Age of Wonders, Issue 3c: Temple of the Rat God [with game notes]

On April 12, 2025April 19, 2025 By MagicJMSIn Age of Wonders, Fantasy Fiction, Superhero Fiction, Superhero Gaming, Tabletop Roleplaying2 Comments

Kami’s first thought upon glimpsing the scene beyond the curtain was that all her companions were soon going to die. Even, she suspected, the great cat Destiny. Probably not Kami herself, because she was not certain she could die any longer. Yet all the rest were doomed.

Alone, the primitive, stunted ratfolk were not particularly dangerous, much like rats themselves. Yet, also like commonplace rats, it seemed they were rarely alone.

The group had moved warily and quietly through a tunnel, following Destiny’s lead, to where the panther said the ratfolk were gathered. They’d reached a wide opening, blocked by not one but two tattered blankets arrayed side by side. Though so far Emah’s torch had been their only light in the underground warrens, surprisingly light flickered from behind the edges of the cloth. Not only light, though… Beyond the doorway they could hear the chittering and squeaking of what sounded like dozens of ratfolk. Perhaps more. The smell here was almost overpowering as well, like wet animals and feces crawling into her nose and down her throat. She stopped breathing, something she only recently realized she could do. The implications of not needing to breathe unnerved her, but it was—like so many other events from recent weeks—something left contemplated for a later time.

As they pushed the cloth gently aside, the group was confronted by an enormous chamber, perhaps fifty or more strides across and deep, and half that high. The walls of the place were packed hard, almost sculpted, and great wooden scaffolding was arrayed to support the ceiling and walls. Four wooden pillars, severed tree trunks with carved markings of some kind across their entire length, stood sentinel from floor to ceiling, giving the place the feeling of a temple or grand amphitheater. It was difficult to tell whether the ratfolk horde had found this place and built their warren around it, or whether this vast space had been their most ambitious work. Either way, it was an impressive gathering hall, especially so deep below the surface.

Against the wall to their left sat a raised, earthen dais, and atop it was a large wooden carving like the one they’d seen in the ratfolk bedchamber: A naked man with the head and tail of a rat. The statue stood fully twice as high as Kami, roughly hewn but impressive still in its menace and power. At the statue’s base stood a ratfolk in tattered robes, waving its furred and clawed hands rhythmically as it chittered. Two torches had been thrust into the earth on either side of the robed creature. Between them, at the ratfolk’s feet, sat the bejeweled box Kami had seen in Sami Suttar’s home. The torchlight caused the gems and gold to glitter hypnotically, casting dancing shadows all around the vast chamber.

Filling the chamber from the base of the dais throughout the rest of the room was a horde of ratfolk, arms raised and chittering in unison with the figure on the stage. A handful of other robed figures stood swaying closest the dais, and behind them amassed creatures like the ones they’d fought and killed several times the past day—each the size of a child, hunched and furred, with rat-like heads and beady eyes, claws tipping their long fingers and toes. They wore stained scraps of clothing, none alike. Finally, littered at the perimeter of the crowd, were several of the more hulking creatures like the one that had tackled Maly outside of the jail the previous day. Everything about these other ratfolk was stronger, larger, and more savage, almost like comparing a wolf to a domesticated dog. Unlike everyone else in the room, these rat-brutes prowled the crowd, black eyes overlooking their shorter brethren and scanning the chamber.

In all, it was a dizzying and overwhelming scene. Kami would not have been surprised to discover that a hundred in all of the creatures were in this chamber, this temple to some rat god far below Oakton. She could not even begin to fathom what it all meant, or what ritual or rite the robed priest atop the dais was performing. Kami wondered, in a brief flicker, what lay in the opened bejeweled box that she could not see, and why these primitive creatures had been so willing to die to obtain it.

Then she had no time to consider anything but survival.

If Kami hadn’t fumbled her attempt to deal with the sentries in the last installment, the party would have had some time to formulate a plan against this bizarre and bonkers scene. Instead, the ratfolk looked briefly for the intruders and, not finding them, doubled their guard during this sacred ritual. So, unfortunately, for Kami and her companions, they now must react instead of plan.

First, let’s get organized. In the chamber there are roughly 60 ratfolk worshippers that I’ll arrange into 10 mobs of 6 each, and each with a 10 Fight score. I’ll say there are 6 total lieutenants with the same stats as the one they fought outside the jail way back in Issue 1b: Physique 12 Prowess 12 Alertness 14 Psyche 10. There are also 4 new types of lieutenants, ratfolk priests: Physique 9 Prowess 10 Alertness 14 Psyche 15 with a “spell” that acts like Psychic Attack.

The ratfolk up on stage is a Rank 1 Villain, who I’ll call Tatter, the High Priest. Time to make another NPC!

Origin: I’m pretty open to who this high priest is, so let’s just roll on my variant tables and see what happens. I roll 85 or 58, which is either a non-powered Spy/Assassin/Thief/Guide or a Wyrding – Power Endowment. The latter makes more sense to me. This is a ratfolk that was granted otherworldly power by the recent Wyrding and thus became the high priest of this society.

In this specific scene, I’m not too worried about Tatter’s history vis a vis the ICONS Origins tool, but I’ll do a couple of rolls here. Tatter is female, relatively young, social ratfolk who values herself and her friends more than anything else. Okay, interesting… so she’s a bit like a “child avatar,” a normal ratfolk teenager equivalent who was granted power and thrust into the role of high priest. I don’t know if that will matter in the story, but it’s fun.

Powers: As a Rank 1 character, Tatter gets 3 Power rolls. They are:

Roll 1: 33, which is choose or invent my own!

Roll 2: 41 or 14, which is Flight, Armor, Psychic Sense, Emotion Control, Fire Mastery, Energy Blast, Detective or Acrobat.

Roll 3: 21 or 12, which is Energy Blast, Armor, Mind Control, Emotion Control, Energy Blast, Alchemist, or Acrobat.

The ones that most stood out to me given Tatter’s role and station were Mind Control and Emotion Control, so I’m going to focus my attention there. I’ll use the first and third role for Mind Control with an Improvement: Collective Mind Control. She can basically make people (and even crowds with a united purpose, like the ratfolk horde) do what she wants. I’ll use the second roll, then, for Emotion Control. I’ll say that she can induce emotions with the same parameters as her Mind Control powers.

Attributes & Motivation: As a Rank 1 Villain, she gets 10 Attribute points to spend, same as our PCs. I’ll give her the array of Physique 10, Prowess 10, Alertness 14, Psyche 16. This also means that her Vitality is 30 (Physique x3). Motivation-wise, I’m not going to overthink this and just call her a Leader. Why are the ratfolk doing all this stuff from the previous installments? The answer seems to be because Tatter is making them do it. This also means that taking Tatter out will dramatically change the crowd’s attitudes.

Here’s Tatter’s character sheet:

Okay, despite the fumble I’m not crazy enough to kick off a combat with all these forces at once. Instead, I’m going to say that the room is focused on Tatter and her ritual, and only the closest guards will sense the PCs and act against them. For now, I’ll say that’s 1 brute-lieutenant and 1 mob of 6 ratfolk. The savage brute will attack, and the mob will use their action to alert more of the audience. At the end of each turn, I’ll make an Alertness roll to see if Tatter notices what’s happening (at which point all hell will break loose).

Initiative-wise, then, we have for Round 1:

Maly (Alertness 15)
Brute Lieutenant 1 (14)
Kami & Emah (each 13)
Destiny (12)
Ratfolk mob 1 (10)

The party absolutely does not have to make this an epic, large brawl, and fleeing is absolutely an option. Let’s see how this goes…

Maly will get instruction from Destiny (what’s the plan? Stay tuned!) and try and move before the action really begins. She’ll roll Prowess against the first mob, but not to attack and instead to move through them. With her Prowess of 13 and the mob’s Fight of 10, that’s a 65% chance of success. She rolls 58 and makes her way into the crowd. I’ll say one more success next round and she can be at the dais relatively unmolested.

The brute lieutenant has a choice between attacking Emah and Kami. I roll odds and it’s Emah. With her sword, Emah can defend melee attacks with a Prowess of 20 versus the brute’s score of 12. That’s a 90% chance of success and she rolls 15, parrying the attack easily.

Now’s the big decision: Do Emah and Kami run or fight or do something else? Hm. Let’s bust out the Mythic GM Emulator and insert some randomness into the action! Normally I’d do this for NPCs but I am curious how this might play with my PCs. I’ll roll twice on the Character Actions table: I get “Normal” and “Messy.” That leads me to believe that they’ll follow their normal tendencies, which for Emah will be to stay and fight for her friend and for Kami is to end the mission (which means exterminating the ratfolk) and free herself of her contract. For both, this will certainly get messy.

I’ll roll attacks for Emah (80% chance to hit the brute: 58. Hit and killed!), Kami (50% to hit the mob: 11. Critical hit! I’ll say she not only does her 30 damage, crushing half of the rats in one go, but manages to do so quickly and quietly), and Destiny (60% versus the mob: 13. Hit! 17 damage).

The first ratfolk mob only has 2 members left, one very injured. And, because of Kami’s crit, I’ll say the action doesn’t alert nearby lieutenants and mobs. The party might get some time to plan, after all! The only obstacle is Tatter, who gets an Alertness roll to see if she spots the activity in the back of the temple on her own, since she’s the only one facing them. I’ll give it a Hard difficulty in Round 1, dropping in difficulty each round. With her Alertness of 14, that’s a 45% chance: I roll 01. Oh boy. She definitely notices. Yikes.

The nearest large, savage ratfolk whipped its head towards them as they gathered beyond the curtained doorway. Then, with a snarl, it leapt at Emah. The Kaleen warrior raised her sword in a flash, intercepting the attack and sidestepping. Meanwhile, the ratfolk nearest them turned away from the chanting upon the dais and began chittering excitedly, pointing and moving closer to them.

“What!?” Maly whispered harshly, though no one had spoken. Kami guessed that the woman was once again having a one-sided conversation with the great, black cat. “You’re crazy! Okay. Okay! Just… Keep them safe and I’ll be back!”

Then, to Kami’s shock and horror, the pale-skinned woman dove into the onrushing crowd, tumbling and disappearing within the horde.

She had no time to ask what the fool mercenary was thinking or to help. Instead, at the speed of thought her arms lengthened wide. Like a mother embracing her oncoming children, Kami’s arms enfolded three of the nearest creatures, then closed tight. She could feel their small, furred bodies crack in her grip. They shrieked and shuddered briefly before falling still, and Kami dropped them to the dirt floor.

Near her, Emah pulled a blood-slicked blade from the side of the hulking ratfolk that had been grappling with her, its body now lifeless. The panther Destiny was savaging two of the smaller creatures, one already dead in its jaws and another squirming weakly beneath its claws.

That was fast, Kami thought proudly. The other ratfolk near them had their backs turned still, swaying and chittering and focused on the dais. Perhaps we can all survive this room, after all. If we can stay silent back here, we can make a plan. But… where is Maly?

Her eyes scanned the crowd, amazed that she could miss the Stone Islander amidst a sea of small, furred ratfolk. Kami thought that perhaps she spied a jostle of movement in the weak, flickering light, rats chittering in surprise as they were pushed aside. But before she could be sure, the robed figure on the dais stopped its swaying. Its dark, beady eyes focused on the back of the crowd, where Kami, Emah and the panther stood, and pointed a clawed finger. More loudly than it had been chanting, the figure chittered something defiant and sharp.

The entire crowd turned as one to regard them.

“Well… shit,” Emah gulped.

Next: Issue 3 Reflections!

Age of Wonders, Issue 3b: Into the Warrens [with game notes]

On April 5, 2025April 12, 2025 By MagicJMSIn Age of Wonders, Fantasy Fiction, Superhero Fiction, Superhero Gaming, Tabletop Roleplaying1 Comment

“You must be joking,” Maly said, crossing her arms and frowning. “We are not going down there.”

She, Emah, and Kami stood huddled in a musty, stone-walled cellar of the house that was once Sami Suttar’s, at a lonely cul-de-sac in the Coins. Torchlight from a short and portly City Watch guard revealed wooden shelves that had been emptied of whatever they once held, all except a few empty boxes and frayed, decaying sacks. Patches of pallid mushrooms sprouted on the earthen floor.

And there, against the western wall, was a ragged hole that looked as if it had been gnawed and clawed open from beyond.

Behind them, the liquid shadow that was Maly’s giant cat companion rumbled a low growl. The nearby Watchman yelped and moved as far as he could away from the beast. Emah couldn’t blame him. Destiny the… panther, Maly had called him? Everything about the panther’s presence spoke of a dangerous predator.

“No, I’m not scared,” Maly whispered harshly over her shoulder. “I’m just being practical. That is a deathtrap. Look how small the hole is! Emah, tell him.”

Emah sighed and immediately regretted it. Her entire torso was a quilt of bruises, and Maly had said perhaps her ribs had broken from the ancient bronze armor’s immense blow. Breathing at all hurt, but anything more sent spines of agony coursing through her. She winced and said through gritted teeth. “It’s small,” she agreed. “But the rats look like they made it big enough to go two abreast and carry whatever it is they stole upstairs. We’ll have to crouch, but we can fit.”

