Song of Swords: Ringen and Dingen

Gizka's a Christmas Cake. She's going on 30 or something. She's probably not the killer she was when she was younger. I'd give it to Ciri.

Ciri is a high fantasy character living in a low fantasy setting. She's absurdly powerful in comparison to Gizka.

so we should pit her against Eskarne?

>pitting anyone against the mortal incarnation of murder

You say that like a volley of gunfire and some well placed explosives by the Gizka Company wouldn't even the odds.

You say that like Ciri isn't capable of teleporting directly into her tent the night before and stabbing her, then fucking off to a parallel dimension.

Clearly we require more strictly defined parameters.

She'd probably just stab one of the macross girls that Gizka keeps in her tent.

If I were to run a game of SoS, recruiting from here, would you guys rather play it by text or by voice?

My personal favorite is mechanical decision making and play through text. With narration and non-mechanical roleplay and character interaction through text.

Edit: mechanics through voice*

Well, that certainly makes things easier for me. But it still means I'll have to buy a microphone. I'll run a recruitment drive when stuff's ready, seeing as this is the only place you can realistically get players.

Death walks barefoot.

Do you want to hear my thick Russian accent?

Yes.

You asked for this, comrade

The comrades will be your enemy, comrade. I hope you like destabilising small not!African nations.

I'm in the same boat, need to buy a microphone. So put me down as preferring text.

Da.

Text.

I also have a broken Mic. They make the damn things so cheaply these days

Did anyone ever save the bit about goblin plastic surgery?

I'm having trouble finding it in the archives

wait what is this goblin plastic surgery

Either is good by me.

...

Now is the time when we joust for our honor!

swordplusone.com/Jousting_final.pdf

>seeing as this is the only place you can realistically get players.

I found my SoS group on gamefinder.

Ciri is one hot springs episode away from being an anime character, giving her a decided advantage. If she had witcher mutations I'd say it'd be pretty open-shut. As it stands she's still a regular human, but with some magical bullshit and some of the best training possible. Gizka can bring roughly the same level of martial skill, but nothing to compare with fookin teleportation magic.

I'd give it 60-40 odds in Ciri's favor, just judging off of what I've seen in the games. If you gave Gizka some details and a few weeks to mug some witches for appropriate magical countermeasures, the odds might shift to her favor.

It's either these threads, Gamefinder, or personally converting your players to the system.

I will give war a chance

Has anyone in the Void worked on or discovered turbo encabulators?
youtu.be/rLDgQg6bq7o

What era?

I was like okay then it went full faux-science

>Handmade dumplings
>Bison meat, onion, dill, salt, pepper, garlic
>Topped with sour cream

I pity the dead who can no longer know such pleasures

That was the hardest laugh I've had in a while.

...

This has come up before. Gizka is a great swordfighter and all, but what exactly makes you so confident that she can cobble together magical answers to OP characters?

It sort of sounds like she's the fantasy equivalent of batman. Her superpower is preparation.

I can see Gizka saying
>Tell me, do you bleed?
>you will

Minor witcher book spoilers ahead, nothing too important though.

She seems to be regular human for the most part. But I started rereading the novels and in the first one Triss remarks how the witchers have pimped her diet with the shrooms and herbs, which porbably also have been used to make the trials, which lead to some enhanced performance of ciri.
So, she didn't undergo the trial, but she had a little taste of it, so to speak.
Like, no full mutation, more like steroids or something like that. Enhancing her just a little bit.
Found a passage briefly describing it, trying to translate it somewhat decently:
>(Triss speaking) "The mushrooms, the secret of which you guard so dearly", she explained, "indeed keep her in good condition and strenghten her muscles. The herbs ensure an ideal metabolism and quicken her development. All together, however, amplified by the murderous training cause certain changes in her physique. [...]"
But after the discussion triss advised them to further regulate her diet, lowering the amount of mushrooms and herbs. All that was around the beginning of the winter. And as soon as spring broke they left Kaer Morhen, so it is debatable how much of an impact that diet had. But it seemed to be certainly measurable (at least the amounts before the regulation), since Triss did notice it.
So, that was just sperging about that she might be a bit more than just a regular human, in terms of physique and shit. Or at least more than a regular woman. Maybe it just brought her up enough to compete with men or something.
Also: Bump!

These will be a McGuffin in some game.

That's the point, it's an engineering in joke that's complete technobabble.

It might be her extreme paranoia at play.

