Friday 29 January 2021

[OSR] Real places in RPG [6]: Rakotzbrücke

Die Rakotzbrücke

or the Rakotz / Devil's bridge 

Location

This old bridge is situated in the easternmost part of Germany and has fascinated me for a while: its own reflection on the water always make it seem to be a portal into a new world. Those that read this blog often might know: I love parallel universes...

https://fshoq.com/free-photos/p/249/rakotzbrcke-devils-bridge-in-germany

Legends of the bridge

The architect of the bridge started to work with a spirit on the bridge's construction, promising the spirit the soul of the first being to cross the bridge. However, when the bridge was finished, the architect hushed a dog to cross the bridge as the "first crosser", and the spirit holds a grudge.
Another legends says that passing under the bridge in a boat on a day of half moon lets you travel to another world...
1983, tourists tried to do this and disappeared, never to be seen again...
It is forbidden to cross the bridge, nowadays (under the pretense of "dangerous construction")

Trolls

I wrote about bridges before in this series of posts, but since the one depicted was make out of roots, and I imagine (D&D) trolls to be on the heavy side of creatures, I did not mention trolls at that bridge.

It is a typical fantasy trope to have trolls guarding bridges (I think Tolkien started it). It's always an interesting kind of encounter, with a clear objective: coming to the other side more or less unharmed or not broke. Trolls guarding should be able and willing to communicate, which makes this kind of encounter more interesting.

They most of the time just collect tolls and eat those that won't pay.


Tax collectors

The legend of the bridge trolls is also a metaphor for the toll collection that happened on bridges in the European middle ages. Constructing a bridge was a costly business, and the lords that had invested in the creation of the bridge would appoint a tax collector to the bridge, the collected money would pay this person and a part would go back to the lord. 
The collector were also responsible for the upkeep of the bridge they were guarding.

A doorway, but where to?

This bridge and it's reflection on the water look so perfect it is natural that the human mind would see here a door to another world:
  • Where we see a door to a fairy realm, our forefathers certainly saw something much more gloomy. Calling this one the Devil's bridge is almost certainly an indication that the people from the past thought it to be a doorway to the underworld, the world of the dead.
  • In a Planescape-esque realm, that could also be a doorway to the plane of Order, or maybe Water.
  • The duality of the bridge over the water and it's reflection "under the water" could also mean an access to a place of duality, like the house of a 2-faced god (like the Roman Janus).
  • This could also be part of a series of portals used to bring ships from one place to another remote one...
  • In Birthright, this would certainly be a door to the shadow world, opening when the half moons aligns with the bridge, releasing hordes of undeads & skeletons, but also letting halfling back into their lost territories, on the search of a lost love or treasure (actually anyone could cross, but halfling know their way on the other side)

Guardians

A portal is an extremely valuable asset and anyone controlling it can name a steep price for its usage.

D 12 Guardian
1 A saltwater merfolk tribe. They control both sides and have a side business selling salt. Only their outcasts are left to stay on the lake-side of the portal.
2 An old troll widower and his young and brash son. Their liege is on the other side. He also controls passage *over* the bridge
3 4 Gargoyles, that only come to life when the portal is active. The locals fear them while they are in stone form nonetheless, fore their 
4 The Tax collector pretends to be a cleric protecting the village from a flood of undeads and racketeering money to "keep the door closed", on top of crossing the bridge
5 A Giant frog (over 2 m high) rules over a big tribe of toadfolks, a humanoid frog mix, about as big as goblins, but extreme good and strong swimmers
6 A young Water-dragon that fell in love with a dragon turtle. They will only accept payment in the form of things that might help her grow as big as him.
7 A giant squid guards the other side. The only way to get through the portal is to get pulled by a gigantic tentacle from the other side
8 Water elementals thrive in the lake but do not allow any boat on the lake, unless a payment in salt-water pearls in paid beforehand, naturally...
9 Nobody guards the bridge. For a good reason: on the other side is the hideout of a ruthless pirate crew. They sometimes sell booty and fish at the nearest village
10 Supposedly, each time you cross the portal, an evil twin is created that crosses it in the other direction, bringing havoc in your life
11 The portal can only be crossed swimming. Men are transformed in dolphins and women in sirens
12 The portal only lets through wearer of tridents without metal armor. On the other side, a gladiator fight is organised, and the owner gets an audience with the goddess of the sea

Unspeakable destinations

Beyond the portal, you could find dangerous places, like:
D12 Place
1 Carcosa
2 Pandemonium, capital of the demons
3 Mino's Labyrith
4 Hellish Swamp
5 Sewers of Sharn
6 Plateau of Leng
7 Morgana's lake on Avalon
8 A dragon-turtle roost
9 Oubliette - the dimensional city no one escapes
10 The Sea of Blood - stained by the blood of a dying titan
11 One arm of the Styx river
12 Near the mouth of Jörmungandr, the World Serpent

Inspiration

This place really makes me dream, so I created an artwork featuring it. Here it is, just for your pleasure:

I really like this piece of art, hope you guys & gals, too !

