If you’re confused about why I’m throwing Dungeon Crawl Classics content on a Wednesday into my blog, you must have missed last week’s post where I introduced this little (and by “little,” I mean “gargantuan”) side project to translate my Oakton gods and demons into DCC-usable content. Ostensibly I’m doing this work so that I can GM a home game sometime in the future, but mostly I’m doing it because it’s fun.
Last week, I asserted that any of my Law-promoting city-gods of Oakton and any of my Chaos-promoting demon-gods of the wilds could be either deities (i.e. provide clerics power) or patrons (i.e. provide wizards power), depending on the goals and aims of the human in relationship with them. To demonstrate how this relationship differs, I’ll look at the Rootmother as a patron. She’s so protective and human-loving… she wouldn’t corrupt a poor wizard, would she? By golly, she would!
It’s fun to think about a cleric of Quenvara and wizard of Quenvara both leveling up and evolving over the course of a long campaign. The cleric would be continually steered towards the Rootmother’s edicts, sent on quests to promote her ideals and working to maintain her favor. In doing so, the cleric would have tons of healing and protection magic at their disposal. The wizard, meanwhile, would be slowly twisting and mutating over time, becoming something like an Ent from Tolkien or treant from Dungeons & Dragons, a living embodiment of Quenvara’s wishes without the strict need to uphold her ideals. Both paths are brimming with story potential, which is one of the reasons I love DCC so much.
In my write-up for the Rootmother as a patron, I’ve relied heavily on Daniel J. Bishop’s Yddgrrl, the World Root expansion of the Invoke Patron spell in the DCC rulebook. I admit, I’m totally enamored with the Patron Taint and Corruption results for Quenvara, but I suspect that’s going to be true for every patron I write.
The hardest bits, at least for me, were the patron-specific spells, since DCC spells can get absolutely bonkers at higher spell check results. The “Control Plants” spell was the trickiest, and I stared at Control Fire and Control Cold for a long time to try and puzzle out its effects. You’ll also note that I expanded the “Failure, lost, and worse!” ranges for the spells, as one of my homebrew tweaks to DCC rules is saying that any spell check result in that spell’s level (i.e. 1-3 for a third-level spell) can result in patron taint and/or corruption. Otherwise, in my experience, both patron taint and corruption are too rare, and I don’t know a single wizard player who doesn’t revel in these tables.
Next week, by request from one Stephen Grodzicki—awesome author of the Tales of Argosa rpg I’m playing in my solo-play… check out all his work at Pickpocket Press!—I’m turning my attention to the primary antagonist of my Tales of Argosa story so far: Orthuun, the Blind Sovereign. I hope you enjoyed the safety and peace of the Rootmother these past two weeks, because things are about to get… dark.
Please let me know what you think below or via email at jaycms@yahoo.com!
Welcome to the single longest weekly installment yet! Happy New Year! We’re starting off 2026 with a bang!
As I tried to think of how the party was going to disrupt the activities of the skinless terrors, I remembered Maelen’s madness of explosive rage. It’s something I had been peppering into her POV prose, so by the time I got to the reveal of the Tomb of Saelith the Vanished, I thought, “Well, bummer. There’s really no choice for what Maelen’s going to do.” Yep, she’s going full Leeroy Jenkins. Will her charging into the fray have similar results as poor Leeroy’s party? Let’s hope not, but I have a sinking feeling.
There are three groups of skinless terrors: a) 2 dripping blood into tomb itself, b) 4 scraping at the circles of sigils surrounding the tomb, and c) 3 damaging the outer walls’ symbols. The party is currently Far from the first group, (rolling high-low) 3 of the second group are Close and 1 Far, and the third group has 2 Close and 1 Far. That makes a total of 4 Far and 5 Close in terms of range.
Here’s how I’m going to run this encounter: For each skinless terror, I’ll roll high-low. On a low roll, they will continue their activity, ticking a slice off our 14-slice ritual counter (see last week). On a high roll, they’ll sense the intruders and join the combat. For all the Far opponents, I’ll automatically use Round 1 to continue breaking the runes.
One way or the other, I think the party is screwed, and I have a sinking feeling that I’ve put them either in a TPK situation or set them up to release Saelith the Vanished. I suppose we play to find out, though, right?
Maelen gets a surprise round and attacks Skinless Terror 1 with advantage. She moves and smacks it with Bonebreaker, rolling a 14 to hit and doing 5 damage, taking it to 7 hit points. Now she’ll roll Initiative on Round 1 and gets a 4 so will swing again. This time she rolls a 21 total for 8 damage, killing it. Whew.
Alric’s choice is fascinating, and could determine the outcome of the encounter. He has recovered 1 spell usage. Does he save it for Mend Flesh, try and dispel something via Sever Arcanum, or even use Cradle of Formlessness to turn himself or Maelen to mist and escape? I think, instead, he’s going to use his scroll of Wings of the Raven King on Vessa, thinking to save her first. I had hoped he could inscribe the spell into his spellbook next downtime, but alas. The advantage of a magic user using a scroll is that it doesn’t require a spell check or risk DDM, so he can just do it. I’ll also rule that a magic user using a scroll automatically triggers its Great Success effect, which in this case means Vessa will be able to fly for 1d6 x 10 minutes. I roll 2, so she’ll have wings for 20 minutes.
As a result, Vessa will launch herself into the air and fire down upon Skinless Terror 2. She rolls 22 total and hits for 5 damage against its 14 hp, so it now has 7 left. It makes sense while the PCs have the advantage to try a Minor Exploit, so she’ll also try and knock it down with her shot (or perhaps pierce its leg), which means it will have to stand up and move this turn, not attack. I roll opposed Dex checks and the skinless terror rolls a nat-20, which is a Terrible Failure. I’ll say it loses its entire turn and will need to stand next turn.
Now it’s the nasties’ turn (deep breath):
Skinless Terror 1 is dead.
Skinless Terror 2 (Close, walls) is at 7 hp, prone, and unable to act this round. It regenerates 1 hit point, though, ending the turn at 8 hp.
Skinless Terror 3 (Far, walls) will continue raking runes. Clock = 13.
Skinless Terror 4 (Close, runes) rolls high and will attack Maelen. It moves and bites at Maelen twice: First roll is a nat-1! That gives Maelen a free swing: She rolls 20 total and hits for 8 damage, knocking it to 10 hp (beefy boy!). Its second bite is a 9 total and misses.
Skinless Terror 5 (Close, runes) rolls high and will also attack Maelen. It moves to her other side and bites twice: Hitting once for 2 damage. Maelen drops to 10 hp.
Skinless Terror 6 (Close, runes) rolls low and rakes runes. Clock = 12.
Skinless Terror 7 (Far, runes) rakes runes. Clock = 11.
All in all, not bad! Maelen already at half her maximum hit points, though, gives me a sick feeling.
XXIII.
Duskmarch 24, Goldday, Year 731.
Alric sat paralyzed for a moment, stunned by Maelen’s sudden charge. He knew that she considered violence as a way of solving most problems, but he’d seen her use restraint before. Not this time. Alric hadn’t even been able to count all the skinless, blind aberrations crawling over the tomb and scraping at the protective runes before she’d left their sheltered corridor with an angry shout. If there had been any hope of subtlety, it was gone. Now they would fight. What he didn’t know is how they’d survive.
The closest monstrosity was a mere ten strides away, and Maelen closed the distance before the creature even registered her presence. With a mighty swing, the warrior clubbed the thing to the smooth, basalt floor, and a second strike caved its head in. The horror unraveled, as if its bones had suddenly disappeared, spilling muscles and viscera at Maelen’s feet. She immediately thrust her torch into the mass, scorching it with a wild-eyed yell of triumph.
Two more creatures abandoned their tasks, heads rising like rabbits to focus on the brief scuffle. With unnerving, jerky speed, they were loping towards her with snuffling, wet breaths, overwide mouths clacking their sharp teeth. Alric saw more of them stirring at the edges of torchlight. In moments, she would be mobbed by more of the things than even the mighty Maelen Marrosen could handle.
Alric pulled a scroll from his belt, one he’d found within Thornmere Hold.
“Help me!” he hissed at Vessa, who was just as wide-eyed and shocked, her head darting left and right, tracking the creatures. Alric pushed the torch into her hand. “Hold this.”
He’d hoped to have time someday to translate the spell upon the scroll fully to memory, but that day would never come. The mage didn’t know how to help Maelen, who seemed in some sort of berserk rage, but he could at least help Vessa survive this situation. Without sparing another thought, his eyes roamed over the parchment, his lips mumbling the words and pulling the power forth. As he spoke, the scroll’s edges blackened as if thrown in a fire, rapidly spreading and consuming the document.
Alric had often wondered at the power of inscribing a spell, allowing anyone to use its magic. It was something he had hoped to try one day, to take the power of Orthuun and translate it into readable text upon a scroll. Regardless, the intricacies of scroll work evaded him. Somehow, he innately knew the scroll-spell’s effect, how to pronounce the alien words, only when staring directly at the parchment and widening his awareness. The how and why of it was surreal. So much of the knowledge surrounding magic eluded his comprehension.
The effect, however, was immediate. Vessa gasped as enormous raven’s wings, black as night, burst from her back. Alric plucked the torch from her startled fingers, his head spinning as the spell transmitted through him and vanished, the scroll now nothing more than ash fragments falling to the stone floor. Abstractly, he noted that the magic from the scroll felt somehow cleaner, less tied to demonic power… less corrupting. An observation for another day.
“Go!” he cried out. “Fly above their reach! Help Maelen!”
“But—how?” she faltered.
“No time! Don’t think! Go now!” he urged.
With a flap of those ebon wings, she launched herself up and towards the domed ceiling, stirring his cloak with the wind of her departure. He had only a vague idea of how long those wings would remain, but he hoped desperately it was long enough to escape this place, once Maelen and he had been overwhelmed by clacking teeth and bloodstained fingers.
As quickly as she’d left, he could no longer see Vessa in the gloom. Yet an arrow shaft appeared suddenly upon one of the skinless monsters, and it shrieked a teakettle wheeze of pain, arching its ropy back and searching skyward with its eyeless head.
Round 2! Let’s give Vessa the Initiative roll this time, which she succeeds with an 8. Rather than fire at disadvantage at the two attacking Maelen, she’ll drop a Smoke Bomb in the tomb itself, enveloping Skinless Terrors 7-9 for (rolling 1d4) 4 rounds. Since there’s nothing mechanically that allows them to avoid the effect, those three will be Blind despite not having eyes, inhibiting their actions. Somehow the smoke messes up their chittering echolocation, I guess.
Maelen, meanwhile, will keep swinging away. Can she finish off Skinless Terror 4? She hits with a 13 and does 5 damage, bringing it to 5 hp. She’ll try a Minor Exploit to throw it away from her. The opposed Strength roll absolutely goes in her favor, and it’s swatted to the floor.
What the heck can Alric do? He has a torch as a weapon (his staff is sitting on the other side of the pool beyond the twisting corridor), but only 8 hit points. He will edge into the room but Dodge, giving any attackers disadvantage to hit him.
Not a great turn damage-wise, but they’re setting up. Let’s see what happens on the skinless terror’s turn…
Skinless Terror 1 is dead.
Skinless Terror 2 (Close, Maelen) is at 8 hp and prone. It will stand up and move towards (rolling 1-4 Maelen, 5-6 Alric): Maelen. It also regenerates to its full 14 hp.
Skinless Terror 3 (Far, walls) rolls high and will use both moves to get within Melee of Alric.
Skinless Terror 4 (Melee, Maelen) is at 5 hp and prone. It will stand and Charge Maelen. I’ll say it can only use one bite with this maneuver, but it rolls a 17 and hits, thankfully doing only 1 damage. Maelen is at 9 hp. It regenerates to 11 hp.
Skinless Terror 5 (Melee, Maelen) bites twice, hitting with the first bite but rolling a nat-1 on the second! It does a whopping 7 damage to her, though, taking her to 2 hp. Her return attack hits (21 total) and does 9 damage against its 14 hit points. It is down to 5 hp but then regenerates to 6 hp.
Skinless Terror 6 (Close, runes) rolls low again and rakes runes. Clock = 8.
Skinless Terror 7 (Far, runes) is Blind. Can it continue to rake runes? I’ll say it can if I roll low. I do. Clock = 7.
Skinless Terrors 8 & 9 (Far, tomb) are also Blind. They both roll low and continue to drip blood onto Saelith, ignoring the smoke. Clock = 5.
With the skinless terror’s regeneration, this feels like an unwinnable fight, especially for Maelen. Can Alric win initiative in Round 3? He rolls an 11, exactly making it. Wow, that was close.
Mend Flesh is unfortunately a Touch spell, and he will surely die if he wades into the three skinless terrors mauling his companion. He’ll have to save it for a later time, if such a time exists. Instead, he has Skinless Terror 3 right in front of him. He’ll swing his torch, rolling a 12 and hitting! Way back in Chapter 8 I ruled how torches work as weapons: -2 to hit as an improvised weapon, 1d3 damage as a club, plus 1d3 damage fire. The creature has 12 hit points and he will do only 1 damage with the club but 3 fire damage, bringing it to 8 hp and unable to regenerate. Moreover, I think he’ll try out game’s first Major Exploit and try and set it on fire. To do so, he needs a Luck roll and unfortunately rolls a 15. I’ll use a Reroll, allowing him to try again. This time he rolls a 6! The creature is now Burning, and will take 1d6 fire damage at the start if its next turn. Alric’s Luck score drops to 8 and he has only a single Reroll available. Quite literally, the party’s luck is running out.
Maelen, let’s see what you can do. She attacks the wounded Skinless Terror 5 and hits with a 20 total. Her max 10 damage kills it, and allows her Opportunist ability, attacking Skinless Terror 4. That roll is a nat-18 so also hits, doing 8 total damage and bringing it to 3 hp. She’ll try the same Minor Exploit to get it away from her (and allow Vessa to finish it). She crushes the opposed Strength roll and succeeds.
Vessa fires, barely hitting its 10 AC with a total of 11. Her max 9 damage obliterates it. Death from above!
Now things get bad:
Skinless Terrors 1, 4, and 5 are dead.
Skinless Terror 2 (Melee, Maelen) is at 14 hp. It bites twice at the critically wounded Maelen. An 11+2=13 misses her 14 AC and a 6 total misses! It’s at full hit points so doesn’t regenerate.
Skinless Terror 3 (Melee, Alric) is Burning and takes a max 6 damage to 2 hp. It must make a Will check to do anything but put itself out and rolls a 19, failing. It rolls around the stone floor and does not regenerate.
Skinless Terror 6 (Close, runes) finally rolls high and will enter the fray. Who will it attack? I roll Alric. It moves within Melee and bites twice: A 9 total misses, and then it rolls a nat-1! Can Alric make it pay with his torch? He rolls a 9+1-2=8, missing its 10 AC. Still, nice.
Skinless Terror 7 (Far, runes) is Blind. It mindlessly rakes at runes, sensing the task is close to completion. Clock = 4.
Skinless Terror 8 (Far, tomb) is Blind and follows suit. Clock = 3. Eeeee!
Skinless Terror 9 (Far, tomb), meanwhile is Blind but senses the combat. Can it find its way out of the smoke? I roll Perc and get an 8, succeeding. It will move towards (rolling) Alric.
I can’t believe Maelen survived Round 3! But they are still in major peril. Two skinless terrors are still working on their tasks and could push the Saelith clock to zero within two turns, and Maelen and Alric are still facing 4 opponents—or 8 bite attacks—and only have 2 and 8 hp themselves. For now, let me take a narration pause for breath.
Moments later, something clattered within the inner circle of runes and smoke began filling the tomb. Another arrow took a creature through its neck and it slumped to the floor, unraveling as it did so into a pile of gore. The sound of enormous wings flapping echoed in the chamber. Vessa was raining death and havoc from above, and he grinned fiercely.
Out of the shadows, an abomination scampered at Alric, its hands held out from its skinless body, clawed fingers flexing. The thing was considerably smaller than the one that had mauled him earlier, but still his legs momentarily went weak, his bladder threatening to betray him. He had only a breath to ready himself and then it was upon him, snuffling wetly, grasping, and clacking sharp teeth. The stench of rotten meat filled his nose. Alric clenched his jaw and swung the torch as hard as he could manage, directly into the shining muscles and tendons of its chest. It shrieked, rearing back, and he followed it, the torch still pressed into the terror’s torso.
