A coyote story

Once upon a time, the coyote was walking through the land and he stopped to rest on a rock.

He noticed the rock felt very cold, and he felt pity for that poor rock and put his blanket over the rock so it wouldn't be so cold.

He resumed his travel, but when the night fell, he felt the cruel chill himself, and he decided to recover the blanket. He went back to the rock and took it, but as he left, the rock, in its anger, moved the the whole hillside and rocks started falling down the slope. 

The coyote was squashed by the boulders. 

A white man found his body, as flat as a rug, and took it to his home where he put it on the floor as a rug.

Some time passed, and one day, the trickster coyote suddently came back to life and went right out the door.

I heard this story this morning and I wanted to transcribe it from memory before I forget it. 

 

 

World of Dungeons: Pokemon Spirit Combat

In World of Dungeons, magic is done primarily by summoning spirits. Yet these are the only rules present for it. Wondering how I could expand it, and mostly, wanting to define some example spirits for a list, I ended up wanting to turn magic into Pokemon-style combat. As such, spirits should have a list of 1 to 5 abilities that provide either firepower (against other spirits or the wizard's enemies), defense (same) or some utility (MOs in pokemon, utility spells in all rpgs). 

Spirits are usually minor spirits, not named or unique (a rule that can be broken at any moment); some actually seek for a wizard in order to "level up" or spend their excess energy; others are too dumb to know they are being catched. Lawful-aligned spirits might want to help their own, while chaotic demons will take fun in corrupting their wielder. 

The template for spirits in the pokedex should be something like:

NAME: generic name for the spirit, but you can rename your own, why not?
LORE:  The most important points are: habitat, a common way to make contact in order to "catch" it, and its usual mood. The latter can influence how the spirit behaves on partial successes and failures.
ATTACK#1 (maybe something useful at low level)
ATTACK#2 (the rest of the attacks are learned in order)
ATTACK#3 (though sometimes there might be a choice in the order) 
ATTACK#4 (mostly on through the middle progress)
ATTACK#5 (the idea is to put the most gamebreaking ones at the end)

I had this idea that, when you command your spirit to do something (roll 2d6+mod) and get a partial result/failure, the attack may be at random. Roll 1d6 and if you roll over your intended #attack, it happens. Else, the spirit may do the rolled attack or just act on his nature.

The easiest leveling up method for pokemons spirits is to have them grow when their summoner does: each level up of the caster, he can/must level up a spirit instead of getting some or all their HP (actual amount to be discussed). This also sort of fixes the fact that fighters progress the same as wizards in World of Dungeons.

An important note on spirit combat is that spirits do not die when defeated: they are debilitated. They don't even track hp: Instead they have a resistance value: if they are damaged by that amount, they are "stunned" for a round. If they are damaged for double that amount, they are defeated and need to rest. Damage and armor work as normal, but spirit attacks have types (electric, holy, fire, ice, etc), and spirits have resistances and weaknesses to those types (this means less, more or maybe no damage)

The next entry will probably be some spirit prototypes.The more I think on this project, the more I see that this whole blog was pointing towards it since the beginning. (even these ff8 GFs tie in here somehow)

 

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art by Suzuki Sarunobu

related (in my head) bonus: on the origins of the Miko

The origin of the Miko dates back to the end of the Jomon period (-14,000 to -300 BC) when women shamans entered into convulsions and trances to transmit the messages of the deities. Over time, they grew in importance, performing religious services and taking charge of various political and social activities.

From the Nara era (710 - 794), the political powers of the archipelago never stopped trying to regulate the activity of the Miko, to both control it and prevent abuse.

During the Sengoku period (1477 - 1573), the institution of the Miko also suffered from the chaos of the country and many priestesses brightened up in the country, becoming "arukimiko" - literally, "itinerant Miko" and exercising activities close to prostitution.

It was during the modern era, from the Edo period (1603 - 1868) to the Meiji era (1868 - 1912), that their role was gradually formalized, the practice of shamanism being prohibited under the Tokugawa while the imperial restoration prohibits any spiritual activity. 

The Miko that populate Shinto shrines today is easily recognizable. They wear a red hakama, the chihaya (white kimono top with wide cuffs), Japanese sandals, and quite often a hanakanzashi, a flower ornament that serves as a headdress.

They take care of keeping the shrine shop, offering omikuji, helping with the maintenance of the shrine, assisting the kannushi (Shinto priests in charge of the shrine) as well as performing the traditional dances, known as "Miko-mai".
 
It is often young virgin girls who hold these jobs, in the form of volunteer work or part-time work. They usually leave him when they get married.

There are several types of Miko, three categories if we follow the ethnologist Kunio Yanagita:

    jinja miko ("shrine miko"), the miko who participate in dances and rituals
    kuchiyose miko ("miko medium"), the miko who speak for the dead
    kami uba ("woman of the gods"), the miko in charge of the worship of the deities

The Miko has become, like other ancient symbols of the country, elements of Japanese popular culture. Often presented in manga with a broom in hand in shrines, they have the stereotypical figure of being temperamental and fierce.

 

 

 

1979: WORLD OF DUNGEONS, REVISITED

If you don't know about this game, go download it right now. It has got a lot to love, it's free, and its 4 pages + the Character Sheet. I loved this game and played with its rules at the time (as with everything, never ran it without changing most of it). I went back to check it out after all this years, and I saw so many things so clear that I had to write them all in here. I will from now on assume you have read the rules aforementioned. Here I go. 

1. Get rid of the big 6 attributes (str con dex int wis cha). Instead, each PC rolls 3d6 in order for their skills: +1 bonus for each 6 rolled, -1 if you roll only 1s, 2s or 3s. At each level up, there is a random chance to level up one skill. 

Athletics - Awareness - Deception -Decipher - Heal -Leadership - Lore - Stealth - Survival 

Right now, there are attributes on top of skills, on top of special abilities, with classes somewhere in the middle of the ladder. 

2. Decipher is kind of strange actually, maybe its not very useful unless there are a lot of scrolls in the game; and maybe there should be. It can also be tied to the way that you can learn about new spirits to summon (by reading about them in scrolls). OTOH, Leadership becomes the "willpower save".

3. Having armor soak 1 to 3 damage, and having weapons (and special abilities) increase in damage as flat bonuses over a d6 makes an ugly dynamic of one offsetting the other. I'd implement Into The Odd's same armor approach vs different damage dice (d6 for small weapons, d8 or d10 for big ones, having d4 and d12 for impaired or enhanced attacks). 

