May 2020: Call Ye The Faithful

Kinda befitting that I'm writing this on Beltane (the Gaelic May Day festival), particularly since this month I'm writing about the Celtic inspirations for the Commonwealth's culture and society in Frozen Skies. Been thinking about religion with regards to the Commonwealth and I've had some ideas kicking around in my head. It draws on Celtic polyteism but it incorporates some ideas I've had about how it could've evolved.

Gods by the Bushel! Gods by the Pound! 

The religion of the Commonwealth I'm basing heavily upon the Irish gods and goddesses, I'll go into more details on the Frozen Skies versions in a future post.

Just like with the real life Celtic deities, the Commonwealth counts a fair number of different deities who tend to be invoked for specific things. For example one deity may commonly get invoked by doctors and those seeking good health whilst another may get invoked by farmers. Whilst these deities have strong associations with certain matters, there remains a degree of overlaps between them.

Whilst tradesman and the like may lean towards specific deities (like the examples above), on the whole people tend to invoke a number of different deities depending on the situation and their needs. During a typical day any number of deities could get invoked depending on what the person is doing, it may be for good fortune with regards to business or a game of chance. Or it could be an aviator hoping for good weather and a safe flight.

Worship has changed over the centuries, changing and adapting as society has evolved. Originally, worship revolved round rituals at stone circles or druidic groves. With urbanisation and industrialization, things have changed. Chapels have been adopted, mainly out of convenience, and people even have shrines in their homes or places of work. Whilst shrines could be devoted to a specific deity, chapels tend to lean towards being multi-purpose. Groves haven't gone completely out of fashion, they'd been retained for special events and most towns and cities boast at least one in a major park.

There is a priesthood of a sort known as the Keepers of the Faith (Gaelic: Coimeádaithe an Chreidimh). These Keepers effectively act like priests, though they generally lead services rituals to all of the Commonwealth's deities. The exact number and which ones depends heavily on the occasion, it could be a single deity or a dozen. The Keepers tend to the chapels and groves, ensuring their upkeep and being on hand for when a member of the public requires it. Though some Keepers do specialize; those with an inclination towards a deity of healing go in for medical training and help out in hospitals, whereas those who lean towards a war deity serve as chaplains/padres in the military.

That's the basic idea, hopefully it helps fleshes out the Commonwealth more as well as the overall setting.

April 2020: Airships Ahoy!

With the release of the new Vehicle Guide from Pinnacle I was able to go through and adjust vehicle stats in Frozen Skies where needed. More interestingly, the Vehicle Guide had stats for airships which has enabled me to update airship and skyship stats for Frozen Skies. So this month features updated stats and some more thoughts regarding air combat.

Levitations of the Sky

Not only do they have updated stats, there are also new rules for airships and skyships.

Airship: This category covers lighter-than-air craft that gain their lift via use of a lifting gas, but are typically unarmored. Non-Heavy Weapons reduce their damage die by one when attacking these type of craft.

Skyship: These more heavily armored craft are akin to flying warships, as such they have the Heavy Armor characteristic. However, skyships are vulnerable to attacks from above and thus these sort of attacks increase the weapon's damage dice by one.

And now, some stats;
 
B-class Frigate

Top Speed: 40 MPH; Toughness: 32 (8); Crew: 10; Climb: 10; Handling: -3; Size: 16 (Gargantuan)
Weapons: 1x 57mm Deck Gun (Front Pintle Mount), 1x Heavy MG (Top Pintle Mount); Notes: Skyship

Bayleaf-class Freighter

Top Speed: 30 MPH; Toughness: 28 (3); Crew: 70; Climb: 10; Handling: -4; Size: 20 (Gargantuan)
Weapons: 4x Heavy MGs (Fixed Left), 4x Heavy MGs (Fixed Right); Notes: Skyship

Rover-class Scout Airship

Top Speed: 40 MPH; Toughness: 21 (1); Crew: 10; Climb: 10; Handling: -3; Size: 15 (Gargantuan)
Weapons: 2x Linked Heavy MGs (Turret Front), 2x Linked Heavy MGs (Turret Rear); Notes: Airship

