Long Stair Dungeon Style Zones part 6

Will get onto meat but here is a popular subject at the moment - favorite games.

My Seven Fave RPG Games

Runequest (1-3) My favorite game I have all boxed sets still. Played for over 15 years. I will play again but i am sick of generating monster stats with hit locations

Marvel Superheroes (MSH Expert edition) Played one 20 year campaign. Simple fun. I ran my own world but i still think was best over all game ever.

Dungeons and Dragons (Bx throught to 2nd ed Ad&d) Played most of 80s, just got back into this year due to requests from interested 1st timers and Temple of Elemental Evil computer game on GOG.com - crass over commercialization, poor writing and unnecessary complexity has killed modern versions of game for me. I have always despised wizards of the coast style.

Call of Cthulhu (1st ed) Great game never needed new rules, current versions give more skill points, after buying leather bound anniversary edition i heard new ed with new rules on way. I like older style minimal layouts too - grey scale worm eaten parchment look sucks. For the record Orient Express supplement stopped me collecting all Chaosium products (also a shit tormbringer one at same time). It seemed too clive barker and fleshy. I also dislike adding poor mythology to mythos, revisionist christian versions of myths at that. Using as SF and super hero world my main interest of late.

Basic Role Playing (Including worlds of wonder) - The original universal game, current version is great toolkit for any genre.

Gammaworld (1st to 2nd) Too many editions but i have stolen ideas from them all. Metamorphosis Alpha cool too.

GURPS (1st to 3rd) Original world books still some of best genre sources ever. Historical, humanx, space, horror, Russia, Celts, China, Uplift, Cyberpunk, Autoduel, Japan all greats

Some Other Greats
Eclipse Phaze (Best new SF anything Ive read in years)
Traveller (great world, GDW wrote terrible adventures)
Mega Traveller (great world, GDW wrote terrible adventures)
2300 (The best SF universe and races)
Dark Conspiracy (great monster races and cyberpunk world)
Space 1889 (great world, GDW adventures too militaristic)
Champions (My first superhero game)
Ringworld (Great BRP game for SF rules)
Stormbringer (1st edition best)
Superworld (pretty good but I’m off point games)
Cyberpunk (A classic game worth plundering)
Top Secret/S.I. (Agent 13 and F.R.E.E.lancers awesome)
Warhammer (great UK grit)
40K (really inspirational SF world)
CthuhuTech (Looks pretty)
Paladium RPG (Mechanoids, TMT, After the bomb and Mechanoids my favourite)
Super Squadron – An Australian superhero game from early 80s
Savage World (good world books)
RUS (10th C Russia game from Australia)
Villains and Vigilantes
Star Frontiers (Had some good tech)
Gangbusters (Used stuff for Cthulhu)
TOON
Teenagers From Outer Space
Metkon
High Colonies (great world)
TORG (Great world books and art but unplayable as is)


To reiterate my previous post Most American RPG and Comics (Hulk, X-Men) with Australian aboriginal based content are pretty woeful and based on cliches that probably are not from Australia. Mind you Australians are pretty good at ignoring horrors of Aboriginal life and most harbour no new age romance about indigenous persons. Some Aussies whinge about the supposed benefits they receive yet they wouldn't want to be one.

Anyhow if there was a good RPG product its probably the original Terror Australis module for Cthulhu. This was undone by the last Masks of Nyarlathotep version i read which added material from Terror Australias and with good intentions made some problems. Modifying aboriginal art for other Cthulhu books is a problem too. Basically as they are a culture that has lost everything, Im not a fan of ripping off their culture for gain. Their own sense of ownership of art and what it means to them makes it impolite to steal from them.

Aboriginals I work with have told me reproducing images in the wrong place by the wrong people is dangerous. A depiction of a entity in a different region makes locals unhappy. We get warnings before TV programs if a dead Aboriginal appears in the program as some persons will not watch a program with a recently deceased Aboriginal person in it. The significance of art in their culture is not western. If I seem sensitive its because I work with government, art orgs and Aboriginal persons. The best i can do really is be mindful of these issues. With 500 language groups the more i generalize the more wrong ill be.

Best program if your interested is this http://www.sbs.com.au/firstaustralians/

Some good animations around give a feel
http://www.abc.net.au/dustechoes/dustEchoesFlash.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEA7gkU4VaQ&feature=player_embedded#!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y3Ta5xcKV4
Some on line without Aboriginal input and animals that look hopelessly wrong

As i write this there is a deadly aerobics dance mob on the new Aborignal tv station which also has lotsa music, language and i even saw a show on boomerang making. Apparently a kind American who owns the rights on boomerangs allows them to do so (couldn't verify this).

The Dreaming is sometimes referred to as The Dreamtime. Today Aboriginal storytellers prefer to use The Dreaming as a way of describing their stories and their oral history because The Dreaming in Aboriginal culture is not considered something that occurred in the past, it is continually occurring and is ever-present in their culture. The Dreamtime "was", The Dreaming "is".

Anyway - for this zone for gaming purposes, I have a mix of Pleistocene fauna, tribal homo sapiens and older hominids and spirits. The Australian bush is sun blasted and inhospitable to outsiders. There is a definite sense of inexplicable creepiness in some parts of the bush. For game purposes most spirits are hostile to intruders. In some cases spirits ignore foreigners as irrelevant and may persecute indigenous persons of the wrong decent more harshly. Spirits may punish trespassers who exhibit greed or selfishness also.