4. Not just that, but adopting Into The Odd's combat mechanic of just rolling damage and never to-hit fixes the monological combat, leaving the 2d6+bonus mechanic for doing stunts during combat (for example, athletics roll to climb over a colossus, or stealth roll to achieve extra damage). Complete it with an "athletics save" at 0 HP, with a 7-9 result being just incapacitated.

5. Rework of at least half of the special abilities is mandatory; but as this is a quick entry I will only really do it if somebody shows interest on it XD. Autowins like scout and reflexes are not interesting to keep, neither flat bonuses from Slay or Volley. Those are much better done by adding an extra d6 to damage, for example.

6. A small bestiary of around 12 entries (1d6 + dungeon level, for example) with some number appearing, treasure type, etc would help a lot. 

7. Drinking quicksilver as an extended practise amongst magicians does not suit my aesthetics, nor has any paragon in any related fiction. No real rules are given for quicksilver overdose, nor on how hard it is to get a spirit into an object. (Which is cool and leaves the details to the table or the GM, following the idosincrasy of the game) But it would be the easiest shit ever to emulate the same practical result without the quicksilver and just saying that "you can only do X instant summons per day due to the nature of magical rules"

8. The most important: Somebody should make a list of 36 6 spirits to summon by mixing 1 pokemon + 1 pagan deity or creature from a real world folklore, and put that into the PDF instead of dedicating a whole page of a total of four to FUCKING NAMES.

Guns in fantasy

 

I've decided to make a long article about matchlocks and cannons because it can be fun. I've invested a lot of thought on this already, why not share it altogether? 

Why early firearms are normally not a thing on a medieval fantasy world and what happens when they do? What are the implications on a given setting? 

1.  Though arquebuses redefined warfare in the great scale, combats at street level or "adventurer mode" are not very affected. Matches cannot be lit and cannons cannot be loaded in a hurry in the middle of a tavern fight: unless you do the whole dance hidden somewhere, it will be very obvious to everybody that you intend to cause violence. They are bad weapons outside open war, because they cannot be kept "readied": the match consumes, and the gunpowder is either dispersed or susceptible to explode. Keeping watch on a routine night with a loaded gun is not just inviable, but also will give your position by light and smell; only for having you exposed after the first shot. You might keep humans at bay with the threat of a single shot, but it won't work on wolves or other animals. Bandits may still use them on an ambush, though. 

 

2. More firearms means more room for swords, specially more scimitars. The logic on this is because plate armor is suddently not as worthy, and less plate armor means cutting weapons are not facing their great nerfer. On warfare mode this means lighter cavalry and cuirassiers; on adventurer mode this means a golden age for sword duels (see that the golden age of romantic swordsmen appears in both japan and europe after the guns have popularized: in tercios, musketeers and samurai)

3. The appeal of certain monsters is to engage them in melee. This is true specially for fantasy staples like dragons, ogres and other big things, but also mass mooks like orcs or goblins. It is inevitable that once guns exist, they lose part of their appeal. Monsters whose attacks are magical or spiritual are comparativelly not affected, such as vampires, witches, ghosts, etc. Monsters that attack deviously such as snakes, beasts or clever human are also equally interesting. On war mode, makes war be a more historical thing of human vs human instead of law vs chaos or human vs orc, unless you give orcs guns too, at which point they are not mooks anymore. On adventurer mode, this means less combat overall: is harder to pull out filler battles. When it happens, the combat is probably a named NPC or plot-driven henchmen. Knowing myself, monsters that give little aesthetic value in this new situation are not just out of the campaign, but out of the setting altogether. No Smaug type dragons has an upside: allows me to use the oriental ones; if not as physical creatures, as divine ones.

4. Just as arquebuses changed the value of plate armor, the existance of cannons changed the way castles and fortresses were built. Anachronisms can still be had, but they probably require a bit of the fantasy side of the fantasy setting. I am using plate armor made from a spiderweb alloy that is good against bullets, though very expensive and only used by nobles. This keeps cavalry charges somewhat viable in the setting´s near future. On the fortress side, bastion forts were the standard response through the renaissance so my plans to include fortress-based feudalism are still cool without using magic at all. The more aesthetic castles if needed can be placed inside said fortresses, in all their spectre of colorful clichés. There are many other points but atm I feel that I've layed out the main ones.

 

 

  

Spell Hunters. This entry overrides all previous entries on magic in this blog.

 

 

www.sembrys.com/pixel-art 

More recent notes on my current rules. For context, attributes are this, with -1 to +3 modifiers applying to things: 

Strenght
Dexterity

Skill #1

Skill #2

Magic

Charisma

 

Let's focus on magic. Each attribute bonus gives you 1 Mana Die, plus one if you get the Wizard class. So, a Wizard with a +3 magic attribute has 4 Mana Dice. The second mana die is only active (but not the 3rd or 4th) when the magical operator is holding their staff; which is often given to them in an emotive ceremony, and signals experienced magic-users to the eyes of all beholders. 

 

Non-Wizard PCs with some magic bonus automatically get one spell slot, and can start with one spell on it. That is probably the last spell they will ever learn, so they don't have to bother with a spellbook.

 

Additionally, wizard PCs get one spell slot in their spellbook per level up, and can prepare spellbook/2 number of spells at a given time, rounding up. So, a "first level" wizard with +1 magic can know two spells, but have only one prepared. At the next level up, he knows three spells, but can prepare two.

 

I put "level" under quotations because I won't keep track of levels as such. I'm departing from that, and I have everything else that depends on them worked out (all such fixings are scattered through this blog). So, everytime somebody levels up as a wizard they just put a new line on their spellbook and sometimes a new slot on their prepared spells, that's it. 

 

*** ON SPELL HUNTING ***

 

Apart from that first spell at magic +1, the rest of the spells must be found in-game. This is, in-world, the classic adventure motivation for all beginning and intermediate wizards; and a good way to put a party in motion through a sandbox. 

 

The classic places in which a spell can be found are: 

* mystical shrines scattered through the land, or deep in dungeons; usually hard to access and guarded by pertinent traps and monsters. 
* taught from another wizard, monster, spirit or magical powered entity. The teacher must be usually convinced to or befriended, and might put you on a test of worthiness first. 

* spending downtime reading another wizard's spellbook or equivalent. This is done by passing a magic check during downtime. Only one or two spells can be learnt from a given spellbook; because magicians write mostly to themselves and is hard to decipher their mindset.

 

No more requirements should be needed, as learning a spell carries its own disadvantage: an empty spell slot on your spellbook is permanently spent on said spell, and it cannot be scratched away or unlearned.

