Heroes of the End: Lizard Mutations

Like Beast, Lizard Mutagen was designed for military applications above all else. The difference is that Lizard wasn’t designed to enhance a soldier’s killing power, but to give them some of the endurance and particularly regenerative abilities found in some lizard’s tails. Hardened, enhanced scales provide better protection than anything in nature, from both environmental

Heroes of the End: Elf-A Mutations

Elf-A is one of the strangest mutations lines, developed as a personal obsession by its creator using the excuse of the XE037 outbreak. It was not successful, as some of the test subjects began to emit ionizing radiation, though whether that bug has since been worked out by Maiar’s insane experiments on his own or

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Challenges in working on Araby

While my co-author works on Cathay, I look to the south and ponder how to deal with Araby and the Southlands someday. One of the issues with Hams and covering that area is that, well, Araby mostly only existed for the Crusades to exist (and if you look at my writing on that, you know

A Recommendation: Felvidek: The Story of Coffee, Warlock Moves, and Hungarians

If you’re reading this blog, you probably enjoy Warhammer Fantasy. On that note, I have something to recommend. Felvidek is a short RPG maker game on Steam, with a curious art style that’s halfway between hand drawn and imitating PS1 graphics. It’s about 3-5 hours long, which is for the best, because it does that

Blood Bowl: The 3++ Is Nuffle’s Wrath

One of the most interesting things that’s come up in Blood Bowl is the joking about the 3++ (3+ roll with a reroll) being Nuffle’s favorite roll to absolutely fuck someone on. There’s some real truth to that! It comes from two places: A 3++ roll is 89% likely to succeed. It’s likely enough that

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Challenges in Working on Cathay

Cathay is not easy to write about. Part of the reason you haven’t seen as much material on them here is that there isn’t as much to work with, but that’s only half of the problem. Not only is there an awful lot less official material, but Cathay differs immensely from Actual Historical China in

Heroes of the End: M1 Powered Armor

M1 Powered Armor (In keeping with the US’s lust for naming things M1) is an absolute marvel of engineering, officially rolled out on July 4th, 2038. A few months before things started to go downhill. The military was still working out exactly how it wanted to use the stuff after taking delivery of the suits

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: The Incident: Imrik, Miao-Ying, and Mistranslation

As alluded in the update on Dragon Princes, Prince Imrik caused The Incident with Cathay during a diplomatic visit to the great city at Nan Gau. The elves were discussing potential assistance to the Great Bastion’s defenses, possibly sharing some of their knowledge in enchantment and magical construction in return for better deals on tea

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Fluff: The Creation and Design of the Halfling

The Halflings are unusual in being a Creation built during the Great Collapse. The Old Ones were desperately looking for anything that would be immune to the Great Beast, and so they produced the Halflings. Every single element of their design was created to help them resist it. They are incapable of doing magic, like

Heroes of the End: Mark of the Yellow King

The Cult of the Yellow King is a completely different opponent than anything the players have faced so far. Ferals behave with a degree of intelligence, but they can’t buck the fundamental premise of ‘my actions need to lead towards killing surviving non-Ferals’. Zombies are idiot things unless a Master is nearby. Mi-Go are intelligent

Heroes of the End: Come into my lair

Come into my lair, said the spider to the zombie. It’s definitely not filled with webs, and webs hiding grenades, and poison, and extra arms carrying extra guns. Spider mutations give a character all sorts of advantages when it comes to slowing the enemy down and refusing to be slowed, themselves. They can get past

Blood Bowl: Individual Merit of Spite, Extreme Temperatures, and the Valkyrie is Aggressive

Valkia has now drawn blood on the pitch, and my word was it an incredible match. The Skull Throne Valkyries went up against the Gorgoroth Geniuses, a team of completely legitimate Dawi businesspeople and their hired hobgoblins, and of course two massive, powerful blessed Bull Centaurs of Hashut. Val’s team of giant murder-valkyries and smaller

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: Nurglites and Runoff

It is time to examine the Cults of the Dark Gods during the Industrial Period. While the conventional threat of Chaos armies has been lessened (though not eliminated, who knows what might change?) the cults of the south continue their work. In a period riven with social unrest and injustice, where the authorities are prone

Blood Bowl: Necromantic Horrors

Having played multiple trial games with them and had my first match of the season, Necromantic Horror has been a very interesting change from humans. I still have to adapt to the opponent, of course; against Khorne, Talyssa and Orson have to be kept away from Valkia (their Bloodspawn Big Guy representing the coach herself

Blood Bowl Season 2: GOOD BOY BOGDAN, GOOOOD BOY!

Season 2 of the Spielburg Cup has begun with a thrilling double header day yesterday, featuring new team The Golden Songbirds playing a newcomer Human squad, Monty’s Black Knights, and the Sylvanian Spare Parts starting their climb against the returning Hungrywinners, the Skaven. The Undermountaineers and Hungrywinners have been redrafted, while everyone else picked new

Helldivers 2: The Perfect Uselessness of Malevelon Creek

One of the absolute most important parts of Helldivers 2 is that the Helldivers (and command) are idiots. Absolutely, totally idiots. For the Helldivers themselves, this has the aura of an orange cat or golden retriever: They don’t know any better and these excitable dumbasses are happily throwing themselves into meat grinders before dying screaming

Warhammer Fantasy Strange Journey: Update 3: Moving North

The team set out across the Norscan countryside, picking through forest and tundra as the dogs excitedly ran about and sang the song of their people. There was no peace to be had with those dogs of burden, especially not with the summer sun shining down for most of the day and what should have

Blood Bowl: Season 2 Team Profile: The Golden Songbirds

Remember how Friedrich the Thrower was always rescuing forest animals? Well, after the season, he rescued a fox from a trap who promised to lead him to the golden songbird, as mentioned. Unbeknownst to everyone, when The Fox led the Thrower into the forest, he led him to the Golden Songbirds, a team of bizarre

