Posts

  • Oct 8, 2016

    Pathfinder Iconics in Dungeon Fantasy: Lem

    Update: This is the GURPS Dungeon Fantasy version of the character. If you want to see a version for the Dungeon Fantasy RPG, click here.

    Another weekend, another iconic character converted to GURPS Dungeon Fantasy! The next template in DF1 is the Bard, which means that after Amiri the Barbarian our next subject is Lem the Bard. Here he is:

    By Wayne Reynolds, Copyright 2008 Paizo Publishing

    You can find his full bio here, and his original Pathfinder stats can be found here. From looking at them we can see the following:

    • Lem was born a slave in the devil-worshipping nation of Cheliax. He escaped in a rather fiery fashion.

    • He hates slavery and slavers, and tends to side with the underdog in most conflicts.

    • Lem has a sling and a shortsword, both sized for a halfling, but prefers to use his magic in a fight. He mostly uses his bard song to bolster his allies, and targets particularly tough foes with hindering spells to make them easier to take down.

    Given the information above, I feel we need to dip into two other DF books to properly portray him. As Lem is a halfling, I’ll need the racial template from GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 3: The Next Level. And since the d20 Bard Song power is core to his tactics, we’ll need its equivalent from GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 11: Power-Ups.

    As before, the end result hits pretty much all of the same points as the Pathfinder version. Lem’s weapons don’t do a lot of damage, so he’s a lot better off relying on Bard-Song and spells. And while his spells aren’t exactly the same as those of a Pathfinder bard, they still follow the “mostly hinder enemies with a side of helping allies” motif. Good places to spend XP on would be more spells and alternate song abilities.

    Lem, 250-point Halfling Bard

    ST 8 {10}1; DX 13 {40}1; IQ 14 {80}; HT 12 {10}1.

    Damage 1d-3/1d-2; BL 6.4kg; HP 101; Will 14; FP 11; Basic Speed 6 {-5}; Basic Move 51; SM -21.

    Advantages

    • Alarum 2 (DF11, p. 20) {36}
    • Bardic Talent 4 {32}
    • Charisma 1 {5}
    • Halfling Marksmanship 2 {0}1
    • Honest Face {0}1
    • Musical Ability 2 {10}
    • Silence 2 {0}1
    • Voice {10}

    Disadvantages

    • Charitable (12) {-15}
    • Gluttony (12) {0}1
    • Chummy {-5}
    • Impulsiveness (12) {-10}
    • Intolerance (Slavers} {-5}
    • Kleptomania (12) {0}1
    • Sense of Duty (Adventuring Companions) {-5}

    Skills

    • Acrobatics (H) DX-2 {1} - 11
    • Acting (A) IQ {2} - 14
    • Carousing (E) HT {1} - 11
    • Climbing (A) DX-1 {1} - 12
    • Detect Lies (H) Per-2 {1} - 12
    • Diplomacy (H) IQ {1}2 - 14
    • Fast-Talk (A) IQ+1 {1}2 - 15
    • First Aid (E) IQ {1} - 14
    • Gesture (E) IQ {1} - 14
    • Heraldry (A) IQ-1 {1} - 13
    • Interrogation (A) IQ-1 {1} - 13
    • Intimidation (A) Will-1 {1} - 13
    • Merchant (A) IQ-1 {1} - 13
    • Musical Composition (H) IQ {1}3 - 14
    • Musical Instrument (Flute) (H) IQ {2}3 - 14
    • Observation (A) Per-1 {1} - 13
    • Performance (A) IQ+1 {1}2 - 15
    • Poetry (A) IQ-1 {1} - 13
    • Public Speaking (A) IQ+2 {1}24 - 16
    • Savoir-Faire (High Society) (E) IQ {1} - 14
    • Savoir-Faire (Servant) (E) IQ {1} - 14
    • Scrounging (E) Per {1} - 14
    • Shortsword (A) DX+2 {8} - 15
    • Singing (E) HT+4 {1}23 - 16
    • Sling (H) DX+2 {4}5 - 15
    • Stealth (A) DX {2} - 13
    • Streetwise (A) IQ-1 {1} - 13
    • Throwing (A) DX+2 {2}5 - 15

    Spells

    All get +4 from Bardic Talent.