Then, the body erupted in flames, like a campfire’s tinder suddenly catching. In a brilliant sheath of orange flame that lit the entire room around them, the thing continued its teakettle whistling and rolled frantically on the stone floor. Alric stepped back, eyes wide, as he saw two more of the abominations stalking at him, mere strides away, stark shadows dancing across their hideous forms. They circled their burning companion, teeth clacking, crouched to leap.
Round 4 is a big one, and Maelen is back to rolling Initiative. She rolls a 7! Whew.
As far as I can tell (wow, this is a tough combat to do theater of the mind), Maelen “only” faces Skinless Terror 2, which has a full 14 hp. Though it’s not hugely original, she’ll swing Bonebreaker. Nat-19! She did it! Amazing. For Maelen, that means 11 damage, taking the creature to 3 hp, and then rolling on two tables. First, I’ll roll 1d6 on the Bonebreaker table, because it might invalidate the next result: 6! That result shatters the creature’s skull and it instantly dies. First time for the major magic item successfully performing an insta-kill! Skinless Terror 2 is dead, and she has a moment of respite.
Vessa will fire at the smoking, almost-dead Skinless Terror 3. I’ll say that, because of the flames and it rolling on the floor, she won’t get the disadvantage of it being in melee with Alric. She hits it with an 11 total, and her damage bonus means the arrow will automatically kill it.
Alric is still facing two unharmed skinless terrors and has only a 50/50 chance of hitting them, with an even lower chance of succeeding on another Major Exploit. I’ll say he backs up a step and simply tries to Dodge the four bite attacks coming his way.
Which leaves us with:
Skinless Terrors 1-5 are dead.
Skinless Terror 6 (Melee, Alric) will roll with disadvantage against the mage. The first bite rolls 18 & 2, so misses. The next rolls 10 & 11, which hits his 10 AC. 3 damage brings him to 5 hp.
Skinless Terror 7 (Far, runes) is Blind. It rolls low again and continues to rake at runes. Clock = 2.
Skinless Terror 8 (Far, tomb) is Blind and rolls low. It drips blood into the tomb, sensing the figure within stirring. Clock = 1. Yes… ONE!
Skinless Terror 9 (Melee, Alric) is facing Alric with disadvantage. The first bite rolls 12 & 15, hitting for 4 damage and bringing him to 1 measly hit point. ONE! Thankfully the second bite rolls nat-20 (!) and 3 (!!).
My poor little heart can’t take this combat, folks.
An arrow struck the flaming creature, silencing it as it smoldered upon the stone. Alric edged back, torch held up defensively.
Whether they coordinated their attack or simply shared similar instincts, both horrible creatures hurled themselves upon him simultaneously, one from the left of the blackened mass and one from the right. Alric hit the first with his torch but then he went down under their wet, stinking bodies. He felt teeth tear into his shoulder while another clacked frantically near one ear. He panicked and screamed.
Round 5, and a lot must go right for all three PCs to survive this combat. Vessa is up with the Initiative roll and rolls an 8! (expect a lot of exclamation points in this block of text) She’ll let Maelen start off the action, in hopes to employ Finisher.
Maelen will charge (not mechanically Charge, since the skinless terror’s AC is low and hers is important to survival) Skinless Terror 6. Nat-1! Oh noooo! The skinless terror gets a free bite against her and rolls a nat-19! What is happening!?!
It’s time to employ a rule from Tales of Argosa that I haven’t yet used. From the rulebook: “Once per adventure, a PC may attempt a Rescue, which may only be used to protect another person or thing. Rescues are available when it is not the PC’s turn, in response to something happening within Close range. A Rescue allows one player to negate or reverse an adverse event for another player or NPC. Only one party member may attempt a Rescue per situation, and Rescues are exclusive to PCs.”
Seeing the scene as if in slow motion, Vessa will attempt to Rescue Maelen. She will swoop down from the air and intercept the skinless terror, knocking it aside. To do so, Vessa will make an Initiative check: 11, which succeeds, meaning she can indeed react fast enough to avert disaster. Now is the tough part: a Luck(Dex) roll to perform the feat. Vessa’s Luck is currently 7, with a Dex modifier of +2. She’ll need a 9 or under on 1d20, with one Reroll available. She rolls… a 2! Success! In fact, that’s a Great Success, so I’ll say that she doesn’t even have to end her action in Melee with the creature… she simply knocks it aside and swoops back into the air. Her Luck score reduces to a paltry 6, and she’s used her one Rescue until Level 3. Meanwhile, Malen is alive. For now.
Actually, I’m going to combine Vessa’s Rescue with her attack, and say she tries a Backstab on Skinless Terror 6 from above, using her dagger (recall she left her shortsword on the opposite shore). She hits with a nat-16, and her damage is 1d4+1 with the dagger plus 1d8 for the Backstab. That’s 7 total damage against its 14 hit points, bringing it to 7 hp. She possibly could have done more damage with an arrow, but I like the cinema of that move.
Alric will not Dodge. Instead, he’ll attempt to Mend Flesh on Maelen now that she’s next to him. What a hero! He will pass his Int(Arcane Lore) check easily, which will restore 1d6+2 hit points. He rolls 5 total, bringing her to 7 hp. Not great, but gives her a better chance of surviving this turn. Now, how does the DDM roll go? His DDM number is 2, so he needs higher than that on a 1d8 and rolls a 5. His DDM number goes up to 3 and, importantly, he is completely out of spells.
Hoo boy… it’s the skinless terrors’ turn:
Skinless Terrors 1-5 are dead.
Skinless Terror 6 (Close, Alric/Maelen) is at 7 hp and prone. It will stand and move into Melee (a little cheap? Maybe but makes sense given the Rescue success). It also regenerates to 9 hp.
Skinless Terror 7 (Far, runes) is Blind and finally rolls high. Can it find its way out of the smoke? I roll a 5 on its Perc chance so yes. It rushes towards Alric and Maelen. The smoke dissipates after this turn.
Skinless Terror 8 (Far, tomb) is Blind and… rolls low. The Clock moves to zero. Damn! I’ll have this take effect next turn.
Skinless Terror 9 (Melee, Alric/Maelen) will roll on opponent: Maelen. It bites twice and hits once, doing 2 damage and bringing Maelen to 5 hp. Hey, that would have killed her without the Mend Flesh!
So, the good news is that everyone is still alive. I sort of can’t believe it, and have prepared myself multiple times for either Alric, Maelen, or both to meet their demise. But they did it! A horde of terrible baddies and they’re still here!
The bad news is, now I have to decide what happens when Saelith the Vanish is freed, which will officially end this encounter and be B-A-D for our intrepid party. Oh… I have an idea. This will be fun.
Alric didn’t know how long he pushed and batted with his torch, screaming himself hoarse as the things tore and ripped at him. Perhaps it was a mere eyeblink of time or perhaps much longer. Whatever the case, he almost didn’t notice that one of the creatures suddenly disappeared.
Maelen hooked the shaft of her black mace around the neck of a skinless terror and pulled it off him. The thing bucked and flailed its limbs, teeth gnashing in empty air. Alric kicked his own tormenter, gaining some distance for a breath, and sobbed.
The warrior looked awful, covered in gore and with several gaping bite marks marring her skin. One eye had swollen shut, and that side of her face looked disfigured and mottled. Yet she wrestled with the abomination, arms corded in muscle, as it struggled to free itself from the headlock and assault her. It did so, bursting free with a teakettle shriek, and then Maelen stumbled. Teeth scissoring madly, the eyeless creature reared, ready to pounce upon the warrior. Maelen glared up but her mace clattered to the stone floor. She was spent.
Then, in a burst of air, Vessa rocketed from nowhere to tackle the terror with a shout of “Nooo!” Alric saw a flash of her pale skin, black-feathered wings, and then Vessa and the skinless thing were rolling away from them in a bundle of red muscle, ebon feathers, and furious struggle.
The creature he’d kicked away was on him again, its weight pressing down upon him. The stink of offal filled his nose, teeth clacked inches from his face. Alric flapped his free hand towards Maelen and found her boot. He murmured magic words he didn’t understand, drawing on Orthuun’s power, feeling his entire body go numb. Alric felt with certainty his own impending death in this underground tomb, mauled and eaten by these creatures from some other world. He would channel as much magic as he could muster to heal Maelen before he expired.
The thing atop him shuddered, then went slack, its muscles drooping beneath his hands. Slimy muscles and organs slid over him, melting across his body like sap over a trapped insect. Alric sputtered and thrashed, trying to get himself clear of the mess and understand what was happening.
Then the torches went out.
Alric knew, in that moment, that Saelith the Vanished, general of Orthuun the Blind Sovereign, had broken free of its tomb. More of the creatures must have stayed at their tasks, defacing the protective runes. Or perhaps the damage that had already been done was enough. Whatever the case, Saelith’s tomb was breached. Death would take them. Despair filled him.
“Mistsong…” a sibilant voice, harsh and light, whispered in his ear. Alric flinched away from the sound, throwing his hands up protectively.
“Mistsong…” it repeated. “I would speak with thee…”
“Wh-what?” Alric gasped. “Who?”
“Kelthorn the Unlit is no longer of use to me. But thee…” it whispered in delight, and then inhaled deeply, as if smelling a rose. “I sense the Night Crown’s touch upon thee. He Who Knows No Dawn has taken thine heart. Darkened thine blood. Thou art part of the Endless Black now.”
“No… no, I don’t want it…” Alric shook his head.
The voice tsked. “Thine wants matter not. Take my hand, little darkling. Let us blanket this land and prepare for the End.”
Though he was utterly blind in the oppressive darkness, Alric could feel a hand being offered, a hand as large as his chest. He wouldn’t have been able to explain how, or why he knew the figure before him was immensely tall and thin, with rag-like robes floating around him as if underwater. It crouched over him, arm outstretched.
The seer Wink’s words flashed in his mind: When you get to the cliff’s edge, little mouse: Don’t jump. Run or fight, but don’t jump into the darkness!
Alric swallowed and then slumped to his back. “No,” he whispered, barely audible. “I won’t… come with you. Kill me. Take the book… I won’t…” his own words trailed off, unsure how to finish the sentence, depleted of willpower.
The voice tsked again, the hissing voice directly in his ear. “Thou art weak. Watch thine cities blacken, darkling, and then will I offer again. Until then… gather thy power.”
Then the voice laughed, a light and chilling sound, echoing within the vast chamber.
Alric’s eyes fluttered in the darkness. He felt he couldn’t catch a breath, that his hollow and heartless chest was grasping for something it couldn’t quite reach. His limbs were numb and lifeless.
Wednesday, what? New Year’s Eve, what? What’s happening here?
Well, see… Two related but distinct things have been occurring in my life, and they’ve led me to this Wednesday post (and possible future Wednesday posts… read on!). First, I’ve been unemployed since July. I don’t like the word “unemployed,” honestly, because it sounds so negative. Better to say that I’ve been happily unemployed since July, taking a large severance package from my employer instead of moving to Amsterdam. The unexpected windfall has allowed me to, for the first in years, slow down, travel, and enjoy time with loved ones. Over the last six months, I’ve reconnected with friends that I haven’t seen in over a decade, spent quality time with my adult kids, soaked up experiences with my awesome wife of thirty years (including getting an awesome new puppy), and—most profoundly—supported my mother through her husband’s unexpected death. It’s been a blessing to have this time and freedom, truly, and I’m not a religious guy so don’t use that word lightly.
Second, I’ve been spending many, many hours with my TTRPG books. They’ve long sat there, the collection growing each year, waiting patiently for me to have some downtime. Now that I have that time, it’s been a joy to both dive into nostalgic books from my gaming past and introduce myself to new games I’ve picked up but never absorbed. My brain has been swimming in dozens of game systems and mechanics, and piles and piles of nerdy lore. It’s been fabulous.
I’m not quite ready to retire from my day job, but one of the things I’ve long envisioned when I do is to host an in-person Dungeon Crawl Classicscampaign at my house (right now all of my weekly games continue to be online). DCC remains my favorite fantasy TTRPG, exploding with random tables and emergent storytelling (it’s a testament to Tales of Argosa that when I promote it to people, I describe it as “DCC’s more elegant, sword-and-sorcery cousin”). When I’ve allowed myself to dream, I always assumed that I and my players would co-create a campaign world from whole cloth. But—thanks entirely to my weekly Tales of Calvenor game—I now realize that any fantasy game I run for a long time, maybe forever, will be in my own homebrewed world of Calvenor.
DCC and Calvenor Cosmology
One of the things that’s often bothered me about DCC’s cosmology is the fuzzy line between deities (where clerics receive their magic) and patrons (where wizards do). Both deities and patrons are supernatural, immortal, otherworldly entities influencing the world through mortals, but deities do so without corruption, keeping clerics on a leash of approval/disapproval. Patrons, meanwhile, corrupt the literal hell out of their poor wizards, constantly entering into dangerous bargains. Yet, as far as I can tell, there’s no particular difference as to why one supernatural entity is a deity versus a patron except it’s whatever the author wanted to write.
The Princehold of Calvenor is the nation in which my current story takes place, a small part of a much larger world. Within Calvenor are disparate cities, and each city—like Oakton, my current story’s epicenter—is protected from the wilds by a pantheon unique to that city. Outside, in the wilds, are demon-gods who rampage and scheme to take down those cities. The entire conceit of my fantasy world is that the gods of Law support human civilization and the demon-gods of Chaos oppose them.
So, in my world, I justify the distinction thusly: ANY deity of Law OR demon of Chaos can be a deity for a cleric OR a patron for a wizard (if I ever decide what Neutral entities are in my world, the same goes for them). The difference is that a cleric is in harmony with an entity’s goals and belief system whereas a wizard only wants power, and thus the entity is steering a wizard against their will towards their belief system.
Take two characters from my story: Alric Mistsong and Hadren Kelthorn. Both are in relationship with Orthuun the Blind Sovereign. Hadren, in the above terms, would be a cleric of Orthuun, promoting the demon-god’s nihilistic goals and gaining power as a result. Alric, meanwhile, uses Orthuun as a patron, channeling power from the demon-god via his corrupted spellbook but actively working against the destruction of his own world. Both clerics and wizards are dangerous gigs (especially as it relates to Orthuun), but in very different ways.
As I mentioned, one of the key aspects of DCC that makes the game so flavorful, exciting, and awesome is the mountain of custom, random tables. Each spell, each deity, each patron, each major magic item, each demon or dragon… they’re all—ALL OF THEM!—multiple pages long and full of bespoke tables that send your games into madcap directions.
But do you see the problem? To do my homebrewed world justice, I’ll need to make both deity and patron entries for every supernatural entity in my world. To begin with, that means tackling the twenty-two Oakton gods and twenty-ish demon-gods. That’s, oh… almost ninety pieces of work? And each piece includes a multi-page entry with multiple random tables? Let’s not forget, too, that’s only one city in a vast nation, nestled within an even vaster planet.
I mean, that’s just a bonkers amount of work.
And yet…
I have time right now! My brain is alight with ideas!
To stretch my creative muscles, it only makes sense to start with the most central deity in the Oakton pantheon, the goddess that is the focus of declarations and exclamations almost every single week: The Rootmother, known by her sacred name Quenvara to clerics and power-hungry wizards alike (note that none of the current story’s protagonists know or use this name for her).
Below I’ve created a full DCC-style deity entry for her, much of which is either inspired by or taken directly from the excellent (free!) Ildavir write-up in Clerics of the Known Realms by Sean of Realm 15. Because I’m not at all worried about selling these write-ups, I’m perfectly happy to steal good work and give credit where it’s due.
Next week I’ll provide the very different Patron write-up of Quenvara the Rootmother. I absolutely do not promise to keep these entries going every week on Wednesday, but I’ll do so as my time and passion allow. The priority is the Saturday story, but this project is a wonderful outlet of energy and time, and each entry only gets me closer to my DCC retirement dream…
Today’s post is a curveball bonus, so please let me know what you think below or via email at jaycms@yahoo.com!
