Elves Of Alfheim Pdf To Excel
Early Origins of the Elves family. PDF Coat of Arms. + Extended History. The surname Elves was first found in Nottinghamshire where the family name was first referenced in the 13th century when they held estates in that shire and held a family seat at Habelsthorp. Later, evidence was found that some of the family moved to Throcking in Hertfordshire. The Vanir god Freyr is the lord of the elves’ homeland, Alfheim,4 and at least one Old Norse poem repeatedly uses the word “elves” to designate the Vanir.5 Still, other sources do speak of the elves and the Vanir as being distinct categories of beings, such that a simple identification of the two would be misguided. Mystara - Gazetteer - Elves of Alfheim.pdf. Climatic changes were willed upon the continent, taking water from naturally wet lands with direct access to the sea and lofting it over the barrier mountains to provide rain for Alfheim.
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I'm guessing you found out about this blog through an image search for Fading Suns and were curious. Or am I wrong? In this, we learn more about Skill, Benefits (Benefices?) and Afflictions in the upcoming 3rd Edition of Fading Suns. The proposed Skill Synergy mechanic is interesting in conjunction with the Languages and Technical skills, but I suppose I'll have to see how it plays before I pass any verdict.
A two-tier view of skills emerges with 'primary skills' (my term) used to handle majority of skill checks, that are supported by secondary skills / areas of knowledge or specialization (also my terms). So your linguist may be able to do translation work over time, but - without the appropriate culture skill or specialization - will not be able to hold up a conversation with the diplomatic ambassador from Kurgan space. Or perhaps your ship's engineer may be a wizard at fixing anything remotely related to ship subsystems, but will be struggling to understand the workings of a terrarforming World Engine - much less Vau Tech! It is also my hope, however, that we avoid some of the game system problems of the past directly related to the resolution system. I basically ditched the d20 for a 3d6 bell curve and used the rest of the system more or less as is in my initial passes - for a more heroic game.
I hated the 10% chance for failure, 5% for a fumble in the old system and had mad visions of what mass combat must have been like in the universe: a guaranteed 5% casualty rate in any engagement. Also there seems to be some clean up work in the Benefits / Afflictions area where there is some discouragement of min/maxing. While I like a good min/max myself if that's what the game group enjoys, I often found myself ditching it for Fading Suns in prior editions. Maybe because I didn't really like the +2 / -2 approach to some of the advantages and disadvantages, and felt that some of the point values were measured against differing scales (some too fine, some too coarse). As a fan of the Hero System and Fuzion and DC Heroes, the character kept pushing me toward that direction instead of back towards the more broadly-grouped approach of White Wolf games. Fuzion Core Rules (at least, the last official version of the rules, which was 5.02), inherited rules from two sources: the Hero System (by Hero Games), and the Interlock System (by R. This ruleset owes much to both, and there was even a conversion system with some designer's comments on the rules decisions.
And I was a fan of both. Interestingly, I was more of a Hero System fan than an Interlock System fan BUT, I loved the settings that R. Talsorian came up with. The parallels between the systems were interesting, but I found that the most interesting things for me in the system were some of the ways they handled damage.
Basics As far as damage is concerned, it's split into two types of 'hit points': Stun and Hits. Stun is the amount of stunning damage you can take before being knocked unconscious. Hits are the amount of killing damage you can take before you start dying. Both are x5 multiplier on another Primary Stat, quite different from another lesser 'damage stat' called Resistance which is based on a x3 multiplier. Aside from that, on the basic level, it's not much different from hit points mechanics-wise.
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Why do I like it? Well, I've always liked this damage philosophy from the early Champions / Hero System days, because at some point I became dissatisfied with hit points and some different mechanic for handling knocking someone out (Gasp! Blasphemy!) and the whole percentile system for assassination. I realized at that age I was looking for a game system that somehow hewed closer to my limited understanding of combat physics. Now while I couldn't really handle Phoenix Command / Living Steel / Stalking The Night Fantastic rules (too complicated), the AD&D and then AD&D 2nd Ed rules abstractions seemed to run counter to my tastes. Complications Fuzion follows the philosophy that armor should reduce damage, as well as the philosophy that there is inherent toughness that reduces damage - as opposed to the D&D philosophy that it be bundled with the To Hit resolution.
Stun Defense reduces stun damage. Formula is Stun damage minus Stun Defense equals Stun taken. Killing Defense reduces killing damage. Formula is Killing damage minus Killing Defense equals Hits taken (well, they didn't use Kills because that's reserved for high level megadamage as per Mekton - an Interlock game for giant robots). I also like this, because I appreciate the way you can differentiate creatures that can be super-tough vs.
Punches and kicks yet totally defenseless against guns - while other creatures can bounce bullets but not rocket launchers and so on. Fuzion also brings in the concept of damage statuses from Hero:. take more than 1/2 Stun from a single attack, and you're Stunned - lose your next Action;. take more than 1/2 Hits, and you're Impaired - take a penalty to your Primary Attributes.
And there's the concept of damage rollover from each type of damage into the other:. for every 5 points of Stun taken, take 1 point of Hits damage;. for every 5 points of Hits taken, take 1 point of Stun damage. Playing Ossis Potior at basic levels was originally because I needed to round out our 'cleric' abilities in the party, but was risky - I didn't know how prevalent undead were going to be this early in the game. Fortunately, it paid off. Wight Night MANTIUS awakens in the middle of the night with the dreadful certainty that undead are upon them. Unable to wake his companions due to some glittering motes and the low hissing sound that fills the air of the cave, he faces off alone against three Chainers—which are apparently responsible for whatever sleep spell is active—managing to dispatch them and awaken his friends in time to hear a crackling noise of lightning from outside.
The party rushes out to see DUMAS, the factor from the traveling circus, battling several more Chainers and losing, despite the lightning magic he evidently wields. The group springs into action to aid him, with ARCTURUS taking the undead down. Dumas tells the party that he has been traveling alone since Shardfall, chancing upon five shards in the course of his desperate search for his ward, the fourteen year old Alina. VARIAN and MARTA both assert that they have seen Alina within the nearby town.
Upon discussion, the party agrees that the most fruitful course for all concerned is to try and defeat the Wight within the mausoleum, thereby alleviating the most pressing danger to the town and hopefully smoothing the way for recovering Alina and potentially allowing Marta to return home. Leaving Marta the Proeliator Lamniar shard in order for her to guard their supplies within Finger Cave, the party hies off to the mausoleum, where they are soon stymied when they reach a dead end not far inside from the entrance. Varian determines how to manipulate the figures of Pluto on the wall, however, thus opening the door and allowing them entry into the deeper reaches, where Arc again quickly dispatches some Chainers seeking to block their passage. Two left forks further into the catacombs, they defeat one Skull Spider and are nearly decimated when they decide to attack a second one, which extrudes a ball of toxin that poisons, paralyzes, and renders everyone but ALECTO unconscious.
