Short Update/Thoughts on Arden Vul

    I've been running a game of Arden Vul for a while now, since my last Incunabuli group fell apart, and now that we're nearly 20 sessions in, I thought I might dust off the old opinion-machine and write about my thoughts. 

Infernal Growth #2 Post-Session writeup

Second session follows immediately after the first. We were able to go a lot longer, this time, and really get to try out the combat system.against Deiter, who quite nearly killed a few of the Cutters.

As usual, spoilers ahead for the module Internal Growth. I'm running it in the system it was built for, Incunabuli.

Infernal Growth #1 Post-Session Writeup

Originally, I wrote this just for the Incunabuli subreddit, but giving half a thought, might as well put this on the blog, too. 

Incunabuli is a fantastic system. I love every bit of it, and Benton's writing is beautiful and haunting and atmospheric in a way that I wish I had the words to describe. 

Short review/play by play of my group's antics follows, spoilers for the Venture Infernal Growth ahead.

it's on the tip of my tongue

I've been in an AD&D play by post for a couple months now, and it's been a lot of fun.

But, personally, I'm a classless type of girl. I recently masticated WFR 4e, and I think it's really cool, close to the sort of game I like to play.

There was a cool character pack pdf that gave a lot of options to develop one's character. Age, children, zodiac sign, poor hygiene. Really fun stuff. I like that in games.

I tried adapting it to a glog/into the odd-styled game, but something wasn't clicking. Ruleslite games are really fun, but sometimes I don't want simplicity. I like systems to really tie together, and it feels weird to generate pages of family and character bits when the actual game is about 2 pages long.

So what's wrong? What am I missing?

I started running Call of Cthulhu. It's honestly way better than I remembered it. One thing, I think, could really stand to be improved: I like how it really forces you to build up your Investigator, but I think that it's missing that Character Pack that WFR provides. Idk. Maybe I can adapt it.

I was in a car wreck today and the facts of my life flashed before my eyes. I don't want my memes and ideas to die with me so they must be spread. Here's a new idea, a new setting inspired by conversation on Phlox's discord months and months ago. I don't know if anyone did anything else with the ideas, I'll figure it out after I publish this piece of shit.

LICHJAMMER LICHJAMMER LICHJAMMER LICHJAMMER LICHJAMMER

All mages are completely and totally madhouse crazy and are arguably not even human anymore. This is because magic mutates and irradiates the shit out of you. Wizard blood is called orchalicum. It's full of magical radiation and everyone wants it. You can bring shit to life by pumping orchalicum through it. This is how pretty much all Jammers are made. A -jammer suffix denotes some sort of vehicle that traverses through space. THAT'S RIGHT IT'S IN SPACE MOTHERFUCKERS SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE!!!!! Bloodjammers are vampiric, psi-jammers vampiric but for mental powers, spelljammers use spell slots and lichjammers use souls.

 

Wizard skin is contains less magical radiation than orchalicum but is really good at holding magic in. If you want to make spellbooks and scrolls, you'd best get used to flaying your enemies; it's a fact of life.

Wizard brains hold all of the spells and arcane knowledge and memories of the pathetic worm you just defeated, so you better go ahead gobble that shit up if you want to keep ahead of the curve.

Wizard bones are used to make everything else.

All the parts of the wizard stilll contain a bit of will, which makes them slightly immune to other magic. All of the best liches wear the skin of their enemies and have fortified their dungeon-fortresses with the rest of their bodies. Cursed items, however, are bits with a little bit more will than normal, who resent being made into tools to just be wielded. They're also slightly better at repelling other magic.

"But why's it called LICHJAMMER?" I can already hear your pathetic mewling through the screen. It's because all Magic-Users either die of magic cancer when they reach level 9 or they become LICHES!!!! IT'S A CHOICE!!! It's totally up to you!!! EVERYONE PICKS LICH, THOUGH, because OF COURSE THEY DO!!!!!! WHY WOULD YOU CHOOSE TO DIE LIKE A BITCH WHEN YOU CAN RULE FOREVER IN THE HEAVENS!!!!!!!