Regal-class Light Cruiser Skyship

Top Speed: 35 MPH; Toughness: 45 (14); Crew: 570; Climb: 5; Handling: -3; Size: 19 (Gargantuan)
Weapons: 4x Turrets – 2x front & 2x rear – 2x 6” guns in each turret (Range in miles 6/12/18; 6d10; LBT, AP 10, Heavy Weapon)

4x 40mm Quad-linked Cannons (2x Fixed Left, 2x Fixed Right) in open mounts

1x Linked 40mm Cannons (Pintle mount on top of No.2 Turret)

2x 20mm Cannons (1x Fixed Left, 1x Fixed Right)

Notes: Catapult launcher, Scout plane, Skyship

Scout Plane

Top Speed: 110 MPH; Toughness: 11 (2); Crew: 2; Climb: 10; Handling: 0 (-2 when loaded); Size: 5 (Large); Weapons: 1x Medium MG (Fixed Front), 1x Medium MG (Pintle Mount – Rear), Bombs

Notes: Flotation Gear, Zeppelin Hook

Zephyr-class Armed Merchant Cruiser

Top Speed: 30 MPH; Toughness: 21 (1); Crew: ~50; Climb: 10; Handling: -3; Size: 17 (Gargantuan); Weapons: 6x 6-inch cannons (Fixed Left), 6x 6-inch cannons (Fixed Right); Notes: Capacity for 3 light or medium sized aircraft (1 air deck + 2 launch ramps), Airship


More Thoughts on Aerial Combat


Follow-on from last month's post, been giving some thought to aerial combat in Frozen Skies. Still looking like a hex grid may be the best way to go, offering a more tactical style for those who want it but at the same time it still has to be balanced towards the Fast, Furious, Fun ethos of Savage Worlds.


Basically need to strike a balance between being simple but having a bit of meat to them.


Thinking with Immanuel Turn of having an aircraft move half it's Top Speed in a straight line before turning round 180 degrees. Could also factor in an aircraft's Climb value as some sort of bonus here.


Something interesting that somebody proposed was adapting the Vehicle Fatigue rules from Savage Rifts. Could work I suppose, though it will have to be something to try out with a playtest.

2020 Spring PWYW Sale

All Utherwald Press products are now Pay What You Want (though you'll still need to cover printing and postage for print products) through to 1st May.

Happy gaming folks!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/3975/Utherwald

March 2020: Airborne Musings

New month, new post.

Stated last month that I was looking at the air combat system for Frozen Skies, part of the overall process of updating it for SWADE. This month is my thoughts I've had regarding this over the previous month. Also, stay tuned for news of the next event Utherwald is attending this year.

Expanded Air Combat Thoughts

On the whole, what I've previously written for Aerial HEXfight largely still stands. Though there are some changes and additions since I originally wrote that post.

• Dropping the Evasion stat, modifiers within SWADE combined with using a hex grid make it difficult enough for attacks on aircraft to actually hit.
• Each hex grid equals 30', keeps things nice and simple in addition to working quite nicely with how weapon ranges scale.
• Climb has been retained as a stat for aircraft in Frozen Skies and provides a +1 bonus to the aircraft with the higher value in opposed Piloting rolls, +2 bonus if the value is doubled of the other aircraft.
• To help speed up combat, aircraft flown by Extras are considered to only have one wound and thus follow the normal rules for Extras in SWADE. Aircraft flown by Wild Cards still have the full amount of wounds based upon the Size category of the aircraft.

Maneuvers still need some thought, though Immelmann I'm thinking of increasing it to 3 or 4 hexes.

Also looking at different ammo and rocket types to spice things up a little.

Plus, heres a new Setting Rule;

Hazardous Flying Weather

One of the risks of flying the northern skies is that of ice forming on the wings of aircraft, which can be dangerous enough to cause an airplane to fall out of the sky. At the GM's choice or part of an Obstacle Travel Encounter, run a challenging Dramatic Task (four successes over three rounds).

