Tag: TTRPG

Age of Wonders, Issue 4b: An Unusual Treasure [with game notes]

On By MagicJMSIn Age of Wonders, Fantasy Fiction, Superhero Fiction, Superhero Gaming, Tabletop Roleplaying3 Comments
art by Roland Brown (drawhaus.com)

Emah winced, her face a mask of sweat, her breathing labored. Her damned ribs on one side lanced pain with every stumbling step, and now her shoulder burned and stomach roiled with whatever those robed ratfolk had thrown at them. Holding the torch aloft with that arm involved more effort than Emah cared to admit. All she wanted to do was stop… to close her eyes, drop to the floor, and curl into a ball.

Ahead, the black shadow of Destiny led them with loping strides away from the ratfolk temple. Occasionally the great cat would briefly pause, yellow eyes scanning the darkness and nostrils flaring. Emah thought the panther was scanning for Maly as much as finding a way to safety. At least she hoped that was the case, and hoped equally that the creature was helping guide and comfort her friend through whatever link they shared. Why had she jumped into the crowd like that? What could she have possibly hoped to accomplish?

“Come on,” Kami urged to Emah. The brothel owner maddeningly did not sweat at all, seemed utterly in control of her breathing as if on a leisurely stroll. Yet behind the wooden half-mask, Kami’s eyes were as wide as Emah’s, as furtively searching the darkness. “The crates won’t hold them long, and then they’ll be upon on.”

“I know,” Emah growled. She pushed herself off an earthen wall that she had gripped briefly for relief and, with a groan, willed her feet forward despite every muscle protesting.

It had all happened so quickly. The scene at what could only have been a temple was unlike anything she could have imagined; dozens upon dozens of the small, furred ratfolk swaying in unison to a robed figure upon a raised dais at the feet of an enormous statue of a man with a rat’s head and tail. In front of the leader sat a golden and jeweled box that sparkled in torchlight, stolen from Sami Suttar’s home and formerly guarded by an animated suit of armor. The ratfolk had all been participating in a ritual of some kind, Emah supposed, a ritual that somehow involved the box. Whatever the ratfolk leader upon the dais had intended, she and her companions had interrupted it.

Without warning, her friend Maly had disappeared into the crowd, pushing her way forward. Then the figure upon the dais had noticed them, pointing an accusing clawed finger. The entire room had turned, and a wave of… something had rippled through the mob. Ratfolk faces that had been surprised, frightened, and confused suddenly all contorted into rage. With a collective squeal, the swarm of the creatures had surged at them.

Emah could hardly remember the moments from then until now. Eerie green, throbbing balls of light hurled from the back of the crowd at them, arcing lazily like catapult stones and splashing as they struck the floor and walls. She had been focused on the crazed, frothing ratfolk at the front and ignored the orbs of energy, and one had hit Emah in her shoulder. A searing, nauseating pain throbbed through her, like a burn and punch in the stomach all at once. She’d doubled over, gagging, and then called for a retreat.

Destiny had stayed to fight, ripping at ratfolk with its white teeth and claws. Yet through tear-blurred eyes Emah had seen the mob engulf the black panther, and in a heartbeat, it leapt from the fray. As it pushed past her, Emah had seen its fur matted in blood.

Then they ran.

Through the ratfolk tunnels they’d fled, the echoing wave of chittering, screaming madness behind them. At one point they’d passed a stack of wooden crates and Kami had, almost casually, scattered the heavy boxes across the tunnels behind them. The wave of frenzied ratfolk had hit the obstacle, the lead creatures stumbling and becoming crushed by those behind them. The maneuver had bought them some distance, and Destiny had used that distance to find their way to smaller and smaller passageways, always sloping upwards. Emah thought that they might actually make it back to the Oakton streets alive… Unless the ratfolk had circled to another tunnel to cut them off. Unless the panther had mistakenly led them to a dead end. Unless her legs gave out to exhaustion and pain.

And where in the blazes was Maly?

As a system, Crusaders doesn’t have any specific “chase” rules, though a lot of modern games have fun ones. Rather than graft on another game’s mechanics, I’ve made a single roll for each PC using their Alertness against the ratfolk mob’s Fight score of 10. Destiny succeeded, rolling 47 (60% chance of success), and Kami critically succeeded, rolling 33 (65%). I’ve narrated those successes above. Now it’s time to roll for our remaining two PCs.

For Emah, the roll is to determine if she is a liability to her companions or if she manages to keep pace. Success means she grits it out the entire journey. Failure means she either must make a stand or find a place to hide. Because of the nature of the narrative, the roll is probably Physique instead of Alertness, but for Emah it’s the same target: 65%. She rolls a 30.

For Maly, who is “off camera” in this scene, the question is whether she can avoid the ratfolk on her own and navigate to the surface. She is in darkness, which would be a big penalty if not for Destiny, who can telepathically aid her ascent through the warrens and can mitigate the darkness somewhat. Maly would normally have a 75% chance of success, which I’ll drop to 55% because of her situation. She rolls… well, I’ll keep that a secret for now.

Through her weary and pain-filled haze, Emah realized that whether her friend had made it out of the mob alive was, for now, irrelevant. Perhaps Maly had died, perhaps she’d been captured, or perhaps she was now finding her own way to the surface. The implications of the mad Stone Islander’s impulsive dash into the temple would have to wait. For now, Emah, Kami, and the panther must survive their pursuit, and it was Emah who most threatened their progress.

It could have been a full bell in time or several, she couldn’t be sure. Everything for Emah was a shroud of pain, sweat dripping off her chin, into her eyes, making the grip on the flickering torch precarious. Every muscle burned with fatigue, and every labored breath felt like someone stabbing her repeatedly. Kami pulled her forward, sometimes physically and sometimes with urgent words. Emah remembered no details from their flight from the temple, only flashes of Destiny’s yellow eyes, Kami’s harsh and urgent voice, and the constant, menacing echoes of the ratfolk horde.

