A parallel game for RTD horrors to ease the strain a bit.
My first time as RTD GM, Most of this is copied ad-verbatim from the original. Also inviting anyone from game 4 who wants less crowd, cultists and such will be kept.
Unlike the other game all turns will be done at once so players can interfere with one another equally.
You are an eldritch horror from beyond the rift, one of many. You spy with your power a world full of beings, easy to persuade and willing to serve one such as you. You must reach this world and have it for your own, by any means necessary.
Rules:You must make an eldritch horror, any type you like, they can be terrifying and want to destroy the universe or actually be a nice guy stuck in another world, but the rules remain. You cannot directly influence the world until you are summoned, or the cascade begins. Your objective is to get to Earth and prevent other horrors from doing the same, or kill them if they get there.
I will allow multiple winners or no winners if your goals do not contradict or if they are all impossible by the end but world domination is pretty much the bottom line. And if they pose a threat, they gotta go.
Rolls:
For those newer to RTD:
1 = epic failure (you poor bastard, your action fails and something bad happens to you)
2 = failure (your action fails, but you don't lose any more than your turn)
3 = partial success (your action works, just not as well as you wanted)
4 = success (You succeed at your action, to the extent of your ability)
5 = epic success (You succeed beyond all expectations, the benefits of your action are greater than your ability would otherwise allow)
6 = overshot (You succeed to such an extent that something bad happens as a result)
New stuff for this game:
Forgone conclusion: If a situation is a brisk walk from a shadow of a doubout then 2 and 3 will result in a reroll(can still get it the second time round), 1 is kept because what is RTD without unexpected and spectacular failure. If you are on the other end of the curbstomp battle or such then 5 and 6 is rerolled. A 5 or 4 physique horror vs a 0 or 1 horror will be the baseline.
Artifacts of chance: Some objects can affect rolls too.
Making a horror:character sheet:
Things that don't have to do with dice rolling directly...
Name: (word salad if you feel like it, but try to make it pronounceable)
Abilities: (What you can do as an eldritch horror, don't give yourself more than 5 for simplicity)
Appearance: (What do you look like, including things like your size and physical traits, as well as general body shape)
Homeworld: (Where you come from.)
Story:(A bit about yourself, what brought you to Earth and your goal for instance.)
Goal:(The end of the game for you.)
An eldritch horror has a few parts, you have 5 points to put into them, just to get an idea of where your strengths lie (1=average, 0 = bad, >1 = good):
-Malignant Presence: (The higher this is, the worse stronger the consequences there are for mortals looking at you or being in your presence. ie: turning into pillars of salt, mutating into fish people, going insane, rising from the dead, etc. Also affects how strong your cultists are compared to normal humans after you're summoned. Important after being summoned, not so much before) edit: changed for more versatility
-Mindlock: (Less affected by other horrors' power, pretty important unless you want someone else to be king horror)
-Power: (ability to use your abilities, especially important as this is the only way to manipulate the world before you are summoned)
-Physique: (Your physical body's strength, important once you are summoned, not so much before)
-Appeal: (General rating of how much humans will like you. Doesn't necessarily mean you are "good", but just that you're popular and less likely to get nuked when the summoning completes)
A brief note beside the stat is nice.
Blank sheet:
Name:
Abilities:
Appearance:
Homeworld:
Story:
Goal:
-Mindlock:
-Power:
-Physique:
-Appeal:
Abilities should have a dash beside them like so: "-Floaty:Can float" or "Abilities: As a floaty from the land of floaty it can float and drift."
Name:
Abilities:
Appearance:
Homeworld:
Story:
Goal:
Presence:
Mindlock:
Power:
Physique:
Appeal:
Standard RTD rolls determine outcomes of things, but, for example, if a weakling horror tries to wrestle a strong horror, they have to succeed more than one roll to get an advantage before actually winning.
The game ends when:1) there is a winner:
Someone has been summoned and all other eldritch have been killed or sealed out of the human world. Summoning involves an Orb of Stalwart (artifact from the before time, only 5 are known to exist), dragon blood (not from an actual dragon, it's nectar from a rare plant), and a summoning circle spelling out "Welcome to Earth, *insert name here*" in your native language, which only your cult members and you know. Being summoned is the only way to win, but it also opens you up to being killed.
Preventing others from being summoned requires you either kill the horror's entire cult and purge the horror(can't make the summoning circle), destroy all the orbs of Stalwart (after being summoned yourself of course), or altering the world to make cultivating dragon blood impossible (again, after being summoned yourself unless you plan to cause the cascade). A horror who has already been summoned can be killed, either by another horror, or by humans if they haven't invested enough in physique and aren't well liked. A dead horror loses the game, no takebacks and no resurrection, but their cultists can still influence the world and take revenge, but they can be killed too.
2)The cascade completes
The cascade is an end of the world ritual, as long as Folston remains intact it can be performed by any cult at any time. It will summon all living horrors to Folston and they will be locked in conflict forever, effectively making the game a tie. The ritual is complicated but doesn't require the artifacts, so there is time to stop it from being performed if there's only one or two cults trying it, but it is the only way to win for horrors that still have cults, but the other components of summoning are destroyed.
-After the cascade there will be three rounds to duke it out and try to kill each other before it is declared a draw, at which point all living horrors are locked in a stalemate for all time (effectively a tie if you can't kill everyone else before time runs out).
