RunePunk Revelations
Hello All,
The time has come to let the proverbial cat out of the bag, so here I stand before you to tell you where we are on things. RunePunk is moving into layout and we’re looking at having a Nov/Dec release, most likely December. During GenCon, we signed on to have RunePunk distributed through Studio2 publishing, though we’ve been in serious talks for quite some time. More news on that to follow.
In the weeks and months leading up to RunePunk’s release, we’ll be revealing more concrete details about the setting to whet your appetite. Some of the items you may find of interest follow:
Races: Five distinct races co-exist in ScatterPoint, the city of RunePunk. They are as follows:
Andari: Once human, they’ve become transformed and now flicker between the planes. They look leaner and more spare than they did before their transformation. For all intents and purposes unaging, they make apt runecasters and can learn to master their powers to be able to do such things as walk through walls or even split into simultaneous forms.
Ferren: Ratlike folk are quite clever with a gift for the mechanical, they are not ostracized in this setting like they are in many others. In fact, they account for the third of the population. Ferren stand about 4′ tall or so and come complete with tails, fur, and claws, though they dress much as any other citizen does.
Humans: Making up the bulk of the population, humans are given a great degree of flexibility in RunePunk and have their own racial edges. To name a few, a human can be a pureblood inventor or runecaster, meaning they descended from some of the more powerful ancient lines, granting them more power or they could have unusual ancestry, meaning Ferren or Malakar blood is in their veins, giving them access to the racial edge tables from which they descended. Yes, some humans make themselves mechanical as they progress and rules exist for that too.
Malakar: The half-caste offspring of Talus – the demon lords – and man. Owing to their demonic heritage, their innate claws are runic in nature and they are able to develop such racial edges as shapechanging, demonic fury, and even wings, to name but a few.
Overwrought: Designed to work in the harsh factory conditions, Overwrought, nicknamed Cogs, are hulking brutes of machine and man powered by runic energies and gearworks. They are stronger and tougher than most but are relegated to the lower rungs of society as most who become Overwrought begin life among the poor or criminal elements of society. They are able to develop such racial edges as built in weaponry, runic cores that self-repair their bodies, and can even become remade, eschewing what remnants of humanity they had to become a true construct.
Racial Edges: Factored into the design from the very beginning, racial edges can differentiate one Andari, Ferren, Malakar, Overwrought, and even Human from another. Some of these were revealed while detailing specific races (see bullet above).
Professional Edges abound in RunePunk with the introduction of branches off of several Arcane Backgrounds into specialties and all new ones such as Retriever, Sellsword, and Merchant to name a few.
New Arcane Backgrounds: New arcane backgrounds to satiate your urge to try something different. These range from runecasters and inventors to shadowpriests.
Demonology: I’ve got to highlight this, though it falls under new powers. A nifty system of handling demons has been developed with specific rules on summoning, banishing, and binding them with a roster of specific demons of each of the five circles. Beware the Chaos Cards!
New Powers, Edges, and Hindrances….all told, when we tallied these up, we came with a count of over a hundred. Yes, you heard correctly. No wonder this thing took so long.
Adventure Generators: Yep, we got ’em. There are five varying adventure generators and they’re keyed into the comprehensive collection of detailed creatures listed in the “bestiary” section of the book.
Random Encounter Tables: In addition to the aforementioned generators, we’ve included several encounter tables appropriate for use in the city district and barrens. Going the extra mile, we’ve fleshed these out a bit to provide variations even within those. For example, should the characters be in the barrens, the GM may determine they’ve encountered Malakar. Looking over the Malakar encounter entry, the GM would then roll another die and it could range from a “civilized” party of sifters all the way to a Malakar war party. In the latter case, details are given on how to randomly generate the composition of said war party, from growlers, soldiers, gargoyles, shaman, and leader.
Race, Place, and Station: Also, there are convenient charts to determine someone’s race, where they are from, and their societal position (referred to as strata in RunePunk.) The place tables are especially useful for GM’s who want to send their characters galavanting about, but want to lay the blame of their evil intent upon random dice rolls.
Plot Point Campaign: Yep, we’ve got one of those too. A sweeping tale that we shan’t go into any detail here. Apologies, but players are rumored to read these boards too. I can say appropriate triggers are clearly noted.
Savage Tales: Over thirty Savage Tales are included in the book if memory serves correctly. These range across the entirety of the city and notes are included on how you can modify them to suit your particular group.
Adventure Hooks: Somewhere around twenty idea snippets you can develop into full on Savage Tales.
Citizens, Denizens, and Whatnot: A whole slew of these are included. Everything you need to run any of the Savage Tales, Plot Points, and anything else found in the Encounter Tables. An example is the inclusion of many of the racial archetypes, such as an Andari Runecaster, Ferren Inventor, or Overwrought Mercenary. These can be tweaked as desired. Additionally, all the new weirdness of creatures beyond humanity’s ken are included, such as scab beetles and toxic cats.
It’s going to be released as both a PDF and a full color hardback.
I’m happy to entertain any questions that may arise after this unveiling. Please post them on this forum thread.
Regards,
Sean
