World of Alidor » Tortoise Cities

How to train your dragon to be a lethal weapon

shent_lodge — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 21:06:33 +0000

I have been looking at the spells in the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook, and I noticed that a couple of them really work well with my game world of Alidor. In Alidor, dragons are top dog, and tortoises are man’s only hope. I have told players that there have been many wars between the people of Alidor, and the Dragons. Most notably was the Second War, where people had figured out how to sway the will of the mountainous tortoises, and used this ability to move them wherever they wanted, even across the open sea to the island of the greatest dragon of them all, Surma. The attack against Surma ultimately failed, leaving Ingersol stuck in a valley between two mountains, Jelling drowned at sea and Darra and Alice wandering the eastern lands of the Brunari leaderless.

The attack on their homeland, and the island now called Jelling, spurred the brunari people to design a new strategy to get back at the Children of the Slaves, as those who were free of dragon rule were called. A great forge was built just outside the cave mouth of Surma’s home.

Dragons stepped forth and volunteered to be transformed by the brunari spell smiths working in conjunction with the Daughters of Delarendel and the dragon Surma to create the ultimate weapon, essentially, common weapons that held the spirit of a dragon. If such a weapon was tossed into the air while speaking a word of summoning it would turn into a dragon and attack on its own. If the beast was slain in battle, it would return back to weapon shape and if the rite of ultimate death was not performed, the dragon would regenerate and be ready to fight again at a later day. All weapons forged this way bare Surma’s forge emblem on them.

There was one weapon found on a would be brunari assassin, that until recently, existed in the great hall in the tortoise city of Tudd, called Kingslayer, a long sword of remarkable quality. It was used in an attempt to kill Ian Russerson, the leader of the Children of the Slaves.

What inspired was the spell “Form of the Dragon I” from the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook. This spell and another called Beast Shape provide an excellent way to make cool artifacts for players to find while exploring. Plus, as you adventure in Pathfinder RPG there may come a time when you need a mount and Form of the Dragon cast integrated into a melee weapon could be one possibility. Of course, first you would have to train your dragon to let you ride it. But how do you train a dragon? One way, in my game, is that you befriend it, say with Diplomacy, and have some ranks in Fly and probably Handle Animal to help get you where you want to go. Dragon weapons can be the whole gamut of alignments, so maybe you get lucky, and find a dragon sword that is closely aligned to you. If you are not lucky, then maybe bribery will work, say, by letting the dragon start a hoard, and placing the weapon on a small pile of coins from time to time. Another might be to threaten the dragon blade with the rite of ultimate death.

The Rite of Ultimate Death

Over time, the knowledge of creating weapons with spirits in them faded. What is now known, is just tidbits gleaned from ledgers and journals that speak in particular of the dragons. To get a dragon to volunteer to have it’s life force encased in a weapon for all eternity is a difficult task to start with, but to have them give up their first item they ever hoarded to complete the spell, is even harder. The ones that did, never knew of the rite of ultimate death, where, according to the ritual, if you touched that single first hoarded item, be it a trinket, gem or a king’s crown, to the weapon that contained the dragon that originally gave it up, it would instantly snuff out the beast, rendering it and the weapon to ash. Of course at the time, this was a valiant thing to do during the war, and if the dragons had known of the rite, they would have had little to fear, because the brunary spell smiths kept the lists of the weapons, the dragons and the hoard items all safe and the brunari culture was here to stay, until oh, about 600 years ago, when that last bastion of their great culture finally crumbled. Scattered throughout Alidor are great treasures and odd little books with cryptic notes and dragon blades, there are 19 known to still exist or are unaccounted for.

I think I will have to make a dungeon using this theme…. Evil GM laugh.

Some fun things I thought of: If a player confirmed a critical with a natural 20, the weapon would release a breath weapon attack that the wielder is immune to. If it were a bow or crossbow the bolt would explode into a breath weapon attack. The number of levels that the player had carrying the weapon could be used to control this effect to avoid unwanted breath weapon attacks, or to spur one on. Say, if a fighter had the weapon for 3 levels, if she rolled a natural 20 to confirm, and did not want the breath weapon, because it may kill innocents, then she could reduce the score to less than 20, and do normal critical damage for the weapon. If her confirmation roll was less than 20, say 19, and she wanted the breath weapon to be released, then she could add to adjust her role to get a twenty. The player could only control this the number of times a day equal to the number of levels they had the weapon in their possession. The fighter in this example had the weapon for three levels, so she could use this ability three times a day.