At one point, Destiny growled and leapt forward, into the shadows. Emah was sure the mob had cut them off, that they now faced enemies from the front and back, that she would die in darkness and dirt. She would not see her father again, not see the sun and sky. A wave of resignation and weariness overtook her in that moment. Emah would not see her father, but she was eager to reunite with her mother. So be it.

Heartbeats later, Kami was gripping her bicep and pulling her ahead, yelling something, before sunlight broke above them.

A barrel’s top had apparently been tossed over a ragged hole. Destiny had knocked the barrier aside and disappeared above. Kami yelled something else to Emah, which she dimly took as some sort of instruction. Emah nodded and leaned against the tunnel’s earthen surface, panting and closing her eyes, while Kami wriggled upwards through the opening. Then unnaturally long arms, like vines, snaked towards her, pulling her up and into the light.

Emah briefly noticed the blue sky above and their surroundings, dappled with wispy clouds. They were in an alley somewhere, trash piled all around them between tall wooden walls. Kami held her, frowning behind her half-mask.

It was the last thing Emah remembered. She tried to say something, but her eyes rolled back in her head, sounds muffled, and then there was darkness everywhere.

The world blurred into existence as Emah cracked open her eyes and looked around woozily. At first, nothing looked familiar, and she frowned in confusion. She lay in a large bed, in a dark bedroom that was not her typical cramped room at the Heart and Dagger, its windows covered by curtains. No light shone through the windows, which meant it must be nighttime. Emah blinked, her mind working slowly. Then she rubbed at her eyes with a calloused hand and looked again.

Ah, she did know this place. She was back in the musty, unused bedroom within Sami Suttar’s house, on a lonely cul-de-sac street within the Coins. It was the same place she’d woken up the day before, after getting pummeled by the enchanted bronze armor upstairs. Was it yesterday? She had no idea. Yet, perhaps foolishly, then she’d pushed herself out of bed to accompany Maly, Kami, and the panther down into a hole in the home’s basement in what now seemed a mad pursuit of ratfolk. Their journey below came rushing back to her—the endless maze of warrens, the torchlit and pressing gloom, the bizarre temple scene, the flight from the frenzied mob to the surface. And Maly, missing.

Emah took stock of her own injuries. Her midsection had new bandages, and her ribs still felt tender and sore. She suspected that moving would again prove to be agony. In addition, her left shoulder was also bandaged, covering where the glowing green attack from the ratfolk faithful had struck her. Thankfully, she no longer felt the roiling nausea from before, though her shoulder throbbed dully. At the edges of the bandage, the skin showed small, dark, spidery veins that could have been signs of infection.

Someone had left a waterskin within reach of her good arm, and Emah reached for it, slaking her thirst with small sips at first, then slurping gulps. The effort of drinking made her dizzy, and she closed her eyes again. Her ears quested past the closed door, listening for any voices or movement. She heard nothing. It must be the middle of the night, she thought dully. Who was here, sleeping or keeping watch? How much time had passed? Was Maly okay? Had there been signs of the ratfolk’s pursuit? Emah cursed her injuries and fatigue, willing herself to stand and find answers. Yet her battered body refused, and soon she had fallen back into a deep stupor.

“So let me get this straight,” Emah said, shaking her head and spooning soup to her mouth between sentences. “The panther yells ‘Get the box’ to you, and you just… jump into a horde of ratfolk? What was your plan?”

Maly grinned, her freckled and pale cheeks flushing slightly. “I, uh… well, my plan was to get the box. Which,” she said with an upraised finger. “I will point out that I did.”

It had been three days of bed rest for Emah, and on the morning of the second day Maly had knocked at Sami Suttar’s front door. Kami reported that the young woman clutched the golden, jeweled box in her tattooed arms, and that she looked bedraggled and in need of a bath. By the time Maly had cleaned up and slept for a full day and night, Emah was close to being on her feet again. The two hugged awkwardly, Emah favoring one side, and wept. It seemed that neither Destiny nor Kami had wished to remain for the reunion, which left the two friends to chatter away.

“Where is the box now?” Emah asked, wiping her bowl clean with an end piece of bread.

“Kami has it,” Maly said. “In the attic, where it was before. She said that if the rats wanted it, she’d know they were coming that way. She’s sleeping up there, too. Though Emah,” she leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially. “I don’t know if the woman actually sleeps. Really. Oh, hey… more soup?”

Emah grinned and offered her bowl gratefully. “Yes, please.”

When Maly returned with the steaming bowl and a new hunk of bread, the black panther Destiny padded at her side. Behind them both, Kami entered the room. The bejeweled box, the size of a small backpack, was tucked under one arm.

Kami appraised her behind her wooden half-mask. “Maly says that you are healed?”

“Near enough to swing a sword, I suppose,” Emah nodded, and Kami nodded once back. “Does your question mean we have a plan?”

The Kaizukan woman paused, an expression on her mouth that looked almost pouty with her bee-stung lips. “We do not. It’s why I’m here. I thought we could discuss what happens next.”

While Emah slurped soup, Maly pulled a small chair from the corner to her bedside. Kami remained standing, and Destiny stretched out against a far wall beneath the only window. Maly had opened the curtains that morning, and the day outside looked sunny and bright.

“It seems obvious,” Kami began without preamble once Maly had settled into the chair. “that the ratfolk below Oakton are led by the figure upon the dais in the tattered robes, and that he…”

“She,” Maly corrected.

“Oh?” Emah couldn’t see it because of the mask, but she assumed that Kami had raised an eyebrow with the question. Otherwise the woman hadn’t moved.

