In this episode, we chat about getting your work published for Mythras and I give you some tips about the undead. Welcome to Mythras Matters Season 1 Episode 42 - Publishing your work and Atypical skeletons
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Hello and welcome to Mythras Matters, a podcast dedicated to the Mythras ruleset and all its supplements. As always, I’m your host, inwils, and welcome to November!
Autumn has definitely arrived. The days getting shorter and the weather getting colder. We are getting to that time of the year when we are bombarded with festivals. In the UK we celebrate Halloween, then all saints day (1st November) then Bonfire Night (5th November) then there is Thanksgiving in the US and then Christmas! Of course, these festivals are accompanied by a range of lovely festive food and the meeting of friends and family.
There was a time when I would create and run adventures to coincide with the festivities, especially Halloween. I'm not sure if anyone remembers Car Wars? that was a fun system! you created cars, bikes and trucks to battle against your opponents on a tabletop map of the town. I remember that my brother had a car called the donkey. If you crashed into it, or it crashed into you, bumper triggers set off rockets that would just wipe you out!
Focus inwils - back to games associated with festivals - I have even GMed a game of car wars when everyone had Santa Sleighs that flew through the air firing deadly snowballs and presents as grenades! That was some battle!
If you like the reminiscing segments, then do check out my series of looking at old games and rulebooks. You can find these along with all my other RPG content, on my YouTube channel - links in the show notes!
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When I was younger I always dreamed of having something published. At age 14 I used to produce my own fanzine called Animate Dead. I charged 20p or whatever you wanted to pay for a magazine that was typed with a manual typewriter with layers of carbon paper sandwiched between the white paper. I had to hit the keys so hard to make several copies!
I did once send off an adventure to be published and remember it coming back covered with red-penned comments about how inaccurate it was!
I realised that my skills don't lie in the realm of publications, but yours might. So in order to support your work I arranged a chat with Lawrence and Brian about the process of getting work published by the design mechanism.
Get ready to take notes!
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Interview Section - no transcript available
We hope that was useful for you and what a super supportive process! If you are interested do have a go - and if you get published, let me know and you can appear on the podcast talking about your adventure or supplement
And remember, if you would like to contribute to the podcast then why not just drop me an email or message and let me know what you would like to cover? I am always looking for reviews or interviews with people. So if you are interested, you can email me at inwils@gmail.com or send me a message on the various forums I frequent.
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I have a real thing about the undead. Wait that probably came across incorrectly - so before it is misinterpreted, let me clarify.
When it comes to settings, characters or monsters, my long-time favourite genre has to be the undead. From crypts to graveyards, from evil clerics to necromancers. If the undead is involved I'm there!
I like all the stereotypical abilities and appearances and remember playing other games when blunt weapons smash skeletons with double damage and silver blades slice vampires to bits.
One of my second all-time favourite undead, the first being vampires, is the wight! I always used to smile to see the fighters push and elves in the party towards the approaching wights since wight's attacks would age their opponents. Elves had plenty of years to give while mere humans did not have those years to spare.
Part of enjoying the undead would be the invulnerability that they possessed - basically, you need magical weapons in order to do damage to them. This always produced a great moment in the game when the adventurers frantically searched their equipment for that +1 dagger that found a couple of adventures ago as well as deciding who would wield it!
As the players gain more knowledge about the undead, the impact of the undead in encounters is sadly reduced. However, because I love them so much I have started to get creative with the lowest of the undead, the skeleton. So here are some ideas, to spice those skeletons up;
1) Fungus Skeletons - these are skeletons that have been created via deadly fungi. The fungus infests a living host and then slowly drains away the moisture until only the bones remain. The danger with these skeletons is that whenever damage is done to them, they release spores to infect their opponents. what the spores do is up to you, but I have the rules guru talking about poisons and diseases in the December episode of the podcast. But until then, characters will need Face masks at the ready!
2) Exploding Skeletons. - Created with great power, these skeletons are the front-line fighters of any undead armour. These skeletons are quick and slightly smaller than the usual skeleton - if you play Minecraft, think of small zombies that run at you! The surprise about these skeletons happens when they are the attack or weapon. Once they encounter resistance, then they explode. Boom! They are the perfect troops against armies or even stockades and castles!
3) Trollkin Skeletons - These humble skeletons look the same as any other skeleton. They will approach with their bones rattling and start to fight. The trick about these skeletons is that each arm and head can continue to fight after they have been separated from their body. Legs and Arms will crawl to their opponents trying to trip or slow them. Heads will even try to bite anything that comes near them. Damaging them again, e.g. reducing them to zero hit points, kills the separated body parts
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4) Head-throwing Skeletons - who needs a grenade when you have a head? As the skeletons approach, they take off their heads and throw them like missile weapons. These can either attack doing normal damage or explode like the exploding skeletons. I actually like to make them attach to the character, probably doing minimal damage, but attaching more and more and more. Eventually, the character will find that their skill rolls are harder, they can't move or are brought to the ground by the sheer number of heads.
I hope that has given you some ideas for your humble skeletons. Remember you can see more of my encounter sheets by visiting and downloading them from my RPG shop - the link is in the show notes!
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And that’s it, another episode of Mythras Matters completed.
Don't forget you can check out all my content by following my YouTube channel and the campaign areas on World Anvil. I really appreciate your support and do check out the TapaTalk forums, there are some great people there sharing their ideas within the discussions.
So, until next time have a great month of gaming and I will chat again with you all in December when we will have loz here for some updates for those Christmas presents and the rules guru spreading their wisdom
Until then I hope that all our opposed rolls succeed and provide you with a well-deserved special.
Thanks for listening cya - Bye!