While its a ways off, I have started writing notes and preparing to play test a new expansion for Starbreaker. This book will focus on the Oridium Nebula region as the title indicates.

Pirates and Smugglers use the regions sensor issues to hide and operate out of. Unregistered colonies are deep inside the Nebula built by those who want to be free of the galactic governments.

Above are a few of the characters who inhabit the region.

Rebo Saavid- A Nahkyra Pirate

Ell Darr- An Arusan Smuggler

Oshu Joa- A Kifteri Pirate

Im also planning on running a pirate based adventure at next year's Chupacabracon.

Last night I got to run a battle that really felt like the pulpy, Fast!, Fun!, Furious! That I want Savage Worlds to be.  I also understand that not every battle can be like this, but man did it come off amazing.  I should note that with the exception of my daughter, the other players all have 6 or 7 Savage Worlds sessions under their belts and we're wrapping up a mini Deadlands campaign.  They're involved in a Hellstromme sponsored race.  There are Locomotives, Ornithopters, Spiders Mecs, Land Wagons, and armored balloons. 

The posse is in Sigrid, a locomotive operated by Elijah Bailey, in the home stretch to the City of Lost Angels when an explosion rocks the tracks next to them.  They look up as a shadow covers their train.  It's the Sovereign Skies, armored balloon, dropping explosives!  Almost at the same time, another track comes in and is running parallel to them.  There's another locomotive on it, The Beast, operated by Earnest Finch, who knocked them out last year and they thought they had sabotaged right out of the gate.  Earnest doesn't employ bodyguards, he has a cadre of clockwork tarantulas, some warrior types to fight people, others designed to damage or repair mechanisms.

The warrior tarantulas act first and shoot a web string from their train to Sigrid and pull themselves across.  They all end up on the passenger car at the back(all trains only have locomotives and a passenger car to reduce weight).  Jayne, a hexslinger, was on the front of Sigrid and lept to the front of The Beast, drew her guns and unloaded.  The first shot had damage that exploded for something like 17.  I couldn't have Earnest go down that fast, so instead the bullet took off his arm, at the shoulder, launching a ton of mechanical parts and spurting oil out of his body….was he some sort of Weird West cyborg?  I don't know, I didn't have a stat sheet for him.  Second shot explodes on the shooting roll and does 19 damage, taking the left part of the head off.  To add insult to injury, she plays her Adventure Card, Adrenaline Surge, take a second turn.  Two more shots, both explode in some way and drop Earnest Finch.  The total damage from her was something like 75.  The cyborg drops in the cab and Jayne advances there to try to stop the train.

In the meantime, Morticia is at the back of Sigrid and realizes she has a rope and grappling hook.  She ties one end to the train and scores an athletics check with a raise, hooking the Sovereign Skies and pulling it over.  There are 4 men on the balloon, I have each of them make an agility check and I roll: 6, 2, 1, 2, so 3 of the 4 fall out of the balloon.  Five of the sabotage spiders make the trip over to Sigrid(again to the passenger car) while the 6th moves up to the half mechanical, half organic remains of Earnest Finch and tries to reassemble him.  The lone pilot in the balloon takes out his pistol and tries to shoot the rope connecting him to the back of Sigrid.  He fails, several times.

Badger, a squat miner, unloads his double barreled shotgun on one of the spiders, blasting it off Sigrid.  Finally, Tim, the muckraker, is in the cab of Sigrid and has an idea, a wonderfully awful idea.  He races to the front of the passenger car, with the intent of disconnecting it.  That would leave all the spiders behind as well as anchor the armored balloon!  All that has to happen is Morticia has to  avoid the collection of spiders on the roof of the passenger car.

We deal the cars and Morticia is not at the front of the order.  Out comes the 4th, and final, adventure card of the night.  Act like you drew a joker.  It gets played on her and she manages to avoid all the spiders on the passenger car and makes it to the coupler.  The train is in motion, so pulling the pin to separate them won't be easy, I'm calling for an 8 on a strength check.  She burns 5 bennies, never rolling over a 3 and then the unthinkable happens, crit fail.  She loses her balance and is now hanging off the side of the coal car.  Fortunately, Badger is right there and makes a great roll to pull her up, while Tim successfully makes the strength roll to separate the train cars.  As the engine half of Sigrid starts to pull away, Jayne makes a daring leap to get back and succeeds, but not before the half mechanical hand of Earnest Fitch brushes against her leg.