“She yelled at me, in my mind,” Maly nodded, “the same way Destiny communicates. Definitely a ‘she,’ and young. I also don’t think she was leading those ratfolk so much as controlling them.”

Kami stared at Maly and Emah urged her on with a wave while she continued to eat.

“Yeah. She tried it on me, but either Destiny was protecting me or it only works on ratfolk or… I don’t know. Anyway, didn’t you notice how they all turned feral all of a sudden? That was her. I think if we take her out, we solve the ratfolk problem.”

“That is quite the leap of logic,” Kami frowned.

Maly shrugged a pale shoulder. “It makes sense, though.”

“What’s in the box?” Emah interjected, nodding her chin at the item beneath Kami’s arm.

“I did look, of course,” Kami said. “It’s… unnerving. I don’t know what I expected, but not this.” She knelt and placed the box upon a rug, its lid facing Emah and Maly so that, when opened, they could see inside. Emah stopped eating and the two of them leaned forward to see as Kami unlatched the chest and opened it.

Inside was something tightly wrapped in gray linen. It looked like…

“Is that a… hand!?” Maly squeaked.

“Yes,” Kami confirmed. “A severed and mummified hand. And not small and clawed either. It is a human hand.”

“Gross,” Maly winced.

“My thought as well.”

“So,” Emah wiped the last of her second bowl with the last of her second piece of bread. Before popping the bread in her mouth, she said, “the magical rat-priestess wanted the hand for some ritual, which we didn’t let her finish. Why haven’t they come and taken it from us? They certainly have the numbers, and I wouldn’t have been able to fight back.”

They all sat in silence for several heartbeats. Kami snapped the chest shut and stood, the box at her feet. “Perhaps they did not think we would come back here. It is a big city, and their warrens are vast. Or perhaps the priestess also needed rest, or to regain control of her people. I cannot say.”

“Maybe they took us being there as a threat to their home,” Maly offered. “A sign from their rat god, or something.”

“If that were the case,” Emah said, swallowing the last bite. “They would have spent these days fortifying their defenses. Maybe collapsing tunnels. That feels right… that we scared them as much as they scared us. Whatever ritual that priestess wanted to do isn’t as urgent as important as making sure we can’t just walk back into their domain unmolested.”

“I don’t want to go back down there anyway,” Maly said, and then her eyes widened with a thought. “Please don’t tell me whatever plan we make has us going back down there.”

“No, on that I agree,” Emah said, placing her empty bowl beside her on the bed. “Let’s figure out a way to lure the priestess to us.”

“With the box as bait? Interesting,” Kami mused.

They all looked down at the box, jewels glinting in the afternoon sunlight. Silence filled the room as their minds worked.

It was because of the silence that they heard the screaming from outside.

Next: Screaming!?

Age of Wonders, Issue 4a: Get The Box [with game notes]

On By MagicJMSIn Age of Wonders, Fantasy Fiction, Superhero Fiction, Superhero Gaming, Tabletop Roleplaying1 Comment
art by Roland Brown (drawhaus.com)

This is insane, Maly thought, eyes wide, as she pushed her way through startled and confused ratfolk. Their fur was faintly oily and left an unpleasant residue on her skin. Her hands, arms, shoulders, and thighs all felt unclean and, she was sure, stank of the same animal musk and trash odor that filled her nostrils. Yet she had no time to linger upon the press of small, furred bodies pushing against her from all sides, nor the wave of chittering squeals of surprise. Maly ducked and wove deftly through the crowd’s backs, as though swimming upstream through a river of bodies. She hoped the shock of her presence would delay and confuse the ratfolk mob enough that her own back was free of claws and stabbing weapons. So far, it had worked. Just keeping moving, she goaded herself forward. Be gone before they register you’re there.

Get the box! a savage voice roared over her thoughts. Destiny the panther had never, in their short time together, sounded so feral and filled with battle lust.

But why!? Maly answered desperately, shoving a particularly big ratfolk out of the way and stepping into the resulting open space. She ducked forward through the press. “What’s the plan?” she said aloud, knowing the panther could somehow hear her.

Just do it!

“You’re not a very good guardian,” Maly muttered. “You’ve gotten me in far more danger than before I met you.”

I’ve never been your guardian, child, the voice grated in her skull. Is that what you thought?

“What are you then?” she panted.

Vengeance! Always vengeance.

Maly ground her teeth. What did a jeweled box have to do with vengeance? She’d made it deep into the crowd and could, from her ducked position, catch glimpses of the robed figure atop the dais. It had stopped chanting and was pointing a finger to the back of the room, where Maly’s companions, she assumed, still stood.

No time for questions. With a grunt she redoubled her efforts.

It’s Round 2 of our mega-temple-scene, and we have a new entrant into our initiative tracker. Tatter the High Priestess, who has the entire ratfolk crowd whipped into a frenzy, has spotted the group at the back of the room. When it’s her turn, things will get wild. Here are the current actors:

  • Maly (Alertness 15)
  • Tatter (14)
  • Kami & Emah (each 13)
  • Destiny (12)
  • Ratfolk mob 1 (10, 3)

Maly will continue her press forward to the dais, rolling her 13 Prowess against the mob’s score of 10. That gives her a 65% chance to successfully reach her destination without incident. She rolls an 88, though, which is a critical fail. Well… poop. I’ll say that she must defeat a brute lieutenant (the larger ratfolk she just pushed) in order to attempt another move. The brute lieutenants have an Alertness of 12, so I’ll say Lieutenant 2 goes next while the battle is here. Maly normally has a 90% chance of dodging, but because of the fumble I’ll reduce that chance to 70%. Thankfully she rolls a 62 and still manages to avoid any harm.

