I’ve been working my way through the current draft of the setting. I had hoped this would only take a week or two, but it’s taken much longer for various IRL reasons (including a car crash and its subsequent fallout), mostly because the only time I can work on it, is the few hours spare I get after the kids are in bed and I’m not always as mentally focused at that time. (I’m getting old, I fall asleep in the sofa at 10.30 in the evening!)

The first half of the text required a lot more re-work than later pieces, yet it was the later pieces I struggled with the most first time round. It seems as a general rule, depending on the length of the chapter, the more I struggled with it the less re-working it requires. With that in mind I started working on the Pantheon chapters in reverse order, hoping to populate the better changes and feel from the later chapters back to the previous chapters.

It was only when I got to the chapter on Demons that something started to worry me. Not the writing, but something I had put to the back of my mind since starting this run. Demons are nasty things. Not nasty as in anti-hero way (like Vampires are sorta cool yet there still “monsters”) but the worst of mankind, supernaturally empowered. Rapists, murderers, abusers, molesters and so on. While it’s possible to create “good” Demons (Fallen Demons or Demonic Bloodlines that avoided the influence of Hell for example), the vast majority of character types are bad, real bad.

Lets get this out of the way now, Lost Heroes is based on old mythologies. These old religions contain stuff that modern readers may find tasteless or even offensive. I can already think of several bits and pieces that might offend some. I’m aware of them but I didn’t want to PC-ify these old stories, just for the sake of writing an RPG. So instead I tried to emphasis some over others. I don’t know if this works or if I should be more cautious in how I treat these themes in the setting. In part, this is the purpose of trying to make this “Book of the Gods” so that I can present something to others and get a real feel for the reader’s reactions. To put it another way, when does editing become censorship? I can’t tell because I’m buried in the forest, checking the bark on each of the trees.

And here I am, reading through the Demons chapter, realising there is very little balance to this chapter. It is dark and it remains dark. There is, preceding this chapter, an chapter on Angels who battle constantly with Hell to prevent Demons destroying everything. While some parts of Angels are dark, there is much light. When I was writing it, I tried to get my head into what might be the motivations of these Demons and their masters. It did haunt my dreams for a while, imaging the horrific nature of Hell, but I felt it was important to get it down on paper. A starting point.

One thing, from the beginning, of Lost Heroes is that I didn’t want to restrict your choice of characters. Of course a GM may apply their own restrictions for the sake of the game, but I wanted there to be a choice. Even if that option was only really available to allow the GM to create antagonistic NPCs, it should be there. Choice is also an incredible important theme in the setting. Everything is about choice. A True Chosen Demon… is a human who accepted to become a Demon. The evils of Demon are the evils of humans, amplified by the supernatural. Do you chose to be the monster or the hero? And so the gamer is already making a choice.

Reading about the monstrous Demons of Lilith, wife of Satan, I started to have doubts. I posted this on twitter:

Just re-read the Demons chap. in Lost Heroes. Am a bit worried that u can create evil and disturbing demons as PCs. Should I take chap. out?

Which it later got imported into Google Buzz where some discussion occurred.

I have no conclusions so far. I’m going to keep tapping away at this drop, hoping in the end that the bits will fall together. What do you think?

A week into 2010, and I’ve finished the first draft of “Lost Heroes RPG: Book of the Gods”. I just wrote and wrote until I finished and that journey was 13,000+ words long! My. Hopefully parts of are actually decent.

There is a lot to do before I release it publically. I’d love to just put it online in it’s current form, warts and all, and let people tell me what’s wrong with it. This being a first draft however it’ll be unreadable. (Just read my blog for an example on how bad my grammar and readability can get!). It’ll be plagued with unnecessary “junk” words (“actually” is one of my particularly overused favourites), mixing up “their” and “there” (I drive my wife mad with this one), past and present tense and “effect” versus “affect”. And with such a big load of words to read through, everyone who read it would be just telling me what I already know, but not what I need to hear. At this stage I’d rather hear about if the ideas work, as a whole is it good, do the character concepts grab you, encouragement and so on, not the pedantic grammar and readability issues. (Though if there is anyone out there who wants to read it and willing to ignore the grammar and readability stuff, I’d be more than happy to share it).