The village’s shrine to The Watcher—also called The High Listener, The Fourth Sister, and She Who Watches the Bay, among many other titles—sat in the heart of Vastren Hollow, at the center of a cobblestone square. Alric supposed that, since the village had been founded by rangers long ago, they had built the shrine and its flame to signal safety to travelers or passing caravans, much as Skywarden Tower served for Oakton. Yet Vastren Hollow established no trade routes currently in use and had never proven to be of strategic advantage for the city. As a result, the village had maintained the Watchflame but grown around it, sitting comfortably within the rampart wall and defensive structures, unseen by passerbys. It was now, he guessed, primarily a symbol of safety for Vastren Hollow’s residents, a sign that Oakton’s gods still sheltered them from the wild world beyond.
Today, however, safety was under siege.
As Maelen and Vessa led Alric and the ragged militia through the village, they saw the true devastation of the skratt swarm. Every home gaped open, doors torn, windows bloodstained. Fires guttered across the square. One house, fully ablaze, stained the twilight orange. Black-furred bodies of skratts lay everywhere, some curled on their sides, some with backs arched and white eyes staring lifelessly at the clouds above, and others face down in the mud. Indeed, it seemed that the skratt corpses outnumbered the others by four to one, though everywhere Alric looked there were dead villagers and animals, all shredded by claws and with faces ravaged. The smell of blood, offal, and smoke filled Alric’s nose, making him gag several times.
The shrine itself was a waist-high, octagonal structure made of pale granite, atop which sat a bronze brazier in the shape of an eye. Alric could see immediately that the flame within that brazier was magical, its fires burning both white and blue. A few desperate soldiers stood in a tight ring above a mass of writhing, snarling black fur. Even as they approached, one of the women fell shrieking under the skratt horde. In moments, the others would follow.
With a shout, Maelen charged.
I’m going to run this combat in two parts. Last time I rolled that the PCs would be facing 7 skratts, so that’s going to be the “main” combat, essentially the enemies who pay attention to the party. But I’m picturing the scene more chaotic and cinematic than that, so in the background I’m going to be rolling on how the militia band is doing against the rest of the horde.
First, I’ll have Maelen roll initiative, against her 13 attribute score. She rolls a 7 and succeeds, so the PCs go first. She’s going to Charge (I’ll say the group is currently Far from the shrine), but should she use a class ability right out of the gate and take advantage of Charger? I’m going to say no, because I think Opportunist will help more in a fight against a pack of 1 HD creatures. It’s a normal Charge, then, which not only lets her get into melee but gives her (and the skratts) a +2 bonus to hit. With the Bonebreaker, that’s a whopping +6 to hit an AC 11 creature. But she rolls a 4! Oh dear.
Vessa, meanwhile, will move to Close range and fire with her bow. She has a +4 and rolls an 8+4=12, which is a hit. The shortbow’s damage is 1d6 and I’ll simultaneously roll 1d8 hit points for “Skratt 1.” 2 damage versus 5 hp, reducing it to 3. Something I didn’t do throughout all of Level 1—maaaaybe because I’m still learning the rules and forgot they existed—are Exploits, which are minor (or major) effects combatants can have on opponents. The requirement for a Minor Exploit (which Vessa will now attempt) is to hit and damage an opponent, which she’s done. She’ll hope the arrow will distract the skratt, taking its +2 to hit Maelen away. To do so she rolls an opposed Dex check and rolls a 9 (succeeding by 7) versus a 9 by the skratt (succeeding by 4), which works! Had she failed, she wouldn’t have been able to do another Exploit this combat. Exploits are an amazing way to give flavor and minor advantages, and I’m glad to remember them!
Has Alric received more combat abilities now that he’s level 2? Not really. He’ll move to Vessa’s side and grip his staff, ready next turn to help either Maelen or Vessa as best he can.
Now it’s the 7 skratts’ turns. I won’t roll whether they stay focused on the Watchflame, as these are the skratts who I’ve already determined will attack the PCs. Assume a mass of the creatures continuing to swarm around the shrine and dash all over the village. I’ll say 3 focus on Maelen, and I’ll roll what the other four do.
Skratt 1 (who no longer has a +2 to hit thanks to Vessa’s Minor Exploit) has a +1 to hit, then +1 because of outnumbering her 3:1, versus Maelen’s 14 AC and rolls a 9, missing. Skratt 2 has the bonus and rolls 18+4=22, hitting for 3 damage (on 1d6). Skratt 3 rolls 15+4=19, also hitting and doing 2 damage. Ouch. Maelen is down to 15 hp.
I’ll roll even chances for the other 4. Three of the four will rush Vessa and Alric, but one remains to swarm Maelen. It rolls 13+4=17, and also hits for a max 6 damage. Dangit! She’s down 9 hp, less than half in a single turn.
For the abstracted battle outside the PCs, there are terrific Mass Battle rules in Tales of Argosa, but they don’t quite fit this situation (they’re more for sieges and warfare). Instead, I’m going to do simple opposed rolls between the militia and skratt swarm. The militia rolls 8 to the skratts 17, losing. They take 1d6 “losses” of members and I roll 5. They’ve gone from 8 “strength of force” to 3!
That first round was brutal. Let’s roll Round 2 before I narrate. Vessa rolls 11 against her 13 Initiative, succeeding. Maelen will strike out at one of the four skratts surrounding her with Bonebreaker, rolling 16+4=20 and hitting. She then rolls 5+2=7 damage versus 4 hp and Skratt 2 is dead. She’ll then use Opportunist (which triggers when she reduces an opponent to 0 hp) to attack a second skratt, rolling a nat-19! For a Fighter, that’s max damage plus half her level, plus a Blunt Trauma roll. The 11 damage alone absolutely crushes Skratt 3, so no need for the Trauma. That’s better!
Vessa’s now in melee with 3 skratts herself, so she’ll drop the shortbow, use her Move action to draw her shortsword, and then attack. She rolls a 9+2=11 and hits, doing 1+1=2 damage to Skratt 5’s 6 hp, dropping it to 4. Does she attempt another Minor Exploit? Sure. She’ll try and trip the creature with an opposed Dex check. She rolls 13, succeeding by 3 versus the skratt’s failed roll of 14. Skratt 5 is prone.
Alric will try and bash the prone opponent, which gives him an additional +2. He rolls 9+3=12 and hits! His staff does 2 (on 1d6) damage, bringing it to 2 hp.
It’s now the skratts’ turn. The two versus Maelen no longer have the Charge bonus and don’t outnumber her 3:1, so it’s just a +1 for them to hit. They roll 6 and 7, both missing her 14 AC.
Skratt 5 stands up and launches at Alric, rolling 9+1=10, exactly hitting his AC. I roll only 1 damage, though, bringing him to 13 hp.
Skratts 6 & 7 attack Vessa (rolled randomly) and roll 11+1=12 and 2+1=3, both missing her 13 AC.
Will the militia fare better? Their opposed roll is 19 versus the skratts’ 4, so yes! The Stonekin soldier and his remaining villagers battle back the horde for another turn, whittling away its numbers.
Well, that was a better round for the PCs. No morale checks to make on the skratts, as they’ve only lost 2 of 7 combatants. Here’s the current battle status:
Maelen faces Skratt 1 (3 hp) and 4 (unrolled). Skratts 2 & 3 are dead at her feet.
Alric and Vessa face Skratt 5 (2 hp) and Skratts 6 & 7 (unrolled).
The militia has 3 “strength” remaining before it’s defeated.
Alric had seen her fight before, stumbling uphill at Greenwood Rise, but this was different. She flew across the square, all power and precision. The Vastren Hollow militia, with a whoop, raised their makeshift weapons and followed her towards the besieged shrine. The humans at the shrine let up an answering call, rallying against the enemies around them. Now Alric watched, mouth agape, as Maelen’s spiked mace swung to catch a startled skratt in the chest, sending it arcing into the air. Right behind her, the Stonekin soldier’s glaive flashed out, shining in the bright light of the Watchflame.
Then the skratt mob swarmed them. The whispering chitter of rats mingled with the cries of pain from the militia, and the group disappeared amidst a mass of black fur. Alric gasped.
“Stay sharp!” Vessa loosed an arrow into the swarm, cursed, and dropped her bow. “Here they come!”
Vessa stepped past Alric and slashed with the short blade of her sword, intercepting a skratt that had run at him. It fell to the square awkwardly, scrabbling for purchase with its claws on the stones. Alric swung his staff, cracking into its body with a crunch. Then it launched itself at him, black hands outstretched and white eyes wide. He sidestepped on instinct but felt the hot flash of a claw across his cheek. It had gone for his eyes.
The creatures were everywhere. Vessa pivoted and swung her blade as Alric held out his staff defensively. Magic whirled in his mind, unable to form into anything coherent amidst the battle.
Round 3! It’s Alric’s turn to roll for initiative, against his attribute score of 11. He rolls 18 and fails, so the skratts go first.
All the skratts currently have only their +1 bonus to hit, thankfully. The two facing Maelen roll 15 & 11, hitting once for 2 damage and bringing the warrior to 7 hp.
Meanwhile, I’ll have the injured Skratt 5 continue to attack Alric, rolling 10 and hitting. Thankfully, he takes only 1 damage again (!) and is now down to 12 hp.
The remaining two skratts will focus on Vessa. They both roll 4, which means she easily avoids their claws. Not too bad, all things considered.
Can Maelen take out her two opponents in one turn? She rolls 9+4=13 and hits Skratt 1, and 6 damage kills it. She’ll attempt an exploit to knock the crushed body of the skratt into its companion, knocking it prone. They roll opposed Strength checks, and Maelen rolls a 2 versus the skratt failing. It’s prone, and so she now has a +6 for her Opportunist attack. She rolls a 17, though, so I guess it didn’t matter… Six total damage versus 2 hp, and Skratt 4 is gone. She takes a beating, but she can dish it out too!
Alric tries to fend off the skratt attacking him and rolls a 14! He’ll wield the staff two-handed, which gives him +1 to damage. Since the skratt only has 2 hp, it’s dead.
Vessa will stab at one of the two skratts facing her, rolling a 12+2=14 and hitting for 6 damage versus its 3 hp. Only one skratt is left!
How does the militia do? They roll 16 versus the skratt horde’s 3, keeping their three members alive and further diminishing the mob.
Now is a good time for a morale check. The skratts’ Will score is only 7, but I roll a 3 and succeed. They want that flame out!
All around him, violence raged. Yet for several heartbeats, Alric faced off against the skratt Vessa had injured. It crouched on the cobblestones, feet set wide and clawed hands flexing as it sniffed the air loudly. Then its milky eyes fixed on his position, the oil-slicked, ropy tail lashing. The thing chittered and jumped again at his face.
This time, Alric was ready for it. He interposed the staff between them, though a frantic claw still nicked his neck as he pushed it away.
He swung the heavy wood of his staff in a desperate, wide arc. The blow struck the skratt where its head met its scrawny shoulder and the creature crumpled. Then Alric struck again, and again.
He hadn’t realized he was shouting until another skratt, slashed by Vessa’s blade, rolled into his leg.
Alric whirled, wide-eyed, to take in the scene. The dead lay everywhere, skratt and villager alike, though a cluster of both still battled around the Watchflame. Maelen was there, batting furred bodies left and right with her weapon, a fierce smile on a face spattered in dark blood.
Two skratts leapt out of the crowd at the shrine simultaneously. Their bodies fell atop the Watchflame deliberately, as if trying to smother the fires with their lives. More followed. The scattered soldiers on the granite pedestal cried out in dismay, striking at the smoking bodies. Alric watched the blue-and-white flame gutter, and then he couldn’t see it at all amidst the writhing, black-furred mass.
As we’re nearing the end of the fight, it was time to implement what I’d already rolled last time: That the skratts had successfully doused the Watchflame. It seemed more dramatic to have Alric witness it being snuffed out than to show up and have it already be out.
Anyway, Round 4 is surely the last round of combat. We’re back around to Maelen rolling initiative, and she succeeds with a 7. Can she make a second Charge in one battle? I don’t see why not, so here goes: She rolls a 13+6=19, hitting easily. She then rolls max damage of 10, fully crushing the last skratt. Combat done!
Let’s see if the militia survives the last skratt push. I roll a nat-20 versus the enemies’ 2, so absolutely yes. In fact, I’ll say they are the real reason the battle is over, making the skratt horde flee after they’ve extinguished the Watchflame.
“No!” the stocky soldier roared, his glaive carving a desperate path through the skratt swarm. The last few villagers closed ranks around him, driving toward the shrine. Alric watched, almost transfixed by the scene: A last push of bravery amidst carnage.
The whispery chattering of a skratt near his ear jerked him into the battle. There, one of the creatures bared its long front teeth and spread its clawed hands wide, pale eyes fixed on his face as it readied to leap. He froze, surprised.
Maelen’s spiked mace crushed the skratt into the cobbles with a wet crack. Alric hadn’t even seen her cross the square. The warrior was bloodstained, panting, her hair and eyes wild, as she gripped her black weapon and spun, looking for another opponent. Vessa finished slicing the throat of another creature, then positioned her back to Maelen’s, a move that looked almost instinctual for the two mercenaries.
But it was unnecessary. Any skratts that had broken from the horde at the shrine were dead or gone. For a long moment, only panting and the crackle of fire filled the square.
Alric’s eyes scanned the scene, his gaze passing over countless corpses that his mind refused to register. He focused instead on the shrine. The Stonekin soldier had retaken the granite pedestal. Black-furred bodies lay everywhere around him, the stack of them fully to his waist. Three other humans—all covered in gore—yelled and moved to chase the last of the skratts as they fled. They had been fighting all night and day, however, and had no hope of catching the rat-like creatures. Dozens of skratts scurried from the village square, flowing like a river towards some exit Alric couldn’t see.
The soldier sank to his knees at the brazier’s base. His glaive clattered against the stone dais. The Watchflame was gone, buried beneath smoldering skratt corpses. Only the burning houses lit the square now, flickering orange, warped by smoke.
“White eyes, oily tails, and whispers,” Maelen rasped beside him. “You’re right, lad. Orthuun’s work.” She coughed, blood on her lip, and dropped to one knee.
“Maelen!” Vessa called out, but Alric was already kneeling beside her.
Alric has a new spell! It’s time to Mend Flesh (hopefully), expending 1 of his 2 magic spells for the adventure. To do so, first Alric must succeed at an Int(Arcane Lore) roll, which for him means rolling 16 or under. He rolls 16! Whew.
Next, his Dark & Dangerous Magic score was 2 at the end of last adventure, so Alric must roll a d8 (at 2nd level) and roll over a 2. He rolls a 5 and doesn’t trigger anything nasty. His DDM score, however, increases to 3. It’s… coming!
Finally, how much healing does Alric provide? His spell allows Maelen to recover 1d6+2 hit points, and rolls 4+2=6! Nice. Maelen is now at 13 hp.
Speaking of which, the PCs can now take a Short Rest, a few minutes to let them catch their breath. Doing so allows each PC to make two Willpower checks. Maelen will go first and rolls 10 & 12, either side of her 11 Will. With one success, she recovers half her missing hit points (3 of 7) and is now at a respectable 16 hp.
Alric, meanwhile, rolls 14 & 10, also one success versus his 13 Will. He’ll leave his hit points at 12 of 14, but will instead recover his lost spell slot.
Vessa neither took damage nor used any class abilities, so the recovery doesn’t matter to her. It’s a good reminder to use some of her Rogue abilities in the future, though.
Finally, some housekeeping: I’ll increase the Chaos Factor from 6 to 7 for obvious reasons. Since the Stonekin soldier survived, I’ll give him a name, Sergeant Brodan Flinthewer, and add him to the Character List. I think that’s it for now.
As soon as he’d entered the village, Alric had begun to hear a low, whispered murmur at the edge of his awareness. He’d convinced himself it was nothing.
But as he reached for Maelen’s face, the mumurs rose, coiling around his mind. Words he couldn’t understand, half-heard and hissing. They filled his ears, drowning out everything else. Lone cries from anguished villagers, blazing house fires, and even a question that Maelen asked him as she looked into his eyes—Alric could hear none of it. Only the whispers remained, and his lips moved with the alien rhythm of them.
