Dragon Storm

Dragon Storm Rulebook

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Building Your Character
- What Do All Those Numbers and Letters Mean?
Chapter 2. Contest Rolls
Chapter 3. Fight Time: Combat in Dragon Storm
Chapter 4. Onwards! Growing Your Character in Dragon Storm
- All Yours for a Low Low Price
Chapter 5. Who's in Charge Here?
Appendix One: First Change
Appendix Two: Second Adventure, Bandits and Balderdash
Appendix Three: Spawn of the Woods, Adventure
Appendix Four: Scenes from the Past
Appendix Five: The Gamemaster and Dealing with Items Rules
Appendix Six: Classic Cards and Second Edition
Appendix Seven: Overview of Rules Changes Between Classic and Second Edition
Appendix Eight: Starter Character Cards
Appendix Nine: Lifeline Cards
Appendix Ten: Other Player Cards
Appendix Eleven: Getting More Dragon Storm
Gamemaster Cards (Appendix Eleven, Pages 82 to 92)
Index

Chapter 1. Building Your Character

What you will need to create your character:

A starting character set. We have included black and white versions of these cards in the back of the book for you to photocopy and use if you do not have the actual card set available.
A copy of the Dragon Storm Character Sheet. If you don't have one on hand, you may copy the Character Sheet on Page 93 of this book.
A pencil.
Two six-sided dice. You won't be using these to create your character, but they will be needed to play.

When you open your character set, you will find different types of cards. In the section below is a definition of all card types, as well as an explanation of all those numbers and letters. There's enough time for that later. Right now, let's concentrate on getting this character built.

Human Dragon, your first character:

Here is what you need to know about this character in order to play. First, he's a human dragon. Literally. A human who turns into a dragon. In Dragon Storm, most of the characters you play are mortal shape shifters and this character is no exception. The card shows what he looks like when he is in human form.

Other than appearance and race, the only other thing you need to know about this character is his starting card points. These are shown as a number with a + in front of it. You will find it in the upper right-hand corner of that character card. Your character has starting points of +13. Why do you need to know this? Because those points are what you spend to buy starting cards for your character.

Aside: Your character does not need to look like the illustration on your character card. In fact, it doesn't even have to be the same gender as the illustrated character. That picture is there to give an example of the title race. You decide your own character's appearance, so long as that appearance is consistent with the title race. (For instance, you can't decide that your human character has pointed ears when he is in human form. You can get other Dragon starting races, like an Elf, who has pointy ears, but we are keeping this simple.) There are many character cards with different illustrations on them. In addition, you can a purchase a custom character card. For more information go to (http://www.artbysvc.com).

Buy Starting Cards:

Your starting cards can be divided into two piles: Items that can be bought with gold and cards that can be bought with starting points. Items have the letters GP printed in the upper right-hand corner. Put those off to the side for a moment and look at the rest of your cards. You will see that every card has a number in the upper right-hand corner. This is card cost. You have 13 starting points to spend. The Starter character has 13 card points of cards included. Later you will be creating characters from a much larger pool of cards.

Dragon Form: At a card cost of 1, this card is a bargain. It adds a lot of power to your character for a low, low price. Besides, why play a shape shifter if you can't change shape? The illustration on this card gives an idea of what your character looks like when you turn into a dragon. Every shape shifter character must have at least one form with the character.

Farmer Background: Not everyone is a farmer. In fact, if you start a different Dragon Storm character than this one, you will have many different backgrounds to choose from. The point is, you must buy a background for a new character and this is the background that is available. Now stop grousing and start hoeing those potatoes!

To be fair, Farmer is a background with some advantages. In fact, it has eight advantages. They are called health points and you will see them on the right-hand side of the card. Your character will be happy to have those the first time he gets slapped upside the head by an annoyed mad spawn.

Draconic Mending: It is a good card for a starting character to have, especially one who wants to live long enough to be an experienced character.

Firebreath Two: It's just fun to breathe fire when you are a dragon. Think of it as one of the character's perks.

The rest of the cards: Read the titles, look at the pictures, add up the card cost and spend your points. Illustrations and card titles will give you a good idea of what a card does even if you don't understand the rules. With the Starter character you will choose Trail Blazing, Percieve and Luck of Youth to bring your first character to his 13 starting points.

Oh, and by the way, when we said above that all these had card cost, we lied. Three of them don't. Those three cards are Valarian Champion, Luck of Youth and Novice Lifeline One.

Valarian Champion: Your character is a shape shifter, a dragon to be precise. You are strong, you are fierce, you can breathe fire and you can fly. It is a wonderful thing to be a dragon.

However, there is more to being a dragon than flying around the country side, burning potato fields and stealing sheep. Shape shifters have enemies. Their worst enemies are necromancers, practitioners of death magic and all around nasty customers. Necromancers hunt shape shifters. When they catch them, they kill them and drain their natural magic to fuel their own twisted spells.

As a rule, shape shifters dislike this. In fact, they have no use for necromancers and would be perfectly happy to see them all fed alive to their own zombies. To get rid of these villains, shape shifters (and mortal people allied with them) have banded together and formed a group called the Valarian Champions. The Valarian Champion card is added to your character when he joins this group.

It is a useful card, making your character tougher (+8 HP) and smarter (+1 WIS), but you do not get it as a starting character. In the upper right-hand corner, where card points normally go, is the word Boon. This means that the card cannot be bought. It is a Boon that needs to be earned through role-playing. Your character has to accomplish some action during the course of the game to get this card. What action? That is up to your game master.

If it makes you feel better, we will let you on to a secret. In the back of this book is an introductory adventure that we recommend as the first one that a game master runs for new players. Should your character survive this adventure, he will earn the Valarian Champion Boon.

Luck of Youth: This one of a kind card doesn't fit into any category. It is there to help your character survive. You gain +2 to a contest roll once a game. Contest rolls will be explained in the next chapter.

Notice that this card cannot be used after your character has more than 50 card points. Essentially, this means once your character has advanced to a certain point, Luck of Youth no longer works, the character is no longer young. Put your Luck of Youth aside for the next young character you create.

Other cards, such as the Guild Membership card and Guild Warden card, act the same way as Luck of Youth but never go away. For more details on how to get a Guild Membership card, go to (http://guild.gameswemake.com/index.html).

LifeLine Card: Novice, Lifeline card One. The Lifeline cards change every 100 card points as your character gains experience. Novice is good for the first 99 cards points, when you reach 100 CP, you replace the Novice card with the Seeker Lifeline. The information on the Lifeline cards is covered in the Growing Your Character chapter. While we have not included a Lifeline card with the Starter character, you can check them out on the web, and in the back of this book. (http://www.dragonstorm.com/content/)

Item Cards: Here is the great thing about item cards. You get all of the ones in the Starter pack. Add them to your character. In addition, your character has 194 gold pieces, after purchasing these items. For an explanation why, read the text on your Farmer background card. Those potatoes sell for good money.

There are many more items available. You can use all of the Classic Items and the new Second Edition items.

Time to fill out your Characters sheet:

The Dragon Storm Character sheet is for keeping track of things not covered in cards. As a result, it is a very simple character sheet. Almost everything about your character will be tracked on cards. For those few things tracked on the sheet, here is how to fill it out.

Name: Your character's name.

Player: Your name.

Gender: Pick one. Remember that your character does not need to be the same gender as the person illustrated on your character card.

Age: Pick a number between 16 and 20. That is how old your character is to start.

Card Pts: Short for Card Points. For now this is 13. This number will increase over time. How this happens will be explained in Chapter 4, Grow Your Character.

Role Play Pts: Short for Role Playing Points. For now, this is 0. Later, this space will be used to record the characters role playing points, which you will earn in Dragon Storm games. These points can be spent to buy more cards. Chapter 4 will tell you how.

Base Move: This number is 60 feet plus 10 feet for every point of your character's SPD. It is currently 70 feet. This is how far you character can move during a combat round. Movement and combat are explained in Chapter 3.

T Od, T Warp, T Waste: "T" stands for Taint. These are your Defense against taint damage. Your Taint Defense numbers can be found near the bottom of your character card. Enter those numbers here.

Boons: How many boons your character has earned. For now, this is 0.

RP to CP: This is part of your character's Lifeline information. The abbreviation means Role Playing Points to Card Point. What this means is explained in Chapter 4, Growing Your Character. For now, this number is 20.

GP, SP, CP: How many gold pieces, silver pieces and copper pieces your character carries. To start, it is 194 GP. Ten Silver Pieces equals one GP and 10 CP equals one SP.

STR, COR, DEF, SPD, WIS, HP, CAP: These are to record the base stats from you character card. Later other cards will be changing your stats, but before we go there, you should get the basics.

LLB: This is a bonus given for your character's Life Line, which will be explained later in the rules. For now, put a 1 here.

Guild #: When you join the Guild, you are issued a Guild number. It is recorded here. For more on the Dragon Storm Guild, go to (http://guild.gameswemake.com/index.html).

Bloodline/Clan: Clans and Bloodlines are joined through the Dragon Storm Guild. For more information, go to (http://guild.gameswemake.com/index.html.

The rest of the character sheet is lines for notes. You may keep track of anything you like here: Treasure items, card combinations, stats when in form, that cute girl's phone number. You get to decide how much note taking you want to do.

Congratulations! You have now created your first Dragon Storm character. If you are eager to start playing and don't care much about the details at this point, go on to Chapter 2, The Not So Loyal Opposition, to learn about contest rolls. If you want to learn more about the rules on your Dragon Storm Cards, read on.

What Do All Those Numbers and Letters Mean?

Your Dragon Storm cards are chock full of useful information. Some of this is pretty straightforward. However, a good deal of information is shown as numbers, letters, or some combination of the two. No, we are not trying to torture you with mutant algebra. Those numbers and letters are code, containing a lot of information in nice, bite-size bits. Once you get used to it, you will find you can quickly turn those numbers and letters into information that will keep your character alive.

Card Cost: As explained above, this is the cost to add a card to your character. If a + appears before this number, it means that the card is a character card and the number represents starting points, which are used to buy beginning cards. The "+" on Flaws also adds CP.

Stats: These numbers represent bonuses which a character gets to add to contest rolls when they try to do things. They are also important bonuses in combat. Both contest rolls and combat are explained in later chapters. For now, all that is important to know is that higher numbers are better. Each Stat represents an attribute of a character.

STR (strength): Physical brawn.
COR (coordination): Hand-to-eye coordination.
DEF (defense): Physical toughness.
SPD (speed): Quickness and reflexes.
WIS (wisdom): The ability to learn and reason.
HP (health points): The ability to withstand damage.
CAP (carrying capacity): How much a character can carry.

When you compare the Human Dragon character card to the Dragon Form card, you will see that some of the stats are missing on the Dragon Form card. Also, the stats on the Dragon Form card have a plus in front of them. This is done to show that stats on the Human Dragon card are basic stats and that the stats on the Dragon Form Card are added to the basic stats. When this character turns into a dragon his basic STR of 1 is added to the +15 STR bonus of his Dragon Form. Now, you may thank us for making you take that Dragon Form Card.

Many cards that give bonus stats are designed to be stacked on top of each other in a way that allows bonuses to be added up at a glance. It works like this:

Reading across, you can see that the Form STR of +15 is added to the base STR of 1, for a total of 16 STR.
In the same way, the Form DEF of +4 is added to the base STR of 3, for a total of 7 DEF.
The Form CAP of 5 is added to the base CAP of 7, and the Farmer's +1, for a total of 13.
All other stats on the Dragon Form card are blank, so this card gives no bonus for those stats.
The Farmer background adds +8 HP, giving a total of 34.

This card combination represents your character in dragon form. What happens, however, if you decide that your character wants to go to town? In general, civil authorities frown on dragons barging their way through city streets. In addition, hungry young necromancers are always on the look out for half wit shape shifters who openly display their true nature. It's smarter to go into town as a human. To do this, take the Dragon Form off the Human Dragon Card and turn it over.

Your character is now back in human form. You have also done something central to Dragon Storm: You have drained a card.

It works like this: You play a card, the card has an effect lasting a certain amount of time and then you drain the card. A drained card can not be played until your character has rested. With rest, cards are recharged. They are ready to be played and drained again. Your game master will tell you when you have rested enough to recharge cards and how many cards you get back after rest.

Some cards are permanent and never drain. See the descriptions below for details.

Card Type Line: This line contains a lot of information. To get so much in such a small space, we have used a number of abbreviations and codes. Here is what all these mean.

Card Type: This is the first word on the card type line. It defines what the card is and who can use it. On the Dragon Form and Dragon Character cards, the card type is Dragon. Only a Dragon Character can use this card. Here are the card types.

Background: A card that represents skills and background a character picked up in the first 16 years of their life. A character may only have one background card. Backgrounds never drain.
Racial: A card that represents a racial skill. Your character must be the same race as that listed on the card to use a racial card. (There are many more races than human available, but we are focusing on the basics here.)
Universal: A card that can be played by anyone. That does include the GM's cast members as well.
Enhance: A card that boosts the effect of another card. Cannot be played alone.
Anchor: A card that represents a permanent skill or ability a character has learned. A character may only have one of each type of Anchor card. Anchors never drain. All anchors must be learned from a Mentor. Mentors are played by the GM, in the game. Stats on the right-hand side of Anchor cards are treated as an Enhance bonus that never drains.
Character: A Character card with base stats. Base stats are used to enhance many contest rolls. Only one Character card is allowed.
Form: A special card that is played on the character card when the character shifts shape. A character may only play a form for his race. Human dragons only turn into dragon forms. A character may only have one form card in play at a time.
Boon: A powerful skill or ability that is earned through role playing. Most Boons are also Anchor cards.
Compound Card Type: Sometimes two words are used. In this case, both words define what type of card it is. For example, Dragon Character is a Character who is a Dragon.

Anchor Class: Some Anchors allow a character to add a new class of cards to the list of card types they can buy. The added cards the same name as the original anchor. For instance, a character who buys the Anchor card Wizard is allowed to then buy Wizard spell cards.

Aside: Who are These Mentors, Anyway?

Mentors are respected sages, master crafters, veteran warriors and other individuals who have mastered at least one skill. They know their business and are capable of teaching others. Game masters run mentors as cast members and game masters decide what skills a mentor will teach and what she will demand in return for her lessons.

Your game master may make it easy to find cooperative mentors and allow characters to buy anchors easily. Alternately, she may make mentors scarce, expensive, grouchy or any other trait that makes acquiring skills an adventure in itself. She might go back and forth between easily learned and scarce skills to suit her taste. She might tell players that their character must sit out one or more game sessions while taking lessons from a mentor. All of these policies are correct. In Dragon Storm, finding mentors and learning new anchor skills are one of many matters we leave up to your game master.

After card type, the next space on the card type line is for timing. This tells you how long it takes to put a card into play (playtime) and how long it lasts until it is drained (duration). Timing is important in combat and it is fully explained in chapter 3. For now we will just explain what the timing abbreviations mean and move on.

Timing is shown as (playtime)/(duration).

Playtime Types:

Act: Short for Action. A short segment of time.
Ind: Short for Independent. An even shorter segment of time.
Mov: Short for Movement. A short segment of time dedicated to moving.
0: A segment of time so short that it is virtually imperceptible. Enhance cards always count as "0".

Duration Types:

C: Short for Combat. Card drains after one fight or 5 minutes, whichever is shorter.
R: Short for Round. Card is drained in one round.
F: Short for Flash. Card has an immediate effect, then is drained.
V: Short for Variable. Card lasts for a variable time then is drained. The amount of time a variable card lasts is usually given in card text, card guidelines, or drains when you go unconscious/sleep.
P: Short for Permanent. Card does not drain.

The last part of the card type line is for Limits. Some cards are limited in very specific ways. If a card has limitations, it will be shown by one or more of the codes below.

Card Limitation Codes:

AUK= Action Upkeep required each round. You must spend an action or this card drains.
IUK= Independent Upkeep required each round. You must spend an independent or this card drains.
L1P= Limited to one in play at a time. You may only play one of these until the card is drained.
L1R= Limited to one played per round. You may only play one of these during a combat round.
LxD: Limited uses per day. x is the number of times this card may be used in a day.
L(x)= Card has a limited number that may be carried by a character. You may only carry a number of this card equal to the number that follows the L.
+Info= Complexities involved. You should read the additional printed reference materials.

When new card sets are published, we also publish guidelines that include playing tips, background information and hints for game masters. Sometimes this includes information important to the correct use of a card. The +Info limitation means that you need to read guidelines to get necessary information about a card.

RST: Card recharges only with rest or meditation.
DWN: Card recharges only at Dawn.

Taint DEF: This is short for Taint Defense. It represents the natural protection a character has from a special kind of magic damage, called taint. Taint comes in three flavors: Od, warp and waste. None of them are delicious. Your game master tells you when you suffer taint damage, what kind of taint damage it is, and how much taint damage you take. Subtract your Taint Defense from your taint damage to see if you get hurt.

That's it! You have built a character and you know enough about your Dragon Storm cards to be dangerous to yourselves and others, at least in game terms. Its time to add a little chaos. The next chapter is about rolling dice and contest rolls.

Aside: Potions Don't Mix.

The magic item most commonly used by character will be potions, which are used for healing, card recharge, poison cure and other effects. When using potions, it is important to remember that only one potion may be working at a time. Whenever a potion is used it causes previous potions to drain. For example, a speed potion normally lasts for a five minutes. However, if a character gulps down a speed potion, then drinks a healing potion two minutes later, the speed potion is drained as soon as the healing potion takes effect.

