#we roll like 3 sets of stats and pick one

[utilitycaster]

How would the wizards win, they are knocked out easily and fragile as fuck???

Hi anon,

In the interest of verisimilitude I am running this combat play by play. Assumptions include:

Equipment is that of their last appearance (Echoes of the Solstice for the PCs but before Caleb gives his stone to Luc, and 2x141 for Essek) with the notable exception that no one has any potions

All magical items with charges are fully charged

The wizards have all necessary components for their spells

Caleb’s philosopher’s stone is on him and is set to constitution save proficiency, which is how Caleb usually has it set.

Caleb will not access spells that we have not seen him use previously

Essek gets the high level dunamancy spells though bc we left with him not accessing 9th levels and it seems reasonable he’d have these learned.

Characters are all level 20

The poll this is based on does not explicitly say to the death, so I am counting “at least one of the wizards survives and put Yasha somewhere she is not going to bother them” as a win condition for them.

For the purposes of this exercise I am going to make Essek a chronurgist but swap out the level 2 abilities (Chronal Shift and Temporal Awareness) for Adjust Density since we know he has the latter but “time is his speciality” as I don’t have his actual stat block.

Essek’s CON, WIS, CHA, and STR are unknown as are his HP. I have rolled for them, added his CHA bonus as a drow, and taken an ASI to one other stat. I have also just used the wizard default of 4 HP per level + con bonuses. I rolled (4d6 drop lowest): 16, 8, 14, and 11, which seems like a reasonable spread. I’m giving him 16 CHA (14+2 racial bonus), 16 CON, 8 STR, and 13 (11+2) WIS, which seems reasonable to me. His HP is therefore 6+4*19+3*20=142.

They all start at the corners of a square with sides 30 feet, as there is no 2D configuration of four equidistant points. Same teams are at diagonals from each other (ie, going clockwise, it goes Beau, Caleb, Yasha, Essek.)

In order to stave off any whining: if both wizards roll higher on the dice for initiative than both sentinel babes I will reroll. After that the dice shall tell their story.

Caleb is not allowed to cast Wish to simply win the fight even though that is the obvious answer and not prohibited per the rules of the poll because while that proves my point, actually running through the combat and demonstrating the general case of “wizards beat melee at L20 as a rule” is more fun for me.

Final and most important rule: I am a human person running through combat for four people. Will this be perfectly optimal in every way? No. If there is something egregiously wrong then mention it but if you simply had a different strategy then well, write it out yourself.

Combat below the jump:

Initiative: Caleb rolled 7 (modified to 9), Essek rolled 16 (modified to 19), Yasha rolled 15 (modified to 18), Beau rolled 3 on the d20 and 6 on the d8 from her boots of the vigilant (total of 14).

Round 1

Essek casts Hold Person on Yasha since he cannot cast it on both at once as they are 42.4 feet from each other. She fails with a natural 1. [L2 spell used - Essek]

Yasha rolls again at the end of her turn, and gets a 12, failing.

Beau runs to Essek and attacks him twice, using a ki point to stunning strike him on her first hit and attempting for all hits after until it succeeds. She rolls an 11 and a 14 to hit on the dice, which will hit. Essek rolls a natural 18 on his first con save, succeeding, but a 9 on his second, which fails, dropping his hold on Yasha. Beau just takes flurry of blows for her bonus action, with advantage, rolling a 17 and a 12 respectively at advantage. Total damage to Essek is 14+11+7+7=39 damage. (2 ki used) She can also extract aspects; he is a normal guy.

Caleb shapechanges into an ancient white dragon. He picks up Essek in a talon (object interaction) and flies 35 feet into the air.[L9 spell used - Caleb; concentration]

Round 2

Essek is stunned

Yasha summons her wings. She makes her Frightful Presence save with a natural 18 and flies almost into melee with Dragon!Caleb but that is her action. She rages as a bonus action.

Beau has no abilities nor items that extend more than 30 feet away. She may as well use Empty Body to become invisible and resistant to all damage though! (6 ki used total, 4 this round). She makes her frightful presence save with a 15 on the dice. Essek is no longer stunned.

Dragon!Caleb can get both Yasha and Beau in a cone of cold, DC 22. Yasha saves with a 17 on the dice and total of 27,  Beau rolls a 3 and uses a ki point to reroll, getting a 9+10 which fails. This is a con save, so no evasion. I rolled extremely well (thanks google dice roller thing) and Beau takes 96 cold damage, halved to 48 from Empty Body. Yasha takes 48 cold damage as well, halved due to her saving throw. Caleb rolls a 6 on the d6; this ability recharges. He then flies 80 feet away from Yasha.

Round 3

Essek casts Ravenous Void 30 feet behind Yasha such that he and Caleb are outside of the spell’s 100 foot range. Beau is however also in range, though neither she nor Yasha are within range of the sphere, merely the 100 foot event horizon. [L9 spell used, Essek; concentration].

Yasha must make a strength save, which she makes with a 14 on the die, against Essek’s DC of 20. She moves 25 feet towards Caleb and Essek as she is in difficult terrain (yes, even in the air.) She uses her battle cry ability as a bonus action, granting Beau advantage on attacks and saves.

Beau makes a strength save as well, and makes it with a natural 18. She can activate her maelstrom gloves at this point I suppose, as her action. She also runs from the sphere, along the ground, at half speed (35 feet); she will use step of the wind to dash as a bonus action (70 feet). She is still within the range of the spell this turn.

Caleb can hit Yasha with the cold damage again. She makes her save with a 15 on the dice. I rolled much more poorly this time; she takes 32 damage. His breath weapon does NOT recharge this round as I rolled a 4.

At the end of round 3: Caleb has 333 HP as a dragon and has used one 9th level spell on which he is concentrating. Essek has 103 HP as himself and has used one 2nd level spell and one 9th level spell, the latter on which he is concentrating. Beau has 144 HP and is invisible; she has used 8 of her 20 ki points. Yasha has 148 HP and is currently raging.

Round 4

Essek casts lightning bolt on Yasha at 5th level. She fails her dex save (16+3 = 19, his DC is 20), taking 10d6 lightning damage, or 26 points per my roll. (Yasha is at 122 HP).

Yasha makes a strength save at advantage against Ravenous Void, just making it with a 10, but Essek uses Convergent future to make her fail. Yasha is pulled into the Ravenous Void; Essek takes one level of exhaustion. Yasha takes 5d10 force damage (another 26 points) and is restrained. (Yasha is at 94 HP).

Beau rolls a 15, succeeding with a 21. She successfully runs out of the range of ravening void and stays there. HOWEVER she is now within Dragon!Caleb’s blindsight radius.

Caleb gets directly above Beau and attacks her with his multiattack. He rolls a 9, 17, and 15 on the dice and gets +14 on all three attacks, dealing 2d10+8, 2d8, 2d8+8, and 2d6+8 damage total, all of which will be halved. That added up was a 72 total, halved to 36 for Beau who is now at 108 HP. He rolls a 5 on the d6, recharging his breath weapon. All attacks are made at minimum 10 foot reach, putting him outside the range of Sentinel; he returns to 40 feet above Beau.

Round 5

Yasha is out of range, so, upon realizing what’s going on, Essek casts See Invisibility on himself and can now see Beau, but that is his action.

Yasha takes another 34 damage from the Ravenous Void and makes a strength save at advantage; she makes it and is no longer restrained. She can get 15 feet out of the sphere. (Yasha is at 60 HP)

Beau can I guess run 70 feet away from the wizards.

Caleb uses his breath weapon again on Beau. She rolls a 5 on the dice, which is a failure on the con save. She takes 39 (79 halved) damage. Beau is now at 69 HP (nice). The breath weapon does not recharge this round.

Round 6

Essek casts Gravity Sinkhole where Beau is. She rolls a 4 on the dice and fails her Con save, taking the full 5d10 force damage (27) which isn’t halved by Empty Body. Beau is now at 42 HP.

Yasha succeeds on her saving throw and is now 40 feet out of the sphere, 50 from the center. She needs to make her next two rounds of saves to get out of the range of the spell, but takes no damage this round. She heals herself up 20 points, to 80, as her action.

Beau runs another 70 feet away.

Caleb goes after Beau, who I assume is running at a tangent to the radius of Ravenous Void, and dashes, catching up but is not able to attack.

Round 7

Essek uses momentary stasis on Beau. She rolls a 9 on her Con save, failing with a total of 19; she is incapacitated and has a speed of zero.

Yasha rolls a 3 and a 4 on her next saving throw, failing her strength save, and is pulled back into the center of the sphere, taking 5d10 (33) damage. Yasha is at 47 HP.

Beau is incapacitated.

Caleb makes his multiattack, dealing 57 total, halved to 28. Beau is now at 14 HP.  Caleb’s breath weapon does not return.

Round 8

Essek casts gravity sinkhole again at Beau. She rolls a 19, making her con save, but still takes 5d10 halved. I rolled a 28, halved to 14, precisely knocking her unconscious.

Yasha takes 25 force damage from the center of the sphere and makes her save, moving out from the center of the sphere. Yasha is at 22 HP.

Beau rolls a 2 on her first death save. This however does not matter, because...

Caleb lands and attacks Beau, taking her death saves and killing her. His breath weapon does not return.

Round 9

Essek hangs out in Caleb’s talons, chilling.

Yasha makes her strength save and moves out from the center of the sphere. She is again 50 feet from the center.

Caleb flies to the edge of the radius of Essek’s spell and lands.

Round 10

Essek gets out of Caleb’s talons and stands but is otherwise still chilling.

Yasha makes her strength save and dashes, reaching the wizards but is not able to attack them. She is no longer raging, having taken no damage nor attacked in a round, so she rages again.

Caleb drops Shapechange and casts Disintegrate. Yasha rolls an 11, for a dex save of 14, failing. She is reduced to 0 HP by Disintegrate, which turns her into dust and kills her because she is still dust even though she is raging.

Conclusion: I did to be fair roll like absolute shit for Beau but it was ultimately a game of dragon-and-monk anyway; once they're in the air and she's not and Yasha's unable to come to her aid, she's fucked. The second Beau fails to stunning strike one of the wizards, and Caleb gets a +9 assuming he has all his favorite magic rocks around him against Beau's 18 DC, so this is not out of the question, they can and will either turn into a dragon with a +14 to con saves and also who can fly, or cast "gravity hates you personally" at 9th level.

I would also note that Yasha's 101 damage in one hit in Echoes of the Solstice relies on several buffs from - you guessed it - magic users, as well as a crit. (fun fact! I rolled zero nat 20s during this, which is kind of weird although also I was mostly only rolling saves). Neither she nor Beau can one-shot one of the wizards on their own - even if they're teaming up only on one of them it's going to take 2-3 rounds, and meanwhile the other has, again, cast "fuck you" at 9th level in the meantime.

[csphire]

Sad because you need more Dammon?

Here is a guide on how to make him into your player character or guardian. ->New Guide here that includes mod suggestions!

To start with I made sure that all his stats were at least 10 in everything like his original. According to the Wiki Dammon is an Asmodeus Tiefling.

For the extra points left over, I put them into upping his Dexterity (as it helps with dodging damage), the main stat for his class (in this case Wisdom for a Druid), and a bit in Charisma just to make conversation rolls a bit easier. For background, I went with Guild Artisan to further help him with persuasion, give him some insight, and for roleplaying purposes since he was a blacksmith. For cantrips, I would highly recommend picking Guidance to further aid all conversation rolls.

For Class, I went with Druid because it lets him wield a scimitar right at the start. On the Nautolid you can usually find two of these weapons. The second reason is maybe being at the grove rubbed off on him a little. He did after all pick up a few skills while in Avernus why not at the Druid Grove too? The third reason, your doppelganger gets a discount from Arron the other merchant to be found there. But of course, you can make him any other class you wish or multi-class him. I did so myself by adding dragon sorcerer and bard to him later on. (I am tempted to try and get the Jack-of-all-Trades achievement with him.)

When it comes to his eyes there is a slight hiccup. They are currently only unique to Dammon. The closest we can get to them is Blue 3. I vaguely recalled that if one was a tiefling in Early Access even if one were to pick the more human/elven eye colors they would still have a slight glow to them. This is currently not the case as of launch and I'm not aware if there are any mods out that can give us the proper eyes. :

Actually, after some thought, another color might be better than Blue 3 called Sapphire 4 as it's a little more intense.

For make-up, I don't think Dammon wears any but I did add a subtle amount to try to make his eyes stand out a little more and added the tinest amount of color and gloss to his lips. So the following is optional. Personally, I find that particular eyeshadow comes in handy for guys overall at a 10 or 20 intensity level to make their eyes look a little deeper set and um... more broody?

For the hair, you may want to experiment with the red highlight. I don't think I got the color spot on. Below, I outlined other possibilities. On a darker red you may want to go higher in intensity than just 60.

The horns I also worry I made a touch lighter than Dammon's but if you go with a Dusty 6 or 7 that might correct the minor difference.

