New tool finished

The Creation Points Calculator is done and online. You can find it here http://redash.org/calc_creation_points.php


This tool is the one I have been working on for the last year (off and on). It's purpose is to address an issue I had with the Red Ash System and how it is current configured. This issue was a limitation of making truly powerful creatures, like demons or dragons.

The current rule is to use a flat value of 6000 for a playable species and 5000 for any non-playable species. These points were then used to buy traits, better stats, and so on. Any points left over would be your starting population to fill the world, that is yet to be created. I have fewer points for non-playable species simply because I did not think there would be a need to manage a population of monsters, demons, or even bears. But trying to make a dragon in Red Ash just kept coming up short of the grandeur I felt these creatures truly deserve.

A simple solution to this issue would be to toss more points at the problem. I tried 10k points, 20k points and while this works I felt it was...well a hack. I then thought I could make additional negative traits to "excuse" the added points being used, again to hack-ish.


The approach I decided on was to use a species life span and the various stages one goes through as a model to generate a base for these points. This allows Red Ash to generate a very wide amount of starting points and will require all in game creatures to have their age monitored and life stage advanced.

The stages are broken down into: Newborn, Infancy, Toddler, Child, Adolescent, Adult, mature and Elderly. Each stage has a significance in the game mechanics and all life will fall into these groups.

• Newborn - The stage where the body is fully formed. But it is weak and helpless. The senses are not very acute and comprehension is limited.
• Infancy - Shows a marked increase in the senses. The body becomes stronger and the individual can hold themselves up. basic locomotion can start here.
• Toddler - Physical strength continues to improve and the individual can get around on there own. Agility and Coordination still need improvement. An understanding of basic communication starts (tiers 1-2 only). Mundane traits activate, like poison. I will need to add these values to the traits.
• Child - Physical able to get around on there own with greatly improved strength, agility, coordination and senses. Communication skills are solid. Skills training can begin.
• Adolescent - Reproduction activates but at a higher risk percentage to parent and offspring. Powered or other special traits activate. More advanced skills are open (tier 3-4)
• Adult - Full maturity is reached, no penalties for reproduction. all skill tiers are open.
• Mature - Increased risk for reproduction. Physical abilities begin to wane.
• Elderly - No longer able to reproduce. Physical abilities continue to reduce. Mental abilities begin to reduce. At the end of this stage an individual will roll a 10% chance to die from natural causes. This percentage increases by an additional 5% per year that they continue to live.

In game terms this creates so very interesting questions that can be presented to the strategy player, it can also limit the rpg player in race selection when making a new character. but more on all this later.

Conception, Birth, Life and Death

In a game system one must wonder why bother to have rules to for reproduction and a lifespan. In truth, it is not needed. Unless you intend on creating a world with a dynamic population of species. A world that once the last of a species has been killed they are then extinct.

But population plays a bigger role in the real world than people give it credit. A population that grows to quickly can face issues of starvation, disease and the overuse of resources like water supplies. A population the does not grow quickly enough can be outpaced by their competitors. These issues can lead to war or even crime.

Dragons, the canon of fantasy rpgs, are often the target of adventures for the fame and fortune contained withing their lair. But what if this was the last dragon? Using the classic western dragon archetype, that being a powerful force of destruction, do you still seek the end of an entire species?

I'm not trying make a moral point. I am trying to raise the questions of the role that a population plays in the greater scheme of life and to this end I feel the need to justify the existence of a creature in the Red Ash World Engine.

As a game mechanic Red Ash will use life span and its stages of life, plus the rules for reproduction to determine the population points that a species has during the creation processes and the pace that a population can grow. Implementing these new rules will require me to remake the defined species and this will take some time.

Mansen Lin has added a new image to Red Ash, the Dwarf

One of the iconic figures of myth, lore and RPGs now has a new image within the Red Ash World Engine. A young dwarf warrior leans up against a wall after a battle. Stop in and take a look at Mansen's image here and in his gallery.


State of the game:

I have been thinking of make a change to the rules and possibly the website (again). For the website I am thinking of dividing the site into 3 sections.

• First would be the species generation and focus on all rules involved with the designing of species.
• Second would be the rules for classes, class advancement, class templates and skills.
• Third would be the game rules such as combat, sight distance, mood and handling encounters, and related rules.

In addition I was thinking of making a change to the species creation process to contain a stages of life that would go from gestation to birth then through various stage of life until death. 

Why bother, you may ask. well My system has an imbalance with 1st level characters encountering a 1st level hydra. This needs to be better thought out. The life stages is one way to handle the difference without tossing an encounter level on it. So I can include a population of many creatures that exist in a world but may not be ready for encounters themselves.

