Viking Midnight Redux - After Ragnarok

I was reflecting on one of the better campaigns I've run in the past couple of years, the Bjornaborg "Midnight but with vikings" game.  I think if I were to do it again, I'd go further from the Midnight source.  I've been reading the Eddas lately, and there're some interesting bits in the Voluspa and Vafthruthnismol about what happens after Ragnarok - Thor's sons and Odin's brothers survive and rebuild the realm of the gods, and the dragon Nidhogg rises against them, but the poem is cut short before that matter is concluded.

But it got me thinking - there's room after Ragnarok.  Taking Norse mythology as a loose base and playing Ragnarok as even less of a victory for the Aesir, you end up in more typical OSR post-apocalypse territory.  The giants set themselves up as petty kings over men, the dark elves of Niflheim gather slaves, the scaled spawn of Jormungandr and Nidhogg exact tribute, and the dead of Hel feast on the living.  Where men gather, they are preyed upon.  The old gods are dead, but in the hills their children hide among mortals, gathering worshipers and strength, prophecies and artifacts in preparation for a second day of reckoning.  And unlike in Midnight proper, here such a thing is plausible, and perhaps foretold.

Upsides over Midnight: hope, no wizard-hunters, no orcs.
Downsides against Midnight: what do you fight at low levels if not orcs?, subtler pitch than "Tolkien but Sauron won".

DaW: Mercenaries of the Vale of Traitors

Last session, the players in my Midnight Vikings ACKS game received a grant of (terrible, unsettled) land from the Troll Lord in exchange for having slain a dragon in his realm.  On their way out of his capital, they decided to hire more mercenaries, which left me in a bit of a quandary.  The normal mercenary availability table just doesn't quite fit a part of the world where horses are rare and most sentients-at-arms are orcs.  So I cooked up some custom setting-appropriate units using Domains at War and this very helpful post on the forums.

Norsemen:
Reavers: 2/4/6 Loose Foot, AC 4, HD 1-1, UHP 6, ML -1, 3 battle-axe 11+.  Wages 12gp/mo, availability as Heavy Infantry.
Norse warriors equipped with a chainmail byrnie and a battle-axe in both hands.  Traditionally used for crewing longships and raiding coastal settlements.  They are capable sailors and possess the Seafaring proficiency.  Reavers are probably best used to chase down and kill enemy light infantry, which cannot withdraw from them (because the reavers are fast) and probably cannot match them in melee.  Reavers may also be useful for harassing slow heavy infantry like dwarves.  They don't really have the morale or AC for a slugfest with fast melee infantry like orcs or for holding the line against cavalry, though.
Veteran Reavers level into the Jutland Barbarian class.  Their stats are as follows: 2/4/6 Loose Foot, AC 4, HD 1, UHP 8, ML 0, 3 battle-axe 10+, wages 24gp/mo.  Veteran Reavers can scale walls and cliffs without siege ladders ("In your monastery, killing your monks"), and are hard to kill - after a battle, only a quarter of their casualties are killed or maimed, while the remaining three fourths are lightly injured (instead of a 50-50 split for most units).
Huskarls: 2/3/4 Formed Foot, AC 5, HD 1-1, UHP 6, ML 0, 2 spear and shield 11+ melee (with bonus damage on charge) or 2 spear 11+ ranged.  Wages 11gp/mo, availability as Heavy Infantry.Norse warriors equipped with spear, shield, and chainmail and trained for defensive and field engagements.  They also possess the Seafaring proficiency.  Pretty basic heavy infantry with accompanying tactics; form a battle line for bonus morale, advance towards the enemy in a shield wall (to avoid disruption by his ranged troops and accompanying breakdown of formation), spear-charge, and then slug it out (ideally with another element of the army turning the enemy's flank).
Veteran huskarls level into Fighter, and have the following stats: 2/3/4 FF, AC 5, HD 1, UHP 8, ML 1, 3 spear and shield 10+ melee with bonus damage on charge or 3 spear 10+ ranged, wages 23gp/mo.
Skoglanders: 2/4/6 Loose Foot, AC 2, HD 1-1, UHP 6, ML 0, 3 greataxe 11+ or 2 longbow 11+.  Wages 14gp/mo, availability as Bowmen.  Upcountry tree-cutters, hunters, and inexperienced bandits armored in leather with great timber-axes and flatbows.  Skoglanders are effective missile troops (as longbowmen), but more lightly armored, stronger in melee, faster, and cheaper.  Fairly standard archer tactics; strongest before melee is joined, deploy in front of the heavy infantry, disrupt the enemy's units to delay his advance or put holes in his line that your heavy infantry can later exploit, and withdraw through the friendly heavy infantry line if under attack.  Not sure how to best use them later in the battle.
Veteran skoglanders level into Explorer, and have the following stats: 2/4/6 LF, AC 2, HD 1, UHP 6, ML 1, 4 greataxe 10+ or 3 longbow 9+, wages 26gp/mo.  Veteran skoglanders are also difficult to spot; when in obscuring terrain, they gain an additional +2 to AC against missile attacks (for a total of +4).

Skami:
Skirmishers: 2/4/6 Loose Foot, AC3, HD 1-1, UHP 6, ML -1, 2 spear 11+ or 2 javelin 11+.  Wages 6gp/mo, availability as Light Infantry.  Tribesmen from the far north practiced in hit-and-run raiding and equipped with crude ring mail, spears, and javelins.  They are trained in winter survival and the use of skis, and maintain their strategic mobility (ie, overland movement, not combat movement) in snow.  Their javelins are effective at disrupting the shield walls of enemy heavy infantry.
Veteran skirmishers level into Ivory Kingdoms Barbarians (weird, right?  But it actually makes sense with their tech level, weapon selection, and mobility focus), and have the following stats: 2/5/8 LF, AC3, HD 1, UHP 8, ML 0, 3 spear 10+ or 3 javelin 10+, wages 18gp/mo.  Veteran skirmishers are very fast for infantry (2/5/8) and hard to kill.
Hunters: 2/4/6 Loose Foot, AC1, HD 1-1, UHP 6, ML -1, 2 handaxe 11+ or 2 shortbow 11+.  Wages 8gp/mo, availability as Slingers.  Skilled hunters from the far north, proficient in the use of skis and winter survival (maybe I should make Skiing a general proficiency like Riding...).  Equipped with a shortbow, a hand-axe, and a quiver of arrows, and clad in furs.  They are effective with standard archer tactics; they're basically Bowmen with worse equipment and lower wages.
Veteran hunters level into Ivory Kingdoms Barbarians, and have the following stats: 2/5/8 LF, AC1, HD 1, UHP 8, ML 0, 3 handaxe 10+ or 3 shortbow 10+, hard to kill, wages 20gp/mo.
War Mastadons: 2/4/6 Formed Mounted, AC8, HD 19+2, UHP 6, ML +2 Unpredictable, 5 lances and tusks 6+, 6 tramples 0+ on a charge, and 2 composite bow 11+.  Wages 630GP/mo per mastadon and 6 crewmen, availability is 1d3-1 in Class I markets and 33% chance of 1 in Class II markets, with 5 mastadons per unit at company scale (only one per unit at platoon scale).  Great hairy mastadons in ring-mail barding, with an armored war-yurt containing six archers and lancers on their back.  As indicated by their unit HP, you don't have to kill the mastadon, just the guys guiding it.  Terrifying for the enemy when they charge, terrifying for their allies when they retreat.


Orcs:
Orc Pikemen: Straight from the book.  Wages 9gp/mo, availability as Slingers.
Orc Crossbowmen: Straight from the book.  Wages 6gp/mo, availability as Slingers.
Orc Boar Riders: Straight from the book.  Wages 33gp/mo, availability as Light Cavalry.