 

*** ACTUAL CASTING *** 

 

 You invest any number of mana dice; the spell effects are commonly higher depending on the results, but if a 5 or a 6 is present at the roll, one mana die is spent. So, if you want big results you must use 2 or 3 dice, but it makes the mana easier to drain. The actual chances for losing a die are:

 

1 die: 33%

2 dice: 55%

3 dice: 70 % 

4 dice: 80%   

 

I´m currently working on the spell list but currently is an reworking of my old one into this system. Will update the new soon but if I waited for this entries to be perfect, I'd never update a shit. 

 

*** FINAL NOTES *** 

 

Charisma plays a role on magic by powering certain spells and influencing possible relationships with teachers or summoned entities.  

 

Mana Dice are recovered through rest but probably randomizing how many. For example, roll all lost dice and recover all that show 5 or 6. 

 

Classes are meant to be flexible, so you can level up each time as a different one (fighter, wizard, specialist) , but staying faithful to one makes it exponentially better. I'm actually very happy on how its done, will write it later. 

 

Magic-User monsters such as a Yuki-Onna work by PC rules: 1 to 3 mana dice, one spell (frost) unless it´s better to do otherwise.

 

 

 

Planets 3: Duel Culture

Note: this is part of a series, worldbuilding some shit apart from the usual D&Dlike stuff.

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Forgotten from each other, separated in distance and time, every planet naturally develops dialects and customs, and uphelds their own traditions. But if there was one thing that could be considered a constant throughout all the disk, enough to form the backbone of a common culture, that would be the practice of the martial arts. And with it you will find universal respect for a fight in which men have challenged each other 1v1

Everybody knows a version of the tale in which the Sun challenged Gravity to a duel and won, scattering the Gravity Shards all across the universe, around which the planets were eventually formed: the bigger planets around the big shards, and the smaller planets around the small ones. The myth has some weight (no pun intended) as digging deep into any planet one can experience the gravity pull increasing gradually the more you approach the core. And this happens more violently in small planets: it´s easy to imagine the merciless shard down there, pulling everything around as if it was ashamed of being naked and wanted to dress itself. At some point, the very pull dismantles all digging attempts, which are extremelly dangerous to people and have costed lives and fortunes to men. 

Dungeons of increased atmospheres are very useful for some: Dojos use them for physical training. It can help processes when the decantation of any mixture is involved; or the pressure can be used to improve certain metal castings. I've heard of subterranean prisons under castles, where the prisoners can barely move; and of terrible monsters that have adapted to their ancestral caves or the depths of oceans.

 

 

The inverse phenomenon happens outwards: the point in which the pull diminishes enough to be negligible is further from the ground at the bigger planets, and at jumping distance in small ones. This leads to interesting cases like the one at the capitol city of Missina: a big blue planet with little landmass and on which their inhabitants have recourred to building skyscrapers. It is a custom there to travel through the city jumping from one tower to another, all across the streets. The whole city is accessible by "flying" in this method; and it's main Dojo is specialized on mid-air combat: their trainings often take place between the towers that flank the city's bay, with the loser invariably falling down into the waters. This art has a special key relevance because, due to it's size and location on the Disk, Missina attracts an astounding number of asteroids; and the local fighters can kick approaching asteroids before they crash, driving them out of contrived collision zones.

There are some who worship Sun and Gravity as deities, amongst all the others. But real or myth, you can find fighters and fighting schools in almost every round rock of the system. Their styles and attacks are often inspired on the planet's inner or nearby fauna, landscapes, occupations, etc. Some of them use weapons and others refuse them entirelly. Some practice friendly sport amongst peers, while other schools do not contemplate duels that are not to death. Whenever two fighters clash, it's not only their skills who met, but two different worldviews, and there are not universal guidelines or rules for a combat. Those, alongside what do victory and defeat mean on it are to be discovered in a case by case basis. 

 

 

Ultimate Game Balance: fighting man VS specialist

 source: something called "tale of the silly bard"

 

Rivers of ink had been spilled over the eternal balancing of Magic Users and Fighting man on different games. For some reason, they never tap into the real problem: balancing them towards the Specialist. Not the thief; who is normally a DEX fighting man: I talk about the common folk who maximizes non-combat skills or it's equivalent. 

I am developing rules to do what my table is already doing without the proper rules: Playing slow: not adventures all the time, but more doing a medieval life simulator that only sparingly does dungeon delving. I am really put to it now that autumn gaming vibes are high.

I want to have non-combatant, and not-magical classes to be playable. Most of those characters are, in world, hobbits or women; as most capable men are conscripted as  level 1 warriors by birth. I don't want to twist their crafts into making them proficient in combat somehow, but rather make them a interesting to play by what they are, should anyone want to. Could it be done?

The basic answer to this shit is to reduce combat challenges through the game, and increase the challenges related to whatever profession the players choose. A plumber hobbit joins the party and suddently all the castles have a bad case of clogged drainpipes. Suddently you realize that fixing drainpipes is not very interesting to portray in game, and that even if it appears, it will be reduced to a downtime roll. 

I think that a good approach is to buff specialists by giving them "meta" abilities: those that allow the player influence the game outside the actual capability of their character. Apocalypse World type games do this a lot. For example:

 1. Meta-Autoemployment: When you advertise your profession in a place where it can be needed, roll skill (on my game, it works by rolling 1 to 3d6). For each success, choose 1. On a failure, you might get bad customers or none at all. 

* An NPC you know or have heard about is seeking your services
* You get a chance to get some money from your work
* Your work is greatly appreciated
* Your work allows you to find a piece of accurate information about something you ask your GM.

 Good things about this: It makes the game plot be about your profession organically, and in the measure you want to. It is also useful to the party as a whole in order to advance stuck plots. Appropiate for most artisan-type works such as tattoo artists, painters, the proverbial plumber or even poets, though also for therapists. 

 2. Quantum Pockets: this is a classic. Basically, you get to produce any object by saying you were carrying all along. It must be related to your profession at least slightly. In my games, this has saved many lives, by producing tons of antidotes for different poisonous monsters. A staple for healers, but for alchemists (with a much bigger array of tricks, though never explicitelly healing; more on them coming soon) it should work only with things they have produced previously.

3. Inspiring others: I have bards in mind. I could extend it to any kind of performers or maybe instructors; but also to courtesans and princesses. A success gives you the chance of deciding how a person in your audience feels, or the general audience instead; or the GM finds it too dissonant, he must give you an insight on why it didn't work. You can also choose this option on the Meta-Autoemployment list. This does not necessarily represent the Bard itself deciding how does the person feel, as if it was a spell; it can represent some serendipity which was maybe produced by the performance itself.

