Species and Societies out now!

[JRoss]

Species and Societies, available here is a companion Thunderegg Productions' popular book, Character Webs, although either book can be used standalone. This book features systems that allow you to randomly or directly create new species for your games, and a series of kits that convert these species into PC-playable races for six, yes, six different RPG systems!

The book also features a generator for the cultures in which your new species live and a system for simulating the treachery and diplomacy between socieites. As a bonus, we've included a section on creating words and names in various new languages to provide an extra bit of flavor for your games.

We've provided support for The 13th Age Roleplaying Game, Dungeon World, Fate Core, Legend, The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and Traveller. Each of these game systems gets new rules for designing your own playable races. And the book features a new, playable race for each game system!

This book is designed to be printer friendly. In general each section is self-contained and all you need for each sub-system fits on one page.

This book is being offered with a tip jar. I'm very proud of it and I want to make sure that anyone who wants this book can have it, regardless of budget. Feel free to tip if you've got the inclination or spare cash, but I'm more than happy with honest reviews, feedback or publicity. You can comment on our page at http://www.facebook.com/ThundereggProductions. Please spread the word about Thunderegg and what we're doing with these books!

 

[trechriron]

This looks interesting.

Can you give us the skinny on how you create the races in Legend to be "balanced". Does it include Characteristic generation (variable dice)? Is it close to how Legends of Monsters does creature abilities?

Thanks,

 

[JRoss]

I'll post the entirety of the Legend Kit here. You still need the book's opening charts make sense of these results, but the book is PWYW, so you can get it free.

The first step in creating a Legend species is determining the seven characteristics common to all
characters. The characteristics are based on the items from the Advantage and Weakness tables, as well
as the Size table. The characteristics are as follows:
Strong, Weak: Strength
Hardy, Fragile: Constitution
Agile, Clumsy: Dexterity
Quick wits, Dimwitted: Power (mentally read the items as Gifted and Unexceptional)
Smart, Stupid: Intelligence
Charming, Boorish: Charisma
Size table: Size
The characteristics begin at the human baseline. Adjust the characteristic indicated by the species'
Advantage by +1D6 and the Weakness by -1D6. In the case of Size, leave it as is if the result on the Size table was Human. Each step below Human is -1D6 and each step above Human is +1D6. Note that there is no real advantage to having a low SIZ in Legend, so either ignore any change to SIZ or add a new rule that for each D6 of SIZ that your race loses you get to subtract 10% from ranged attacks targeting you.
The maximum rating that a PC can achieve in a characteristic is equal to its beginning maximum
possible (18 in the case of 3D6) plus three. CHA is essentially unlimited for humans, and you may
decide that it is unlimited for all other races, or only for gregarious races and that other races each have a different characteristic that has no maximum value.

Hit Locations are created as follows:
Amorphous: No specific locations.
Elongated: Head, chest and torso only unless limbs are added (like a centipede).
Bipeds: As human.
Quadrupeds and X Limbs: Count up the total number of arms and legs and add 3. This is the number of Hit Locations. When consulting the Hit Points per Location table in the Legend Core Rulebook, for every two more of each limb type than humans have (round up), add 1 to each number in the top row of the Hit Points per Location table for that type of limb only. For instance, a centaur (2 arms and 4 legs) would add 1 to the top row of the table for legs only, since he has the same number of arms as a human.

If you somehow decide to have a being with more than one head, chest or torso, each extra head, chest or torso adds 1 to the numbers in the top row of the Hit Points per Location table for that body part only.

The total number of Hit Locations should be divided by twenty and assigned to a blank hit location
table with each Hit Location having equal odds to be hit as all the other Hit Locations, although the
head should be slightly smaller. If the number doesn't divide evenly, place the first extra point in the Torso Hit Location. Add a second (if any) odd point to the Chest Hit Location. If two more odd points remain, add 1 to each Leg Hit Location, if only one more odd point remains, add it to the Torso Hit Location and so on.

The Adaptation of a species may give it a bonus. If the Adaptation can be represented in-game by either a spell or Heroic Ability found in any Legend book, (and most of them can), then simply represent the Adaptation using that spell or Heroic Ability. If the Adaptation is not well-represented by any abilities in Legends books, simply choose which of the seven characteristics is best represented by the Adaptation and give that characteristic a +3 bonus during character creation. Note that if you (like the author) aren't into fantasy games, the "spells" are perfectly useful as psionic or super powers, or in the case of Adaptations, as simple biological advantages. The ability given to simulate an Adaptation is learned at its lowest listed level of power, and the race gains a +10% bonus to the skill used to activate it. Divine spells are recovered after a night of sleep. As these effects are not truly "spells" they do not come bundled with any other effects or spells, like being part of a wider grimoire.

Legend Species Example
The Turtle-Men are Hardy and Clumsy. Their Adaptation of spiked shells works well as the Bladesharp Common "spell," so I'm assigning them that ability with a +10% bonus. Here is the Turtle-Man race for Legend:
Strength: 3D6
Constitution: 4D6
Size: 2D6+6
Intelligence: 2D6+6
Power: 3D6
Dexterity: 2D6
Charisma: 3D6
Traits: Gain Bladesharp with +10% for Bladesharp only



And there you have it. You roll or select results from one of two tables in the front of the book to get an overview of the species. Then that data plugs into one of several kits for different game systems. For Legend I consulted the main book and Monsters of Legend.