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Author Topic: Stone Horizons  (Read 23188 times)

One Horse Town

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Stone Horizons
« Reply #30 on: October 04, 2007, 07:57:12 AM »
Well, the playtest document is ready sooner than i expected (due to one omission, but for the purposes of this first 'test-drive', the info will more than surfice).

Intrigingly, apart from Clash, no one has come forward for the playtest. Seems more people want to work on the game than try it out! :D

So, all is ready for you. If you want to give it a go, you know what to do! :)

Premier

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« Reply #31 on: October 04, 2007, 08:02:58 AM »
Quote from: One Horse Town
So, all is ready for you. If you want to give it a go, you know what to do! :)

Wait for the email which, so far, has failed to materialise in my Inbox? :D
Obvious troll is obvious. RIP, Bill.

One Horse Town

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« Reply #32 on: October 04, 2007, 08:06:59 AM »
Quote from: Premier
Wait for the email which, so far, has failed to materialise in my Inbox? :D


On its way to you, my good man! :)  I'm just writing up a quick example on the Legends & Lore thingy, which i'll be sending along with the playtest document.

Edit:

Play test Goals

1.   Your thoughts on the generation system for NPCs. The politics & problems have been pre-designed by me because they are not in a complete enough state yet to leave to random generation.
2.   Ease of the mechanics during play.
3.   Your thoughts on the mechanics themselves.
4.          Whether the generation system creates enough intrigue and problems for characters to start play with a number of possible routes to adventure available to them.

One Horse Town

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« Reply #33 on: October 04, 2007, 12:09:25 PM »
Chocks away! Premier, you have 3 meaty files in your in-box. :)

One Horse Town

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« Reply #34 on: October 11, 2007, 10:57:16 AM »
To celebrate an occasion that is only really of interest to me, here's a little from the 'The View From the Horizon' section. w00t! 100 pages! :D

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Naming Conventions

As you will see during reading this document, the names of the example inhabitants of the Stone Horizons are not really typical of those found in many games. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, they are evocative of the source material and inspiration behind the game and secondly, they add a certain flavour to the game world. A character that is named Mr. Fleacatcher will very seldom have to tell people what he does for a living. Most of the names of example characters are a reflection of the feature where they live and work or are descriptive of their temperament or physical appearance. Names in Stone Horizons are descriptive. With one fell swoop; an evocative name has already told the world (and the play group) a fair amount about your character. Of course, a large feature containing hundreds of inhabitants will soon run out of names describing the job they do, so a little lateral thinking may be required to populate it with exotic sounding non-player characters. For that reason, a random name generator is included in this section to help GMs or players along.

There is nothing stopping your group staying to more traditional naming conventions. As with most of the details of Stone Horizons, the decision is yours. However, subsequently released Local or Political areas will use the default naming conventions used throughout this document.

Drew

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« Reply #35 on: October 14, 2007, 05:22:42 AM »
Just wanted to say that I love this concept. The execution looks superb, too. I've been a fan of Gormenghast since childhood, and had often wondered why no one had really utilised the setting potential for an RPG.

Good work. I look forward to seeing where you go with this. :)
 

One Horse Town

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« Reply #36 on: October 14, 2007, 05:46:14 AM »
Quote from: Drew
Just wanted to say that I love this concept. The execution looks superb, too. I've been a fan of Gormenghast since childhood, and had often wondered why no one had really utilised the setting potential for an RPG.

Good work. I look forward to seeing where you go with this. :)


Thanks! :)  With Ian's Mariner coming from this board, and Pundit's Ft...A!, i thought it would be nice to get some more stuff coming out of here directly. Says Game Design at the top of the forum dunnit?

I have realised that SH is a huge project though. Wouldn't surprise me if it came in at a pretty high page count when all is said and done. The good thing about it though is that you don't have to read all of it to play, just the bits that are relevant to your character through the creation process. Options, my good man, and lots of 'em. ;)

One Horse Town

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« Reply #37 on: October 16, 2007, 10:58:08 AM »
Here are some materials that i took my inspiration for SH from.

The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake
The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe

These two are fantastic reads and really take you elsewhere. The primary inspirations taken from these books are the feel and flavour of the game world and the naming conventions. It's a sprawling world of crumbling towers, cyclopean architecture and hidden grottos, popuated by Doctors, Professors and Archivists.