A familiar numbness spread throughout his body, as if he were separating from the world and becoming apart from it. His skin tingled as it passed from his head, down his neck and spreading throughout his torso and limbs, moving down to his legs and feet. Once the sensation had passed, he felt nothing, no pain or emotions. Dispassionately, Alric said words he and his companions would not remember later.
Maelen’s eyes went wide, then relaxed. She blinked at him, a sense of wonder across her face as he released her head with his long fingers and ceased the spell. It would take, he knew, several heartbeats for his senses to fully return, and the tingling as the numbness retreated was awfully distracting. But he could still speak through deadened lips, and asked, “Are you better?”
“Lad,” Maelen mouthed. “How?”
“Shh,” Alric shook his head, pursing lips. He hadn’t heard her through the diminishing whispers in his ears, but he saw her lips make the words. “Later. Let’s help the others.”
As he stood on shaky legs and surveyed Vastren Hollow, though, he wasn’t sure who there was to help.
The village was gone, its Watchflame cold. Orthuun had wiped it from the world like ink from a wet page.
What’s this? A midweek Tales of Calvenor post? Today is our first level-up day! I’m setting the prose aside momentarily to do the nerdy (but, arguably most fun) game-notes stuff for an entire post. This Saturday will return to our regularly scheduled narrative.
I’ve decided to change how I’m approaching level advancement for this campaign. Thus far, as you’ve seen from the game notes, I’ve been tracking individual xp by character. I haven’t enjoyed the xp bookkeeping, though, and it’s made me paranoid about putting each PC in situations where they can keep up with their peers. Instead, I’m switching to another option for advancement offered by the Tales of Argosa rulebook. Downtime Level Up says, “Using this method, adventurers who meaningfully participated in the last adventure advance one level during Downtime.” However, I want to make sure that levels get increasingly more difficult to attain, per the xp rules. Since it took me 10 posts for the PCs to reach Level 2 (and yes, all three will advance today), I’ll be looking for Level 3 around post 30, whenever a natural Downtime there makes sense. If I’m still writing these characters around post 60 (and wouldn’t that be great?!), they’ll achieve Level 4. Etcetera. If a character dies, I’ll decide whether to press on with two PCs or introduce a new one, and that character will start at Level 1 unless the story dictates otherwise, leveling up after 10 or so posts. That’s my current plan, subject to change through more play!
Let’s get to that juicy advancement and Downtime, tackling Vessa first. What happens at level-up? First, the PC gets +1 to an attribute of their choice, excluding Luck and Initiative, up to max 16. I’m going to say that the experience in Thornmere Hold increased Vessa’s self-confidence and mental fortitude, bringing her Willpower to 13. Doing so also increases her Death Save to 11. Next, Vessa’s hit points increase from 12 to 14 (yes, Tales is a brutal, deadly game). She also gains an extra Reroll.
Finally, Vessa’s class skills increase. Her Attack Bonus goes up by 1 (she now has a +4 to hit with her shortbow!). She gains a new skill, and Wilderness Lore makes the most sense given her romp in the woods. At Level 2, she also gains the ability Skirmisher, giving opponents’ free attacks due to movement disadvantage. She also now can use her Tricks 2 times / level and gains a new one: Smoke Bomb, which I’ll explain in play. I really need to use these Tricks more.
Now let’s talk Downtime. I love the Tales Downtime rules, which are designed around “activities for PCs to spend their silver on, to keep them hungry for coin.” First, I roll how much time passes before “something interesting” happens, which will constitute this Downtime period. I roll nine weeks.
Seven days of predominantly low-key activity in a safe location is called a Long Rest, and Vessa thus regains all hit points, class abilities, Rerolls, and attribute loss (minus Luck), plus recovers 1 Luck point. That leaves her at full strength, but at 10 of 11 possible Luck. “Wait a gosh-darned minute!” you might be saying, “but Downtime is nine weeks! Wouldn’t she be able to recover that other point in eight extra weeks?” Maybe. But she’s doing other things during that time, having her own mini adventures and peril. The sum total is that she’ll be down 1 Luck when the next adventure begins. Unless something happens during Downtime to diminish it further.
Speaking of which, for Vessa a big question is how much of the party’s gold she can pay back to the Latchkey Circle versus how much she spends on carousing and gambling. First, let’s decide how much she and Maelen need to pay off their debts. I’m going to roll 2d6x100 gold, an impossibly big sum for people in Oakton. I roll 80 gold of debt. Whew. Combining gold and silver from Thornmere Hold, they have 105 total gold, so theoretically they have enough. But while Maelen is in a coma, Vessa may be getting herself into trouble…
Let’s combine these two subsystems and see how it goes. Vessa will use 100 sp (or 10 gp) on gambling/carousing. How does the weeks worth of gambling go? Vessa must make a Luck save. She rolls a 14 and fails, losing the money. The only “good” news is that Vessa won’t lose a Luck point for failing.
Now, the fateful Carousing roll, the same roll that last time had Vessa lose her hair, a tooth, and create a complication that has yet to rear its head (but is on the Mythic Threads list!). Here goes the d100 roll… 04, which is Crime, “Your drunken endeavors lead you to commit a crime, roll 1d6.” Vessa rolls affray, a word I had to look up and means “an instance of fighting in a public place that disturbs the peace.” She is wanted for questioning for the next 4 (rolled on 1d6) months after Downtime ends for questioning. Well, this all fits perfectly into Vessa’s character flaws so far. The big question: How much money does she spend? Carousing from levels 1-3 can take anywhere from 20-100 silver. I’ll roll and get 80 silver. Dangit, Vessa!
Subtracting the 70 silver that Alric took with him, that’s 80 gold exactly left. Sometimes the dice just tell the story, don’t they? Vessa and Maelen will be dead broke after this downtime.
Here is Vessa’s Level 2 character sheet:
Alric Mistsong
Next up is Alric. He fully heals, and his Luck is now 10 of 11. Like Vessa, he will use his +1 attribute increase on Willpower, increasing it also to 13, giving him a +1 modifier and increasing his Death Save to 11. His hit points increase by a whopping 1, to 14 (brutal!). He gains a Reroll.
Next are his class bonuses. His Attack Bonus becomes +1 (all that staff-bashing he’s been doing paying off). He gains a new skill, and already has both Arcane Lore and Divine Lore. Hm. As squeamish as it makes me, I’ll give him Deception since he’s dabbling in dark forces, and it’s a skill he showed some aptitude for at the Root Gate in Chapter 2. As a Magic User, he also can construct a Mental Apparatus, which is “a circlet, cap, high rimmed collar, or other headgear that strengthens your mind against mental attacks.” He’ll gain advantage when resisting things like charm, fear, etc. But lo, it costs 50 silver to create, which means he can’t pay back his family! Again, this all feels very in-character.
Of course, the most exciting thing is Alric’s spellcraft. He can now cast 2 spells / level (regained with rest). Interestingly, Tales is the first game I’ve played that doesn’t just let spellcasters learn random new spells for free when they level up. Instead, Alric is allowed to learn one new spell this level, but only based on scrolls, spellbooks, etc. he’s acquired as loot. Thankfully, the vault in Thornmere Hold provided two scrolls. Though the idea of flying is cool, by far the most useful of the two is Mend Flesh, which Alric will spend a good chunk of his Downtime learning. He’s dabbling in dark magics, but at least the party now has a healer.
Studying his magic, learning new spells, and creating his Mental Apparatus seem like more than enough for Alric to be doing during his nine weeks of Downtime. That said, he’s likely the most transformed of the party, and will start the next adventure as much less a scribe and much more a full-blown magic user. Here is his Level 2 character sheet:
Maelen Marroson
Last but not least, let’s turn to the fallen Maelen. Most importantly, her Long Rest will allow her to recover from Sarin’s draining touch. If the party had gold left, I might say that the recovery took some of their money. Since I was harsh on Vessa’s Downtime and the party is starting effectively poor, I’ll handwave the healing this time. Again, one of the main goals of these nine weeks is to make the trio desperate enough to risk their lives for more wealth, and it’s “mission accomplished” there.
For Level 2, Maelen will use her attribute increase on Constitution, increasing it to 14 (which doesn’t change the modifier but will do so next increase). As a Fighter, her hit points increase from 16 to 20. She also gains an additional Reroll.
Class-wise, her attack bonus increases to +2. For her new skill, it’s a little boring but I do think Wilderness Lore makes sense, especially since she and Vessa are intent on going after Sarin’s treasure at some point. As a Level 2 Fighter, Maelen also gains Supplies, which means at any time during an adventure she can add 1d4 mundane items that she retroactively decided to pack. Pretty cool! Her Adaptable uses also go up to 2 uses / level. I misunderstood this ability last level… her default is Opportunist (which she used twice), and she has access to this ability as a default. The uses of Adaptable, then, are to switch to a different style (Two-Hander). Maelen also gains a new potential style: Charger, which allows her to knock foes prone with a successful Charge.
Here is her Level 2 sheet:
How does Maelen spend her Downtime? Recovering and getting her strength back, mostly, leaving Vessa to pay off the Circle, and then flit away their remaining wealth. I will say, just for fun, that Maelen is with her towards the end, maybe even starting the brawl that Vessa is now wanted for.
Level up complete! When we pick up the story this weekend, it will be nine weeks from the end of the Thornmere Hold story and kicking off the party’s next adventure (which will again be determined by random rolls… yeehaw!). See you then and there!
As always, if you have comments on either the story or game notes, feel free to post a comment below or email me at jaycms@yahoo.com.
Welcome to the second post of my new project, Tales of Calvenor, an amalgam of solo-roleplaying in the background and fantasy fiction in the foreground. If you went on holiday and wonder what the hell happened to Age of Wonders, check out last week’s installment, which gives a broad outline of what I’m doing here and introduces you to the core game system: Tales of Argosa. We have a lot to do today so let’s dive in.
Disclaimer: If you’re only interested in the story and would rather skip the tabletop roleplaying stuff, today is not for you. Check back next week for the first chapter and you can ignore everything below. Today I’m tackling all the juicy game stuff that took many posts in Age of Wonders: I’m rolling up three characters (teaching the system as we go) and discussing any rules tweaks that I’m contemplating.
Learning from my last project, I picked up the astounding Tome of Worldbuilding from Mythmere Games. Highly recommended. It’s an amazing tool, and really, really helped me nail down what I hope are primary ways this world will come to life for you as a reader and me as a storyteller. Rest assured that I have… um, many pages of deep exploration across various parts of this world that will help ground me as I play and write. Rather than reveal the results of working with the Tome, I’m going to let these details come out in the fiction, starting next week.
Suffice it to say, this is a low-magic fantasy setting. Our story will take place on the continent of Nomun, which translates to “The Known Lands,” and is made up of dozens of principalities sparring along uneasy borders. We’re starting in the Princehold of Calvenor, one of those principalities, on the eastern edge of the continent. More specifically, our story begins in The Redwood Marches, a broad set of settlements around a bay along Calvenor’s coast. Our protagonists all hail from Oakton, a large coastal city in the Marches. That’s a lot of names, but gives you at least the main hierarchy of locations. Each boldface entry above sits within the entry before it.
Introducing Vessa
There are seventeen listed steps in the Tales rulebook for character creation, which sounds like a lot but many of them are simple and quick. Plus, again, it’s a system that’s easy to puzzle out if you’ve played any traditional role-playing game. Let’s dive into our first protagonist…
Step 1 is to roll for Race. I’m going to slant the rolls here, since my setting is dominated by humans. I’ll roll a d10 to begin, with 1-9 being Human. If I roll a 10, I’ll then roll the table as suggested, a d12. I roll a 1. Human it is! Humans are great in ways that will become clear throughout this process.
Next, I roll d66 for Background. What’s a d66? It means rolling 2d6 but instead of adding them, you use one number as a tens integer and the other as a ones integer. I roll 52, which is Street Acrobat! Cool. That grants her (I’m sticking with at least two of the three characters being female) a +1 Dexterity (max 16), the Acrobatics skill (which grants a +1 bonus to relevant checks and allows for using a precious Reroll on failed checks), and a 10’ pole. Okay that last one is my least favorite old-school item because of how immersion-breaking it is for me, but we’ll make it work.
Step 3 is generating Attributes by “rolling 3d6 seven times and allocate the results in order to Str, Dex, Con, Int, Perc, Will, and Cha. You must have at least one attribute of 13 or higher and another of 15 or higher. If not, increase one attribute of your choosing to 13, and/or one to 15, as required. You may then also swap any two Attribute scores, if desired.”
Here we go! Strength 13, Dexterity 12, Constitution 9, Intelligence 10, Perception 17 (!), Willpower 16 (!), Charisma 9. Wow, those are some amazing rolls. From the rulebook, high Perception means “your character has excellent aim, a sixth sense for danger, and notices subtle details.” I’ll keep that high, but swap my Dex and Will scores, giving her a Dexterity of 16 and Willpower of 12. Because she’s Human, she gets an additional +1 to a single score, not to exceed 16. I’ll give it to Constitution, slightly increasing her hit points. She’ll now have a +3 modifier to Perception, +2 to Dexterity checks, a +1 for Strength, and no negative modifiers. Wheee!
Step 4, based on the rolls so far, I choose my Class. The two that make the most sense are Ranger, which relies on Perception and is a ranged specialist, and Rogue, which relies on Dexterity and backstabbing. Given her Background, Rogue feels like the obvious choice. That gives me a bunch of class abilities, equipment, skills, and such as detailed below.
As with all first level characters, her Luck is 11 and Dark & Dangerous Magic (DDM) score is 1 (more on what this score means if she ever tries to cast a spell or interact with a magic item). Because she’s Human, she gains 2 Rerolls. What are Rerolls? Exactly as you’d expect, though we’ll get into these more during play.
The next three steps are calculated scores. Her Initiative is the average of her Int and Dex scores, rounded down, so 13. Her Hit Points, as a Rogue, are her Con score + Levelx2, which is 12. And her Death Save score is 10 + either her Con or Will modifier, whichever is greater. Both are zero, so she has a score of 10.
Step 9 involves tallying her Skills. She already has Acrobatics, and being a Rogue automatically adds Stealth, Sleight of Hand, and Traps & Locks, all of which are self-explanatory. In addition, she rolls d10 for three additional skills and I roll: General Lore, Gather Info, and Apothecary. Those first two make sense: She’s streetwise and good at rumormongering. I’ll have to think about why she’s also a decent healer.
Probably the most fun step is Class Abilities. As a Rogue, she’ll gain a) Backstab, which helps her ambush and assassinate her foes, b) Finisher, which helps her pick off injured foes, and c) two Tricks: Glue Pot and Cat’s Grace, each of which can be used once at 1st level (she can regain these uses on rests).
In terms of Gear, Tales of Argosa uses a modern system of Gear slots. She gains half her Str (5) each in Battle Gear (things that can be accessed in combat) and Pack Gear (things that can be accessed outside of combat) slots. All characters begin with a bedroll, torch, tinderbox, and rations, all in Pack Gear. She also has that 10’ pole, plus thieves’ tools, leather armor, a shortsword, and dagger thanks to her Background and Class. That takes up all her Pack Gear slots and 3/5 Battle Gear ones. I’d like to get her a ranged weapon because of that sweet Perception bonus, but with only 10 starting silver coins, she’ll have to wait.
We’re in the final stretch of character creation! Her Armor Class is 10 +1 for leather armor and +2 for her Dex modifier, for a total of 13. Her Attack bonus is 0 as a Rogue, +1 for melee and +3 for ranged thanks to Str and Perc, respectively. Meanwhile, her Age is 1d20+16 years. I roll 2, so she’s 18 years old. So young for this life of danger!
I have a custom name generator for this land, and her name is Vessa Velthorn. Some nice alliteration there. Per the rulebook’s suggestion, I’ll roll on the Tales of Argosa hireling personality and traits tables for inspiration. Oh my! She’s a “lotus addict” (hello explanation for Apothecary!) and has a broken nose. A true rogue through and through, I’d say.
The final, seventeenth step of character creation is Party Bonds, which we can’t do until we have a party.