Below is a final side-by-side comparison in the same lighting. Again, you might wish to experiment and go with a slightly darker red for the red hair highlight and the same with the horns. Also, the dyes I end up using for his gear are Swamp Green or Green to complement his original outfit colors.

Enjoy!

And Special thanks to @deir-emmett for coming up with the guide for the Dammon Dream Visitor available here.

[indie-ttrpg-of-the-week]

Apocalypse World

Did you know that some early PBTA games used to have *Blank* world as a naming scheme? it never really caught on

Touchstones: Fallout, Mad Max

Genre: Post-Apocalypse, Drama

What is this game?: Apocalypse World is a roleplay focused post-apocalyptic roleplaying game, its also the game that spawned the very popular PBTA framework

CWs: Apocalypse world deals with many dark themes, it's considered an "R-Rated" game citing Language, Sex, and Violence, it also features Mind control, mentions of drug use, and general post-apocalyptic horribleness, however I will attempt to stray away from those themes if possible

How's the gameplay?: OK, I'll likely actually link back to this review a few more times as we talk about other PBTA games, just so we can skip explaining the PBTA gameplay every time, so we're gonna try to be pretty thorough this time Apocalypse World's primary mechanic focuses on the use of Moves, Playbooks, and a 2d6 resolution system, where 1-6 is a miss, 7-9 is a weak hit, and 10-12 is a Strong hit, however your roll will always progress the story in some way, this way even failure can be fun! Moves trigger when doing specific actions, and they all interact with mechanics in some way, the prototypical move in Apocalypse world reads like this: "When Narrative trigger: gameplay effect", then this will either help you with a roll around the gameplay effect, or have you roll for a new gameplay effect, whereupon it'll read like this: "On a 1-6, Failure with consequences, on a 7-9 Success with Consequences, on a 10-12 Success with no consequences" Moves will usually add a stat to them, Apocalypse world's stats are Cool, Hard, Hot, Sharp, Weird, and HX, HX being an asymmetrical stat determining your relationship with other characters.

Playbooks are your character's narrative role, it will give your characters their narrative abilities, gameplay moves, relationships, appearances, basically everything about your character beyond things such as name (and even then, some games remove THAT distinction too), you pick one at the start and generally stick with them the whole game, think of it as a class, in Apocalypse World specifically every playbook has a "Special", a move that generally triggers when characters have sex, this might seem like the type of thing that other games in the framework dumpster pretty quick, but you'd be surprised it actually took a bit for people to get rid of that one

What's the setting (If any) like?: It has one Ok, in all seriousness, Apocalypse World's setting assumes you're playing in an edgy, presumably nuclear, mad max inspired post apocalypse, characters are grimy, aesthetics are leathery and gritty, mutations are common, and shit's BAD. Otherwise, feel free to work on the specifics, maybe you just want to play 1-to-1 fallout, or maybe you want to create your own fully original apocalyptic version of The Butt, Coventry, UK

What's the tone?: Dark. Apocalypse World makes it very clear that the world sucks, and the characters (probably) suck, while you could play a ragtag group of do-gooders, the game assumes a morally gray cast in a world that is actively hostile towards them. Apocalypse World's tone is, not for the faint of heart

Session length: Variable but 3 hours is usually enough to do quite a bit

Number of Players:  3 Minimum, but obviously more can help

Malleability: Apocalypse World's setting is generic to non existant, letting you play a ton of post apocalyptic settings, while branded apocalypses like Fallout or Mad Max might be difficult due to the inclusion of overt supernatural elements, you could really do any nuclear apocalyptic setting within this framework.

Resources: Apocalypse World has quite a few resources just due to being one of the oldest PBTA games, a google sheet exists, I've seen some short scenarios, and the game provides you with Move and Playbook cheat sheets, fan playbooks also exist and there's some pretty good ones if you look around enough, it's not a lot but it's enough for what the game is And here's the big cheese! While most modern PBTA design comes from Monsterhearts and Masks, this is the game that started it all, its gritty and very rough around the edges, but I still really like it

[daytaker]

5. Othello

(Existing Sucks So) Let's All Be Shadows.

A Satan-centric Nightbringer Timeline Fic (Read on AO3)* *This combines Chapters 7 (Othello) & 8 (Cats & Curses) from AO3.

Chapter Starring: MC, Satan, Mammon Chapter Word Count: ~5.3k Chapter Warnings: Canon-typical violence, Wrath

“If you saw a drowning cat, and you reached out to help it, and it scratched you because it was scared and hurt and flailing around... Would you just let it drown?”

First Chapter | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter | Latest Chapter

1 2 3 4 5

I woke up late the next day. After tossing and turning in bed, trying to get the memories of what Satan had told me out of my mind, I’d finally fallen into a fitful sleep about four in the morning. 

I probably would have woken up even later, actually, if it hadn’t been for my D.D.D. ringing on the nightstand by the bed. Half-asleep, I fumbled for the device, and after a few messy attempts, I managed to answer.

“What’s the matter?” I muttered as a greeting, still half-asleep.

“What ain’t the matter!” Mammon’s voice boomed through the speaker. “Listen up, we need ya down here stat! Satan’s throwin’ a fit and Lucifer ain’t here to stop it!”

“What makes you think I can do anything about it?” I groaned as I rolled onto my back. Honestly, the last thing I needed right now was more of Satan’s issues to deal with.

“You ain’t one of us! He doesn’t wanna talk to his broth–” I could hear crashing in the background, and Mammon seemed to pull the speaker away from his mouth and shout, “COOL IT, WOULD YA? I’M TRYIN’ TO GET HELP!”

I rubbed my forehead, already exhausted, but I dutifully climbed out of bed and started getting out of my pajamas.

“Listen, just hurry over, alright?” Mammon had shifted gears and was talking to me again.

“Aye-aye, cap’n,” I sighed, and I hung up.

I stood in my underwear, resting my forearms on the dresser for a few seconds as I breathed. In, and out… In, and out… I could do this. 

Half an hour later, I stood in the front hall of the House of Lamentation. Belphie came running up to me and practically collapsed in my arms. “What took you so long?” he whined into my stomach.

Deeper in the house, I could hear the rumbling and clattering of the house being slowly destroyed, one piece of furniture at a time.

“Where’s Lucifer?” I asked Belphie.

“He’s out sucking up to the future Demon King,” he told me, rolling his eyes. “Mammon’s trying to manage Satan on his own, but he’s doing about as terribly as you’d expect from him.”

“You’re all too hard on Mammon,” I sighed, setting my bag down against the wall and rolling up my sleeves. “It isn’t like any of the rest of you can handle him either.”

“Mammon’s the second-born,” argued Belphie petulantly, his voice tinged with an edge of whininess. “He’s supposed to be stronger than Satan. So is Levi, for that matter…”

I picked my bag up again, and Belphie followed me as I made my way deeper into the house. “What’s happening, exactly?” I asked.

“He’s been on a rampage since early this morning,” sighed the youngest.

“Why?”

“Nobody knows.” He shrugged. “Maybe he stepped on something when he got out of bed. Probably there’s no real reason.” 

I nodded grimly. There was always a reason, though. Maybe not a great reason, maybe not an obvious immediate reason, but there was a reason. Yesterday taught me how little I knew about what’s really going on in his head. 

“So what are you going to do?” Belphie asked. “Are you going to pull something like you did when you first got here? What was it you said… ‘Stay’?”

I grimaced inwardly. “Not if I can avoid it,” I replied. Lucifer would put me through the wringer if I did that again. “I brought something that might help snap him out of it.”

“Is it some sort of cursed artifact?” Belphie tilted his head. “Satan loves things like that.”

“No,”I said, “but that’s good thinking. I’ll stow that away for next time.”

We had arrived outside the door to the observatory, where the volume of the crashing and clattering inside made talking nearly impossible. I gestured to Belphie that I was going in, and he watched me with some trepidation as I opened the door and stepped into the room.

Inside the observatory, Satan and Mammon stood on opposite ends of the sofa, which looked as if it had been chewed up by a pack of hyenas. Mammon was clearly on the defensive, and he was gripping his left wrist with his right hand.

“You’re here!” Mammon exclaimed with relief as the door closed behind me. Satan’s eyes flashed in my direction, and he snarled in frustration.

“Why are you here?” He hurled a lamp across the room. I was amazed that there were still lamps in the house to be destroyed.

“I’m here because Mammon called me.”

Satan looked around the room with bloodshot eyes and snatched up the remains of a painting he’d already trashed. He looked like he was struggling to decide what to do with it. “I don’t want to see you right now.”

His voice was quiet, and tight, and quivering. It was tinged with rage but subdued as if smothered under a blanket of exhaustion. It was frightening.

“Mammon, is your wrist alright?” I asked him, not taking my eyes off of Satan.

Mammon seemed surprised at the question. Through my peripheral vision, I saw him look down at the wrist he was grasping, then back up at me.

“Uh, yeah. It ain’t nothing.”

“Go ask Beel to wrap it up.”

“Eh?” Mammon started, walking towards me. “No way! I ain’t gonna just leave you in here with–”

“Mammon.”

I turned and hit him full on with an entreating stare directly in his eyes. This might be a different time period, but I knew what I was capable of, with or without magic or pacts. Mammon quickly averted his eyes, but he stubbornly stayed where he was.

“...Please.”

He grumbled audibly, but I knew he’d relented. “...I’m stayin’ right by the door.”

I smiled at him gratefully, and as he headed to the door, I looked back at Satan. He was crushing the outside of the broken picture frame between his fingers.

The door latched shut, and an eerie silence descended on the room.

I set my bag down on the ground and folded my arms. Then I unfolded them again. It was probably best not to take a defensive posture.

“...Well?” Satan growled.

Today didn’t feel like yesterday.

Yesterday, I was powerless. Satan was under control and in control, calling the shots, standing in home territory. Today, he was off-balance. He evidently wasn’t expecting me, and he certainly hadn’t planned out any grim revelations to drop on me. As scary as it was to see him angry, it felt less threatening than whatever had happened the day before. I took comfort in that.

“Why are you angry?” I asked.

He snorted disdainfully as if I had just asked him an idiotic question. “I’m the Avatar of Wrath, or did you forget?”

I wasn’t about to let my question get obfuscated so easily. So I repeated myself.

“Why are you angry, Satan?”

“Don’t play stupid!” He finally threw the damaged painting into the ground, snapping the paneling. “Why did you tell Lucifer?” He stormed in my direction, dark energy circling the air around him like a hurricane. He almost walked through me; he surrounded me without quite touching me, somehow, his feet inches from mine when he stopped short, his face close enough to mine that I felt each heavy exhale on my skin. But he was on all sides; he was everywhere. It was his tail, I finally realized. His tail curled around me; never touching me, but putting me in a snare that might snap shut if I made any wrong moves. 

“I didn’t tell Lucifer anything,” I responded coolly. I could feel hot irritation bubbling up inside me, but I swallowed it. The last thing the situation needed was for both of us to lose our tempers. “What, did he say something?”

“Just that I should watch who I talk to about family matters.” His eyes were blazing, and his quivering tail nicked me in the arm. I flinched. “You said you weren’t just loyal to him! You said you were my attendant too!”

“I didn’t tell Lucifer anything,” I repeated more vehemently. I couldn’t tell if this rage of his was rooted in jealousy or a sense of betrayal. “He probably just heard we had tea together from one of your brothers. Is that really what made you so angry? What else did he say?”

“It isn’t any of your damn business what he said!” His tail flicked, and he paced around me in tight semi-circles. “Why do you think I talked to you yesterday?”

“I’ve been trying to figure that out, and I haven’t yet,” I said, lowering my voice. “Satan, you scared me yesterday.”

“So you went to Lucifer.”

“So I went home!” I jabbed a finger in his chest. That stopped his relentless pacing, at least. “I went home, Satan, and I was miserable! I actually worry about you, you know!”

Satan’s tail recoiled before the rest of him could. He didn’t look convinced–in fact, he looked more suspicious than ever. But he was no longer quite so close, or quite so ready to lunge at any opening I might offer. His green eyes searched my face silently for a few seconds, then he spoke again.

“Why?”

Ah. There was the tricky part. Why indeed? I couldn’t exactly say, ‘Because I’m from the future and in that time I’ve developed a very close bond with you and your brothers, and I love and care for you, so seeing you in such obvious pain breaks my heart.’ And I didn’t think ‘because I’m your attendant’ would cut it this time either.

“If you saw a drowning cat,” I said, trying to choose my words carefully, “and you reached out to help it, and it scratched you because it was scared and hurt and flailing around. Would you just let it drown?”

I thought I was going to reach him with that. I thought that analogy would somehow click. What I didn’t expect was that Satan would look me straight in the face and respond by asking: “What’s a cat?”

I blinked at him. He stared back at me without blinking once. I considered rephrasing the scenario with a child as the drowning victim, but I was much less confident that Satan would feel like he would, in fact, want to save a child even if it was screaming and scratching at him. 

I rubbed my face in my hands. “...Never mind, then. I just… I worry about you because you need someone to worry about you.”

“That’s a stupid reason.”

