In The Chronicles of Ceteri magic is broken up into two forms: extrinsic magic and intrinsic magic. Extrinsic magic is essentially ritual path magic, while intrinsic magic (often called “rote magic”) encompasses everything else. This includes racial magical powers, chi skills, imbuements, logos (magical words of power), and wyrdling aptitudes (the ability to perform a specific […]
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Carpe Blogiem: The Middle Kingdom, Post-Mortem
Let me start this post with explaining how agitated I am. The Middle Kingdom ran for exactly four sessions and then it died. I had two players withdraw from an already light group and it collapsed. I’m so angry that I didn’t see the reasons for the withdraw as clearly as I could have. I’m not […]
Continue readingCarpe Blogiem: The Chronicles of Ceteri Primer – Schwarzgerät
For the most part the universe of Ceteri is TL8 (or less in some areas). It’s a contemporary campaign set in the modern world – but that doesn’t mean weird technology doesn’t exist. Schwarzgerät is a word that means “black device” and has come to mean any sort of science or technology that uses variant, unknown, […]
Continue readingCarpe Blogiem: The Chronicles of Ceteri Primer – Geotrinsic Phenomena
Geotrinsic phenomena includes any paranormal effect not caused by humans, but rather the environment or reality itself. This includes ley lines, ley line nexuses, super nexuses, “dragon wells” (where raw magic comes from), astrological occultations, “places of power”, “Bad Places”, and other similiar phenomena. Three key ands important phenomena that are technically artificial is the […]
Continue readingCarpe Blogiem: The Middle Kingdom Primer – Final Thoughts
And here we are at the end of the primer for the Middle Kingdom. Some ideas in no particular order as I wrap this up: The Action framework is ideal for this sort of game. Lots of stripped down rules and good advice. I’m probably going to use it and just go with “Action: The Middle Kingdom” […]
Continue readingCarpe Blogiem: The Middle Kingdom Primer – Optional Rules
Like my previous posts this one is kind of an “outloud thinking” post. I’ve discussed doing research on Chinese history and folklore, the general thrust of the campaign, and how I was approaching character creation. This post is going to talk about the general optional rules I’d be using for the campaign. First, I decided […]
Continue readingCarpe Blogiem: The Middle Kingdom Primer – Magic
Exhales. Ok. Magic. Chinese magic is weird. It’s mixed up so much with the religion(s), regions, and other systems of supernatural influence. Honestly, it’s a mess and capturing the exact feel has been rather difficult. And that’s not even getting into Japanese magic which is more animistic then anything else. So where did I start. […]
Continue readingCarpe Blogiem: The Middle Kingdom Primer – Chi Powers
Chi powers will be the “main attraction” of the Middle Kingdom. I decided early on that I wouldn’t be using the typical chi skills available in GURPS. I did this intentionally. I wanted more powers than there were skills and I wanted unique powers for each player (if they wanted them). To get the latter I needed to […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Narrative Focusing
So this post is going to be about how I go about preparing narrative/plots for a story arc. This is different from my writing process or how I take notes, or how I do game prep. But they are related to all of those. I call this process “narrative focusing”. Essentially, narrative focusing is an outline […]
Continue readingCarpe Blogiem: The Middle Kingdom Primer – Setting History II
Here are the Wū of the setting. The Wū Characters with martial arts powers can either declare for a Wū (or House) or choose to become houseless. Being houseless means you don’t have to be ordered about or must commit to the cause of a given Wū, but it also means you don’t have the […]
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