Chapter 2. Contest Rolls

The Not So Loyal Opposition

Want to know what happens next? So do we.

If this was a book about storytelling instead of role playing, we would know the answer. We would have made it up ahead of time and we would tell you. However, this is a book about role playing. In a role playing game no one is completely sure what happens next.

The game master creates a plot and sets up her story, but she does not control the characters. Players do that. As a result, neither game master nor players can be certain where the story is going to go next.

How do they find out?

They roll dice.

Let's try this again.

In Dragon Storm, whenever your character tries to do something important that has a significant chance of failure, your game master asks you to roll two six-sided dice (abbreviated 2d6). She does the same. If your dice roll is higher than hers, your character succeeds. If her dice roll is higher, your character fails. If you tie, then you roll again until the tie is broken. That is how you find out what happens next.

Using 2d6 rolls this way is called making a contest roll. You will make numerous contest rolls as you play Dragon Storm, so keep your dice handy.

ASIDE: When a player encounters a tie contest roll, it would be a good time to ask your GM if you may play an Enhance card to win the contest roll. Guild membership cards, Luck of Youth and Boosted Moves are examples of Enhance cards that could turn a tie roll into an important win for a character. Helpful GM's may even ask her players if they have an Enhance to play when a tie roll occurs. The odds of this happening improve after players give the GM chocolate. GM's who have been well treated may voluntarily ask players if they would like to play an Enhance card. Think of it as though a character realizes that with just a little more effort, they may succeed.

Stacking the Deck in Your Favor (and Otherwise)

In a straight contest roll, where game master rolls against player, each has an equal chance of winning the contest. In life, situations are rarely so fair. One side or another has better odds of success. The same is often true in Dragon Storm. A player or Game Master can improve their odds of winning a contest roll. This is usually done by playing cards.

Cards give modifiers. A modifier is a number that adds to, or subtracts from, a contest roll. Yes, we said subtracts. Some modifiers make matters worse!

A modifier that adds to a contest roll is called a bonus.

A modifier that subtracts from a contest roll is called a penalty.

Luckily, most Dragon Storm cards give bonuses. Here are some commonly used cards and the bonuses they give.

Character Cards. Any stat on a character card can potentially be a bonus. Character cards are a special card. The stats on them are almost always available as an Enhance to your contest rolls. If the game master asks you to make a Strength roll, she is asking you to make a contest roll and add the character's STR from your character card. She is likely to do this if your character is trying break through a locked door, or perform some other feat requiring brute force. Should your character attempt to solve a riddle, she will ask for a WIS roll. Try sleight of hand and she will ask for a COR roll. What stat she allows as a bonus will depend on what feat your character is trying to accomplish.

Remember that stats can be enhanced by cards! Breaking through that door when you have your Dragon Form card in play is a lot easier, because your character will have much higher STR (16 instead of 1 in the case of your starting character)!

Anchor Cards. Many anchor cards are also Enhance cards and give a permanent bonus to stats. Some also give an additional bonus to particular skills. The Perception anchor card gives a +2 bonus to any contest roll when your character is trying to perceive his surroundings.

Item Cards. Some items give a bonus to contest rolls when characters are trying to accomplish a particular action. For instance, lock picks give a bonus to contest rolls when a character is trying to pick a lock.

Aside: Try Anything!

Here is something to keep in mind when playing Dragon Storm. Your character can try to do something, even if they don't have a card or bonus that improves their chances. Your character can try to sneak past a bandit guard without a Move Quietly card; he just won't get a bonus for doing so.

Picture a character flapping his arms and saying he is going to try to fly to the moon, he can try, but he is going to take a -405 penalty to his 2d6 roll...

Formula for Success: Contest Bonuses

Some cards have text that reads like the example below:

User 2d6+WIS vs 2d6+GM MOD

So what is this? Are we torturing you with algebra after we said we wouldn't do that? Not really (okay, maybe a little bit). What that formula means is this:

The card in your hand does something useful (what it does is explained in card text).
You need to make a contest roll in order for this card to do that useful thing.
You get a bonus of +WIS to your roll. (WIS is just an example. Another stat could be in this place, such as STR, COR or SPD.)
The Game Master (GM) also gets a bonus to her roll. Her bonus is called GM MOD. More on that later.

But Wait, There's More! In addition to the bonuses shown above, you can combine cards to achieve higher bonuses. This is usually done by playing Enhance cards. Enhance cards are designed to be bonus cards. Many Anchor cards act as permanent enhancements that can be combined with other cards. Read the cards and play with combinations. There are a lot of things you can do to improve your chances, and you're going to need that edge.

There are two more important things to know whenever you combine cards. First, you only roll 2d6 once, even if you are playing multiple cards in combination that call for a 2d6 roll. It's only the bonuses that add up, not the dice! Second, if you are combining cards that add a stat bonus to a contest roll, you can only add the bonus for same stat once. This last point is important to remember because it has an effect on which cards work best together, as shown in the example below.

Aside: Harrier Adds It Up

Harrier is a human dragon with a problem. She has been jumped by a wakana who has seriously wounded her, despite the fact that she is in dragon form. The wakana is about to strike her again and Harrier has two things she wants to do in a big hurry. First, she intends to dodge her opponent's next blow. Second, she wants to get a good look at what is going on around her, because she suspects at least one more wakana is preparing to attack her from hiding. To do all of this, she plays cards in combination.

Her first combination is two Boosted Moves cards. She plays these to enhance her dodge roll when the wakana tries to spear her. Each card gives a +2 bonus to her SPD, adding up to a +4 bonus to her dodge roll. She easily moves away from the fighter's thrust.

Her second combination was to be Battle Sight and Perception: See. However, when she glances at the cards she realizes that both give a bonus of 2d6 + WIS to her roll. Both add her WIS stat and since a stat, can only be added once to a roll, this combination won't give her much of a bonus. She sets aside Battle Sight and instead selects Universal Sight. This combines nicely with Perception: See, giving her a combined bonus of 6 to her roll (+2 from Universal Sight, +2 from her WIS bonus from Perception: See and +2 from her Perception Anchor card, which she also brings into play). She easily spots another wakana lurking in the woods nearby. It looks like the fight is about to get serious!

The GM's MOD Squad

Players can get bonuses to contest rolls. So can game masters. In a lot of cases they get bonuses from cards, just like players. Game masters also have a their own special bonus. This is the GM MOD. Cards with formulas allow a game master to add GM MOD, but that is only one of many ways this bonus can be used. A game master is allowed to add GM MOD to any contest roll she wants!

What is this mysterious GM MOD? It is a number, negative or positive, that can be added to or subtracted from a game master's contest roll. Who decides how high, or low, the GM MOD should be? The game master. Who decides when a GM MOD should be used? The game master. Why? Because she is the game master.

To explain more fully, in a sense the game master is the game world. She plays the role of everything that is not a player character. This means that she gets to decide how hard, or how easy, it is for a player to succeed at what they try to do. GM MOD allows her to make life easy, or very, very unpleasant, for a character. She can do this any time she wants. She might plan to use a GM MOD before she starts a game or she could decide to throw in a GM MOD on a sudden impulse. Grandilar is a world of chaotic magic and the GM MOD helps show how characters are effected by this.

GM MOD is part of rule 3.4, which can be found in the Game Masters rules. If you want to run Dragon Storm, or you are interested in this strange rule, we suggest you turn to page xx and have a look.

Terrible Twos are Real! (but so are Exploding Dice)

Remember this? That is not a joke. It is an actual rule.

Terrible Twos and Exploding Dice

Any time a player rolls a natural two--that is, the dice come up snake eyes--bad things happen. First, his character fails at whatever he is trying to do. If he is making a contest roll it fails, no matter how high of a bonus he adds to his roll. If he is trying to strike someone in combat he misses, even if his target is wide open. If he is casting a spell it fizzles. If he is headed to the out house--well, you get the idea.

In addition, the roll of a Terrible Two is an open invitation for a game master to do terrible things to your character. If she chooses, a game master may victimize your unfortunate character with any number of catastrophes, for her own amusement. Here are just a few possibilities.

Roll a terrible two when trying to dodge and fall down flat on your face in front of your opponent.
Roll a terrible two when trying to persuade a merchant to give you a deal and end up insulting him and getting run out of his shop.
Roll a terrible two when trying to scout a new territory and end up hopelessly lost for a week.

If this teaches you anything, it should be this. Be nice to your game master.

Caption (illustration): Show the guy in the pit with a tree falling down on top of him. The guy is saying, "Obviously, I did not bring the game master enough chocolate."

Terrible Twos are awful, but they are rare. In Dragon Storm, the pain of rolling a two is a lot less common than the joy of rolling Exploding Dice.

ASIDE: Terrible Two's can be fun and profitable. When a GM describes the consequences of a Terrible Two, role play your character's reaction to this turn of events. It is an opportunity to show what your character is made of, have fun with it. If your GM enjoys the way your character reacts, you may even get extra role-playing points for your efforts.

Exploding Dice: Whenever you roll 2d6 in Dragon Storm and get a 10, 11 or 12, your dice explode. Roll again and add the new roll to the original one. If you get another 10, 11 or 12 on your second roll, add that to the first roll and continue rolling. This streak continues until you don't roll a 10, 11 or 12. Exploding Dice can add up to very high numbers. Exploding Dice are the only thing not effected by a Terrible Two. If you roll a natural 2 after your dice explodes, you just add two to your roll and stop rolling. Nothing else bad happens.

There are two more important things to know about Terrible Twos and Exploding Dice.

Both Terrible Twos and Exploding Dice are based on dice rolls alone. If you add a bonus to make your 2d6 roll 10 or higher, it does not explode. If a penalty pushes your dice roll to 2 or lower, it is not terrible. Only the numbers on the dice matter.

Terrible Twos and Exploding Dice apply to Game Master rolls too! When the Zombie looming over you suddenly stops attacking and starts scratching its nose, chances are the gamester rolled a Terrible Two.

Card Duels

Some Dragon Storm cards allow you to stop an opponent from doing something. When that opponent is also using a card, the stage is set for a card duel. This special type of contest follows a series of steps. A card duel always involves just two opponents playing cards. Usually a card duel is between the GM and one player.

Here are some common situations that create card duels:

A necromancer casts Teleport. A character casts Dispel Magic to prevent her from escaping.
A character tries to sneak into a camp using Move Quietly. A guard tries to detect her using Perception.
A character casts Fire Burst at a necromancer. The necromancer casts Disperse to blow out the flames.

Here are the steps to follow when resolving a card duel:

It starts when player's character or game master's cast member does something objectionable and plays a card to accomplish it.
Next a character or cast member declares their intent to block that card.
The blocker then plays a card capable of blocking.
Now both duelists may play one Enhance card to boost their chances of success.
Finally the contest roll is made.

If the blocker wins, the objectionable card is immediately drained and it does not work. If the blocker loses, the objectionable card immediately takes effect. No one else may try to block it.

In Dragon Storm, card duels are quick. They are swiftly resolved and the game moves on.

Chapter 3. Fight Time: Combat in Dragon Storm

Most characters in Dragon Storm are shape shifters, beings with special powers and serious problems. The worst of their problems is this: Lots of enemies are out to get them. Walking dead, evil priests, crazy mad spawn and ambitious necromancers hunt and kill shape shifters. To stay alive, your character will need to fight back. In game terms, fights are settled using the combat rules.

Combat rules are just a more complicated version of contest rolls. There are rolls for success or failure, bonuses to rolls and GM MODs. The complications come from two things: How fast things happen in combat and how confusing events can get during a fight. To keep things straight, there is an order of combat--a timeline that lets everyone know who goes first and how much they can do. This timeline is called the combat round.

Around and A Round

In a fight, the action is fast, dangerous and confusing. It is hard to know what is going on and when it is happening. To keep track of this chaos, the regular pace of life is replaced by combat rounds.

A combat round is a time unit of roughly 30 seconds during which everything happens in a series of steps. These steps, called the order of play, go like this:

Game Master calls for all players to roll Initiative. (This roll is 2d6+SPD.)
Game Master counts down initiative, starting with the highest, ending with lowest.
Player and Cast Members may Move, Act or use Independents when their initiative is called.
Game Interrupting Independents may be allowed out of order of initiative, with your GM's approval. See page 27 for more information.
After lowest initiative is called, Round ends. Start again with a new initiative roll.

Your game master decides when the normal play time is replaced by combat rounds. Time stays divided into combat rounds until the fight ends; then normal time begins again.

Players and game masters may do a large variety of things during the steps of a combat round. Each step is explained more fully on page 23.

Aside: Pick a Number. Players play one character. The game master plays many cast members. This can add a lot of work and confusion for a game master who has to keep track of initiative of a large group of cast members in a fight. To avoid this problem, the game master is allowed to make a single initiative roll and pick a Speed number to add, and have most, or all, of his cast members act on that initiative.

Who's on First, Initiative

The first detail that's important in a fight is who goes first. In Dragon Storm, who goes first is decided by making initiative rolls. This is a roll of 2d6+SPD. Whoever rolls highest goes first and whoever rolls lowest goes last. Each player rolls for his character and the game master rolls for cast members.

Making it Count, Counting Down Initiative

This step is pretty simple. After Initiative is rolled, the game master asks who has highest initiative. She then starts counting down, starting with highest initiative and going to lowest. When their initiative number is called, players get to do things, which are explained more fully below.

It's Just One of Those Things

A character may do many different things when their initiative turn arrives. How many and what, you ask? For an answer, let's have another look at the explanation of Card Type timing.

Act: Short for Action. A short segment of time.
Ind: Short for Independent. An even shorter segment of time.
Mov: Short for Movement. A short segment of time dedicated to moving.
0: A segment of time so short that it is virtually imperceptible.

In combat, Actions, Independents and Movements are all things. A thing is a segment of time during which a character may do something. A character may do up to 10 things when their initiative is called. One thing may be an Action, one may be a Movement and all the rest are Independents.

Playing an enhancement card does not take a thing to do, because it has 0 timing. Enhancements must be combined with a thing (Act, Ind or Mov) to be played.

When you do something during a combat round that uses one of your 10 things, it is expended. To keep track of how many things you have expended, use pocket change: 1 quarter, 1 dime and 8 pennies. Put them in a line in front of you, all heads up. When you expend your Action, turn over the quarter. When you expend Movement, turn over the dime. As you expend Independents, turn over the pennies. At the end of the combat round, turn all your coins back to heads up and start again.

Movements, Actions and Independents all take one of your 10 things, but they are not all the same. Here is an explanation of each.

Actions

An Action is the main thing a character does in a round. It is the most complicated, time consuming feat, the one that takes the most concentration. The segment of time used for your action is longer than any other. It is the most important of your ten things.

What can be done with an Action:

Play a card with a timing of 1 Action (Act). These are usually the most powerful cards.
Some cards have a limitation of AUK (action upkeep). This means that they stay in play every round you expend your Action to maintain them.
Turn your Action into a Movement. (Essentially giving you two Movements and no Action.)
Attack an opponent in melee. To attack, do the following:
1. Make a 2d6 roll and add your character's base STR, along with the STR of any weapon, form or other cards that Enhance STR. This is your attack roll.
2. Compare your attack roll with the DEF of the opponent you are attacking. Subtract that DEF from your attack roll. An opponent must be less than 10 feet away from your character for a melee attack to work.
3. The resulting number is damage. Your opponent takes that much damage to HP from your attack.
When making a melee attack, you may choose to have an attack stun rather than kill. This is done by declaring that an attack is to stun before making your attack roll. The explanation of stun and stun damage is found near the end of this chapter.
Attack an opponent at range. A ranged attack works the same as a melee attack, except that the base stat and bonuses are COR. The distance allowed for ranged attacks are given on ranged weapons, such as bows, crossbows and slings.
Defend against a melee attack. For most actions, you have to wait until your initiative is called. To defend, however, you only have to wait until an opponent makes a melee attack on your character. At the moment of attack, if you want to defend, declare it and expend your character's action.

To defend, do the following:
1. Roll 2d6 and add your character's base DEF, along with the DEF of any armor, weapon, form or other cards that add to DEF. This is your defense roll.

ASIDE: Shifting the Load. Most Dragon Storm characters are shape shifters. Playing a form card to change shape uses your character's action. This is pretty straight forward as far as your character goes, but what about the things she is carrying? What happens to all that stuff, especially during the chaos of a fight?

The answer is not pretty. Items carried by a character changing shape fall to the ground. Items worn by a character shifting to a larger form may be shred and destroyed. There aren't any elastic bands in that chain mail shirt your character was wearing when he turned into a dragon. If the form you shift into has hands or is not changing sizes, check with your GM for what you drop.

What is a shifter to do? Take the stuff off as he changes forms. Part of a characters' training as a Valarian champion will include slipping out of gear as he changes shape. Because of this training, characters will automatically remove all clothing and gear and leave it on the ground where they shifted. So long as they have a warning, and time, before combat starts, this shift and strip maneuver costs characters no movement, actions or independents. It has become second nature.

Sometimes the pre-combat shift maneuver is thwarted because combat has started before the character shifts. When characters are hit from hiding, ambushed or otherwise taken by surprise, the game master may decide that there was no time for training to kick in. Characters will need to shift and strip as part of combat. When this happens, the game master will make you expend Independents to allow your character to shed gear without destroying it. How many Independents this will take is up to your game master, and may also be effected by how much gear your character possesses.

