Nuclear Beasts

Hit Points?

Random thought: perhaps HP should be 10+Endurance Skill or something? Then you could invest as much or as few skill points into getting tougher and never have a solid upper limit... but it would get slower and more expensive just like any other skill. At +10 HP, you'd actually get another point of Brawn for free, which would give you an extra HP. So it would be 10+Endurance (which depends on Brawn) rather than 10+Brawn (*2 if positive).

Then you could have weak PCs who still had a decent number of HP by sinking lots of points in to that skill.

Failing Spells

There are no limits to how many spells you can cast per day, other than the practical ones. Fatiguing spells will eventually wear you out and even basic spells take at least a round.

Some basics:

1. On a critical failure, you have overextended yourself and take an extra level of Fatigue. This generally only happens when you're trying to perform a really difficult spell or have big penalties to your roll.
2. On a failure, you can just try again. [A simple rule for repeated attempts is that it takes as many rounds to pull off as the number of points you failed by. That's a bit quicker to resolve than just rerolling constantly and seeing if you hurt yourself. Eh, that doesn't really work when you rolled a 19 and it was still a failure.]
3. [On a mishap on a failed spell-casting roll, you manage to hurt yourself internally and take 1d4 points of damage. Yes, it's possible for a badly wounded mage who tries something difficult to kill themselves. Actually, isn't a Crit Failure defined in my rules as a failure plus a mishap? This might not work, then unless I make Crit Failure different from Mishap.]
4. On a mishap on a successful spell, you apply it wrong. Perhaps you instill the wrong emotion in someone, or your fireball hits the wrong target.
5. Should I say that combat actions are Risk 2 and thus mishaps occur about 4% of the time?
6. Taking extra time is a +1 to your roll. Taking lots of extra time in a calm situation is a +2.
7. If no other effect is defined for a Crit, assume that it increases your effective Magic rating by +2.

Another new thought... rather than just a -1 or -2 penalty for maintaing spells, your effective Magic rating is reduced by 1 per spell being maintained. This both penalizes your rolls (since your Magic rating always applies to spell-casting skills) and weakens the new spells. If your rating is reduced to -5 or less, the roll is considered a failure automatically. Note that a really good roll could give you a +2 Magic and still work, but any "succcessfully" cast spell with a Magic rating of -5 or less will simply fail instead.

Odds and Ends

Found a perfect pic for a Forest Folk mouse in Melissa Vernon's (of Digger) Elfwood gallery. If I wanted to commission a full-color cover pic, I could definitely do worse.

The underground mice end up like naked mole rats? With skin covering their shrivelled, vestigial eyes? After all, there are bad things in the depths, and they're swimming in them.

"Mouse Guard" is apparently a cute fantasy comic book about mice who serve as scouts and guards for a mousy kingdom. No overt magic in the samples, but there is a blue-robed guard who carries a staff instead of a sword and who might be paralyzing a snake by holding his staff against its head. Not sure.

Touch spells possibly being easier... and enchanted staves that can conduct them.

Status Rewrite

Status is now a stat on the same scale as the other stats, except that you don't get to allocate points to it at character creation. There isn't much social mobility in the Fallows... you'll have to go adventuring to raise your Status.

• +10: The Emperor
• +9: The Empress
• +8: The Dukes and the Pontifices
• +5 to +7: Counts, Barons and other important nobility
• +4: minor nobles still in line for the throne (also the highest status non-royals can generally ever achieve)
• +2: upper class
• +1: middle class
• +0: commoners
• -1: serfs, menial laborers
• -2: untrustworthy scum
• -3: slaves and outcasts
• -4: escaped slaves
• -5: monsters

Your Status determines your typical income and what sort of equipment you can readily get and use without being hassled about it.

• +4: obviously magical weapons or armor
• +2: high quality metal weapons and armor
• +1: high quality metal weapons
• +0: low quality metal weapons
• -1: small, low-quality metal weapons such as knives
• -2: clubs
• -3 or worse: crude, makeshift weapons

Actually, the higher end stuff should probably start listing servants and such. Don't concentrate on just weapons... mention stuff like what sort of housing they have and what they get to eat. PC should range from Wild Rat peasants (-2, stuck with crude shacks and makeshift weapons because no one will sell them one) to ordinary peasants (-1, slightly better shacks and access to farm implements that double as weapons) to common-folk (+0, small houses and access to metal knives and other minor actual weapons) to middle class (+1, decent houses and access to "real" weapons) to upper class (+2, have nice houses with a couple of servant types and the ability to get metal armor and fancy weapons) to the real nobility (+5, sumptuous estates with personal bodyguards and could even own an enchanted blade).