I don’t have an editor and I don’t have the funds to hire one, I’m going to have do it myself. Even if I consider this version to be a “beta”, I still need it feeling professional when I share with people. So my plan is to do a read-through and fix up anything I find. Then put it aside for a week and start reading it again. I found this trick really useful, it’s like you’re reading someone else’s work (whose writing style is very familiar).

And once I get through that, I’ll read it backwards. Well when I say, read backwards, I mean read the chapters in reverse order. I know that during writing it, some concepts took shape later in those 13,000 and got a name, but apply across the board. This way I can make sure concepts and ideas are consistent throughout the setting.

*phew*

And then I get to lay it out. Again I don’t have an art director or a graphic layout guy on hand. So again, I’ll be attempting this myself. I’m going to keep it simple however. Rob Lang’s guide seems like a very good starting point for me. Plus I have some artistic ability.

So hold on to your britches, Book of the Gods may be out soon… ish.

This week we look at ‘The Chosen’. The Chosen are the main type of characters available for players in Lost Heroes.

The Chosen

The Chosen are humans (or animals) that have been chosen or touched by a God and divinely transformed.

There are five types of Chosen characters: “True Chosen”, “Bloodlines”, “Soulless”, “Fallen” and “Renegades”. Every type of Chosen has a “Patron”, which is normally a God or some other powerful supernatural entity or force. There are a number of groups of Patrons (called “Pantheons”) described within this setting but they are certainly not the only ones. Each Patron offers different types of advantages and disadvantages. A Patron may not be a conscious or intelligent entity, but a powerful mystical force such as the Dreamlands or the randomly forming stuff of the deepest Void. The relationship between the Patron and the Chosen depends on the type of Chosen however there is always a relationship. The Chosen can send mental messages as “Prayers” to their Patron. They can also sense what things or events are important to their Patron and can always sense when one of their Patron’s Avatar is in play.

• The Dark Gods: the Mad Ones of the Outer Darkness

• The Fair Folk: Fairies, Nightmares, Wardens and other Chosen of the Dreamlands

• Tuatha Dé Danann: People of the Goddess

• The Fomorii: Servants of the Deep Ones

• The Angelic Choirs: Children of Fire

• The Legions of Hell: Demons and Devils

• The Olympians, the Underworld and other Gods

• The Aesir: the Warrior Gods of Asgard

The Patrons of the Chosen are discussed in detail later.

All Chosen undergo a “Transformation” from their mundane Mortal selves to their new Chosen forms. This can also be referred to as the “Change” (the “Soul Rape” is a more derogatory description). The extent of the Transformation depends on the type of Chosen.

After the Transformation the Chosen suffer an emotional drain each day while under the Veil (i.e. in the mundane world). This is called Passion Bleed and it saps at their ability to use their divine powers and abilities. Also, as their divine powers increase over time, so does the Passion Bleed and can get to the point where a Chosen can no longer live permanently under the Veil. The Chosen also do not age normally after the Transformation. Age occurs as a matter of experience, the more they experience (and harder) the more they will age. They could live ten years without any ageing if there is no struggle or worry but could age decades in a matter of a few short years under constant harsh struggle. But Chosen can live much longer than Mortals. Rather than die from old age too, they fall into a deep sleep that they can barely be roused from. Sometimes such aged Chosen are carried from the mundane world into the Dreamlands where they slumber forever in peace. In the case of Bloodlines this slowed ageing only kicks in once they have reached the physical peak of their adulthood, around 25 to 28 years of age.

Chosen can have family like any human. There is a very small chance that the offspring of a Chosen will be a Bloodline, but most of the time the children are completely human. Most Chosen who do have children, do their best to raise the child in a mundane environment, but it is a near-impossible task. The Chosen by their nature cannot prevent the supernatural (such as their Patron) coming into their lives.

The True Chosen

You’ll have to wait till Book of the Gods is available to find out more…

Happy Halloween everyone! In the spirit of the creepy and dark, here is a new extract from what I’m currently working on. It is a description of the magical properties of the “Void”, the great darkness surround everything. Enjoy!