She is able to fend the thing off and, through Varian’s help or under their own steam, the other members of the party eventually manage to recover, with CATALINA finishing off the spider and everyone working together to destroy its clutch of eggs. Going back and taking the second right hand fork this time, the party hears the disembodied voice of the Wight, giving them the option to turn and leave. They refuse once—consequently needing to defeat some Chainers again—and upon the second refusal are trapped within the Chamber of Bone, where they are successively attacked by Frostlings, Haunts, and Puppeteers. Working together, they manage to survive and defeat each of these opponents, finally coming face to face with the Wight himself in his most fearsome guise. Running low on both life and mana, they nevertheless manage to overcome even him, most notably through Dumas’s clever stratagem of dying in order to trigger his reaction as Scintillamagus. As they prepare to leave the mausoleum, a door opens on the far side of the bone chamber, through which they see two human men leading a bound human girl.
The men hastily retreat, but not before Aly’s shout and the girl’s startled reaction confirms that she is Bartomeo’s missing daughter, RIMA. The Principalities of Glantri. I like the Gazetteer, and the insight that they give on spellcraft and wizardly culture, despite their distance from my preferred core location. I doubt I'd let people travel there in-game, but would allow flashbacks for any spellcasters who might've chosen to originate from that land.
The reasons I'd use them for a campaign are: Mad Science / Mad Wizards It's a wonderful place for strange Magic McGuffins. All sorts of brand-spanking new spells and magic items (that don't quite work that well) could potentially be offloaded to NPCs or PCs. Rumors that the way that most people understand magic aren't really how it works can be based on this land - kind of like how cutting-edge research people would look at mere technicians and end-users of technological products. Playing God With The World In fact, some of these research efforts may have uncovered some sources of power that weren't really meant to be in mortal hands.
Gateways into other realms, imprisoned evils unleashed, potentially catastrophic magical fallout - many things that adventure hooks and interesting dungeon-delving locations can be based on. You and what army? In addition, they reinforce the feel that Mystara isn't necessarily a totally stable geopolitical environment. Glantri is a major political power who doesn't have 'politically correct views' and in fact has very hostile attitudes to most character classes (clerics are criminals, Halflings and Dwarves are potential experimental subjects, Elves could be spies, and all non-mages = second class citizens). Should be a blast if a liberally-minded party ever meets a delegation from there. The Radiance The Radiance is a mega-macguffin for the campaign, especially if you plan on using the 'Wrath of the Immortals' storyline. I've mentioned elsewhere that I was struck by the parallels between the Fading Suns and the Philippine political structure (despite our government being based on the U.S.
Federal model), and I wanted to see how mining Philippine news and history would translate into Fading Suns game material. At the same time, I'm constantly looking for ways to make the Fading Suns universe both stranger and more familiar to the players by adding in little bits of texture - throwaway details that reflect a different culture from our own but somehow ring true in terms of human nature and plausibility.
Here are a few examples: Chapels in or near the Agora In the Known Worlds, the Universal Church of the Pancreator has great influence and importance in everyone's life (for good or for ill). When planning the map for a location's Agora (the central shopping district or open-air mall), make sure that a chapel or church of some kind is present in that location, with regular service times.
If you have time, detail the volunteer staff and regular patrons of that chapel or church. It allows shoppers and stall owners the convenience of worshipping without substantial travel time added to their daily schedules. Basis: In the Philippines, many malls and shopping centers in Metro Manila have this. SM Mega Mall has a big 'chapel' on the top (5th) floor - bigger than many churches in the city - centered between the mall's two shopping wings. The Greenbelt ring of malls in Makati has a circular chapel located at the park-like center of the shopping area, and many people listen to the various Sunday masses inside the chapel, or outside if it's full, before returning to their shopping. Messaging Services at Starports Not all travelers are guaranteed rapid transport to and from starports, and sometimes there are situations that need to be relayed to travelers as soon as they arrive. Likewise, last minute messages and instructions sometimes need to be sent when these same travelers are waiting for their ship to depart.
Enter the starport messaging services! For a monthly fee, these message centers can receive and send messages to the various approved locations on the planet utilizing Guild technologies and personnel.
For added privacy and secrecy, special rates apply. Basis: the messaging services and extra benefits provided by the hotel concierges worldwide, mixed in with door-to-door delivery services - slightly adjusted for the strange mix of old and new technologies in the Fading Suns milieu. I was doing so well. So far it's been very easy to convert from Labyrinth Lord to Castles & Crusades. All the humans are easy - even had an option for one of LL Thieves becoming an assassin. No dwarves, but that'd have been a fighter or barbarian class anyway. I looked at the abilities of the halflings and they're essentially Halfling/Rangers in Castles & Crusades.
It's a multi-class solution - has to be. The multi-classing options in the back of the book must now be read. And an idea forms.
I'll build him as a second level multi-classed elf fighter / wizard, a just start the experience at zero - ignoring the first 'level up,' so to speak. UPDATE: But wait, according to the C&C Player's Handbook I don't have to do that. Multi-classes are treated as new classes under their rules and get full benefit of the individual classes with some restrictions!
I actually do play in games on a regular basis. It's a homebrew setting using a homebrew system (several, actually) that sometimes goes systemless depending on the 'season'.
Here's the game summary for Season 1, Episodes 1,2, and 3 of Isle Imperium (actually Season VIII of the entire Isle campaign). Shardfall (Parts 1, 2, and 3) In the beginning there was only one great key. But chaos came and the key shattered into three great fragments—one that retained the starfield-like appearance of the original, one distinguished by a gray hue, and one bearing the likeness of obsidian—which separated from each other across the void, creating galaxies, planets, and eventually life in their wake.
The three large fragments shattered as well into smaller pieces, one of the larger of which—a portion of the obsidian key—formed and acted as a sort of second sun to the world of the Imperium. On this world, in the township of Koros, the citizens and some snowbound members of a traveling circus are amazed one day to see the sun blaze to a suddenly unbearable intensity of light (though not heat), to the extent that all eventually lose consciousness.
Some time later, ARCTURUS, VARIAN, CATALINA, ALECTO, and MANTIUS awaken separately to find themselves in a devastated landscape, as the town and its environs have apparently been flattened by some sort of tremendous impact. Coming together as evidently the only human survivors of the catastrophe, they go to what once was the center of town to investigate. There, they find a curious stone which breaks apart under cautious prodding into seven shards. Each taking a shard or two, they quickly discover that the shards miraculously confer certain extraordinary abilities upon their bearers, specific to the particular shard borne. After scavenging what provisions are to be had among the ruins, the group decides to journey to the nearest town, braving a landscape now made more hazardous than ever by the constant precipitation of harmful acidic ash and wild animals apparently made extraordinary as well by either the ashfall or the shardfall.
