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Tales from the Loop Adventure and Sample Characters

Ghost Choir, a starter adventure for Tales from the Loop, is now available, along with a suite of Kids to get you started. Set in the Olympic Peninsula Loop, a ghostly voice that can jump between radios and tapes brings a ragtag group of kids together for a spooky adventure from the distant future! Download the PDFs here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1teSM-qfo7j8S4JLzNkUF-pih0PNk0Qzh?usp=sharing

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Tales from the Loop

The landscape was full of machines and scrap metal connected to the facility in one way or another. Always present on the horizon were the colossal cooling towers, with their green obstruction lights. If you put your ear to the ground, you could hear the heartbeat of the Loop - the purring of the Gravitron, the central piece of engineering magic that was the focus of the Loop’s experiments.

What’s the premise?

It’s the ‘80s, but it’s not quite the decade we remember. Magnetic-powered hovercrafts move through the skies ahead and industrial robots clomp through the streets. You are all children who live in the suburbs near the Loop, a massive particle accelerator built for unknown research purposes. Strange things happen around the Loop, sometimes even dangerous things, but the adults would never believe you. The primary Loop is in the Mälaren Islands of Sweden, the default setting for the game, but there’s also setting material for a Loop in Nevada. The setting is based on the artwork of Simon Stålenhag, drawing from the art book of the same name.

The children investigate mysteries stemming from advanced technology, Loop-induced dimensional anomalies, abandoned facilities, and research projects gone awry. You might deal with malfunctioning robots, eerie transmissions, sinister new inventions, or even time-displaced dinosaurs, alongside the stresses and triumphs of mundane childhood. You might even end up saving the world - but, again, the adults will never believe you.

You’d like it if you’re into: ‘80s kids adventure movies, Stranger Things, Dark, The X-Files, Eerie, Indiana, The Breakfast Club

Why do you recommend it?

Like the best ‘80s kids adventure movies, Tales from the Loop inspires wonder and terror in equal measure. Playing ordinary children grounds the fantastical elements and introduces some very real emotional stakes. In addition, the ‘80s Swedish setting provides a specificity of place and time that’s fascinating to dig into, both familiar and unfamiliar to those who didn’t live through that particular decade in that particular place.

What are the rules?

Any time something prevents you from doing something, you’re in Trouble. To resolve Trouble, describe how you’re overcoming it, choose the appropriate attribute and skill, and roll that many d6s. Each 6 is one success. Typically you only need one, but extremely difficult situations might take two or three. If you fail, you can retry by Pushing it and taking a Condition (Upset, Scared, Exhausted, or Injured). Some Troubles give you a Condition when you fail - for instance, failing to get past the school bully could leave you Injured. The more Conditions you have, the fewer dice you roll, and if you have all four, you’re Broken and automatically fail all dice rolls. Kids can’t die in this game however - that’s a basic story principle.

Particularly dramatic situations are portrayed by Extended Trouble, which requires successes equal to twice the number of kids or more. Each Kid gets to use their own individual skills to contribute to the plan to overcome it (and the pool of successes). If the Kids get a partial success, they can take Conditions to make up for the successes they need and come up with a partial victory that achieves some of their goal.

There’s no combat in the traditional sense - either everything gets resolved in a single Trouble roll or it’s portrayed as Extended Trouble that everyone gets to participate in. NPCs don’t roll anything.

What’s my character like?

Each Kid is built around a particular archetype - Bookworm, Computer Geek, Hick, Jock, Popular Kid, Rocker, Troublemaker, or Weirdo. That archetype determines which skills you’re best at. You’re between 10 and 15 years old. The younger you are the luckier you are, and thus more generally successful overall, but the older you are the stronger your attributes, which makes you more successful in specific areas.

Your character’s primary attributes are Body, Tech, Heart, and Mind, and each of them has three different skills that represent the kinds of actions you can take with them (like Sneak, Force, and Move for Body). You also have a pool of Luck Points that give you the ability to reroll dice. Each Kid has an Iconic Item that says something about who they are, gives bonus dice when used, and never disappears or breaks unless the player wants it to.

Kids are further fleshed out by choosing a Problem and a Drive, which provide backstory, and a Pride, which is a strong point in their character that can be used to succeed automatically on a related roll once per session. The Kids all have defined Relationships with each other, and each has an Anchor that they can go to for safety, support, and care, and to heal Conditions. The players collectively design a Hideout shared by the Kids that can be used the same way. Finally, you pick a song from the ‘80s that represents your Kid.

What’s the campaign like?

There are two ways to play the game - through individual Mystery Stories (which can be linked together or run as standalones) or through the Mystery Landscape, which is more freeform and offers the Kids a chance to explore particular locations and their Mysteries.

Games start with the Kids each getting to play out a scene from their everyday life, then introducing the Mystery. From there, the Kids search for clues as to what’s going on and how to stop it. Mysteries typically have a Countdown that advances in steps as the GM wishes and describes what happens if the Kids don’t intervene (with potentially town-destroying or even apocalyptic consequences). There might also be a Retribution Countdown if someone’s actively trying to stop the Kids, which advances to more serious attempts with each clue the Kids find. The Mystery generally ends in a dramatic showdown, and then an aftermath.

Afterwards, you determine if the Kids have changed their Problems, Pride, Iconic Item, or Relationships in some way, then spend XP to increase skills. Kids can grow older over the course of an extended campaign, and if they turn 16 they move on in life, stop solving Mysteries, and the player rolls up a new Kid.

What books should I get?

The core book lays the rules and setting and provides a four-episode campaign that can be used for either Mälaren or Boulder City, as well as a Mystery Landscape. The supplement book Our Friends the Machines and Other Mysteries has more adventures as well as some basic guidelines on how to place a Loop in your town, but is mostly inessential.

Things from the Flood, the recently released standalone sequel, presents a darker ‘90s version of the setting with older characters - and the possibility of death. You can carry over characters from Tales from the Loop into that game (or vice versa if time travel is involved, I suppose).

What equipment do I need?

All Tales from the Loop uses are d6s, about 8 or so per player. The GM doesn’t need any. A way to play music would also be useful to play the Kids’ theme songs.

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Storygames Corner #2: The Quiet Year

Avery Alder’s The Quiet Year is one of the more unusual, abstract storygames out there. Rather than playing individual characters, 2-4 players collectively take on the role of portraying a small community. While there may be some named characters, the focus is on the community dynamic as a whole. And rather than keep the story in the theater of the mind, the players represent it physically by drawing a map on a piece of paper.

The basic prompt is this: For a long time, we were at war with The Jackals. But now, we’ve driven them off, and we have this – a year of relative peace. One quiet year, with which to build our community up and learn once again how to work together. Come Winter, the Frost Shepherds will arrive and we might not survive beyond that. But we don’t know about that yet. What we know is that right now, in this moment, there is an opportunity to build something.

Whoever or whatever the Frost Shepherds and the Jackals are is up for interpretation. The setting is assumed to be apocalyptic and strange, the community struggling for survival. This could be science-fictional, fantasy, or some combination of the two. It’s up to the players to collectively decide what the setting should include.

Players begin by sketching out the basic outlines of the community and the surrounding terrain, then deciding what resources are important to the community and choose one to be in abundance and one to be scarce. From there, play proceeds in turns.

Each turn represents a week over the course of the year. The player whose turn it is draws a card from the deck and chooses between two prompts to follow. The deck is a standard 52-card playing deck, slightly modified - each suit represents a different season, and are shuffled individually then stacked in order. Spring asks the players to establish more about the landscape and the community - questions such as “A young boy starts digging in the ground, and discovers something unexpected. What is it?” Summer starts to introduce threats both external and internal. (“The eldest among you dies. What caused the death?”) With Autumn, the danger begins to mount and the community is strained. (“A small gang of marauders is making its way through local terrain. How many are there? What weapons do they carry?”) Finally, in Winter, everything comes to a head. (“All the animals and young children are crying and won’t stop.”) The King of Spades represents the arrival of the Frost Shepherds - and since it’s shuffled into the rest of Winter, they could arrive and end the game at any time without warning.

In addition to following the prompt, each player gets to take an action. Discover Something New introduces a new situation to be drawn on the map. Hold a Discussion allows all players to briefly weigh in on a topic. Start a Project means that the community begins an undertaking, which the player who starts it decides how many weeks it takes to finish. Some of the card prompts may also accelerate, waylay, or destroy projects, or start new ones.

Unless the active player decides to Hold a Discussion, nobody else gets to talk on their turn. If they do something that the other players don’t approve of, or that would increase tensions in the community, the other players can take a Contempt token. These don’t have any mechanical effect, they just represent the level of discontentment and disunity among the community. Conversely, if a player takes an action that mends hurt feelings and lowers strife, other players can return Contempt tokens to the pool to represent that.