“You really want me to tell you that you’re right, and I don’t actually care, huh?” Satan didn’t say anything in response to that. He just looked at me as if challenging me to confirm that he’d nailed it. I couldn’t really tell if he was desperate for me to validate all the horrible thoughts he had about himself or if he was begging me to insist he had it all wrong.

Instead of following up my rhetorical question, I reached into my bag and pulled out a folded board and a box of black and white game tokens. I sat cross-legged on the floor, in an area with relatively little debris, opened the board, and patted the spot across from me.

Satan stared down at me for a few seconds before slowly walking over and sitting down across from me, hugging one knee.

“Do you know how to play Othello?” I asked.

He shook his head no.

The corner of my mouth quirked into a smile. Satan was the one who taught me the game. Now it was time for me to return the favor. Or was this paying it forward?

“It’s pretty simple. We start with four tokens in the middle like this…” I set up the board. “Then we take turns putting tokens on the board. One of us is white and the other is black. You try to surround your opponent’s tokens on two opposite sides, and you switch them to your color. If you can’t put any tokens in a flanking position, you skip your turn. And when the board is full, whoever has more tokens facing up is the winner.”

“It sounds boring,” mumbled Satan.

“Then it should be easy to beat me.”

“At least give me a few turns to figure out how it works. Then I’ll start beating you.”

For the next ten minutes, we sat more or less silently in the observatory, surrounded by wreckage as if the place had been hit by a bomb, carefully studying the board and placing our tokens.

I won the first game. It was the first time I’d ever beaten Satan at a game of Othello. It was also the last.

“I was still getting used to the game mechanics,” growled Satan as he cleared the board. He was annoyed, but not angry, and when he bested me in the next round, he looked hesitantly pleased.

“…You didn’t lose on purpose, did you?”

“Absolutely not. I play to win. You’re going down in the next round.”

That satisfied him. But he won the next round too. And the one after. I guess it was only to be expected. He was wickedly clever.

“Satan?” I asked as we cleared the board and set up for another game.

“Mm?”

“You never said why you had that talk with me yesterday.”

He fidgeted uncomfortably, turning one of the tokens over in his fingers a few times. Black, white, black white. “...I had to tell somebody .”

“Did you…?”

His tail snapped irritably against the floor beside him, knocking the board askew. I rearranged the tokens as he searched for words.

“Yes, I did.” He looked at the board like he was trying to set it on fire with his mind. “Now I know not to tell anybody else.”

“Why did you tell me? Yesterday, you said you wanted to tell me specifically. To see my reaction.”

“And I saw your reaction,” he snapped. His tail slammed the ground even harder. I paused, then started to rearrange the board again. “Now I know not to tell anybody else! I just said that!”

“Was there some sort of way you wanted me to react?”

“I don’t know. Stop asking me stupid questions. It’s making me angry.”

I obliged. Nothing good would come from pressing the issue when he was adamant he didn’t want to discuss it, and it was probably a useful skill for him to identify when he was starting to feel angry if he ever wanted to learn to control that emotion.

Satan had just wiped the floor with me for the fifth time when I looked up at the devastated room around us, then checked the time on my D.D.D. Lucifer was definitely going to expect me to help clean this up.

“...Hey, Satan. Let’s go to the library.”

“What…?”

“Your room is too empty.” I thought about how barren the space felt yesterday. “You should fill it with things you like.”

Satan stared blankly at me, then squinted slightly. “Are you mad that you keep losing?”

I laughed at that, and Satan blushed, scowling. “No. I was just thinking that I don’t want to be here when Lucifer gets back.” I nodded to our surroundings.

That was enough to convince him.

I put away Othello and led Satan to the observatory door. When I opened it, I felt a thump and heard a pained yelp on the other side. Mammon quickly darted out from behind the door, rubbing his nose.

“You coulda warned me you were gonna swing that thing open!” he whined. His gaze darted from me to Satan, then back to me again. “...What the hell did you do?”

“We played Othello,” I said, and my gaze shifted to his wrist, which appeared to be swelling. “I thought I told you to have Beel wrap that wrist for you.”

“And I thought I told you I was gonna wait right out here,” Mammon retorted. “What the hell is Othello, anyway?”

Satan impatiently sidestepped Mammon and continued down the hall. “Come on,” he called to me. Mammon looked at him over his shoulder, then looked back at me, his expression heartbreakingly puppy-like. “Now you’re goin’ somewhere with him?”

Leave it to Mammon to make me feel guilty. I put a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours. I’ll check on your wrist then, but it had better be wrapped. Got it?”

Mammon let out an exaggerated sigh, but he nodded.

I patted his shoulder. “Good boy.”

“Don’t call me–”

“Are you coming or not?!” Satan’s voice called from up the hallway.

I gave Mammon an apologetic smile. “Later.”

“You better give me the full 'wounded soldier' treatment when ya get back, understand?” I nodded as I slung my bag over my shoulder and hurried down the hall. Mammon called after me, “I got injured in the line of duty, y’know!”

------

I wasn’t sure how we would be received when we entered the library with a wheelbarrow, but apparently, with Satan’s status as one of the Seven Rulers of the Underworld more or less accepted, he could get away with it. At any rate, the library staff seemed more at ease with the wheelbarrow than they had been last time Satan was here, carrying dozens of books piled one on top of the other in a single precarious stack. 

I stood back and watched while Satan piloted the thing in and out of aisles, tossing books into the bed of the wheelbarrow one, two, five at a time. He was collecting quite eclectic material, too. Novels, spellbooks, medical tomes, astrological works, zoological and botanical indices, and, of course, dozens and dozens of books on curses.

Taking one at random, I perused the cover. “Book of Forbidden Spelles and Hexes,” I read out loud, glancing up at Satan with a raised eyebrow before opening it at random. “A curse to put upon thine enemy which shall in due time render him blinde and tooth-less, a wondrous revenge against sorcerers wielding ye Eville Eye.” Satan smirked to himself as he continued looking through the shelves, and I flipped to another page which was bookmarked. “Septinfermium. A curse of sevenfold agonies to befall thy adversary, amonge these being a scourge of boiles, loss of hair, perturbation of tongue, loss of vigour in the loines, a sickness of sweating, incontinence of bowels, and sanguinity of urine.” I closed the book and looked up at Satan, who appeared to be suppressing laughter. “If I read that right, you’re looking into a curse that’s going to make Lucifer pee blood, crap himself, and turn impotent?”

“That about sums it up, yes. Along with boils, balding, sweating, and stuttering.”

I tried to picture Lucifer under a curse like that, but I found that I simply couldn’t. “You’re actually going to do that?” 

Satan turned to look at me, frowning. “You think I wouldn’t?”

“It’s not that, it’s more…” I hesitated. “...You don’t really think you’d get away with it, do you?”

“I don’t worry about whether or not I’ll get away with something.” He shrugged and looked back to the books on the shelf. “If I did, I’d never do anything. That said, that particular hex is extremely complicated and requires a good deal of preparation, so I don’t plan on attempting it just yet.”

Not just yet, hmm? “Why do you hate him so much? Lucifer, I mean.” I’d heard this question answered a few times, but never from this Satan.

He turned around to face me, yet another book in his hands. He stared down at it thoughtfully, opening it and flipping through the pages without really seeing anything.

“He pretends to be so incredibly responsible and put-together… He lords it over the rest of us. But the fact that I exist at all is proof of how flimsy his pretensions really are.” Satan slammed the book shut. “He’s a hypocrite, and he’s irresponsible enough to create an entire sentient being without any thought as to what kind of existence that being is going to have to endure.” His knuckles were turning white as he gripped the book and stared at its cover. “I never consented to my own creation. But he acts as if he’s done me an enormous favor by shoving me out into the world. Never mind it’s a world where we’re all social pariahs and just about the only emotion I can experience is a mind-numbing rage. And on top of all that, I'm made out of him. It's disgusting.”

Again, Satan was talking about his very existence as if it was a burden; something he would never have accepted if given the choice. It was stirring up all the unpleasantness of yesterday.

“You sound like you hate being alive.” I leaned forward a bit, taking a good look at him.

“I can’t say I love it.”

“Doesn’t anything make you happy?”

Satan smacked his palm lightly with the book in his hand, continuing to stare at it without seeing. “...Not really.”

I hadn’t actually anticipated that answer, so it hit me like a gut-punch. He sounded so earnest and resigned–not even sad, just resigned–that I instinctively raised a hand to reach out in his direction. But what was I supposed to do? Take his hand? Ruffle his hair? Gestures that felt like second nature in one sense seemed out of line here and now. My hand returned to my side, but I still couldn’t accept Satan’s response.

“...I’ll help you figure out how to feel happy,” I said after a lengthy silence. I clenched my fists and met his gaze when he glanced over his shoulder at me in surprise. “That’s a promise.”

Satan looked me up and down for a few quiet seconds before he cracked a bemused smile. “...You’re a really strange demon.”

“Mhm, like you’re one to talk.” I smiled impishly at him, trying to hide how dry my mouth felt. It was strange, but somehow, he looked a little bit different from this angle. Not soft, but softer. It made me want to touch his face.

I didn’t, of course.

Over the next half hour, while Satan kept adding more and more books to the wheelbarrow, I considered my self-assigned task: find something to make Satan happy. Of course, there was an obvious course of action that wasn’t lost on me. I had to introduce this man to cats.

“Are we heading home, then?” I asked Satan as I pushed the wheelbarrow out the library doors. As much as I cared for the guy, I could never accuse him of being too conscientious, and he seemed to consider it a given that his attendant would be the one to roll a few hundred pounds of books along for him.

“What, so Lucifer can lecture me on things I already know?”

I set down the handles to the wheelbarrow and looked at him with what I hoped was a withering gaze. “If you think I’m going to push this thing all around the Devildom, I have some news for you.”

“I’ll buy you ice cream.”

“You’ll have to do better than that.”

Satan looked around as we walked, clicking his tongue as he thought. “I’ll buy you dinner?”

I’ll admit, that idea appealed to me just a little bit more. But now that this had started, I didn’t want to fold without seeing what my options might be. “Dinner from where?” He sighed tiredly, and I slowed down. “It looks like we’re coming to a hill. I’m going to need some real motivation to tackle this.”

“Alright, stop whining,” Satan snapped. He elbowed me aside and took the handles of the wheelbarrow himself before barreling up the incline.

“Oh– hey!” I pursued him, crestfallen. “Wait, does this mean you take it all back?”

“Maybe,” grunted Satan as he pushed the thing forward. “Are you disappointed?”

“A little,” I admitted. I could see him smirk out of the corner of my eye. “Are you laughing at me?”

“Yes,” he replied without any concern. “You shouldn’t test me like that when you have such a sorry poker face.”

I sighed, and he laughed. It was a nice sound. I hadn’t heard it much lately. Not a genuine laugh, at least. So in spite of myself, I smiled.

“Whatever,” he said with a soft sigh as we reached the top of the slope. “I’ll still buy you ice cream, at any rate. Maybe if we can find a table we can play that black-and-white game again.”

“Othello,” I reminded him. “Sure, if you want.”

He seemed to have a place in mind already, so I was content to follow after him until we reached the ice cream vendor.

“I would like to order a double scoop of stewed hell ham with salamander gizzards.” Satan’s voice when ordering was almost painfully formal. He glanced over at me. “What do you want?”

Now, I have to be honest. I’ve never gotten used to Devildom ice cream. I’ve learned to look past the ingredients in most meals, but there’s something so inherently unappealing to a human about “hell newt ice cream” or “demon squid ink sorbet” that I can’t really get past it. Fortunately, most places sell a flavor called blood anise, which is probably the Devildom’s equivalent to human world vanilla, and although it isn’t fantastic, it mostly just tastes like frozen licorice.

“I’ll just have a scoop of blood anise,” I told Satan.

“Any hell beetles to top it off?” cut in the vendor.

“No thanks, just blood anise.”

“No extra charge for stewed toad sauce.”

“I’m fine, thank you.”

“We’re having a special discount on black and yellow bile chunks—”

“Are you deaf? Just blood anise!” Satan thundered. For a second I thought he was going to grab the vendor by his collar and shake him, but he seemed to regain control of himself before it came to that. The vendor looked like he’d been shaken though, and he ducked into the stall to prepare the order.

Satan stood with his arms crossed, lips tight, scowling down at the wheelbarrow. He almost looked…embarrassed. When the ice cream was ready, he paid without speaking and carried both cups to an outdoor bistro table, leaving me to roll the books along after him.

“…Was I scary?” he asked me as I set up the Othello board.

“Hm?” I looked up at him questioningly.

Satan dragged a hand down his face, exhaled as if this required all his stores of patience, and spoke lowly. “…That demon who sold us the ice cream. He looked terrified.”

“Oh…” I glanced back at the ice cream stand and Satan snapped his fingers in my ear, startling me back into facing him.

“Stop, don’t look at him!” he hissed.

“You want to know if you were too scary?”

Satan hesitated, tapping the table with one of the game tokens. “…Did I embarrass you?”

I hadn’t expected him to approach the issue from that angle. I shook my head and swallowed a smile. “No. You look like you embarrassed yourself, though.”