Iron Faces:
Iron Face Glaives: 2/3/4 Formed Foot, AC5, HD 1+1, UHP 10, ML 0, 3 polearm 9+.  Wages 17gp/mo, availability as Longbowmen.  The Iron Faces are disciplined, veteran orcs from the East.  They served the Great Dragon in his wars against the Wolf Khans for many years, but fell out of favor after a defeat and fled to the Troll Lord's lands, where they serve as mercenaries.  Their heavy infantry are equipped with standardized glaives, banded mail, and fearsome helmets that cover most of their faces (hence Iron Faces).
Iron Face Archers: 2/3/4 Loose Foot, AC5, HD 1+1, UHP 10, ML 0, 2 scimitar 9+ or 2 composite bow 9+.  Wages 27gp/mo, availability as Horse Archers.  The Iron Faces adopted the composite bow from their Wolf Khan opponents, and their archers, equipped with banded mail, composite bow, and scimitar, are rightly feared for their range and accuracy.
The Iron Faces do have boar cavalry (porcelry?) units, but they are typically not for hire, being the personal guards of Iron Face leaders.

Dwarves:
Dwarven Spearmen: 1/2/3 FF, AC7, HD 1, UHP 8, ML 0, 3 spear and shield 10+ (with bonus damage on charge) or 3 spear ranged 10+.  Wages 30gp/mo, availability as Heavy Cavalry (for the time being, as Gnupur the Shaven has been hiring as many dwarves as he can for his crusade to reclaim the mountainhome.  Their base wages without competition are 20gp/mo and their availability would be as Longbowmen).  Dwarven heavy infantry with plate, shield, and spear.  Slooow but hard to kill, excellent for holding a fixed position or fortification.
Dwarven Crossbowmen: 1/2/3 FF, AC6, HD 1, UHP 8, ML 0, 3 hand-axe 10+ or 3 arbalest ranged 10+.  Wages 39gp/mo, availability as Cataphracts (again, their base wages are only 26gp/mo and their base availability is as Medium Cavalry, but Gnupur is hiring aggressively).  The dwarves take an unorthodox approach to ranged combat, with their plate-armored arbalestiers holding their own in the main battle line.

Variant Legates - Scholastics

It only makes sense that if there are legates with different doctrines, they ought to be at least a little different mechanically.  My biggest concern here is obviously the Scholastic Legates, because they are probably least intolerable to the existing PCs and so might make acceptable henchmen.  Unfortunately, it turns out that getting a decent mix of Divine, Thief, and/or Arcane values with no fighting produces some very anemic classes.  Divine 3 / Thief 1 leveled even faster than thief, but was horrifically bad at low levels, while Arcane 3 / Divine 1 didn't get 3rd-level arcane spells until ~70kXP (whereas normal wizards get them at 20kXP).  I considered Arcane 4 / Divine 2 with lowered maximum level and telling the rules where to shove it, and that might still be an option, but managing such a character sounds like a pain in the ass.

So.

The simple option is to bring it back in and get something closer to cleric.  Divine 2 / HD 1 / Fighting 1 is a workable basis for a class.  If we trade armor down to leather, we can get two custom powers.  Probably want to keep weapons at Narrow, which lets us get wizard weapons (darts, slings, staves, clubs, saps) and swords and daggers (because if you're in leather with 2-per-4 to-hit, you probably should be able to use all those magic swords that get found, and also daggers are traditional for blood sacrifice).  Plus, this gives another reason the rest of the legates think they're heretics - they use blood-spilling weapons (instead of trying to save that blood for sacrifice)!  I guess they can keep shields; two-weapon fighting doesn't make much sense either, and shields are nice.

With those two custom powers, we can get Arcane Dabbling and Loremastery, which both seem appropriate.  Those two are both weak at low levels, though, which isn't great.  Black Lore (swapping the turning bonus for a bonus to blood sacrifice rolls, maybe), Familiar, Prophecy, and Contemplation would also be defensible choices.

The rest of the customization we can do on the spell list and the class proficiencies.  They get 28 class proficiencies, which are sort of a mix of cleric, thief, and wizard: Alchemy, Ambushing, Apostasy, Battle Magic, Black Lore (replace control undead with +2 bonus to Blood Sacrifice research throws), Collegiate Wizardry, Contemplation, Disguise, Divine Blessing, Divine Health, Eavesdropping, Engineering, Familiar, Healing, Knowledge, Language, Magical Engineering, Military Strategy, Mystic Aura, Naturalism, Navigation, Prophecy, Quiet Magic, Righteous Turning, Sensing Power, Swashbuckling, Theology, Unflappable Casting.

The spell list is sort of similar; a little cleric, a little wizard (via the witch spell list), emphasis on detection, curses, and concealment.

1st:

1. Cause Fear *
2. Command Word
3. Darkness *
4. Detect Danger
5. Detect Magic
6. Inflict Light Wounds *
7. Protection from...  Evil?
8. Read Magic
9. Resist Cold
10. Sanctuary

2nd:

1. Augury
2. Bane *
3. Cloak in Shadow (as Shimmer)
4. Delay Poison
5. Find Traps
6. Hold Person
7. Locate Object
8. Resist Fire
9. Silence 15' radius
10. Sleep

3rd:

1. Bestow Curse *
2. Cure Blindness
3. Cause Disease *
4. Continual Darkness *
5. Detect Invisible 
6. ESP
7. Feign Death
8. Glyph of Warding
9. Invisibility 
10. Speak with Dead

4th:

1. Clairvoyance
2. Control Undead
3. Dispel Magic 
4. Divination
5. Inflict Serious Wounds *
6. Nondetection
7. Poison * 
8. Protection from...  Evil?, sustained
9. Speak with Plants
10. Tongues

5th:

1. Atonement
2. Commune
3. Dispel...  Evil?
4. Fear
5. Finger of Death *
6. Insect Plague
7. Quest
8. Scry
9. Strength of Mind *
10. True Seeing

I think this variant would work out OK.  They would be strictly better with spears/polearms instead of either of their weapon choices, but less sensible for their background I think.  At low levels they turn, do knowledge things, and heal OK.  At high levels, I'm not sure straight caster-offense is as viable as for most divine casters; most of their offensive spells are save-or-suck, a lot of it at touch range, and no Flame Strike or Spiritual Weapon.  They should be fairly viable in melee with magic gear, Shimmer, and Swashbuckling, and once they're in close they can deliver those touch spells.  Taking Apostasy for Chameleon, Silent Step, Swift Sword, and Striking or Sword of Fire combos pretty well with Ambushing and Swashbuckling.  Could also use Apostasy to pick up some decent direct-fire support capabilities or a top-tier healing (Cure Moderate, Cure Major, Spirit of Healing, Salving Rest or Cure Critical).  Man, Apostasy is just really good with the Player's Companion spells, especially in combination with other casting-support profs like Battle Magic, Contemplation, and Black Lore, and it's even better on a Divine 4 class like Priestess or Witch than it is on this guy.

Anyway, I will probably do a variant Skami legate next.

Theological Disputes and Legate Factions of Midnight ACKS

I've commented previously on how Midnight benefits from heretical legates.  Since this is rapidly becoming relevant to my current game, and one of my PCs has Theology, here's the data dump.

Structure of the church: The church is currently fragmented and disorganized.  There used to be a Speaker for Darkness, whose word was divine law, but Naxander the Conqueror killed it and received the Dark God's blessing.  When he died, he did not leave a clear successor for the position, and now the princes each vie not only for temporal power but also the support of the church factions, hoping to be acknowledged as the Speaker.   Some legate factions support the princes, while others believe that the next Speaker must come from the ranks of the legates themselves.  A few believe that the Speakership is permanently lost.  It is commonly believed that pilgrimage to the City of Black Ice is a requirement for Speakership; currently the City is held by a militant brotherhood of legates, but should a prince take the city (despite the logistical difficulties), that would greatly contribute to the legitimacy of their claim to Speakership.

Monolithicity: The orthodox position is that the Shadow is the only Shadow and brooks the worship of no other gods.  However, many of the primitive far-northern tribes that Naxander the Conqueror led out of the north have attributed deific status to him, in their tradition of ancestor-worship.  These "dualist" sects claim witnesses to miracles surrounding Naxander's death as support for this belief.  Some trinitarian orc sects even claim there are three divinities - the Shadow, the Conqueror, and an orcish messiah yet to come.

