I'm thinking Born Chattel>Goblin>Forge Slave>Forger as a possibility.

It's a Character trait. Some of them don't appear on the trait lists in the back of the Character Burner, but that's kind of an indicator that they are Character traits.

Also, how does skill advancement work for skills that you don't have? Is picking up new skills feasible? The back end of the Orc section urges giving Orcs an extra life path to bring them in line with the other races, but I like the idea of having him start out a bit unskilled

Awesome. Yeah, unless you can see any problems with it, I think I'll go with Born Chattel>Goblin>Forge Slave>Forger

I'll look tonight and post what lifepaths, but my concept is a faithful, ending with priest/priestess. Probably either village or noble born, I have to look.

Randy, will you be requiring the Goblin lifepath to play a goblin, and if so, would you OK with me finagling an extra lifepath out of you? I'm still reading and absorbing the book, and on looking a little closer at the skills it gives access to, there's only a couple skills in there I actually have an interest in using. I'm cool with starting with low skills and working up from there, but I'd rather not have to freshly open most of the skills I want to actively use during the course of the game.

If you're cool with it, I think I'd rather go with Born Chattel > Sun-Blotter > Night Seeker > Forge Slave, or if you require Goblin, Born Chattel > Goblin > Sun-Blotter > Night Seeker > Forge Slave.

Also, going to buy a hateful relationship with his brother, Murgrog the Slaver, the orc who sold him into slavery. Taking a Belief to go with it; Murgrog is a dirty stuntie loving traitor, and I will kill him with my own hands.

Awesome. Yeah, saw the brutal stuff. I love the caption below it, "Man, I wish I hadn't lost both my legs."

I agree that our particular flavor of Orcs diverges greatly from the Tolkien-esque ones in the Character Burner. And, given that our place is Mediterranean/Middle Eastern, if the Orcs were suppressed by sunlight, they would never go there. But they are there. Removing Cold Black Blood makes sense. Greenskins are no longer immortal, which is fine by me. So, yeah. Let's get rid of it.

Also? Sholeh's Greenskin legionnaires just got that much stronger.

Posted By: AmnesiacIn the book, at the beginning of the advancement section, it brings up tests with an obstacle higher than the skill being used. My question is whether or not those tests count towards the skill being advanced, -without- Artha being spent. I would tend to think no, because the test would outright fail, so I would assume the dice just wouldn't be rolled to begin with. Is this assumption correct?

It depends. Perception, Steel, Sorcery, and Natural Magic are all open-ended rolls, so you can still succeed against Obs higher than your dice pool. Also, you could roll, see if you get close to the Ob, then spend some Fate to open-end the dice. So there's still ways you could beat the Ob after the dice are rolled. Also, you should roll for the purposes of Let It Ride - there's always the chance that your failure could turn into a success later in the conflict, provided your intent doesn't change.

Unless it's Faith, Resources, Steel or Perception, you still count the test for advancement even if you fail, provided you try.

Posted By: AmnesiacAlso, I'll be taking a trait that adds +1D to Stealthy. Is this added to the baseline skill, changing it from 4 to 5, or is it just an extra die that is rolled along with the baseline skill? I ask because it will affect how many and what type of tests are needed to advance the skill.

It's not counted as part of the skill exponent. The nice thing about that is, you can choose to play against that Trait, forgo the +1D, and maybe get some Artha for it :).

Also, go check out the BW site. They just updated the main page.

Fuck yes! We definitely need to try that once it's out.

Goomchuks is a faithful gobbo!

I think that next session, we might need to change some beliefs to address Goomchuks directly. He's going to get us into trouble. Which is awesome.

OK. I need to burn Murgrog. And a dirty thief. Stop making work for me! What does this look like? D&D?

Sorry for the short notice, but this Sunday is our Christmas party at work.

Randy can always hop on my guest ticket, if he so chose. Not sure how excited you are about that sort of thing, but the Randy likes free drinks, yes?

Yes! We'd love to come :)

I doubt that I'll be drinking.

In case you missed it above (Babe did you already start the drinking?? ;) ): Hors d'oeuvres start at 6:00, dinner is at 7:00. It's at the Arroyo Room. And it's tonight! Eep, hurry, get dressed!! LOL Actually I need to go and do that very thing myself. Just wanted to check to see if you guys had wanted that ride but since Shaun says that he won't be drinking y'all should be good and we'll see you there.

Arroyo Room
131 W 1st St
Chico, CA 95928
(530) 894-1930

Faris knows shit about being Gifted. The attitude he takes toward magic and religion is going to be heavily influenced on whatever master he finds.

You know, Goomchuks knows someone who could tell you a thing or two about religion...

Our story so far:
Our adventure began in a town called Warpol. Essdra, High Priestess of Stomos, came on a mission to help rebuild destroyed homes. Ferris, a routed soldier who knew of Essdra's association with Jorm, met up with her there and joined with her and the pilgrims, helping to rebuild to get closer to Essdra. Goonchunks the greenskin was traveling with us as well (Sorry Amnesiac, I can't remember what we saved you from). Throughout our stay, Ferris worked to track down the the thief that stole his mother's necklace although without much success. Goonchunks both helped search for the thief in his own...gobo way, as well as looking for his brother. With both of them sneaking around, and Goonchunks showing up covered in blood, Essdra wasn't so sure about the two.

