Fuck Yeah DragonQuest! Part 2

I've decided my dude's name will be Burgos. I don't know what a burgos is, but I like the sound of it.

The next step in the process should probably be selection of your College of Magic and all the spells and whatnot, since that's the next chapter, but I'm going to save that for last. So, we're jumping over that into equipment, followed by skills.

I'll get my weapons and armor first, which are found on pages 24 and 25. As you recall from last time (heh heh) I have a paltry 45 silver pennies (the common currency in DQ) to spend. Since he's an adept (DQ's word for someone who uses magic,) he's not gonna spend much. Cold iron really jacks with magic in DragonQuest, so if I wanted to use a sword, for example, I would probably want to use weapons made of bronze or bone (which will lessen their effectiveness.)

However, since Burgos's Strength is so low, that bars him from using most weapons. No surprises here. I kinda planned on that. Adding all the various factors, I decide on a hand axe and rock (yes, just a regular dumb ol' rock) as my weapons, and decide no armor at all will do, partly because it really annoys GMs. Now, to the equipment list on page 144.

Here's what I bought-

Hand Axe- 15sp
"Clothing"- 22sp
Leather Shoulder Pouch- 2sp
Quart Wine Skin- 2sp
Sleeping Sack- 3sp

TOTAL- 44sp

I'm going to dispense with the household items and sundries for this outing, so that leaves me with 46sp to spend on future expenses. Hopefully his skills and his magic will help get him through times of no dope. An itemized list will appear on the character sheet*, just in case you wondered what constituted "clothing." Rocks, in case you were wondering, are free.

As you may recall from part 1, I have 200xp to spend on skills and magic. Since I picked my weapons, it's now time to spend some experience points on them and for that we go way in the back to page 145 and table [87.8] the Experience Point Cost Chart.

Since Hand Axe weighs it at a hefty 100xp for Rank 0 (all skills start at rank 0) it looks like I'll be skipping that in favor of Magic, and maybe rank in a skill, depending on cost. I can probably swing Rock at Rank 0, however, since it's just 25xp. So, just to make it official:

Rock: Rank 0. This means I have a 30% chance to hit a target for D-1 damage.

Looks like I'm s.o.l. on skills, too, as the cheapest one is 200xp at Rank 0. This is true for all starting characters, so it's nothing to worry about. Now that that's out of the way we can finally move on to magic. I chose the College of Earth Magic for its abundance of outdoorsy spells. These are what I can afford with my remaining experience points-

Spell of Converse with Animals with a 45-50 percent chance of success- 50xp
Spell of Converse with Plants with a 25% chance- 50xp
Spell of Herbal Lore also with a 25% chance- 75xp

Add 25 points for the Rock and that comes to exactly 200 experience points.

As a starting character, he's kind of a pussy, but that's to be expected. A 1st level D&D MU probably has 2 or 3 hp, a dagger, and one spell he can use per day, probably Magic Missile or Sleep. Alone in the woods for a night, he wouldn't stand a chance.

At least Burgos can ask a deer for a good escape route or try to talk a wolverine out of eating his fingertips. Not too shabby. And these aren't just one-shot spells, either. He can cast as long as he has Fatigue points left. I'll explain that when I go into detail about the DQ magic system another time.

Oh, yeah- he also has a 1-in-3 chance of hitting some punk with a rock.

And that, my friends, is how a DragonQuest character is made. Not at all complicated or difficult, especially when compared to, well, a ton of other games, including some versions of D&D.

*Turns out the Excel sheet was giving me a little trouble in Open Office, so I'll have to leave it out this time.

A New Monster for DragonQuest- the Kervararkin

This was originally intended for B/X D&D, but I think it works better as a DQ monster. Thanks go to my homie Ettin of Hexin for "meow."

KERVARARKIN

Natural Habitat: Plains, Woods, Fields, often around human habitats

Frequency: Very Rare Number: 1-2 (1)

Description: Kervararkins are fairies of the Unseelie Host that look like a normal house cat (q.v.) but with a head closely resembling that of a human’s. They speak quietly, often in whispers. They can communicate with cats, but are only able to utter the word “meow” as a human would. In all other respects they are like cats.