    • Communication and Empathy:
      • Borrow Language (H) IQ+2 {1} - 16
      • Borrow Skill (H) IQ+2 {1} - 16
      • Compel Truth (H) IQ+2 {1} - 16
      • Lend Language (H) IQ+2 {1} - 16
      • Lend Skill (H) IQ+2 {1} - 16
      • Mind Reading (H) IQ+2 {1} - 16
      • Mind-Sending (H) IQ+2 {1} - 16
      • Persuasion (H) IQ+2 {1} - 16
      • Sense Emotion (H) IQ+2 {1} - 16
      • Sense Foes (H) IQ+2 {1} - 16
      • Truthsayer (H) IQ+2 {1} - 16
    • Mind Control:
      • Bravery (H) IQ+2 {1} - 16
      • Daze (H) IQ+2 {1} - 16
      • Fear (H) IQ+2 {1} - 16
      • Foolishness (H) IQ+2 {1} - 16
      • Loyalty (H) IQ+2 {1} - 16
      • Mass Daze (H) IQ+2 {1} - 16
      • Mass Sleep (H) IQ+2 {1} - 16
      • Sleep (H) IQ+2 {1} - 16
      • Terror (H) IQ+2 {1} - 16

    Equipment

    Everything is sized for a SM -2 user unless otherwise noted. Total value and weight is $752 and 5.5kg. Filling the wineskin up with water would bring the total load to 9.5kg and Light Encumbrance.

    • Enchanted Ordinary Clothes [Torso, Limbs]: DR 1*. $50, 0.2kg.
    • Faerie Shortsword [Torso]: Provides 4 FP as a power item. Reach 1; sw-2 cut or thr-1 imp. $400, 0.3kg.
    • Sling [Torso]: Acc 0; Range 24/80; sw-2 pi; $6, 0.1kg.
    • Small Pouch [Torso]: Holds 0.5kg. $3.
    • 10 x Sling Bullets [Pouch]: $1, 0.25kg.
    • 3 x Nageteppo, Smoke [Pouch]: $120, 0.3kg.
    • Flute [Torso]: $13, 0.15kg.
    • Backpack, Small [Torso]: Holds 7kg of gear. $20, 0.5kg.
    • Blanket [Backpack]: $7, 0.33kg
    • Lantern [Backpack]: 2m radius, burns for 8 hours on a full charge. $7, 0.33kg.
    • Oil, 500ml [Backpack]: Good for 3 lantern charges. $20, 1kg.
    • Personal Basics [Backpack]: $5, 0.15kg.
    • 2 x Rations [Backpack]: $10, 0.5kg.
    • Scroll Case [Backpack]: Human-sized. Holds up to 20 scrolls and protects them from the elements. $75, 0.5kg.
    • Rope, 3/8”, 10m [Backpack]: Supports 150kg. $5, 0.75kg.
    • Wineskin: Holds 4L of liquid. Currently empty. $10, 0.13kg.

    1. Part of or modified by Halfling racial package. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10

    2. Includes +2 from Voice. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

    3. Includes +2 from Musical Ability. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

    4. Includes +1 from Charisma. ↩

    5. Includes +2 from Halfling Marksmanship. ↩ ↩2

  • Oct 6, 2016

    Dragon's Dogma: Villages and Baronies

    Introduction

    Now that we have an overview of what Gransys and its settlements look like, let’s take a more detailed look at a few specific locations in it, starting with its settlements. Rather than providing an exhaustive list, I’ll describe a few representative examples using GURPS City Stats rules. These will include the two settlements we get in the original game, but also other made-up examples. We’ll go by the order in which these communities are discussed in GURPS Fantasy, from smaller to largest. This first article covers villages and baronies, but it starts with a note on isolated homesteads.

    Isolates

    Gransys is a dangerous place at the best of times, never mind during a draconic incursion. With all the bandits and wandering monsters prowling around, an isolated homestead has about the same life expectancy as a snowball in an oven. Some people still try, though. We find some of these in the original game: every single one is an abandoned shell that is at best deserted, and at worst home to the monsters or bandits who emptied it.

