Add "compel truthful confession" to the really high end Compel effects. Mind reading and such could be in there, too, but they tend to cause brain damage and are incredibly stressful.
Wizard-light can be used to surround the caster (or another person/object) with a shimmering aura.
Spark can also be used to surround a target with warmth to protect them from cold.
Strange-blooded: you have weird spirit-influenced line of descent and get a weird power and/or better second sight or something. Maybe it's just the edge that gives you bonuses with Intuition.
The Hierarchs have a secret forbidden library where they store all of the books that the Archivists can't be trusted with. It contains sorcery texts, banned books (usually ones that support treasonous causes) and historical documents that are considered troublesome for one reason or another.
Oakendale has an annual Wine Race. Each contestant carries a cup in each hand. The judges fill the cups with the deep, red wine that the area is famous for (the cheap kind, of course, since most of it gets wasted) then the runners have to circle the city twice.
When you make it across the finish line, you have to pour both of your cups into a single cup held by a judge... if you overflow it, you're considered to have finished the race, otherwise you're disqualified for spilling too much. The winner of the race is considered the champion of the day and gets to host a big drunken feast. It's a big festival day. Note that you can't scurry without spilling all of your wine, which forces folks to say on their hind feet for the whole run.
The "Devout" Edge: grants doubled bonus dice from hero points if you think the gods approve of your action and you've made the proper prayers and sacrifices before hand. Also helps with tests where religious devotion would help.
"Honeycomb": a chess-like board game. Two sides control a honeycomb-shaped board with hexagons on it. The object being to capture your opponent's queen by moving the worker bees around. The rules for worker movement are complicated, with the typical move being to move three hexes in a circular pattern. Opponents can spend their turn calling a challenge on a particular piece... the opponent either has to make a legal move for that piece right now, or eliminate it. Popular among the upper classes.
Lodestones: a little sliver of metal, generally imported from Fashor. These objects cling to certain metals and each other. If held away from any other attractive forces, however, it always tries to turn itself to point north-south. Very useful for navigation.
Separate Resolve into Endurance (DRV) and Magic Resistance (MAGIC or DRV/MAGIC). Endurance covers all sorts of physical endurance stuff like holding your breath, withstanding torture, etc. Magic Resistance covers intrusive mental stuff like resisting mind control and influence spells.
Two potential ways to encourage cinematic stuff:
1. Stunting bonuses. Give 1 or 2 bonus dice for good descriptions, so that well-described actions tend to roll better. Edges that double bonus dice from Hero Points don't affect this.
As an alternative, give a +1 or +2 bonus for good descriptions, so that a good description raises your final result a little, but doesn't really change the likelihood of a high roll. This does mean that a good description could be the difference between having a small chance of success and success being impossible.
2. The River. Whenever you roll 2 or more dice, if your river is empty you have the option of taking a single die that ISN'T the highest die and putting it in your river instead of applying it to the current test.
During an action, if your river has a die in it, you can roll and then decide whether or not to put the river die into your pool.
This gives a "Weapons of the Gods" feel to things, although I'm not sure how well it'll work in practice. Being able to put a 10 into storage (only possible if you roll 2+ 10s, of course) would be a big advantage, but it wouldn't happen very often.
3. Just give more Hero Points.
4. Allow for Complications. Whenever a character fails a roll, they can suggest a Complication of severity appropriate to the amount that they failed by. If the GM accepts the offer, they receive enough of a bonus to make their roll but the Complication takes place.
For example, a character who failed to pick a lock might suggest that he succeeds but breaks his lockpicks or that the noise alerts someone on the other side.
Naturally, this requires a lot of trust between the GM and their players.
Curate: takes care of souls. Reasonable group for a common preacher.
Hierarchs: the high priests/administrators
Clerks/Clerics: accountants
Funerians? (for funeral folks) Other thoughts: Necrops, Necrocorpus (corpus prob latin),
necro (greek): necrologues (ones who speak to dead?), necroarchs (ones who rule the dead)
mortis: mortisates?
corp: latin
necromus (mixes greek and latin, but it's death-mouse)
necrothem (death to place/put). necrolates.
tymbos (greek for tomb):.
Do I need a judicial priest? Seems iffy... I've kind of got one where priests administrate, they don't enforce or punish directly. "Oblates" apparently once meant folks dedicated to religious work.
Let's see...
Hierarchs = administrators
Archivists = researchers
Clerks = accountants
Artisans = craftsmen
Liturgists = preachers to nobility
Curates = preachers to commoners
Necrolates = undertakers
Curates could also be Cantors, or just Priests. Maybe Cantors.
Laity = anyone who works for the church but isn't a priest and thus can still be levied and such. They get some protection against it, though.
While the priesthood as a whole serves all of the gods, individual abbeys and temples may be dedicated to a specific one. So there is a Temple of the First Emperor attached to the palace and a Temple of Lumierre in Lakeshore. Haven has Divinity Lane, where small temples are dedicated to each god... Luciel, Lumierre, Duvain, Magellian, Canduss and many others.
