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PostPosted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 3:32 am 
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Hey,

Found this on an old HD. It's the follow-up article to my first piece in Ordo Draconis issue 2.

It was slated for printing in Ordo Draconis issue 3, which was to have a steppes/nomads feel to it, but for various depressing reasons was never published.

Apologies for the sketch art - left it in, but it was originally just for a proper artist to use as a guide. Also, no real page formatting beyond the basics.

Anyway, you get 5 steppes-themed monsters, plenty of adventure seeds, and, as a bonus, finally a DW style encounter table for steppes/grasslands/flatlands etc.


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File comment: Originally for publication in Ordo Draconis issue 3 (which itself was never published)
Codex Cryptozoologica II.pdf [661.15 KiB]
Downloaded 722 times

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PostPosted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 1:22 pm 
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Very nice.

There was a quite detailed Steppes Adventure/Gazeteer for the steppes as well which I think was also going in OD3...I have a copy but I dont recall who the author is so I'm loathe to share it.

With a little work and your material we'd be pretty close to a Mini-region book for the Steppes.

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PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2016 9:26 pm 
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OK. Found my mini adventures for the Khanate regions.

I'll try and find that other stuff. If we can find the Mongolian/Khanate material and get permission from Stephen Dove to use it we have a Khanate ebook pretty much good to go at this point.


https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UBgPMp97TVXdM2YFqtMBkfVIscuFX6fODyz_ht9JYgo/edit







Along The Way....... By Damian May.

The below scenarios are most correctly situated on the southern edge of the Steppes between Opalar and Khitai.



Well, Well, Well.......

A great lake dominates the valley of Toza-Suv, a legend states that once long ago a great city stood there; its inhabitants kept watered in the parched environment by three ever-flowing wells.

Local legends disagree about what happened but through chance or misadventure the capstone of one of the wells was dislodged and the city was drowned overnight.

Bad luck for the inhabitants, if they ever actually existed, but good luck for the migratory folk who feed and water their animals in the lush valley......except this year.

This year when the herders arrived the lake was almost half its normal size and far from the shore out in the middle of the lake strange ruins thrust above the waterline, some of the men have taken coracles out to the ruins and returned with strange pots and ceramic ware. Those that tarried after dark have not come back at all......

The Truth

There were once three wells erected here at the centre of a city, some say they were dug by an ancient man who walked out of a crack in the mountains, others that the khan who once ruled over this region was owed a favour by an ancient being known as Saak-natha.

The Khan was told that each well must be covered with a lid inscribed with powerful glyphs so that the water would be contained and not run out to flood the valley. Traditionally the young couples of the city would pray before the wells in turn to gain luck for their marriage. Whilst the khans son and his betrothed were praying a jealous rival struck and killed the young woman, she fell forwards and her body knocked the lid of the well out of alignment.

In the uproar that followed and the mourning that the town was plunged into nobody noticed the wellhead was not properly attached.

During the dark hours water flowed out, at first a trickle, then a stream, a torrent, a lake...drowning the town and many of its sleeping inhabitants.

The misaligned well-head has kept the lake topped up for the last millenia but time and happenstance combined to nudge the lid back into place and the flow has stopped.

To make matters worse the spirit of the murdered woman has been trapped at the bottom of the lake all this time and has absorbed the magics of the wells until she is now a very powerful and angry Wraith.

It is a simple task to knock the lid back out of alignment and allow the lake to refill however there are a number of problems:

1) The wells are actually buried under the mud and and about 1m below the new water level; anyone able to detect magical auras will locate them fairly easily but the city is large and it will still take some hours of searching.

2) There are numerous crumbling buildings and indeed some of them may well hold temptations for the avaricious in the form of golden figurines or opal and turquoise jewellry. ( Assume 1-10 florins worth for every hour of searching).

3) During the day the area is fairly safe, but for every hour spent searching roll once on the table below:

1-3- Harmless but alarming large fish, turtle or amphibian will create a disturbance.
4- A large eel. ( As Python)
5- A Mud Wyrm. ( see Corebook)
6- The Wraith ( only after dark). The Wraith has the maximum number of hp possible.

Misaligning the lid will quickly restore the lake to normal and the nomads will be extremely happy presenting the companions with horses, weapons and furs.

If the Wraiths bones can be found and reburied on dry ground she will be laid to rest but this will take many days of excavations.

If the lid is somehow destroyed or removed altogether there will be a flood of ‘biblical’ proportions and the entire valley will be flooded, water will wash out over the steppes and in a decade a large area of marshland will be established. Needless to say this would be a way to make an enormous number of enemies; trade routes will be eroded, grazing land destroyed, sacred sites inundated.......


Seven Bulls for Seven Brothers....

