I'm actually thinking I could run this game sometime at a con....
This week's Monday Mashup is The Dukes of Hazzard. The way I see this, The Dukes of Hazzard was basically a show about a family of swill-making smugglers who help their hometown when needed but stay one step in front of the law while they are at it.
Making their way,
the only way they know how,
but that's just a little bit more
than the law will allow.
My first thought was a D&D game where the characters take this role while staying one step ahead of the local law, but that ends up a little more like Robin Hood than the Dukes. What made the Dukes more than another Robin Hood show? What was missing? The car! The car chases! The crazy jumps!
So, I offer you the Amber/Dukes crossover!
The kingdom of Amber has increased its borders since the days of the Patternfall War. These days, local nobility rule over much of shadow, offering their allegiance to the King (or Queen) of Amber. They control trade and inter-shadow travel and very little travel between the planes goes unnoticed by their guards, elite warriors with the travel to move through shadow like the true-bloods of Amber. The Count for the area that our campaign is set in is a greedy man who taxes trade between shadows very highly and exploits the people of his shadows.
Along come our heroes. With enchanted vehicles that travel through shadow, they move back and forth between the worlds, helping people where they can and making a few bucks of their smuggling. They are much loved by the locals of the shadows and folk-tales have grown around them.
A few times these "Dukes", as the locals have come to call them, have tried contacting the other nobility of Amber but the local count manages to keep his nose clean enough that Amber hasn't seen his dirty-dealing.
One of the local guards chasing the Dukes, is a soldier who rides a large dog-like creature named Flash. "Come on Flash! We'll get those Duke boys this time!"
this game would obviously be run extremely cinematic with big chase scenes and crazy stunts as the Dukes drive crazily through country roads and small towns trying to escape the "Boss"s men.
To make it really like the show, the Boss and Guards have to be somewhat incompetent and occassionally willing to work with the Dukes against greater evils.
Monday Mashup: Good Vibrations
In this weeks Mashup, we are asked to combine The Beach Boys with a roleplaying setting.
Since I've been thinking up D&D stuff for my campaign, the Beach Boys go D&D!
Follow the ocean's coast north, far away from the land of men and you will find the Waverunners, a race of humanoids that look a lot like gnomes with dark brown skin and child-like faces. The Waverunners may be an off-shoot of gnomes or another race completely. (In my Connemara setting, they'd be a "sub-human" race.) The waverunners are unaware of the troubles in the rest of the world and are largely unaware of other races. Few visitors ever come to this hidden paradise.
Waverunners are named such for their love for water-sports. (No! Not that kind! Get your mind out of the gutter!) When not eating the berries and plants that grow in the area or sleeping, the waverunners run into the ocean with pieces of wood that they use to balance upon the waves. The first human explorer to write bout the Waverunners described them as running along the water.
Waverunners share everything and largely unaware of the concept of property. All that they need grows naturally nearby and can be found in abundance. Even shelter can be found under the thick branches and roots of the nearby Orricka trees.
Waverunners are child-like and playful. At night they can be heard singing songs to eachother and smoking the leaves of the great Orrikka tree which produces a euphoric effect. Later in the evening they will separate in goups of two or more and spend hours lovemaking before falling asleep. The next day they start all over again: eating, playing, singing, smoking, loving and sleeping.
When strangers visit they are extremely open and trusting. Very few waverunners have ever learned any reason to be distrustful of others. Only olderones who are more likely to have dealt with outsiders before may be cautious. Waverunners rarely live past 30. The heavy smoking of the orricka leaves usually cause them to develop a lung condition.
How can Waverunners be used in campaigns? Since they rarely can be found outside of their homeland, it is unlikely that PCs will run into them unless they travel to them. There is little of value to man in that area but there could be temples or other ancient places in the area that PCs would need to visit. They could come across the peaceful waverunners on the way to get some ancient evil artifact only to find some villain threatening the lives of the waverunners when they exit. I'm picturing a group of orcs with knives held to smiling waverunners and a sorcerer saying, "You could leave with the orb.....but...."
