[Urbis] Locations of the Cold Frontier - Marsh Giant Lair and Mating Beach

,Deep in the interior of the Cold Frontier there lies a folorn and fetid swamp. This is the home of a tribe of marsh giants - a dozen individuals or so. Their surroundings are as vile as they are, including such monsters as Yellow Musk Creepers. In general, they don't stray far from home, periodically raiding the fungus fields in the next hex downriver. If they spot any Adlets to the north or members of the human Inland Tribes to the south they attempt to capture or kill them for food, but the former are usually too canny and fast to be caught while the latter know enough to stay away. In general, they spend their days sleeping, rutting, and eating whatever they can find, though sometimes they conduct religious ceremonies in which they abase themselves before disturbing idols and sacrifice sapient captives (before eating them). Their great fecundity is kept in check by their lack of regard for the welfare of their children and their habit of eating each other when they are particularly hungry. Initially, they are not much of a threat and easily avoided, but if the colony later expands into their area they will need to be dealt with.

Once every year at the beginning of fall the whole tribe goes on a long trek to the south, walking through the plains and the mountains until they reach the shore, 70 miles south of their homes, and devouring everything in their path that isn't smart enough to stay away - and the tribes certainly do know enough to keep away from both the route and the beach area the giants claim for this occasion. The nearby native villagers call this area the Mating Beach, for on the first full moon of autumn the Marsh Giants hold a ceremony in which they call giant aquatic creatures with the aid of ceremonial drums (fashioned out of hollowed-out trees). These protoplasmic entities which appear as shambling mounds of eyes, tentacles, and orifices of various kinds were originally created by the aboleths as brood factories for servitor life forms, and usually 3-4 will arrive when the giants call them and attempt to mate with anyone and anything they find. The Marsh Giants will do so willingly, while other nearby life forms might experience a mental blackout from the potent pheromones the creature emits, awakening later with no memories but being covered with minor cuts and bruises and all sorts of unspeakable substances (and torn clothing, in the case of sapient beings). The creature will later spawn its mutant offspring into the ocean, some of which might wash up on the beach, while impregnated land dwellers will give birth to tentacled things after an otherwise normal term of pregnancy.

Explorers coming across the Mating Beach at other times will find both the ceremonial drums and an idol - a moss-covered mound built out of branches, with two primitive humanoid "log figures" attached to it - one in a seeming embrace while the other lies half beneath the mound. Anyone foolish enough to play the drums during any other full moon night will be able to summon one of the creatures, though the local tribes have cautionary tales warning against this.

Index of Urbis-related posts

This is an index of all post related to my Urbis setting. It will be updated as I write further posts. Note that the entries are listed in thematic order, and not necessarily in their chronological order.

• My Gaming Projects, Part II: Urbis - A World of Cities - an introduction to the setting.

Cities of Urbis

This series of posts attempts to flesh out the city-states of Urbis.

Building Bodenwald

Detailing the local analogue of Munich - as well as a major center of interplanetary exploration.

• Part I - contemplating the geography, ancient history, and other basics.
• Part II - building the Inner City.
• Part III - where the citizens go to celebrate beer and where interplanetary explorers cool their heels.
• Part IV - giant alien statues.
• Part V - ghosts and murders.
• Part VI - artists' colonies and goblin ghettos.
• Part VII - tree temples and sunken castles.
• Part VIII - eugenics research and religious orders.
• Part IX - the secrets of nobles and haunted bogs.

The Cold Frontier

This started out as an intellectual exercise on how to build a hexcrawl sandbox exploration / nation building campaign in the style of the Kingmaker Adventure Path for Pathfinder, but it morphed into an actual campaign set on the remote northern continent of Nardhome. Cold Frontier posts have now received their own index, which can be found here.

[Urbis] Mothmen of the Cold Frontier

In my upcoming Cold Frontier campaign, one of the player characters has the "Weirdness Magnet" disadvantage - a GURPS trait that constantly causes strange things to happen to them. And one of the first strange things he will encounter in the Cold Frontier is a Mothman.

Initially, that was all I had planned for the Mothman - a strange presence that PC encounters again and again. But after thinking it over for a while, I have come up with an idea for expanding the role of the Mothman: The Mothmen were the Prehuman race of beings which first colonized the continent of Nardhome and left their ruins behind. It was them who created the God Chamber and in the end created the God Tekel, though it devastated their civilization in the process. The Mothman encountered by the PCs is not an actual member of their race, but a psychic remnant of sorts left over from their God-Creation process which attempts to manipulate events for its own purposes. To what end? It will likely revolve around whatever climax the campaign builds up to. Whenever the PCs manage to "kill" it, it just dissolves and reforms later

This has, of course, several major implications for the campaign. First, let's look at the  God Chamber and what its usage implies.

