Midgard Skills
Athletics (Climb, Jump and Swim)
Brawl (Melee)
Wrestling (Grapple)
Dexterity Based
Accuracy (Ranged, Finesse)
Tumble (Balance and Acrobatics)
Stealth (Hide and Move Silent)
Intelligence Based
Craft (Appraise, Craft, Know)
Disable (Break and Rig)
Transformation (Magical Changing and Chemistry)
Binding (Demons and Summons)
Wisdom Based
Healing (Mundane and Magical)
Perception (
Divination
Runes
Naturalism
Charisma Based
Handle Animal
Necromancy
Negotiation (diplomacy, sense motive)
Skald (bluff, perform, music magic)
Trickery (Illusion, Charms)
Just playing with some ideas after seeing Battle of the Five Armies.
Midgard- a game of Epic Sword and Sorcery Adventure
Midgard is a game inspired by High and Heroic Fantasy works such as Lord of the Rings, Conan, and Norse myths.
The intent behind Midgard is for martially oriented characters to have a variety of options as wide as a spellcaster, and for both sorts of characters to be able to contribute equally in the game, with a focus on martial combat as the primary means of resolving conflicts, with magic as more of a utility tool, but still allowing spellcasters to feel like spellcasters (a problem I ran into with the d20 Conan).
Midgard Flow Sheet
In Midgard, the PCs are wandering Iron Age heroes, better likened to mercenaries and freebooters than anything explicitly heroic. As such, they are called a Company, as in a mercenary company, or the Adventuring Company of Thorin Oakenshield.
Step Two- Outline a Six Person Party
Midgard is largely based on stories where parties easily outnumber six members, and most of those members are martial characters. A sample six person party is as follows-
- Burglar: Probably a lagrkin, skilled in stealth, infiltration, trap-finding, and stabbing things in the voolnerables. Some mobility, but primarily of the "moving around the enemy and not getting stabbed" variety. Iconic weapon- Dagger
- Skald: Like a bard, but hopefully at least somewhat more fun to play. If nothing else, they tend to be poets/singers, so they should be able to swing a sword while doing their magic music thing. Buffs, faces, maybe some debuffing. In fact, definitely some debuffing, since curses are such a big thing in norse myth. Also the person you call upon to get you out of contracts. Iconic weapon- Nidr, which is to say, hexes. Like, they literally fight by fucking dissing and cursing you.
- Noble: Like, actual nobility. They obviously have weapons training and some study of tactics and strategy, but they also hand out morale buffs, a good deal of courtly knowledge and can call for backup (though this will be a pain to write). Iconic weapon- Longsword and Shield
- Woodsman: Skilled in tracking, survival, wilderness knowledge, the typical ranger stuff. May have an animal companion, if I figure a way to make that work. Iconic weapon- bow, knife
- Wanderer: Sages and wisemen, studious sorts who primarily contribute to adventure by being a walking encyclopedia, and secondary contribute by being able to use magic while still swinging a longsword and a staff. Notably, Gandalf is based heavily on Odin's Grey Wanderer aspect. Iconic weapon- Magic/Staff
- Alchemist: The Alchemist seeks immortality through "science." Except that they do science that involves boiling shit in dangerous chemicals to purify it into a higher specimen of it's form, ie, lead to gold. When not locked up in their lab huffing fumes and muttering about elixirs and philosopher's stones, they toss dangerous, volatile chemicals at people and melt walls and shit. They can also tell you if that gold idol you found is actually gold, or lead with a thin gold veneer.
Sample Adventure Tasks
- Fight a magical beast, possibly a dragon- The burgler is not the strongest combatant, but should be able to hold his own, and the Skald's main shtick is talking, but he can lay down curses and debuffs. The Wanderer may have to primarily resort to mundane combat, but importantly, the system should, based on the things inspiring it, allow that to be a viable option, and he may be able to tell the company a specific weakness of the beast. The Noble, Woodsman and Alchemist should be fine, really.