“Oh, well that’s just…” Maly threw up her hands in frustration. “Why do we care what they stole, again? Can’t we just wait for them here? Lay a trap or something?”

“They’re not returning,” Kami said evenly. The woman had said little since Emah had risen, though she’d asked after Emah’s health tenderly enough. Emah thought that Kami must be feeling vulnerable after having revealed her otherworldly powers and strength. Certainly, Maly had given Kami a wide berth, like she would spontaneously burst into flames at any moment. The three of them were overdue to have a long talk, and soon. That is, assuming they survived the, as Maly called it, deathtrap before them. “They stole what they wanted.”

“We’re not going after the box they stole,” Emah clarified for Maly. “Our contract is to ensure we exterminate the ratfolk or keep them from entering Oakton. This hole leads to wherever their warren is. At least that’s the theory.”

“Emah,” Maly pleaded. “You don’t follow a bear back to its cave.”

“You do if you’re trying to kill it,” Emah shrugged, and winced with pain. No more shrugging either, she scolded herself. “And what do you know of hunting bears, anyway? You’ve never left the city.”

“It’s an expression,” Maly pouted.

“One you made up,” Emah chuckled, and then told herself definitely no more chuckling. Fire blossomed in her chest and side.

“I will go first,” Kami said grimly, and took a step forward.

“No wait,” Maly held up her hands. “Destiny says he’ll go first.”

The panther stalked forward, and they parted to give him access to the hole. His yellow eyes glinted in the torchlight.

“Watchman,” Emah said to the man at the far end of the cellar. “I assume we are going alone?”

The man’s eyes were wide on his sweaty face. “We– we’ll guard the house, ma’am. Unless… unless you need us?”

She remembered Sergeant Mewa and his handsome face and strong arms. He had been a capable warrior, and intelligent, and he and his two Watchmen had been torn apart by the rats. She had been in bed when they’d taken his body away, so she hadn’t even paid her respects. A wave of sadness for a man she hardly knew washed over her, a regret of lost potential of someone she would have liked to know better. This terrified man before her was everything Mewa was not, and she could see no value in him accompanying them. Indeed, it seemed Inspector Calenta had assigned her greenest and least capable members to the house while she dealt with whatever else was happening in the city.

“No,” she told the man. “But give me your torch.”

He almost stumbled forward to comply. By the time Emah had turned with the wooden tool in her grip, the panther had disappeared.

Maly whimpered. “He says it’s all clear and that we should follow.”

“Let’s get this done,” Kami said, and ducked her way into the savage, black gash in the wall. Emah stooped after her, holding the torch in front of her. A long, earthen tunnel ran down and away in the darkness. “Stay close, Maly. We’ve got this.”

She moved forward, her ribs flaring with pain with every step, following the ratfolk to their lair.

[It’s been a while since I’ve made a roll, so let’s see how well they make their way through the rat’s maze. Crusaders doesn’t use skill rolls, per se, but it seems to me that an Alertness roll will help determine the party’s general sense of being lost. I’ll have Destiny do the honors, since he is taking the lead. Destiny’s Alertness is 12, which I’ll pit against a Standard difficulty value of 10. That gives the panther a 60% chance of success to find his way to something valuable, and doubles below that number will be a critical success. Likewise, any doubles above 60 will be bad news. The roll is… 22! Critical success! Destiny leads them right to where they want to be, and without incident.]

Emah wasn’t certain how much time had passed in the tunnels beneath Oakton. The place was an immense warren worthy of any rat’s nest, an intricate series of passages dug through hard-packed earth in all directions. It smelled of fur and feces, a subtle but ever-present stench that had Emah feel unclean. As they proceeded, it became clear that the ratfolk had been able to access points all across Oakton. In addition, there were either many more of the creatures than any of them had suspected or they had been tunneling beneath the town for a long, long time. Perhaps both. Yet despite frequent droppings, discarded or broken tools, and remnants of food, they had neither heard nor seen the ratfolk yet.

Destiny the panther had assured Maly that he could find their way back when their task was done, or at least that’s what Maly informed them that he’s said. Yet even without the great cat’s tracking senses, it would not have been difficult to navigate the maze of tunnels in a general way. To get to Oakton, take a tunnel sloping upwards.

To find the true home of the ratfolk, go down.

They did not speak overly much while exploring the black tunnels. Maly relayed Destiny’s reports from ahead, that he was following the strongest scents, and now and again Emah and her friend would banter about the terrifying press of darkness all around them to keep one another sane. Kami never participated in these conversations, which usually was the reason they all fell silent. Their recent employer seemed tense, angry, and relentlessly focused on completing their mission. Emah was reminded again that, if they all survived this contract and were going to continue associating with the brothel-owner, they would need to have a serious discussion to build trust.

Every step sent a stab of pain into Emah’s side, and the relentlessness of it meant that her entire body ached. She proceeded forward as best she could, keeping eyes scanning the torchlit shadows and ears questing for any sounds but their footsteps and ragged breathing. The lack of ratfolk was an eerie thing, and their absence sat in Emah’s stomach uneasily.

Suddenly, Maly froze. Kami and Emah stuttered to a halt behind her.

“What is it?” Emah whispered.

Maly held up a hand, as if listening, but Emah heard only silence.

“Destiny says there are rats ahead,” Maly breathed quietly. “Sentries.”

Two ratfolk guards are patrolling the outside of the place the party will want to infiltrate. Rolling a full combat with two thugs feels unnecessary, but the question is how quickly and quietly the heroes can deal with the guards before they raise an alarm. I’ll take the lowest Prowess, which is Kami’s at 10, and do a roll against, again, a Standard difficulty rating of 10. I trust Emah, Destiny, and Maly to be stealthy, so it will be Kami’s skill that will determine the outcome, giving the overall success rate at 50%.

Kami rolls a 77, which is a critical failure. Ouch. Not only will she fail to deal with the sentries quietly, but one will escape to put the party on an active clock.

“Okay,” Emah nodded, transferring the torch to her free hand and quietly unsheathing her blade. “We should…”

“I’m not afraid of them,” Kami growled, and strode forward, past her startled companions.

“Kami, wait!” Maly whispered urgently, but it was too late. The woman had already disappeared around a bend. There was a squeak of alarm and another of pain, and then Emah was there, sword out front. One crumpled ratfolk lay at Kami’s feat.

“Curse these creatures! One got away!” Kami grunted in frustration.

The panther growled, and Maly nodded in response. “That was dumb,” she snapped, and Kami blinked in surprise. “You want the whole army of them on top of us? We could have done this silently.”

“I thought–” the Kaizukan woman began, and then shook her head, exhaling forcefully through her nose. “You’re right. I apologize.” She looked at Emah briefly and said, almost demurely. “What do we do now?”

“It went to sound an alarm, I assume,” Emah said through the throbbing pain in her side. “But the fact that there are guards means we’re close to something. Let’s hurry and see if we can find a place to hide. If not, we fight.”

The panther huffed and began loping forward. The others followed, though running in a crouch was agony for Emah’s battered side. For the next stretch of time—it could have been minutes, it could have been a full bell, she couldn’t be sure through her near-blinding pain—they weaved through even larger tunnels, the ground hard-packed and well-trod. Echoing from nearby passages and around curves they heard the telltale chittering and squeaking of ratfolk, and Maly told them breathlessly that the panther smelled the things everywhere.

Eventually, they found that they had been largely circling a central destination of some kind, complete with tattered, mismatched cloth and burlap flaps as doors. Perhaps it was the topmost section of a larger living area, or perhaps the barricades were meant to distinguish the warren from other traveling passages beyond. Regardless, Destiny led them past several of the doorways and to a passageway blocked by a long woolen cloak that what looked like it had once belonged to an Oaktowner. The large black beast pushed its way past the cloak and the other followed, into an empty chamber beyond.

“He says there are older smells here, nothing new,” Maly whispered, her face slick with sweat in the torchlight. “It’s as good a hiding place as we’re likely to find.”

“I was… rash,” Kami said. Unlike Maly and Emah, she neither seemed out of breath nor sweating. “I should not have charged those sentries in the darkness without help.”

“We all agree,” Emah gasped, and sat, back against one earthen wall, trying to catch her breath and find respite from the pain. “Don’t do it again. We need each other alive.”

They were in a modestly sized space, but it was certainly a chamber instead of a tunnel. Roughly square, with several sleeping pallets made of straw, scraps of clothing, and various trash. A low, battered table was its only furnishing, and atop the table was a curious, crude statue made of wood that nevertheless distinctly appeared to be a naked man with a rat’s head and tail. If Emah were to guess, it looked like an idol of some kind. Did these ratfolk worship a rat… god? The idea made her uncomfortable, for it meant a level of intelligence that she hadn’t attributed to them. Perhaps extermination wasn’t the aim here, but diplomacy instead? Her mind whirled, thoughts scattered by stabs of pain.

“What is this place?” she said in quiet wonder. “What are these creatures?”

No one answered.

Because I’ve switched to using published material as inspiration, I know the layout of this place. So there’s no need to roll my Mythic GM Emulator for the type of location this is or what lies in the doorways beyond. There are, however, two exits from here that lead to very different places, which I know but the PCs do not. I’ll roll a simple d10 for odds/evens. I roll a 7, which means they go left. That means they drop directly into the action…

Emah squeezed her eyes tight, her breathing shallow. Her ribs hurt terribly. Her thoughts were a jumble. Would she die down here?

Unbidden an image of her mother appeared in her mind, face strong and smiling. Her mother’s natural countenance was intimidating in its seriousness, like a predator. But when she smiled, those white teeth contrasting with the dark chocolate of her skin, well… the whole world lit up, her father used to say. Emah couldn’t remember the sound of her laugh, though the image of the smile was enough in this moment to lift her spirits. She fixed her mother’s happy portrait in her mind, focused on it while walling away the pain into a smaller and smaller space, until the little package of pain was a fraction the size of her mother’s countenance. Then, like a portrait on a wall, she tucked the pain behind the image, blocking it from view. For one long, even breath she stared at her mother’s dark eyes, her full lips, drawing strength. No, she decided. She would not die down here, in these rat warrens away from the sun and her father.

She exhaled and opened her eyes. Maly and Kami looked at her, concerned, while the panther prowled at the far end of the room near another tattered cloth.

“You okay?” Maly mouthed, eyes wide.

Emah nodded. With only a small grunt she stood. “Let’s go and do our job,” she whispered, and realized that she had not sheathed her mother’s sword. The blade shone in the torchlight, flashing like the smile in her image. She grinned.

Destiny pushed through the cloth hanging and the others followed. Beyond was a passageway, branching left and right.

“Which way?” Emah asked Maly.

The woman cocked her head. “He says the rat smell is strongest to the left. And…” her whispered voice trailed off and she swallowed.

“What is it?” Kami said, her face narrowed with suspicion.

“And he says there are a lot of them.”

“Are they coming towards us?” Emah asked, eyes searching the small living space for a defensible position.

Maly paused, waiting for the answer, and then shook her head.

“You didn’t want to have them all swarm us,” Kami hissed through clenched teeth. Her tone suggested that she did not like speaking of her own mistakes, but Emah did appreciate that she asked the next question before acting independently. “Do we go crush them now or flee?”

Emah looked from the Kaizukan woman to her friend’s wide-eyed face to the black mass of the panther. She sighed.

“Let’s go see what they’re up to,” Emah said.

Next: So many rats!

Age of Wonders, Issue 3a: The Roar of Destiny [with game notes]

On March 29, 2025April 5, 2025 By MagicJMSIn Age of Wonders, Fantasy Fiction, Superhero Fiction, Superhero Gaming, Tabletop Roleplaying1 Comment

Maly’s elation at Destiny’s arrival was cut short when two ratfolk jumped atop Sergeant Mewa, one upon a shoulder with a shard of glass and another at his waist with a crude stake. As Mewa grunted, they plunged their weapons into him again and again in the span of a heartbeat, chittering madly as they did so. The City Watchman gurgled and slumped to the floor of the landing as their companions swarmed up the stairs, flowing around Maly and into the breach of wall made my Kami earlier in the battle.

She glanced at the staircase, hearing the roar of the panther as it pounced upon the fleeing ratfolk.

Alas, Sergeant Mewa… we hardly knew ye. We pick up the combat with Round 5! Before we get into the action, let’s remind ourselves of the initiative order as well as where everyone stands (or, in Emah’s case, sits woozily) health-wise. All three of our City Watch members are dead, including most recently Sergeant Hakau Mewa. Their death also means that the ratfolk mobs can either enter the room with the other combatants or the room in which Kami made a hole through the wall. Here’s the initiative order, health, and location of each remaining combatant:

Maly (30 Vitality, landing)
Kami (2 of 30, main room)
Emah (1 of 39, main room – also needs to get her sword)
Destiny (30, 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, main room)

Maly will take a swipe with her daggers at the ratfolk as they move past her. She has a 65% chance of hitting and rolls 49. She kills one and takes another to half health.