What if the emotions of  every sapient being in Nardhome influence what kind of God is created when the God Chamber is activated? Perhaps the new God is a Gestalt entity which merges the consciousness of everyone on the continent into a new being, though the one at the helm of the God Chamber becomes its primary consciousness - similar to the Transcendence Victory of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.

The Mothmen created Tekel, the God of Fear, which implies that they were deeply afraid of something. Perhaps some other alien species which they waged a war against across the stars? Perhaps that other species was winning, and Nardhome represented a remote outpost where they attempted to create their last, best hope, a being powerful enough to take the fight back to their enemies. As the Black Pyramid housing the God Chamber neared completion, the outpost was discovered by their enemies and attacked. They activated it and the consciousness of every Mothmen on the continent merged - but that also included many of their enemies. Tekel was able to end the war, in a way, but both civilizations fell, never to rise again.

This means that most Mothman ruins on Nardhome will have served either military purposes or supporting the God Chamber project in one way or another. The Mothman origin should not be immediately apparent, but their construction, furniture, and artifacts should all be disturbingly nonhuman. Furthermore, there may be psychic remnants of whatever alien species the Mothmen fought - as well as skeletons from both species.

The next civilization to settle Nardhome was the First City. They were, well, basically fantasy Transhumanists. They used their magics to reshape themselves, their children, and their servants - the former being turned into elves, the others into most of the other nonhuman races common to D&D worlds. And they not only reshaped humans, but also animals, plants, and... diseases. When the God Chamber project was discovered, studied, and finally in the process of being reactivated, the Nardhome colony declared independence from the First City itself, as many back home thought activating it would be a bad idea, while others wanted to have more control over the project itself. The whole situation degenerated into biological warfare which caused widespread suffering both in Nardhome and back home, and appropriately the resulting God was Nyros, the God of Evolution and Disease - and Transcendence would certainly fall into its portfolio. (And note that Nyros would generally be in favor of reactivating the God Chamber - and there will likely be a number of his priests popping up with all sorts of interesting apocrypha of his faith which give further hints to the existence and nature of the God Chamber. Getting cooperation from a faith which is generally seen as at least selfish if not outright evil should be interesting for the PCs...)

Finally, there were the Old Native settlers. One of their sorcerers figured out the nature of the God Chamber, seized control of the region surrounding the central crater with his minions (many of them undead, others just abominable in general), while the other Natives fought his forces in a devastating war. Hunger was widespread under these conditions. When the God Chamber was activated, it turned out that the sorcerer had miscalculated - the transformation was incomplete after absorbing everyone's life force (the "Great Darkness" of Coastal Tribe legend), and most of its essence remained trapped inside the Pyramid as an Immortal Ichor without transcending, waiting for someone to compel into either completing the God Chamber properly or release all the souls trapped in there (it is suffering from a very bad case of split personality...). The rest dissipated across Nardhome and became entities of hunger and death, like the Wendigo.

The products of the God Chamber - two fairly malevolent deities as well as numerous less potent malignant entities  - might convince the PCs that activating the God Chamber will always produce bad results. But if they do a lot of research, they might realize that this is not actually the case. All the sapient beings on Nardhome will join into a new God, and their overall disposition will determine the nature of the God. If there is a lot of strife on the continent, the God will be aggressive. But if the PCs created a new society full of harmony and other positive emotions, then the new God will reflect that as well. Of course, if they want to be ethical about this, they should make sure that only those who want to become part of a God remain on the continent - but as soon as they announce their intentions, numerous interested groups will attempt to seize the continent for themselves, which means that there will be lot of all that strife and all those negative emotions the PCs wanted to avoid. But hey, nobody said that becoming a God was easy...

Back to the Mothman the PCs will encounter. Since the PCs will work their way towards the God Chamber throughout the campaign, it presumably wants the God Chamber to be used and thus manipulates fate to ensure that this happens - which may also mean manipulating their competition into showing up on the scene.

But beyond that, it can also serve a more "meta-gaming" use in the campaign. One problem that most RPG groups have to face is what to do with player characters whose players are absent - especially if there is no plausible reasons for those PCs to be absent, nor for why they should reappear all of a sudden when the player reappears. One member of my current gaming groups came up with some good ideas for how to solve that problem. In a fantasy campaign such characters became "mana-apathic", a magical disease that struck from time to time which removed any kind of personal drive for a time and made them susceptible to orders from others. In a current fantasy/science fiction crossover campain, the PCs in question are swallowed by a particularly disgusting demon and then are later spat out near people they are familiar with - in other words, the other PCs (the PCs are not the only ones to be affected this way, of course - in fact, the "science fiction worlds" are currently in quite a lot of panic because of this demon).