Community

Don't refrain from sharing your thoughts in the comments, I normally validate the comments quickly.
For a longer conversation, you can join the discord of my publishing outlet (from outer space games):

Real places in RPG post series

Friday 22 January 2021

[Europol-X] Career preview - Soldier

Soldier

Project advancement

I've started the first play test round with friends, even though the system is not totally finished (but I know where I wanna go), because it's motivating for me to have a kind of urgency...
As sure as 1+1=2 , they chose careers that I had not developed, so I had no "Past problems table" for them, therefore I let them roll on the existing tables (I present here the 5th - I do not post all of them on the blog), and luckily they rolled some entries that were not too specific to the career and generic enough to be adapted easily on the fly...

The Soldier Career

Europol-X recruits for their cell on two criteria:
  • You had contact with an unexplained phenomenon and survived
  • You have interesting skills
In the case of a soldier, it can be both, since their skills are always in high demand (in RPG at least), and in Europe (where guns are much less  available than on the other side of the Atlantic), it is rarer to find shooters without a military background (shooting ranges exist, and so does hunting, but you don't get to practice outside a controlled environment).

The Table

As always, remember that the "past problems" are optional... You can also just use them as inspiration for your character's past, but having troubles to add to the game will help your DM (or GM, or Storyteller, or Control, whatever you want to call them) personalize your troubles and make them feel more real. Up-close and personal, if you will...






My players

The characters that have been created are:
  • A marketing Expert that was Head of Marketing at the Royal Dutch Shell (the oil company), where he has a lot of enemies - (expert in Manipulate skill) - He has a 12 y.o. daughter in a closed private School in Switzerland. A lawyer wants to put him in Jail because he influenced his star witness in a case against Shell.
  • An intrusion specialist - like a white-hat-hacker, but for security systems (expert in Sneak skill), from Frankfurt. Her ex boss still long for their past relationship, and his secretary hates her for her special status in his eyes. She was abducted as a child and the only surviving abductor just got out of jail.

Plot Preview

Next week, they'll be confronted with the corpse of a Duplicate (a dupe) - Half robot / half human creatures that can copy the apparence (and therefore steal the identity) of any corpse...

Quick question

If I were to create a tipee/patreon page for this project, would you be interested?

Discord

If you wanna join my Discord ("from outer space games" is the name my publishing entity), click here:

Tuesday 12 January 2021

[Europol-X] Career preview - Olympic Fencer

 Europol-X's system is starting to really take form.

I will not post all the "past careers" (you should still want to buy the book someday 😁) but from time to time, so you see the work advances.

Remember that the "past problems" are optional... You don't have to have one, and it doesn't have to be one from the list, but they are a good help to help create some drama for your storyteller (or DM, or GM, whatever you call him).

This is the 3rd career from the twelve I want to develop (one per skill).

This time with the illustration included


By the way, I've opened a discord around my creations (all of them, not only what's posted here), so if you like my work and use this platform, come over and chat !

https://discord.gg/usYXJG7zBu

Thursday 7 January 2021

[Europol-X] Career preview - Brute

Brute


 I've decided to create a system extra for Europol-X.

It is heavily inspired by 5E and the Year Zero engine.

4 Attributes, 12 skills (3 for each attributes).

And a previous Career, for before you joined your EU-X-cell. These can be compared to the backgrounds of the 5th edition, but without a feature.

I present you the first Career, the "Thug" which can be any kind of very bulky and physically imposing character, specialized in demonstrations of shear strength.




I will probably make an illustration for the rest of the page...

Anyway, tell we what you think of this ! 

And happy start in the new year !

And I've opened a discord around my creations (all of them, not only what's posted here)
https://discord.gg/usYXJG7zBu


Edit: I renamed the Career Brute bc of the negative connotation that Thug has gained in the last few years