Heroes of the End: Exodii Tech

The players have struck up relations with the Exodii group that landed nearby, so it’s time to talk about Exodii tech. One of the baffling parts of the CDDA Exodii besides them siloing off cybernetics is that they’re meant to be an expeditionary wing of a large force with its own military, hence seeing things

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: The End of the Shartaks

Humans and others called them the Dragon Ogres, but their name for themselves was the Shartaks. They were (like many of the native species of the world) a long-lived, partially reptilian race, with the unique trait that they never stopped growing throughout their lives. When the Old Ones came, they were devastated like all the

Warhammer Fantasy Strange Journey: Update 2: Tourism and Huskies

The story began with the arrival in Eydisheim. Fresh off the boat, Ilsa and Horst went to meet their two guides at a nearby tavern by the docks. It was there that they first noticed one of the oddities of Norsca: Mutants. Something that made Horst deeply uncomfortable, as many things during Strange Journey were

Warhammer Fantasy Strange Journey: Update 1: Introduction

                I feel like writing about Warhams more since I’m both running and playing it, so you know what? It’s time to start the Neutral Campaign. If Joan is the Rebel storyline and when you see her later, Simone is the Loyalist (Amazon) in the Old One plot, Strange Journey is the Neutral story. Uninvolved

Heroes of the End: Support and New Weaponry! Survival requires firepower!

The basic firearms and equipment are good at killing standard zombies and monsters. But as I scale back the Strategy Layer and focus on the tactical more, and as combat has been a lot of fun in this game, it’s been time to examine a few things. One: They don’t have a good way to

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: The Sword of Infection: The Tong

                “We are the Sword of Infection, the blade that spreads Chaos. Those who stand against us will stand no longer. Kneel or die.” Is a translation from Daemonic of the standard announcement that the Tong have taken the field. The Tong were long the most feared of all the Peoples of Chaos. Where they

Blood Bowl: Where Are They Now: A Spielburg Sheriffs Retrospective

I regret to report that the Spielburg Sheriffs lost the final on PKs after a 1-1 tie in regulation time. Even worse, Jaeger the Halfling was killed by Catra. Bruno failed a 3++ dodge that would’ve taken the cup 2-1 on turn 16, too. It happens, such is Nuffle’s Great Game. As I will be

Blood Bowl: Even Higher Elfing

So I’ve been pondering for an additional day and hit on some further ideas for the elfs. Let’s introduce the Nagarythe Shadow Safety (Technically a Catcher replacement, but Catchers make great safeties anyway), the Sister of Averlorn (like the Dragon Prince, it’s a title they refuse to add a sports thing to, an alternate Thrower),

Blood Bowl: Higher Elfing Concepts

One of the annoyances of Blood Bowl deciding to do gnomes (though they could be fun; foxes as fast ball carriers, stunties who probably don’t have Dodge but instead have Wrestle and Jump Up, who knows?) is that High Elfs really need an update. They’re not a bad team, far from it. They’re an extremely

Heroes of the End: The Death Road to Boston

The team has decided to go on the Death Road to Boston. This isn’t an especially long journey in terms of miles; going from southern New Hampshire to Massachusetts would be easy in a time when the roads weren’t clogged with abandoned vehicles and towns weren’t crawling with the dead. It’d be about 2 hours

Narrative Theory: Manufactured Heroes

One of the reasons I find Helldivers so refreshing is the fact that Helldivers die all the goddamn time. You’re told over and over again you’re the elite, the best of the best, the invincible champion of Managed Democracy, up until you step on the wrong plant, trigger your own landmine while running away, get

Narrative Theory: Bug Wars and Justified Genocide: A Poisonous Trope

One of the most insidious tropes of sci-fi and fantasy is the justified genocide. Whether it’s a bug war with bugs who are sapient but all-consumingly hostile or our dear Gygaxian friend Orc Baby Murder Hill, it comes up an awful lot. To the point that something like Starship Troopers (Verhoven Edition) struggles with the

Blood Bowl: The Sylvania Spare Parts, Necromantic Team

The Regular Season is over and it’s time to start thinking about next season! The Sheriffs came in 1st place in the regular season, with the only undefeated record in the league (it was close, very close, due to league points for extra TDs, kills, etc and due to 2 ties). Also the only team

Heroes of the End: Beast Mutation

They’ve picked up a Beast ally (Subject 32, a homeless woman now part wolf and enormous with partial memory loss) and fought some Beast mutants, so it’s time to go over the Beast mutagen tree. Beast is in many ways a less extreme Chimera, with more focus on extreme senses than terrifying devouring and an

Heroes of the End: Update on Play So Far

Given we’ve been playing for quite awhile now, I thought it’d be useful to give an update on what’s worked, what’s been cut, and what’s been adjusted in Heroes so far. One of the biggest things has been cutting the Goals system and simply upping EXP per session. I get the design logic of the

Helldivers 2: Realism When Hilarious

Helldivers 2 continues to be as wonderful as Democracy and Liberty themselves. Managed Democracy marches on, grinding literal millions of extremely motivated, excitable 18 year olds to bloody shreds in the unstoppable gears of liberation. As we fight the bugs for their blood which is literally oil to keep them from eating our friends and

Planet of the Blue Rose Update 33: Business as Unusual

Prince Sayvin was a handsome man, apparently in his early thirties, though his pointed ears and silver hair said he was a Vata and thus those looks might be deceiving. Rather than the boots, jacket, and cape of most court officials, he chose to wear sweeping blue and white robes to mark him as a

Narrative Theory: What use IS a knife in a nuke fight?