I'm sure I can scourge the Dungeon World compendium classes to find more ideas; will edit if i do. Apart from these meta-abilities, there are the classic ones

4. Actually performing your work: Roll skill to fix that broken ship, play a good song, do a nice dance... whatever. In my experience, this will happen once per campaign, but will happen eventually. The case of sailor PCs when the campaign finally sees water is specially relevant.

5. Generate items during downtime: This is where alchemists shine. To limit their powers, I had alchemists in my last campaign able to learn from 1 to 3 different "recipes". I will post a list of things someday, but I allowed them to make up whatever thing they wanted: the downside of having to stay with that recipe during the rest of their career was usually a good counterweight. Gunpowder (bombs and refilling ammo); acid vials, paint that changed color when wet, specific poisons, antidotes, smoke bombs, recreational drugs, greek fire, a freezing grenade, whatever that had any propierties that could be explained somehow without blatant magic. Not just for PCs use: the production could be sold for money or traded with other alchemists. Lowly professions such as blacksmiths can also do this for common items, though those must be boosted with Meta-Autoemployment

6. Intoducing magic into the profession: Non-wizards, in my game, can learn only one spell at most, and raising the magic attribute, AKA, "mana dice", is not very optimal. If you want, you can make your spell a profession trick and "cast it" by performing your job, using your skill dice. This prevents you from casting the spell in the normal way from now on. An alchemist knowing the invisibility spell, knows instead how to make an invisibility potion. A blacksmith knows how to imbue a spell into his work, or a dancer can cast through her dance. IDK, this seems the wildest of all the points but i'm willing to give it a try.  

 A NOTE ON NINJAS: as the game is more and more shamelesly based on Sengoku era Japan, I now have plenty ninjas. The kind of ninjas that are spies as much as thieves and assassins, and disguise as peasants, pilgrims or artisans; or adopt cover-up jobs. I like that now they can better play that facet; and all those moves (specially the Meta-Autoemployment) make great combo with infiltration, gathering information and all kinds of sabotaging. If you saw the last entry, you can check that there are two skill slots in case you want to be a good tattoo artist as a cover, and have a sword expertise at the same time. 

  lone wolf and cub, part 4

Fall 2025; New Project, weapons and armor

Most recent notes on my current rules.

 

Attributes are this, with -1 to +3 modifiers applying to things: 

Strenght
Dexterity

Skill #1

Skill #2

Magic

Charisma

 

Skills are from a list including many mundane shit, but some weapons (sword, bow and unarmed combat, for now) can improve by being chosen as a skill 

 

Attacks are rolled with one or more d6, with 6s being critical hits. Armor tiers are as such:

 

NO ARMOR: hit on a 3+

 

SPARE HELMET or NO HELMET, or WORN OUT ARMOR: hit on a 4+ 

 

PROPERLY ARMORED: hit on a 5+

 

CHAIN ARMOR: hit on a 5+, -1 damage from slashing criticals

 

HALF PLATE: hit on a 5+, -1 damage from slashing and piercing criticals including arrows 

 

FULL PLATE: as above, but adding +1 HP to the wearer

 

 MITHRIL: makes armor lighter and adds -1 damage from firearm criticals. (This is my way to make noblemen-based cavalry not displaced by the advent of arquebuses: using fantasy to my advantage into an alternate arms race. There will be more of this)

 

Notes about Mithril: In-world, is not a metal, but an alloy of giant spider´s cobwebs and steel. It is neither easy nor cheap to make, but powerful warlords do not bother commissioning full plate armors unless they are bulletproof. Alchemy and alchemists are a very important part of the setting, which is also what pushed me to accept firearms into it: it's just weird to have alchemists making all sorts of pseudomagical inventions and not having simple gunpowder available.

 

Other magical or enchanted armors will have specific effects, or add extra HP to the wearer. 

 

 Weapons, on the other side, deal 1 damage on a hit, or their critical damage on a 6. Starting characters will roll 1d6 for damage, but fighters eventually get 2 and even 3d6. 

 

SWORD (critical 3): one rerroll per combat if using both hands. +1d6 for any given attack per combat for each weapon skill rank. You cannot add more than one per turn. If you want to do "anime logic" moves like cutting in half an incoming cannonball, you must convince the GM, spend one of this dice and getting a success on the roll, of course.

 

AXE / MACE (critical 3): if your maximum result is your STR bonus or lower, you can re-roll it. Two handed versions of this weapons deal critical damage of 4, but their weight is increased.

 

DAGGER (critical 2): +1d6 on a grapple

 

SPEAR (critical 3): You attack before your opponent, and if you do hit, you receive -1 total damage from his attack. Can be used on a horse. Polearms do not, as they require both hands, but have a critical damage of 4

 

BOW (critical 3). Aiming minigame: You can spend one turn to carefully aim your target: roll 1d6. Add this result to the next attack if succesful. If your aim roll is not very good, you must move to get a better line of sight and re-roll it (spend another turn). The first and the third ranks on bow expertise giveyou an extra d6 each for aiming (keep best). The second rank gives you a whole d6 for attacking (so you shoot with 2d6). As the attack bonus increase through levelling does not extend to ranged weapons, this is the easiest way to improve your ranged damage.

 

CROSSBOWS (critical 4) are as bows but need an extra turn for reloading. Can aim, but have no expertise skill.

 

ARQUEBUSES (critical 4) need an extra turn for reloading; cannot aim or be expertised upon. They do, however, 2 damage instead of 1 on every normal hit; and shields block with disadvantage. 

 

UNARMED COMBAT: Critical damage is equal to 1, plus roll 1d6: if you roll your STR bonus or lower, add the result to the damage. You can disregard critical damage and just initiate a grapple, push down your opponent or any similar feat (You can actually do that with any melee weapon, actually). Your GM will say if its possible; if it is, your opponent gets a "save" consisting in rolling their current HP or higher on a d6, so wounded or inexperienced fighters are more vulnerable. I'm currently deciding how unarmed expertise works, but I think it will not be broken by giving you +1 extra attack per combat, per rank. Unarmed and Sword expertises, being expended by combat, favor short combats such as duels, and are diluted in mass combats as in war; which for me sounds very nice, being that I intend to have both situations happening during the game. 

 

 

 

 

Extra: actual handwriten notes for this entry, alongside a couple of harpies. 