Overall Success: You make it through without issues.

Overall Failure: You make it through at the cost of your aircraft suffering 1 Wound and 1 Critical Hit (treat Crew result as Chassis instead).

Failure during Complication: Piloting roll with all penalties or the aircraft crashes and Wrecks immediately.

Weather modifiers range from -1 for clear but extremely cold weather through to -4 for a full-blown blizzard. For combat it is suggested that you only use the weather modifiers.

Events

Now able to confirm that Utherwald will be attending Diceni 2020 in Norwich on Sunday 3rd May, see you all there.

State of the Press: February 2020

So here we are, now getting into February as the year marches onwards to spring. This also means a new post from Utherwald Press as part of the monthly schedule it's now operating on. This month I have a couple of things to talk about, so stay tuned.

Like this new monthly format? Got suggestions? Please comment!

Frozen Skies

I'm still hopeful that Frozen Skies will get updated and released for SWADE later this year, though progress on that front have admittedly been slow due to reasons highlighted in my last post.

That said, recently managed to get some playtesting in.

Granted it was almost last minute as there was a tiny turnout for my regular gaming group, but useful all the same. It was a chance to try out aerial combat with a hex grid, something that seemed to help alot with the position of planes and the players seemed to like it. It worked, though there is still room for improvement.

*For ranges I went with dividing them by 50 to determine the number of hexes, though this seems too short and so I'm considering changing this. At present I'm trying to decide whether the ranges should be divided by 25 or 30, leaning towards the latter as it would fit in better with ranges in Savage Worlds.

*Manoeuvrers is something that needs to be expanded upon and tidied up a little, also ties in with movement. What I have is functional, but could be better.

*I'm seriously considering dropping the Evasion stat for aircraft, penalties in Savage Worlds (recoil, movement, range, etc) already make aircraft difficult enough to hit as it is.

Positioning and facing are going to be pretty important with this version, so this is going to be an area that will need some focus. Still a step in the right direction and it seems to work, which is good enough for me.

CON-tingency 2020

This was a local convention that I attended for the first time, though only as a trader and I 'commuted' from home for each of the four days I attended.

It was a very friendly convention with a strong focus on games, probably amongst the smallest and slowest 'trade hall' I've experienced at a convention. Other than food and fuel for the car, it was straight up profit and so I can't complain. Do plan to attend next year, bit better organised and perhaps get some gaming in including running some Frozen Skies.

Some positives is that I've now invested in a card reader to help boost sales and I may be able to get Frozen Skies picked up by Leisure Games here in the UK.

http://www.con-tingency.uk/

Going Forward

Really just a general checklist for whats planned/wish to achieve this year.

*More playtesting.

*Finish updating Frozen Skies.

*Attend Diceni in Norwich in May.

https://www.facebook.com/Diceni-Tabletop-Games-Cosplay-Show-Norwich-117570275059298/

State of the Press 2020

Its the beginning of a new year, and decade, so time to reveal how things currently stand with Utherwald Press. There are some changes ahead, though I'm going to have to be a little personal here in order to give context and explain my decisions behind the changes. Though I will also be setting out my goals for what I want to achieve this year, something which I am hopeful I will achieve.

Less Is More

OK, lets start with the change.

From this point forward I'll be reducing my post rate on the blog down to once a month.

Part of this stems from a burnout and part of it stems from more personal reasons, both kinda overlap with one another. I feel that the writing of my blog posts have suffered over the past few months, some of this has been down to bit of a burnout as I've increasingly struggled to think of stuff to write and accordingly my posts have suffered.

There have also been changes to my personal circumstances in the past few months, less than ideal changes. Others already know alot of the details, though I'm only going to briefly summarize here; Recently gained the tenancy of where I live from a relative, this has brought a sudden increase in my monthly outgoings and has resulted in having to claim state benefits to help cover the rent and bills (with all the 'joy' that entails).