Waverunners as PCs: This is a tough one. In many ways I picture the Waverunners like the Kender of the Dragonlance books. After some time in the world, waverunners would be more aware of the dangers around them than Kender, but they still would be extremely playful. Because of this, I would think the best D&D classes for Kenders would be Rogues or Bards. Of course, the big question for a waverunner PC is why they are out in the world in the first place. Perhaps they were taken from their homeland by slavers and escaped or maybe a curious waverunner went to far in the woods one day and lost their way.
Stats: I'm thinking that Waverunners would have high dexterity and charisma at the cost of strength, constitution and wisdom. Something like this: Str -1, Dex +2, Con -1, Int same, Wis -1, Cha +1. They would also have some special ability that represents their amazing sense of balance....learned from years on their surfboards.
I've been planning the setting for the D&D game I'm going to run, Connemara. I came up with this idea for a moving city, but I have no place to fit it into the world. At this point in the campain planning, I have no need for a desert. I think it's a neat idea, so I'm going to share it hear for any GMs who may be able to use it in whatever game they run. This could be a neat thing to find in a shadow of Amber or a planet in Star Wars. All it needs is a desert and a fantastic setting. Feel free to borrow the idea, although don't go publishing it or saying its yours.....or creating a big budget summer movie.
The Sand Crawlers are giant bugs. From far away they look like giant slugs but on closer inspection, they are more akin to Millipedes. Their armored hide protects thousands of legs that they use to slowly crawl across the desert sands, searching for water. Sand Crawlers can sense pockets of water underneath the sands and dig with large trunk like tubes under its head to get to the water.
Leviathan is one of the oldest Sand Crawlers in existence. It has lived for hundreds of years thanks to a symbiotic relationship it has with a city that has built itself on the back of Leviathan. Hundreds of years ago, a nomadic desert people realized that they could ride the back of a sand crawler. They chose a particularly large one and camped on it. When the sand crawler, which they named Leviathan, would find water, it would dig the whole to the water and in the process bring much of the water to the service. The tribe could take some of the water and store it until Leviathan found the next oasis. The tribe created a village on the back of Leviathan/ The people prospered and it eventually became a city.
Today, Leviathan is the largest known sand crawler. It is about two miles long and 2/3 of a mile wide. Hundreds of pemanent sandstone buildngs have been built on the slowly shifting plates of Leviathan and desert crops are grown on its back, particularly a cactus-like plant that produces a bitter sweet fruit that is popular amongst the people of Leviathan. There are all sorts of ladders and starirways attached to the side of Leviathan, which the people use to board and disembark the great city.
The secret to Leviathan's long life is the people's urine. A little bit gross? Yeah. The chief cause of death amongst sand crawlers is a parisitic infection that develops under the plates of their exoskeletons. It was discovered years ago that the urine of the people of Leviathan had a highly acidic nature from eating the desert fruits and this acidic nature killed the parasites. So, the people collect their urine and work it under the plates of the sandcrawler wherever an infection develops...and occassionally just as a preventive medicine.
Well, the science of Leviathan is sketchy but hey, its for a fantasy setting. There are plenty of details to fill in. How do sand crawlers breed? If Leviathan is a female and a male sand crawler goes to mount Leviathan, it could destroy the city. Do the citizens of Leviathan occassionally have to fight off a male suitor? Are there telepaths or sorcerers that communicate with the creature? How can it fit in your game? I'll leave that to you ti figure out. I'm still figuring out how to work it into mine.
White Wolf is taking legal action against the creators of the new Underworld movie.
I admit. When I first saw the trailer for Underworld, I thought "Wow. It's like White Wolf's World of Darkness." Not having read the script or anything and just going off what I've seen in the trailers, they probably did draw a lot of inspiration from White Wolf material.
However, I think WW is going a little too far. I seriously doubt the movie has a vampire clan called the Brujah or Toreador. I doubt the movie will have the Eco-warrior Garou. The movie combines them with the Romeo and Juliet story. Are WW and Collins claiming they invented that story too? Nobody believes Shakespeare actually came up with the idea either. (Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter on the other hand, would have been completely original.)
When the Vampire RPG game originally came out, Anne Rice was at the peak of her popularity and Vampire: The Masquerade made no attempt to hide all the material they were borrowing from Rice. If they can sue the makers of Underword, can Anne Rice sue them? Can the creators of Near Dark sue White Wolf?
Maybe White Wolf's just pissed that Underworld is probably going to turn out better than Kindred: The Embraced.