Movement

Movement is the thing a character uses to make important moves during combat. Like Actions, using Movement takes more time than using an Independent.

What can be done with a Movement:

Make a Movement. This includes moving towards an enemy, moving away from an enemy or moving to aid a friend. It covers any kind of normal pace movement that is not opposed by an enemy. How far you can go depends on rate of movement, which is explained at the end of this section.
Dodge. If a character is attacked, she may immediately use her Movement to dodge the blow. This option is open even if it's not the character's initiative turn. A character may always react to an attack with a dodge, so long as she has a Movement available.

To Dodge, the player rolls 2d6 and adds her character's SPD, including bonuses from any cards in play that add to SPD. The game master does the same for the opponent. If game master's roll is higher the attack succeeds. If the Player's roll is higher, the dodger moves away from the attacker at her rate of speed, and the attack fails.

If a character tries to dodge and fails, she may choose to move away from her attacker at her movement distance, after the attack is performed, or stay in place. In either case, her movement is expended.

It costs a combatant their Movement to try to catch a dodging opponent. The game master may choose to let a dodger go uncontested, in which case the dodger moves away from the attacker the same as above. The opponent's movement and melee attack may still be used, but not against the dodging character.

It is possible to dodge multiple opponents. For this to work, several things must be true:
- Your character must be in melee combat with more than one opponent.
- The opponents must all be attacking at the same time.
- Your character must not be completely surrounded. There needs to be some direction clear of opponents.
- Your character must have one Independent available for each opponent she wishes to dodge.
To escape multiple opponents, dodge the first opponent as normal. Expend one Independent and roll against the second opponent with a -2 penalty. Expend another Independent and roll against the next opponent with a -4 penalty. For every subsequent dodge, an Independent is expended and the penalty is increased by -2. This continues until all opponents are dodged, or the player has expended all Independents. The same opponent may not be dodged twice during this sequence. This Dodge sequence only applies to a Dodge that uses a characters movement; it does not apply to Independent initiated dodges.

Rates of Movement

An interesting complication in Dragon Storm is that the same character may move on 2 legs, 4 legs or even fly. This has an effect on how far they can move in a combat round. Rates of movement are given in feet; if you are using miniatures in your game, ten feet equals one inch on your game table.

A character's rate of movement is calculated by figuring out their base move. Base move is 60 feet a round, plus 10 feet for every point of speed (SPD) a character possesses. This is the normal rate of the character moving at a brisk walk when in humanoid form.

A four-legged character or cast member has a rate of movement of double her base move.
A flying character or cast member has a rate of movement of triple her base move.
A character or cast member moving stealthily or cautiously has a rate of movement of half her base move.
A character or cast member charging or running adds half again to her current movement rate. This hasty movement can be dangerous. Characters running or charging subtract -6 from all rolls to see traps, hidden enemies or other hazards. They may also suffer other penalties of the game master's choosing.
You may also use your Action as a second movement, essentially doubling your characters movement.

Example: Furball the Tigrean Dragon has a speed of 2 which makes her base move 80 feet. In tigrean form she crawls through underbrush towards a wakana camp, trying not to be seen. Her movement rate is 40 feet. Despite her best efforts, a wakana guard spots her and gives alarm. Furball shifts to dragon form and breaks out of the underbrush, moving towards the camp at a brisk walk. Her movement rate is now 160 feet. Seeing her approach, the wakana grab their gear and start to scatter into a nearby forest. Furball spreads her wings and takes flight to pick up speed. Her movement rate is now 240 feet. A wakana chieftain stands his ground, turning to face Furball. She increases her speed to a charge, swooping down towards him. Her movement rate is a blinding 360 feet. However, at this speed, the game master decides she has no chance to spot the three hidden archers who are taking aim at her as she flies towards their chief..

Independents

These are quick things, short and often limited. Alone, they are often weaker than Movements or Actions. However, when more than one Independent is used, the effects can be impressive. The most important feature of Independent cards is that, with game master permission, they can be played anytime during the combat round. See the section on Interrupts, on page 28.

What can be done with an Independent?

Play a card that requires an Independent (Ind) to put into play.
Some cards have a limitation of IUK (Independent Upkeep). This means that they cost an Independent every round to keep them in play.
Do something else that requires an Independent. Again, the Game Master chooses when this comes into effect. Because Independents represent a very short period of time, your Game Master may make you expend more than one to do something complicated.

Plays Well With Others: Enhancements

Earlier, we mentioned that some cards had a timing of 0. Such cards are almost always Enhancement cards (Enhance). An Enhancement can only be played in combination with a Movement, Action or Independent. Some Enhance a particular kind of thing (a dodge Movement, an attack Action, an Independent card). In all cases, Enhancements do the same thing. They bolster whatever thing they are combined with.

In addition to improving other things, Enhancements have another advantage. Unless otherwise limited, you may play as many as you want on a single thing.

Pardon Me! Interrupts

As explained earlier, Independents may be played any time in a round, with the game master's permission. This works as follows:

You ask for permission to Interrupt order of combat and explain, briefly, what you are trying to do.
The game master allows the Interrupt, disallows it, or delays it.
If the Interrupt is allowed, play your card and resolve what you are trying to do. The order of combat then continues.
If the Interrupt is disallowed, wait for your initiative or for a better opportunity later in the round.
If the Interrupt is delayed, the game master will tell you when you can play your card.

Why would a game master delay or disallow an interrupt (other than because she can)? Usually she has a good reason. Usually. Keep in mind that the game master's job it to represent the weird, chaotic and downright twisted nature of a magical world. Things don't always make sense on Grandilar.

When actually doing things for a sensible reason, your game master may interfere with interrupts to improve role playing, to speed up game play, or to add drama. Have a look at the examples below to see what this means in terms of the game.

A player is attacked by a Mad Spawn. He Interrupts, explaining that he wants to play Swift Shift and assume dragon form right before the monster strikes him. The player has a tendency to play it safe and never puts himself in danger. For role playing purposes, the game master decides to put him in a risky situation to see how he handles it. The GM disallows the Interrupt, telling him that he has waited too long and will need to wait for his Initiative to change form.
A game master is running a Dragon Storm game for 10 people. There are so many players that Interrupts are slowing combat to a crawl. To remedy this, the game master announces that no Interrupts will be allowed for the rest of the fight to speed up game play. She graciously applies this to her cast as well.
One Player's character is badly wounded by an attacker, losing more than half of his HP in a single blow. Another character asks to Interrupt to heal him. To increase drama, the game master delays the Interrupt for two Initiative counts, telling the healing character that, in the confusion of combat, he cannot get a clear line-of-sight to cast the spell. The players wait tensely, wondering if the wounded character will survive until he can be healed.

If this all sounds discouraging, take heart. Under normal circumstances, game masters allow most Interrupts.

ASIDE: Your friendly Game Master is always right. Arguing with your GM will only annoy her, and the other players. State your case and get on with the game. However, bribery may work, try it. If you really want a game run your way, you should become a GM.

Hold It! Delaying Actions and Movements

In addition to Independents, there is another way Interrupts can occur. When their initiative comes up, a player can ask for permission to hold her Movement, her Action, or both. If the game master allows this, the Movement and Action are available to use an Interrupt later in the round.

Aside: Keep it Simple, GM! In the same way that a large number of cast members may make it hard for a game master to track Initiative in a fight, a similar problem may arise when trying to track all of the Movements, Actions and Independents of many cast members. The game master may limit most or all of his cast members to fewer things in order to make his job easier. For example, when running a necromancer who commands ten bound skeletons, he may limit the skeletons to one movement and action apiece while allowing the necromancer as many things as a player character.

OW! Damage

As described above, when an attack is successful, the attacker does damage. Damage comes in several varieties, all of them nasty.

Lethal Damage: This is normal damage, inflicted with weapons, claw attacks and being run over by a Mad Spawn in a hurry. It has no special effects, other than it can kill you.
Magic Damage: This is damage done by a spell. Unless the spell card says otherwise, magic damage is not stopped by DEF. It goes straight through. Once it has hit, magic damage is the same as lethal damage.
Taint Damage: This is a special kind of magic damage that is usually caused by traveling through particular terrain areas. However, some kinds of cast members may inflict taint damage. If your character takes taint damage, look at the taint defense at the bottom of your character card. The appropriate kind of defense is subtracted before taint damage reduces HP. Once it is suffered, taint damage is the same as lethal damage.
Environmental Damage: Extremes of heat and cold, humidity and aridity, insect plagues and wind chill can combine to make characters miserable. These things can also inflict environmental damage. This category also includes damage your character takes from starvation, thirst and acids. Damage caused by hunger and thirst cannot be healed until the character consumes generous quantities of whatever supply they have been lacking. DEF does not protect against environmental damage, although certain items may help (for example, a blanket protects against environmental damage done by cold). Once it has been suffered, environmental damage is the same as lethal damage.
Poison Damage: This is damage caused by poison. It takes special spells, abilities and potions to heal poison. Most healing magic cannot touch it. You will need to keep track of how much of your character's damage is poison damage. Poison damage also counts as Lethal damage.
Disease Damage: This is damage done by disease. Only specific spells, abilities and potions heal disease damage. Normal healing magic has no effect on it. You will need to keep track of how much of your character's damage is disease damage. Disease damage also counts as Lethal damage.
Stun Damage: Damage intended to knock a character out rather than kill them. Some spells and abilities do stun damage. Stun damage may also be done by a combatant who declares an intent to stun when they make a melee attack. The resulting damage is stun damage rather than lethal damage. Stun damage does count against your HP. If stun damage causes your character to go to 0, or less, HP, the character is knocked out.

Out of This World: Death and Stun

When a character takes enough damage to go negative on their HP, they are dying. Death will result at the end of the following round, unless they are healed to positive HP before then.

A character who is dying and is healed to positive HP is incapacitated. They can only do four things a round and their movement is halved. It takes at least full day of rest to recover from going negative on HP.

If a character goes to negative HP and part of the damage is stun damage, they go unconscious instead of dying. If healed to positive they wake but are groggy and will only be able to do 4 things a round. This condition lasts until the character gets at least one full hour of rest.

Should a stunned character take additional lethal damage while unconscious, they can die. If total Lethal damage exceeds total HP, the character will die.

Lay of the Land: Terrain

Sometimes the place where combat breaks out can change the outcome of a fight. Here are a few ideas to keep in mind. Your Game master may use these rules or make up some of her own.

Line of Sight: Magic, ranged attacks, Fire breath and any other missile attacks works on a line of sight principal. If something keeps you from seeing your target--a rock, a wall, a looming mad spawn with a bad attitude--then your line of sight is blocked and you may not target that opponent, or friend.

Terrain and Movement: A fight that occurs in difficult terrain may create additional problems. Broken ground may halve movement. Muddy ground may cause characters to trip and fall if they don't make a successful COR roll. A fence or rock wall may prevent characters from escaping when they dodge. As always, the GM decides if terrain effects movement and what that effect is.

Terrain as DEF: A GM may choose to let some kinds of terrain provide extra DEF against certain attacks. A character crouching behind a rock is harder to hit with an arrow than one out in the open. A GM may grant a DEF bonus of +1, or more, to characters or cast members who use terrain for protection.

To see an example of combat in Dragon Storm, turn to page 39 and have a look at the game session described there.

Chapter 4. Onwards! Growing Your Character in Dragon Storm

After you've played your first adventure, you will get a reward from your game master for keeping your character alive, despite all she did to kill him. This, of course, presumes that your character survived that first adventure. If not, Dragon Storm cards are re-usable and you can always make another character.

The rewards a game master gives out are role playing points. These are earned by characters for one of the following reasons.

Dealing with opposition. "Dealing with" can mean anything from haggling with a traveling merchant to defeating a wakana chieftain in battle. The point is, there was a challenge, your character met it, and you came out on top (or at least lived through it).
Teamwork. Usually two or more players role play characters in Dragon Storm games. Players who work well together have better chances of survival. They also get more role playing points by successfully dealing with more situations.
Entertaining the game master (and other players). The point of a role playing game is to role play. If you do it well, you have fun and improve the game for everyone. Game masters may award extra points for good role playing. We recommend 20 extra Role-Playing points for entertaining the GM or having an excellent idea that helps your party.

All Yours for a Low Low Price

Buying Cards with Role Playing Points. When you created your character, you spent starting points to buy cards. Now you will be able to buy more cards for your character but the process is going to be different. Here is how it works.

Total up your role playing points. If you have any left over from previous game sessions, add them to your current points.

Divide your role playing points by 20. That is the number of new card points you have to spend. The remainder stays as role playing points to be added to the total after your next game session. (When your character reaches 300 CP you divide by 25. See the Lifeline cards in the Appendix for more information.)

Now, look over your extra cards and spend your points for more cards and add them to your character's cards.

Next add the card points you earned to the card point total for your character. This increase in card points shows how much your character has grown this game.

ASIDE: The best thing about card points is this: Once spent, they don't always have to be used for the same cards. If a card is not permanent, (that is, it is not an Anchor, or 0/P does not appear in the card type line) you can switch it out for another card with your game master's permission. All that matters is that the points on the cards total up to your character's current card points. Some well fed and pampered GM's may even let you change cards not normally eligible to be changed.

When can you ask for permission to switch out cards? In an ongoing campaign, this can be done when the character has a rest of a day or more in a safe place. A camp out in the wilds is not a safe place. A cozy tavern inside town walls is safe. Even in the safest locations, the game master may veto card switching. At conventions, or in "one of" games card switching can be done by the player between games.

Card switching is optional. Players may choose to stick with the cards they have purchased and never change them. It's up to you.

But Wait, There's More. In addition to growth through card points, there is another series of advancements given to Dragon Storm characters. These are called Lifelines. Lifeline ranks give a character permanent stat bonuses every 100 card points or so. They also have a cost: As a character rises through Lifeline ranks, the cost, in role playing points, to buy new cards, starts to increase. For a starting character this cost is 20 role playing points. At Elder Rank the cost is 25 role playing points. Should your character survive to achieve ancient rank, the cost is 80 role-playing points to buy one Card Point. The number of card points it takes to purchase a card point is tracked in the box labeled RP to CP on your character sheet.

The bonuses granted by Lifeline Ranks can be found in the appendix on page 73. These bonuses can also be handled by purchasing the Lifeline Card set and adding Lifeline rank cards to your characters as they increase in their CP.

Lifeline rank also adds a new stat. This is LLB. It is not tracked on your character card because it is an alternative stat. It can be used in place of WIS whenever a WIS roll is called for. LLB represents the wisdom a character gains through experience. WIS is used for a stat bonus on many important cards, putting low WIS characters at a disadvantage. LLB evens the playing field by giving less clever characters an alternative. Not everyone wants to play a brainy character, but most players do like survivable ones.

And Even More! Other Things to do with a Dragon Storm character:

You can join the shared campaign run by The Guild. Check the links page on dragonstorm.com to find the Guild.
You can become part of the Bloodline Clans.
You can play online, using Skype or other internet service where several players and a GM can enjoy a game.
Finally, if you want to earn extra role playing points for your Guild character, you can run games. To learn how to do that, have a look at the next chapter.

Chapter 5. Who's in Charge Here?

Dragon Storm Game Master Rules

How do I game master Dragon Storm?

Have you ever told a story to your friends? Imagine you are doing that now. Think about the building excitement as you come to the critical point of your story. Then, right before you get to that point, stop, look around and say, "You tell me what happens next."

That is game mastering. You start by getting a story rolling, then invite your players to fill in the really exciting parts by role playing their characters. Once you get the hang of it, you will find it is pretty simple.

Step 1: Read the Player Rules

Every game master needs to be familiar with the rules of the game he is running. In Dragon Storm, learning the rules is fairly easy. This is because the rules themselves are short. In addition, a lot of the rules are simple. For those that are not, we suggest you write a 'cheat sheet' with a shortened version of of the important, complicated rules for easy reference during a game. We have provided a couple of cheat sheets for combat rules, which you will find in the Index. Copy ours or create your own.

In addition to the rules in this book, there are rules on Player cards. It won't hurt to familiarize yourself with these, but it is not necessary. When a player uses a card and you want to know its rules, ask him to give you the card. This allows you to read the card rule right at the point of the game where it applies, rather than trying to read a whole bunch of detailed rules in advance and memorize them, or stop the game while you frantically page through a book, searching for a rule that applies to the players' situation.

The Gamemaster's Cast members use the same rules as the characters do for combat, contest rolls and all of their activities. We will not go back over those, you already read them. We will only cover the "extras" a GM gets to use.

Step 2: Read the Game Master Cards

At the end of this chapter you will find a number of game master cards that we have included for your use. Read these cards and get to know them. With the cards provided in this book, you will be able to run many different adventures. If you want more game master cards, they can be purchased on our website, dragonstorm.com.

Like player cards, the numbers and letters on game master cards give a lot of information.

Card Cost. Game master cards have a cost too. However, this cost is not the same as player card cost. When you run a game, you will ask players to add up their card points and total the numbers. That total is your game cost. By comparing the combined card cost of game master cards for a scene, you will get an idea of how challenging it will be for players.

Game Master Card Cost is player Role Playing Points. At the end of a game session the GM adds up all of the card points from the cards she used during that session. That sum is the total Role Playing Points the players have earned. Each player gets an equal portion of these points. If you have three characters and 99 experience for the night, each of them gets 33 Role Playing Points.