Never been flushed with cash, even working a 36+ hours a week retail job, and so my available funds for Utherwald related projects have effectively dwindled to nothing. So this is a less than ideal situation I find myself in, thankfully I do have a plan to improve things; I've currently started doing a bookkeeping course in an attempt to change careers and get a job with better hours and pay. If I can do this it'll mean more time and thus funds to put towards getting my various RPG stuff done.

So the burnout couple with needing to get this course done has resulted in me deciding to cut down on the blog posts. This would give me plenty of time to work on the course and hopefully get it down quicker, additionally it may help me improve the quality of my posts as I'll have more time to think them over and work on them.

Hopefully that gives people a clear idea of what is currently happening and why I've decided to make changes.

Goals

Right at the start of the blog post I mentioned there are some goals planned for this year, I have a couple.

My main goal is to finish getting Frozen Skies updated for SWADE and thus a new version released, lack of funds here means this one is going to be delayed and I'm in two minds in trying to crowd fund what I need. That said, things are set up ready for when I've finished the updates and rewrites in addition to having the cash needed to get it done....just very dependent on that last bit.

My second, more modest, goal is getting the blog updated and rethinking my approach to both Social Media and Patreon.

So thank you all for your support and I wish everyone good fortunes in the year/decade ahead!

Frozen Skies: The Duskfall Run

So 2019 is drawing to a close and we head into the festive season, typically a time of giving. As this is going to be the final post of the year, heres a gift in the form of a new adventure that is also themed for this time of year. This adventure is set at the start of a period known as the Shrouded Days, a time of polar night in the far north of Alyeska marked by the Exodus as a large number of people head south.

Until the New Year, Happy Holidays!

The Duskfall Run

The adventure sees the characters flying the last aircraft out of a remote northern settlement just before the polar night engulfs the land in darkness. With a short window of opportunity to fly before both the dark, and weather, close in the characters very much have the odds stacked against them. Worse, an outfit of sky pirates have spotted the characters' plane and are giving chase when the adventure begins.

Adventure Setup

The adventure uses the Chase Rules from Savage Worlds Adventure Edition, primarily using the Range Increment for an airplane. It is suggested that 15-20 Chase Cards are used, though feel to free to adjust.

Opponents wise there are 5 Sky Pirate Extras and 1 or 2 Sky Pirate Aces, though for the purpose of this adventure the Extras' aircraft only take one wound whilst those flown by the Aces have the normal number of wounds. The Extras have d8 in Shooting and Piloting, in addition to the Rock and Roll! and Steady Hands Edges. The Aces have d10 in their respective skills and the Ace Edge. It is suggested to use the Trodai Fighter for the Sky Pirates, but again feel free to change this.

The characters own aircraft is an armed, fast light cargo plane.

Top Speed: 300 MPH; Toughness: 14 (2); Crew: 5; Climb: 15; Handling: -1; Size: 8 (Large)
Weapons: 2x Linked .30-cal Medium MGs (Pintle-Mounted Front), 2x Linked .30-cal Medium MGs (Turret, top)

Characters' goal is to outrun the Sky Pirates, whilst the Sky Pirate have to stop them.

Operation Thule: After Action Report

Recently got to run my Operation Thule adventure that I released for SWAG, a Weird Wars style adventure set in the early '80s. It was also my first proper adventure that I've run under SWADE, which despite the changes from SWD felt like coming back to an old friend. Certainly made a nice change from the Rogue Trader game I've been running for the past few months.

The South Atlantic Conflict

Our adventure begins on the 22nd May 1982, not long after the British Taskforce managed to put troops ashore at San Carlos. The characters get called together by a Colonel Mcguire who explains that an enemy commando team has been spotted some miles to the east and intel suggests that this team may be looking for something, London fears it may be a weapon like mustard gas. The characters were given the chance to ask questions, assigned a Land Rover and told to prepare their kit before heading out.

The Squad

'Jock' - The 'not quite' Scottish sniper.

'Jones 79' - Mild mannered Welsh machine gunner.

'Lofty' - The short Cockney scout.

