If Usagi Yojimbo was mixed half and half with Berserk and a touch of Twin Peaks you'd get this.
26 episodes. There are samurai and yokai, but also the crudeness of war vs the best aesthetics i've seen in a long time.
There seems to be a modern remake but looks ugly af
I've said it many times: I am obsessed with cohesive ecology when I do races and monsters.
Overtime, I found out that using fewer humanoid races allowed me to do them much more solid, and have nuances amongst them instead of making them one-faceted. Basically I took this (2 years exactly have passed from this entry!) and kept on pushing.
In my autism, the world feels now much more tangible while strangely more faithful to the mythic norse roots, but passed through the eyes of a weeaboo beyond help. The best is that this tangibility applied to the table, where both me and the players can do better guesswork about the world. Old readers will recognize the initial sparks of these concepts and how they got shaped over this years.
The four races are Humans, Kobolds, Trolls and Elves.
Humans (the inevitable race)
* They organize under feudal domains, and are currently starting to use gunpowder weapons.
* Their role is that of the noble warriors, and the clerical caste. They live in a symbiotic bond with the kobolds, who make up for the whole of the peasantry in exchange of protection. On the middle strates of society, you can find an organic overlap of both races(merchants, assistants, artists).
* For simplicity, I borrowed from Dragon Ball's map so there are four big regions (north, east, south and west) with a strong capital each. Even if the game happens mostly on the east, it serves as a framework.
* There are no underdeveloped or hunter-gatherer human tribes anymore. Kobolds made sure to bring agriculture everywhere.
* I mix Sengoku Jidai aesthetics with Byzantine curved swords and heavy cavalry freely. Haters gonna hate.
* I don't use orcs. Every army is made of humans, though they can still be corrupted by dark lords. This solves my version of Tolkien's Moral Dilemma. Worldbuilding with orcs was fun for a time but even then they feel shallow and cardboard after a time.
Kobolds (the small race)
* Kobolds are not lizards! they aren't dogs either. They are basically halflings by other name, but I like the kobold nomenclature because it suits them, after the roles they perform in the world.
* Many kobolds live pastoral lives under the protection of a human lord. Not all of them, though. They are the most ubiquitous race in the world, and the one who has spreaded more across the map, with much more diversity in their organizations than humans have.
* They behave just as humans, but, proper to those who know that nobody is going to give them anything for free, are culturally driven to hard work or undertaking entrerprises, like exploring a remote island for possible gems or installing a sawmill up the course of a river.
* Kobolds don't have the strength of a human, but they can fight. When they turn to crime and brigandry, they can take the role of goblins. Kobolds are subject to greed and sin as humans are. As goblins, kobolds fight better with light weapons and by laying traps.
* Kobolds do exploit mines for themselves and for human lords. Any ideas for dwarven settlements work better with kobolds instead. They do not use big axes or heavy armor, however, because dwarves are ridiculous and should never be used.
* Kobolds are not allowed as clerics on the city temples but they are as religious as humans, and there is no reason so they cannot perform clerical duties on their own neighbourhoods. They can use magic I guess (I don't like to put excuses of magical obtuseness) but, in world, they are less culturally drawn to it than humans, who have certain lineages of magical half-half-half-elves.
* Basically when I need an NPC that is not a fighter or nobleborn, I use a kobold 99% of the time. They work great as guides, rangers, butlers, blacksmiths, sages, etc.
Trolls (the big race)
* Male trolls are solitary, and avoid civilized places. An adult is about 2 meters high, but they keep growing after that, reaching 9 meters or more. They talk normally, though their vocabulary may be limited as they don't use to talk with anybody. They are prone to misunderstandings, especially if one talks too fast.
* They are very strong, and like to hone their strength. They fight as a sport, barehanded or with wooden clubs (I envision them as onis at this stage), with other trolls they meet, or with humans if they think they are worthy opponents. When they are short of opponents, they may occupy a bridge or a road in order to force a knight to fight them. They do not seek for killing their opponents, but don't hold back either. Though they don't regenerate like plastiline as in D&D, they do heal very fast and can slowly recover from massive damage; and may not care too much that humans don't.
