Binding Books for Tekumel/Create Your Own Yozi

Here's a system-agnostic way to create your own demons for Tekumel. Because someone pointed out that The Book of Ebon Bindings only has Change demons, and not Stability demons...
And I thought of a series of interlinked random tables.

Step one: Pick Stasis/Stability or Enthropy/Change. Or toss a coin. If you have Stasis, add "a" to the number of the tables. Enthropy means you add a "b". 

Step two,optional: Do you want to decide a god in advance or not? If yes, roll on table 1. 

1a: Roll 1d10, or 2d10 pick higher/lower.

1. Hruu
2. Wuru
3. Vimuhla
4. Chiteng
5. Ksarul
6. Gruganu
7. Sarku
8. Durritlámish
9. Dlamelish
10. Hriháyal

1b: Roll 1d10, or 2d10 pick higher/lower.

1. Hnalla
2. Dra
3. Karakan
4. Chegarra
5. Thumis
6. Ketengku
7. Belkhanu
8. Qon
9. Avanthe
10. Dilinala

Or, you know...just decide whether you want a Cohort or a main god/dess, and roll 1d5 on table 1C (c for Common, it applies to both stability and change).

1-Authority and Rulership (the "boss" of the pantheon)

2-War and Violence

3-Wisdom, especially occult

4-Death and Afterlife

5-Sex and Family

Either way, if you have chosen a god or goddess already, when you'd roll the other tables, only pick results that "fit". A courtesan might not be the best option for Sarku (or at least I prefer not to imagine it).

Step 3: Pick the basics of your demon. Roll on table 2. 

2a - roll 1d24 or a 1d100

1. Warrior (1-5)
2. Scholar (6-10)
3. Priest (11-13)
4. Maiden (14-15)
5. Slave (16)
6. Pe Choi or other "friendly" race (17)
7. Unfriendly race or extraterrestrial menace (18)
8. Grazing beast (19-23)
9. Predator (24-26)
10. Earthly predator (27)
11. Earthly vegetarian beast, likely horned and/or of great mass (28)
12. Marsupial (29)
13. Bird with great speed or strength (30-33)
14. Bird of prey (34-38)
15. Lizard-analogue (39-40)
16. Frog-analogue (41-42)
17. Invertebrate considered useful (ex: eatable mollusque, a scarab that must eat the body of the deceased in order to guarantee the ascension of the soul 43-45)
18. Colony-based Insect (46-50)
19. Construct, humanoid (51-54)
20. Plant (55-60)
21. Fungi (61-62)
22. Animated item (63-69)
23. Geographic location (a big boulder, a forest 70-75)
24. Roll twice and combine (ignore this result if you roll it again, 76-100).

Table 2b. Roll 1d66 (2d6 of different colour, giving you a result between 11 and 66).

1. Roll once more 2
2. Roll twice more
3. Roll 3 times more
4. Warrior, probably berserk-like or mounted
5. Scholar, likely mad or extremely methodic
6. Priest
7. Courtesan
8. Vacchan
9. Slave
10. Dark-clad Assassin
11. Non-human Tekumelian race
12. Enraged, stampeding grazing beast
13. Stalking predator
14. Corpse-eating beast
15. Bird of prey
16. Carrion-eating bird
17. Snake-analogue
18. Lizard-analogue
19. Frog-analogue
20. Horned beast
21. Fish
22. Worm
23. Other invertebrate, likely considered harmful
24. Carnivorous plant
25. Fungi
26. Algae or jellyfish
27. Spider
28. Scorpion
29. Poisonous or corpse-eating insect
30. Construct, non-human looking
31. Undead
32. Animated item, likely not man-made: Stone, sand, diamond
33. Incarnation of a disaster (hurricane)
34. Animated geographic feature (forest)
35. A hive, swarm or pack with one mind
36. Ethereal presence

Now combine all results you got, if you have more than one, and go to the next step. 

Step 4: Roll on table 3. 

Add an elemental condition to your demon. This is a guideline-only and the "element" doesn't need to be presented! 

A Wind demon might be fully material, but flying...or it might be the wind itself (the scourging wind, for Change demons). It might be watery, or command water (salty water, for Change demons). 

Table 3a (I let it to you to guess which die to roll...or you can roll 1d100).