The Quiet Year takes a little work to wrap your head around, but once you get into the pacing of the game it’s remarkably elegant and moody. Since the players know the Frost Shepherds will arrive even if the characters don’t, the game is colored by tragedy and dramatic irony. Or is the arrival of the Frost Shepherds somehow a blessing? So much is up to interpretation that the game can be repurposed for so many different scenarios. My one rules recommendation: since the game tends to end rather abruptly and leave narrative threads hanging, once the Frost Shepherds do arrive, each player should take turns describing what they think that means and what their view of the community’s final fate is.

Print versions of The Quiet Year are currently out of stock online, though an updated version is in the works. You may be able to find a copy in your local game store - the deluxe version comes in a brown drawstring pouch and includes skull beads for Contempt tokens and d6s to mark project progress. Otherwise, you’ll need to provide your own. You’ll also need pencils, a regular sheet of paper, and an index card or something else to track notes on. If you’re using the PDF version, you’ll need a deck of playing cards to correspond with the weekly prompts. The game takes about 2-4 hours, though you can remove cards from the deck to make it shorter.

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7th Sea Campaign Outline

Presenting “To Harvest the Lightning,” a campaign outline for 7th Sea. Continuing where “Stormcaller” leaves off, the Heroes must decide what to do with a Syrneth artifact that can call down the power of lightning, while keeping it safe from an ancient organization with plans for all of Theah. Also including the Theater of the World, a new villainous Secret Society that can be inserted into any campaign. Download the campaign outline here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1JLZ6UNTJvST6_TbbQC3tNK_-RFSd9G7F

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Next update Wednesday

Hi all, the next update will be Wednesday - and we are switching to Wednesday updates going forward. In the meantime here’s a preview of the 7th Sea campaign outline, and a peek into what my writing process looks like:

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7th Sea Adventure and Sample Characters

Presenting “Stormcaller,” a starter adventure for 7th Sea second edition. The Heroes are brought together first by a barroom brawl that lands them all in jail, then by the race to find a Syrneth artifact of immense power before foul forces take it for their own.

Plus, sample characters to jump into the game! Featuring Sebastien the fop, Ksenya the amnesiac, Darijus the cursed puppeteer, Fionnula the young knight, and Juliana the thief. Download everything you need to get playing here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ZnP9JA4PToub2TBXXii9tAMIe_vPoKW_

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7th Sea

Swashbuckling and Sorcery Piracy and Exploration Espionage and Intrigue Welcome to the New World

What’s the premise?

7th Sea is a world of swashbuckling fantasy, in a setting that’s very much like our Earth circa the Age of Sail, but filled with sorcery, monsters, and the mysterious ruins of a pre-human civilization. The core book focuses on Théah, the 7th Sea world’s equivalent of Europe, which is currently recovering from a bloody war between the traditional Vaticine Church and the reformist Objectionists and emerging into a new age of nationalism and humanism. Monarchs play games of espionage while secret societies work behind the scenes. Traders sail to the New World in search of exotic treasures and pirates follow in their wake. Some nations are even beginning to experiment with a bold new idea - democracy.

The technology level of Théah is slightly higher than our world’s was at the time, thanks partly to a Vaticine Church that values knowledge and discovery and also partly to ancient Syrneth artifacts that are centuries beyond human science. Sorcery and magic are not uncommon - but are primarily the domain of the nobility. Spirits, monsters, and other beings haunt the wild places, and any given folktale has a chance to be true.

The characters you play are all very explicitly Heroes, doing noble deeds to fight tyrannical Villains. The world of 7th Sea has a lot of problems besieging it right now - the looming specter of the Castillian Inquisition, the depredations of the Atabean Trading Company, the tyranny of l’Empereur du Montaigne, just to name a few. It’s a world on the brink of becoming something wonderful - it just needs a few good heroes to show it the way.

You’d like it if you’re into: The Princess Bride, Pirates of the Carribean, Zorro, The Three Musketeers, Brotherhood of the Wolf, old Errol Flynn movies

Why do you recommend it?

If you’ve ever wanted to swing from chandeliers, plunder treasure, cut feathers off caps with a swish of your rapier, and woo the fair maiden / handsome prince / other attractive individual, 7th Sea is the game for you. Magic and strange technology add a great twist to an otherwise straightforward historical fantasy.

7th Sea, the new 2nd edition in particular, is one of the most inclusive and welcoming mainstream RPGs out there. Women and people of color can be characters of all kinds, and queer, trans, and nonbinary characters are littered throughout the books and accepted within the setting itself. That, plus the emphasis on your character being a capital-H Hero, make 7th Sea an unapologetically wholesome game. It’s lighthearted and silly, while still allowing for serious dramatic moments.

Plus your character practically cannot die, no matter how much you screw up.

What are the rules like?

The core idea of 7th Sea is that you will almost always succeed at what you’re trying to do. You’re a Hero, after all. If you don’t roll well enough, though, your success might not be total. The way they mechanically represent this is very narrative-driven and plays quite differently from the standard RPG.

There’s three kinds of rolls to make in 7th Sea. The most basic, the Risk, is when your character is trying to bypass a simple obstacle. For instance, they might be trying to escape from a burning room. You decide what your character’s Approach to that will be, and what combination of skills and traits to use. In this case, they might use Finesse + Athletics to dodge and and jump over falling beams, or perhaps Brawn + Weaponry to use their axe to hack a hole in the wall, or even Panache + Tempt to bat their eyes at the fleeing henchman and tell him that if he rescues you, you’ll surely owe him a favor. Then you roll a d10 for each point you have in the chosen trait and skill. If you’re using a skill you haven’t used yet this scene, roll another die, and if you take the time to describe your action a little, roll a further die. Each set of dice you can add up to 10 is one success - here called Raises.

All it takes to succeed in the Risk is a single Raise. The catch is: there will always be Consequences and Opportunities associated with the Risk. You’ll need to spend additional Raises to either avoid the Consequences or activate the Opportunities. In this scenario, the consequences might be something like “take 3 damage from fire” - and each Raises you spend towards that will remove 1 damage from that. Or perhaps you’ll need to keep your clothes free of ash so you can sneak into the ballroom after like nothing happened. For Opportunities, it might be something like “grab the important-looking letter on the table before it burns” or “lead the poor henchman along enough that he switches sides.” So success or failure is never just binary - unless you roll really well, you’ll have to make some choices about what the effects of your actions on the story will be.

The two other kinds of rolls work in a very similar way. Action Sequences represent fights, chases, and the like, and Dramatic Sequences are extended challenges like sneaking into the castle or snooping around town to find information on the wicked viscount’s plans. You make your Approach, and then each character gets to spend Raises from their pool to take actions. As before, all you need is a single Raise to do something, but if a Hero and a Villain are trying to contest, whoever spends more Raises on it wins. During Action Sequences, you can spend Raises to do damage - yes, this means anything can be used as an attack skill if you’re creative enough (“I use Wits + Scholarship to whip up a gas grenade and throw it at her!”). Action Sequences can have Consequences and Opportunities just like a Risk can, including Brute Squads, which are the nameless flunkies your hero mows through without a second thought. A single point of damage takes out a single brute, but any brutes left alive get to deal damage at the end of the round. There might also be events that happen at certain points in the Action Sequence once everyone’s down to a certain number of Raises - the storm hits the ship at 4 Raises, and it hits the rocks and starts to sink at 1.

Dramatic Sequences are the same but paced over a more extended period of time, and are more about seeing how far you can get in your task before you run out of Raises. As before, each Raise you spend lets you change the scene in some way - climb over the castle wall, for instance. Next, you might have to spend a Raise to sneak past the guards, then to steal the jailer’s key. If you run out, though, you’ll be unable to change the scene any further - so after you’ve rescued your ally from jail and you hear someone’s footsteps approaching, if you don’t have another Raise left to hide you may just have to fight your way out.

Every character is pretty tough and can take a fair amount of damage before going down. For every 5th point of damage you take (or any time you get hit with a firearm, because those things are nasty), you take a Dramatic Wound. Your first Dramatic Wound actually helps you - just like the hero in an adventure story, you become driven to succeed and get a bonus on all your rolls. For your second Dramatic Wound, the tables start to turn and now all the Villains get a bonus on their roles. For the third, you get an even bigger bonus as your heroic determination kicks in - and then at the fourth, you become helpless. Not dead, just unconscious or incapacitated - it takes an explicit act from the GM to actually kill you.

Finally, there’s Hero Points. These work a bit like an expanded version of Inspiration from D&D 5E, and other similar mechanics. Basically, you can spend them for bonuses to your roll, a bonus to someone else’s roll, to fight on for a round after you’re incapacitated, and a few other things. You can also spend them to activate your Knacks, which are big character abilities with effects like “knock out an entire Brute Squad in one go” or Come Hither, which lets you lure a character into another room and return without them… no rolling required. Everyone gets one Hero Point to start, and you can earn more by acting in accordance with your character. You can also get one at any time by choosing to fail a roll - so if you think the odds are overwhelming, or you just want to see what happens if your character gets captured or can’t stop the villain’s plan from succeeding, you can just say “I fail” and bank up another Hero Point for the challenge ahead.

What’s my character like?