Satan’s cheeks, already a little pink, darkened in color as he grabbed his spoon and shoveled a mouthful of frozen stewed hell ham with toad spleens or whatever it was into his mouth. Whoever came up with meat-flavored ice cream deserved whatever horrible thing they inevitably had coming, I decided as my stomach churned. 

“It isn’t that big of a deal,” I continued after a sullen silence on Satan’s end. “You didn’t actually hurt him.”

“Right?” Satan glared down at his ice cream with the same amount of loathing that I felt for it. “And he shouldn’t have been pushy about toppings in the first place. It’s his fault.”

With that out of the way, he placed his token on the board, and the subject was dropped.

We were around halfway through the game when I noticed Satan looking distracted. He kept glancing at something behind me, and when I turned around to look, I saw a tawny cat peeking out from between two buildings. I couldn’t believe my luck.

“Are you looking at that animal?” I asked, looking back at Satan.

“Yes,” he answered. “It looks comfortable in a very uncomfortable place.”

“That’s a cat,” I told him. There was something deeply sad about the fact that Satan was aware of things like hexes, and bowel incontinence, and impotence, but not cats–though it did make some sense. Satan had a natural curiosity for all things esoteric, and he was the owner of a body with anatomy that, presumably, made bowel incontinence and impotence things he might have had some personal experience with, or at least a conceptual understanding about. I didn’t know. I wasn’t in a position to judge. But since cats weren’t animals used in Devildom cuisine, there wasn’t really any reason for Satan to have heard of them before, especially considering he had never even left the Demon King’s castle until a few weeks earlier.

“A cat… The thing you talked about drowning?”

Of course Satan had remembered that bit of what I’d said back in the observatory.

“No–no, not really, I wasn’t actually talking about any real cats,” I insisted. Satan looked at me with what I could only describe as general disapproval. “...I’ve never hurt any cats!”

“You scared it,” Satan informed me with a frown. I turned around to look, and, indeed, the cat was no longer there. It had probably darted back between the buildings.

“How do you know I scared it? Maybe it just got bored!” I didn't like how this interaction was painting me as some sort of cat abuser.

“You shouldn’t be so loud,” Satan said coldly.

“That’s rich, coming from you,” I huffed.

Satan continued to stare at the spot where the cat had been. “I like how its ears looked. They were very triangular.”

My irritation softened a little bit. “You should keep an eye out,” I told him. “Cats aren’t uncommon in the Devildom, though they can be a little wary of people.”

Satan nodded. His interest in the board game in front of us had clearly petered out. “...Are you going to complain about rolling the books back down the hill as much as you complained about rolling them up?”

“Back down the hill?” I asked warily. That just sounded like a disaster waiting to happen.

Satan nodded. “I need to return to the library to find reading material on cats.”

“Can’t we bring these to the House of Lamentation first, then go get cat books?”

“As if Lucifer would let me leave once I show up.”

I couldn’t argue with that. “Well, then, why don’t I take these books to the house, and you can go to the library on your own for…cat research materials.”

Satan was still staring at the now vacant spot where the cat had been. He was frowning. “You need to check on Mammon?”

Actually, it wasn’t until he said it that I remembered I’d promised to check back in on the second oldest. A surge of guilt pooled in my belly. “I just don’t think rolling a wheelbarrow full of books down a hill sounds like a scenario with a happy ending,” I said.

Satan sighed. Apparently he saw the justice in my words, because he looked a little less resentful and a little more resigned when he nodded. “Fine. If Lucifer asks where I am, tell him you don’t know, but I said something about visiting an alchemist’s shop.”

“You had that loaded and ready, huh?”

“Of course. Don’t clean that up yet.” Satan stopped me as I stood and reached out to clear the Othello board. “Let’s finish the game.”

I sank back into my seat and cracked my knuckles. “Are you ready to lose?” I asked.

I lost.

[forlorn-plushie]

Would You Like To Play A Game? A Tapletop Role-playing Game?

Inspired by this post over here, I thought I'd put my own Nothing To It game together right here in our very own Tumblr Text Editor, for anyone who has no patience for learning rules. It's a bit more than the other one, though still very small.

How to play: Talk about your characters' adventures. Whenever you want to, focus on a scene and figure out how it plays out using Checks

How to make a Check: roll one Stat Die and the highest relevant Asset Die. If both matches or beats the DC, you do it. If only one matches or beats the DC, you still do it - but something bad happens, related or otherwise - a cost, a worse situation, an imperfect success, or a cutaway to the villains progressing their schemes. If neither die is high enough, you fail and something else bad happens.

Difficult Classes are about as follows. The vast majority of rolls should be in the 4-8 range.

DC 3 is "wouldn't it be funny if you messed up though"

DC 4 is an easy task where failure would be interesting

DC 5 is a typical task some random anybody could maybe manage

DC 6 is a task which requires some level of skill or talent

DC 7 is a tough task for which expertise is required

DC 8 is beyond most professionals

DC 9 is firmly in the realm of masters

DC 10 is the highest you should see.

Your stats are Grace, Face, Force, Wits, and Wise. Assign 1d4 to one, 1d8 to two, and 1d6 to the others. These are your Stat Dice. Rename these if you want for your theme/setting.

Also pick a Background, Specialty, Quirk, and Thing for your character, plus another of any of the four types. Assign 1d10 to one, 1d8 to two, and 1d6 to the others. These are your Asset Dice.

Give yourself 3 abilities, of any of the following sorts

When you use [one of your Assets] in [more specific way], DC -1

You have [some sort of power]. To use it, spend Resource.

You have [some sort of passive]. When you spend Resource while using it, you can reroll two times.

You have a [new asset]. Its Asset Die is 1d8.

One of your Stat Die is one size larger, up to 1d12

One of your Asset Die is one size larger, up to 1d12

Draw four circles, and label them Damage, Stress, Resource, and Experience. Split the Experience circle into 8 segments, and the others into 4, 6, and 8 in any order.

When something strains your character, mark a segment of Stress. When something hurts your character, mark a segment of Damage. When you overcome adversity, mark Experience. Mark all segments of Resource, and spend them to reroll any die. Clear half of Health and Stress and fill half of Resource when you get a good rest.

When Damage is full, you are defeated. Maybe you die. When Stress is full, you can't take it anymore. Freak out, pass out, whatever seems interesting. When Experience is full, you have a revelation. Gain a new ability, from the same list as above.

When you start playing, pick three questions of the form "Did you [do what we want the game to be about]?". At the end of a session of play, mark a segment of Experience for each Yes.

[rpgsandbox]

We find peace together in a small cottage within a village, nestled inside a forest filled with monsters. Only by working together will we survive.

Welcome to Cottages & Cerberus.

'Cottages and Cerberus' is a new cottagecore monster-hunting TTRPG system.   Inspired by games such as Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon, and Monster Hunter, you and your group of friends will live out your lives day to day in a cottage in a fantasy realm. You will hunt vicious monsters to gain materials and improve your cottage. The Core Rulebook includes 50+ monsters to hunt and slay, and each monster  comes with a hunt that is taken before the true fight can begin.

As part of this campaign we are offering special bestiaries for Pathfinder 2E and the D&D 5E. These bestiaries will be available as both PDFs and as a softcover book. Both are available individually in their own tier and also as add-ons.

Download the Preview HERE!!! 

CHARACTER SHEET HERE

Pick up and Play

Cottages & Cerberus is a cottagecore monster-slaying tabletop RPG. The game is simple to pick up but hard to put down. The base rules can be learned in minutes, and since each monster has a hunt— a mini adventure that leads up to the boss fight– you can pick one and start running within minutes. Quickstart characters found in the back of the book reduce the friction of having too many character choices, so players can just choose one and go. But, for those who want to nerd out creating your character and load out, you can spend hours picking the perfect abilities for your character. The rules are easy enough to learn quickly, but varied enough to support a vast array of complex and unique characters.

The core of the system involves making checks. When attempting a check, characters roll a number of six-sided dice based on their attributes and circumstances. The GM will then set a target number, determining how difficult the check is. Players will count the number of dice that rolled the target number or higher and then consult the chart below.

Spoons 

Spoons are the key resource system in C&C. They are an abstraction of a character's physical and mental capacity. The spoon resource system was inspired by the Spoon Theory, an abstract model created by Christine Miserandino that attempts to explain the energy cost of certain actions for people with chronic pain/illness and mental health conditions. Failing checks and being attacked by monsters cost players spoons, as do some abilities.

Cozy Mode 

While in Cozy Mode, you can make checks to do things such as fishing, gardening, crafting, and more. Success grants you Cozy Points. Gain enough Cozy Points and Miss Luna, the goddess of the Moon, will increase your Cottage Rank. In addition, the book presents an optional PC+NPC romance subsystem that is explicitly meant to emulate romance elements found in farming/life sim games.

Character creation in C&C is very simple but rich.  Character creation consists of 4 steps: assign your CALM, chose 3 ABILITIES, pick a VIBE and chose either a MAGIC ITEM or a PET

CALM

CALM refers to your attributes. These 4 scores (CHARM, ALCHEMY, LORE, and MUSCLE) range from 1 to 4 at character creation. Whenever you make a check, you roll a number of dice equal to one of these attributes. 

Abilities 

Next you chose 3 abilities from the over 200 abilities in the book. ABILITIES can have several tags. Abilities with labels like <ACTION> or <REACTION> are powerful combat-focused skills, while tags like <PASSIVE> or <POWER> denote abilities that offer creative, character-focused uses in and out of combat.

Vibes 

VIBES are the general energy your character gives off. Each vibe offers a way to restore spoons.

Pet or Magic item 

Magic Items can grant various benefits. Pets are fully loyal creatures that are controlled by the player. They have a miniature stat block and can be used both in and out of combat.

Start playing quickly 

If all of these character options feel overwhelming, don't worry! The book offers  options that can help you build your character. The back of the book also contains several quick start characters. 

Cozy Calling 

The book also presents an optional system called Cozy Callings. Each Cozy Calling includes a bit of lore and questions to help you write your backstory. They also include recommended abilities, and abilities written specially for that Calling (but available to all characters). Cozy Callings are optional, you can take several Callings or take none. A Cozy Calling is merely a starting point for creating your character. Cozy Callings in the book include concepts such as the Cheerleader and the Spell Knight.

Hunting mode is the a core part of the game loop in Cottages & Cerberus. After defeating a monster, players gain new materials that they can use to craft items for their cottage. There are over 50 monsters to slay in Cottages & Cerberus. Each monsters contains an hunt, a miniature adventure consisting of anywhere from 1 to 5+ scenes and minor challenges that must be completed in order to face the fearsome beast.

Quick and Brutual Boss Fights 

Fights in C&C are meant to be brutal, intense, but quick. These monster fights are explicitly meant to be BOSS fights, and the rules for combat are built to emulate intense battles. The monster starts each fight with an OPENER before its first real turn. Afterwards, it's the players turn. Players decide among themselves what order they want to take their actions. After all players have gone, the monster activates CLOSER abilities that auto-target based on which character(s) meets  certain conditions.  (As an example, one monster might have an ability that deals damage to the character with the most spoons).

Each monster also has challenges. Challenges come in two varieties. Hook Challenges offer plot hooks related to the monster. Variation Challenges represent subspecies of the monster that alter its ecology, lore and abilities.

Kickstarter campaign ends: Sat, October 7 2023 2:03 AM BST

Website: [twitter]

[wynterrolls]

【Honkai: Star Rail Build TLDR】

⚔ Natasha

For Healer Build (Recommended!)

[Relic Set 1 = Optimal Relic Set] → 4pc Passerby of Wandering Cloud → 2pc Broken Keel

[Relic Set 2 = Biggest Heals] → 2pc Passerby of Wandering Cloud → 2pc Longevous Disciple → 2pc Fleet of the Ageless

** Why Broken Keel? Explained here.

** Healing amount comparison explained here.

Main Stat (Pick one of the two sets) [Full HP set = Biggest heals] (Estimate Total HP = 6.8k to 7.7k+) > Head = HP (constant) > Hand = ATK (constant) > Body - Outgoing Healing Boost (OHB) > Boots - HP% > Sphere - HP% > Rope - HP% [Get-her-ult-fast set = Lower heals, faster Ultimate] (Estimate Total HP = 5k to 5.6k+) > Head = HP (constant) > Hand = ATK (constant) > Body - Outgoing Healing Boost (OHB) > Boots - SPD > Sphere - HP% > Rope - Energy Regeneration Rate (ERR)

Sub Stat > HP% or HP > Speed > Effect RES

Things to Consider ➤ Without ERR rope: → using S1 Post-Op LC = you need 4 basic atks before you get her ult up. → using other abundance LC = you need 5 basic atks before you get her ult up. ➤ With ERR rope: → S1 Post-Op LC doesn't need ERR rope. S5 Post-Op LC needs ERR rope and 2pc Sprightly Vonwacq to get her ult fastest, but the heals are lowest. You only need 3 basic atks. → using other abundance LC with ERR rope = you need 4 basic atks before you get her ult up. ➤ Optional: Build her with 120+ SPD to get the atk buff from Fleet of the Ageless set effect. ➤ Optional: Build her with at least 30% effect RES to get the crit dmg buff of Broken Keel set. Things to Remember > Her skill could cleanse/remove debuff from an ally. It is only available when you unlock her A2 trace - Soothe.

