Imagine, if you will, an alternate version of Earth.
March 13th, 1921. A small island begins to form in the center of the Atlantic Ocean.
August 28th, 1928. The Island has been growing at an immense rate but has since stagnated. It is roughly the size of Texas. Life has been evolving on it at an extreme rate and many new species have been discovered.
December 31st, 1931. The plant and animal life on the Island has grown increasingly violent and dangerous with each passing day. It has been dubbed "Zorn" by the German explorers who first lost their lives there.
March 14th, 1936. Strange ruins have been unearthed deep in Zorn, yet it continues to grow more dangerous. Rumors talk of strange "Magik" affecting the explorers.
January 1st, 1938. The world believes that Zorn holds something powerful and unknown. It has never been more dangerous, yet global powers continue funding private expeditions in hopes of finding something that will give them an edge in the upcoming war.
This is the world of Zorn.
Players can expect their characters to delve into ancient ruins, explore uncharted jungles, tempt fate with cursed magic and strange artifacts, and hopefully not die or go insane in the process.
Mechanical Changes
Attributes: I want to try something different with this. May get changed if it turns out to suck, but I'd like to decentralize modifiers as much as possible. I'm thinking I'll change the modifier spread to: - 1-3 is a -2
- 4-7 is a -1
- 8-13 is no modifier
- 14-17 is a +1
- 18-21 is a +2
- And so on, but an 18 is still the maximum for a normal human.
In addition, I want to use the modifiers for more abstract things, for instance, movement speed. Going to end up fiddling with these values for a while though, so I'll leave the rest out until I figure it out.
Actions: Like some of these other changes, I noticed that I liked a lot of Pathfinder 2nd additions and want to try them out. In this case, the action economy. Characters get two actions that they can spend on movement or more typical action-based things. They can spend two actions to dash if they want to forgo an attack or two actions to attack if they want to forgo movement or any other inherent combination with their other actions.
Fortune: Since this is a pulp setting, I want players to occasionally be able to do cool things or survive nearly impossible situations. In order to add just enough occasional survivability for this, I plan to add a framework for a stat similar to how luck works in DCC. I'm still debating whether to use it as a pool or a stat or some amalgamation of both, but I think it'll be useful for my purposes. It goes down with use and is refilled by one point at the beginning of every session and also by participating in your character flaws.
Cooking: Inspired by the
Monster Menu-All, I think all of the unique monsters of Zorn will be uniquely dangerous to eat. Some may kill you for a tasting of their flesh, and some may simply horribly mutate you, for better or worse. To better facilitate this, I'm probably going to throw in a couple mechanics related to investigating food, cooking, and gaining mutations. Maybe even a Chef class?
Races: Obviously the normal GLOG races set up won't apply to 1940s Earth, so I plan to replace it with a background system. For instance, someone who was a chef before joining the "Gold Rush" of Zorn, might get a second roll for their dex (or perhaps int or cha, this is just an example), get a -1 bonus to investigating ingredients, and a character flaw for eating unknown foods. I've detailed a bit more on this system
here.
Flaws: I want Zorn to focus a lot on character development, why is your character adventuring here despite the danger? How do they handle the stress? I wanted a system that would reward players for roleplaying this out and I came up with this.
Flaws are small roleplaying tidbits that are (usually) actively negative to engage in, addictions, bad habits, etc. Engaging in your flaw in a way that causes some kind of complication to the party recharges your Fortune a little bit (usually one point). Every character starts out with a character flaw based on their background (or maybe I'll just make it a separate table), character flaws can be ignored without any detriment (besides finding it harder to refill your fortune). Insanity Flaws are different, flaws gained through poor trauma rolls still give you Fortune for participating in them, but are detrimental to ignore. At the end of every session, lose one point of fortune for every insanity flaw ignored. Gaining an Insanity Flaw also lowers your Charisma by one point.
Level Zero and a Funnel: I've always loved the concept of funnel adventures in DCC. For the uninitiated, characters in DCC start out as levelless commoners with as much durability and power as a piece of soggy toilet paper. Players get four of these expendable characters each and head into a level one dungeon, hopefully coming out of it with only one or two survivors each who then level up. I've always been curious about more diegetic and narrative forms of advancement, and this is a good way to do that. Plus it allows me to explain how the player characters got a hold of cultist magic or became a skilled fighter for their class. For the GLOG adaptation, I'm thinking level zeros get:
- HP is Con-6, Minimum 0.
- Attack Bonus 0
- No class templates (in case it wasn't obvious)
Equipment: Being 1940s Earth, I need to update the equipment list a bit, as well as adding guns and some balancing factors around those. Think I'll probably add some similar gun rules to the ones in Stars Without Number Revised, as they make Firearms and Melee Weapons meaningfully different.
Survival Mechanics: Being a mostly wilderness-based setting, I wanted more rules to make it deadlier and at least marginally more intricate. So I wrote them.
Classes: as with equipment, I'm going to have to reskin some of the original GLOG classes, as well as coming up with a variety of my own. Wizards will likely be flavored as cultists. I also think I'm going to change leveling from GP as XP to SP as XP. should make it a little more exciting when you do actually find gold, but silver is the standard.
Destiny Templates: As mentioned earlier, I like the concept of diegetic advancement, and this is another improvement for its sake. At 5th level, rather than retiring your character to a life of enjoying their gathered riches, you may instead gain a Destiny Template. This is like a class template, however, there is only one level and it's requirements are narrative-based, it also adds guidelines to your retirement (not everyone gets a happy ending). For Instance:
The Insane
(Prerequisite, survive 5 Insanity Flaws)
Life on Zorn has irreversibly corrupted your very mind and soul, burning pathways into powers that you didn't know you had. Your Charisma can no longer be lowered or raised. You gain one SD (usable as a 1st Level
Sorcerer)
Retirement: Even if you ultimately survive your trip to Zorn and return rich, you will no longer be accepted by society. Perhaps you live as a reclusive hermit, remembered as a terrifying legend by any who discover you. Perhaps you retire, chained up in some psych ward somewhere after being captured. Point being, you have been abandoned by society.
I think those are all the major changes I'm making to the system for this setting. Honestly really excited to see how this all turns out in the end.
DM Resources
Gary Gygax '75 Challenge
