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Post by Username17 »

Conan is a fantasy setting where the Mythos applies. So there are Fungi from Yugoth in it.

The Smurfs are fungus people.

As noted, Warhammer Orcs are fungus as are the Mushroom Kingdom people in Mario Brothers.

Magic the Gathering has the Thalids.

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Post by Ghremdal »

WH40K ork fluff is fairly underdeveloped, especially the fungus part. I would love to see more exposition on that.
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Post by Dean »

It is one of the coolest parts of their total fiction IMHO
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Post by Red_Rob »

Blicero wrote:D&D has the myconid obviously, but I have never seen them used in a particularly interesting way.
If you want an interesting take on Myconids you can read the pbp game here on the Den where the players ran into a Myconid community.
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Post by OgreBattle »

Ghremdal wrote:WH40K ork fluff is fairly underdeveloped, especially the fungus part. I would love to see more exposition on that.
There's a lot already written, a large part is their original rogue trader debut books.

-Orks, gretchin, squigs all release spores that can generate any of the others, and are released in a way to always expand greenskin civilization, like mekboyz springing up when vehicles are needed with fuel-squigs to power their contraptions.

-All of the greenskins emerge fully grown, but grow bigger through eating and conflict, though there's not much written on how big a snotling or gretchin can grow.

-Even when civilization has been established, some greenskins emerge in remote corners and become 'feral orks' that hunt with spears and squigs. They usually get recruited by 'civilized' orks that bump into them.

-Ork spores are able to defend themselves at a microscopic level, some fluff talks about how tyranids have difficulty in absorbing their bio-mass when active conflict is going on.


Orks were created by the Old Ones, who also created the Eldar before the orks. As Eldar were built to fight Necrons and the C'tan, Orks seem to be built to fight Chaos, orks are incredibly resilient to chaos corruption and possession.

If you can, try to track down their 1st edition books (such as through a torrent), "waaagh: the Ork" and "ere we go"
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Post by Red_Rob »

OgreBattle wrote:There's a lot already written, a large part is their original rogue trader debut books.

...

If you can, try to track down their 1st edition books (such as through a torrent), "waaagh: the Ork" and "ere we go"
Actually Orks growing from spores is a relatively recent addition to the fluff. You can read about the development of Orks in 40K up to 3rd edition which goes into addition and revamp to the lore.

Originally Orks were genetically engineered from a highly advanced Progenitor race of super intelligent Snotlings. These "brainboyz" had encoded their technological knowledge into the Orks but since degenerated into the childlike creatures that follow Orks around today. Whilst Orks were described as having some biochemistry in common with "an algae or fungus" they still had a mammalian life cycle and birthed live young. This was described as happening at the end of their lives when Orks would be afflicted with a wanderlust and go off to have a few litters of "whelps" on some backwater planet that would later be picked up by a Waaaagh when it was passing through.

It was only with the release of Gorka-Morka that they revised the Ork lifecycle and origins to highlight the fungal aspect and finally expunge the comical image of a pregnant Ork from 40K canon. Here they codified the relationship between Orks, Squigs and Gretchin along with the fungus that they depend on. There was also a shift in the presentation of Orks away from the comedy antics and slapstick of 2e to a more serious take on Orks as warlike raiders.

The earlier books are still worth reading if you want a fairly humorous description of Ork Kulture, but the fluff is pretty distanced from how Orks are currently presented and you won't really find anything specifically relating to Orks as sentient fungus.
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Post by Ghremdal »

Thanks for the review OgreBattle and Red Rob, but alas I already knew that. And what you guys posted is the extent of the fluff for the Orks, which compared to any other 40K faction is very poor.
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Post by Prak »

What connotations does the term "Long Knife" have for you guys? Id like to use it for a class in Midgard, but I'm aware of three specific uses of the term, but all somewhat obscure (two historical, one an album). I want to double check that if I call sneaky rogue types Long Knives that isn't going to carry unwanted baggage.
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Post by Grek »

Treachery, cannibalism and Nazis. If you're a "Long Knife" you are definitely a bad person waiting to happen to someone.
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Post by Prak »

So that's one for Nazis. Since that's been brought up, the other two public consciousness contexts for Long Knives I'm aware of are something about an Iroquois word for colonials who signed a treaty, and an emo indie band's album "With Long Knives Drawn."

So, I guess now the question is "how many people knew the Nazi connection before Grek mentioned it?"

It feels like a good thing to call the rogue-like class in a norse-themed RPG, but I sure as Hell don't want to imply a character class has much of anything to do with Nazis.

....now, a grendel-esque group of man-eating ogrekin, on the other hand...
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Post by tussock »

Night of the Long Knives is probably familiar to anyone with a passing interest in WWII, or Nazis. It's a major turning point in the whole fascism thing, the rise of Hitler, the disregard for laws and customs, putting themselves above the law, killing army generals for saying true things that displeased Hitler, and being applauded by local press and dignitaries for it all, because they had to or they'd be next.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_long_knives

It's a pretty big article, eh, lots of work done on it. A lot of shitty governments can fall back on not having done that. Go for something different.
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Post by Prak »

Yeah, I'm familiar with it as a thing (though I couldn't remember who was doing the assassinating and who was doing the dying until I looked it up before asking that question). I was really just wondering how widely known that even is.