Magic Items used against players during an adventure also create experience points for the characters. Add 1 experience to the parties total experience for every 10 GP of the Magic Items value. Facing a magic item with a 480 GP value adds 48 experience to the characters' total Role Playing points (before they are divided).

Card Stats. Cast members have stats, just like characters. The stats are found in the same places.

Card Type Line. This line serves the same purpose and uses many of the same codes and abbreviations as on player cards. There are a some different terms that appear only on game master cards. Here is what they mean.

Terrain. This card represents a land area of about 20 square miles. The type of land is described in card text. Below card text you will find important bits of information for players traveling through this terrain. They are travel time and recharge.

Travel Time. Travel time is either fast, normal or slow. These terms give a rough idea of how long it will take characters to travel through a terrain area. These times are for daylight travel and assume characters will rest at night.

Fast travel time means characters can pass through it in 1/2 to 1 day.
Normal travel time means characters can pass through it in 1 to 2 days.
Slow travel time means characters can pass through it in 2 to 4 days.

Recharge Rate. Recharge is the rate at which drained cards recharge when characters rest in this terrain. In the player rules we note that the game master tells players how many and how often cards recharge when they rested. This is where you get that information.

Cast. Cast cards represent the people, animals and monsters characters can encounter during a game. They are laid out similar to characters. They are very similar to characters and you run them very similar to the way a player runs a character, except that they play one role and you can have a cast of thousands. Character cards may be use as game master cast cards.

Features. These cards are enhancement cards for game master cards. There are two types of features: Cast and Terrain.

Cast Features are special powers, abilities, spells and items that can be combined with cast members to make them more interesting and formidable. They work like player cards, including the manner in which the card type line is laid out. Keep in mind that any player card, with the exception of characters, may be used as a Cast Feature, and that as a game master you can break the card type rules that limit who can use which type of card. Do you want a wakana fighter to have a dragon's Fire Breath 3? You can do that. The world really is warped.

Terrain Features are cards that enhance terrain with different effects, some natural, some not. Terrain Features give details of weather, habitations, plant and insect life and other natural conditions. They also give effects that are strictly magical, sometimes dangerously so. Dragon storms regularly pass over terrain areas on Grandilar. These cards describe some of the weird warped magical features that show up in a storm's wake.

Step 3: Create a Plot

Every story needs one of these and a Dragon Storm game session is essentially a story. To make this part easy, we have included a number of basic plots in the Index. Reading these plots over will also give you a basic understanding of conditions on Grandilar. Read them over and choose one that strikes you as fun.

Step 4: Pick Cards

This is the point of running a Dragon Storm game. It is done with the cards. Pick a variety of cards that work with your plot and combine them to create your adventure. Here are some guidelines for building Dragon Storm Adventures.

First, find out your Game Cost. As described above, this is the total of your player's combined card cost. If you are not exactly sure, make an estimate. Game cost will allow you to see how hard, or easy, each encounter will be. Choose cards for each scene with the idea that an equal CP is normal, double is hard and half is easy.

Next, break your plot into a number of scenes. A scene is a part of the story in which something happens that is important to the plot. In classic story telling, there are a number of scenes that move the story, giving information, building tension, providing descriptions: Then there is a climatic scene that is the most dramatic scene. After the climatic scene there are one or two scenes that finish the story and tie up loose ends. It is useful to follow this structure when laying out your adventure.

Here is an example of scenes based on a plot from the Index.

Plot: Bandits are raiding a trade road near a hamlet where characters are staying. A local Elethay worshipper asks them to get rid of these pests before they ruin trade.

Scene 1: Meet the worshipper
Scene 2: Travel the Road
Scene 3: Meet the Old Hunter
Scene 4: Raid the Bandit Camp
Scene 5: Return to town and tie up loose ends

Now you can pick cards for each scene. The game cost comes into play here. As you choose cards for a scene, compare the combined cost of the cards to the game cost. If the card cost is lower, the scene is easy to deal with. If it is about the same, it is normal. If it is higher, it is difficult. A game can be made up of whatever combination of easy, normal and difficult scenes you want.

You have now created your first Dragon Storm adventure. It is time to run a game.

Step 5: Run Your Game

Your players are sitting at the table with their cards, dice, pencils and character sheets handy. What do you do next?

Run through your scenes one at a time. A scene usually starts by you describing what is going on--what characters see, hear and feel, who or what is nearby, what time of day and which kind season it is and anything else you think is worth knowing. How much or how little information to give out is up to you.

After some initial description, do something that pulls characters into the action. For example, have someone approach them and ask a question, have an urchin try to pick a passerby's pocket in their sight, have an ugly chap glower at them from across a smoky room. After describing such an event, you will have your players' attention. Now ask them, "What do your characters want to do about this?"

When they respond, you choose what happens in return. The game is on!

Aside: Putting it all together

What follows is an example of a Dragon Storm game. Three players and a game master are shown playing a game in progress. They are on the road hunting a necromancer who has captured a young shape shifter. On the way they encounter a band of wakana and fight them. In the example, players have their characters' names in brackets next to their true names, to keep the action clear. The game master is simply GM.

The players are: Bob (Trell), Sue (Lila) and Joe (Aldo).

Scene 1: Words on the Road

Here are cards the game master used to create the scene on the road. The card cost of this encounter is quite a bit lower than game cost, but that is on purpose. This scene is meant to give players needed information to help them in the following scene, if they are capable of acquiring it.

Cards here: They are Forest Terrain and Orc Vagabond. (No, this exact Orc card does not exist. Grab the Orc Cast card and role-play, have fun with it.)

GM: "Okay, people, you're on the road through the forest. The woods are thin here so there is space between the trees and you have pretty good visibility. The weather is warm and the sky is clear. It's about noon and all of you are getting a bit hungry, but it's a bit early to eat. As you walk along, I want everyone to make a roll to see something."

Bob: "Do we get to add anything to our rolls?"

GM: "Not unless you play a card that gives a bonus to see something."

Sue: "How about this?" (She places Keen Sight on the table).

GM: "Perfect. Everyone roll. Sue, Lila gets the bonus from that card."

Everyone, including GM, rolls two six-sided dice. GM rolls 9. Bob rolls 8. Joe rolls 4. Sue rolls 8 and then looks at her card for her bonus. It is +2. This makes Sue's roll a ten. She is the only one who has beaten the GM's roll. Notice that it was a bonus that gave Lila a "10", so it does not explode.

GM: "Sue, Lila sees a single figure walking towards you. It's quite a way off in the distance, but you are sure that it is humanoid."

Sue (Lila, speaking to the other players): "Hey, guys, heads up. Someone is coming."

GM: "Once Lila points it out, all of you can see the approaching stranger. What do you do?"

Bob: "I pull out my hand cross bow and hold it under my cloak. It's ready to fire if this guy gives us any trouble."

Joe: "I'm going to hide. Are there some bushes nearby?"

GM: "In a forest? Yes, there are quite a few of them right by the road."

Joe: "Good. I dive in and hide there, looking out at what goes on."

Sue: "I just stand in the road and wait for the stranger."

GM: "All right then. Sue, Lila is standing in the road, waiting. Bob, Trell is next to her with his hand crossbow concealed under his cloak. Joe, make a contest roll to hide."

Joe: "I'm going to play this. He lays a Hide card in front of him."

GM: "Make your roll and add the bonus from that card."

Joe rolls and gets a 9, then adds +2 from his card, for a total of 11. He thinks he is pretty well hidden. GM rolls a 10. This number means that her dice roll has exploded. She rolls again, getting 8, and adds this to her first roll of 10. Her total is 18, doubling Joe's roll. He thinks he is hidden, but the stranger sees him as clearly as if he was standing out in the middle of the road.

GM: "The stranger comes closer and stops about ten feet away. You can all see him clearly now. He has green skin and greasy black hair. His clothes are leather and travel stained. He has a cudgel and sling hanging from his belt and a shoulder sack over one shoulder."

Sue: "I'm going to greet him."

GM: "He doesn't say anything. He is just looking at the bush."

Joe: "Does he see me?"

GM: "Well, take a guess. He's staring at the bush you're in like it has sprouted tentacles."

Bob: "I'd say that's a yes." He lays an Intimidate card down. "I'm playing this."

GM: "Let me see the card."

Bob hands it over. The GM is unfamiliar with this card and reads it over to be sure she understands the rule. She gives it back.

GM: "Bob, what is Trell trying to do here?"

Bob: "I'm trying to look like I'm tough, like someone this orc doesn't want to mess with."

GM: "All right. Make a roll and add the bonus from the card."

GM rolls against Bob, getting a 7. Bob rolls and gets a 2. He groans.

Bob: "Snake eyes."

Joe: "You stepped in it, Dude."

Sue: "Terrible Two. Wonderful."

GM is silent for a moment, letting the players sweat while she decides what to do. Then she speaks. "The Orc stares at Trell with a blank expression for a moment. Then he grins. Then he starts laughing. He points at Trell and says, 'I know where I seen you before, pup. You were shoveling manure in a farm field I passed about a month ago. How come you ain't back on the farm, shoveling dung?'"

Joe laughs. Bob starts to speak, but Sue interrupts.

Sue: "Excuse me, stranger. We didn't mean to be rude. The roads are dangerous and it's hard to know whom to trust."

GM: "Yeah, especially when people hide in bushes, waiting to jump you."

Joe: "Okay, I come out of the bushes."

Sue: "Joe, give me those rabbits."

Joe: "What?"

Sue: "The rabbits you bagged yesterday."

Joe gives Sue a pained look. In an earlier scene in the game he hunted and shot two small rabbits, each worth two food rations.

Sue: "Come on, Joe. Hand them over. We need to make nice."

Joe: "You better be right. I give the rabbits to Lila."

Sue: "I show the rabbits to the orc. I'm telling him that we were just getting ready to stop for a meal. He's welcome to join us."

GM: The orc's eyes light up. He will be happy to eat with you.

Sue: "Great!" She pulls out her Cooking card. "I'm going to try to make this a really nice meal."

GM: "Make a roll and add the bonus from your card."

The GM rolls against Sue. She decides this situation calls for a GM MOD. Despite his friendly demeanor, the characters have made the orc mistrustful with their behavior. He is in no mood to enjoy cooking. The GM rolls her dice, adds a GM MOD of +2 for the orc's bad mood, and comes up with a total of 9. However, Sue is lucky. Her bonus to her roll is +WIS, and Lila's WIS is 3. She rolls 2d6, gets an 11, adds three and comes up with 14. In addition her roll was an 11, which means that it exploded. She rolls again, getting a 9. Sue's total cooking roll is 23!

GM: "Sue, you're in luck. You notice some wild herbs growing by the side of the road and you grab some and throw it in with the cooking rabbit meat. When it's done, the meal is delicious. The meat melts in your mouth. Your guest is pleased and he compliments you on your cooking. Also, this counts as today's food ration. Everyone should consume a water ration with this meal, so expend one."

Players change the number of water rations they have recorded on their sheets.

GM: "Sue, after the meal, the orc is going to approach you and quietly warn you that you could be headed into trouble. There are wakana raiders on the road ahead. He snuck around a group of them who looked like they had set an ambush."

Sue: "I thank him for the tip."

GM: "He slings his bag over his shoulder and continues down the road. Sue, I assume Lila is going to tell Trell and Aldo what the orc said?" Sue nods. "All right, what do you guys want to do about this?"

The players have a discussion among themselves. Sometimes they talk in the voices of their characters, speaking the way they think Trell, Lila and Aldo would. Sometimes they speak as themselves, talking over different ways to deal with this challenge. Joe wants to follow the orc's example and sneak around the wakanas. Trell wants to fight them. Lila is undecided. Bob, speaking as Trell, makes a forceful argument that the three of them are Valarian Champions and that wakanas are warp spawn. Their job is to cleanse the world of villains like these scum. Lila finds herself agreeing with him. Aldo reluctantly lets himself be convinced. They will fight the wakana.

The GM says nothing during this time. She sits back and lets the players talk it out. She is watching to see how well they handled things, paying special attention to how they player their characters' roles. Overall, she is pleased. Trell comes across as a pugnacious fighter, Joe as a clever coward, Lila as a friendly pragmatist. She makes a note to give the players a role playing bonus of 20 points each based on this discussion.

Scene Two: Wakana Ambush

Here are the cards the GM is using for the scene describe below. She is using multiples of all the cards: Wakana x4, Boosted Moves x8, Power Swing x4, Power Shot x4 and Ring of Teleport x4, Health x1. This scene occurs in the same terrain as the previous one (forest) so she adds the points from the Forest terrain card to this scene. The resulting number is just a bit lower than the game cost (combined card points) of all the characters. This will be a serious fight but, so long as players are smart, it shouldn't be terribly dangerous. The really dangerous fight will come in a later scene, when characters find that necromancer they are hunting. To build up the story towards that climatic fight, the GM has decided to include this fairly tame fight here. To spice things up, she has added several cards used by players.

Notice that all of the feature cards used for the Wakanas are player cards. In Dragon Storm, a game master may use player cards this way.

GM: After your delicious meal, you all feel refreshed and ready to go. You continue down the forest road. Before long you start to see more and more trees. The trees are larger and there is less space between them. Eventually a forest canopy closes over your head. Between the foliage and the late afternoon light you have limited line of sight. What would you like to do?

Joe: "I am using this gloom to try to sneak through the woods. I'm keeping just off the side of the road, in the trees."

GM: "Do you have a card that will help you hide?"

Joe scans his cards. His Hide card which he used earlier, has been drained. It lies face down on the table and won't be available until after his character has been able to recharge it through rest. Instead of Hide, Joe pulls out two cards: Move Quietly and Minor Dragon Form.

Joe: "I'm going to combine these two. I want to turn into a small dragon and sneak through the underbrush."

GM: "When you change, all your gear falls to the ground. What are you going to do with it?"

Sue: "I'll carry it for him."

Joe hands his item cards to Sue, who places them in a stack to the side of her player cards. The GM considers. Move Quietly gives a bonus to hide but Minor Dragon Form does not. However, she makes an in game decision, based on rule 3.4 that she will give Joe an additional +2 bonus to his roll because it makes sense to her that a minor dragon will be harder to see in the forest. For more information on rule 3.4, see page 48.

GM: "Joe, roll to hide as you move along. Give yourself the bonus from your card and a +2 bonus for the form."

Joe rolls getting a 12 when all of his bonuses are added in. The GM gets an 8, so Aldo is moving alongside the characters in miniature dragon form, hidden in deep undergrowth.

GM: "The three of you move along this gloomy road for about an hour. It's creepy here. All of you are expecting an ambush, so I'm assuming you're looking for trouble." The players nod. "Everyone make a roll to notice something."

All three players roll. Bob plays a Listen card to get a +2 bonus to his roll. Bob rolls 8 and adds +2 for a total of 10. Sue and Joe roll 7 and 5 respectively. The GM rolls once, getting a 6, and compares that to each player's roll. Bob and Joe beat her roll but Sue did not, so the first two noticed something but Sue's character did not.

GM: "Bob, you notice that birdsong and forest noise has suddenly gone dead quiet. Joe, you think you see movement in the trees ahead but you are not certain about that. Sue, Lila is clueless. What do you do?"

Bob: "I lean over to Lila as we are walking along and whisper that I think there is an ambush ahead."

Sue: "I keep my eyes open and prepare to act."

Joe: "I freeze in place and try to get a clear look at what I spotted."

GM: "Make a contest roll. Do you have any cards left that give a bonus to see anything?"

Joe: "No."

GM: "Then you get no bonus. Make a roll."

Joe gets 7. The GM gets 6.

GM: "You saw it again. You're certain there is something in the trees, maybe thirty feet ahead."

Joe: "It that close enough for me to reach in a single movement?"

GM: "What's your base move?"

Joe looks at his character sheet. "It's 7."

GM: "You are in four legged form, so you can move at twice your base move. That's 140 feet. You can get to what ever that is in an instant."

Joe: "Then I'm going to hang back and see what happens."

GM: "Okay, that's Aldo. What about Trell and Lila?"

Bob: "We're continuing down the road."

What the GM knows is this: The wakanas have set up an ambush here. Two of the warp spawn are crouched in the foliage on either side of the road. They can clearly see Trell and Lila. They have not spotted Aldo. She decides that the wakana will now spring their ambush. Game time shifts from role playing to combat. She signals this to the players with the following statement.

GM: "Everyone make an initiative roll."

The players roll 2d6 and add their character's SPD stat. Bob gets a 10. Joe gets a 6. Sue rolls a 2. Now it's her turn to groan. The GM rolls once for all the wakana and gets an 11. The ambushers will be acting first.

GM: "Sue, Lila stumbles over a hidden tree root in the road and falls. You lose your Action and Movement this round. You can still use independents." Sue responds with an unprintable comment. "Does everyone have their coins ready?" The players all have coasters, each containing 8 pennies, one dime and one quarter. "Good. Sue, remove your quarter and your dime from the coaster to show you can't move or act this round." She does as asked with a wry expression on her face. "All right, here we go."

The wakanas get to use their actions first. For simplicity, the GM has decided to limit each wakana to one movement and one action this round. They will use independents only in defense. She had already decided that these warp spawn would target one character with missile fire the first round, then move in to make melee attacks next round. Since Lila currently looks most vulnerable, this is the character who is targeted.

Each wakana uses movement to break out of cover, running to the edge of the road to get a clear shot at their victim. To show that they have used movement, the GM takes the dime out of her coaster.