Kami is facing off against the Bronze Armor alone. She would normally have a 50% chance to hit, but with the Aura of Fear that is 30%. She rolls 13, though! She’ll use her full strength, dealing a whopping 30 damage. Armor subtracts 10, but that’s still a big wallop and takes it to 19 Vitality. Moreover, it would deal significant knockback to most creatures, but the Bronze Armor’s 38 Strength Level means that it is just a deafening strike.

Emah is no longer stunned, but she spends the round retrieving her sword and standing. She is on 1 Vitality.

Destiny is bounding after the fleeing ratfolk. He has a 60% chance of success and rolls 45. With his claws, he does 17 damage, killing one of the mob and severely injuring another.

The first mob is the one Maly attacked and will try and kill her while their brethren attend to other business. With her Acrobatics, though, she cannot be hit. They won’t try that again.

Ratfolk mobs 2 & 3 travel into the room beyond the hole in the wall, taking the small box encrusted with gold and jewels (this is what they were after all along). I’ll say they have moved to the Perimeter of the battle as a result.

Finally, the Bronze Armor has just been dented by Kami’s mighty blow. It will try and return the favor. Its Prowess is 16 against her Elasticity score of 25. That would normally give her a 95% chance of dodging, but with the Aura of Fear it drops to 75%. She rolls 64, though, and remains elusive. A good round for our heroes!

“Where do you think you’re going?” Maly panted, spinning a dagger in each hand. She extended her tattooed arms to either side as mangy rat-people ran past her like a stinking river of furry bodies. One of her blades sliced across a creature’s neck and another cut across ribs. Both ratfolk squealed, and suddenly a pair of them flashed claws in the dim light. Maly danced to avoid one strike and ducked another. Despite the madness of the situation—fighting primal, inhuman creatures she would have thought a children’s story, with an enormous black cat as her companion who spoke in her mind, while a woman with impossible strength fought a glowing-eyed man in a full suit of bronze armor—Maly grinned. Her endless training was serving her well.

Stay focused! the cat roared in her mind. Destiny had reached the top of the staircase. It shook a lifeless rat in its jaws while raking claws across another’s back, and Maly once again marveled at the creature. It resembled a house cat, its coat sleek and black, but was the size of a large hunting dog, its shoulders to Maly’s waist. The great cat called itself a “panther,” which Maly thought described it as well as anything – a new word for a new kind of beast. Intelligent yellow eyes stared back at her. Continue ripping the small toys, the panther growled in her mind. I’ve got the big one.

As it loped past her into the room with Emah and Kami, she heard a thunderous CLANG! followed by a grunt of satisfaction from Kami. “Come on!” the woman yelled, seemingly taunting the figure in the armor. At least, Maly thought, it sounded like that part of the fight was going well. Her eyes glanced to Sergeant Mewa, laying lifeless near her feet, and the other two Watch members, their forms still and bloody. Better than this part, at least.

Then she spun the daggers again in her grip, leaping after the swarm of rats.

Round 6, with the same combatants remaining. I have a feeling this fight is coming to an end.

Maly (30 Vitality, landing)
Kami (2 of 30, main room)
Emah (1 of 39, main room)
Destiny (30, main room)
Ratfolk mob 1 (10,5, landing)
Ratfolk mob 2 (10,10,10, other room)
Ratfolk mob 3 (10,3, other room)
Bronze Armor (19 of 54, main room)

Maly will try and take out the rest of mob #1, still with a 65% of success. Her roll of 68 means that either she’s too distracted or they’re too tricksy.

Can Kami or Emah end the Bronze Armor threat? Kami has a 30% of success and rolls 56. Emah, meanwhile, has a Prowess of 20 with her sword, giving her an 80% chance of success even with the Aura of Fear. She rolls 72, hitting and dealing 20 damage, minus 10 from her opponent’s Armor. It’s at 9 Vitality.

…just in time for Destiny to arrive! The panther uses its Psychic Attack against the Bronze Armor. His Psyche score is 14 versus 10, which means a 70% chance of success. That attack is, thankfully, not a melee attack, and thus doesn’t suffer the penalty from the Aura. Destiny rolls 09, and pow! 14 psychic damage to the dome. The Bronze Armor has not activated its Psychic Shield (why would it?), so the attack fells the enchanted armor. Woo!

With the box in hand, all three ratfolk mobs will exit stage left. They want no part of the fight in the other room or to face the PCs, so they use their turn to flee. By the time the party knows what happened, they’re gone. Fight over!

The ratfolk weren’t interested in staying to fight her, it seemed. She slashed with her knife, eliciting a screech from one of them as she nicked its long, ropy tail. But then the tide of furry bodies had disappeared into the jagged hole left by Kami’s flight through the air. She still couldn’t believe that the armored guy had punched her through a wall, or that she had stood up and continued fighting. Whatever Kami was, it was something extraordinary. As extraordinary, she supposed, as every other weird happening from today.

Maly hesitated for a moment, wondering what to do. Should she pursue the rats into that other room or help Emah and Destiny? Then she shook her head. Despite the panther’s instruction, that was no choice at all. She ran into the room with her friends.

The warrior in the full suit of bronze armor was now battered, with one shoulder malformed as if it had been hit by a battering ram. The person’s eyes in the helm still glowed an eerie blue in the fading light, however, and as soon as she entered the room an apprehension clenched at her gut. The armored figure turned between Emah, who looked as if she could barely stand and was clutching at her side, and Kami, trying to defend himself against both attackers.

Maly stopped for a moment, stunned at her recent employer. The Kaizukan woman’s torso and arms had elongated, like pulling gooey sap from a tree, and her fists had grown to twice their original size. Even as she watched, the armored warrior threw a gauntleted punch at Kami and her misshapen body moved to avoid it easily. It was like the man was battling mist, or perhaps trying to strike a dangling rope in the wind. Kami flowed and moved her body in impossible ways, looming with those large hands. Indeed, Maly realized now that the enormous dent in the armor’s shoulder was from one of Kami’s oversized fists. The woman was clearly not a trained fighter, but she was displaying the same freakish strength that had bent iron bars in the jail this morning. If she could land a hit, she could do tremendous damage.

Destiny broke Maly from her thoughts as he roared at the three combatants before him. Kami and Emah looked wide-eyed at the great, black cat, its mouth open to reveal white teeth like daggers. Yet it was the armored warrior’s response that was most shocking; the blue light in the eye sockets flared in response to the roar and it reeled back, as if struck in the helmet. The warrior tipped and fell back from the unseen strike, and when it landed to the floor, the armor burst apart. Grieves, gauntlets, pauldrons… Maly didn’t know all the names of the parts of armored suits, but they all crashed and clattered in different directions, empty. It was as if the man wearing the armor had vanished with Destiny’s roar, leaving only the bronze armor behind. A helmet rolled Maly’s way, almost lazily, amidst the cacophony. It stopped a stride from her feet, eye sockets empty and dark.

“What did you do?!” Maly gasped at the great cat. In her mind, she heard a huff of satisfaction. “Where did you send him?”

The panther’s yellow eyes regarded her evenly. There was no “him.” The enchantment on the armor is gone. He sighed, and Maly could hear it like someone sitting on her shoulder with lips against her ear. It’s too bad. Nothing soft to tear and rip like the little dirty toys.

“The rats!” Maly yelled, and without thinking dashed back into the landing, daggers ready. She looked around wildly in the fading light, but there were only the three dead City Watch members and a scattering of small, furred bodies. Blood spattered everywhere, and Maly’s stomach lurched.

You’re too late, child. The toys have fled.

“Wh—what?” she panted, holding her bile at bay. She stumbled back into the room, where Kami remained distorted, her large fists raised, as she stared at Destiny.

“Maly!” she barked. “What is this?”

“Oh!” Maly said and sheathed her daggers. “It’s okay! This is Destiny. My friend.”

We are not friends, the panther rumbled. I am your instrument of vengeance.

“I’m not saying that,” Maly mumbled sidelong.

“Your… friend?” Emah wheezed, and then swayed. The woman’s sword clattered to the floor as she collapsed.

“Emah!” Maly cried.

Although Maly was injured against the first ratfolk lieutenant way back in Issue 1b, I haven’t yet discussed healing and recovery in the Crusaders rpg. In an interesting game design choice, heroes in Crusaders always recover their full Vitality total between scenes unless they are in a “critical state” (which would have happened to Kami and Emah had either taken more damage). This doesn’t mean that their injuries are gone, but that the heroes have pulled themselves together enough to keep going. The game is meant to simulate comic books, after all. I’m fine with this mechanic, but for my own sense of realism it means that I’m going to fast-forward the narrative to a point where the “I can do this all day” phenomenon isn’t completely silly. It also means that I have no worries about going hard against the heroes in future battles!

Emah groaned and cracked open her eyes, then winced and raised a hand to shield her face from a beam of sunlight.

“There she is!” Maly smiled brightly. “Welcome back to the world.”

Emah blinked and looked around woozily. “Where are we?” she croaked, her voice a dry whisper. Maly passed her a waterskin and Emah took it, sipping gratefully. As she swallowed, she visibly winced.

“Easy,” Maly cautioned. “You may have some broken ribs. It’s tough to tell because of all the intense bruising across half your side.”

“Where?” Emah persisted, and Maly glanced around. Her friend lay in a large poster bed set against a wall, its drapes drawn shut but illuminated by sunlight beyond. A fireplace filled with ancient ashes and charred wood was across room against the far wall. A wardrobe, towering like an escarpment, stood against another wall. The place smelled of dust and old linens.

“Ah, yeah. We’re still in the house. It’s morning. We moved you to the bedroom on the second floor. It’s musty and old, but otherwise pretty nice I guess,” Maly shrugged a bare shoulder. She had been up most of the night and stifled a yawn. “Inspector Calenta and her people cleared out most of the bodies. A couple of them are guarding the downstairs with Kami. Except Calenta left because Kami kept insulting her.”

Emah sighed and closed her eyes. “I remember the man in the armor, and then… a huge cat? What happened.”

Heat rushed to Maly’s cheeks. “His name is Destiny. He’s my… I don’t know. We met a few days ago. I’ve been trying to tell you, but we never really had any time to talk.”

The woman’s eyes opened. She grinned. “You met a giant cat and named it Destiny?”

“I didn’t name him!” Maly threw up her hands in exasperation. “That’s just what he calls himself.”

“Calls himself,” Emah frowned. “Is that who you’ve been talking to? The giant cat? Oh honey…”

“I’m not crazy,” Maly snapped. “Here, Destiny,” she turned and Emah’s eyes followed to see the panther sitting outstretched against a wall, light dappling its black fur from the window. Its yellow eyes looked back at them. Maly saw Emah stiffen. “I know you only talk to me, but, uh… I don’t know. Do something to show I’m not crazy. Come lay a paw on Emah’s leg or something.”

You do not command me, child, the great cat said in her mind, and within the room he grumbled with a low growl.

“Fine, fine!” Maly snapped. “He’s moody. But,” she held up a warning finger to Emah. “I’m not crazy. He does talk to me.”

Emah’s eyes never left the great cat. She licked her lips. “Okay…” she breathed cautiously. “Maly, what’s happening? The way Kami’s body moves. Her strength. The armored warrior with the glowing eyes. All these… ratfolk. And you’re talking to a giant cat. Maybe I’m the one losing my wits.”

“If you are, we all are. Inspector Calenta says that wild things are happening all across Oakton. The City Watch can’t keep up, and the stuff you described is just part of it. She seems really stressed. Oh! But she did bring our contracts. I signed for you.” Maly smiled. “So at least we’re getting paid in this child’s tale of a city.”

“Thanks,” Emah grunted. “But what does it all mean? Why are these things happening? It all sounds like the Age of Immortals again.”

“Heh, like I know? I don’t think the gods are back, Emah. But you’re the scholar, not me. I’m just glad you’re alive. Now that I know you’re okay, Destiny, Kami, and I are going after the rats. Kami said there was some sort of bejeweled box in that room she crashed into. It must have been what the rats were after from the beginning because it’s gone now. We think the dead ones on the stairs were trying to get past the armor to the other room, but when we started fighting it they used the distraction to go into the hole in the wall Kami made and take the box away. They were gone before we realized it.”

“But…” Emah frowned. “Why? What was in the box? And where did they go?”

“Destiny says their scent goes down to the basement,” Maly sighed. “So I guess we’re going down there to find out the answers to all of those questions. You rest and heal. We’ll be back once we’ve taken a look.”

Emah threw off her blanket. Beneath it she was shirtless, with bandages wrapped around her midsection. “Like hell,” she said. The Kaleen woman winced again and grunted with pain. “I’m coming with you.”

“What?” Maly blurted. “You can’t be serious.”

“By the gods, Maly. Shut up and just help me with my shirt and breastplate, will you? We’ve already let them get too large a head start.”

Oh, I like this one. Destiny rumbled.

Next: Into the darkness!

