statue. She will first try to scare intruders, than attack them (*WC*TelekinesisD12;SpiritD12;Tough8;Immunity:physical;DmgD12telekinesis;FearPower). She died here 20 years ago, from euthanisia to guard the rooms and can be calmed down. She tells that the mirror recently started to emit maddening light more and more frequently and that most likely it must be related to the mirror.

Then the mirror starts blinking like a strobe. Who is not fast enough to look away (Agility), must make a Spirit roll or starts attacking his friends, until being knocked out. If multiple people are affected, they work together.

If you open the suitcase and let the Maddening Light out, it will fly towards the mirror, stay inside the air for 1 round and emit lightning bolts (Agility -2 to escape; 3d6 damage). Then it merges with the mirror, melting it and forming a shiny redskinned, female body that falls to the floor and seems unconscious. The body is more like a statue as it has no surface details, but is breathing.

Outside the police is waiting with 2 flying Lamborghinis and 6 officers. They are equipped with heavy armour, guns and 1 power suppression bazookas. The bazooka can affect 1 person per round and 1 power source. (Fight/ShootD10;SpiritD10;Tough12(4);Dmg2d6guns)

They ask intruders to the club to drop all weapons and to surrender. They will confiscate all weapons and ask for 1000$ per injured person (most likely the bouncers).

Savage Synnibarr city overview: Bwer-Rock

Bwer-Rock is a city state on the savannah island of Lystema. The island is quite big, around 200 km in diameter, and off the coast of the Enchanted Continent.

Bwer-Rock is on the South coast in Bwer Bay. To the West and Northwest it is protected from werewinds (that shut down technology and magic) by the Obsidian Shieldwall, a massive, 400 metre high cliff that encompasses the city in a 140 degree angle and even reaches out in the ocean for a few hundred metres.

Bwer-Rock is famous for it's 19 sky scrapers that are 1000s of years older than the current city. The scyscrapers contain a still functioning nano self repair system and are always clean.

*Glass Tower (Excelsior Hotel on top)
*Corkscrew Tower
*Black Tower
*Monolith
*Red Tower
*The Left Claw
*The Right Claw
*Waterfall Tower (Lizard Club near bottom)
*Neon Tower
*Marble Tower
*Fog Tower
*The Highest Tower
*The Light House
*The Unfinished Tower
*The Fortress (Government Tower, more shaped like a turtle)


Bwer-Rock citizens live in the towers, while something resembling a medieval town was built at the feet of the towers. The inhabitants of the undertown are barbaric and dangerous.

The current ruler is President Jonovian. She took over power eight years ago when she was able to lead a rebellion against the Blood Mage Fallbeik. She is supported by her Black Guard.

The 2nd most powerful house are the Gnomes. They control most of the trading.

Fast Adventure Writing Structure

I came up with a new simple way of writing adventures in a few minutes. I have to admit, I did not test it yet, but it seems that this way has a lot of potential. I am only GMing sporadically, but one of my biggest problems is to guess how much or how little the players will have time to explore in a session.

This blogpost is not about writing campaigns, but preferably adventures that can be run in one session.

I have to admit I never run an too short adventure. Normally I am so euphoric that I don't stop in time. Anyways: this is the concept I came up with:

1. Have a one line idea or title

Obviously you need to have something to start with. If you don't now anything, a random article from Wikipedia can be really inspiring.

Example: For a scifi game I need a new adventure. I pick a random wikipedia article and get the county of Norrland, some 17th century Swedish place.

2. Create 6 to 8 mini locations with hooks

The next step is to imagine a handfull sceneries that could be cool for the player characters to have something happen at. Obviously there will be happen more, if certain people or creature are there as well. Don't worry about what the characters will do and the consequences, just imagine what cool things anyone could do there.

Example: Somehow the county lets me think of meadows, seas and - sorry for the cliché - Vikings. But this is a Science Fiction game, so I have to twist things a little bit. I come up with the following:

Icy fjord on frozen planet. It's the ultra short summer. Atmosphere of loneliness. I ask myself: what can characters interact here with? Interact with loneliness? How about a some whispering that turns people suicidal?

Village near the seaside with human settlers. Ok, humans alone are a little bit cliché as well. So how about them having a symbiotic relationship to some strange aliens? So they coexist in the city.

This makes me think of trolls and vulcanos. Maybe I will boost the Icelandic vibe, because it seems mysterious. If the aliens play a role, they should also have a location: I give them their own pack village near a geysir.

But why did the humans land here and live by the water? Probably there is something like an oil platform to access some superspecial underwater resource.

(I make the example a little bit shorter, because this blogpost should be mainly about the structure.)