* Trolls feed themselves with anything they find, but they prefer big preys like giant fish (available in our world) or taking honey from giant bees' hives. Sometimes, like the cyclops from the Oddysey, they do gather flocks of wild giant goats and spend years as shepards. They might steal kobold's cattle now and then, but I don't like to make them human/kobold eaters (there are many other monsters to do that better: owlbears, wargs, and other megafauna)
* Trolls do not build homes or shelters, but they do raise monoliths, tombs or other sacred marks. This also serves to mark their hunting ranges. They are territorial and will defend their place if colonizers come to fuck around. This can be used to the benefit of bandits, if they manage to carve a lair under a troll monolith. If pursued by a greater force, they could make noise to alert the troll, for example.
* Trolls are not bored by loneliness or silence. They can spend days, weeks or even months sitting and meditating; proportionally to the troll's size and age. This also serves as a way to save energy spent moving their enormous bodies. Trolls can also rest underwater for hours without breathing.
* As in LOTR's trolls, they are turned to stone by the sun. Not like instantly, though. It's more like a force that slowly weakens older trolls, and makes them search for shelter on caves or underwater. The bigger they are, the more they are affected by it, and its harder for them to find proper refuges. At some point, all trolls start moving to the northlands, from where they originally came. There, the cloud cover, the polar night and the fjords and cliffs hide the troll lands, where female trolls and cubs live. Returned trolls barely remember that place, and sometimes they take small treasures with them as presents to their tribe, such as bracelet that for them is a ring, or a fragant fruit tree pulled from the roots; and are asked about their travels by a lot of trolls they don't even know. This explains why trolls are bigger in size and in numbers in the tales of kobold explorers of the lands of ice.
* Troll women are tall, but do not grow as male do. They stay home, teach young trolls how to fish and how to take care of themselves. Only females may ever learn spells of any kind, specially the disguise self in order to steal food of human/kobold settlements in case of need. This is mostly because its something that happens in myths all the time and I want to make it so every myth is partly true.
* There comes a point in which trolls naturally die and become stone anyways. They like to greet death while peacefully meditating, in postures in which they want to be remembered. Their statues fuse with the mountain rocks for a time, changing and eroding with the mountain. You can never tell which percentage of the rock is made of once proud warriors.
Elves (the magical race)
* Pure elves are not a playable race. Humans with exceptional magical qualities, however, are assumed to have elven ancestry.
* Elves live on pocket dimensions they created magically long ago. They "folded in" territories on the map, effectivelly shrinking the earth in a way that cartographers cannot notice (The fold spell is available at lower level in the spell list, but I don't want to get into that now). One can only get into their kingdoms by crossing consecutive secret doors which may look no different than the space between any two trees. Curiously, getting out is done by walking in a straight line in any direction.
* Non-Elves cannot spend much time into the elflands. They are magically expelled by some force. IDK. It is important for me as a GM and for them as fictional people, as every day you spend in there is a whole season on the outside. Half elves might bypass this... if it benefits the plot hahahah. I'll think about it.
* Elves play the role of minor gods. Entities akin to the Morrigan or Epona, who have met heros in the ancient times and peformed their own deeds, are actually elves. They have magical powers, greater than any other race by various levels, and the most famous of the elves are known on the human and kobold lands through legends and tales. The difference on how time runs between kingdoms allow elves to do things like speak you about your ancestors, know ancient lore or keep ancient relics, waiting for the chosen ones to appear in the land to inherit them. Elves are, this way, very useful as GM toys, while conserving the mysticism that makes them magical.
* The chance that an ancient being (such a powerful spirit of someplace) has heard of a specific elf is very high, if the elf is powerful enough. Ancient beings know each other from the good old times.
* "Mook" elves exist. They do patrol the human side of the forest sometimes, because even if their kingdom is "folded" into it, it is still somehow in the forest. Things that happen outside elfland will have an impact inside it. Intense deforestation or a plague will permeate elfland. The forest burning down will also destroy the part of the kingdom folded inside it.