- Sneak into a Darkhold undetected- Burglar, and perhaps Skald will excel in this situation, being the designated sneaks. However, Woodsman, being a ranger-sort, will have some stealth ability, even if it's primarily forest-oriented, Wanderer may or may not have some stealth-aiding abilities, depending on spell selection, and Noble has nothing that explicitly suggests skill in stealth. However, Wanderer and Noble could make a distraction, and Alchemist can concoct invisibility potions, so their presence does not automatically make the company fail.
- Navigate an Alfkin court- Noble leads the day here. He has connections and inherent respectability as a peer. The Wanderer can probably curry favour from the court wizard, the alchemist from the same or a court alchemist. The Skald has talky powers, so he acts as the Noble's herald, and faces it up. The Burglar...cases the joint? I don't know. Burglar probably uses their bluff and disguise shit to pretend to be NotABurglar.
- Find Ancient Treasure- The Burglar stars here, with Alchemist helping take down doors and walls. The noble contributes by possibly getting the quest, but otherwise through handing out morale boosts and just being a sword that's present. Wanderer dishes out knowledge about ruins and treasure and maybe has a form of battlefield control that works best in confined spaces? (I'm think "YOU SHALL NOT PASS" stuff). Woodsman and Skald handle monster and legend knowledge respectively, maybe there's a "Hey, I know this sword from a story!" thing that basically is free identify. And of course, everyone can fight.
Using Frank's original Warp-Cult example, we take out every other character for two three man companies:
Burglar, Noble, Wanderer- This party is fairly well rounded if it can get by on the Burglar's less than expert social skills, but outside of social missions, it has sneaking, combat, and magic challenges pretty well covered.
Skald, Woodsman, Alchemist- If this party can get by on the Woodsman's woods-focused stealth (such as if he gets an inherent bonus when he's in the woods, or suffers only a minor penalty outside them) it has social, stealth, and combat well taken care of, with magic it's trouble spot. Fortunately for them, problems only solvable by magic aren't as common in Midgard's source material as they are in games such as D&D.
Step Four- Outline a Sample Four-Hour Adventure
The Southron Durskin (orcs) tribe has broken the tenuous gentlebeing's agreement of Midgard, electing to lay waste to an entire settlement to take all it's wealth and food for themselves, rather than a more typical raid that may have decimated the town, but left most of the citizenry alive.
Now the alfkin and dverkin call for all durskin blood to be spilled, claiming to have known the like of they were never to have been trusted. The Company is hired by an interested party who feels that such a crusade would be detrimental to his interests (perhaps he's a half-durskin business man, or a human business owner that employs durskin) to bring the elves around on the subject--if the alfkin change their mind, they may be able to convince the much more tradition bound dvurkin to not throw out the entire agreement for the actions of a single tribe. The Company must navigate the court, avoiding insult while convincing various key alfkin to vouch for them and bend the alfkin jarl's ear. The company relies on the diplomatic skill of Skald and the peerage ties of Noble before the king, but can each use their particular area of expertise to talk up elven treasure finders and aristocracy, captains of the guard, sages and alchemists. If anyone is an Alfkin, he kind of acts as a second Noble, due to the racial respect. Skald may have disguise skills or magic that allow him to pass for an alfkin, but without a falsified lineage, that may not mean much.
Step Five- Outline a Sample Campaign
- The Company convinces the alfkin to not declare a crusade on all dvurskin, just the one specific tribe-
- Provided the company can recover an alfkin artifact stolen by another tribe of orcs and held in a Darkhold, without being discovered or tied back to the alfkin.
- Once in the Darkhold, the company finds the artifact is most likely held in a dungeon at the center of the Darkhold...
- Where they find that the Darkhold is actually a barracks for a dragon's personal thrall-army, and the artifact was stolen to satisfy his greed.
So Midgard wants a robust tactical combat minigame, and it wants to be reasonably low-powered in the grand scheme of things, but with a possibility of growing to a higher power. Given it's Iron Age/Psuedo-Medieval Milieu, something like D&D, but restricted to a lower power level, would be good. The thing which would not work using regular D&D would be the magic, but that can be corrected for.
I don't think I want to use D&D precisely, but I think d20+mods v. variable TN is a good jumping off point, levels, races, classes, etc can work or be made to work. So I'm choosing d20, broadly speaking.
Moving Step seven to a new post.