Lightcones

* Lightcone list is from the HSR General Build. Link below in the post. (They did the calcs, so now we have the weapon rankings.)

1. Time Waits for No One 5☆ [S1] 2. Post-Op Conversation 4☆ [S1] 3. Warmth Shortens Cold Nights 4☆ [S1~5] 4. Shared Feeling 4☆ [S1] 5. Cornucopia 3☆[S5]

** Quid Pro Quo 4☆[S1~5] *Utility LC → gives energy to team

Long Explanation Below

— For Healer Build —

Natasha's healing scales off of HP so I'm going to calculate the estimated HP threshold the builds would give her at max lv 80/80.

— Total HP Calculation —

Natasha's Max Base HP = 1164 HP

+HP% from traces = +28% HP > from Lv 1 = +4% HP > from Lv 80 = +8% HP > from A3 = +4% HP > from A4 = +6% HP > from A5 = +6% HP +HP% from Relic and Ornament Sets > 4pc Passerby of Wandering Cloud = no HP passive, but gives OHB. OHB isn't reflected in her HP threshold. > 2pc Fleet of the Ageless = +12% HP +HP% from Relic and Ornament Pieces > each 5* HP Main stat Relic piece = +43.2% HP > each 5* HP Sub stat Relic piece ⇢ Max relic lvl is +15. Every 3 levels, the substats are either enhanced or added. ⇢ Substat roll for HP could be any of these three: 33.8 / 38 / 42 ⇢ Substat roll for HP% could be any of these three: 3.46% / 3.89% / 4.32% ** In the calculation, I'm going to consider the lowest substat as a reflection of RNG pain. This would mean that the value that would come out of the computation would be on lower side and irl HP values more than the estimated values are more likely to happen. Base HP and +HP% from Lightcone Besides the 1164 max HP from Natasha, she could get additional base HP from equipped LC. These base stats could vary from rarity, so to make my life easier, I'm just going to consider the current highest ranking LC for each rarity (not changing the calcs once newer LCs comes out in future tho) and not consider the HP% passive of each lightcone cause I'm lazy and the LC passives are different from each other, which means not all LC gives additional HP%. The LC ranking above was done by other people, so I'm pretty sure they already consider the LC passives in their calculations. ⇢ 5* lightcone = 1270 HP (from Time Waits for No One) ⇢ 4* lightcone = 1058 HP (from Post-Op Conversation) ⇢ 3* lightcone = 952 HP (from Cornucopia) Calculating Estimated Total HP for Each Build > For full-HP set ⇢ Using 5* LC = (1270 + 1164) * (1 + 0.28 + 0.12 + 0.432*3 + 0.0346*6) + 705.5 = 7772.86 HP ⇢ Using 4* LC = (1058 + 1164) * (2.9036) + 705.5 = 7157.30 HP ⇢ Using 3* LC = (952 + 1164) * (2.9036) + 705.5 = 6849.52 HP > For Get-her-ult-fast set ⇢ Using 5* LC = (1270 + 1164) * (1 + 0.28 + 0.12 + 0.432 + 0.0346*6) + 705.5 = 5669.89 HP ⇢ Using 4* LC = (1058 + 1164) * (2.0396) + 705.5 = 5237.49 HP ⇢ Using 3* LC = (952 + 1164) * (2.0396) + 705.5 = 5021.29 HP

Sources

Honkai: Star Rail General Build Guide

Edisonsmathsclub's Energy Requirements Sheet

Relic Sets

Relic Stats

HP Calculation

Natasha Artwork

Uploaded on Patch 1.1

➥ Back to my HSR masterlist.

Update Log

07/20/2023 - Added the update log, artwork source, reformatted source list

07/21/2023 - Added Broken Keel set

[grailfinders]

Grailfinders #314: Koyanskaya of Light

today on Grailfinders we’re building the most wascally of wabbits, Koyankumbaya. Koyansherbet. Koyancheesedanish. One of those, probably. whatever her name is, she’s a Battle Master Fighter to bring her business acumen to the battlefield, and a Drakewarden Ranger to empower her weaponry beyond the limits of humanity, and to summon a big tank she can ride around on. well, a medium tank, anyway.

Check out her build breakdown below the cut, or her character sheet here!

Next up: run, it’s bridezilla!

Race and Background

soooooooooooo…. Tunguska, huh? yeah, despite ages of DW saying “yeah that’s a tamamo alright” Koyoyo technically isn’t one. which honestly makes this a lot easier since WotC still hasn’t added a fox race in the two years since we started building characters!

they did add a rabbit though.

as a Harengon, you get +2 to Constitution as well as +1 Dexterity, though you can swap them to be in whatever stats you’d like. trust me on the constitution though. you also have a Hare-Trigger, adding your proficiency to your initiative rolls to get the drop on your prey. your Leporine Senses give you proficiency in Perception, and your Lucky Footwork lets you spend a reaction to add a d4 to a failed dex save. finally, you can make a Rabbit Hop proficiency times per day, spending your bonus action to jump five times your proficiency feet without triggering opportunity attacks.

while Koyogurt isn’t a Tamamo, she certainly acts like one, which is why she’s a Faceless. that gives her proficiency with Deception and Intimidation.

Ability Scores

koyanskeeter is really good with guns. it’s kind of her thing. so make that Dexterity as high as you can. very important. after that is Wisdom. it’s how you sniff out a good deal, a good pet, and also we need it for multiclassing. after that, grab some Intelligence for big brain plans like leaving a random piece of cake somewhere in a building you think someone you want dead might be. smort. after that is Strength. I know she mostly uses guns, but her human-killing skill says she’s good with every weapon humanity’s ever made, so. strength. have fun with greatswords. this does mean your Charisma is probably pretty low, but we can buff that will skill stuff, and finally we’re dumping Constitution. I told you you’d want that racial bonus.

Class Levels

1. Fighter 1: as stated above, tamamo lite’s gotta be good with every weapon ever, and that sounds like fighter material to me. (I mean the tank’s coming too that’s just more of a long-term goal, y’know?)

so, as a fighter you gain proficiency in Strength and Constitution saves, as well as proficiency with Animal Handling and Insight. one handles animals, the other handles people. perfect symmetry.

you can also pick up the Archery fighting style for an extra 2 damage whenever you hit someone with a ranged weapon attack, and you can use your bonus action to gain a Second Wind for some extra HP. I know koyahoo only takes HP away normally, but some concessions had to be made.

2. Fighter 2: second level fighters can make an Action Surge once per short rest, adding an extra action to your turn. not the most complicated level, but definitely a fun party trick.

3. Fighter 3: at level three fighters can pick their specialty, and as a Battle Master you fighter smarter, not harder. you learn three combat maneuvers that you can use by spending superiority dice, which are four d8s you regain each short rest. now you can set an Ambush to add that d8 to your stealth check or initiative, you can force a strength save on a Pushing Attack, adding the d8 to the damage and pushing them 15 feet if they fail, or you can make a Tactical Assessment and add that die to an investigation, history, or insight check.

you’re also a Student of War now, so enjoy that free calligraphy proficiency.

4. Fighter 4: at level four you get your first Ability Score Improvement, so improve up that Strength to hit stuff better. yeah the downside to saying a character is good with all weapons is that broadswords and slings don’t exactly jive together, you know? at least you’re good with the former now.

5. Fighter 5: in the spirit of fighting smarter and not harder, maybe instead of improving our stats we just need to hit stuff more? that’ll make it easier? well my friend you’re in luck! with NFF’s new patent-pending Extra Attack, you can attack twice in a single action! yep.

6. Fighter 6: it’s been a while since we’ve made a character who specializes with guns, huh? if you forgot, crossbows and other reloading weapons can only fire once an action. unless you use an ASI to pick up Crossbow Expert, of course, then you can fire freely, ignoring the disadvantage caused by nearby enemies. you can even dual-wield with a crossbow in your off-hand!

7. Fighter 7: at level seven you can now learn what beasties are besty for NFF Services to export to other lostbelts, as long as you Know Your Enemy. if you spend a minute out of combat you can learn how a creature compares to you in two categories, including: strength, dexterity, constitution, AC, HP, and class levels.

you also gain a fifth superiority die, as well as two more maneuvers. Goading Attack is just a given. if I had a nickel for every time Koyanskaya’s face was punchable I’d be as rich as she is. attack someone, add the die to the damage, and force a wisdom save on your target. if they fail, they have disadvantage to hit anyone but you. also, if you want to be the star attraction as an assassin, you should probably hit them with a Disarming Attack first. add the die to the damage, and force a strength save. if they fail, they drop an object of your choosing.

8. ranger 1: now that we’re done getting all fighty, it’s time for koyanskibidybop to get a lil specialized. first up is favored enemy! you have advantage on survival checks to track a type of enemy you choose, plus your checks to remember stuff about them. you probably can’t pick humans twice, so just get them and another humanoid.

you’re also a deft explorer bc who has time to pick a terrain, right? now you’re canny in deception, so your proficiency bonus is doubled! and so is the fun.

speakin of skills, since we’re multiclassing here you get another ranger proficiency like nature! you’re literally an animal. makes sense.

9. ranger 2: second level rangers get another fightin style! grab two weapon fighting so you can add your ability bonuses to your off-hand weapons. now you can really bring out the gun kata!

you also learn some spells this level, and you cast ‘em using your wisdom! grab yourself a hunter’s mark to make your attacks deal more damage against a specific human, and then pick up snare to bag yourself some beasties! it lets you make a snare, as the name implies.

10. ranger 3: at third level you get to pick your ranger conclave, and only the drakewarden conclave will let you ride around on a giant, fire-spewing tank! eventually!

right now your tank is just a drake companion, a small dragon that you can summon as an action. it takes its turn right after yours, but it can’t do much unless you’re unconscious or you spend your bonus action telling it what to do. when you summon it you can make it an acid, cold, fire, lightning, or poison dragon, making it immune to that type and giving it a reaction to add that kind of damage to one of your attacks.

that’s not all though! since you’re a lil dragony now too, you get a draconic gift! you learn thaumaturgy for free, and you can read and write draconic. ye they were being real literal with the name.

finally, you get primeval awareness, letting you spend a spell slot to detect nearby aberrations, celestials, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead, any of which would make a great addition to the nff lineup!

if you’re looking for something more pedestrian, detect poison and disease can help you detect nearby poisonous creatures so you can track down fun pets to throw at chaldea! it’ll also help you if you forget which slice of cake is the poisoned one.

11. ranger 4: fourth level rangers get another asi, so bomp up that dexterity for more gunning. i know we’re supposed to be “fair” and “balanced” about all your weapons, but we all know you’re here for the guns.

12. ranger 5: fifth level rangers get nothing! the extra attack this level doesn’t stack! buuuut you still get a second level spell! magic weapon makes your weapon magic. sure you’re already doing a lot of magic damage with hunter’s mark and your dragon, but this’ll make things more consistent with an accuracy bonus.

13. ranger 6: sixth level rangers get another favored enemy. we picked beast, but if there’s a menagerie, you’re looking to fill you can take whatever kind of animal you want! you also become a lil roving as a deft explorer, bumping up your movement speed and giving you a swimming and climbing speed to boot! there’s a lotta water in lostbelt five, best play it safe.

14. ranger 7: seventh level drakewardens grow a bond of fang and scale with their mounts, growing them to medium size and giving them a flight speed! you can also ride the dragon now, though you’re too heavy to take off with. it also has magic fangs, increasing their bite damage with some elemental pizazz (tho not actually making the bite magical? ok), and finally, you get resistance to whatever kind of damage your drake is immune to while its summoned!

you also get another spell, so make sure you pick up pass without trace before the lostbelt you’re in collapses completely. that’s how she moves around, right? gives herself a +15 to stealth and then the walls just don’t notice her?

15. ranger 8: bump up your strength this time with your shiny new asi, and then check out your new land’s stride! now plants don’t slow you down as much, or at all if they’re not magic! yaaay? maybe lb7 has like, evil corn or something idk. though i guess if they’re fighting you they’re good corn?

16. ranger 9: ninth level rangers also don’t get anything, but they do get third level spells like flame arrows! it’s a much higher spell slot, and it doesn’t deal more damage than hunter’s mark, but they’ll keep for up to an hour, you can change targets without using a bonus action, and other people can use the arrows too!

17. ranger 10: at tenth level you become nff’s tireless ceo, so you can spend an action proficiency times a day to get temporary hp. your exhaustion also goes away on short rests instead of long ones! good business never sleeps! and now, you never have to.

you can also put on nature’s veil to make yourself invisible for a round. that’s the benefit of being an assassin! your dumb foreigner double will never experience invisibility!