The hilariously incomplete training in Helldivers got me thinking about the boot camp sequence in one of its main inspirations, Paul Verhoven’s parody Starship Troopers. I like Verhoven’s work a lot, though Starship Troopers is definitely one that fails as a satire, simply because when it was made, I don’t think we understood how to

Heroes of the End: Dimensional Fatigue

The creatures that strike during Portal Storms generally leave when they are over. The Person, the Appendages, the Absence, etc all attack when reality is weak and then fade away when things stabilize. Creatures I’m terming ‘Marauders’ do not. These creatures come through the tears and weakpoints created by reality destabilizing, and they’re here to

Helldivers 2: It’s My First Day For SUPER EARTH: The Tutorial and Setting The Tone

Everyone is talking about airstrikes and Managed Democracy as Helldivers 2 has hit ridiculous levels of popularity, with good reason. This simulation of what the Syndicate thinks Alliance Marines are like is hilarious, and basically a crunchier EDF where everyone is both the Air Raider and Ranger at the same time. Naturally, I am also

Heroes of the End: Oh Deer

One of the insidious strategies of XE037 for causing gaian collapse is its mutation of random wildlife. On an individual level this often makes the mutants more suited to surviving in the world the way it is now. However, it also causes them to ravage the ecosystem. A moose who is even larger and more

Planet of the Blue Rose Update 32: A Matter of Trust

The Embassy was far more populated than the near-empty building it had started out as several months ago. More Marines and others had been found, and the place buzzed with officers, technicians, and others working on understand where they’d landed and trying to keep order. Jaylen stopped in on one of those techs, chatting about

Planet of the Blue Rose Supplemental: A Crate of Axes: The Rosen and Ritter Boarding Hatchet and Syndic Arms Procurement

The Syndic Rosen and Ritter pattern Boarding Hatchet is a good example of Syndicate arms policy. It is a piece of kit that no Worker has ever intentionally used or even carried with them during a boarding action outside of the most desperate of circumstances. Not even Commandos will carry them unless directly ordered by

Heroes of the End: You Feel A Buzzing In Your Senses…

The Portal Storms continue, even if they are not as enormous as the blow that collapsed the world at the true ‘cataclysm’. XE037 has weakened the barrier between worlds as part of its general strategy, and now dark things periodically break through areas of dimensional fatigue. Note not everything that comes through a Portal Storm

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: Chorfs and the Gears of Soldiery

Among the standard dwarfs, a profession of arms is an honorable profession for any dwarf, regardless of social station, gender, or age (so long as they’re an adult). Putting your nose to the grindstone on the battlefield and bravely standing in defense of the Hold is something to be proud of. From a young beardling

Planet of the Blue Rose: Update 31: Colorful Hair, Angry Swan

Having dealt with the swan siblings, Jaylen went back to finish her drink. Only to be found about an hour later by a familiar red-haired woman, no mask on. Siobhan. She smiled as she sat next to the surprised Marine. “Heard you were back in town and thought I’d look you up.” Jaylen chuckled. “I’m

Planet of the Blue Rose: The Story So Far

Since it’s been awhile, while I know Planet is all archived and people can go read if they wish, I feel like a brief ‘story so far’ will help me organize and catch people up. Jaylen Timbale was returning from the front after the armistice with the Syndicate Worlds aboard the transport Eldridge, carrying demobilizing

Blood Bowl: Season Continues!

Short one today because I’m preparing for The Big Game soon! Being one of the league leaders in a crowded fight over 1st place alongside the Argonorks and Carnosaurs has led to my Blood Bowl season being rather exciting because it feels like every game for the Sheriffs is The Big Game. I also believe

Narrative Theory: Why So Few States?

One thing you’ll note when reading real history vs. fantasy and made-up settings is just how few countries and polities exist in made up stuff. They also tend to have relatively modern conceptions of the nation state but that’s forgivable. It’s one of those political singularities, where it’s legitimately hard to think about a lack

Heroes of the End: Zombie Lifecycle

An individual zombie is not a world-beater. The standard XE037 Zombie is slow, stupid, clumsy, and unarmed. Some bipedal animal corpses will retain their mobility better, but even then, they’re uncoordinated compared to a real dog or wolf or moose. They have sharper nails and teeth than a normal human, but an uncoordinated person flailing

Narrative Theory: A Stroke of Luck

As I was going through X-Piratez again, it struck me how much I dislike the idea that the Piratez find the Old Earth Lab and the initial base entirely by destiny and the designs of mysterious Gods at the beginning. What would be the problem with them doing it by pure luck? I understand the

Warhammer Fantasy Thoughts: Undead Rock

Warhammer Undead are one of its standouts. Whether it’s Blood Bowl, the TTRPG, the wargame, or the fluff, the Undead consistently put in great work. They have variety, they have interesting gameplay, but even more importantly, they have personality. That personality is the key to why they end up working so well. Warhammer Undead and

RPG Theory: Urban Jungle, Conventional Design, and Genre Mechanics

It’s funny. I love the Soak system as it generally repairs one of the elements of Cardinal I’ve never been quite as satisfied with (the damage system). But other than that, I think Urban Jungle is probably the weakest Sanguine game and wouldn’t be using any of it as a base for Heroes if not

Heroes of the End: In Hindsight, Perhaps We Resorted to Cannibalism A Little Early and Often

It seems like every post-apocalyptic story has rampant cannibalism. There’s always roving bandits or madmen who are farming humans for food or eagerly eating captives. In actual CDDA being a Cannibal is a huge advantage to the point that it costs character points if you’re using the points system, because you get mood bonuses for

RPG Theory: Myriad Song is a Good Framework

So I’m back into X-Piratez a bit and working on my Myriad Song based Piratez TTRPG, and it’s made me think about why Myriad Song is probably my favorite Cardinal game overall. I do prefer the Soak system for a damage system but aside from that, I don’t think Urban Jungle as a base plays

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: Greenskin Biology and Social Structure Basics

Greenskins are poorly understood by the world at large because their biology works very differently to other sapient species. They were not designed like the many Creation species, nor are they original natives like the Dragons, Shartaks, and Fimir. It’s unknown if they are an invasive species accidentally carried here on the Old Ones’ initial

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: Why Orcs?

Why am I writing about orcs and gobbos all of a sudden? Partly, Blood Bowl putting me in the mind of it after watching the Argonorks play. Partly I’ve been playing X-Piratez again and the Ubers feel rather Orky (and the Lokk’Narr are explicitly goblins). But more importantly, it comes from working on the Lizards.