They quickly become lost, since the great road system and most landmarks have all but been erased by the heavy blanket of ash covering the ground. Along the way, they encounter normal and infested wolves, malignant trees called warped wood, and suicide ferrets, in the possession of which Catalina spies another stone that likewise shatters into several shards, which the group promptly collects. It is through use of the various shards that they are able to defend themselves and cross the perilous desolation.
They are soon joined by Alecto’s former pet tiger, BAKLAVA, who unfortunately has also been affected by the chaos that has twisted the wildlife and is eventually deemed too dangerous to take along with them. Varian makes friends with an unusual and possibly uninfested ferret, but it is unfortunately devoured by Baklava. It's hard convincing regular folk that you mean well when you're wearing bone armor and weapons. Finally spotting what looks like a town after traveling some distance, the group heads for it, but first happens upon a graveyard, with a mausoleum apparently guarded by a wight, some bone shades, and skeletons known as black bones.
They manage to fight their way free and proceed to the town, where they are attacked and driven off by the inhabitants, who brand Varian and Alecto as undead due to the bizarre accoutrements granted them by their shards. Retreating to the nearby Finger Cave, a cave opening in finger-like protrusions from a steep mountain face (in which they have found some supplies as well as evidence of several couples trysting or at least meeting in secret at the spot in the past), Varian and Aly decide to remove their shards and approach the town thus unprotected, in hope of purchasing food, weapons, and sundry. So doing, they return to a belligerent welcome, but a welcome nonetheless, from the surly ARIUS and the generous BRIANNA, who appear to be in charge of the town’s defense. Within, they discover that the tarp-protected town is evidently digging down into the earth, presumably with the intention of relocating to greater safety. They make the acquaintance of the shopkeepers MARTA (who tells them about her missing ?
husband) and BARTOMEO (who has a missing daughter, Rima), and are able to purchase some few items of food, clothing, weaponry, and gear. Reunited afterwards, the group examines the purchases, among which they find a note from Marta imploring Aly and Varian to help her. Together, they deduce that the townsfolk have perhaps made some sort of bargain with the undead in which they surrender a citizen nightly in exchange for the safety of the greater populace.
The group travels to the environs of the town once more, whereupon they find their suspicions dismayingly confirmed, and quickly go into action to rescue Marta from the company of undead into which she has been delivered, which is led by the wight they encountered earlier. After a pitched battle, they are able to recover the terrified Marta and defeat—though again, not destroy—the wight. The big boss at Green Ronin Games (Chris Pramas) has what 2011 will look like on their blog.
Want a quick summary? Mutants & Masterminds They're going to release a new city for the official setting of M&M 3rd Edition: Emerald City. This is going to be a West Coast fictional city that is going to be slowly revealed in the following manner:. Threat Reports - an ongoing PDF series that introduces various antagonists from the city (already available in );. Heroes Journey: Emerald Knights - a six-part PDF series meant to introduce players to the city, which will start some time in Feb 2011;.
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The Emerald City Sourcebook - which you're going to have to wait for GenCon to see. In other M&M 3rd Edition news, they're coming out with two GM-related books - the GM's Guide (which seems to be more genre and source material-oriented) and the GM's Kit (which includes useful tools like a GM's screen and a quick, balanced, random (!) character creation system). DC Adventures Closely related to M&M 3rd Edition, the remainder of the three book RPG deal with DC Comics should be fulfilled this year.
Expect two villains-oriented books and one book about the DC Universe. Dragon Age A game I largely ignored as an MMORPG-tie in property suddenly leaped to the forefront of my gaming awareness when I found out that a fan-made PDF for Mystara using Dragon Age rules exists. I the sucker and it is a gorgeously laid out PDF 110-pager. So I guess I'll be looking for Dragon Age Set 1 (levels 1-5), Set 2 (levels 6-10) and Set 3 (levels 11-20) as they come out this year. Well, Set 1 is already out, but I don't have it yet. Freeport I was a fan of their Freeport stuff back in the D&D 3E era.
Never got to run it, but they sure look nice and read nicer. They're not doing much for it now, but apparently they're watching sales of their to see if they'll come out with more for that system. I wonder if I should pick up the to vote with my wallet for that one? Dang, they gots of that book for different systems! I've got to save up Damn you Green Ronin for making me want to spend so early in the year! Excerpt from the AD&D DMG tables for randomly generated NPC traits - one of many! One of the reasons for my on a shift to Castles & Crusades is because of 'on the fly' NPCs.
Obviously not as much concern in well-stocked dungeons, in the cities, towns, and villages - it is a concern, particularly if players do the old 'I look around for someone interesting to talk to' or 'I ask the nearest person walking by for information.' Now, assuming you've allowed some measure of plausibility (like making sure that the first few people they stop know nothing about what they're talking about unless it's pretty common knowledge, and eventually referring some expert), you know have to come up with one! Determine the NPC type The first thing to do is think about the purpose of this NPC.
For more old school styles of play, I structure a mental table of NPC types based on plausibility and PC relevance. For example:. Highly plausible, Highly relevant NPC.
Moderately plausible, Highly relevant NPC. Implausible, Highly relevant NPC.
Highly plausible, irrelevant NPC. Moderately plausible, irrelevant NPC. Implausible, irrelevant NPC Plausibility A highly plausible character is usually a commoner or some type of professional that is quite numerous in the given setting. In a city, this could be a shopkeeper, a barmaid, a craftsman, and so on. A moderately plausible character is a more specialized individual, including former adventurers, commoners with hidden pasts and interesting secrets, and transient NPCs that frequent this location - other adventurers, travelers, traders. An implausible character (which should be quite rare, obviously) is meant to add color to whatever setting you're adventuring in - possibly showing PCs that while they may be of some importance, they're not the only game in town.
High level adventurers, villainous lieutenants, monsters in disguise, incognito nobility, and gods walking the earth fall into this category. When statting out these characters. Relevance If all NPCs were relevant, plots would be more or less straightforward and quite boring. In the old school or simulationist schools, they tend to be relevant if you were strategic or logical in finding them. I mean, remember those early computer RPGs where you talked to EVERYONE? I mean, if you were on a secret quest, you'd be as popular as Norm in Cheers if you did that every time you went into a new location.
Everyone knows that in the Call of Cthulhu RPG, when you see something sanity-blasting: a murder, a giant severed head falling down from the heavens, a fairy, or even Great Cthulhu himself, you lose sanity from your Sanity stat. When you drop down to zero, you go insane. Kind of like hit points, right? Starting Sanity and Hit Points While Sanity and Hit Points operate largely the same (you can pretty much operate at full capacity while you have some points in either). However starting values are different. In the RPG, your hit points are based on the average between two stats - which normally top out at 18, while your Sanity is based on a single stat (POW) multiplied by 5. In general, you have way more Sanity Points than Hit Points but jumping to the conclusion that it's easier to die than go insane is misleading; there are extra rules governing one's sanity.
