Episode 22: Bards and Hags and Shaman… Oh My!

Part One: Another Update

Hi there, folks. First things first: I got another quote. This one's for hardbound books only, complete with dust covers. Looks something like this:

Once again, these are smythe bound books. Compare these numbers to last week's quote:

… and I think you can see what difference a printer can make. It doesn't hurt to shop around, folks.

Also, lots of response and advice from last week's column. Lots of professional folks chiming in, offering to help with donations of experience. Even Ryan Dancey (Keethdowmga help him when D&D3 hits the shelves) wrote in and told me something that made me think twice about printing soft covers. Maybe do the whole run in hard bounds. Things shift so often, depending on the circumstances. Every day offers new opportunities or closes the door on others.

Anyway, I thought you might like to see what's going on with the printer situation.

Thomas is working hard on the cover… and speaking of that little cover thing - oh my god! Do you guys have opinions on covers, or what?!? Lots of folks sent e-mail and posted about that cover. They liked this one, didn't like that one, thought we were making a mistake, thought it was perfect, thought I should go with something entirely different. Lots of opinions. It was almost like reading revie - oh never mind.

Enough update. Let's get on with this week's subject: a little thing we like to call Zhoosha.

Part Two: What's Your Zhoosha, Baby?

Every ork has a zhoosha. That is, every ork knows his place in the tribe. Those who fight are warriors. Those who tell stories are bards. Those who make babies are mommies (sorry, can't get passed the whole "an ork loves his mommy" bit). The role you play in ork culture is called "zhoosha". Warriors are the thrakazhusha, bards are the talazhoosha, mommies are the dowmgazhusha and shaman (bodalay) are the bodalayzhoosha.

Now every ork has a certain amount of Zhoosha Dice, usually from one to three, representing his life experience. Young, inexperienced orks only have one Zhoosha Die while old, grizzled veterans have three or sometimes even four (legendary orks have five, but that's for another time). Whenever you make a roll in the game (as discussed last week), you always roll your Zhoosha Dice with the rest of your dice. This represents the benefit of wisdom and experience. It also solves a little mechanical problem I was facing.

You see, the game system had one minor hole: if you roll dice equal to your Skill, how many dice do you roll if you don't have an appropriate Skill? I found my answer in Zhoosha Dice. You always roll Zhoosha Dice, no matter what.

Zhoosha Dice also gave me the opportunity to make every ork important in the tribe. Everyone gets one action per combat round… except for warriors. They get a number of attacks equal to their Zhoosha Dice. That makes thraka kick ass when it comes to combat. But what can Zhoosha Dice do for bards, mommies and shaman? Ah, let's take a look.

During the course of the game, things happen that make everyone's jaws drop. These moments of pure epiphany (try not to think of The Roach) are called "Fana Checks" and are recorded by your party's bard. He marks them down and also jots down the player(s) responsible. At the end of the game, the bard rolls for Fana (fame/experience points). He rolls for each Fana Check a number of dice equal to his Zhoosha, keeping the highest die. If you had four Fana Checks during the game, the bard rolls his Zhoosha Dice four times, keeping each highest single die roll. Then, you get to spend your Fana Points on increasing your Virtues, Skills and Zhoosha. You can also spend Fana Points on making your weapons and gear magic (can't get over the "magic spear and helmet" at the Orc-Con playtest; thanks Ron!). Players can even spend points on each other, making them a "famous pair" like Fahfard & the Mouser, Elric & Moonglum, and Sonny & Cher. Bards also get to do other things with their Zhoosha Dice, including making other things magic. Remember our "See that tree?" conversation from a few months back? This is how bards do it. They tell a story about a tree (the player, not the ork) and the GM lets them roll a Fana Check. The player can then invest those points in the tree, making it magic.

(Wow. That might be the longest Wick paragraph in the history of recorded time. Gotta keep tabs on that. Don't want to break my image.)