The third magical Element is the Void; the undefined darkness that lies at the root of everything. Yet it is also the destruction of everything. It is the shadow and the fear and the source of inspiration and all creation. The Void cannot be taken as Elemental Ability or Magic, instead it is broken into three sub-elements. The Near-Void which is the Void close to the Earth, can be used as a magical material using the path of Stygian Forging. Cosmic Forging is the Element of the Deep-Void, which is the true pure Void, existing beyond the Wall. It is the stuff of Dark Gods and universes but it is heavily restricted. True manipulation of the Deep-Void is beyond all known beings. The final sub-element, Chaos Evocation, is the relationship between physical existence and it’s origin Void. By playing with this relationship, things can be made to go out of phase, make things more real and even slip between the shadows.

There is a terrible dark-side or cost to using Void Magics. Casting very powerful effects, making mistakes, “brutal” uses (like blasting a person out of existence), intensive over-use and so on have a side-affect on the caster and sometimes the rest of the world. The caster can lose a piece of their mind, sometimes permanently, mutations may appear on their body, they become sick or a lesser version of the effect also affects the caster. This is because a caster gets very close to the Void when creating an effect and in a sense becomes like the Void and thusly it has an awful influence on the casters mental and physical self-identity. Alternatively it can create tears into the Void and all sorts of Darklings can climb in before the tear is naturally closed by the Veil and Dreamlands.

Stygian Forging is the manipulation of the Element of the Near Void. Just outside the physical world there is the great unending Void, but the Earth gives off an aura that tempers the raw Void close by. This is know as Near Void. Unprotected exposure to the Near Void is lethal, it either destroys the mind or warps the physical body. So casters using Stygian Forging learn to protect themselves against exposure. Near Void can not be creating out of nothing, instead it must be pulled into reality and as soon as it enters, it must be given a form. Near Void can be formed into any sort of material with nearly any combination of properties (though the more unrealistic the material, the harder it is to form) such as silk as strong as steal or a metal as light as wood. When Magic Practitioners refer to making something out of the light of the moon, the spittle of the stars, the shrieks of cats in heat and so on, they are talking about forging Near Void into a practical form. Unlike the stuff of Dreams, once forged the Veil accepts it as mundane material. However Near Void cannot have any of the fantastical properties of the stuff of dreams, except for one. Near Void material can be alive (but not sentient, at least not initially). When a caster forms Near Void into an actual mundane form, they can give it any sort of shape (though the more complex it is, the more difficulty). They can create instant machinery and also living things. These living things can have drives and impulses and feed off nearly anything, but no initial mind. The caster need not worry about the organic or mechanical details, reality takes care of that. Some casters take ordinary machinery and add a living component to it, such as a beating heart that feeds on gasoline that can power a customised car. Stygian Forging also brings with it a great risk of creating tears into the Void. Aborted or botches can be disastrous as leaked Near Void is poisonous to all things. Stygian Forging cannot be used to merge or transform. But existing materials can be modified, to a degree. Properties can be shifted, improved or weakened, but it requires a lot of Mana.

Darklings that get close to the physical world can be sensed by casters using Stygian Forging. They appear as “living knots” in the tapestry of the dark Void. Casters can summon them into reality, giving them a physical form to exist. Casters can try to summon something out of the Wall but the summoned Darkling must get to Earth under their own steam. Most Darklings are primitive critters, full of hunger and instinct and the caster who brings them into reality will have no control on them. More powerful Darklings may be bartered with and they will require more Mana to stabilise under the Veil. But once their here they are here. Like all supernatural beings, extreme forms will suffer Passion Bleed.

Chosen with a high Stygian Forging Ability can sense the Near Void nearby at all times and they find it easy to work with all materials as they are pliant in their hands. However Magic Practitioners and Chosen develop unhealthy interests in weird natural mutations, freakish psychological disorders and bizarre sexual desires. They are drawn to disturbing art, weird mixes of human and machines and so on. To most other people, such Chosen are disturbing.