Now it’s Tatter’s turn, and she uses her Emotion Control to unleash a wave of anger across the ratfolk in the room. Normally rolls in Crusaders are player-facing, but in this case it’s an NPC vs. NPC roll and her Psychic Attack has an 80% of success. She rolls exactly 80, and the remaining NINE ratfolk mobs, plus all the brute and robed lieutenants, now see the PCs and will be able to act in Round 3. Yikes! I will say, however, that Tatter’s focus is on the group in the back, and she has not yet seen Maly.

Kami and Emah act next and are aware that the room has turned ugly. They’ll use their turns to move out of range (a combat move in Crusaders called Disengage), from Center of the scene to its Perimeter. Destiny, in his bloodlust, wants to finish the first ratfolk mob, and rolls a 54 against a 60% chance success. The two remaining ratfolk of mob 1 are gone in a mist of blood.

Something clamped upon Maly’s bicep and spun her around. She gasped as she faced one of the hulking rat-creatures, like the one that had tackled her outside of the jail. It stood as tall as her, with broadly muscled shoulders, long and wiry furred arms ending in frightening black claws. In her brief battle with the other brute, those claws had torn through her leather armor. Maly jerked her arm free reflexively and pulled a dagger from its sheathe. The rat creature squealed hideously.

She was dimly aware that the mob all around her had turned in unison, their backs now to the nearby dais. An unseen wave rippled through the crowd, and they began chittering wildly. As a living tide, they swarmed past Maly towards the back of the room, even as she faced off against the large, primal ratfolk in front of her. The thing’s black eyes gleamed in torchlight as it lunged at her.

Here’s where we find ourselves in Round 3:

  • Maly (Alertness 15)
  • Brute Lieutenant 2 (14)
  • Tatter (14)
  • Robed Lieutenants 1-4 (14)
  • Brute Lieutenants 3-6 (14)
  • Kami & Emah (each 13 – Perimeter)
  • Destiny (12)
  • Ratfolk mobs 2-10 (10)

Maly’s up, and she needs to defeat the brute ratfolk lieutenant in front of her solo before she can make it to the dais. She’s more of a dodger than an attacker, but her 13 Prowess against the brute’s Alertness of 14 means she has a 45% chance to hit. She rolls a 98. No good. The brute strikes back and Maly has a 90% chance to dodge now that she’s no longer surprised. A 30 is a success. The two combatants circle each other but neither makes any headway.

Upon the dais, does Tatter notice Maly or is her attention focused solely on the back of the room? Her Alertness of 14 versus a Hard difficulty of 15 means she has a 45% chance. 04. Wow, Tatter is good at noticing things! She spots Maly and the brute fighting. Unfortunately, I think Tatter will try and deal with the closest threat, Maly, and assume the horde will handle everyone else. She’ll spend this round trying to create some confusion and fear with her Emotion Control. Tatter’s Psyche is 16 versus Maly’s 12, which means Maly only has a 30% to defend herself. She rolls… 26! Woot!

At the back of the room, the Robed Lieutenants can strike from range with their “spells,” which act as Psychic Attacks versus Alertness to dodge. I’ll say that two each attack Emah and Kami. Their Psyche for the attack is 15, which means that Kami can’t be hit with her Elasticity. It’s Emah who is more vulnerable. She can’t use her sword to parry, which means that her 13 Alertness only gives her a 40% chance to dodge. She rolls a 44 and 32, dodging one but critically failing the other. I’ll say the attack does an additional 10 damage and drops her from 39 Vitality to a mere 14. One more hit and she’s down.

Destiny didn’t retreat to the Perimeter, but it’s unrealistic to say that all the remaining enemies can attack him freely. I’ll say that two brutes can strike, their 12 Prowess against the panther’s 12 Alertness meaning a 50% chance for each. Destiny rolls 18 and 62, so a miss and a hit. Twelve damage takes Destiny to 18 Vitality. On the panther’s turn, then, he Disengages to the Perimeter.

Kami can stretch, but there’s nothing explicit in the Elasticity description about being able to make a ranged attack with her fists. It makes sense that she can do so. She’ll attack one of the brutes pursuing Destiny, and with a 10 Prowess and its 14 Alertness, she has a 30% chance to hit. 29 is a hit! With her Super Strength, she smashes one to a pulp. Emah then uses her turn to flip the curtains closed, preventing the robed priests (and Kami) from being able to attack.

One mob pursues to and through the doorway, taking up all the space to attack and creating a bottleneck for the others.

As I suspected, the PCs will absolutely fall if they don’t handle this situation quickly.

Maly sidestepped and swiped with her dagger, but the thing was as fast as it was vicious. Her blade struck only air, and she danced backwards to stay out of its reach.

Meanwhile, the mob of ratfolk had surged past the two combatants, ignoring them to rush the back of the room where Emah, Destiny, and Kami had been when Maly had begun this madcap plan. In shockingly little time, she found herself alone on the hard-packed dirt floor, she and the hulking ratfolk circling one another.

A flash of light drew Maly’s attention. The four robed creatures that had been nearest the dais now stood with their backs to her, behind the roiling mass of ratfolk. As they raised their arms, sickly green energy pulsed around their clawed hands. They lobbed glowing balls, like snowballs made of ooze, over the crowd’s heads and to the back of the room. Maly had no idea what the attacks were, but she knew that her time had more than run out. She needed to deal with this brute in front of her, get the box, and get out of here.

As if on cue, the creature dove at her, snarling, hands outstretched. Maly rolled to one side and rose onto one knee.

From the dais, the ratfolk leader was chittering madly, its attention now focused on her. It pointed a clawed finger in her direction. She swallowed. This was not good.

Let’s deal with the combat at the dais itself, with Maly first, then Tatter, then the lieutenant. Depending on how that round goes, I’ll decide what to do about the mess of the rest of the combatants.

