Friday 1 July 2011

Adventure - Up the Gordian Path...




I almost forgot about this, my entry for the recent Fat Frog Challenge. It's called Up the Gordian Path..., and that summarises the idea well. Click to get it more readable.

It's basically a one-page setting inspired by the mysterious Fat Frog statue Tim introduced at Gothridge Manor. The concept is propluristemic so the creatures aren't statted for any particular game system, leaving things open to individual interpretation.

My thinking at the moment is that I'll put up stats for them here at some point. I think Stokasis will be a good system for that - and for pretty much anything in fact - so it'll probably be after release. It should help showcase how flexible character creation is.

Here's the intro text:

The Fat Frog. Menace of aeons. Mendacious.
Creature of an intercosmic spawning scattered across atria, aquaria, gardens, yards and parks, the ponds and pools of ages. A transponder. A perverse deity, fertile with worlds. Where this bulbous figure stands smiling, adventure is a beckoning finger...
Look not into the eyes nor stroke the belly!
Too late! You poor fools...

Then the first impression:

The horizon dances ablossom, shadows scud overhead; rustling. Scent of late summer. Fresh dearth.
Press on?

That question goes deep, there and here both. Roll for entry crevice and away you go.

I won't say too much more, but recommend you have a read through the locations and tables to get a sense of the trouble the players are in. The central mechanism are the rolls on the 'whether chart' at the bottom of the page, subtitled 'it never rains but it pours'; and when it gets too hot, lives wilt. The Sparkstone is another clue to what's going on.

Go right ahead and use it if it tickles your fancy. You can find more entries here.
_

3 comments:

Gotthammer said...

Great source of maps there, the scale can be adjusted very easily to be quite samll - an adventure's worth - to a much bigger scale area.

Reminds me of how Cyberpunk 2020 netrunning dataforts were based of crossword puzzles from the newspaper.

DocStout said...

Heh, I wouldn't have thought of using Tim's "scary ass frog" as the center of a scenario. Awesome.

Porky said...

@ Gotthammer - It's a great resource. I'd love to see the rest of the entries too. That crossword idea is intriguing.

@ DocStout - That was one of the funnest and funniest posts I've read. More challenges like this would be good for the juices.