End of 2020

 Wrapping up the end of the year 2020 and it was NOT a double critical hit year! A lot of things have happened and I won't go over them as there will be enough of that in the billion other end of year posts.

Looking over my blog stats, I still tend to have about a 50/50 breakdown of Macs vs PCs and an interesting and similar range of browser choices. And somehow I picked up another follower - up to a whopping 17! Thanks everyone! 

Part of that is I am also adding links to other blogs (see my Traveller blog roll over on the right) for those I find interesting. While it started out as all Traveller, this blog, and the ones I follow, gravitate to Traveller but cover other games as well. I tend to post game recaps for the games I run, but not the games I play in. 

This last year I've played an old west game with an English miner who likes dynomite, a space cat in a super hero game, and continue to play Sir Zay, an D&D character in a microlight game as well. That last game we've been playing for almost 4 months now, though there were a couple of gaps. The Asheville Gaming Club did a 2 month / 1 month cycle for games. While this allowed for a good rotation, it also meant some things were rushed or incomplete. Now we're playing until we get to a good spot, then rotate. It give a more natural scale to grow the characters I feel.

I've run the Corsairs game and tried to keep the Fantasy Trip game in play. While the remains of the AGC can play over Skype, the Fantasy Trip group is a dad & his kids, and being 9 and 13 or so, table top gaming really needs to be played in a table top. Hopefully the vaccines and everything will allow us to get back to face to face gaming next year. It better - I have a lot of physical things to hopefully help in game play! Plus a lot of minis coming around next year. Which I need to paint...

This has been a bad year for a lot of things: I am working from home full time which is great in many ways (and funnily enough something I fought for earlier for the other developers and upper management was not convinced people could work from home. Now they are getting rid of the offices and everyone will be working from home even after the pandemic! Turns out we can be productive from home. Go figure!) I am also working at a 30% pay cut, so I've had to cut way back on a few things. Which is probably all for the good as I do have too many things already. Good thing I am generally a cheap person anyway. And, having been laid off more than 10 years ago, I've become a lot more savings oriented, so I can get by with a lot less than I was making if I had to. You learn a lot, after the panic is over, when something like that happens to you.

But it has also been a good year for other things, though I would be hard-pressed to tell you what. I do get to see my cats a lot more, and the dog & I go on a daily 1-2 mile walk at lunch. I miss the ducks, but I also make 50% decaf coffee to get to drink more coffee in the morning. I've saved a lot on gas - the first few months the gym was closed and I only filled up my tank once in 4 months!

I've lost one friend to Covid recently, my son turned 20 and is acting like a 20 year old. Meaning my hair is getting greyer faster than ever now as we worry, and he cannot understand why we worry. If he ever has children, and I'm around with they hit late teens, I'll try & remind him of what he is putting us through. But that is the nature of life: I did the same thing to my parents, and in fact moved in with my girlfriend at 20. That caused a major rift in my family, so him staying over a night or two a week is not the same but I cannot really say anything about it. It is just uncomfortable. 

Sorry - end of year thoughts sometimes get me thinking about times past!

To end this post, thinking about future times. I am hoping to run another Traveller game, either continuing the Big Wreck or starting another game. Assuming we can resume face to face gaming, the Fantasy Trip group is eager to get back to gaming. We've a 1935 vigilante game coming up next, and possibly an anthropomorphic game as well. We may get another round of Corsairs in as the supplements really expand out that game a good bit and bring in more crunchiness. And I've a dark, grim RPG I may want to try & run a short version of. Need to stop by an office supply store to print it out - I just cannot read a PDF and run a game well! And I've actually started prepping for the character challenge (err, cheating, as I have 3 characters ready to go, but will post only 1 per day. I just know that a lot comes up and I don't have a lot of free time to spend on these sort of things. So I need to take advantage of those days I do!)

And to everyone out there - have a great new year, and here's hoping 2021 is a fantastic year for everyone!

