Torg Current Game History - September 2013

[Sir Alain Fisk]

Current Timeline

September 2013

• (Cyberpapacy) A space shuttle is scheduled to be launched.

[Sir Alain Fisk]

Rules

First, we would like to issue a caveat. The rules which appear in Infiniverse are in development, which means they might change before they are published in a game supplement. Some of the rules may take considerable time before they see print, so if you are playing with a gamemaster who does not subscribe to Infiniverse, you are just going to have to show him or her your copy.

_____Increasing Skills Over Time_____

The skill rules cover the spending of Possibilities to increase skills, and this is the quickest way for a Storm Knight to advance. But, a Storm Knight may also train to gain skills; training is the only way an Ord may improve his skills.

To train, a character must devote himself exclusively to training in that skill, spending eight hours a day, at least 25 days a month to count as one month of training. The number of months needed to improve a skill is equal to the value of the number of Possibilities which would be required to raise the skill to the next level.

(HOUSE: Realistically, what is expressed in the previous paragraph would be accurate. However, this is a cinematic game, it is a game, and if you were really your character in the real world, you would never have this kind of time. So, for my game, the number of Possibilities required to move to the next Add in that skill is how many weeks, and how many hours per week, are required to be able to raise a skill. This rule applies only while adventuring. All in-game times between adventures have the rule from the previous paragraph applied to them, instead. ie - If you have four months between adventures, as I designate as the GM, then you can use that time to raise two skills from 1 Add to 2, each, or raise one skill from 2 to 3, or 3 to 4 Adds. Remember to go from 2 Adds to 4 would actually require 7 months (3 + 4).

HOUSE Example: A character wishes to improve his running from +3 to +4 in running. It would normally require four Possibilities to raise the skill. However, to train the skill from +3 to +4 would require four months of training time.)

The same rule applies for learning the first add in a skill, so training for +1 in alteration magic, without a teacher, would require 10 Possibilities, or 100 months to train.

A Storm Knight may either train for a skill add, or spend Possibilities for the add. He may not mix-and-match. The only skill increases possible for an Ord are through training.

_____Card Play and Group Size_____

Group size does affect the probabilities of card combinations being played from player’s hands. We balanced the card deck for what we considered to be the most likely sizes of groups, which are three to six players. From the Infiniverse responses, it is apparent that a good number of you are playing with groups which do not fit in this range. The following optional rules help keep game balance when you have fewer or more than three to six players.

One Player. The player receives eight cards. Each time she starts a card pool, she may play three cards. Play of a leadership card allows the player to add two cards to her own pool, then refill her hand to eight. A rally card also completely refills the hand. Supporter cards may be played to support a gamemaster character, or the player may discard them for another card.

Two Players. Each player receives six cards. When each player starts a card pool, each may play two cards into their pool. Leadership cards allow the player to refill her hand to six. A rally card completely refills each players hand.

Three to Six Players. Card play is unchanged.

Seven or More Players. The maximum number of cards a player may trade and/or receive through play of leadership cards in a round is six. So if a player receives two cards from the play of a leadership card, she may only trade four cards that round. This limit balances the superior card selection a group of seven or more players has over smaller groups.

[Sir Alain Fisk]

Dispatches

_____1_____

With Mobius apparently unwilling to take any action to restore order to Cairo, Overgovernor Wu Han decided to take action. He declared martial law throughout the city, and in a desperate attempt to find Deathhawk, ordered his troops to take any and all costumed heroes into custody. He also commanded that the crime syndicates be disarmed.

The gangs resisted, naturally, but Wu Han’s forces were more than a match for the weakened crime lords. Soon, Wu Han controlled the entire city, with shocktroopers making mass arrests of any “suspicious or undesirable characters.” This designation applies to anyone from outside the realm, including Storm Knights. Wu Han then declared the city “politically quarantined,” and his troops blocked all roads into and out of Cairo.

In the midst of this chaos, Deathhawk reappeared. He had organized a group of costumed heroes and began his new campaign of terror by breaking into Wu Han’s armory and handing out weapons to civilians.