Cosmic Forging is the path of the Deep Void which is the purest form of Void stuff known to existence and as such it is only available as a Magic, never as an Ability. In fact it can only be learned up to only a few basic levels. Deep Void is free of the constraints of reality such as time, physicality, causality, etc. Deep Void is the origin matter of universes and worlds. In theory Dark and Mad Gods can be summoned but the caster must have a huge amount of Mana and the right set of circumstances (dependant on the caster, what is being summon and the context of the time). Some manipulation of Deep Void is also possible but the Deep Void can not be brought into reality. To do so would rip the world apart. Some casters, who get lost to the Void, use Cosmic Forging for the Dark and Mad Gods to build/form Dark Moons beyond the Wall. Those who practice or spend a great deal of time learning Cosmic Forging will be insane and their bodies will have strange and foul mutations, such is the influence of the Deep Void.

Inbetweens shift between the shadows, part of this reality, part not. They do this through the use of Chaos Evocation, the manipulation of the relationship between physical existence and it’s original form: the dark undefined substance of the Void. Chaos Evocation can be used to sense space and physicality, and as such can allow the caster to see through walls or have a “3D” sense of their immediate locale. Casters can also make physical things go “out of phase” such as coins falling through a pocket or hands passing through bonds. Skilled casters can slip bigger objects, like themselves, through solid objects, but a cheaper method is Shadow-walking.

At higher levels, a caster can slip into the Void and emerge somewhere else. This is achieved by the caster becoming like the Void and then jumping through the Near Void, remaining close to Earth. As distance is simply an impression on infallible darkness, long distances can be made short, but this requires much Mana. More powerful casters can bring others through and even open temporary portals. Such portals can bridge different Shard Worlds, circumventing the need to travel though the Dreamlands (some Shard Worlds have even developed technology to do this). But a caster must know exactly where they are going. Mistakes during Shadow-walking can lead to all sorts of problems, from getting lost to the Void, to arriving on a different world.

The Void, or rather chaos, inherent in all things can be played with. Insanities and fears in people can be given strength temporarily or the mad can be calmed. Darklings, Dreamlings and other shape-chargers can be forced to take one form. It can also be used to strengthen forms against the wearing of the Veil for periods of time. If the caster can see Spirits, they can also give them physical form or break apart a Spirit’s temporary form. They can also make unbreakable bonds for specific creatures, even for the Gods. They can make areas magically blocked, preventing Spirits, Astral Projectors and Shadow-walkers from sneaking in or prevent magical viewing, such as from the Gods. They can even erect ‘shields’ against the wearing winds of the Spirit World (without having to know anything about the Spirit World). This can make it useful to many Magic Practitioners.

A very powerful use is to obliterate something from existences. It’s brutal and violent and has consequences on the caster, but anything can be destroyed this way, even humans. It can be used to destroy someone’s mind, their entire memory or recent memories or shatter them from existence completely. Physical objects such as stone walls or even just parts of objects can be destroyed. But it has a blow-back on the caster.

A clever use of Chaos Evocation, is to shift machinery into a Void-like state and then using Stygian Forging, making the machine alive. This same trick can be used to attach machinery to living beings, though it requires also the Element of Life. This can be used to replace lost limbs with powerful magically enhanced ones and as long as they look like the real thing, the Veil doesn’t wear them down. Though those of the Others will sense the wrongness of the form.

Regular use of Chaos Evocation has a strange effect on the caster, they can become lost between reality and non-reality. If they are unlucky it becomes permanent. While lost, they are like Inbetweens, having to find some other, often unnatural, way to survive while stuck. Chosen with high Chaos Evocation find that they are always covered by shadows and shadows around them move of their own accord. Those of the Others will sense something wrong or disturbing in the presence of such Chosen.

I’ve been letting this blog languish for what feel like months while I’ve been busy writing “Book of the Gods”. So I’ve decided to post some extracts from the current work in progress, a way to wet appetites and to get over my own procrastination.

I’ll probably try to do this once a week if I can. So the first extract I’m going to post is from the “Other Worlds” chapter and specifically the intro to the “Dreamlands”.