January Character Challenge

One of my fellow bloggers found a challenge for January, and I thought I may see if I can somehow squeeze in the time to try this. His post is here. Now, I can roll through classic Traveller generation in fairly short order, but this will give me a chance to go through a few other systems. While I do have a LOT of potential career paths (see my career bibliography here), I also have a few other game systems I may roll up characters for. I do plan on the majority of these characters to be Traveller, from Classic, Mongoose, Cepheus or T5.

For those days I simply only have a few minutes, The Fantasy Trip can be a quick character system. And I will be cheating - probably try to do a few extras on those days I have some time for. But I am hoping to post 1 character each day. I will capture each die roll and go from there. Those that have played Traveller enough know that the character generation is a fun game in and of itself; it is easy to add a bit of extrapolation to the rolls as to what is happening to the character. While this is barely implied in the classic generation, Mongoose added events that occurred during generation to make it explicit. And I like that as it can spark the imagination, and generally gives you at least a couple of choices for those events and how they get handled. 

I think I'll also see if I either have buried in my piles of games stuff a personality generator/random table or find an on-line one, or even create my own multi-axis system. Something with things like optimistic vs pessimistic, thoughtful vs spontaneous, things like that. There are a lot of these on-line, such as this one or this one. Maybe after I do this enough times I'll have a better idea of what I am looking for: I know that it should be actionable in some way in a game. And I need to get better at NPCs - I can generate them left and right, but playing them...I may try for an index card of the character as I do better when I have something written down in front of me to reference. 

My plan is to go through a few of the T5 character generation processes which will take me quite some time, Classic Traveller which could be very quick if I fail the survival roll, The Fantasy Trip for 32-36 point characters, and perhaps dig through some other game systems I've accumulated over the years and never actually used. I've a Fate game coming up, and while I do have my primary character mostly created, she has a staff. So I may try to see about her primary butler/body guard, name him Heimlich. I've had a Heimlich character in several games now, generally a Dwarf as that is how he got started. A player in my group does not like Heimlich. So he shows up every game I can. Along with something with Bird in the name (one RPG it started as Birdy for an areal drone, next game of Five Rings it was Birdsong of the Northern Mountains, my horse. I try to have a common thread running through games I play or referee. I think it is fun. Not so sure if my players do though it generally does have a groan involved).

I'll use the tag challenge for these posts, along with characters and whichever game system the character is getting generated in. Trying to get a bit better about being able to find things in this blog, which has I've posted to more than I thought I would when I first started writing about my various trade program attempts (hey, one worked pretty well, but then I started changing which version of .Net I was targeting, and then Microsoft started a really fast cadence for updates. So I've not caught up and gotten lazy)

I may also see if I can find a character design that may work, so that there is an image. If I have enough time & get carried away, I may even try to include a PDF for the character sheet. 

And I've only played Shadowrun the 1 time (where I had the drone). But here is a character collection. Just like having an image in my posts!

Of walls and magnets

 So it is going pretty slowly to getting the walls put together and those tiny magnets in place. I do have a technique finally that helped: once I got one of the wall pieces set up correctly (and basically there are north and south pole orientations, so one edge of the wall has north, and the other south). As one edge of the wall is a column, and the other not, you have to make sure the non-column edges are opposite of the column edge magnets. Let us just say I've had to take apart more than one wall to re-orient the magnets!

My current technique is to have my base and correctly aligned magnets in a wall, then attach a column of magnets to the wall. This lets me know which side needs to be facing out on the opposite wall edge. Having a column of about 10-15 magnets means I don't drop these tiny 5x3mm magnets, and allows me to slide in the top one into the hole and bend off the rest. Yes, wargamers with a history of using magnets probably already know this. But it does seem to be working. Then I sand down the edges where I've clipped them off the sprues. Eventually these will get painted, just not sure how I am going to do this. Probably a base coat of red for the Cobalt Factory walls, and I may just paint the stone base and details on the Kazumi Temple as the yellow they came in looks a lot like sandstone.