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One Ton Orc – Player Created Content

shent_lodge — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 16:50:15 +0000

The best part about RPGs is when the players in your game start to get involved and add content. My home game world is really a mishmash of stuff I dreamed up and whatever my players threw into the mix to help make the game world make sense. One of my old players ran a campaign about ten years back where he created a flyer for a band called the One Ton Orc. His plan was to have the band as part of a plot hook. He said that his players had a blast in that game. Just recently, he came across the flyer he designed from way back then, and brought down from Wisconsin this weekend and gave it to me to scan.

Now Alidor has a traveling band called the One Ton Orc. I only had to ask the player what bar he wanted the band to frequent the most? He selected the Reeking Brownie Inn on the tortoise Ingersol. Besides already having some basic map details for Ingersol, I was able to add more content to my home game without much work.

Here is a Ingersol tortoise city stats pdf from my home game.

I really like it when the players start helping with content while playing, it really makes being the GM just that much less painful.

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The Female Cleric of Sarel

shent_lodge — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:26:09 +0000

Here is an image of the other female player in my home game. The 6th level cleric of Sarel, Sister Ana Bosbert. On retirement Ana went to Jerren to tour the tortoise cities as a healer and envoy of the church of Sarel. The many religions in Alidor are all well tolerated on the tortoises and most send clerics to act as healers and also as recruiters of their faith. Most stay for a month or so in small 2-3 room healing huts before moving on to the next city.

A home game option for clerics is that the player gets to choose a god, and may use any one weapon they want, they can still have simple weapons. The players get to choose what areas of influence that god represents also. Sarel is the god of deep winter and hope according to Elizabeth. Sarel is the light in the darkness, and is a good aligned god. The symbol of Sarel is two golden wings. Sarel’s Areas of Influence are winter, travel, honor and strength, and all churches no matter the size keep a small lit candle in their front window from sunset to sunrise. Sarel’s churches allow travels to rest and stay for free for three nights. When Elizabeth told me about the god Sarel, I was ecstatic, like cool, now I don’t have to figure that one out. I like it when my players add to my game.

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Another Rough Image of Cork

shent_lodge — Sun, 10 May 2009 13:48:54 +0000

Here is the latest image of Cork, the wandering tortoise city taken over by crazed orcs.

So far I added trees, streets and the gladiatorial coliseum. Basically I used Bryce 6.1 to get a quick image of a plane of trees, using terrain story book grass texture Z-brush 3.12 to build the tortoise and Photoshop CS3 to put it all together. I purchased a Wacom Bamboo 4×6 with just the pen to help draw. I still have not decided on a texture for the tortoise shell yet. I will try to complete the Cork map this week and publish it here.

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I Think I Missed the Boat for Shared Campaign World

shent_lodge — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 16:01:13 +0000

RPGbloggers Network is making a shared campaign world which appears to be a pretty cool idea. I have been just so busy with work and family and gaming in my home game and the RPGA. Anyway, I have this tortoise city that would be perfect to share called Cork since it has gone missing from my world. I have drawings and a basic map and a bit about the city here.

Cork is kinda like the “Black Pearl” from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. It is a city that was once full hard working studious folk and was home to a great college that held copies and original great works from ages past. These days it is a place of chaos and villainy taken over by a band of orcs, or so that is what people believe. Many mysteries abound for those who seek out the great tortoise city and explore the halls of the ancient college.

I wanted to add it to the shared campaign world but I think I missed the boat. Drat. I get so many emails and so little time to read them all. Anyway check out what these guys are doing here. I thought Cork would fit in well wandering around hexes 0303 and 0304 on the map.

If you are taking part and want a mysterious wondering small mountain sized tortoise to pop in from time to time, I figured the red areas on the map is where the tortoise could potentially be found. Honestly, Cork could go anywhere that is moderately level. I posted a blank scaled map of Cork’s shell and you can draw out the city any way you want. I will be scanning in my Cork map and posting it soon. I should point out I am not part of the “official” campaign so don’t take my quick edit of the campaign map as anything other than my Sunday morning doodle of where I think Cork would wander.

Hey if you do draw a map of Cork let me know and I’ll post it on my site. Just send me a link to the map and I’ll write a post about it.

email: shent_lodge — at — worldofalidor –dot– com

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