Author: Robert Burson

I know it’s way past playtesting time, but I finally got around to running the latest Dark Age over the weekend. We upgraded the tech level to Black Powder with some simple theme changes, and I’ve been mostly using eastern fantasy as my inspiration.

I have in mind the backdrop of a war between 2 empires — the Empire of the Sun and the Kingdoms of the Dragon. Add in that the whole thing is being engineered by the Hell Kings, who are trying to drum up extra souls. First starts an escalation in murder from the King of Murder, then the other kings get in and plagues and famine start up. Basically bureaucratic maneuvering, hell style.

Nothing plot wise, just some enemies and background to gives me war to play out and some reasoning behind the troubles. Plus, I can sprinkle in lots of hellish monsters as needed.

Tommy Rayburn reminds me I should be working on Midsummer, my urban fantasy hack. So I have a new storybook to play test, the Embodiment, and a new realm book, the Underworld if anyone is interested. Midsummer is inspired by Fables, Once Upon a Time, Sandman, American Gods, the works of Charles deLint, Grimm, and stuff like that. The Embodiment is for characters like Death or Santa Claus, those who embody basic principles of the universe. The Underworld is for Hell or the afterlife. Hades. Etc. There’s plenty more already available such as the Prince, Princess, Wild Animal, Fairy Court, Wee One, etc. Too much to list.

I’ve been spending my nights on another project, but I might convince myself to borrow my wife’s headset and run a play test over G+.

You know, with all the sex in Game of Thrones, I find it kind of funny that Apocalypse World: Dark Age doesn’t have sex moves…

🙂

In honor of playing Black Flag, and warming back up to Midsummer, a move…

Chase Your Prey

When you Chase Your Prey, roll the dice and add your Cunning. On a 10+, you catch them. On a 7-9, choose 2 results from the list below.

– You don’t take any harm.

– You catch your quarry.

– You aren’t spotted by the authorities.

I’m looking for opinions on exclusive character books for the hack I’m working on publishing – Midsummer. This seems like a good place to ask. It’s a game where you play fairytales in the modern world inspired by the likes of Fables, Once Upon a Time, Grimm, Sandman and the works of Charles de Lint. The standard character books are Child, Domestic Animal, Fairy, Hero, Magician, Prince, Princess, Villain, Wee One, and Wild Animal. For exclusives, I’m considering:

Elemental (from the Four Winds to Godfather Death to Saint Nicholas), Magical Creature (from Jack Pumpkinhead to Gingerbread Man to Pinocchio), Giant(from Ogres to Blunderbore to Bridge Trolls), Dragon (from Fafnir to Tarasque to Gargouille), Fool (such as Simpleton or Ilsebill), King (Cole, Arthur, etc.), Myth (gods, goddesses, etc.), Folktale (Babe, Johnny Appleseed, etc.), or finally Mundane.

Had some Apocalypse Corn w/ shrimp earlier. I guess Vincent’s recipe is catching on. 🙂