Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

This is a sequel (of sorts) to the formerly long-running "Operation: Storyteller" game I was GMing here in Forum Games.

It's a free-form role-playing game (RPG) set in a medieval-like fantasy setting on a made-up world of my own making-uping. There's no character stats, no dice rolls, hardly any rules. It's all about playing the role, not maxing out your hit points or getting the coolest gear. (Although having cool gear is nice too.)

All non-player characters are played by me. I also do any narration, background, or cut-scenes that I think are appropriate, and I answer all relvent questions by the players. If there's a dispute between players, either settle it yourselves or refer the dispute to me. In all cases, the decision of the Game Master is final.

First, the setting: It's been fifty years since the beginning of the war with the Drow, a war that ended a scant five years ago. That war shank Suldeneselar to little more than a city-state, and expanded the territory of Skare Brae eastwards, only to later see Skare Brae plunged right back into war when the king died with no heir and no less than three legal claimants to the throne. The resulting Succession Wars effectively split the kingdom in half, with the eastern half becoming the Kingdom of Thule. Although Thule and Skare Brae have now signed a peace treaty, diplomatic relations between the two states are abysmal. No formal trade rights between the two have been arranged, and so Gnomish Airship captains and smugglers are making a killing on the black market.

It's a world where technology is still very middle-ages: Watches don't exist, just sundials, water clocks, sand timers, and so on. Gunpowder is completely unknown, so no cannons, rockets or firearms exist either. Some extremely crude explosives could be made if you knew what ingredients to put together, but it would hardly be a stable mixture and would likely just blow up in your face. Medicine is mainly confined to herbal remedies and divine healing. Most people rely on the magic that, mage, cleric, or magic item can provide if they need to do anything sophisticated or high-tech. No planes, no cars, no computers, and no postal service, either. You can pay a messenger to take a message somewhere, but if it actually gets delivered or not is quite another matter. The roads are extremely unsafe, despite the utter lack of car crashes. That's because banditry and highway robbery are rather rampant once you leave the safety of a city. The roads themselves are fairly well made, but their usually just simple dirt or gravel roads. Only at the major trading centres will you see cobblestone roads or brick bridges. Too bad sewer systems are just about about as rare. Oh, and indoor plumbing is virtually unknown. If you need hot water, grab a kettle and start a fire. Masonry is a very well advanced trade, but most people still tend to live in simple mud-brick, wood, sod, or (in the far east) bamboo buildings because paying a mason to build just about anything is an expensive proposition.

AS for weapons:
Bows are commonplace; short bows, longbows, crossbows, and (in Sundeleselar) recurved bows are in general use. Composite bows, however, are limited to the small number of Gnomish bowiers who make them. Even rarer is the Clockwork Bow, a uniquely Gnomish design limited to a handful of exiting pieces. The Crossbows are relatively crude in their mechanisms. They're usually hand-and-stirrup strung, not cranked or lever-action strung. This limits both their effective range and power to less than what a good longbow archer can dish out.
Swords are fairly refined by this point, with steel being the metal of choice for the discerning swordsman. Iron, bronze, brass and copper and all available as well, but they are inferior to steel in nearly every way except price. A simple Iron sword will be cheap, but it won't hold it's edge as well as a steel sword and it will be heavier than a steel sword of the same size. Chrome-plating and electroplating are completely unknown, but it is possible, if extremely expensive, to produce metalworks covered in gilt or inlaid with precious metals. Folded-metal smithing is in it's infancy, and only a handful of goldsmiths know anything about that in this world: All swords are produced by simple forging and hammering because both the watermill and the windmill haven't been invented yet, so there's nothing available to drive a bellows that could power a blast furnace... well, except magic... or perhaps a fire giant.
Armour is similarly advanced, with both chain-mail and laminar/chain armour being widely available. Plate mail is very expensive to make, but it does exist. After the war with the Drow, for as-yet-unknown reasons, the few Mithril sources in the world suddenly became unproductive. This drove the price of Mithral ore (to say nothing of an actual piece of forged Mithral) through the roof.
Sailing is, however, slightly more advanced than you would expect. Despite lacking both the magnetic compass and the knowledge that the world is round, sailors and pirates alike have complied an extensive atlas of information about the seas of this world. Although they tend to stick to within sight of shore, the sailing ships of this world nevertheless can get you to nearly any known port you want to go to, reliably, safely and on time. Well, relitively safely, anyways. Baring pirate attack, sea-monster or angry mermen.
Even more advanced are the gigantic Gnomish Airships, the designs of which (and it's underpinning technology) are a closely-held Gnomish secret. The Gnomes are the master-traders of this world. They trade exotic items from the far east, the mysterious south, and the savage land of Chult with the rest of the world, raking in a nice profit in the meantime. They guard their trading lanes fiercely because they know that it's how they make themselves indispensable to the larger, fiercer races.
Magic, however, has seen a decline since the end of the war with the Drow. Apparently, the Gods decided that mortals had too much magic power, so their curtailed the flow of Mana that powers all magic in this world. (more on this as the game progresses).