Regardless of my trials, I have enough of the temple walls to make the big room we last left our valiant characters in, and with the two doors in about the right place as well. I think this does help set the scene a bit better, though I'll have to finish up some more full walls:

I've also been reading dome reviews on published adventures, and think I'll follow up with some of those suggestions. Essentially have some of the descriptive paragraphs with bolded descriptions for the immediate feel of the room, maybe the 1st one or two sentences. And I have started connecting some of the rooms with recurring themes and small puzzles that may help them in other rooms. Not that I am planning on publishing this, though down the road that may be something I pursue. I always did want to be a writer, after all. It just may take a few more decades than I thought.

And Happy post-Christmas everyone. I got carried away with family stuff, so that is a good thing! I hope everyone has had a great celebration no matter what you are actually celebrating (if all else, hopefully a day or two off work!) We had a white Christmas which was nice. Though the storm came up fast and iced up the roads in an amazingly short time period - there were cars abandoned all over as they had no traction. It was like a post-apocalyptic scene in some ways!

I also followed up on what I had as a child: sticky rolls for breakfast. Homemade yeast sticky rolls that I ate far too many of, but growing up, my mother made these and we had to wait for them to be ready before we could open presents. Oddly enough, my son will just sleep in and we finally had to wake him up!

Not that you could make these on the trail for our adventuring group, but a bakery in a town or inn may have so really nice sweet rolls! Maybe I'll add sweet rolls to some inn or something along the way - nothing like waking up to the small of homemade bread!

Lamia's Labyrinth Solo Test Part 4

Knowing what will happen does take away from a bit of the excitement, so I am rolling dice to see what happens to make it a bit more random.

Coming around the curve, the characters see the entrance to a large round room. And here I am testing some walls out (and yes, stacking the magnets means I can remember which way to put them in, and I don't keep dropping them!) These are the Kazumi Temple walls and, while not exactly what I was thinking when designing this, are still temple walls. Like the original Star Trek series, we'll just use different lights to make the walls look like different temples! 

Opening up behind this door (which is really a lot wide - I'll use an archway when we get to playing this for real to make it about the right width) is a large, circular room, dead bodies strewn all over the place.

In the middle is the raised dais and a book on a stand. Knowing what happens, I still roll a die, and the characters decide to look at the 3 open doors first, stepping around the dead bodies. The first door shows the 20x20' room with the skeleton and the wolf-shaped jewel. Some one does try to get the ring, everyone failed to see that it was a zombie ring. The zombie skeleton comes to life! However, it was actually a shorter round than I thought: while only 2 of the 3 characters actually hit it, they have enough weapon strength that they managed to kill it before it could attack. Considering it has a 3d-1 damage for a 2 handed sword, a hit could conceivably kill a character in a single blow. However, as it was rapidly killed, that was never an issue. I am thinking to make this more of a challenge it should have more ST. As the ST is based on how much the wizard put into it, it does allow for a lot stronger creature. I'll update the guide to allow it to be adjusted as necessary based on the party. And yes, that is a Lego zombie: I currently am lacking in zombie minis, though that will be corrected over the next few months as I have 3 mini orders from Kickstarters showing up, and I think they ALL have zombies. So there will be zombies! In the end, they now have the zombie ring and the stone of summoning from that room.

The next room is the room with the 3 caskets, and that is where I ended up stopping the play for the evening. It took longer to get things set up than I would have thought!

But I think I can make a list of the things I'll need to run this adventure so as to not have to bring a pickup full of gaming gear!

First, my dry erase gaming mats work better for some of the rooms, so I think we'll use that this time around. My fishing box for miscellaneous fantasy scenery and the can full of some of the things as well (which is slowly getting added to, but at least I do have 2 caskets though I need 3!). So far a zombie mini and  a giant spider (that plastic one is more the size I think than the ancient D&D metal mini.

So updating the PDF (which I'll link here) in case anyone want to play this as an adventure. The list of things needed will grow as I continue my play test. May even see about breaking it down by room: add an appendix or something perhaps. 

And if anyone does play it, let me know how it worked out! A solo play test is like proof-reading your own writing, or code reviewing your own code: it is not too useful, though better than nothing! May have to see if I can get my work gaming group to perhaps give it a try - we've been playing Zombicide for a while, and a change of pace may be nice.

