Midian

Role-playing Game

To all who read and enjoy this game—whether Packmates or not (if you don’t enjoy it then screw you)—welcome to this first endeavour by the Lost Souls into the realm of RPG design. We started as a drunken excuse to exercise the geek within, and are finally publishing our first product. The irony is that this is a fantasy role-playing game rather than a Vampire game. No one would have guessed that, not the least of whom are those working here at LSP.

Published by Lost Souls Publishing

· System architecture and administration: Cardinal Golgotha Kinslayer

· Typesetting, layouts, and graphic design: the nameless ghoul

· Editing and Social mechanics support: Beth J. Fromer

· Creation concept by T-Bone

Midian is a fairly typical RPG in that there are kings and knights, elven princesses, dragons and gold; but perhaps takes things down a more enjoyable path. I know; every jackass ‘out there’ has his own house rules variants of Palladium™ or D&D™. This is a more free-form system without placing a HUGE burden on the Game Master to essentially generate all characters and invent every needed rule on the fly. This isn’t one of those one-page/use for anything/flip a coin to decide kind of games—nothing wrong with those for a change of pace, but they can wear a person out if you are the poor sap running the show. Nor is this a ‘set in stone’ system; most of the starting character restrictions are simply to keep people from having 30’s in all attributes and every skill in the book at 10^th level or higher—for a staring character. This game allows for reasonable starting characters that have unlimited potential for growth and require neither all random rolls nor excessive number crunching.

There are some alterations to the standard fantasy-fare. Dragons aren’t the joke that they are in some systems—if you are the size of a house you should have at least a small edge in strength over the unaugmented human you are fighting against. Lost technology exists as magic—to the ‘common folk’ a blueprint is as incomprehensible as a spell scroll. If you think this is stupid, have you figured out your frequent-flyer miles lately, or which long-distance phone company actually saves you more? Having a certified Thaumaturgist on staff, the magic system is based on real-world belief systems: ancient texts on magic, modern paganism, comparative cultural thaumaturgical belief structures, and observations of substance abuse. The skill system is free-form—your skill list reads more like a résumé rather than other games—your skills are as generalized or specialized as you need them to be. Non-human species are not simply humans with pointed ears. Conglomerates of actual cultures may have inspired different races’ identities, but special care was taken to demonstrate the somewhat alien mindset. (Ever notice how the same people that freak-out when someone plays a different gender almost always plays a non-human: if the differences in thinking are so impossibly different between human men and women, what about the differences in thought between members of unrelated species?) Magic items are unique and complex instead of a standardized +1 to-hit and damage. Combat is based on real fighting. And lastly, the game will be remarkably easy for anyone to learn who has ever played a game involving a 20-sided die.

I have used the old Imperial system of measurement (used now only in the U.S.) as this fits the medieval flavour more than metric, and I came to the realization that more people worldwide were familiar with the Imperial system than there were Americans who understood metric.

Special Thanks

To all of my playtesters (and an advance thanks to anyone who submits comments from the Beta release)

To Dan “The TwinkKing” Conner, King of all Twinks, for being a sounding board for this game even back when this was nothing more than a way for me to try and fit the stackable magic items idea into D&D3e™ in the parking lot at Denny’s™

To Jon Word for displaying patience truly worthy of the Undead as regards to this game or all things Lost Souls

To Donald Rodriguez for providing me with the information that was the final impetus to produce this

To all of the great game designers who came before me (enjoy those warm fuzzies I mention later). While I don’t presuppose myself toward greatness, I do ride on the backs of industry giants

To the Nameless Ghoul for many sleepless days typing this shit out (as well as sleepless nights listening to me carry on abut my new idea—which changes everything he just wrote

And Last—but certainly not least—to my long-suffering driver Bosha, for all of your love and support.

Writing credits

· Interaction rules by Bosha and Golgotha Kinslayer

· Combat system by Cardinal Kinslayer, Terry Wasson, and Kenshin

· Free-form skill selection by: Beth J. Fromer, Golgotha, Nameless, and inspired in part by J.R.R. Tolkein (his prototypical wizard used a sword and cast only one spell; now that’s free-form)

· Equipment stolen from various published sources in both printed and electronic format and shoved rudely into this game system

· Backgrounds by Bosha and Nameless

· Traits by Kinslayer and Nameless, inspired by Terry Wasson

· Elven culture, psychology, and physiology by Paul Corley and Golgotha Kinslayer

· Killian concepts by Brad Townsley

· Phantom class and Signature Combat Move skill by Carlos Ramos-Ruiz

· Religious concepts by Howard Phillips Lovecraft

· Blade Etiquette skill and Dwarven concepts by Tommy Ball

· More miscellaneous small additional than what can be listed here by Daniel Conner

Alpha Playtesters

Group 1: Beth J. Fromer and T-Bone

Group 2: Dan Conner, Carlos Ramos-Ruiz, Lawrence West III, Charles Rashed, and Kevin Brown

This is a Freeware Beta version of the Midian Role Playing Game by Lost Souls Publishing. It is available for unlimited distribution on the ‘Net. Essentially if you want to change or add anything—then those changes are yours, and the game system is still everyone's property. We support the Open Game Licence concept and promise we won’t send large Italian men to speak with you if you repost this on your web-site—changes or not—unless you make any attempt to take credit for the intellectual property of Lost Souls Publishing. Any likeness of trademarks, copyrights, or people living, dead, or undead, is pretty fucking scary; (and unless used for satirical purposes aren’t intended as infringement in any localities). Any trademarked or copyrighted names are the property of their respective owners, and are used without permission. No infringement on anyone else’s work is implied or expressed. That having been said, the game probably isn’t being released in the country you are reading this in, and if you feel that I ripped you off, instead just feel good about yourself that you were my inspiration—go ahead, get those warm fuzzies, I don’t mind. Soft-bound copies may be purchased at cost from Lost Souls Publishing for this Beta release. Published under Lost Souls Publishing’s Open Gaming License.