    Villages

    This is the minimum viable settlement size in this dangerous land. Villages in Gransys tend to house 200-300 people, living in wooden houses with thatched roofs. These houses are made so they can be torn down and rebuilt relatively easily in response to environmental changes or to move closer to newly-productive land.

    Villages have a small chapel of the Faith built out of stone, manned by a single priest. The chapel’s grounds also contain the village’s graveyard. Villages not located near a river or stream will have a well.

    The vast majority of villagers are farmers, cultivating the land in a roughly 1 mile (1.6km) radius around the village itself. Few villagers travel much beyond this radius, and even fewer go out further than the manor of their local lord. Some will be artisans such as blacksmiths and tinkers who are capable of supplying the village’s everyday needs. Smaller villages might lack even these, relying on traveling peddlers who make a regular circuit between a set of villages.

    Baronies control about three adjacent villages, with the baron’s manor located in one of them. Between servants, guards and the baron’s family, manor houses contain about 50-60 people. Manorial villages also host markets are irregular intervals, which draw inhabitants from neighboring settlements. Tribute collectors go forth from the manor once a year to make a circuit of the barony’s villages. Part of this tribute is sent on to Gran Soren, and part goes to support the barony itself.

    Placing Villages

    The in-game map of Gransys doesn’t leave much room for villages or manors, but as we already saw it’s compressed by a factor of 10 or so. Using the distances we figured out earlier leaves plenty of space for these new settlements. Most of them will occupy the “plains” on the map - stretches of relatively flat and open terrain. Some will be near forests and occupy themselves with logging and hunting - the latter especially on the north, which would bring in furs for trade.

    Example: Grandvine Barony

    Individual villages, especially if they’re peaceful, are rarely interesting locations to visit. So I cheated a bit for the example and statted up a three-village barony using GURPS City Stats. It’s a little outside the intended scope of the rules, but the numbers involved are small enough that they still work out. I’ve also omitted the Language entry from the stats, as we’re not working with multiple languages in this particular adaptation.

    Grandvine Barony got this name due to the high quality of its manor’s vineyard, but that was a long time ago. Located a few kilometers west of the ruins of Aernst Castle, the barony has been hit especially hard by the bandits who made the castle their base a few years ago. These ruffians took control of the trail linking South and Central Gransys, and regularly attack tribute and trade caravans going through it. They also sometimes raid the barony’s two outlying villages.

    Baron Alecto has a handful of trained soldiers at his disposal, but they are not numerous enough to face the bandits directly. Combining them with a peasant militia might work, but either way it would lead to losses he considers unaceptable. Ser Alexa, his daughter and only heir, is much more impetuous. Having just completed her knightly training, she wishes to rally the neighbouring lords, raise the militia, and mount an assault on the ruined castle. Standing on her way are her father’s concerns and the fact that the neighbouring lords are much less personally affected by the bandit problem, being further away from them and not that interested in sending tribute to the Duke in the first place.

    Population: 1200 (-1)

    Physical and Magical Environment

    Terrain: Plains; Hygiene: -1; Normal Mana (Common Enchantment)

    Culture and Economy

    Literacy: Broken; TL: 4; Wealth: Struggling (x1/2); Status: -1 to 3

    Political Environment

    Government: Dictatorship, Feudal, Municipality; CR: 4 (Corruption -1); Military Resources: $30K; Defense Bonuses: +4

  • Oct 5, 2016

    Dragon's Dogma: The Sovereign Duchy of Gransys

    Introduction

    In this post I describe Gransys as a GURPS setting, as it is just before the start of Dragon’s Dogma. Aside from the totally scientific research on its physical size, my sources are the images and story from the original game, and the many scattered bits of GURPS material on what a medieval fantasy setting should look like. These include GURPS Fantasy, the various Low-Tech supplements, and a couple of Pyramid articles. GURPS Adaptations provides the methodology.

    As before, refer to the map over at the Dragon’s Dogma Wikia when necessary. Please note that I made up several of the details below for this article, so if you find something from the original game or a secondary source that seems to contradict this description, that’s why.

    Physical Geography

    Gransys is a sovereign duchy in an unnamed fantasy world. It’s located in a peninsula and bordered by several other nations, from which it is separated by imposing mountain ranges and thick forests. These natural barriers and the sea define its shape, which bears a vague resemblance to a capital J.