18. ranger 11: 11th level wardens can spew out a drake’s breath, making a cone of acid, cold, fire, lightning, or poison damage and forcing a dexterity save on everything inside. you can do this once a day for free, or by spending third level or higher spell slots. now this tank is has a cannon! (you can also just use it yourself but why have a tank then?)

you can also conjure barrage! now you can use all your guns at once, making a big cone of shooty goodness!

19. ranger 12: at level twelve, we’re gonna bump up your constitution one last time. a lotta good ranger spells need concentration, so the better saves are super needed. the health bonus is nice too, +19 now.

20. ranger 13: for our final level, we get fourth level spells! just one, actually. as a guardian of nature, you can magical girl transform into a pseudo-beast for a minute! you can turn into either a primal beast or a great tree. the first one makes you faster, gives you darkvision, and adds damage to your melee hits, but most importantly it gives you advantage on strength attacks! the latter gives you temp hp, advantage on constitution saves, kicks up the dirt around you for difficult terrain, and gives you advantage on strength and wisdom attacks! it’s a shame you can’t have both at once, but you’re now super good with every weapon ever made.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

by combining your superiority dice and your drake powers, you can customize your combat to suit the situation, both in terms of the damage you deal and in terms of what your attacks do.

speaking of your damage, you can add a lot to your attacks when you need to punch through a tough enemy. Guardian of Nature + your Drake + superiority gives you a lot of dice to mess with, as well as doubles your critical hit chance thanks to permanent advantage.

most of your damage is focused on ranged attacks, and you’re plenty mobile to take advantage of that. being able to jump 30’ straight up without provoking attacks is a huge buff to any ranged damage dealer, and you can even ignore combat altogether through judicious use of your ambush superiority and Pass without Trace.

Cons:

this build is very, very Multi-Ability Dependent. to make a real Koyanskaya work we would need high rolls in literally every stat, which simply isn’t feasible most of the time. we’re really leaning hard on that doubled proficiency in deception carrying you through your business.

another side-effect of being MAD is that your constitution isn’t that high. having low health isn’t the end of the world as long as you don’t mind playing a little risky, but the low constitution save is a big deal. even with the proficiency from starting as a fighter, you still have a 1/10 chance of dropping any spell you cast from the lightest of bumps. that’s bad for any spellcaster, but you have very few spell slots, and lean on spells heavily for your damage.

while you can move quickly, getting up to speed with all your buffs is a little more complicated. taking a turn or two to get going isn’t the worst, but when you’re squishy that time is valuable- a good boss battle can take you out in that time.

[isca-tide]

Chenford/The Rookie fanfic prompts/ideas (pt.2)

So I did this a while back when I had a bunch of 'what ifs' floating around my head (prompts pt.1). I have more, so I'm back again. None are groundbreaking and if you've seen them done before, do let me know. I have even more than this but I'm trying to be good and not spam them all at once. If anyone does use them, even just as a jumping off point, also please let me know! Ya girl is not handling this hiatus at all. * Lucy's first time riding solo (I assume sometime between becoming P2 and becoming Tim's aide. We see her riding solo in S5 but that can't be the first time, surely. Maybe after Jackson's death if Nolan isn't on the same shift, since they rode together too.) Maybe a 5+1 fic but I'm not sure. Five times she rode solo by choice? idk. * Tim learning what it's like 'living' with someone with a curly-hair girl. From finding her hair on him during her time as a rookie, to when they're officially a couple. And maybe after their break-up, still finding her hair in his home. It's a weird one, I know. But I mean I shed like a husky in Summer and my hair is not half as thick, long, dark, or curly/wavy as Lucy's. Aside from Rachel, he's mostly been in long term relationships with straight-haired blondes. Could be a 5+1 type fic again. * Wesley, James, and Lucy hanging out – doing their best to fix the world. Talking laws and reforms and social justice. Being adorable while their partners (pre/post canon Chenford) look on in awe and adoringly at their sunshine people. Because I maintain that we need Wes&James&Lucy friendship stuff, stat. * 5 times Lucy did karaoke with Jackson, and the one time she didn't. And I made myself sad. * 5+1 fic. 5 times Lucy shared her morning/evening/day with Jackson, and the one time she didn't. Or something along those lines. I just need more pure platonic love fics with these two. Before she goes UC, after she gets out, the morning of the wedding, the morning she goes back to work after Caleb, the morning he comes home after being in hospital. I just need more of these two caring for each other 😭 * Lucy meets Wallace (one of Tim's many puppies). Either before or after Tim takes Jackson to meet him. Bonus points if it's set after and Tim is there to fix the downstair's buzzer at Wallace's apartment. (1x04) * Why was Lucy 3 ½ minutes late to roll call that one time? (mentioned in 5x06) * Tim and Tamara bonding over wedding planning and Lucy being UC. Jackson and Tamara bonding while Lucy is gone. Jackson and Tim bonding while Lucy is gone, maybe an insight into their day/days in the shop together. All three of them bonding while their sunshine person is gone. (3x14) * Tim finds out about Lucy's fake kidnapping set up by Nyla and Murray (3x13) * Lucy waiting for the Guatemala gang to get home. Waiting to hear from Tim that they're all okay. Sitting in the station or even the hospital, just waiting for them to turn up and prove that she hasn't lost another friend. (4x01) * What happened in the time-skip, after they got Angela back from La Fiera? Grieving people helping each other, being there for each other. (4x01) * Nyla helping Lucy with her gift basket for Angela and the baby. Just being there for her, helping her keep distracted from grief. (4x01) * The rest of Angela's welcome home/baby shower gathering. I just need more of the Mid-Wilshire family being together, okay? (4x01) * What happened in this unused/deleted scene? https://www.tumblr.com/karihighman/696251336685207552/in-the-deleted-scene-behind-the (4x02) * What if Tamara filmed Lucy being a badass with the stalker in the walls and shares the video with the Mid-Wilshire gang? People need to see how badass our girl is. (4x05) * What would Lucy have picked for Tim if she'd won the bet? Being Lucy, it'd have been something he'd have ended up loving anyway, even if he'd never admit it. (4x06) * Tim winning the bet and caving within like 10 minutes because he can't stand when Lucy isn't talking. (4x06) * Lucy and Tabin talking in the car before she drives up and switches into character. (5x07)

* What if Lucy and Tim had been attacked at home, instead of Nolan or Harper? (5x22) * Tim and Lucy acting as bait in his/her home to see if the attackers try them next? (5x22) * What if they didn't stop before that door was opened and the trap triggered? Not angling for MCD, just some good ol' hurt/comfort while one or both are injured or trapped. (5x22) * How does everyone find out about the break-up? (post 6x06) * Tim somehow seeing Lucy's breakdown/rant to Grey in the shop. (6x07) * Someone confronts Smitty over the betting pool (a nice deleted/missing scene type deal sticking to canon) * Tim seeing how beat up Lucy is after the gang war situation (she and Celina look so battered! They all do this ep! My poor babies!) (6x08) * Lucy working on her UC covers in her free time, pre/post detective's exam (mentioned 6x09) * Tim finds out Lucy is UC at Bautista's, pre/post knowing Monica and London are involved in department leaks. The first UC that he's had zero involvement in or foreknowledge of. You tell me that man didn't go at least a little feral/frantic to Angela and Nyla, especially after knowing Monica's involvement? (6x09/6x10) * Everyone being amped over how badass Lucy was jumping from one moving car to another and saving Tim. She deserved some praise/congrats in the show and unless someone mentions it in passing in S7 (hey isn't that Ofc Chen? You hear what she did?), it's not going to happen outside of ficworld. Hell, even just Grey telling her it was reckless while also being so damn proud of his pseudo-daughter. (6x10)

[michajawkan]

@hfarash replied to your post “You there! Tell me about one of your imaginary gay...”:

Okay yeah, that's fair, "gay girls" does kind of cover your entire wheelhouse. Pick one based on a tabletop game that isn't D&D or Lancer

​Hi I fell asleep and then got distracted but I'm awake and un-distracted so good morning I'm using this as an excuse to talk about one of my Double Cross characters bc I don't have a lot of opportunities for that okay here we go-

Okay, so, her name is Velvet, she's an interplanetary rover and a Renegade being (talked about before here) (tl;dr: the setting's superpower juice can infect things beyond humans, including robotics, and non-human things it infects can disguise themselves as humans) the basic concept came from people humanizing electronics and especially like, the specific way they do it for the ones designed to explore space (bc it's one of the few times it comes off as genuinely sweet and not weird), and as with all things that I find kind of neat, I made a character about it;

SO, a lot of character creation in Double Cross has the option to use random tables to roll or pick from and while most elements can just be done freestyle if you want, I like the tables, so a lot of this next bit is gonna talk about me interpreting said tables because I think it was fun-

First up is actually something that doesn't come from a table, which is work and cover, work is what the character does and it affects their stats and skill and etc, and cover is what they appear to be normally, like your work could be "vigilante" while your cover was "businessman", for a completely random example- So, Velvet is a Renegade being so her Work is that she's a Renegade Being (C) and her cover is that she's an information broker, because she comes installed with wifi and also picked up a some secrets by being an advanced piece of robotics built to explore space

Then for the next bit there's Origin, Experience, Encounter, Awakening, and Impulse, the former three are to set up connections with other people bc themes and etc and the latter two describe how you came into contact with the Renegade and your primary feeling when you go sicko mode for whatever reason

So for Origin she gets "Watched from Above" which suggests "Protector" as the relevant person, so, because she's exploring distant planets, "Above" becomes "down on Earth" with the protector being a member of the operating staff, Experience is "Harsh Environment" and you'd think that'd be space, and it kind of is part of it, but I'm also using it to describe the environment she returns to, and the "Ally" it suggests as the connection is going to be a small animal (I haven't actually decided specifically what bc I haven't done any art yet but my first thought is a lab rat but I'm also compelled by maybe a squirrel or a small bird)

Now Encounter is an interesting one bc this table actually directs you to specific NPCs with full profiles, for that one I ended up rolling Admiration for the student council president who's hardworking and super nice and cute and everyone likes her and yeah I'll take that free yuri--

Awakening is one that I had a lot of fun with bc the only mechanical effect is that it dictates a portion of the stat that indicates how active your Renegade is by default and I was having a hard time choosing between Anger and Yearning, but then I noticed that they have the exact same value mechanically, so I decided the answer is both-

and then Impulse is, well, an impulse your character has when they lose control because themes, mechanics, etc-- her's isn't esp interesting bc it's Hatred, which is just an extension of her awakening being Anger-

Okay this is taking too long and I'm getting embarrassed so the last segment is what she's actually capable of doing with her abilities so I'll make this slightly quicker maybe idk I'm trying--

All the powers in this game are divided into one of 13 syndromes and you get to pick between 1-3 of them, Velvet has 2 and they're Black Dog (control over electricity and by extension machinery, electronics, magnetism, cybernetics, etc) and Morpheus (creation and manipulation of items, a lot of its abilities are equipment upgrades and pulling new gear out of thin air)

The former was obviously necessary bc she's a robot so ofc she has a bunch of the cybernetic powers but then for Morpheus I actually just picked that one specifically for one of their RP-only powers, Component Analysis

y'know, bc she's a rover, it'd be weird if she couldn't identify materials-

[terresdebrume]

40-60 minutes intro to DND

Or, as I dubbed it: DND Lite

So today I introduced DND to one of my classes and they wanted to do a try out game. I had no dice, no map, no freaking idea how to explain the rules...but then I remembered I'd watched an interesting video about how to start a DND club at a school (link in reblog) and I figured, fuck it, we want the feeling of DND not the actual game.

So here's what I did:

Step 1:

Give players a character sheet and roll a single set of stats. Make sure nothing is below six, or even 9 if you want to be really sure they won't get stumped.

Give the players the following instructions:

- If you want to use magic, pick Wisdom, Intelligence or Charisma for your highest number.

- If you want to use a blunt weapon pick strength.

- If you want to use a stabby weapon, pick dex.

Step 2:

- Give everyone an AC of 10 + Dex mod and HP of 10 + Con mod.

- Ask the weapon users to pick a specific weapon (we had a bow, two scythe, and a scimitar) and tell the magic users they have two spells: Fire and Heal (treat them like cantrips)

- Everything is worth 1d6, no modifier added, everything works like an attack roll (AOE just complicates things)

Step 3:

- They all wake up in a dungeon with only one door and some barrels. Let them look around and come up with ideas, building on things as they go. All DCs are 10.

- There's a big pit and a corridor behind the door. If you're like me, you're thinking 'they'll learn how to jump' but your players turn the barrels into a bridge instead

- At the end of the corridor there's another room with three giant rats. They can try to walk around, come up with a different solution (like a chandelier in the rafters or something) or fight.

Step 4:

Let them come out of the weird dungeon into the light and end however you want.

This gives the feeling of DND (making rp decisions, rolling dice, adding mods) in the most SIMPLE way possible with zero commitment to anything and gets them to play ASAP instead of struggling with character making for an hour.