Each wakana then shoots a sling stone at Lila. Reviewing the wakana card, the GM sees a COR of 1, so each starts with a +1 bonus. Deciding to pile punishment on Sue's character (she did roll a terrible two, after all) the GM chooses to have all the wakana play their Power Shot cards. This adds +4 to each shot, for a total of +5. The rolls, including bonuses, are 11, 13, 16 and 8. Sue gets to subtract Lila's current DEF of 3 from each roll, so she takes 8, 10, 13 and 5 for a total of 36! Luckily for Sue, she has 40 HP, due in part to her upbringing as a farmer (+8 HP from her Farmer Background) and her Valarian Champion Training (+8 HP from her Valarian Champion Boon card). Even so, she is down to 4 HP and badly hurt. The GM decides this barrage has stunned Lila, and tells Sue she has lost 4 independents due to shock. Sue takes 4 pennies out of her coaster. She is low on options.

Now the GM starts counting down initiative. Bob, on 10, is ready to go. He places four cards on the table: Drop Kick, Split Action, Dragon Form and Power Swing.

Bob: "Am I close enough to one of these wakana to reach it with my movement? My base move is 6."

The GM considers for a moment, seeing the battle field in her head. She decides that, when they broke cover, the wakanas moved within 60 feet of the characters. Trell can reach at least one of the ambushers. "Yes."

Bob: "All right. I'm moving and playing these." He points to the Split Action, Dragon Form and Drop Kick cards.

GM: "That uses your movement, and the first half of your Split Action to change." Bob does so. "Okay, you run up to the wakana, ending your charge in a kick. Make a roll and add your character's STR." Bob rolls a 9 and adds his STR of 16 to get 25. The GM compares that to the wakana's DEF of 3. The creature suffers 22 damage to its HP. However, it had 27 HP to start with, so it is still game to fight.

Keep in mind that, if the wakana had not used its movement to break cover, it would have had the option of dodging to get out of the way of Trell's kick. Since movement has been used, it had to stay in place and absorb this damage. It also has no way to avoid what is coming next.

Bob: "Now I am going to the other half of my Split Action to attack the wakana, enhancing my attack with this." He points to his Power Swing card.

This is a card combination, and a good one. After changing form, charging and kicking his opponent, Trell then strikes the warp spawn. The GM makes a mental note to give Trell 10 extra role playing points for good tactics.

GM: "Take your quarter out of your coaster. Remember that all of your gear is on the ground where you changed. Make a roll and add the STR from your character, your Dragon Form and Power Swing."

Grinning, Bob flips the quarter out of his coaster and picks up his dice. Looking at his cards, he quickly adds up the STR from all three cards: +1 from his character, +15 from Dragon Form and +4 from Power Swing. His bonus comes to +20. He rolls a 6 for a total of 26 damage. The GM subtracts the wakana's DEF of three, compares the remaining 5 HP to the 23 points of lethal damage that got past his defenses, and says, "You knocked him down and jumped on him. This wakana is dead."

Bob's grin gets wider. He takes a penny out of his coaster and plays another card, Firebreath 1. "Just for fun, I am going to light up one of the survivors with this."

Firebreath 1 inflicts magic damage. DEF does not protect against it. Bob rolls a 4 and adds +2. One of the wakanas takes 6 HP damage.

The GM continues counting down initiative numbers. Joe comes up next. "I want to sneak up behind one of the wakana's and attack him."

The GM looks at Joe's Move Quietly card. In the card type line, this card has a code IUK. This means it costs one independent to keep this card working; otherwise it drains and can't be used again until it is recharged. Before combat started, the GM didn't care about upkeep, but now things have changed. "Put one of your pennies on that to show that you are spending an Independent to keep it in play." Joe does so. "Okay, now you can use your movement to sneak up behind one of them and attack. You're at half move while sneaking, but you're so close you will reach him easily. Make a roll to move quietly."

Joe rolls 2d6, adding +2 for his bonus. He gets a 12. His dice have exploded. He rolls again and gets a 10. It is also an explosion. He rolls a third time and gets a 2. Joe looks worried but the GM reassures him. "It's not a terrible two when you roll it during exploding dice. Just add it to the total and tell me what you got."

Joe's total is 26. His victim has no idea that he is behind him. Because his Move Quietly roll was so high, the GM gives him a +5 to his attack roll for surprise. Joe rolls 9, add +1 for his character's STR, +5 for his Minor Dragon's STR and +5 for the impromptu bonus awarded by the GM. This is 20 points of lethal damage. With a DEF of 3 and HP of 15, the wakana falls down dead never knowing what killed him.

Now, following Bob's example, Joe also plays a Firebreath card. However, he plays Firebreath 2, which inflicts 2d6+4 damage. Aldo shoots a stream of fire at the wakana that Bob targeted earlier. His roll of 12 kills the wretched creature.

There is only one surviving wakana, staring in horror at the bodies of its companions and confronted by two dragons. The GM decides that this is more than it can bear.

GM: "I'm declaring an interrupt." She displays the Ring of Teleport card. "The last wakana is using a ring to teleport away." To make this happen the GM needs to use rule 3.4. She utilizes a Split Action to allow the Wakana to use the ring, she dutifully notes that the characters get 6 more role-playing points for the scene, +4 for Split Action and +2 for the use of the ring. She did this to heighten the sense of mysticism and danger, plus end the fight quickly. Notice that she also made sure the characters got their points as well.

The characters make an unprintable response but there is nothing they can do about it. None of them can dispel magic.

With the last opponent gone, the fight is over. This combat was fast and deadly. Trell and Aldo quickly dispatched three of the wakanas, but Lila quite nearly died in the initial attack. If she had been less lucky, she would have gone over her HP and died, unless one of the others could have quickly healed her.

Time now returns to normal. Sue plays Draconic Mending and uses a Curative Potion to heal some of the damage she took in the fight. If the combat was ongoing the timing of these cards would be important, but outside a fight the GM simply tells her to roll dice for healing, as described on the cards, and apply that number to her HP. Draconic Mending is drained but the Curative Potion is a one use item. Sue puts the card aside after using it. She will use this card again next time she can acquire this type of potion.

While Lila is healing herself, Trell gathers up his fallen gear and Aldo examines the dead wakanas. He discovers that each one of them is carrying a Ring of Teleport. The game master allows him to loot these, and he gives one to Trell and one to Lila. The players happen to have Rings of Teleport in their spare cards so they add them to their characters.

This is the end of the second scene. In the next scene, the GM plans to have the characters find a safe campsite near here, where they will be able to recharge some of the cards they drained in this fight. The next day their hunt for the necromancer will go on.

For right now lets call a halt to the game for the night and figure out the role-playing points these characters earned.

Two encounters in the forest at 6 CP each = 12.
One Orc Vagabond at 14.
Four Wakana at 14 each = 56.
One Health at 6.
Four Power Shots at 4 each = 16.
One Teleport Ring at 2.
One Split Action at 4.
Three Good Role-Playing bonuses at 20 each (remember that?) = 60.

That gives us a total of 166. Dividing by three and rounding up, that is 56 points each. Trell actually gets 66 points due to impressing the GM with his card handling.

At 20 Role-Playing points per card Lila and Aldo could gain 2 Card points of cards and have 16 role-playing points left over towards more cards. Trell could get three card points and have 6 left over for later.

ASIDE: Bonus!!! Bonus Role Playing Points can be given out by your game master for any reason she likes. In general, we encourage a bonus of 20 Role Playing Points be given to a character for any of the following:

Good Role Playing.

Good Team Work.

Good Ideas.

Turning a Terrible Two into a memorable event through the character's response to disaster.

Anything else a character does that makes the game fun.

A few more details about running Dragon Storm.

Travel, Environment, Supplies, Loot and Natural Healing

The time it takes for characters to travel is listed on Terrain cards. If characters travel through several terrain areas, combine their travel times to get the length of their journey.

Terrain also gives the recharge rate of cards. This is the rate at which resting characters regain drained cards making them ready to play again. For example, the recharge rate on the plains card is 1 per 4 hours. This means that, every 4 hours a character sleeps while in this terrain, one drained card of their choice is recharged.

Some Terrain Features cause environmental damage. This includes damage from heat, cold, insects, thorny plants and other natural effects. Environmental damage ignores DEF, but it can be healed the same as normal damage.

Travelers need supplies. Every day of travel characters will need to eat one ration of food and drink one ration of water. Should they be deprived of either of these supplies, they will take environmental damage. Damage caused by hunger and thirst can not be healed until the character consumes generous quantities of whatever supply they have been lacking. Supplies can be tracked in the notes section of the character sheet or on a separate piece of paper.

Lack of water starts causing environmental damage one day after water was last consumed. The damage is 3 HP a day for three days, then 10 HP a day until the character dies.

Lack of food starts causing environmental damage two days after food was last consumed. The damage is 3 HP a day for three days, then 10 HP a day until the character dies.

Loot is any valuable taken from fallen enemies or discovered in ruins and dungeons. In Dragon Storm, loot is usually coins or items.

Coins come in gold, silver and copper pieces. Ten coppers are worth one silver and ten silvers are worth one gold. A gold piece weighs .10 CAP. Silver and coppers weigh .05 CAP. Take coin weight into consideration only when characters carry a lot of them.

When items are found as loot, they sell for half of the GP value shown on the card. The GM may increase or decrease the selling price as she sees fit. Items may also be bought by players. In this case, the GP value is what the items normally sells for, if it is available. The GM determines price and availability of all items.

There are several ways to give items as loot.

Look at the cast card of a defeated enemy. If any items are listed on this card, they become available as loot.
Create a list of Item cards and note where they can be found (in that chest in the back of the room, for instance). When characters open the chest, give them the list. These are available as loot.
Add an item card to a cast member as a feature. When he is defeated, that item is available as loot.

If characters find items as loot, they will want to know the stats for the item. The easiest way to handle this is for you, or the player, to own the Item card. Items, and all other Dragon Storm Cards, can be purchased on our website, dragonstorm.com. For items you don't have cards for, go to the content page and find the pdf's we have posted there for item cards. You can write down stats or create proxies from this information.

Natural Healing is one HP per eight hours of rest.

Aside: Why do I need the card? During a game the GM may want to read any card being used to see how it works. To do that you need to have the card, or a proxy of the card, to quickly read it. Not having the card available slows the game down, and no one wants a slow game.

Aside: More Stuff about Stuff: Things a game master should know about Items.

If a cast member uses a magic item against characters in a fight, that item can be treated as a feature. When calculating role playing points to be added at the end of a game, add 1 point for every 10 GP value of items used against characters. Only items actually used add to role playing points.

Any Magic Item with a 2d6 roll connected to its use, is subject to Magic Misfires. If the player using the item rolls a terrible two, the item immediately drains and will not function. It can only be restored by taking it to a pristine area and leaving it there for a week to recharge. A game master may add further complications, such as requiring the help of a magic specialist to repair the items.

We Saved the Best for Last: Rule 3.4

A game master is sitting at a table being harangued by a player. He is arguing a point of rules in great detail, pointing out the exact rule that allows him to do something that will disrupt the game. The game master listens patiently then says, "No." The player rants, demanding to know what allows him to break the rules that way. The game master smiles and says, "The rule of 3.4."

Your game master decides what happens in Dragon Storm games. No matter what the rules say, no matter what we, the designers say, the final decisions in any Dragon Storm session belong to the Game Master. She does not have to obey the rules. Being human, her existence involves a lot of uncertainty so she is perfectly capable of playing the role of uncertainty on Grandilar. If her rulings seem unreasonable, ask yourself when was the last time your real life was completely reasonable?

To sum it up in one sentence, here is the rule:

The game master is always right.

This is rule 3.4. It is called 3.4 because that is what it was called in the original Dragon Storm game. It is the most important rule and the heart of the Dragon Storm system. Neither the name of rule nor the intent of this rule changes with Dragon Storm 2.

The universe can be a strange place, sometime ordered and calm, sometimes arbitrary or random. Rule 3.4 allows Dragon Storm to play a bit like real life. Like real life, in a lot of situations you have influence but not control. The best thing to do is sit back and enjoy what happens.

Appendix One: First Change

An introductory Dragon Storm Adventure

Overview: When characters shift shape for the first time their lives are completely changed. This adventure takes characters through that change. It introduces the powers who fight for control of the Stormlands and shows characters their part in this battle.

Scene 1: Green Brook

Green Brook is a town of about 200 people in the midst of a grassy plains. It was built by the banks of a small river, also called Green Brook, which flows down from nearby hills. Townsfolk are mostly humans but there are also a smattering of tigreans, canids, vermites, orcs, elves, dwarves and others. These are refugees from storms and wars who locals have given shelter to, or, in some cases, even adopted into their families.

This compassion springs from worship of Elethay, goddess of fertility, whose creed of goodness and self sacrifice is manifested in the kindness of these people. Everyone in this place is an Elethay worshipper, and the Elethay temple is the center of life in this town. Their religion gives townspeople purpose and strength but it is also a source of trouble because Elethay is more than the goddess of growing things. She is also a friend to shape shifters, especially dragons, and her worshippers are expected to follow her example. By doing so they earn the hatred of those who hunt shape shifters: Necromancers and Jikadell Zealots.

Jikadell is a goddess who espouses a creed of fertility and kindness; in many ways, her religion seems similar to Elethay worship. This similarity is only surface deep. Jikadell is a goddess of dark secrets and evil passions, traits hidden beneath a cloak of respectability. Her cult is ruled by Hags, horrible magic users who terrorize her worshippers with tales of monstrous shape shifters. According to Hags, dragons and other shape shifters are responsible for every evil of the world: Mad spawn, tox and dragon storms. The Hags spread this story everywhere in the land, despite the fact that it is a monstrous lie. It is through their efforts that most people believe dragons are evil.

The true creators of dragon storms and the authors of all evil that comes from storms are necromancers. These mages practice spellcraft which produces a black magic called warp. It is warp that causes tox, makes mad spawn and fuels dragon storms. Yet, even as they pollute the land with warp, necromancers repeat the lie that everything is the fault of dragons. This falsehood deflects blame for their crimes. It also paints dragons and other shape shifters as monsters who need to be hunted and killed, which is especially convenient as it is something necromancers must do in any case. Death mages hunt shape shifters in order to fuel their horrible magic. The power for their spells comes from the life force of captured shifters, who die as their natural magic is drained.

Needless to say, this disgusting practice earns death mages many enemies. Chief among these are the Valarian Champions, a group of allied shape shifters and mortal people dedicated to overthrowing necromancers and rebuilding the world. Valarians are friendly to Elethay worshippers, and, more than once, groups of Valarians have sheltered in Green Brook to hide from assassins. As youngsters, the characters met these warriors and learned to respect them. They might have even seen some of them change shape into dragons. Many Valarians are shape shifters, born as mortals who only assumed their true nature after puberty. With great pride, townspeople in Green Brook repeat stories of local people who turned out to be dragons. These worthies joined the Valarians and now fight necromancers.

Local legends like these might excite characters, but their lives have been less than heroic. Characters have been working on family farms, attending temple lessons, herding taurs and doing other homey chores. This was how they expected their lives to continue, until the day they got caught in a storm.

Dragon Storms are an ever-present hazard on the plains surrounding Green Brook. A stone storm house protects townspeople during tempests but farmers working fields must travel far from town. Every season farmers die trying to outrun sudden storms. Since fleet footed youths have the best chance of beating a storm to town, young people between the ages of 16 to 20 are given the job of working distant fields. It is considered a rite off passage and many oldsters boast of the close calls they had when "storm running" as a youth. The passage of years has made them forget the terrors of those times, when they kept one eye on their hoes at the other at the sky, scanning the horizon for looming clouds.

The characters are in their storm running years, working some miles from Green Brook. It is a fine summer day and the work is going well. Suddenly a line of black and purple clouds rise over the horizon. Characters freeze in their tracks, gazing at the sky, hoping that this is only a normal summer storm. Then a tell-tale green glow appears around clouds and distant swarms of mad spawn appear, flocking about the tempest like crows around a corpse. It is a Dragon Storm!

The chase is on. Characters shoulder their hoes and run. Normally, they would easily outdistance the tempest, but this time they are out of luck. This is that rare dragon storm that moves like its name sake. It is as fast as a flying dragon. It overtakes the characters, blotting out blue sky and pelting them with hail and rain. The howls of mad spawn ring through the rain. Worse than rain will catch them if they don't find shelter.

A number of emergency shelters have been created for stranded storm runners. One of these comes into sight. It is an overturned wagon with a ditch dug under it. The ditch is full of water and the wagon wood has partly rotted through but it is the best shelter to be had. Characters crawl under the wagon and huddle together while the storm rages around them.

The storm flies on as swiftly as it arrived. Before long characters hear the loud claps of thunder that a storm roars as it departs. It looks like they have made it though unharmed. Then they begin to feel uncomfortable. First they itch, then they cramp. Their skins feel too tight. Their heads hurt.

They change into dragons for the first time.

Needless to say, the wagon is destroyed, its rotted timbers scattered across the landscape. This is a good time to tell characters to play their dragon forms on top of their character cards and explain to them how this form has increased STR and DEF. It is also a good opportunity for some role playing. Ask characters what they are going to do while in dragon form. Creative and entertaining responses can be rewarded with extra role playing points.