Maly again has a 45% chance to hit and this time rolls a 14. Thanks to her dagger, she does 17 damage and kills the brute lieutenant. Tatter, however, gets another chance to induce fear in Maly. Can she again avoid the attack with only a 30% chance of success? She rolls… 03! Wow! Maybe Destiny’s shielding her mind somehow?

In terms of the back of the room, I’ll say that our three PCs have retreated again, and the mob is pushing their way towards them. For the purposes of this combat, they’re all out of the scene.

Which means that Maly has one big attempt to retrieve the box. Her Acrobat power says that she can “vault, somersault, walk tightropes, swing from rooftops, and perform other spectacular feats with no chance of failure.” She will, then, attempt to launch herself up to the dais and grab the jeweled box, escaping any further attack. Maly will be able to perform the feat, but whether she can escape will require a roll. I’ll give her a +5 Alertness roll against a Hard difficulty. If she makes the 75% chance roll, she’s out and the scene is over. If not, Tatter will get one additional attack.

Maly rolls… 78. Damn. That means Tatter gets one last chance, and she’ll try Mind Control on Maly. Against all odds, can Maly resist the high priest’s powers? Once again she has a 30% chance. She rolls a 42, and will immediately use her Hero Point for the Issue, switching it to a 24 and succeeding. WHEW! If she had failed, I think the rest of the Issue would have been a rescue of mind-controlled Maly. Instead, it’s a chase!

Growling, Maly used the ratfolk brute’s tactics against it, launching herself with dagger outstretched. The creature hadn’t anticipated the move and thus was too slow to prevent Maly burying her weapon into the thing’s throat. Hot blood spurted as she rode the ratfolk’s body to the floor, then rolled forward to the edge of the dais.

Without conscious thought, Maly leapt nimbly upon the raised floor. She had never been tall for her age, but she towered over the robed leader in front of her. In one fluid motion she sheathed her dagger and scooped up the jeweled box in both arms, her legs pushing her as fast as possible to a side curtain, which she desperately hoped was an exit.

“I have the box!” she panted to the empty room.

From behind her, the robed ratfolk let out a high screech, and for a fleeting moment Maly heard the word STOP! in her mind, the voice that of a teenage, panicked girl. Maly’s steps faltered, and then Destiny’s voice bellowed, filling her every thought.

Go, child! GO!

Maly blinked, shaking her head to clear it. Golden jeweled box clutched to her torso, she vaulted from the dais like a cat. As she landed, her legs were already pumping, her eyes wide in the fading torchlight.

Maly dove through the curtain in front of her, heedless as to what might be on the other side. As she tore through the hanging barrier, she could hear the fearful, urgent chittering of the ratfolk leader, alone at the foot of the rat-god statue.

Then the sound was gone and she was hurtling through darkness, panting and stumbling forward.

Next: Ruuuun!

Age of Wonders, Issue 3 Reflections

On By MagicJMSIn Age of Wonders, Fantasy Fiction, Superhero Fiction, Superhero Gaming, Tabletop Roleplaying4 Comments
art by Roland Brown (drawhaus.com)

Apparently, I like ending these issues of Age of Wonders on cliffhangers, because Issue 3 left us right in the middle of the hairiest (both literally and figuratively) situation our new party has encountered to date. What’s going to happen in Issue 4? I honestly have no idea, but it’s going to be a wild one.

Before we move on to Tatter and her ratfolk horde, however, let’s pause and reflect on all things Age of Wonders. I’m still very much finding my way with this solo-play-emergent-serial-fiction thing, and these pauses are proving to be a vital part of my process, a chance to pull my head up from my keyboard and dice tray, pondering changes to either my approach or story.

Suffice it to say, I’m happy right now and don’t have a lot of tweaks to make. I’m about to learn a lot from Issue 4 and however this temple scene unfolds. I suspect that my next Reflections post will be meaty as a result. Still, here are my musings on the solo game experience to date, using published material as a safety net, and building epic scenes with an eye towards my post-Issue 6 level-up. Enjoy!

Solo Play: So Far So Good

This week I received my months-delayed Kickstarter copy of Evolved, which as you may recall is a superhero game system using Dungeon Crawl Classics as a base. Since superheroes represent my favorite genre and DCC is my favorite game system, there’s a very good chance that if Evolved had met its original release schedule that I would be playing it instead of Crusaders. So, in some ways, this week is a good test of my resolve to stick with Crusaders instead of changing the system in the background to my shiny new toy (although, to be fair, Evolved is likely a system that requires a full reboot since character creation is woven into the stories it tells). Indeed, I know myself well enough that I haven’t even cracked open my chunky, 500-page Evolved rulebook for fear of becoming severely distracted from the rest of my life. When I finally succumb, I suspect my mind will ignite.

Thankfully, nine installments into this experiment and I’m feeling fine about my selection of Crusaders. Last time I mentioned some of the limitations that I see inherent within a simplified system, and those issues still exist. But I like the variant rules that I’ve added to the game. I am also benefiting from the simplified rules system, which allows me to spin up a bonkers scene like the Temple of the Rat God on the fly and with relatively little stress. Creating characters is still a delight, and the recent combat with the Bronze Armor was both tense and cinematic. As long as I’m able to keep a coherent plot while maintaining my focus on nonstop supers-on-supers action, Crusaders is likely to serve my needs. If I ever start wanting to spend more time on interpersonal scenes or other noncombat endeavors (like exploration, hazards, and chases), I’ll likely be frustrated. For now, though, the tool is fitting the job.