 

Eleven Samurai

 I just finished this movie a while ago. Very good stuff, the kind that gets me on the GMing mood.

 Some usable ideas:

 1. The whole movie is a very interesting plot hook: The spoiled brother of a Shogun kills a random peasant; the local lord recriminates this behavior and the Shogun's brother kills him too. The lord's clan wants revenge, but the Shogunate wants to incriminate (and expoil) the clan themselves so they don't lose the moral authority for having such a psychotic member on their family. The PCs (eleven samurai) want to vindicate this injustice, 

2.  Cannons can be made from bamboo. Easily enough, it seems, to prepare an ambush with a day of anticipation. Also cutting some trees and dropping them at the precise moment can split a retinue in two. 

3. One of the samurai is a woman who comes to the party to replace his dead brother. It seems to me a very original background. It also made me wonder how exploitable it is, on historical or other settings in which women are not expected to be warriors, to present yourself as a harmless lady and avoid all attention in ways that veteran men with the 100 yard stare cannot; while having by rules the same combat stats. Even if it happens one time in a hundred, the existance of this unexpected warrior women can entice superstition and legends; maybe granting them a name (kunoichi or something like that) and place on the world's inner bestiary.

 4. Its surprising how the whole movie, set as it is on the XIX century, features katanas, bamboo cannons and some bombs as the only weapons (and some bows on the hunting scene), It this were an rpg everybody would wear at least leather armor. Feudal japan seems like a pretty lawless place to the point that a trifle involving lords and high nobility seems a little like a street gang war. Special importance is given to the Chambelains of both nobles, so probably is a good idea creating interesting assistants when making noble NPCs. Technically is easier for normal PCs to interact with those intermediaries than with the nobles themselves, so giving them depth will make them easier to portray and easier for the PCs to find ways to interact with them meaningfully. 

5. At some point, there is a scene where people is inside a cabin while some stalking group is outside hiding in the rain. In a game this would not be an important fact, but in real life, every minute spent in the cold rain decreases the pursuers health and energy, while the people inside recovers hp. However, getting into the cabin and making fire is a tricky choice when you are being pursued. I really must make things like rain matter on a game. If I was running a campaign and I cannot transmit the importance of "thinking as humans" on a situation like this, I would fail as a GM. Be it rolling for rain damage or something. In fact, I think this kind of situations can be as interesting as combat if not more, if done well.

 6. "we'll travel in groups so we don't raise suspicions". This obvious fact has never ever appeared on any of my campaigns. It has a gaming motive: splitting the party is burdensome for GMs as much as it is risky for the PCs. Still, is a good point and its usable for NPC parties at least. And (note to myself) I want it to be as obvious and feasible to run in the game i'm making as it is on reality, the exact "hows" are to be discussed yet. 

 

 

Vampires and Crosses

Dracula has been my summer book. I had read it long ago, in my goth days; but only now have I "lived" it. Back then, I was probably dissapointed because "the movie was better" and because there was no Lestat on it. Warning: I'm not sure if this post is about rpgs at all. 

But now, let's admire the fact that all the old D&D books put a crucifix or two on their equipment lists. I had a player ask me recently: If I have a crucifix, it means that Jesus existed on some form in this world? 

I answered: yes. It's something a bit strange and that I don't know how to elaborate, but even though the healer priests on the cities are always female, the clerics themselves in the end behave like chistians deep down. They have white magic beacuse they channel the good god's will. But if a cross works, and specially if it works on the hands of the most alignmentwise neutral of the laymen, is because there is a Jesus there who died for our sins. 

Nowadays, the cross is not on the list; it just says "Holy Symbol", and is meant to be something the cleric uses to turn undead. There is a current on vampire-related media that says that is the faith on the Holy Symbol, not the symbol, what repels vampires. I do not think so. 

If we analyze deep down what is the core nature of the vampire, their key trait is not the sunlight weakness (actually, on Bram's Stoker book, it just removes the vampire's powers) not even their undead. The important thing is that they feed on the living to overextend their unlife. They should have died long ago, but they want to "abuse" the gift of life by stealing it from somebody else. Paradoxically it doesn't really work, as they are by their very nature uncapable of truly live. 

Jesus, on the other hand, gave his life. You might say he died for "us"; that he died for his passion or for the great work. The sight of a cross puts the vampire face to face with their sin, and the shame that they try to drown in lust and cruelty is then violently exposed; rendering him paralyzed by the small part of yang inside the yin that is their dark nature. All of this happens mostly subconsciously, and most of them only rationalize as "this cross burns"

 

You can see how in his eyes, the cross draws the sight of the true life he craves; the acceptance of the kingdom of heaven inside one. Yet that life is forever banned to him, enacting a mockery of it instead. 

It could be argued that other deities can achieve the same effect too, of course, but not just any. Archetypically speaking, Jesus is a "Sun" type god, so maybe its a good idea to search in that direction. I love comparative mythology but I am a christian and my knowledge is better on my territory. I am sure that your average buddha has reached enough understanding of love, surrender and devotion that could turn a vampire without any symbol at all. But Jesus could make it so every peasant could have a vampire-repellant cross in their drawer beside the bed (Thats why non-clerics can use crosses in D&D against vampires) 

I think that Ghouls could also be affected depending on their nature. However, turning zombies and skeletons is different. They are not sin-driven creatures, but rather puppets of one.

 

Ryuutama's Weapon Types

If you haven't read about it, Ryuutama is a pastoral japanese RPG about travelling and living small adventures under the protection of some dragons called Ryuujins. While I love the concept, the system seems a little clunky to me by reading alone. Still, I love how it condenses the whole of the possible weapons into six categories:

 

 

 

 

It made me reflect on how our classic visions, inherited from D&D, base weapons on their interaction with different armors; which is logical in a game that was born from a wargame. Ryuutama shows that weapons can be classified using a different paradigm. Maces are ruled as axes as per the rules if I remember well (weapon with low accuracy that benefits from strength). I think that Light Blades are sort of redundant: a knife can be used as an improvised weapon. Instead I find one-handed or versatile spears somehow forgotten in this aspect.

 

I am already creating this autumn's new game for my group, I am focused on not doing any D&D derivate and go fully into my JRPG autism. Surely I will de-emphasize armor and do something very similar to this.

 

Fantasy Dog Breeds

Dog chad

 

Last year I went into the rabbit hole of reading about the history of hunting and dog breeding (fascinating topics, alongside a personal favorite being the domestication and integration of the horse in human life)

TLDR: 1. Medieval dogs breeds were radically different from today's and 2. There is no reason to think that in a made up world with monsters and magic there would be the exact dog breeds we have today. 