She has some in-setting history of digging up magical things, like her enchanted sword and a giant's womb. All of these took years to gather, though, and it's unlikely she could get something on the order of Ciri's bullshit magic.

I've been playing King of Dragon Pass because of last thread.
Fuck the Apples, eat Triceratops cavalry you cattle stealing sons of a troll!

You got triceratop cavalry? How?

Stealing magical artifacts and shamelessly abusing them for her own ends is something Gizka has done a few times now. I've been light on the details because each of the stories would make a really good Fecht.

Most people are too smart to tangle with witches or dark spirits just to gain some trinket with a few powers, but Gizka is the perfect combination of stupid and cunning to go through with it and actually succeed.

Keep Earthshakers eggs, wait til they hatch and grow up, train them

A dragon magician pops round and asks you what is best in the world, to which you answer "Provision", and then he leaves. Later, you get some eggs, which you can sacrifice, break, trade or raise. Raise them, and later they hatch into triceratops that you can train as either cavalry or beasts of burden.

>A giant's womb
what

>Average zell raid on the not-vikings

SQUEAK

Can't be, "Kill as many as possible" isn't selected.

...

You always leave some alive to breed another generation of cash crop.

Fair.

Well they certainly aren't swarthy.

...

Tell me about the Zellislava.
How effective do they become for boarding actions?

Well when they start eating the other ship, I'd say that's an advantage.

If I want to beat a weapon with my hand, what TN do I use?

>punching swords
I'd rule it like an Arm Parry with similar consequences.

Right, but the actual mechanism by which zellislava act has never been described within my awareness. We know they can subsume materials and alter their form, and that the older more complicated ones are capable of independent locomotion,

but how?
Do boards peel back and flex like muscle once the ship is old enough, or can only joints and junctures be manipulated as if the ship were a puzzle box?
Are materials subsumed through contact alone, or does mechanical action deconstruct and incorporate parts?
We know that Old Radovan's ship is aware of its occupants through some psychic sense and that it's pervy as hell, but are the snags that tear at clothing planned traps or improvised manipulations of extent components?

It's magic, I know, so it can be anything, but Jimmy has been vague before and it's the sort of thing that cries out to be mechanically defined -somehow-, especially since they also exist in CotV:BotLW

That'd have to be a houserule. I'd say 8 though.

Zells prefer not to board ships, simply because boarding a hostile Zellislava is suicidal--the ship itself will try to kill you, and this doesn't stop even if you kill its entire crew. There's no way to "capture" a Zellislava, you basically have to put it down or just let it go. And sometimes, it won't stop chasing the guys who killed its crew, and you'll end up with a monster boat chasing you for the rest of your life unless you can sink it.

But, if enemies (probably humans, they wouldn't know better) try to board your ship, you can expect just about everything that could accidentally happen to them, to happen. The boom will whip across the deck and decapitate someone every time you tack. Barrels and crates will come loose of their ties just as someone steps beneath them. Doors will slam shut at random as people cross through them, or lock as water floods the compartment through a spontaneous hull rupture.

Moreover there are an awful lot of spinning, bladed parts on a Zellislava--the Zells usually don't notice in the same way that we don't notice that our teeth are right next to our tongue and could easily bite it in half, but invaders on a Zellish ship will find it to be about as safe as you'd imagine crawling around through the inner workings of a giant, frantically paced possessed by the ghost of Chingis Khan to be.

What about when boarding a human ship?

Damn that's steep.

Yeah it is. You don't Beat weapons with your hands. Use a weapon.

The Zellislava might tilt to make it easier to board, but it couldn't do much beyond that.

At least, most of them couldn't. Some, such as Akula Bozemir's ship, "Plavniki," can move far more than others. That hideous vessel is supposedly capable of lifting up its pontoons like a beast on all fours, and literally climbing on to other ships to smash their crews and allow its own sailors easier access.

For the most part, though, Zells who do board human ships simply do it manually. They're aren't much bothered by the roll of waves or unsteady footing, and if their archers were doing their jobs, most of the enemy will have died long before the boarding action took place.

Zellish naval warfare traditionally has consisted of the Captain (or his First Man, if he isn't the best archer on the ship) standing on the bow of the vessel as it closes with the enemy, and loosing shots at the enemy from an obscene range with his wheelbow. Some crews (like the Tesshechtites) turn this into a game, with the crew calling out increasingly ridiculous feats for their champion to perform. Others take it more seriously. The Sethites, famously, all go below deck while the master archer looses, and only return once he comes down and tells them (verbally) that he is finished--at which point he remains below deck for the rest of the battle.