You can play any of the following races:
Humans are: Westerners (from either Skare Brae, Thule, The Pirate Isles, or the Enshea Isles), Asians (from the lands of the far east), Trezbionders (from the mysterious and far-off unnamed uncharted southern hemisphere continent), or Uthgarts (fair-haired semi-civilized barbarians from a quasi-Scandinavian culture to the north). Although the dark-skinned people of Chult are actually human, their society is so savage and barbaric that I'm not going to allow my players to be Chultish.

Elves are either Suldeneselarian Elves or Drowish elves. Drow are Evil, so if you really wanna play a Drow, you're gonna have to be evil and nasty. Suldeneselarian elves suffered greatly during the last Drowish War, and their nation has fractured as well. This once-great Empire has lost effective control over many of it's feudal lords, who now only pay lip-service to their Emperor and rule as if they were kings in their own right. Many expect that a civil war is brewing in Suldeneselar.

Dwarves are... well... Dwarves. No subraces there, really. Gnomes and Halflings are the same way, really.

Mermen and Mermaids live in the sea, with flippers for feet. I dunno if you wanna play one of those, depends on if this becomes a sea-borne adventure or not.

The Cat-people (Cat-men, cat-women) are from an isolated and little-known island way out in the Great Western Ocean.

Lizzardmen are from just south of Scare Brae. They have a unique, and proud history, and although throughly civilized their civilization bears little resemblance to Human or Elven civilization. However, Lizzardmen mercenaries are highly skilled and professional soldiers, and are employed all over the known worlds. The Lizard Queen was allied with both the Humans and the Elves against the Drow, but remained neutral during the Succession Wars.

Then you've got your Fay creatures. Pixies, Sprites, Brownies, Formorians, Spectres, etc. Special permission needed to play one of these. Same with Centuars, Obsidimen, Treants, extra-planar creatures, and so on.

So, invitations are going out now to all my former regulars from Operation:Storyteller, and If you wanna sign-up, do so below.
Game starts on Tuesday, June 17, 2008.

EDIT: We're nearly at a full roster, just waiting for one more player to enter and then sign-ups will close.
EDITED EDIT: Sign-ups officially closed.
EDITABLE EDITED EDITING OF A PREVIOUS EDIT: The Adventure Begins!

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I'll sign up.

Do we make our characters now?
If so, I think I'll be a Suldeneselarian elf, but I will never refer to myself as "Suldenesarian". I am from an outlying province in the former empire of Suldenesar called Antagar and as such refer to myself as "Antagaran". I am a young elf (I don't know what is young by elf standards but I hope this works) and I do not remember a time when the lord of Antagar was fully loyal to the emperor.

I have left my home and journeyed to (wherever the story begins) to learn the ways of magic. My family were an elvish mages, and their power is declining and they do not know why. Hence, I have left to learn different types of magic, but will happily join any other adventure instead as I am not very goal-oriented and like to enjoy myself more that most elves.

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SIBHoD.

