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.
Spell names have an abbreviation which supplement they are from
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.
Your grimoire selectionEntire sorcery calculator
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.
Based on experience in using them for a bit – the travel rolls and fatigue have been separated to two sheets so you can print them on A4 and still read the type with relative ease.
Travel rolls look like this
And the fatigue table like this
All the charts and bit more explanation about them are in the Hex Crawl post
Calculates now (again) the difficulty modifier for combined spells. Additionally calculates both the resulting level of difficulty AND difficulty grades. Some tweaks.
Example of calculation
More about sorcery tool here and grimoires here and magical difficulty modifiers here
There was a question on Facebook about Finnish translation of the names. Found an old document where I translated for my own campaign the names available at the time – somewhere mid to late 80’s. They were done in my student days. Nowadays perhaps would change a few when both the Glorantha and my knowledge of English has changed.
Reflecting back on time: when this translation was last saved it was written with Word version prior to Word 6 and it does not open with current versions of word. The only available Glorantha materials were
Borderlands
Cults of Prax
Trollpak
Dragon Pass
DW14
genertela
Griffin Mountain
Pavis
RQ Companion
There was no internet for general public. Alarums & Excursions was the closest I knew about general community. Things have changed a bit…
From what I hear there are several expeditions in various campaigns that are heading to interior of Monster Island. Built up some new versions and new variations of the shoals, flocks and hordes in the Monster Island. Now there exists all the sizes of Flocks and the links work again for example: Enormous Swarm of Jellyfish . You can find all these by using search word : Flock , it will find also other people’s flocks.
Lovers of sword and sorcery have a field day now with the long awaited hard cover release of Monster Island by the Design Mechanism and the most appropriate new scenario for it – A Bird in The Hand. Run, don’t walk to Lulu to purchase the hard cover for the sandbox and the new scenario. A Bird in the Hand will give you an excellent induction to Monster Island. You will need a hard cover for the Monster Island as the sandbox will last you a long long time with a lot of gaming. It can easily be slotted into your campaign – in mine I changed the lizard folk to native tribesmen and the high folk to serpent folk with some extra camouflage powers.
A Bird in the Hand scenario contains the wonderful hex crawl rules put together by John Holmes and my group was given a chance to put them to extensive play test and have used them in every scenario ever since. The hex crawl rules makes it a must buy for the scenario itself, for the Monster Island travel and also for other jungle related scenarios. The only thing that is “missing” from the scenario hex crawl rules is a GM sheet for the various hex crawl features. The scenario is perfectly playable without GM sheet and has all the rules.
The Core rules have tucked inside them rules for Survival, Precipitation, Exposure and Wind effects. The combination of Monster Island and the Hex Crawl rules in the scenario makes the terrain and weather of the island itself an adversary worth planning for. Your party better have navigation, survival, endurance and several other skills.
Useful Folk Magic for Hex Crawl
Many folk magic spells would also come in useful. It is of course sad that by default Monster Island does not have folk magic. YMIMV. Cool would help quite a bit during a scene. For drying yourself off “Dry” would help in helping survive the jungle night. Might might help when trying to avoid the encumbrance penalties from Burdened or above conditions. Pathway would help in not losing one’s way so easily within a single scene. Preserve would help in keeping the rations good for longer than the Monster Island week. Tire would be nasty spell against the already fatigued – might even kill a person. Vigour would help avoiding the burdened and above conditions Fatigue rolls and Warmth could help for a bit in the night.
These of course will burn quite a few magic points as they are targeted per person, will last only a short while (scene might not be a day, sounds like too strong for a cantrip like folk magic spell) and magic might not work every time. It is also worth noting that Cool and Warmth requires concentration that might be broken by the denizens and surprises of Monster Island.
GM Sheet for Hex Crawl
I was inspired to create a GM sheet for the Hex Crawl and John was kind enough to provide some feedback to tune it a bit.
You will need Mythras Core Rules, Monster Island and the scenario A Bird in the Hand. GM sheets provide summary information at a glance and refer to the books.
The GM sheets contain
The Monster Island (and Jungle) Hex Crawl Travel rolls
The Monster Island Hex Crawl Travel Distance
Camping in Wilderness V1.3
The GM sheets combine information about Monster Island temperature effects,
Monster Island and Jungle Hex Crawl Travel RollsMonster Island and Jungle Hex Crawl Travel DistanceExposure Modfies if not in shelter
The Monster Island Armour Penalty Fatigue Calculator
The Monster Island Armour Penalty Fatigue Calculator tool calculates the effects of Monster Island Jungle rules for wearing armour. The tool is currently an excel – will likely be added to toolsfrompavis.com later on. Mark here your current fatigue level (Fresh, Weary…), your strength, worn Armour ENC and all other ENC than armour. Monster Island is unforgiving if you wear any armour at all so be prepared for that. If you need to calculate the weapon, specific armour set and other equipment ENC use the Encumbrance calculator and mark down what you need here.
The
Tool results when no armour and weeks rations are carried and nothing elseTool results when just one ENC (note ENC) armour and weeks rations are carried and nothing elseAdded just 15 ENC armourAdded a sword and couple of things raising all other ENC to 16So here wee have the plate armoured warrior with STR11 and weeks rations. Here one with 21 ENC with weeks rations and 1 ENC worth of other equipmentHere a more reasonable armour with normal equipment loadPlate armoured warrior – when exhausted at the Fatigue level – he will die and he is not even burdened by equipment
To get the best of these you will need the Mythras Core Rules, Monster Island and the scenario A Bird in the Hand from Design Mechanism , Mythras Encounter Generator will create you encounters.
Here is a small chart to use when characters are traveling in wilderness. Bird in the Hand scenario brings in more detailed rules for finding shelter. If you do not know where a good shelter is your travel will get slower and there is a risk of having to sleep in the open.
The RAW rules state wearing suitable local clothing permits a character a grace period of their CON in hours before exposure sets in. The chart below shows the RAW rules for effect of being exposed to temperature ranges. The wonderful Hex Crawl rules in the scenario Bird In the Hand situated in the Monster Island enhance if you try to rest without proper tent or lean-to you risk exposure and there is no recovery of fatigue or natural healing.
In the jungle you will be wet most of the time either thru torrential afternoon rains, constant wetness of everything or the rivers. If you try to rest overnight without first drying yourself and without a fire and lean to or tent for the night – you are likely to get more and more fatigued. So if you try to sleep in a tree to avoid ground level predators (and encounter the higher order predators above) you are likely to not get rest unless you find a nice nest or build a tree house but how to keep warm there..
So even if there is no check required – there is no recovery of fatigue or natural healing unless you are sheltered.
Notes From Pavis 