Tiny magnets

 My gaming scenery showed up from Rampart: I got the Cobalt Factory set and the Kazumi Temple set. Hoping that they can be used for fantasy, SF, steampunk and other games. Once we get back to the table! Decided that I would try magnets rather than use the pegs as it would be easier to put together and break down.  I ordered the appropriate 3x5mm magnets. The picture made them look huge, even knowing that they were tiny. They show up in a little tiny case, 100 magnets. 

I start to put some in, and make sure that I am consistent with the positive and negative sides so things will work. Let us just say between fat fingers and tiny magnets, it has taken a lot more effort to get just a few into where they need to be. Including having to break apart one of the columns (fortunately glue had not set) to reverse the magnets. I think more than once. I need to make sure I stick with a 'perfect' piece and verify that the magnets are appropriately aligned based off of that piece. And hope that piece is set up correctly! It is just a lot more work as these things are tiny!

I did try to mark with a Sharpie, but it got wiped off. I think if I keep them in a stack that may work: just push the end one where it needs to go. While I am sure I'll get better and faster as I go along (and I'll probably have to order more magnets as I have 3 core sets, so there are a LOT of walls). So if anyone has any good ideas about the best way to do this, let me know!

And I think the walls will work better for some things: while Traveller can use a square based floor, the primary fantasy RPG I run is the Fantasy Trip and that uses hexes. These walls I can just plop down on the megahex boards or game mats and should be good to go.

A final thing: this is the 2nd of 3 Kickstarters I've followed for this group. They actually do their own molds and plastic injection, and their updates show the production process. It is really cool to see how these things are actually made.  

Now to get to a table where we can have walls, floors and minis! I miss the face to face gaming a lot.

Fantasy Symbols and labels

 I like physical props are the table, though I've yet to be able use them effectively. I've a couple small glass bottle that look like perfect things for potions and realized I needed to stick some sort of label on them. So I whipped up a quick sheet and printed on some parchment paper. Turns out the labels may be too big as they are small bottles, but I can always use them for something!

And the PDF is here: symbols PDF

Traveller SOLO: Leaving Krim 250-1106 and designing RUDI

 Somehow we did manage to find the evidence Vax Datos was looking for, along with what seems to be small AI that pleaded for help. Who were we to turn our backs on it? Plus it looked a lot like some of my vidcams I've used over the years: a floating sphere with a camera. But this one talked with us, and we managed to escape with it as well.

Back at the port, we have three very fancy autonomous grav vehicles in the lower bay, and a few crates and luggage for our guests in the empty vehicle bay. I walked our two guests to their stateroom and went over the emergency procedures. We launched within our launch time successfully, Watching sensors as the No Refunds moved to the jump point, I noticed a small craft that seemed to be following us: we were heading out-system and the ship was not a jump capable craft. As there were Space Patrol craft near by, we were not concerned. A few hours later we were where Captain Luax wanted us to be, and with Lando's blessing from the engineering deck, we entered jump space.

As soon as we were safely in jump space, I shut down my sensor deck, and started the meal preparation. First meal after jump was a spacer tradition according to the captain. While I was no chef, I managed to help Ewo cook up a fairly splendid feast. We even broke out some vintage wine from Nix, an agricultural world with a dense, tainted atmosphere that somehow grows some amazing grapes that produce a very well cultured wine. Our guests seemed to enjoy the repast before settling back into their stateroom for the first night.

So I made an 8 on the astrogation roll, and as there is not an actual astrogrator on board other than our uber-capable Ewo with astrogation-0, we still had nothing to worry about on that roll. We'll come out about where we expect to come out.

The week in jump I roll on the on-board ship events: one of the passengers appears to be extremely reclusive, and other than that 1st meal, the rest of the crew never sees him again. The other passenger, a woman named Carie Rezel, while we do see her, is also a bit stand-offish. In between cleaning and checking over the cargo (those are some sweet rides from Psziz!), Malik gets to know the robot.

Seeing if I can make my way through the T5.10 robot maker process. I may also see about the Classic Traveller Book 8, Robots, or see if there are any Cepheus rules for dealing with robots.

