Tomorrow night, Eric, Rick and Micheal will join me via Skype and we are going to play our first game using Legends of Anglerre. I'm really looking forward to it, partly because Eric and Rick were part of a large, excellent gaming community that I had back in Michigan. I'm in Ithaca, NY now.
Michael, I've only played face to face once with, a couple of times over Skype in an Legends of the 5 Rings games, but we've spent many, many hours playing World of Warcraft and Guild Wars together... I consider him a close friend despite him being a continent away in Portland.
Rick and Eric are also near and dear friends.
The pitch I sent several people is this:
1) Swords of a Dying Empire
I really have an itch for doing some Swords and Sorcery riffs in a fantasy setting. The pitch is that the PCs would be considered the bad guys in most of heroic fantasy stories. You have served the great Eldritch Emporer, Accellius, faithfully for the last (x) years.
Accellius claimed to be 427 years old. Certainly the Empire has been forming for the last 300 years, many nations accepting Accellius’s rule without a fight. Accellius was not hasty, he built his empire slowly, as a man who is immortal can do. But Accellius’s sorcery had a price, no heirs. Nor did there seemed to be a need for one. LIfe in the Empire kinda went on as it always did.
But magic in S&S comes with a price. Accellius, was just about to conquer his recent western foe. He was up all night preparing rituals and spells for the siege of Dendrathor. Despite being warded from sword, spell and arrow, Acellius missed his stirrup and fell from his horse during the siege of Dendrathor, breaking his neck. His 60,000 undead shock troops crumbled into dust at the very instant of the Emperor’s death. Dendrathor rallied and sortied into the stunned, leaderless 10,000 living Empire troops.
It is 4 months later. And the PCs are in some bum-f**k little village on the frontier. The Empire is ripping itself apart, chaos and blood run through the land. Generals are fighting general in myriad bloody ethnic, civil wars. The PCs know and fought with together enough to be a small band who have got each other’s back. The PCs could be privates and non-comms in the evaporated Empire armies.... or be the once proud generals and advisors without status or armies to command.
I have a map of a barely fleshed out world that Judd, Pete, Aaron and I played in, but most of it was centered around one city Khend using some of the setting ideas and system of Jaws of the 6 Serpents. But it is pretty open, allowing us a lot of latitude to co-op make crap up.
What Swords and Sorcery means to me:
It is action oriented and typically fast-paced.
The motivations are personal. S&S heroes are not spurred to action by noble beliefs, altruism, or an unfailing faith in God. They're driven by greed, revenge, or the desire to be famous. If they happen to do good along the way, then that's a nice side benefit.
Magic is dangerous, and big spells take long times and usually a coven to pull of.
Humans are predominantly the norm. Most other races are probably adversaries, with the rare, dying out races like Elric’s Melniboneans.
Cultural identity is a big deal. Conan is a Cimmerian, Elric is a Melnibonean etc.