Elves age the same as Humans do until they reach their early teens, at which time the rate at which their physical appearance become "older" slows down dramatically. By the time an Elf is 50 years old, he looks like he's still in his early twenties. From this point on, it slows down even more, and no Elf ever looks like he's more than 70 years old, even if he's really 200. The oldest known Elf was Gizband the Ancient, who lived for nearly 370 years and never looked a day over 80. The current average life expectancy for an Elf is around 200 years, but this is primarily due to the relatively primitive levels of sanitation and medicine in this era. To contrast, the average human life expectancy in this era is only 62.
Dwarves are also very long-lived, but Dwarves age the same as humans do until they reach middle age, after which their ageing gradually slows down.
Lizzardmen actually have lesser average life spans than humans do, if only by a few months.
Halflings are odd in that they seem to stop ageing around nine or ten and never appear to become older than that. Then again, they only live to around 30 or 35 in any case.

Oh, I forgot you can play a Half-elf. Half-elf features, life expectancy and general characteristics are a blend of human and elf. To what extent human and what extent elven varies wildly, though. Some Half-elves look very elvish and have very elvish characteristics, while some can pass as human with little effort. Half-elf physical ageing also seems to slow down quite a bit in their early teens, but not quite as much as full-blooded elves. However, this also varies quite a bit. By the time a Half-elf is twenty, he may look like he's sixteen... or he may just look twenty. Regardless, Half-elves are so new to this world that nobody actually knows how long a Half-elf might live.

As for what happened to the old team, well: World-famous half-elven adventurer Eruantian The Ring Bearer is currently 80 years old, but he still looks like he's in his late twenties. Meanwhile while his old adventuring companion Marcus The Lizzardman is so old that he keeps his teeth in a cup by his bed. It's a really nice bed, though, seeing as he's now King Of The Lizzard People. The Human Arch-Mage Micheal The Wise has been experimenting with magical ways to halt or reverse ageing, but with little success. It seems the best any Mage can do at this point is change one's superficial appearance with an Illusion spell, but sop far there's no turning back your biological clock. By the way, Captain Sealem eventually returned to lead the Emperor's body guards once again before retiring, Horin is very much still alive and running a Temple to his god in the city of Targos, Tyr sent Maria went back to the afterlife, Corin led a rebellion to overthrow the usurpers of his island and now rules that island as King Of The Cat People, Acedia opened a dress shop in Targos, married Maxwell, and started a family, while Taryn is off adventuring in parts unknown and Farnham returned to Glenarbor to run the family business. Eruantian eventually killed the Spider Queen Lillith/Lloth and became a walking legend. Micheal became a professor at the Royal Thamutological Academy, but he's now semi-retired and living in a wizard's tower in Skare Brae City. Prosper became a Master Thief and founded his own thieves guild in Targos. Drek continues to adventure as a Master Ranger alongside Eruantian.

OK, so we count Biscuithead as one sign-up.

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I'll sign up, I just need you to respond to my message to see whether my character's race is accepted.

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[OOC: Marcus is King? Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice.

I'll try to come up with someone new, maybe another Lizzardman. =3~]

It could be his son. Just a suggestion.

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Since my character was accepted, I'll start creating a backstory for him now.

James was a werewolf, fortunately transforming into a wolf was voluntary and was able to keep his intelligence when transformed. His hybrid form on the other hand, was of pure rage and James is literally scared of that form, it comes out in moments of severe stress. His lupine traits gives him more advanced hearing and a sense of smell when human (though, not advanced as if he was a wolf).

James recently left his pack due to issues with its leader, bringing his spear and wearing basic leather armor and a red bandana (as a sign of rebellion to his pack) to (insert town here) for a fresh start and see what the other races are like.

I was a bit rushed, I'm better at creating the story as it goes along.

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We'll decide what town we start in when we have a full roster. Lots of options there.

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I'm going to vote early for Glenarbor, as it gives a special feeling of "where it all started"

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Let's see...

Drekle is a male in his mid 30s, living in the town (wherever this story begins). He looks almost entirely human, but he is part elf. He is eager for an adventure but afraid to leave his invalid mother. He's also unsure how one goes about starting on an adventure.