    Its southern reaches are warm and relatively flat, with an almost Mediterranean climate near the coast. They are separated from Central and North Gransys by a mountain range. As we go north, we see a rise in elevation and a drop in temperature: Central Gransys is hilly and temperate, with grassy plains and deciduous forests. North Gransys starts as a large plateau and ends as a series of windy mountain passes.

    The duchy’s largest stretch of forest is the Witchwood in South Gransys. It’s dense enough that little sunlight reaches its floor, and does contain a swamp in its furthest depths, but it’s not wet enough to be considered a jungle. Other notable forests include the Verda Woodlands also in South Gransys, and the deciduous Cursewood in Central Gransys.

    Despite having quite a bit of coastline, Gransys has few sandy beaches. Most of those are in South Gransys, with the rest of the coasts being made up of imposing cliffs.

    Gransys’ non-monstrous fauna is similar to our Europe’s, including rabbits, deer, boars, ravens and seagulls. Its monstrous fauna will be discussed in future posts. Its river and sea waters have plenty of edible fish of all sizes, though those sailing too far from the coast risk running afoul of sea monsters.

    Appropriate Survival specialties for outdoorsy characters would be Plains, Woodland and Mountains. Those who spend a lot of time in the deep Witchwood would benefit from Survival (Swamp) as well.

    Gransys has normal mana over the vast majority of its territory, as does the rest of the world. Places where the local mana level varies, if they exist, are small and isolated.

    Technology

    Gransys’ average Tech Level is what you would expect from a Dungeon Fantasy game, which means it’s 4 with a few important exceptions. There are no cannon or firearms, though black powder is known and used in the making of grenades and other explosives. There is no movable type: written knowledge is disseminated using the TL 3 method of hand-copying. Literacy is common in Gran Soren and among priests and nobles, less so among peasants.

    The best armor available are elaborate plate harnesses. Shields are also common even for heavily armored fighters. Though fencing weapons are known, they are not popular in Gransys.

    Unlike standard Dungeon Fantasy, medicine is at TL 4, and is further boosted by the abundance of potent medical herbs in the duchy. Some of those have innate magical properties.

    Transportation is still at TL 3, with naval transporation barely reaching even that. Land-based trade routes are preferred over sea-based ones, due to the large risk posed by sea monsters.

    Agriculture is also at TL 3. Gransys farmers grow wheat and harspud, a peculiar redish tuber rich in nutrients. They also raise cattle. Coastal communities trawl nearby waters for fish. In both cases, meat is often preserved by drying. Other crops include fruit like grapes and apples, often used for making wine and cider.

    Government and Society

    As a sovereign duchy, Gransys is ruled by a Duke who answers to no higher political authority. He is surrounded by a court made up of nobles responsible for smaller holdings within the duchy and by wealthy merchants who gain influence from their commercial dealings with the nobles and the Duke himself.

    The current ruler is Duke Edmun Dragonsbane, who was crowned fifty years ago after defeating the Dragon. His legitimacy is entirely predicated on this feat, as he was a common-born soldier at the time. Despite being at least 70 years old, he’s still in excellent physical shape. He has Status 7.

    There are two counties within Gransys, but they currently exist only on paper. One covers much of South Gransys and used to be centered on Aernst Castle, and the other covered the region around where Windbluff Tower now sits. Their titles are held by Fedel, the Duke’s nephew, and Aldous, the Duke’s chamberlain, and in practice serve to give them the authority to conduct the Duke’s business on his behalf. They are status 5. Someone who received the title of Count and managed to claim the corresponding land would be Status 6.

    Those knights given a direct ducal mandate receive the title of margrave, and this includes those in charge of the three border marches centered around the Greatwall, Shadow Fort, and Windbluff Tower. These castles are meant to defend Gransys from monster attack and foreign invasion, and by ducal decree are supplied from the capital rather than from the surrounding lands. This serves purposes both practical (the surrounding lands are inospitable) and political (ensuring the soldier’s loyalty is to the Duke directly), but in practice causes serious logistics and morale problems. They are Status 4.