I need at least a mousy god of death, I think. The Judge. Zachras, perhaps? Zavvus? Zakarvus? It should be a grim, eerie name and very distinct from the others. Zakarvus sounds good. That way we have a temple of death.
Luciel: nobility, power ambition (Hierarchs)
Lumierre: beauty, love, bravery for women, dueling
Duvain: strength, prowess, bravery for men, hunting
Canduss: money, practicality, business (Clerks)
Magellian: wisdom, healing (Archivists)
Zakarvus: death (Necrolates)
An art-oriented deity would be good, too. Perhaps a female weaver or shaper so that the set is 4 male, 3 female.
Ethrea? Jandara? Jandara's not too bad. Goddess of art, farming and kindness (Artisans).
Quickpaw gets a few informal shrines to cleverness and thievery.
Treat disease is diff 35, poison is diff 40, rather than impossible.
A body-control magic, where you direct magical energies only internally like an atavist/adept/body-control person. Limited power, of course, because magic is kind of weak and subtle here.
Meditation skill could apply to maintaining spells while you sleep. Make a check each night.
Heal could be diff 10+damage taken or maybe 10 + damage * 2, each casting fixes 1/2 of your lost HP? Or 1 HP per shaping interval?
Got the Deryni RPG to review. There are some magic ideas in here that I may use in Hyperborean Mice... it IS a similar sort of magic to what I had in mind.
One thought... change the "Sense Magic" skill into "Intuition" and let it be used to sense danger and weird stuff like the death of a loved one. It'll still be Magic-based.
Healing might ought to be a contest vs the target's accumulated damage instead of a flat "they heal X points". That way, it's hard to help someone who is critically wounded, whereas fixing a small cut is easy, instead of both being equally difficult and the caster's Magic rating being the most important thing.
A Meditation skill that helps you enter a trance-state where working magic is easier. Can be used as an aid to any spell-casting rolls where time isn't important.
Compelling might ought to be fatiguing, to keep it in line.
Control Triggers are an interesting idea (you mind-control someone, then implant suggestions that make them easier to mind-control again in the future) but probably not really appropriate for Compelling, which isn't traditional mind-control... it's more body-control. It could be good for severed compel/influence spells, though, rendering the subject more vulnerable to them.
I like having individual Advanced Technique Edges instead of a single Arcane Lore skill. On the other hand, since you take the lower of your Arcane Lore or the skill you want to use an advanced power from, there you can have different skill ratings (your advanced might be lower) which I currently don't support.
Manipulate should include rules for trying to deflect arrows and other light-weight projectiles. And for picking locks using fine manipulation.
The description of sympathetic magic ("influencing the course of otherwise random events") would work well as a description of spirit curses.
Spells being Effortless, Tiring or Exhausting seems like an interesting system. I think that would translate as "zero fatigue", "one fatigue" or "two fatigue" in mine, but you can perform a bunch of Tiring actions before becoming Exhausted, whereas in mine two Tiring actions would equal one Exhausting one.
Here's the suggested order for character creation.
Hm. Turns out that albino mice can actually go blind if they get too much bright light for too long... their retinas damage easily. Sounds like my -2 in bright light is appropriate, it just needs a note that extreme exposure can cause permanent blindness.
Character creation restrictions (suggested):
Ties are folks that you act towards (generally either love or hate) in the appropriate manner. They grant double bonus dice from Hero Points when acting in the "correct" way towards them (helping/protecting loved folks and hurting hated ones) and forbid the spending of Hero Points towards doing the opposite. You also have to act out the behavior or the GM may penalize you a Hero Point and/or XP for acting out of character (he may also just remove the Tie).
I'd still like to get a playable PDF up on the web by my birthday. That leaves me basically 2 months from today to pull it off.
Lack of artwork will probably be the biggest lack, but hey... I've got at least some pieces ready and I might be able to do another couple if I find spots where I desperately need to. I'd rather leave it art-less than reuse much art, though.
Size Category Titanic (humans, horses, deer, etc.): whenever a Titantic creature makes a resistance roll vs a mouse-sized attack or magical effect, triple their final total. Poisons that would slay a mouse outright often won't do more than give a Titanic creature a stomach ache.
Titanic creatures also effectively have 20 points of armor, however any blow that does even 10 points of damage will inflict a small cut that the creature will definitely notice. Titanic creatures generally aren't used to being harmed by tiny creatures like mice and will often retreat from surprisingly minor wounds.
Because of their size, they tend to be very slow compared to mice. All of their standard actions take a full round to complete and anything that would take a full round takes 2 (declare its action in the first round as it starts it, then complete it in the second).
Since Edges will be rare and/or expensive, I'm thinking that the "advanced" edges should cover all abilities in that area.
Basic Manipulation: TK (no fine control). Concentrated shove/pull with greater strength.
Advanced Manipulation: fine TK, levitation. Concentrated flight.
Basic Spark: fire, light (does produce some heat). Concentrated fireball.
Advanced Spark: lightning (fire + seizure effects), magelight (no heat). Concentrated lightning bolt.
Basic Influence: influence emotions. Concentrated overwhelming emotion attack.