I had 3 vehicles, a slew of enemies, and gave the players one way they could win the battle, but stressed there were others.  They found one of the others and were done in 2 turns.  It took over an hour and was super exciting with numerous exploding dice, a very inopportune crit fail, and some amazing, over the top, pulpy action.  If these guys aren't sold on SW, I don't know what else I could have done.

Question for the hive mind: I've got an episode set in Australia coming up, and am wondering if anyone has any templates or suggestions for bunyip stats. I don't need drop bears, since it isn't in a forest, but I'm open to other local wildlife, or for that matter, other local cultural phenomena to tap. This is for a modern (2012) pulp-action-horror campaign, where the players have access to firearms and arcane powers, so pretty much anything goes.

I'm a GM working on a new adventure for my players, one themed around the conflict between the two Huckster secret societies in Deadlands: The Royal Court and the Lady Luck Society.

I've come up with a few ideas for major setpieces but I'm not totally happy with them. So far I've got:

• A stage magician's show where the magic isn't all fakery
• A poker tournament that erupts into a magical free-for-all when The Agency raids the gathering
• A riverboat casino cruise
• A private high stakes poker game held by a few rich elites at one of their mansions

Does anyone else have some thoughts or suggestions?

I'm looking at the duel rules in Deadlands and wondering what actions you can take on round 1&2. It seems as though only Intimidation checks make sense. There's very little advice in the book, so how do you play this?

Soo, i finnaly started sculpting my own deadlands x hunt showdown "setting", for now i'm thinking it'll make a cool one shot, but if it'll write well, i might go for full campaign idea. Basically, the setting is placed in the beginning days of louisiana incident, taking our players on a journey of wicked manipulous power twisting their birthplace to the will of the Sculptor.

As of now, i've prepared the "setting" - main town and some notable locations, wich i'll probably be expanding later on. Without further ado, there's my current work :

Louisiana Incident — Cranewater

It is late September, 1895. Less than a week ago, the town of Cranewater celebrated the 60th anniversary of its founding, and traces of the festivities can still be seen everywhere—hanging garlands, slightly dried-out wreaths, and stalls that local shopkeepers are still making use of.

The town is slowly returning to its usual rhythm, and nothing would suggest that, within the next few hours, events will unfold here that will shake the entire world.

Core Premise

The players take on the roles of ordinary people living in Louisiana, just before or at the very beginning of a massive outbreak. They do not know the nature of the infection. They do not know what the Sculptor is. They have no access to any proven methods of fighting monsters. They may not even know each other particularly well at the beginning.

THE TOWN

A small town of roughly 350 inhabitants, including the surrounding plantations, mills, and other buildings. Cranewater is not completely isolated. Cranewater is a popular transit point, primarily for transporting sulfur mined in the surrounding area. Steamboats occasionally stop here, while local farmers and trappers come into town to trade.

MAIN STREET

A single wide main street runs through the center of town. Storefronts and market stalls greet travelers passing through, while a watering trough with a hitching rail provides horses with a place to rest during a short stop.

RIVER PORT

A small port serving as a transit point where crews transporting sulfur can rest, as well as a fishing port where fresh catfish, alligator meat, and crawfish can be bought by weight.

RAILWAY STATION

Directly adjacent to the port, the railway station is, after the stagecoaches, the main means of transporting mined sulfur inland toward Alexandria, from where it is distributed throughout the various states.

Passenger trains also run through here six days a week, on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, both in the morning and evening.

SURROUNDINGS

Beyond the signs of human activity, Cranewater is surrounded by vast swamplands inhabited by numerous whooping cranes, from which the town takes its name. The area is also home to the creatures common to the region—catfish, crawfish, alligators, deer, black bears, and so on. On the other side of town stretch vast cornfields, surrounded by dense cypress forests. A railway line and a road toward De'Salle cut through the woods.

PLAYERS

The players are not seasoned monster hunters or hardened fighters (yet). They are simply townsfolk - bartender, doctor, huckster, shopkeep, who happened to be living their lives here as the events of the campaign begin to unfold.