    There are many smaller baronies scattered throughout the kingdom and administered from manor houses - most farming villages are technically part of one such barony. The most influent among these barons usually spend their time in the Duke’s court and leave a chamberlain to tend to their day-to-day business. The Duke doesn’t usually concern himself with the affairs of barons as long as they’re punctual with the tribute. They are Status 3.

    Below them are landless knights, who usually serve as part of someone else’s armed forces. Both male and female knights are called by the honorific “Ser”. They are Status 2.

    Skilled artisans and well-off citizens are Status 1, average urban denizens are Status 0, and peasant farmers are Status -1. The completely destitute are Status -2, looked down on by everyone else.

    Status is conferred by title or social convention. You are supposed to be wealthy enought to maintain a lifestyle appropriate to your Status, or to somehow fake it.

    Those who wish to explore Gransys’ stratified society in more detail or make extensive use of GURPS Social Engineering should give the Status 2+ nobles Feudal Rank equal to their Status. This Rank would symbolize their official authority, while Status would be a measure of their social position and political influence. This would make it possible to have a wealthy merchant like Fournival from the original game, who doesn’t hold formal Rank in the feudal hierarchy but has Status 3 or 4. In this model, Fedel and Aldous would have Courtesy Rank instead of the full version, but would still have the same Status.

    If you’re just interested in using Gransys as a backdrop for a Dungeon Fantasy campaign, then Status and Rank don’t really come into play as advantages.

    Religion

    The vast majority of Gransys’ inhabitants follow the monotheistic religion known as the Faith. Its trappings are quite similar to those of real world Catholicism, and the god it venerates is called the Maker. It has existed for centuries, and every village has at least a small shrine or chapel manned by one or more priests. Gran Soren has a huge cathedral in its noble quarter. There is also an Abbey in Northern Gransys, home to an order of nuns dedicated to a humble life of quiet contemplation. The spiritual and administrative center of the Faith lies outside Gransys, in the mainland.

    Ordained members of the Faith go through intense training that ensures they are quite the adept scholars. Aside from theology, they are well-versed in history, ancient languages, and other disciplines. Monks and nuns of the Faith seem to fill a role similar to that of academic researchers in our world.

    In addition to the Faith, there are numerous signs throughout Gransys of an ancient religion practiced in times past. It venerated entities now known simply as “The Old Gods”, associated with the four elements. Its ruined temples are buried under the ground waiting for those bold enough to find them. The Faith regards the religion of the Old Gods with scholarly curiosity, but frowns on anyone who would consider it more than myth.

    Religious Rank in the Faith goes from 0 all the way to 8, but no one in Gransys has a Rank higher than 4 (the head of the Gran Soren Cathedral). Being an ordained priest or priestess confers Clerical Investment in addition to Rank, but brings no supernatural powers. Of course, nothing stops a priest from also studying magic.

  • Oct 4, 2016

    Behind the Scenes of Dragon's Dogma

    In this Dragon’s Dogma adaptation, I’ve been mostly working from my impressions of the game itself so far. Recently, though I’ve come accross a video of this talk by the game’s creator Hideaki Itsuno that sheds some light into the thought processes behind its gameplay. It does contain some spoilers, so beware!

    The Dragon’s Dogma Wikia site also has some setting information that’s very interesting to me, and even more spoilery than the video. I’ll be using that as appropriate.

    One interesting tidbit from these two sources is that in-game Gransys is supposed to be around 3 miles across. So, if my experiment from the previous post is correct, then the in-game map is compressed by a factor of 10. I’ve always wondered about that.

  • Oct 3, 2016

    Dragon's Dogma: How big is this place, anyway?

    In previous posts I mentioned that the map of Gransys is “truncated”. We’ll take a look at why that is today. We’ll use this map as a reference in this article. Be warned that it’s a fully annotated map, so it contains spoilers for the console game! We’ll also touch on certain story elements that can be equally spoilery.

    As you can see, Gransys looks like somewhat like a capital J. It has coastlines to the south and east, and is surrounded by nigh-impassable mountains on the other sides. Its southern reaches are temperate and relatively flat, with the southeastern coast being warm enough that its inhabitants tend to wear light clothing. The region north of the capital is noticeably colder and hillier.