The End of Days: Most orthodox "accelerationist" human sects hold that when the Shadow has devoured everything, it will break the interplanar veil and release the trapped souls of the dead to afterlives of its choosing.  It follows then that acts in service of the Shadow (sacrificing all the mans, absorbing all the magic items) accelerate this process, and bringing about the End as quickly as possible is a good thing because it will put the spirits of the dead at peace.  Some scholastic, gradualist sects, however, believe that intelligent life converts "potential" trapped in the land itself into harvestable energy, and question whether or not just sacrificing all life would provide enough energy to shatter the Veil.  These sects promote fertility and economic investments aimed at producing large, stable populations, with the intent of guaranteeing the End eventually after depleting all of the residual magic of the soil and sun (a process accelerated by having more people).  Many gradualist heretics have found favor with the Princes, as sacrificing all the peasants weakens the army and leads to being crushed by one's rivals.  Finally, orcish variants of the End of Days include "we kill all the humans and reign over this, our destined dominion" and "we kill all the humans and the Shadow transports us, Its chosen people, to some other world to conquer and despoil in Its name."

Divine Revelation: Some orthodox sects accept only the recorded words of the Speakers as canon ("Canonists"), while others believe that the Shadow grants divine revelation to chosen prophets beyond the Speaker ("Revelationists") or anyone at all ("Individualists").  This leads to any number of contentious minor theological differences (whether you can eat fish on wednesdays, the type of dagger appropriate for sacrificing halflings, and so forth) depending on which version of the canon you're using.

For its part, the Shadow doesn't seem to care much about any of these matters; everyone still gets the same number of spells per day.  On the other hand, perhaps it is just testing its followers, weeding out the weak.  The joy and terror of evil gods is that sometimes they're just messing with you.

A few sample sects:

The Militant Brotherhood of the Monolith: Guardians of the City of Black Ice, super-orthodox.  Currently backing no candidate for Speaker (believe it will be obvious when the Shadow chooses, all current claimants therefore impostors), violently monotheist accelerationist canonists.

The Whisperers: Cultists who spread the worship of darkness in human lands before Naxander came.  When he did, they came out of the woodwork and set up shop in places where they already had influence.  Often cooperate with other Whisperer organizations in neighboring towns, tend to have a established political bases.  The shrine legates in Ostergot are of this faction.  Typically believe that the next Speaker must be a legate (and question Naxander's claim to Speakership), belligerently monotheist, moderate to lip-service accelerationist, and belligerently revelationist.

The Skami: A collective term for the tribes that Naxander brought south, the Skami have formed a sort of priestly class in many of the large cities that they conquered.  They are often in conflict with their local Whisperer organizations for power; while the Whisperers have economic / peasant support, the Skami can draw on their settled tribal warriors.  They usually favor either their local Prince or a powerful Skami kinsman for Speakership, are mostly dualists, lean pragmatically gradualist (gradualism offers many fruits for the decadent priest-nobility as well as the favor of the Prince, but they typically don't really grok the metaphysical arguments about gaian potential and the Veil, and sometimes it's politically useful to sacrifice a bunch of those Whisperer-loyal peasants), and are also often pragmatically revelationist.  The Skami are weak in the Vale of Traitors, as the region maintained much of its own native nobility and autonomy, but are strong in Verlath the dragon's realm, where their tribes displaced or enslaved many of the Norse natives.

The Scholastics: While the Whisperers got their start via the Shadow's whispers and messengers, the Scholastics began as wizards who experimented too greedily and too deep, and glimpsed the coming darkness with prophetic certainty.  Though few in number and often considered illegitimate by other legate branches, they do get spells and turning, and those sufficiently politically adept often hold high favor with the Princes.  No consensus on Speakership, monotheist gradualist individualists.  May warrant a custom class or something (because to be honest, these are the guys the PCs are going to want to ally with and henchrecruit, and also the ones who make the least sense in plate).

The Udareen: The orcish holy women hold beliefs just as heretical as the Scholastics, but have an army to back them up.  Believe that orcs are the Chosen People; the next Speaker will be an orc, trinitarian accelerationist (with favorable orc End of Days) individualists (but divine revelations by non-orcs are invalid).  Tolerated by non-orc Princes who value their hordes, a common enemy for the other legate factions.

Quality Links

I've been pretty busy between crunch at work and prep for my Midnight ACKS game, but there have been a number of really good posts that came up on my radar this week.

First off, Koewn's analysis of ACKS' stealth mechanics is fantastic.  I was considering (am still considering, actually) an ACKS assassin that trades plate for something else, and this has reasonably convinced me that they don't need Naturally Stealthy (-1 to enemy surprise rolls) to be effective at sneaking at low levels.  Honestly, reading his analysis, I'm pretty convinced that ACKS' stealth system is fine and we've just been Doing It Wrong; I actually kind of like that a 1st level thief is ~18% more likely to surprise a target than a common man.  As Koewn points out, this is about on par with the incremental improvement in combat ability that fighters get, with a 1st-level fighter being better but not massively better than a common man. The question remains, though: what to give assassins?  I'm thinking Poison Use (some combination of bonus to saves against poison, bonus to proficiency throws to produce poisons, no chance to poison self when using poison), but I haven't set on anything yet.

Second, Trilemma has a pair of solid posts on knowlege and preparation and DM-player bandwidth.  The first is a good statement of the general philosophy behind his prior (excellent) posts on useful dungeon description and monstrous effects on terrain, as well as explaining the importance of intel in old-school gaming, the prevalence of monsters with crazy immunities, and (indirectly) why vancian casting was awesome.  In a way, it explains a lot of the mechanical oddities of the Old School that fell by the wayside as cultural, playstyle elements of the Old School (which made those mechanical elements sensible) faded due to dilution, and in identifying those cultural elements provides a path forwards/backwards, depending on how you look at it.

Trilemma's second post, on bandwidth, is particularly relevant to me at the moment, as I am engaged in world creation and trying to get data to my players.  It's also somewhat interesting because "the bandwidth problem" was something parts of my group have been talking about for years, but never thought to write down.  I have the good fortune of having a player this campaign who really likes lore (at one point he explicitly asked me for more lore, and I was taken aback; not a problem I've ever had before!), but my approach is still mostly a combination of a (written lore), c (no lore), and d (players propose reasonable lore).  Some but not many things are fixed (written lore), many things that aren't relevant to the game just don't exist (no lore), and if my players propose something that makes sense, it's on me to either find a good a reason it isn't true, or to adopt it.  I imagine this is probably true of most campaigns, that they follow hybrid approaches.  Still, interesting stuff to think about.

Finally, today from the Hill Cantons, two solid posts on building and running dynamic sandboxes [1, 2]!  Since I'm running a dynamic sandbox at the moment, these are extraordinarily relevant to my interests.  The first article discusses having a campaign news cycle and dynamic encounter tables, while the second focuses on his Chaos Index world engine and campaign-scale event charts.  The campaign news cycle is probably not reasonable for a setting like Midnight, where news is sparse and literacy is sparser, but dynamic encounter tables are something I've been playing with lately.  ckutalik proposes a "New Development" slot on one's random encounter tables, where something related to a world event or past PC actions shows up when rolled.  I've been thinking about having an encounter queue instead - when the PCs take an action which generates Consequences, those consequences go in a queue.  When you roll "queued encounter" on the table, you pick something sensible from the first couple of things in the queue and that's what they find.  This means that consequences can linger in the queue for quite a while, but will probably find the PCs eventually.  I've also considered having multiple queues on a per-area basis; failing to assassinate the duke might queue a squad of royal guards in his domains, and bounty hunters in each of several nearby domains.  Things like that.