Talents, Skills, and Magic: When in shadow, the Kervararkin fades from sight as per the spell Walking Unseen [43.4.5.] They can will themselves visible for a few moments at a time or return to visibility simply by stepping into the light.

Kervararkins will know a handful of spells from either the College of  Ensorcelments & Enchantments or the College of Illusion, but will .

Despite their use of magic, it is this last ability that makes them the object of animus among human adepts- a kervararkin can cause any area around it (usually no more than a few yards) to become a low mana area, regardless of the amount of mana already present.  This does not affect their own use of mana, however.

Movement Rates:

PS: 3-4 MD: 19-21 AG: 22-24 MA: 10-15

EN: 4-5 FT: 9-12 WP: 14-21 PC: 18-20

PB: 6-18 TMR: 9 NA: Fur absorbs 1 DP

Weapons: As per House Cat [66.2]

Comments: While most people have an aversion towards Kervararkins, they are especially disliked by adepts. They can be discouraged by symbols of the Powers of Light and will similarly avoid consecrated ground.

Kevararkin is ™ and © 2014 by Richard Butler, U.S. Reg. Pat. Off.

Fuck Yeah DragonQuest! Part 1

Today I'm going to create a character for SPI's amazing rpg DragonQuest (2nd ed.) Why? Well, because DQ died a young and truly tragic death and I for one would rather not see it fade from existence. Hopefully, this example of chargen may turn some people on to the game.

So I'm gonna go through it step-by-step and also by-the-book. Since characteristics are arrived at though point-buy, we get to avoid the liberal chargen augmentation typical D&D, i.e. roll 4d6, drop the lowest; place where you want, etc.

Since we're living in the Space Age, I'm gonna use a nifty Excel character sheet that's supposed to do all the math for me. You can find it here. Hopefully it works in Open Office as I don't have MS Office.


5. Character Generation

One of the neat things about DQ chargen is that it's both randomly rolled and point-buy. How is this possible, you ask? Please, let me demonstrate for you. First, roll 2d10 (in DragonQuest, the only die used is a d10, which is expressed in the game as simply "D," so in this case I would use "2D" to describe the roll. This'll come up again later) and consult the handy Point Generation Table (not shown.) The number I roll will provide for me the amount of points I can spend on characteristics and the maximum number I can place in any one of those scores. For example, a roll of 4 gives me 83 points to distribute among the six main characteristics, but with a maximum of 24 in one

Characteristics in DragonQuest range from a minimum of 5 to a normal maximum of 25. Some races (like giants) can surpass that number in certain characteristics.

Okay, my roll is 5+9=14 which gives me...93 points to divide among six attributes with a maximum of 21 in one slot. As per rule 5.2 this also means that I can have two attributes of 20 points and three attributes of 19, should I choose to do so. I don't know quite yet. As I love DQ's magic system, I think I'll pursue that path. But I have twelve colleges of magic to choose from (15 if you include Arcane Wisdom,) so I have some cogitating to do. But first, my scores-

Physical Strength: 11
Manual Dexterity: 13
Agility: 12
Endurance: 20
Magical Aptitude: 21 (I chose this first and maxed it for obvious reasons)
Willpower: 16
Fatigue: 22 (this is a figured characteristic based on Endurance)
Perception: 8 (all characters start with an 8 in Perception.)

I decided I want him to be a robust dude that can live off the land, thus the high Endurance, but he's no John Rambo- he has to rely on his magic skills to cover the areas where he comes up short physically.

6. Birthrights

I see this guy being human, but just for the hell of it I'm going to see if I can successfully roll on percentiles for a different race. Out of the ones available, I'm gonna shoot for Elf, Giant, and Shape-Changer (lycanthrope.) According to the rules, if the roll succeeds, I have to take the race, so whichever one I get first is the one I'm stuck with. Here we go-

Elf (30%)- I rolled a 95. Fail.
Giant (06%)- I rolled a 15. Close, but still fail.
Shape-changer (04%)- a 70. Looks like I'm human after all.

7. Aspects

This tells me what my character's place in the universe is, more or less, and is probably the closest thing to D&D's alignment. It's essentially astrology. Percentiles are used again here and I rolled a 66, which section 7.1 tells me means I'm Autumn Stars aspected. What this means is that during certain days of the year (and certain times of those respective days,) my dude will either be affected or afflicted by the Cosmos. This can suggest all kinds of things about my character (looks, style of dress, personality) or I can ignore that and go with whatever mental image I started with.