    Looking at the location labels, we see that signs of civilization are few and far between. Aside from a few castles, there are only two proper settlements: the isolated fishing town of Cassardis, and the cosmopolitan capital of Gran Soren. These are the only two places where you can find normal civilians going about their daily lives.

    The reason for this is simple: there are only so many resources to go around when developing a video game, both in terms of time and money and in terms of memory, storage and processing power of the target platform. Thus, every place in the game fulfills a very specific purpose. They’re either commercial hubs, dungeons, quest sites, or the bare minimum of “wilderness” necessary to give you the feeling that you’re traveling in a fantasy world. That last bit is why the map has no scale, by the way.

    Fortunately, we are not quite as constrained here! Our imagination has more than enough space to let Gransys unfurl to its full size. But what size should that be? To find that out, I took the totally scientific approach of booting up the game and walking places while timing how long it took.

    If you set out from Cassardis at sunrise, you will arrive at the Shadow Fort shortly before sunset, roughly 25 minutes later1. This means that an in-game hour passes in around 2 minutes of real time. Assuming my lightly encumbered Mystic Knight has Move 5, she walked for 12 hours at 2.5 miles an hour2. That’s a total of 30 miles, or 48km from east to west. The north-south dimension, from Cassardis to the Blighted Manse, is roughly 1.6 times as long: 48 miles, or 77km.

    That’s smaller than I thought! If Gransys was a modern location with good roads3, you might be able to drive across it an hour or less. It’s still quite larger than its in-game layout would indicate, of course, and those distances are made all the longer by its medieval tech level. If we follow the advice spread out through the GURPS material on the topic, there should be a small village every 5km or so in the most hospitable stretches of land, with the occasional larger market town linking them into a trade network.

    “Small” would mean 100-200 people, organized as either a group of houses working the fields around them, a group of isolated homesteads, or a single large manor belonging to a local lord (a landed knight or the equivalent). Most houses would be made of wood with thatch roofs, and most inhabitants would be peasants and farmers. They might have blacksmiths and other craftspeople, but are just as likely to have those needs served by wandering peddlers. Settlements of this size would dot the plains west and north of Gran Soren, and around the Eradication Site in Southern Gransys. There would also be a few around the Encampment, though that stretch of land is quite narrow in the game.

    Trade towns would have houses made out of stone with shingled roofs. They would house their share of peasants and farmers (or fishers!) as well, but would also concentrate more specialized craftspeople that supply a wider area around the town and might be able to supply an adventuring party with gear. This would also be the minimum settlement size where one could find inns and merchants with a fixed address. Cassardis is one such town and there would be more in the South Gransys plains and north of Gran Soren. In fact, the spots where you can find those tiny camps with a peddler and a guard doubling as an innkeeper should probably be trade towns instead.

    The next step up from that would be castle towns, whose farms and trades support a sizable fortification. Part of the town’s buildings would be built inside the castle’s walls, and the inhabitants would know to run inside in the case of attack. Finding armorers and such is much easier here than in the smaller locations. Castles are run by barons or counts, depending on how large the area they control is. These would obviously be around the castles we see on the map: the Shadow Fort, Greatwall, and Windbluff Tower.

    The only real big city in Gransys is Gran Soren. It’s home to thousands, it’s well-fortified, and it contains the most well-stocked stores and the best craftspeople.

    Even small villages are pretty much self-sufficient, and most common villagers would never travel further than about 10 miles (16km) from their home village. It makes sense that the fishermen of Cassardis wouldn’t know much about the Arisen! Some people are a fair bit more well-traveled or cosmopolitan than that, like the nobles who send you on quests all the way across the duchy or the NPCs who ask to be escorted to those same places. Most news from “outside” are likely to come from these bold souls, or from similarly bold wandering peddlers.

    That gives us a pretty nice canvas to work with! In future posts, we’ll go a bit deeper into Gransys’ society and notable settlements, with attending GURPS stats.

    1. Assuming you’re not eaten by a chimera on the way. ↩

    2. Using the hiking rules in Low-Tech Companion 2, p. 32 ↩

    3. And no hungry chimeras. ↩

subscribe via RSS