-All living horrors includes those that can't be summoned, even if their cult is gone.
-The city of Folston can be destroyed by the combined power of three horrors all but one horror, if three horrors all players-1 are on Earth at once the cascade is made impossible.
Anyone want to play? I'll accept 6, go beg
Aslandus after it's full. Or just beg I suppose, the limit is just for sanity reasons anyhoo.
Edit: Stuff that's been added:
-All Horrors have the innate ability to "whisper into the minds of mortals," intended so they can recruit cultists even if they're not a very mind-centric horror.
-Inquisitors: anti-cultists, they work to stop your plans and on some rolls their presence can make your results worse. When they become active they get a turn directly after the horror they are fighting and will take actions to try to prevent their summoning and influence. They have the same approximate recruitment regardless of your appeal.
-Purging: The most lethal thing that can happen outside of death. The ritual has to be done by inquisitors with the help of an already summoned horror, and it will cause an unsummoned horror to lose all influence on the world, they cannot recruit cultists themselves nor can they use their power unless they are summoned (does not prevent being summoned). Having this happen when you have no cultists is essentially game over, though if someone else begins the cascade you may still have a chance. If it happens to a dead horror then all its influence on the world is lost, it's cultists scattered, it's name history. The items necessary for the ritual change each game.
-Chosen: cultists upgraded by exposure to their horror's power to the point that they can now use some of it themselves (can only be created after summoning)
-Transformations are allowed, but you need to tell everyone before the game starts that your horror can/will transform at some point. The exact conditions of the transformation and what you turn into can be kept between me and you (via pm) but everyone needs to know that you will transform and what will trigger it (ritual, time, eating a certain number of cultists, whatever). This particular thing must be approved by me (or whoever the GM is if I decide to stop hosting it) before you can use it, and I reserve the right to adjust things if I find it unfair.
-Attacks and theft are done as actions, with a standard dice roll. Having a base and having cultists ordered to guard something protects you and your stuff from being attacked or stolen, with the base and guards taking the hit for you or keeping out potential thieves (disclaimer: a strong/critically successful attack or theft can bypass defenses that aren't also critically successful in being set up).
-Mercy save: Unless the attacker has overwhelming force you won't die instantly from being attacked, you'll merely have mortal wounds from which you can be finished off or bleed out if not healed next turn.
-Apocalypse: you can opt into a "hard" final boss by summoning the end of the world in some way. Beating it results in victory for everyone who's still in the game, but failure results in an ending worse than a double-fatality. You can't opt in until at least half the horrors playing have died.
Waitlist:
[spoiler=4 Waitlist]Name: Both-delzh
Abilities:
- All Seeing: Even without being to the world he Knows all that is happening.
- Black Blood: his blood Changes all who are touched by it into "Monsters" Aligned with his Cult.
- Drain Death: Undoes the death of all creatures in a one mile radius when Activated.
- Seed of Doom: I plant a "Seed" that grows into a Large Spike Studded Vine, this vine is hungry for the life of the world and will forever grow so long as the world lives...
- Universeal Vocal Cords: He could Arguably be heard from the other side of the universe.
Appearance: A massive Black Worm Covered in spikes, Eyes, and runes of power.
Homeworld: Don't ask.
Story: You don't want to know.
Goal: The Consumption of the universe.
Salsacookies "King Of The Great Ocean"
Abilities:
Conquest- Dominate all you see, with both Physical and Mental superiority.
War- Cut down those who strike back with Blood and Iron
Famine- Take everything from them. Wrap them in Shadow and Chill them to the bone.
Pestilence- Cripple them to the cell, corrupt both Body and Soul.
Death- Burn their Souls to ash, and Puppet the corpses.
Appearance: A fish-man, 3 meters in height. His chromatic scales change to different shades of purple and red. Wears no clothing, save a loincloth and jewelry on his arms and neck, and a crown, fitted to his head. Has grown 5 black horns on his head, and talons on his fingers and toes, along with eyes which are fiery and serpent-like.
Homeworld: The Styx, formally Atlantis, before it sank and became corrupted. It is now deep in the Atlantic Ocean.
Story: Once King of a great island nation, generations of playing with dark magic broke a hole between Atlantis and Hell, dragging them deep into the ocean, and into the realm of damnation, changing them into the horrid figures they are now.
Goal: Corrupt the world just like how his land was corrupted.
Presence: 0 (Godzilla and The Pacific Rim have desensitized humanity to monsters of similar appearance.)
Mindlock: 2 (Massive amounts of brainwashing tends to get in the way of brainwashing)
Power: 3 (The Powers of Hell are strong, indeed.)
Physique: 0 (Rather unspectacular by abomination standards)
Appeal: 0 (His plans appeal to no one. Not even to himself.)
An eldritch horror has a few parts, you have 5 points to put into them, just to get an idea of where your strengths lie (1=average, 0 = bad, >1 = good):
-Malignant Presence: 1
-Mindlock: 0
-Power: 3
-Physique: 1
-Appeal:0
Think that's everything.
One thing to note is that cultist numbers can go much higher and will be needed. For example making a large nuclear bunker would need... let's say ~2000 cultists with construction equipment and materials, but only 20 with money would be needed to buy a old out-of-the-way farm. Also training and supplies in general will be more important.
I did not look hard through all the tabs to edit them.
The rules are not absolute, if something would happen in a situation then it happens, death is final though.
For inspiration