Alcheringa Zone
A seeming mixture of Aboriginal supernatural spirit beings, tribal humans (some pre homo-sapiens) dinosaurs and other megafauna dwell here. Mostly red wind carved rock cavern wall with distant howling noises in the distance. Green zones include ferns and are subtropical, others are sand filled, barren and dry. Pleistocene mega fauna of approximately 40, 000 years ago predominate like terror birds, killer koalas (Marsupial Lion)and 30 foot long reptilian goannas. The sky is apparently reachable by sufficient climb. The spirit beings keep most clear or the region. Personnel report nightmares and altered dreams after visiting this place. No profit making opportunities exploited yet but some stone age xenotech has been seen. Most expeditions pass through to get somewhere else.

Alcheringa Zone Hazzard 1-3 d20
1 Extreme heat and desert
2 Bush Fire and smoke surround you
3 Crocodile filled river
4 Bunyip haunted billabong
5 Giant fish filled wetland
6 Spirits curse those on taboo land
7 Land of the dead – area inhabited by undead
8 Storm with lightning, wind then flood
9 Earthquake and volcanic activity
10  Forest trail in a loop, Wis save to detect each loop
11 Cursed rock inflicts minor but annoying curse
13 Angry spirits intensify feelings of fear and anxiety
14 Sinkhole into cave with skeletons and trapped animals
15 Tar pit concealed by water and dirt
16 Swarm plague of locusts, moths, bats, rats, inch ants attack 1d6 rounds, 1pt per round
17 Fog covers area, muffles sounds or birds and animals
18 Burial area off limits for surface dwellers or anger ghosts
19 Ritual area where animal spirits are communed with
20 Mischievous bush or cave fairies cause trouble for fun

Alcheringa Zones Mysteries 1-3 d20
1 Ancient cave paintings depict mythical scene
2 Ancient rock carvings of ancestors
3 Ancient mummy in bark tube
4 Burial poles with souls inside awaiting final rest
5 Quartz sphere wrapped in hair
6 Wizards stick is haunted
7 Preserved human head stuffed with clay
8 Bag of different dried herbs
9 Crude children’s toy
10 Everburning coals kept in clay bowl
11 Talking animal says you will all die
12 Tools made from surface rubbish
13 Tribal person with surface military tattoo insignia
14 Possum skin cloak made from single giant possum
15 Ground oven feast left abandoned
16 Stray wild dingo with id tag on ear from surface
17 Giant tree seems to touch the sky
18 See Mimis split a rock to enter then close behind
19 Mimi faeries offer you to suckle their breasts
20 Mimi faeries offer to take you to faerie land

Alcheringa Zones Encounter lv 1-3 d50
1 Spiritman will aid if they fetch him honey from nearby
2 Spiritman ask if they have seen his wives, he has been looking a long time
3 A Sorcerer challenger your greatest wizard or will just kill you all
4 Spirit women on the run looking for escape
5 Gigantic fish tries to eat party
6 Crocodile tries to gobble you up
7 Giant Goanna tracks you from food smell
8 Cassawarrior birds stalk and chase you
8 Huge kangaroo grazing, a male might get hostile if party blooded
9 Marsupial Lion (Killer koala) ambushes and drags prey away
9 Huge wombat burrowing tunnels
10 Huge Echidna burrowing for giant bugs
11 Huge Emu nesting and hostile
12  Giant Tasmanian Devil looking for easy meat and a fight
13 Dingoes follow for scraps and scavenging kills
14 Giant Tasmanian Tiger. Solitary hunter.
15 Giant Platypus swimming in waterways
15 Giant Possum after food and defending territory
16 Giant ants with poison bites
17 Giant termites feeling hostile of mammals
18 Giant bees making honey
19 Giant frogs hungrily gobble up new creatures
20 Tribal shaman greets and trades stories
21 Tribal hunters at rest, feeling laid back
22 Tribal women bathing, unimpressed tribal men to follow
23 Giant grubs munching on roots and wood
24 Giant spider nest
25 Giant wasp nest
26 Injured hunter found, will die without aid
27 Men duelling with giant praying mantis men
28 Hostile giant praying mantis men
29 Giant constrictor snake
30 Giant venomous snake
31 Giant Quoll curious (white spotted ginger killer possum thing)
32 Fish people always angry at humans make war
33 Serpent man in disguise as sorcerer
34 Chattering parrots or budgies gossip and laugh about party
35 Two young lovers on run from separate clans in pursuit
36 Children laughing at you, follow for a while
37 Lost colonial era settler no idea about where they are
38 Ceremony in progress, friendly and welcoming, a good omen
39 Ceremony in progress, hostile and unwelcoming, a terrible omen
40 Glowing lights in distance observe, willio-wisps
41 Horrible Banksia Men, burned wooden ogrish beast men who kidnap innocents
42 Gumnut fairies, delightful halfling like naked faeries playing
43 Wizards fly overhead shooting lightning from flint axes on their ankles
44 A sorcerer has come to bring intruders death
45 Devil Dingo – giant rotting undead dingo spreads plague
46 Devil Possums – dark furred with red eyes snatch vulnerable as food or wives
47 Giant scorpion blocks corridor and is hunting party
48 Intelligent animals complain about how things aren’t like they used to be
49 Spirit animal tribes men gather for ceremony to deal with outsiders
50 Hopelessly lost outsiders from surface or other zone