Your character is a Hero. They come from a particular Nation that gives them some bonuses, and they have two Backgrounds that tell you what their professions are/were and give them some bonus skills and Advantages, as well as determining what in-character actions give them Hero Points. They have a Virtue and a Hubris, each based off the Major Arcana of the tarot (or Sorte deck, in this world). The Virtue is a powerful special ability they can activate, and the Hubris is a character flaw that you can get a Hero Point for roleplaying. Beyond that, there are no classes per se - the character is yours to define as you see fit. Advantages are the main way of customizing your character and giving them special abilities.

You can choose to take Advantages join a Swordsman School or take Sorcery from your nation of origin. Swordsman Schools give you the option to do some fancy Maneuvers in combat, which let you hit for lots of damage, parry opponents’ attacks, etc, as well as a unique Maneuver for each school based on its preferred weapons and fighting style. The difference in combat effectiveness between a swordsman and a non-swordsman is huge, so if you’re planning on making a character that excels at combat, swordsman is definitely the way to go. You also get to be a part of the Swordsman’s Guild, who are legally allowed to challenge people to duels.

The Core Rules present character creation options only for the primary Théan nations - if you want to play a character from another culture, you’ll need the appropriate book. (See What books should I get?, below.)

Avalon, seat of the Triple Crown, is a green and enchanted land touched by the Sidhe - elves, faeries, goblins, and other creatures. The Sidhe are sometimes beautiful, sometimes hideous, always inhuman, and frequently downright nasty. Queen Elaine recently ascended to the throne after recovering the Graal, throwing off the yoke of Montaignois conquest and bringing the Sidhe back to our world - but now the Sidhe are starting to encroach on human lands. This is a land of faerie tales, and those don’t always end happily.

The other two nations in the Triple Crown are the Highland Marches, a craggy land of proud clans and chieftains, and Inismore, a land with a fondness for stories, whiskey, and a good bar fight. Neither of these two is necessarily happy about being part of the Triple Crown, and there’s a growing separatist movement looking to break the alliance, no matter how much gunpowder and blood it takes.

Avalon’s Sorcery takes the form of becoming one of the Knights of Ellilodd, each one the embodiment of an ancient knight of legend. In exchange for taking a vow to the Graal to be a righteous protector of justice, you can tap into that knight’s legendary powers. Should you break your vow, you’ll need to atone before you can regain your powers, however.

Castille is a sun-dappled nation with a deeply passionate people. They recently held off a Montaignois invasion at dear cost, only to fall under the yoke of the Inquisition. Cardinal Verdugo controls their young king like a puppet while he conducts a reign of terror across Théah aimed at rooting out anything he deems heresy. Castille is the seat of the Vaticine Church, and its people are often devoutly religious and very highly educated thanks to the nation’s excellent universities.

While Castille has no Sorcery in the Core Rules, Nations of Théah, Volume 1 introduces Alquimia as an option, letting you invent various alchemical and technological marvels and advancing along a path of self-improvement towards a grand goal.

Eisen was the center of the fighting between Vaticine and Objectionist, and it left the land a blood-soaked mudhole full of traumatized survivors, divided between small princedoms, some of which seek to unite the nation under their banner. Worse, something about the concentrated misery has spawned literal Horrors, monsters of all shapes and sizes that roam the land and prey on innocent victims. But the people of Eisen are a grim, determined lot, and the nation’s not ready to give up without a fight.

Eisen’s Sorcery, Hexenwerk, is a particularly gruesome art dedicated to refining potions and unguents from dead bodies - and then consuming them to gain powers to fight undead horrors and other foes. Hexen are often hunted down as grave-robbers, but they do what they have to do to survive and stop the Horrors.

Montaigne is often considered the center of Théan culture, or at least the Montaignoise themselves certainly think so. Their courts set the standard for fashion across the continent, and their nobles throw the most lavish parties. Unfortunately, all of this has been built on the backs of the peasantry, who have been pushed to their limit by harsh taxes and conscription to serve in L’Empereur’s frivolous wars. L’Empereur sits on his grand throne, surrounded by an endless party of gilded nobility, oblivious to the whispers of revolution coming from below.

Montaignois Sorcery is passed down through noble bloodlines, but it’s quite ungenteel. The art of Porté lets you rip bleeding holes in reality and slip through the space between to walk to other places, or to pull objects out of thin air. Just never open your eyes while you’re in-between.

The Sarmatian Commonwealth is actually two lands under a single crown - the cosmopolitan Reczezpospolitans, and the more traditional Curonians, who still venerate the old spirits. Recently, the king, disgusted with gridlock in the houses of parliament, made a proclamation of Golden Liberty. This made everyone in Sarmatia was now a noble with voting power, marking the beginning of a chaotic experiment in democracy. Some Sarmatians seek to lead their country into a populist new era, some try to take advantage of the chaos to seize power, and others, resentful of the new order, plot to depose the aging king.

Sanderis, the Sarmatian Sorcery, is about making deals with devils. Dievai, to be more precise. They’ll do anything you wish, from snuffing a candle up to unleashing a firestorm that destroys an entire city - provided that you are willing to pay their price.

Ussura is a massive, wild country with long winters and sparse civilization. The Ussurans are pragmatic and hardy folk, and highly superstitious with good reason - spirits both good and evil thrive in these lands. The greatest among them, Matushka, watches over the Ussuran people like an overprotective mother, rewarding the just and punishing the wicked. The Czar recently died under suspicious circumstances, leaving the nation divided by two potential successors -  one dedicated to modernization, the other seeking to preserve the old ways.

Ussura’s form of Sorcery, Dar Matushki, are the gifts of Matushka herself - often given as the reward for overcoming painful lessons. Those who fall out of favor with her will earn her wrath, however.

Vestenmannavenjar, another cold northern country, is a land of fierce raiders and warriors who have completely reinvented themselves as a modern nation. In recent years they presented the world with a standard, unified currency - the Guilder - that has come to dominate world trade and finance, all to the benefit of the Vesten, of course. Rather than the High King of olden times, they are ruled by the Vendel League, made up of the heads of all the various trade guilds. Now, rather than conquest and pillage, they extract their plunder from fees and interest. Some Vesten mourn for what used to be, a nation of honor and blood replaced by silver and greed.

Vesten has no Sorcery in the core book, but Nations of Théah, Volume 1 introduces Galdr, a magic derived from runic words of power. Each rune grants strengths tempered with weaknesses, to maintain the balance.

Vodacce is a nation of intrigue, divided up between seven Merchant Princes who constantly scheme against each other. Like Castille, they are devoutly Vaticine, but they have a very unorthodox interpretation of sin, believing that it is better to indulge yourself than let desire fester in your heart.

Vodacce’s magic, Sorte, is the exclusive province of women. The Sorte Strega can manipulate the strands of Fate itself, and can be distinguished by their long black veils, to hide the glazed look they get when manipulating destiny. Too much tugging on the strands risks them lashing back out at you, however, giving you bad luck at the worst times. The men of Vodacce all fear the power of Sorte, and keep the women of Vodacce oppressed and illiterate.

In addition to being from a particular nation, your Hero can also join a secret society. In 1st edition, all of these societies had hidden secrets to them that were presented in their own books. Given that some of the 2nd edition versions differ radically from their older incarnations and the book devoted to secret societies hasn’t come out yet, it’s unknown if those secrets still hold true, or if they hold the keys to different world-shattering truths.

Die Kreuzritter are a former order of crusader knights, since gone underground. They hunt monsters and defend the innocent, using the legendary metal called Dracheneisen, which has great powers against monsters and the supernatural.

The Knights of the Rose and Cross, one of the few secret societies with a significant public face, publicly fight injustice and protect the society’s Patrons. There are rumors of hidden occult secrets only revealed to the initiated.

The Invisible College are a loosely-affiliated band of scholars, artists, scientists, and philosophers who seek to preserve knowledge from those who would destroy it - especially the forces of the Inquisition. They have access to devices on the cutting edge of Théan science.

The Brotherhood of the Coast are pirates who have banded together under a shared code of honor, providing protection to ships that pay them and plundering those that don’t.

Močiutės Skara, “Grandmother’s Shawl,” is in its public face an order of nice old ladies who tend to the victims of disasters and wars, and are welcomed across Théah. In private, however, they seek to prevent wars and achieve peace through any means necessary.

Los Vagobundos are dedicated to upholding the reigns of good monarchs and overthrowing unjust ones. Their leader, the masked man called “El Vagobundo,” can appear many places at once - but unbeknownst to outsiders, it’s always a different member under the mask, channeling the power of the legend.

The Rilasciare are anarchist free thinkers who oppose oppression and tyranny in all its forms, but especially seek to do away with the very concept of monarchy. Some accomplish their goals through pranks and subterfuge, others through bombs and daggers.

Sophia’s Daughters, a small branch of the Rilasciare, are more specifically dedicated to aiding the Fate Witches of Vodacce, spiriting them to safety in other nations, educating them in secret, and making strides towards liberation whenever possible.

What’s the campaign like?