See? Easy stuff. Even having never made a single Tales of Argosa character before, the game is elegant and the rulebook easy to follow. Here’s how her character sheet looks after this process, plus anaislalovi’s awesome depiction:
Welcome to the team, Vessa! Let’s see who she’s facing danger alongside…
Introducing Alric
For our second character, let’s return to Step 1. I roll a d10 for Race and get 8, another Human. A d66 for Background gets me 55: Scribe! That’s a +1 to Int (16 max), the General Lore skill, and a parchment & ink in gear. Already very different from Vessa! Love it. I’ll also make this a man to shake things up a bit.
General Attributes do a lot to define the character, of course. I roll 11 Strength, 7 Dexterity, 12 Constitution, 11 Intelligence, 14 Perception, 11 Willpower, and 13 Charisma. Excellent. I’ll swap Perception and Intelligence, which with his +1 makes 15 Int. I’ll also add the +1 from being Human to Willpower. That means his only positive modifiers are +2 Intelligence and +1 Charisma, with -1 Dexterity. Not impressive by any means but he meets the minimum standards. What’s up with that Dex? My son was born with club feet, so that’s the first explanation that popped into my head, and that’s how I’ll explain his Dex score.
Next is Class, and I believe we’ve found our Magic User for the party. Or maybe… Just kidding. We love spellcasters, so if there’s a chance for a Magic User, a Magic User he shall be.
His Luck, Rerolls, and DDM are the same as Vessa (11, 2, 1). His Death Save is 10, also the same. His Initiative is a nice, average 11. He has an impressive (for a Magic User) 13 Hit Points.
Skills-wise, he gains Arcane Lore and Apothecary, and he gets three more determined randomly: Detection, Divine Lore, and Stealth. Interesting. This guy certainly fits as a scholar: So much Lore. What’s up with the Stealth, though? Sneaking through the scroll stacks to steal forbidden knowledge, perhaps?
In Class Abilities, a Magic User gets… spells! At first level, he’ll know two spells based on d100 rolls: Sever Arcanum (basically Dispel Magic) and Cradle of Formlessness (basically Gaseous Form). Weird! He can cast one spell per rest at first level, whichever one he wants each time. He also can, twice per adventure, use Sense Magic (basically Detect Magic).
Next is Gear, and thanks to 11 Str our Magic User has the same gear slots as our Rogue. Two of those five Battle Gear slots go to a spellbook and a longsword (I see you, Tales!). Meanwhile, all the Pack Gear slots are taken thanks to the same bedroll, torch, rations, tinderbox, and parchment & ink. Like Vessa, he’ll have leather armor.
…Which is good, because his Armor Class is 10 +1 for the armor and -1 for Dex. That 10 AC is scary. No Attack Bonuses, but he does have a few languages: Calvenor (i.e. common) and two others that I’ll figure out later. Age-wise, he is 3+16… 19! A young crew. I was picturing him as significantly older up until that roll.
In fact, now that I know that he’s a teenage scribe just finding his way into magic, his longsword makes less sense. I love the idea of a mage with a real weapon, but I’m going to give him the silver for the sword and then spend 1sp on a boring old, stereotypical Gandalf staff.
Who is this magical dabbler? His name is Alric Mistsong, a club-footed young man who is, according to random tables, quite blunt (that will be fun to write!). I’m curious how he and Vessa know one another, but we’ll get to Pact Bonds after our final protagonist.
Let’s meet our final PC! Once again, we begin with a roll for Race and get another 8. Easy Squeezy… even without my tilted, homebrewed odds, all three protagonists are Human.
For Background I roll a 24, which is Brigand! That will give her (yes, back to a female character) +1 to Strength (max 16), the skill Stealth, and, hilariously, a wine flask. The dice have created a really balanced party if this one can handle fighting.
To that end, here come the Attribute rolls: 12 Strength, 14 Dexterity, 11 Constitution, 12 Intelligence, 12 Perception, 11 Willpower, 11 Charisma. That’s about the most average, even rolling I’ve ever done in a “roll down the line” set of scores. Funnily enough, it also doesn’t meet the minimum requirements of at least one 15 or higher. The rulebook allows me to then bump one of my choice to 15, which will obviously be Str. With the Background bonus, that makes her Strength 16. I then have a +1 from being Human, which I’ll add to Constitution. Great.
Class feels obvious. It’s a Fighter, right? I suppose she could have also been a Barbarian, or even a Monk. But yeah… she’s a Fighter, and can definitely “handle fighting.”
Once again, Luck, Rerolls, and DDM are 11, 2, and 1. Her Initiative is a respectable 13. Thanks to her Class, her Hit Points are a more-than-respectable 16. Her Death Save is 11.
Next, we turn to Skills. She already has Stealth (something all three characters have… maybe I’ll build in some infiltration somehow into their adventures), and being a Fighter adds Leadership, Athletics, and three rolled randomly: Gather Info (also there for all three!), Animal Lore, and Traps and Locks. Yep, she’s definitely a scoundrel.
What Class Abilities do Fighters receive? First, she’s Adaptable, able to access multiple fighting styles. She begins with two (her Str modifier) styles: Two-Hander (gains “advantage” when rolling damage) and Opportunist (can get a second attack when a foe drops to zero HP). Like spells, she can use one of these abilities per rest. Her second ability is Deadly Strikes, expanding her crit range to 19-20. Cool!
Her starting Gear as a Fighter is, of course, slanted towards bloodshed. She has a whopping 8 slots each for Battle Gear and Pack Gear. In terms of Battle Gear, she begins with a longsword and shield, but I’m not loving a shield for a brigand who wields a sword two-handed, so I’m going to eschew it and give her the 20 silver pieces instead. She also gains a chain shirt. For Pack Gear, she has the standard array of bedroll, torch, rations, and tinderbox, plus that wine flask. Might she buy something else? For now, I’ll give her a dagger for 1sp. After that, I’ll have to think about whether she would buy a bow and arrows or not.
Even without the shield, her Armor Class is a sweet 14 (10 +3 for the chain shirt +1 Dex). Her Attack Bonus as a Fighter plus her Attribute modifiers are an equally sweet +3 for melee and +2 for ranged. How about age? I roll 5+16… 21. She’s still young, but the eldest of our trio. I really thought we’d have more age diversity, but I rolled 2, 3, and 5 on three d20 rolls!
Consulting my own charts and the hireling ones in the book, her name is Maelen Marrosen, a callous, hardscrabble mercenary with a “lucky pet.” Heh… let’s give an ode to Age of Wonders and make her pet a mouse named Tatter. I also love how this detail ties into her Animal Lore skill.
Well, it’s certainly a scruffier crew of characters than my last story, and perfect for a Sword & Sorcery tale. Let’s roll some Pact Bonds to see if we can puzzle out how and why these three find themselves adventuring with one another. For my first bond, I roll a 42 on d66 and get “Joint debt to someone/thing.” That sounds like our Rogue and Fighter’s bond. I rolled a second bond to see how Alric fits in, but I didn’t like the result and have another idea that… can kick off our story next time!
I don’t know if I was simply lucky or if the system is just that good, but I’ve ended up with a balanced party of interesting characters and am thrilled. I’m tempted to force a cleric (in Tales, called a Cultist) into the mix for a classic old-school band of PCs, but I’ll let the dice tell the story for now. Maybe they’ll find a cultist along the way.
Any Rule Tweaks?
As I’ve mentioned many times in this blog, as I read through Crusaders as the backbone of my Age of Wonders story, I made a metric ton of homebrewed rules changes. As I’ve also said many times, I consider the ability to make these sorts of changes a strength of a rules-light system, and these tweaks enhanced my experience with the game. Imagine, then, my enthusiasm when Tales of Argosa explicitly states, “The GM is the final authority of all rules, which are expected to be tweaked to fit table preferences.”
That said, I find myself ready to embrace Tales right out of the proverbial box, without any need to mess with anything yet. I’ll likely lean more heavily on the Mythic GM Emulator for solo play than what’s directly in the suggested solo play rules, and I’m sure to find little ways (like the Race rolls above) to tilt the game slightly towards my setting. Other than that, I’m happy with what I’m reading so far.
The only rule that I considered changing is that attack rolls are the only place in the game where you want to roll high on a d20, whereas all other rolls you want to roll low. That strikes me as odd. I’m no lover of THAC0, but just for the sheer elegance of it, I wondered about essentially making AC a low number (so, Maelen’s 14 AC would become 6), rolling low to hit. It’s an easy change, though it does mean that any “nat19” mentions become “nat2” and probably a few other conventions that would need me to flip-flop my brain. In the end, I decided it was a cosmetic change that forced me into more thinking than I needed for something that ultimately would function the same way. All of that said, it’s still in the back of my brain in case the inconsistency bothers me.
Oh, and I should also say that my intention heading into this project is not only to play Tales of Argosa as it’s written out of the box, but to do the same with Mythic GM Emulator. I only started dabbling with Mythic towards the end of Age of Wonders, but this time I’m going to try and follow it as Tana Pigeon and the book suggest, using as many of the tools as possible. The result will likely be lengthier “game notes” versions of each weekly installment, and more reliance on random rolls.
As always, if you’re enjoying these posts or have suggestions, drop me a comment below or feel free to email me at jaycms@yahoo.com.
Kami hesitated. Beyond the open steel door lay a rectangular, windowless chamber that must have taken half the floor. The room’s only furniture was a wooden stool, and a worktable topped with various alembics, crucibles, glass tubing, and esoteric objects. A brick chimney lacking a hearth protruded from the east wall, while on the west wall hung some sort of scaled creature on display.
Standing motionless in front of her was a large suit of plate armor, seemingly made of bronze, with dead ratfolk littered at its feet. Kami didn’t know much about weapons- or armor-craft, but even still it was clearly a rare and valuable artifact, looking wholly unlike anything made in Kalee, Kaizuka, Mesca, or the Stone Isles. The metal figure was complete, from domed helmet to gauntleted hands to bronze boots. Its burnished metal was ornate with filigree, yet the details did not take away from the impressive, imposing bulk of the thing. Whoever this armor had been made for must have been a giant of a person.
The bronze helmet was a sphere with breathing holes and two menacing eye slits, which glared darkly at Kami. Yet when she stepped into the room, the eyes flared with pale blue light in the gloom. As they did, the armor shifted, regarding her, and a wave of apprehension and malicious, predatory intent washed over her. The armor stepped forward with a heavy thunk. Not an empty suit, after all!
First villain combat! Last time I figured out the stats for this imposing animated suit of bronze armor. Because of its Aura of Fear, I won’t need to make stats for Sergeant Mewa or his two City Watch thugs—they simply can’t attack the Bronze Armor in melee and they have no missile weapons (I mean, technically they could throw their spears, but then they’d be unarmed and I think they’re more likely to just freeze and allow the PCs to engage).
For the first turn, once again that Aura of Fear is doing work. The PCs hesitate, which means that only the Bronze Armor gets to attack. They won’t be surprised, however.
Kami is the one facing off against it, so that’s where it will deliver its first blow. She’s still conscious of using her powers in front of the City Watch, so won’t use Elasticity to dodge. That means, with its Prowess of 16 and her Alertness of 13, Kami has a 35% chance to dodge. But wait! I said last time that the PCs would get -20% in all melee rolls because of the aura, so that drops her chances of avoiding a blow to 15%.
Kami rolls 82, which means even if she used her lone Hero Point this Issue she wouldn’t be able to avoid the attack. The Bronze Armor has a whopping Strength score of 38. Thankfully, Kami subtracts 10 from all bashing damage due to her Elasticity. She takes 28 damage and is down to 2 (!) Vitality with a single blow. I, uh… don’t think she’ll hesitate to use her powers now.
Let’s talk Knockback in Crusaders. Knockback occurs when a character takes bashing damage greater than their Physique score, unless that character has Super Strength, which Kami does. What’s unclear in the rules is whether the damage is before or after resistances. I think it’s more cinematic and comics-accurate if knockback occurs even when a person is partially immune to damage. So I’ll say that Kami is hurled backwards but, because did not take damage greater than her Strength level, she won’t be stunned.
Again, because it’s cool and comic book-like, I’m going to say that Kami hurtles backwards and through the wall behind her, rolling to a stop before she would break through the outer wall and fall three stories below. Because of Elasticity, I won’t inflict any damage to her from this effect. But I think the Bronze Armor has everyone’s attention now!
Kami’s bowels clenched as the figure advanced on her, unable to will herself to move out of the way. Her assailant raised a bronze gauntlet faster than she would have expected and slapped her with the back of its hand.
Before she could register what had happened, she was flying backwards, out of the steel door through the air. There was a tremendous crashing sound and Kami found herself rolling on a dusty floor. She blinked, trying to get her bearings, just as the pain of the blow began blossoming in her battered chest where the warrior had struck her. All around her were shards of shattered wood. He had backhanded her through the wall!
She was in an entirely different room, this one devoid of ratfolk corpses and full of cobwebs. Like the room with the bronze figure, it had a long, narrow table and stool, though this one was adorned by a brass cage and a small box encrusted with gold and jewels.
Kami grimaced and watched through the broken wall as she struggled to stand. Her companions faced the towering figure in bronze armor with its witch-lit eyes, clearly someone as god-touched as her. If she didn’t get back into the combat, they would all die.
Round 2! Now we’re using our regular Alertness to determine order. Maly will go first with a 15, then Emah and Kami with 13, and finally the Bronze Armor. Sergeant Mewa and his guards will effectively just stare slack-jawed and cower thanks to the Aura of Fear.
What can Maly do to a suit of animated plate armor? She’ll call out to her panther friend, for one, and then draw a dagger and strike. With her Prowess of 13 and its Alertness of 10, she would normally have a 65% chance to hit. With the Aura of Fear, however, that drops to 45%. She rolls a 16! That’s 15 damage, reduced by 10. It takes 5 damage, bringing its Vitality to 49. Not much, but it’s a start.
Emah draws her sword and charges. With her sword she would have a 100% chance of hitting, but that’s dropped to 80% with the aura. She rolls a 93, and I don’t think it’s worth using a Hero Point just yet. I’ll say the blow deflects off the armor.
Kami has been sent into the battle’s Perimeter (all distance in Crusaders is abstracted into three zones: Center, Perimeter, and Environs), and she doesn’t have any ranged attacks. As a result, she uses her turn to stand and make her way back into the room.
Now it’s the Bronze Armor’s turn. Who will it attack? I can make a case for any of our PCs, so will roll randomly to determine. I go in order of turn and roll a 3 on a d3, which means Kami. If it hits, she’s out of the combat.
This time Kami has no hesitation to her Elasticity to dodge. Now the Bronze Armor’s 16 Prowess is against a score of 25. That would normally give Kami a 95% chance to dodge, which is now 75%. Here we go… I roll 02!
Beyond the breach, the pale-skinned Maly showed incredible courage. She dove past Emah, shouting something Kami couldn’t hear over her ringing ears. As she danced around the warrior in armor, a dagger flashed past in the dim light of the room, scoring a line across its shoulder plate.
Her friend’s attack seemed to jolt Emah out of her hesitation. With obvious training the Kalee warrior stepped forward to engage the figure.
But Kami didn’t wait to see the result of the confrontation. The armored warrior had hit her harder than she would have thought possible. If it struck any of the people in her party, it would simply kill them in a single blow, she was sure of it. The warrior’s strength was greater, even, than Kami’s own, something she wouldn’t have believed. Any worry about displaying her newfound abilities in front of her companions was gone. She needed to end this fight, and quickly, before anyone died.
Though her stomach lurched, chest ached, and head pounded from the blow she’d received, Kami pushed herself up. The landing beyond the break in the wall was clogged with the City Watch members, all of whom stared frozen at the battle before them. Even Hakau, despite his strong sense of duty, appeared unable to will himself into the fray.
The house was a simple square, which meant it was only this room and the one with the battle, each wrapping part-way around the central staircase. She moved left and through the dusty room, past the long table with its birdcage and gilded box, around a bend and to a closed door. Kami practically ripped the door open and stumbled forward, still clearing her head.
Beyond the door was the armored figure, pale glowing eyes illuminating the darkened room. Almost immediately upon seeing the bronze warrior, a wave of apprehension again filled her. It seemed that he or she radiated some sort of unnatural aura, causing her heart to race and weakening her limbs.
