Arcania of Legend - Necromancy/Necromantic Arts

[strega]

As a follow-up to Blood Magic I'd like to see a rewrite/conversion/update of Necromantic Arts to the 'of Legend' format.

There are a lot of great ideas in NA which is let down a bit by some design issues and a lack of a decent line editor to beat the product into shape.

I think that it would make a great addition to what is becoming an excellent product line and worthy of more support.

I don't know how much support the boardgame kickstarter is getting but it strikes me as an attempt to emulate Hasbro/WoTC's product line without the consumer game experience that Hasbro wields and their access to retail outlets. This isn't Mongoose's area of strength and may be a distraction from their core business. I'm eagerly awaiting the new Signs and Portents to get an idea of where Mongoose are heading in the second half of the year.

 

[MongooseMatt]

This isn't Mongoose's area of strength and may be a distraction from their core business.

It is precisely because of this that we have gone down the Kickstarter route - the game is ready to go, but to proceed on our own would divert a great deal away from our core business. By using Kickstarter, we can run it as a 'seperate' project.

 

[Prime_Evil]

I'd love tp see both Necromancy and Empires updated to the Legend format, but neither are on the schedule at the moment. Hopefully they will get a proper treatment "down the track"...

 

[alex_greene]

And they are not the only items on the wishlist.

I'd look forward to dream magic, illusions, oracle magic, possibly psionics ... did somebody say sex magic???

 

[Prime_Evil]

I'd look forward to dream magic, illusions, oracle magic, possibly psionics ... did somebody say sex magic???

Well...Mongoose was the company that published Nymphology back in the d20 boom...

Interestingly, Mongoose is the only company with an OGL system that doesn't enforce some sort of "community standards" policy as part of its trademark compatibility license. So it's quite OK to adapt the Book of Erotic Fantasy to Legend - if you dare! :lol:

 

[dmccoy1693]

Interestingly, Mongoose is the only company with an OGL system that doesn't enforce some sort of "community standards" policy as part of its trademark compatibility license.

That's recent. There's once in the Traveller license and IIRC there was one in the MRQI license as well.

 

[Prime_Evil]

Interestingly, Mongoose is the only company with an OGL system that doesn't enforce some sort of "community standards" policy as part of its trademark compatibility license.

That's recent. There's once in the Traveller license and IIRC there was one in the MRQI license as well.

I certainly don't recommend abusing the license, but it's interesting. Here's the text of the compatibility license:

The entire text of the Legend RPG is designated Open Game Content, as is the entire text of all books in this line with plain colour covers and the words ‘… of Legend’ in their title.

By using any Open Content material in any of these books, you also have permission to freely use the Legend Compatible logo on any publication or web site where this Open Content is used or modified. The Legend Compatible logo may be re-sized but may not otherwise be altered in any way.

Legend, the text of Legend rulebooks, the Legend logo and the Legend Compatible logo remain Copyright Mongoose Publishing 2011.

Any and all artwork included in Legend rulebooks is specifically not designated as Open Content, and may not be used without written permission from Mongoose Publishing.

My guess is that Mongoose didn't anticipate the popularity of the repackaged system and didn't put together a complex license for that reason. But this license doesn't even have a provision for future amendments that can be applied retroactively...

 

[dmccoy1693]

I certainly don't recommend abusing the license

I don't plan on it.

My guess is that Mongoose didn't anticipate the popularity of the repackaged system and didn't put together a complex license for that reason. But this license doesn't even have a provision for future amendments that can be applied retroactively...

Nor does it say that it continues forever. Mind you, IANAL.

My recommendation with it: play nice.

 

[Prime_Evil]

Nor does it say that it continues forever. Mind you, IANAL.

My recommendation with it: play nice.

Lol...agreed.

 

[alex_greene]

Yup, because it gets so tiresome when someone starts playing rough and doesn't know the safe words ...

 

[strega]

So it doesn't look like an official version of Necromancy of Legend is likely in the near future but there's some fan interest in lurid material of a sexual nature :roll:

How about a fan led update of the material in Necromantic Arts?

It's fairly easy to ignore the sections that are Glorantha specific and many of the cults can easily be repurposed as more general necromantic cults.

What spells are problematic and should be considered for a update?

 

[alex_greene]

Of course one can do some research into death cultures and death symbolism if one wanted to create a fan-led, or official, book of necromantic arts. Bear in mind that the point of necromancy was always just to obtain information from the dead on what the afterlife was like, on unfinished business, and to commune with various death gods.

Since the more violent forms of ritual sacrifice - avulsion, exsanguination, mortification, scarification - have already gone into Arcania of Legend: Blood Magic you don't need to repeat them in the Necromantic Arts book. This gives you so much more space to look at other aspects of the necromantic arts.

Ideas spring to mind:-

- Death Gods
- Psychopomps: Spirits of Death, and Death His Own Self (Grim Reapers and Lesser Reapers)
- The Underworlds: Journeys There and Back (Don't look back!)
- Death Cults (Divine, Sorcerous, Shamanic)
- Evoking and Invoking the Dead: Seances and Raising the Undead
- Undeath: the state of suspension between the worlds of the living and the dying, from Skeletons through Vampires and Liches
- Haunting and Ghosts

I know you've covered zombies, vampires, ghouls and haunts already; but as a book of necromantic arts, you can branch out and expand on what has already been covered, to get a more detailed look at the undead. If you only need undead as monsters to fight in a crypt in a standard dungeon crawl, use Monsters of Legend and Spirit Magic of Legend. To use the undead as major, complex villains or even - in some cases - as player characters, Necromantic Arts.

 

[Prime_Evil]

I would like to see some expansion in the area of undead spirits - ghosts, wraiths, specters, and the like. The rules in Spirit Magic touch on these from the perspective of practitioners of this style of magic, but they don't really address how they interact with mortals.

 

[Olaus Petrus]

I would like to see some expansion in the area of undead spirits - ghosts, wraiths, specters, and the like. The rules in Spirit Magic touch on these from the perspective of practitioners of this style of magic, but they don't really address how they interact with mortals.

I agreew with this sentiment. I also would like to see more ways for wizards and clerics to interact with spirits in general. Currently it's bit difficult to interact with most spirits unless there's a shaman in the party, while in Sword and Sorcery it's rather common that mages can summon ancient spirits of Atlantean wizards etc.

 

[Prime_Evil]

Ideas spring to mind:-

- Death Gods
- Psychopomps: Spirits of Death, and Death His Own Self (Grim Reapers and Lesser Reapers)
- The Underworlds: Journeys There and Back (Don't look back!)
- Death Cults (Divine, Sorcerous, Shamanic)
- Evoking and Invoking the Dead: Seances and Raising the Undead
- Undeath: the state of suspension between the worlds of the living and the dying, from Skeletons through Vampires and Liches
- Haunting and Ghosts

I love the idea of covering psychopomps and mythic journeys into the realms of the dead. These are both missing from the MRQ II Necromantic Arts book.

 

[hanszurcher]

I'd like to see the madness system re-spun. Looking over Taint and Sanity by Super Genius Games again, I think I prefer the d100 approach over NecroArts method of accruing Insanity points. The section should also be expanded.

Also, I've yet to find someone who has actually used this rules option. BRP sanity has had decades of play-testing.