Sycarion Diversions

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Tag: Andras (Page 9 of 13)

Primordials

September 11, 2011 /

My son has a rich imagination centered around two flying dolphins. Usually, they swim around the sea taking to the air to visit other friends in faraway places. Some of these faraway places are "Kansas", "Mexico", "Ice Cream Land", "Pie Land", and "Different Water".

Not wanting to miss out on his multi-verse hopping, delphine adventures, I asked him about some of these far away places. He described Ice Cream Land as a place that was made entirely of ice cream. Ice cream people lived there. Ice cream dolphins and sharks lived there, too.

Before I get too far, yes, I asked about "Different Water". He said that is was like the ocean, but in a different place. That's all I got. He's five, so I'll cut him a break for now.

In any case, I pondered what would creatures of Ice cream land be called? They're like elementals, but not composed of a single element (unless you consider ice cream an element). I wanted a name that would represent their composition of the fundamental 'stuff' to be represented. So, I happened upon primordials and the name has stuck so far.

The spark my son's imagination provided was to imagine a multiverse without the Ptolemaic/Wu Xing elemental planes. What if the other planes were made of various complex compounds, but were just different?

In addition to pondering these planes, I happened upon a note for an adventure seed about summoning a fire elemental that broke free of the summoners' control. I wanted these new planes to have creatures composed of fire, but how would that work?

First, how would a fire-creature survive? There needs to be a source of oxygen. Instead of breathing, though, it should get oxygen by eating something. Searching the interwebs, I found sodium chlorate, a key component in some chemical oxygen generators. Skipping down to a wikipedia entry on Oxygen Candles, I figured that these fire creatures could make these candles to eat. The fantastic element I needed to add was a plant native to that plane that contains lots of sodium chlorate. Assuming that existed, these Fire Primordials could make food with this plant and iron filings. When ingested, it would produce oxygen for about six hours. Better yet, their digestive tract has naturally occurring iron, so that they only need to ingest this plant.

So now, I have shemped the fire elemental, plus I have an exotic plant that could be used as more adventure seeds.

Let's add in some more twists. The Fire Primordial wouldn't have access to this plant while it is in our world, so it would have to know enough to heat up salt water and somehow pass electricity through it. So, I figure that this creature should be intelligent. Given that Andras now has a system that allows just about anyone to cast a cantrip level spell once a day (with about a 50-50 chance of success), I figured that his 'spell' would be just enough to deliver a short electrical charge. The spell has no value in combat.

Then I formed a picture in my head of this Fire Primordial sitting in a cave with a large stone mug filled with salt water. He heats the water (he is made of fire) and casts his cantrip. Now he has a "tea" of sodium chlorate to drink. I also figure that he doesn't need to eat as much because our world has more oxygen in the atmosphere than his own.

If you're still with me, let's add one more item to the mix. Do you know what happens when you mix sodium chlorate and sugar? Big explosion. So this Fire Primordial can be killed by ingesting sugar. In other words, sugar is a poison to him. I can imagine a couple of beet farmers keeping the creature at bay by throwing beets at it. In some ways, it appeals to my sense that ordinary people should have a way to fight off a creature like this, even if it has a low chance of success.

Now to finish the adventure tentatively entitled "Escape of the Fire Primordial". In the meantime, I need to think of a name for the plane of his origin. Eldur? Gasira? Nar? Fy-Heem?

How the Worlds Tie Together

August 24, 2011 /

This is post 199. More about the history of this site in the next post.

For now, this is about how the various worlds of Andras tie together. In some ways, this is sparked by Vincent Florio's post about mixing Sci-Fi with Fantasy. Where it differs, however, deals with how the rules for various settings can work together.

Lorica is about mechs and/or tanks and Tiezerekan is about space fantasy. A far future setting has some elements in common with space fantasy, namely interplanetary travel. More than that, both setting rely on creating various ships and other craft to accomplish goals. Lorica has many classes of mechs, air ships and the colossal drop ships. Tiezerekan has many classes of space craft to explore, conduct trade, transport and fight in wars.