* Elves are mortal and can die of normal means, their longevity is tied to the time distortion on their plane. They prefer not to spend much time on our plane for that reason. It is for this reason that their manners are kind of old-fashioned. They regard knights and knightly customs as the noble institution they were in the past, even if modern times have devaluated the concept amongst humans. This all came to me because of this mtg card, in which some elves are enacting a knighthood oath like if they were imitating some humans they once saw.
* Some times, elves renounce to their life in elfland and come to live into the world of humans. Sometimes its for love, or others its to fulfill sinful desires using their powers amongst people who are mostly magicless. Lust, power, greed. If they have dipped into the dark arts, they may be also impulsed by their dark patrons. It's important to distinguish that, while elves seem inmortal to humans as they live on another timeline, they are not inmortal on theirs. So, vain elves are still interested on unnatural prolongations such as lichdom or vampirism.
* There are many entrances to elfland in many forests, rivers or shores, and they all connect with each other. Elves absorb Undines, Swan Maidens, Drow, Valkyries and Dryads into their ranks conceptually. The times of running elves as just druidic hunters have passed, I like the new elves better.
This is the definition of the word in a dictionary. It is not something we can scientifically measure like temperature or weight, but we adjudicate high or low intellgences subjectivelly.
The scientifical approximation we use in society is the IQ test, which intends to measure what it's creator thought intelligence was. Probably he thought of himself as a very intelligent man and abstained himself from adding things to the test that he could not certainly pass. No, I don't know how to measure intelligence in a fair way either, but I know how do we subconsciously do all the time:
1. We think others are more intelligent when they think alike us. This makes sense, as if we think in a certain way, we probably do because we feel its the more intelligent way to think. But there is another thing that is more determinant:
2. We think others are more intelligent when they talk like us. Subconsciously, we assume that people who babbles our language to be dumber. No matter if its a famous sportsman or a genius inventor, if he speaks like an indian, our subconscious won't assign a great intelligence to them.
The latter point extends to variations of the local accent or slang. Every variation from our own will have a negative connotation attached. No matter if he's got tons of rizz, he's getting -1000 aura just by not speaking how you consider an intelligent person speaks, te lo juro, bro. English is not my first language either, so I'm sure that many of my entries are considered slightly dumber for that reason.
It is known by professional manipulators such as sales agents, spies, publicists or escorts that one of the easiest ways to get complicity with an stranger its to mimic his expressions. We have an innate program in our heads to consider people part of our pack or strangers, in which ethnicity doesn't play a great role, but differences in language do. Pick any tribe of the world, and you will feel more naturally connected to a person there that speaks your language perfectly, than a person of your "tribe" that speaks it partially and with bizarre modisms.
Both points played a part when we accepted the deceiving thought that humans were somehow more intelligent than animals.
1. "Animals are not intelligent because they don't have electricity, playstations and internet". Man. Imagine a lion who stopped hunting because he wants to research computing. Imagine how the pack and ultimatelly nature would treat that dumb lion. We are different beings and we both developed skills to adapt to our natural environments. How many migratory animals would tell we are not intelligent because we cannot tell the north from the south instinctivelly?
Look closely on which animals we have always considered intelligent: we do it because they share some behavior with humans: Bees are intelligent because they build hives like we do. Ravens are intelligent because they steal shiny things. Wolves are intelligent because their complex social structure. Scientist lose their minds assigning intelligence to animals who use tools like dolphins or monkeys, not because it shows intelligence itself, but because we humans do, and its a solution to a problem we solved in our past. Dogs, however, have their greatest asset on the next point.
2. Language. Dogs are considered intelligent because we can communicate with them very efficiently. Some even understand speech, and know how to convey their thoughts to us with ease, even to strangers. Still we considered them one step under us. I wonder if dogs think we are not as intelligent as them when they find out that we cannot read whose shit is that just by smelling it. Because language is not just speech: it is any sort of communication. Everything said in this entry is redoubled in regards body language.
Below these lines, there is the modifiers granted by intelligence in B/X d&d. As you see, only language is affected. And in the case that it affects magical power, it can be made sense of if magic requires you to decode magical languages like latin, runes or communicating with spirits that don't speak the common tongue.