The Riverworld Saga by Philip Jose Farmer

This is another cool series of books. Sci-Fi rather than Fantasy. What i've taken from this is the idea of an unknown race behind the scenes. The Dark Design & The Magic Labyrinth in particular have informed my creation of the mysterious Architects.

The Darwath Trilogy by Barbara Hambly

This is one of my favourite fantasy series. Under the radar of many folk, but well worth a read. I took the idea of hidden and ancient technology scatterered through the Horizons from the Keep of Dare that serves as humanity's saviour in these books. Hidden depths, strange glowing orbs and vats that do goodness knows what.

Mordant’s Need by Stephen Donaldson

Not an obvious choice and books that seem to split opinion, but i like them. These books primarily informed my choices as to the sort of politics that can become important within an enclosed space (in the case of SH, a whole world of enclosed spaces). The first book takes place almost entirely within one castle and the plots and schemes that take up the book are a nice indicator of what a typical game of SH will contain.

One Horse Town

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« Reply #38 on: October 19, 2007, 01:03:23 PM »
Flora & Fauna of the Stone Horizons

The world of Stone Horizons is nearly totally covered in the constructions of the ubiquitous castle. This has had far reaching effects on the sort of wildlife (and indeed domesticated animals) that can be found within its walls. Large areas never see the sun, are damp and shadowed or are built atop geography that didn’t support much in the way of wild creatures in the first place. The  effect this has had is to make insects and invertebrates much more widespread. Not only that, but many of them have grown to huge size in order to take advantage of the ecological niche provided by the castle. The meek, or Vermin (the catchall term used for insects, rats and arachnids) as they are collectively known have indeed inherited the earth. Countless shaded corners and subterranean passages contain unknown numbers of these pests, many of them grown to huge size. The sewers that honeycomb the earth beneath each Horizon supports huge numbers of scavenging rats, spiders and parasitic life forms.  These conditions also gave rise to the Ratlings, descended from King Rats, Rafters, who may be descended from crested lizards and Wall-Crawlers, whose arachnid origins are obvious for all to see.

If you want to see creatures that won’t either eat you or the waste you produce, you have to visit the small walled open spaces or clamber over the roofs and spires that look down on you. On the rooftops, you’ll still find many species of birds, mainly small flighty specimens that feed on hatching insects; there simply aren’t enough vermin on the rooftops to support large populations of raptors. Basking lizards, the occasional grasping monkey in the tropics and a unique species of fox that has made a living here is about your lot. The rest have been subsumed by the castle or have adapted to live within it rather than without.

Open parkland still contains small numbers of game birds, deer, cattle and sheep (although goats are more commonly herded for food) and the hunter can make a decent living by carefully hunting these creatures.

Apart from the very rare stables that rear horses, the main domesticated animal in the Horizon is the dog, which is bred for ferocity and endurance. Regional varieties abound, but the basic hound template can be seen in all breeds.

If you want to populate an area with fauna choose one or two species from this list or roll randomly. Most of the creatures on this list are rare in the extreme and only live in certain, threatened environments.

Flora has likewise suffered from the universal presence of the castle. Yet, like the fauna, some plants have grown to dominate the environment. Mosses, lichens and fungi find the shade and damp of the castle ideal for their growth and indeed, just like vermin, some fungi grow to gigantic size. Countless varieties of these plants grow in the Horizons; some unique to a certain feature, others found the world over. Botanists and professors have their work cut out for them in cataloguing them all. Medicine, food, and even building materials are garnered from these plants and without them life would be almost unbearable. Cereal crops are the losers in this story. Without large tracts of land in which to grow, only paltry crops can be grown where the castle yields its grip on the land for an acre or two. These harvests are jealously guarded and those living nearby can ditch the staple of fungi made bread for the delicacy of real bread.