When you take physical damage, you roll the damage dice, total it up, and subtract it from your current hit points. If you have any left, you're alive and can keep on keepin' on.
The first Call of Cthulhu book I ever owned When you see something sanity-threatening, you're asked to make a percentile roll against your current sanity value. If you make it, you lose sanity equal to the lower sanity loss dice of whatever you saw. If you don't make it, you lose sanity equal to the higher sanity loss dice of whatever you saw. For example, if you saw something truly nasty, the ratings are (1D10/1D100) Sanity loss. Make the sanity check, and you only lose a maximum of 10 sanity from your total. Blow the sanity check, and you could lose 100 sanity.
That's bad because. Permanent Insanity and Temporary Insanity The maximum possible value for your sanity is 99 (more on why later). Lose 100 sanity points means instant permanent insanity and NPC-dom for your former Player Character. But even if you do make your Sanity roll, and lose only 10 Sanity. There a chance you could go temporarily insane. You compare your total Sanity loss in a short time period against one of your stats (which doesn't go higher in normal characters than either 18 or 21 - I forget which - and averages around the 10 to 12 range) and if it exceeds.
You must check if can FAIL an Idea roll. An Idea roll is an interesting old school mechanic meant to reflect that while the Player may not be able to think of something, his or her smarter character might. If after losing too much Sanity a PC FAILS the Idea roll, he or she does NOT understand the full import of what was seen and is okay.
If the PC succeeds the Ideal roll, the he or she does and goes temporarily insane. In other words, remaining sane in this game is not only a mixture of prudence and cunning game play, it's also a matter of luck and some timely (or inherent) character stupidity. Maximum Sanity The maximum possible Sanity for a PC is 99 minus the amount of Cthulhu Mythos knowledge the character has. This means that the more a character learns about the secrets of the mythos, the less likely he or she is to be sane. To be an expert in Cthulhu Mythos is to threaten one's sanity.
I bring this up, not only because I'm fascinated how the mechanics have been able to echo the logic seen in the stories, and how being too smart and too brave and too knowledgeable in the game can threaten one's character. All these things are important to successful completions of adventures, but in a game where you really can die quite easily, there's a mechanic that makes you question whether or not you really do need more information, and whether or not you can handle it - or if some other character should shoulder the burden for at least a little while. Okay, first off I hated the portrayal of the Hin (halflings in Mystara) - the roly-poly to fat halflings who loved all the comforts of home with a little bit of skill in the use of slings and ability to disappear into the brush. A somewhat three-note view of the Tolkien original, I'll admit, but not a very satisfying portrayal for me. However, I've mentioned before (in my post ) that the Jeff Dee image of the halfling was also rough and tumble, sneaky, and good to have on your side in a fight. So I wanted the Five Shires (in GAZ8 The Five Shires) to work.
Things I Like I like the concept of high-level adventurers retiring in the shires. I like the possibility of sending PCs into the place to find old adventurers with secrets to dungeons and ancient kingdoms and coming away with new knowledge, some low-level magic items, and perhaps a handful of halfling adventurers in tow. I also like their bravery against raids from the Black Eagle Barony.
And I like having different communities comprising this nation, giving the potential for more variety to the stereotypes of halfling communities - such as a coastal town or city populated mostly with halflings. Things I Don't Like I was underwhelmed by the 'denial' ability of the Hin, and the Black Flame abilities, and the creeping senses of sameness and blandness that the Gazetteer eventually left me with.
I feel that there's a lot of potential there without giving strange communal mystical powers to the Hin, and finding reasons why halflings (and halfing communities) are constantly underestimated. Well, my tendency is to want to do a page-by-page reviews of RPGs and sourcebooks and I get bogged down by going through things in sequence. And I get bored and stop.
So I want to just point out little things that I love in those same books and hope to encourage and see more of and affirm and whatnot. This by the way was spurred on by my going through all of the books remaining in my collection and realizing how some books had some real gems that were in a not-so-engaging package and how little love these things get (and may get lost as newer gamer generations pile up). Some things I can think of and want to bring up in the future (all apparently related to damage rules):. BTRC's original TimeLords RPG's complicated but enlightening damage rules.
The ill-fated Fuzion RPG rules from Hero Games and R. Talsorian. Call of Cthulhu's not-so-simple sanity rules. Mekton's non-random damage rules.
Top Secret / SI's damage location rules. Apparently there a juicy tidbits available on another Redbrick blog about Fading Suns in. So what neat things can we find out in this blog regarding the overhauled game system?. Fewer attributes to confuse character creation: While I liked the idea of the opposed attributes, in practice they just didn't work very well. They caused confusion, both in how the pairings worked and in what some of the attributes actually stood for.
Really, they had to go, but some aspects were still useful and relevant to the game. The solution was to do away with all the old attributes and instate a set of new ones. We chose 6 attributes: 2 physical (Dexterity & Vigor), 2 mental (Wits & Will), and 2 social (Intuition & Presence).
These are rated on the standard 1 to 10 scale, but may exceed these limits with racial modifiers, cybernetics, or theurgic influences, etc. Physical, Mental, and Social health: We also expanded the Vitality health track, dividing it into Vitality, Resolve, and Reputation, and essentially providing 'hit points' for the areas of physical, mental and social conflict. In addition, these health tracks are considered 'ablative' or non-life threatening - only when the track is completely depleted do characters suffer real injuries and risk death. Unified conflict resolution mechanic: Initially, we had a system for combat and a system for social conflict, but that really grated on me.
These are both conflict situations; why do they use different mechanics? In the end, we developed a universal conflict mechanic that can be utilized to resolve any type of conflict, be it physical, mental or social. All of this sounds interesting in theory - I do not hold the prior game system as sacrosanct and am guilty in fact of making some similar tweaks to the system as denoted above.
But then, this is just the begining. What happens when using this to pilot ships, or perform theurgy? I suppose we'll have to wait and see. Actually, I did like the Labyrinth Lord approach - but at some point I realized I preferred ascending Armor Class rules and a more unified resolution approach (fie on thee percentile skills for thieves).
At the same time, I'm not much for the separation of races and classes in Castles & Crusades and prefer the more simplistic race is class approach especially for an online Play-by-Post game which I plan on using it for. But we'll see if that's more trouble than it's worth. My original Play-by-Post game was blown out of the water by a sudden increase in workload and responsibility last year. I plan to return to it this month, but I also hope to make combats run themselves (sorta) by posting the NPCs and PCs in a single table that shows all the ACs stats and initiatives in one table and just have people declare and roll dice and call their successes or failures as they fall. As for setting - still my version of Mystara.