The great Dreamlands, home of the Gods, the fantastical and the afterlife exists beyond the thin layer of the Spirit World. You know when you’re in the Dreamlands because everything appears or feels more real. The truth of everything is vividly more apparent and this leads to a sense of “hyper-realism”; colours are more startling, feelings are more passionate, sounds more stunning and so on. To humans, things take on personality because there are more true; flowers are more alluring and delicate, storms more violent and malignant, architecture belies more of the personality of the creator or designs of its architect, the way clothes hang on someone tell more about them then the choice of clothes and so on. The hidden meaning of things is less hidden and more explicit and it leads to an over-saturation of senses and meaning to humans. When people return from the Dreamlands, their memories and experiences there don’t seem real within the pressure of the Veil in the Mundane World, they take on a dream-like quality and many people forget them, just like night-time dreams.

Time moves differently in the Dreamlands, though it always marches forward, it can move slowly or quickly. A few seconds in the Dreamlands, several lifetimes may have passed on Earth and vice-versa, decades may go by in the Dreamlands, but the travellers discover they have lost only moments when they return. No-one can predict or control this, but certainly some Islands have more stable ratios of Dreamland time to Mundane time. It can make trips to the Dreamlands a risky busy, because the travellers do not know when they will return. The Sea of Dreams connects the various Islands in the Dreamlands. Most visualise and experience the Sea of Dreams as a great wide open ocean. Beneath the waves the fleeting dreams of sleeping humans can be seen and it’s possible to dive beneath the waves and seek out these temporary treasure houses. Sandmen harvest these dreams for trade and sale. Sometimes the dreams rise up out of the waters like great ancient sea monsters or whales before mutating and dissolving back into the sea. But the Sea of Dreams can manifest in a variety of ways, it can appear as a great wide forest, with mysterious and secretive animals/dreams hiding between the trees or a universe of doors hanging in space, great dream-animals floating through them or even the great tree Yggdrasill. It depends on the culturally conditioning of the travellers, but can be the strongest willed of the group of travellers or the most common expectation. By default, it manifests as the great open sea. Dreamlings and other travellers build fantastical crafts to move across the Sea of Dreams, from sky boats to giant cows.

 I finally managed to do a symbol for the “Aesir: Warrior Gods of Asgard” pantheon.

Aesir (Norse) Gods Symbol

I also created this image as well:

Lost Heroes Old Satyr Warrior

You can read more about this particular one on my personal blog.

As I mentioned I just finished writing up the section/chapter on Olympians for v0.19 and I decided to take a short break before starting the next section (whatever that’ll be).

Oddly I realised an unexpected theme in my choice of mythos I’ve developing for Lost Heroes. I’ve chosen four mythos over the additional two “core” pantheons of Gods. These are split into six pantheons of Gods (which can contain multiple “races” of Gods).

• The Celtic mythos is split into Tuatha Dé Danann and the Fomorii.
• The Angelic mythos is split into Angels and Demons.
• The Greek mythos is one big unhappy family of Olympians, Titans and monsters.
• Likewise I will not be splitting up the Norse mythos. There will only be the Aesir and kin.

Each of these mythos cover the whole range of mythology, from world creation, the sea, afterlife to love and war. However when I finished the Olympians, I realised that the Olympians could be associated, albeit tenously, to the classical element of Air: rational, intellect, sky, etc. Zeus the rule of the Olympians is the God of lightening and thunder. The Hall of Mount Olympus high on a lofty mountain.

The Norse Aesir have always felt, well, “earthy” to me. With Thor and his hammer, frost giants, dwarfs in mountains and Loki buried underground. Which would associate them with the classic element of Earth, sort of.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

The Angels are called the Children of Fire and, well, Hell is associated with fire and lava. They are active, can bring great might to their battle and flaming radiance.

Which puts the Tuatha Dé Danann and the Fomori in the Water element, which fits as the Fomori are foul sea demons who live under the sea and the Tuatha Dé Danann have a very fluid relationship with the human world that flows like waves across the world.

It’s not something I’m going to make much of in the writing of Lost Heroes as each mythos is more than the individual element. Nearly every mythos has a God associated with Sea and another with Death for example. But I found the concept striking when I realised it. If I ever get a professional artist to do a “cover” for Lost Heroes, this could be quite useful as a visual conceptual symbolism.