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[OOC: Hope you don't mind if my character starts out somewhere else and then joins the group sometime later. He's on his own journey, y'see.]

Alone. Deserted. Betrayed. Furious.

These were the emotions running through Duncan's mind as he sat on his ship in a small cove of an island about as far from the Uthgart mainland as Iceland is from Sweden. The Uthgarts lived on the island for centuries, but thanks to Duncan's race, he was now its sole inhabitant. For Duncan belonged to that fair, respectable people known as the Lizzardmen.

After King Marcus had assumed the throne some 30 years ago, he had found that the Lizzards had no maps of any of the lands of this world in their own native tongue. A writing system does exist for Lizzard-Tongue (a descendant of the primitive speech still spoken by dragons; names given here are Anglicizations), but it had been neglected and nearly forgotten. His Majesty, finally old enough to get some good smarts in him, had learned the alphabet and wanted to update his kingdom's maps not only with his language, but with the latest geographical information as well. There may have been lands never before seen by Lizzard eyes.

Therefore, His Majesty appointed his eldest son, Crown Prince Morris, to oversee the project. Morris, furthermore, sent his son Prince Duncan to survey the northern lands. Duncan obeyed and led a small armada of ships northward to Uthgartia.

But something went wrong. Uthgarts, like Lizzardmen, are also not the most civilized bunch. Legend has it that their hatred of one another goes back millennia, to when an Uthgart general slew a dragon thought by the Lizzards to be from the very bloodline that spawned them some tens of thousands of years before. In short, the expedition was not pretty. What was intended to be a peaceful surveying mission turned into a bloody, combination land/war battle that left only Prince Duncan alive. And now he had to take the journey home.

Alone. Or did he?...

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(OOC: I just realised that I have described too much of my character's backstory, and not enough about the character himself, I didn't even name him!)

His/my name is Orandius Thiaun. I will always introduce myself with both names as I am extremely proud of the Thiaun family name. I am rather tall for my age, and could easily pass as an adult elf. I walk quickly and light-footed but with a noble air, always holding my head high.

I carry a finely crafted steel shortsword and matching dagger imbued with the Thiaun family crest. I also carry a light wooden bow and several arrows, though these are used strictly for hunting and not fighting. I wear light elvish plated armour, though it is a little too big for me, and gives a slightly comic appearance when I move in it. I also carry a spellbook which at present contains only simple tricks but has many blank pages which I intend to fill on my journey.

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SIBHoD.

<OOC: Try speaking in third person when describing your character's actions, first person is for OOC>

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One problem with that.

1) As I have already outlined, plate armour of all types is very expensive. Like, buying-a-house expensive. I seriously doubt your character could afford plate mail at this point in his life. More likely, you're wearing studded leather, laminar armor, or possibly a partial suit of elven chain with a tunic and/or cloak of some kind.

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Plate armour was the only kind that really gives the look I was going for with my character (he tries to look noble, but instead looks immature and silly).

Well, ok. He has a light chain mail vest beneath a long brown robe. The robe has stylised elvish writing in the trim, giving a distinguished look, but it is very dirty and muddy around the bottom where it brushes the ground.

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SIBHoD.

Right, thanks. I forgot to lay down the rules about that.

If you want to write a message to the GM or to the other players in-forum, this is called being "Out Of Character" or "OOC". You flag such comments preceding them with <OOC> and ending them with </OOC> to mark the beginning and the end of you being Out Of Character, respectively. If you want to privavtely contact the GM, then PM me.

When writing in-character (while in-game) you write in the Third Person Limited. Third Person Limited is where the narrator (that's you) describes events in third person grammar but as if seen through the eyes of only one character (hence "limited") in our case, it's the character you control. The narrative will include the thoughts and feelings of only your character, while other characters are presented externally when you write about them. Since the reader learns the events of the narrative entirely through the perceptions of which ever player is writing, anything that the player's character cannot perceive must be excluded from what he or she writes, otherwise it "breaks" the point of view. Because of this, third person limited is sometimes called the "over the shoulder" perspective. As GM, I follow these rules too, except that I control more than one character: The character's I control are called "Non Player Characters" or NPCs. NPCs are simply all the people, critters, monsters, and such that populate the game world but are not under the control of a Player. Since someone has to describe what the NPCs you interact with are doing, that job falls to me.

