Hiatus

Oh, I dropped the ball here. But with good reasons, some real life stuff etc. I guess I will resume scheduled posting and get back to Gleaming Bronze. 

I started a campaign and made some adjustments to the hack. I added a new carousing event and d66 blessings. More on that in a future post. 

Then I left it to simmer a bit and got back to it just lately and picked up the neglected side of my hack. The visuals. I left them half finished last year and did not have any idea how to push through to the finish line. Just lately I managed to be inspired and energized myself to pick it up. For better or worse 2 unfinished illustrations became 8. The additional 6 are for each character class. I guess it is for the better, as this is the most exciting part of a new roleplaying book. At least for me. 

But enough of this rambly catch up. The Backgrounds.    

Backgrounds

I don’t love the Shadowdark Backgrounds. It could be because I like to overcomplicate things, but they seem too straightforward to me. So after some tries to make the d20 backgrounds for a bronze age game I decided I need something different. Black Sword Hack has a background system that I love and it inspired me to make the Origins for Gleaming Bronze. 

I also decided to not use Ancestries and instead roll them into Origins. As a default everyone in Gleaming Bronze is a human, but I wanted to leave space for players to devise their own characters and “ancestries”. I decided to give origins mechanical advantages as they have lost ones from SD Ancestries.    

 

After some trail and error I decided I wanted three pillars or character origin:

Kin: the characters’ people and ancestry. This is the most straightforward SD Ancestry stand-in. With entries like Snake Cult or Fey that can represent more demi-human heroes. Kin also grants a bonus to a stat and an advantage like tougher skin or advantage in social situations.  

Heirloom: this was originally a roll for a parent, but this felt too specific and a bit unwieldy. An heirloom can be bestowed by a parent, a community clan. In game terms the character gets an item with a fantastical quality. 

Background: all that hating on SD Backgrounds and I ended up with this. This ended up very similar to the original game. Also defines the character and their occupation, but I also added a mechanical advantage. And so for instance an Athlete gets additional Hit Points, or a Courtier has a sixth sense for danger. 

Every Origin pillar is a d12 roll and combined they should create an interesting character with more hooks than a simple background. 

For instance 

A Mercantile kin Courtier with a trusty weapon heirloom. 

A Martial kin Returned from the underworld with a golden torc that transforms into a rope. 

A Sage from a Snake Cult that had their heirloom forcefully taken away. 

So that’s Origins. You can check out other combination using a character generator for Gleaming Bronze here: Eidolon Invoker

Next time: Classes. Hopefully soon.