The companions come across a pleasant grass covered ridgeline dotted with seven massive red hued boulders. There is a cool stream and it seems a protected area where a camp could be established. When the characters wake the next morning, assuming there is no guard posted, there is a massive red hued boulder next to their camp, looking about the others have also shifted position over-night.

If a guard is posted he will be unable to see anything due to the darkness but there are sounds of movement on the slopes and if he ventures out he will run into one of the boulders, in a place he did not expect, the boulder will move away silently; seemingly not noticing.

A local herder, if asked, will relate the story below:

In the ancient past a khan ruled the region from his hilltop temple-palace, his wealth was in his herds of great red-furred cattle larger than a hay cart. This massive herd of aurochs was divided between his seven sons so that they would not feel that any had been favoured more than his brother; but seven of the yearlings were lost and could not be found. The seven peoples of the Ochre Bull lived peacefully for many years until there came news from the north that seven truly enormous bulls had entered the area. The brothers knew at once that these seven must be the missing yearlings, and they rushed to capture them for themselves; some amongst them counselled that they should be shared one-apiece but others sought to claim all seven.

War broke out; family ties were broken and a tide of blood threatened to destroy all.

An old man appeared one day with hair dyed vivid blue and the eyes of a wolf in his wrinkled face; he chanted and drummed for many nights and then the seven mighty aurochs bulls were transformed from flesh to unyielding stone.

With no prize to fight over the warring families eventually returned to peaceful relations and the valley below the ridge where so many had died was declared a place of the spirits and no one walked there.

In the centuries that have since past the families herds were bred with outside bloodlines and they have dwindled in size and are now only slightly larger than the cattle farmed in Coradia and similar regions.

The old shamans spell was not perfect however; and when the new moon is in the sky the stone bulls become flesh again and roam about as they did in life until the sun rises again.

Truly avaricious or stupid characters may wish to attack and kill these creatures when they are animate;

The Aurochs of Ochre Ridge

( Stats as Minotaur but with an AF of 5 from their semi-rocklike state)

If the blood from the Aurochs is drained and kept it will transform into ruby when the sun rises.
This amount of rubies is approximately 250-300 florins worth.*

Slaughtering one of the Aurochs will be seen as an act of war on the the Seven Peoples, three of the families have strong relations with the Black Pavillion and it is fair to say that unless the companions are extremely powerful or able to make amends in some way they will soon be very, very dead.

* Unknown to the characters these rubies will transform back into hot, fresh bulls blood when the new moon is again in the sky, and then back to rubies the next morning.......not that that helps the noble woman who was wearing them at court the night before.


A June Wedding.....

A high pass cuts across the mountains that border the southern steppes, in the ancient past during the summer gathering large groups of nomad maidens would ascend the mountain to gather wildflowers from the high meadows; before their ascent the oldest shaman would bless them. But one summer the eldest shaman passed away and a group of thirty girls unwilling to wait for the funeral rites to be performed set out for the meadow. Distracted by the preparations the shamans successor did not remember to set a blessing over the maidens.

As they climbed a sudden chill swept in and a snowstorm blew up out of nowhere, the group was trapped by the blizzard. They apparently froze to death on the pass and when their people ascended to search for them no trace could be found.

No one uses the pass now despite its usefulness, travellers have been found frozen to death in the middle of spring and no nomad will step foot upon it.

If someone does use the path all is well until they reach the zenith; suddenly the weather turns icy cold regardless of the season, snow flurries begin to blow across the path and slowly the forms of young women can be seen in the eddies and whirls of wind and snowflakes.

The young women are, despite all evidence to the contrary, not undead but have been taken as brides by an ancient and powerful yeti and they remain trapped in the creatures eternally frozen dwelling.

The brides themselves are only able to touch the material world momentarily, but their touch is deadly while they are bound to the Yetis home. ( Treat as a MA of 18, Dam: 4d6.)

If the girls are ‘attacked’ even though they cannot be truly harmed in their current state except by magic, the angry ‘husband’ will materialize out of the blizzard and defend them.

Ancient Yeti

As Yeti ( but add +3 to all Attributes and 40 hp).

As the Yeti is wounded more and more of the girls will re-materialise in the mortal world falling to the ground as they appear ( 1 for each hp lost) until all 30 have been returned. At this point two of the young women will struggle to their feet and run over, screaming for the companions to cease their attack.

If they refuse and slay the Yeti the sun will suddenly come out and bathe the path in light and warmth......the two women will be inconsolable and will beat their thighs and tear out their hair over the spot where the creatures body vanished; raking the companions with their nails and swearing vengeance upon them.

If the companions acquiesce the two women will put their arms around the beast and lift it to its feet; they again become chill and ephemeral beings when they touch the Yeti and then all three will vanish into the snow. The storm will soon abate and the other young women will come over and see if their rescuers are well; unless the companions attacked the ‘spirit-women’ with magic and injured or killed some of them, if so the women will call them murderers and scum and walk down the mountain without another word.