Dowmga use their Zhoosha Dice for political pull in the tribe. Whenever a decision has to be made, the respective dowmga roll their Zhoosha Dice. Dowmga also use their Zhoosha Dice to see how many children they have each year and if they survive the process. A dowmga gains great Fana for her childbirthing skills, thus not only earning Fana for herself, but for her boys and girls as well.

And lastly, we come to Shaman.

(Did you know the plural for "shaman" is "shaman"? I didn't until a few weeks ago. I had to look it up because my spellchecker kept telling me I was wrong. Then, I thought about it and wondered, "Why is the singular pronounced shahomahn while the plural is pronounced shayoman? That's because of our good friend "folk etymology". Just when you think you're free of it, it bites you in the ass. It's that sneaky bastard Mr. Phonetics that tricks us into thinking that the "e" in the faux plural form changes the sound of the first "a". Well, we're all wrong, we were all played, we're all suckers for the ever-evolving monster we like to call "the English language".)

Ork shaman are called bodalay. A bodalay lives outside the village in caves high in the mountains. You see, orks believe the world is flat (and they're right), and the gods live on the other side of the world. You can travel to the other side of the world in one of two ways: in physical form (by going down deep caves) and in spirit form. The spirits of dead orks float into the sky and wait to land on the other side of the world, but there's another way for them to visit the other side of the world, and that's through their dreams.

When an ork dreams, his spirit wanders the home of the gods, walking about, visiting with Bashthraka, Pugg and Keethdowmga (more on the fate of the god of knowledge later). Of course, like everything else in life, dreaming requires practice. Orks with little experience in dreaming kind of wander around, bumping into things, making a nuisance of themselves. More experienced dreamers have a bit more control over their meandering spirit. Bodalay are masters of dreams, and can wander freely. But their most important duty is to help out inexperienced orks so they don't get themselves into too much Trouble. Remember, this is the home of the gods: the ork gods, the human gods, the elf gods and the dwarf gods, not to mention all the servants of those gods, as well.

(Lots of long, monster paragraphs this week. Gotta check the machine. See what's wrong.)

While dreaming, an ork doesn't get to use his Zhoosha Dice… but bodalay do. That means if an ork doesn't have a Skill in an appropriate task, he bumbles around. However, bodalay are there to help them along… most of the time. Bodalay also help waking orks interpret their dreams. Oftentimes, the gods send messages to the waking world through dreams, and when they do, an ork needs to seek out a bodalay to help him figure out exactly what the gods are saying.

Anyway, that's them crazy, whacked out, mushroom eatin', smoke sniffin' bodalay. Which leaves us with only one Zhoosha left to talk about. Doomla. The hag.

Doomla are bad mommies (a term stolen from Mr. David Seay for whom The Way of the Lion was dedicated). Why are they bad? Because they eat babies. They eat them for power and magic and use glamour to lure in thraka and twist their minds into obedient servitude. Doomla use their Zhoosha Dice to power their dark magics. I'm not going to say a lot about the doomla. Don't want to spoil the surprise for all you player-types out there.

But, thinking of doomla made me think of another Zhoosha that I forgot to mention (even forgot to write about in the Zhoosha chapter!). That's the shunned ork: the shoola. Shunned orks are cast out of their tribe and marked for their cowardice. They paint themselves black and wander the countryside, looking for a way to regain their status. Of course, they can never come back to their own tribe, but sometimes another tribe may take them in… if they prove themselves worthy. Tribes demand the shoola bring back the head of a local troll terrorizing the area or some such act of foolish courage. Then, he may sit on the edge of the village and eat whatever scraps are thrown to him. When he proves himself again, he may stay within the village, but not within a home. When he proves himself again, perhaps some sympathetic dowmga will offer him a place by her fire. You get the point. Shoola. Forgot all about 'em. Thanks for reminding me!

Well, that's this week's talk. Next week I'll have more info on the printing process and how we're gonna deal with raising the money. You all take good care of yourselves and watch out for doomla!

(Keeping nine threshes of wheat in your left boot protects you from their glamour, by the way. Just thought you should be informed on such things.)