I am still working on this and will make a post on what I will do later.

All the Best,

Chris J.

New map added: The City of Rivers End

Finally got the city map done for the city of Rivers End. This will be a part of my upcoming adventure for the Red Ash World Engine and took me way to long to make. A large image can be seen here.


Each Hex is 10 meters in diameter or about 32 feet and 10 inches. The numbers on the buildings will be referenced in a small booklet that will give details about the building and its occupants. With a population of about 30,000 many of these structure will end up being 2 stories or more.


The purpose of the booklet will be to record a place like a city, town or dungeon at a specific period of time, its condition, inhabitants and so on. So when playing in the world you play in a specific time. I am thinking this will be separated into ages and kingdoms, but now I'm getting ahead of myself ;).


I will not make the population by hand but I will design a script (PHP) to do it and fill in the buildings details. I plan to model my data structures of off the information found at Medieval Demographics Made Easy. I will need to modify it to meet the needs of my system and society, but it is a great starting place.


My next map will be the small village to the south and maybe one farm that are also a part of the first adventure.


All the Best!
Chris J.

Mansen Lin has added a Added a new imaage for the Saurian Species!

Mansen was kind enough to offer another image and this time for the Saurian species. Saurian are big, Titan sized reptilians known for their fierce social morals and a strict belief eat or be eaten.

Stop in a take a look at the new image on the species listing here or at Mansen's Red Ash Gallery with the bigger image here.


All the Best,
Chris J.

New Image "Looking Down" by artist Mansen Lin

Mansen sent me a new image for the Red Ash system and I "finally" got to putting it up...my fault of course. But I needed to think on just where I was going to place it and I was thinking on showing it on the main page.

The reason I felt so strongly about the image is I feel it represents some of the main reasons people play RPGs, the story and the adventure.

Mansen's image simply invites you into one of many story possibilities. The silver haired adventure escapes the burning city below. He climbs the cliff escaping the chaos below. Pausing he takes one more glance back.

Was he the cause of the burning city? Was he escaping it? Is he being hunted? So many possibilities from one image, well done Mansen!

I ended up not placing on the main sites page. Once I scaled it down it lost some details on the climber. I finally decided to add image support in the skills. So head over to the page for the climb skill and have a look at a great image by Mansen Lin!


All the best!
Chris J

Happy 2013! ...a day late but there is a good reason...

I now feel safe in that the Mayans were wrong, or was it the people misinterpreting their calendar were wrong? At any rate I will be moving forward with the maps and I hope to get to the actual adventure (done/working) this spring/summer/fall. In the mean time I will keep chipping away at.


Mansen Lin sent me a new image....last week and I will post it as soon as I figure out the best spot for it. I will strive to get that up this week end.

RPG World map

Here is my first release for the coming rpg module for the Red Ash World Engine. This will be a free module you can download directly from Red Ash. I plan on following the first module with at least two more free modules to complete one story arc.

When I am closer to having it complete I will be looking for some help in the form of editing and illustration.

For now take a look at the lay of the land. On the map you will note many areas that are not labeled, this is on purpose as this is a wild and untamed land.  BTW the big map is BIG so be aware if you have a slow connection it will take some time.

All the best!
Chris J

A "new?" look at turn based action....

I had an odd idea on turn based action and wanted to see what others may think of it. In case you do not know what turn based action is, let me explain.

Turn based action is where all active members of the game have a set turn when they can an action like an attack. Anyone that has played a table top game will be familiar with this. From D&D to Monopoly all players have a “turn”, it's a simple game mechanic. The problem with it is, is that this is when a game can slow down for the other players. This is specially true when you have a player that is not paying attention.

So my odd idea is a simple change of the turn based action from being a “take your turn now” to “your action is due now”. So in something like the Red Ash World Engine (or any role playing game) instead of having a turn for the player to figure out what to do and to go on, they need to be ready to perform their action. If they are not ready then they get skipped until their next turn. While other players or NPCs are taking their turn a player can figure out what their next action will be and ideally speed up the combat. In play I think this would make for a more intense combat.

So has anyone tried this? If so what was your experience with it? And what do I call it...?

All the best,

Chris J

The Dog Days of Summer....

....became the dog days of early autumn. This is just a quick note to let everyone know I am still working on Red Ash. I just took a bit of time off to play some games and decompress from the same old; work, eat, sleep cycle.

Now I will need to get back to hammering my keyboard and try to finish this first Red Ash RPG Module.