Some trees and shrubs have adapted for life within the castle (especially in the tropics), but are mostly almost leafless affairs, their spindly limbs a reflection of the grasping roots searching for nutrients under the flagstones of the Horizon. One notable exception is the iron oak, the bark of which is resistant to both blade and fire. These behemoths sometimes pierce the towers and roofs of a Horizon. How they have adapted is anyone’s guess. Flowering plants and fruiting trees are likewise rare, preferring to grow in the small walled gardens that can be found every few miles or so.

flyingmice

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« Reply #39 on: October 19, 2007, 01:17:28 PM »
Quote from: One Horse Town
Flora & Fauna of the Stone Horizons


Cool stuff, Dan! You've put a lot of thought ointo this. :D

-clash
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One Horse Town

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« Reply #40 on: October 19, 2007, 01:25:51 PM »
Quote from: flyingmice
Cool stuff, Dan! You've put a lot of thought ointo this. :D

-clash


Yeah, thanks! These little posts are just to remind people that i'm still developing this baby. *shamefaced* :o  But it's nice to post a little nugget every now and then. I might even finish it sometime next year! :D

One Horse Town

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« Reply #41 on: October 22, 2007, 01:58:01 PM »
A tiny peek into Veiled Horizons now - the GM section. This entry is for use in playing a Sci-Fi/Fantasy game of SH (the game has about an equal split in resources for people who want to play a 'straight up' Gormenghast type game or a much more fantastical one). This entry deals with something left behind by the mysterious Architects.

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Adrenalin Suit

This black garment looks like any other cloak or robe. However, the ancient science and magic of the Architects means that is does far more than keep you warm. These artefacts are extremely rare and require long lost engineering skills to utilise properly. Chances are if you’re not an Architect, you’re not going to benefit. Even if you do pierce its mysteries via Artefact Mastery, there is no gain without pain.

If programmed properly, this cunning garment shoots tiny filaments into your body. These filaments are attached to tiny bladders concealed within the weave of the cloth – far too small to see with the naked eye. When your body is under stress, these filaments conduct adrenalin directly into your body, enabling you to achieve feats of amazing speed and strength.

Effects:
Adrenalin Injection: Once successfully activated, you can either add 1 point to your Manual Dexterity and Physique statistics or automatically make your action during the round a Reflexive one, meaning that you gain 1 extra Reflexive action during the round. This injection lasts a number of rounds equal to the number of successes achieved (minimum 2) in the activation test. Each suit has 3d10 full bladders when found. Each use of the Adrenalin Suit drains 1 bladder permanently. Learning how to re-fill the bladders might be the catalyst for a quest – one that will require anatomy, engineering and lost science skills to achieve.

Artefact Mastery:
2 successes: Learn what the garment is used for.
2 successes: Once the garment has been successfully attached and you know what it does, you can attempt a Free Artefact Mastery activation test in any round during a Scene to activate an adrenalin injection. If you gain 2 successes in this test, you receive the injection. Failure results in either an adrenalin overload (2 bladders being drained) and seizures or 1 bladder being rendered unusable and therefore considered drained.
3 successes: You can attach and remove the garment without harm. Failure to succeed here results in 2 points of health point damage unless a Free Physique test is made successfully and also results in the suit failing to work (when donning it). The wearer will not know about this failure until he tries to activate an adrenalin injection.

One Horse Town

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« Reply #42 on: October 24, 2007, 09:44:37 AM »
I thought i'd lay off the posting of snippets for a while. Instead, i'd be happy to answer any questions that folk have about the game and what i'm doing. If i don't get any questions, i'll take that as a prompt to shut the hell up! :D

flyingmice

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« Reply #43 on: October 24, 2007, 10:50:32 AM »
Quote from: One Horse Town
I thought i'd lay off the posting of snippets for a while. Instead, i'd be happy to answer any questions that folk have about the game and what i'm doing. If i don't get any questions, i'll take that as a prompt to shut the hell up! :D


That would be silly, Dan! Keep talking, and reminding folks about the game! It's so easy to forget and see the next new shiny! :D

-clash
clash bowley * Flying Mice Games - an Imprint of Better Mousetrap Games
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Currently Designing: StarCluster 4 - Wavefront Empire
Last Releases: SC4 - Dark Orbital, SC4 - Out of the Ruins,  SC4 - Sabre & World
Blog: I FLY BY NIGHT

James J Skach

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« Reply #44 on: October 24, 2007, 12:30:53 PM »
I'm with Clash.  Don't stop.  And don't take silence as distaste.  Between you, Spike, and trying to code a shell for the new site, I barely have time to work.

It's fantastic work!  I'm going to have to get the source material for some reading pleasure...
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