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Author Topic: Tell me about your sword and sandal campaigns  (Read 2411 times)

Rhymer88

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Re: Tell me about your sword and sandal campaigns
« Reply #15 on: December 06, 2022, 02:40:04 AM »
Given that you're aware of Mythras I assume you've also considered RuneQuest, one not tied to Glorantha, like RQ1/RQ2/RQ3. Along those lines I used Elric!/Stormbringer for a similar themed Atlantean-age setting, with less complexity than even RQ. In your case, the Sorcery could be reinterpreted as controlling spirits, and casting time could be extended. Use the open-ended sorcery system from The Unknown East and that handles the mystery requirement (since it has no default spells, and is limited to PC imagination and Ref interpretation).

Other options were mentioned on the S&S thread. I'd be interested in what systems you've considered, since I have about a dozen or so I've looked at for my Atlantis campaigns.

Thanks, I'll check them out when I get the chance.

blackstone

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Re: Tell me about your sword and sandal campaigns
« Reply #16 on: December 06, 2022, 09:09:44 AM »
I don't know if this would qualify as swords and sandals, but I'm going to start a new campaign for my group in the Hyborian Age of Conan.

This is an EXCELLENT resource here: http://hyboria.xoth.net/index.htm it's d20 (3e) but most of it is system neutral.

For my campaign, I'll be using the the Adv Labyrinth Lord rules. Humans are the only race allowed. Classes available is dependent on where you PC is from.
So for example, if he's from Cimmeria, the classes available will be heavily fighter-based. Cleric and druid is available. No magic-users. but if he's from Khitai, you have all of your standard classes, including MUs and illusionists. Aquilonia? most classes are available, including MUs. but there's a Knight class because the tech level of Aquilonia is equivalent to Dark Ages Europe. So there's lots of variations.

the amount of magic items will we few and far between. So it's definitely low magic.

Monsters: no faerie folk (satyrs, pixies, etc.). Prehistoric animals/dinosaurs are not uncommon. Giant sized animals are pretty common (spiders, beetles, frogs, etc). Weird creatures like Owlbears, carrion crawlers, hook horrors, etc. are rare, but do exist. I'm not sure about goblinoid creatures yet. the people of the age may refer to them as "subhumans" or "mutants". Not sure yet. Kobolds = "dog men"? Orcs = "swine folk"? dunno...

I have lots of other stuff. I'll try to post more after work.

Blake

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Re: Tell me about your sword and sandal campaigns
« Reply #17 on: December 06, 2022, 07:33:23 PM »

[/quote]

I'm not sure yet about a system. It would have to be something that is very low magic or at least focus on making magic mysterious. For example, magic couldn't be quickly cast, but would instead require lengthy rituals, so it would be useless for casting in a direct combat situation. Priestly magic would mainly focus on interpreting signs & portents because the gods "work in strange & mysterious ways." Sorcerers would excel at controlling spirits. For example, a sorcerer could send a disease spirit against his enemy, who then would gradually succumb tot the illness. Religion would focus on making sacrifices and there would be no creeds or belief systems. Anybody could make these sacrifices, not just priests, although the person who leads such a sacrifice would generally be the head of a family or the commander of a war band, etc. These sacrifices (whether of plants, animals or humans) would be performed not only to ask the gods for favors, but also to placate them and to thank them for things such as a good harvest or favorable winds on a sea voyage. Curses, the evil eye, and wards against them could be performed by basically anyone, but there would also be "experts" who can cast curses for a fee.
[/quote]

Take a look at Paul Elliott's Warlords of Alexander which uses BRP (before the Big Gold Book). You could probably use most of it with the simpler OpenQuest system.

"WARLORDS OF ALEXANDER is a fantasy setting for Chaosium Inc.'s Basic Roleplaying
Game. A gamemaster need only have a copy of Call of Cthulhu, Stormbringer, or Elric!
to play. Player characters are tough and rootless mercenaries, or wandering fortune
hunters seeking a rich patron or perhaps rumour of a lost treasure hoard. The world they
inhabit is dominated by huge and powerful kingdoms, massive fragments of Alexander
the Great's short-lived world-spanning empire. His generals spawned a number of
dynasties which now make interminable war on one another. All wish to be the next
'Alexander' - and the hoplite armies pay for these fruitless ambitions in blood ..."

PulpHerb

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Re: Tell me about your sword and sandal campaigns
« Reply #18 on: December 06, 2022, 10:18:08 PM »
I'm working on something for ACKS I think would qualify as Sword & Sandal, although it has very different influences.

"Know, oh prince, that between the years when the sons of Adam fought and the rains flooded all things there was an Age undreamed of..."

The core idea is adventures between Cain killing Abel and the Flood (Genesis 4:17 to 6:8).

Instead of classic D&D races we have three "Generations of" (echoing the language of the above parts of Genesis):

1. Generations of Seth - Humans who are descending to some degree from Adam's third son. They are clerics, fighters, and paladins, but not wizards or thieves.
2. Generations of Cain - Humans who are descending to some degree from Cain. They can be any normal human class except clerics and paladins.
3. Generations of Lilith - The "elves" who are wizards, warriors, and witches.
4. Men of Renown - "when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown." The children of angels (divine and fallen) and human women.

I'll probably build 1, 3, and 4 out using ACKS race construction (although elves and nobrians could fit #3 and #4).

Everything is set around a shrunken Black Sea using the Black Sea Deluge hypothesis as the future Flood.

To provide some kind of ruins and (maybe) explanations of where the people Cain met came from I'm borrowing a page from Ken Hite's GURPS Cabal and assuming Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are not parallel accounts, but accounts of two different creations. The demons (as opposed to devils, an idea I used about a decade and a half ago in a world set in the aftermath of The Apocalypse as described in James Blish's Black Easter and The Day After Judgement) are chaotic beings out to destroy the current creation, some of which may be leftover inhabitants of the prior creation (qilip in Hite's book).

Don't have much more than that as I only came up with the idea back in October (maybe late September), but have at least one interested player so need to get off my butt and flesh it out.

rhialto

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Re: Tell me about your sword and sandal campaigns
« Reply #19 on: December 07, 2022, 05:29:10 AM »
I'm working on something for ACKS I think would qualify as Sword & Sandal, although it has very different influences.

"Know, oh prince, that between the years when the sons of Adam fought and the rains flooded all things there was an Age undreamed of..."

The core idea is adventures between Cain killing Abel and the Flood (Genesis 4:17 to 6:8).
This sounds really cool, and I'd like to see the ACKS write-ups as you develop this.