From the second post, I could see setting up a Shadow Index, where certain actions increase the grip of the Shadow on the world and that alters things cosmologically (again, ideally I think I'd want per-area or -domain indices, so that some places can be deeply shrouded while others are 'points of light').  I've been running some loosely-defined world engines for various plots that are afoot; when the players decide to engage the ghouls hunting the farmers of Ostergot, the mushroommen of the Monastery Caverns grow and multiply, and when they fight the mushroommen, the ghouls spread.  Event charts are something I should consider; my plan currently is to use politics as the primary event-driving factor for the campaign, but the occasional natural disaster or similar would not be amiss.  My thought is to set up a network of high-power NPCs who have various relations with each other, and in any given unit of time some may undertake actions (declaration of war, assassination, charm / domination, slander, ...) against others, the consequences  of which trickle down to the PCs.  Event tables would be a simpler way to handle this, though, with "assassination attempt on X by Y", "raiding of X's domains by Y", and "warfare of X against Y" as table items with fillable variables as sensible.  Maybe I'll do that instead.

Anyway, good posts, well worth reading.

ACKS Class: Nightblade Redux

Nightblade Redux
Prime Requisites: Dex, Int
HD: d6
Max level: 12

Nightblade is a neat class in concept, but ultimately slow arcane casting progression on a thief base is a hard sell.  We had one in the first party of our first campaign, and then there was one nightblade henchwoman who survived a single adventure, but they get no love in this group.  Perhaps this could change that, and offer an a way forward for thieves in general.

Nightblades are elven spies, assassins, and covert operatives.  Their occupation entails some degree of combat training, though it is not their forte.  They advance in attack throws by two points per four levels of experience, like a thief.  They may use all ranged weapons and all one-handed melee weapons, and may fight with a weapon in each hand.  They cannot use armor heavier than leather, and cannot use shields.  Their saves and to-hit numbers are as an ACKS Core Nightblade of their level.

Elven Nightblades may move silently, hide in shadows, climb walls, and backstab as a thief of their level.  In addition, they may perform feats of acrobatics, as the proficiency of the same name.

While not true spellcasters, Nightblades master a number of supernatural tricks to enhance their stealth capabilities.  At first level, nightblades learn Chameleon, Silent Step, and Jump, as the spells of the same names.  They may use these powers a total of three times in any eight hour period, and each takes a round to activate.

ex: a nightblade wants to sneak up on a group of orcs, so he casts Silent Step.  A turn later, his party is in position to engage, and he casts Jump for maximum backstabbing.  In the next seven hours and 40 minutes, he can cast one more of Chameleon, Silent Step, or Jump.

At 3rd level, the Nightblade's ability to cloak himeself in shadow is perfected. He may cast Invisibility once per 8 hours, with a casting time of one round.

At 5th level, the Nightblade's mastery of shadow goes beyond merely concealing himself; concealment becomes part of his nature.  He may make his form insubstantial (as Gaseous Form), and adapt his eyes to the darkness (Infravision).  These powers are usable in any combination a total of twice per day, and take a single round to activate.

At 7th level, the Nightblade begins to understand the universality of the shadow, and this enables him to transcend distances as they are commonly thought of.  He may leap through shadow (as Dimension Door) once per week with a casting time of 1 round.

At 9th level, the Nightblade's occult studies of the void as the foundation of the structure of the cosmos have reached their inevitable conclusions, unlocking the most perilous secrets of his art.  Once per week, with a casting time of one turn, he may walk the dark road (as Teleport).

Also at 9th level, the Nightblade's endarkenment is recognized by all, and he may attract a cabal of 1d6 1st-3rd level Nightblades seeking to learn from him.  Cabals obey the standard rules for thieves' guilds and hijinks, though most are loathe to accept non-elven members, lest the esoteric wisdom of the nightblades be misused by the rash and younger races.

Nightblades also get the usual elf powers:

• Attunement to Nature: +1 to surprise rolls in the wilderness
• Elven Tongues: Elf, Gnoll, Hobgoblin, Orc
• Keen Eyes: Nightblades can detect secret doors on an 8+ on d20 when actively searching, or at 14+ on casual inspection.
• Connection to Nature: Nightblades are unaffected by ghoulish paralysis, and gain a +1 bonus to saves against Petrification/Paralysis and Spells.
• +125XP to 2nd level.  +50kXP/level beyond 8th is unreasonable here; going with +10kXP/level beyond 8th (like dwarf fighters, where abilities don't synergize particularly well).

Class proficiencies (30): Alchemy, Alertness, Arcane Dabbling, Battle Magic (applies to spell-like abilities), Black Lore of Zahar (substitute -2 to enemy saves vs death with +2 bonus to proficiency throws to extract, refine, or use poisons), Blind Fighting, Cat Burglary, Combat Reflexes, Combat Trickery (incapacitate), Contortionism, Eavesdropping, Familiar, Fighting Style, Intimidation, Mystic Aura, Passing Without Trace, Precise Shooting, Prestidigitation, Quiet Magic (applies to spell-like abilities), Running, Sensing Power, Skirmishing, Skulking, Sniping, Swashbuckling, Unflappable Casting (applies to spell-like abilities), Trapfinding, Wakefulness, Weapon Focus, Weapon Finesse

XP	Title	Level	HD	Acrobatics	Backstab
0	Elven Mole	1	1d6	20+	x2
1825	Elven Asset	2	2d6	19+	x2
3650	Elven Courier	3	3d6	18+	x2
7300	Elven Spy	4	4d6	17+	x2
14600	Elven Agent	5	5d6	16+	x3
29200	Elven Occultist	6	6d6	15+	x3
60000	Walker on the Dark Road	7	7d6	14+	x3
120000	Left Hand of Darkness	8	8d6	13+	x3
230000	Elven Nightblade	9	9d6	12+	x4
340000	Elven Nightblade, 10th	10	9d6+2	11+	x4
450000	Elven Nightblade, 11th	11	9d6+4	10+	x4
560000	Endarkened One	12	9d6+6	9+	x4

Design notes:
Playing a little fast and loose with classbuilding rules here.  We've seen arcane elves, we've seen divine elves, and now this is a thieving elf.  Basically it's a fighting 1 / HD 1 / Thief 3 / Elf 0 build that swaps most of its thief skills for magic powers.  The old nightblade started off as a passable wizard and a normal (ie, bad) thief at low levels, and then inverted at high levels into an OK thief and a bad wizard.  This one starts off as a strong wizard in terms of spells per day, but they're all thief enhancement, so at low levels he's a better thief, and that's OK, because low-level thieves are the worst.  At higher levels, he doesn't need the magic as much to supplement the raw thief numbers, and instead gains a few extra tricks - gaseous form and infravision are very good for scouting, dimension door is a good escape ability, and teleport "strategic utility".  I'm a little conflicted on teleport because once per week is not much compared to what a real wizard can do, and one turn casting time makes it useless as an "escape" ability.  I'm not convinced it's worse than passwall, though, which is sort of the other "thief / utility" option at 5th level.

Place in Midnight:
The "use the weapons of the enemy" branch of Elven Intelligence.  Vulnerable to corruption, mistrusted by their brethren and the enemy alike if their powers are known.  Also probably common among the dark elves (provided that the rumors of the existence of such elves are substantiated, of course).

Hmm...  maybe there are some other branches of Elven Intelligence that need "thieving elf" classes.  We have here the operational (get in, kill target, get out) arm; maybe we need HUMINT (er, ORCINT - charm, ESP, disguise, alter self; enchantment and transmogrification) and SIGINT (MAGINT - detect *, locate *, scrying, prophecy; detection and divination) arms.

Midnight ACKS: Elven Sage

Prime Requisites: Int, Wis
Requirements: None
Hit Dice: d4
Maximum Level: 11

Elven Sages are wise beyond the kenning of mortal men.  Their mastery of ancient lore makes them the chosen advisors of the elven queen, and their ability to speak through the trees makes them valuable assets to operations in the field.

Elven sages neglect mundane combat training, relying on their magic and their rangers to protect them.  They are untrained in the use of armor, and are familiar with only the simplest of weapons: clubs, daggers, slings, and staves.  They may fight with a weapon in two hands, but not with two weapons or with shields.  They advance in attack throws and saves by two points every six levels, and may not cleave.  Their attack and saving throws are as a mage of their level.