Size and form

This strangeform (non-humanoid) robot has a positronic brain, resulting in a holographic intelligence pattern begin developed in the iridium sponge. I want this to be about the size of a soccer ball or so, which turns out to be about 5.57 liters. So that will be 5.57 units, which is going to be pretty small for the rest of the robot! 

Brains

Using the brains table, we can calculate just how smart this is, which is a function of cost. The size is 2 units (leaving us 3.5 units) and for an intelligence of 10, putting it a bit smarter than your average human, will cost us KCr200. Note that a positronic brain ages, never sleeps, is self-powered, cannot use wafers, does not require air and has a natural personality.  Note that out C4 stat is 10, or A. C4 equates to human intelligence. 

Senses

RUDI (from the Jetsons, Referential Universal Digital Indexer. Not sure what he? she - rolled an even die, so RUDI thinks of herself as a she). The major senses (vision, hearing, smell) are in a single cluster. RUDI will not need smell, but her vision is the normal RGB for KCr10, plus telescopic for KCR40, as well as a vision replay screen (going with a holographic a la R2-D2) for KCr10. Hearing is on par with normal humans for KCr10 along with a replay module for KCr20. There is no touch awareness or smell. So other than telescopic vision, RUDI sees and hears as well as most humans do. It helps that Krim has a G6 star, so the visual range would be about the same as our star.

Body

So here is where things get tight. There is not a body, so no muscles. She has a extra-small arm (Arm-1) with a dexterous grasper for KCr10. These take 2 units, leaving us with a single unit left over. There is a standard skin, mostly of plastics and ultralight metal, so RUDI is no bruiser. Looking at the rules, RUDI won't have the 1st 3 characteristics (ST,R DEX, END) as she is basically a floating ball with a very small arm and grasper. 

Education

With an INT (C4) of 10, RUDI can have up to a EDU (C5) of 10. Oddly the table only lists EDU for 2,4 & 6. We'll give RUDI EDI 6 for KCr90. This allows RUDI up to 10 + 6 or 16 skill levels. Which may be very significant.

Sanity

Apparently robots have sanity checks, and a 5 or 6 is reasonable for a robot rarely facing challenges. Rolling I rolled a 9, so that seems reasonable as RUDI was asking to escape. KCr9 for that level. 

Social Characteristics

RUDI, being a robot, does not have social standing, nor caste. So her C6 stat is charisma. RUDI actually has a Charisma of 6 - she can lead and instruct other robots, but will obey most organics. 

Skills

Here is where I need to think through what RUDI was actually designed for. Seeing as the company that created her was both high-tech and engaged in corporate spying, her skills may reflect abilities for that. One half of the skill levels goes to the primary skill, which if RUDI is used to index foreign computers...2ary would be languages for 1/4 or 2. And finally, a Recon of 2 to be a bit sneaky, leaving us with 1 skill left that we'll leave open for the moment.

• Computer 5
• Language 2
• Anglic
• Trokh (Aslan)
• Recon 2

Manufacturer

Sprockets of Krim has created RUDI as a prototype spy / espionage robot to infiltrate other corporations and get industrial secrets.  Technically she is RUDI-001, a prototype

Miscellaneous not covered

As we've all of 1.5 units left over, going to make that a repulser / grav unit and a power cell. The rules don't work for this scale, so we can go with small fusion batteries that need to be topped off about monthly (water). RUDI is not particularly fast, can move at about a fast human run. The grav is limited and she cannot lift anything more than about 5 kilograms, which will also slow her down a bit. She also has no control codes, being a prototype.

Summary

RUDI-001   000A66    KCr389 

Arm-1 with dexterous grabber

Vision: RGB with telescopic vision, replay. Audio replay and standard audio range. 

Computer-5, Language 2 (Anglic, Trokh), Recon 2

4 week power charge via fusion battery, grav enabled.

Creatures: Flying Jellyfish

 It all started with a comic:

And I mentioned on our group text conversation that I could stat that out, and then several ideas bounced around. So thanks to my gaming group, I'm creating a new Fantasy Trip creature, and potentially even a race.