Age of Wonders, Issue 2 Reflections

On March 22, 2025March 29, 2025 By MagicJMSIn Age of Wonders, Fantasy Fiction, Superhero Fiction, Superhero Gaming, Tabletop Roleplaying3 Comments

Issue 2 is in the books! Just in case you missed the action-packed installments, here they are:

Issue 2a: Welcome to the Watch (with game notes)
Issue 2b: Upstairs (with game notes)
Issue 2c: The Bronze Armor (with game notes)

My goodness, we left off in the middle of a tense battle where I truly don’t know what’s going to happen, but during which I seriously contemplated killing Emah if the dice rolled a particular way. Yikes!

Before we get back into it and Issue 3, however, it’s time for my monthly pause-and-reflect post. I now have twice as many solo sessions under my belt as the last time I wrote one of these installments. Has anything changed? The short answer is that I’m still enjoying the system and story, though I’m seeing some of the limitations of a simpler mechanical game. I’m also realizing that I need a better way of tracking my various character plot threads, especially given how combat-heavy Crusaders is designed to be. All in all, though, for me it’s going well.

Another Amazing Cover

One thing that hasn’t changed is Roland Brown’s awesome artistic ability. It’s been a wonderful partnership seeing him bring my story to life, and I’m looking forward to keeping it going as long as he has time and energy. I originally wanted something like this image (the PCs battling ratfolk) for the first cover, but Roland wisely said we should wait until the rats were more of a known antagonist and instead use a more generic “introduce the team” cover for Issue 1. He was, of course, absolutely correct. Thank you, Roland!

What’s Going Well

I’m still enjoying the story and these characters, and feel absolutely comfortable in my variant-rules-heavy version of Crusaders. Most importantly, I’m getting a better handle on encounter design. My initial few fights (first against the rat mobs, then against a rat lieutenant, then against a City Watch lieutenant and mobs) were good tests of how powerful PCs are relative to mooks, even with me neutering the heroes with my Rank system. I’ve decided that I’ll either need to throw a lot of lower-level foes against the PCs to challenge them, or somehow combine them with environmental hazards, villains, or some other threat in order for the fights to be interesting. The most recent battle with the Bronze Armor has me pushing the upper limits of a fight with a Rank 3 villain plus mobs. Combine all these experiences, and I’m feeling more confident in my ability to judge an encounter’s difficulty and also create situations on the fly.

Speaking of the Bronze Armor, I made my first villain! In any superhero game, creating characters is usually one of the most fun parts of the game, so I’m happy that villains in Crusaders use the same creation process that brought me Kami, Maly, and Emah. I’ll continue to get my dopamine hit of the joy of random tables as long as I’m continuing to throw new villains at our characters, which is absolutely the plan. I hadn’t made this comparison in my mind yet, but I’m expecting this story to read somewhat like an Invincible comic with less gore, or maybe a Savage Dragon comic with less objectified women—lots of action and an ever-growing menagerie of interesting characters. All in an urban fantasy word, of course.

I’m also pleased to have finally introduced the panther Destiny into the story. My decision to start the narrative with Destiny as Maly’s secret turned into quite a different spin on combat than it could have been, but in hindsight I’m happy to initially have fewer characters to juggle and to get a clear sense of Maly’s voice, strengths, and weaknesses before uniting her with her animal companion. I’m hoping that Destiny will shine in the Bronze Armor fight, and then I’ll have to deal with the fact that our party is walking around with a creature foreign to the setting. Should be fun!

Which is all to say that I continue to be invested in these characters, story, and system. I’m also happy to have grounded myself in a published adventure instead of following a fully freeform narrative, which is the major change I discussed last time. I’m overall less anxious that my story is going somewhere concrete, which allows me to enjoy each twist and turn. Any Dungeon Crawl Classics fans know what slim module I’m drawing on for inspiration?

It’s not all sunshine and roses in Oakton, though. Nothing below gives me enough pause to change what I’m doing, but I am noticing a few things mechanically that may, eventually, get tiresome. In addition, given the combat-heavy nature of Crusaders and lack of social mechanics, I’m realizing that some of my plot threads are harder to explore than I expected. Again, the sections below are musings at this point more than problems to be solved.

Crusaders Combat and Noncombat

I don’t think that I’ve ever played a TTRPG that uses flat numbers for damage instead of random rolls. The intention, as Olivier Legrand says in the Crusaders rulebook, is to speed up gameplay. The number of maneuvers and fiddly bits in combat is also small. Olivier says, “You will find no weight charts, range tables, or movement rates…but a system designed to simulate comic book action rather than real world physics.” As I hope that I’ve demonstrated across the first two Issues, Crusaders combat is indeed fast and furious, and once you get a handle on the core concepts, flows easily. I find myself consulting books and charts very little during gameplay, which is a welcome contrast to many other superhero games. I genuinely can’t imagine how long the combats I’ve done already would have taken in some of the more popular game systems.

That said, simplification comes at a cost. It’s not uncommon to achieve either a 0% chance of success or a 100% chance of success on some actions, and flat numbers mean that some attacks will always knock out an opponent without fail. In addition, it occurs to me that the relative lack of randomization means that tweaks to powers or abilities can have dramatic effects on a character’s power. Take, for example, the Aura of Fear from the Bronze Armor. As written, it is basically undefeatable to any melee combatants of lower Rank, which is why I tweaked it. Things like Armor, or Kami’s Elasticity, or Maly’s Acrobatics also mean that many attacks will never, ever touch them. These sorts of absolutes may be somewhat comic book-y (after all, Superman simply can’t be hurt by mooks of any kind, Mr. Fantastic is never hurt by bullets, etc.), but they have the potential to be unfun and uninteresting.

On average, I’m enjoying the speed and ease of gameplay over these problems of Crusaders’ simple mechanics, and I’m clearly not afraid to change a rule if needed. But if I ever get bored of the game, it’s likely going to be because of the lack of variability of outcomes. For this reason, I’m even more happy to have introduced a “critical hits and fumbles” mechanic into my game.

My final wish for Crusaders is for it to have some structure around social mechanics. It’s a very OSR idea to not have such structure, and seems to be a deliberate design choice. “Don’t worry about things like persuasion, influence, bonds, reputation, and other subsystems that soak up time—just roleplay and get back to the punching” seems to be the intent, and for a live group of players this can work fine. Yet I find myself yearning for downtime mechanics like Blades in the Dark or Delta Green, ways to roll dice and experience the implications for my characters. Without them, the game begins to feel too much like a combat simulator where I’m just making stuff up freeform between battles. Ultimately, this is probably where I need to lean most on the Mythic GM Emulator. I just wish I didn’t have to.

Tracking Social Plot Threads

One of the unexpected consequences of a lack of social mechanics is that I get anxious when social scenes take too long. My intent is for Age of Wonders to read like a satisfying serial fiction, with alternate posts that allow you to “play along with me,” or at least see the gameplay that has led to the fiction. In Issue 2b, I got dangerously close to having a fiction-only post and a game-mechanics post be identical, and it low-key stressed me out.

Now, don’t get me wrong: I like keeping the story focused on the action and moving my characters constantly into dangerous encounters. What I’m realizing, however, is that I’m not allowing myself to embrace the interstitial time between encounters, which is where all the juicy character stuff happens. Here is a sample of interpersonal plot threads I’ve opened that are still on my mind:

Why did Kami go to the jail with bodyguards, really? Why was she so mad when she found Raffin Hothorp dead?
What are the implications of Kami being away from her employer? How will Elyn Brehill respond? What was said when she said she was leaving?
Maly needs to get her inheritance back and make the East Bay Dragons pay. How will she do that?
Where did Destiny come from? What’s his deal?
We haven’t seen Emah’s father yet… what’s their relationship like and under what circumstances do they see one another? She also has a mentor and a rival at the university. Will they come into the story?
Who’s Emah’s love interest? (you may have noticed I was angling for it to be Sergeant Mewa… oops he’s dead)
Is Inspector Calenta a reliable ally like Charlie Townsend or an Amanda Waller-like manipulator?
There are soon going to be too many strange occurrences for the general public to ignore. What happens in Oakton as the Wyrding’s changes become more known?

Etcetera etcetera… Keep in mind that these are plot threads outside the primary plot involving the ratfolk investigation (what are they? what do they want? can the city get rid of them? etc.). They are personal plots, focused on character exploration and development, any one of which could take an entire series of posts to flesh out. Because I’m leery to spend too much time writing without rolling dice, I’m worried about these threads getting lost in my narrative. Ultimately that’s on me to track and figure out, but I wanted to flag that a) it’s on my mind, and b) with Crusaders as my game system, it’s not obvious to me how best to balance these story elements with the very-fun combat sessions. I’m also in danger of piling up too many threads to track and need a better system for doing so.

That’s it for now! If you’re enjoying the story or have suggestions, drop me a comment below or feel free to email me at jaycms@yahoo.com.

Next time: Back to the Battle! [with game notes]

Age of Wonders, Issue 2c: The Bronze Armor [with game notes]

On March 15, 2025March 22, 2025 By MagicJMSIn Age of Wonders, Fantasy Fiction, Superhero Fiction, Superhero Gaming, Tabletop Roleplaying3 Comments

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.

Next: Issue 2 Reflections!

Age of Wonders, Issue 2b: Upstairs [with game notes]

On March 8, 2025March 15, 2025 By MagicJMSIn Age of Wonders, Fantasy Fiction, Superhero Fiction, Superhero Gaming, Tabletop Roleplaying2 Comments

“Your employer is not a good person, Hakau,” Kami said imperiously.

Emah inwardly rolled her eyes, since this was at least the tenth such comment since they’d left the Keep as a group. She looked to Maly for commiseration, but her friend was once again distracted, looking over her shoulder as if someone was following them. Emah tracked Maly’s eyes but saw nothing. The Stone Islander woman had been talking to herself of late, either yelling during combat or muttering to herself at odd moments. Indeed, at this moment Maly muttered what sounded like “Stay close” …Emah feared that her friend was losing her wits.

“So you keep saying, Kami,” the man sighed, then grinned wryly. He truly did have a strong, handsome face. And his broad shoulders and muscled arms spoke of a trained warrior. Emah enjoyed looking at him. Perhaps after this was all said and done she would initiate something. “But what does that mean you think of me?”

“You’re too honest to be a villain,” Kami scowled. “But you’re working for a snake.”

The City Watch sergeant had accompanied them out of Inspector Calenta’s presence with two of his guards, all the way back to the Golden Heron. The group of them had waited awkwardly outside during a light rainfall while Kami went inside to speak with the Heron’s proprietor, saying little while passerbys looked at them curiously. When Kami had finally emerged, the woman was unhappily grumbling beneath her wide-brimmed hat and had stayed that way both while paying Emah’s final fee and on their muddy walk away from the Rose Quarter. Speaking of which…

“Sergeant Mewa,” Emah asked, scrunching her brows. “Where are we going? This isn’t the way to the Keep.”

“No, it isn’t,” Mewa confirmed, sounding confused.

“But we were supposed to return there,” Emah stopped and crossed her arms, forcing the group to stutter to a halt on the street. The money from Kami would pay for several days of food and shelter, but they were still facing a profound lack of funds. “We were to sign our new contract.”

“You see?” Kami snorted, also crossing her arms. “Calenta’s a snake, Emah. This is all another trap.”

“What? What’s a trap?” Maly said, wide-eyed, pulling her attention away from… wherever it was she was looking and back to the group.

Hakau Mewa sighed and raised his hands placatingly. “Hold on, hold on. I didn’t know about the contract, but I’m sure Inspector Calenta will have it for you when we get back to the Keep. She asked me to accompany you to the Crafts Quarter.”

“Why?” Emah frowned, planting her feet wide. The rain had stopped, but heavy gray clouds still sat above them, beyond the Great Oak’s branches.

“The,” he started to say, and then winced and realized that people were flowing past them in both directions. He lowered his voice to an urgent whisper. “The rats. We think we know where they’re hiding.”

“And you’re just mentioning this now?” Emah arched an eyebrow.

“I didn’t know you didn’t know,” Sergeant Mewa hissed, exasperated. Emah grinned, enjoying his discombobulation. Truly, the man was pretty. “You thought you needed an escort to the Heron and back to the Keep? After what you did in the training room? Why?”

That snapped Emah’s lips shut. She assumed that their armed companions were meant to ensure that the trio of them signed their contracts, or perhaps that Kami didn’t flee. It never occurred to her that their mission to investigate the ratfolk within the city had already begun, or that Sergeant Mewa and his retinue were here to help them.

“Oh. Alright, fine,” Emah shrugged. “Lead on.” They all began walking again.

The Crafts Quarter, sometimes called The Coins, was where the diversity of Oakton’s people was on full display. Bright Kaleen fabric shops sat alongside Kaizukan fishmongers, Mescan leatherworkers, and carpenters from the Stone Isles. Each shop did its best to entice foot traffic to enter, which meant that the Crafts Quarter was a riot of color, smiling faces of varying nations, hawkers, and the ever-present street musicians of Oakton. Emah preferred university libraries or even outside the city walls to the bustling Coins. To her, Oakton was at its most vibrant here, but also its most overwhelming.