Keep one thing in mind: You are not your character, you're just an author describing the actions of your fictional character. So, one does not write. "I bash the Orc over the head." Rather, one writes "Steve bashed the Orc over the head with his mace." Similarly, you ONLY describe the actions of YOUR character. If your character bashes another character over the head, you DO NOT describe what that other character does in response: That's someone else's job. You can describe how and when and in what fashion the bashing occurred, and you can describe where your character was trying to hit the other character, but the actual outcome of your bashing is described by the GM, with the reaction described by whoever controls the character being bashed.

In large large encounters where your actions affect mobs of people or similar-sized groups en mass, other rules apply and I'll get into that if and when it becomes necessary.

When you write about your character, include his or her name somewhere in the text so we know for sure who you're writing about. This is both for clarity's sake and so that we can all remember who's running what character. As GM, I will be running many Non-Player Characters, and I will ALWAYS be sure to properly denote the character who's actions I'm describing. Sometime, your character might not know the name of an NPC yet, in which case you'll just get a description from me and not a name.

Also, when you write what your character is saying, you put it in quotation marks and ascribe it to your character by name. (usually just the first name.)
If a running dialog between not more than two characters develops where it's clear who's responding to who, it is sometimes acceptable to simply put your dialog in quotation marks and leave it at that, without a name attached. Please be careful if you do this, though, and be sure it's clear who's talking.

One last thing: Avoid Meta-gaming. If you somehow become aware of information that your character can't possibly know, you must continue to play that character as if he doesn't know that something. For starters; you probably know that the world is round, planets go around suns and not the other way around, and that electricity is for more that just lightning. Well, your character doesn't know any of this, so don't play as if he does. More to the point, if another player describes his character's thoughts and feelings in-character, none of the other characters are aware of these thoughts (unless somebody's a mind-reader). Facial expressions and body language can betray your character's emotional state, but only to other characters who can see and/or feel them.

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Just wondering, is it possible to sign-up in the middle of the game? Introductions in the adventure was one of the things that made this game fun for me.

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Oh yeah, that hasn't changed. I just thought I'd give the initial bunch of players a chance to all start together, that's all.

Which reminds me: Game start will be some time in the evening (my time, GMT -6) Tuesday June 17. That's nearly a week after I posted the initial post here, so plenty of time for the initial sign-ups and other preliminaries. Will edit the first post to reflect this.

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Well I'm just going to wait for the town name so I can submit a deeper backstory for my character...maybe.

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You guys can decide the name of the starting town. Just come to a consensus and I'll respect it.

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Sarge, I'm actually leaving for my vacation on Tuesday, but you have my backstory so feel free to start things off without me. On the off chance I have a spare moment in Hawaii to hop on here I might randomly take over my character for a bit but don't expect me consistently until Thursday, June 26th at the earliest.

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OK, have fun in the land of grass skirts & pineapples. We'll wait here.

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It was getting dark, and Duncan felt exhausted. He had endured a fierce battle--lasting one seemingly endless, sleepless week--of which he was the only survivor. A good time for sleep, he reckoned. Duncan descended into his captain's quarters and plopped down on his bed, with no blankets or pillows. Tomorrow he would set sail on the long journey home.

Now Prince Duncan, like his grandfather, was a finely-built Lizzardman. Just over six feet tall, and weighing in at about three hundred pounds of solid muscle, counting his powerful tail. He wore a red kilt, already faded with time (Duncan was in his late twenties) but plenty dirty from the battlefield. Duncan was indeed a seasoned warrior, one who made King Marcus proud. Yet he was now angry at his father, Crown Prince Morris. Did he really send his son to the other end of the world for an expedition, or just to get rid of him?

At this point, the Lizzard just wanted to rest. He would have all the trip home to think about his father.