The idea behind Andras is to provide one system to make craft for both worlds. While it may require some amount of abstraction, I really didn't want a lot of hand-waving to be part of the process. I want something straight-forward with lots of options that doesn't bog down players that just want to get started.

More than that, I want a system that also connects with Dweneyarda. High fantasy vessel making? Sure. Sooner or later, you may want to create naval vessels. When the system is complete, I also hope that the rules can incorporate generation of medieval-ish artillery, golems, and other magical creations.

Let's start with making mechs/tanks for Lorica as a part of this walk-through, we will re-create the Loanza light mech:

  1. Choose a power source.The Loanza uses a fusion engine with a power rating of 1300. It has a mass value of 12. (This is important later)
  2. Choose Shields, Armor, Weapons, and special attachments.Everything has a mass and power usage score. Both of these scores affect the amount of drain on the power source. There are trade-offs that make the game interesting.In Lorica, Shields directly benefit Armor Class, making a mech more difficult to hit. The more powerful the shields, the more power required. Shields do not weigh much, but because of the high power requirements, too much shielding can leave little power for weapons and movement.The Loanza uses Rating 6 shields providing an AC bonus of 6. The power drain is a relatively low 31 points and the mass is 2. These numbers are important later.

    Armor uses no power, but has a high mass. In Lorica, Armor provides the Hull points. One point of armor costs 1 point of mass. The Loanza has a lighter amount of armor, 60 units of armor costing 60 mass points.

    The pilot is a special attachment. The space for the pilot costs 3 power points and 3 mass points. Another special attachment could allow space to carry infantry, but that won't be used for the Loanza.

    Weapons have varying values for mass and power. Lasers use a lot of power, but have the greatest range. Missiles costs very little power, but have limited range. Slug thrower do great amounts of damage, but are quite massive.

    The Loanza has the following weapon systems:

    Weapons Range Power Mass Damage
    Form III Laser
    		 20 10 4 8+1d8
    125mm Slug
    		 15 6 47 28+1d12
    SR Missiles(12) 6 2 15 1d12 x 6
  3. Now for the math to calculate the movement rate and the Hull points. Optionally, the rough size can be calculated as well as the total cost.Here's what we have so far:
    Loanza
    		power mass cost
    Engine 1300
    		12 650000
    Shields 6 31 2 30000
    Armor 60
    		60 3000
    Pilot 1 3 3 300
    Special Att 0 0 0 0
    Weapons





    		Form III 10 4 72000

    		125mm 6 47 218000

    		SR(12) 2 15 30000























    		Velocity
    Totals
    		52 143 1003300 8

    First we'll calculate the movement rating:
    Start with the Engine Rating (1300) and subtract the total power points for the shields, weapons and other components. In this case, all systems drain 52 power points. 1300 - 52 = 1248.

    Now divide the subtotal by the total mass points dropping any remainder. The total mass points for the Loanza is 143. 1248/143 rounds down to 8. A movement rate of 8 means that the vehicle can move 8 hexes per round.

    Now to calculate the Hull points:
    In Lorica, one unit of armor provide 12 Hull points. It is assumed that the armor is a futuristic alloy. 60 times 12 equals 720 Hull points.

    For estimated size, I use a unit of volume I call a ton. It is 1000 cubic feet or a 10' x 10' x 10' cube. One mass point equals one ton. Since the Loanza has 143 total mass points, it is 143 tons in size. This is 143,000 cubic feet. It is about the size of an oil tanker.

  4. With these numbers, provide a good description of the vessel.

How could something like this apply to Tiezerakan or Dweneyarda?

Tiezerkan vessel would use similar engines. Keep in mind that a 1300 rated engine in one world is not necessarily equivalent to a 1300 rated engine in another. In Tiezerkan, vessels are moving at speeds hundreds or thousands of times faster than tanks. However, to keep the math simple, there no need to create a master table of engines, use the same ones. For crossover, simply come up with a conversion rate.

Weapons in different settings will vary in damage. A GM may decide that weapons do absolute damage. For example, a 17th century cannons may only do 1d4 Hull points of damage as opposed to the large values of damage for Lorica weapons. Tiezerakan weapons may be a factor of 10 or 100 times more damaging than Lorica.