Thankfully, early in the evening on a rainy Starday, the area was much less populated. Shops were beginning to close, musicians to pack away their instruments. There were still people about, but the sparse crowds steadily thinned as shopkeepers and patrons alike found their way back to their families or surrounding taverns, avoiding the next rain showers.

Sergeant Mewa led them down a smaller cul-de-sac street. No one currently occupied the muddy road, and any shops there had already closed. At the end of the street, Mewa stopped at a rundown, square, three-story structure that looked like it hadn’t been occupied in years. Wall slats canted, leaving shadowed gaps. Its windows had been boarded and shuttered. Weeds grew untended, crowding both sides of the short staircase to the scarred front door. Since Emah only spent enough time in the Coins as necessary, she was fairly sure she’d never been to this street, much less this building.

“What a dump,” Maly commented. “Why are we here again?”

The sergeant looked up and down, ensuring they were alone. He kept his voice low. “The surrounding shop owners on this street have been complaining about huge rats here over the past two days, especially at night. Sounds of fighting and screaming too, also at night. We sent a patrolman out, and he looked through the boards and said kids were indoors and ran away from him.” Mewa looked at them each, meeting their eyes to impart the gravity of his next words. “Kids wearing fur cloaks, he said.”

“And you haven’t done anything?” Kami asked incredulously.

Sergeant Mewa scoffed, defensive. “We didn’t make the connection until today, with the…” he licked his lips. “Events at the jail. So we’re here now, with a force that can handle it. If that patrolman had entered the house, I assume we would never have heard from him again.”

“Alright,” Emah said, eyeing the decrepit structure. “What is the plan, then?”

“We enter,” Kami said, straightening the hat on her head. With long strides she walked straight towards the front door.

“Wait! Kami!” the sergeant complained. He hurried to catch up with her, the other two Watch guards in tow.

Maly looked at Emah and shrugged. Emah sighed. “Come on,” and turned to follow.

By the time they reached the front of the building, Kami and Sergeant Mewa were arguing in urgent whispers.

“You can’t just charge in!” he hissed.

“I can,” she spat. “The sooner we eliminate these ratfolk, the sooner I can get back to my life and away from the City Watch! Calenta can remove her damned collar.” That last word was delivered like poison.

“Kami, it’s not like… Hey!”

The woman pulled a board from the front door with no more effort than if she were pulling a slice of bread from a loaf. Then another, and each time tossing the wooden slat into the weeds. In only a few heartbeats, she had removed any planks that had been nailed across the doorway. Emah again noted the woman’s strength, realizing that she herself would have done the task in considerably more time and with considerably more effort.

Kami’s work had been brief, but loud. Sergeant Mewa’s handsome face shone with nervous sweat. His two City Watch companions hesitated at the threshold, gripping their spears and peering into the darkness.

“Let’s go,” Kami said, and walked in.

“By the dragon! She’s going to get us killed,” Mewa breathed.

Emah chuckled and drew her sword. “You clearly haven’t fought alongside her,” she grinned, and stepped into the shadows beyond the doorway.

She squinted and blinked, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the lack of light. Weak, early evening light slanted through boarded windows, dappling the room with gray slivers amidst the darkness. Gradually, as her eyes adapted, the room’s features became clearer. A layer of dust covered everything, motes drifting in the light above a floor covered in rugs of varying sizes and shapes. Beneath every window and occupying every wall were bookshelves half filled with scrolls, bound books, glass vials, carved wooden figures, masks, and all manner of curios. Two chairs, one wooden and one with a drape of cloth across it, were the only furniture. The place smelled musty and acrid, with some other sort of unpleasant tang.

“What was this place?” Maly whispered, having entered behind Emah. Sergeant Mewa and his companions came last, spears ready.

Mewa scanned the room. “This was Sami Suttar’s place,” he said in a low, quiet voice, eyes scanning the dim light. “He was a charlatan. Sold magic potions and scrolls to fools who believed such things still held power. The man died poor and without kin.”

“That’s sad,” Maly answered, picking up some sort of charm made of what looked like intertwined chicken feathers.

Something thumped upstairs, like a heavy footstep, and everyone froze.

Emah’s eyes scanned the room, looking for a staircase. She didn’t see anything immediately, so she padded quietly around the others and past half-empty bookshelves. There, around the bend, she saw Kami. The woman had taken off her hat and set it and her walking stick aside. In front of her was a staircase, climbing up. It seemed the floor of this square house was one continuous shop space, with a central stairwell.

She was just about to motion the others when her eyes tracked Kami’s. Halfway up the stairs lay the corpse of another rat-person. As in the jail, it wore dirty rags over its furred body. Its rat-like head pointed down, as if it had died falling down the stairs. One claw-tipped hand outstretched below its head, below which was a small, black stain of blood. The tang she smelled earlier, Emah realized, was the reek of unwashed fur and death.

Maly had followed and seen Emah freeze. Her friend gasped when she recognized the form of the fallen creature. Emah laid a finger across her lips to Mewa and his guards, a gesture to be quiet, then pointed to the body. Their eyes widened. A young woman with short hair, Esira, was one of the first City Watch members to stop them outside the jail. Emah thought the woman’s lip trembled as she shifted the grip on her spear.

“Follow us,” Emah whispered, and met Esira’s eyes. “Be ready.”

Esira nodded, her breath shallow. She swallowed audibly.

Above, something went thumpthump, like definitely like someone walking.

Kami disappeared up the staircase, wood creaking under her steps.

Emah swore softly to herself and hurried to follow.

Dead ratfolk, it turned out, littered the staircase. Small, furred bodies, twisted and crumpled, lay everywhere, perhaps a dozen in total. Though many lay in dried puddles of blood, she noted that whatever killed them had not been a slashing or piercing weapon. Their furry hides were mostly intact, the amount of blood modest. Instead, each body looked… twisted or crumpled in some way. It was if a child had, in a tantrum, thrown about its toys until they’d broken.

Emah paused briefly at the second floor and looked around. It looked like the shop owner’s living quarters, but no corpses lay here, only upon the stairs, the numbers increasing the higher the staircase went. Kami seemed to notice the same thing, for she continued climbing towards the topmost floor of the building, picking her way gracefully and carefully through the carnage. Emah followed, with Maly and the City Watch members behind her in an anxious, wary procession. In the cramped space, every breath and shuffled step seemed impossibly loud.

Up the stairs they went, to the third floor. There, at the top was a narrow landing, its edge ringed by the balusters and newel posts of a carved balustrade. Dead ratfolk lay sprawled across the landing, some clutching crude makeshift weapons like shards of glass or pointed sticks. The smell had risen to the top floor, it seemed, for Emah fought back bile at the eye-watering stench of corpses. Behind her, one of the Watch members gagged, though she didn’t turn to see which one.

The eastern wall of the landing held a steel door in a bronze frame. It was a sturdy-looking door, Emah thought, totally incongruous with the rest of the wooden structure. The barrier would have been difficult to overcome had it been locked. Now, however, it was scarred and battered and hung wide open.

Kami shouted a warning at what lay beyond.

What’s beyond!? It’s time to make our first Age of Wonders villain! To do so, I’ll use the same character creation process as I did to make heroes. Indeed, in Crusaders the only difference between a villain and a PC hero is that villains never receive Hero Points.

Origin: The nature of what’s upstairs is something I’ve already decided, so I’ll create a special Origin table, allowing for the concept but still giving me some random rolling to do. All of these fit my general idea:

01-25 Animated Armor
26-50 Clockwork Giant
51-75 Elemental (Earth/Metal)
76-00 Animated Figurine

And the roll is… 09 (or 90)! So that’s either Animated Armor or Figurine. I truly can’t decide, so will go with the original roll. This villain will be an animated suit of bronze armor.

Now you see why I started my character creation with Origin instead of the ICONS Origins Background Generator. The suit of armor has no gender or ethnicity, and its age is ancient. The “manner” table is interesting: I roll a 5, which means it’s moody & headstrong. Who does it value? 11, its personal hero, which is of course the late Sami Suttar. What does it value? I roll a 9, which means it values love. Okay, this thing’s motivations are clear and easy. It’s like a child who lost its father.

Powers: Back to my custom tables for Crusaders we go! I’m going to say this is a Rank 3 villain, meaning that it will have 4 Power rolls, which I’ll make on any of the tables except Super Skills (it’s an animated suit of armor, after all). I’ll use one of these rolls automatically for Armor, which subtracts 10 from all forms of damage except psychic damage. My remaining three rolls are:

Roll 1: 85 or 58, which means Super Strength, Shapechange, Telekinesis, Psychic Shield, Weather Control, or Force Field.

Roll 2: 28 or 82, which means Energy Blast, Super Strength, Psychic Blast, Telekinesis, Energy Manipulation, or Probability Warp.

Roll 3: 06 or 60, which means Armor, Special Attack, Aura of Fear, Psychic Shield, Energy Blast, or Force Field.

Oooohhh… lots of juicy options there. After playing around with configurations, I’ve decided on 1) Psychic Shield, which adds +5 to its Psyche score when defending against any attack, plus 10 points of protection from psychic damage. The shield does need to be activated, however. 2) Super Strength, which is the same power Kami has and provides a strength level of Physique + 20 for feats of strength, unarmed damage, and resistance to knockback. Finally, 3) Aura of Fear, which means that any lower-Ranked characters can’t attack the first round of combat. In addition, the power as written says that lower-Ranked characters can’t engage in melee combat without spending a Hero Point. That seems overpowered to me, so I’m going to say that all attack rolls against it are -10% / Rank lower (so -20% on attacks and defense for our PCs), and that minions and lieutenants can only do missile attacks.

Attributes: As a Rank 3 villain, it will get 14 Attribute points, which I’ll drop into its primary two attributes: 18 Physique, 16 Prowess, 10 Alertness, 10 Psyche. Its Vitality will be 54 (Physique x3). This thing is a tank, pure and simple.

Motivation: I won’t roll on this one. To fit the concept, its motivation is Follower (of course, its leader Suttar is dead, so it now does what it thinks he would want, which is guard his possessions).

Here is the final character sheet:

Will the PCs be able to defeat such a hardy opponent? And what other tricks do I have to make this combat difficult? Find out next time!

Next: Let’s Rumble!

Age of Wonders, Issue 2a: Welcome to the Watch [with game notes]

On March 1, 2025March 8, 2025 By MagicJMSIn Age of Wonders, Fantasy Fiction, Superhero Fiction, Superhero Gaming, Tabletop Roleplaying2 Comments

“Wait, you can’t be serious!” Maly gawked. All around her and her companions, sweaty City Watch members with padded, wooden spears and swords ran at them. The huge Kaleen man with the shaved head directed them, shouting encouragement and tactics.

Above the mayhem, Inspector Calenta’s voice rang out merrily. “Testing a theory, dears!”

And then there was no choice but to react and fight.

This is some sort of test from the inspector, but it’s also a combat test for me. I’m taking away Emah’s sword and Maly’s knife (and panther, of course), and will make Kami reluctant to use her powers in front of law enforcement. With these limitations, how will a “bunch of thugs” plus a “lieutenant” fare against our heroes? They mopped up the other combats easily… how superheroic are these characters?

I’ll say that the Watch members make up two gangs of 4 thugs each, and each thug will have a Fight score of 11. The lieutenant—the aforementioned burly guy Pannu—will have a Physique of 15, Prowess 12, Alertness 11, and Psyche 10, the same stats as the rulebook suggest for a “big, muscular tough.” Inspector Calenta will stay out of the combat… she’s here to observe.

Like the previous two fights, I’ll say everyone is starting at Close range within the training room. No one is surprised enough to warrant a surprise round. That means we go in order of Alertness: Maly 15, Emah & Kami 13, all the City Watch members at 11.

Maly will try kicking an onrushing attacker. With her Prowess of 13 versus the thugs’ Fight score of 11, that means she has a 60% to hit. She rolls 06 and does 10 nonlethal damage. One of the thugs drops to 1 health.

Emah, without a sword, sees the odds against them. Her best bet will be to try to take out one of the thugs with a practice sword to get a weapon. Her Prowess is 15, which means she has a 70% chance to hit. She rolls 04 and easily drops one of the City Watch members, whose sword clatters to the floor. Her extra 2 damage also carried forward to another thug.

Kami wants to not reveal her powers. Still, if she can Grapple the big guy, she thinks she can neutralize him. Unfortunately, her Prowess is only 10 to his 12, so she has a 40% chance. She rolls 07 (that’s the third roll under 10!), though, and gets an iron grip on the hulking lieutenant. Her 30 Super Strength is more than a match for his 15, and he can’t escape.

As the City Watch’s turn rolls around, here is their status:

Group 1: 4 thugs: 11, 11, 11, 1.
Group 2: 3 thugs: 11, 11, 9.
Lieutenant Pannu: Grappled.