Name, er...all I can come up with is Rinkletin, any other suggestions?

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[OOC: Wherever it is, let's make it a coastal town so Duncan can join the party...maybe in my next post. ^^;]

<OOC>Then good-old Glenarbour seems to be the logical choice. </OOC>

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<OOC: I'm a little impatient so I'm stealing Ian's idea and giving a little backstory before the main story starts.>

It was starting to get dark. Orandius decided it was time to stop and camp for another night.
On second thoughts, the top of the next small hill seemed like a better location to rest than the bushy valley he was currently in. He found a strong stick and used it to help himself up the fairly steep slope.
So he walked on. Another few steps added to his long and tiring journey. It had been many days since he left Antagar for the human lands of Skare Brae. He was running low on basic supplies, though he did recently obtain enough gold to sustain him a while if he were in a town.

As Orandius reached the crest he noticed something he had not noticed earlier on his journey. Out on the horizon the land was no longer reaching the sky, but separated by water. He was actually very close to the ocean.
So that was it. He had reached the end of his journey across the land, and the only thing close to adventure he had seen was when he had sneaked into that bandit camp two days ago, and repossessed some of the loot they had stolen from other travellers.

He planted his walking stick in the ground and threw the large piece of cloth he used as a tent over the top of it. As he sat within his tent he decided he would have no fire this night. He would be far to visible to the bandit group, which he suspected was attempting to track him. These bandits were no skilled Elven trackers, but Orandius suspected they still wouldn't miss a fire on a hilltop.
As night fell Orandius emerged from his tent to smell the ocean air, and he also noticed something else on the breeze. He looked along the coast to find the source of the pleasant smell of food, and saw a harbour town that was maybe a day's walk away.
That would be his destination then. Tomorrow he would visit the town and see if he could finally find a skilled magician to teach him, or at least some kind of adventure to make his journey worthwhile.
He was open to anything, whatever awaited him in that town, he was prepared to take it.

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SIBHoD.

<OOC: I was thinking of doing the same thing before you BH, I decided to reveal my backstory while the story plays, sides it's a bit too late for me, I'll see how things turn out.>

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The welcoming beam of a lighthouse greeted the lone Lizzardman as he sailed into Glenarbor. Duncan had been at sea for about three months now. All that time isolated on a ship and more than enough food for an adult had rendered him a little soft around the middle--even with his hours of daily exercise. Still his powerful arms, shoulders, and legs had grown a little bigger and stronger.

Within a few hours of landing, Duncan had sold his royal ship, the Kraken, for an enormous price even greater than the cost to build it: one million Sovrigns! Such a fine vessel could hold ten thousand men yet sail as smoothly as a feather in the breeze with incredible speed to match. Duncan kept the gold in his grandfather's old Bag of Holding, still working, and looking as new as the day Marcus received it.

Slinging the bag over his shoulder and straightening his great kilt, Duncan went ashore to find some lodging for the night, a filling meal, and perhaps a good swordfight to get him back into shape. As an old saying went: If you want a Lizzardman on your good side, rest his head and fill his belly. Glenarbor looked as if the earthquake in Marcus's day had never happened; not a scorch mark nor broken rooftop could be found. It was a humble little town, which meant not a lot of places fit for a prince--even a Lizzardprince. Duncan did know of the family of jewelers who lived there. If the local lord would not offer him hospitality, perhaps this family would do just the same when Marcus carried home a drunken Farnham.

After a bit of searching, Duncan found the lord's castle. He approached the gates with his chest held high and a firm grip on his sword.

"Good sunset in there!" Duncan bellowed. "I am Prince Duncan of the Lizzardmen and I request a bed and a dinner for the night!"

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A man dressed in painted-up overalls and holding a paint brush opened a shuttered window at street level and said to Duncan: "Sorry m'lord, but you're wasting your breath. There ain't no one home. Lord Spencer and his wife are off in the Enshe Isles while they're hav'n this old place re-painted, so it's just me and my crew and about fifty barrels of paint. Why don't you try The Gold Lion Inn? I hear it's a right fancy joint. Marble bathtubs, even."

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