Those glowing eyes locked onto her, ignoring Maly and Emah futile attempts to damage the thick plate armor. It charged her and swung its gauntleted fist down, the blow meant to crush her into the floor.
Instinctively, Kami’s body simply… flowed. She didn’t know how else to describe it. She relaxed into allowing her torso and limbs to loosen, like taking a deep breath. The bronze figure would have punched her where her neck met the shoulder, a blow that may have crippled or outright killed her if it had landed. But instead, she dove left and around the bronze fist with her body while her legs moved right, almost as if the two halves of her were splitting up and darting in different directions. The armored warrior’s gauntlet struck only air, and Kami’s own arms simultaneously stretched out, ready to strike.
Hakau and his guards yelled out of sight from the landing.
Kami saw Emah flick a glance at the doorway and grimace. “Rats!” she announced. “They’re here!”
Yes indeed. A troupe of ratfolk have been waiting to make their attack, and Round 3 is the time. There are a fair number of them, as well. I’ll say it’s three “bunch of thugs” groups, each with a Fight score of 10. They’re led by a lieutenant with the same stats as the one that tackled Maly out in the street: Physique 12 Prowess 12 Alertness 14 Psyche 10.
This addition to the combat means that the City Watch members also need stats. I’ll say the two guards are a group with Fight score of 11. Sergeant Hakau Mewa will have 12 across all his stats.
So here is Round 3 in initiative order (I’ll also list current health & location):
Maly (30 Vitality, room)
Ratfolk lieutenant (12, landing)
Kami (2 of 30, room)
Emah (39, room)
Sergeant Mewa (12, landing)
City Watch guards (11,11, landing)
Ratfolk mob 1 (10,10,10, landing)
Ratfolk mob 2 (10,10,10, landing)
Ratfolk mob 3 (10,10,10, landing)
Bronze Armor (49 of 54, room)
Let’s get crazy! Maly can see that she won’t be much use against the Bronze Armor, so will return to the landing in order to help the City Watch. In fact, she’ll take on the lieutenant. She has a 45% chance of hitting and rolls an 18, doing 15 damage and killing it. Nice, Maly!
With the lieutenant out of the way, Kami and Emah are up next and will continue focusing on the Bronze Armor. With the Aura of Fear, Kami has a 30% of hitting and rolls a 56. Dang, that would have been cool. Emah, meanwhile, has an 80% chance and rolls 64, doing 10 damage after the thing’s Armor is applied.
Meanwhile, Sergeant Mewa turns and lays into the first ratfolk mob. He has a 60% chance of hitting and rolls a 73. Nope. He’s surprised and still affected by the Bronze Armor’s aura.
The City Watch guards also defend themselves against the rat horde. They have a 55% chance of hitting and roll 88… Amazingly, through four combats that is our first ever critical fumble! I’ll say that with the Aura of Fear and sheer number of rats, they panic. They’ll be Passive Targets for the ratfolk mobs, meaning they defend with an Alertness score of 5. Yeesh.
Let’s see if they survive the onslaught of rats. With an Alertness of 5, they only have a 25% chance of avoiding damage from each mob. Against the first they roll 37, which does 10 damage. Against the second they roll 99, another critical fumble! No wonder Inspector Calenta recruited our PCs! With that result, I’ll say the second mob tears through them, doing enough extra damage to kill both guards. That leaves the third mob to attack Mewa, who is not as stupefied as his guards. He has a 60% chance of defending and rolls 19. He can’t kill any rats, but he does fend them off (and more importantly, delays them from entering the room).
Finally, it is the Bronze Armor’s turn. Will it attack Kami or Emah? I’ll roll odds/evens… 4. That makes sense. Kami isn’t doing any damage to it, so Emah is the bigger threat. With Emah’s Parry ability, she would normally have a 70% chance to avoid damage. With the Aura, that drops to 50%. She rolls… 95. Ouch, that’s not even a roll that a Hero Point will help. The Bronze Armor does a whopping 38 damage, leaving Emah with a single point of Vitality. But let’s also remember Knockback. Emah goes flying against the wall. I’ll make a Luck roll to see if she bursts out of the wall to fall three stories or not. The outer walls are stronger than the inner ones, I’ll say, giving her a 60% chance of staying indoors. I roll a 24. Whew. She is Stunned (unable to act next turn), but at least she didn’t fall three stories to her… death? I don’t know how I would have handled that.
Kami heard combat unseen around the bend of the room, the chittering of large rats, the shouts of the City Watch. Then she heard screams, awful and anguished, and they sounded like human screams.
Emah circled the armored warrior and barked over her shoulder. “Maly! Help the others!”
“On it,” Maly said, and darted out of the room, a dagger in each hand. Oddly, she then shouted. “Yes now! We need you!”
Kami didn’t have time to ponder the young woman’s words or the battle raging on the landing, however. The glowing eyes within the bronze helmet pivoted away from her flowing form as the warrior turned to face Emah.
“Watch out!” Kami warned.
Emah was waiting, sword in front of her, but perhaps did not anticipate the speed or power of her heavily armored opponent. With the same backhanded swing that had surprised Kami earlier, the warrior batted Emah back. For her part, Emah seemed to move her blade to parry, but the warrior’s strength was immense. The blow knocked the sword from Emah’s grip and the woman went flying, crunching against the wall and landing in a heap.
“No!” Kami yelled.
As the bronze helm turned back to face Kami, a feral roar filled the third floor of the building, causing everyone to pause.
It’s Round 4, and Maly’s companion Destiny the panther has finally entered the story! Let’s take stock of our combatants in this crazy battle:
Maly (30 Vitality, landing)
Kami (2 of 30, room)
Emah (1 of 39… stunned, room)
Destiny (30, stairs)
Sergeant Mewa (12, landing)
Ratfolk mob 1 (10,10,10, landing)
Ratfolk mob 2 (10,10,10, landing)
Ratfolk mob 3 (10,10,10, landing)
Bronze Armor (39 of 54, room)
Maly will attack the first ratfolk mob and has a 65% chance to hit. She rolls an 82, however. I think the chaos of the landing is tough for her to navigate.
Kami will try and hit the Bronze Armor again and again has a 30% chance to do so. She rolls a 94. Emah, meanwhile, is stunned. She shakily returns to her senses and will need to spend next round regaining her sword (am I being overly punitive? Given the strength of the blow she took, I don’t think so).
Destiny the panther is coming up the stairs below the rat mobs and will attack the third mob with his claws and teeth. He has a 60% chance of hitting and rolls a 96. For now, he’s just snarling and gaining ground. Besides, those rats are slippery.
Sergeant Mewa, meanwhile, is fighting the first mob. He also has a 60% to hit and rolls a 79. Wow, bad turn for our heroes.
None of the ratfolk mobs will attack Destiny. They want Mewa out of the way so they can swarm into the room (I’ve decided that once the City Watch are down, they can do so… Maly isn’t enough to stem the tide on her own). Mewa has three 60% rolls to beat them back. He rolls an 84 on the first one, taking 10 damage and dropping to 2 health. He rolls a 90 on the second one and dies, overwhelmed by the flood of combatants. The third mob moves through the hole Kami made when struck. They don’t want to fight, really… they’re here for what’s in the next room! It will take them the next turn to get what they want.
Finally, it’s the Bronze Armor’s turn and there is no doubt it will attack Kami. Once again, she has a 75% chance to dodge with her Elasticity. She rolls a 31, literally the only successful roll by the heroes this round.
Well, my first villain battle (adding thugs and lieutenants now that I have a feel for them), is quite the tense one!
What was happening? Kami could hear what sounded like a horde of ratfolk chittering and squeaking, heard Hakau shouting in surprise and defiance, a mighty “Yes!” from Maly, and some sort of enormous beast’s echoed roars. Then there was hissing, rats screeching, and Hakau screaming in pain. Kami realized that she couldn’t hear the other City Watch members, and feared what Maly and Hakau might be facing upon the third-floor landing.
Emah lay sprawled against the wall. Given the armored warrior’s strength, she assumed that the woman was dead.
And then Kami could think of nothing beyond extending her body left and right, her body flowing unnaturally to avoid the bronze, gauntleted fists of her assailant. Whoever was within the plate armor, they seemed unconcerned with the battle raging upon the landing. The entire glowing-eyed, malicious intent of the warrior was focused on her and her alone.
Emah spun, glaring. She had heard rats chittering and something padding through the shadows.
“Maly,” she growled. “They’re here.”
The warrior tested the grip on her sword, once her mother’s. It was a weapon without flourish, with an iron crossbar, the blade long and wide. Its leather-wrapped handle fit her palm like a natural extension of her body. She swung it out in front of her, air whistling, as she took in their assailants.
The flickering torchlight showed many sets of round, beady eyes, and small furred bodies wrapped in rags. Emah counted half a dozen in all. Each creature was the same size—that of a human child—as the corpses she’d seen upstairs, and each possessed the head of a large, brown rat, with furred arms and standing upright on legs. Their four-fingered hands and feet were tipped by black claws, and some held crudely sharpened sticks. Nothing like these rat-people existed in any tale or story she’d ever read or heard, and she was in her heart a scholar. Yet here they were… inside the inner keep walls of Oakton!
“No,” her friend Maly whispered, almost inaudibly. “No, no, no, no.”
Our first Crusaders combat! Woo!
First things first, these little rat guys are considered (and yes, this is a technical game term) a “bunch of thugs.” There are two groups of three ratfolk, and each has a single stat, called Fight, that they’ll use for everything combat-related. Each ratfolk mob has a Fight score of 10.
Combat scenes in Crusaders are handled in rounds, and characters act in descending order of Alertness (or Fight, in the case of thugs). To keep things simple for this first combat as I’m learning the system, I’m going to say there is no surprise round for the rats… they’ve snuck up on the PCs but alerted them with their chittering immediately prior to any action. Besides, Emah has Psychic Sense, which prevents her from being surprised, and she has time to warn her companions.
Maly’s Alertness is 15, followed by Emah and Kami, each with 13. The ratfolk mobs will each then act with a Fight score of 10. Where is Destiny the panther? Not part of the story yet!
There are no tactical battle maps in Crusaders, and space and movement are both abstracted. Again, to keep things simple, for the purposes of this scene, everyone is considered in melee at the Center of the action (there are two other distances in the game, but we won’t worry about those right now).
All rolls are a) player-facing, meaning that the PCs roll to both attack and defend, and b) percentile, based on the formula [(Active – Opposing) x 5% + 50%] – which sounds confusing but is easy once you get the hang of it, and there’s also a handy table in the rulebook. For Maly, her Prowess score is 13 against the rats’ Fight score of 10, which means she has a 65% chance of hitting with her dagger.
Maly rolls a 63… hit! She does her Physique (10) in damage, plus 5 for the dagger, for a total of 15 lethal damage. With a Fight score of 10, one rat dies, and in mobs the excess damage carries over to the next rat, bringing it to half health (5).
So we have one mob at full strength, and another with 2 ratfolk at 10 & 5 vitality. You can see where the combat here is fast and light… Maly only gets one action, but it’s easy to describe it as multiple maneuvers.
Emah saw shock and disbelief flicker across her friend’s pale face and quickly settle on determination.
Maly dodged to her right, dipping low, as the first rat-thing rushed by her. She extended her dagger as it passed, cutting it from armpit to belly in a shower of dark blood. The thing screamed as it fell, rolling past. A second creature stabbed out with a stick and Maly kicked it in the face. Two things Emah knew of Maly from the training yard… she was quick and she fought dirty, to win.
With a roar, Emah stepped forward, swinging her broadsword wide and effortlessly. The blade tore through two of the leaping rat-folk, and they squealed briefly before dropping lifeless to the stone floor.
Emah can use her Prowess +5 with her sword and does Prowess +5 damage if she hits. With her score of 20 and the rats’ Fight score of 10, she will automatically hit and deal 20 damage. That kills 2 of the rats exactly.
Mob 1: One rat at 10 health (represented by Fight).
Mob 2: One rat at 10, one at 5.
Now it’s Kami’s turn. Does she reveal her powers to these relative strangers? She’s furious (for reasons we’ll learn later) so is not thinking straight. She is not, however, a trained fighter. Her Prowess score is only 10, which means she has a 50% chance of hitting. She rolls an 83 and misses. I could use her sole Hero Point this issue (the length of a usual gaming session, which I’m judging to be three of these blog posts) to flip-flop the roll and hit, but I’ll hold off since these thugs don’t seem particularly dangerous.
Both ratfolk mobs, then, have the opportunity to attack. I’ll say that the two rats head for Kami and the single rat will attempt to avenge its brethren against Emah. Once again, all rolls are player-facing, so Kami will roll with a score of 25 thanks to her Elasticity instead of Alertness. She has a 100% of success and dodges easily out of the way.
Emah has an Alertness of 13, but can add +5 because of her Parry ability. She then has a 90% chance of avoiding the attack from the remaining creature. She rolls a 62 and does so.
Kami seemed to shake herself out of her distraction as the combat raged. She turned, face furious, and swung one of her bare fists. Her arm seemed to elongate, extending much further than it should have done. The rat creature in front of her ducked below the clumsy blow, but as her fist struck the iron bars of a cell there was a tremendous CLANG!, leaving the bars bent.
As if Kami’s swing was not remarkable enough, what happened next caused both Emah and Maly to gape. The rat continued its charge, stabbing forward with its sharpened stake. It was a clever strike and should have impaled her between her breasts, but Kami’s body… bent, flowing like a ribbon in a breeze around the stab. The creature squeaked and chittered in surprise.
Maly is going to try and take out the one attacking Kami, and does so by rolling a 37. Her 15 damage is more than enough to kill it, while Emah slashes with her sword and kills the remaining two ratfolk.
And just like that… we’re done! Crusaders combat is as advertised… fast, clean, and easy. Also, even at street level and my neutering of the PC’s stats, these bunch-of-thugs mobs are no match for them. All of which does indeed feel superheroic. Yay! Soon I’ll feel more comfortable going hard on our party, either by upping the Fight scores or adding more baddies, but I’m thankful to have today’s warm-up.
Maly, clearly running on fear and instinct, had followed the rat creature and stabbed it between the shoulder blades from behind. It dropped, her dagger’s blade slick with blood, and she looked Kami in the face. Where Maly was wide-eyed and disbelieving, Kami’s face was etched in danger, eyes narrowed. Emah swung her sword left and right, snick-snack, killing the final two creatures. Their dying squeals drew the other two women’s attention.
“What is going ON!?” Maly shrieked, her voice shrill. “What are these things? What is this!?” she gestured from the bodies to the bent bars of the cell behind her and then to Kami.
“We go,” their employer said decisively, face glowering. When the others didn’t immediately comply, she rounded on Emah. “You said we must leave, yes? Let us leave, then, and quickly. We should not be here when the Watch arrives.”
Emah looked at the bent bars and then to their employer, a scowl as her mind raced. Impossible creatures followed by impossible acts from Kami. For weeks Oakton had been buzzing about seeming fable-tales occurring across the town, and now she would be adding to those accounts. She had so many questions but now was not the time. The job was to bring this woman to the jail and escort her home, that was it. They needed to get out of here, especially if more of those creatures could bubble out of the cesspit at any time.
“We go,” she confirmed with a short nod, and turned towards the staircase.
“Wait!” Maly cried. “We’re just going to leave? What are these things, Emah? What happened just now?” She was arguing to an empty hallway, however. Emah had already ascended out of view, with Kami quickly on her heels.
Emah heard Maly growled in frustration and the clatter of a sharpened stick that she must have kicked in frustration. Then Maly’s blonde head was bobbing up from the darkness in the torchlight, following them.
The three women scaled the spiral stairs, through the guard room and into the entryway. Nothing there had changed; two dead guards and an equally dead rat-thing lay upon the stone floor in pools of dark, sticky blood. Emah’s mind calculated. One of the creatures dead here, one on the stairs. That made eight total. Was that enough to kill three armed guards? It seemed unlikely, especially without more of the rat-things’ deaths. They must have surprised the guards, but the rats seemed to her like poor fighters. They would have to rely on overwhelming numbers.
