Play@YSDC

I thought it would be better if you put your important game questions in a separate thread so they don't get mixed in with the Mixer chatter. So here is where you post your game questions.

Dsig-

You might want to go over some of the combat rules as the Dark Ages rules are a bit, odd.

Also- character creation 110 for primary stats? And you will modify?

Also do you have a list of extra weapons?

Do the tribes have leaders? Are we assume our characters are advance scouts or are there other vikings in the boat?

Is 110 too much? It's been pretty standard from the other games I'm playing and they aren't even really ass kicking based.
Yeah I plan on learning the rules for Dark Ages this weekend. Once I get my hands on the book I'll fly through it. I'll post a list of weapons sometime today.

Well, I'd like to be in the game (although I really don't have the time). As a Swede I would of course be interested in playing a Viking. When do you need to have the character concept?

I'm willing to play an Eskimo Shaman but I know little about the culture. Could you post up a bit on their social mannerisms? For example, what is culturally polite - to be quiet, boisterous, use plenty of honorifics, be really familiar?

Sorry... the Shaman's taken. I just had a similar problem on the viking side with the witch. He came up with a great idea though. A semi mystical character. I could work in another magic dude..... half shaman half warrior all Narwhale. Just kidding.... maybe.
Seriously though It would be awesome if you played. We can even talk about two shamans cuz those are the only female characters in the Eskimo world. You could play a villager or some out in the snow hunter gatherer outsider type.

Either way.... The Vikings are close...... you can smell them in the wind.

Will the Shamans be losing sanity for spell usage like in the normal rules for Call of Cthulhu?

As for the personality and culture of the Dorset tribe. The Vikings described the natives they met on Helluland as large gentle children. I imagine them to be a very kind and joyful people. Totally in the moment with a deep resevoir of emotion hidden in their souls. You know what I mean. The say what they mean and mean what they say types. Their warriors are strong willed, and love their work.(hunting) They are sharp and witty in their own way. Being human however, they can be played good or evil, generous or selfish, fat or thin. You kind of see where I'm going with this guys.

Eskimos - Happy go lucky with a side order of bottomless patience.

Will the Shamans be losing sanity for spell usage like in the normal rules for Call of Cthulhu?

Yes. I'm going to take whatever Cthulhu abilities are closest to the Inuit powers and modify the cthulhu ability just slightly. Sanity loss will definitely be involved, escpecially for things like visons and spirit walks. You might just lose your mind if you change into a lemming to many times. (That's right.. i said lemmings)

Trixie and Laraqua or just Trixie depending on what Laraqua decided to do.

Read this action:

The Inuit people believed that both the vast, cold universe and their individual camps were inhabited by supernatural beings of many different kinds. Most important were the human souls. There were three different kinds: personal souls, name souls (remember name partnerships?), and ghosts. Animals also had souls. Shamans had the ability to harness many of these for specific tasks such as personal protection.

The shaman could exercise a leadership function in Inuit society. The role of the shaman was usually assumed by men, but sometimes by women. The shaman's power over the community, however, was negative in the sense that a shaman could influence through fear. This typically put the group in debt to the shaman. While they may be disliked, shamans were always important social forces, exerting control over the lives of every individual within their influence. Very seldomly did secular and shamanistic power overlap

Maybe I could play a one-time shaman who left the village to live as a hermit, hence my replacement. Could create interesting role-playing dynamics?

Yeah I would like that. You return to your people when the viking's arrive and then there will be lots of tension between you and your replacement. I will even start you off separately from the other tribe to start off. Then the replacement Shaman can establish a bit of control before you come in from the cold and try to get your old job back. Good idea...

'narrows eyes'

Hmm....who can be more evil.....grrrr......

Dan are you still looking for one more Eskimo? It's still up on the other site (http://www.darkandmoodyforums.com) I posted that you were still looking for one more ass kicker Eskimo. Is that true? (male character that is....so far many many vikings and only 4 eskimos, two of which are chicks....just wondering)

trixie wrote: Dan are you still looking for one more Eskimo? It's still up on the other site (http://www.darkandmoodyforums.com) I posted that you were still looking for one more ass kicker Eskimo. Is that true? (male character that is....so far many many vikings and only 4 eskimos, two of which are chicks....just wondering)

If you are still looking we can leave it up but if you say we can pull it just let either me or Imp know. Either of us can pull the ad down when you're done.

Yeah I could go for 1 more Eskimo warrior, That wil put it at 5 and 5. A little more than I wanted to start with but leave it up. I'm going to have Laraqua in her own thread for the first couple days.

DSIGFUSS wrote: Yeah I could go for 1 more Eskimo warrior, That wil put it at 5 and 5. A little more than I wanted to start with but leave it up. I'm going to have Laraqua in her own thread for the first couple days.

Roger that.

Dsig- considering a Viking longboat has a crew of 40 rowers, what are you planning for NPCs.

Out of curiousity, how many people have the Dark Ages book?