Group 1 will swarm right past Maly and try and deal with Kami. She will not use her Elasticity to dodge, so with a Prowess of 10 versus their Fight of 11, she has a 45% chance to avoid the attacks. This seems too high for someone grappling someone, though, so I’ll drop that chance by 20%. One mechanical answer might be to say she’s a Passive target, but that’s too punitive… she can see the attacks coming and has a lieutenant-sized shield, so she’s not as vulnerable as if she was surprised or unconscious. Anyway, Kami rolls a 27, which fails the 25% chance and the thugs thwack her with practice weapons. Because they’re padded, I’ll say that they add an additional 2 of nonlethal damage (versus 5 of lethal damage for other weapons). They do 13 damage, subtracted by 10 from Kami’s elastic body. She’s still at 27 Vitality.

Group 2 will attack Emah. She hasn’t yet picked up a sword, so with her Alertness of 13 she has a 40% chance to avoid the attacked. She rolls 14 and does so. Meanwhile, the lieutenant is utterly helpless in Kami’s iron grip.

A Kaizukan man with a spear broke from the mob directly at her. Maly ducked the wooden tip of the spear wrapped in cloth and kicked him in the chest. He flew sideways, rolling, as more Watch members rushed in.

What is happening? Are you fighting again? a deep, rough male voice growled, like something was sitting atop her shoulder and speaking directly into her ear. She yelped.

“Yes, I’m fighting!” Maly gasped. She sidestepped a clumsy swing from another Watch member.

You are in the stone house. Wait and I will tear my way to you.

“No! Stay outside!”

“Who are you talking to?” Emah barked nearby. She punched a short, older man in the face. He dropped his practice sword, which clattered to the floor, and then the man slumped unconscious. “Go! Help Kami!” Emah snarled, reaching for the sword. “I’ve got these!”

Are you fighting East Bay Dragons? Is your vengeance at hand? the voice rumbled approvingly. I should be there, ripping them.

“It’s not the Dragons,” Maly panted, trying to keep her voice from attracting Emah’s attention. “Just let me focus! And stay outside!”

Maly spun as a padded blade whistled past her cheek. Where was Kami?

The enormous, broad-shouldered leader, who Inspector Calenta had called Pannu, roared commands as he stepped towards Kami. The masked woman waited, grim-mouthed and small. As Maly slid past two spearmen, she saw Kami lunge forward unexpectedly, surprising Pannu. In a blink, the woman had her arms wrapped around him. Maly thought perhaps her limbs had elongated, allowing her to fully pin his tree-trunk arms to his boulder-sized torso, but she wasn’t sure. It seemed that their employer was not eager to demonstrate whatever unnatural powers she possessed in front of this crowd. Even still, Pannu struggled and roared in Kami’s grasp, unable to break free, something that looked so impossible that it appeared the huge man was playacting. Kami turned with Pannu in her grasp, keeping the man’s bulk between her and other Watch members.

Then another sword was cutting the air above her ducked head and Maly momentarily ignored everything but the threats right next to her.

Despite her friend’s instructions, Maly will try and deal with the gang around Emah, attacking the thug at 9 health. She once again has a 60% chance to hit and rolls 18. Down goes the thug, plus 1 damage to another one!

Emah picks up the practice sword and gets its balance. I’ll say that’s her turn, since having a sword is such an advantage for her.

Kami calls for help and starts crushing the lieutenant in her grip. She automatically succeeds at the wrestling contest (Super Strength vs. Physique) and then does enough damage to knock him unconscious. So long, Pannu.

Current opponents:

Group 1: 4 thugs: 11, 11, 11, 1.
Group 2: 2 thugs: 11, 10.

Group 1 attacks Kami again. She’s let Pannu drop from her grip, so has the full 45% chance to dodge (again choosing not to utilize her Elasticity). She rolls 20 and avoids the attacks.

Group 2 rightfully sees the armed Emah as the biggest threat and attacks her. With the sword, she has a 20 Parry versus their 11 Fight, giving her a 95% chance of success. She rolls 31. Yeah, they’re screwed.

She thrust the palm of one hand up and into the chin of an onrushing attacker. Teeth clacked together and Maly punched the exposed throat in a quick and brutal blow. The Watch member, a man with short hair and thick beard, gagged and clutched his neck as he fell. Maly was already turning, kicking another guard on the side of the knee.

Is it over? the male voice rumbled. Have you bathed in their blood?

“By the flames! Shut up!” Maly gasped, exasperated.

The sounds of clacking weapons briefly drew her attention, and she saw that Emah had indeed retrieved a practice sword from the floor. Maly grinned. Even with a poorly crafted wooden blade wrapped in thick cloth, Emah was the best swordfighter that Maly had ever seen. In the space of two heartbeats, her friend had felled two Watchmen with blows to the sides of their heads, blocking spear thrusts almost absently.

The big man screamed in fury and frustration to her right, still trapped in Kami’s hug. Maly fought her way towards the small group of guards harassing her with their spears, and as she came closer, she heard the distinct sounds of bones cracking. The gargantuan Pannu cried out with pain more than anger, then his eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped in Kami’s arms. She dropped him to the side like a sack of grain, stepping back and away from wooden spears. Maly thought she saw Kami’s arms shorten to their normal lengths, but there was too much happening to be sure.

“Maly! Emah! Help!” Kami called out, which Maly found less than genuine. Not only did the brothel owner look unharmed amidst a gang of trained, armed soldiers, but the guards gave her a respectful distance, stepping warily around the inert mountain of muscle that had been their leader. Kami, for her part, moved backwards lightly on her feet, eyes darting back and forth across the oncoming assailants.

Maly will continue working on the group harassing Emah. She rolls a 51, though, and misses. Emah will cut through the group on the way to help Kami. With the practice sword, she again has a 95% chance to hit. She rolls a 48 and clobbers them for 17 damage, downing one and leaving the last one at 4 health.

Kami tries a punch at a thug surrounding her. She has a 45% chance to hit and rolls 94. Nope. She needs to train in hand-to-hand combat to be more effective, which makes sense given her background.

Current opponent status:

Group 1: 4 thugs: 11, 11, 11, 1.
Group 2: 1 thug: 4

Group 1 tries to overwhelm Kami. She rolls 05 and stays out of their way. The lone member of Group 2 will throw herself at Maly (seeing Emah as too scary). What she doesn’t realize is that Maly is nearly impossible to hit. With Acrobatics, she has an Alertness of 20 against melee attacks, so she has a 95% chance to dodge. She rolls 68.

Maly will try and return the attack but rolls 54 and misses. Emah rolls into the group harassing Kami and easily succeeds with 01 (!). She’ll take out the wounded thug, plus another, plus 5 more damage to a third.

Kami’s turn. Can she hit? A roll of 26 says yes! She will apply just a tad of her Super Strength, knocking one thug completely into the other and downing both of them.

There is only one thug remaining at 4 health. This fight is over.

With a defiant scream, a young man in green and yellow launched himself at Maly. Apparently, the fellow had decided that she was the weakest of the three opponents, which Maly couldn’t deny given everything she’d seen from Kami. If Maly Wywich was anything, however, it was difficult to hit. The man’s yell alerted her with more than enough time to duck and roll out of the way. He flew past her and grunted as he hit the floor, his breath knocked from him.

Maly blew a lock of hair out of her eyes and crouched, looking for another threat. But it was only the lad on the ground, struggling to his hands and knees. The rest of the City Watch members lay sprawled across the room, groaning in pain or unconscious. Emah’s mahogany skin shone with her effort, but she was grinning and spinning a practice sword in her hand, still in her fighting stance. Kami merely stood, fists clenched, glaring through her half-mask.

The sound of a lone person clapping echoed, drawing all three of their attention. At the doorway across the room, Inspector Calenta had both a bemused and annoyed look on her face, like a parent whose child had done something spectacularly embarrassing. She continued the slow clap with her meaty hands.

“Well, that’s done then,” she sighed.

“What in the Five Hells was that?” Emah demanded, taking a threatening step towards the inspector. If Calenta was cowed, it didn’t show. In fact, her face smiled warmly.

“I had to see if Sargeant Mewa’s claims were true, didn’t I? He believed you had slain all those rats on your own, and I thought, no, impossible. But it seems you’re more than you appear, ah? You do indeed hire good help, dearie,” she winked at Kami. “But perhaps you are the biggest secret, no?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Kami answered coldly.

Inspector Calenta tsked and shook her head. “Alright, alright. You don’t trust me. I understand, dear, I do. Please know this test was necessary, though. I needed to see for myself before making my offer.”

“Offer?” Emah asked, still clutching her wooden sword threateningly.

“Of course, dears!” Calenta beamed. “To join the City Watch!”

“Wait… what?” Maly blurted.

Less than a bell later, the three found themselves in a different room within the Keep, larger than Inspector Calenta’s and closer to the training room. It seemed to be a private dining room of some kind, with a heavy, round wooden table that could have seated twice their number. Calenta sat on one side, her hands folded upon the scarred surface of the table. Maly, Emah, and Kami sat across from her. Their weapons had been returned by one of the City Watch members Emah had battered in the training room melee. He glared at them, one eye swollen shut, but said nothing as he handed the Kalee woman her sword. Emah had accepted it like a swaddled child and caressed it with affection before strapping the scabbard across her hip.

Plates of food—roasted chicken, boiled potatoes, and grapes—had been offered them. Kami’s plate sat untouched in front of her. The masked woman had scarcely moved since they’d sat down, studying Inspector Calenta with an unreadable expression. Maly would never have turned down a free meal, though, especially after the day they’d had. She’d devoured the food voraciously, and Emah had joined her. Only chicken bones remained on both of their plates.

The inspector, for her part, did not eat, but waited patiently while they finished, that oddly motherly, doting look on her face the entire time. Whenever she looked at Kami’s cold stare, she smiled and shook her head.

As Emah pushed her plate away and wiped her mouth clean with the back of her hand, she asked, “You can’t be serious about joining the Watch.”

“Oh, I’m serious,” Inspector Calenta beamed. “The Watch often works with the Adventurer’s Guild. Think of it as an extended contract with the city of Oakton, ah? We pay you weekly until this rat problem is solved. It’s steady work, which is nice for you, and paid at your guild rate.”

“I… did not know the guild did that,” Maly admitted.

“Usually, it’s for work the Watch can’t cover, like guarding caravans or dealing with issues outside the walls,” Calenta shrugged. “But we’ve had special cases before. And this is quite the special case, no?”

“I am not a member of the Adventurer’s Guild,” Kami said stiffly. “I am the employer here, and a business proprietor. I simply wish to return to the Golden Heron. Once my contract with these two is settled, they’re yours.”

“Yes, yes, dear. Of course,” Inspector Calenta tapped a finger on the table, which Maly noticed was something she did a lot with tables. “But you’re not the proprietor of the Heron. It’s Miss Brehill who runs the place, no?”

“I’m her assistant,” Kami sniffed.

“Yes, yes, and no doubt valuable to her. I admit we’ve never hired someone from the Rose Guild on official business, dearie, but these are… unusual times.”

“The answer is no. I’ve been away too long already. I should go,” Kami pushed herself away from the table and stood. “Miss Elmhill, Miss Wywich. Please escort me back and then you can return and sign your new contracts.”

Maly and Emah looked uncertain, glancing between their potential future employer and current one.

Inspector Calenta held up a hand placatingly. “Please, dear. That’s all fine and you can get back in a moment. I only thought to offer since so you might get to the bottom of who killed your client in the jail, ah? What was his name again?”

Kami stared furiously.

“Raffin Hothorp, I think?” Calenta offered, raising an eyebrow. As Maly watched, Kami’s lips pursed and her eye twitched. The woman was trying very hard not to be baited, Maly thought. And failing.

“But if not, that’s fine,” the inspector tapped on the table. “But I will have to ask Miss Brehill at the Heron about what sort of fees he owed you and why you hired these guards to enter the jail in pursuit of him.” She sighed, and said almost absently, “Also, of course, I’ll have to ask about your rather remarkable abilities.”

“What?!” Kami sputtered. It was the first time Maly had seen her rattled. The Kaizukan woman gaped, looking incredulous.

“Did you know,” the inspector turned to Maly and Emah casually, like they were long friends. “That ever since the first of the year, when the Great Oak blossomed with those beautiful flowers for the first time in anyone’s memory, we’ve been dealing with all sorts of wild claims across the city? Most we can’t verify, of course, but these ratfolk are a good example of the sorts of things we’ve been hearing. Wild things! Rat-people. Magical axes. Also, stories of people with strange powers like, I don’t know, young women with extraordinary strength, whose arms get longer like snakes. I think maybe even women who don’t breathe or eat at all. Wild stories, right? Can you believe it, dears?”

Now it was Maly’s turn to gape. Her mouth fell open as she looked at Kami. Their employer had quickly regained her composure and stood stock still, her eyes fixed on Calenta.

The inspector continued. Her voice had lost much of its maternal warmth. “Now, we don’t have the resources to run down every wild rumor, you understand. Our forces are taxed, and the poor castellan and his advisors don’t know what to believe. I’m doing the best I can, my very, very best. So if I get a good lead, I’ll pursue it to discover what’s going on in this city I’ve vowed to protect. To keep it safe. It’s just,” she waved a hand, “a matter of what I investigate first with my limited resources.”