“Do… do you think we were seen entering?” Maly panted, interrupting Emah’s thoughts. She blinked, frowning. Kami moved past them both towards the exit.
“I don’t believe so,” Emah frowned. “But when we leave, are we going straight to the Watch or disappearing into the crowds?”
The question was directed at their employer. Kami paused, her hand on the door latch. Emah examined the woman’s hand, thinking that moments before that same hand had extended impossibly long and bent iron bars with a single blow. Kami’s skin was as unblemished and perfect as before, the fingers long and graceful.
“We disappear into the crowd,” Kami nodded, and seemed to remember her hat and walking stick. She bent to retrieve them both, securing the hat firmly on her head. “Best to not let them detain us. I do not think the Watch will assume innocence of a madame of the Rose District and two new mercenaries with, ah, questionable reputations.”
Emah’s frown deepened. The woman had clearly done some investigating into who she hired. She liked that not at all, especially for such a simple job.
“Alright,” Emah exhaled, sheathing her sword. “Maly, come here. You have blood on your shoulder and arm.”
For the next moments, they looked each other over and cleaned themselves the best they could manage with water and the yellow cloaks of the Watch. The parts not spattered with gore, that is.
“Where are we going?” Maly asked when they were done, her voice pitched like that of a frightened child.
Kami looked back, her expressionless face made more so by the wooden mask covering half of it. “Back to the Golden Heron. Are we ready?”
Emah met her eyes and nodded.
Kami opened the door.
Now is a good time to use the Mythic GM Emulator for the first time. It’s an amazing tool for solo gaming, though I don’t often use it religiously or strictly exactly as outlined in the book. Indeed, when playing through published adventures in Dungeon Crawl Classics, ripe with random tables, I found that I didn’t need it at all. Here, when the game is homebrewed and the system lighter, I suspect I’ll lean on it more heavily.
The first question I’ll ask is: Do the trio meet any problems outside the jail? If the answer is no, I’ll just cut to the next scene. If yes, we’ll see where that takes us. The last scene sent the story further out of the PC’s control, so I’ll increase the Chaos Factor from 5 (which is the baseline) to 6. I’ll also say that the chance of them encountering trouble is Unlikely – after all, this is a little-visited jail, away from most of the foot traffic within the inner keep. These decisions give me a 50/50 chance of a Yes. Here’s the roll…
44, which would have been a “No” if the Chaos Factor had been 5 but is a “Yes” now. The PCs do indeed encounter trouble, which means now I need to ask what sort of trouble. First, I’ll roll on the Event Focus table: 11, a new NPC. Second, I’ll roll for the Event Meaning, and use the Descriptor tables first: 16 & 39, which is Combatively Glorious. What sort of character or creature would be outside, between the jail and the brothel, that might be described in that way? Let me ponder…
I’ve got it. Let’s keep the action flowing. It’s not something waiting for them outside. Instead, it’s something that followed them out into the light from the jail. There’s about to be another combat with ratfolk, and this one will be in full view of the city.
This is as good a time to introduce the other sort of Minor Foe in Crusaders, the Lieutenant. I’ll say that there was a leader of the ratfolk minions that were down in the cesspit, and when his pack didn’t return it went to investigate. The creature has tracked the PCs to the upper level and attacks just as the door opens.
Lieutenants, unlike thugs and like PCs, have four distinct attributes, with an average of 12 across scores, and can take damage equal to their Physique. Before I fill out the stats, let me roll on a few more Mythic tables: Character Description (99, Wild), Character Personality (01, Active), and Character Motivations (77, Plan). Alright, it’s a hyperactive super-rat who had planned this jail infiltration into the city and is now furious and crazed that its plan went awry. I’ll give it Physique 12 Prowess 12 Alertness 14 Psyche 10. Fun fun!
The Kaizukan woman walked outside, her hat lowered over her face. The clouds had given way to light rain, which had only begun to wet the cobblestone streets around the keep under the reaching branches of the Great Oak. Emah followed close at her heels, hand twitching towards the hilt of her sword. The mahogany skin of her shoulders, arms, and face glistened with sweat in the sudden light.
“Let’s go,” she whispered sharply to Maly.
The young Stone Islander woman swallowed and moved to follow, but something behind her shuffled, causing her to pause. Emah had just enough time to call out a warning as, out of the shadows, a savage, furred thing snarled and tackled Maly.
Back to Initiative we go, but this time the ratfolk lieutenant will indeed have a surprise round against Maly since Emah isn’t the one being attacked. Surprise means that the lieutenant will get to act first in the round, but thankfully, because its Alertness is not greater than Maly’s (12 vs 13), Maly will not be a “passive target” (i.e. ridiculously easy to hit). Still, because she’s surprised, I’ll say that Maly can’t add her bonus to Alertness from Acrobatics, which means that she has only a 55% chance to dodge – I’ve already said that the attack hit, but this will determine whether she rolls with the attack and thus doesn’t take damage.
Maly rolls a 65, failing. She takes the blow hard, and the lieutenant deals its 12 Physique damage to her. Maly’s Vitality started at 30, which is now down to 18. Ouch.
She is next in initiative order, and in her shock (and my effort to test out different combat maneuvers) will try to Grapple the lieutenant, which is an opposed roll of Physique against Physique. Maly’s not the strongest, so she has a 40% chance of succeeding. She rolls a 96 and fails miserably.
Emah will act next and can end this tussle with an expert sword strike. Thanks to her Weapon Master skill, she has a whopping 20 against the ratfolk’s Alertness of 14. That means she has an 80% chance of success and rolls a 40. She does 20 lethal damage to the lieutenant, killing it.
Lieutenants usually act in concert with gangs of thugs, and I knew a single lieutenant would lose quickly against three PCs. But the consequences for this fight were not the threat of death, but instead a) the public nature of the fight, and b) seeing a different, stronger version of the rats. I’m also feeling my way into the Crusaders system. In those regards, mission accomplished!
These ratfolk also spread disease. Let’s roll Maly’s Physique against a “disease potency” (totally making this up) of 12. That’s a 40% chance of success with her, and I roll a 51. Yikes! Here is an excellent use of Maly’s lone Hero Point for the issue, so I’ll flip-flop that roll into a 15, allowing her to stay disease free for now.
Maly and something large and furred rolled in a bundle out of the jail door and onto the street. Emah drew her sword, moving close. Her friend was screaming and beating at the thing vainly with her bare hands, but this rat-creature was larger and stronger than the others they had fought. Indeed, it was the size of Emah, with muscled shoulders and black claws each the length of her last knuckle. It snarled and chittered, tearing and ripping with those claws. Maly cried out in pain.
Emah stepped in, lunging forward with the tip of her sword and through the rat-creature’s neck. This close, it smelled powerfully of animal and sewage. The creature screamed and slumped to the side, and blood splashed across Maly’s neck and face. She scampered to her hands and knees, gaping at the now dead figure she’d escaped. Its tongue lolled from a long snout filled with jagged yellow teeth.
Emah wiped the blade on the creature’s gray rags and pulled at Maly. “Come on! Up, girl, up!”
All around them, people were pointing and exclaiming in shock and horror. Someone in green-and-yellow livery nearer the curtain wall shouted to one of the watchtowers.
Rain was pattering harder now, blurring everything around.
“We can’t run,” Kami said, voice hard and resolute. “They’ve seen us.”
I haven’t decided how many PCs I’ll make to begin my game. At least two, probably three. As with almost everything in this project, I’ll feel my way there and decide.
Background Rolls
Before I jump into Crusaders, I absolutely love the Background Generator tables in ICONS Origins. Let’s start there, busting out a pair of d6. I’ll log each table and results, with the roll in parentheses.
Gender (6): Female.
Ethnicity* (12,5,7): Mixed heritage: Kalee and the Stone Isles.
*the city of Oakton has four major peoples, which are rough analogues of broad-African (Kalee), Spanish/Mexican hybrid (Mesca), English (Stone Isles), and Japanese (Kaizuka), roughly in that order from most- to least-common.
Age (7, 4): 24 years old.
Manner (11): Detached and logical.
Who do you value? (3): Family member.
What do you value (4): Knowledge.
Attitude (10): No one will ever hurt me again.
Birthplace (6): Rural. Raised in an isolated household away from civilization.
Status (8): Comfortable upbringing, able to afford a few luxuries.
Tragedy (4): No childhood tragedy.
1st Past Experience (1,2,2): Has a friend that is a current or past romantic interest.
2nd Past Experience (5,6): Suffered a personal loss, such as the death of a loved one, a serious financial setback, or personal tragedy.
3rd Past Experience (6,1): Framed or falsely accused of something she didn’t do.
4th Past Experience (4,2): Met someone willing to teach and mentor her.
5th Past Experience (4,1): Made a connection, contact, or earned a favor from someone.
(According to the Background Generator, you roll 2d6 for the total number of past experiences, but I find this volume of results overwhelming. Instead, I’m going to stop when I think that I’ve “found the character,” which is right about now.)
Let’s put all of those rolls together into a brief bio:
Emah Elmhill was the product of an illicit marriage between a scholar from one of Oakton’s several schools and a Kalee warrior from the castellan’s personal guard (who are not allowed to marry or bear children). To raise their daughter without recrimination, they moved north to the foothills of a distant mountain. Emah’s father’s wits and her mother’s sword kept the family safe, despite the ever-present danger of the wilds, and it was an upbringing upon which she still thinks fondly.
She was nineteen years old when her mother died to a beast threatening their home. Though she had trained every day with a blade, Emah and her father could not survive alone, and so moved back to Oakton. Her father reacquainted himself with a university there, and Emah joined him as a scribe. Indeed, she quickly became a favored pupil of the school’s head, much to her father’s pride.
…at least until another scribe, jealous of Emah’s reputation, framed her for stealing a precious and ancient scroll. Though few thought Emah capable of the crime—most especially her father—the evidence was conclusive, and she was expelled.
Desperate and without prospects, Emah joined the Adventurer’s Guild, and…
Well, I suppose we’ll see what happens next. In terms of the Background Generator results, I haven’t yet worked out who her romantic interest is, and I combined both the mentor and a contact who can benefit her later (both are the school’s head). As I said, though, I’ve got a good picture in my mind’s eye of Emah. Thank you, d6s. Now it’s time for your cousins, the d10s, to take a turn.
Origin
Right now, Emah is merely a fantasy character. We’ve established that she can swing a sword, is learned, and has a variety of contacts and rivals in Oakton. But is she a newly bestowed super in this world or something else? I’ll be relying primarily on the tables from my variant rules post to find out!
My first roll is an important one: Emah’s origin (or, if you prefer, what sort of “class” she is in this story). I roll an 89 (Spy/Assassin/Thief/Guide), which can also be a 98 (Warrior). Ooo! So she’s non-powered, but hanging out with folks who are affected by the Wyrding. How interesting!
I’m seeing Emah as a noble soul, which means that Spy, Assassin, and Thief don’t really work. She could be a “Guide,” except that she’s relatively new to Oakton, where our story begins. Instead, I like the idea that she’s a scholarly Warrior, someone there to protect her friends with martial force. Warrior it is.
Powers and Attributes
As a Rank 1 character, Emah received 3 rolls on the Powers table plus 10 Attribute points to spend. Because she’s a Warrior, she can trade one of these rolls for either Armor or Weapon Master, and must trade one for the Intensive Training option (4 extra Attribute points). In other words, she instead has only 2 Powers rolls and 14 Attribute points to spend.
For the first Powers roll, I will absolutely trade it for Weapon Master. I’ve already said that her mother trained her to help defend their homestead in the wilds north of Oakton, and what’s a warrior without weapon badassery? I’ve pictured it as a sword, which is basic but cool. This Super Skill will give her three combat maneuvers when wielding her blade: Superior Strike (+5 to Prowess with her weapon, and can use Prowess instead of Physique to calculate damage), Parry (+5 to Prowess, which she can use instead of Alertness when defending melee attacks), and Disarm (she can try to disarm one-handed weapons instead of deal damage).
That leaves me one Power roll remaining: I roll 49, which can also be a 94, and yields these options: Leaping, Vigor, Psychic Sense, Telepathy, Fire Mastery, Weather Control, Gadgetry/Tech Whiz, or Weapon Master. I’ve crossed out the ones that don’t make sense for a non-powered PC with her background, but there are still four juicy options. In reading through them, Leaping and Vigor are difficult to explain without superpowers, so they’re out, and taking Weapon Master a second time would make her too skilled compared to my vision for her. So that leaves Psychic Sense, which means effectively that she can sense danger and never be surprised. Cool! That’s one of those abilities that is easy to explain in a superhuman way or a “cool action hero” way, and I like thinking of Emah as always vigilant against danger. Heck, I even rolled that her attitude was “No one will ever hurt me again.”
I then turn to Attributes, which in Crusaders are Physique, Prowess, Alertness, and Psyche. Each begins with an average score of 9, and I have 14 points to distribute among them. As a swordswoman, Prowess seems like the key stat, so I’ll spend almost half there to give her a score of 15. I’ll also give her a Physique and Alertness of 13, leaving her Psyche alone. Emah is one of Oakton’s best swordfighters and is both fit and alert. She is, however, unprepared for any sort of mental attacks.
There is one derived stat, Vitality (i.e. hit points), which is 3x Physique. Emah’s Vitality is 39.
Final Touches
In terms of Motivation, I have a sneaky system in mind that’s grounded in what each PC’s powers are and how the forces behind their abilities are prodding them to act. Since Emah isn’t one of those directly transformed by the Wyrding, however, I’m free to figure out a motivation on my own that fits the character. The central question for her is: Why would someone without powers band together with people transformed, especially when it puts her in incredible danger, against otherworldly forces?
I’ll revisit my Background rolls above: Emah values her father, knowledge, and has vowed to never be hurt like she was when expelled from the Oakton school. I take that to mean she’s guarded with others, often seeing them as threats, so Survivor works. Another option is Analyst, as she’s driven to understand why these changes in the world are happening, perhaps even to prove herself to the head of school. Put another way, do I want Emah to be a survivor, pulled along in the eddies of fate, clinging desperately, or do I want her to be the Lois Lane of the story, tagging along despite impossible danger to find The Truth.
I’m leery of damsel-in-distress narratives (note that almost all my DCC characters were women) and Emah is more warrior than scholar, so that makes my decision easier. Emah will be a Survivor, a fighter who refuses to be put down by the forces arrayed against her. Not Lois Lane so much as John McClane, then. That motivation doesn’t explain why she’s with the superpowered PCs, but I’ll rely on bonds or relationships there once I’ve made those characters. In many ways, she’ll be our story’s less comedic Sokka.
One of the things I like about using Crusaders for my system is that it doesn’t get fiddly with equipment. Indeed, the Crusaders Companion lays out how I’ll use it in game, with slight renaming on my part: There are three types of gear: 1) Tools, which are equipment necessary for the use of a Super Skill. Emah’s sword is a Tool, for example, and she receives it for free. 2) Artifacts, which are equipment that simulate superpowers, like a ring of invisibility or a flying carpet. These are going to be exceedingly rare in the world of Age of Wonders, and will be either the result of Powers rolls or will add a Power to a character. Finally, 3) Crafted Items, which are equipment that simulate powers, but do so at about half the value of a power. If Emah goes to an armorer to get kitted out, this will be a Crafted Item (and will likely involve a Luck roll to see if she can obtain it). Crafted Items could go down a long and twisting rabbit hole, but I’m going to handwave most of it. If the PCs need torches, rope, or a backpack, I’m likely just going to let them have it if it makes sense in the story. I won’t be tracking rations, arrows, and the like in this game. I can have fun with resource-management games, but Crusaders is built to be focused on action.
So Emma has a sword, and that’s pretty much it in terms of equipment. In my mind’s eye, she’s wearing what most games would call leather armor, but I’ll say that mechanically it isn’t enough protection to warrant a Crafted Item, and essentially mimics what other adventurers would wear. Her Vitality is an abstract value that, in this case, includes whatever armor she’s wearing. Everything else she’s carrying I can puzzle out as needed once I’m in the game.