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: Bigness and Black Orcs

                The Chaos Dwarfs will tell you that they created the Black Orcs, a race of superior orcs who served as overseers for their slaves and eventually rallied them against the Chorfs in a great rebellion. They will go on and on about how contact with them gave some of their incredibly traits to orcs

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: Da Gunz’ o’ Gork n’ Mork

The 2600s have not been a fun time so far for the orcs and goblins, though that might turn around soon. The world at large is happy to ignore them now, relegating them to the old stories about how Sigmar got his crown and occasionally celebrating victories by the Imperial Army over ‘orcish savages’. The

Narrative Theory: Weakness, Lies, and the Textbook Effect

Embrace weakness. Embrace lies, myths, and stories. This is one of the things that always annoys me a bit in the canon stuff in Warhams. Everyone is the greatest strategist or warrior ever. I know they’re trying to sell army books, but when everyone is the hyperbolic best, it loses any texture or distinction. I’d

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: Swordelfs

The canon version of the Swordsmasters is full of stuff about how they only find their true fulfilment when they’re slaughtering their enemies, since they need full speed combat to show off their skills, or how every individual Swordsmaster has a completely unique style but also they just start twirling their swords and advancing on

Blood Bowl: Additional Sheriffing

So I’ve now played 6 games (1 exhibition, 5 official) with the Sheriffs because one of the players was out sick for their game 4 against the new dorf team and I was free, they were my next opponent anyway, and so I got moved up in the schedule. I feel like I’ve got a

Blood Bowl: Spielburg Sheriffs Update!

The Sheriffs have had a pair of really big games for the last two games! Playing against the other two teams threatening to take the league by storm, the Argonorks and the Cuexotl Carnosaurs. They acquitted themselves well in both games, fighting the Argonorks to a 1-1 tie while suffering no casualties whatsoever and defeating

Narrative Theory: Effortless Mastery as a Signifier of Intellect: A Corrosive Concept

Smart characters are a constant in fiction. Brilliant deductions by cunning detectives, master strategists, genius scientists, and clever masterminds are all exciting elements in stories. And yet they can go terribly, terribly wrong. I’d like to look at a smart character I absolutely hate and consider a great example of how to do them poorly:

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: Mighty Elfotype: The Asrai Highborn

The Highborn of the Asrai were members of families particularly loyal to Ariel and the Inner Glades. Being originally Ulthuani and not possessed of the same urge towards Republicanism as the Eonir, when Ariel was first establishing things after assuming her position as the supposed Avatar of Isha and Queen of the Asrai it never

Heroes of the End: Research and Production Basics

R&D is a critical part of progress in the story. Understanding what the hell they’re fighting and how to survive against it is an important overarching task for the Heroes. As they encounter strange things, alien technology, high tech equipment, etc, the players will have the ability to examine it and try to learn about

Warhammer Fantasy Thoughts: The Big Red Guy Who Hits Things

I’ve been thinking about this lately, and I’ve come to the conclusion that while there are changes that could be made to make Chaos into the genuine, beyond-the-world cosmic horror the original authors like to treat it as, it’s probably for the better that it isn’t. While WHFRP owes a lot to Call of Cthulhu,

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: Ratfight Lustria

The Skaven are the most persistent threat to Lustria, something the Lizardmen find a little confusing. These weird little rats didn’t even exist during the original invasion. Many of the defenses of Lustria are set up with several assumptions: Invaders from the Old World care about losses to some degree, and demons don’t but can

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: Skinks: HOLA SKINKS!

“You have been born for the kindest of purposes. You will be a boon to your friends, and you will show others the way to the Great Plan. No matter what you face, never cease your eternal chase.” These are the words every Skink hears when they come out of the spawning pool. Unlike Saurus

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: Saurus: You Will Find Your Place

“You have been born for the greatest of purposes: You will be a shield to your friends and a hammer against your enemies. You will stand in defense of the Great Plan. You will be one of the tools that mends the world, and in time, you will find your place.” These words are the

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: Kroxigors: Ziggurats Are Cool, I Like Ziggurats

The simplest way to think of a Krox is the power loader scene from Aliens. Kroxigors were created as heavy industrial drones, even bigger and stronger than Saurus. They’re designed to lift huge stones, do huge construction work, pull up trees with their bare claws, and otherwise exert huge amounts of force right where it

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: State Your Name, Occupation, and Gender: Lizardman, Lizardman, and Lizardman

One of the ways the lizards are tremendously different from their neighboring humans is simple: They have absolutely no biological sexual drive. They can’t reproduce ‘naturally’. The spawning pools are how more lizards are made. They also have no native social conception of gender. The name ‘lizardman’ is honestly a little odd to them, given

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: The Tree Is Generally Less Aggressive: Treemen

Treemen are generally far less aggressive than Dryads. They don’t like to be hasty, and smashing people to paste is hasty. While the Loren hosts the largest number of Treemen in the world, they live in every forest and jungle outside of Lustria. Yes, jungle; you can run into jungle or rainforest Treemen in Kuresh.

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: Drycha the Branchwraith: The Tree Is Extremely Aggressive

Drycha the Branchwraith is one of the reasons to assume the Tree Spirits are sapient, unlike demons. If the elves and Ariel truly had control of the Tree Spirits, it’s very unlikely any would act like Drycha, who has constantly been a thorn in their side (very literally). Some say she was corrupted by defeating

Plans for the Coming Year!

So! As we’re getting to the holiday season (and I will be traveling again, so less updates until probably the new year or so) I thought I’d outline what I plan to cover next year. Obviously, as I continue to work on and run Heroes I’ll still be posting the raw rules and fluff stuff.