BASICS
Armies are composed of homogeneus groups called Squads. Squads have a base amount of HP from 1 to 4. A small or tired squad has 1 hp, while a complete and fresh one has 4. Having even more men makes you start another squad. (Use incomplete squads when you want to represent poor or unstable armies, use complete ones normally for convenience)
HPs do not represent a specific number of people, but a fraction of a serious contingent. There is more people on a 4 HP footmen squad than in a 4 HP cavalry one.
When two squads collide, they deal damage to the enemy by rolling 1d6 each:
1,2,3 means no damage
4 means 1 damage unless the victim has a shield
5 means 1 damage
6 means critical hit (damage depends on weapon)
Sword: crit 2
Spear: crit 3
Bow: crit 2, but can fire volleys from behind another squad.
Crossbow: crit 3
Musket: crit 4
Armor gives +1 or +2 hp to each squad, depending on the quality. Note that there is no initiative and that both squads hurt the other at once.
SQUAD TYPES
Squad types work like pokemon types: they have advantage (+1d6, keep both) and resistance (+1d6, keep worst) versus a type of squad, or in certain situations.
Cavalry: +1d6 vs footmen, both melee or ranged. If forced to leave the horses because of the terrain, they count as a footmen squad of half the HP.
Spearmen: +1d6 vs cavalry. Once hit in melee, they are considered in close quarters and must become footmen (if they have backup weapons) or have their critical capped at 1. A levy of peasants might not have weapons beyond some bamboo spears, but one of trained samurai will.
Footmen (Ranged): Muskets, crossbow and bow. +1 damage to spearmen on formations, and +1 vs horse archers if they are kiting; but -1 damage to a charge of cavalry. When they are in close combat, ranged footmen can become melee ones if they have side weapons, but they count as a unit of -1hp.
Footmen (melee): Sometimes, the terrain will impose disadvantages for charging, shooting, mantaining formations, etc; such as in a forest. Footmen get +1d6 then.
Horse archers: +1 damage vs spearmen, only bow allowed.
Big monsters: Specific weaknesses if any depend on their nature, but the way to represent them is that so one of them fights as a whole squad. They can have any number of HP, and if encountered by a single warrior outside mass combat, their HP should triplicate.
I will make up other types if needed. Big monsters can count as squads for battle purposes.
ADVANCED:
I don't want to use this system to simulate realistic battles, but to have the PCS and NPCs have enough factors to consider it as if it was one. Normally, unless I/you want to complicate the scenario with different points of interest, the basic battle will be a 2d line where squads clash in order.
* Generals choose an order in which the squads will march. They do so without knowing which order will the other general use, nor which kind of squads, unless they have done espionage through PCs or others, which they historically did. It is also a great idea to find out if they have any Hero that is bestowing any mantle on a specific squad (see below)
* Each turn, after squads have clashed, each general can do one tactic action on the whole army. For example, moving a squad one step forward on their line (two steps for mounted units), or have a white mage attempt to heal a squad. Squads that move forward into the battle line effectivelly replace the current squad fighting on the next turn.
* Heroes are named NPCs (or PCs!) that lead a squad. Certain character skills or spells can affect the squad performance, such as a valkyrie summon (1-3 free re-rolls per combat, cast during the tactics phase), or just apply a bonus like +1d6 on a single charge or +hp to a squad.
* Specific actions during the combat can impact the whole scenario, such as breaking a bridge or shooting at a nest of giant wasps, use common sense.
* Flanking: a squad flanking another can attack twice. Flanking opportunities may be presented by the territory if you take the effort of study it.
I DONT PLAY WARGAMES. HOW ARE PCS INTERTWINED IN A BATTLE SCENE?
If PCs are directly involved on the battle, they will have a first person encounter for each battle their squad fights. If they lead a squad, they can also use any leadership-related skills at will.
It is possible for a PC to live while his squad failed and die while his squad won. A squad at 0 hp is considered to be disbanded, but there will be some survivors unless the enemy is dedicated to exterminate them.
If PCs are not directly involved on the battle, in my experience, they still like to see the battle, so I made this rules because the previous ones, while they worked nice, abstracted the battle too much.
