Month: April 2021

It seems that I am slowly approaching post #200 in this blog.

Here is something in a little bit of lighter vein inspired by a discussion in the forums and the movie Full Metal Jacket I saw many years ago. It was written after a particularly long day and meant to be harmless diversion telling about fictitious GM…

The creed, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this post are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), events, things, places, buildings, products or feelings and beliefs of any particular person is intended or should be inferred. No particular GM style is meant to be promoted by this. No animals, no monsters, intelligent or non intelligent species nor NPCs nor anything else were harmed in the making up of this post.

Mythras GM’s creed
This is my game system.

There are many like it, but this one is mine.

My game system is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.

Without me, my game system is useless. Without my game system, I am useless. I must use my game system true. I must play wiser than my players who are trying to kill my villains. I must hit them before they hit me. I will…

My game system and I know that what counts in game is not the rounds we fight, the noise of our battle shout, nor the fumbles we make. We know that it is the hits that count. We will hit…

My game system is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its sights and its nuances.

I will keep my game system clean and ready, even as I am clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will…

Before the secret masters of RPG, I swear this creed. My game system and I are the defenders of my game. We are the masters of our world. We are the saviors of my life.So be it, until victory is ours and there is no enemy, until another campaign!

A bit later interaction with GM and the players
And the way I see it ladies, you owe me for ONE JELLY DOUGHNUT! NOW GET ON YOUR FACES!”

and the whole troop is doing pushups and chanting:

1-2-3-4 I love Mythras Core

Sorcery Calculator has a major upgrade. Sorcery spells from Fioricetta – both the ordinary and illusionist kind have been added. Sorandib spells have been added as well as Mythic Constantinople. After the Vampire wars had a few interesting spells that have been added.

You can now select which set of sorcery spells you are using: RAW, RAW + Monster Island, RAW and all the others or everything.

For those that are strong in the force – one can now add up to 18 sorcery spells to the list if your intelligence matches that.

Some small UI tweaks here and there.

 

More about sorcery tool here and here and even here and grimoires here and magical difficulty modifiers here

Sorcery Calculator has a major upgrade. Monster Island spells have been now added to spell list. You can select either to have them available or not. For those whose INT is weak the tool now states if they try to add a number of spells beyond their ability to memorise. It calculates also number of unique spells chosen. If you happen to choose a Monster Island sorcery spell the name of the spell is written in appropriate red.

For each of the spells chosen it also states the page you can find the description in the RAW or Monster Island book. Some small UI tweaks here and there.

The tool also now should work with Google Sheets and couple of earlier Excel versions as they do not work with recent concat function.

More about sorcery tool here and here and grimoires here and magical difficulty modifiers here

Sorcery Calculator has a major upgrade. You can now add ten of your favourite spells (a grimoire usually has seven or less) from a selector. For these spells the calculator calculates the effect of your skills and abilities according to RAW. It contains all the sorcery spells in Mythras Core Rulebook. For the description of spells you need to go to the book, all the calculations are here.

Other updates include calculating durations and ranges so you will have 65 minutes instead of only having POW * 5 minutes. Some UI tweaks here and there.

More about sorcery tool here and grimoires here and magical difficulty modifiers here

Bird in Hand is a must have scenario for Monster Island, the most useful sword and sorcery sandbox I have used in the past 40+ years of GM’ing (I have GM’d Monster Island since 2013). Monster Island setting and the scenario itself can be used almost anywhere and in many settings from sword & sorcery to pulp among others. In the Monster Island and in the scenario city people are humans and natives of the island are lizard people but that is easily changed to other kind of jungle dwelling natives. The scenario itself is easy to drop into any ongoing Monster Island campaign – adjusting or adding the hooks and NPCs accordingly. In my campaign it was sword and sorcery based setting, humans from the continent in the port city and headhunting human tribes in interior. We played with characters in mid level skills and long history of roleplaying.

The scenario starts in Grimsand – the only civilized town in Monster Island and the writing brings Grimsand to life. There are multiple interesting NPCs that you can interact with and get in trouble with. The actions your players can have an effect on the NPCs, plotlines on the scenario and also on your future in Grimsand. The first part of the scenario stays in the city and a session or two will be spent there with plenty of opportunities for roleplay, using variety of skills to figure out what is going on and dealing with the increasing number of forces interested in the maguffin. I liked that there were multiple options written out for the various paths players may take. As in great scenarios there are multiple paths thru the first part of the scenario. Eventually the party needs to brace themselves and head into the jungle for most likely a two or three session romp but it could be more. Monster Island interior is deadly so players better be prepared and they will be lost in the jungle if you push into the green interior without the right combination of skills and help. If you are quite lucky and resourceful you may be able to tackle the jungle part with one long session but I would not push it that way. 

Hex crawl rules at the end of the scenario are pure gold – making the island itself an adversary that needs to be tackled. They will be used extensively in my ongoing campaign on Monster Island and would be useful also in other jungle or difficult terrain based campaigns.

This is a scenario that melds with the tone and the spirit of Monster Island. It is a worthy addition to Monster Island, Mythras and a great sword and sorcery scenario – and that is high praise indeed.

Great work, John – highly impressed.

5 stars out of 5

You can find the scenario at least in DriveThruRPG and Amazon