Hm. I don't want to penalize Wild Rats too much. Perhaps it should be -3 where you can't even get a club made and have to make do with a tree-branch.

• -5: a monster to be killed or fled from on sight
• -4: an escaped slave or anyone else that it isn't a crime to kill, but it might be a crime to help
• -3: homeless and penniless. Limited to makeshift weapons because no one would sell them one even if they managed to steal some money.
• -2: hopeless poverty. A leaky shack to live in and a crude tool that could double as a weapon.
• -1: poverty. A shack to live in and a decent tool that could double as a weapon.
• +0: commonfolk. A small house and the right to carry a small blade (or other obvious weapon) for personal protection. Most don't carry more than a knife, though, because weapons are expensive.
• +1: middle class. A decent house, a nice wardrobe and the ability to carry a full-fledged weapon without drawing attention. Probably a low-end steed is available.
• +2: upper class. A big house, a couple of household servants, a fancy steed. Access to almost any weapons and armor.
• +3 to +4: upper-upper class. A big house with a number of servants. Multiple steeds. About the highest any common mouse or rat could ever aspire to.
• +5 to +7: lord. Landowner. Multiple families of servants. At least a couple of bodyguards. Your word is law amongst common folk. The highest position that a white mouse could aspire to. Higher ranks are reserved for royal mice.
• +8 to +9: Duke. A keep of your own. A militia of your own. Extensive lands that pay you fealty. Your word is law amongst lesser nobles.
• +10: Emperor. you rule over all you survey. An army obeys your commands and your word is law amongst even nobles.
  Posted by Kiz at 01:27 PM | Comments (0)

Edge vs Extra?

I've been considering changing the name from Edge to Extra.

Sorcery Skills

Okay, here's the list:

Whisper: communicate with spirits. Concentrated is a shout. Severed lets you always use Whisper effects on the spirit in question. Advanced allows communication of complex ideas. Advanced severed allows for pacts/bargains with dark gods.

Lure: attract specific kinds of spirits by entering into an appropriate trance. Concentrated tries to trick them into manifesting. Advanced lets you do sendings by attracting them towards other people.

Banish: attempt to force spirits away. Concentrated tries to force material spirits to dematerialize. Advanced can break enchantments such as bargains or talismans.

Tether: tie a spirit to the physical world. Creates talismans. Advanced can create golems/animate corpses.

Enthrall: put people in a trance-like state as though you were a spirit. Basic just fascinates targets, advanced lets you put ideas in their head.

Glimpse: lets you view the world as a spirit would. Dangerous, because of the risk of seizures from the wild visions. Advanced lets you pretty much scry the future, past or present using this but is exhausting and dangerous.

For some powers, concentrated can just be "do the same thing, but faster" since a lot of Sorcery powers are rituals and comparatively slow.

Greatwater

Crossing the lake can take as little as 2 days with favorable winds, up to 2 weeks or more if the winds turn against you.

Pirate Winds: strong breezes that force ships to moor themselves to large, wind-blocking obstacles such as islands or sunken trees, but which are not strong enough to stop the little pirate canoes used by the sea-rovers.

Pirates like to use cutlasses... little light metal blades of Fashorian design, basically curved heavy daggers. They're sharp along the outer curve, but dull in the inner... some pirates are known for carrying them in their teeth, with the sharp part facing outwards so that they don't cut themselves.

More Sorcery

For properly evil Sorcery, there should be an effect which lets you bind minor spirits into yourself or an item. The spirit can then be commanded to perform an appropriate task SL+1 times before it fades back into the spirit world.

A common one is to enslave a benign spirit to heal a single wound completely.

Bindings of this sort are treated as permanent spells and incur Severance points. Spirits should never be happy about this sort of thing; it should be clear that binding them in this fashion torments them.

Sorcery isn't dark enough as is. I need some good names/themes for the skills that are darker.

• Enslave Spirits
• Call forth the Unborn
• Entrap Spirits

Hm. What was the set I was toying with?

Okay, some more thoughts...