_____2_____

The mysterious killer who terrorized Singapore has escaped to Borneo, with Storm Knights in pursuit. When the Knights reached the heart of the island, they made a horrifying discovery: whole villages of primitives had been ritually murdered, their bodies laid out in circles in the center of their settlements.

The Knights were told the killers were searching for a mystical talisman of great power known as the “Black Eye”, and they should be stopped. They trailed the band of killers deep into the jungle, finally coming upon the tribe that bears the “Black Eye.” The Eye is an Orrorshan magical object, and it is being worn by the tribal chief in place of his true left eye. The Eye has the possibility shadows spell focused into it, enabling its users to see into the near future. Unfortunately, the constant slipping from present to future-sight and back again caused by the Eye often drives its user mad after a brief time.

The chief who possessed the Eye had gone insane, vowing to use its power to conquer other tribes and eventually Orrorsh itself.

_____3_____

The situation at the Sons of the Wind temple allowed Kanawa Co. to gain a controlling interest in the Do-Lung Conglomerate. Soon, the old, more traditional buildings that Do-Lung owned were replaced by modern skyscrapers of glass and steel. Whole city blocks became a nightmarish neon landscape.

Under the influence of Kanawa, Do-Lung began purchasing vast amounts of real estate in and around Hong Kong. This prompted the other local magnates to merge into a conglomerate of their own and make land deals in an attempt to prevent Do-Lung from owning the entire area.

In addition, Kanawa has sunk its financial hooks into the Bank of Hong Kong. The bank’s central branch is now making ruthless business moves — foreclosing on mortgages, denying loans to low-income families, etc.

_____4_____

National Park Service rangers have reported strange happenings in Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. Strange, hairless humanoid creatures with pale reddish skin have been spotted along the banks of the Colorado River, and there have been incidents of visitors to the park and rangers being assaulted by them. When the creatures are pursued, they disappear into the most turbulent section of the river, and do not emerge. The Delphi Council has expressed concern that these beings may represent some new species of Living Land creature, and have requested that Storm Knights investigate the matter.

[Sir Alain Fisk]

Rumors

_____1_____

A Kanawa Co. freighter has docked at Port Said in Egypt, preparing to take on a load of crude oil to be transported back to Japan. But an assistant to Nippon’s ambassador to the Nile Empire, Syn Mizufune, has leaked word that there may be more taking place on the docks than even Mobius is aware of. The rumors are that the cargo hold of the Chilan will not be filled with oil, but something infinitely more valuable: reality bombs.

Nippon has reportedly succeeded in bribing the security guards at the “weird science” research center in El Mansura, and their agents are primed to slip into the main laboratory and make off with a large stock of the powerful weapons.

_____2_____

Residents of a Paris Liberté district have informed the Underground that a denizen of Magna Verita has been captured by the Inquisition and is currently being held in Montmarte and tortured in the GodNet, in the hope he will reveal the whereabouts of his companions. How large his cell of cosm conspirators may be is unknown, but it is certain he would possess a good deal of valuable information on the resistance movement that would aid Malraux. If this is true, the man, Viliers by name, must be rescued before the Inquisition makes him crack.

_____3_____

In October of 1955, the 25 passengers and crew of the Joyita, outbound from Samoa, vanished without a trace — the boat itself was found over a month later, badly damaged but still seaworthy. The fate of the people who set out on the last voyage of the pleasure-boat has remained a mystery for almost 40 years.

Now mariners from the South China Sea to the Gulf of Carpentaria have reported sudden attacks on their vessels by horrific beings, things that kill their crewmen and attempt to wreck their ships. The creatures, christened “Ndatos” by the sailors, appear to be human in most respects, but their hands are misshapen claws, their teeth hideous fangs, and leather-like wings sprout from their backs. Strangely, the descriptions of their human features tally with those of passengers and crew of the ill-fated Joyita’s last voyage.