Blood Bowl: A Match To Please Nuffle

I apologize for the lack of update yesterday; I was busy playing an additional game of Blood Bowl. You see, we have a floating extra team in the league, Hoagie’s Heroes. They can be played by whoever volunteers to try them, they earn no league points, and they exist because we have an odd number

Heroes of the End: Mi-Go Stats

I wrote up the dark aliens that are the Mi-Go before, but now they’ve got mechanics. They’ve shown up, menaced the players, kidnapped survivors, and narrowly gotten fended off with a shotgun. Ironically, guns are far less of a surefire way to deal with Mi-Go than they were in CDDA! Standard Mi-Go were easily dispatched

Blood Bowl: The Spielburg Sheriffs Report, Games 1 and 2!

The Sheriffs have played two crazy games of Blood Bowl and begun to advance as players! I thought it’d be fun to update some of the player fluff and talk a little about their adventures, especially the chronicle of Otto von Goon, who I’m beginning to suspect is somehow chosen by Nuffle. Chosen for what,

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: Norse Dwarfs

The Norse Dwarfs are unusual folk. There’s a wide variety of them, as a surprising number of holds managed to survive the long separation after the frog-born volcano and earthquake incidents that ended the original dwarven empire. Dwarfs are tough folk, and they resisted the supernatural plagues of the north better than most. Not only

Warhammer Fluff Post: “And with that, Deathmaster, I leave-leave you prepare.”

                The Deathmaster. A title they made up specifically for Snikch. Normally, it’s hyperbole to claim someone is one of the most lethal individuals in the world. Not so with Snikch, the most famed of all of Eshin’s silent killers. Some of his most daring kills include Valten, the supposed avatar of Sigmar, Nurglitch during

Blood Bowl: Commence Dubstep

It’s time for more Blood Bowl talk, after the glorious debut of Akhorne the Squirrel. I feel this little ball of adorable floof and hate epitomizes Blood Bowl’s mixture of the ridiculous and the strategic, and his appearance in one of our league Challenge Games was extremely memorable. Akhorne is a Star Player, a hero

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: Divine Astroturf: Elven Gods

The Elven Gods are somehow more numerous and ‘detailed’ than the human ones, and yet feel far less organic. Part of this is because the humans are generally the focus of WHFRP and the majority of its material. But we’ve chosen to incorporate that into the Old One plot in a very specific way. The

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: Character Profile: Morghur the Mutator

It is not known who Morghur was. He was yet another unimportant Creation. What matters is what happened to him. The terrible champion of the Beastmen known as Morghur the Mutator seemed to defy all reason, followed by a warping aura that ruined the world around him. Beastmen were drawn to him, even as being

Apocalyptic Ramblings: The Tree Is Aggressive

The Root are interesting to consider. Remnant is a very weird post-apocalyptic setting because A: The apocalypse was a century ago and is still ongoing and B: Magical trees are not usually what you expect to be assaulted by as the embodiment of entropy. Usually it’s zombies, or a virus, or creepy things with too

Apocalyptic Ramblings: Remnant Hates Shoulders

Remnant and Remnant 2 have a very strong idea for what guns look like in the aftermath of the world being overrun by aggressive trees. The execution could be better, but the concept is great. It’s been a century since the trees became aggressive and attacked the world in the name of universal entropy, and

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: Sigmarite Hell, The Weirdest Place in the Realm

Sigmarholle, Sigmar Hell. A strange place within the Realm of Slaanesh, founded by a mischievous and later rebellious Daemon Prince with a very curious Mutation. After all, daemons have Mutations too to represent unusual changes in their frames. He had Uncanny Resemblance, where you resemble a famous person perfectly. And so he came in the

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: Chaos Marauder as a Career and how it informs fluff

Chaos Marauders are terrible fighters, far from much of their official fluff. If you’re going by their Career, they are inferior in almost every way to an Imperial Soldier, a Bretonnian Knight Errant, a Kislevite Streltsi, a Squire, even a common street Thug (itself not the strongest of first tier fighters) is better in a

Travel Times Again!

Forgot to note this yesterday, but I am on the road for the holidays. Updates when they come, normal updates resume next week!

Heroes of the End: Haven Basics

The heroes having now rescued 40 people holed up in a high school gym and brought them to their stolen mansion, they’ve established their first base. It’s not a true haven yet (that’ll take time and more people) but 40 people is enough to start building stuff and digging in. Havens will be encountered around

Warhammer Fluff Post: Character Profile: Ganmir the Drake

Ganmir the Moon Drake serves alongside House Bergamot, a House that has relatively modest means and numbers, but an awakened Dragon. This alone made House Bergamot prominent as far as Caledoran Noble Houses go, but Ganmir and his former rider made it moreso. The great Dragon Prince Larandar was one of the few who behaved

Warhammer Fluff Post: Halflings in the 2600s, Basics

The humble halfling rarely gets discussed in the grand sweep of historical epic. For the most part, this is by design; the Moot is mostly happy to be the Moot. Halflings are heavily assimilated into the Empire to the point that most humans don’t notice them as anything unusual, much like dwarfs. The Moot has

Blood Bowl: The Heroes of Spielberg, the Spielberg Sheriffs!

The prosperous town of Spielburg is a small bit of cheer among the gloomy Grey Mountains of Wissenland. In the 2600s, it’s become a destination for skiers, hikers, and wealthy tourists from Nuln, coming up-state to witness the beautiful forests and picturesque mountain views and try new hobbies and sports like ‘hockey’, a game taken

Star Trekking: Security in Utopia

One of the pleasant surprises of Star Trek Lower Decks (and there are many; its first two episodes were terrible but it’s been on an upwards track ever since) is how well it hews to the Utopian concept of the Federation. Despite being the story about the people who have to clean the holodeck biofilters.

Heroes of the End: Fast and Slow Death

One of the oddities of normal CDDA is how thoroughly the human race is dead, how quickly. To the point that the protagonist is generally surprised at the beginning: They’re asked to come into work on a day off or something, arrive, and find everyone dead and madness reigning. The explanation in the official fluff

Blood Bowl and Randomness: Nuffle is an angry God

‘Swingy’ games are usually regarded as games that have less strategy, less control, etc. Blood Bowl is a game that embraces swingy dice with low granularity in order to build the game’s strategy. I would also posit that this makes the game a better simulation of what it’s trying to simulate: The drama of professional

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff Post: Blood Bowl!