In a game where the characters all play Heroes, there’s a strong focus on defeating Villains. Before you fight them directly, you have to defeat their Schemes, upon which they stake some of their influence. Stop the Scheme, and they lose what they wagered, otherwise, they gain back double their investment. Foil enough Schemes, and they’ll be dramatically weakened for the final confrontation. Thus, most campaigns are focused around a central Villain and their underlings that the Heroes can work their way through.

Each of your characters also has their own separate Stories to pursue, which is how the experience system works. You pick what story your Hero will follow, such as “avenge my father’s death,” figure out what benefit they get at the end of the Story, like “Weaponry 5,” and then figure out how many steps the story will have in the story based on what you want. Although you probably know the beginning step of the story (“find the name of the woman who killed my father”) and what the end will be (“I challenge her to a duel”), you and the GM can work together to figure out the most interesting twists along the way (“Step 3: I discover she was secretly my half-sister”). If you want, there’s nothing stopping you from making the ending a tragic one at the last minute, or even deciding that your Hero should fail so that they can be led into a future Story (“She defeated me into the duel and threw me into the sea - but not before she told me the real reason she killed my father!”) In between these main story points, the GM will also weave in their own side stories and recurring stories, which grant rewards in the same way as you complete them.

Odds are also good your party will get access to a ship at some point, this being a setting with an emphasis on seafaring. Ships have their own abilities based on where they were built and their history, and can gain new abilities as the party completes various types of adventures, like unlockable achievements. Players are encouraged to work with the GM and flesh out the ship’s NPC crew. Of course, the crew will also need to be paid regularly lest they turn mutinous.

What books should I get?

It should be noted that 1st edition and 2nd edition are radically different, both in rules and setting. While the 1st edition books are still useful as inspiration, most of the material in them isn’t canonical any more, and a good chunk of the setting is completely new to 2nd edition anyway. Frustratingly, there’s some characters in both editions that didn’t get described in the 2nd edition books on the grounds that they were already described in 1st edition. If you prefer rules that work like a more traditional RPG, 1st edition is probably more for you (and it also has cross-compatibility with the d20 system in its later supplements). Otherwise, stick to the 2nd edition books. You’ll need a copy of the Core Rulebook, and then the other books describe and provide character creation rules for the other nations and continents not described there.

Nations of Théah, Volumes 1 and 2 flesh out the western and eastern nations respectively, adding some more geographical and historical material as well as some new character rules suited for those nations.

Pirate Nations is very useful for a seafaring campaign, covering the various groups in the Atabean Sea, from pirate republics to native sea-monster hunting Rahuri, a slave colony that cast off its chains, and the villainous Atabean Trading Company. It also includes the Théan nation of Numa, once the cradle of Théan civilization.

The Crescent Empire introduces the Middle Eastern-inspired nations, flourishing under a new Caliph who banished her wicked brother from the throne. These five nations are united as one despite their differences, but loyalists to the old Caliph still plant seeds of dissent for his return.

The New World has the Central/South American continent of Aztlan, once ruled by Old Gods that caused a great cataclysm when they were overthrown that made the land itself shift and change. The Aztlani now venture into this uncharted territory to reclaim what they once had, balancing cultural independence against unifying the continent under one flag, whether by alliance or conquest, while wondering how long they can hold back the greedy Théans eyeing the continent’s treasures.

Lands of Gold and Fire presents the African continent, Ifri, home to several wealthy and highly advanced civilizations. They are under threat both from expansionist Théan powers and the Atabean Trading Company, whose campaign of slavery has empowered an ancient evil in the land.

Several other books are forthcoming for 2nd edition, including one with more information on the secret societies, and The Colonies, which will detail the North American continent. Khitai, the Asian continent, will have its own separate game system (called, appropriately, Khitai), with similar but slightly different rules.

What equipment do I need?

7th Sea uses d10s only, and you’ll want about 6-8 on hand per player, plus a decent stockpile for the GM. Sharing dice isn’t recommended here because it’s easier to keep the dice you rolled in front of you to count Raises during Action Sequences. You’ll also need some method of keeping track of Hero Points - poker chips work well, but you can get creative. Official 7th Sea versions of both are available.

There’s also the Sorte Deck, which makes a great in-universe prop (especially for Fate Witches), although you should note that it differs slightly from real-world tarot decks and has a few arcana cards that aren’t detailed even in the Core Rules. You could use it to guide your characters’ fates, or suggest the next step in their Stories.

Notecards are also helpful for tracking ongoing Stories.

[tabletopinfinities]

Storygames Corner #1: Alone Together

This week, we’re introducing a periodical column featuring RPGs that sit outside the spectrum of what you’d traditionally expect from an RPG. For Pride Month we’re spotlighting a solo rpg about meeting / kissing / doing other things with girls*: Janie Jaffe W’s Alone Together, available as a pay-what-you-want pdf/txt. *Editor’s note: it doesn’t have to be girls, it’s adaptable to anyone. Just be sure it’s gay.

To play the game you roll a d6 for the mood of the encounter, then draw a playing card. The card’s suit is the girl you meet and the value is where you meet them. Once you’ve determined that, you have the encounter.

How do you play out the encounter? In your head as a single image or an extended reverie. Write it down. Draw a picture. Whisper it to yourself in the woods. Roleplay it out with someone else via DM and have them play the girl. Port it into another RPG, preferably one poorly-suited for romance, and let it play out there. The encounter belongs to you. It’s as good or as bad or as tragic as you want it to be. Do with it what you want and take from it what you want. Roll up another encounter as many times as you want to. Here’s a couple sample encounters I’ve pulled:

dawn/ace of clubs

“Fine,” she said, and then she did it, her lips locking with mine. I tried to reach for her waist but her hands were too tight clasping my shoulders, pinning them to the wall. I was a butterfly.

She released me. “Was that what you wanted?” It was. She was soft and sweet in ways I didn’t have words for. Even if I figured out how to tell her that I couldn’t, my lips stunned and faltering from her kiss. “I’ll see you at the dance then.” She walked away down the hallway, slipping into the crowd. “And you’d better dress nice. You’re too cute to waste on baggy sweatshirts.”

Dead silence hung in the hallway before everyone around me burst out in cheers.

midnight/three of spades

The most beautiful girl I’ve seen in ten years is pointing a gun at my head. “Money in the bag,” she repeats, nodding at the drawstring backpack she put on the counter. Under her ski mask I can see deep brown eyes and black lipstick.

I nod and start prying stacks of bills out of the register. It was already open to give her change for her cigarettes. She has those wedged under her waistband already, exposing a flash of creamy midriff. I’m about to put a handful of twenties into the bag when I pause.

“Take me with you,” I say.

“What?” she says, the gun wavering.

I’m thirty fucking five. What am I doing? I work at a fucking convenience store and I go home to Twitter and Netflix. I followed the line my life took me on and it just stayed flat. Time to jump off.

“I want to go with you. Wherever you’re going.”

“You’re crazy. Just give me the fucking money.”

I looked straight into those brown eyes. “Not any crazier than you, doing what you’re doing. Come on. Take me with you. Otherwise I’m sounding the alarm the instant you leave and you won’t make it ten miles up the interstate before they have a roadblock out.”

She cocked her gun. “And you’re not going to shoot me either,” I continued. “Not because you couldn’t do it. You’re not going to shoot me because otherwise you’d always wonder what you missed out on. So take me with you and let’s find out.”

I stuffed more bills into the bag, my case made. “Alright,” she said, shoving her gun back into the holster. “But we’re leaving as soon as that register’s empty. And I’m driving.” She opened up the cooler next to the counter and took a Red Bull. “And I’m taking this too.”

“Grab one for me,” I said.

We drove off south down the midnight highway, the only car on the road.

[tabletopinfinities]

Seattle Random Encounters Table

Some bonus content for this week - an appendix to the campaign outline featuring random encounters for the city of Seattle (or adaptable for other urban fantasy games). Because I personally love a good random encounter table. Available below the cut and also added to the Seattle campaign outline.

APPENDIX: SEATTLE RANDOM ENCOUNTERS TABLE

For those times when you want a potential complication to throw at the party, or when you want to add some improvised flavor to a street or travel scene, either roll 1d100 or choose off the list below. Not all items will make sense for all neighborhoods or times of day; use your own discretion.

Tourists: A group of tourists taking pictures. They may or may not be American.

Police Officer: A police officer, either on foot or on a bicycle, doing a routine patrol. If the PCs “look suspicious,” they run the risk of being questioned.

Construction: The road or sidewalk is blocked by another luxury apartment building under construction.

Drunk Bros: A small gaggle of young drunk men are stumbling down the sidewalk towards the PCs. They may be nothing but a harmless nuisance, but could be dangerous to visibly marginalized people.

Large Event: A marathon, parade, festival, block party, open-air concert, or other event is taking place nearby - expect crowds, closed streets, police or security presence, and/or traffic.

Common Bird: One or a flock of pigeons, seagulls, crows, ducks, geese, sparrows, swallows, or similar birds are flying nearby. If it’s summer, the crows might caw at and dive-bomb anyone who gets too close to their nests.

