The White Worms

Image by Hobobill (negative version of...)

In My Tékumel, the Íto clan uses the chalky hills of the Chákan Range to mark out both the eastern boundary of their lands and also their allegiance to Lord Sárku. Great worms, some with five heads, are carved out of the hillsides beyond the forest boundaries allowing the chalk to show through. (Just like the White Horses that are found in the UK). Some of these White Worms, as they are called, are actually now outside the present boundaries of the clan. At least one is large enough and high enough to be seen from the north-south sákbe road. There are no such worms in the vicinity of the Monastery of the Grey Cloak as that region has long been a stronghold of Lord Thúmis.

Dyson Does it Digitally...

There is a new Character Sheet for "Empire of the Petal Throne" players available over at Dyson's Dodecahedron.  You can see it pictured in the background above (picture from his blog, used w/o permission, but hopefully he won't mind!) Also shown are the original rules for "Empire of the Petal Throne" and two issues of a new publication by James Maliszewski, of Grognardia fame: "The Excellent Traveling Volume". The first issue (now sold out) was rather nice. I'm still waiting on my copy of the second issue. Make sure to order yours soon - he only prints about 200 copies and they go fast!

Dyson's Character Sheet is a PDF download and, as he says, it could be "prettied up". Hopefully, if there is enough interest, he will do just that! :-)

Returning to a Band of Joyous Heroes...

Challenge Tests

Compare Ratings:

Lower ..........................  -1 (min of 2)

Equal ........................... +0

Higher ......................... +1

Double ........................ +2

Triple .......................... +3 (1 AS)

Four Times ................. +4 (2 AS)

Five Times or More .... +5 (2 AS)

AS = Automatic Success

Challenge Resolution:

1)   Each challenge consists of one or more Challenge Rounds (CR).
2)   During each CR both sides roll their dice, looking for successes. A success is any roll of equal or less than their rating, with a roll of ‘6’ always indicating failure. Example: a ‘Body 4’ rating succeeds on a roll of 1-4.
3)   Both sides discard any dice that failed.
4)   If one or both sides have zero dice remaining then consult the Challenge table to determine the result.
5)   If both sides have dice left then steps 2 and 3 are repeated until step 4 applies. Each time they do this is referred to as a Challenge Round (CR). Thus a challenge will always consist of a minimum of one round but may consist of many rounds.

Unopposed Challenges:

Not all challenges are opposed. Many physical challenges, such as forcing open a door, are like this. Unopposed Challenges have a Difficulty Rating (DR) that the character compares his stat against. This is used to modify the challenger’s dice as indicated above (and under the specific challenge). Only the challenger rolls dice, and the degree of success is determined. If the challenger is not successful (ie. an Evenly Matched result is obtained) he may be able to try again, but this depends upon the specific challenge being attempted. Note also that a failed attempt may result in consequences.

Determining Challenge Dice:

1)   Each side always has a base two dice and may never have less than two dice, despite all modifiers.
2)   Compare the Stat Ratings of each side.
3)   Consult the table above, adding or subtracting dice.
4)   There may be additional modifiers depending upon the character’s traits and skills, weapons, armour, etc. These are unique to each challenge.
5)   Sometimes it is possible to receive Automatic Successes (or ‘AS’ on the above table). Each AS dice is set aside each CR as a success without rolling, unless the challenger has only two dice remaining, in which case it is rolled as an ordinary die.
6)   In the case of unopposed challenges, the stat rating of the challenger is compared to the DR of the challenge.
7)  If the DR is many times higher than the challenger’s stat rating it may gain AS dice.