3. Decide if the single locations are about ACTION or INTERACTION, or something else

Sure, you don't want to force your players to deal with any situation in a certain way, but you can think beforehand what outcome is most likely. For a normal party you want a good mix of action scenes and "roleplaying" opportunities.

You also want to think about a potential way the characters could solve the problem. Obviously if the come up with another solution, that is even better. Remember to never say "No!", but "Yes, but..." later on in the game. I mark probable follow up scenes with "=>".

And it is great if what happens connects one location to another.

Example: I go through the locations sketched out before and think what will be going on.

The whispering of suicide is a life threatening situation. So it will probably be an ACTION scene. But how to deal with such an abstract problem? I guess it takes willpower to resist and because I don't want a total party wipe out, if probably is about making some skill checks until only 1 or 2 characters are up. At that moment something you can touch should appear. Probably the local aliens. They take the characters to their village. I think about it again and realize that it makes sense to make the suicides "go somewhere", because we want the impact of the situation without killing the characters. How about a cliff near the sea, where they jump down?
How about making the village of the aliens exactly there? It could be that jumping down there does not kill, but instead takes you to the aliens place. Maybe you are transformed in the process? What if the aliens are not real aliens, but transformed humans? Sounds pretty cool. I will adjust the other locations to follow up this idea?

The human village is about INTERACTION. That seems pretty clear. Sure, you could make it action, just to be unconventional, but this time, we decide against it. Still: we don't know whom to interact with exactly. Who is the person the players will meet? It should carry the atmosphere of the location. So how about a pretty ordinary fishergirl? We want to connect that to the suicide cliff location. So maybe she is drunk on the street, because she just lost a loved one?
Obviously the village has more to offer, so we split off another location: the house of the local administration. Also about INTERACTION and the player characters will encounter the local administrator, a guy who does not want to stay too long on this backwood planet. He is not too important so we are happy with a cliché bureaucrat. What does he want? He wants the player characters to leave.

The pack village near the geysir has changed already to an underwater place under the cliff. For whatever reason, I imagine them in there like bats hanging from a cave - just upside down and under water. ACTION or INTERACTION? That should be pretty flexible. Still: if the players get that the aliens are actually the suicide humans, they maybe won't kill them right away. ;) So a hint would be good. And why aren't they transformed themselves? Probably it takes some time.

4. Adding a TWIST or three

Everyone likes surprises, so things should always turn out different than they look in the beginning. Probably you already got a few just by thinking about locations and interactions. It is good to have a second or even third twist, just in case the player characters see through it very fast and the game turns out too short. Most of the time you won't need the third twist. Just remember that we plan one session adventure here.

Example: That is so obivious here.

TWIST 1: The aliens are actually suicidal humans.
TWIST 2: (We also want to base it on something we established already. So we look trough our notes.) The administrator knows about Twist 1, but does not tell anyone.
TWIST 3: (We go even further with the idea from Twist 2.) Actually the aliens are the resource the government/corporation is really interested in. The mining is only an excuse to attract people and turn them into aliens.

5. A villain

By this time it will often be clear, who is the opponent of the player characters. You don't need to twist it even further. But maybe you make someone not too important yet, the real villain, by giving him the agenda.

Example: The administrator would be a great villain here. Makes sense. He is some evil mastermind after all. But because we have seen this so often already, we decide that actually the nature of the planet is much bigger and more dangerous than his cookie cutter plan. But how to make a cool showdown with a planet? We want to blow things up in the end! After all the we want a great final. A Cthulhu like entity would be boring as well. An earthquake would be a fun end, we remember that, but the administrator is still the best villain. After all we want to INTERACT with him - or at least kill him.

6. The McGuffin

We still need a reason why the player characters go through all of this. There has to be a reason for them - something to win. This is especially important in a location based adventure, because you can't just push them along the plot. Often it makes sense to use the motivations of specific charcters as reason, but never underestimate the motivational power of filthy lucre or powerful items. Working since 1974. :)

Example: The administration looks for workforce, so it seems pretty simple to get them here. No reason not to offer the player characters a huge ammount of money and point to the cool stuff they will be able to afford with it. The administration is pretty sure, it does not need to pay anyways in the end. And because PCs are rarely miners, it would make sense to offer them a contractor's job in security. A good reason to send them to the suicide plains. Maybe hook them up with a NPC they like from earlier adventures: the NPC gets a job there and because of a favor he is owing them, he gets them this excuse of a well paid job. It's only 1 week anyways...


7. Space for wandering off

It is good to give the players some freedom. A place, that is not directly connected to the bigger scheme. If any locations are left over, just use those. And if you have the feeling that you could improve the atmosphere of the whole adventures by adding a place or two, add them now. Remember: something should happen everywhere! But whatever is going on here should be simple and work on itself.