A GM may also decide that weapons do relative damage. A 17th century cannon may do 1d10 Hull Points of damage in a fantasy setting, but very little if brought into another. Again, if you do crossover, create a conversion factor.

You may decide to assign different numbers of Hull points per one unit of armor depending on the material. Steel may be 8 Hull points per unit of armor, for example. Wood may be 6 Hull points per unit of armor. A GM could define as few or as many materials as desired.

Special attachments vary considerably. Mechs do not need living quarters or galleys, but interstellar vessels do. Some settings may not have energy shields like Lorica. In each setting, special attachments are better defined.

Lastly, a ton may not be the same in every setting. In some settings, a ton may be a 5' x 5' x 5' cube or 125 cubic feet. In others, it may be thousands of cubic feet. Like engines, relative values help to simply things. I have not found a need to do this, using this system, I have re-created a 16th century Portugese Nau with close to real-life values.

After post 200, some more concrete examples of this system in other settings.

Lorica Combat Sketch

August 20, 2011 /

You've seen three mechs/tanks, now to talk about combat a little.

There are two ways to go about it; one way requires no mini, markers, counters, or anything else physical, the other way requires a battlemat, terrain, markers, minis and a lot of time to discuss the effects of facing on targets accessible my missile attacks.

It almost goes without saying that I'm going to talk about the former method.

When combat begins, it is assumed that the two opposing teams are 20 units apart. This means that only long range lasers can successfully hit from this range. Each mech/tank chooses a tactic and one or more targets (choosing a single target is easier.)

Combat with Lorica occurs in three stages. The first stage is the Tactical Stage. This is the time that players announce their intended action. Some choices include, but are not limited to: Maintaining Missile Range, Charging, Withdraw, Warning Shot and Melee Fighting. These actions provide a bonus of some kind to attack or defense and determine the distance between two individual mechs/tanks. If two mechs/tanks charge each other, add the two movement rates and subtract the total from 20. If other tactics or chosen, the tactic's description will detail how the new distance is calculated.

An opposed roll determines who succeeds. The lowest roll wins and distance will be determined by the winner's tactic.

The second stage is rolling a d12 for initiative. Again, lowest roll wins. The first stage may or may not modify the roll. If there are more than two teams fighting, initiative occurs in the order of initiative rolls from lowest to highest.

The third stage resolve combat. The winner of initiative goes first. Each weapon (if more than one) is resolved with a to hit roll in weapon speed order. Modifiers from the first stage may or may not affect the to hit roll. As is true in the fantasy rules of Andras, a d20 is rolled against a target number determined by AC + Modifiers. A roll equal to or below the target number is a success. On a successful hit, damage is rolled.

The next team does the same process, still in weapon speed order.

I am still working through details for the Tactical Stage. Many of the tactics will be similar to those used in naval combat, air combat, melee combat, etc. Once these are detailed, the rules will inform other forms of combat as well.

Just to provide a couple more mechs/tanks...

Here are Scout units. They are basically designed for speed and evasion.

Name STADES


Engine 1300 MASS 104 tons
HP 600


AC 4 AAC 15
MV 12


COST 798,600







Weapons Range Power Mass Damage
Form II 20 8 3 4+1d8
LR(6) 10 1 10 1d6 x 4
SR(8) 6 1 10 1d8 x 6
SAMD-1 0 5 6 14

They are not going to win in a fight, but they will move very, very fast.

Name Mard


Engine 1500 MASS 220 tons
HP 1080


AC 1 AAC 18
MV 6


COST 1,335,600







Weapons Range Power Mass Damage
Form IV 20 12 5 12+1d8
Form IV 20 12 5 12+1d8
Form VII 20 21 8 24+1d8
LR(10) 10 2 16 1d10 x 4
LR(10) 10 2 16 1d10 x 4
SR(12) 6 2 15 1d12 x 6
SR(12) 6 2 15 1d12 x 6
SAMD-5 0 21 20 84

The Mard succeeds with overwhelming fire power. It has capable weapons at every combat range, extreme (lasers), long range missiles and short-range missiles. The only thing it is missing is an axe.

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