Being in the Main the Mouth of Olde House Rules

Tuesday, August 1, 2023

Dwarven Mail of Mydwandr...

So Mydwandr, Rules-Light Roleplay, is (finally) out. It's a game. It's a setting. It's both, although admittedly, the gaming aspect predominates. So setting aside the commercial, we'll focus on the magical armors made by the dwarves and gifted to the Kings of Jontavr, who jelously guard, and sometimes squander, this inheritance. These stories are many, and often humorous, although it speaks more to the magic of this mining people:

When a new king is crowned in Jontavr, the dwarves present them a suit of mail in observance of the alliance between their kindreds. These are magical, or perhaps so well-wrought to appear as such, with attributes to match (or flatter) the sovereign. Ragnar IV supposedly slew a wyrm on a boar hunt, earning the title Dragonslayer and recieving a fine suit of Dragon's Mail upon his ascent to the throne, although his rule was brief...

Now candid historians maintain it was a very young wyrm, and that the boy had help, which is almost certainly the case; but the dwarves heard and forged their offering.


Another is the King's Mail of Skard. An intemperate boy given to fighting, he carried a scar into manhood documenting his youthful violence; and the dwarves, bound to make their customary gift, fashioned the King's Mail. This exquisite suit of chainmail glittered, betraying what magics went into it. Simply put, it reduced all melee damage to a single hit, but only between sunrise through noon when his disfiguiring fight supposedly took place...

Accordingly, Skard avoided battle at night or later in the day, leading his counselors to call him Skard Half-Brave behind his back. Such caution made his years many.

All of this speaks to the nature of dwarven magic. As one of the three kindreds, dwarves certainly have the capacity for spellcraft, although culture (and necessity, given the endless waves of fearsome urku they must contend with) doubtless directs most to other pursuits, including their legendary smithcraft. Even so, magically gifted dwarves sometimes become enchanters, aiding their own cause and securing the alliances vital to their properity...

7 comments:

  1. Is there anything else you like to mention about the game, the mechanics or the setting? This caught me by (pleasant) surprise today. First I heard it was coming.

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    1. We gave no advance warning, which is unusual for us. It's a d6 mechanic, and if you follow the link, the preview describes the mechanic (we call it one rule to rule them all), supplemented by more in the product description. The setting is quasi-norse or rather, a mixing of cultures intersecting over the fertile remains of a prehistoric and long-dead volcano. Anyway, thanks for the kind words...

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  2. funny, but scrolling along misread it as the Dwarven Mall of Mydwandr...and a Dwarven shopping mall caught my attention, with shades of the Troll Market of Hellboy.

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  3. Hello! I have enjoyed playing your past games (Blood of Pangea, Retrospace) and am looking forward to new releases. Tell me, do you mix your own games during the campaign?

    Do you have any advice for those who want to use a character from Murkokian fantasy (Opherian Scrolls) in Mydwandr? Or connect Pits and Perilous with a new game? Or even collect a single multiverse?

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    1. Hey, thanks for the kind words! Blood of Pangea and Mydwander have some core mechanical similarities, so some one-for-one conversion should be easy enough with little effort. Beyond that, just put on the old houseruling cap and have fun broadening your own fantastical universe...

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