We'll see if we keep them in the same dungeon or flash forward a few days into a fresh start. I guess it depends on how many original players jump back on. For now, I plan on 'converting' each of the characters and see where that brings me.
Looks interesting. Aside from the attention-grabbing cover, HARP has been of interest to me as a possible alternative to the Fading Suns system or to the native Rolemaster system of Shadow World.
With the addition of Science Fiction rules, it may indeed be my go-to system of choice for Fading Suns (or some other Science Fantasy setting should the pique my interest). A bit of the marketing copy has me worried though: This first volume of HARP SF includes: Character creation rules for human and alien characters 11 professions 6 alien species 9 culturesI'm a bit worried that perhaps the rules are too tied to the setting, but I suppose we'll find out soon enough. If the quality of the layout is anything like the, this may be a strong seller for HARP fanatics and curious SF gamers alike. Is also out, with the launch of the setting that Open Design has been working on for a while.
I've been thinking of becoming a patron for a while now, just to get some insight into the game design world. I'm thinking of picking up this issue as well - because I just don't have enough settings that I'll never get to play in. Midgard looks like a worthy addition to the list. The rest of the magazine may not be that useful for me however, as I'm not an adherent to the 4th Edition D&D rules, nor am I a Pathfinder user. And even if it is relatively easy to convert Pathfinder stuff into Castles and Crusades rules, I think that I've got TONS of 3rd Edition, B/X, BECMI, AD&D, AD&D 2nd Edition source material already in my collection - and that's not counting all the tons of stuff already available from the OSR movement too. Guess I'm just not the target market for this magazine. Not yet anyway.
In other magazines, is available for free, as usual. I'm probably going to download this for the following items:. more coverage on the new Noble Armada rules (using the A Call To Arms engine that used to be for the B5 ship miniatures);. the excerpt on the new Cathay book for Earthdawn;. the Paranoia adventure;. the Lone Wolf adventure; and. the preview of the new Runequest setting.
And I guess that's it from this corner of cyberspace, anchored in the Pearl of the Orient (the Philippines, or so our national anthem says). Are there any news items of note from you neck of the woods? Leave a comment below and let me know about it. Dungeons & Dragons: Dungeoncrawlers and Catacombers On various worlds - lost and known - there are hidden complexes warped by the secrets and sins of the Second Republic. In those complexes reside treasures that can change the Empire for good or ill.
The unlocking and extraction of those treasures requires specialists: fighters and engineers, priests and scravers, nobles and aliens. The dangers they face: strange creatures and twisted remnants of the Second Republic's former glory, glittering treasures and arcane knowledge, mad world engine keepers and blasphemous priests of forgotten gods and demons. Enter the elite Dungeoncrawlers and Catacombers of the Merchant's Guild!
Call of Cthulhu: Investigators by Circumstance Some came to help a friend, some were lured by forbidden knowledge, others were just in the wrong place at the wrong time - and were initiated into the terrifying secrets of mad and terrible intelligences lurking at the edge of our reality. Using their own resources, struggling to hold on to life and sanity, they battle cultists and servitors to delay the inevitable return of these abominations into our worlds. How long can they hold out against forces more powerful, more cunning, and more strange than anything they've encountered? How long will their activities remain unnoticed by the local agents of the Nobles, Guild, and Church? How long can they hold back the tide of foul corruption that threatens their world? Jovian Chronicles: A Ship in the Space Navy Was this what you signed on for?
Becoming one of the pilots for newly discovered fighter golems tied to an ambitious al-Malik noble's capital ship, being sent on secret missions of vital military importance or public missions of diplomatic import, getting embroiled in scrapes against other major and minor powers in the Known World as they flex their own military might? And what of the wild rumors of the Decados and their own experimental ships that ran afoul of some giant Space Kraken threatening a jumpgate only two jumps away? By the Pancreator, bring them on! Bring them all on! This is exactly what you signed up for!
All Flesh Must Be Eaten: Survivors of the Husk Apocalypse It all happened last night. The arrest and burning of that strange heretic who'd been worshipping his strange gods in the public square (Pancreator preserve us!), the strange black rain, the strange shambling shadows from the cemetery, the sudden screams of terror and pain, the walking the dead that hungered for living flesh, and the bites that took your friends and loved one from you. Now, you and a rag-tag band of desperate survivors from all walks of life - noblewomen and cutthroats, reeves and heyschasts, chainers and serfs - must put aside your differences and fears to make your way to the space port and get off this planet somehow while the Church, and the Guilds, and the Nobles find some way to end this madness once and for all. Well, that's all we have for today for campaign premises. We'll dip once again into the vast collection of RPGs out there that we can repurpose for a Fading Suns mini-campaign next time.
I wonder if there'll be easier conversions from these games into the. Guess we'll have to see. In Part II, we can look forward to:. Earthdawn: Explorers of Lost Realms.
Code Black: Warders of Old and Terrible Evils. Traveller: Mercenaries and Traders. Mutant City Blues: Policing the Changed. Because TSR was responsible for D&D (Basic, Expert, Advanced), I was fairly certain they were the only company putting this stuff out. But thank goodness they were covering various genres (a word that I didn't even comprehend at that age). Shopping at such magical - and difficult to get to places (again: Grade School, Kid, Philippines, 1970s) - like Nova Fontana, Gold Crest, Lil's Hobby Shop, and Squadron Shoppe, and National Book Store (okay, there were many of these, but not all of them carried D&D) I eventually discovered two other RPGs: Top Secret and Star Frontiers.
Top Secret was my first non-D&D purchase, as a classmate had already purchased Star Frontiers. Why waste the money? Eventually, after exhausting the limited genre fiction understandable and available to a grade school student growing up in Martial Law Philippines, I began expanding the boundaries of an ongoing hobby: reading RPGs. I picked up Alpha Dawn, and began collecting whatever available modules there were for my three RPG rulesets. The obsession never left me. Even when I failed to run those rare game sessions properly. Even when I was waylaid by various gamebook series (Choose Your Own Adventure, Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks back when only Warlock of Firetop Mountain was out, and Be An Interplanetary Spy!).
When I got to high school, I heard rumors about a non-TSR RPG about superheroes. Champions, it was called.
I was intrigued, but never actually got to see it (except as an ad in someone's oh-so-rare Dragon magazine) until I got to the U.S. Of course by then it was Champions 3rd Edition, since I fell in with other gaming groups with other preferences.
I often wonder what my reaction would have been if I'd been able to experience a 1st Edition Champions game in the Philippines in my formative gaming years. But that's okay. I learned about gods from various pantheons, practiced pronouncing words like Yazirian, Vrusk, and Dralasite, and became familiar with the game superiority of a 9mm Browning High-Powered Self-Load pistol.