The next day, a thug arrives and claims a Gobo tried to kill him, and one of his guards was dead. They rile the masses to seek out this greenskin. Essdra manages to convince the crowd to let the Stomans handle the search, then went to find Goonchunks and Ferris conspiring behind the Sunset Mass alter. As she confronts the two about the murder, the thug comes upon the three of them. Ferris locks him, and Essdra agrees to pack up and leave town if he'll let them go peacefully. As they travel out of Warpol, Essdra silently cries-she has to protect her followers, but her mission has failed.

During the night, a panicked chamel attacks. A chamel is a creature with the body of a camel minus the neck, and the face of a chimp. Ferris defends the travelers, but gets pwned by the chamel.

The weary travelers make it to Quet, the next town, and are planning on staying for a while to rest and restock. While wandering through town, and Inquisitor for the Traji approached and ordered the Stomans out of town. Essdra convinced him to let them stay outside of town, but they were banned from practicing/worshiping in town, on penalty of death. But they had a place to stay and rest, so it was all right. As Essdra continued her duties as protector and priestess, Ferris and Goonchunks both continued their covert, non-co-op mission to find the thief. Ferris fails and returns to the camp. Goonchunks...doesn't fail so much. He follows the thief back to his tent, confirms he was the one to steal the necklace, then garrotes him.

Meanwhile, Essdra was trying to find the Inquisitor, only to have a could of Stomos followers report the only other traveler missing. Essdra finds her in the town center, tied to a platform, with the Inquisitor describing her blasphemous proselytizing in town, which is punishable by death as per their agreement. Essdra tried to stop him and failed, which resulted in the follower being fatally stabbed. They brought her back to the camp, in time to meet up with Ferris returning. Ferris takes up a shovel, and after dressing the body, they proceed back to the town square to bury the fallen Stoman, as the teachings of Stomos dictate the dead be buried where they fell. The thugs of the Inquisitor, who claimed the murdered was reading out loud the Book of Stomos as opposed to reading it to herself as she shopped, decided Ferris would not be burying her there. By the end of the Fight!, Ferris had been stabbed twice and could no longer fight. Essdra tried to intervene to keep them from killing him, and got punched in the face. That was the point the guards decided to come to their aid, because the thug had punched a woman. They beat him senseless, then go back to hating life. Essdra and Ferris bury the dead, then leave Quet. Essdra is more emo. She got someone killed.

They travel onto Angry Worm, and there's a story behind that name but no one knows it. Ferris tries to hide from the guards, and instead gets conscripted. Goonchunks slanders Stomos to the enslaved gobos, and spreads the word of Gork and Mork (?). This gets a few gobos killed, but it also spreads the word. The next day, an effigy has been erected.

Essdra discovers that the temple of Stomos in Angry Worm has been burnt, as a writ allows the killing of insurgents and the church was supposedly harboring them. She convinces the local priest to let her conduct a public mass to raise the money to rebuild, to buy "Stones for Stomos" as it were. Goonchunks even attends, although only because he stole some old ladie's money. They raise the money to rebuild. Shortly there after, the soldiers burn the tent of the insurgents, kill worshipers, and murder the local priest. Goonchunks, the followers, and Essdra spend the rest of the night burying the dead.

Posted By: AmnesiacSpeaking of Goomchuks, he's a lot of fun, but he's also a wretched little bastard. I know Shaun and Kristin had wanted to play this BW game a big more heroic than the Deadwood game. If you guys feel like Goomchuks is dicking with the feel of the game too much, let me know, and I'll either change him a bit, or play something else. I don't want to be "that guy."

If they let Jonas exist in the Burning Deadwood realm, I can stand Goomchucks

Also, BW is great like that. If Goomchuks is disruptive to the game, he'll be disruptive in game. It will lead to conflict and hard decisions, and it will come to our characters either accepting him or him being forced to change to remain or to leave. I'm fine with him, it adds good conflict.

On top of all that, Faris is very much heading in a "let's start a resistance" direction. So we've got three different revolutions going on - Essdra trying to bring Stomanism to prominence, Goomchuks trying to bring the worship of Gork and Mork back to the greenskins, and Faris starting to see his countrymen conscripted into Sholeh's army, and trying to get them to band together against it. All three of which are awesome and epic.

Posted By: ShaunSo we've got three different revolutions going on

One man's revolution is another man's insurrection. Sholeh's army is sanctioned to use any means possible to quell insurrection. Good luck!

Posted By: Randy

Posted By: ShaunSo we've got three different revolutions going on

One man's revolution is another man's insurrection. Sholeh's army is sanctioned to use any means possible to quell insurrection. Good luck!

We're all going to die. Man, I figured Essdra was longer for this world than Jonas...