I don't have a single Cthulhu book, not even on pdf.

I don't have the Dark Ages book.

Then I think we have some issues in character creation.
Dsig- you may need to pdf a few pages of the Dark Ages Book and send to players, if only to get them grounded in character creation and the scores for weapons.

Doesn't really apply to me. I've asked for a pregenerated character.

I'd still ask all the Vikings and Eskimos who are having there characters made for them to chose a weapon from the list of Equipment thread. Pick a secondary weapon too that you won't be as good at.

Well, broadsword and axe then would be my choice of weaponry.

Yeah, unfortunately I don't have the Dark Ages books. I've never even seen one.

This one's been mulling around in my head, though it's not particularly pressing. Does anyone know how the Vikings addressed one another? Are we on a first name basis, do we call each other by our last names and if so, do we have titles?

Good question. I'm Icelandic (background) and it's all about the 1st names. ie Joseph Sigurdson has a kid. He names it Olaf Josephson. Then Olaf has a kid and names it Sigurd Olafson. I'd say when introducing yourself, you use first and last but when talking informally you use first names. Any other opinions? I'm just guessing.

Any thoughts on communication? The eskimos and vikings wouldn't be able to speak in real life. So I'm just clarifying this now before anyone starts up a long conversation with either band (not likely I know...we'll be too busy cutting the viking's heads off to chit chat...but still) I think it would be better to clarify now than to do it after the fact. Any thoughts?

Imho, gestures would be some of the only communication we could incur between vikings and eskimos.

Hey Trixie-
Considering that vikings ended up going all over the European world, I would guess they learned how to interact with people who spoke different languages. I wouldn't so quickly dismiss the capacity of eskimo and vikings talking, if they tried. But it wouldn't be easy.

Also consider that the vikings are technologically (especially in weapons) stronger but numerically inferior and that Helluland has few resources of interest. Hunting, fishing, etc- but besides a few rocks, there isn't much there. The vikings might be better off just trading with the locals rather than trying to make a colony. Afterall, Helluland is virtually an artic wasteland. What's worth fighting over?

Dsig- the 15% bonus goes to military or non-military skills? Are you saying this applies to all skills? Or do we increase our skill points (from Int or Edu) by 15%. Or can we just add 15% to any skill? Sorry, I am a bit confused.

It's 15 bonus skill points to place anywhere you choose.

You could put 15% on Listen. Or 10% on Listen and 5% on Accounting. Or 5% on Accounting, 5% on Spot Hidden and 5% on Climb. Or you could put 4% on Climb, 3% on Occult, 7% on Bargain and 1% on Track. The sky is the limits.

The only limit is the 70% cap on all skills.

Oh, put it all in computer use!!!

I was going for Firearms: SMGs. They had those... right?

Not sure how it really works because of the DEXx2% thing but I'll dump all 15% into dodge.

DEXx2% for Dodge is the beginning value. You're free to add to it as much as you want. Just some people with higher DEX are naturally better able to dodge than others who are stumble-f*%#s.

Apparently my character isn't far from being a stumble-f*%#s.

Consider 10-11 an average DEX stat ... I'd say you're doing all right.

Okee dokey Andrew. All into dodge. That's probably a good idea too.

Last chance to make any last minute changes to your stats if you want a higher DEX btw!

Starting on Monday with the Eskimos. Trixie, Lexicon, IMP, and Andrew. and me of coarse.

How does it work when characters start a day apart in the game? Does that mean we have to wait around until we're at the same time to meet up? Will we be kept busy until then, or would it be possible to have to sit and wait for someone else to get into things?

Just curious, considering posting rates are so different.

Time is all relative. Pretty much everyone in the game is on a different day. It's no sweat though. You won't have to wait. I'll just say time passes and you carry on with your day blah blah. And with you Trixie. Your're in crazy town. I might have lied to you what day it is. hahah!

*nervous laughter*

Yuralria's about to follow after Aglakti...I'm pretty sure by this point she thinks she's completely humped in the head!

She's had visions before. so she's not going completely insane. Usually she's on drugs is all. Now she's sober as a lamb and big daddy Loki is going to give her a spanking

Aglakti is perfectly sane, thank you very much.

For now...

But once she's finished with her Arctic Deep One pact, she might be coming home with a little present in her tummy... A gift for the village.

There's a big ol' chapter 2 thingy in my thread. Does that mean no more posting for now?

Yup but I'm going to be setrting you guys up one by one for Chapter 2 : V-day.

For those wondering how a parry works, you simply roll 1d100 against your skill with whatever weapon you're using. For instance, if you're wielding a sword, roll against your Sword skill. Unless you have points in Martial Arts you must declare which enemy you're trying to parry at the start of the round, but if you're only fighting one opponent then that doesn't matter. If the attack you're trying to parry misses anyway (or if it doesn't happen because you take out the enemy first), then your parry is simply wasted. If your enemy's attack hits and your parry succeeds, then you managed to deflect the blow with your weapon, which takes the hit instead of you. This may cause your weapon to break, however.

