The City Stained Red by Sam Sykes

Finished off Sam Sykes' The City Stained Red.

Great stuff.

There are a few authors I'd compare Sam's style to. Might give any readers a frame of reference as to not only my preferences in terms of grouping, but how Sam compares to others.

K J Parker, author of books like the Folding Knife.

Mark Lawrence, author of series like The Broken Empire (Prince of Thorns, etc...)

Joe Abercrombie, author of books like Half A King.

These authors tend to be a little darker.

They tend to be a little... funnier. There is a fair amount of sarcasm not only in how the world acts, but in how the characters tend to see themselves.

They are also solid writers.

In the City Stained Red, a group of adventurers makes their way to the City of Silk to collect overdue pay only to wind up knee deep in the dead.

How can a game master use such a fantasy novel in their own games?

1. Steal the Setting: The City of Silk has a lot going on for it. There are numerous guilds, organizations, and tension that run underneath it all. The city is known for it's silk and all of the sudden, one of the merchants of silk starts making silk better than anyone else. His secret? Hey, feed those giant spiders people! Turns out a strong silk.

In terms of silk, anyone remember the old Arduin books? These were little fantasy books meant to be their own system as well as work with old school Dungeons and Dragons. One of the things you could get in it, was Spiga Silk. There were different types of these monsters, indicated by color, but at best, one of these types of silk had the protection of plate mail armor and hey, as a thief? Effectively wearing no armor meant a boost to your skills.

2. Blow it up: They always say you should murder your children right? By the end of the City Stained Red, the City of Silk has undergone massive change. Religious wars, guild wars, and perhaps the end of the world on the horizon. Hundreds if not thousands of people dead, whole power structures shifted. All the things that make moving forward even more entertaining.

3. Surprise! At the end of the book, the 'leader' of the group discovers that a 'friend' of his is not what he seems. Not what he seems at all. It's going to lead to some entertainment in the next book for sure.

There are other bits I could talk about. There's the world structure itself. The familiar yet different fantasy races. The icons that fit into standard fantasy given a slight tilt to make them interesting to the reader.

But really you should get yourself a copy and read it.

Return to Warhammer Fantasy RPG 2nd Edition

I don't play every game out there. Some like the World of Darkness, I'm just not into. I get their popularity, but all spectrums of the hobby don't engage me. Not a big fan of the whole 'monstrous genre modern times' thing to be honest. Strangely enough 'horror' on the other hand I can dig quite a bit and enjoy a lot of Brian Lumley's stuff or at least did when I originally read it. The whole WoD thing seemed way too off for me though.

But my friends moved on to playing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd edition by Green Ronin. I know, some may go, but what about Fantasy Flight's version? I kid you not, if Fantasy Flight wants to send me a copy, I'll ask my amigos to give it a try but several of us have a lot of the Green Ronin books and some of the original 2nd edition books started out by Fantasy Flight and we enjoy them. Not only that, but WHAT is that game costing from Fantasy Flight? I know that it's changed formats and all that but no one at the table was even remotely interested in checking it out.

The session consisted mostly of making characters and allowing the 'newbies' a chance to test out some combat. The GM allowed us to make three rolls out of the normal book and one out of the career compendium. I had two options I find appealing due to my previous play of such characters.

The one was a human bounty hunter. One of my favorite characters was a human bounty hunter although damned if I can remember his name now. Don't know if that's old age, senility, or alcoholism taking over there. The other was a troll slayer.

Went with the troll slayer. Man I rolled like crap on many of the things that I should have been top dog at. Still, with you get that free advancement and can take it in Attack? Yup. That's a good thing for me.

I remembered more about the layout of the book than I thought I would. For example, even the GM couldn't remember where the 'real' starting equipment was. In your career you get some starting equipment but there's also a baseline of actual starting equipment and some random gold to go with it that's in a separate part of the book.

I also was surprised by how much the book reminded me of 3rd edition. Ganging up on people for a small bonus, breaking actions up into different parts and other bits. Mind you, that's just from my own poor recollections of 3rd edition at this point and the contrast/compare isn't necessarily 'fair' as a lot of things in Warhammer were either already there, like the different careers, or are still different enough, like the % parts of the system that the two games may have some similairites but are worlds away.

While I have a Weapon Skill of 40, and a Strength Bonus of 3, the real benefit being the dreaded Great Weapon and rolling two dice for damage and picking the better of the two, the real 'hero' of the fight was the halfling slinger. That dude with the 3 + 1d10, managed to take out three of the enemy while I injured one and killed another. It was good to see how things went and that combat and especially character creation, went VERY quickly.

Looking over my old bookshelf, I see that Green Ronin did a fantastic job of supporting the game. It'll be interesting to see where the GM takes us but I'll be more curious to see how the group gels. I'm so out of touch with actual play and we have a new player I haven't played with before, and another I haven't plaed with in a long time, and a few of the 'regulars' that I usually do okay with.

Anyone else find that years later they wind up picking a game up and running with it when a group happens to decided, "Hey, you know what would be cool?" I enjoy those moments I tell ya. Maybe 4th edition will be like that one day. We'll all be looking at it and be like, "Hey, remember when Wizards didn't completely dominate the game and clerics weren't mandatory?" Ha!