Within a moment or two characters will revert back to their humanoid form. Have them drain their dragon forms. This is a good time to explain draining and recharging cards. Characters can now travel back to town, where they will find their friends and families relieved to see them. Upon hearing of the characters' first change, they are overcome with joy. Mortals who turn into dragons are blessed by Elethay and are a sign of her favor for their town. They embrace them, congratulate them, cook them a feast and feed them. Then they tell them they have to leave.

It is always so with shape shifters. The joy of their change is mingled with the sorrow of their leaving. Dragons are many things but there is one thing they are not: easy to hide. By their nature, shape shifters draw attention. Every moment they remain in Green Brook is a moment they increase the peril of the townspeople. If characters stay, powerful enemies will arrive to attack them. They must leave, drawing their enemies away, if their families are to remain safe.

Happily, characters will not leave unequipped. They get all the equipment in the first character set and 194 GP. This represents the wealth they would have been given to establish their own farmstead after they had married and settled down. Since they are leaving, their birthright is given now.

Characters are told to travel north, following a trade road through the plains, until they come to the northern hills. At the ruined village in the hills they will find a crossroads. The eastern road leads to an isolated Elethay shrine in a forest. If characters wait there, they will be contacted by a Valarian Champion who will give help and guidance.

The cards for Scene 1: Here are the cards for this scene. The Hamlet feature card represents Green Brook. The General Store card represents the only store in town. If characters want to purchase additional food here it will cost 1 SP a ration. This is half the normal price. Other items may be available, if the GM allows it.

The Plains card represents terrain the characters must travel through as they start their journey. It will take a full day to travel from Green Brook to the hills and characters will need to camp overnight before continuing into the hilly region. Each character will consume a food ration and a water ration. As explained in card text, the recharge rate is 1 card every 4 hours. That means that, for every four hours a character sleeps in this terrain they recharge one card.

The final three cards in this scene are a cast card, the Drakkle, and two feature cards (Fire Breather One and Whip Tentacles). This represents the first fight characters will have as shape shifters. They are not the only living things changed by the passing dragon storm. The drakkle, a natural predator, was also caught in the open but its fate was much worse than the characters'. It contracted the Tox, a kind of poisoning caused by warp. Now it has mutated from an animal to a monster. Its fire breath and tentacles make it doubly dangerous. Driven mad by the Tox, it attacks recklessly, charging at the characters and fighting until it is killed. This fight can happen anytime during daylight on the first day of this journey.

Scene 2: The Northern Hills

Cards for this scene are: Hills, Cold, Hamlet Ruins, Gilga.

When characters wake in the morning, they will see the trade road they have been traveling weaving through a line of hills. These are the northern hills. The terrain card Hills, mentioned above, represents this region. It will take a day's travel and a night's rest to pass it.

The day is fine and travel is easy over these low, rolling hummocks. Again, characters will consume a food ration and a water ration while traveling through this area. Near twilight, a ruined hamlet will appear near the peak of a low hill. At this point, ask the players to make a contest roll to see something. Characters may play cards that give a bonus to contest rolls to see hidden things, such as Keen Sight. This is a good time to explain contest rolls to the players, particularly if anyone has a card to play to increase their chances of success.

The ruined village is represented by the Ruined Hamlet card. It is a group of ten small stone houses, all roofless, some with crumbling walls. The largest building was a temple with its bell tower still intact, including a fine slate roof. Characters who succeeded at the contest roll will notice that, by the light of the setting sun, there seems to be something moving in the top chamber of the bell tower. They can't see exactly what it is from this distance, but it looks at least as large as a man.

The creature at the top of the tower is a gilga, a gilga is flying reptile with a wingspan of twenty feet. This gilga is a nesting female with a brood of 3 eggs. She is very territorial and she will attack any character who walks within 20 feet of the tower. However, she is reluctant to leave her clutch of eggs and will not do anything until someone comes that close. When a character comes within 100 feet of the tower, she will stretch her neck to poke her head out of the nearest window and let out a series of deep, hoarse caws. These are meant to warn off intruders. The display looks hostile but she will only fly out of the tower to attack if characters come within 20 feet. Ask the characters to make a contest roll and add their character's WIS as a bonus to their roll. Any character who succeeds at this roll will realize what the gilga's display means and be able to act accordingly. If no one comes too close, the gilga will settle down in a few moments and stop cawing.

The Gilga card represents this creature. If she attacks, call for an Initiative roll and add her SPD of 2 to your roll. Once provoked, she will fight to the death. The eggs will cool and die without the Gilga to protect them. They are edible if cooked and eaten within a week of being found. Each egg is worth 4 food rations.

Overnight, an unseasonable cold settles on this village. This freeze is represented by the Cold card, above. Characters who choose to shelter in one of the ruined houses will be protected from the biting wind and will be able to keep a fire going in the old hearth. This will prevent them from taking the cold damage as shown on this card.

Scene 3: Ambush in the Forest

The cards for Scene 3: Forest, Necro Apprentice One, Raise Skeleton One, My Zombie One, Raise Skeleton Two, Warp Bolt, Fatigue, Drain Ability, Necro Teleport, Elethay Shrine.

The morning dawns gray and dreary. It is still cold in the morning, although the biting chill of last night is gone. The crossroad marker stands at the intersection of two roads just outside of the ruined village and it is easy to see which is the eastern road. Traveling in this direction, characters will notice that the land rapidly levels out. Soon a line of trees will appear on the eastern horizon. This is the forest they have been told about. The road they follow passes beneath the canopy of these massive trees. The Forest terrain card represents these woods.

As before, today's travels will require characters to expend a food ration and a water ration. It grows warmer as characters travel through the trees and the forest is pleasant. Sunbeams break through the canopy to adorn clearings in sparkling light. Whistling birdsong echos through foliage. The road is wide and easy to follow. All seems well, but danger has followed the travelers into this peaceful place.

Like nearly all places in the Stormlands, the little town of Green Brook has been visited by necromancers' spies. It is the characters' misfortune that one of these sneaks was in town the day they first changed. This scoundrel sent a message to his master to tell what had happened. The master, although too concerned in other matters to take a direct hand, sent one of his apprentices to hunt the characters. His instructions are to attack them, with an eye to capturing one or more of the characters for later draining.

With the exception of the Elethay Shrine, all of the rest of the cards above represent this attacking apprentice and his party. Like most death mages, this villain has summoned undead to do his dirty work. He has led these creatures into the forest and, finding the road, laid an ambush for the characters.

Raise Skeletons One: Although only one card is shown above, there are four of these creatures. They have been told to lay flat on the ground, two on each side of the road. When the ambush is set, the necromancer will yell out an instruction for them to rise and attack the characters.

Raise Skeleton Two: This stronger skeleton has been hidden behind a large tree. Its instruction is to spear the leading character from hiding as soon as the character passes the tree.

My Zombie One: This tough, powerful, slow moving undead acts as the apprentice's body guard. The creature crouches by the trunk of the tree in which the apprentice is hidden. It attacks anyone who approaches its master.

Necro Apprentice One: Young, ambitious and clever, this rascal intends to make the best of his opportunity. There is great risk in taking on four shape shifters but great reward if he succeeds. The scoundrel is determined to take a gamble and is willing to stake his life to win. He has climbed into the lower branches of a tree to hide himself and get a clear view of the road, while remaining close enough to the ground to jump down should he need to.

From his vantage point, the apprentice has a clear view of the ambush site. His plan is to watch the fight, looking for a character to be badly wounded. When this happens, ask the character to roll 2d6 and then roll 2d6 +2 against him. This is the apprentice's contest roll to spot what he is trying to see. If he succeeds, he will shout instructions to his skeletons, telling them to strike that character to stun. Should these attacks cause the character to go unconscious, he will use his next movement to jump down from the tree and run to the fallen character then use his action to teleport himself and his victim away. When a character is unconscious, he can be teleported as if he was awake and willing to go.

The apprentice has no other fixed plan but this one. He will use his spells as opportunities present themselves. If he is badly hurt and has not used it yet, he will cast his teleport spell to escape.

Loot: All weapons used by the undead are ruined and unfit for use by the living. The apprentice has a purse with 40 GP, his pay for taking on this job.

Aftermath: The Elethay shrine is near the ambush site, close enough that battle sounds will be heard by Hadley (described below). He will start moving towards the fight when he hears it, arriving 6 rounds after the fight starts. Should any enemies be alive at this point, Hadley will immediately dispatch them. No dice rolls or stats are needed; these creatures are not in Hadley's league and he can dispatch them with a tap of his fist.

Hadley is a ghost. He looks like a kindly, middle aged elf and characters will not be able to tell he is a spirit, at first glance. However, the fact that he doesn't breathe, that his voice has a faint echo and that his lower body goes transparent from time to time should clue characters in to his state. In life, he was a elven dragon and a renowned Valarian Champion. In death he continues to serve as a mentor to young recruits, such as the characters.

Hadley knows many healing spells and will heal any wounded characters. He will then lead the characters to the nearby shrine. A hidden waystone concealed within below the shrine will be activated to teleport character to his hidden sanctuary, which is an ancient tower concealed from prying eyes by old draconic magic. There he will offer characters a chance to become Valarian Champions.

This is a good time to have characters look at the Valarian Champion boon card that came with their starting character set. This boon grants the user +1 WIS and +8 HP, which makes it quite desirable. Boons are good and Valarians hunt the villains who prey on shape shifters. It is wise for young characters to become Valarians as soon a they can. Fortunately, Hadley is a Valarian Mentor and can teach the Valarian Boon. At the GM's option he can teach other Anchors as well.

Once the characters accept this boon, their Valarian training has started. Hadley quarters them in the tower, arranges for their food and drink and starts their work outs. One of his favorite exercises is to have characters tend his extensive gardens, which surround the tower. Characters may feel they have left a life of farming to start a life of gardening. Hadley will reassure them. After training has ended, he has a couple of little jobs he wants them to take care of as new Valarians. What these jobs involve become clear in the adventures that follow.

Appendix Two: Second Adventure, Bandits and Balderdash

Overview: In the Stormlands, the region where characters adventure, life is harsh. Many turn to banditry in desperation, while others become brigands to satisfy a vicious nature. A few play bandits as part of larger schemes.

Scene 1: A Little Trip to the Hills

The cards for this scene: Hills, Wind Storms, Thunder Storm, Dense Fog and Frozen.

After a month in Hadley's Sanctuary, characters will be fully trained Valarian Champions. To get an idea of what this training involves, we recommend the Valarian Champions book, which is available on our web site at dragonstorm.com. For now, it will suffice to say that characters' are more than ready for a break. Luckily (or perhaps not) Hadley feels inclined to send them on a trip for pleasure. Not their pleasure, mind you but his. Hadley has a problem, and it will give him a lot of pleasure to have his problem go away.

To the west of the northern hills, which characters traveled through a month ago, the trade road passes through mountains before dropping down to snake through rich trade towns of the low lands. Hadley funds Valarian trade caravans along that road, and these caravans yield profits that keep the good work alive. Needless to say, when the road is populated by bandits, Hadley becomes unhappy. When Hadley is not happy, Valarians are sent on errands to make him happy. In this case, the errand is removing bandits from the mountain trade road.

Hadley will supply characters with 10 food rations and be sure their water skins are full. He also gives each character a curative vale and a vale of healing. Stormland bandits are often wretches, driven to this vocation by the prospect of starvation, but they are dangerous wretches.

When characters travel again through the hills to reach the mountain road, they will hardly recognize this region. The short cold snap they experienced earlier has become an extended cold spell. Characters find themselves beset by Wind Storms, Thunder Storms, Dense Fog and Freezing temperatures, all of which are represented by cards you can find in the back of the book. Such conditions sometimes follow in the wake of a dragon storm, disrupting weather and spoiling crops for miles around.

Other than the effects described on the cards, these conditions will slow the characters' journey. Ask characters to make a successful contest roll to scout the road. Characters who have cards that help them see and hear better may play them to get a bonus to this roll. Characters with the Scouting Anchor card, of course, will get a bonus to this roll. If the characters are not successful, it will take twice as long as normal (two days) to travel through this region. In addition to consuming additional food and water, characters will suffer the effects of the afore mentioned cards for a second day.

Scene 2: Death in the Mist

The cards for this scene: Savage Raptor. Some time during the trip through the hills, when the fog is especially dense, characters will be attacked by a pack of savage raptors. These creatures usually migrate through this area, following herds of taurs on their seasonal trip to greener pastures. This pack, however, has lost its way in the fog and has remained stranded in this area for more than a week. They are not hungry enough to risk attacking the characters.

There are three raptors in the pack. They lie crouched in a ditch near the road, hidden by the land and fog. Have characters make a contest roll to see them, adding +4 as a GM MOD to your roll. These stalkers are hard to see when it is clear, and it is certainly not clear now.

These animals hunt by picking out the smallest, weakest looking character, charging at him from behind and striking. All three will attack the same victim. Any savage raptor that loses half of its HP will break off and flee.

Scene 3: Mountain Hunters

The cards for this scene: Dwarf.

The land becomes rocky and the path steep as hills give way to mountains. Fog dissolves, rain lets up and wind calms. The characters find themselves walking a mountain path on a cool, clear, sunny day. After several hours of travel, they will come around a bend in the road to find themselves facing three dwarves who were coming the other way.

These dwarves have a savage demeanor. Their beards are long, wild and untrimmed. Their clothes are leather and fur crudely stitched. All sport the gamey odor of unbathed bodies and unwashed garments. The lead dwarf, whose hair is grizzled and especially wild, displays a wide smile with many gaps between teeth. "Howdy, travelers!" he bellows. "Wanna buy some goat meat?"

These three worthies are mountain hunters. They specialize in hunting wily mountain goats, selling the meat, hides and horns to passing caravaners. They have made a decent living for the last few years, but recent bandit activity has slowed business. They are eager to make a sale. The meat, which is tough but nutritious, sells for 2 sp per ration. Hides are available for 2 GP and have a CAP of 1. They sell for 10 GP in trade towns and make serviceable (if smelly) blankets. Horns cost 5 GP each and sell for 20 GP in trade towns, although characters will need to find a carver or merchant interested in buying this exotic item.

If characters don't buy anything, the dwarves become pushy. They haven't made a sale in a while and it has made them grouchy. Characters who insult them may provoke a fight. Although not bandits, they are very jealous of their honor and will not suffer high handed treatment.

If characters make purchases, the hunters become talkative. They are eager for news of the lowlands and especially want to know if characters have seen a patrol traveling this way. They want the bandits rousted from this trail so that business can get back to normal. Should characters explain that they are hunting bandits, the dwarves will volunteer useful information. They have seen the bandits' blockade, (see below) and they will describe it in detail. If closely questioned they will add an unusual detail. "Those fellas dress awful nice for bandits. They got some pretty nice gear, too. Most bandits hereabouts wear rags and carry fire hardened sticks for spears." The dwarf will lean close, giving the characters a whiff of his eye-watering breath. "I heard tell they been paid by Elethay folk to do this work. They're in cahoots with them dragons, you know."

After chatting, the dwarves will go on their way, giving the characters a warm good-bye. If characters pass this way again, they could again prove a useful source of information.

Scene 3: Bandit Blockade

A few more hours down the road, characters will encounter the blockade, which is a rough wall of stone that has been piled up to block the mountain pass. The bandits have set up camp behind this blockade and they are spoiling for a fight.

Have the characters make a contest roll to see something. If they have been told of the blockade by the mountain dwarves, give them a +4 bonus to this roll. Characters who spot the blockade with this roll will be able to see the bandits before the bandits see them, and study the blockade from a distance before moving closer. If they fail, they will see the bandits at the same time the bandits spot them, losing the opportunity to prepare for a fight.

Cards in this scene: Mountain, Jikadell Disciple, Jikadell Serpent, Jikadell Apostle, Jikadell Shield, Muscles, The Harrowing.

The mountain dwarves were right about these brigands being associated with a temple. Where they got it wrong was which temple. These 'bandits' are worshippers of Jikadell who have been sent on a mission by their temple priest. Their task has been to play at banditry, while spreading rumors that they are doing this at the command of Elethay worshippers and dragons. Meanwhile, their priest has been trying to extort large bribes from caravaners to allow them to buy safe passage through this pass. So far no one has paid up, but he is confident that they will give in if he can keep this road blocked for another week.

These brigands are fanatics, chosen for their unquestioning devotion to the temple. They are not above enjoying their work and have taken pleasure in the suffering of their victims and the wealth they have gained through murder.

One of the three Disciples is always on guard, watching the road. When characters come into sight he will alert his fellows, who immediately prepare for battle. Meanwhile the Jikadell Shield, who has a loud rough voice, will roar out a demand for money in the name of Elethay.

The cost of safe passage is 20 GP a head, a price far beyond the means of all but the wealthiest travelers. True bandits would set a lower toll, being sensible enough to accept less if it means they can avoid an unnecessary fight. These fanatics are not sensible. Their purpose is to spread lies about Elethay worshippers and murder travelers for their money. Such is the mercy of Jikadell.

With this in mind, the fanatics attack almost immediately after demanding money. The Disciples have slings, the Shield has a bow and the Apostle has 3 uses of the Harrowing spell. All of these will be used against characters who approach their barricade. Steep walls of rock border the road here and there is very little cover. If characters have seen the blockade ahead of time your GM MOD should be +3 or higher in any contest rolls to sneak up to it. If they haven't seen it in advance, there is no chance make a stealthy approach.

