This is where I shove the random ideas I’ve had, projects that were ultimately dumped, and schemes that never came to fruition!

At one point, a friend (Dave Westwater) and I formed a Play-By-Mail games partnership, called Nova Games. This lasted for several years, but the two of us found that it was getting harder and harder to manage that and our regular jobs. We created a number of Play-By-Mail games.

2 halves was a football (soccer) management simulation run as part of Nova Games. Created by Dave Westwater, this ran successfully for some years, written in C and running on an Amiga! I did most of the graphic design work and helped out, and it was a nice little earner for a while, until Dave’s computer packed in.

RPG of knightly chivalry inspired by the Pendragon RPG and Arthurian legend. This PBM was Dave’s hand-moderated (i.e. no computer automation) game, run as part of Nova Games.

The Milenya Chronicles were to be a large computer-moderated series of epic games where players could run characters like Dragons, powerful wizards, city overlords and the like (nowadays this would be very much like an MMORPG, or World of Warcraft), developed as part of Nova Games.Originally four games were planned as part of Nova Games:

• Blood & Fire, where you play a Dragon
• Blood & Steel, you take the role of a warlord
• Blood & Honour, you become a heroic knight and warrior
• Blood & Mana, you are a master of the arcane arts, a wizard and mage.

Dave and I had a number of games planned, all of which would merge together. It was ambitious – too ambitious – we managed a playtest of the Dragon game, Blood & Fire, but it became clear that the complexity was beyond us at that time. Some of the prose was pretty purple too, as you can see below.

Here’s the blurb from the old Nova Games website (the vortex was created by Jason Paul Macartan of MindShift Design):

Where are you? What happened? Clouds of blue green mist swirl around you as you try to make sense of where you are, and more to the point, who you are. Then you hear it. A cold, but eerily beautiful voice that echoes down deep into your very soul.

“Greetings, my friend. Thou hast journeyed far through the Æther. I sense that thou wilt travel farther still before thy journey is complete. Thou seeks knowledge? Of what is to be? Ah, but the key to the portal of knowledge lies in the past. See, already the Æther knows thou. Tarry a while. Time means little here, for we are the Milenya, and thou may be the One to assist us in what is to come.

“From the Milenya came the Realms of Life. From these Realms of Life, the Milenya created the Worlds. Lost in the joy of their creation of the Realms, the Milenya became careless and less vigilant. In their celebrations of creation, they attracted an Evil from within the Void. For It the Realms of Life offered a gateway – an escape. It issued from whence It had been imprisoned since time began, and had consumed entire Realms of Life in its unending, insatiable hunger.

“Shocked at what had been wrought, the Milenya resolved to forever keep It locked away using their very beings. Their energies formed the walls of the prison, giving up their existence to the perpetuation of creation. Their light shines still upon the Worlds of their creation. Timeless and eternal, the Milenya look upon their creation from their starry prison with sorrowful eyes. One by one their glory fades from the Void.

“Follow thy destiny, traveller, for thou art part of what is to be. What is to happen is yet to be Chronicled. Whatever path thou chooseth, and whatever manifestation, follow thy heart. To thineself be true.”

The voice is gone. You suddenly have the feeling of complete solitude. The blue-green mist called the Æther, curls around, caressing your face. Its touch brings knowledge. Swirling away from you, it illuminates a world, shining like a jewel in the night, and you are carried inexorably towards it. The sense of loneliness disappears, as you somehow recall the name of the world.

Darcosia.

As you travel towards it, you are changed. Into what can only be guessed at. At your approach, a shadow falls upon the world, extinguishing the light. And in the Void something laughs… and waits…

Welcome to the world of THE MILENYA CHRONICLES

In most games you begin the game weak and defenceless – but not these ones! Unlike many other generic fantasy games, you’ll need far more than a magic sword or fireball spell to defeat your opponents in our world. Raw cunning and skills in diplomacy are ranked particularly highly on the list of requirements to survive, but a little prayer to Lady Luck may help more than you think.

The Milenya Chronicles are our inter-linked series of games set in the mystical land of Darcosia. These games are a new concept for PBM games, and our intention is to bring the great fantasy epics to life. The Milenya Chronicles offer you the chance to play incredibly powerful entities, all with their own goals. We challenge you to come up with any other PBM game that allows you to play Dragons, Wizards, Warlords or Knights within the same game. Picture this:

Another player attacked your city with his army last Turn. You’ve called on a few favours with some of your player allies. Now, a Dragon, a Mage, two Knights, and three armies are out to teach your would-be attacker a lesson he will never forget. And in the background, your politicians are already at work, negotiating with mercenaries and your opponents enemies.

So, behold the world of Darcosia and plunge straight in at the deep end. Cutting-edge technology and Artificial Intelligence brings the world to life. Each being has its own distinctive personality – their own abilities to love, hate, plot, hoard and even breed. On Darcosia, attacking that small band of goblins could be a BIG mistake. They may be allies of the Great Wyrm Cortelus and the city-state of Argak. Both of whom have very long memories, and some very powerful allies.