                So, I’m starting to get into updated Blood Bowl (which itself is a fascinating strategy game worth its own article on how it uses randomness) and I think it’s time to break some writer’s block by going into Blood Bowl in the 2600s. I’m sorry for the relatively sparse updates last week. Working on

Warhammer Fluff Post: WHFRP and Horror

WHFRP is a game that shows plenty of influence from Call of Cthulhu. The 80s in general were a pretty wild and experimental time for RPGs. One of WHFRP’s main adventure types is ‘investigate weird occult bullshit’ for a reason, though WHFRP characters are way, way more capable of smashing the weird bullshit’s face in

Heroes of the End: High Tech Hustle

High Tech stuff has a few caveats. Much of it was under development when the world ended, so much of it has plenty of kinks to work out. The players have the location and codes to get into the black areas of the Rivtech Innovation Campus if/when they make their way there for bonus dungeon

Heroes of the End: Moving Around

They’re getting close to unlocking the campaign map (after all, the initial story is in XEDRA-03 and its environs; their first base is being established in Director Salacia’s mansion and they’re about to go rescue whoever they can from Steuben as it collapses to bring them there) and so I thought I’d write up my

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: The Reikstag: BUT WHAT OF PARLIAMENT!?

If you ask the average citizen of the Empire in the 2600s to describe the workings of government, they will shrug, say a few things about it working like Sigmar says, mention some of the local customs of governance wherever you are, and get on with life. Most of the Empire cannot tell you its

Heroes of the End: The New Hampshire Zone 7 Regional Refugee Center

The New Hampshire Zone 7 Refugee Center is one of several FEMA facilities in the state intended to serve as a larger evacuation center for those collected from the various evac shelters. As the riots got worse, FEMA built and stocked various small evacuation centers around towns throughout the country, with the idea that in

The World of Horror: IA IA, ITO FATAGHN

IA IA AND ALL THAT. Since it’s spooky season, I’ve been playing spooky games (you know, in addition to writing/running something about the end of the world) and I picked up World of Horror. World of Horror is a roguelite, fast-paced Arkham Horror style game by way of Junji Ito, made to emulate the look

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: Truck, Train, and Tank: Weapons of the Great Horned Rat War

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tpk3GU1OmTY Just perfect for Clan Mors Skaven showed up in the last storyline in Hams, and by God, I’d almost forgotten just how much I love writing for those little maniacs. Something about their manic energy and tendency to explode just speaks to me. Their constant failures are part of it, but another part of

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: The White Sword, Redeemer of the Damned

The White Sword currently sits in the Imperial armory after its recovery by famed archeologist Wilhelmina Schmidt in 2527. It is one of the most bizarre magical treasures in the Empire, being as it was originally a Chaos Weapon of all things. An immensely powerful weapon forged for an Everchosen who, for some reason, did

Heroes of the End: Home Alone, Zams

Okay, turns out I have another rules post I need to get finished for Heroes. We’ve seen grenades, thrown rocks, guns, fists, claws, and the 3’ Steel Pipe, Ever The Friend of Humankind, but what about another obvious way to deal with extremely stupid zombies? That’s right, traps! Given these things come straight at whoever

Narrative Theory: The False Romance of the Lone Survivor

This isn’t strictly a Heroes post, but rather a more general one about survival and post apocalyptics and the romantic concept of the lone or small group of survivors with no other backing. One of the things I enjoy in stories like Phoenix Point is their relentless disdain for the concept of the lone survivor.

Heroes of the End: Starting Location: XEDRA-03 White Hills Facility, New Hampshire

XEDRA-03 White Hills is located in New Hampshire, housing some of the largest portal generators in existence. It is one of the primary bases for exploration of other worlds, and the first base to bring back samples of XE037. XEDRA-03 White Hills was established way back in the seventies, when XEDRA was first being established;

Heroes of the End: Grab Bag of Grenades

A grab bag of final rules before we get started on the map and mission stuff this week! I know I’ve been doing a lot of Heroes of the End and people are generally here for the Hams or campaigns, but we’re actually playing now so it’s been eating a lot of my time preparing.

Heroes of the End: Agents of the Enemy, the Archdemons

The name for these creatures in CDDA is the ‘Lieutenants’, but that implies a sort of hierarchy, command structure, and intentionality that simply isn’t there. Particularly in my version of what’s happening. Thus, in keeping with the Exodii calling XE037 The Enemy in a religious sense, and the fact that they’re the ones likely to

Heroes of the End: Alpha

I admit, Alpha gave me some trouble finding a theme for it. Human+ is a little harder to do in a system where Gifts already improve your human abilities. For instance, in CDDA, Alpha has a bunch of mutations that are just ‘+2 to a stat’ or something. Which is immensely significant in CDDA, where

Heroes of the End: Chimera

Fight. Feed. FORWARD. Chimera are driven to destroy the undead and other horrors, capable of surviving on the flesh of the mutated and normally poison enemies to fuel their powers. They have a wide array of natural weapons and ways to attack with more than one of them in one turn. A fully powered Chimera

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: Organization and Marks of the Cult of Gundred

We spoke earlier about Gundred and his new position in the industrial age, but that does not tell you much about the growing organization of his cult. An elven character on encountering them in Talabheim in the 2630s expressed shock: 50 years ago, when she arrived in the Old World, they were just bands of

Heroes of the End: Feralization

Ferals are humans who have proven vulnerable to XE037. One of the interesting parts of CDDA’s apocalypse is that it doesn’t rely on the zombies. The zombies didn’t help, but unevolved zombies are a threat even a completely untrained person can handle one on one. Had everything been firing on all cylinders, the zombie situation

Heroes of the End: We Are Here To Protect You

Before the end, there were significant strides in unmanned defense technology. Both for police and military use. Part of what drove the initial riots and protests was the rollout of the new police bots; several ‘robotic officer involved’ deaths hit the national news. This is because the robotics have extremely sophisticated programming in the sense