Common Animal: A squirrel, rat, cat (stray, shy, or a friendly sidewalk cat), dog (with owner or otherwise), or other common urban animal crosses the PCs’ path.

Reporters: A TV news crew is on the scene, or possibly several covering a major event. If the PCs aren’t careful, they might find themselves on the 6 o'clock news.

Wraith: One of the unquiet dead is manifesting in the area, possibly unnoticed by the PCs. They could be observing a loved one, dealing with a fetter, or trying to help or hinder the PCs for reasons of their own.

Homeless Person: One or a small group of homeless people are on the street nearby, sleeping, begging for change, or otherwise doing their best to exist. They’re friendly if approached, and might even have information on recent events in the area, or come to the PCs’ aid if they’re in danger.

Accident: A traffic accident happened recently. Crashed cars are blocking the road and/or sidewalk, and if the police and fire department aren’t on the scene yet, they will be shortly.

Side Passage: The PCs notice an alley, hillside stairway, or path through nearby vegetation that they didn’t notice before. It might offer a shortcut or a way to lose pursuers, but it might also lead someplace strange and liminal.

Street Performer: Someone is on the sidewalk singing, dancing, freestyling, painting, reciting poetry, or otherwise making art. They’d probably be appreciative of a tip.

Evangelists: Mormon missionaries, Christian Scientists, Hare Krishnas, O.T.L. proselytizers, cultists, or other religious types are trying to spread their good word and giving out pamphlets.

Aquatic Animals: If the PCs are near a lake or river, they might see beavers, salmon, or even river otters. In the Sound, seals, sea lions, or, uncommonly, orcas.

Crime Scene: An area has been roped off with police tape, and the cops are on the scene investigating. Hopefully it has nothing to do with the PCs, but they might stumble into the wrong place at the wrong time and wind up getting questioned.

Vampire: One of the Kindred stalks the night nearby. The PCs might stumble upon them feeding, or even become their intended prey. It could also be one of the Kuei-Jin or Laibon instead.

Belligerent Man: A man, probably struggling with mental illness and homelessness, is wandering down the sidewalk and into the street shouting and throwing things around. While likely not harmful, he can be startling or unsettling. He might also serve as a convenient distraction.

Downed Tree: A tree has gone down in the area, due to storms, disease, or hillside erosion - or is in danger of falling on the PCs right now. It might smash cars, block streets, and take out power lines.

Oddity: Some strange phenomenon is happening nearby - mysterious lights, odd noises or music, or movement in the shadows. There could be a mundane explanation, but it might be something supernatural.

Nosy Rich People: The PCs are being watched with suspicion by someone very concerned about street crime, property values, and the quality of their neighborhood. If they appear suspicious, out-of-place, or just too weird, they risk getting confronted, having the cops called on them, and/or being posted about on Nextdoor.

Uncommon Bird: A hawk, owl, bald eagle, backyard chicken wandering the streets, great blue heron (if near water), hummingbird, Stellar’s jay, pileated woodpecker, or other not-commonly-seen bird is nearby. Passers-by may try and point it out to the PCs.

Uncommon Animal: A raccoon, coyote, group of goats grazing on weeds, deer, or other animals that make themselves scarce or aren’t often in the city are nearby. They likely aren’t dangerous, but may attack if provoked.

Manhunt: Police are out in force searching the area for someone, with patrol cars, helicopters, and canine units. Anything suspicious that the PCs are doing risks drawing their attention, but the noise and chaos also makes a good distraction.

Traffic: For whatever reason - rush hour, accident, sporting event, street closures, bridge up, just because - traffic is particularly snarled in the area. If the PCs aren’t traveling on foot, they can expect significant delays.

Convention: A comics/anime/gaming convention is in town this weekend, leaking cosplayers and other nerds onto the streets.

Bygone: A Bygone is roaming nearby, potentially causing a scene or endangering the public if it’s large and highly visible. Could Marauders have set it loose to cause havoc? Can it be rescued?

Power Outage: A downed power line or other incident has left the streets dark. It could be a couple blocks or even the whole neighborhood.

High Winds: A windstorm is moving in, bringing danger from sudden gusts, falling trees and branches, downed power lines, and torrential rain.

Ride the Ducks: One of the “Ride the Ducks” amphibious vehicles is passing through, blasting music and patter through its loudspeakers. It could also be another obnoxiously twee tourist vehicle, like a brewery tour tandem bicycle. Local PCs are appropriately disgusted.

Werewolf: One of the Garou, or perhaps another Changing Breed, is nearby. They are probably in homid form, so the PCs won’t recognize them as such unless they’re on the lookout. They may cross paths with the PCs as they search for a cairn/node or try to take down Wyrm minions/Nephandi, either as friend or rival.

Students: A large quantity of students are in the area - school just got out, college tours, frat parties, or foreign exchange students sightseeing.

Protest: A protest is happening nearby, anything from a small political or labor demonstration all the way up to a major walkout, strike, or May Day protest. Police and news teams will be on the scene accordingly.

Rare Animal: A bear, cougar, or other wild animal not usually found in the city is wandering around. Potentially very hazardous.

Snow: If it’s during the winter months, snow is falling. If it’s not during the winter months, something very strange is happening. Even if it doesn’t stick, it attracts delighted Seattleites to come outside and look at it. If it does stick, the PCs will have some serious issues getting around the city.

Friendly Tradition Mage: The PCs see a mage who will be friendly towards them - this could be someone already introduced in the campaign, a background character who hasn’t appeared, a random stranger who can lend a helping hand, or someone to be determined by one of the players.

Friendly Technocrat

Friendly Orphan

Friendly Disparate

Friendly Sleeper

Hostile Tradition Mage: One of the PC’s enemies is nearby - either plotting from the shadows, heading for a confrontation, or so far unaware and hopefully able to be avoided.

Hostile Technocrat

Hostile Orphan

Hostile Disparate

Hostile Sleeper

Marauder: A wild mage is nearby - they may be making a vulgar display of themselves, or their presence may only be felt by the PCs taking their backlash.

Nephandus: A Nephandus is nearby or magickally interfering with the PCs. They could even be walking the street on some mundane task and bump into the PCs without planning to.

Mummy: The Undying are rare in the world, but Seattle’s status as a major port means it sees more than most cities. One is nearby serving the divine balance or pursuing a personal goal.

Changeling: One of the half-human, half-fairy changelings is nearby. As unpredictable as the faerie tales say, they could be curious wanderers, tricksters, or outright monsters.

Hunter: One of the Imbued is nearby, a Sleeper aware of the supernatural terrors that lurk in the world and empowered to fight them. They could be out on an unrelated mission, or they could even be hunting the PCs as evil sorcerors.

Sunny Day: The skies are blue and clear. During the spring and summer, this means everyone will be out on the streets and soaking up the warmth in parks.

Drizzle: The stereotypical Seattle day. Light rain falls throughout the day, just barely enough to soak clothes, but relentless nevertheless.

Paradox: The marks of Paradox are nearby – a strange phenomenon, charged crackle in the air, or even a Paradox Spirit manifested. This could mean that a mage nearby has suffered backlash or it could be the result of a much older event.

Fire: A nearby building or area of brush has caught fire. Fire engines are either on scene or on their way, people are coming out of buildings to look, and the air is filling with smoke.

Shifting Earth: A mudslide has washed out a hill, a sinkhole has opened up, or underground construction has caused a building downtown to sink into infill.

Local Eccentric: A beloved (or disliked) neighborhood figure is out on the streets. Their eccentricity could come from dress, behavior, feeding birds, or something else entirely. They are likely a Sleeper, although they could be more than they seem.

Celebrity: The PCs see a celebrity they recognize – a local author or musician, an actor in town for a production, or someone else they idolize but don’t know personally.

Shooting: A drive-by shooting, gunplay on the streets, or a lone shooter. The PCs are hopefully not the ones being targeted, but they may end up in the crossfire.

Assault: Someone physically assaults the PCs on the streets or they witness an assault occurring. It could be a random encounter or it could be someone with a grudge against the PCs.

Mugging: Someone attacks one of the PCs and tries to steal their valuables, likely at gunpoint. Is it worth the risk of Paradox to fight back? What if they steal something with magic properties?

Spirit: A spirit is manifesting nearby, managing its affairs, or perhaps trying to contact the PCs to enlist their aid. Not all spirits communicate verbally, or are friendly for that matter.

Street Salesperson: Someone is trying to sell the PCs something – religious texts, flowers, their new mixtape. They’re remarkably persistent.

Vigilante: Someone is patrolling the streets dressed like a costumed superhero. If the PCs are acting suspiciously, they might be risking a faceful of pepper spray and a citizen’s arrest.

Free Money: The PCs find a wallet or some stray bills lying on the ground.

O.T.L. Initiate: The O.T.L. rarely go far from Queen Anne if they can avoid it. The sigils on their clothing clearly identify them as an initiate, and they attract some looks from passers-by. If outside the neighborhood it might be a dire errand, they could be tracking the PCs, or they could just be out shopping.