1. None 1-44
2. Light 45-52
3. Air 53-60
4. Water 61-68
5. Earth 69-76
6. Gold 77-84
7. Steel 85-92
8. Shadow 93-100

Table 3b. Roll 1d20 or 1d100...seriously, you don't need me to write that out!

1. None
2. Fire
3. Wind
4. Water
5. Earth
6. Gold
7. Steel
8. Brass
9. Darkness
10. Beast
11. Poison
12. Smoke
13. Blood
14. Acid
15. Salts
16. Thunder
17. Electricity
18. Shadow
19. Void
20. Flesh

Step 5:  Combine them into a narrative description that fits.

Step 6: Consider which god or goddess said demon is most likely to serve (note: a "slave" demon likely has no free will and you might want to roll on Table 1).

Step 7: Decide what said demon's goals, needs and wants, dislikes, hates and quirks are. Demons often reflect the identity of the god/dess they serve.

Step 8: Decide on a binding ritual. The type and element should help you, but it should be costly, require precision and sacrifice - or it doesn't count...

Also remember, no demon works for free. The personality should help you devise a suitable payment.

So, how does it work?

Well, you start with Step 1, and pick a pantheon. Let's say you got Stability.

Then you roll 100, double, and get "maiden" and "plant" on the results. You roll "gold".

Your demon is a plant girl, walking on feet of greenery, that leaves golden nuggets in her footsteps. I decide she's an Avanthe demon that aims to preserve the crops and reward the good farmers.

Too bad you need to boil gold in a pot of ironwood and pour it on a still-living flower so you get the golden flower. You need to arrange enough of those to make a nice arrangement, while reciting the magical formula.

If you fail to do a nice one, the demon appears, but smashes the arrangement and takes the caster away for uses best left unmentioned.

Oh, and you know why this has the Exalted tag? It also works for demons of the 2nd and 3rd circle, or even new Yozis!

Have fun!

A.

Reading Sorcerer RPG: does it work as a manual for simulationist GMs?

I purchased recently Sorcerer RPG by +Ron Edwards from Adept press. It was in a Bundle of Holding, or I might not have bothered.
Then I started reading and went "wow" (not as in the notorious MMORPG - it was more of "wow, that's what I'm trying to tell my friends - the ones I'm teaching GMing"). Because, well, that's what I call Simulationist play. As in, "pretend to be the character to the point that you only bother with what the character is thinking - no story arcs, no pre-planned plots, no nothing".
And that's almost word-for-word what +Ron Edwards is advising you to do as part of his "Narrativist" game. Even more, that's THE game for narrativist players - AFAICT, storygames started with it!
Still, so far, I only disagree with one sentence in his advice. "Don't play the setting". Well, no, you can't do that if you need to play the NPCs...because the setting is an NPC, too (just like any other organisation)! But that's ONE sentence.
I usually disagree with half the GMing chapter in "traditional" games. Seriously, guys... ONE sentence? That might as well be written by me (no, I'm NOT claiming credit-I discovered my current GMing style long after Sorcerer has been written. I just haven't read it, for various reasons that are kinda besides the point).
And then I remembered that the OSR advice has similar points, where I'm nodding my head in agreement.
The only other games where I agree with the GMing chapter to such an extent? Atomic Highway, Fates Worse Than Death, Crimson Exodus/Fantasy Dice RPG, Legends of the Wulin, Apocalypse World/Monsterhearts. Runequest 6 also comes close. But that's not even 10% of the games I own...
Still, all of these games are from wildly differing "schools". Seems like good GMing is good GMing, no matter who's doing it. (Well, if it's "open-ended" GMing, at least. I've run games that were going against this, and the players were still happy. So it might be called "good" GMing - although I'd consider my current style to be far superior both in terms of simulation and in terms of story - but it would be wildly different).
Just food for thought.

And in the meantime, I purchased the Sorcerer supplements, and I'm looking into other games by the same author, too. He's got a KS campaign for his "S/Lay w/ Me" game (which I discovered the day after buying the PDF). Of course, I'm now a backer.
The only other KS I'm currently backing is the one by +Levi Kornelsen for his zombie apocalypse game. But that's another story and should be told in another blog post.

What is the point of RPGs if you had to explain it in a song?

The title says it all.
And here's my answer.

Of course, we don't play RPGs for the same reasons. Just read the Big Purple and you'd realise that rather fast.
So, what would be your answer to the same question?