 Frequently I ponder on what would happen if I gave all good sighthounds in my world the ability to blink, as their species were breed out of blink dogs. The impact on the gameplay is minimum, but the impact on the world and its implications is sublime. It's got weight. It tells you straight away that this is not earth, this is something else. 

 At first I thought I would write some deep-thought dog breeds for trow fortress. Not today: I'd rather have you do it. 

Roll 1d6 to find the dogs HD. 1 HD is a purse dog, 6 HD is a scary dog. 

If you want, roll another 1d6 to see how well adapted is the dog to the current area or climate. If you don't have a game, use your real life location. On a one, is not suited to the place at all. On a six, it will struggle living anywhere else.

Interpret results alongside this table: roll 1 to 4 times and tell me what kind of dog you got. Do you think is it very popular in your world? rather unique or useless? you can roll separately for the breed traits and for those which are specific to a given animal.

 1. Sighthound: this dog is all speed and will pursue prey by visual tracking.

2.  Scenthound: this dog has a specially gifted smell sense, and can be trained to detect a specific one.

3. Pointer: this dog will subtly point towards his target without alerting it

4. Retriever: this dog is trained to retrieve and bring game or other objects

5. Water dog: this dog performs quite well on an aquatic medium.

6. Shepard: this dog is trained to drive and control cattle.

7.  Terrier: this dog is trained to find and storm burrows, of a size adequate to the dog.

8. Spaniel: this dog knows how to flush game out of his hideouts, towards the hunter at least.

9. Tough: This dog has increased attack rate for any reason, and +1 HD

10. Kawaii: This dog is considered cute by most, and/or has a unique beauty.

11. Strange: This dog is good at detecting the unseen, ghosts and other paranormal things, great empathy also.

12. Nervous: This dogs are very playful and seldom quiet; will bark for anything.

13. Guarding: This dog is naturally loyal and brave.

14. Obedient: It is very easy to teach tricks to this dogs.

15. Emo: this dog likes to be alone and is very hard to grab his attention.

16. Crazy: this dogs are very possessive with their master or their territory, normally very annoying otherwise.

17. Sickly: this dogs need specific care or diets in order to remain healthy, not suited to adventure. -2 HD, to a minimum of 1.

18. Clumsy: either short legged, too long, too heavy or any other thing that lowers their DEX.

19. Magical. they have one magical power proper of a spell, a monster, etc. This propierty is very patent.

20. Subtly magical: as the previous one, but the power is not obvious at first sight, or maybe ever. 

 

Lets do the first one to test it: This is the dog you see it's being sold at the equipment shop, 1d12 of them.

3 HD (as big and strong as a fox)

Adaptation to temperate spanish levant: 4. Probably a versatile race. 

10, 11 and 5: These are some Kawaii and empathic friends who also love to play on the multiple irrigation ditchs in the area. Their hair changes significantly from black to sky blue when wet. They lack an obvious utility but the seller says they can wake you up if they detect you are being target of a magical attack in your sleep. 

 

 

Artemis and her blink dog - A. Wurts

 

Four Styles of Hunting

Currently dropped the shadowrun campaign for the summer. I'm thinking again on old ideas as a GM, and into the Trow Fortress thing.

In the middle ages of our games, you can find 4 major types of hunting:

1. Traps

This one is perpetrated by kobold societies, mostly. This skillful little people play the role of peasantry in this universe. Trapping rabbits or even bigger stuff puts meat on their tables when there is game around. The noble Trow can put these too, of course, helped by their kobold courtesans. But they will only use this methods if there is some major necessity to exterminate a pest such as wargs, never for food or pelts. For example, in real life, wolves were lured with bait into merciless hooks tied to trees. 

 

 

2. Bow + Stealth, in any proportions. This is mainly used by elves, which more or less live for and by it. Of the three races, elves are the most prone to use poison. Kobolds can also practice this discipline by taking advantage of their stealth bonus, but with shorter range bows or slings and aiming for smaller game. They make for good poachers, too; though of course, hunting or even being caught with a bow in somebody's woods is a good way to get a ticket for being hung alongside the wolves (as an interesting note, 1/3 of all england was considered at a given time to be Royal Woods). Trow can, of course, hunt with bows and even crossbows; unless they want to hunt in a more "social" way (see below)

3. Trained Animals

Falconry, often combined with horses and or dogs, is a staple for Trow houses that settle the prairies. The type of bird used is a symbol of status: hawks for the lesser nobles, falcons of varying colors for the greater; rocs of different sizes make good gifts for Lords and Kings, even if they are unwieldy to use. The advantage of birds is that they have massive reach and speed, and can fetch prey who is already flying or swimming in the water.

Dogs are also appreciated for all their obvious skills. There is an upcoming post about dog breeds! I should write it at anytime, THIS YEAR. But lets not forget about ferrets and moongoses, used by kobolds mainly, but are also a favorite of Trow kids.

Elves never use animals for hunting. They embody the animal instead.

 4. Hunting Par Force 

 This is a great rite that can take one day or more. Only big game is hunted this way; deer, boars, bears or higher (its a fantasy world, go wild) 

The Lord of a land sends invitations to a group of nobles to participate into it from time to time. This serves many purposes: the first one is, of course, the social function: there was no Whassap groups or MSN in the middle ages, so this served to check on everybodys disposal and their overall strength: How well can X ride at his age? How strong are his sons? I wonder if he will bring that hot concubine from last year. Lets check on Y's loyalty; is he too flattering or on the contrary, is he disrespectful? let's propose Z an alliance to invade X's lands, and maybe arrange some matrimonies. 

Everybody could seize this chance to do the same, should they attend.

The second purpose was to train the green young warriors: for that day they would do for the first time many things that they would later do in war: tracking, chasing, riding in armor and coordinate with a pack of unknown men. One or two groups of riders had to circle behind the selected prey and push it towards a third group using dogs and, sometimes, bows or javelins; so the third group would meet the animal tired and debilitated, with little HP. Then a man would battle the animal 1v1 in melee using a sword or a spear; and then blowing a horn in respect to the deceased beast (it was, however, considered disrespectful when killing female animals unless they were wolves)

The third function was obviously to display and test one's power. 

 I like to run genre-appropiate social situations and in the last campaign, the PCs killed a king in the middle of one hunt, after scanning the loyalties and gaining the favor of a group of nobles. 