When characters close to melee range, the Apostle will reveal a nasty surprise. He has a pet Jikadell Serpent coiled over his shoulders and it will strike anyone who attacks its master.

Should the characters win, the loot listed below is available. If players do not have item cards for the loot listed below, they can make their own copy by going to the proxy card pages on our site, Dragonstorm.com.

Sling x 3
Box
Sword x 2
Club x 3
Buckler
Leather Armor
Back Pack x3
130 GP, 220 SP, 85 CP
Book (see below)

Aftermath: Among the bandits' loot is the Apostle's Diary, which he kept in order to make complete reports for his Priest. This book provides a complete explanation of what has been going on, including the lies and the priest's attempted extortion. Since characters are literate (Elethay lessons include reading and writing) they will be able to read the diary and understand what it has to tell.

The trip back to Hadley's will be safe and uneventful. The weather has returned to normal in the hills. Hadley is waiting for characters at the shrine where they first met and he will transport them back to the safe house. There he will be very interested in the diary, taking it and studying it carefully. Several weeks later, he will causally mention to characters that a certain Jikadell priest has met an early end. There are rumors that the merchant's guild was responsible for his death.

Appendix Three: Spawn of the Woods, Adventure

Overview: Dragon Storms strike all over the Stormlands, causing trouble in many places. In this adventure, characters find out that this trouble can show up close to home.

The first two adventures in this series followed linear plot lines. One scene happened first, another scene happened after, and so on. Events were put in a certain order to make the story work. Not all Dragon Storm adventures need to be designed this way. One of the strengths of the Dragon Storm system is that free form adventures can be quickly created using cards and a simple plot, such as the ones to be found in the scenes appendix of this book. This adventure is one of these.

Plot: Before it struck Green Brook, the dragon storm which first changed the characters passed over this region. It made changes here too and they were all for the worse. The storm dropped a chunk of warped channel stone. An explanation of what warped channel stone is and how it gets into dragon storms can be found in Dragon Storm World Book 1, which is available for sale on our web site, Dragonstorm.com. For now, all characters need to know is that this sometimes happens, and that it has happened in the same region as Hadley's safe house.

What is bad about warped channel stone is that is its warped: Really, really warped. This substance is so shot through with toxic magic that glows with a faint sickly green phosphorescence when the stone is viewed in dim light. A small quantity of this substance can cause trouble far out of proportion to its mass. The main problem it causes is Tox, a kind of magical poisoning. For many years Tox was mistaken for a disease and most people still think of it as a kind of plague, but the truth is more complicated. Tox is the magical equivalent of radiation poisoning. It ruins land and sickens people. Worse, it persists, remaining to poison the land for years. As bad as that is, there is an even more terrible effect created by Tox. People sickened by Tox may survive the encounter only to be transformed into a monster called a mad spawn.

A mad spawn is a normal living thing that has been turned into a twisted, insane creature by Tox. The transformation is marked by the arrival of warp features, strange traits that a Tox victim develops as the poison twists their flesh. Warp features can show themselves with frightening speed, sometimes appearing within moment of exposure to Tox, but more often they take a day or two to develop.

A creature that acquires one warp feature is warped, but it is still sane and still relatively normal. A creature that acquires two becomes a mad spawn. It is insane, twisted and completely warped. If the warp features are removed it will return to normal, so long as this is done within a few weeks of it becoming a spawn. Longer than that and removal of the features may kill the victim.

Hadley has discovered that mad spawn are wandering the woods near his safe house. This is not to be tolerated. Through his sources he has discovered that the creatures are being toxed by a chunk of warped channel stone that fell from the passing storm. He wants the mad spawn killed or cured and the warped channel stone found and neutralized. He provides a potion to the characters to pour over the stone. It will render it inert, leaving only a normal piece of stone when the process is complete.

Characters are sent out to scout the woods and find the stone. While searching, Hadley expects that they will encounter wandering mad spawn. This is fine by him, as he wants the monsters dealt with. If the characters get badly hurt in a fight, they are welcome to return to the safe house for healing and rest, so long as they don't rest too long.

The scenes which follow are numbered, but they don't need to be run in any particular order. We recommend that finding the stone be the last scene, but even that is not necessary. Even after the stone is destroyed the mad spawn it created will persist until they are killed, cured, or wander away.

Scene 1: Baaad Spawn

A sheep wandered too close to the stone and has become warped. This monster is relatively short (about 2.5 feet at the shoulder) so it may be concealed by dense foliage. It continues to bleat, but sounds just as it did before being toxed, so that is no help in identifying it. When visible, bony skull plates, oversized horns and blood red eyes make its condition apparent. For a more challenging encounter, add more sheep to make a herd.

Cards here are: Forest, Mad Spawn One, Rams Horns, Bone Head.

Scene 2: Bubble and Boil

It's impossible to tell exactly what this creature was before it was toxed. A dog? A pony? Whatever it was, it resembles no natural creature now. Fur and hide have peeled away to leave a pulsing surface of flesh. Bloated boils cover this flesh, themselves undulating with the dark magic that has twisted this creature. It cannot possibly be alive, but it is. To make this more challenging, require a contest roll when characters first see this wretched beast. If they fail the roll, they are overcome with horror and cannot approach the thing for 1 round.

Cards used here: Forest, Mad Spawn One, Boils, Regenerates.

Scene 3: Best Leg Forward

Unlike the previous spawn, it is apparent exactly what this creature was before it got too close to the warped channel stone. Obviously it was a spider. It is still a spider of sorts, except that now its body measures a foot across and its form is supported by two dozen thick, hairy legs. This creature is small enough to hide in tree branches and is likely to attack from ambush. If you want to make this creature worse, keep it in the trees, fleeing and dodging and give it two or three uses of the Web Spitter feature. It only closes to attack a victim who has been tangled by multiple web shots.

Scene 4: The Warped Channel Stone

The stone is about the size of a chamber pot. When it fell it struck a tree and lodged in the trunk, about 20 feet off the ground, in a 'Y' where two branches meet. Although this has served to conceal the stone, other signs point to its presence. Bark is peeling off of the stricken tree and grass has died at its based. Dozens of dead birds lie on the brown grass. A smell of death pervades the area, testifying to more rotting bodies concealed in the foliage.

When characters climb up to pour the potion on the stone, they are in for an unpleasant surprise. A forest scorpion, warped by the stone, has taken up residence in a hollow of the trunk right above the spot where the stone is lodged. It will attack anyone who approaches the stone, which it considers part of its territory. It has developed wings as part of its tox, which will allow it to flit around its victim, stinging and biting. If this does not remove the character, it will fly directly into its victim. Have the character make a contest roll and add COR. Failure means the character is knocked out of the tree and falls to the ground, suffering 2d6 damage. If they are holding the potion when this happens, you get to determine the consequences. Have fun!

Cards here are: Forest, Warped Site, Mad Spawn One, Spiked Tail, Wings.

Appendix Four: Scenes from the Past

In Classic Dragon Storm we had a series of cards called scene cards. They had tips about the world of Grandilar and possible related scenes for the GM. They were good ideas and we are including them here to inspire the GM's imagination.

Elethay Village

Much of the Stormlands are populated by yeomen farmers, who manage to survive and prosper despite storms, warp spawn and necromancers. Most successful independent farmers worship Elethay, Goddess of fertility and nature. Elethay worshippers believe shape shifters are blessed by their goddess and welcome shifters as friends and allies. These villagers hate necromancers because they understand that their twisted magic is the real source of Dragon Storms. Jikadell worshippers are also enemies.

Possible scenes:

An Elethay village has been targeted for destruction by a local necromancer. Tough and adaptable, the villagers are preparing to rapidly abandoned their village and rebuild somewhere else. They have found a promising spot but need character's help to make the move.
An Elethay village is enjoying a huge harvest. The crops must be transported to a nearby town to be sold. Rumors are circulating that enemies mean to attack villages when they travel to market. They need help to defend themselves.
An Elethay village has grown very large. Some of the villages want to leave to establish a new town. Characters are asked to help find a place with fertile ground where these people can settle.

Stormland Hunters

Many peasants and freemen have become nomadic hunters to escape the ravages of dragon storms. People of any race may be hunters.

Possible scenes:

Prosperous hunters belligerently defend their hunting rights in a terrain area.
Hunters want to sell meat for 5 silver pieces per ration.
Hunters from a Warp village have been told to capture or report any shape shifters they encounter. These hunters may have Warp features.
Hunters are pursing marauding warpspawn.

Freelance Necromancer

When his apprenticeship is over, a young necromancer sets out to hunt shape shifters. Enough of their magic will make him a master necromancer. Necromancers usually employ dwarves, elves, humans, warpspawn or mad spawn as guards.

Possible scenes:

A brash young necromancer accosts the characters. He either suspects they are shape shifters, or wants to recruit them as guards.
A cautious necromancer is disguised and dangerous.
Characters learn that a necromancer has captured a shape shifter, who he is planning to drain.

Putz Necromancer

Many brash youngsters aspire to become necromancers. They are numerous, ambitious, and mostly short lived. Only a few survive their dangerous apprenticeship, as herding mad spawn and scouting for shape shifters is hazardous work. Those who don't die while carrying out duties usually end up killed by their paranoid, less than sane masters.

Possible scenes:

A friend who a character grew up with has grown discontented with his life and hired on with a local necromancer. He has only just joined and there may be time to talk him out of this very bad choice, if character's risk a trip to the necromancer's stronghold to speak to him.
A wannabe necromancer has survived a full month working for her master and is now over-confident to the point of recklessness. Characters see her strutting around, bullying locals and loudly proclaiming that she is hunting shape shifters. She may be a lone fool, or bait in a trap set by an older, wiser necromancer who is hiding nearby, watching.
A putz necromancer has developed a warp feature after being exposed to the tox. He tries to pretend it is a mark of honor, but under his brave face, he is torn with emotion. He may be quailing with fear, ready to be turned away from evil by a character willing to use Purify on him. Alternately, he may be filled with rage at his disfigurement and recklessly attack anyone he suspects as a shape shifter, since he believes that they are the cause of his woes.

Jikadell Zealots

Jikadell is supposedly the goddess of protection, sheltering the weak from evil. In truth, the faith is a malignant cult that backs necromancers and tells lies about shape shifters. Jikadell Zealots spend a lot of time spreading propaganda. They are especially fond of repeating the myth that dragons cause Dragon Storms to kill mortal people. In fact, Necromancers cause Dragon Storms as a side effect of their foul magic, but those few Jikadell Zealots who know this go right on repeating this lie. Jikadell Zealots hate Elethay worshippers.

Possible scenes:

A Jikadell Priestess, accompanied by a group of fanatical body guards, is traveling to a town controlled by a necromancer where she expects a warm welcome. On the way, she is preaching her foul faith and trying to make converts. Local Elethay worshippers want characters to drive her off.
A Jikadell zealot has infiltrated an Elethay town. She is causing trouble, spreading lies and trying to make life miserable for people who she considers heretics.
A band of Jikadell worshipping thugs have established a camp near a large Elethay village, and demanded tribute from the villagers. When villagers refuse they turn to raiding and banditry, claiming that their religion gives them the right to slay non-believers and abscond with their possessions. Needless to say, the villagers want these villains dealt with.

Warpspawn Marauders

While Warp is toxic to most mortals, it is life's blood to warpspawn. These debased creatures often work with necromancers. Any warpspawn may be a marauder.

Possible scenes:

Warpspawn have captured a shape shifter. They are hoping to sell their prize to a necromancer.
An Elethay or trade village has been targeted by warpspawn. They may attempt a direct assault, or try to corrupt the village from within.
Warpspawn have heard about the characters' exploits. They start to hunt them, waiting for the best moment to attack.

Trade Village

Cottages surround an open air market or trading post. Water is free at the village well. Food costs 5 silver pieces per ration.

Possible scenes:

A villager wants to sell information about necromancers. He may be a double agent.
The village has declared itself neutral ground. Any conflicts between shape shifters and necromancers will be dealt with harshly.
It's market day in the village. Items can be bought at full GP value, and characters may sell used items for 1/2 value.

Wandering Mentor

Mentors are veteran Valarians who recruit and train young champions. To protect themselves from necromancers, they are secretive and nomadic.

Possible scenes:

A mentor tries to recruit characters, offering the Valarian Champion Boon as incentive to join.
When characters are in deep trouble, a mentor attempts to help them.
After characters have accomplished an especially difficult task, a mentor rewards them with boons.
A disguised mentor passes important secrets to characters.

Mortal Kingdom Ruins

Fragmented stone roads lead to crumbling buildings. These are all that remain of a mortal kingdom, destroyed by dragon storms and invaders. History cards add +2 to non-combat rolls of characters searching the ruins.

Possible scenes:

Magic items created by dragons for their mortal allies lie hidden here.
Adventurers and necromancers search these ruins for treasure.
A ruined building is the den of bad tempered plague beasts.

Ruined Village

Huts and cottages stand abandoned around a razed Elethay temple. This village was destroyed by Warp. History cards add +2 to non-combat rolls of characters searching here.

Possible scenes:

A lone villager lives in these ruins. She may know who destroyed the village, and why.
A passing dragon storm turned all the villagers' animals into plague beasts, and the creatures destroyed the village. These beasts still roam here.
This place is haunted by spirits of villagers and the warp spawn who murdered them.

Bandits

Banditry has become common in these hard times. Robbers will run from a fight they are losing. Any intelligent creature can be a bandit.

Possible scenes:

Bandits are regularly raiding trade caravans on the road between two villages. The villagers will reward characters who rid them of these pests.
Bandits try to ambush the characters.
After escaping a tyrannical necromancer, peasants have become bandits. They hate necromancers, and will aid any character they know to be a shape shifter.

Caves

Characters looking for shelter may find more than they expect in a cave.

Possible scenes:

Raiders, bandits or a necromancer and his guards are using a cave as a hideout.
This cave was once a holy place for spirit worshippers. A friendly spirit lingers here.
A bestial mad spawn lives in the cave.
A nomadic clan occasionally uses the cave as a campsite. They may return at any time. Food may be hidden here.

Refugees

Warpspawn marauders and ruinous dragon storms have driven many people from their homes. Any non-warped mortal may be a refugee.

Possible scenes:

Peasants are being pursued by warpspawn who destroyed their village.
Refugees running low on food and water appeal to the characters for supplies and protection.
A noble who lost everything in a dragon storm will offer a treasure map, a reward paid by a relative, or information about a necromancer in return for help.

Elethay Temple

Elethay is a goddess of earth, life and fertility. Her worshippers despise necromancy. Any non-warped person may worship at an Elethay temple.

Possible scenes:

Serfs escaped from a Warp village have taken refuge in a temple. They may know secrets about the village they came from.
A temple acolyte is a spy for a necromancer. He reports any shape shifters to his master.
A priestess has turned her temple into a sanctuary for wounded Valarian Champions.

Adventurers

Crude, rude and dangerous, adventurers will work for anyone who pays, including necromancers. Adventurers are usually dwarves, elves, and humans.

Possible scenes:

To collect a high bounty placed on shape shifters, adventurers will go to great lengths to capture their prey. Anyone who interferes is expendable.
Adventurers have heard that the characters own a magic item. They will use guile or force to get it.
Wandering adventurers wish to sell a treasure map.

Jikadell Temple

Worship of Elethay has been outlawed in Warp villages. In her place, peasants glorify Jikadell, a warped fertility goddess favored by necromancers.

Possible scenes:

Crazed worshippers are exhorting Jikadell to grant them Warp features. Many celebrants are already deformed by hideous 'gifts' of the goddess.
A shape shifter is being held in the temple until a necromancer arrives to drain him.
An Elethay spy has infiltrated the temple. She will report what she knows to Valarian Champions.

Warp Village

A tower of gray stone looms over run down huts. Human, elf and dwarf serfs are ruled by a despotic necromancer. His warpspawn guards prevent unhappy villagers from escaping. Water is 1 GP per ration and food costs 2 GP per ration.

Possible scenes:

The villagers are hunting shape shifters, because they believe shape shifters cause dragon storms.
A captured shape shifter is being drained in the necromancer's tower.
Villagers who want to escape the village appeal to the characters for help.

Elethay Village

Bountiful farms and tidy cottages surround an Elethay temple. The temple priestess is also village mayor. Humans, elves and a few orcs live here. Water is free, and food costs 5 silver pieces per ration.

Possible scenes:

Warpspawn raid the village. If a necromancer is with them, they will try to burn the temple.
The temple priestess is a Valarian Champion who will aid shape shifters and their friends.
Local farmers regard shape shifters as minor saints. Known shape shifters will be asked to bless fields, lay hands on the sick, kiss babies, and so on.

Tavern Scene

The tavern is a welcome sight for weary travelers. A meal costs 1 GP here, and ale is 5 silver pieces per tankard. Common room lodging costs 1 GP.

Possible scenes:

The tavern keeper listens to local gossip and will pass it on, for a price.
A dragon storm has repeatedly struck this tavern. Every time it hits, wild magic teleports the building to a different terrain area.
A merchant wishes to hire characters as guards.
Rowdy adventurers start a bar brawl.

Deserted Clanhold

An elaborate portal carved into a cliffside leads to countless passages and spacious chambers. This dragon clanhold has been deserted for a long time.

Possible scenes:

Many years ago, necromancers captured and drained the clanhold dragons, producing a bubble of Warp. Taint damage is 8 Warp inside the hold, which is inhabited by warpspawn.
The hold is pristine. Taint damage is 10 Od. Magic items and ancient secrets are hidden here.
The spirit of an ancient dragon haunts this place.

