OpenQuest By Newt Newport With Graham Spearing and Tim Bancroft Art by Simon Bray OpenQuest OpenQuest Credits And to the carriers of the flame Author: Newt Newport Jason Durall, Lawrence Whitaker, Matt Sprange, Bryan Steele, Gareth Hanrahan, Trifletraxor, Nick Middleton. Editor: Graham Spearing Tim Bancroft “The Road Less Travelled” edited by Sacha Radcliffe OpenQuest stands upon the Additional Development: Graham Spearing and Tim Bancroft shoulders of Giants Cover art by Simon Bray It uses the Mongoose Publishing RuneQuest System Resource Document. Maximum thanks to Mongoose Interior art by Simon Bray, pages 1, 4, 6, 10, 20, 22, 29, Publishing for making this document available. 44, 52, 68, 91, 95, 96, 98, 100, 101, 102, 104, 106, 108, 109, 111, 113, 115, 116, 119,137, 141, 145. It also incorperates ideas from previous editions of RuneQuest & Stormbringer released by Chaosium Inc. Maps in Chapters 10 and 11 John Ossoway If you like OpenQuest and want more D100 gaming I Chief Playtester and Evangelist: Neil Ford recommend Playtesters • Chaosium Inc’s Basic Roleplaying system Rob Rundle, Mr C, Elvis, Donald Oddy, John Ruddy, chaosium.com Lynn Yin, Julia Yin, Tom Zunder, Matt Zunder, Reagan , • Mongoose Publishing’s RuneQuest Kevin and all the people who played in the games run at mongoosepublishing.com Furnace and Continuum conventions. Also checkout Sceaptune games who produce Thanks for support and suggestions fine supplements and adventures for D100 games sceaptunegames.co.uk Simon Bray for answering the call for Art, whose work provided much inspiration during the writing process. Further adventures with Graham Spearing for taking the long road with me on this and encouraging me to keep going even when all OpenQuest seemed lost. Please check out the game’s webpage at John Ossoway for creating such stunning maps at the d101games.co.uk/openquest eleventh hour and much advice. For upcoming Adventures, Supplements and free Tom Zunder for suggesting and supporting the idea downloads. that the ‘entire’ game should be OGL. Visit our forums at d101games.co.uk/forum Tim Bancroft for going through the rules with a finely Version 2 released 20th July 2009 tuned eye. All those who post at the ‘The Tavern’, a hot bed of Legal D100 grognards. Your posts and comments over the All text of SimpleQuest is released under the Open years have shaped more than anything what OpenQuest Gaming License (OGL), see back of book. is. Visit gamingtavern.eu The artwork is copyright Simon Bray and may not be used Al, Trifletraxor, Delariad, and anyone who gave such without his permission. good posistive feed back on the draft version of the Layout is copyright D101 Games. game released in August 2007 on Basic Roleplaying Central basicroleplayingcentral.com. If you want to use the Text of game see d101games.co.uk/openquest Newton “the Other Newt” Phillis for boundless for a plain text version of the game. encouragement. The Pdf version of the game is to be found at Gary ‘Evil Gaz’ Bowerbank for ‘Priests and Holy d101game.co.uk/openquest. Warriors, what they do?’ Permission is givne to Freely distribute the Pdf version A big thank you to the Grand Masters of of the game. D100 gaming You may not reditribute printed versions of the game RuneQuest is copyright Issaries INC and is used with Greg Stafford, Steve Perrin, Ray Turney, Steve permission. Henderson, Warren James, Lynn Willis, Charlie Krank, Basic Roleplaying is a Trademark of Chaosium Inc Ken Rolston, Sandy Petersen 2 OpenQuest Casting Spells 45 Contents Spell Traits & Descriptions 45 Chapter 1 Introduction 4 Shamans 52 Spirit Combat 53 Features of the rules 5 What you’ll need to play 6 Chapter 7 The Quest and What this book contains 7 afterwards 54 An example of play 8 Setup: The beginning. 54 Chapter 2 Characters 10 Game play: The middle 54 Resolution: The end 56 What is a Player Character? 10 Opportunities for further Quests 57 Character Generation 10 Sagas 57 Chapter 3 Skills 21 Improving characters 58 The basic skill test. 22 Questing spot rules 59 Difficulty 23 Chapter 8 Divine Magic 64 Opposed Skill Tests 24 Cults 64 Very High Skills 25 Learning Divine Magic 67 Assistance 25 Casting Divine Magic 67 Skill Descriptions 25 Spell Traits & Descriptions 69 Chapter 4 Equipment 29 Divine Magic descriptions 72 In game economics 29 Other aspects of Divine Magic 78 The Equipment lists 30 Chapter 9 Sorcery 79 Chapter 5 Combat 35 Ranks of Sorcery 80 What to expect if you get in a fight 35 Learning Sorcery and basic casting procedure 80 Taking out life insurance 35 Casting Sorcery Spells 80 Summary of combat 36 Chapter 10 Creatures 91 Encounter distance and engaging