• Communicating with Spirits: the advanced severed form allows for bargaining with Dark Gods, making it the most powerful and dangerous sorcery skill.
• Drawing forth Spirits: by projecting emotion into the spirit world, a sorcerer can try to attract spirits that like that particular sort of emotion. The advanced severed form allows you to fill stuff like fur or claw-sheds with such strong emotion that the spirit hunts down whoever they are from (with the effects varying by what spirit you attracted this way).
• Binding Spirits: making it so that it's easy for them to manifest in a physical object and luring them into it. Can be used to create magic items or to animate objects. Theoretically binding them into people could be here, too.
• Banishing Spirits: holding them at bay, barring them from entering an area, banishing them back to the netherworld.
• Hypnotism: like spirits, you can learn to mess with people's heads. This is pretty much an independent power, unrelated to the presence or absence of spirits.
• Visions: see the world as spirits do. Tends to cause seizures, but can reveal hidden information. Again, pretty much an independent power.

I could split up attract/repel into separate skills. Gotta think about it. I would like 6 skills so that it matches up well with Wizardry. I could move visions into its own area instead of it being part of communicate. One more "independent" power would make it 50% using spirits and 50% being like a spirit. A leech-life/magic power? Maybe just have a separate skill for repelling spirits than attracting them?

Kenshar

Kenshar is a meditative technique practiced in Fashor. It enables the practicioner to tap into their inner magic to produce subtle, internal effects. It isn't widely thought to be a magical art, but it is.

Mostly it extends or expands on other skills, so, for example, a super-leap technique should add to or multiply your jumping distance... but you still have to use your Athletics skill.

Possible effects:

• Breath-holding
• Endure heat/cold
• Endure Starvation/Thirst
• Postpone fatigue effects (like Deryni, it'll come back worse, though).
• Resist torture/pain.
• Speed healing
• Resist disease/poison
• Enhance athletics
• Blind-fighting

I might just give it 3 skills instead of 6, so that it's cheaper to master than Wizardry or Sorcery. I'll have to think about it.

They're probably all Magic based skills, but your Magic rating won't matter as much for the effect... it's all subtle internal stuff that doesn't require a lot of power.

So, let me think... 3 skills would probably be plenty. The 3 basic precepts of Kenshar are:

• Discipline and Self-denial, to endure the endless hours of huddling beneath a sand-storm.
• Self-control, to master the functions of one's body.
• Concentration of Energies, to direct them towards a single task.

Head, Heart and Hand? Head, Heart and Tail? Self-Denial, Self-Control, and Directed Energies?

Anyway, Self-denial lets you survive without food or water and lets you post-pone the effects of Fatigue until later (at a risk of making the fatigue even stronger when it finally comes back). Resisting torture probably falls under this skill, too.

Self-mastery lets you control things like your heart rate, breathing and sleep in a special trance state that makes it easier to wake up if something happens nearby. It's the body-control power.

Concentrate Energies lets you aid Brawn and Athletics rolls by throwing all of your body's strength into a task.

All 3 are Magic-based skills, but your Magic rating doesn't affect them a whole lot beyond aiding your skill rolls.

Poisons

A given poison inflicts X points of damage at the rate of 1 point per time interval.

When you get poisoned you'll make a resistance check vs a difficulty set by how hard the poison is to resist.

A failure or worse means that you take full damage.

If you succeed, you'll take less damage. Only every SL+2 time intervals will actually do damage; the others are ignored.

So someone who gets a partial success will only take damage every other time interval. A level 1 success will only take damage every third time interval. Etc.

Poisons generally inflict either Lethal Damage, Stun or Action Penalties (-1 per level, treat as Fatigue).

Sorcerous Poisons: the venom of spirit creatures is unnaturally fast. The entire effect is generally resolved in the same round you get hit. If you get at least a partial success, divide the damage done by 2+SL.

So, let's take a crippling paralytic poison that does a total of -10 to your actions at the rate of 1 per round and is difficulty 10 to resist.

If you roll a 15 on your resistance check you'll get SL 1 and divide the damage by 3 and multiply the time interval by 3. So now you take -1 to your actions every 3 rounds until you've taken a total of -3. You'll still be groggy, but that's all.

Perhaps I need separate Resolve (Drive) and Resist Enchantment (Drive/Magic) skills. Or just say that you add your Magic to your Resolve when resisting mental spells and other magical effects.