In Darcosia, there are only two types of people: the rulers and the ruled.

Which will you be?

At one point I was quite an avid Play-by-mail gamer. These games are played by sending in turns by postal mail or email (PBeM). Inevitably, I decided to run a few games of my own as part of Nova Games (see the FAQ).The first game I created, the Mandragora series: Shadows Lengthen, was a single-character hand-moderated game that was incredibly time-consuming to run (during 2002-2003), and I eventually had to shut it down after a few months. It is worth pointing out that most hand-moderated PBMs do fold – the time involved is considerable if you’re not doing as a full-time job. Even then, the financial returns tend to be minimal. The original blurb is reproduced below:

The Mandragora series is a role-playing game set in the island kingdom of Lonaraban, a place of intrigue, treachery, and dark magic. In it, players take the role of one of the inhabitants of the Isle, the Mandragora.

The Mandragora are a race magically created centuries ago to participate in a devastating war, by the War Wizards of the Etruscan Empire. With a need to create highly magical yet tough soldiers, the spell-casters turned to the most feared and magical creatures on the planet: the Dragons. The creators were wiped out in the War That Shook the Earth. However, their creations, the Mandragora survived, and in the years of famine and war that followed they roamed the lands searching for a place where they would no longer be persecuted or slain by a human populace that feared and mistrusted them. Eventually, their travels led them to the island of Lonaraban, a heavily forested isle of steep cliffs and towering mountains. As their SpellWind craft skimmed into the bay, the Gold Mandragora Matriarch leading the expedition named it Kal’ashiraah, or Bay of Hope, in the High Mandragora speech.

Over the years their culture developed and cities were built. Their numbers increased, and each sub-species found their own caste. With the Gold Mandragora as their leaders their society flourished – and their Dragon heritage became more apparent. To this day, greed ambition, and treachery define a Mandragor’s standing in their society.

Choose from a variety of different roles – from the deadly Black Mandragora TunnelRunner to the mystical Silver Sacred Ones – and experience a whole new world…

This is the world of the Mandragora Series.

The series is a new type of play-by-mail game, split into months-long ‘episodes’. Each player takes the role of a single character, leading to a far more in-depth and detailed development. The world is dynamic, and your character’s actions can affect future episodes in a variety of ways.

The second game I designed was Ties of Blood. Having learnt my lessons from Shadows Lengthen, I made this a more controlled game. However, despite planning everything so well the playtest never took off as few people took me up on the offer.

Both game  manuals and game materials available for download.

Ties of Blood was a more carefully planned game than Shadows Lengthen. I’ve given some thought to converting it to a board game.. The original blurb is reproduced below.

Ties of Blood is a fantasy PBM game of politics and intrigue, “the Great Dance”, in the island kingdom of Lonaraban, the home of the Mandragora. In Ties of Blood, players have the opportunity to take the leadership of the main political power bases of Lonaraban – the Imperial and Noble Houses that vie for power. A number of the game materials are available for download.

The objective of Ties of Blood is simple: to win the Imperial Throne of Lonaraban, by any means necessary. To become Empress will take skill, diplomacy, and cunning. The current Empress may be old, but misses very little and your Matriarchs (the leaders of your House) will need to use all their resources at their disposal to elevate the Head of the Noble House to this exalted position.

The only way to do this is to get the Three Hundred of the Shirr’haim to pass a motion of no confidence in the Empress, and thereby impeach her House. The Three Hundred comprise the Shirr’haim, which translates to human speech as “Place where items of great import are spoken of”. Not only is this the name of the Senate, it is also the capital city: both are the same.

This game will feature a huge number of political manoeuvres (including dirty tricks such as blackmail, arson, inciting riots and outright warfare), a notoriety score used to define how long a house “can get away with it”, rules for magic use in politics – including Dark magic!

The Ties of Blood Boardgame

I decided to start work on developing Ties of Blood as a board game.

The objective of Ties of Blood is simple: to win the Imperial Throne of Lonaraban, by any means necessary. To become Empress will take skill, diplomacy, and cunning. The current Empress may be old, but misses very little and your Matriarchs (the leaders of your House) will need to use all their resources at their disposal to elevate the Head of the Noble House to this exalted position.

The only way to do this is to get the Three Hundred of the Shirr’haim to pass a motion of no confidence in the Empress, and thereby impeach her House. The Three Hundred comprise the Shirr’haim, which translates to human speech as “Place where items of great import are spoken of”. Not only is this the name of the Senate, it is also the capital city: both are the same.

This game would feature a huge number of political manoeuvres (including dirty tricks such as blackmail, arson, inciting riots and outright warfare), a notoriety score used to define how long a House “can get away with it”, rules for magic use in politics – including Dark magic!

Much of the features of the original PBM will feature, although I will have to make quite a few modifications obviously! I planned to:

• Convert the map of Lonaraban to a board suitable for the game.
• Create playing pieces to represent Mandragora Scions and other personalities.
• Cards that represent random Events and Advantages.
• Create a Notoriety score-keeper.
• Create a House record sheet.

Downloads

• Game manual for Ties of Blood.
• Wallpaper for the PC desktop.