Shallowing: The Gauntlet is thin here, whether as a result of location, lunar conjunctions, mythic resonance, tampering, or something else. Magick is easier to perform and spirits and wraiths may try and cross over.

Hardened Gauntlet: The Gauntlet here is thicker than normal, even for a large city. This could be the result of a ward, Technocratic influence, or the machinations of the Weaver. Magick is harder to cast, if not almost impossible.

Bright Resonance: The resonance in this area is happy, loving, warm, or some other positive emotion. This is a place where good things have happened.

Dark Resonance: This is a place where bad things have happened. The atmosphere is fearful, cold, sad, or otherwise negative. Entities with sinister motives may try to take advantage of this.

Node: A powerful node is nearby, either one hitherto unknown to the PCs or one they just coincidentally happen to be in the neighborhood of. In a large city, it’s likely someone’s already claimed it, but they may be willing to share.

Tass: A stockpile of Quintessence has accumulated here, seemingly free for the PCs’ taking.

UFO: Something unknown flashes across the sky or hovers close before flitting away – or perhaps the PCs even have an encounter. How they interpret what they see and experience will depend on their frame of reference, from extraterrestrials to angelic visitation.

Drone: A drone is hovering above the PCs. It could be a mundane hobbyist, but can they take that risk? Is the Technocracy observing them through it anyway?

Heightened Surveillance: Security cameras, guards, or other magickal forms of surveillance – this area is being closely watched. If the PCs don’t go around they risk being captured on film and run through the Technocracy’s databases, but they might not be able to avoid it.

Abandoned Artifact: Someone has abandoned something magickal and the PCs stumble upon it. It could be the property of an Orphan mage living on the streets who had to pack up in a hurry. It might even be cursed.

Tent City: A homeless encampment takes up a nearby empty field or parking lot, either sanctioned or unsanctioned. If the PCs need allies in a hurry, a friendly Orphan or two are probably among the residents. Conversely, the Technocracy could be sweeping it for undesirables.

Steiner’s Robot: One of Steiner’s robotic creations is nearby scavenging for parts. If not around Magnuson Park, what’s brought it out so far?

Mystical Sigil: A piece of graffiti, sticker, poster, arrangement of twigs, etc., nearby, is clearly part of a spell. What purpose does it serve, and does the creator even know that they’re engaging in real magick?

Ward: Something is protecting the area from interference, from spirits, hostile mages, or others who might wish the ward’s creator harm. Who placed the ward or what is it protecting?

Good Omen: A four-leaf clover, a shooting star, a rainbow, a butterfly landing on your hand, having exact change – whatever it is, it’s a good sign.

Bad Omen: A black dog watching you, walking under a ladder, seeing your doppelganger, your watch stopping – bad luck is coming up.

Familiar: The PCs see a familiar roaming around – perhaps under orders from its master, perhaps separated from its master and seeking help.

Suspicious Lurker: Someone or something unknown is following the PCs, lurking in nearby shadows or underbrush, or perhaps something is simply setting off their magickal danger warnings.

Powerful Resonance: The air in this spot fairly crackles with dynamism – some great magick or important event has left a lasting impact on this place.

Convenient Coincidence: Something unexpectedly goes the PCs’ way – a friend appears when they need a hand, a passing bus cuts off their pursuers, the billboard overhead gives them the exact inspiration they need.

Misfortune: Something befalls the PCs – a twisted ankle, a flat tire, their cell phone is out of batteries, their wallet is missing.

Green Spot: The PCs have found one of the many small parks, overgrown lots, and other verdant areas that litter Seattle. It could offer a chance to take a break, a hiding spot, or a source of power for nature mages.

Farmer’s Market: The neighborhood’s weekly farmer’s market is going on, taking up the streets and sidewalks for a couple blocks or occupying a parking lot. A good opportunity to lose a pursuer in the stalls and bustling crowds, or just to buy some fresh seasonal produce.

Unseen Helper: Someone or something moves to help the PCs, either from the shadows or remotely, using magick or other powers. Their identity and motives are currently unknown.

Awakening: The PCs see someone acting erratically, and it soon becomes clear they’re having their magickal Awakening. Do they step in to help? Or stay out of the way?

Homeless Encampment: A small group of tents have been set up nearby in a small lot or precarious spots near the freeway. If the PCs need help, the inhabitants can likely come to their aid.

No Reception: The PCs’ cell phones and/or other electronic devices have lost their signal. Hopefully it wasn’t a bad time…

Thunderstorm: Torrential rain, thunder and lightning – Seattle thunderstorms are rare but dramatic. Calling down lightning in this weather will be easy for a trained mage.

Rainstorm: Far from the typical Seattle drizzle, water pours from the sky and the gutters turn into rivers. Traffic slows down as visibility is reduced and accidents occur.

Fog: A heavy fog has rolled in to settle down until the winds blow it away. It might even be a reprise of the infamous stink fog of January 2015.

Smoke: In summer, the smoke from wildfires in the surrounding countryside often blankets the city, covering it in a thin haze and irritating eyes and throats. Outside of the fire season, this might mean a building is on fire nearby.

Heat Wave: Seattle is in the grip of either unseasonably hot weather or a dangerous summer heat wave. Beaches and forest parks are crowded and fans run in windows all night as people try to cope in a city without widespread air conditioning.

Magic/k?: The PCs witness someone doing something strange with results that could just be coincidence – but could easily be magick.

Impossible Space: Something – perhaps Correspondence magick – has twisted space nearby in physically impossible ways. A car that carries too many people on the inside, streets that turn back around on themselves, a building where going in the front entrance just takes you immediately out the back.

Time Disjunction: Either the PCs are experiencing déjà vu or something has gone wrong with the timestream – it could just be a moment temporarily looping, or parts of the future or past comingling. It could be a vision or omen, a Time spell, or a nasty Paradox backlash.

[tabletopinfinities]

Mage: the Ascension Campaign Outline

Wizards of the Emerald City details the city of Seattle, ground zero in a new struggle between the Traditions and the Technocracy. Once this was the only city where the two sides were on amicable terms with each other, but a Technocratic resurgence and influx of outsiders has strained tensions to the boiling point. The PCs will be forced to choose sides soon, one way or the other. Also detailed within this campaign outline is everything you need to run a Mage game in Seattle - the city’s history and culture both mage and Sleeper, a neighborhood-by-neighborhood guide highlighting the city’s supernatural secrets, the rundown on what all the various factions are doing in the city and who their movers and shakers are, and an assortment of chantries, cabals, Marauders, and Nephandi to flesh out your campaign. Find it all here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ebi-r05frxY1wpZc4eukenNHkcyGxb0- Next week: A bonus appendix presenting a random encounter table for the city of Seattle - and the week after that, get ready for the 2nd installment of Tabletop Infinities, introducing you to a world of swashbuckling adventure, sorcery, and piracy...

[tabletopinfinities]

Mage: the Ascension Adventure and Sample Characters

Presenting “Cthonic Entaglement” - a starter adventure for Mage: the Ascension. When a group of neophyte mages comes together to check on a friend of a friend, the investigation leads to a work of technomantic hubris that has stirred up the supernatural world. Can they shut it down before it spreads across cyberspace? Also presented are five pregenerated starter characters to get you going, from social media technomancer to installation artist time mage. Grab all the PDFs you need in this shared folder here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CXGCxoxV7cBvyKmZ1XhLbtIfs-T1tWfx?usp=sharing Next week, a campaign outline to build off of the starter adventure, detailing the city of Seattle for Mage: the Ascension.

[tabletopinfinities]

Mage: the Ascension

Reality is a lie. The truth is magic. Open your eyes and Awaken.

What’s the premise?

It’s our modern world, but magic is real. Technology is just a different form of magic. Other forms of magic were driven underground and are harder to conjure up, because consensus belief shapes reality, and people these days find it easier to believe in, say, cars and guns than they do fireballs or flying carpets. Oh, and also there’s a war on for control over reality itself.

You see, a long time ago (circa the 13th century to be precise), a group of mages got tired of wizards being able to throw fireballs willy-nilly, summon up demons, and generally make life a pain for everyone. They wanted to bring order to the world and tame and control magic for the good of all. Of course, they would be the ones in charge of this new world order. These guys would become the Technocracy, the all-seeing, all-powerful architects of consensus reality. Using advanced hypertechnology beyond mundane comprehension, they’re trying to wipe out magic for good and make the world safe for Sleepers - the mundane masses that have no idea that magic even exists.

Fighting on the side of magical freedom is the Council of Nine Mystic Traditions. Formed in response to the Technocracy, each Tradition represents a particular form of magical practice. In brief, they are: wizards, druids, priests, shamans, martial artists, hippies, assassins, mad scientists, and hackers. They don’t always get along with each other, but they band together to fight the Technocracy and try and bring “real” magic back into the world. So far, they’re still losing, but the fight is far from over.