So last Friday I finished writing up the Olympian Pantheon of Gods section for the setting. And now I’m procrastinating about what to start next.

Splitting the writing of the setting from the design of the system really started to pay off going through the Olympians. In the previous version v0.18, I was designing the details of the system as an extension of describing the setting. The descriptions and the rules described the world. Sometimes I found myself floundering for how a particular God’s Chosen’s abilities might be, relying on what I had done beforend just modifying it a bit. But this time round, I found it easy to describe what abilities and powers a God’s Chosen should have, rather that detail it in the rules.

Anyway, the Olympian section completed I wasn’t ready to start on the last section of the Gods, the Aesir. It’s been slow going through the Olympian section revising and reviewing my notes on each God and expanding and solidifying the concepts. I wasn’t read to start that process with the Aesir immediately. But now I’m floundering again, I tempted to finish the rest of the setting and then come back to the Aesir. Which would not be a bad thing to do at all. But now there is a third option: the Day Of Fudge and I considered jumping much further ahead in my “plan” and taking one of the adventures I wanted to write up for this version and make it a Fudge based adventure that didn’t require a big knowledge of the setting and then making it available now so that people could use it in the Day of Fudge.  I don’t know if there would be an interest in this, so here’s a poll and you can tell me what you think:

This is a brief extract from the forthcoming public release v0.19. I’ve been endeavouring to keep the imaginative writing out of this version (and this is an example of that effort). I’ve found that doing so has help me be clear in my definitions and refine my vision. However the idea of the Godless City evokes some great images and concepts in my mind, that it is nearly bursting out of me. It is one of the multitude of realms described in Lost Heroes:

“Just outside Hell, in the Lands of the Dead, is a great ancient city. It has never earned itself a real name to its citizens but it is generally referred to as the City of the Dead (though Angels refer to it as the Godless City). Many souls rejected from Heaven but who refuse to go to Hell come to reside in this city. It holds many of the great thinkers, artists and scientists of ancient times that wouldn’t have gotten into Heaven at the time of their death. The city is cold and grey, full of towering buildings and thin bridges. There is an abiding sense of loneliness and emptiness in the colourless giant arches yet the city is plainly active and trades with many other Islands in the Dreamlands. There are no churches or places of worship in this city. No religion is permitted within its domain. The city is considered outside of Hell and the influence of Demons, though many Demons use it as a neutral ground. Many Angels also use the city in the same vein but also as a place to discuss things away from the Heavens and other Angels. Many Fallen Angels, who have not become Demons, make a place for themselves in this city.”

I’m currently working with a budget of near zero for the production of Lost Heroes and in one of my efforts to do-it-myself, I’ve attempted to do the artwork myself. However, I’m not really good enough, though I’ve been improving my drawing skills specifically because of Lost Heroes. Of course for a game like Lost Heroes based on classic mythologies I should able to source stock artwork and photography pretty easily (I hope). But to get decent images is down the line for me, I have get the writing and game design done first, right?

(Click the “Read More…” link for image ladened post)

With this version, 0.19, I’ve been abstracting the vision and elements of Lost Heroes in an attempt to get a consistent and complete game. This has been reflected in the few pieces that I have managed to do. I’ve created a set of sigils or symbolic icons, one for each pantheon. (There is none for the Aesir yet as I haven’t started that yet).

As you can probably tell, I’ve eskewed traditionally icongraphy for the different pantheons. However each symbol I’ve tried to capture the impression for the that group of Gods. Because I doubt my artistic skills, I’m never sure if they are “good enough” but I feel they’d work in the book.

I did some additional images but with these I’m certainly less sure about their applicability to use within the book.

I’m tempted to rework the first one in ink and see what I can do. It was a concept for the cover though a hell of a lot still to do. Like the sigils above, the images are much more abstract than my earlier pieces for Lost Heroes. 

I’d love to hear anyone’s opinions on these pieces and suggestions! Next up I have some original peices I did for the previous version – which are more character-manga-inspired!