Example: The ocean and the "oil" platform are not really important to the plot, but they are great to add to the feeling of solitude. Still we want something to happen there. So how about an attack of sea monsters and a rowdy bar with suicidal sailor man on the plattform?

You see: just by going through a few basic ideas in a structured manner a couple of times, I have a lot of stuff to run with. Just look at same ideas over and over and connect them. Because you think the scenes in locations and not in plot, the players have a lot of freedom. And best: you only need the write down a few lines and everything should work from there.

The have a look at the whole write up, read this post: The Wails of Planet Norr


And to keep it extrasimple, just copy and paste the 7 steps in your document:
1. Have a one line idea or title
2. Create 6 to 8 mini locations with hooks
3. Decide if the single locations are about ACTION or INTERACTION, or something else
4. Adding a TWIST or three
5. A villain
6. The McGuffin
7. Spaces for wandering off

Dragonborn in humancentric campaigns

While I love dragonlike humanoids like the Draconians, I never liked the Dragonborn that much. They are just not snakelike enough for me. I like me dragonmen to feel wriggling and Dragonborn are just too brawny for that (and missing the tail...).
That went so far that I reskinned a potential Warlord character I wanted to play from Dragonborn to apeman - basically the same stats, but he would be a big gorilla creature that probably would have used volley of attacks or a magical helmet instead of a breath weapon.

Another thing with dragonborn is that is hard to retrofit them in campaing settings, that try to feature everyday low fantasy life. But I finally found a way to integrate them in a setting like this and provide some campaign hooks at the same time.

Dragonborn are used by humans as warbeasts and in arena fighting. Who would even come up with the idea that such a creature could be intelligent? There are loved (and treated) like dogs and well respected.
"How come they never talk?", you ask? Every kid knows that you have to cut out a Dragonborns tongue right after birth, otherwise it would hurt itself with its breath weapon - or there could even a demon get inside its head and make it speak in tongues. Only heartless people would let that happen to those noble animals. So better cut out the tongue right away! You also have to keep Dragonborns seperated from each other when they are young, otherwise they will get stubborn and are no use.
For a Dragonborn to develop well take it away from its mother right after birth! (Or you could say that they crawl out of eggs, but that would make their mothers' breast kind of silly ;))
Obviously when someone is raised as an animal, that person also does not turn out very bright. So the intelligence of Dragonborn is a selfullfilling prophecy. And even the very bright are hard to be seen as humanlike, because they don't talk.

In such a setting a dragonborn player character could be someone who was raised by someone who would not cut off its tongue and adopt it as a real person - raising it with affection. That person would probably not be a dragonborn though. Maybe a highway man who hides in the wild or a nobel lady in a far off barony who does not like the presence of 'real' people.
For players who like a roleplaying challenge, a character who got his tongue cut out would be an option as well. You don't talk, but have to show in a different way that you understand. Maybe a tongueless dragonborn could be really played like a very bright dog. Definitely worth a try!

Deadwood as D&D campaign

I am watching Deadwood, the HBO western TV show at the moment. In my opinion the set up would work amazingly well for an old school D&D campaign.
Actually it would not be too different from a Keep in the Borderlands with a lot of corruption. To make it more interesting, when the players arrive it should be still a really small place, but with every time they return from an exploration, more people and shops should exist. So they could feel very fast as the old guys...

And obviously there would be a reward for every orc head the bring back to the inn keeper...

Main enemies would be humans, elves and orcs and I would try to make orcs and elves as interchangeable as possible (both are Indians err, sorry, natives...). Humans are the bastards living in the village. I would not call it a shades of grey setting. Actually nearly everyone except the PCs is a bastard.

Tearsworld Tyrsworld Treenenwelt Index

As I am not sure what to use as English title at the moment (although I lean towards the not kewlized Tearsworld at the moment), you can find 2 different names for this campaign setting in the header.

The basic setting info is German at the moment, but will be updated and ported over.

German language Tearsworld Tyrsworld Treenenwelt Wiki - kind of a encyclopedia

Rule system specific ideas can be found all over this blog:

Treenenwelt for Savage Worlds: Human wish powers

My Setting Ideas

Beacon Star (working title) - Contemporariy PCs find a space ship and are let loose on the world with this high technology. A game about social change and space exploration. (Could also work as Primetime Adventures game...)
Tearsworld Tyrsworld Treenewelt - Kitchensink Setting on a world that is bound to the 19 Earths
Castle Torswald - German based Torchwood rip off that has magic instead of scifi back ground
Toy Brigade - Savage Worlds of living toys in the world of now; inspired by Plüsch, Power and Plunder

Savage City: The Market Square

This was created by me as part of the cooperative Savage City project. You can find it in an old Sharkbyte issue.
I described the market square, the richest merchant in town and his son. Somewhere on my harddisk there should be still infos on the wife/mother.