Step 5 (not yet tested)

Use the same method for your first DND club 1h session, then gradually Build-a-bear your players'characters

I'm thinking we might add races one or two sessions in and write down proficiencies but only using the ability mods and special feats/speeds at first, then use proper weapon rolls, then add classes & special abilities, then proper proficiencies?

Or maybe a different order, we'll see^^

Important !

Let your players know you are simplifying a lot of things. If this version is too much for them, which was the case for two of my players, then the full game may not be for them.

[destinylegendrpg]

hey!! im curious, how have you guys built around 3.0 subclasses? 👀 i wanted to know so i could have an easier time DMing my own campaign!

Great question! So, this might be a lengthy answer, but hopefully it helps with what you're looking for ~

@frombrad2worse and I began building the D:BL system after Void 3.0 came out, but way, way before Solar and Arc 3.0 released. Much like with Stasis, we both loved how modular it was, how easily you could set it up to a playstyle you preferred. Both of us have played in a lot of TTRPG campaigns and we really like systems that allow for build-crafting - even if you play the same class as someone else, the flavour and feel you put into it can end up with seemingly disparate character mechanics. So when we began thinking about how we wanted to make a TTRPG, we knew immediately that we wanted to craft a system that allowed for this, and what better way to achieve this than by mimicking Light 3.0 in a TTRPG style?

Unfortunately, we don't currently have the system set up in a way that we can share the Vanguard (GM) rules just yet - it's not that we don't want others to try it out, just that we haven't had the time to type everything up yet, lol. BUT. Let me give you the low-down on how it works for characters... and if you don't wanna read all this mumbo-jumbo, skip to the last paragraph! 👀

When creating a character, you start with, of course, the basics: your race and class. In our system, race is just flavour - there's no mechanical benefit to choosing any one race over another. But just like in the video game, your class locks you into being either a Hunter, a Warlock, or a Titan. Once you're in, you're in, and you move onto assigning your stats.

When beginning a new character, you have 24 points to put into 6 stats: Mobility, Resilience, Recovery, Discipline, Intellect, and Strength, all of which probably sound eerily familiar, eh? And I'm sure you can imagine the benefit to putting points into each of them. So what's the catch, right? Where does Light 3.0 come in and what does this have to do with build-crafting?

Well, that's look at those stats a second. How well do all of these translate to a TTRPG? The first three stats make sense: Mobility lets you run around the battlefield, Resilience boosts your shields, Recovery lets you heal yourself with the Light faster. All three are obvious gameplay modifiers. But what about Discipline, Intellect, and Strength? Sure, they have their own benefit just like in the game: a higher Discipline leads to a faster grenade, but when you're using a d6 system where a roll of 4d6 determines the actions on your turn, there's only so high and so low you can go. If a grenade costs a roll of X on those 4d6 to use on a turn, you can only move that X so much before it becomes either too difficult to use at low levels or unfathomably easy at high levels. So what do you use to help balance those stats while keeping them rewarding to put points into?

This is where Light 3.0 comes in. Each of the bottom 3 stats gives you an edge in build-crafting. In our system, putting more points in Discipline and Strength don't just give you a boost to getting a faster grenade or charge melee, they also give you Fragment slots, up to 2 per stat for a total of 4. Your Intellect doesn't just let you a faster Super either, it allows you to take up to 2 Aspects.

And now... now the fun begins. >:)

You see, just like in the video game, each subclass has an entire sheet dedicated to unique Aspects and Fragments that you can pick and choose from to create the unique playstyle you want. These can also be changed at (almost) any time so you can have fun in the way you want without being locked into past decisions that no longer feel good. It's built to be flexible and modular so players can let loose and play around to find out what works (and doesn't work) for them!

Void 3.0 is almost directly translated: taking the Bastion Aspect as a Void Titan stilllets you and allies gain an Overshield when summoning your Barricade, just like it does in the video game. Taking the Echo of Undermining Fragment still lets you weaken enemies with your grenade for 1.5x damage. But some Aspects and Fragments don't have a direct TTRPG translation, meaning we had to play around and figure out what felt good before we moved on.

Arc and Solar 3.0, however... well, we had mostly finished the system and were already tweaking the numbers by playing 1:1s with each other before they were released by Bungie. So our Aspects and Fragments are a bit different there - they even have different names. While Bungie's are Spark of and Ember of for Arc and Solar, ours are Call of and Song of, respectively, because we thought they sounded cool. Weirdly, some of them ended up very similar but with slightly different vocabulary (for example, we originally had a mechanic called electrified which Bungie named jolted; the vocab has been changed to match Bungie's for consistency, though our Aspect and Fragment ideas remain our own). We're still tweaking them to make sure they match up to how powerful Void can be, but we think they're pretty fun. In fact, I currently play a Solar Titan and have a great time with it. You can see me in action, along with my Arc and Solar Warlock companions, in our stream! Here's a link to our fireteam's first episode so you can listen along and get a general feel for how the system plays.

SO!

With all that said... well, I know I mentioned that the Vanguard rulebook isn't set up yet for wide release, but if you'd like, feel free to DM me here or @cassiefisherdrake. I will HAPPILY send you the character + combat sheets and walk you through them to help you set up a character. We want people to test this system out so we can work out what needs fixing, so the more the merrier! Hell, I'd happily Vanguard a one-shot for you so you can see what it's like if you're interested. :>

[crystalelemental]

Alright, I’m in what I’m assuming is hard endgame in Cassette Beasts, and can confirm, the teams are definitely working.  I’ve beaten Ianthe, all the rematches against the rangers, and all the Archangels fights except whatever happens when I solve the song.

The part is as follows.

Miasmodeus Attacks: Smach, Pustule Bomb Buffs: Raise Arms, Elemental Wall, Mind-Meld Passives: Fireproof, Roll Again (+1 slot), Sugar Rush, AP Refund

Decibell (Kayleigh) Attacks: Siprt, Hurricane, Headshot Buffs: Doc Leaf, AP Boost, Taunt, Echolocation, Air Wall Passives: AP Starter (+1 slot)

Ramtasm Attacks: Smack, Last Rites Buffs: Mind-Meld, Ritual, Nurse, Elemental Wall, Gambit Passives: Shear Luck, Phase Shift (when needed)

Kirikuri Attacks: Smack, Toxic Stab, Copper Chop, Last Rites Buffs: Leech, Poison Pollen, Plant Wall Passives: Splinter

Sppoki-onna Attacks: Spirt, Thunder Blast, Life Absorb, Zephyr, Blizzard Buffs: Fog, Avalanche Passives: AP Refund (+8% effect chance)

Queenyx Attacks: Smack, Life Absorb, Snow Rush, Damage Roll, Last Rites Buffs: Ritual, Gambit, AP Donate Passives: Vengeful Curse

The team has three strategies that we generally employ.  All of them lead with Kayleight and Decibelle, but the exact plan past that opener changes a bit.

Strategy 1: Miasmodeus Miasmodeus is hysterical.  Holy shit, I regret not picking this as the starter.  Poison’s only weakness is Fire, and it can have Fire resistance, which cuts Fire damage 50% and ignores secondary effects.  So far the AI has not figured out to avoid hitting her with Fire moves if they have them, which is great distraction.  To add to it, Mind-Meld means copying over all of Decibelle’s traits, and Roll Again with Mind Meld means both beasts have a chance to apply a second action per turn.  Decibelle has Doc Leaf and AP Boost, the former of which is the opening gambit, the latter of which is the follow-up.  Echolocation makes them spread moves so the buff applies to both.  Miasmodeus uses Echolocation after Mind Melding, and can double up on the stall tactics, throwing out Pustule Bomb to poison the enemy, and building toward the coup de grace: double Headshot.

The pros of the team are that we’re damn near invincible barring super-effective shots on Decibelle.  The stall gaming is real.  It does consume a lot of upkeep turns to keep us rolling.  Also, Roll Again can, at an inopportune time, call in a high-cost attack, ruining the Headshot plan.  Which is never my favorite.  The fact that both have a Shield is also a problem, because sometimes the AI just decides to overwrite each other’s shields, and then we just waste HP for no reason.  So I might remove a shield, depending on who has a better alternative action.

Strategy 2: Ramtasm Ramtasm is very similar, but because of the lack of Roll Again, it’s more consistent to hit Last Rites.  This permits Gambit, which sets up three turns of heavily boosted stats, and swapping Decibelle in to Queenyx to AP Donate for another big shot with Ramtasm.  Damage numbers are comical.  That said, I admit that Queenyx doesn’t exactly do a ton.  I like it, but it’s...lacking some things I’d want.  One of the rangers used Dog Days to extend the Ghost duration, and I imagine it does similarly for Gambit.  Which, if I can find an option that gets AP Donate, Dog Days, and ideally Echolocation/AP Boost, I think that would be a stronger option for Ramtasm to utilize.  If I can find such a beast, I’ll probably add the Ghost effect to Ramtasm, just to extend both effects and be a real shithead about it.

Strategy 3: Kirikuri Kirikuri has my favorite tactic in the game: Leech Poison.  This is, so far, the only combination of traits that has worked on every fight.  Even Archangels just drop to it, so long as you’re defensively strong enough.  The plan is to lead Decibelle and Miasmodeus, and Mind-Meld.  On turn 2, Miasmodeus swaps to Kirikuri, who gets Echolocation, and Decibelle swaps to Spooki-Onna.  The two of them can now Echolocation Leech/Poison the entire team as needed, then have Spooki-onna be a real bitch about thing with Fog and Avalanche.  Fog disrupts special, and allows Kirikuri to continue hitting with melee Toxic Stab if AP is high enough.  Alternatively, Avalanche can block a physical hit while Kirikuri sets Plant Shield and just heals it all off.

Other Factors Realistically, Decibelle, Miasmodeus, and Kirikuri handled almost everything once available.  The other three barely see play.  I’d like to get Ramtasm moving, but that requires Dog Days support.  I’m looking into it.

Queenyx was something I wanted to test out, but has barely been useful.  She just doesn’t contribute much?  Like, I had at one point planned for Gambit -> Vengeful Curse, which the Vengeful Curse does work for allies when Mind-Melded, but it’s not exactly consistent, or a good idea to let a thing die.

Spooki-onna also doesn’t see a ton of play.  Which I feel bad about, I love its design and I like the idea of stalling, but frankly it rarely comes up.  Because the rest of the team is so ridiculous.

We’re on to the phase of the game that seems to mostly be fused shadows, and the only major quests left are the main one to leave, and the signposts in the water (I’m playing on Switch, and the game stutters like CRAZY trying to go near water), so almost complete.  There are three beasts left to find, two of which are unique, and one of which requires a specific type of bootleg.  But, I’m close.

[irishgolfadventure]

The Road to Mount Falcon

Today we ended our stay at Rosapenna by playing their signature course, Sandy Hills. Afterwards, we traveled the winding roads to Mount Falcon Estate located just outside Ballina, Ireland. Ballina is located on the northwestern coast of Ireland.

The Sandy Hills course was a beautiful links course that was designed by Patrick Ruddy, a well known Irish designer. The course was one of my favorites we have played so far. Very narrow fairways that wind through the seaside dunes. If your tee shot was not accurate you stood a good chance of losing your ball in the monsterous ball eating heather! We lost a few, (10 between us....KB 7 GB 3). 

The course had a lot of elevated tee boxes and greens. And three of the par 3′s were forced carries. We both struggled on them. Although I just lipped out a put for birdie on the par 3 16th. The second par three of the day saw me card a triple and Kim pick up. (Think she will admit this was not her best day although she finished strong!)

I had my best round so far carding an 85 with 7 pars and only one really bad hole - 10 bogeys and one triple. As I mentioned before, I wish the pictures could capture the elevation changes. Sandy Hills has such dramatic changes in elevation and rarely was any lie level on the massively rolling fairways and greens. They say it looks like a lot of dead elephants have been buried on the greens and fairways. Not the easiest of walking courses!

Our three hour drive to Mount Falcon was fairly uneventful. Kim never yelled, screamed, slammed her foot on the non existing brake on her side or closed her eyes once! Driving up to the Estate you were winding your way back into a very dense forest and the Estate setting had had an almost medieval feel.... except it has wifi :-) I’ll spend some time with my next post giving you the details of the Mount Falcon Estate. It’s quite a place, with lots of history and all kinds of things to do on the property - salmon fishing, falconry, golfing and hiking. 

Stats Summary

Score 85/638

Holes Played 18/126

Yardage Played 5923/43004

Lost Balls 3/14

No. of Pars or Better 7 pars/ 4 birdies 28 pars

Steps Walked 13634/99368

Miles 6.58/46.28

Green Fees $180/$1640

Caddie Fees $75 plus tip/$560

Tomorrow is a day of rest from golf. Looking forward to checking the area out! This area of Ireland is more mountainous than I had anticipated. It’s not the Rockies but it’s more than just rolling country side!  gb

[gorgonarcher]

14th Game - Modern AGE

Green Ronin acquired the license to do a TTRPG based on Dragon Age and created the "Adventure Gaming Engine" to build it around. They then worked with Wil Wheaton and Geek & Sundry to create the Titangrave RPG using the same engine.

