Just a quick post - long-awaited congratulations to Doug Cole on the publication of his book - GURPS Martial Arts: Technical Grappling.
I saw it in playtest, but it's nice to finally see it on the market. Doug basically did for grappling what GURPS Martial Arts did for combat in general. It dials up the resolution and potential without sacrificing realism or playability. It's good stuff, and I hope to give it a more complete review on a much less busy day!
'bout damn time.
ReplyDeleteGotta wonder why there's no cover art, though.
Aw, do we have to?
DeleteRoll save vs. pointless, uninformed speculation.
DeleteI see that Sterick the Red features in an example on page 9. Coincidence?
ReplyDeleteNot at all.
DeleteThere's another joke in there too, somewhere, if you leak the right spanguage.
DeleteHeh. No kidding.
DeleteActually, Felltower was a name Doug came up with when I asked some friends via email to help me with "non-lame dungeon names." He brainstormed that up and I liked it. Later he asked if he could use it for TG, and I said sure. His example used Sterick the Red (who IIRC was in his Deadly Spring article, and was a character in his GURPS fantasy game) as "Baron of Felltower." I liked the idea, so I added it to my game. So his nod to my (as-yet-unexplored) megadungeon add a major part of the history of it to my game.
That's not the other joke Doug's talking about, though.
History of Sterick:
DeleteHe was originally a bad guy in a DnD game that my friend Brian Uhlhorn ran for us. It didn't go far. Then I started my own game, which was before DF came out, or else it would have been a DF game.
I think he was the local lord, or maybe just a knight or something. He wound up being the leader of a big force of evil guys, and in the final battle, spectacularly rearranged local geography with a very powerful magic item before being defeated.
A town formed at the center of where the conflagration once was: Blasingdell, as in Blazing Dell.
This campaign started with a three session prequel. A bunch of characters went through a railroad adventure that wound up in a particular place, where their paladin got possessed by Sterick's spirit and his spirit banished to limbo or something. Paladin turned on the rest, and all died, but one who'd been wounded and left behind (lost) earlier. HE made it back to the main conclave, where he left his message with the clergy, and died.
Fast forward to the actual game, where Sterick started his armies rolling.
It was a good campaign.
And in my game, Sterick the Red was a (seemingly loyal) servant to the King, and then he crossed the Silver River with some men and set himself up as Baron of Felltower. He built a castle on top of the ruins of a mountaintop fortress that capped some dungeons, fortified the hell out of the place, founded a city, and declared himself independent. He was eventually beaten by the King and the royal allies, thrown down, and his men defeated. Didn't stop some people from putting up (or was it leaving up?) his statue, and from lazy mapmakers from keeping the name on the city the same (Stericksburg).
DeleteThe draugr my players have tangled with were the 33 elite personal guards of Baron Sterick, and my players seem convinced he's down there in the dungeons . . . somewhere.
It's all pretty mixed up - lots of me stealing names from Doug (well, he did offer them mostly) and riffing off of it. Naturally this means Doug riffs back in his vignettes and elsewhere. It's a long tradition to do call-outs to your friends in your games and your books.