Floating Jellyfish are essentially floating slimes, though they have tentacles and move a bit faster than their ceiling-based counterparts. Just like slimes, they come in a multitude of colors and affects. Unlike slimes, some even appear as almost humanoid. For the most part they are found only underground, and are one reason some dungeons appear vermin-free.

Jellies will follow their prey as long as they are in sight: should you get behind a bend in the labyrinth the jellies will lose sight and stop the chase. They will probably go back to where they were originally found for your return trip out of the dungeon.

Floating jellies have an IQ of 1, a DX of 6 and a MA of 4. Their tentacles are generally easy to avoid as they are not quick, but if they do contact you they are difficult to get off: roll 4d vs ST due to the adhesive aspect of these things. ST for jellies ranges based on size: swarms of small jellies have a ST of 2-4, while a giant jelly could have a ST of 15-35 and take up to 2 hexes. The humanoid jellies are an entirely different class of creature, and have the following base stats: ST 8-12, DX 8-12, IQ 8-12. They also get an automatic 2nd attack after the normal attacks due to having a lot of tentacles. Communication with the humanoid jellies is possible, if barely. It is unknown if the other jellies are related in some way or not.

Small Jellies

These tend to swarm, with 2-12 jellies per swarm. ST 2-4, DX 6, IQ 1. They must be in your hex to attack.

Medium Jellies

These are smaller swarms of 1-6 jellies, ST 4-6, DX 6, IQ 1. They must be in your hex to attack.

Large Jellies

These tend to be solitary creatures but sometimes come in pairs. On 1d6, 1-5 = a single jelly, 6 = 2 jellies. ST 15-35, DX 6, IQ 1. These jellies have a bit of reach: their tentacles can reach out up to 3 hexes away. Getting past one in a corridor is not too difficult, but if they do manage to grab hold of a character, it is a 4d vs ST to get away, while taking damage each turn. You can either fight the jelly or attempt to get away.

Humanoid Jellies

These tend to be solitary as well, though often small swarms of jellies are nearby. They are also the only jellies that can change colors. The humanoid jellies do not always attack, and on a 5d vs IQ (subtract 1d for each language the character knows; someone knowing 3 languages would roll 2d6 vs IQ) one may be able to determine that there is some form of visual communication going on with the tentacles and color. ST 8-12, DX 8-12, IQ 8-12. 

Jelly Colors and Damage

Jellies are similar to slimes in that their colors indicate the types of damage they can do. Damage though depends on the size:

• small jellies 1 hit per round
• medium jellies 2 hits per round
• large jellies 3 hits per round

Green Jellies

A strong acid-based makeup allow these jellies to eat through any organic material in quick order. It has minimal affect on metals; however, it can get through the smallest crack after 1d6 rounds if not removed before then. As per green slimes, cuts and blows do no damage to the resilient creatures, and fire does double damage. A common way to get through a swarm is swinging your torches through them as the jellies are afraid of fire and will move away. 

Yellow Jellies

a contact poison on the yellow jellies will do twice the normal damage based on their size, though this counts as fatigue damage and is recoverable after the normal resting rules. Once their prey is unconscious they secrete a mild acid that slowly dissolves their food. Unlike their green brethren, cuts and blows do some damage but their flexible skins can absorb 2 hits of damage.

Purple Jellies

These faster jellies are more dangerous than most jellies: their MA is 6 and DX is 8. Faster and more dangerous than the others. purple jellies are like the brown slimes and try to smother their victims. While not corrosive, as per the brown slime rules if it covers you for more turns than your current strength, you can smother. Unlike brown slimes. it is still affected by blows but can absorb 3 hits of damage. You can tear up the jelly depending on the size: small 2 turns, medium 4 turns and large 10 turns per person. So two people could tear a small jelly on 1 turn, 2 people could tear up a medium in 2 turns, and two people could tear up a large in 5 turns. 

Traveller Stats

It has been a minute since I've done Traveller creature stats, and a lot of that depends on the version you are playing. But for Classic Traveller:

Jellies can be found on planets with a dense atmosphere. They are trappers, catching their prey in their tentacles. Flyers that use hydrogen gas to both float and perform minor movements. 