They cast arcane spells as a mage of their level, including all the usual rules for repertoires and spellbooks and whatnot.  They may use magic items usable only by mages.

They also cast divine spells as a cleric of their level, from the following list:

1:

• Cure Light Wounds
• Delay Disease
• Detect Evil
• Detect Magic
• Fellowship
• Light
• Protection from Evil
• Read Languages
• Sanctuary
• Salving Rest

2:

• Augury
• Charm Animal
• Cure Moderate Wounds
• Delay Poison
• Detect Charm
• Divine Grace
• Holy Chant
• Obscuring Mist
• Speak with Animals
• Warp Wood

3:

• Continual Light
• Cure Blindness
• Cure Disease
• Detect Curse
• ESP
• Glyph of Warding
• Growth of Animals
• Locate Object
• Remove Curse
• Sphere of Visibility

4:

• Command Animals
• Create Water
• Death Ward
• Dispel Magic
• Divination
• Neutralize Poison
• Protection from Evil, Sustained
• Speak with Plants
• Spirit of Healing
• Tongues

5:

• Commune
• Control Animals
• Control Winds
• Create Food
• Cure Critical Wounds
• Growth of Plants
• Quest
• Reincarnate 
• Scry
• True Seeing

Not even elven sages can turn the undead in these dark days.  However, they are masters of ancient elven lore (as Loremastery).  They are also attuned to the Woodwhisper, allowing them to cast Speak with Plants once per day with a casting time of one turn.  This is of particular utility in the elven forests, where the trees are semi-intelligent and can communciate messages across vast distances as swiftly as the wind.  They may also use magic items usable only by clerics, but cannot gather divine power or perform blood sacrifice.

They also get all the usual elf powers (immunity to ghoul paralysis, +1 to saves vs paralysis and spells, +1 to surprise in the wilderness, +8 bonus to finding secret doors, speak elven and beastman languages).

At 5th level, elven sages may research spells, brew potions, and scribe scrolls.

At 9th level, they may build an elven tower, gather apprentices, and engage in crafting greater magic items, preparing ritual spells, building constructs, crossbreeding (though most consider this abhorrent), and, if chaotic, raising undead.

Level	XP	Title
1	0	Elven Prodigy
2	3125	Elven Seer
3	6250	Elven Theurgist
4	12500	Elven Archivist
5	25000	Elven Enchanter
6	50000	Elven Scholar
7	100000	Elven Luminary
8	200000	Sylvan Oracle
9	380000	Elven Sage
10	560000	Elven Sage, 10th level
11	740000	Elven Sage, 11th level

Class proficiencies (31):

• Alchemy
• Apostasy
• Battle Magic
• Beast Friendship
• Bright Lore (turn as a cleric of half level, +2 caster level for healing and light spells)
• Collegiate Wizardry
• Craft
• Diplomacy
• Divine Blessing
• Divine Health
• Elementalism
• Engineering
• Familiar
• Healing
• Illusion Resistance
• Knowledge
• Language
• Laying on Hands
• Magical Engineering
• Magical Music
• Mapping
• Mystic Aura
• Naturalism
• Quiet Magic
• Performance
• Prophecy
• Sensing Evil
• Sensing Power
• Transmogrification
• Unflappable Casting
• Wakefulness

Notes:
Continues the theme of "cleric+a class that people actually like to play".
The divine-side spell list is not very offensive.  The arcane side should be able to fill that gap.
Levels kinda slow, but within the realm of the reasonable.
The spell selection gave me some trouble.  I think I am happy with having Restore Life and Limb unavailable as a PC-castable spell in this setting; it'd make a good ritual spell (ie, scrolls of restoration might be findable as treasure but probably not craftable any time soon). While on the topic of death, I guess I should probably work up rules for playing Fell.  Accumulating postmortal wounds has Black Knight-style comedy potential, and the ticking clock of your deterioriating sanity means that it's the perfect time for a postmortem suicide mission.  This is the stuff heroic stories are made of.  I was going to need those rules for the players' enemies, anyway...

Midnight ACKS: Elven Ranger

Starting off with an easy one.

The Elven Ranger is as the class of the same name in the ACKS Player's Companion, except as follows:

Prime requisites: Str and Dex
Requirements: Wis 9+
Maximum level: 12

Elven ranger cast a number of divine spells per day as a cleric of half their level (rounded up), and use half their level rounded up as their caster level for the numeric effects of all of their spells.

Level	XP	1	2	3	4
1	0	0
2	2525	0
3	5050	1
4	10100	1
5	20200	2
6	40400	2
7	80000	2	1
8	160000	2	1
9	310000	2	2
10	460000	2	2
11	610000	2	2	1	1
12	760000	2	2	1	1

Elven rangers cast spells from the following list:
1: Cure Light Wounds, Delay Disease, Pass Without Trace, Predict Weather, Salving Rest
2: Augury, Chameleon, Charm Animal, Delay Poison, Silent Step
3: Cure Disease, Eyes of the Eagle, Glyph of Warding, Locate Object, Remove Curse
4: Cure Serious Wounds, Divination, Neutralize Poison, Speak with Plants, Summon Animals

While elven rangers cannot turn the undead, they receive the Healing proficiency.  At 9th level, elven rangers gain the ability to research spells, make potions, and scribe scrolls.
Further, the Goblin-Slaying proficiency is added to their class proficiency list.

Notes:
Good all-rounder; fights well, wildernesses well, heals OK, and only levels as slowly as a mage. Medic is a fine secondary role to add to a full-fighting class.
Didn't feel right to make Wisdom a full prime req for only one point of casting, so instead it's just a Divine Elf minreq of 9+.  I'm happy with the one point of divine here; low-level rangers can use spellcasting to supplement nonmagical healing (or for utility like Pass Without Trace), while high-level rangers can do some neat stuff but never reach Restore Life and Limb levels of spellcasting.  This feels about right.
The addition of Goblin Slaying to the class list is possible because we're going from Fighting 2 / HD 1 / Stealth 1 / Elf 0 -> Elf 1, which lowers our max level by 1 and adds an extra class proficiency to the list.  Goblin Slaying seemed appropriate, since the primary invaders of the elven forests are beastmen.  On the other hand, it does break the dwarves' otherwise-exclusive access to the proficiency (though this is probably the only elf class that will get access to it).  Not sure about this.  Laying on Hands would also play well with the healing theme without stepping on anyone's beard.

ACKS Midnight

Matt's back in town and wants to play some ACKS, and I've been reading War of the Flea and want to run something Midnight-like. The conclusion is obvious.

As noted previously, there are two (well, three) problems with Midnight as a setting.

1. No clear (or even plausible) victory condition.  How do you kill a god, anyway?
2. Monolithic, zealous evil.
3. Barter economy is a real pain in the ass.

We can solve 1 and 2 in one shot by changing some setting assumptions.

ACKS' default setting assumption is a crumbling lawful empire, besieged by beastmen without and cthonic cults within.  If we turn that on its head, we get a wavering chaotic empire, harassed by elves at the borders and heretics within.  My target model is basically Wars of the (evil, supernaturally-enhanced) Diadochi.  A Chaotic Alexander the Great, tutored by Wormtongue instead of Aristotle and tainted by the Shadow, thundered forth from the North and conquered the realms of light, then died and willed his empire "To the strongest!"  So the empire is split between a handful of Night Kings who, while nominally united in service of the Shadow, often war among themselves as well.

Yes, the Night Kings are scary (near max-level with permanent blessings of an evil god), and they have lots of orcs.  But not even the Shadow's favorites are safe from death, as Nega-Alexander showed.  And the empire is only a few decades old, at most - the economic and legal impacts are less severe than in standard Midnight (solving the Barter Problem, and potentially making things like travel easier).

One level beneath the conflicts between the Night Kings, you have more competing factions - different doctrines within the Order of Shadow, orc clans, the traitor princes, and potentially a to-be-named set of schools of sorcery and accompanying dark archmages.  These factions compete and ally with each other for control of territory and resources, while within them individuals compete for status and power.  As a doctine, "To the strongest!" does not lend itself to stability.  Some ambitious individuals, and some of the more liberal factions, might be persuaded to cooperate with rebel scum in order to achieve their ends (for a while anyway).

