jleising

“There are tales among us that you have sold yourself to the devil, and I know not what.”“We all have, have we not?’ returned the stranger, looking up. “If we were fewer in number, perhaps he would give better wages”…

Out of the cold and darkness of February, something new is about to rise. Spawned by Zine Month and forged by a cabal of gifted zealots it has taken shape and is about to burst into existence on an internet…

“Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” – Roald Dahl   The Fantasy Trip is distinct among fantasy RPGs in that the power to wield magic is available to any character regardless of their trade. It may…

“A leech that will not quit the skin until sated with blood.” – Horace   Of all the perils found in the marshes and jungles of Cidri, one most often goes unmentioned as its victims rarely know to be wary…

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” – Arthur C. Clarke    Almechanists have the rare skill of mastery over the intersection of technology and magic— the science that blurs the line between the physical and the fantastic. Whether…

Wizards are a strange and reckless lot, treating the laws of nature as mere guidelines. They bend physics to their will, and twist biology like a pretzel. But for every noble pegasus or fearsome minotaur created by these mystical arts, there are hundreds of failures — broken malformed victims of their hubris. Not all of these wretched creatures are given the respite of death. Some live on, left to themselves, and scrabble for survival in a world not made for them. In dark places, or wild areas unclaimed by other peoples, they gather together to live their lives away from the whims of their wizardly creators. They call themselves Chimerans, but most know them as Cobbleds. They are simple folk who generally avoid settlements where their looks often arouse hatred and violence.

From the child-slaughtering owls of Greek mythology to the oversized mosquitos that Gygax called ‘stirges’, a winged horror that swoops out of the darkness to drain the life from its victims is a well-known trope. Up in ‘aerie, we decided to put our own spin on the creature to give GMs another menace to challenge their heroes.

I looked over the posting from the ‘aerie the other day, and while I can’t say what they wrote was wrong I will say it was kinda gloomy. Sure, labyrinths are usually dark but that don’t mean they have to be uncomfortable. That’s where I come in. My Underworld Emporium offers everything a discriminating adventurer might need to turn their dungeon crawl into a dungeon swagger.

It has been said many times that the Fantasy Trip is NOT D&D, and is not played the same way as D&D. It rose from the tactical combat skirmish games of Melee/Wizard and does not have the attrition and resource management aspects so prevalent in D&D and its offspring.

We have discussed on more than a few occasions that the lack of baked-in morality structures (like alignments in D&D) is a key feature of the Fantasy Trip. While any thinking creature might act evilly, almost none of the entities listed in the game are categorically evil.

The lack of gods or any divine power is one of the defining characteristics of the Fantasy Trip and — to us at least — one of its greatest strengths. There will always be entities more powerful than the PCs, but the idea of actual gods involving themselves in the campaign can make the players’ own actions seem insignificant.