 I want to run more huntings, of all four types when appropiate, as I want to focus from now on on the more boring parts of an adventure. I want to make slice of life interesting, if you want to put it that way. I have learned that is not hard to do with the right group, as the shadowrun campaing has taught me. Still, I want to make a list of things to do to spice up a hunting session. Of course, players that investigate correctly should know about the twist prior to the hunting; much more when I have habilitated scrying spells being somewhat common: it is easy to find somebody in this world to lend you a cryptic oath. (More on this on next entries)

1. The animal being tracked is actually a witch shapeshifting as an animal.

2. The animal is cursed by a demon and is very dangerous to tamper with

3. The animal is actually divine and will put a geas on one or more of its harrasers, probably the killer. 

4. Elves are angry about the whole hunt. They cannot fight the whole squads but will attack small groups or men that separate from the party.

5. Somebody's kobold is trying to sabotage somebody's performance subreptitiously, maybe YOURS. Drugging your horse, blunting your arrows or similar. Make up something based on the NPCs personalities. 

6. Something is dangerous at the forest and nobody told you. Quicksand, a deadful canyon, a river to be forded.

7. More monsters than the tracked one are nearby

8. Something magical is happening in the forest. Maybe there is a sleeping spell around a clearing and it makes your group to fail finding the prey on time.

 9. and more to be added.

 

 

Shadowrun dreams (player POV session reports)

My last Shadowrun session (I am playing a campaign as a player after YEARS) is still fresh and I am so hyped right now. My samurai elf has chromed the last part of his body before going below the critical Essence threshold that can get you easily into cyberpsychosis: now I have nightvision, legs with enhanced jump, some body armor and a retractile blade on the arm, alongside the big tits with white led nipples.

The GM runs the game without the book at hand, he seems to make up most of the things and is actually very forgiving, I am sure he has spared my character from death at least once or twice (I made it clear that I was ok with rolling another character after that battle on the morgue, but he rolled something in secret and some random doctor there attended me miraculously). 

As a very succint summary of the campaign: one elf, one dwarf and two trolls were hired by a fixer to find the assassin of his friend. The leads took us to another city, where somehow we joined a gang that was the most probable perpetrators, and escalated slowly into the ranks. In our first mission, we were requested to scare some homeless away from a metro station, as they were interfering a bit with the drug dealers there. After a bit of negotiation, I hurled one of them under a train, and told the rest that I would do the same every day until they all left. The next day they rebelled on me, and I killed them all, soaking the katanas in the blood of old, sick and/or mostly disarmed men and women. That brought me a lot of respect in the organisation, but I knew my character was only pretending being heartless to himself. Little by little, the lawful in me got into the elf.

After weeks investigating, we found out that a high-rank member of our gang, a doctor, is using a fully chromed berseker to kill people and record it on BTLs (some kind of videos that are filmed through the eyes of a person, in this case, the assassin), and then sells them in the black market. We soon found out that it was the lead that hinted to our "main mission" which was almost forgotten at this point. My dwarf friend achieved for us a trial to work for the doctor personally, as assistants. We only had to undertake a simple mission of slaying a family who had a money debt with our employer. I knew I wasn't doing that mission, and my elf found out as soon as he went into the place and saw the man at his electric appliances shop. I enjoyed roleplaying how I gave him 10.000 yens for them to escape. 

"But with this, I could pay the debt with the doctor"

"He doesn't want you to pay. He asked me for your heads for his collection. The money is so you can get out of the city by nightfall, because tomorrow, another assassin will come who wont be me. I have done what I could, but the decision is on you" 

 I am enjoying a lot this kind of roleplaying moments. I love having a character arc with angst, loneliness and nihilism, then some regrets, redemption and honor. I like that it contrasts with the dwarf, who my friend is roleplaying as the classic hyperpractical character, but we get along well (in character, i mean, though the guy is a good friend ooc)

Today we were determined to survive the gang's attempt of execution, as they would surely know by morning that we had betrayed them. But before that happened, some havoc started in a nearby shopping center: Several squads of Lone Star (the setting cops) were trying to reduce a berseker'd assasin, which we assumed it was our target (It wasn't the exact one actually, we found out shortly after that there were multiple of them). 

Onane, the dwarf, managed to shot some srynge that stopped the cyberpsychosis WITH A SLINGSHOT into the guy's head. This gave a cop a chance to climb the guy and blast it from atop of his shoulders (losing his leg to the monster's final attack). The last thing recorded in his BTL is my friend making the sign of victory (he genuinelly did it without remembering he was being recorded. I really enjoyed that detail hahah). The doctor called us in our PDAs to yell at us and tell us we were dead men; as his best man was hunting our heads from that very minute.

Without access to the gang's headquarters, we had to find a place for the night, and was dead set on sleeping at the metro station of St.Mary, where I had killed all the homeless. I bought some auto-heating ramen (they are ubiquitous and serve as rations in our game) and invited some homeless people there, who didn't recognize us as they were new dwellers. After some rolls by the master, they were moved by the ramen's offering and, figuring out Onane was the hero of the shopping center, took us to a secret place where nobody could find us. We spent four days amongst the homeless and we bought them 18 medikits with the totality of our money. They cut our hair (my emo elf hair, and the dwarf's beard) after that time, and disguised as homeless men, we went back to our former city, where the campaign started.

Back home (the local brothel) I gifted our whore friend Coyote my old katanas, now obsoleted by the armblade, and she hung them behind the bar, sticking the nails with a big whiskey bottle. It brought me a true feeling of ¿accomplishment? realising how my character had changed from a clumsy samurai who failed all fighting rolls and whose only dream was having breast implants, then delving into evil trying to find some place in the world, and then disregarding everything, even my own safety, towards making what I thing the elf feels its good. Its really fun. I even put voices and act sometimes.

Parallel to all that, we invest trash a lot of our yens into making a Trap Band: We are keeping a list of song titles and we spend money to record and air them into some shitty channel. It's a cool sidegame because the songs are named after things we have lived in-game. No more explanations, but the current list:

1. More money than faith
2. Automatic ramen
3. Hot as the wasteland nights
4. Railways to heaven
5. Rooftop watch
6. Broken memories
7. Cayman and Caywoman
8. Doctor Richards is an assassin

I have been a GM in cyberpunk games before, and there are some points that are worth remembering for my/your future games.