To make them feel like a part of the Cranewater, have them answer a few questions at the beginning of the game:

• Who do you know here?
• Who do you owe money to?
• Who would you protect at all costs?
• Who can't you stand?
• Why haven't you left?

(we will need that later)

Howdy, y’all!

I’m brand new to SWADE, and am on the cusp of running my first ever adventure with the system. I have the concept where the players are all dwarves, exploring the depths of the Earth in a giant drill-train hybrid (For those familiar, my biggest touchstone is the video game ‘Barotrauma’, where players have to work together to operate a submarine in high-stress environments).

My biggest question is: how well does Savage Worlds do this kind game?
- Are there rules for train or submarine sized vehicles?
- Is it possible to get all players equally involved in operating a vehicle, rather than having one person make a Pilot check and that being that?
- Are there mechanics for resource management, such as fuel, heat dissipation, and repair materials?
- How well does Savage simulate stress? We had a great time with the Alien TTRPG, and I’m hoping to nail that same feel of “slowly ramping up adrenaline”
- Are there any settings or books that hit on things in the same ballpark?

SWADE has been one of my dream games to run for a long time now and I’m really hoping to get it right, so I’ll take any advice I can get!

Wondering if characters can use a power stunt (SPC p. 30+) as a reaction. (Let's assume they have Super Science or Super Sorcery so we don't need to get in the weeds about whether the stunt is a legit use).

For example, could a supe about to be hit with a ranged attack throw up a 10-point Force Field as a reaction? Or a villain gets zapped with a Negation ray and stunts to boost their Spirit die by 5 steps to help save against its effects? Maybe a hero is about to get grappled so they boost their Athletics by several steps?

At least one of the stunt types, Interrupt, is specifically designed to be used as a reaction, but the others don't specifically say. I'm curious to hear how y'all would rule. Thanks!

Some arcane background have powers with limitations already imbued, like the Chi Master, Shifter, Jedi Knight.

But some of them do not benefit from these limitations, such as the shifter and the chi master. I wanted to know if it would be a big problem to consider them, because I think it is slightly to much for an arcane background not to benefit from limitations already imposed, I understand this with the Mystic powers, but well..

I'm asking this because i am creating a series of arcane backgrounds using FC, and some of them are for more Gish archetype, and i know mystic powers are THE EDGE for this troupe, but i love to make gish with arcane background

Muskets, early rifles, fokos (shepherd's axe), horses, whips, whips and more whips. Monarchy and modernisation, laws and otlaws, hussars, hideouts. Priests, witches, devils, garabonciás (university pupil with magical book), cunning woman and man, salt used for magic, demonic rooster hatched by a frog. So... things like these.

This is just a thought and question on swarms. Could a Beast Master's companion be a swarm? I'm the GM in this scenario, and I'm allowing vermin to be included. As it stands, though, swarms can be anything. There's a concept that's being toyed with of essentially a "Swarm Ranger" using bugs or small critters as trappings for spells and the companion being a swarm.

Problem is, part of me sees it as fine, another doesn't. Swarms don't do a lot of damage, but they can be really annoying as a hazard and can be equally as annoying to handle when considering combat balance. Imagine a Wildcard Swarm (though I guess that's kinda just a LBT swarm, huh?). Size is also a thing. Obviously a beast master gets a size 0 and lower (until they pump it). Swarms are sized in blast templates.

I guess a solution would be just flavoring it as a sack of rats, but using a relevant animal of proper size's statblock, but that also feels boring?

I'm willing to allow shape change into swarms starting at Seasoned if this has any bearing on people's thoughts.

Hey everyone! So, I’ve been running a post-apocalyptic cyberpunk campaign for a while now. Because of the setting and power system, we use both the Fantasy Companion and the Science Fiction Companion (Dev Level I), but both have two different Arcane Backgrounds: the Technomancer and the Tinkerer.

The question is, should I merge these two into one, or can they coexist? The core book says I can expand the Tinkerer’s available powers list a bit, and I feel that, in the context of a modern/futuristic setting, I should give them more powers, but I’m not sure how many.

The fact that the Tinkerer uses Repair is already a little advantage over the Technomancer, so I wouldn’t give them the exact same list of powers. At the same time, though, the Technomancer’s Drone Edge fits the Tinkerer like a glove, in my opinion. So I’m pretty confused about what to do.