So those are the high-level changes I'm planning to make in order to make Midnight slightly more reasonable.  Zooming in a bit, geographically, I think I'd run in a region like the Dornlands / Highhorns / Icewood.  Lots of forests to hide rebel freeholds in, mountains with dwarven ruins (including possibly a Moria-analogue megadungeon passage beneath the mountains), a ruined Maginot Line-equivalent near the north end of the region, towns along the rivers, and the largest city on the coast in the south, where the a major river meets the inland sea.

I am confronted with a difficulty - open table vs closed.  A game involving political factions, world engines, and building rebel camps (in light of Midnight's situation, I'd like to try something like this approach to domains, instead of ACKS' families-by-the-numbers) is necessarily pretty stateful.  On the other hand, the wilderness exploration component has promise for a Western Marches-type approach.  Might be something that changes over time - notably, the Hill Cantons started as a Western Marches-type game, and gradually evolved into something very different.  I guess at the start it's probably safe to assume a relatively open table and WM-like playstyle, with world engines running in the background ("Well last session the PCs knocked over an outpost of the Blood Howlers orc clan, which will delay the Howlers' attempt to wrest control of Durbinford from the antipaladins of the Order of the Gauntlet.  The Overlord's approval of the Howlers also drops.") and overt player-facing political considerations at a minimum for the time being.

Hmm...  what else.  Houserules TODO list.

• This is the correct time and place for Divine Elves, who rely on their fey nature for inherent magic.  Nobody liked clerics anyway.
• Divine elf ranger (fighting 2, hd 1, thief 1, divine elf 1-2)
• Divine elf sage / druid (arcane 4?, divine elf 2-3 theurgy class)
• Dwarves, also being fey, can keep craftpriests I guess.  Their spell list might need upgrades for maximum dwarfness.
• Dworg Berserker (I don't plan to generate a full race for dworg, but something like fighting 3 / HD 3 and a few minor abilities like language and inhumanity are what this is going to end up with)
• Might be something players 'unlock' based on actions in-world, which is a great excuse to not worry about this for now.
• Hobbits? Eh, they're a prey species, and not native to this part of the world anyway.
• Zaharans need a new name, but ruinguard is a totally reasonable class for this setting (from a Haradrim / Easterling group equivalent) and fills the fighter/wizard role that the elves vacated.
• Might be unlockable.
• Possibly also need a nightblade equivalent
• Sorcerer-Priest of Shadow would be nifty for NPCs
• I have not yet developed a thief and skills replacement with which I am happy.
• Domain rules redux
• Consequently, hijinks redux, blocking on thief rebuild
• Economy rules modifications
• Capturing weapons, armor, and trade goods should be a good thing; possibly a bonus to XP-for-treasure from these things.
• Merge saving throws
• One complaint I've heard from new-edition players is that there are too many save categories and they don't make sense.  I want to try Swords and Wizardry's approach, of one saving throw progression and your class gives you a bonus to certain (descriptive) types of saves.
• Some ideas from a Heroic Companion draft I read a while back 
• Critical hits
• Less-deadly poison
• Honor?

All that, plus building a sandbox full of dynamic factions ought to be a piece of cake, right?...

Reviewish: Shadow of Mordor

Shadow of Mordor was a console/Windows open-world game that came to linux recently, where I picked it up while on sale.  Premise: ranger back from the dead runs around Mordor killing orcs, freeing slaves, and disrupting the power structure of Sauron's armies.  Promising!  My feelings on the implementation are mixed, however.

Tonally, it's intended to be fairly dark.  Your character and his family are killed during the opening sequence (look, it's not a spoiler if it's in the opening sequence).  You find yourself surrounded by slavery, executions, and orcish brutality in a grim landscape while music with lots of drums and minor chords plays.  Driven by a quest for revenge for a family you (the player) barely knew, you soon descend into a sea of senseless violence against a transient cast of orcish captains.  Your only meaningful relationships are with these foes.

In practice, it goes so dark that I found it hilarious.  Nihilistically comedic.  The orcish dialogue is one of the best parts of the game.  The combat system is an inversion of all good sense - even when they have you surrounded, the orcs only attack you one or two at a time (providing you with opportunities to parry).  The safest place to be in combat is right in the middle of a huge group of melee enemies, so that archers on the edges of the battle will inflict friendly fire rather than hitting you (also walls interfere with your camera control, so fighting with your back to a wall is a good way to end up dead).  Vaulting over enemies in melee is actively encouraged by the combat system.  The end result is something that some might describe as "epic" or "badass", but that I think would be well-served by a Benny Hill soundtrack.  The choice of minor-key music superimposed over such silly combat just makes it funnier!  The stealth system is similarly amusing - you can backstab and kill an orc in mid-sentence and the rest of his patrol won't notice.  Repeating this process lets you wipe a moving group of almost arbitrary size, provided that they don't turn.  Resource management is purely tactical; if you're willing to disengage from combat, recovery is instantaneous via fast travel.  The one-liner introductions from the orc captains vary between cringeworthy and genuinely funny, and the fact that they sometimes come back from the dead with their skulls held together by enormous spiked metal plates (and they complain about it) is also moderately funny.  I actually got a little sad when some of the orcish captains I'd killed a couple times stopped coming back, and then I laughed, because this is a game about killing orcs and here I am being sad about having killed an orc (again).

Those captains are arguably the best-developed characters in the entire game.  You get to know the things they fear, the things they hate, who their rivals are, what drives them to acts of unspeakable cruelty.  And those traits all matter, because they make them easier for you to kill (not that most of them are all that hard, but sometimes they matter).

An assassin's dilemma; if you can predict your target's actions perfectly, you must have a perfect simulation of your target running inside you - you have become them, subsumed them.  If you do not hold them in the deepest contempt, if you bear them any respect, you must feel a little emptiness at snuffing them out, as your inner simulation becomes a 'ghost'.

But perhaps I am not cut out for assassin work.

In any case, this is not the hard-bitten, combat-as-war guerilla warfare and political hierarchy manipulation simulator that I was hoping for.  It is fun when met on its own terms, if you get it on sale and take it for what it is (playing while inebriated might help), but it does get pretty repetitive pretty quickly, and the controls make it very clear that it's a console port (everything is contextual and overloaded, and you can't separate the multiple functions of each key).  The graphics are OK I guess.

To return to a point relevant to tabletop gaming, this (combined with my recent reading of War of the Flea) has me thinking about Midnight again, particularly as regards infighting among the orcs.  More to follow.

The Fimbulwinter Saga - Vikings of Midnight

The Last Age is ending.  The last of the dwarven holds has fallen, and the surviving dwarves enslaved.  The nights grow long, and the days short.  The dead walk, white wolves howl across the North, and the ravens grow so numerous that they resort to cannibalism and predation of halflings.  The orcish hosts march on the last bastion of light, the elven woods.

The Witch Queen goes forth to meet them.  Alone.  Should've been a warning sign, really.

Of course, she cheats.  They meet in the fields of Eris Aman, the orcs thick as ants to the horizon and the Queen atop a white horse on a hill.  "You shall not pass," the Queen cries, and sings a song that tears the land asunder as she shatters her staff over her saddle and Jahzir closes to strike her down personally.  The strength of the North is drowned at Eris Aman, beneath a crushing wall of water, as an immense furrow is dug from the foothills of the Highhorns to the Sea of Pelluria.  A second such cataclysm affects the Aruun, separating it from Sarcosa by a roiling and turbulent channel.  Earthquakes are felt across the continent, and even Theros Obsidia trembles.

What such magic might have cost her, no man can say.  She has not been seen since, and the elves mourn her passing.  But her last act has greatly impeded the war effort, both by drowning orcs beyond count and by placing a miles-wide channel full of unknown obstacles and treacherous currents between the shattered Isles of Avalon (as they come to be known) and the lands of the Shadow.