Damn, so no outlaw star ship with an axe shenanigans?

If someone gets an early rifle they could seriously fuck with sethites.

Zells with wheelbows can get pretty ridiculous. A good rifle would even the field, but I don't think it would be a decisive advantage.
Especially since he'd shoot for you first.

A few great champions died in such a way, but Sethite ships all have one thing in common--they produce fog. Visibility is always terrible around Sethite vessels, and they often rely on sound to kill each other.

The infamous "Cappy Jan," a Sethite who is known for singing and dancing and otherwise being very loud in port, but utterly silent on his vessel, once famously steered his ship through the entirety of the Thread of Life (a hideously dangerous straight in the Broken Sea) by hearing alone. To hear him speak of it in port, he only did it that way because he had a cold, and could not steer by smell.

But, a human gunner with patience (and no headcold) and a keen eye could possibly screw over the Sethites something fierce. Normally, if their champion perishes, the ones below deck will simply surrender, and offer to bring their conquerors to some treasure in return for their freedom. They do tend to have nice treasure stashes.

>possibly
Good fucking luck landing a shot on a man on a boat at sea with a shitty black powder gun also on a boat at sea when the man is covered in "terrible" fog at "obscene" range

I'm not implying that it would be easy, but the inaccuracy of black powder weapons is often exaggerated. Even before rifled muskets, many British marskmen could should very impressive groupings even at hundreds of yards... And weapons actually decreased in accuracy after the move towards mass production.

There are men with heavy arquebuses--even rifled ones--who can shoot impressive distances in Tattered Realms. The problem is finding such a person. Most of the time it is better to be proficient in rapid shooting at a shorter distance, snipers are not exactly in high demand.

For one such individual, one could look for Linko "the Coward" Naguud, a member of the Gizka Company who is said to have never once in his life drawn his sword in anger, despite having fought in six wars. His own men named him such because, whenever a fight began, he would sprint away from the enemy so that he could continue shooting while they fought in melee. He was (supposedly) hanged for desertion at one point in his life, but survived. His head always hangs at a strange angle, perhaps as a result, and some have joked that the angle it hangs at is perfect for shooting. Must be why he's such a smart shot.

Anyone got the weapon update?

I own you family

I thought all gizkas men were hanged, or are the hanged men linkos former gang?

I assume Gizka also doesn't return the stuff she borrows. Damn thieving cats.

Got a link to the previous threads? I've forgotten what the alive scraper is again.

How about Vlatko's mate, the guy with a manuballista or whatever it was called?

I'd guess that he's good, but not the Quigley level of awesome that is needed to take out a well champion.

You'll fit right in with the natives.
Roughly mid twentieth century Napoleonic period.

It is my own setting, rather than TR or the void; but don't worry, the campaign will be self-contained in a small and infodump-less section I made for this campaign.

>mid twentieth century
>Napoleonic
Did you mean mid nineteenth century?

Even mid-19th is a bit of a stretch for Napoleonic considering Napoleon was fucked over in 1812 IIRC

Nope. Technology has been escalating faster and faster the past few decades, and culture can't keep up. Eighty years ago we fought with pikes and cannons, now we use computers and these portable machineguns. But we dress in uniform and we never made the bayonet, because we never thought that war could change.

Like Ballad's Chiron, but under their own industrial steam. The players will be spies for a modern state, deep in the heart of colonial Africa. But colonial Africa still uses spears. Spears and cheap shotguns.

>we never made the bayonet, because we never thought that war could change.
No, I don't understand

They have guns what shoot good but they don't know how good they shoot. So they still think separate sharp pointy things are useful. This same reasoning applies to most things.

Color me intrigued.

>because each of the stories would make a really good Fecht.

Well get on with it then

You know I just had the thought, ballad would be great for a firefly campaign.

>Akula Bozemir's ship, "Plavniki,"
"Fins" is a weird name for a ship. Maybe "Chertov Plavnik" (Devil's Fin) or "Vodomer" (Water Strider) sounds better?

>fins
>s
Is it plural? That seems too weird to be accidental.

Yes, it's plural. Plavnik is singular form.

Then I suspect it is a Jimmy Buffet reference.

youtube.com/watch?v=UruXWui1EG8

What type of food do they serve at a Jimmy Buffet?