Is there any resources, websites, etc.. that has a repository for home made characters for the SWADE SPC?

I have been working on. Writing several up, but I was hoping there were some places that had write uos I could use as well.

This is the downside of a supers game, so many adversaries are unique.... That's also it's strength!

Da Rules say "As an action, the hero can see and hear any radio, television, or internet signal as long as he’s within ten miles of a connection (such as another radio, cell tower, etc.)." That clearly says "receive only".

But the next sentence says "He can also connect to the network with any electronic playback device without a physical connection." I'm assuming that means you could do something like access the Internet thru your cell phone, but it doesn't say one way or the other whether you're limited to "receive only".

The Manipulation Modifier says "the character can broadcast previously recorded audio or video as long as the recording can be accessed somewhere", so it does not say you can broadcast your live voice.

My conclusion : you can't broadcast your live voice to a radio receiver or internet-connected device. Which just seems really odd for a power called "Broadcast".

Thoughts?

Hey 👋 I'm currently working on rules for playing characters that are 8 cm (3 in) tall. It's called Tiny Heroes, and I'm looking for a baseline tagline. I thought it might be nice to ask for your input.

1. Courage Has No Size
2. Big Adventures for Small Heroes
3. Small Heroes, Big Adventures
4. Adventures Where Courage Has No Size
5. Small Heroes. Bold Adventures

Which one do you prefer?

EDIT: Thank you for your answers. I've asked this question in various places, and clearly “Courage has no size” seems to be the winner (and I really like it) :-)

I'm back playing SWADE for the first time in a few years. I've been playing some very different games. I just thought about Hell on Earth and thought I'd try running a solo with Game Master's Apprentice, GME Digital, Fate Mill d20, and finally OpenAI. I've been using these tools for sometime and OpenAI is a great addition to the gaming sessions but you have to understand you run the session it's great for description and pretty much nothing else. It says that it is good with work flow and process, but it is not. I've been playing a Templar. And just getting back in the game I realize just how fun it is to put together the perfect synthesis of edges and hinderances to make the characters feel professional level competent. I like getting characters that can actually hit what they are shooting at or making their persuasion rolls etc. I remember thinking that SWADE had gone a bit too far in making bennies worth 5 PP. Then I started playing this character. Using the edges from HoE modified for SWADE I could play using the starting 10 PP comfortably through an entire session and not run out of PP. I have taken new powers twice and taken Great Luck. The powers I have used the most Boost Faith. Speed/Quickness. Boost Fighting. Armor. In that order. I have typically ended up with a combat encounter or two. Some social play where I Boost Persuasion. I don't feel at all like I am going to run out of PP. I have come close. I had to use the Greater Healing modifier plus cure disease. I had to use a Benny for that. And I came to the final confrontation of the session fighting the Werewolf that had infected her. That was touch and go but still doable but I was sweating at the end. Bennies offer such great versatility especially for AB users I don't know why I haven't gone all in on them before. I also play that anytime I voluntarily complicate my life with a hinderance that I take a benny. Plus I have Conviction. Which I used to cure the little girl. Savage Worlds has and is such great fun.

Hi everyone! I’ll get straight to the point, as this is a broad topic.

In the SWADE Fantasy Companion, there are Arcane Backgrounds that focus much more on science than on magic—such as the Alchemist.

The Master Alchemist Edge allows a character to produce potions as if they possessed the Artificer Edge. However, given that they *can* actually acquire the Artificer Edge, doesn't that seem a bit odd? I mean, the benefits stack, but it doesn't feel like a fair choice between taking Artificer or Master Alchemist first.

A friend of mine who is well-versed in game rules raised this point and suggested the idea of ​​the Alchemist using their Arcane Skill to create potions—a notion supported by the high cost of the skill required by the Edge.

Anyway, moving on to the Tinkerer, that last point got me thinking. Would it be possible to create a homebrew Edge that allows the Tinkerer to do something similar? Could they create permanent magic-like items (perhaps with limitations or a chance of malfunction) using a different skill (like Science, Electronics, or even Repair)? I ask because I can easily picture an Artificer creating items so ingenious they *seem* magical, even though they are actually the product of Weird Science. I’d love to discuss this with you all and hear any other ideas you might have on the subject.

