So, those of you playing or running Aquellare or who have done so in the past, please tell me a bit about your games. I'd like to get a better feel for what one does with it and the types of adventures that work well.
Also, any issues to look out for rules-wise?
Thanks :)
What's Aquellare?
Quote from: PseudoephedrineWhat's Aquellare?
Aquelarre is a Spanish RPG. The system is a version of BRP. The setting, the kingdoms of the Iberian peninsula in the XIII century (Castile, Aragon, Navarre, Portugal, and Granada).
Here is the cover of the 1st edition:
(http://www.psnrol.com/biblioteca/img/aquelarre.jpg)
Balbinus, now I'm tired and I'm going to bed, but tomorrow I'll write about Aquelarre. It's a game for which I've got a soft spot. I love it. :haw:
Imperator had been running a campaign with it, and maybe RPGPundit did too. I ran it a loooooong time ago, and right now I'm playing it. Well, tomorrow more. :hatsoff:
I've been meaning to ask you for a while; is there a PDF version of this game?
Here's the Spanish Wikipedia entry (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquelarre_(juego_de_rol)) for Aquelarre. It has a list of all products for the game.
EDIT: I have no idea about PDFs.
Quote from: ClaudiusAquelarre is a Spanish RPG. The system is a version of BRP. The setting, the kingdoms of the Iberian peninsula in the XIII century (Castile, Aragon, Navarre, Portugal, and Granada).
Here is the cover of the 1st edition:
(http://www.psnrol.com/biblioteca/img/aquelarre.jpg)
Nifty. Now I'm interested in the same questions as Balbinus is, but also, is it available in translation?
I've just finished a short (6 adventures, roughly 10 sessions) campaign by the name of Macabre Danse. The PCs (set in 1345) are the escort of an old knight who intends to do a last pilgrimage to Santiago through St. James' Way before he dies. Along the road, they have several adventures, in whihc the Death (medieval death) is the main concept. It has been very cool, and we enjoyed it a lot. It was a low magic story, with few supernatural hapenings.
Now, given the success of the game, we're playing a story by the name of 'Tears' in which the PCs (1 year after the previous story) are looking for a lord to serve. They arrive to the town of Etxauri just in time for the wedding of the local baron to a beautiful woman, but then a sorguiña (a basque witch) interrupts the wedding feast to curse the bride and call her the daughter of a demon...
Now the PCs and the baron are lost in a haunted wood trying to find the sorguiña, while attacked by lobisomes (spanish werewolves), and animated corpses. The soldiers of the baron are dead. The PCs have seen the Gaueko (the basque spirit of black magic, on the shape of a monstrous black dog). Tough shit :D
Rules wise: as I have said before, combat in Aquelarre is ultra tough. PCs are competent (specially if you have the additional rules in 2nd ed to make older PCs), so don't worry about that. System is BRP - like, so it's solid. Magic is beautiful. Though it requires some bookkeeping (spell components have a caducity date, for example, and must be renewed), I would heavily advise you to get a magician PC.
About PDFs and translations:
AFAIK, there are PDFs of the game and its books available only in emule and the like. You can find the game in Spanish and French. I heard something about a fan-made english translation some time ago, but I'm not sure.
I didn't quite run a full-blown campaign with it, but I did run a series of connected adventures, intermittently played, that were set in Spain early in the 1300s, that was detailing events leading up to the suppression of the Templars.
RPGPundit
Quote from: Balbinusthe types of adventures that work well.
Ricard Ibáñez's (the author) favorite RPG is Call of Cthulhu, and it shows. The English language RPGs that most ressembles Aquelarre is Cthulhu Dark Ages. In both Aquelarre and Cthulhu Dark Ages the characters live in a word where there are VERY POWERFUL critters (Great Old Ones, Outer Gods, etc in Cthulhu, and demons in Aquelarre). PCs must often face supernatural menaces, such as Hell criatures, witches, etc, although in Aquelarre PCs use to have more possibilities to survive, as long as they don't openly fight the most powerful ones.
Another possibility is having the PCs live normal lives, a la Hârn, which in Aquelarre is pretty difficult, when you realize that very often your incomes are not high enough to get a living.