Fortunately, I'm rethinking having classes altogether.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
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You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
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Post by norms29 »

Prak wrote:Yeah, I'm familiar with it as a thing (though I couldn't remember who was doing the assassinating and who was doing the dying until I looked it up before asking that question). I was really just wondering how widely known that even is.
I think very. i mean I knew about it well before the relevant time period was covered in a history class. You might have better luck slipping it past an age bracket or two younger, since the history channel when I was a kid was basically "all WWII, all the time" and now it's all "bigfoot and aliens", but I can't imagine anyone in the stereotypical gamer demographic not making that association.

also, not sure if this is more reason to can it or it fits what you were oriiginally trying to imply, but it seems worth noting that the reason the event in question got that name, was that the phrase was already associated with treachery and murder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treachery_ ... ong_Knives
Last edited by norms29 on Sun Mar 08, 2015 10:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Schleiermacher »

Chalk up another "Long Knife = Nazis and treachery" vote. I wasn't familiar with the connection to early American history though, so thanks for that.
At any rate Long Knife is not a name you want to give to someone who isn't a murderous bastard.
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Post by Prak »

Interesting on the Treachery of the Long Knives thing. I think Long Knives will pop up in Midgard, but definitely not as the name of the rogue class.
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Post by Omegonthesane »

If, in After Sundown, one of your sorceries gives you a skill bonus, does that apply when you're rolling the skill to activate a power?

e.g. Basic Path of Blood gives a +1 bonus to Medicine, so if you are casting Thaumaturgical Forensics (Basic Path of Blood) using Logic+Medicine do you get a bonus to that Medicine roll for having Basic Path of Blood?
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Post by OgreBattle »

There any D&D heartbreaker or 3.5 class variant that uses reserve feats (having an at-will power that is tied to having a memorize spell that isn't expended) as a core caster mechanic?
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Post by Username17 »

Omegonthesane wrote:If, in After Sundown, one of your sorceries gives you a skill bonus, does that apply when you're rolling the skill to activate a power?

e.g. Basic Path of Blood gives a +1 bonus to Medicine, so if you are casting Thaumaturgical Forensics (Basic Path of Blood) using Logic+Medicine do you get a bonus to that Medicine roll for having Basic Path of Blood?
Yes.

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Post by Grek »

Let's say I wanted to make a game set in setting that was basically Eberron, except A] not awful, B] not married to D&D mechanics and C] with WW1 level technology? Players are expected to be soldiers in what amounts to that setting's version of WW1.

What resolution system is good for that?
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Post by Ancient History »

Well, no-one's made an RPG version of Turtledove's Great Darkness Saga yet, so...I guess you could build it with GURPS?
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Post by erik »

Grek wrote:Let's say I wanted to make a game set in setting that was basically Eberron, except A] not awful, B] not married to D&D mechanics and C] with WW1 level technology? Players are expected to be soldiers in what amounts to that setting's version of WW1.

What resolution system is good for that?
I'm interpreting that as an industrial fantasy setting with war between millions of soldiers.

Player character soldiers who do what?

• Investigate and do recon
• Fight and die in trenches among faceless hordes of peers
• Perform dance battles for global stakes
• Play as larger than life heroes
• Something else

We should make a flow chart for what you want player characters to be capable of vs. not, in order to arrive at mechanical systems that fit. Maybe someone already did years ago, I dunno.
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Post by Prak »

Current or former soldiers? Is the war still going on or is it in the past?
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Post by Grek »

Current soldiers, fighting the war. The PCs constitute a 3-6 man fireteam who engage in trench warfare alongside and against other similarly sized units as part of an ongoing conflict.

@erik: Have you ever actually used the flowchart? I'll give you a hint: It doesn't actually tell you what resolution system to use. It tells you to pick one that's appropriate to what you want characters to do. And that's my problem. I know of no system that does 20th century tactics well. The only thing that kinda sorta looks like it might fit is Shadowrun, but you can't even model tanks without the system shitting itself.
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Post by Prak »

Would d20 really not work? I mean, tanks might be a problem, but I wouldn't think an insurmountable one, and there are ways to model WW1 firearm tech in d20, so long as you're not thinking purely "attack roll, AC, damage"
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You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
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Post by OgreBattle »

Grek wrote:Current soldiers, fighting the war. The PCs constitute a 3-6 man fireteam who engage in trench warfare alongside and against other similarly sized units as part of an ongoing conflict.

@erik: Have you ever actually used the flowchart? I'll give you a hint: It doesn't actually tell you what resolution system to use. It tells you to pick one that's appropriate to what you want characters to do. And that's my problem. I know of no system that does 20th century tactics well. The only thing that kinda sorta looks like it might fit is Shadowrun, but you can't even model tanks without the system shitting itself.
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