For the Cold Frontier campaign, I will simply have the Mothman stun the relevant character (and remember, they can manipulate fate so that they can catch the character alone), abduct him, wipe his memories and then return him later to whereever the PCs are when the player returns. The players will hopefully understand the "meta-reason" and go along with this, but the PCs will only find some strange footprints at best, though they will hear stories about "Mothman Abductions" from native tribes. If they use magic to get their memories restored, they will remember the Mothman stunning them. If they do so repeatedly after multiple abductions, they will eventually remember strange, nightmarish scenes of the Mothman examining them and experimenting on them (possibly implanting some strange, small stones into their bodies?), similar to the stories of UFO abductions.

This will firmly establish the Mothman as a weird "background annoyance/menance" which they cannot do anything about right now without actually being resentful over it (since the PC is always returned unharmed to wherever they are needed. Thus, the shock when they discover the truth about the Prehuman ruins should be particularly effective, since they have seen their creators from the very start in the campaign.

[Urbis] Locations of the Cold Frontier - the Spring Seed Farm

Väterchen ("Father") Josef Grünblatt is one of the patriarchs of the Spring Seeds, a halfling sect worshiping Kortus, the God of Agriculture, natural deaths, and the cycles of the world. In addition to these aspects, the Spring Seeds also see him as a fertility deity and believe that halflings are his Chosen People as they are the most fecund of the civilized (i.e., agriculture-practicing) races - and one day, they will inherit the world simply by outbreeding everyone else, and they will usually have a dozen children or more.

The Spring Seeds are a growing religious and political force in the Siebenbund, yet Grünblatt was discontent with the situation of his flock. While his followers multiplied just like Kortus intended, their children frequently took off for the Big Cities, abandoning the faith and converting to Heathen Ways. This was intolable, as the children were the blessing of Kortus and the future of the Faith - so to preserve their purity, he decided to uproot his extended family and establish a new life in Nardhome, far away from Civilization and its corrupting influences. Four other families followed him into his voluntary exile, and today their settlement "Grünfelden" ("Greenfields") represent the largest outpost of Civilization in the Cold Frontier.

So, what does Grünfelden look like?

Imagine a large farm crossed with a Survivalist Compound and a Cult Hideout, populated by halflings. A low earth wall and a ditch surrounds the whole area - not enough to truly keep intruders at may, but largely as a marker of territory. "We are on this side, and you are on that side, and as long as everyone stays on their own side we will get along just fine." There are several watch towers which are occupied at all times, though often by juveniles. But the real defense system consists of the numerous halfling-sized tunnels that criss-cross the whole compound. During an attack, all the women and children will be evacuated to hidden safe rooms while the menfolk sneak around and snipe at the invaders with slings and crossbows from secret holes. At night, they will also lob magically glowing stones into the direction of the invaders so that they can shoot at them without any darkness penalties. They have frequent practice drills, which not only makes them fairly skilled at this but also reinforces that outsiders are dangerous and not to be trusted.

In general, they do not like visitors - or at least, Grünblatt and the other family patriarchs don't, and their attitudes trickle down to the rest of the population. They are also fairly racist, with only halflings receiving a warm welcome - if halflings arrive in a group with non-halfling members, the others will be tolerated for the duration of the stay but be given room in the barns with the animals, due to "space concerns", while the halflings will be given a nice bed and good food - but also be subjected to a fair amount of preaching. The hospitality will likely cease if the visitors paint the outside world in too glowing colors or otherwise encourage the younger members to leave.

Visitors will notice how many children there are, and how most of the women seem to be pregnant. Youngsters are generally married off to each other at the age of 20 - fairly soon for halflings - and are encouraged to start on their first child as soon as possible. While small children are frequently indulged, discipline in Grünfelden is fairly strict as there is always lots of work to do, and deviant thoughts are discouraged by all the shaming a close-knit community like this can muster, which is a lot.

In exchange, the community is one of the safest places in the Cold Frontier, and one of the biggest producers of food - the farmers really do know their agriculture, and having several powerful priests of the deity of agriculture on their side also matters a lot. They regularly trade fresh produce with the Trade Outpost, mostly for metal tools and supplies they cannot manufacture by themselves, but other than that they are largely autonomous.