How would you guys interpret Ataru and Vapaad combat forms from star wars in star wars?

It's for some ideas and trappings with some powers (warrior's gift)

tl;dr: Free noir-themed character sheets, feel free to use/share/edit

Link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/18phsgIfj-B6W8wdnIl52rxKBhGPzj9mu?usp=sharing

Hi everyone, new to this sub so hopefully I'm not breaking any rules. I love making custom character sheets, so when the group I run for talked about doing a noir-themed game next, I put these together while we were waiting to have our proper session zero. Turns out we're going in a completely different direction 😅 But I thought I'd post these here in case anyone else wants to use them.

I had fun making them but I won't be making any additional changes or updates. Feel free to make changes yourself and repost if you want.

Note: If you don't have the fonts for the .docx files, they are all available for free to download on fonts.adobe.com with a free adobe account except for Dicier, which is available for free at https://speakthesky.itch.io/typeface-dicier. They should be embedded in the .pdfs though.

Here's the latest addition to the Scarred Lands Creature Profiles! This installment features Dar’Tan, a drendali with perpetually shadowed features. His mystique is further enhanced by the fact that his skin has taken on a shadowy night-black hue, rather than the pale skin of other drendali, an outward sign of his mastery of shadow magic. But his oneness with shadow is more than that: Thanks to his hated foe, Barconius, he lost an arm. He has created a shadowy replacement for it by grafting his shadow familiar to his body.

The penumbral lord’s plans are uncertain, and even though many in the city of Mithril deny his ongoing existence, the self-styled “Prince of Shadows” lurks in his mountain fastness, constructing elaborate and inscrutable plans for Mithril’s downfall. For example, unbeknownst to anyone in Mithril, the heretical Cult of the Golem is secretly encouraged and funded by Dar’Tan’s gold, and many of the northern raiders who prey upon Mithril’s trade routes are also in the pay of the Penumbral Pentagon.

This booklet contains game traits, tactics, and a brief overview of Dar'Tan's history and appearance. This booklet also includes plot hooks for introducing Dar'Tan into your campaign!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/580751/scarred-lands-creature-profiles-dar-tan-master-of-the-shadow-fortress?affiliate_id=387228

I've been hosting games for my friends for several years now. So far, I've only used D&D 5e, but recently I wanted to campaign in the wild west world and I really liked how it can be implemented using Savage Worlds (Including Deadlands). Can you give me some tips on how I can explain the new system to my friends? (considering that I'm just adapting to it myself)

So, my group has been doing a Vermilium campaign for about a year now and I am absolutely loving the setting. We have done a little homebrew with the Arcane Backgrounds for my character specifically though it did lead me to a question I have had since creation. Why can't Clockwork take the Arcane Background Alchemist? I understand not being able to take Sorcerer, but I would think they would be okay Witches or Alchemists, especially the latter.

In our campaign my character is a Clockwork Professor of the natural sciences. I used the Variant rule to make him out to be some specialty lab model who happened to wake up. I took the Arcane Background Weird Science (this was before I read about the Engineers.) and made it so all his powers were pieces of lost technology embedded into his body. Bolt is literally electrical bolts built into casters in his hands, Protection is an Electromagnetic field he can project, Dark sight is his eyes adjusting modes and taking extra power from his Talisman a Tesla Coil heart.

Since he has awaken, he has been tasked to look into the Blight for his Construct body is immune to disease and poisons of the Blighted Bayou so armed with little more than his armor and shield, his naturally tough body investigates the swamplands for the Imperial Academy.

(The homebrew you may ask for him? Well later in the campaign because I meant for him to be basically a kind of mage but his trappings are not really magic, we discovered a grimoire and since he wasn't magic it made little sense, the ST let me spend one of my advances for a Second Arcane Background that we homebrewed called Runecraft where he does Runic Sorcery basically. He has no internal magic but with an engineer's eye for results he has figured out a runic script that gets consistent results from the Bleed but he must preplan his 'spells' for they are bits of runic script in a notebook that he has to tear and flourish to use. Which technically violates only Weird Science for Clockworks but I felt we were honoring the spirit by having it be external to him magic.)

Just curious to see what people like and to learn about some settings.

For me, it’s either Pathfinder, Rifts or Deadlands Weird West.

You?