In between these guys are a wide range of other independent magical societies and solo mages, everything from goths (well, it is a White Wolf game) to ancient African sorcerer-kings. There’s also the Nephandi, who are evil mages who serve demons and other beings beyond our world. They just want to drag the world down into Hell (and they might be the ones truly winning, in the end). There’s the Marauders, who are mages who’ve lost their grip on reality so bad that they actually warp reality around themselves. And there are whole other realms of supernatural weirdness to explore, including crossing over with the other World of Darkness games (Vampire: the Masquerade, Werewolf: the Apocalypse, Wraith: the Oblivion, etc).

You’d like it if you’re into: Harry Potter, The Matrix, The Magicians, The Invisibles, Mr. Robot

Why do you recommend it?

Lots of games have you playing as magic-users and casting spells. This one lets you do it however you want to. The magic system is almost totally freeform, meaning that rather than being locked to a list of spells you figure out what you want your spell to do and how you want that effect to appear. This means you can make whatever kind of character you want, from the classic wizard archetype to cyberpunk technomancers to priestesses of forgotten goddesses whose sacred gun shoots bullets that sprout into roses. The only limit is your imagination (and your dice rolls).

The setting reflects that limitlessness. It’s a clash between high tech and high magic that can fit all your wild ideas inside it. If you want to have a journey through the realms of faerie one session and then invade an orbital cyborg factory the next, you can do that all with the same characters. I love settings that let you pit genres against each other like that, and Mage is among the most flexible of them.

Finally - Mage is a game about personal discovery that encourages you to make your own personal discoveries. It asks you to explore what it really means to control reality - and maybe see if you can apply that to your own reality. Especially with the 20th Anniversary Edition, which is one of the most welcoming, hopeful RPG sourcebooks I’ve ever read.

What are the rules like?

The Storyteller System that powers the World of Darkness games is pretty straightforward - roll a bunch of d10s, see how many dice beat the difficulty number, subtract the number of 1s you rolled from that, and the result is the number of successes you got, which tells you how well you did at what you were trying to do. Roll too many 1s and you get a critical failure. It lets you describe a more evocative set of outcomes than systems like D&D where you simply succeed or fail.

Combat is fairly realistic, with guns and all being about as lethal as you’d expect - although of course there are various magical weapons and defenses to complicate things.

The bulk of the system rules is devoted, of course, to magic. Here’s where the game both shines and gets bogged down. You get to come up with spells for your character with effects based on how skilled they are in the various spheres of magic, with flavor filtered through their particular magical style. It’s a twist that really lets you feel like you’re working with reality-changing magic. Want to cast a basic fireball? Sure. Want to represent that as an Atlantean plasma gun or God smiting your enemies with a pillar of flame? Go for it. Want to use magic to grow a snail to giant size and then send it an hour into the past to destroy your enemies before they caught up with you? That is definitely something you can try and do in this game, although that one might require a lot of successes.

The catch is that if you don’t do what consensus reality expects, e.g., growing a snail to giant size in front of a street full of onlookers, the universe is likely to smack you down with the force of Paradox. That’s what keeps reality cohesive and stops mages from battling it out in the streets. Push the universe too far and it starts pushing back, in the form of bad luck, spontaneous human combustion, or, in extreme cases, popping you out of reality altogether for a little bit (or maybe forever). Paradox might even manifest as a physical spirit to haunt you. This applies to Technocrats as much as it does to Tradition mages, because the masses aren’t ready to accept giant robots or cyber-tooth tigers just yet. In fact, there might be pockets of reality where magic works and technology doesn’t… go to an Amish community and heal them with laying on hands versus a fancy tricorder and see which one attracts more Paradox.

The tradeoff for such flexibility is that it becomes a bit time-consuming to figure out what your character’s capable of, how well they’ll have to roll to pull it off, and what it looks like within the rules. Most complicated spells require proficiency in a few different spheres, e.g., Correspondence to do stuff at long range, Prime to create something out of nothing, or Time to bind a spell to a certain duration. Once you’ve got a firmer grasp on the systems and a few standardized “rote” spells in your pocket you start to get the hang of it though.

What’s my character like?

Starting as a neophyte mage, you’ll be capable of basic spells in a couple of Spheres, but you won’t be able to change reality in major ways. You get to choose whether you’re better at Physical, Social, or Mental attributes, and put points into different skills. You’ll get some Backgrounds, which represent the resources your character has - allies, a familiar, access to arcane libraries, magic artifacts, etc. You’ll also decide what your character’s exterior Demeanor and inner Nature are, as well as the Essence of their enlightened soul. These are, sort of, your character’s alignment, and roleplaying in accordance with them will let you regain Willpower, which you can use to reroll dice (among other things). Finally, you’ll decide what the trappings of your character’s magic are and what instruments and rituals they use as foci for their different Spheres.

Those spheres of magic, in case you were wondering, are Mind, Prime (manipulating Quintessence, the raw force of magic), Time, Spirit, Entropy (which covers both death and probability), Forces (fire, wind, energy, etc.), Matter, Life, and Correspondence (travel, distance, and connection).

Most characters also belong to some particular faction, which shapes what Spheres they’re skilled in. Each of the Traditions corresponds to one of the nine Spheres, but most factions get a choice between two or three appropriate Spheres to receive a bonus. I’m listing the factions out in the 20th Anniversary Edition; there are a few other factions from older editions lurking in the corners of the world, but these are the big players.

Traditions:

Akashic Brotherhood (Mind): Asian martial artists and spiritualists devoted to mastery of the self and harmony with the universe. They practice Do, which is the primal martial art from which all others descend.

Celestial Chorus (Prime): Monotheists who believe that all should be harmonized under the pure unity of the One and its beautiful Song.

Cult of Ecstasy (Time): Hedonistic hippies who embrace altered consciousness through drugs, sex, meditation, music, pain, dance, and all that other good stuff.

Dreamspeakers (Spirit): African and Native American spirit-talkers and medicine men who, honestly, sort of got folded together by the rest of the Traditions so they could put all the brown-skinned mages in one place. They’re dedicated to restoring the health of the spirit world and thus also our own.

Euthanatos (Entropy): Ancient Greek and Indian (and elsewhere) cultists devoted to maintaining the great wheel of reincarnation by ensuring that everything dies at its proper time. Essentially, they’re death-worshipping assassins with a strict moral code.

Order of Hermes (Forces): These are they guys who probably come to mind when you think of a mage, all complicated spell components and dusty books and Enochian incantations. Haughty and pedantic, and sort of the de facto leadership of the Traditions. They’re the ones who founded the whole thing, after all.

Sons of Ether (Matter): Mad scientists, steampunks, and pulp explorers, each with their own crackpot theories that they vigorously defend. Formerly a part of the Technocracy, they got kicked out for clinging to outmoded forms of science. But they’ll show them all.

Verbena (Life): Pagan, druid, and witch types who believe in the power of nature and the old ways. They think technology has made the modern world too soft and that struggle and sacrifice are part of the natural order - sometimes very literal sacrifice.

Virtual Adepts (Correspondence): The newest members of the Traditions, this bunch of hackers left the Technocracy to go their own way - spurred on by one of their founders, Alan Turing, martyring himself to create the Internet (really!). Anarchists and tricksters who can hack reality as well as they can hack computers, the Adepts spend a lot of time hanging out in the Digital Web, the magical version of cyberspace.

Technocracy:

Iteration X: The engineers and efficiency experts of the Technocracy, Iteration X believes in a grand vision of mechanized perfection. They specialize in robotics, weapons, and cybernetics. Ultimately, they want to merge man with machine - even if that doesn’t align with the goals of the rest of the Technocracy.

New World Order: The NWO are the ones running the Technocracy - and thus the world. Illuminati and panopticon rolled into one, their legions of men in black specialize in surveillance, media manipulation, and “social conditioning,” all of which they use to advance their vision of a controlled and productive reality.

Progenitors: The biologists. Cloning, genetic engineering, and controlled evolution are all at their command. They research new medicine and biotechnology for the benefit of all mankind, though sometimes their methodology is a little extreme.

Syndicate: The money men. Actually, they literally invented money. A healthy mix of thugs and Gordon Gekko types, the Syndicate controls the world’s corporations (and quite a few extralegal organizations) to fund the rest of the Technocracy and get rich in the process. Their “magic” focuses on self-discipline, psychology, and manipulating the raw Primal Utility of the universe like an Econ textbook come to life.

Void Engineers: Exploring the worlds beyond ours - and defending humanity from the threats that live there. The Void Engineers are the most out-there (literally) Convention of the Technocracy, the most unorthodox and also the most willing to work with mages and other “reality deviants” as necessary. They specialize in Spirit magic - although to them, it’s “Dimensional Science.” Their spaceships scout the outer reaches of the universe and beyond, carrying contingents of power-armored marines ready to blast anything dangerous.

The Disparate Alliance:

Once scattered, separate magical traditions and organizations, in recent times these “disparates” have banded together to maintain power separate from the Traditions or the Technocracy.

Ahl-i-Batin: Once a part of the Traditions, sitting where the Virtual Adepts do now on the seat of Correspondence, the “subtle ones” believe in a grand unity of all things, influenced by Islamic mysticism. These days they work in secret, observing and acting only when necessary. They hold a particular hatred of the Nephandi and will always act to stop them.