The orcs are not known for their seamanship, and develop a superstitious dread of the channel in any case.  The legates turn to the Dorns to map the channel and mount raids against the elves in exchange for freedom of armament and travel while the orcish armies are reinforced and trained for an amphibious invasion.  Rumor has it that the Pirate Princes were offered amnesty in exchange for their services, but whether they took this bargain is unknown.  Regardless, sellswords and brigands from across the North flock to the new coastline, there to build longships in the manner of their forefathers and raise the Raven Banners for plunder.  Clans long since dispersed are united, and althings held once more.  Oaths are sworn, boasts made, swords forged, and blood feuds begun in the wooden towns attending the longship havens.  It is an time of energy, if not unity, among the long-downtrodden Dorns.

Some among the Legates are concerned by this, and reasonably so.  Who knows what treachery a clever captain might manage on elven shores?  And should a chieftain emerge so well-respected as to unite the clans under one ruler, a great deal of trouble could be had.  Such Legates keep these concerns to themselves, of course, instead preferring to show faith in Izrador's ultimate victory, but dispatch collaborators, spies, and minions to join the raiders and keep an eye on the Dorns nevertheless...

Enter the PCs, as dornsvikings, their bondsmen, dwarven and halflings slaves, heretic legates, mercenaries, secretive warlocks, and assassins and scions from the courts of the Traitor Princes, all set on having their glorious deeds recorded in the final Fimbulwinter Saga, that when the world ends, the last man dies, and the Veil is broken, their names might be read from the standing stones and earn their restless spirits entry into Valhalla...

Rivals: Other viking captains, orcish warband leaders, elven pirate captains, Dornish mercenary companies
Patrons: Legates, Dornish chieftains, elven officers?
Unholy Terrors: the Night Kings (some of whom may have been killed in the Flood and subsequently replaced), demons of the Aruun released during the Second Sundering, hungry aquatic Fell
PC classes:

• Available at start:  Barbarian, Fighter, Explorer, Assassin, Thief, Venturer (with some -magic +fighting tweaks; Vikingier merchant), Skald (Bard)
• Available at start, but consider the consequences: 
• Evil, may impede double-crossing: Cleric of Izrador, Priest of Izrador, Anti-Paladin, Warlock in service of Ardherin, Black Iron Dwarf Fury, Vaultguard, Craftpriest of Izrador, or Machinist
• Magic users, short life expectancy, especially in party with Evil member: Runespeaker (Mage), Seithr (Warlock)
• Nonhuman, limited liberty: Enslaved Dwarven Fury or Vaultguard, Enslaved Halfling Cook/Thief
• Available exclusively via recruiting on Avalon: High Elven Spellsword, High Elven Nightblade, Wood Elven Ranger, Wood Elven Whisper Adept, Wood Elven Savage
• Not sure yet: Witch, Valkyrie (both fit thematically, but the divine magic is a problem), Orc (fits setting, but outclasses human fighters, evil, pack animal, and doesn't like boats), Ruinguard (fits thematically, but might require some reworking of the race)

Musical Genre: Power Metal

Heresies of Midnight

So you wanted to play a cleric...  but the only god in town is a dark and terrible deity set on devouring all life, light, and magic in the world.  The rest of the party's not on board with this agenda.  So what's a cleric to do?

Heresy, I tell you!

The heretic legate brings a lot to a Midnight party.  Healing magic's great, but an air of legitimacy is even better.  Of course, like all Midnight characters, you still have to be careful, because if your heresy is discovered, you and all of your companions are in for a very bad time...

Unfortunately, more historical heresies are over theological points that wouldn't really be all that interesting in a D&D game, or which wouldn't make any sense for an evil religion.  Slightly more promising are the regional heresies like the Donatists.  In Midnight I could see a plausible heresy regarding the doctrinal correctness of the orcish wise women (I apologize for failing to remember how to spell urasatch kuradeen; I don't have the Midnight book available at the moment).  The Church of Shadow naturally has no interest in yielding spiritual authority to the orcs, and so having studied the oral tradition of the wise women and decided that it is superior would constitute a minor heresy liable to improve one's relations with the orcs (they are, after all, Izrador's chosen people).  Likewise, Sammael and the Order of Truth (or Light, or Shadow, or something?) present a plausible pair of targets for subversion.  Maybe some bloodthirsty Dornish cult of Izrador left behind runestones across the North with a syncretic doctrine fusing ancestor worship and undeath with the worship of the Shadow.  Their teachings were eliminated from canon by the Order, but continue to appeal to Dornish legates.  Individual legates who received (or claim to have received) divine inspiration from Izrador might also challenge the Order's orthodoxy.

Aspect-based heresies might be interesting; sects that emphasize one part of Izrador as more holy than the others, or supreme / dominant.   Unfortunately, he's an awfully monolithic deity, and his domains are fairly bland (that I recall).  A legate venerating the chaotic transmuter-nature of Izrador, as evidenced by his miraculous transformation of dwarves into orcs and the warping of the Highland Imps, would be a fun and very heretical character unlikely to score any points with the religious establishment, though.

Racial heresies are also tempting.  The writings of the Mad Dwarf might reconcile the Shadow and traditional dwarven beliefs beautifully, and so tempt dwarves to the worship of darkness.  If one accepts the existence of the Traitor Dwarves (Black Iron Dwarves?  I forget their name), one can only assume that such a heresy might find fertile ground there.  Likewise, an elven heresy that blends nature worship with Izrador (as a 'world-spirit of darkness') might find purchase in the woods, or worse, bring otherwise Shadow-fearing human legates to the practice of elven sorcery.  Such a heresy might even be secretly supported by Ardherin, as such heretical sorcerer-legates could provide cover and breathing room for his apprentices.

We're starting to get in to 40k-grade heresies here, which suggests another.  In 40k, unorthodox inquisitors have been known to strike bargains with or even employ xenos.  A heretical legate might find it justifiable to employ the fey, as they are useful, might even be convertible to the One True Faith, and are conveniently easy to dispose of when necessary.  This is, of course, quite useful for an adventuring party whose players desire to be other species.  Unfortunately, it's also still likely to get everyone killed, just slightly more slowly than would normally apply to a party containing fey, at least while under domain level.

A domain-level legate (bishop) could get up to all kinds of fun heresy, though.  I find the image of a sect of legates who believe that protecting their flock from rampaging orcs, issuing coinage, and teaching writing for accounts-keeping in order to improve the economy and ultimately strengthen Izrador's war effort being branded heretics amusing.  The Propsperist Heresy, if you will.  This is also the point where you could start getting away with providing sanctuary to sorcerers and fey, or establish a heretic stronghold (like that one in my Crusader Kings game that keeps revolting...  damn Cathars).  A heretic bishop would likewise make a convenient patron for a heretic legate and his party, provided they were of similar heresies.

Of course, where there are heresies, there are inquisitions...

Midnight Monolithicity - An Alternative Solution

In the previous post, I discussed how in canon Midnight, it is essential for players to exploit the divisive nature of the powers of darkness in order to win breathing room to perform acts of good.  An alternative solution, however, is to replace the monolithic Izrador with a pantheon of dark deities, or even demon lords (one inspiration for this post is Courtney's post on the demon-nature some week or two ago), each with its own agents, champions, church, realm, and armies.  This gives us something more like Warhammer's cosmology of evil, or Dark Sun's dragon-kings.  This ideological and temporal variety means that players are more likely to find evil powers who are acceptable to their sensibilities (the better to tempt them), and would give a DM more leeway in functioning economies and easier-to-work-with legal structures.  On the flip side, part of the reason Midnight works is that it is a darkened mirror of Tolkein, from which many of D&D's tropes springeth.  By splitting Izsauradoron into many competing facets, we make this resemblance less recognizable, and I suspect the setting would lose some of its lustre as a result.  Depending on how the world arrived at an evil-dominant cosmology, we might also lose that one glimmer of distant hope in Midnight, that the Old Gods are still waiting outside the Veil.