Local superstition has led many to believe that these creatures are, indeed, the missing people from that ship. Legend has it that the barriers between Earth’s cosm and the demon realm were weakened by the high number of atomic tests in the Pacific in the 1950s, allowing some creatures to slip through and capture those sailing on the Joyita. Now the axiom wash from Orrorsh has allowed those people, now hybrids of human and demon, to return to this plane.

If, indeed, this story is true, it raises questions: why did these demonic beings come back? Are they seeking some sort of twisted revenge for their fate by attacking sailing ships, or are they in torment, and trying to find some way to escape it? There is no telling when, or if, the answers will ever be known.

_____4_____

The villages that dot the Bavarian Alps have remained largely untouched by the Possibility Wars, save for some Core Earth troop maneuvers in the countryside. They have been content to let it remain that way, but the plans of the High Lords may have intruded on their serenity at last.

Someone — or something — has taken up residence in the halls of Neuschwanstein, the magnificent 19th-century castle which clings to a rocky crag overlooking the River Pollat. The castle was constructed by King Ludwig II of Bavaria, but many believe that supernatural forces were at work when it was built. Some point to its resemblance to the castle of legend which housed the Holy Grail, others to the fact it is built on the site where the hero Lohengrin is said to have lived. Putting aside those old tales, the facts (as best as they can be gathered) are that mysterious lights have been seen in the hallways late in the eve, and a spectral being of gigantic proportions has been seen on the battlements.

Under normal circumstances, these sightings might be dismissed as hysteria, but with the bizarre events of recent months, no chances can be taken. A platoon of American infantry was assigned to surround the castle, but as they reached the German-Austrian border, a strange fog rose around them and they were unable to find their way to the edifice.

Agents from all but one of the various realms which have emerged on Earth since the invasion have been spotted in Austria, and some have already mounted expeditions to Neuschwanstein. The Nippon and Nile teams made it to the castle, but returned empty-handed. The Orrorsh creatures were found in the Pollat, their bodies torn to shreds. The Aysle and Cyberpapal squads never emerged from the castle.

Exactly what is inside the castle, if anything, is unknown. But the evidence suggests that it is something of value, since the High Lords have shown interest in it — it also appears to be highly dangerous, judging by the fate of the Orrorshan agents. Storm Knights are advised to exercise extreme caution when investigating this rumor.

_____5_____

The Living Land is infamous for its huge variety of creatures — but now, strange as it seems, they have begun to disappear. A resistance community in Mount Laurel, NJ sent word through a realm runner that a squadron of uniformed men gassed and captured a colony of meskobats, loading the poisonous insects aboard trucks and driving off. Similar accounts have come in regarding langatok, quarteks, pakottons, bonthkra and abentallos.

All of the stories have described the same group of men, and have been emphatic in stating that they did not resemble Spartan squadrons. There have been no sightings of the men, the creatures or the trucks in Core Earth areas, but the last report from the resistance communities was that the vehicles were headed south.

The Delphi Council has denied any involvement in the happenings, and has pointed out that the transport of dangerous creatures across state lines is forbidden by Delphi Act 4527. Some council members have expressed private fears, however, that they may know who is responsible. Shortly after the U.S. government relocated to Houston, Delphi was approached by an Atlanta geneticist, Dr. George R. Bartholomew, who believed it would be possible to cross-breed Living Land beasts and create new creatures that could serve as an army for Core Earth. His idea was dismissed as too dangerous, but there are concerns that he may have found a source of funding in the private sector and have embarked upon his experiments. Delphi scientists believe that, if this is so, Bartholomew may end up creating new and more destructive monsters rather than ones that could be controlled by Core Earth men.

_____6_____

From all outward appearances, the Icarus Club in Thebes is a gathering place for the well-to-do of the Nile Empire. Wealthy traders, royal councilors, even overgovernors have been seen entering its golden doors.