Ah, my first RPG purchase. Or rather, the first RPG purchase that I asked my grandmother (God rest her soul) to purchase for me. I was a young boy studying Karate at a friend's house and encountered them playing a game that I would later discover was AD&D (after much wheedling and whining). Since this was the Philippines during the 70s, I faced three obstacles: availability of the source material, occasional 'news stories' on the 700 Club telling me and my family how demonic it was, and a lack of understanding about the actual concept of RPGs! I didn't read it closely enough, and probably wouldn't have understood why you needed to buy another rules set to use this so-called module anyway. All I saw was the 'introductory module' bought, and the cool Jeff Dee art, and I was hooked. By the way, there were other modules there at National Book Store where I picked this sucker up - classics like the Slave Lord series, the Tamoachan module, and the Vault of the Drow - if only I'd known what those things were!
My first attempt at gaming was therefore stymied by a lack of a ruleset, but I set about rectifying that by trying to find the Dungeons & Dragons rules that I could use to play this module - Dungeons & Dragons Basic and Expert Sets (D&D B/X). But I bought these instead. Don't get me wrong, I loved this ruleset.
Even today, I'm impressed by the organization, the layout and the art (though I may be biased by nostalgia) and how it all pulled together to draw me into this other fantasy realm and communicated very clearly how that could be done. And the list of books in the back sent me on a hunting frenzy at the local bookstores. Unfortunately, I was of the mind that you needed the AD&D ruleset to use an AD&D module, so I was a bit perturbed. Thank goodness for the Keep on the Borderlands and Isle of Dread modules that came in these boxed sets. A couple of years later, I did eventually pick up the AD&D ruleset and while I was relieved to finally lay my hands on the proper set of rules to use my modules with, I must say that this rulebook did a better job in communicating the 'otherworldliness' and sense of wonder in a more consistent manner.
AD&D had too many in-jokes and 'break the fourth wall' humor to sustain that epic feel - though it did exceed the D&D B/X rulesets in key areas (the 'Paladin in Hell' image comes to mind). This was my go-to ruleset for that 'sense of wonder' fix. I didn't know the term as it was used in a thread of RPG.net and so - after wading through several links offered up by Google - I asked for a definition. I was directed to a of by Ron Edwards on.
I hadn't really thought about this being a sub-genre of fantasy RPGs, these 'fantasy heartbreakers'. There's something about them and their progenitor D&D that makes me stop and ponder about the drive to create these labors of love. They are doomed, it seems, by trying to fix the rules problems that old D&D had in spades and adding their own spin (perhaps from personal gaming experiences) to the crunch that drives adventures in their fluff. They are also doomed, it seems, for putting to paper material that will probably not sell in the expanding and extremely competitive RPG market. Are they naive? Are they blinded by their love for their hobby and their creation? How can they not see that they're doomed to fail?
I only hope they don't lose too much money (or too many friendships) as they watch their dreams of an RPG-based empire bleed slowly away - and that they learn from the experience and try again, and again, and again. And that they take advantage of the community of gamers online, and the wealth of information and examples and opinions already out there to make their next effort a much, much better one. Folks who get it all right the first time are usually lucky (though some of them are just plain geniuses). Folks who can consistently turn out gems are skilled craftsmen - and isn't that something to aspire to?
Cyberpunk 2020 was the main rulebook. It was an upgraded system and updated setting, essentially requiring the players of the original game - Cyberpunk - to buy the latest and greatest version of the game. Oddly enough, this did dovetail into the proposed cyberpunk ethos of style over substance and jumping headfirst into the latest developments ready to ride out any difficulties that might come up. To be fair, it was a sight better than the Cyberpunk boxed set's rulebooks (certainly dated by today's standards), and the modifications to the system did speed up combat. Building a character was often a pain, though, because in addition to buying gear, you also had the option to buy cybernetics - taking care not to use up your humanity and go cyberpsycho of course. In addition to the core rulebook, R.Talsorian came out with new equipment and cybernetics in the form of the Chromebooks - gear books with pictures for each of the items listed. Not satisfied with this revolutionary bit of sourcebook detail, they also came up with a rationale for it: these are the catalogs of the latest gear that people would order in game (ignoring all the game stats, of course).
One of the reasons I put up the Armchair Gamer blog is not because I game in an armchair, but because I rarely actually get to play majority of the games out there and spend most of my time reading them. I do play, however, in a systemless (it shifts periodically from house ruleset to house ruleset) campaign almost every week.
For the new year, I plan on adding to that gaming portfolio. There are two primary campaigns that I'd like to get started on - primarily online since I don't think my schedules will allow any otherwise. They are:. Dungeoncrawlers (a campaign that deals with a changed Mystara that is plagued, yet linked by megadungeons - using the Castles & Crusades ruleset);.
Fading Suns ( a campaign that will hopefully explore the new Fading Suns 3rd Edition later this year).
Loki, God of Truth If there is one thing Loki cannot do, then it is lie. He cannot remember the moment he encountered his first lie. He must have been a baby then, or a very small child, and it was probably one of that little lies parents often tell their children: No, I didn’t promise that or maybe If you do this, then I will do that. He remembers however the moment he first became aware of lies. The moment he heard his brother tell everyone that he, Loki, had done something, when he knew for sure that he was innocent. It had been some trifle, and his father had only scolded him a little bit - was mostly angry only because he refused to confess -, but he sees, as if it has happened only yesterday, his younger self looking at his brother and not knowing what to think.
Hears himself swearing that he had done nothing. Hears his father tell him to stop to lie - hears the way this word rings in his head: Lie. It was his first encounter with this concept - he never ever before even thought about it - lying. It was so foreign to him as if from another star. It rang wrong, made him sick. His parents thought him ill from his unwillingness to confess and told him to stand to his misdeeds. His brother thought his betrayal was the reason and brought him sweet cakes to make amends.
His nurse thought he just caught a fever due to the stress and banished everyone else from his room. The truth was that Loki first encountered what later made him what they call the God of Lies: His unerringly sense of Truth and Lie. It was like nothing he ever sensed before: Truth, the truth he whispered to himself in his loneliness - I’m innocent! - was like the chime of a bell, clear and fresh and pure in his soul. But the Lie - You did this - he remembered was foul, was filthy, made him feel like he fell in dirt and never could remove it from his skin. He wanted to wash, wanted to scream, wanted to do whatever was possible to make it go away, but he couldn’t. He could not make them see this lie, even though it was so painfully obvious to him.
He got better - his sickness went away - but he never was that innocent child again, living in a sweet, blessed, honest world. Wherever he went after this day, his sense told him about the lies people told - told the world or told themselves. It was horrible. He didn’t believe what he felt, not at first.