'Sparky' - The Royal Engineer sapper from the Midlands (though didn't come into play until later).

'Wings' - The commander with childhood dreams of being a pilot.

As the characters prepared to head out, they were interrupted by an air raid as a couple of enemy jets come in low overhead. Thankfully the jets were more interested in the ships off-shore and brave the hail of gunfire from the ground to do a couple of passes before withdrawing to the west. Once things had quietened down, the characters set off but they only had a couple of hours of daylight left and the sun was already quite low to the horizon.

The boggy and rocky terrain made the going slow, often forcing them to drive little more than five miles per hour. Though they ended up making better time than expected and civilians in a lone farmhouse gave the characters some pointers on what route to take along with some intel on enemy forces. Cheerfully sent on their way by the civilians, the characters reached the Wickham Heights mountain range not long after nightfall and set up a biovuac in a crevice in the rockface to use it to provide some shelter from the worsening weather conditions. Wings detailed a watch rota and they then settled down for the night.

 Wings and Jock took first watch, though had an uneventful few hours until they warily handed over to Jones 79 and Lofty. An hour or so later Lofty spots a creature moving around like a kangaroo and growling, though the noise sounded unlike a dog and no predators were known to be on the islands. Lofty informed Jones that he'd spotted something and that he was going to investigate, leaving Jones to rouse the others. The Cockney scout soon found some strange looking tracks, but had difficulty trying to actually spot the creature which slipped through the darkness unseen.

Suddenly Loft found himself being barrelled over by a creature only slightly smaller than he was, but was ferocious as any wild animal as it madly trashed and clawed at him. Hearing Lofty call out, Jones told the other two and hurried out to find his comrade with torch in hand. Seeing Lofty on the ground wrestling with some...creature, the Welshman calmly sets up his Bren Gun and blasts the creature off the Cockney with a hail of gunfire. Despite being dead, the creature was a disconcerting sight from what they could see from the light of their torches. Daylight didn't bring any reassurances and the squad decided to load the creature into the back of their Land Rover for specialists to take a look at.

After a new day had dawned, the characters set off again and only managed to travel a couple of miles down the track until a rock slide blocked their path. Wings ordered the squad to proceed on foot with Lofty scouting ahead, the scout soon topped a rise and spotted a couple of civilian looking Land Rovers along with a couple of enemy commandos outside of a cave entrance. Quietly slipping back, Lofty informed the rest of the squad what he'd seen. The squad moved up with Jock taking up an over-watch position on the rise whilst the others tried sneaking closer to the cave, though the enemy spotted them and opened fire. Wings was cut down in a blast of gunfire, though Jock got some revenge by taking down one of the enemy with a headshot. The second soldier was cut down with a hail of machine gun fire from Jones whilst Lofty tried taking out the Land Rovers with a grenade.

More enemy soldiers charged out of the cave, though a sergeant was downed by Jock who scored another headshot. Jones' Bren counted for some more enemy soldiers, whilst Sparky (played the person who'd been playing Wings) counted for another. There were two soldiers left in the entrance of the cave, Lofty tried throwing a grenade at them but was shot and killed for his efforts even as the grenade flew true and took out the two soldiers. With Jock remaining outside, Sparky and an injured Jones charged into the cave. Jones got cut down by a burst of gunfire from an enemy officer who'd been in the cave, though Sparky took the officer out with a shot from his SLR. Then a German, who'd been leading the enemy team, attacked by throwing a ball of energy at Sparky which narrowly missed. Realising the intelligence value, Sparky acted quickly and knocked the German out with the stock of his SLR.

All that was left was for the two survivors, Jock and Sparky, to stock of their situation, secure their prisoner and gather their dead comrades before radioing for an evac via helicopter. Inside the cave was a stone idol, one that curiously resembled a squid....

The Iron Collective Revisited

This week it is the turn of the Iron Collective to receive the 'Revisited' treatment. Again this is another nation that I'm largely happy with how it currently stands, save perhaps for tweaks and refinements here and there. Though I do have an idea for a possibly big addition to the lore of the Iron Collective.