All in all, the community should give off a fairly creepy vibe whenever the PCs visit - they are not welcome there, and they should feel that the cult is hiding some deep, dark secrets. Which is not actually the case, though a community that does its best to indoctrinate its children to follow its tenets, shun all contact with outsiders, and all but force them to have as many children on their as soon as possible may be bad enough for the tastes of some player characters (and players!). In this, they present a long-term dilemma for the PCs - should they ignore them or intervene somehow? And if they do intervene, what should an intervention look like? Putting an end to the self-perpetuating system of Grünfelden may mean shattering several large families, which will cause its own problems.

On the other hand, with some effort the halflings can be won over as allies. Despite their racist attitudes, they have no problem with hiring outsiders to get rid of troublesome monsters or raiders for them - while most of what they can offer is food, their leader is capable of raising the dead or providing almost any other healing services needed, though acquiring those services will require some major effort on the part of the PCs. The community won't be happy about the growth of the colony and the new waves of settlers, but if the PCs are respectful of their beliefs (and possibly willing to help them "retrieve" errant community members), they might be willing to agree to peaceful coexistence and trade, in which case they would represent a major boost to the agricultural output of the colony. But if relations sour, they will dig in and fight all intruders to their home to the bitter end... or simply pack up and vanish deeper into the wilds of the Cold Frontier.

[Urbis] GURPS Rules of the Cold Frontier, Part II

Continued from Part I...

The Cold Frontier campaign uses a number of house rules for GURPS magic.

First of all, the default magic system is that of GURPS Magic. The system has its problems, but it is familiar to most of the players and covers most of the basic magical effects you'd expect from fantasy campaign.

At character creation, mages and priests can buy up to three levels of Magical Aptitude or Power Investiture. After character creation, they can increase this to up to six levels. Furthermore, they can buy an Energy Reserve without any limits on how many points they put into it.

(In the previous campaign, there was no Energy Reserve and a sharp limit on how many Fatigue Points the characters were able to purchase - but on the other hand the player characters could buy up to 20 levels of Magical Aptitude, which near the end of the campaign resulted in spell skill levels of 30+ and allowed the PCs to maintain even powerful spells infinitely).

Furthermore, individual spells are learned as techniques. "Hard" spells are learned as "Average" techniques while "Very Hard" spells are learned as "Hard" techniques. The "Default" value of each spell technique is equal to (IQ + Magical Aptitude/Power Investiture), and the character cannot put more character points into the technique than they have levels of Magical Aptitude or Power Investiture.

(This, the players felt, made it actually worthwhile to "train up" individual spells while still preventing too-high skill values. It also makes less-intelligent spellcasters feasable).

Individual spells have the following changes:

• "Explode"-type spells reduce their damage by one dice per yard of distance, instead of the normal rules for explosion damage.
• "Stone to Earth": While the duration was always "permanent" and thus any material produced could be dispelled, I also noted that "destroying" the material (such as melting the metal) would also end the spell.
• "Resist Fire"/"Resist Cold": Every "level" of those spells only provides DR 4 against relevant attacks.
• There are no known spells which allow you to travel into the past.
• "Create Gate": Creating portals is considerably harder in Urbis. To reflect this, you must first link two locations by enchanting them like a permanent gate - but that only allows you to cast a Create Gate spell linking the two. Without such an enchantment, you can't cast Create Gate at all.
• Arcane spellcasters (mages) can only learn "Lend Energy", "Share Energy", and "Recover Energy" from all the spells of the Healing College. They only apply to their Energy Reserve.
• "Explode": The maximum damage this spell can do is equal to the destroyed object's hit points.
• "Steal Energy": Two variants of this spell exist - one for Fatigue and one for the Energy Reserve.
• "Machine"-type spells exist but are of limited utility - since they do not affect the golem parts that are vital components of most powered machinery in Urbis.
• For "Energy"-type spells, coal is a typical "fuel" - while it isn't used to power anything, it is used as a source of heat. "Power"-type spells have the usual problem that they won't affect golem parts. "Conduct Power", "Steal Power", and "Draw Power" are unknown.
• "Radiation"- and "Plastic"-type spells are unknown.

There is also one new Knowledge spell:

Know the Coin

Area, Information

With this spell, the caster detects all coins which meet the weight and purity standards of the old Atalan Empire. This does not reveal hidden coins - the caster recognizes the type of the coin similar like he would recognize their color, but he must have them in sight and consciously look at them.
Since the fall of the Atalan Empire, most nations and cities have adhered to these standards, leading to interchangeable coinages of vastly different origins without a central coinage authority.