“You’re bribing me, you bitch,” Kami said softly.

“What’s that, dear?” the motherly brightness had returned as she turned her attention back to Kami. “You talked too quietly to hear. Like I said, I’m just trying to get rid of these rats, and need help. I’m offering to pay you for that help, ah? What do you say?”

Kami growled low in her throat and sank slowly back to her chair.

“Okay!” Inspector Calenta clapped her hands together. “I so appreciate the help, my dears! Welcome to the Watch!”

Next: Let’s Find Some Rats!

Age of Wonders, Issue 1 Reflections

On February 22, 2025March 1, 2025 By MagicJMSIn Age of Wonders, Fantasy Fiction, Superhero Fiction, Superhero Gaming, Tabletop Roleplaying6 Comments

Welcome to my first “pause and reflect” post! I’ve finished one “Issue” of my Age of Wonders story, which is a good opportunity to reflect on the system, characters, story, and approach. In case you missed the previous installments:

These reflection posts will follow every completed Issue, and I suspect that their length will vary widely based on how happy or not I am with my process. Today, I’m going to discuss what I think is going well in my fledgling story, what tweaks I’m making from here (primarily on my unstructured plot approach), and a look at revamping the Crusaders Victory Points system for my blog purposes.

What’s Going Well

So much about this Age of Wonders story is an experiment. Fresh off six months of my first-ever solo-play experience with Dungeon Crawl Classics, I wanted to continue what was so fun about those games, while a) pivoting to a superhero game system, since superhero TTRPGs are my lifelong happy place and my group games are almost entirely Pathfinder-based, b) spending more time on a homebrewed world, since this was one of the areas I very much underdeveloped in my DCC game, and c) focusing more on characters and character development, since for whatever reason I found the characters sort of flat last time around. The trick is that I love Dungeon Crawl Classics, but didn’t see it as working for a superhero story (though I am eagerly anticipating my copy of Evolved arriving any day now). One of my worries heading into this project was that I wasn’t ready for such an ambitious undertaking. The more obvious next step would have been restarting a DCC campaign, focusing on worldbuilding and characters.

Thankfully, I took my time sifting through a bunch of possible superhero games, and I’m pleased with Crusaders, my current system of choice. Yes, I still wish the game had a bigger and more vibrant community. Yes, there is a chance that it’s too lightweight for a meaningful multi-year campaign. And yes, some might argue that I’ve hacked the rules so much that it’s not really even Crusaders anymore. A niggling part of my brain still wonders if I should have waited for Evolved, or if some game like BASH! would have been better – both games were on my list to explore, but I was too excited by Crusaders to wait. But honestly… I’ve enjoyed the system. The rules-hacking has been fun, and my storytelling has felt enhanced by the game’s mechanics. One Issue into my project, the system is a big green light.

I’m also happy with the structure of my game, using three blog posts to form a single Issue. Whether or not I’m correct that three of these posts roughly equate to one four-hour game session (which is what Crusaders calls an Issue), is an unanswerable question. But I do play multiple weekly games, and the ratio feels right. Moreover, the “three posts and reflections” structure has two implications that make me happy. First, it allows me to make each blog post from the point of view of one of our three protagonists each issue. I have a suspicion that the “objective third person” storytelling in my DCC game was a major factor why characters felt flat to me, especially given how many characters I was juggling. This way I can get into the perspective of each PC, which is interesting narratively and ensures each character receives a deeper exploration. Secondly, assuming that I can keep up my regular writing pace, this process means that you’ll be getting one Issue of Age of Wonders every month… just like a comic book! That’s just fun, and gives my writing an overall structure that makes me happy.

Speaking of characters, I’m excited to be playing with Emah, Kami, and Maly. It always feels risky to leave backgrounds, personalities, and powers to random rolls, but the combination of ICONS Origins and Crusaders pseudo-random generation has provided me with three (four if you count the panther Destiny, who will likely be debuting next Issue) interesting and different PCs. I’m excited to fully explore each one, and I’m going to try and embrace each one changing and developing as the story progresses through PC level-ups. There may be some people put off by a man writing a story about three women of varying cultural backgrounds, but I hope not. Doing so is a writing challenge, and an energizing one.

Worldbuilding-wise, I’m happy so far. If it isn’t obvious, my intention for this story is to keep the action focused on the town of Oakton—like Spider-man stories taking place mostly in Manhattan, Batman stories in Gotham City, or Daredevil stories in Hell’s Kitchen. This intention is why I spent so much time focused on fleshing out the history and character of the place. Oakton is a love letter to my current home of Oakland, California, and I want to make it just as diverse and complicated a setting as I experience living here. I still think there’s a lot of work to do for me to make Oakton feel fully alive, but I’m finding my way and off to an acceptable start.

Which is all to say: So far so good!

Open Story Structure Versus Published Material

As I mentioned above, one of my goals with Age of Wonders was to focus more on worldbuilding than I had done in my previous solo-play writing. I knew that I wanted to tell a superhero story in a more traditional fantasy setting, which blends all my passions and is something I’ve envisioned for a long time. It was relatively easy to chart a course on homebrewing a setting, and I have a bunch of ideas on how the various forces in this setting operate and may interact in the future. It’s been everything I had hoped so far, and I expect that you’ll start to see the superhero action and themes become more apparent as we get deeper into the story.

I assumed that a homebrewed world must also necessitate an entire homebrewed plot as well. Tale of the Manticore, as I’ve said before, inspired me to begin solo roleplaying. I admire the heck out of Jon and his process of discovery. He approaches each story as a blank page, its secrets ready to be revealed. In the past, however, for both my TTRPG-playing in general and my DCC solo-play games specifically, I’ve relied almost exclusively on published adventures. Heck, even my Paizo novellas are based on a published adventure path. There is something about the structure of existing modules—knowing where they begin and end, plus the main story beats in between—that fuels my creative energy. When I’ve tried writing my own adventures without any published material to inspire me, I find not having this structure to be a burden and stressful. I need more than a blank page.

So, the biggest change after Issue 1 is that I’m going to be steering away from the “open story” approach and instead reach back into the endless shelves of published adventures I own. Or, more accurately, because Age of Wonders is neither fully a fantasy tale nor a superhero one, I will use published adventures as inspiration—a jumping off point to provide more structure than I had in my first few steps of this project. Process wise, this change means that I’ll have a bit more of a handle on the primary story beats and meta-plots as I go. Maybe it means using the Mythic GM Emulator slightly less often, though I’m not sure that’s true. Indeed, this change should be mostly invisible to the overall reading experience. Instead, I’m giving myself some mental structure as I approach each Issue.

What adventure am I going to lean on for this first part of the story? I’ll keep that bit of knowledge for myself right now, particularly because I will surely be bastardizing and changing the source material heavily to fit my world. Suffice it to say, I’m going to keep a toe dipped into the Dungeon Crawl Classics waters for now. If you catch on and identify what adventure I’m using for inspiration, feel free to pipe up in the comments.

Victory Points and Character Progression

Overall, I like the Crusaders Rank and Victory Point system. I’ve already discussed my tweaks to Rank in my variant rules post. Now let’s discuss the specifics of Victory Points. As per the rulebook, PCs earn Victory Points “for vanquishing villains, thwarting menaces, saving cities, and accomplishing other heroic deeds.” At the end of each Issue, the GM is meant to give out a number of Victory Points to each hero commensurate with the victories in that Issue. The guideline is to provide 20 Victory Points for “major victories,” for example. When a PC gets to 100 Victory Points, they advance to the next Rank. Everything in Crusaders is percentile based, so this system ensures that at any point in time you know what percentage of the way your hero is to the next jump. Pretty elegant.

Now that I am at the end of my first Issue and looking at awarding points, I’m realizing something fundamental: I do not like fiddly experience points systems. I’ve been spoiled in recent years by milestone leveling in Pathfinder and the vastly simplified experience system of DCC. Sitting down to examine each story beat from my previous three posts and assign them a point value is, I find, an energy draining exercise, especially without knowing where the plot is heading and how big each accomplishment is relative to potential future ones. Since this project is a game by myself that I’m doing for the pure enjoyment of it, I see no reason to spend time on energy drainers.

I’ve recently run a small handful of Sentinel Comics RPG sessions for one of my weekly groups, which has reminded me how much fun that system is. Sentinel Comics, like Crusaders, envisions each gaming session as an Issue. Yet Sentinel Comics builds on this idea and provides milestone awards when you reach six Issues, what comic collectors know as a trade paperback Collection. It’s a neat idea and helps me figure out the tweak I’d like to make for Age of Wonders.

Here’s what I’m going to try: Instead of 100 Victory Points to achieve the next Rank in my game, I’m going to say that you need six Issues to advance. My three PCs are now 1/6 of the way to advancing to Rank 2. If, by some act of Herculean luck and effort, they all persevere through sixty Issues (i.e. roughly five years of writing… heh), they will hit the ceiling of Rank 10 and be godlike entities in the world. At that point I suspect that I’ll feel more than happy to say I’ve done everything I can and retire them from play. And to be clear: I don’t suspect I’ll make it anywhere near sixty issues, but a guy can dream.

What I like about this plan is that it forces me to pay attention to the trade paperback (TPB) collections I’m creating. Recall that I want each level-up to be an event, a time when the characters take a noticeable jump in power. I’ll either need to ensure a major story climax at the end of each TPB to allow for a time jump or provide a catalyst for them changing. Since Crusaders also judges a character reputation by their Rank, I’ll be keeping an eye on the public nature of their identities through this progression as well. Now there’s a writing challenge that jolts my energy! Perfect.

How About Some Issue Covers?

Finally, this is my first opportunity to introduce the awesome Issue cover sketches done by Roland Brown. As I was writing the first Issue and the idea of one-issue-per-month started crystalizing in my mind, I started yearning for actual comic book covers for this story. I reached out to Roland, who had done such a masterful job bring Emah, Kami, and Maly to life with his character work. He was happy to help.

I couldn’t justify the cost of fully painted covers for a free blog, but Roland has been awesome to work with and we jointly came up with a black-and-white-sketch-solution that allows for a visualization of the story. He’s responsible for the cool Age of Wonders logo and he pulled me away from my first cover concept to a more classic “debut” cover that you see below for Issue 1. Expect a new cover for each Issue, and I’ll go back and retroactively add it to earlier posts if we don’t have it ready by the first installment. Thank you, Roland!

That’s it for now! If you’re enjoying the story or have suggestions, drop me a comment below or feel free to email me at jaycms@yahoo.com.

Next: Issue 2 begins! [with game notes]

Age of Wonders, Issue 1c: Inspector Calenta [with game notes]

On February 15, 2025February 22, 2025 By MagicJMSIn Age of Wonders, Fantasy Fiction, Superhero Fiction, Superhero Gaming, Tabletop Roleplaying2 Comments

This whole “find your story as you go” thing is unlike how I usually write or GM, so I’m finding it fascinating and more than a little uncomfortable. For me, this moment is a big fork in the road on what sort of story this will be: Either our trio of heroines will escape the attention they’ve just attracted, giving them a chance to regroup, plan, and process what they’ve just experienced, or they’ll be detained by the City Watch, and likely enlisted to help. In other words, will this be a tale of vigilantes working outside the law or agents of the town’s castellan? I’m ready to embrace either possibility.

To find out, of course, we roll dice.

The “are the PCs in control?” element is what the Mythic GM Emulator describes as Chaos Factor. As the Chaos Factor increases (i.e. the PCs are less and less in control of the scenes), it is more likely that Fate questions answer Yes. As it decreases, the opposite is true. This system creates a sort of back-and-forth rhythm of surprising events in a story. Recall that last time I checked in on the Chaos Factor it was at 6, and I’m going to keep it there for now.

My Fate question: Do the PCs manage to escape the inner keep and immediate implications of the jail’s carnage? I would normally place the odds here at 50/50 – yes, they have been seen, but they also have superpowers and shock on their side. Because of the Chaos Factor, though, the chance of a Yes goes to 65%.

The roll: 74. Nope. Looks like the group’s about to be taken into custody and explain themselves. As a result, I’ll dial the Chaos Factor up to 7.

“Stop right there!” a guard, young and confident, pointed his finger at the trio as Kami and Emah pulled Maly to stand. The young Maly stumbled, still disoriented and wounded from the hulking rat creature lying dead at her feet. She blinked, her eyes trying to focus.

“We have to go, Maly,” Emah hissed through clenched teeth.

“I… I got it. Okay,” she panted. The guard was within several strides of them now, with more green-and-yellow livery bobbing through the crowd of gawkers behind.

“Kami?” the young man said, confused. He was Kaleen, dark skinned and tall, with a shaved head shining in the sun. As with all City Watch members, he held a broad-headed spear. Kami swore, briefly tucking her face below the wide brim of her hat before looking up with her masked face. She knew this man. Intimately.