The women will, if asked, explain that the Yeti had always treated them kindly and that their bondage seemed a matter of months rather than centuries, over that time two of them came to truly love their captor and it was they who returned into the storm with him.

These women have been missing from the world for 400 years, luckily life on the steppe is fairly unchanging and they will soon adapt and prosper; being greatly sought after as brides blessed by the mountain and as shaman apprentices.


Rock the Cradle of Love

The Crying Mountain is formed of two great up-thurst peaks split by a small stream whose waters are icy cold. There is a rock slab jammed horizontally between the two walls and suspended above the stream. This strange formation is known as the Stone Cradle and infertile women and those afflicted with illnesses are brought to the Cradle in the hours of darkness and left with the old shaman who dwells there. This has been the practice for longer than anyone remembers, but last month everything changed.

A young man afflicted with a wasting disease sat through the night with the shaman praying to the guardian spirit of the mountain; just before dawn the young man saw the mountains spirit drinking from the stream in the form of a young white-furred camel, it looked up at him and became a beautiful young woman in that instant he was both cured and cursed with desire to possess that eternal beauty.

The shaman is at his wits end, he cannot leave the cradle unprotected but the young man has disappeared up the mountain attempting to locate where the mountain spirit dwells. The shaman is aware that there are a number of powerful and dangerous beings which dwell on the twin mountains and he wants the boy found and brought down before he gets himself killed or disturbs things best left resting.

He hangs talismans about their necks and wishes them luck.

Tracking the lad is difficult over the rocky terrain.

Points of interest on the mountain.

1) A pair of Gryphons lair on the southern peak, they will not attack immediately if they notice the talismans but have no time for humans and their patience is short lived if they are not left alone.

2) A great brown bear hibernates in a cave on the eastern slope; it is restless and will react angrily if disturbed.

3) A stand of birch trees sacred to the God of abundance and good life, these trees are protected by a Yer Su ( As Jack in the Green).

4) The Sacred Cleft; this deep crevasse in the rock is filled with massive quartz crystals and it is the home of the mountains spirit. Damage to the crystals will disrupt the healing properties of the cradle and lay a MA 34 curse upon the vandal. Those cursed must roll once a week on the Disease table, they may suffer from cumulative affects of this curse.

5) The Moon Pool; this clear spring is about halfway up the western slope; it is here that the young man will be found sitting dazed by the waters edge. The pool is sacred to the moon goddess and by drinking its waters he has taken her feminine essence within himself. His body has changed and now his body and mind are both male and female at once. The companions may escort their quarry down without a struggle.

When he is delivered safely to the shaman the old man is delighted and tells the youngster that those like himself are fated to become powerful shamans.

Assuming that the companions have not desecrated any sacred spaces they are free to leave with the Shamans blessing and 1d6 small iron talismans that act as potions.

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co-author Fury of the Deep
co-author Friends or Foes
co-author Dragon Warriors Players Guide
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co-author Cadaver Draconis
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 09, 2016 10:57 pm 
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That is impressive!

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PostPosted: Sun Sep 11, 2016 3:08 am 
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Looks like we have Stephen Dove on board and a very nice steppes travelogue. Still waiting to hear from Cameron Smith about the scenario of his.

But we're looking good I think.

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PostPosted: Mon Sep 12, 2016 3:33 am 
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And moving ahead we now have access to all the Khanates stuff that was written for OD3....now I just need to contact all the authors to get their permission, do some editing, collate individual documents then put everything together....this will be another long termer but at least it is about 90% written. :)

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PostPosted: Mon Sep 19, 2016 11:55 pm 
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I have some rules for the Steppes Shaman that I originally developed for OD3 - do you already have access to those or should I post them here (or to some other location)?


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PostPosted: Tue Sep 20, 2016 3:10 am 
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wimlach wrote:
I have some rules for the Steppes Shaman that I originally developed for OD3 - do you already have access to those or should I post them here (or to some other location)?


I believe I have. Ok to post them to a combined gdoc? :)

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PostPosted: Tue Sep 20, 2016 5:53 pm 
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Damian May wrote:
wimlach wrote:
I have some rules for the Steppes Shaman that I originally developed for OD3 - do you already have access to those or should I post them here (or to some other location)?


I believe I have. Ok to post them to a combined gdoc? :)


Sure, would be good to confirm it's the latest, and check if there are any adjustments necessary since it was first drafted.


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PostPosted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 10:59 am 
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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UBg ... 9JYgo/edit

OK, Khanates Ebook is here.

So far it contains The Bestiary, Along the Way and the Steppes Shaman. Still need to format stuff and I'll move more across as folks give permission...looks like we've got well over 100 pages of text assuming everyones on board. :)

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