A-Z Action: B is for Beastmen

I'm going to talk about Tinderbox's Beastmen, the faction probably closest to what could be termed "villains" in the setting. First, though something I was reading the other day has me thinking I really should come up with some other names with them. I don't, in general, worry that my stance on anti-Common necessitates re-naming every object and race a dozen times; dudes call themselves what they call themselves, and strangers from other cultures learn to deal with it. This is not, after all, a setting where a single language rose to dominance or quasi-dominance, and the folks of one nation are named for a wholly different nation's inhabitants because one dude with three ships had trouble with maps.

The question then becomes what language to use for naming them. The circumstances that created the beastmen occurred at a time when the orcs had been brought to heel by the Tran and their human allies. The elves were also present on the surface, having been in conflict with the orcs and humans before the dwarves and their goblin army broke the surface. When the humans saw what the Tran did with the orcs, they realized that they were next; their technology was about the same level as the orc tribes, and humans of course lack any of the same physical advantages. Since Tinderbox is a godless campaign, the human tribes turned to primal spirits for aid. They received that aid, but the only spirits who answered the call were Primordial entities. I tend to treat Spirit/Primordial as more of a continuum based on the individual's view of living things in creation. Not unlike Banes versus spirits in Werewolf, only generally shying away from the more modern psychological/industrial identities found in that game.

These spirits offered power to the desperate humans, but they were only willing to empower them in exchange for a berth in the race's "souls" (which, in keeping with the non-divine nature of the setting, would really be spirits). The initial results of this were probably "liminal" monsters---thanks for teaching me yet another way to force that word into conversation, Wizards!---gnolls, minotaur-style ungulates, bearmen, etc. However, the offspring of those creatures, as well as any humans who either entered these compacts later or produced offspring alongside the original beastmen, more closely resemble shifters. When I say shifter I include longtooth, razorclaw, or anything else I decide to work up along those lines; Eberron had a great wealth of different, evocative shifter breeds which I do miss them in the current game. The variations amongst these breeds reflect environmental and cultural alterations, but all shifters are considerably weaker and less intelligent than the majority of full-fledged beastmen.

Adolescent beastmen are consecrated to the tribe's totem Primordial...which has considerable similarities to the genasi of the Silken Kingdoms. Of course, there's not been anyone with the opportunity to make this connection since the beastmen are insular and violent, and don't talk to other races. Most beastmen are going to embrace their tribe's spirit, but some will instead be traded away to a tribe their personality fits better. Beastmen who find no acceptance amongst their totems or who descend from tribes which never earned a significant totem's allegiance are the most likely to have something resembling a nonviolent relationship with other races---frankly, they don't have the power to do much else. I'm keeping the beastmen at a technological level that's far behind even the secondary races of the Tran. This means that members of the race who don't turn into awesome gnoll-dudes are in largely the same place that the original humans were, relative to the other civilizations on the continent.

But I'm attached to the rather bland "beastmen" name because it's so accurate to what, exactly, this race is. It also serves as a unifying term for both the undifferentiated (shifter) beastmen and the more uniquely identified tribes.

On the subject of tribes, later I'm going to fling up a few statblocks from the beastmen the parties in Tinderbox have faced so far. I built most of these beastmen using an online monster builder in late 2010, back when I was without Insider access. However, I ran every one of them through the official Monster Builder when I started the game back up. I'm still refining my touch when it comes to balancing monsters, as well as just building their slate of powers, so I imagine I may alter these core creatures as time goes on.

That A-Z Action: A is for Ambition

You know what's cool? A-Z blogging is cool.

Least, it seems to be; damn near every rpg blog I read regularly or recently is on that tip. And while I've rarely met a bandwagon I liked, this one dovetails nicely with my efforts to get more regular content updates running through Ego Poisoning.

To that end, fully aware of the shameful consequences of failure (I'd be shamed, mostly), I embark on this journey as well. It won't really change most of what I'm going to write about, realistically; just drive me to write more often, and to occasionally shoehorn a post that I wanted to make, or discussion I wanted to comment on, into a particular alphabetical niche.

For A, then, I want to talk about Ambition. Now, what got me thinking about this topic was actually the nature of this blog itself; what it started out as (Me being in a strange new town for a strange new experiment known as grad school...me occasionally being drunk and watching strange YouTube videos at 3 in the morning) and what it's gradually evolved into (Dungeons and Dragons, occasionally a movie review). It's left me wondering, somewhat, why I didn't just start a DnD blog in the first place, though ultimately I don't think that would have worked given how overwhelming the first semester of grad school was. But for the immediate future I can definitely see running this as all gaming and the occasional movie review; hell, if someone gave me money and/or digital space to yammer about films elsewhere, I'd leave Ego Poisoning as sacrosanct to just gaming.

The other, and probably larger, reason I decided to kick my 26 entries off with Ambition is my recent ruminations about campaigns, including---of course---Tinderbox. I haven't been satisfied with how either of the groups I'm running through the city are progressing, and I haven't been sure how much of the blame for that I should apportion myself (but I know it's a significant share, with what the multi-month hiatus and such). However, I recognize that a major element in my dissatisfaction is the contrast between what I envisioned for this sandbox campaign, and what I'm seeing so far from the parties.

When I set out to run Tinderbox, I knew I'd be running a continuation of Lockout; in essence, the same game but a few weeks later, giving the factions a chance to solidify and carve up the city. The core conceits, even many of the core NPCs, remained the same. It was still a game about a disparate group of individuals stuck in, effectively, a very large and very dangerous box. I still find that concept extremely attractive, all the more so because I have these grand visions for plotlines and great battles and surprises and unexpected dungeons and valuable NPCs and shifting political conflicts...and yet, the simple fact is I haven't even sat down and written Slaughterhouse statblocks for ANY of my zones. Not even the one both parties are in right now. The one that, ostensibly, they're depleting opponents from.

I have a grand vision for converting treasure parcels into Progress Points, which players can then cash in for wealth and favors. The party also accrues these points, and can use them for purchasing safehouses throughout the city. I have this vision, and I have sketches of how it plays out, but I haven't sat down and written functions to determine all of this---though I have tried to pawn that task off on my cousin, because despite being a little more than half my age she manages to make me look like a simpleton.

The most recent entry in the Architect DM series ends with the exhortation "Don't Be Afraid of World Building." I'm not, as evidenced by the cultures, races, feats, class alterations, and history I've crafted for Tinderbox. I thought out, and wrote out, three entire continents' worth of empires and peoples for a game that I knew, at its outset, was going to be about a single---albeit large---dangerous box. I love worldbuilding. I have campaigns for days.

I have not, on the other hand, named the city. At all. Anywhere. Even when it was Lockout, before. I have a city, I have a general knowledge of how the zones are laid out, I have a much better knowledge of how the factions within it interact, and I have all sorts of great vignettes involving specific encounters that I want the PCs to have at various points. I have multiple out of place NPCs I plan to seed the city with, just to give the PCs unexpected challenges or opportunities largely divorced from the whole faction concept.

But I don't have a name for the city. Because the way my ambition functions, I tend to see and hunger for this vast, intricate, detailed contraption...but quickly lose interest in the sorts of critical information one would find in the owner's manual of said contraption.

So I really should name the city...maybe something that starts with A.