Starting a Lords of Creation Campaign!

I think I've talked about my teen players before... several of them run their own games now, which thrills me, even though I'm only a player in my son's OSRIC game right now.  I ask my son questions about the other games after he plays, and I'm always intrigued:  one runs a game called Tephra, several run mash-ups of different versions of D&D with pieces of other games thrown in, and one runs a rules-loose game he created using The Metamorphica to create characters.  All of them seem to mix genres freely.  It makes me happy see that creativity, and I enjoy hearing my son tell me about their games, even if I'm not playing.

It got me thinking, though, that if they don't care much for genre-specificity, I might be able to run a game of Lords of Creation for them.  Although I've owned it since it first came out, I've only run a few short one-shots; it really didn't fit the TSR mold we were used to.

I decided to give it a try.  On the 26th of April, I started small... just my son and one of his buddies, both high school seniors.  I told them both that rather than roll up characters, they were gonna be themselves.  I had them assign themselves values for Muscle, Speed, Stamina and Mental, but told them nothing higher than a 15 or lower than a 7.  They then traded character sheets, just to provide input to each other.  For Luck, I had them roll 2d10 three times and take the average.

I set the game in early June 2019.  That would make Mike a new college graduate, and Greg, who plans on a three year school, a graduate with one year of work under his belt.  I let them adjust their stats a little to account for the next four years, then had them pick skills based on their college and work plans.

We played several hours, and they both seemed to have fun.  Since I'd told Mike I could run the game for five players (until I was comfortable with the rules,) we planned to play again on Tuesday, the 28th, since they only had a half-day of school. When everyone got to the house, I sent Mike and Greg to the basement to play video games while I ran the same character creation scenario with Jake, Logan and Donald.

I'll write about the two sessions in the near future, but the one thing I wanted to point out now was a real surprise to me:  In spite of all these guys having played in my OD&D and Traveller campaigns, and in each others' games, playing as themselves brought an entirely different vibe to the game!  No matter what I described, or how poorly I described it, it was clear, especially with my son, that the experience was far more visceral now that it was happening to THEM, rather than characters they'd made up.  I had a blast and it seemed like they did too!

Corvis

Lord of the Winter, Master of the Icy Pit, King of the Frozen Waste

Corvis is a member of the Concordat, and is worshipped in Cittá and places dominated by ice, snow or winter.  He appears as a tall gaunt man with pale blue skin, white hair and icy grey eyes.  His symbol is an icicle or a symmetric 6-pointed ice crystal.  He uses a large icicle as a weapon to stab with, or as a wand to cast ice-related spells.

Corvis is neutral.

Clerics of Corvis may wield clubs, maces, daggers, or throwing stars (modeled on snowflake designs they create) or anything they can fashion from ice. They may not wear metal armor. His clerics most often dress in pale blue, white, or grey and black.

They gain the following abilities:

• At 5th level, his clerics Resist Cold as per the 1st level spell
• At 9th level, his clerics Resist Fire as per the 2nd level spell

In addition, he grants them access to the following spells when they reach the appropriate level:

• Ice Storm (from 4th level Mage list) as a 4th level spell
• Cone of Cold (from 5th level Mage list) as a 5th level spell
• Control Weather (from 6th level Mage list) as a 6th level spell

2015 Gaming Goals

I posted my 2014 Gaming Goals on 1 Jan 14.  As with my 2013 Gaming Goals, I didn't do so well, although I was a little better.  I didn't make my 26 sessions goal and I definitely failed in my blogging goal.  I started my OD&D Player's Guide, but didn't finish it OR print it for my players.  I didn't host any non-RPG game nights either, although we did play a horserace game as one of our non-game parties drew down to 8 people or so.  On the plus side, I created 5 player character sheets; one for each character class (warrior, mage, cleric, thief and adventurer) and included a bunch of class-specific information on the back of each.  I'll post them here in the near future, but each time we play, either I or one of my players points out another edit I've got to do.  Finally, I did manage to start a second group in my OD&D campaign world.  I'm now running both a teen group and an "adult" group.

So what are my goals for 2015?  Here they are:

• Run at least 35 sessions between OD&D campaign and my Traveller campaign
• Blog at least thrice weekly, on average, all year long 
• Finish my OD&D Player's Guide and distribute to my players
• Continue to invite new players to join my games, running additional session for subgroups as time allows
• Host non-RPG game nights to try out some other games 

What are YOUR gaming goals for 2015?