The character sheet I’ve created for my game is in Microsoft Excel, because I’m a nerd. Here’s a screenshot to show what I’ll be looking at when playing:
I am a big fan of rendering my main characters so that they spring to life in my mind’s eye during writing. I feel very fortunate to have met Roland Brown to commission some artwork. Find more at his website drawhaus.com. I’ll post the original sketch as well because both are awesome. Thank you, Roland!
art by Roland Brown (drawhaus.com)art by Roland Brown (drawhaus.com)
Stepping back, I’m psyched that my first PC is someone unchanged by the Wyrding, a witness to the changing world around her. I also like that, no matter what happens, I have a character who can jump into melee and scrap it up. It means almost certainly that I’ll have three starting characters, since I want at least a pair of “supers” at the outset (one of the nice things about solo gaming is that I can expand or reduce the roster without any real consequences). I suppose now there’s a danger that I’ll roll another non-powered character in the next two attempts, but I’ll cross that bridge if I come to it.
For now, let’s do what I started in DCC, write a small warm-up fiction scene to get a feel for her.
“Emah? Emah!”
“I can hear you, Matra,” she grumbled, hunching her shoulders. “I’m just ignoring you.”
Matra tsked rubbing furiously at a wooden bowl with a gray rag. The proprietor of the Dagger and Heart always dressed somewhere between a noblewoman and a prostitute, all fine fabrics, lace, and a tightly cinched corset, showing ample bosom. Today, the bodice was black, highlighted by crimson. Her ebon hair, streaked with gray, was pulled up elaborately, with artful braids, red ribbons, and two delicate curls falling across her rosy cheeks. She was a striking woman, yet those gray streaks, the crow’s feet at her eyes, the waddle of her neck—all spoke of someone who could be Emah’s mother.
“For three days you sit there,” the barkeep scolded, her words thick and clipped with her Mesca accent. “Barely touching my fine ale, shooting anyone a needle eye if they come near. Three days I let you frown at me and darken the mood of my tavern. This is no way to live, Emah. I thought you had found a new trade? Tell to me what is so wrong.”
Emah sighed through her nose. Resting elbows fully on the bar, she straightened her back and fixed Matra with a glare. Leather armor and straps creaked with the movement.
“I…” she cleared her throat. “I don’t like waiting,” Emah grumbled, reluctantly. “It’s been a week since I joined the Adventurer’s Guild, after, well…”
“Yes, yes. No need to speak of that,” Matra said, and made a warding sign with her hand, a quick motion as if picking a leaf from her shoulder, kissing it, touching it to forehead, then throwing it away, all done in a blink.
“Right. Anyway, a full week and no assignments posted for someone new. How am I supposed to eat if I can’t work?”
“The work will come. For now,” Matra shrugged. “Be with friends. Have fun while you are young, no?”
Emah grunted. “I find myself short on friends, right now. But just sitting around is driving me…”
“Well, well, well!” a gravelly voice carried from the front door, across the slanting beams of sunlight and empty tables. “If it isn’t my favorite sight in all of Oakton, Matra Cuencela! An ale for me and the boys, eh?”
Emah’s mouth snapped shut. She returned her face to its unhappy countenance, staring glumly at her full mug. She noticed that Matra’s face flickered with worry and something like disgust, only a fraction of a moment before she smiled widely with her too-red lips and white teeth.
“Welcome, Osen. A little early for you, no? The bard will not be here for several bells.”
“Fah,” the voice behind Emah answered. “Just wetting our lips. We’ll be back later, when… Oh! And what’s this?”
Emah flicked her eyes to the right. A thin Kaizukan man, his face shining with sweat, stood near her shoulder, looking her up and down with a smile of uneven and missing teeth. His black hair was thin and stringy, touching his shoulders. She flicked eyes to the left, where two other men crowded the bar, one from Kaizuka, the other a pale-skinned Stone Islander. All three of the newcomers wore sweat-stained, simple-spun shirts and pants, with long knives on their leather belts. They reeked strongly of fish and alcohol.
“You leave my other customers alone, Osen Haro,” Matra admonished. “I will bring your ales to your table. Go on, now.”
Osen guffawed. “I haven’t done anything wrong. Have I, lass? Just being friendly. Give us your name, sweetness.”
Emah frowned and flicked her eyes to the man.
“Oh, ho! Not so friendly! No need to drink alone, I think. Come join us, eh? We’ll get to know each other.”
“To your table, all of you,” Matra said, a tinge of desperation and forced humor in her voice.
“She doesn’t like ‘em scrawny,” one of the men on the left grunted, the Islander, a thickset brute with a bald head. “Step aside, Osen, and let me get to know her.”
“We all know you’re only big up top!” Osen cackled, and the other Kaizukan man chuckled. “Let her choose after getting to know us, eh? Come, come join us, lass, and tell us of yourself. Especially since no one else is here, ha! Come, come.” Osen waved an arm grandly to the empty tavern, then put a grubby hand on her leather-clad shoulder. Emah shrugged it off, throwing him a glare.
“Stop, Osen,” Matra said sternly, her smile gone. “If you want your ale, you’ll behave.”
“What have I done?” Osen responded, but his leering eyes never left Emah’s face. The alcohol already on his breath almost made her eyes water. “She hasn’t said no. Hasn’t said a damned thing. Come on, then, lass. Too good for an honest fisherman?”
“Go away,” Emah sighed. Her muscles loosened and she found the stillness that always preceded violence. Her mother’s words echoed like reflex in her mind: Fear narrows your vision and makes you stupid. Find your peace. Stay sharp. One hand dropped to her knee nonchalantly, keeping the hilt of her broadsword within easy reach.
“You heard her!” Matra gasped, pleadingly.
“Now listen, bitch,” Osen spat. “I was being nice before.”
“Mikán anitó niwé, má nyásho wékon némát,” Emah said, slowly and clearly, the clicks of her tongue on the ancient words pronounced, as she turned to the man to regard him with half-lidded eyes. She could feel the two others tense, ready to grab her.
“What’s that?” Osen scowled. “What did you say to me?”
“Stop this! Get out!” Matra yelled. “Osen Haro, get out of my bar!”
“It’s Old Kalee,” Emah shrugged. “Very old. From the Age of Immortals. It means ‘Walk your own path; do not chase all trails.’ First attributed to the poet Nijlel, I believe, but there’s some debate.”
“The age of–? What the fuck does–” he sputtered. “Screw this and screw you!” Osen’s hand reached for his knife.
Matra screamed.
Emah’s sword had left its scabbard and cut a red line across the man’s throat before his fingers had even touched the dagger’s hilt, making a wide arc of blood as she leapt from her chair. The warrior spun on the wood-planked floor and set her balance, even as Osen Haro clutched at the fountain of gore at his throat and collapsed.
By now you’re aware that I’m envisioning a new solo-play venture, one that involves a genre mash-up and thus a particular set of requirements for choosing my next game. These requirements are:
A superhero game that can be played in a fantasy setting, plus allow for anachronistic weapons and technology. Basically, the superpowers and fantasy elements need to be satisfying, but allow for other genre shenanigans.
Is neither too crunchy (if I’m consulting forums or rulebooks more often than writing, that’s bad) nor too lightweight (I need to feel like the dice are guiding the story and enhancing the narrative). I want to feel like the mechanics support the story.
Level-up jumps in power. My idea is that the PCs start as “street level” heroes and become demigods as the story progresses. Something will be pushing them closer to godhood, which is a core part of the story. The game should not only allow for those different levels, but be fun to play at all of them.
No hard-wired comics tropes (like secret identities, costumes, etc.). The story will be a genre mash-up, so I can’t hew too closely to any overly specific formulas.
I have another “lighter weight” game system on my pile, so I figured it would make sense to tackle it next in direct comparison to Supers! REDandProwlers & Paragons. It’s also the most popular of the three systems: It’s time for ICONS!
ICONS
ICONS (yes, it seems to be always capitalized, though it’s not an acronym… yell it with me now) is the brainchild of Steve Kenson, longtime TTRPG veteran and original designer of Mutants & Masterminds, probably the most popular and played superhero game of all time. In listening to interviews with Steve, it sounds like he was trying, with ICONS, to create a more accessible game than M&M, something that gamers of all ages could jump into with minimal start-up costs. This goal is further emphasized by the presentation of the core book (the “Assembled Edition” is the 2014 revised book, and seems to be the definitive ruleset), which features Saturday Morning Cartoon-like artwork from Dan Houser and is pocket-sized. Everything about ICONS is non-threatening and kiddie, which I’ll admit for me at first was a turn-off.
The bones of the game are steeped in Fate Core, a rules-light, narrative-focused system. Every opposed test includes rolling a single d6, adding the value of the Attribute or Power you’re using (always on a scale of 1 to 10), and comparing the result to another single d6 plus the opposing ability. Dead easy. Results of these tests have a narrative range (seven possible outcomes, from “Massive Success” to “Massive Failure”). Each character also has descriptive, non-numerical Qualities (e.g. “I can do this all day” or “All-American hero” might be on Captain America’s sheet), and players or the GM can invoke (using Determination points, the game’s metacurrency) these Qualities either for or against the PC. Stamina is the “hit points” stat, a combination of a character’s Strength and Willpower. Range and time in combat are both abstracted. All these points are like the previous two games I’ve explored and seem characteristic of many narrative games. I’ve read some reviews annoyed that ICONS uses many of the same mechanics as Fate Core but changes the terms unnecessarily. Since I’ve not played any Fate proper games, I’m blissfully unaware of these issues.
Sitting on top of these relatively basic mechanics are a metric ton of wrinkles and optional rules that make ICONS deceptively deep. Characters can combine effort to overcome otherwise-impossible opposing numbers, or the GM can set up “pyramid tests,” which are multistep challenges that simulate things like stopping trains from colliding. Players can retcon the fiction and use their powers for creative stunts. The game’s lethality is a choice, as are things like sustaining injuries. The list goes on and on, and that’s just from the 2014 rulebook. Over the past ten years, a metric ton of splatbooks, supplements, and additions have piled up, much like my bae Dungeon Crawl Classics. Unlike DCC, Steve Kenson has managed to collect many supplements into a few “greatest hits” books. For me, the best are Great Power, which adds a bunch of new powers to the base game, Origins, which expands the character creation process and introduces Knacks and Specialties, and ICONS Presents!, a 2019 summary of all sorts of variant rules and additions to the game. Included in this last book is a whole section on playing ICONS in a fantasy setting!
Character creation in ICONS is meant to be random (though there’s an optional point-buy way of making characters, the reverse situation from the last two games I explored) and is supposed to go quickly. So… let’s try it out!
To simulate what I want to do in my game, I’m dipping into ICONS Presents! for the alternate “fantasy hero” tables. I’m also going to roll on the very fun Background tables in Origins to flesh out the character. And, to fully stretch all the supplements I own, I’ll also use the expanded Powers tables in Great Power.
My first table is Origin, and I roll a 1 on a d6: My character is Arcane, with an innate gift for magical power. I also receive an additional arcane Knack.
I next roll on Archetype, a get a 5 on a d6: Stealth, adding +2 to my Coordination and Awareness. Cool. It’s an arcane trickster or thief of some kind.
Now it’s time to roll up my Attributes on 2d6, consulting a slightly modified table for Fantasy. Here is what I roll:
Prowess (ability to fight): 3 (Average)
Coordination: 6+2 from my Origin: 8 (Amazing)
Strength: 6 (Great)
Intellect: 6 (Great)
Awareness: 5+2: 7 (Incredible)
Willpower: 2 (Poor)
I then get to swap two Attributes, and I’ll swap Strength and Willpower. Whoever this person is, they’ll be a slight, agile, headstrong person, but not particularly musclebound.
Next I would roll for powers, but the Fantasy rules say to pick a few Knacks instead. I’m actually going to do a bit of both, selecting 2 each of Knacks and Specialties (their “fantasy” profession and skills), then rolling for a single Power.
For our magician-thief, I’ll pick Vanish and Escape Artist as Knacks, plus Stealth and Occult as Specialties. My character was, I’ve decided (at least until rolling up the background information), an Indiana Jones-like relic hunter before acquiring otherworldly abilities.
What was that Power? I roll “Offensive” and then “Dazzle.” My character can overwhelm an opponent’s senses somehow. Cool, and mighty handy given a PC who wants to mostly get out of combat instead of fight.
Now I turn to rolling up my character’s Background. After a whole bunch of rolls, I come up with a female, pale-skinned, seventeen-year-old who is a fun-loving and playful person. She values a mentor/teacher and yearns for love. She believes that people need leadership and guidance. She grew up in a rural community and was well-treated, at least until her entire family was betrayed by a loved one and lost everything. She then found a mentor and a windfall. Excellent stuff, random tables! I’ve got her in my mind, and as such writing her origin and Qualities is simple.
Here’s where I ended up:
The character creation process took me quite a bit longer than, say, Prowlers & Paragons, but that’s partly because I was flipping through four separate books. I have no doubt that it would become a fast process with practice. More importantly, it was fun, and generated a character that I could immediately drop into the story I’m wanting to tell.
Why ICONS Works For Me
It’s clear that Steve Kenson has put a lot of love over the past dozen years into ICONS, and it’s built on a Fate Core system that’s tried and true. As a result, ICONS is an intuitive system that is not only easy to understand but easy to tweak. I made a judgment call on what to use between standard superhero random character generation and the fantasy alternate tables without feeling self-conscious about the decision, even though Meri was my first character. Because the game always comes down to a single d6 role plus a single value, there’s not a lot to bog down speed of play. I love that the timekeeping system out of combat is divided into chapters, issues, and series, which sounds perfect for serial fiction. Which is all to say that ICONS’ core mechanics are easy to digest, easy to use, and I can easily see it working in my homebrewed world. With the four books I already own, I’m ready to play.
Although I didn’t think of it as a requirement when I began this process, I’m finding that random character generation is foundational to me being interested in the character creation process. Recall that I’m coming off six full months of Dungeon Crawl Classics, which is likely the most random-table heavy game in any genre. So much of solo play is combating my paranoia about overly railroading the story, and the randomness of rolls is what generates my surprise and delight. I’m already more interested in the character I made above than either of the Evlyn Towers I made with point-buy systems.
The level of support for ICONS is also heartening. There are tons of books, from both Ad Infinitum Adventures (Steve’s company) and third parties. I found no less than a dozen form-fillable PDF character sheets online, for example. There are Wiki and Facebook pages and a Discord server. The community feels dormant, but there’s still a faint heartbeat there. And hey… there’s even VTT support! I haven’t used Fantasy Grounds VTT before and have heard that it’s an expensive endeavor, but it’s nice to know that it’s there if I need it.
My ICONS Hesitations
My two hesitations on ICONS are related. First, because everything in the game is based on a 10-point power scale and every roll is a single d6, the power spread in the game doesn’t feel huge. As a result, I’ve read some forum comments that it might be a better game for low- and mid-level play instead of cosmic-threat level. It’s not a game that has particular rules for “street level” or “superheroic” play, because I don’t think those distinctions really exist in ICONS.
…Which means that it’s difficult to envision what “leveling up” looks like, when what I’m seeking are clear jumps in power once the character hit story milestones. There’s a section in the rulebook that discusses how to give Minor, Moderate, and Major Achievements, and Major Achievements (increasing Determination, adding Powers, etc.) might be enough, especially if I ignore the other two. It’s an open question, though, and one I probably wouldn’t sort out until I was already deeply invested timewise into my campaign. It would be a shame to get six months into a solo campaign, only to realize that I’m going to have to switch systems to fully realize the higher levels of play I had intended when I began.
I also don’t love juggling so many books to play, which is the same complaint I had with DCC. But I can’t really ding other systems for not having enough supplemental material and then complain that ICONS has too much material that I want to use. Consider this a minor irritant, not a reason to play another system.
One Game to Rule Them All
Of the three lightweight systems I’ve explored these past few weeks, it’s clear to me that ICONS is the best fit for what I want to do. The question is: Does moving it into first position on my list mean that I absolutely won’t come back to Supers! RED? For now, no. Yes, ICONS has the better character creation system, and far better support and materials. Supers! RED is different enough mechanically, though, that I may end up deciding that I want its narrative flexibility (particularly how it handles multiple Resistances) and the clear ladder of power levels. Heck, I could even see using the random tables in ICONS to generate the concepts for Supers! RED. So for now, I’ll keep both on the list:
My Hero Brain 