“Hello, Hakau,” she said, straightening. Kami leaned on her walking stick casually, as if there weren’t a humanoid rat laying in a bloody pool on the cobblestone street between them. Her mind reeled, trying to find a way out of this mess. Why did these creatures have to attack the jail, today of all days? Why did they have to kill Hothorp before she could get to him? It was all insufferably bad luck.

Her more intimidating bodyguard, Emah Elmhill, scanned around them with a glower. A crowd had gathered, pointing and exclaiming at the dead rat-thing, muttering at Maly’s bloody, torn clothing. More Watch members emerged from the crowd, stopping and gaping at the unnatural corpse. Dammit all to the bottom of the sea!

“Sargeant Mewa?” a young Mesca woman in green and yellow asked the man, stepping forward hesitantly. Kami did not recognize her. “What do we do, sir?”

“What happened here, Kami?” he asked, ignoring the question from his colleague. His big, brown eyes were the man’s best feature, despite all the long, lean muscles and that honey-deep voice.

Kami shrugged with one shoulder, not taking her eyes from his. She sighed. “We were attacked in the jail, Hakau. I would only allow your strongest of heart and most loyal to go in there. It’s… like this,” she nodded her chin to the corpse. “But far worse. Everyone inside is dead.”

The sergeant licked his lips, then frowned, deep in thought, his heavy brows bunching. Poor man. He took his responsibilities so seriously.

“How does she know him?” Kami heard Maly whisper behind her.

Emah huffed through her nose. Kami imagined the woman rolling her eyes. “She runs a brothel, twit.”

“But… oh.”

Despite her tattoos, knife, and profession, Maly Wywich was very much an innocent. It made the woman adorable, but also a dangerous companion.

“Quiet,” Kami hissed back at them. They quieted.

Hakau cleared his throat, reaching up to unclasp his yellow cloak. “Esira,” he said to the woman behind him, who had been staring, wide-eyed, at the creature. She looked up at hearing her name. “Give me your cloak so I can cover this body. Then take two you trust into the jail. Leave the rest on crowd control and keep them the blazes away from here.”

“Y- yes, sir,” Esira stammered, unclasping her own cloak. Hakau spread his garment over the creature’s top half. “What about… uh, those three, sir?”

The sergeant’s brown eyes flicked up to Kami, then Emah and Maly. “I’ll escort them to the Keep when we’re done here. You’ll stay put, Kami?”

Kami half-smiled, though her voice held no warmth. “I suppose you’d know where to find me, Hakau.” He glowered as she let those words hang in the air, but the effect was lost on his companion Esira. It didn’t appear she heard the implication of the comment as she moved to cover the body. Kami sighed. “So yes, we’ll stay. I doubt we can answer any questions for you, though. We are simply bystanders here.”

“Well,” Emah growled behind her. “Our first job has been a bloody disaster.”

Much to everyone’s surprise, Maly laughed.

Time to switch scenes! I’m going to fast forward through the clean-up and interrogation of our PCs, since Crusaders tries to keep the story focused on the action. But I do want to pause and consider who questions our protagonists, because I think there’s a good chance that he or she will be a recurring character and could, depending on how things shake out, even join the party.

Back to the often used ICONS Origins Background Generator. I roll: Female, Mescan, 38 years old, fun-loving and playful (which is odd for an investigator, but okay), who values themselves and family, neutral towards most people, born in Oakton, was targeted by a sinister organization as a child (probably an Oakton gang), but then made a connection which gave them an opportunity (the City Watch, to hunt down the gangs). Okay, that’s enough. I’ve got her in my mind.

Estancia Calenta was not what Kami expected from a City Watch investigator. She was in her middle years, round in stature, with a pleasant, dimpled, large-eyed face that would age gracefully into her grandmotherly years. A simple green kerchief covered her otherwise loose, long black hair in the Mesca style. But, Kami noted, her hands were calloused and scarred, her fingernails short. Kami suspected this woman had seen her share of hard work and horror despite her maternal bearing, and she had never seen her within the walls of the Golden Heron.

Inspector Calenta leaned back in her chair, the wood creaking, and folded those hardened hands on the desk between her and the three other women. Kami and her two bodyguards all sat on stools in an unadorned, square room made of stone with high, small windows. They had taken her walking stick, Emah’s sword, and Maly’s two knives, assuring the group that they’d be returned when exiting the Keep. Two Watch members stood flanking the heavy, iron-banded door behind them.

“Alright, my dears, let me repeat the story. To make sure I’ve got it, ah?” she said, her voice husky, warm, and deep, like aged whisky. She addressed Kami. “You hired these two to accompany you to the jail because you feared harassment of some kind.”

“Yes,” Kami nodded. The inspector waited to see if she would elaborate, but Kami did not. She found that the economy of words and movement served best when being questioned or threatened.

“And you were going to visit this man,” she looked down at a note she’d scrawled on parchment, “this Raffin Hothorp, because… he owed you money, ah?”

Kami thought that perhaps she let the eye on the beautiful side of her face—for that is how she thought of it—twitch briefly. It wasn’t clear that the inspector saw it. “Yes,” she confirmed. “From a visit to the Heron.”

“Okay, dear, that’s fine. And when you got there, you found the jail was the scene of some battle, with everyone there dead, including all the guards. There were also these… creatures. The rats.” She pursed her lips, deepening her dimples. “You didn’t go call for help because you wanted to see if this Raffin man was alive?” Inspector Calenta’s index finger began tapping on her desk absently.

“That’s right.”

“Dangerous business, ah? Well, then more of these creatures attacked you, coming up from the toilets. Six of them, if the Watch sergeant’s estimation is correct. You fled, and the rats’ leader followed you out into the street. So far I got it all as you remember?”

“Exactly,” Kami nodded once again.

“My dear, you are either very brave,” the woman continued tapping her finger on the desk. “Or this man owed you more than just money, ah? Most people would see the blood and run, not go straight into the mess.”

“Yes, well,” Kami said. “I had two armed guards, didn’t I?”

“Mmm,” the inspector mused. “And didn’t die, the way our watchmen did, ah? So either brave and skilled, or very lucky. Your two guards managed to kill all six of the ambushers, plus their big nasty leader?”

“What can I say?” Kami grinned. “I hire good help.”

“Mmm,” Inspector Calenta looked at Maly. “How’re those injuries, my dear? You feeling okay?”

Maly blinked, seemingly surprised to be addressed. Her fingers touched the bandages. “Oh! Uh, fine, ma’am. Just scratches, really.”

“Be sure to watch for infection, ah? Rats carry disease,” the inspector smiled with those round cheeks. “No fever? You feel good?”

Maly grinned back, something Kami realized the woman’s presence invited. She would have been valuable at the Golden Heron, she mused. “I’ll be good as new in no time. I’m fine.”

“Good to hear!” the inspector’s tapping stopped as she clapped her hands together. “Just scratches, Kami, you see? You do hire good help indeed.” The inspector stood, as if coming to some sort of conclusion. “If your bodyguard is okay, you can all accompany me this afternoon somewhere, no?”

“Inspector?” Kami arched an eyebrow.

“Well, dears, the evidence all supports your story. But two new Adventurer’s Guild members with no reputation wiping out an entire squad of feral beats with…” those dimples deepened as she nodded to Maly. “Only scratches? Now this is amazing, ah? So, I want to see something, to test a theory, ah? Please, follow me.”

Where is Inspector Calenta taking them? Let’s find out with some Mythic rolls. First on the Locations description (56): Messy. Next twice on the Event Descriptor tables: (40) Fully and (91) Soft. Hm. I had to think about those three descriptors for a long time, and what I came up with is a stretch. On the other hand, the whole point of Mythic Emulator rolls is to provide inspiration and plot twists, and I’m happy with where this next bit is going.

“How did you bend the bars?” Maly asked her in a low, urgent whisper. “How did you move your body like that? What are you?”

Kami did not answer, keeping her eyes fixed forward beneath her wide-brimmed hat. Economy of words and movements, she thought. This is neither the place nor time for this topic.

“Answer me!” Maly hissed.

“Everything okay, dears?” Inspector Calenta asked loudly over her shoulder. Maly swore under her breath and Kami nodded with a tight smile back to the inspector.

Emah glanced between her and Maly and cleared her throat, frowning. “Where are we going, inspector? And can we get our weapons back soon, please? My sword is my mother’s.”

The woman had led them deeper into the Keep, through largely cramped and winding stone corridors, lit by torchlight and arrow slits. The place was cool, smelling of smoke and dampness. Kami had never been inside the walls of Oakton’s inner keep and it seemed that neither had Emah nor Maly. They quickly found themselves lost, with no sense of how they were proceeding or the place’s layout. At one point they went down a short staircase, only to ascend seemingly twice as far up another one a few minutes later. Kami had the dim sense that they moved roughly clockwise from where they’d entered, but, despite that knowledge, she was sure that she could not have gotten them back to Inspector Calenta’s meeting room if given the chance.

“Almost there now!” the inspector called over her shoulder happily to Emah. “Just a quick stop and you’ll have your family sword back, dear.”

Shortly thereafter, they came to a heavy door, outside of which stood a gangly, long-necked South Islander youth in the yellow-and-green of Oakton. He looked nervous and sweaty despite the cool temperature within the keep, his throat bobbing when he saw them all. Kami wondered briefly if the act of getting older was feeling that everyone around her was too young for their stations.

“Why hello, Watchman Weegate! Have the others arrived?” the inspector asked with a wide smile and deep dimples.

“Y-yes ma’am,” the young man nodded. “Inside and ready, like you asked.”

“That’s a good boy,” she clapped him on the shoulder. “Here we are then,” she said to Kami and her companions, then opened the door.

Beyond the portal was a large room. Thick, colorful rugs and carpets adorned the stone floor, and in various places stood straw-filled dummies on wooden stands. A few City Watchmen battered the dummies with practice spears and swords whose blades were wrapped in cloth. Others sat or stood scattered around the training room, talking in groups. Many crowded around a true mountain of a man, a Kalee with shaved head and skin as dark as iron. Everyone quieted when the door opened, except one woman who kept battering her dummy mercilessly. Eventually the huge man cleared his throat, stopping the woman and making her cheeks color in embarrassment. A few of the others chuckled.

“Come in, come in,” Inspector Calenta ushered them, smiling. Kami arched her eyebrow again and walked forward. Emah followed, then Maly. After all three had entered, the inspector swung the door shut with an echoing boom!, making Maly jump. Calenta waved her hand. “Well, go on now, get in the middle of the room there. Here dear, I can hold your hat.” One of those meaty hands took Kami’s wide-brimmed hat, almost gently.

Confused, the trio wandered to the middle of the room. The watch members had all stood now, their eyes glued to the three companions. Some smirked, others looked terrified, and still others scowled. In their hands they clutched their spears and swords. Even though the practice weapons were made entirely of wood and padded with cloth, they looked ready to fight. Silence reigned for several heartbeats. Tension permeated the air.

“I… don’t know what’s happening here,” Maly whispered into quiet.

Inspector Calenta cleared her throat. “Alright now, dears. I appreciate everyone making time for this exercise. Kami, Emah, Maly,” she smiled at them from the door. “I was quite impressed by what I heard from the jail, and goodness knows we need some help with everything happening in the city these past weeks. So we’re going to see if you’re up to the task I have in mind, or if your tale is nonsense.”

“See if we’re…?” Emah scowled.

“See if you can fight as well as Miss Misaki’s story claims, of course,” the inspector chuckled, and something glittered in her merry eyes. “The goal is submission. Pannu, are your people ready?”

The large man’s white smile split his face. “We are, yes.” He winked at Kami.

“Okay then, let’s go!” and in one motion she tossed Kami’s hat aside and clapped her hands together.

“Wait, what?!” Maly squeaked.

The room of guards whooped and rushed them.

Age of Wonders: Issue 1 Reflections!

Age of Wonders, Issue 1b: Jail Rats [with game notes]

On February 8, 2025February 22, 2025 By MagicJMSIn Age of Wonders, Fantasy Fiction, Superhero Fiction, Superhero Gaming, Tabletop Roleplaying4 Comments

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.”

Age of Wonders: Issue 1c

My Hero Brain

Tag: Gaming

Age of Wonders, Issue 3c: Temple of the Rat God [with game notes]

Age of Wonders, Issue 3b: Into the Warrens [with game notes]

Age of Wonders, Issue 3a: The Roar of Destiny [with game notes]

Age of Wonders, Issue 2 Reflections

Another Amazing Cover

What’s Going Well

Crusaders Combat and Noncombat

Tracking Social Plot Threads

Age of Wonders, Issue 2c: The Bronze Armor [with game notes]

Age of Wonders, Issue 2b: Upstairs [with game notes]

Age of Wonders, Issue 2a: Welcome to the Watch [with game notes]

Age of Wonders, Issue 1 Reflections

What’s Going Well

Open Story Structure Versus Published Material

Victory Points and Character Progression

How About Some Issue Covers?

Age of Wonders, Issue 1c: Inspector Calenta [with game notes]

Age of Wonders, Issue 1b: Jail Rats [with game notes]