The market square is surrounded by some of the biggest buildings in town. The farmers and fishermen of the region sell their goods here twice a week. But even on other days a few kids and elders are sent to make some coins.
It is not unusual to have the occasional stranger from faraway lands at the market either. These people are normally guests of Wolfram Pertl, the richest merchant in town. Even if there are no strangers, who the street kids point at, one can find all the goods not locally produced at the stands of Pertl’s agents: spices, as well as rare weapons and sometimes even a potion or two.
Except for the wooden stands the paved square has two further attractions to offer: the guardian statue and the stocks.
The statue is called “The Armless Guardian,” as it is that of a warrior. It seems to be quite old and even the scholars have no idea who could have build it. Only the features of the warrior’s face seem beaten by centuries of weather as
the rest of the statue is in perfect condition—except for the missing arms. The townspeople regularly try to fix this flaw, but no matter how inventive or costly the restorations, after a few days the new arms simply fall off.
Still the statue serves its function as a symbol for the city’s rights because the guardian of stone carries a sword. The sword is not held in the missing hands, but is fixed to the back of its head, by the handle. The blade rises far above the guardian’s features. The very same scholars that cannot tell you about its origin will tell you that the shadow of the sword has to point somewhere when the sun is at a certain level.
By contrast the stocks are not mysterious at all. They are regularly filled with petty criminals and attract a crowd of mainly poor kids and nosy women. Only in rare cases, when the city guard exhibits a goblin or another unusual creature, do the stocks get more attention.

Savage Worlds: The Band

This was the setting of my first planned Savage Worlds campaign. We only played it once... But there are (German) notes for much more.
I once posted its Savage Worlds drug addiction rules here in the blog.

The music performance rules were kind of broken, because I did not use the support rules from Savage Worlds. Those are not a perfect fit anyways... But the bigger the band got, the better it got with my rules and they would totally break down above 8 members.

Savage Worlds The Band Map

Synnibarr One Shot

Finally the big thing will happen: after waiting since 1994, I will be able to play Synnibarr. Actually I already had reached the point of character creation once with Halbi and Roman around 1998...

At the moment 1 have one character concept:
"Fairy that throws bombs" I created that as a Flyman/Flygirl with Superspeed mutation. Only the skill points for skills are missing, because that power is so expensive.

But now the important part: the adventure:

I want to use different inspirations:
Song titles by the bands Chrome Hoof and the Apes
Winterhaven, the city out of D&D4th Keep on the Shadowfell
The Savage Worlds of Solomon Kane adventure generator on deadlands.info/
Namely: Villain: Avenger (Noble) Goal: Conquer Hook: Rumor Locale: Exotic Land Henchmen: Combat Veteran Twist: Discovery

So it plays on an isolated vulcano island in the Sapphire Deep. There is a small, boring village called Frosthaven near the coast, where the Giants' come with a ship (500m length) every 1 months. There is an inn called Lazermead, some fishers and some farmers and an alchemist's tower. There is also a temple to Yanak, god of time (p.446).

Important NPCs:
Abon - Blood Orange (p.408) and Heal Spring Melon (p.402) farmer & trader, wants to become mayor, as the current one never leaves his mansion
Simera - female Talking Raccon (p.411) who is living in a cabin (!), hunter
Goto - Cyborg barman
Sam - Old, somewhat crazy dwarven fisherman: has seen Tenjohussan slavers in their whale. On one table with Abon...
Irpine - mayor (see adventure), lives in mansion build straight in rocks

The vulcano is most of the island and is surrounded by fog in the middle part. It is smoking at the moment. There jungle in the fog part. Flying Deer is normally circling the island.
There is also a cave to the magma with stalactites.
There are 4 traps (pit trap, hidden gun, mine, room filling with lava) and 1 monster there. Maybe also 1 wereman adventurer... Treasure: p.335!
Random encounters island: p.345+

Also: Octopus! Flying Deer, Flying Grizzly. Shark.. Tenjohussan slavers (p.426) in whale!!!

Basic outline - I hope it is crazy enough for Synnibarr: The mayor started to gamble with a Gremlin (p.382) who lives on top of the vulcano. He lost all his money. He contacted Tenjohussan slavers (p.426) traveling in a whale nearby. They plan to enslave all the village. The mayor sold his people...
But Simera, the raccoon, found out. The mayor told the Gremlin that there was danger the money would get lost and the Gremlin was able to kidnap Simera's twins.
If she tells about the secret of the mayor and the Gremlin, they will be thrown in the vulcano.
So she tries to plant subtle hints for the adventurers.

The gremlin is probably too strong to be beaten directly, but could be thrown into the volcano.

Here is a map I created from this outline:

You can read part 2 of the Synnbarr one shot preparation here.