Duration: 1 minute.

Base cost: 1

Prerequisite: Measurement.

Item
Monocle. The user must look through the monocle to use the spell. This monocle counts as a signature item of bank emplyoees. Energy Cost to Create: 50


Generic "magic components" exist which can be used to power ritual magic only. They cost $50 per energy point and are always tied to a particular College. In the case of enchantments, the component in question is called "Azoth" and represents a cornerstone of the magical economy of Urbis.

Enchantments have the following changes:

• "Quick and Dirty" enchantments are only possible for Temporary Enchantments as well as wizards' tools like Powerstones, Manastones, and the Staff enchantments. These have the usual, reduced costs.
• All other magic items cost a flat $50 per energy point.
• "Penetrating Weapon" subtracts from the Damage Resistance of the target at an amount equal to the weapon's Armor Divisor instead of the usual Armor Divisor rules.

Sorcerers are mages with the Wild Talent advantage with the Retention (+25%) enhancement and the Focused (magic/spells) limitation (-20%). They can purchase the "Shortcut to Power" perk from GURPS Thaumatology: Magical Styles a number of times equal to their Magical Aptitude.

Priests and Holy Warriors exist as defined in the GURPS Dungeon Fantasy series. Since the deities of Urbis don't exactly map to the deities described in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 7: Clerics, I've made a list of all appropriate Urbis deities and the Dungeon Fantasy spell lists appropriate to them. Priests of a particular deity can pick one of these spell lists, and purchase additional spell lists from their deity with the "Alternate Realm" advantage described in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 11: Power-Ups.

Argannon: All, War

Bucatar: All, Druidic, Hunt

Dahla: All, Healing, Messenger/Rogue

Gebral: All, Artificer

Hatramo: All

Horned Man: All, Druidic, Hunt

Jorunnos: All, Hunt, Messenger/Rogue

Kortus: All, Agriculture, Death. 

Mara: All, Messenger/Rogue, Night

Palias: All, Messenger/Rogue, Sun

Sarush: All, Messenger/Rogue, Night

Silver Lady: All, Love/Fertility, Night

Thenos: All, City, Sun

Ungol: All, Sea, Storm

Ygreb: All

"All" refers to the "generic" spell list in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 1: Adventurers. "Druidic" refers to the "druidic" spell list from the same book - actual druids are inappropriate for this campaign (where the goal is to exploit a wilderness region), but some deities offer druidic spells nonetheless. Furthermore, Bucatar, the Horned Man, and the Silver Lady offer druidic powers instead of the usual "Holy" advantages of clerics and holy warriors - though they still use the standard "Holiness" talent or clerical Power Investiture for them.

Other special powers include Bard-Song - again, from GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 1 - and Chi Powers (known in Urbis as "Elven Arts"), which use the power list from Dungeon Fantasy but the Chi power modifier from GURPS Powers. Furthermore, Psionic powers work like in the Basic Set but a note was added that they always hint at an unnatural origin - alien experiments and the like.


Beyond magic, we introduced some changes to the combad system according to the players' wishes:

• Aiming provides the full Accuracy bonus for every round of aiming, not just the first round.
• Multiple shield Blocks are possible, with additional blocks getting the same penalties as parrying.
• Each Dodge after the first one in a round has a cumulative -1 penalty.

[Urbis] GURPS Rules of the Cold Frontier, Part I

As I have mentioned before, the rule system I will use for my Cold Frontier campaign will be GURPS. GURPS, as many of you will know, is a generic, universal role-playing system which allows you to create pretty much any character imaginable. But because the system is so extremely flexible, it requires firmer guidelines on what kinds of characters are appropriate for any given campaign. In many systems with more constrained character creation - such as level-and-class systems like D&D - pretty much any character you can build with the basic rule system is supposed to be "balanced", though you might still have to negotiate which character fills certain party "niches". Not so in GURPS - for instance, in a modern-day setting it would be completely feasible according to the rules to, say, buy 7 levels of the "Social Status" advantage and build the President of the United States as a player character - but this would not be an appropriate character for most modern-day campaigns, unless you are playing GURPS West Wing or GURPS Scandal or something.

Of course, it helps if you play with reasonable players, who know better than come up with wildly inappropriate character concepts. Still, it never hurts to give some good guidelines on what kinds of characters are appropriate for the campaign, and I wrote up several short documents to that effect. As these are in German, I won't post them here but instead give a summary of the major points - and also included are some house rules which the players felt strongly about due to prior experiences with GURPS. Hopefully, these guidelines will provide a good example of what kind of campaign preparation is useful for GURPS campaigns, as well as give some insight into the campaign itself.