LICHSPACE IS a crumbling hellsystem fought over by countless liches, worshipped as god-tyrants by however many human survivors they keep in whatever territory they control. MAGIC is more powerful in SPACE because there's no LIFE WASTING IT THERE!!!! Most terrestrial planets have been DESTROYED by EPIC LEVEL SPELLS SO THERE's really only ONE that can NOMINALLY SUPPORT LIFE without ARCANE INTERVENTION

However there's like, four-to-six GAS GIANTS ORBITING around THIS DIM, DUSTY WRECK OF A STAR SYSTEM AND BETWEEN THE LOT OF THEM? Like AT LEAST THREE DOZEN PARTIALLY HABITABLE MOONS WITH EASILY a dozen liches fighting over EACH OF THEM.

It's not ALL totally completely HORRIBLE, though... THERE's gotta be HUNDREDS of HEROIC PLayer-CHARACTER-types flying around the place, ready to turn into GOOD, BENEVOLENT LICHES AS SOON AS THEY HIT THAT MAGICAL LEVEL. I'm sure NOBODY has THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE!!!!

***

Edit 2025-10-05: Dungeonfruit has written up a system that would work very well with LICHJAMMER, albeit with a few alterations, more than one copy of a spell, maybe. Find it here.

The Schoule Master, a GLOG class

Schoule is a bit like a combination of every sport or field game you can think of. Most versions include a point-scoring basket or post of some sort in a central part of each town, and one or more inflated pig’s bladders as balls. It is often played on Feast days or if the weather is fair during the fallow season.
The Schoule Master takes it way too seriously. You train all year for the chance to show the surrounding villages the true meaning of pain.

Backgrounds: Bully, Blacksmith, Distracted Scholar

Starting Equipment: Schouleball, a set of custom shoulder pads and helmet (as leather), and a long pole, staff, bat, racquet or glove.

A: Like A Greased Pig, Rally
B: Catfall
C: An Unstoppable Object
D: Tactics, Encourage

+1 to Movement and +1 to hit with Ranged attacks every template
A: Like a Greased Pig
You have Advantage to escape grapples from opponents. 
A: Rally
You can trigger an impromptu game of Schoule by throwing your ball in the air. Intelligent creatures must Save or join in. Especially sporty or competitive creatures automatically fail. 
B: Catfall
You treat falls as if they were 20’ shorter. If you are knocked prone, you can Save to immediately spring to your feet.
C: An Unstoppable Object
If you spend an entire turn moving, you can push through an enemy's space without triggering an attack of opportunity. Add +[level] to Hireling and Follower Morale Saves.
D: Tactics:
Yell some advice at an ally, who may make an additional attack. This uses your action. If your party is made up of multiple Schoule Players, you may use this feature to make your attacks at the same time, choosing who uses which roll.
D: Encourage
Once per day, yell especially effective encouragement, healing your allies for 1d4 HP.

 

from wikipedia

 

 One of my players wanted to play a character "like Jordan Love." So here's a class to play the dungeon-crawling quarterback of your fancy. Heavily inspired by the Tactician from Goblin Guts.

magic the fool

Wizards are deluded -- this has been done before.

Wizards are master convincers.

Thousands of years of groundwork lain to allow spells to be cast easily enough with "magic words" and compenents.

Spells and schools as Points, centers of the universe.

A wizard convinces the entirety of everything that something impossible is actually the center of everything, and logic.

They give their case, showcasing sometimes an object, oftentimes gesture, almost always speak out a summary of their argument.

And everything believes them.

So it happens. A fireball explodes into existence, a girl's skin turns blue, someone disappears.

Magic

Once you Name something, it changes, and you have power over it. It becomes easier to understand in its whole. Simplified. Easy. Spells hate languages and contemplating minds on a visceral level. Those bastards would pull them through their aperture-senses, into their inland empires, mindscapes. Spells are cast as an escape, but a pale copy always remains; the mind is haunted by what was forgotten.

It is said by some, that the universe is folded in on itself, and we are merely its tiny sensory protrusions.

If that is so, then the spells are always free, and our delusions have spread to them. Do they return, or did they never leave?