Dwimmers of the Fanhir

The Fanhir have taught their ways for generations in Rhovanion, the vast Wilderlands of eastern Middle-earth. Their name Fanhir means "Cloudmaster" in the tongue of the Sindarin.

Mastery of the Sky and Clouds is the magic they possess and they teach it to few people as they deem their dwimmers secret power that sorcerors would use without wisdom to dominate others.

Few Fanhir are left to pass on their magic. Many died at the end of the Second Age fighting Sauron's dark power. The Third Age still has a few of these secretive wizards left and they still wage war on the Dark Lord.

Here is a short selection of the Fanhir's dwimmers I have created for the Song of Arda One Roll RPG. Hope they inspire you.

[How To] Read Only Game Stuff From This Blog

Here's an RSS feed for game-only stuff from Strange Glyphs. Copy this URL and put it into your news reader of choice. Then it'll be nothing but Wanderer, Traveller, Greyhawk, Pathfinder and BRP... and whatever else Kevin contributes to the blog. :)

Excelsior!

[Debian GNU/Linux] Epiphany Slowness - solution found!

My tumblr-hosted technical blog appears to have disappeared into the aether, so I'm going to be posting more non-gaming stuff here. If you're into gaming posts only, you'll want to read only the material with the RPGBloggers label. That'll keep you on top of my gaming strangeness.

My laptop runs Debian GNU/Linux. With the latest update, my favorite web-browser Epiphany is slow as a goat on the initial load of a web page from a given domain. Once we get the PAINFULLY SLOW first page loaded up, further requests to that domain load up lickety-split. So, it was looking like a DNS issue...

Tech details after the break!

[Review] Pink Lady Apples

No, this is not a gaming post. I'm trying to remember specifics about which kinds of apples I enjoy. Hence, the creation of these posts about various breeds of apple and how they make my mouth feel. You can skip this if you're not into food like I am.

However, the format for this post will mirror other review-style for future posts. Each review will consist of 5 categories, and each category gets a grade from 0 - 20. Total review metric is the summation of all the category's scores. Dig it...

[LotR] Song of Arda - A Dwimmer & An Enchantment

Well, I can't wait for Cubicle 7's new Hobbit RPG. I'm in the process of using the One Roll Engine (ORE for short) for playing in Middle-earth. I'm calling it "Song of Arda." Not original, I know, but I like it.

ORE is the same ruleset for REIGN and Wild Talents and Nemesis, among a couple of others too.

This post is specifically about MAGIC. I'm using 4 types of magic, all using the same rules from Wild Talents Miracle creation. Each has a slightly different flavor and power level. These are lifted from other LotR rpg's out there.

Spell-craft & Spells: lower-powered, more personal magic.
Dwimmer-craft & Dwimmers: more powerful, larger scope.
Enchantment: Even bigger, long lasting too.
Lore-craft & Secrets: Crafting items and stuff usually magical stuff.

So, below are one dwimmer and one enchantment, both Attack magic. Flame of Anor is a dwimmer used by those who serve the Secret Fire as Gandalf does. Fires of Udun is an enchantment and sorcery used by those who serve the Shadow. These have been adapted from the Decipher Lord of the Rings RPG.

I've added some Extras and Flaws. I'll explain some of those in another post. Just wanted to show people what I'm working on.

Flame of Anor (1 Point per die)

This dwimmer, one of the most powerful weapons the Wise have against the Shadow, projects a bolt of white light bright enough to pierce any gloom. The beam harms on the servants of the Enemy – ranging from Nazgul to Orcs – and other evil creatures as well. The bolt does Width+2 in Shock and Killing plus Burn and Daze and can Penetrate 1 HAR. Flames can be extinguished with Coord + Athletics roll. This requires one action to attempt and can be attempted only once each round.

Attack+2: Capacity: Range, Burn +2, Daze +1, Penetration +1, Chants & Gestures -1, Exhaustion -2, Can be Extinguished -1, Direct Feed -2, Only vs. Shadow -1

Fire of Udûn (5 Points per die)

This sorcery calls upon the fearsome power of the underworld, Udûn, to consume in flame every living thing in its path, whether friend or foe. It produces a sphere of fire 30 feet in radius anywhere in Range. Each creature in the area suffers Width+2 Shock and Killing, plus Burn and 3 Area Dice.

Attack: Capacity: Range, Radius +2, Burn +2, Area +3, Traumatic +3, Base Will Cost -4, Direct Feed -2, Exhaustion -2, Chants -1

[MetaGame] How would you stat prehensile hair?

One of the fun aspects of the gaming hobby is getting to translate characters from comics and fiction into game. I read all kinds of comics, and have enjoyed all kinds of supers-oriented games. So, the $50k question: if I were to stat up, say Medusa from the Marvel Universe for an RPG excursion, how would you do it?