Size: 1-3 kg; 4 hits to unconscious and 8 more to kill (they are resilient), armor as per jack and attack as per teeth.  Attack: if surprise. Flee 6+; Speed: 0. Armor as jack; damage is 1 point 

    1 Trapper 1kg 4/8 1  jack 2  teeth A-Surprise F6 S0 

Windemere Crossing - People and Keyed Map

 I've been doing some minor updates to the original post detailing all the places, getting some numbers and colors to help guide you through Windemere Crossing. I'll continue that process, and my guess is eventually I'll try and do another PDF, perhaps a shared world if I can get any of my friends to run a game! It could be another base. While I like Edge City, it is way too big, though I do have that entire book on Ankh-Morpork so I do not lack for chrome there. But is it useful chrome? I'd like to make this a a useful place.

So now we have a color and number coded map, and the locations as previously noted. To make this useful, though, we need to have NPCs that the players can interact with, and have things. Perhaps even some mapping of how the NPCs may relate to one another. 

Digging into my ever growing stash of Kickstarter publications, I found this one from the Characters book from Fish in the Pot:

Rennor is a young black-haired Orc teenager who wishes to be captain of the guard. Found busily patrolling the streets, not affiliated with any company, her tall and stoic demeanor is cut short by her awkward proportions, lanky figure and cheap padded clothing stained to look like armor. While she is still shy of stopping anyone who is acting shady, Rennor has a keen eye and a sharp memory and is a friend to the community at large.

We've already established there is a single family of Orcs in town, and Lurbuk's oldest daughter is a vet at the stables. Rennor is the youngest daughter of 6 girls. Lurbuk's few forays into town for drinks often have gentle ribbing that he lacks any sons. She is friends with Keze Briarlegs, the town's second tailor. Keze makes the padded clothing Rennor wears on her "rounds", getting the dyes from Mika's textiles a couple blocks east of his shop. The sheriff, Ira Sprigbasher, looks at Rennor as one of his first choices when he does need a posse, simply for her strength and somewhat intimidating form. The deputy Ellis Newtonson is actually afraid of her, and dislikes the fact that the sheriff will call on her sometimes to help him, usually with rowdy brawlers. Being a foot taller and probably a hundred pounds heavier, Rennor is better suited for breaking up fights. And the townspeople that know her also know her father. And would rather avoid any confrontations with him!

Rennor notices everything that goes on about town, and is looked on favorably by most of the town's residents. She does steer clear of the half Elves and the Silver Pirate, but usually makes several circuits of the town and knows every street, alley and animal in Windemere Crossing. 

Using another KS publication, One Page Lore: Fantasy Folk (by Jesse Galena), and combining with the Fantasy Trip's Orcs which generally nasty and brutish, we have Orcs that are going to be stronger than most people, are despised in general by Dwarves and Elves (which is why she avoids the Silver Pirate!), and have a mental tenacity. They are carnivores, and while Lurbuk and family have nothing against eating a kill, fresh or not, cooked or not, while in town they do try and least have a modicum of manners. Not that anyone would say anything to Lurbuk's face! Orcs also have excellent night vision which is why Rennor will often patrol at night. 

Being a teenager, she will be your base 32 point character. She is someone visitors to the town might notice, and while at first glance think she is part of the town patrol, a closer look (2d vs INT) it will be easy to notice that she is wearing baggy clothes that only appear to look like armor, and the pike she has is just a stick with a rough-made knife tied with twine to it.  So my first NPC for Windemere Crossing!

Rennor Lurbuk, Orc female, 18 years old

STR: 14    DEX: 10 (adjDX: 9)    INT: 8

Skills: 

• Knife
• Brawling
• Area Knowledge (Windemere Crossing and out to 10 miles or so outside the area)
• Horsemanship (her father does run the stables and she helps along with her 5 sisters)
• Running
• Quarterstaff (she does practice but the knife keeps falling off, so she is not learning pole weapons)

Weapons, armor:

• cloth (stops 1 hit; looks like real armor until you get close)
• quarterstaff (1d+2)

So we also have some relationships here: