Magic, gods and you: Together again with gameplay notes

A “short” two-part post on character development. First up, my brief impression of the typical skyship sailor’s view of magic and things spiritual. Second, a couple of gameplay ideas I will be using for the upcoming game.

Avast!: Ship-to-Ship Combat Rules

Much of the game’s personality hinges on ship-to-ship battles. I thought it useful to discuss how this will be implemented in our PBP game, particularly since most of these rules appear only in the hardcopy of the SW game book.

Sundered Skies has 2 ship combat rulesets: complex, detailed tabletop rules and simpler “Chase” rules from the Savage Worlds book. The Chase rules are generally preferred, as this leads to faster play, and easier understanding of what is occurring. That said, I do not find the Chase rules wholly satisfying. Thus, I’m making some tweaks that should be fun and I hope still easy to follow.

In short, the rules employed will be more detailed than the Chase rules, but I hope it will still be readily interpretable by the players.

Magnus Greenbottom: Merchant Prince

Ship Name Update: Based on a combination of popular support and incredible appropriateness, your ship is now dubbed the ‘Swoose’. If you don’t know why, I suggest you read the comments on ‘Part II’ below.

This post will detail your NPC employer, Magnus Greenbottom. It will also provide a couple of miscellaneous house rules, so be sure to read at least those.

Your Sweet Ride Pt. 2: Vessel Details and Naming Contest

The goal of this post is two-fold: a description and name for your first “NPC“, the trusty dirigible. Since this is your ship, I believe you guys should name it. Add some ideas here in the comments, and I’ll take whichever one seems to be either 1) my favorite or 2) your favorite. Maybe both – we’ll see what happens.

‘Your’ ship is the property of Magnus Greenbottom, a merchant of Shadowhaven (guess what the next post will be about). It is the beloved runt of his fleet. Rumor has it amongst his employees that he won it years ago in a bet, and it was the ship that started his merchant career. Now that he is established, he doesn’t travel often, and has heavy cargo haulers for his larger trade routes. Instead, he has allowed able skyfarers (i.e., you) to purchase shares in this ship in hopes of getting some use out of the old girl.

Your Sweet Ride: Basic Skyship Rules and Details

This post will detail some functional guidelines for skyships. Details of ship-to-ship combat, will follow in a later post. These will be the first ‘house’ rules, and can’t be found in the books. I felt that the rules present in the text (particularly those re: ship travel over islands), while easy to work with, strained the logical limits of what is otherwise a rather gritty fantasy setting. As such, I’ll be introducing a few “new” rules that I think 1) make more sense and 2) have many functional similarities.

The Grand Isle of Shadowhaven

The following is (largely) game-specific background to fluff out the starting locale: the island city of Shadowhaven. I hope this helps character background development, gives you a glimpse of the gameworld, and a taste of the local culture. It is by no means ‘mandatory’ reading – there will be no test and frankly you’ll probably set sail for locales unknown in short order; this is a skyship game after all. But flavortext is fun to write, and I figure if you know what I’m thinking when I describe this, that ,or the other, maybe it’ll help make the game ‘pop’ alittle better over pbp.

Sundered Skies Play by Post Campaign

What you need to know. Sundered Skies is a Savage Worlds setting which blends high fantasy with steampunk skyships – in a phrase, the perfect setting. Eons ago, the world was sundered by a war between gods, rending the earth into a ball of fire, with floating islands scattered across the sky. With the gods help, the survivors established homes on these islands, and began to trade with their neighbors to ease their difficult circumstances. These floating islands vary greatly in terms of resources, and many remain uncharted. Climates are measured in altitude, with a massive frozen sea above that melts and rains on the islands below, while great iron citadels of the dwarves lie close to the sea of flame that is the bottom of the world. No sun warms these lands, only a constant Glow from above; the Glow is strongest in the vast expanse between islands known as the Void. Its unholy light brings on madness and terrible transformations to those too long exposed. Brave shipcaptains and their crews travel the Void, bringing vital trade and fishing for abundant food to sustain those on the islands.

This campaign will center on an unlikely dirigible crew, hired by Magnus Greenbottom, a merchant in the great city of Shadowhaven. While they were tasked with merely turning a profit, perhaps fate would lead to something more…