Bata’a: Vodouists and other African-diaspora Loa worshippers who derive their magic from respectful agreement with the spirits. Largely an informal group, they have a wide membership across the world.

Children of Knowledge: The descendants of the Solificati, an ancient group of alchemists that was once a Tradition, the Children of Knowledge use their alchemical knowledge to purify base souls into golden souls. Sometimes that process involves designer psychotropic drugs - the Children actually invented LSD.

Hollow Ones: A ragtag group of goths, punks, and other weirdos and misfits who seek to bring capital-R Romance back to the world, a la the era of Shelley and Byron. They spend a lot of time looking fashionable in the club scene, but also sheltering other mages who don’t have a place to belong. Their magic tends to be a patchwork of various styles and tools.

Kopa Loei: The descendants of Hawaiian and other Polynesian wizard-priests, dedicated to preserving their arts and native lands against the predations of ha’ole influence.

Ngoma: Powerful wizards of ancient Africa who took offense to being lumped in en masse with the Dreamspeakers at the first meeting of the Traditions, and went their own way. Decimated by imperialism and slavery that nearly destroyed their ancient ways, the surviving Ngoma seek out positions of power and respect in mortal society while also establishing schools to revive their art.

Orphans: A catch-all term for any mage that doesn’t belong to a particular faction, this can include deeply idiosyncratic self-taught mages, small groups who follow a particular paradigm together, or even defectors from one of the major factions. Quite often, they might not even be aware of larger magical society.

Sisters of Hippolyta: Tracing their descent from the ancient Amazons, the Hippolytoi largely live in separate enclaves from the rest of society. They dedicate themselves to worshipping the Divine Feminine, striving towards world peace, and liberating oppressed peoples of all types. Their magic focuses around pagan medicine-work.

Taftani: Middle Eastern mages who are masters of creating magical artifacts, as well as binding djinni to their will. They believe in a dualistic universe of Truth and Lies, and that working vulgar magic and exposing people to the Truth that magic is real is a moral good.

Templar Knights: Yes, those Templars, now existing as a secretive paramilitary order. Formerly (and largely still) male-only, the Templars fight evil and await the return of Christ, when they will become His army.

Wu Lung: Ancient Chinese sorcerers (and longstanding enemies of the Akashic Brotherhood) who wielded great wealth and power before the Cultural Revolution drove them out of China. Having adapted to the modern world, they seek to regain their power and lead a rebirth of traditional Chinese magic and culture.

What’s the campaign like?

Most games focus on mages of different Traditions coming together as a cabal (or Technocratic Conventions as an Amalgam), but where it goes from there is up to you. Really, it could be like anything you can imagine. You could be trying to use your magic to change the world for the better while avoiding the attention of the Technocracy, playing as the Technocracy trying to stop mages who are using their powers carelessly, dealing with magical politics, or even ignoring all of that and going on mystical quests in otherworldly realms (or, for technomancers, exploring strange dimensions in your spaceship).

Cabals can pool their resources into making a magical Sanctum that serves as a base of power, a place to safely work magic, and a source of Quintessence for magical fuel. You can upgrade it in numerous ways, from defenses to libraries, and maintaining a sanctum and its role in the local magical community can be a storyline in its own right.

As your characters increase their magical skills, they’ll be guided along spiritual journeys by their Avatar - the Awakened essence of their soul that allows them to perform magic. One by one, they cast aside their tools and embrace the truth that it is they themselves that are the source of magic. Eventually, they might even achieve Ascension - whatever that is.

The classic Mage campaign strikes a balance between the magical and the mundane, high fantasy and sci-fi action contrasted against personal dramas and worldly problems. The central themes of the game are power, morality, and belief. As a mage, you can change reality to suit your will. What do you do with that power? What if reality doesn’t want to be changed? Is it right to force your viewpoint on others? Despite all your power, you’re still just one person, and the universe is stacked against you. What do you do?

What books should I get?

The 20th Anniversary Edition, or M20, is the edition I’d recommend, published in recent years as the result of a Kickstarter (which, full disclosure, I backed, although it’s not as though I get anything out of promoting it). It advances the timeline past the apocalyptic Revised setting into something brighter and more hopeful - while also providing tools and advice to play with other eras or flavors of Mage if you want. Getting physical copies of it can be a little pricey though, so if you want something physical on a budget you might look at getting used copies of the other editions - they float around pretty frequently for about $10-$40. PDFs and print-on-demand copies of most books are available on Drivethrurpg as well. Each of the older editions are fine in their own right (although be advised that the further back you go, the less balanced the magic system is). 1st Edition is very clear-cut good Traditions versus evil Technocracy. 2nd Edition muddies that morality and fleshes out the Technocracy and other factions. Revised Edition does away with a lot of the weirder elements of prior editions and presents a grimmer vision of the world where the Technocracy has more or less won, Paradox is a much harsher force, the other worlds are mostly cut off and very difficult to travel to, and the world in general is plunging towards apocalypse (and the end of the original game line). There’s also Mage: the Sorcerer’s Crusade, which presents the world in a medieval/Renaissance setting at the beginning of the Ascension War, and Dark Ages: Mage, which takes the setting into medieval times.

M20 has a separate book going into further detail on the magic system. It’s called, appropriately enough, How Do You DO That? and I’d recommend it if you’re looking to get into M20, as it provides rules guidelines for a wide range of common spell effects that goes more in-depth than the core rules. There are two other M20 books published to date. The Book of Secrets contains more character options, expanded rules (including creating magical items), a closer look at magical paradigms, and other assorted information. Gods and Monsters has an assortment of NPCs, spirits, and, well, monsters.

The Tradition/Convention books detail each of the respective factions and were reprinted for multiple eras (note that all the Revised Convention Books except for Iteration X were PDF-only though). For Revised, there were also the Guides to the Traditions/Technocracy. If you’re thinking about focusing your campaign around a particular faction or playing a character of that faction, I’d recommend picking one of those books up for more detail and inspiration. The various Disparate Crafts never got their own dedicated books for the most part, but some of them are detailed in various sourcebooks across editions, such as the Book of Crafts.

The Book of Worlds and Horizon present the different Umbral realms and otherworldly magical/technological sanctuaries you can travel to. Much of these setting details have been superseded (or in the case of Horizon, destroyed entirely), but if you want your campaign to lean on the weirder high fantasy end it’ll give you a lot to play with.

Ascension was the book that ended the old product line, presenting several different world-ending scenarios - one of which is pretty much the canon ending to the Mage story (at least until M20 came along) and the others being alternate ways to cap out a chronicle, like the Nephandi winning, aliens showing up to drain magic from the world, or just a giant asteroid hitting Earth. While you probably don’t want to start your campaign out that way, it’s an interesting read that gives ideas for an epic campaign ending.

Note that Mage: the Awakening, while very similar, is a completely separate game that’s part of the new World of Darkness (now also known as the Chronicles of Darkness) that rebooted the product line with a different setting.

What equipment do I need?

As with all Storyteller games, Mage uses d10s exclusively. About 6 per character is the most you’ll need on average to start out with. Having extra space beyond the character sheet to write down spells is a good idea.

[tabletopinfinities]

Welcome!

Ever since the first Magic-User rolled their first dice to cast fireball, tabletop roleplaying games have been an outlet for wonder and imagination. Decades of players have been going on wild adventures exploring and becoming a part of the worlds laid out by their tireless game masters. There are RPGs out there for classic fantasy adventure, for hard science fiction, for horror, romance, comedy, tragedy - for everything. So where do you dive in? There’s 40+ years of RPG history out there, but beyond Dungeons and Dragons it’s a relatively niche hobby where books frequently go out of print, making it hard to explore all of what’s out there. The advent of digital has changed the latter part of that somewhat, now that books are available in PDF and DriveThruRPG.com makes older books available digitally. Tabletop Infinities is here to tell you help you explore what’s out there and get you started enjoying adventures in your new favorite RPG. Every month we’ll be covering a different game, starting off by talking about what the setting and system are like, what kinds of characters you can make, and what books you should look out for. The next week we’ll present a starting adventure, complete with premade characters, so you can easily jump in if you want to try the game. Then the week after that will have a campaign outline springing off that starter adventure, so you can continue playing your characters (or just read through it to plunder for parts and inspiration). We’ll also be talking about different RPGs that don’t fit into the campaign setup in off-weeks, whether it’s one-shots, storygames, or just RPG oddities that you wouldn’t want to actually play, but are fun to hear about nevertheless. We’ll get things kicked off later this week by talking about one of my personal favorite RPGs - Mage: the Ascension. It’s an urban fantasy game that puts you in the middle of a magical war for control over reality, fueled by your character’s own personal journey of self-discovery. And because I love it so much and went a little overboard, the campaign outline will be nothing less than a full-length sourcebook detailing the city of Seattle and its magical communities and histories. Future campaign outlines will be a little... shorter than that, because I really couldn’t write a whole sourcebook monthly, but nevertheless... get excited. Are you ready? Roll for initiative...