But the truth may be a far darker one. The Cairo underworld has hinted that the Icarus Club is a front for a sophisticated criminal organization, modeled after the London and Tokyo stock exchanges. Gang leaders and costumed villains contact Icarus and explain their needs — maybe a safecracker for a job in Alexandria, or a torch to light up a paper that’s been criticizing the Empire — and will offer to trade a henchman or two to another gang to obtain the personnel required. Besides making criminal operations run more smoothly, this system allows Mobius to keep track of what major criminal coups are planned. If a particular gang is believed to have been aiding Storm Knights, the High Lord can lay a trap at their next target and eliminate them as threats.

The Icarus Club is run by Paul Bennington.

[Sir Alain Fisk]

Gamer Letters

Q. A few questions: 1. How high up do the stelae boundaries extend?

2. Is the ninja’s stun attack successful on a good attack result or damage result?

3. Where are the falling damage rules?

— Bradley Heinrichs; Surrey, Canada

Stelae boundaries normally extend 15 kilometers above the surface, and 150 meters below the surface. A High Lord may have the Darkness Device expend energy to maintain the axioms levels at a greater altitude. In the cases of Nippon and the Cyberpapacy they have each extended their realms to include near earth orbit (250 kilometers).

Pending testing on the Nippon Sourcebook the answer is the good result refers to the damage; beating a character’s Toughness ( or armor value) by three or more results in a stun.

The rules for falling damage are cleverly hidden on page 52 of the Torg Rulebook, under the description of climbing; weight value plus distance value fallen equals damage value. The greatest distance value which may be added is 14, the value of terminal velocity.

Q. If a player has two Glory cards in a pool can he play them both on a 60+ roll, thus gaining six Possibilities instead of the usual three?

Also, how about more details on Orrorsh, especially a World Law regarding fear, in future newsletters?

— Steve Tanner; S. Glamorgan, U.K.

Yes. Without the limits on card play set in this issue, it would become pretty easy for a large group to get several glory cards played on a single action. So if you play without those limits we would suggest you only allow one glory card be played on an action. However, no matter how many glory cards are played on a single action, they still only count as one glory deed for the purposes of seeding an area, per page 104 of the Torg Rulebook.

We should have Orrorsh world laws next issue (cross our hearts and hope to... well, maybe not, considering this is Orrorsh we are talking about).

Q. Congratulations on Torg; it's my favorite roleplaying game. In the Nile Empire Sourcebook, it states that possibility capacitors provide energy for powers in gizmos. If instead a power plant was installed, what would happen to the adventure cost and the limit value of flight.

Also, in The Destiny Map adventure, how was the sound-gun constructed?

Finally, how would you go about building a ray gun, without using the electroray power? For example, a weird laser? How would you determine its range, effect, limit value, etc.?

— Malcolm Shoals; Cleveland, OH

Power plants cannot energize powers; only possibility capacitors can energize powers. An airplane does not have the flight power; its ability to fly is perfectly explainable through normal science. Powers are those abilities which are not explainable through normal science, and therefore require weird science.

Uhm… gulp! The sound gun was designed before the Gizmo rules were written. Some weird science even we cannot explain.

We do not have official rules for other ray guns, although to help guestimate you could use the following: each point of adventure costs gets you four points of limit value and or maximum range. For instance, electroray has a limit value of seven, and a maximum range of 60 meters (value 9) for an adventure cost of four. A sonic disruptor might have maximum range of 25 meters (value 7) and a limit value 13 for an adventure cost of 5. Short range ends at a value four less than maximum, medium range ends at a value two less than the maximum range. The gamemaster is just going to have to decide how, qualitatively, a sonic disruptor differs from an electro-ray gun.

Q. I really liked the props found in The Destiny Map adventure, and was disappointed not to find them in The Possibility Chalice. The props add a great deal to the enjoyment of the game, and I hope to see more of them in future modules.

— Steven Allo; Dallas, TX

Okay, round one (of three) of feedback for this issue of Infiniverse. Props come at the expense of adventure text or illustration. What sort of mixture do you folks prefer? Do let us know, or you could get “Parking Lots of the High Lords” as a supplement.