Mind Over Matter

The Order of the Great Machine has virtual control over all aspects of life within the Iron Collective, having completely rebuilt Sodkan society after assuming power in the wake of the Holy Sodkan Empire's collapse. The radical changes made by the Order are unheard of in other nations and strangely the Collective's citizens seemingly accepted them without question soon after the Collective was formed.

How, and why?

The secret of the Order's total control pre-dates the founding of the Collective, technically even the Great Darmonican War and possibly even the founding of the Holy Sodkan Empire. At some point in the Order's early existence one its members stumbled across data about the Ancient Terrans' methods of maintaining control over its slave labour force, something that was brought to the attention of the Order's hierarchy. It was revealed that the Ancients used a special chemical in the labourers' food coupled with a combination of radio signal based mind control and subliminal messaging.

It took a series of experiment before the Order managed to replicate the Ancients' technique and a plan was hatched to put the technique into action. By this point the Holy Sodkan Empire was embroiled in the Great Darmonican War and rationing was widespread, being particularly harsh for the Empire's working classes. The Order decided to take advantage of this situation by opening up soup kitchens in various towns and cities, the special control chemical being implanted in the food given out by the kitchens. Once the Order was confident enough that even people had eaten the tainted food, the next phase of the plan was put into action.

Radio transmitters and broadcasts were set up by the Order, gradually increasing in coverage as the soup kitchens were expanded. Soon enough those who'd eaten the tainted food were slowly being brainwashed by the Order, this was helped by widespread disgruntlement of the way the war was going and was something seized upon by the Order. Fuelled by the Order's efforts, unrest began to grow across the Empire as the Order sought to weaken the Imperial Government before seizing control.

The Blast and resultant death of Empress Polinia Serlov came as a surprise to the Order, though it wasted no time in taking over. With much of the citizenry under its control, the Order quickly instituted the Classification system to help realise its ambitions. Though it became apparent that some people were resistant to the Order's mind control techniques, prompting them being called the Unclassified. Whilst those who end up being Declassified stop receiving the tainted food that aids the Order's control over the person in question, usually resulting in people slowly been 'weaned' and thus breaking free of the Order's control. This is typically why the Declassified are either killed on sight or deported to a prison camp to prevent them from openly rebelling against the system.

Even foreigners eating the food within the Collective and staying within range of the many control transmitters are at risk of falling victim to the Order's control, giving rise to a number of so-called 'converts' within the past few years. There are rumours that the Order may be expanding its control outside of the Collective's borders, quietly subverting the populace of neighbouring countries.

New Aircraft: Iolar Light Bomber

Another new aircraft, though this week I set myself bit of a challenge to recreate the de Havilland Mosquito or get as close as possible. Though its ended up being a slightly faster version of the Argentine I.Ae.24 Calquin Light Bomber, apparently an aircraft patterned after and is a 'look-alike' for the Mosquito.

I.Ae.24 Calquin

The Iolar 'Eagle' Light Bomber

The Iolar, or 'Eagle', Light Bomber came about as part of a Royal Aero-Fleet requirement for a fast, light bomber to conduct strike raids against enemy targets. It has a speed to match most fighters and decent armaments, though it has a pitiful payload by bomber standards. As a result the Eagle tends to be used for pinpoint strike missions in flights of at least four to six aircraft.

There is a degree of discontentment amongst the Air Ministry over the future of the aircraft; it entered service just over a decade or so before the Great Darmonican War and thus is still seen as an 'untried' aircraft despite its 20 years of service. There are those who thus consider it to be a worthless aircraft and are trying to have it scrapped without a replacement, though there are others who are championing the aircraft and are pushing for a more modern version.

Top Speed: 300 MPH; Toughness: 14 (2); Crew: 2; Climb: 15; Handling: -1; Size: 8 (Large)
Weapons: 4x Linked .50-cal Heavy MGs (Fixed Front)
1x pair of rockets, or
Bombs (8x Small or, 4x Medium or, 2x Large)