1. Fame. We randomize stuff for our Trap Band: the quality of the songs or the fame we get every now and then. On the last session, we went viral on the city: everyone knew us, even though our music is shitty and we are seen as a joke band. I think that is interesting to portray fame as something easy to win and lose in this settings. Maybe by naming one or two names of recently famous singers/samurais/gladiators/whatever, make them appear tangentially on the plot and then allowing the characters to become the recent celebrity for a while, realizing that they are now where the other guy was. Just to be forgotten in a while by most. 

2. The importance of the analogic in a digital setting. Analog motorbikes cannot be hacked and found by GPS. Analog weapons cannot be neutered by an electromagnetic field. Digital shit can and will always be tampered with, remotelly even, at the GMs discrection. And this is OK and is genre-appropiate. But this is also very cool because it allows you to put there some unique/custom vehicles, weapons and artifacts. See pic below:

 

"Roll Under" Combat System

 

 

This is just a concept I came up with, that I like and may become part of a ruleset someday. Numbers are improvised but I want to give an idea of the chance proportions more than an exact measure.

Premises: 

* Health of common human NPCs goes from 1 to 4 points (lets call them "hearts" as I am playing a lot of Zelda lately). Beyond four hearts, you can only find adventurers and monsters, with no limit at all.

* Worn armor adds to your hearts. 

* Everyone has a "fight" skill, that ranges from 1 to 4 in common humans (with 4 being strong ones). Characters that are worthy of being a shonen anime character can raise their fight skill beyond that (6,7,8...). This should be rolled randomly, but leveled during the game.

* Melee checks are done by rolling 1d12 equal or under that score. A hit means you deal your weapon's damage (a fixed number of hearts: like 2 for a punch, or maybe 4 for a sword). On a miss, you might still deal 1 damage. This way, variable damage is achieved with a single roll,

* Initiative is simultaneous for now. Lets see what happens. If two hits would happen mutually, the highest number happens before the other (and if that means that the enemy is killed, his attack doesn't happen). It would still happen if there is a tie.

* If your opponent hits you and you miss, you don't deal the 1 damage, and viceversa. As an addendum to this, i'm thinking that spears should increase your fighting skill by 1 or more, maybe. So they are good at stopping attackers and have a reason to be lent to unskilled levies both as in mimicking the real world as in gameplay.

* If there is a sensible reason for which a miss would not deal damage, it doesn't.

* Some armors might substract 1 damage from all attacks, negating damage on a miss. 

* Ranged combat doesn't need special rules or it seems so.

* Receiving no damage from an attack is possible only if you choose to evade (and spending an action for it). Roll under your evade skill, dexterity or whatever there is, to do it.

*  An enemy moves too fast, and you can't represent it through AC? you can represent it by giving the attacker disadvantage (roll 2d12 and take worst). Maybe two misses are no damage, miss and hit is a miss, and two hits are a hit. Yeah, that sounds good.

* Giving advantage (roll 2d12 and take best) is also easy to do. Power ups from feats or magic weapons can also take the shape of multiple attacks, chain attacks (extra attacks on a hit), damage multipliers (like "you deal 2x damage if you spend a turn charging the attack") amongst others.

* Shields should work as negating damage on a roll of X I guess. I'm having samurais all the time on the mind, so I havent thought about that, but im sure that shields do not give more "hearts". It doesn't work conceptually.

* I like that this system makes the low-ranked fighters be careless about what weapon they wield, as the increase in damage per turn will be very small for a PC of fight:1. No matter which weapon he gets, he will tend to deal 1 damage per turn ever unless he rolls a 1.  

Senior - Cróniques de la Reconstrucció

 Just click in there and leave it in the background as you do stuff. I think you're gonna like it. Yes, you.

1d36 personality traits

 

I made this because I want to randomize how a given NPC "is" internally, and compare it with how the PCs approach him/her. I'd like to use this instead of reaction rolls when possible. Basically, I will assign one or more traits (two seems good enough) to NPCs as needed, in the middle of the session if suddently a random extra gets enough spotlight. 

I found some lists of traits in other games, but they are mixed with others that make reference to physical traits or irrelevant quirks such as "likes to sing", or just describe how the characters express (sarcastic, cynical, liar, etc). Those ones are good for dressing or describing the character, but for this purpose do not work, just as the physical ones (fat, thin, strong, pretty, etc). Some of these listed will be more or less obvious at first sight, and some might be hidden. I like that any two in combination creates a definite character in my mind, or in contrast with the NPC's identity or occupation.

Heroic (or courageous?)
Coward
Lustful (or easily infatuated?)
Greedy
Generous
Bossy

Cruel
Opportunistic
Jealous
Proud
Bad Tempered
Poised

Humble
Confident
Somber
Naive
Distrustful (or paranoid?)
Emotional

Optimistic
Pessimistic
Resigned (or tenacious?)
Easily Overwhelmed
Addicted (to something. Can be a drug, an activity... but depends heavily on it)
Curious (or adventurous?)

Passionate about their dedication
Sly
Chivalrous
Kind
Prudent
Idealistic

Rude
Kind of retarded
Crazy (in the way you like)
Temerary
Tempestuous
Lost (or in great need)

Shadowbanned! (like Florian Geyer)

Today, in my small crusade against the new order rewriting the past by messing with our only source of history (the internet), I found that google, wikipedia and friends are very strict in not showing the proper lyrics to this song anywhere, resorting to grotesquelly messed and made up ones. So here I am, being the change I'd like to see in the world:

 Wir sind des Geyers schwarzer Haufen, heia hoho, 

und wollen mit Tyrannen raufen, heia hoho.

Spieß voran, drauf und dran, setzt auf’s Klosterdach den roten Hahn!

Als Adam grub und Eva spann, kyrieleys, 

wo war denn da der Edelmann? kyrieleys. 

Spieß voran, drauf und dran, setzt auf’s Klosterdach den roten Hahn!

Uns führt der Florian Geyer an, trotz Acht und Bann, 

den Bundschuh führt er in der Fahn’, hat Helm und Harnisch an.

Spieß voran, drauf und dran, setzt auf’s Klosterdach den roten Hahn!

Bei Weinsberg setzt es Brand und Stank, heia hoho, 

gar mancher über die Klinge sprang, heia hoho. 

Spieß voran, drauf und dran, setzt auf’s Klosterdach den roten Hahn!

  Geschlagen ziehen wir nach Haus, heia hoho, 

uns’re Enkel fechten’s besser aus, heia hoho.

Spieß voran, drauf und dran, setzt auf’s Klosterdach den roten Hahn! 

 

For some reason I dont really know (maybe some politically incorrect opinion on a comment?), this blog is already shadowbanned from google at least, since july or so, so I don't think this affects much to my views.