Since I’m extoling what’s going well, I’ll also say that I’m absolutely loving the three-installments-per-issue-then-reflections format and equally enjoying switching the point-of-view character each installment. It’s a pace that feels sustainable even while juggling a full-time, travel-heavy job, and moving between voices allows me to live in each protagonist’s brain for a week at a time. I’m not sure what happens if I decide to add another PC into the mix, but I’ll cross that bridge if and when I get there. For now, let’s just make sure our party survives their sojourn into the ratfolk warrens.

Speaking of which…

Published Material as Safety Net

When I played DCC solo for six months, I relied heavily on published adventures, first Portal Under the Stars and then Doom of the Savage Kings. That experiment was focused on learning the game system and fully stretching my gaming legs with some of their most popular adventure modules. Since that time, I’ve GMed several DCC games for groups and have fantasized about running a longer campaign sometime. When I do so, I’ll likely start with published material and then allow the story to morph and evolve into plots intimately tied to the characters’ lives and choices. At the time, though, I was glad to stick closely to the material as written by legends Joseph Goodman and Harley Stroh.

My Crusaders game differs from that first solo play experience in two key ways. First, I am now playing within a homebrewed world and a fantasy-superhero mash-up. There simply is no published material set in Age of Wonders, so anything I would try to use would require heavy modification anyway. Second, as I’ve said repeatedly, Crusaders is a simpler game to learn and master, and is inherently a comics-combat simulator. The goal of Crusaders is to make cool set pieces and have your imaginary actions figures bash against each other, with mechanics underlying it that are easy to pick up. As a result, when I began this experiment, I decided that I would make the story completely emergent and not constrained by published material.

Very quickly, of course, I changed my approach. I found that a blank canvas was a source of stress and inhibiting my ability to set goals and milestones in the story (to be clear: this is a problem with me, not with emergent storytelling). I scanned through my endless shelves of published adventures across many game systems, plucked a few modules that sounded sorta kinda close to my current story, and read through them. For those guessing at home, I used the map in No Small Crimes in Lankhmar as the basis for Sammy Suttar’s home (also, Sammy’s name), and have been relying loosely on Rats of Ilthmar for Issues 3 and 4. The Lankhmar setting, it turns out, is an excellent font of ideas for the urban adventuring of Oakton.

What I have unexpectedly enjoyed is peeking at these published adventures for maps and encounter ideas, without being in any way bound by their story beats. In No Small Crimes (spoiler alert!), the entire conceit of the adventure is that the PCs are shrunk to small size in an abandoned house. In Rats, the PCs are infiltrating a cult to a rat god in which humans are dressed like rats, and the temple is above ground. Most of each published adventure has little to do with what’s happening in Age of Wonders, but is still there to help provide inspiration and handholds when I need them. It’s been awesome; my approach so far has provided me with a creative safety net without constraining my ability to push the protagonists into increasingly wild situations. The result is at best an homage to the published material, and often unrecognizable. I’m excited to maintain my “sort of based on this but not really” approach in the future.

The Current Situation: Where Do We Go From Here?

The scene within the temple is my most ambitious one to date. A whole room full of ratfolk, with two different kinds of lieutenants, and the dastardly villain behind it all. The PCs are hopelessly outnumbered, and if this situation becomes a stand-up fight I’m reasonably sure that they will lose. But can they flee when Maly has gone into the crowd on some scheme plotted by her animal companion Destiny? I’m excited to find out, since I genuinely have no idea how this scene will play out. It could be an enormous brawl that ends with the heroes captured, or it could equally become a mad dash through the ratfolk tunnels towards the surface world, or any other number of outcomes.

My explicit goal is to “wrap up” the ratfolk story somehow by the end of Issue 6, if not before. As a result of last week’s installment, I’m exactly halfway there. My gut tells me that I need to start pointing the PCs towards resolution immediately, yet keep an open mind about side stories or unexpected twists. This enormous temple scene could be the last time we see the ratfolk for now… maybe they manage to take out Tatter and make nice with the remaining populace, for example. But I’m guessing we haven’t come to the end. The fun will be in finding out, and if the ratfolk plot somehow does find a suitable tie-off point, I have a number of smaller subplots with each character to fill out that first “trade paperback” of six issues.  

Finally, let’s continue to pour some love into Roland Brown from drawhaus.com, who continues to create amazing covers for these Age of Wonders issues. This time we got an action shot of Destiny versus Bronze Armor, and next issue features Tatter! Thank you, Roland!

art by Roland Brown (drawhaus.com)

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: Can our heroes escape the temple? [with game notes]

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

On By MagicJMSIn Age of Wonders, Fantasy Fiction, Superhero Fiction, Superhero Gaming, Tabletop Roleplaying2 Comments
art by Roland Brown (drawhaus.com)

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 By MagicJMSIn Age of Wonders, Fantasy Fiction, Superhero Fiction, Superhero Gaming, Tabletop Roleplaying1 Comment
art by Roland Brown (drawhaus.com)

“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

On By MagicJMSIn Age of Wonders, Fantasy Fiction, Superhero Fiction1 Comment
art by Roland Brown (drawhaus.com)

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.

“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.

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.

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 3a: The Roar of Destiny [with game notes]

On By MagicJMSIn Age of Wonders, Fantasy Fiction, Superhero Fiction, Superhero Gaming, Tabletop Roleplaying1 Comment
art by Roland Brown (drawhaus.com)

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:

  1. Maly (30 Vitality, landing)
  2. Kami (2 of 30, main room)
  3. Emah (1 of 39, main room – also needs to get her sword)
  4. Destiny (30, landing)
  5. Ratfolk mob 1 (10,10,10, landing)
  6. Ratfolk mob 2 (10,10,10, landing)
  7. Ratfolk mob 3 (10,10,10, landing)
  8. 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.

