This PBem uses regular old email--no groups or mailing lists. Players submit their turns by Friday evening, and I post my reply by early the following Monday morning. Send all mail to the Referee. Players submit their characters to this address, and if accepted, thereafter post their turns to this address.
Players are encourgaged to co-ordinate their actions before posting turns, but please cc a copy of the exchange to me.
It's the players' job to get their turns in on time. My job is to reply on time to these submissions with new information, so that the players can figure out what they're going to do next. When time permits, I shape these rough hewn exchanges into deathless prose of a rich purpureal hue. My chief pleasure in this game is creating these narrative pieces. It gives me a chance to break out the old thesaurus and really lay it on thick.
I will archive the players' turns and replies, as well as my narrative summaries, in Thews News. Additionally, there will be a Character's Page featuring profiles of each PC.
Please use the standard "OOC" and "IC" designations for "out of character" and "in character" responses. Use the present tense. In my final narrative I'll convert present to past tense. For example:
PLAYER POSTING: IC: "By the gods, enough of your foul wizardries! Free the prisoner or I destroy the amulet! Even your eldritch powers can't protect you from the hellspawn this will unleash!" Gabby the Barbarian raises his sword over the amulet, ready to smash the blade down on the pulsating jewel. He glares at the wizard, as if daring him to lay his bony hand on the rosy flesh of the fair young captive.
OOC: If the wizard continues, Gabby will run away with the amulet, but then sneak back to watch what the wizard does with the prisoner.
My reply describing the outcome of Gabby's action would run thus:
REFEREE POSTING: "Jeez, I never get to have any fun!" cried the necromancer. With a richly embroidered sleeve he swept the obsidian altar clear of the fiendish instruments of torture he had prepared for the lovely young captive. Peacock feathers flew into the air and molten wax spilled onto cold flagstones, instantly congealing in fantastic patterns. The wizard seated himself at the altar, chin in hands, and stared into the cabalistic sigils graven in its surface as he pushed his lips forward sulkily. The youth, a beautiful young lad of nineteen summers, gazed at Gabby with moist, pleading eyes; as if inviting the barbarian to disregard the pouting necromancer and share some new and exquisite pleasure. The blond giant shifted uneasily in the soft lambent glow of the wizard's chamber. An odd, delicious langour stole through his mighty limbs. "What strange new feelings stir my breast and loins? Surely that wretched magician has unmanned me with some foul sorcery!" He pondered for a moment, held by the youth's gaze. Then, tearing his eyes from the lovely form they regarded, he turned to the sorcerer. " Warlock, undo your magic, before I let daylight into your gizzard with this good Karthian broadsword!"
The wizard raised his eyes to meet the barbarian's fierce glare. "No spell of mine works on you, man of the north." he purred silkenly. "Only the enchantment of a beautiful youth's languishing gaze."
Indecision, a sensation unfamiliar to the impulsive barbarian, gripped Gabby. Suddenly the door behind him shuddered with a powerful blow. The voice of his lost friend rang out from behind the massy iron bound portal. "Gabby, it is I, Thumpy the Thief, come to aid you! I escaped from the wizard's dungeon, where I learned the secret of his subtle magic. You must slay the sorcerer's familiar! It divines your hidden fears and desires and takes form from them, luring you into a hellish trap of your own making!"
The captive narrowed his eyes and glanced venomously in the direction of the voice. "Your friend speaks as one mad!" he spat. "Long confinement in the dungeon has broken his mind. Now come to me, Gabby. These rough bonds chafe my tender flesh." Mesmerized by the youth's avid gaze, Gabby stumbled toward the altar ...
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Other guidelines: I'll do the dice rolling and report the exact results to the players via email, but won't post the dirty laundry on the site.
Please try to use good grammar and spelling in your postings. Avoid dialect, unless you know what you're doing. This saves everyone time: I don't have to decipher and edit your responses and the other players don't have to ask you to clarify your character's colorful dialect monologue.
THE NATURE OF THIS GAME
Thews & Thaumaturgy is designed to recreate old fashioned pulp Sword & Sorcery adventures in role playing form using Tunnels and Trolls™. This should tell you that verisimilitude is out; fun and escapism are in. Of course, it'll be more fun if everyone gets their turn in on time. But otherwise, we're all here because we love Conan, Fafrhd, the Grey Mouser, et al., and need a short break from the workaday world.
As we all know S&S is a plot driven genre with memorable, but not necessarily deep, characters. Motivation is important, but simple characters motivated by greed, lust, anger, and hatred work better than complex, self-divided aesthetes driven to despair by the world's indifference. This isn't hack & slash, but it ain't no Henry James novel neither. (Though playing a wispy, self pitying poet manqué could be a lot of fun if you do it right.)
When you submit your character, try to come up with an unforgettable figure. Remember, your character is an extraordinary person in an extraordinary world. Make sure you like your character, too, because in all likelihood he or she will be around for a while. Sword & Sorcery fiction thrives on return characters. As I see it, the purpose of this game is to have fun writing a collaborative S&S short story of the pulpiest order. Feel free to indulge your taste for purple prose, blood and thunder theatrics, and over heated characterization (but not at the expense of the referee or the other characters.)
Look over the material in the Antikhton: the World of Thews & Thaumaturgy and the
Thews & Thaumaturgy House Rules links to see what you're getting into. It'll give you an idea of how the "world" works.
Last, but not least, no elves, dwarves, or halflings!
