Question to anybody who knows, is somebody out there updating the BRP Byakhee, free CofC character generator for Dark Ages? It's a terrific free program that's downloadable from Yog-Sothoth's Downloads.
Question to anybody who knows, is somebody out there updating the BRP Byakhee, free CofC character generator for Dark Ages? It's a terrific free program that's downloadable from Yog-Sothoth's Downloads.
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Hey,
I spoke with the guy who did Byakee many moons ago about this... He said he had no intention of doing a DA mod, but gave me the instructions on how to alter the sheets myself.
If anyone is interested, I can post them here. Maybe someone out there who's got a more analytical brain than I can figure them out. It didn't seem too hard, just altering data in an RTF form... but when I start seeing all that "code" my brain shuts off and I start foaming at the mouth...
The mighty Byakhee character generator is truly remarkable. To my knowledge, its creator, David Harvey, hasn't surfaced in a few years. Where he is and how to get in touch with him is one of the big mysteries ... maybe he's CoC fandom's version of J.D. Salinger. The source code is available, however, and it could probably be done ... by those with the time on their hands and the ability to do it. Actually, it's probably more a time issue, since the Byakhee code for new rulepacks looks slightly less complicated than HTML. Me, I'm still trying to find the time to learn it enough to modify it for a campaign I'm currently in, set in a different time period and with a bunch of new Skills (and sorry, I'm not at liberty to discuss that campaign, since I'm in a playtest group, and the author is seeking publication ... when the time comes, I'll start a whole new thread telling everyone how awesome it is, and believe me, I can hardly wait to do so). Realistically, I probably couldn't crack it until this summer (when my teaching schedule lets me goof around with fun stuff like CoC for a while). But perhaps someone else, someone who isn't up to his eyeballs in grading lab reports until next JuneOriginally Posted by FunGuyfromYuggoth
, especially someone with the original (German?) version already, wants to give it a try ...? I'll give you a gold star ...
Robert
"Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Tattulhu Fantasy Island wagh'nagl fhtagn."
"In his house at Fantasy Island dead Tattoo waits dreaming." (trans.)
Ia! Ia! Tattulhu fhtagn! The guest stars are right!
Whoa! I stand corrected! (You posted this while I was writing my post, claiming the Byakhee author was MIA).
If you've got any tips or directions beyond what's on the Byakhee website on modifying rulepacks, I'd really appreciate it if you posted them.
Robert
"Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Tattulhu Fantasy Island wagh'nagl fhtagn."
"In his house at Fantasy Island dead Tattoo waits dreaming." (trans.)
Ia! Ia! Tattulhu fhtagn! The guest stars are right!
When I get home tonight, I'll try and dig up that email he sent me. I'll post his instructions directly into this thread, and perhaps some kind soul can figure it out...
I'd love to get the Byakhee mod for DA, as I'm _very_ interested in springing that on my play group when the book finally arrives...
It's not too hard to monkey around with. Just follow his format in default.rul for the layout necessary to add skills. To remove skills, remove it from the skill list and any occupation skill set that contains it. I haven't tried changing the graphics, but it shouldn't be too bad.
As promised, here's what the creator of Byakhee sent me... If any of you guys are smart enough to figure it out, I'd love to see the final product:
************************
You can edit a .rul file in notepad and change the skills, weapons, occupations etc. over to Dark Ages skills etc.
As for the sheet, if you make a copy of "Call of Cthulhu 5.0.bis" and load this into notepad (it's a little scary!) you could change the line that says...
sheet.drawtext( 8.5, 2.0, field.getfieldvalue( field.era ) "s", sheet.aligncenter );
...to
sheet.drawtext( 8.5, 2.0, "1000AD", sheet.aligncenter );
...this will change the "1920s" or whatever on the sheet to read "1000AD".
If you want to change the picture, the line to change is:
sheet.drawpicture( 0, 10.0, 17.0, 27.0, field.getfieldvalue( field.era ) ".emf" );
...to
sheet.drawpicture( 0, 10.0, 17.0, 27.0, "mypicture.bmp" );
...where mypicture.bmp is the name of the image to put on the sheet.
This is brilliant! I have to try this! Thank you.
Well... It took me some time (okay less than I expected) but I have come up with a basic Cthulhu Dark Age mod for Byakhee. It has a few issues, mostly due to limitations in Byakhee itself, but you should be able to get your stuff done.
http://chapleau.us/RPG/coc.php
JP
Cool! Thanks!
You may want to consider having Y-S.com as a host, just contact PoC to see if you can put this up in our Downloads section.
I'm the guy who did the Jthulhu customization; if you do a compare/contrast with some of the other configurations, you can get a good idea on the variety of ways it can be customized.
That's terrific JP! Just a thought, but there are a mess of monograph authors haunting the forms, so you might want to reach out to them to see if they have a need for their own flavor of Byakhee...
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