Character Creation

Characters start with 150 character points, with up to 50 additional points from disadvantages and 5 points from quirks. To create valid character concepts, the players should keep the following in mind:

• Each player character needs to be able to contribute something to the wilderness exploration of the first campaign arc, whether practical survival knowledge, fighting ability, or knowledge skills which help with evaluating which resources will be useful for later exploitation.
• Each player character also needs to be able to take over some position of responsibility in the later colony, whether administrative, diplomatic, or defense-oriented.
• Each player character also must want to join the expedition and later take on such a position of responsibility. They don't necessarily need to share the profit motive of the Far Shores Trading Company, but they need some reasons for joining such a profit-oriented venture.
• The player characters need to be able to be more or less "presentable" to NPCs. That doesn't mean that they all need to be expert diplomats, but obvious monsters or sociopaths are right out.

Secondary Characteristics

Player characters (and certain "important NPCs") start out with twice the normal number of hit points (that is, STx2). The players wanted this because they felt that normal GURPS characters are too fragile and get their limbs broken too often.

There is also no limit on how many extra hit points and fatigue points the characters can buy.

Social Background

The Tech Level of the setting is TL3+2 - that is, tech development until the local equivalent of the Middle Ages was similar to that of Earth, but then this world started to use magic and magic items as a form of technology until they reached a level roughly similar to the late 19th century.

The following "cultures" are campaign-relevant for the purpose of the Cultural Familiarity advantage: Flannish Cities (the "default" human culture where the Far Shores Trading Company comes from), Elvish, Hobgoblin, Dwarvish, Coastal Tribes of Nardhome, and Inland Tribes of Nardhome.

As for languages, all player characters start with Common. As Common is an extremely easy language to learn - in fact, suspiciously easy to learn - all player characters start with proficiency in Common for free. Humans and those who have grown up in or near the Flannish Cities also start with a human regional language (the local equivalents of English, German, and Dutch). Other languages include Nardhome-Flannish (the debased language of the Inland Tribes), Inquat (language of the Coastal Tribes), Elvish, Dwarfish, Goblin, Sylvan, Draconic, Atalan (a "classical" language similar to Latin), Aklo (a prehuman language whose spoken form is unknown, though some groups have invented on), Celestial, Infernal, and Qlippothic (the language of demons).

Wealth and Influence

Starting Wealth is $5000, which represents silver pieces. Gold and copper pieces exist as well, using the standard D&D conversion rates of 1 gold piece = 10 silver pieces = 100 copper pieces - though bank notes are usually used for larger sums of money. Later on, once the colony is founded, the player characters get 10 character points to increase their Wealth level, as well as a "wage" representing their income as colonial administrators, as described in the GURPS Basic Set, page 517 - which not only represents a direct wage but also secondary incomes from investments, bribes, etc.. This may encourage player characters to increase their Wealth after character creation, which is an entirely indended effect. They may further supplement their revenue with Independent Income.

Apart from clarifying the Status table for Urbis, I've also introduced Merchant Rank for the Far Shores Trading Company. The PCs get Rank 1 ("Associate") for free and once they become colonial administrators they get Rank 2 ("Senior Associate") while the Colonial Governor gets Rank 3 ("Factor").

Disadvantages

The Social Stigma disadvantage needs special mention. While the society of Urbis is based on the late 19th century, which also includes a strong element of sexism, not everyone wants to deal with that in a game. Thus, for female player characters the Social Stigma (Second Class Citizen) is optional. If the character has it, then that represents permission for the GM to introduce sexism against that player character, but if the character lacks it, she will be accepted as equal by most NPCs. Likewise, for non-human members of the so-called "Civilized Races" the disadvantage is also optional. This includes the following races:
Dragonborn, Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Half-Elf, Halfling, Half-orcs, Hobgoblin, Human, and Sidhe. More exotic player characters will usually have a -5 point Social Stigma, though more extreme Social Stigmas are inappropriate for the campaign.

Skills

To help the players identify useful skills for their characters, I've provided three lists of skills. The first one represents "Survival" skils useful for, well, surviving in the wilderness, the second one includes Knowledge skills which gives them a better understanding of the world around them, and the final list are Colonial skills useful for running the colony. Especially useful skills are listed in bold.