Heroes of the End: Beans, Bullets, and Barter: The differences between commodities and currency

One of the interesting aspects of the Cataclysm is that it isn’t exactly post-apocalyptic. The End just happened. Civil society had been teetering for months, but the final blow just came as the game is starting. There hasn’t been time for a total realignment of economics and most economic activity is barter by necessity. All

Heroes of the End: Legions of the Dead

As anyone who has played CDDA knows, there’s way more than the basic zombie. Most zombies will be variations on the basic template, having some slightly boosted abilities, different gear in the case of people who died in body armor, and in the case of still human-ish mutated zombies, some additional unusual abilities. Let’s look

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: Elves, Violence, and Soldiery

Elves and violence have a complicated relationship. Aenarion the Defender taught them to hold spears in a line in the first place, implying there was no organized Ulthuani martial tradition before the Collapse. There were elves who knew how to fight, but organized elven soldiery was only seen in Lustria (and did not survive, along

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: The Dragon Princes of Caledor: Drg Fans

The Dragon Princes of Caledor. Noble warriors clad in the finest armor, allies to the mighty dragons by the ancient pacts. The greatest of all elfs in times of war, noble and just in times of peace, justly proud of their grand stature! Is it any wonder that other Asur quietly make fun of them

Heroes of the End: Gifts and Soaks

Gifts are the building block of characters in Cardinal. However, if you look through the Gifts in Urban Jungle, for instance, you get far less ‘power set’ style Gift trees than you did in Myriad Song. I suspect this is because the ‘powerset’ approach in Myriad Song was to account for people coming from an

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: Khemri in the 2600s.

Egyptology! It was a big and fashionable thing in Europe. However, in keeping with the fact that it’s surprisingly hard to be as plunder-happy as Europe was in reality in Hams, attempts to do ‘archeology’ British Museum style have traditionally run into a problem: The ancient Egyptians of Hams are undead sure but they’re still

Heroes of the End: Tooth and Claw

Guns and knives aren’t the only way to fight against the doom that’s come to New England. If need be, if you’re cornered, even the most untrained survivor may have to resort to their fists and feet. Thankfully, survivors who know what they’re doing (or have crazy mutant powers!) can do far more than flail

Heroes of the End: The Skills to Survive

The only Skill not in the game from normal Cardinal is Transport. It simply wasn’t going to come up enough as something you check against, especially as vehicles will not have a role on the tactical missions. Besides, the Vehicles skill in CDDA itself is mostly useless, too! (It just affects how well you recover

Heroes of the End: Sample Professions

So, I originally pondered replacing Type with Drive, the thing that keeps you going at the worst, but then I remembered I don’t really like Type to begin with and hey, we’re using Skill Marks so there’s no need for it. Honestly, one of the (several) issues I have with Actual Urban Jungle is that

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: The Design of a Chaos Warrior and the Weapons That Kill Them

Chaos Warriors and Chaos Armor were originally designed for the War in Heaven. You’d think as a result that black powder revolvers and 19th century cannon wouldn’t be such a problem for them; they were designed to fight in a war that involved titans of biological and magical power who had impossibly advanced technology, right?

Dispatches from Mount and Blade: Generic Pendor Fantasy Product

I enjoy a good Mount and Blade. I enjoy it a lot. I enjoy it perhaps too much. I’m not as fond of Bannerlord but sometimes I think that’s just because I’ve played so much of the first that it’s deep in my muscle memory that a Mount and Blade should look and feel like

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: The Long Road of the Ear Bill

                This came up in last evening’s game: When the protagonists arrived in Altdorf, they found a sight much like the Victoria title screen up above. People celebrating in the street after the passage of some major political reform. In this case, it was a bill to finally abolish and make illicit ear taxes, passed

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: Hunters in the 2600s

                The Witch Hunters are undergoing another of their major changes in the 2600s, particularly after the Ordo Fidelus incident. Specifically, many Ordo Fidelus Hunters were found to be operating under the aegis of sympathetic nobility or officials, under the old laws that allowed local authorities to charter Hunters. As a result, those old laws

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: The Failings of the Fall

Falling to Chaos. It is one of the classic setpieces of Warhammer. A priest, community leader, knight, exorcist, or whatnot has read too many evil books in the pursuit of facing the darkness, seen too many awful things, touched too many magic rocks, and now they’re a worshipper of the forces they used to fight.

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: The Shadow of the Beast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuMZSoqqAoc (I absolutely knew what I was doing naming it this)                 The Shadow of the Beast came up in one of the stories about the Beastmen no longer under its control. It’s what some of them call the memories of their time controlled by the Great Beast; after all, most adult Beastmen who have

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: Chaos Is Not Cosmic

Chaos tries to have cosmic horror flavoring. It does not work. Why not? Our Chaos is a cosmic horror, but standard Chaos isn’t. Part of the problem of a lot of attempts at cosmic horror is that they take cosmic horror as a matter of power, rather than flavor and concept. It’s very powerful and

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: The Lesser Devastation of the Storm

The Storm of Chaos was a short, sharp war that did plenty of damage to the areas the forces of Chaos passed through. Except the damage it did was piddly (even in canon, where it’s hyped up as near-apocalyptic) compared to real-world 17th and 18th century warfare, and for a very specific reason: it was

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: Hochland Arsenal: A new rifle? Loaded from the back!? Without a hammer!?! And it needs a new manual of arms!?!?!

Hochland Arsenal in Hergig is part of the province’s attempt to modernize its capital city, something that was briefly interrupted by its sack during the Storm of Chaos but that proceeds apace in the 2600s. Hochland suffered plenty in the Storm, but the most visible damage was to Hergig itself, being one of the only

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: Amazon in the 2600s

Amazon is having a good century if you ask the plantation owners. As discussed in the Amazon Slavery update, plantation economies and slavery have become much more essential to the wealthiest in Amazon society since they began to open up to the world in the 2540s. The destruction of Mazdamundi and the re-ascension of Lord

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: Myrmidianism in the 2600s

Myrmidianism is one of the major world religions. The Empire prefers Sigmarism, obviously, but they are just about the only ones who do; it is notable how little Sigmar is worshipped outside of his country. Myrmidianism, on the other hand, has had notably more success sending out missionaries and trying to preach in other lands.