Till then...All the Best!
Chris J.

Why people don't venture into swamps

Besides the obvious humidity and heat, plus the bug, snakes and reptiles, you have to hope to not cross paths with a Lacerian Assassins lurking in the shadows. While Lacerians are not widely known for being aggressive they have learned, over the years, that many view them as monsters. So stop in and take a rare glimpse of the Lacerian Assassin illustrated by Mansen Lin.

Orcs! Eco-Terrorist or Eco-Warrior...you decide!

The correct answer is neither. They live to fight and fight to live. For the Orc there is no better embrace of life than when you face death and accept the brutality of life. This mindset is displayed by a new image from artist Mansen Lin and his new image of the Orc Warrior doing what Orcs do best...burning down villages. I'm sure this entire scene was just a misunderstanding about land ownership claims.

Anyways check out the new image of the Orc here and see the bigger image here.

Mansen's Orc also marks a slight change in the Red Ash Website to support multiple images in the species section.

Artist Mansen Lin is Back!

And he has been kind enough to bring a lovely gift for Red Ash that shows his hard work and dedication to his artist craft. Mansen Lin emailed a really cool image of a Centaur Warrior. Posed in dramatic fashion in what looks like the end of a charge where he has scored first blood! So stop in and take a look at the new Centaur image or checkout the big image in Mansen's Red Ash Gallery.


Once you are done, head over to his website and have a look at some of commercial work. http://www.mansenlin.com/



Combat Sim....on hold for now.

I put the combat sim on hold for now as I have taken a short break to recharge my batteries. My code just was not up to the level I wanted it to be and so it needs to be redesigned.

In the mean time I have been beginning to outline a module and a setting for Red Ash. Its very early but I will try to keep every one informed when I am further along.

I also have been thinking about a finally writing a few pdf guides targeting different users, namely; world builders, game masters and of course players. The module will be first though so I can use that to collect feedback on the system and how its received by gamers. Something that has been suggested to me on a few occasions.

More art by Michael Peitsch!

Michael Peitsch has been hard at work and gifted more of his work in support of the Red Ash World Engine, a Creative Commons rules set for RPG (Role Playing Game) and Strategy Game. Stop in and take a look at the new art and checkout Michael's gallery on deviant ART.

Of the pieces 4 are weapons and include the claymore, the halberd, the kukri and the scimitar. He also did a very nice great helm. But to be truly impressed check out his piece called "White Horror" which can be found as the image for the zombie, but hurry because I think the zombie caught wind of the elves and will shuffle off after them....braaaains!!!!

All the Best!
Chris J

Combat Sim WIP update 2

Just got done with the chat portion of the combat sim. I logged into the sim using Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome to make 3 different characters and send messages to all and also to test sending private messages.

In the  image below you can see the rounds and turn at the top. The box outline will represent the current turn, the green background will represent your next turn and the red text will represent your opponents next turn.

The action bar below the turns is where I will have specific actions displayed that you can perform depending on your current weapon equipped and if you are on your turn (as an attacker) or if you are defending on your opponents turn.

Depending on your melee skill level (not including any melee children skill levels) will determine the reveal order, of the selected actions areas. Lowest melee skill reveals first, a tie always goes to the defender. Once the reveal order is determined that player selects their action during a turn as either an attacker or a defender and they reveal it to their opponent. Then the opponent with the higher melee score can make their selection. Once both selections are made the turn is rolled and results are recorded and displayed in the combat log.

Near the bottom of the chat screen you will also note a button labeled "enter another arena". This is to support more than one combat taking place at once.

The large blank area on the right will populate with your opponents data once a challenger steps up and you accept. From there onward you will be in combat with them until the combat is decided.

Next up is the logic on the challenge button and to work on the combat and turn logic.

New Artist: Michael Peitsch and a sneak peak at my wip..

I am always amazed at what great artist talents I come to know and this now includes Michael Peitsch. Michael has made a donation of one of his existing works title "Undead" to grace the pages of the Red Ash Templates Main Page and also as serves as the image of the Lich, found under the Templates section.

Drop by and take a look and when your done head over to Micheal's Gallery on deviantArt and check out Michael's other works and be amazed!



While I am making this post I will also add a little sneak peak at my work in progress...the combat simulator.

As you can see a lot still needs to be done, but a lot has already been done. The image above is page 4 in a series of pages to make a new character, select equipment, select skills and then enter this page where the combat will be held.