Survival: Animal Handling, Armoury, Boating, Camouflage, Carpentry, Climbing, Cooking, Diagnosis, First Aid, Fishing, Hiking, Leatherworking, Merchant, Meteorology, Naturalist, Navigation (Land), Observation, Packing, Physician, Riding, Search, Skiing, Stealth, Survival (Arctic, Mountain, Plains, Swampland, Woodlands), Swimming, Tactics, Tracking, Traps, Veterinary.

Knowledge: Alchemy, Anthropology, Achaeology, Architecture, Area Knowledge, Biology (Terrestrial, Extraterrestrial, Ultraterrestrial), Cartography, Chemistry, Expert Skill (Military Science, Political Science, Thanatology, Xenology), Farming, Forensics, Geography, Geology, Hidden Lore, History, Linguistics, Occultism, Paleontology, Physics, Prospecting, Research, Sociology, Writing

Colonial: Accounting, Administration, Criminology, Cryptography, Current Affairs, Detect Lies, Economics, Engineer, Finance, Intelligence Analysis, Interrogation, Law, Leadership, Market Analysis, Politics, Propaganda, Public Speaking, Savior-Faire (Military and High Society), Soldier, Strategy, Streetwise.

Racial Templates

Fortunately, I had already started on a D&D to GURPS Conversion at the GURPS Repository months ago, and since Urbis is largely based on D&D, I could just copy most of the racial templates I had created earlier. This included the templates for Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes, Half-Elves, Halflings, Half-Orcs, and Hobgoblins. That left the racial templates for Dragonborn (from D&D 4E), and Sidhe ("High Elves" imbued with the power of Faerie - originally based on the Eladrin of D&D 4E but with some alterations). To accomodate the wishes of two players, I also added templates for the Pathfinder races Catfolk and Nagaji, with the former being directly lifted from GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 3 - The Next Level.

Dragonborn (47 points)

Attribute Modifiers: ST +1 [10]; HT +1 [10].

Advantages: Dragon Breath [12]. Rapid Healing (Very Rapid) [15].

Pick one of the following breath weapons:

Acid Jet: Corrosive Attack 1d+1 (Jet, +0%, Costs Fatigue 2, -10%) [12].

Acid Cone: Corrosive Attack 1d (Cone, 5 yards max, +50%; Reduced Range 1/5, -20%; Costs Fatigue 2, -10%) [12].

Fire Jet: Burning Attack 2d+2 (Jet, +0%, Costs Fatigue 2, -10%) [9].

Fire Cone: Burning Attack 2d (Cone, 5 yards max, +50%; Reduced Range 1/5, -20%; Costs Fatigue 2, -10%) [12].

Frost Jet: Crushing Attack 2d+2 (Jet, +0%; Costs Fatigue 2, -10%) [9].

Frost Cone:  Crushing Attack 2d (Cone, 5 yards max, +50%; Reduced Range 1/5, -20%; Costs Fatigue 2, -10%) [12].

Lightning Jet: Burning Attack 2d+2 (Jet, +0%, Costs Fatigue 2, -10%) [12].

Lightning Cone: Burning Attack 2d (Cone, 5 yards max, +50%; Reduced Range 1/5, -20%; Costs Fatigue 2, -10%) [12].

Poison Jet: Toxic Attack 3d+1 (Jet, +0%, Costs Fatigue 2, -10%) [12].

Poison Cone: Toxic Attack 2d+1 (Cone, 5 yards max, +50%; Reduced Range 1/5, -20%; Costs Fatigue 2, -10%) [12].

Additional breath weapons may be purchased as Alternate Attacks for [3] points each. Dragonborn of mixed heritage may purchase breath weapons of up to two different types (such as Frost or Lightining).

The maximum cost for the breath weapon was based on my personal house rule for Innate Attacks in fantasy campaigns - no more than 1 CP in the most expensive Innate Attack for each 12.5 CPs the character is worth. Thus, 150 point starting characters may put up to 12 CPs in an Innate Attack.

Furthermore, Dragonborn may embrace their draconic heritage and purchase additional Advantages as their bodies change. This includes the following:

Claws, Dark Vision, Flight (Gliding or Winged), Night Vision, Teeth.

They may purchase a "Dragonborn Talent" for 5 CP/level which adds to all rolls involving the innate abilities of their race.

Sidhe (60 points)

Attribute Modifiers: DX +1 [20]; IQ +1 [20]; HT -1 [-10].

Secondary Characteristic Modifiers: Per +1 [5], HP -1 [-2].

Advantages: Charisma 2 [10]; Extended Lifespan 4 [8], Less Sleep 4 [8], Magery 1 [15], Night Vision 3 [3], Resistant (Immunity to supernatural “sleep” effects) [5], Resistant (+3 versus supernatural charm effects) [2].