  1. Maly (30 Vitality, landing)
  2. Kami (2 of 30, main room)
  3. Emah (1 of 39, main room)
  4. Destiny (30, main room)
  5. Ratfolk mob 1 (10,5, landing)
  6. Ratfolk mob 2 (10,10,10, other room)
  7. Ratfolk mob 3 (10,3, other room)
  8. 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 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:

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

art by Roland Brown (drawhaus.com)

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

On By MagicJMSIn Age of Wonders, Fantasy Fiction, Superhero Fiction2 Comments
art by Roland Brown (drawhaus.com)

Kami hesitated. Beyond the open steel door lay a rectangular, windowless chamber that must have taken half the floor. The room’s only furniture was a wooden stool, and a worktable topped with various alembics, crucibles, glass tubing, and esoteric objects. A brick chimney lacking a hearth protruded from the east wall, while on the west wall hung some sort of scaled creature on display.

Standing motionless in front of her was a large suit of plate armor, seemingly made of bronze, with dead ratfolk littered at its feet. Kami didn’t know much about weapons- or armor-craft, but even still it was clearly a rare and valuable artifact, looking wholly unlike anything made in Kalee, Kaizuka, Mesca, or the Stone Isles. The metal figure was complete, from domed helmet to gauntleted hands to bronze boots. Its burnished metal was ornate with filigree, yet the details did not take away from the impressive, imposing bulk of the thing. Whoever this armor had been made for must have been a giant of a person.

The bronze helmet was a sphere with breathing holes and two menacing eye slits, which glared darkly at Kami. Yet when she stepped into the room, the eyes flared with pale blue light in the gloom. As they did, the armor shifted, regarding her, and a wave of apprehension and malicious, predatory intent washed over her. The armor stepped forward with a heavy thunk. Not an empty suit, after all!

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.

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!”

She 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.

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 2c: The Bronze Armor [with game notes]

On By MagicJMSIn Age of Wonders, Fantasy Fiction, Superhero Fiction, Superhero Gaming, Tabletop Roleplaying3 Comments
art by Roland Brown (drawhaus.com)

Kami hesitated. Beyond the open steel door lay a rectangular, windowless chamber that must have taken half the floor. The room’s only furniture was a wooden stool, and a worktable topped with various alembics, crucibles, glass tubing, and esoteric objects. A brick chimney lacking a hearth protruded from the east wall, while on the west wall hung some sort of scaled creature on display.

Standing motionless in front of her was a large suit of plate armor, seemingly made of bronze, with dead ratfolk littered at its feet. Kami didn’t know much about weapons- or armor-craft, but even still it was clearly a rare and valuable artifact, looking wholly unlike anything made in Kalee, Kaizuka, Mesca, or the Stone Isles. The metal figure was complete, from domed helmet to gauntleted hands to bronze boots. Its burnished metal was ornate with filigree, yet the details did not take away from the impressive, imposing bulk of the thing. Whoever this armor had been made for must have been a giant of a person.

The bronze helmet was a sphere with breathing holes and two menacing eye slits, which glared darkly at Kami. Yet when she stepped into the room, the eyes flared with pale blue light in the gloom. As they did, the armor shifted, regarding her, and a wave of apprehension and malicious, predatory intent washed over her. The armor stepped forward with a heavy thunk. Not an empty suit, after all!

First villain combat! Last time I figured out the stats for this imposing animated suit of bronze armor. Because of its Aura of Fear, I won’t need to make stats for Sergeant Mewa or his two City Watch thugs—they simply can’t attack the Bronze Armor in melee and they have no missile weapons (I mean, technically they could throw their spears, but then they’d be unarmed and I think they’re more likely to just freeze and allow the PCs to engage).

For the first turn, once again that Aura of Fear is doing work. The PCs hesitate, which means that only the Bronze Armor gets to attack. They won’t be surprised, however.

Kami is the one facing off against it, so that’s where it will deliver its first blow. She’s still conscious of using her powers in front of the City Watch, so won’t use Elasticity to dodge. That means, with its Prowess of 16 and her Alertness of 13, Kami has a 35% chance to dodge. But wait! I said last time that the PCs would get -20% in all melee rolls because of the aura, so that drops her chances of avoiding a blow to 15%.

Kami rolls 82, which means even if she used her lone Hero Point this Issue she wouldn’t be able to avoid the attack. The Bronze Armor has a whopping Strength score of 38. Thankfully, Kami subtracts 10 from all bashing damage due to her Elasticity. She takes 28 damage and is down to 2 (!) Vitality with a single blow. I, uh… don’t think she’ll hesitate to use her powers now.

Let’s talk Knockback in Crusaders. Knockback occurs when a character takes bashing damage greater than their Physique score, unless that character has Super Strength, which Kami does. What’s unclear in the rules is whether the damage is before or after resistances. I think it’s more cinematic and comics-accurate if knockback occurs even when a person is partially immune to damage. So I’ll say that Kami is hurled backwards but, because did not take damage greater than her Strength level, she won’t be stunned.

Again, because it’s cool and comic book-like, I’m going to say that Kami hurtles backwards and through the wall behind her, rolling to a stop before she would break through the outer wall and fall three stories below. Because of Elasticity, I won’t inflict any damage to her from this effect. But I think the Bronze Armor has everyone’s attention now!

Kami’s bowels clenched as the figure advanced on her, unable to will herself to move out of the way. Her assailant raised a bronze gauntlet faster than she would have expected and slapped her with the back of its hand.

Before she could register what had happened, she was flying backwards, out of the steel door through the air. There was a tremendous crashing sound and Kami found herself rolling on a dusty floor. She blinked, trying to get her bearings, just as the pain of the blow began blossoming in her battered chest where the warrior had struck her. All around her were shards of shattered wood. He had backhanded her through the wall!

She was in an entirely different room, this one devoid of ratfolk corpses and full of cobwebs. Like the room with the bronze figure, it had a long, narrow table and stool, though this one was adorned by a brass cage and a small box encrusted with gold and jewels.

