Friday, October 29, 2021

Cyclopes & Tales from the Smoking Wyrm...

 


(Warning for shameless self-promotion post!) Hey, I am on a kickstarter! That is thanks to the awesome crew of the Smoking Wyrm who were gracious enough (or mad enough) to let me play with their Trolls for DCC RPG.


This is a troll, by Paul Bonner.

You see, everything started with Cyclopes. Not any cyclopes, but the true ones, from Krull (the first and only D&D movie). Basically, I created a Cyclops class for DCC RPG. In Krull, cyclopes are a cursed folk who traded one of their eyes with the Beast in exchange for the power to see the future. However, they were deceived and the only future they can see is their own deaths. To represent that mechanically, I change how the Luck stat works for them because Cyclopes are DOOMED! Doom works as a variant Luck if you will. It is less versatile but more powerful than normal Luck. However, when you Luck runs out (i.e. you reach Doom zero) your Cyclops dies.

I friend of mine (and fellow judge) loved that approach and encouraged me to use it to represent the fading of Elder Races from the Tolkien imaginarium. The result is this post on not-Tolkien Elves and Dwarves and their own racial Ability Score instead Luck. At this point I had basically defined that Luck is a thing for “common folk” such as Halflings and Humans. Other races have a different stat and mechanic.


This is ALSO a troll (or two trolls actually), by Ward.

If you liked any of the above, you will definitely be interested in this 4th zine of Tales From the Smoking Wyrm. I was given the chance to create the racial Ability Score for Trolls. These mythological creates are so varied, each one so different from the other (ranging from elven-like beauty to grotesque giants), that only one concept could represent their racial stat – the Weird. I also wrote an open scenario for a Troll party to explore. However, the real deal is the authors’ amazing take on Trolls as a character class for DCC RPG. 

If you are interested in any of the above, please consider backing. You won’t be disappointed.


Did I told you that the kickstarter art is from John Cobb?


2 comments:

  1. Great to see you in print again, buddy!

    (Been slyly reading your work here for a hile now, on rss... but I think milestones have always to be celebrated!)

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    Replies
    1. Hi Álvaro! Missed you my friend! And yes, I am still following anything you write ;-)

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