Q. Can a Storm Knight use something foreign to both Core Earth and the realm she’s in (assuming she is in a dominant or even a mixed zone) for the price of a simple contradiction check or would she have to create a reality bubble? I.e. using cyberware in the Living Land – neither the Living Land nor Core Earth axioms will support it.

— Michael Levay; Roscommon, MI

Yes, a contradiction check is all that is necessary to support cyberware in the Living Land. Creating a reality bubble guarantees that the cyberware functions for the duration of the bubble; a contradiction check adds the possibility of disconnection.

Q. First of all, you are doing an excellent job of attending to the needs of your customers. Thanks! Now for the questions: 1. Can a player spend a Possibility to reduce damage to his vehicle or mount?

2. In a chase, do vehicles and mounts suffer from an action card generated fatigue?

3. Do weapons which fire exclusively on full auto gain the +3/+3 bonus? How about heavy weaponry?

4. Concerning The Possibility Chalice adventure, Act I, Scene 3: underwater and in full scuba gear, I could hardly speak or dance a lick. Sometimes saving the world means doing the impossible.

Keep up the good work!

— Jeri Haley & Brian Mudd; Twin Peaks, CA

1. Yes.

2. Yes.

3. Yes. Weapons which fire only at full auto are assumed to be firing in bursts rather than holding the trigger down for a continuous stream of fire. An optional rule which we cut due to lack of space should also be used if you are going to give the +3/+3 bonus to machine-guns and heavy weapons capable of auto-fire: Each round of auto-fire produces a great deal of heat and wear and tear on the barrel of the gun. Each round, the gamemaster rolls for damage to the gun, rolling a straight bonus and interpreting it on the ord damage table (as there are no reality rated machine-guns). A “KO” means the weapon is jammed. Unjamming it requires use of the weapon skill against a difficulty of 12. A gun which has taken four wounds cannot fire until it has been repaired (weapon skill against a difficulty 15, time ten minutes if all parts are available.) A gun which has been mortally wounded and is fired explodes, doing its damage value to everyone within a six meter radius.

4. We always like to keep our players on their flippers.

Q. I have a few questions for you: Do Ravagons in the service of High Lords exist under Orrorsh axioms, or those of the reality they are stationed in? Do all Ravagons practice Irishantism (as mentioned in Infiniverse)? May Ravagons know magic?

In the Torg Rulebook on page 90, gospog are said to never be possibility rated. Yet the Living Land Sourcebook says the gospog of the first through fourth plantings may use firearms under the Living Land reality. How is this possible?

— Patrick Flanagan; Freehold, NJ

Most Ravagons exist under the axioms of Orrorsh, but this majority is due in part to the fact that most Ravagons still reside in Orrorsh. If the Orrorsh High Lord is willing, and the receiving High Lord so wishes, the Ravagon can be transformed by the Darkness Device. While this reduces the Ravagons Possibilities to zero, the Darkness Device can transfer the Possibility energy back in a matter of hours.

The Gaunt Man created gospog to provide serviceable troops, no matter what cosms were invaded. The key realization was that while all living things were part of one reality or another at all times, the unliving could be mixed, as the existence of mixed zones proved. Orrorsh was uniquely suited to producing unliving troops. Gospog are “walking, personal mixed zones”, a mixture of the invading and the invaded cosm. They may use the tools of either cosm. Whenever they enter a third cosm they must roll for disconnection only if the task would cause a contradiction in both of the cosms which make up a gospog. They do not count as mixed zones for other characters, i.e. an edeinos could not stand on a gospog and cast miracles in Core Earth without fear of disconnection.

It took the Gaunt Man’s ingenuity and a great deal of effort to produce beings with all the useful traits (from the Gaunt Man’s perspective) of living beings while still counting as unliving for the purposes of being a mixed zone. This very property is what makes it impossible for a gospog to be reality rated, for the unliving is never reality rated.