Advanced Influence: compel or prevent actions. Concentrated is a single, long-lasting effect? An outright paralysis attack? A momentary command (not sustainable) that's much harder to resist?
Basic Delve: study physical form, repair minor damage. Concentrated does damage by cell disruption, can't hurt inanimate objects.
Advanced Delve: completely reshape target, repair major damage. Concentrated can do damage to inanimate objects, too, shattering them.
Basic Illusions: momentary flashes of noise or movement. Concentrated ones can blind/deafen target momentarily.
Advanced Illusions: can convey detailed noises / actions, but still visibly transparent. Concentrated can produce a momentary illusion that looks much more real?
Basic Scrying: search immediate area for a physical object or magical effect. Concentrated has wider range but can't be maintained?
Advanced Scrying: blindsight (scan area so well you can fight without light). Find well known target regardless of distance. Concentrated opens link to them.
Spirits are most readily found in areas where people used to do things, but have since stopped. They like to observe mortal activities... it's not that they aren't present in more populated areas, it's just that they're much too distracted to pay attention to anything that the sorcerer does.
The sort of spirit present in an area depends on what used to happen there.
Spirits can taste emotions.
Healing Spirits: often found in hospitals, nurseries and old flower gardens (or anywhere else where plants were tended lovingly and never harvested).
Guardians: found in spots where people dutifully and loyally protected important things. Also often found in spots where defensive battles were fought, but beware; destroyers lurk there, too.
Destroyers: attracted to scenes of bloodshed and mayhem, particularly battlefields.
Malign Spirits: these malicious and deceptive spirits are drawn to places of intrigue and betrayal, or where people were tortured or interrogated brutally. They are fond of pretending to be a different sort of spirit entirely... until the sorcerer's guard is down.
Watchers: can be found anywhere where interesting events occurred regularly, especially if the location was hardly ever completely empty of activity.
Pranksters: most common in treacherous locations where people were engaged in innocent activity, then suddenly fell into mortal peril. It's the sudden and extreme changes of emotion (from happy to terrified) that attract these spirits and they attempt to produce similar mood swings in other people, often by leading them into danger.
Saviors: generally found in locations where someone was desperately hoping for rescue. They often appear to be prankster spirits, but want to lead people towards the person in need. Even if the victim has long since perished, it's not unknown for a savior spirit to lead people to their unburied corpse.
Despair Spirits: found in spots where people slowly died in the grips of extreme emotions. Most common around hospices or jail cells. Despair Spirits attempt to trap people in a particular spot and just wait until they die. They'll hurt folks to stop them from escaping, but don't like to kill outright. They want to terrify, instead.
Servitors: most common in spots where servants dutifully and loyally served others in a steady and non-violent fashion. It's the loyalty requirement that's hardest to be sure of; if they did the work for reasons other than loyalty, you probably won't find a servitor spirit there.
Task spirit: generally found in a spot where someone failed to perform a particular action that they strongly wanted to. The spirit wants to complete the action, but rarely understands how... instead, it performs a pantomime version of it. For example, if a messenger died attempting to deliver a warning to a particular village, a task spirit summoned near his body might immediately rush to that village's ruins and scream very loudly... then discorporate again. Whenever a spirit seems to have a strong but incomprehensible motivation, it's generally assumed to be a task spirit.
RISK
The Risk of an action is a number that, if all of the dice rolled come up that or less, means a Mishap occurs. Mishaps replace Botches and get rid of the "it's a zero" rule. The normal Risk of a typical action is 1.
Wizardry is Risk 2. Sorcery is Risk 3.
Mishaps mean that something unexpected and generally bad occurs, even if the check was successful. For Sorcery, this often means that you get a random spirit type instead of the one you were aiming for.
Random Spirits?
It would be nice to have a little chart for random spirits... probably with a modifier according to how "nice" the location was. Hm. Perhaps it should just be a d10 roll with a note that if the spirit's type is odd for the location, roll again... if you roll the same spirit-type again, keep it anyway.
There should be an advantage to having a familiar spirit hanging around... although with some, you may need to use that "Visions" effect to get anything useful from it. I should probably assume a weak psychic link that lets the spirit understand what the sorcerer wants from it... it just won't obey unless it feels like it.
The link works both ways, so a mage with a Watcher spirit familiar will sense if it sees something interesting... a Guardian familiar's master will know if it engages in combat to protect him, et cetera.
Armor
Armor stops X points of damage and imposes a penalty -Y on your Agility trait. It also has a "coverage" value that says how much of your body it covers. If someone wants to hit you in an unarmored location, they have to declare before attacking and take a penalty based on the coverage. If they still hit, they bypass the armor.
Covers torso: bypass -2
Covers head, torso and arms: -4
Covers full body: -10
Effectively seamless: -20
Leather tunic: 2 armor, -2 to encumbrance
Chain tunic: 4 armor, -4 to encumbrance
Plate: 6 armor, -6 to encumbrance
Plate & Chain: 8 armor, -8 to encumbrance
Bypassing armor generally requires taking a -5 to your attack roll to strike an unarmored spot. If there aren't any unarmored spots (like a full suit of platemail, normally not available in HM), the penalty could be -10 or even outright impossible.