Mortal Kingdom Tower

Built as frontier guard posts by armies of the mortal kingdoms, many old towers have survived the age of storms.

Possible scenes:

A village grew up around an ancient tower, where locals shelter from dragon storms. Murals on tower walls contain secret knowledge, but villagers are reluctant to let strangers explore their refuge.
The spirits of captives entombed in a tower still haunt their prison. These restless souls may have been criminals or innocents. The spirits will remain imprisoned until their bones are properly buried.

Character Recognized

Despite their best efforts to remain anonymous, characters are always in danger of being recognized by friend or foe.

Possible scenes:

Someone characters aided in the past recognizes them as his 'heroes'. He buys them drinks, then proclaims their deeds to anyone who listens, including a necromancer's spy.
After they foil his plan, an enemy offers gold for the characters' capture. An adventurer recognizes them from the villian's description.
A childhood friend recognizes a character, and wants to know what her old chum has been up to.

Spies and Informants

In most Stormland villages, spies keep an eye out for shape shifters and Valarians. Conspicuous characters are quickly reported.

Possible scenes:

Though he has retired and become an innkeeper, an elderly adventurer still hunts shape shifters. He spies on his guests, reporting any shape shifters to younger comrades.
A peasant family desperate for money sells information on shape shifters to a necromancer.
By claiming to be an Elethay priestess, a spy hopes to win the trust of shape shifters and Valarians.

Manilac City Ruins

At its zenith, the manilac empire built many grand cities, but warpspawn attacks and dragon storms reduced these communities to sprawling ruins.

Possible scenes:

A necromancer cursed a city, forcing its dead to rise as skeletons, zombies and spirits. The undead wander the streets at night, re-enacting events of their shattered lives.
A tribe of manilac nomads regularly visits a ruined city. The manilacs hold this place sacred, but remember their links to it only through garbled legends. These nomads revere werewolves and hate wakana.

Character Befriended

Necromancers rule much of the Stormlands, but their ruthlessness has earned them many enemies. Hidden within necromancers' domains are rebels who will befriend shape shifters and Valarians.

Possible scenes:

A family of peasants descended from Manilac nomads secretly revers werewolves, and will help them, even if it means risking their own lives.
A necromancer slowly murdered someone who got in his way. The victim's spirit lingers, eager to help anyone who opposes its killer.
Nomadic orcs, humans and tigreans fight a guerrilla war against a necromancer overlord. Any enemy of the overlord is a friend of theirs.

Necromancy Politics

Necromancers spend much of their time warring with each other. Feuding, necromancers and their servants may ignore or even talk to characters, who are not their current targets.

Possible scenes:

A necromancer has sent warpspawn to raid the holdings of a rival death mage. The warpspawn may attack characters, ignore them, or even attempt to persuade characters to help in the raid.
Two tribes of wakanas war for supremacy of a terrain area. Both tribes are led by necromancers. Each will use assassins, raids and dirty tricks to win and their war is devastating the lives of local farmers and merchants. They want characters to protect them.
Elven necromancers war for control of forested terrain. Characters may get caught in the fighting, the politics or both.

Draconic Clanhold

Even during the age of storms, a few clanholds remain occupied and pristine. Characters in an active clanhold suffer 1D6 +2 Od Taint damage per day. Drained cards recharge at a rate of 1 per hour.

Possible scenes:

A small clan, such as the Zachtos, still controls a clanhold. Characters will find friends here.
A tribe of orcs protects an old clanhold, serving spirit ancestors of the extinct clan.
At the end of a hidden tunnel lies a large grotto, its walls decorated with mosaics of clanhold life. This chamber was once a layover for traveling dragons, and it has been a secret refuge ever since.

Orc Holy Ground

Orcs bury their dead in mass graves deep in the wilderness. On holy days, they gather at these sacred sites to hold festivals and pray.

Possible scenes:

An orc built an inn on holy ground. She welcomes travelers, but most of her patrons are manifested spirits, who talk endlessly about their lives.
Ancestors linger near abandoned sacred ground. They want to be honored, particularly by orcs, and manifest to show their displeasure if disrespected.
Characters stumble upon holy ground where orcs hold a festival, dancing, chanting, and eating to excess. The orcs may resent the intrusion, or invite characters to join in.

Hall of Spirits

Ancient dragon clans created special ceremonial halls to house their honored ancestor spirits. They would come to these places to make deals with the dead and to learn from their ancestors. Many of these halls were destroyed by necromancers on Deathday, but some remained hidden. A few ancestors still linger in ancient halls. They are frequently confused, scared and angry.

Possible scenes:

An ancient hall contains two spirit ancestors. One is very weak and will pass on within a year. The other is much stronger, but has four warp features and is mad.
This warped hall inflicts 6 points of warp damage per day to all who enter. Several mad spawn and mad ancestor spirits live here. Unbeknownst to them a magic item is hidden in this hall.
An ancient dragon spirit resides here and is angry that ceremonies have not been carried out over the last 200 years. It wants respect - NOW!

Appendix Five: The Gamemaster and Dealing with Items Rules

Items play several significant roles in Dragon Storm. In all cases, how this is handled, and what items are around is determined by the GM using the 3.4 rule.

Magic Items, whether they be potions, rings, or powerful items become experience for characters when they are used against them. Characters get one experience point for every 10 GP value of the item. Only items actually used against the players add experience.
Items dropped by enemies, or found on their bodies, can become treasure and sell for about half of their full value.
Items stored in chests and hidden away by bad guys become treasure, if they are found.
Items can be bought and used in games by the characters. This is easiest if you have the cards, but you can look up the card information on our website at www.dragonstorm.com, if needed for making proxies.

Items have some special rules of their own. Players are responsible for keeping track of their characters items, the GM already has plenty to keep track of.

Items which have the (DWN) note, recharge at Dawn. That means that when they are used they are drained until the next Dawn.
Items which have multiple uses will tell you how many times they may be used before they are drained. Once completely drained they may be recharged. GM's may let partially discharged items be recharged.
Only one potion may be working at a time. Whenever a potion is used it causes previous potions to drain. A Speed potion lasts for a combat, however, if the character using the speed potion drinks a Healing Potion, the Speed Potion is drained and gone.

Magic Misfires

Whenever a Terrible Two is rolled when using a Magic Item their has been a Magic Misfire.

If the Item has a value of 1,000, or greater, GP value it is drained and must spend a week in an Od area to recharge.
If the item has a value of less than 1,000 GP it is drained. To make matters worse, it has lost it's enchantment. It is done for. Gamemaster's may take pity on a player and let you save the item, but that depends on keeping your GM in a good mood.

Terrible Two and Non-Magic Items

Normal items are less vulnerable to breaking than magic items. Normally they are simply tossed across the room or dropped. However, GM's may do something nasty to your weapon. Keep your GM happy, it helps.

Shifts with User

Items which shift with the user and may not be used in their shifted form, nor do they add stats to the character.

Shifts with User and Available

Items which shift with the user and can be used when shifted.

Appendix Six: Classic Cards and Second Edition

Classic cards are happily accepted in Second Edition. There are a few cards that will need to be watched, but they blend well. Players are expected to use common sense and the spirit of Dragon Storm to play nicely. If a GM determines that you are abusing the game, being unfair to other players, or have no common sense, they will ask you to stop using some cards in their games.

Banned cards: Make it Independent.
Modified Cards:
- Dispel Magic: Limit one per round.
- Teleport: Limit One per round.
- Dual Strike, Dual Action, Defend and Cast, Slice and Slide, etc.: May not be combined with any cards. They now stand alone.
Either Or Cards. Use Classic Anchors and cards or Second Edition Anchors, but not both. You can mix and match from the list. As an example you could use Classic Masteries and Second Edition Scouting. As Second Edition grows there will be additions to this list. Check our website at dragonstorm.com as new cards and abilities are revealed.

Classic Cards		Second Edition
Weapon Masteries	or	Warrior, Archer sets.
Perception	or	Perception Set
Scouting Anchor	or	Scouting set
Knowledge Cards	or	Philosopher set
Language Cards	or	Linguist Set
Familiar Cards	or	Companion Set
Bloodline Cards	or	Bloodline sets
Form Affinity Boon	or	Form Affinity Anchor

"Way Of" cards. A Character may acquire one different Way Of card at Lifeline 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, and 18. These will eventually reappear in Second Edition.
What is an Enhance card?

Enhance cards must be combined with an Action, Movement or Independent. They improve your contest number. They do not count as "things" when counting ten things.

When using Classic cards apply this test to see if a card is an Enhance: Does the card stand on its own, or must it be played in combination with another card to work? If it stands alone it requires a "thing" to use it. An example is Good Moves. It stands alone, it costs a "thing" to play it. Those that can not stand alone, like Dragon Claws and Boosted Moves, are Enhancements and do not cost a "thing" to play.

While we may have opinions on these cards, the final judgement is between you and your GM and how you are using the card. If you need to contrive a sophisticated argument for a card to be an Enhance rather than a "thing", it is probably not an Enhance, it requires a "thing" to use it.

Dropping Bloodkin Cards: We are dropping the Bloodkin cards and folding them into the other racial cards and Anchors. We do not think using Classic Bloodkin cards will affect game balance. Go ahead and use them.
New, more powerful Forms: Second Edition shifter forms are more powerful than Classic Forms. We recommend that you change them over by buying the new forms or by making Proxies of the new forms.
Classic Character Cards: Classic Character cards, including commissioned cards, are Second Edition ready, use them.
Storm Rider Guild Cards: We accept them in Second Edition, but you are always limited by the ten "things" rule.
Grandfathering card changes: Any Warden/GM will be glad to help you replace Classic cards with Second Edition cards. There is no time limit. There is also no requirement that you change, just play within the DS framework and you will be fine. You may only want to use the new cards with new characters.
Cards with changes between Classic and Second Edition: A number of cards have moved from Universal into an Anchor, had stat changes or have new guides for use. We will not be doing card by card rules. In most cases just use the card you have. In the other cases, use your own sense of fair play. If the GM wants to read the card, hand it to her, she can apply 3.4 if she wants. You may want to bring chocolate to sooth the GM.

Appendix Seven: Overview of Rules Changes Between Classic and Second Edition

Each player is limited to "ten" things per round. Action and Movement may be performed without a card, however, all additional "things" require a card to be played to access them.
Terrible Two. A natural roll of two on a 2d6 roll is always a failure. No, you can not get out of it.
Exploding Dice. When rolling 2d6 a 10, 11 or 12 explodes. Roll again and add the result. Yes, the second roll may also explode. A Terrible Two stops exploding dice, but does not negate the result.
Characteristics may only be added to a single roll once. You may only add STR, COR, SPD, or WIS once to a roll, no matter what the combined cards say.
We have defined Enhance cards. Cards like Dragon Claws did not have their own term, they do now.
We dropped the term Ace. Cards are now Enhance, Independent, Action or Anchor instead of being lumped together.
Magic Items and Terrible Two. When a magic Item has a related Terrible Two it misfires. That means it drains and needs serious repair. Your GM will happily decide what you must do. In general a week in Od will do the job of repair.

Appendix Eight: Starter Character Cards

On the following pages (68 and 69) are the cards that come with the Starter Character. You can play the game from these by using pencil and paper. You will find the game plays faster and more efficiently when using cards, but for trying the game these cards will work.

Appendix Nine: Lifeline Cards

As a character gains experience and converts those experience points into Cards, the character grows. The character begins as a Novice in Life and advances upwards every 100 Card Points gained. The Lifeline Cards are available as a set, but if you need to know right now; The Lifeline cards are among the following pages:

Appendix Ten: Other Player Cards

We have included images of a number of player and item cards for you to work with. Enjoy!

Appendix Eleven: Getting More Dragon Storm

The cards that are here in the book are available as individual card sets. The actual cards are done in color and are available.

From our point of view it is very important that we let you know exactly where you can get Dragon Storm adventures, books and card sets. Go To:

http://www.dragonstorm.com

At the web site you will also find free adventures, background information and links to all of our sites.

You will also find "Beta" card sheets you can download, experiment with and even comment on. The one caution we have on the Beta cards is that the player is responsible for keeping track of changes in Beta cards as they are developed. You will also want to ask your GM if you can use the Beta cards in her game. Some GM's do not want to deal with all of the extra's, especially when they are learning to run the game.

You can sign up for the Dragon Storm Monthly newsletter at the Dragon Storm Guild site. As long as you are there, look the guild over and sign up.

http://guild.gameswemake.com/index.html

If you find yourself wanting to get custom cards, or to sponsor Dragon Storm cards, you need to make contact with our game designer and artist. Her site is at:

http://www.artbysvc.com/index.html

We also have a Dragon Storm Blog where news, and much more, is posted:

http://dragonstormrpg.blogspot.com/

Gamemaster Cards (Appendix Eleven, Pages 82 to 92)

On the following pages you will find a series of Gamemaster cards to try the game.

Storm Cards: Dragon Storms arise in warped lands across the world. These storms are destructive and dangerous. They keep the world on pins and needles reducing the population and keeping the people too scared to overthrow the Necromancer Lords.

The GM can assemble the Storm cards in varying configurations to make a scary and chaotic world. Once you have your storm moving around and devistating the world you just add a few Madspawn and away you go.

Terrain Cards: Terrain cards reflect the pysical enviroment of the world. The gamemaster combines these cards in different ways to create the background of the world. Start with a land card like Forest. If you want a nasty forest you attach the Warped Terrain Feature to the card. Maybe there is a Thunder Storm over the land, add it. Inside this nasty land is an old Burial Ground with an Elethay Temple ruins nearby.

Cast Cards: You always need people and creatures to fill the world. They can be merchants, civilians, raiders or almost anything else you want them to be. The cast cards have stats like character cards. The cast are the GM's characters operating on the background you created with the terrain cards.

You do not have to use the cards exactly as written, you have an obligation to your players to spice them up and really give the cast some depth, even those who are about to die.

Feature Cards: Features are meant to be added to creatures, storms, or items. If you are creating a special race of your own the features would be natural. If the features are attached to warpspawn to create variety, they are warp features and can be removed by abilities like Purifying Gaze. The whole idea is to create an atomosphere in which the world, and the monsters are chaotic and dangerous.

Their are several cards in the game that players can use to strip Warp Features off of enemies. As a GM you will decide which Features are warped and removable. You have the power, just remember that you are trying to make the game fun.

Necromancy Cards: The necromancers are happy with this wild chaotic world. Their primary purpose to to acquire personal power and wealth. They gain the raw power by killing and draining shape shifters. They gain power by controling the minds of the people through propoganda and terror. They are helped in this by the world itself. As an example, the great devistating warp storms are called Dragon Storms. These are the initial cards you can use to create Necromancers to harry the characters.

Jikadell Cards: Jikadell is allied with the Necromancers. It is a dogmatic, brutal religion that rewards Greed and Avarice among leaders on one end and servility and acquiesce among worshippers on the other. If you do not fit in and follow the commandments, life can get very bad.

Blank character sheets and the GM Player Reference Log (printed book pages 93 to 95) are fill-in forms, not rules text, and are not transcribed here.

Index

Introduction. Page 1.

Chapter 1. Building Your Character. Page 4.

What do all those Numbers on the cards Mean? Pages 8 to 12.

Chapter 2: Contest Rolls. Resolving issues. Page 13.

GM's Bonuses explained. Page 18.
Terrible Two's. Page 19.
Exploding Dice. Page 20.
Card Duels. Page 20.

Chapter 3: Fight Time. Combat in Dragon Storm. Page 21.

Initiative and Ten Things. Page 23.
Actions. Page 24.
Movement. (Including Dodging and all that.) Page 25.
Independents. Page 27.
Enhancements. Page 27.
Pardon Me! Interrupting the game flow, with curtesy. Page 28.
OW! Taking Damage. Page 29.
Death and Dying. Page 30.

Chapter 4: Onwards! Growing Your Character in Dragon Storm. Page 31.

Buying cards with Role-Playing Points. Page 33.

Chapter 5: Who's in Charge, the Gamemaster Rules. Page 35.

Running a Game. An example of play to get you on the way. Page 39. (Really, you should read this. It explains a lot! Even Players should read it.)
Rule 3.4. The Gamemaster is always right, don't bother to argue.

Appendix One: First Change, an introductory DS Adventure. Page 49.

Appendix Two: Second Adventure, Bandits and Balderdash. Page 54.

Appendix Three: Third Adventure, Spawn of the Woods. Page 58.

Appendix Four: Scenes from the past. Adventure ideas. Page 60.

Appendix Five: The GM and dealing with Items. Page 67.

Appendix Six: Classic cards and Second Edition. Page 68.

Using all the previous Dragon Storm cards. Just do it!

Appendix Seven: Overview of the Rules changes between Classic and Second Edition. Page 69.

Appendix Eight: Starting Character cards in the Book. Pages 71-72.

Appendix Nine: The Lifeline cards. Page 73.

Appendix Ten: Player cards to add as the character grows. Pages 74-81.

Appendix Eleven: Gamemaster cards to run with. Pages 82-92.

Basic Character Sheets to copy. Page 93.

Extended Character Sheet. Page 94.

GM Player Reference Sheet. Have your players fill this out before the game so you can get a good feel for the characters in the game. Page 95.

For downloads, updates and to order more Dragon Storm go to: www.dragonstorm.com