So I'm not convinced this is a particularly ideal course for Midnight proper, but a "Demon Realms" game combining Midnight, Dark Sun, and Raveloft might be fun in its own right.

Dangit, Dad (Also: Patrons of Midnight)

A discussion with my father over the weekend regarding my strengths and weaknesses as a DM led us to the realization our sense of what makes a good campaign setting may be poorly callibrated, as a result of running few published campaign settings prior.  This led to a search for the exceptions to our trend of homebrewing low-detail settings.  On that list of exceptions were Eberron (played straight and run well by mine brother), Old World of Darkness / Vampire (tropes averted, heavy weapons and trenchcoats abounded), and...  Midnight.

And now ACKS Midnight is on the brain again.   Thanks, dad, for contributing to the Gamer ADD Epidemic.

'course, since it's in my head, I may as well write about it...

One of the main challenges of Midnight, I believe, is the monolithic nature of the Enemy.  It creates a sort of paralysis upon first entering the setting - "ye old and forgotten gods, we cannot hope to survive a fortnight with these forces arrayed against us, nevermind overthrow the Shadow!"  This is why I hold Lords of Shadow (or whatever the book on the Night Kings and their designs was called) to be the most useful Midnight supplement ever published (as far as DMing material goes, at least) - it is largely focused on the internal rivalries and intrigues among the forces of darkness.  These are critical!  These are the tools canny PCs use to survive in the Fourth Age!  The Patron in Midnight is most likely not the Elven Queen in her far-off forest fastness; it is the legate willing to overlook the players' transgressions in return for plausible deniability in his quiet war for promotion with his rivals in the church.  It is the ambitious third son of a Traitor Prince who needs bodyguards and assassins in his father's court.  It is one of Ardherin's minions or apprentices who seeks aid in acquiring contraband books and other sensitive items at his master's behest.  It is a renegade orcish captain who has fallen in with the White Mother sect, and whose plans requires covert messengers to other likeminded orcish bands.  Better yet, the role of Patron is filled by all of these at once, with the party playing each servant of darkness against the others.

The wizened village hetman, the last of the ents, the elven courier with his dying request, the escaped slave, the woodsman, the Lady of the Lake, and that infamous smuggler Gnome Solo with his dwarg manservant all have their places as patrons, of course.  But it is the forces of darkness, not the forces of good, which give Midnight its flavor, and it is in service to the powers of darkness that players might find the relative safety and autonomy to pursue good ends on the side (while also being tempted with promises of wealth, power, and ease for swearing themselves to darkness, body and soul...).

A game of moral dilemmas, of falls from grace and heroic sacrifices, of lifeboat utilitarianism and no-win situations, of loyalty unto death and betrayal most foul...  A game of choices more difficult and more varied than "where are we going to go a-viking this week, and which of our henchmen are we going to save from the spider venom?"  Such is Midnight.

RennFest, Colonial Battlefleet, and Setting Work

Just what it says on the tin:

Had a good time at the Maryland Renaissance Fair(e) this weekend.  Rediscovered mead; much like honeyed whiskey, but with strong overtones of water.  The jousting at German renn faires was better, but this one had elephants and pythons and a cursing well which I am stealing for my upcoming campaign, so hey.

Also picked up a copy of Colonial Battlefleet from the wargame vault today.  Interesting system.  Their initiative mechanic and the roles mechanism are both interesting changes from Starmada, and the fact that they provide a Big List of Weapons should prevent some of the guncheese we had in Starmada: Admiralty. I don't like how they laid out said table (by weapon tonnage, rather than alphabetically by weapon name or weapon 'family'), but that is at least a useful ordering during ship contruction.  Their shields are also very different from S:AE shields (would be interested in seeing some non-forward-focused shields, but I'm happy enough as-is without the extra complexity).  I like the way they handled tech levels, mostly, except for Laser Weaponry, which I think they screwed up with regards to Screen role availability.  One thing that does torque me off a little is some of the really implausible faux science used to justify mechanics that are in place for game balance reasons - things like "When you teleport something, all inorganic chemical reactions in it cease.  As a result, you can only teleport marines, not bombs."  That grinds my gears a bit; you could've just said "You can't teleport bombs because the yield isn't sufficient for a man-sized bomb to damage a starship" (since scale is intentionally vague), or built a bomb-teleporter weapon, or left the players to not think of it like we didn't in six months of Starmada games with teleporter-marines, but no.  Instead you had to make something ridiculous up and call attention to it, which might produce a counter like "OK, that's cool, we're the Tyranids and we're going to build living bomb-marines with organic detonators.  Wheee-BOOM."  That said, upon running a test game against myself with some converted Homeworld ships, it was quick, bloody, reasonable simple, and overall satisfactory.  So if any of the old Starmada Crew is reading this, I'm down for some games over internet (it's hex-based, so should work fine with VTTs).  Fair warning, though - I have been growing out my beard since the weather cooled off... (for those unfamiliar, we observed that gamers with beards were significantly more likely to win at Starmada than were clean-shaven gamers.  The prevailing hypothesis is that this was due to the increase in planning efficiency acquired by stroking one's beard)

Oh yeah.  The editing is not fantastic, and some areas are lacking examples, but the intent of the rules is generally clear, so it's just sort of annoying rather than obstructionary.

Finally, ACKS setting.  Contemplated Wilderlands of High Fantasy, Northern Reaches (Western Marches into mythic Scandinavia), and Midnight in the Late 3rd Age.  Am currently settled on "The Scaled Continent".  The pitch:

In elder days, the children of squamous gods ruled the world, and man, elf, and dwarf suffered beneath their forked and envenomed lash.  But now their empire has fallen to ruin under rebellion and internal strife, and the men of Aura seek the reclaim the treasures that were once stolen from them and taken across the Sea of Tears, to line the jungled halls of the serpent-kings.  From the Isle of Voltager, their settlers and adventurers struggle against the environment, the natives, and sometimes each other for the riches of... the Scaled Continent.

Thematic elements:

• Settings: 
• heavily-trapped temples to bloodthirsty gods
• overgrown and ruined cities of the Old Masters
• human frontier settlements (incl. abandoned and overtaken)
• the Serpent's Tongue (major river)
• sailing ships anchored off the coast
• volcanoes
• Opposition: 
• Lizardmen, frogmen, toadmen, turtlemen, crocodilemen, &c
• With accompanying witch-doctors and guardbeasts
• Prehistoric and/or gigantic beasts 
• yes dinosaurs 
• also giant cockroaches 
• and dire armadillos carrying dire leprosy
• Monsters from South American and/or African myth and ecology
• (some research required, void where inaccurate)
• Dragons 
• Pirates
• Dragon-pirates
• not, however, from Ninja Island
• Screaming river-eels
• Wereleopards (forvalaka)
• Anything with scales that didn't fall into the above categories
• Ambulatory plant life
• Dysentery and worse jungle diseases
• Monsoon season
• Resources:
• Local guides
• Mules
• Dugout canoes
• Treasure maps of dubious veracity
• Steel and alcohol (as trade goods with the natives)
• Gullible henchmen (but when aren't those a resource?)
• Treasure:
• Golden idols
• Crystal skulls
• Rubies the size of a man's fist
• Holy grails?
• Spellbooks containing forgotten and forbidden spells of the reptile mages, written on halfling-skin vellum (demium?)
• Exotic spices and hardwoods
• Rescued slaves
• Cities of gold
• Fountains of youth
• Possible untimely death
• Modules:
• Caverns of Thracia
• DCC#16: Curse of the Emerald Cobra
• A source of fond memories from my youth
• Isle of Dread 
• Temple of the Frog (inasmuch as it is a ruined temple "in the city of the enemy")
• Thematic fiction:
• "Lost World" stories
• Heart of Darkness
• Pulp portrayals of the tropics (eg, King Kong)

 So!  Time to map!  Oh wait, I can just write "JUNGLE" in great big capital letters on a hexmap and be mostly good to go.  Just have to draw a coastline, some islands, a river, and a distant mountain range...