Narmer - Beowulf is great inspiration. Did you see the link to the forthcoming rpg Beowulf? It's for D&D 5th edition but with rules to make it work as a 1GM - 1Player game. The designers are of the opinion that a story about a single hero is best for a Beowuf inspired game (with which I agree). There is a free to download quickstart with would be easy to convert to BoL - which would work better than a D&D engine in my view. The game seems to be focused on a single hero roaming the world slaying monsters that are terrorising communities.

Personally I've always been drawn to a game set in Barbarium - beyond the Roman Empire - around the time of the Gothic Wars and Atilla; around the later 5th and early 6th centuries. The further you get from Christian Rome, with its near constant civil wars and political strife., the weirder things get as you travel North. Here be Dragons (and dwarves and elves if you wish) and stern kings and jarls and bloodfeuds. And Trolls. Lots of Trolls.

There is an old tale of barbarian child hostages, one sent to Rome, one sent to a powerful Germanic kingdom and one sent to Atilla (actually a girl disguised as a boy, as the king did not want to lose his heir) who later meet as adults. The Age of Migration and the collapse of the West has a lot of potential, particularly when you add the myths and fell beasts of the various cultures. Your hero could start as a Germanic warrior who has served for many years in the Late Roman army, discharged and travelling home to find things have changed a lot in his absence. That mead hall politics and royal succession is just as poisonous as in Rome, and there are Trolls that have grown more numerous and unchecked since the clans have been infighting. 

Sadly, I've had this idea for years, but have never got around to running it. Maybe some day.

As we are talking about Dark Age gaming, there was an article in the newspaper yesterday about a computer reconstruction of a Norse ship, originally excavated in 1860 in Norway, which may well have been the fastest Norse vessel of circa AD 900. The ship was relatively ignored after being found, in favour of working on traditional Longship finds.

However, Dr Knut Paasche of the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research has done laser scans of the surviving fabric, to show that although at 18 metres it’s shorter than a Longship, it had a different hull construction which meant it could still carry the full mast and wide sail (100sq m) of the larger vessels. Therefore it would have been faster than the 10-12 knots of a Longship. It has room for 12 oarsmen on each side.

Dr Paasche postulates that it would have provided a chieftain or king with a fast transport, capable of not only travelling the Scandinavian coasts but also crossing the North Sea, with a small squad of fighting men. And outrunning most other ships at sea.Now doesn’t that sound like a good ship for a band of monster hunting heroes!

Dr Paasche plans to build a scale model, and hopefully in time a full replica for sailing trials. His research is published in the latest issue of the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology.

[And I see that The Vikings, starring Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis, is on BBC tv this afternoon!]

Last edited by Gruntfuttock (4/15/2020 2:04 am)

Sigulf wrote:

Narmer wrote:

Dark Ages.  Now I have a sudden urge to do something like Beowulf.
 

That sounds great, I've been reading up on the Savage Worlds Hellfrost setting - it really sounds great for some Beowulf type play (even though the setting has elves & dwarves, etc...).

The Fjarrstrand Sagas: A Barbarians of Lemuria campaign setting by Chris Perkins is also something that might be of help in a Beowulf setting.
https://scruffygrognard.wordpress.com/2017/03/13/sagas-of-fjarrstrand-a-barbarians-of-lemuria-campaign-setting/

 

Yeah, elves and dwarves would have to be dialed back to be ultra-rare creatures that adventurers met only under strange circumstances unless they somehow made it to Alfheim or the equivalent.

Thanks for reminding me of The Fjarrstrand Sagas.  I have it on a flashdrive somewhere but I need to look at it again.

Gruntfuttock wrote:

What scenarios worked best for you? The Signs and Portents back issues are fairly cheap on DriveThru - are any of those worth getting?  

Good question, I really like Xoth.net Publishing The Spider God's Bride and Other Tales of Sorcery - I REALLY like it.   From that one I have converted and run:  The Necromancer's Knife, The Spider-God's Bride, The Jewel of Khadim Bey, and The Eidolon of the Ape.

S&P are also good, I have converted Wine of the Gods (S&P69), The Staff of Ibis (S&P 37), and I have To Save a Kingdom (S&P 86) that I have not converted yet - it looks to be a little longer adventure.   I have others, but haven't really done anything with them or even read them thoroughly.  I really liked the Staff of Ibis.

An adventure that I liked converting and my wife and I really liked playing was The Cursed Tomb of Al-Amar, it was in the d20 Mongoose Conan Adventures in the Hyborian Age Book.  Really liked that one.

We played the Tower of the Elephant  using d20 Mongoose Conan rules but I want to re-run it with BoL rules, somewhere in my files I have a conversion that was done for it.  I also have the version that was done by Xoth.net Publishing.  Its my favorite Conan story, I remember reading it in the Savage Sword of Conan magazine a looong time ago.  My first intro to Conan.

Another cool adventure that I converted to BoL is Slaver's Caravan by Craig Tidwell, it can be found on Xoth.net's site.  I ran that for myself and my wife using the d20 Conan rules and then ran it with BoL rules for my wife and two friends of ours.  (I also read the Gor series of books a long time ago, and while controversial today by some - the world building aspects of the series is really good, form Nomads to Vikings and a lot more.  The earlier books were really good, later ones... not so much.)

If I was to suggest only one purchase, it would be Xoth.net Publishing Spider God's Bride really well done and perfect for Conan BoL.  I have even thought about running these stories for us using the World of Xoth's lands itself without a Hyborian Age conversion.

Have fun!



 

I've been running a White Box D&D game for a while online.  Feeling pretty "meh" about D&D and am ready for a change of pace.  Now I'm prepping a Barbarians of the Void/'not-Traveller" game, and working on a reskin of G-Man's "Crimson Shoals" as a sci-fi adventure.  The PCs ship is damaged in jumpspace, comes out into normal space to find the pirate ship anchored to the "Stygian" ship in the process of salvage/plunder.  The dead king's ship is ancient, drifting, and has been affected by strange cosmic rays, which caused the ship's lower-tier AI to mutate/advance and the dead king to be revived.  In addition to dealing with the Stygian ship's challenges and the pirates, the PCs must race against the clock to salvage the parts they need to save their own bacon.  The giant octopus in the Stygian hold is now a "void kraken" inhabiting the dark between the stars.  Should be fun!

EDIT to update: Change of plans... Looks like I'll be running BoL Fading Suns this coming Friday for my old group.  The new group wants some FS adventure too, so I'll most likely start them elsewhere in the Empire and use the above "Crimson Shoals" adventure to get them going. 

Last edited by gnombient (7/18/2020 6:54 pm)