Disadvantages: Dependency (Mana; Very Common; Daily) [-15], Vulnerability (Cold Iron; Rare; x2) [-10].

Perks: Trance instead of sleep [1].

Nagaji (10 points)

Attribute Modifiers: ST +1 [10]; IQ -1 [-20].

Secondary Characteristic Modifiers: Per +3 [15].

Advantages: Damage Resistance 1 [5].

Some Nagaji have learned how to spit a mild poison which can blind their opponents:
 
Blinding Spray (+170%): Affliction 1 (HT; Blindness, +50%; Jet, +0%; Limited Use, 4 Uses Per Day, -20%; Reduced Range, ×1/2, -10%; Vision-Based, +150%) [27].

Some Nagaji also develop a strong talent for hypnosis. This is represented by either an Affliction (Incapacitation, usually with Daze) or Mind Control. The "Sense-Based (Vision)"-Limitation is mandatory, and anything more complex than putting the victim into a trance requires verbal commands, which gives it the Nuisance Effect (Obvious) Limitation. The "Suggestion" Limitation from GURPS Powers, p. 61 is also common.

Coming up: The rules for magic in the Cold Frontier campaign!

[Urbis] Monsters of the Cold Frontier, Part IV

Continued from Part III...

And now let's have a look at the final Pathfinder Bestiary published so far.

• Almiraj: While its source is from Islamic poetry, it is obscure enough that it should fit into Nardhome without causing undue comment. Inland.
• Alpluachra: This creature from Welsh mythology is also bizarre enough to make it into our list. Inland lakes.
• Beheaded: Those might be a specialty of some local necromancers.
• Bodythief: This creature might spring up after the PCs have established some farming villages.
• Chaneque: Hated monster of the coastal tribes.
• Dossenus: Underground. A swarm of these creatures emerging on the surface might qualify as a "natural disaster" for the colony.
• Dragon, Outer: These might make a guest star appearance or two as the campaign progresses. It's likely that all the dragons in Urbis originally came from space, anyway...
• Drake, Mist: Inland.
• Drake, Spire: The northern canyon lands, especially in the old ruins.
• Ectoplasmic Creature: Common in native ruins.
• Festering Spirit: Might also show up in native ruins.
• Freezing Flow: Desolation.
• Fungal Creature: Perhaps these are the result of an old First City experiment - which means that an old research station might be filled by a small society of these beings. They are trapped - until the PCs accidentally release them.
• Golem, Coral: Some shamans of the Coastal Tribes might be able to create them - and if not them, then maybe the marine creatures they interact with.
• Hungry Flesh: Another First City experiment. I am beginning to suspect that they created outposts in Nardhome partially to have an out-of-the-way location to conduct bizarre biological experiments in.
• Immortal Ichor: This seems to have potential, yet I am not sure how to fit it into the campaign. Perhaps the God Chamber is powered by it? Or perhaps it represents the remains of the last being which attempted to use the God Chamber - parts of it became the Wendigo, and the rest became... this.
• Incutilis: Coastal.
• Isitoq: Created by evil local shamans.
• Kasatha: These beings might make an appearance late in the campaign as the off-planet connections become obvious.
• Lunarma: Dormant cocoons of these beings might be found in the northern Desolation, to be stumbled across by careless explorers.
• Lurking Ray: Underground.
• Lycanthrope, Werebat: The Coastal Tribes have some specialized "skinwalkers", and bat-type skinwalkers might be found among them.
• Lycanthrope, Wereshark: Likely exist among the Coastal Tribes, might appear in the Colony later on.
• Manitou: One exists in the region which likely feels responsible for not stopping the Great Scourge.
• Mindslaver Mold: Another First City experiment that got out of control.
• Myrmecoleon: Alien from the planet Surtus. Desolation.
• Owb: Might be manipulating events for its own purposes - but what are those?
• Qallupilluk: Coastal. A creature from Inuit mythology!
• Shadow Creature: Beings trapped when a First Age settlement was transported to the Plane of Shadows.
• Shredskin: Might be created as a byproduct of evil native rituals. Anywhere.
• Shriezyx: Guardians of prehuman ruins. Desolation.
• Snallygaster: Inland forests and mountains.
• Walrus: Common in the coastal areas. Might be an animal totem of the coastal tribes.
• Weasel (Dire, Giant): Inland. Might be a totem to the inland tribes.
• Weedwhip: Immigrant from Magrith. Rare, but exists in the Inland areas.
• Xenopterid: Inland, Desolation. Likely from another planet.