8. Heritage

Now we find out which side of the tracks my boy comes from. Everything from "poor trash" to "greater nobility" and a bunch of stuff in between. Another percentile roll and I get 17 which makes nature boy Impoverished Gentlefolk. Works for me.
Now let's find out if he's a bastard. Another percentile roll will tell me if he's a bastard, legit, or a first born child. This will affect his starting money and experience. I rolled a 68, which means he's legitimate- not as much fun as the other two possibilities, but I can live with it. No changes here.

But we're not done here quite yet. Now we find out how many siblings he has, if any, and what his place in line is. A D10 roll of 1, the loneliest number, reveals that he is second in line to the Throne of Mud and Hay. Huzzah!

We're almost done for today. The final step is to find out what his starting money and experience points are. This calls for two percentile rolls. The experience point roll: 92! That starts me off with 200 xp to spend. Nice.

The money roll: 40. That's okay, I guess. This gives me 45 silver pennies. Now, I refer back to the Social Status table (8.1) for my money multiplier- impoverished gentlefolk get a 2x to their starting dosh, so I get 90 sp to blow on gear and sundries. All in all I can't complain.

I think that's enough for now. Next time I'll buy his gear, do his skills, and settle on a college of magic.

XXVc Graphics for your Shopping Pleasure

There's one aspect of my game that I was slow in developing, but something that I really felt would make it better. I've already shown some of it with the artwork I've posted already, but another part of that is "coloring in" some ideas to help bring the setting to life.

So, the following is an advertisement for the Central Universal Department Store's "Superhappiness" campaign showcasing their fine line of I don't know. The CUD Store is a common sight in all large cities and some of the crappier arcologies. It's based on Soviet Russia's GUM Store (CUD is translated from whatever GUM stands for in Russian) and Walmart's cyclopean failure, Hypermart.

Not a Hypermart, but close. Click to big it up some.

Anyway, "Superhappiness" as an ad slogan has a nice "1984" feel to it, as does the nameless, unknown product they're hawking. I imagined the contents as some kind of generic Soylent Green type food-like substance, but it could be anything in there. Brightly colored bags of shit.

Click pic to BONUSIZE

I came up with a bunch of businesses that reside under the RAM umbrella (you've already seen a couple) and will do more logos and whatever in the near future. The CUD Store doesn't have a logo. There is no bigger store on Earth, and so it doesn't need one. It just is.

Superhappiness.

Japanese Plastic Recall

I saw a poster for the old Shogun Warriors toys the other night and the weirdest thing happened. All of a sudden I could smell the damned thing- the big giant robot, right after opening the box. Reminded me of Toy City, a bigass toy store in Overland Park where I first encountered Slime, Slime With Eyeballs, the original Star Wars figures, Eagle-Eye G.I. Joe and, of course, the insanely cool Shogun Warriors toys. Even saw the super rare Godzilla Shogun Warrior.

Obviously this brought back a brief, but pleasant blast of memories, which sadly vaporized almost as quickly as it arrived. But, man, that new robot smell!

This is the one that I re-smelled. I don't have the box anymore, but I still have the robot!

XXVc Graphics 2

One of the major differences between XXVc and its source material is the absence of the dreaded Han, who tormented those poor, savage North Americans in both the Buck Rogers comic strip and the two novels it was based upon.

So, I thought it would be amusing to introduce them into my game, albeit with some significant differences. In this case the threat is Han Airways, North America's largest airline. In this future, though, hydrogen-filled dirigibles have made a comeback in a big way, owing to a number of post-apocalyptic reasons.

Han Airways is run by Mr. Bogdan Bong, who also just happens to be the Regent of North America. Both of these positions have more than a little to do with Bong's father being the president of the massive Chinese megacorporation Han Chemical Group, of which Han Airways is a subsidiary.

It may not be apparent, but I actually put a lot of thought into these things. I've long had a fascination with corporate logo design, particularly from the 60's thru to the early 70's, which tended to run the gamut from dry to downright ugly. I realize the game is set 500 years in the future, but, hey- I gotta be me, amirite?

Anyway, more of these as they come to me. And if any fans of the game have any requests, let me know and I'll get cracking on it.