in combat 36 Plunder 91 Combat Actions 36 The Monster List 94 Reactions 38 The Animal List 123 Two Weapon Use 39 Close Combat skills greater than 100% 39 Chapter 11 The Empire of Ranged Weapons 39 Gatan 126 Damage 40 The Empire of Gatan 126 Natural Weapons 41 History 127 Grappling 41 Gazetteer 129 Chapter 6 Battle Magic 44 Cults 130 Magic Points 44 Chapter 12 The Road Less Learning Battle Magic Casting 44 Travelled 134 Learning Battle Magic Spells 44 OPEN GAME LICENSE 150 3 OpenQuest Chapter 1 Introduction Welcome to a world of adventure! Rurik sights land The wyvern lazily banks, then gains speed as it swoops over the waist of the ship. The dwarven deckhands scatter Rurik the Reckless stands tall at the prow of the dwarven across the main deck, thankful it has missed once more. steamship as it plunges over the waves. He gazes across Rurik watches as it soars into the sky, fascinated by its the grey sea before him, acutely conscious he and his powerful, slender form. It has a green, snake-like body as companions are far from the comforts of home. His long as the ship. Two leathery wings, half way down its youth and inexperience is hidden beneath fine mail armour length, are slightly in front of a pair of powerful legs with and a full metal helm, and at his hip rides his father’s razor sharp talon claws. Its long, serpentine tail ends in a longsword. Besides him, the ship’s Master, Wuzan, stares vicious crown of spikes. through his magic looking glass as the imp-driven paddles Rurik’s trance ends as the wyvern cuts short its circling, of the iron-hulled ‘Black Bess’ drive them towards their doubles back and dives straight towards the group final destination, an uncharted island of which they have standing at the prow! heard only rumours. “Land ahoy!” shouts Wuzan. Rurik’s companions rush So what do you do now? to the fore and push Wuzan aside. The hopes and If this was a novel or a movie we’d be reading or seeing expectations of each are excited by the vision of the what the author or director intends to happen next to black line slowly expanding to take its place across the Rurik and his companions. Perhaps how the dwarfen horizon. captain is snatched up by the wyvern as Rurik, Lura , The slender sorceress, Lura, sees through the mists that Mancala and Abnon come to their senses and prepare shroud the island. She dreams of the ancient and magical to fight the wyvern in a suitably epic battle? But we’re knowledge left behind by the Old Empire, waiting to be not passively reading this in a book or sitting on the sofa claimed. Her quest to become the world’s greatest living watching the screen and thinking ‘I wouldn’t do that!’. sorcerer seems achievable at last. You are sat round a table with three of your friends who Beside her stands Mancala, the illegitimate son of a are taking the roles of Lura, Mancala and Abnon while senator. He clenches his jaw as he gazes upon the land another friend, who is the appointed Games Master, has and fingers the hilt of his sword. Foremost in his mind is just finished describing the dive of the wyvern. This is a the revenge he will soon have upon his father’s murderer, roleplaying game and your Games Master is asking you as a renegade hiding on the island. Behind them, more polite, but still excited stands Abnon, an austere, grey robed priest. His thoughts are only of the evil he must slay and the souls he will save when he steps off the boat into this godless and forsaken land. Rurik’s simple dreams of riches and glory are interrupted by a frustrated screech and the sound of swooping wings. A huge flying reptile dips down and scrapes the starboard hull of the Black Bess with razor sharp talons. It rises again into the sky and a dark green shape that blots out the sun. Rurik turns to face Wuzan. “Dragon?” he asks. “No! A wyvern! Out for food for its young on yonder coast, no doubt,” replies the hardened sea dwarf. He points towards the coastline where forbidding cliffs reach for the sky. Introduction 4 OpenQuest the player, playing the role of Rurik: abilities, which are written down on a character sheet. Otherwise they exist only in the imagination of the player “So what do you do now?” and come to life during the game. How elaborate and How do you answer? That’s for you to decide. Rurik is different from the player this character becomes is up to your character, your alter ego in the game. the player and is the very essence of role-playing. Perhaps.... The Games Master, who is in charge of running the fantasy world and the Non-Player Characters that the Rurik pulls out his sword and steels himself to face the players encounter during their adventures.