He didn’t even know what he felt in this first few weeks, months, until he became stronger, lived through the pure agony that sense made his very life. It took some years for him to truly become aware of the fact that he indeed was sensing lies - that others were truly unaware of the cacophony of different informations every single word, every breath inspired in his body. But when he became aware of that fact there was only one emotion that filled him: Envy. Envy of their simple, unknowing lives. They were going through their days without knowing that their partner stopped loving them ages ago. Without knowing that their business partners despised them.
Without even the simple notion that the one who made chaos in their salon wasn’t the dog they scolded but the child hiding behind the door. Without knowing that there was indeed a difference between the little dark child and the strong golden one. That there was a difference in the way their father loved them. That they were never destined for greatness or honor but to be a pawn in the unknown game of others. That their father never wanted them for the aesir throne even though he knew that they were the most suitable. That their mother wanted to spent time with them, but could never forget that you were a boy who wasn’t supposed to enjoy to do gardening or needlework.
That their brother was ashamed of them for being small and needy, for wanting to spent time with him, even though there was true love in his heart for the dark boy. He never cried for himself, not after the first few days, when everything was new, and after the day he became aware of his brothers twisted feelings for him. There was no rock he could build on, no anchor for his soul, and he would have to drift through this chaotic ocean for the rest of his life without hope for even the smallest mercy. He spent his childhood struggling with the perception that every single being around him seemed to live in a constant lie. It was no wonder that he turned to the animals of the court for companionship, seeing as they were incapable of lying.
Even more: That they were unaware of lies as well as truths made them the only silent beings, the only oasis in a world where everything was overwhelming, where even the pure joy of truth filled him up with feelings he couldn't comprehend, not as a child. Eventually he learned to cope - learned to suppress the flinch when there was lie in the same room as him, since there was always a lie around him. Learned to keep his face expressionless when truth filled him with an ecstasy he feared. Around that time he was thrown together with his brother again. They were almost the same age - only a few dozen years separated them, nothing in the eyes of the immortal aesir - and they were supposed to learn the ways of the battle together. Even at this age his brother was a flame moths flocked around easily, and so he drew friends with his charm like his brother seemed to repel them. Three were his most frequent companions, became his most trusted friends even over the next years: Fandral the dashing, Hogan the grim (though that was a joke at first, for he was often smiling in his childhood; he became, however, like the father he was named after when his mother died in childbed) and the always hungry Volstagg.
Loki hated them. Not even really for what they were - they were good enough people, by aesir standard, and they weren't even lying more than the rest of them or being mean to him. But for the way they stole Thor from him he despised them. For only when Thors greeting became ever more hesitant, his eyes shadowed, his time short, Loki became aware of how much he still relayed on his brother, needed him, his only frail anchor in this untethered world. And he did what he never dreamed of before: He lied. It was something stupid - just the query if he wanted to come for the hunt (childproof, of course), expected to be turned down like every other query before.
But this time he wanted to come - in a way, at least, since he wanted to spent time with his brother - and even though he knew that it would ring untrue in his ears for he hated killing for sport he braced himself for what was to come and answered Yes. He could never have braced himself for what happened: The word tasted awfully in his mouth, coming up like acid, burning his tongue, scorching his lips. He could barely breath through the stench that filled his nose, could hardly keep himself together when his entire skin seemed to be ablaze, lightnings zapping over his body and filling his vision, making him sick in the stomach and wanting to vomit everything he had eaten that day. He hold himself up - how, he never knew - and just smiled when Hogun - the most attentive of them - asked if he was okay, not daring another lie.
He stood on his feet, went on the hunt, and was grateful that after that - after he drew his very first blood - Thor just seemed to assume that he would come along and never asked again. He learned to lie a little bit - learned that smiles given out of admiration could mean something entirely different to the one it was directed.
That some choice words at the right time could get him what he wanted, even though he never in the slightest lied. It was a few years after he hit puberty, being awkward with his new length and still adjusting to his new deeper voice, when the Lady Sif came to the court. Thor and his band never paid her much attention - at least not in any kind way - but he felt drawn to her immediately.
She was like a pure tone in a concert played by amateurs, like a bright color in a pastel picture, like a flower in a rubbish heap. What made her abnormal for others just let his heart fly for she was true to what she wanted.
And so when she struggled with the sword teacher - kept up with the rest of the class, was even better then most, when he seemed to give her the worst time of them all - he stood to her, gave her his hand, his smile and his honest friendship. Sif accepted without question, as if it was her due, but he wasn't mad about that - for as long as she stayed honest he would bear with far worse. He may even have developed something akin to a crush at her, but seeing as he was still to young and to shy he wasn't sure and never acted on his feelings. But again he was reminded of the true nature of the aesir: Intrigued by her stubbornness and Lokis equally stubborn support Thor came to know her more and eventually let her in his circle, made her a person to be reckoned with almost over night.
And as Sif came to know him better her complains about his manner lessened, and her looks lingered on him longer. Loki loved watching her - loved how her eyes would light up when Thor was near, how she shuddered when he touched her, how she smiled about his unfunny jokes. And so he came to her one evening at meal time, sat beside her on the courtyard wall she had claimed for herself and just asked her, in so many words, when she would ask his brother for a date. He never expected her reaction, for she spun around, furious and wild, and asked what had gotten into him for thinking she was as maidenly as these girls which only seemed to live for a look, a smile from Thor, and upon receiving it sighted and sometimes even fainted. He stared at her, feeling as if kicked in his stomach less from her words and more from the sick lie coming from her, for the first time comprehending that for her to live a warriors life meant to squash her female side, and that she wasn't any more truthful than any other aesir at all.
In that night he took her beautiful curly blond hair - for which warrior needed a mane as proud as that? - and gave her the black straight strands she deserved.
No-one knew who did this, no-one except Sif, and she never forgave him for it. After that he became the liar they had already tagged him as: He schemed with pure truth, never telling anything but, but also never telling the whole.
He took advantage of the fact that no-one could lie to him and used what he knew to his own goals, manipulating them to believe him their friend and then letting them fall without a second thought. He went through lovers like a fire, and it was in this time he became known for his mischief: Snakes appearing were there weren't any and only to be seen by those that had angered him. Deer fleeing before the hoofs of the horses of those men that called him argr for being more slender then them and interested in more then just fighting (though it may have been that he picked up weaving only to annoy his father). He also had this little escapade with that giants horse in this time: Upon seeing that the hand of Freya, one of the few more honest and friendly aesir, was promised to a giant and the girl becoming ever more frightened the nearer the time of fulfillment came, he changed his shape into that of a mare and took of, letting the giants stallion chase after him. When the horse reached him he changed back and, since he just loved to cause his parents even more trouble and being given a chance like that, he turned the stallion back into a foal and presented it to the court. He never said it was his child, told only how he had led the stallion away, but the court of course drew it's own conclusions and he sometimes snickered to himself over these fools.