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: Flagellants, Friars, and Penitents

The Flagellant Orders of the Empire are something that has fallen in and out of favor over the land’s long history. Curiously, they are a primarily Sigmarite phenomena, something that has seen much debate over why among scholars and theologians. After all, Sigmar himself probably wouldn’t approve of wounding yourself constantly (seems a silly way

Heroes of the End: The Map and Resources

So, one of the other concepts for Heroes is that time passes. The story will be taking place in a map of a section of New Hampshire that was, because of the presence of the XEDRA-03 White Hills facility act 1 takes place in, quite important to XEDRA’s work and contains multiple critical points. Things

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: The Lord of Murder, Human Edition

Khaine is in a curious place in human lands, not simply in the 2600s but throughout all of history. Khaine is a legitimate God, acknowledged as a God and with an open place in myth as Morr’s brother. He is also outlawed in every human society that acknowledges him. This is because while Khaine is

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: The Empire in the 2600s

The 2600s are already being called the Imperial Century, primarily in Imperial circles. The country was the first to industrialize its economy, and it was already a large and wealthy nation; now it is reaping immense benefits (on the macro level) even as it sees itself riven with social injustice and unrest. Grand Cathay is

Warhammer Fantasy Fluff: Kislev in the 2600s

Kislev is not having a good century. Losing a major war with territorial concessions to an upstart Norsca was not good for them. It has done immense damage to the authority of the Tsar and there are whispers that he will soon be deposed, though the cleverer boyars have realized this is one of their

Heroes of the End Faction: The Exodii

The Exodii are one of those things in the original CDDA that is rather controversial. I’ve given my own take on it before; I like their concept a lot and think they as a faction add plenty to the setting, I just dislike moving much of CBM acquisition to them both fluff and mechanics wise.

Heroes of the End Faction: Hell’s Raiders

For the most part, combat against other humans is rare. Most humans have no desire to get into fights with other humans right now. Firstly, if you want to loot and pillage, there’s tons of abandoned property to break into. Zombies are notably easier to distract, sneak past, or steal from than human beings, given

Heroes of the End: Background Concepts

So, while we don’t have ‘you are a wolf’ (well, we DO, but it requires exposure to mutagen) we do have a variety of backgrounds a character spent much of their life in. One of the important things about Cardinal’s stats is that having a d4 in a stat is not bad. If you don’t

Heroes of the End Fluff: Symptoms of XE037 Infection

Humans infected with XE037 (which just means humans, by now) display a variety of effects. The most common, pre-revivification, is a degradation of impulse control and an increased propensity for risk taking. Complete and total psychosis appeared in a relatively small portion of the human population, though some of those affected by lesser symptoms at

Heroes of the End: Tag Sketch (Subject to change)

There’s no extensive system of modifications because we’re doing guns in a much more abstracted sense. In reality, the basic merits of various small arms systems against one another aren’t usually that important militarily; what matters is having the same capabilities. An AK-47 has worse ergonomics, it’s older, etc, but it’s still an automatic rifle

Heroes of the End Fluff: The Whisperers in the Darkness: Mi-Go

The Mi-Go are one of the consistent plagues that will dog the heroes. They have nothing at all to do with XE037, save that they follow it (and other interdimensional disasters) like opportunistic scavengers. They are somehow able to avoid infection, and they do not suffer some of the side effects of interdimensional travel that

Heroes of the End Fluff: The Absent Horror

XE037 is something the researchers at XEDRA never anticipated. They had encountered sapient near-earth creatures before. They had run from surveys on planets overrun by carnivorous plants or strange fae. They’d nearly brought back lethal viruses before. But much of their work had stayed rather Stargate, so to speak. Go through the portal, scamper about,

Heroes of the End: INJECT THE OMEGA SERUM, THERE’S NO TIME TO TEST: Mutation Basics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwO5hAwg5jI (I’ve found what I want to use as the game’s general theme, I think!) They’ve chosen a mixture of Portal Storm and Lab, using a location I remembered existed called a Distorted Lab. Someplace that was working directly on the portal/extradimensional travel tech that exploded in a very bad way when the Portal Storms

Heroes of the End Fluff: Rivtech

Rivtech is one of the odd things to me in the current developers’ quest to remove most of the sci-fi/near future elements of Cataclysm. They want CBMs to be entirely alien tech and mostly available through the Exodii and the (very overloaded in what you get there) labs, but they’re fine with a random super-tech

Heroes of the End: My Me Is Augmented

Cybernetics. CBMS. Augmentation. In the last forty years (and especially the last ten) these have become an increasingly common part of life in this timeline. From the advanced medical prosthetics that started it all (for lost limbs and spinal injuries) to the modern compact power systems and direct augmentations installed by pre-programmed ‘auto-docs’, these augmentations

Heroes of the End: Tools of Destruction and Salvation

Actual Cataclysm is a game full of an enormous number of hand-to-hand weapons, guns, and forms of armor. I’ve used everything from a simple rock in a sock to an experimental plasma cannon, from wrapping heavy carpeting around my arms to ward off bites a little to heavy military armor to chainmail. So naturally, you’d

Heroes of the End: 2039 and the Fall

The 2039 of Heroes of the End is different from ours (well, from what I suspect of ours; I do not have a time machine), changed by encounters with extradimensional technology and slight differences in the time stream starting in the 1970s. The very first encounters with other dimensions happened then (this is a bit

Heroes of the End: Basics of Zombie Biology

Let’s start the actual mechanical work by examining one of the core enemies that players are going to be fighting: The Zombie. You know them. They’re jerks! A decaying human corpse, swaying as it walks, its eyes dripping with a strange black fluid and its face contorted by a constant expression of rage. You know