P.S.: For those not in the know, should any of them ever visit this blog, The Big Purple is a semi-ironic name for the forum of RPG.net.

Books I find inspirational for RPGs

Here's my list of non-RPG books that have influence how I play RPGs. I tried to mention the authors whenever they're known and whenever I can remember them.


Bulgarian folk tales, as well as Persian tales, Japanese, Hindu, Turkish, Russian and assorted other Fairy Tales. Tales of 1001 nights and Brother Grimm's stories deserve special mention, but I've also got the (translated) German tales they based their work on. They immediately reminded me of the Sea Tales book I had read earlier (most of them seemed to originate from the Northern countries).
"The little Mermaid" and everything else by Hans Anderson
Greek legends and myths, The Illiad and Odissey aren't all there is!
The Last Battle of Sandokan, The Last Flibustier, by Emilio Salgari. Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini
Les Trois Musquetaires by Alexandre Dumas (and petty much anything swashbuckling I was able to get my hands on, if it's well-written)
Lord of Light, Amber and pretty much everything by Roger Zelazny. If I don't own it, I've probably at least read it. Same applies for the original REH stories.
Most stories of Jin Yong, if you can find a translation.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong
Many other mythological stories, including some currently designated as "religious". Mahabharata and Ramayana are among my favourites. I actually didn't know they're religious stories for some people when I found them on my mother's shelves.
The Hobbit, and the Silmarilion by JRRT. I like Lord of the Rings much less.
Pretty much anything by H.L.Oldie, but I'm especially fond of their (this is the pen name of two Ukrainian guys) Greek cycle, the Hindu cycle, and the space stories of Luciano Borgotta. If you're seeing a patter, it's because it's there!
Wiedzmin/The Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski (and his next book, which is historical fantasy).
It's hard being a god by the Strugatsky brothers, if I have to single out any of their books. Because it shows how outside help might not be the best for you.
The Grey Mouser and Fafhrd's stories by Leiber, Fritz.
The magic of Volkhavar by Tanith Lee.
The Long War series by Christian Cameron.
The Fencing Teacher and the Captain Alatriste series by Arturo-Perez Reverte.
The Waylender and White Wolf seried by Davidn Gemmell are totally worth reading, too.
"The erotic side of folklore", can't remember the authors (and it's in Bulgarian anyway). But if you think nothing that has to do with sex has a place in a game, consider finding a book like this one and reading it!
Blood and Violence in Early Modern France, by Carroll, Stuart.
The Clash of Civilisations, but mostly by what I consider the author to be getting wrong.
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies and Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond
My manual of Roman law, but I'm sure you can use any manual of Roman Law.
The Gift of Fear by Gavin DeBecker
The Art of Fighting Without Fighting by Geoff Thompson
Street E&E by Marc Macyoung
Balisong Iron Butterfly by Cacoy Boy Hernandez
Chinese boxing, masters and methods
Homo Ludens, by Johan Huizinga (1938)!
Paradoxes of the Defence and Brief Instructions Upon My Paradoxes of the Defence, by Silver, George.
The Flower of Battle, by Fiore dei Liberi
The Mabinogion and the sagas, if you find them. Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Mallory. Beowulf.
For A Fistful Of Dollars, although it's a movie.

And then, there are gamebooks, which deserve special entry because they're stories with systems (at least, most of the good ones).
Fabled Lands, Bloodsword, Way of the Tiger, Talisman of Death, Virtual Reality are all series you might be familiar with.
"The Shadows of the Darkness" by Georgi Mindizov (pen name Bob Queen) is a title you're much less likely to know. However, it introduced a system of styles that "trumped" each other. "The Dragon Road", by the same author (different pen name), had sandbox elements like those I saw much later in Fabled Lands.
So, yeah, the gamebooks from back then introduced me to a lot of mechanical and setting concepts I saw in RPGs much later, up to and including stats as resource pools.


I might edit this post at some point, but fear not, I shall not remove anything!

So, here are my inspirations. What inspires you?
Let me offer you something, dear readers. If you ever write a post on this topic, post a link in the comments and I'd include it in the body of this post (along with your pen name for the blog). The only condition would be for you to post a link to this post as well. Although if I find your list interesting, I might add your link even if you don't post one.