[Sir Alain Fisk]

Herald Messages

New South American invasion reported in issue #2 of Infiniverse has been destroyed with the aid of a stolen Nile Reality bomb. It seems to have been only a side effect of Dispatch #2 — the attempt by Thratchen to gate in another technodemon. The 0 axiom levels were a side effect. Thratchen is attempting to repeat the experiment ... just to use the side effect.

Martin Wixted; Roxbury, MA

______________________________

U.S.S. aircraft carrier Forrestal vanished without trace off Argentinean coast. Storm Knights actively searching for further information.

Possible hardpoint/eternity shard discovered Bodmin Moor, Cornwall. Details sketchy, but rumored to be very powerful.

Steve Tanner; S. Glamorgan, U.K.

______________________________

FOR SALE: PBY Seaplane, recently “acquired” from the Nile Empire. Has sustained some combat damage, but still flies well. Fully Armed. WANTED. AIM-9L Side-winder missiles or AIM-132B ASRAAM. Need 4 four mounting on somewhat modified L24 Learjet. Contact Hummingbird, in Paris, France.

Michael Levay; Roscommon, MI

______________________________

“…Need a breather — my F-15 cuts out on me while fighting with this mothballer, takes everything I got to operate the ejector, then I climb up here on the tail of this heap when it crosses my chute. Well, it can’t get any worse… Oh great, that’s just great!”

Greyson Steward; Somewhere over the Nile

______________________________

To: Delphi Council Operatives
From: Delphi Council
Re: Robert Masters, Col. USAF retired.
Report all contact with Masters. Involved in incident involving Mobius. Wanted for trial. Top Priority.

Kyle Lucke; Grand Forks, ND

______________________________

The Delphi Council has been infiltrated by servants of Kanawa Corporation. Storm Knights be careful in dealings with the Council. You have been warned.

John Christopher; Gloucester, NJ

______________________________

In the easternmost half of Blair County (in central PA), all the fields in the area from Roaring Springs to the Huntington County border are filled with corpses for Gospog of the first planting —some 30,000 of them. At least 200 will have shotguns and hunting rifles (looted from the area).

Gregory W. Detwiler; Williamsburg, PA

______________________________

Have any of you ever tried recalibrating a reality bomb for the Nile Empire? Say, setting it to Core Earth standard axioms and letting go? Dr. Mobius won’t like it at all.

Duane Tant; Fairfax, VA

______________________________

Dr. Mobius makes extensive use of pharaoh hounds. They never bark, but they are intelligent enough to plan and work in teams (like the Dobermans in “The Adventure of Remo Williams”).

Jeff Campbell; Corvallis, OR

______________________________

During a battle 20,000 feet above the Empire of the Nile, a Nile mechanic was thrown from a seaplane at a Nile spitfire. He plummeted to his death. Or did he? Given the strange nature of the accidents in the Nile Empire he might have survived. He will probably want revenge.

Malcolm Shoals; Cleveland, OH

______________________________

There is a real “Deathhawk,” but his motives are less than pure. He plans to become Terra’s next High Lord. Dr. Mobius is trying to prevent support for Deathhawk by any means.

Scott Maxwell; Hayden Lake, ID

______________________________

In Cairo there is a mad scientist called the Evil Dwarf that has made a gizmo that controls the minds of mammals. Doesn’t seem to work on lizards or people containing cyberware. He has killed or taken control of several Storm Knights. Somebody has to take care of him soon.

Patrick Sahlstrom; Oslo, Norway

______________________________

—Hantu Limited is shipping hitech equipment into the Pacific Northwest for the remaining Core Earthers. They are giving technical help to the resistance.

—All efforts to follow this development are blocked by a mysterious erasure of all computer records.

—Why are they doing this, and how does this sit with Kanawa and Baruk Kaah?

Scott Schafer; Delaware, OH

______________________________

Storm Knights investigating disappearance of a statuette at the New Smithsonian in L.A. discovered ancient race (but possibly new invaders) on Easter Island. High Lord Uthorion has surfaced in a new body. He seeks the Eye of Morgathni, and now seeks it in an alien cosm…beware!

John M. Kahane; Ottawa, Canada