Since I will restrict the initial use, the species is already human, equipment will already be selected and skills are limited to the bare minimum. All values you see in the left hand side will be what the user has access to. Once an opponent enters combat you will see a similar character sheet on the right side. The action bar will be populated with action you can perform based on your current weapon, condition and whether you are the attacker or defender.

Below the action bar is a small block to where you will drag your action. Your opponent will also have a box above their sheet so you can see/know know when they have committed their action. As per the combat rules the character with the higher melee skill can see what the other character is going to do, with ties going to the defender. Once both side have set their action the server will, roll the dice, and display the results in the combat log area. A small chat window will also be found in this general area so opponents can show their good will and sportsmanship.

So why did I design it like so..? Well I will be opening more and more of the system rules to demo in the app. My plan will be to test 2 identical soldiers at first with identical skills and equipment. This will give me an better feel for the balance of the combat rules themselves.

Next I will open up armor and weapon selects and I will also open more melee skills. Then I will add higher levels increasing skill points, abilities scores and more. After that I plan on adding movement, ground based first then air later. Following this will be bringing in arcane, ritual and psyche skill trees to test and tweak spell casters. I am some what concerned that a melee may be two brutal, but we will see and I will make adjustment to the core rules as needed. Next I will add the 5 playable size categories with mixed size matches. And last I will add in the traits and the full species list with all traits enabled. By now you should have a great opportunity to try the Red Ash System out and get a feel for the combat, how the rounds and turns progress and the nuances of the selection of weapons and armor.


All the Best,
Chris J.

Red Ash Combat Sim WIP

Combat Sim

Work is well underway for a combat sim. I am setting this up to allow testing of the combat rules and in time will be open for general use once I feel it is stable enough. this should make it a great tool to determine what to expect form a given encounter you want to put your players through. and may lead to an adjustment of experience points awarded for more difficult fights.

It will be simple to start with and will mainly be used to test the rules themselves. This will be done by using the same character build and the same equipment. I should expect to find a win loss ratio of 50% more or less. This will also depend on how users perform in combat. This means that you do not just attack your opponent you have different types of attacks that can change the output a lot and of course their is the random element, the dice rolls. For example one character may have a great success tripping an opponent, due to the dice rolled, and have an advantage in the entire combat. Or the opponent may just have really bad rolls. I figure with enough matches this will be less of an issue and an average can be seen.


Going forward

After the first round of testing I will open up the different armors, weapons and skills (weapon related). Then I will open up sizes, traits, species, other skills (including arcane, ritual and psyche trees).


First level skill points changed

During my initial testing on paper I did notice I did not have enough skill points to buy a weapon skill for what was being used. To this end the first level is now multiplied by 3. So if a class normally gets 4 per level at first level they get 12 to start the at level 2 its 16, level 3 is 20 and so on.

I already have this implemented on my developemnet system and will upload it later on.



All the Best!
Chris J

The Red Ash website updated....finally!

After what seams a very long time, I have finally been able to update the Red Ash website to its new red skin.


During the course of development I noticed a few missing pages, namely in the skills section, and they have been included now


With the new skin I also fully integrated the creative commons into the pages. The legal page will need a update, which should be updated later today.


I also added a new tool...The dice roller. Yes Yes I know big whoop! there are a million dice rollers out there, but I felt I should not require a user to go on a google hunt to find one, plus this one is more specific to Red Ash and its stat system.


I still have a few background scripts to work on, nothing that will aft the user of the site, but need for indexing with search engines and the like. Afterwards I will begin working on a simple combat simulator. It will be simple at first and then I will add more feature to it. The goal of this tool will be to allow people to try out the combat without having to do all the math need for resolving combat turns.


On a side note I also changed the "share this" scripts as seen at the bottom of the pages. I am a tad concerned over load times with on each page. If I get enough complaints I will restrict it to just the home page..so let me know how it is for you guys.


All the Best!
Chris J.

New Artist: Steven Nomena

Steven Nomena has been kind enough to supply an image for the Elven Folk of Red Ash. Be sure to drop in to Stevens gallery and check out his other works at http://stevennomena.blogspot.com.


I have only spent a little bit of time on Red Ash as I have still been focusing on real life issue, work related. I do hope to get back on Red Ah in ernest by April or May.


All the Best,
Chris J

New Red Ash site delayed.

It have been my plan to do the eventually and I was planing on doing it with the new site update. The new site is getting delayed as I work on a few paid web design projects.

Since I will most likely not make my January update, I at least wanted to advise everyone that I have decided to move to a creative commons license for the Red Ash World Engine.

I will be making a few changes to the system, one being that powers will be renames traits as it is a better fit.

All the Best,
Chris J.