Shamanism, A Core Dragon Storm magic school.

The newly posted Beta Magics need a longer discussion than will fit well on the Beta Page, so here is the first article. If you have not downloaded the new Beta cards, you can do it here.

Shamans use OD to perform their magics, like all of the magics. The difference is that their focus is on the Spirit World and the Dead.

When we wrote the Shaman Anchor we tried to convey the idea that Shamans are unworldly sentients. Their thinking and visions are rooted in the Spirit World even though they exist in the physical world. This mode of thinking makes shamans different. Their concerns are different. They are concerned with the spirit World as much as the physical world. Normal people tend to give shamans a wide berth.

Shamans are also very important in the daily lives of the physical world peoples. They are the conduit between the living and their spirit ancestors. Those ancestors are the primary source of knowledge from the past. They teach their descendants the family skills and carry the families history in their ever slipping memories. It frequently requires a shaman to establish communication between the living and the dead. They are also the ones you turn to if your ancestors go mad and start haunting you. This means that everyday people put up with Shamans and only seek them out if they have a problem with spirits that they are willing to pay a shaman to deal with it.

Shamans in general do not like Necromancers. Those fellas bring forth the dead. The dead should stay at home. Necromancers create warp. Warp crosses the barrier between the Spirit and Physical worlds. It makes mad and warped spirits. Neither of which is good.

There are, of course, Shamans who approve of bringing the creatures of the spirit world over and trying to make the Physical world an extension of the Spirit world. While relatively rare, these seemingly mad shamans ally with the Necromancers. Shamans of warped races, like Wakana Shamans, are of this type.

The core spells available to the Shaman are the foundation of shamanism. We will be adding specialty schools over time, so if you are looking for Classic shaman abilities and they are not in the Core sets, you can expect them to show up in one of the specialty schools. Spirit Walkers, Undead Hunters, Spirit Channelers, and the pinnacle of the Shamans, the Spirit Dancers, are specialties on the drawing Board.

In the past we have toyed with doing a Temple Speaker, but there is a better way. If you want a Temple Speaker you start as a Shaman. In the fullness of time you work up to an Elethay Acolyte and learn the Elethay magics. You have created a Temple speaker. You could do it in reverse as well.

Shaman Backgrounds. Instead of making a multitude of Backgrounds the new Shaman Anchor is pointed low enough that a character could take it in creation. You take a Farmer Background. You envision this character as hearing voices, having trouble making friends, and just not quite right. Then you spend four points for the Shaman anchor. Doing your characters this way is better than being restricted to just the backgrounds we publish.

Shamans and the law. Frequently the leaders of hamlets, militias and sheriffs will have a deal with a Shaman. Shamans can get testimony from the dead about crimes. They may find spirits who witnessed the crime, or even talk to a dead victim. Dead victims testimony is considered very carefully because they can be lying to hurt someone they dislike.

Spirits and memories. Spirits are like the rest of us. They forget things. They remember things the way they wanted them to be, they are not lying, they just got it wrong. In other words, they are not perfect. Spirits may also lie outright, so be careful.

Remember always to Embrace the Chaos and listen to your GM.

Dragon Storm Updates

First, I have added links to the May releases at the bottom of the Pre-Order page. Just scroll down below the April Pre-Order sets, and you will find them. The Link is here.. Very shortly, (Friday?) you will be able to start ordering them.

Next, I have put up the beta magics. We are starting with the three core magic sets, Shamanism, Wizardry and Witchcraft. The link to the Beta page is here.

My assignment for tomorrow night will be to write up a blog post doing some Magic Talking. You will want to know that these are just the start. Many of the spells that are not posted will be moving into different schools of magic. Things like Shadow Walk has slid over into the Walker school, or maybe that the Nightwitches are the Witches who go Boom and have all the offensive stuff, or that the Wizards will be getting Fire and Ice schools added in the fullness of time.

Personalized Flaws and Boons in the Dragon Storm 2 Era.

The Dragon Storm RPG was created to allow the GM the freedom to create a very chaotic world where nothing is certain. We call this 3.14.

GM's can also use this ability to help players create customized characters that break the rules. Sometimes a player has a character concept that does not fit within the rules. The answer is not to change the character, but to change just that characters rules. Having your character cards as your characters Rulesbook has its advantages.

As an example: A player wants a Warrior character who has all Axes as Favored Weapons, but is so trained to the Axes that she can not use any Warrior cards unless she is wielding an Axe. This concept would require at least three Favored Weapon Boons to create, and would limit the character. It is time for the player to have a talk with her GM.

What the GM can do is to create a personalized Flaw card for the character that breaks the game rules and gives the character a special rule of their very own. After a talk the GM creates the following Flaw card for the player:

"Character X may apply a single Favor Weapon Boon to all Axes she wields. However, when she is not wielding an Axe she may play no Warrior cards, and she will drain ongoing "V" Warrior cards." She, the GM, will then sign the new card. The player, as usual, will be responsible for role-playering his characters new rule.

What we did here was to create a balanced exception to the rules using rule 3.14. When the player gets into a different GM's game they will need to ask permission to use the card. GM's routinely approve cards that are balanced for use in their games.

These custom cards allow the player to create unique characters that both break the rules, and, because of 3.14, are within the rules. We also put the rules enforcement, not on the GM's back, but rather ask the players to play their own characters fairly.

The only rule that a GM should not break is the "Ten Things" rule. As we all learned from experience, having a player with a huge number of Actions and Independents slowed games to the point of boring players right out of DS, and we all want more players, not fewer.

Embrace the Chaos that is DS and have fun.
Mark

Origins game submission deadline is upon us!

We are going to need all of the support we can get from our GM's to create our best Origins results.

We need games in the book and the deadline for GM submissions is upon us. It is March first.

So, if you want to help us at the con, and you are a GM, get over there and sign up to run a DS game.

For the rest of you, we need ambassadors to spread out at the con and get as many people as possible back to our booth to try a demo game of DS. This year we have a demo booth in the retail area and we will be running demos all day long.

If you want to volunteer to run a demo or two over the weekend, get in touch with Tim Kennard and let him know so he can keep track of what is happening at the demo booth.

Also in the news.
Sue has returned home, but the recovery will be slow. If you can help increase the value of our conventions this summer, that would help a lot!

Thanks, Mark.

Health Report

By now many of you know that Susan was admitted to the hospital last Sunday. She was having seizures and was non-responsive for about 12 hours. At that point she began to respond to treatments and slowly improved throughout the week. Late Thursday she came home.

They have not determined the cause, but we are all optimistic. For the time being she is being kept in semi-isolation as the search for the cause continues. She will be reaching out to people as she is capable to do so. It has been an "interesting" adventure so far.

I expect a complete recovery, but it may be slow going.

I also want to thank all of you out there for your support, prayers, and well wishes. They really do help.

We are going to have to ask you folks for more help at the conventions so we can keep the support flowing. I will talk more about that shortly.

Mark

Making Progress

Just a quick update. Sue is improving, but it looks like this is going to take some time.
Mark

A bump in the road

Everything here has come to a halt. Susan is currently in the hospital, so I am dropping everything to help her.

Mark