Wargames

Warhammer 40,000 (WH40k) Planetary Invasion

This was one of my best, and worst ideas. After reading the the Chapter Approved supplement for Warhammer 40000: Rogue Trader (the 1987 edition, not the Black Industries RPG), I decided to run a game that dealt with a planetary invasion by Eldar.

At the time, Chaos was hated by all the players so it would be Eldar vs. the Space Marines of the KIL Chapter (not my choice of name). I built up an elaborate number of scenarios, from attacks on defence laser emplacements, to street fights. However, exams interfered and we never got a chance to play.

Looking back now, I was a bit overambitious, but it would have been cool.

Bleak Midwinter setting for wh40k

This was eventually shelved, but it wasn’t a bad idea at the time. (Bill, October 2014)

Bleak Midwinter was an idea that I’ve had percolating around in my head for a while (and I’ve mentioned it before): a proper crossover campaign, set in the Warhammer 40,000 (wh40k) universe. I’m not talking about just a couple of games involving Space Marines from the Deathwatch RPG, and an Inquisitors cell from Dark Heresy. Oh no, I was thinking bigger than that (possibly even involving characters from Black Crusade, and Epic scale as well!).

Here’s the plan – a series of wh40k RPG games running at ORC and elsewhere, together with a series of wh40k battles, perhaps being run at Edinburgh League of Gamers (aka [elg]). Ambitious? Very much so. And that’s why I’d need some help with it (see below) – I’d need folk to run and play the games, but also to organise the tabletop battles as I’ve no direct contact with any of the Edinburgh wargame clubs. I’m thinking I could organise things so we could probably start running the games in January 2012!

My concept is that Bleak Midwinter is set within the Midwinter Expanse,  a nebula known for its White Dwarf Stars. It would feature Space Marines, Rogue Traders, as well as Acolytes of the Inquisition as the plot gradually develops, leading to large scale battles as the events unfold (each battle or adventure spins off a new plot or battle). We could see large scale space battles, hive worlds erupting into violence and a whole host of things happening that would make a fantastic campaign for all involved.

However, I’d need help. While I appreciate that Games Workshop (GW) would probably jump at the chance to help, I’d rather Bleak Midwinter remained in the hands of the gamers as it were, rather than become a marketing tool. This is a pretty ambitious project, so for obvious reasons I’m going to need some assistance. Here’s how I’m seeing things, breaking them down to their simplest requirements:

• Writers to help create the adventures.
• Volunteers to help plan the battles.
• I’d d appreciate some help creating the campaign itself.
• Someone to approach the Edinburgh Wargaming clubs to see if they’d be interested.
• GMs to run the games.
• Volunteers to run the battles.
• Someone to keep track of what is going on.

Obviously, I’ve got a major plot arc for Bleak Midwinter in mind, but there’s no reason why events have to follow it. Note that I’m not planning to make money off this; the only donation I’m looking for is time!

RPGs

I’ve run a lot of RPGs over the years, but not all have worked out.

Babylon 5 RPG Campaign

Being a lifelong fan of Babylon 5, I made the decision to run a short B5 campaign at ORC. I obtained the Mongoose Publishing B5 RPG (2nd Edition). There were a few sticking points:

1. Character creation in the Babylon 5 RPG takes ages. It took so long that we were still getting ready to play 90 minutes later.
2. The Babylon 5 background is so detailed that the RPG is only really suitable for die-hard fans.
3. The d20 system is a bit of a pain to use with B5.

It was a good idea for a campaign I had (or seemed like it): the PCs are assigned to an ultra-secret division of ISA Intelligence tasked with preventing the misuse of technology gleaned from the Shadow War. This would mean travelling around and coming into conflict with the Drakh and hostile alien governments.

The idea for the first game was that someone was using a hunter-killer to kill certain people on Babylon 5 – the Drakh agent concerned was trying to conceal the location of a de-activated Shadow cruiser near Coriana 6, where the great battle between the ISA, Vorlons and Shadows occurred. A Drakh fleet were on their way to collect it, but the agent was covering his tracks.

The hunter-killer was one of my better ideas. A tiny biological chameleon that flew to its target then detonated a mini-bomb; it was untraceable to bomb sensors, and coded to a specific DNA sequence. Naturally when the PCs found that the victims were being killed by something that was out of phase they started thinking that there were Shadows in the room…

When the PCs arrived at Coriana 6, the plan was for the Drakh ships to arrive at the edge of the system, giving the PCs little time to find and destroy the Shadow Cruiser…

The game went OK, but I don’t think it would have worked out as a campaign.

Raunia RPG

The Raunia RPG was a gestalt of different systems: Fighting Fantasy, my own and a system that a school mate, David Tynan had sketched out. I’ve still got the original notes from the late 80’s, with some of the maps. I cringe a bit when I look at them now. It never really went beyond a couple of games with my then gaming group – we were going through a WH40k Epic scale Adeptus Titanicus/Space Marine phase.

Marvel Superheroes RPG

This has its own page here. One week in and half the players couldn’t bothered turning up.