As if he would ever let a stallion claim him - or, even more importantly, let his father ride his child. But the way they reacted inspired him to do more - to take a wolf cup home and a really big snake, which his father decreed he send into the midgardian oceans (and the snake was as grateful and happy as a snake can possible be to be back home). What made him stop in the end was the little child he scooped up in Alfheim: She was barely old enough to not be called a toddler, and her body was twisted due to a unsanctioned union between a light elf and a dark one, probably some attempts to have an abortion also. So one half of her body was whole, beautiful even, with lilywhite skin and big grey eyes, and the other boar scorch marks and was burned black and red, making Loki wonder how she did survive this.
But she did, and she survived to the point when he found her, and after until he found himself caring for the child with the sunny nature and the monstrous hide. He knew she would lose her optimism when she became aware of the malicious nature of the aesir and chose to sent her away, to a realm whose inhabitants needed a wise and impartial ruler, and so Hela became queen of Helheim. That didn't mean he never had any children of his own (and he certainly called Hela his child as well). Some years later another girl came to Asgard and captured his interest.
Not like Sif had done - loud and prideful - but with a urge to search for deeper knowledge then is normally provided for aesir girls, and a way to find herself in the library. He found her there one day, and when he met her again and again they began to speak and eventually they became something like friends - as much as you can become the friend of one you despise, and the feeling was mutually. When her parents died and she was left alone in a strange place she suddenly had no place in anymore, and his parents tried to marry him off, he proposed to her a partnership, just something they would both benefit from. Something that would let him keep his freedom, and her her place in Asgard.
The wedding was a beautiful, if quiet, ceremony and everyone played their parts to perfection, Frigga even shedding some tears that her sweet little boy was now married. It was also mercifully short. They have not much in common - they both search for knowledge, and they both despise the limits their birth brought upon them - but they managed to get along, mostly due to some simple rules they agreed upon before entering their partnership. Loki never had any problem with her regulations - he couldn't care less how she looked like naked and also never wanted to join her in bed - as long as she stuck to his - tell me whatever you want, but do never lie to me.
Given the aesir nature he never expected her to be able to stand by that, but she did. He became ever more amazed over the years when she learned to tell sweet nothings or introduced him politically correct to newcomers without ever lying even once. And so happened what was long due and they did join in bed, consuming their marriage years to late, and even though they only did it sometimes there were two children born from their union. Two children, two boys, which Loki loved with all his heart.
They were sweet as babys, astonishing as toddlers, beautiful as youngsters. And even though they were as capable of lying as anyone else - something Loki was both grateful and disappointed for - they knew to never lie to him, even if it was only due to the fact that their father always saw through them. So he had something of a family - a wife he always respected and even loved a little bit, for you can not stay with someone for so long and not learn to cherish them. He had two boys he absolutely adored and would do everything for.
He had a daughter who loved him as much as he loved her, and who was the only who knew of his condition and believed him. And still he couldn't be happy. It wasn't that something was wrong, but more that there was something that he missed.
He couldn't even put it in words, but whenever he had a moment for himself - a moment without the demands being a prince brought with it, without having to be a good husband, or without the distraction of being a father - he felt it - felt that he was still ungrounded, still floating in a world of nothing, and he feared. Feared what would become of him, and what would become of the ones he held so dear. Everyone had expected for the marriage to come to an end only months, maybe some years after their wedding, but when decades went by and they stood together, even produced first one, then a second son, these words ceased to exist. Until, one day, Loki caught them all by surprise and annulled the marriage, and Sigyn still stood beside him and just told the allfather that they had come to a point in their lives in which they weren't compatible anymore. In private Loki did tell her - told her of truth and lie, and of not wanting to pull her down with him. And it did something for him that she refused to believe his fears - that she told him in no uncertain words that she believed him to be a generous and lovable being and that she didn't want to be separated from him.
She did however gave in when he brought their children up, and that there was someone else he could ruin, something he couldn't stand to be responsible for. Still, they stayed friends through everything life threw at them and after the disaster with Thor's coronation - and really, what should he have done?
His brother as the king of Asgard was bound to be a catastrophe - and his own ascent to the throne she was the only one to believe in him aside from Frigga (who conveniently stayed next to Odin and was no help to him at all). And even though he found that he did not dare to tell her of his true origins for he could not bear his only friend to walk away he had to admit that talking back to that strange girl in the library was the best thing he ever had done. Then came what had to come - the fall he feared for so many years, and wasn't it just fitting that he really tumbled into the abyss like he had himself felt doing from the moment his brother first accused him of something, oh so many centuries back? As he fell through the void he had a lot of time to think - after the initial shock and fear and realization that he wasn't dying, of course - and he came to some conclusions. That this sense he had had driven him insane in a way, and that being among people for him never would be without pain, even if they were the most genuine people in all the worlds. And also that being lied to constantly - and about something so important as his own true nature, making him in turn lie to himself, even if he was unaware of doing so - had only made it worse.
And so he used the time to learn about himself, learn about what it meant that he was a jotun. He couldn't know everything, or even close to it, for even though he was probably the most learnt in the whole of Asgard he had never gone to Jotunheim to ask these questions he now so desperately needed answers to. But he could turn into his other, his jotun form, and learn that the lines on it that the aesir found so typically only came out when he was especially aggravated. That his skin didn't have to be so cold as to burn warmblooded limbs and only did so when he ordered it to. That it was really difficult to form ice blades between the realms, where there was nothing. Of course, then it all took a turn for the worse and he met Thanos. He never lingered on this thoughts, because with it came memories of humiliations and unbearable pain, burning everything from his mind that wasn't the feeling of betrayal that had filled him upon uncovering his true origins - and a second time upon learning that a mortal wretch had managed what he hadn't in all these long years and made his brother see his true self, made him come to his senses.
Made him better. What came after isn't something he's especially proud of. He's still - even after all of Thor's attempts and the many wars and battles he's seen - not a violent person and bringing war to an entire realm is something he still can't comprehend.
So he is mostly grateful for the green beast - the doctor, as he is later informed, and isn't that interesting? - to smash him into the floor and so clear his head up. He let himself be brought back to Asgard - hilarious that Thor and the Allfather think that they can hold him with such simple bonds, even if they bind his magic - and stood during his trial when they debated how best to punish him. He even made a suggestion and almost toppled over when it was accepted - the Asgardian court isn't what he would call a sentient institution.
And so he came back to Midgard, with his powers bound in a way that lets him only access them to help and build, but that's okay, for he really ought to make amends. Not that that is easy; the Avengers are aware of him being here, and even though he does not despise them he has no inclination to become familiar with them. And so he hides in the shadows, takes on work for the day to survive and then uses his magic in the night, to make the city a little bit saver and the lives of the good people a little bit better, killing this mugger and rescuing that man from rape.