Kami grimaced and watched through the broken wall as she struggled to stand. Her companions faced the towering figure in bronze armor with its witch-lit eyes, clearly someone as god-touched as her. If she didn’t get back into the combat, they would all die.

Round 2! Now we’re using our regular Alertness to determine order. Maly will go first with a 15, then Emah and Kami with 13, and finally the Bronze Armor. Sergeant Mewa and his guards will effectively just stare slack-jawed and cower thanks to the Aura of Fear.

What can Maly do to a suit of animated plate armor? She’ll call out to her panther friend, for one, and then draw a dagger and strike. With her Prowess of 13 and its Alertness of 10, she would normally have a 65% chance to hit. With the Aura of Fear, however, that drops to 45%. She rolls a 16! That’s 15 damage, reduced by 10. It takes 5 damage, bringing its Vitality to 49. Not much, but it’s a start.

Emah draws her sword and charges. With her sword she would have a 100% chance of hitting, but that’s dropped to 80% with the aura. She rolls a 93, and I don’t think it’s worth using a Hero Point just yet. I’ll say the blow deflects off the armor.

Kami has been sent into the battle’s Perimeter (all distance in Crusaders is abstracted into three zones: Center, Perimeter, and Environs), and she doesn’t have any ranged attacks. As a result, she uses her turn to stand and make her way back into the room.

Now it’s the Bronze Armor’s turn. Who will it attack? I can make a case for any of our PCs, so will roll randomly to determine. I go in order of turn and roll a 3 on a d3, which means Kami. If it hits, she’s out of the combat.

This time Kami has no hesitation to her Elasticity to dodge. Now the Bronze Armor’s 16 Prowess is against a score of 25. That would normally give Kami a 95% chance to dodge, which is now 75%. Here we go… I roll 02!

Beyond the breach, the pale-skinned Maly showed incredible courage. She dove past Emah, shouting something Kami couldn’t hear over her ringing ears. As she danced around the warrior in armor, a dagger flashed past in the dim light of the room, scoring a line across its shoulder plate.

Her friend’s attack seemed to jolt Emah out of her hesitation. With obvious training the Kalee warrior stepped forward to engage the figure.

But Kami didn’t wait to see the result of the confrontation. The armored warrior had hit her harder than she would have thought possible. If it struck any of the people in her party, it would simply kill them in a single blow, she was sure of it. The warrior’s strength was greater, even, than Kami’s own, something she wouldn’t have believed. Any worry about displaying her newfound abilities in front of her companions was gone. She needed to end this fight, and quickly, before anyone died.

Though her stomach lurched, chest ached, and head pounded from the blow she’d received, Kami pushed herself up. The landing beyond the break in the wall was clogged with the City Watch members, all of whom stared frozen at the battle before them. Even Hakau, despite his strong sense of duty, appeared unable to will himself into the fray.

The house was a simple square, which meant it was only this room and the one with the battle, each wrapping part-way around the central staircase. She moved left and through the dusty room, past the long table with its birdcage and gilded box, around a bend and to a closed door. Kami practically ripped the door open and stumbled forward, still clearing her head.

Beyond the door was the armored figure, pale glowing eyes illuminating the darkened room. Almost immediately upon seeing the bronze warrior, a wave of apprehension again filled her. It seemed that he or she radiated some sort of unnatural aura, causing her heart to race and weakening her limbs.

Those glowing eyes locked onto her, ignoring Maly and Emah futile attempts to damage the thick plate armor. It charged her and swung its gauntleted fist down, the blow meant to crush her into the floor.

Instinctively, Kami’s body simply… flowed. She didn’t know how else to describe it. She relaxed into allowing her torso and limbs to loosen, like taking a deep breath. The bronze figure would have punched her where her neck met the shoulder, a blow that may have crippled  or outright killed her if it had landed. But instead, she dove left and around the bronze fist with her body while her legs moved right, almost as if the two halves of her were splitting up and darting in different directions. The armored warrior’s gauntlet struck only air, and Kami’s own arms simultaneously stretched out, ready to strike.

Hakau and his guards yelled out of sight from the landing.

Kami saw Emah flick a glance at the doorway and grimace. “Rats!” she announced. “They’re here!”

Yes indeed. A troupe of ratfolk have been waiting to make their attack, and Round 3 is the time. There are a fair number of them, as well. I’ll say it’s three “bunch of thugs” groups, each with a Fight score of 10. They’re led by a lieutenant with the same stats as the one that tackled Maly out in the street: Physique 12 Prowess 12 Alertness 14 Psyche 10.

This addition to the combat means that the City Watch members also need stats. I’ll say the two guards are a group with Fight score of 11. Sergeant Hakau Mewa will have 12 across all his stats.

So here is Round 3 in initiative order (I’ll also list current health & location):

  1. Maly (30 Vitality, room)
  2. Ratfolk lieutenant (12, landing)
  3. Kami (2 of 30, room)
  4. Emah (39, room)
  5. Sergeant Mewa (12, landing)
  6. City Watch guards (11,11, landing)
  7. Ratfolk mob 1 (10,10,10, landing)
  8. Ratfolk mob 2 (10,10,10, landing)
  9. Ratfolk mob 3 (10,10,10, landing)
  10. 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:

  1. Maly (30 Vitality, landing)
  2. Kami (2 of 30, room)
  3. Emah (1 of 39… stunned, room)
  4. Destiny (30, stairs)
  5. Sergeant Mewa (12, landing)
  6. Ratfolk mob 1 (10,10,10, landing)
  7. Ratfolk mob 2 (10,10,10, landing)
  8. Ratfolk mob 3 (10,10,10, landing)
  9. 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!