Yeah I wasn't sure about the martial arts deal with parrying. Thanks for clearing that up. What about parrying a punch with your arm? Does your arm take the damage?

If you parry a punch or other unarmed attack with your arm (using your own Punch skill), you take no damage. If you parry a weapon with your arm, then your arm definitely takes the damage!

I was just reading the IC threads, and Unalaq's attack roll of 95 is not (quite) a critical failure - that would only happen on a roll of 96 or above. Thus, he probably shouldn't need to roll Luck to avoid dropping his spear, he just missed very badly.

Thanks for the vote of confidence.

Yeah I know.... It was so close and things are so hectic up on that hill, if Unulaq's lucks failed him, he would have dropped it. If he rolled a 96, he definitely would have dropped it or slipped or imploded. haha!

The stats I sent you on chainmail said that it protects for 7 against slashing attacks, but otherwise that's correct and you're free to reduce it to 5. However, swords and knives can be used either to slash or to stab. When stabbing, chainmail only protects for 4 (and you have a chance to impale). I got the piercing and blunt damage resistance mixed up. Chainmail only protects for 3 against blunt attacks but 4 against piercing attacks.

I also found The Winter's Howl http://www.callofcthulhu.org.uk/viewforum.php?f=18 - it has some Dark Ages info as well as a method thewhatchamacallit used to handle extremely low temperatures, and it's also an excellent read. SuAside's character sheet in Cast of Characters has the info for chainmail's damage resistance.

yeah... I saw that... 7 is too crazy. Unless there were rules for targeting joints or unarmored locations, it would just be too unfair. Teh Eskimos wouldn't stand a chance even in greater numbers.

I'll switch the blunt and piercing damage resistances around though... thanks Handy.

What numbers do we have on axe and spear? I didn't put anything on my character sheet and I'm wondering if it was on the original dark ages character sheet. Maybe I forgot to copy it?

You can find the weapon details in this thread here: http://www.callofcthulhu.org.uk/viewtop ... f=74&t=873

Thanks Imp. Is dsigfuss sick I wonder? He mentioned feeling under the weather. Hmm....

So another question. If you're in hand to hand combat and you roll really crappy on say, axe, can you reroll on the same turn for spear and just post your successful roll?

Gotta abuse the system you know....someone's got to.

Definitely not. By rolling for axe, thaty means you are choosing to use it.

*crosses arms and sulks*

lol

4 days with no activity from the Dorset tribe... I think a severe artic cold snap came along and froze them all in place.

Nah, its just our lazy keeper...I think I see a thermometer in his mouth and a big ol' ice pack on his butt. Big daddy Loki came and spanked him last night.

Either that or he's up to his bloomers in raspberries again. He's jammin!

So how many rounds am I unconcious for.

You are unconscious for a while. I'll send you a pm when you wake up.

Since it looks like I'm going to be fighting soon, I was curious about how much damage Corazon's natural weapons would do... after looking at the eskimo weapon chart for similar things, this is what I came up with.

Bite (70%) 1dX (1d4? - as bone knife)
Claw (90%) 1dX+db (1d6? - as bone spear)
Damage Bonus=1d4

Does this seem reasonable? The claw is definitely her primary weapon.

'Kay, more questions:
1. Can she parry with her claws?
2. Can her claws or teeth break, and if so, how long will it take her to get them back? Since she just sort of pulls them into existence, I don't imagine that the recovery period will take too long.
3. How many attacks can she make in a round? Can she attack with both claws? One claw and a bite? Just one? All three?

^_^ Thank you!

Hi,

I'm here DSIGFUSS . let me settle down a little bit. I've noticed that there are plenty of threads over here so bear with me and give me some time. I'll post another message soon.

Thanks,

Roy

No worries Roy. Settle in at your leisure. if you need any help or have any questions just let me know. You can post in Trixie's bar and grill. it's a General OCC chat room for all the players to talk trash to each other. trixie posts the most in it so I named the Bar after her. lol

Welcome to Helluland!

Eh...I hope I do well in this. =S

Heh... don't worry about it. I expect to die here very soon. I'm sure you'll do better.

Hi all! I'm the new Berger! I hope to enjoy the game.

Welcome all new players to Helluland!!!

I've been sick the last week and my brain feels like a bag of hammered crapola... I'll post ASAP though. Lots of intense stuff going on. And NO I don't have the swine flu... hahaha

Don't you get free medical up in the Great White North? No excuse.

Posting my interest, I see myself as an Eskimo chic and have a piccy I like, too! Where now?

What are the occupational skills for a bard? I looked at Alrik's character sheet, but I can't tell from that. I can reasonably guess a few of them (Play Instrument, Viking Mythos, and Read/Write Runes, for example), but not all.

Also, what instruments can I choose?

So what's going on with the game? I want to kill me some viking ass!

This was a great game. Very fond memories of this play by post.