Following that they created Fantasy AGE as a toolkit RPG for players and gamemasters to build their own settings. Modern AGE came out of that as a similar toolkit RPG for playing other settings mostly focusing on 20th and 21st century Earth, though with tips for playing near-future and older periods like the Victorian, Georgian, Regency, Colonial, and Western periods.

I'll probably do Fantasy AGE later but when I asked opinions on which game to do next, Modern AGE was the one that got interest.

There are some optional rules about bringing in non-human species from the Fantasy RPG and we'll be using those. Found them, they're in the Modern AGE Companion, and they're mostly unique origins based on Fantasy AGE races. There's a couple of ways to integrate these, we're going to go with basically adding an extra step of adding a "People" step alongside an "Origin" in the Background step.

There are nine steps of character creation as follows:

1 - Concept

2 - Abilities

3 - Backgrounds

4 - Profession

5 - Drive

6 - Resources and Equipment

7 - Health, Defense, Toughness, and Speed

8 - Goals, Ties, and Relationships

9 - Name and Description

That sounds like a lot of steps, but some of them would likely be included under the same step in other games.

Step One - Concept

Okay, we're going to have a gorgon archer in a modern setting at this point. I'm going to assume the campaign at least starts in a rural township and she does bowhunting to supplement her groceries and maybe sells leather or antler goods as well on the side.

At least that's the thought right now. I'm going to be using more of the default options, which involve rolling for backgrounds and such, rather than my normal tendency to go for the optional "just pick what you like". This means my concept of this character is going to change as we move along.

Step Two - Abilities

Modern AGE goes back to the days of rolling for abilities. By default you roll your stats in order and assign them. Point buy and roll and assign as desired are optional methods.

I think I'm going ahead and going with the default. I tend to think that Concept should come after Abilities if you're rolling for Abilities. That said, the rolling in this game is far more forgiving than in D&D and stats are easy to increase over time since you get a point to increase abilities every level.

There are nine Abilities and for them I roll:

Accuracy 12 - 2

Communication 12 - 2

Constitution 10 - 1

Dexterity 14 - 2

Fighting 14 - 2

Intelligence 13 - 2

Perception 11 - 1

Strength 11 - 1

Willpower 7 - 0

So, I can't really complain here. It's 1 point more than I would get for doing a point buy built. But it is a bit samey at this point. That said, she's generally better than the average person at most things.

At this point.

See, in addition to abilities going up every level, they're also going to go up based on the next few steps we're going to take. We're also going to gain Ability Focuses which give further bonuses to different activities.

Step Three - Backgrounds

Okay, as I said, we're taking the option where the People is added as an option on top of an origin. This creates a slightly more powerful character than usual but that's fine. To start, we're going to roll for background. By default that's this chart:

However, we're going for a fantastical setting so we're going to incorporate the optional chart and backgrounds from the Companion:

So some explanation of these backgrounds:

Academic (Core) - A history of scholarship.

Anomaly (Companion) - There's something weird about you.

Aristocratic (Core) - You come from money.

Bohemian (Core) - Grew up in eccentric or creative communities.

Corporate (Core) - You're from corporate culture.

Cosmopolitan (Core) - You come from a true melting pot.

Exile (Core) - You've been driven from your past life.

Jacked In (Companion) - You're deep in hacktivist culture.

Laborer (Core) - You've been a manual laborer.

Legacy (Companion) - You come from a line of powerful people.

Military (Core) - You were in a military of some form.

Outlander (Companion) - You're from another world.

Outcast (Core) - You're forced to exist on the fringes.

Paranormal (Companion) - You were raised around the supernatural.

Scavenger (Companion) - You scavenge abandoned tech.

Suburban (Core) - You're from the suburbs.

Tagalong (Companion) - You were raised by world-saving heroes.

Thrall (Companion) - You've recently been freed from an entity.

Trade (Core) - You have a history as a skilled expert in a trade.

Urban (Core) - You're from the big city.

This will also give me some world-building thoughts on where our character lives.

So the first roll is 4, Middle Class. And the second roll is a 2, Paranormal. So now we apply the Paranormal additions.

I'm going to choose Willpower (Courage) as befitting the "archer" thought over "Occultism" in this case. This means that if she's rolling a test that deals with Courage, her Willpower gains a +2 for a total of +4. Now, we can give her Knowledge, Observation, or any Psychic power talent.

I'm probably going with Observation, but let me check the psychic talents. Let's see, Cryokinesis, Empathy, ESP, Projection, Pyrokinesis, Shielding, Telekinesis, and Telepathy.

Okay, Projection has Psychic Blast which could be used to represent the Gorgon's Gaze... ESP is also tempting for that witchy "I know stuff" vibe. And technically, she doesn't qualify for Observation (currently her Perception is too low) but at character creation that doesn't matter.

I think I will go for the Psychic Projection Talent as it sits higher on my priority list than Observation and ESP do by dint of being a possible way to do the gorgon gaze. (albeight not a stoning gaze... unless that's how the psychic attack manifests in the target's mind).

As a note, this means that her 0 Willpower is suddenly very important as characters gain Power Points at level 1 equal to 10+Willpower+1d6, gain Willpower + 1d6 from levels 2 to 10, and gain Willpower (minimum 1) every level after. I rolled a 4 so she has 14 PP.

Willpower also determines the Force of her powers, which is similar to a saving throw. It's the number opponents need to beat to resist her powers. Force is 10 + Willpower + Power Focus... so for our character it's a 10. Pretty weak. Almost minimal some would say (she could have had a negative Willpower, so there's that).

Currently, I only have access to the four powers included for each Power Talent in the base game, so the two novice powers are going to be Hallucination and Psychic Blast.

We now roll on the Origin benefit chart and I get a 10. Which is a focus for Bargaining. This is kind of leaning into my original idea of the person on the fringes who sells odd things to cover her costs. However, we have the added bit that she's used to living among spirits, psychics, and mystics now.

Now, we're going to add a People from the Companion. While there isn't a specific "Gorgon" option (that's part of the challenge) there is the Spirit-Born. I would like to note that "Human" is its own people with a list of benefits as well. Though it's unfortunately that common humans=average cliche with an advantage called "Underdog". So it's a bit of a mixed bag.

What I'm going to say is that the community or commune that our character grew up in performs real working seances and rituals. And at least one of those resorted in her parents conceiving her, knowingly or otherwise. I'm leading mostly towards "oops, accident" but also hey, consensual polyam with spirits sure, I'm cool with that. Regardless, I'm thinking happy, healthy family life right now.

So, hey, look, We got a +1 Perception now. I'm also going to take that Occultism Focus now. So she's courageous and has been told about the Occult.

Oh... those Talent options.

ESP is tempting. But Attractive and Quick Reflexes are ALSO tempting.

Okay, so going to do my normal thing when I can't decide: roll. And if I start trying to convince myself to reroll, then obviously I didn't want really that option. And at the very least I'll pare off options until I get to the one I want.

First, setting up the results: 1-2 Attractive, 3-4 Quick Reflexes, 5-6 ESP.

2 - Attractive. All right then. Sexy, sexy, snake ladies.

Okay, and then we move to Cultural Benefits roll. I rolled a 5, getting a focus in Persuasion.

Okay then. So for easy of finding this later when I sum up the character this is what the Background step has resulted in:

+1 Communication for a total of 3

+1 Perception for a total of 2

Willpower (Courage) focus

Communication (Bargaining) focus

Intelligence (Occultism) focus

Communication (Persuasion) focus

Spirit Born Danger Sense

Novice Psychic Projection - 14 PP - Force 10

Novice Attractive

Step Five - Profession

This is where we're going to go with choosing a Profession instead of rolling for one. And we're going to choose one that's a bit below our rolled social class. This will net a bit more resources than that Profession usually starts with. Specifically, we're going with "Survivalist."

And now we're going to grab Accuracy: Bows as a focus and I'm going to go with the idea that she's from a group that sort of lives on the fringes, though the Middle Class background makes me think they're doing well for themselves. And I'm guessing that if this is a world where the supernatural is unknown that they didn't want to much documented info on the character's birth. So, I'm going with Living on the Fringe.

That covers Profession. Which we can summarize as:

Accuracy (Bows) focus

Novice Living on the Fringe

Health 21

Resources 3 (Outsider profession, Middle Class background)

Step Five - Drive

Now we choose a Drive, and for this, I'm going to go with a random roll again. 1-3 Column 1, 4-6 Column 2, which is the default in the text... no idea why it's not included on the chart.

Rolled a 6 so it's a column 2 Drive. And then a 5, so Survivor.

Okay, so what I'm seeing is that sometime between when she was born and her life now, her family and possible cult (in the neutral original sense that Scion uses rather than the negative layperson sense we commonly use now) came on hard times. That may explain how they went from Middle Class to fringe living. Perhaps they ran afoul of darker occult forces.

Now, here we have a choice. We can either improve Living on the Fringe to Journeyman or we can take Novice Tactical Awareness. I am amused these are the same Talent options as Survivalist gave, but anyway. I think I will go with Tactical Awareness, just to spread out her skills a bit. Also, this lets her do some of that quick moving gorgon archer stuff that happens in movies or games whenever they want to pull Medusa out.

As a note, the default description of this Drive being cynical does not mean we can't still make her friendly and cheerful. The fact that you're always preparing for bad stuff doesn't necessarily mean you're grumpy all the time.

Now we also get an improvement and have the option between:

Health +5

Reputation 1 rank

Resources +2

I like the idea that she still has some reputation with her family's cult, even if they are scattered a bit these days. So that's what I'm taking. Reputations are typically a reward earned in play and by the looks of things, they don't really have ranks? I'm guessing they just mean "gain one Reputation" and this is comes in the form of an honorific like "Bane of Criminals", "Superlative Lover", "Savior of the Town" etc. In this case, I'm going with one of the example reputations of "Friendly Face" in that she has a reputation for being friendly and approachable. Not quite what I was thinking when I chose this option, but I can work with it.

This leads to the following summary:

Novice Tactical Awareness

Reputation: Friendly Face

Step 6 - Resources and Equipment

We already know her Resources score is a 3 based on her social class and Profession. This is a nebulous score that is used like an ability for purchasing anything in game. How the characters gain resources depends on the game mode of the campaign:

I'm planning to do some leveling on this character, which is unusual for these builds, so we'll discuss game mode then.

As for starting Equipment, it's pretty simple:

Ordinary clothing.

The essential tools or items of the character's profession. So basic camouflage, woodworking and tanning gear, survivalist gear, etc

Any weapon the character has an associated focus or talent for using. ie: she has a bow. And this is why I chose the Survivalist profession. It was the only way I saw to definitely get a bow focus.

Step 7 - Derived Statistics

This is fairly simple.

Health: 21 (20 + Constitution per Survivalist profession)

Defense: 12 (10 + Dexterity)

Toughness: 1 (Constitution)

Speed: 12 (10 + Dexterity)

We're also going to go ahead and choose game mode here (this would normally be done before character creation as part of session 0) and I'm going to opt for the Cinematic mode for the extra power because why not?

This affects what Toughness applies to:

Step 8 - Goals, Ties, and Relationships

Goals are similar to Deeds in Scion, these are a list of short-term and long-term things that you want your character to accomplish. These appear to be primarily used for RP guidance and don't have mechanics attached to them. For our character here, I'm going with the following:

Short-Term: Find a stable source of income.

Short-Term: Make contact with other cult mystics.

Long-Term: Find out why we scattered.

Ties are ways that you know the other player characters in the party. Let's say these are the party:

Jaden Ellis (Lower Class, Origin: Urban, People: Shapeshifter, Profession: Security, Drive: Rebel)

Chelsea Orr (Outsider, Origin: Bohemian, People: Orc, Profession: Artist, Drive: Judge)

Saif al-Salem (Upper Class, Cosmopolitan, People: Human, Profession: Expert, Drive: Caregiver)

And for ties, I'm going assume the following:

Jaden helped get her family safely to where she currently lives.

Chelsea is a local hermit whom she sells raw materials to.

Saif is a rich paranaturalist who she's acted as a guide for the local area before.

For Relationships you gain a number of Relationship Slots equal to your Communication, in this case three. And in character creation you can up Relationships up to a level 2 intensity. Towards that end, she's going to the choose the following:

Megan Odom, Town Mayor: Intensity 1

Chelsea Orr: Intensity 1

Agent Tonga, FBI Occult Division: Intensity 1

So, she is friendly with the local government, one of the other PCs, and with a federal agent, who I expect is something of a fringe rebel themselves.

We now move on to Name and Description. I went to a random name generator for "Hippie names" (seriously, FantasyNameGenerators.com has a smorgasboard of good options) and one of the suggested ones was "Promise". I like a good virtue name and this sounds very much in keeping with the idea that her parents conceived her during some ritual. So I'm going with that.

Promise has long, dark hair that seems to be perpetually in braids that are somehow still light enough to sway in the wind. They seem to be constantly in motion. People with eyes to see know that her "hair" are actually ebony serpents. She has deep brown skin, a square face and flat nose. She doesn't seem to fit the standards of beauty on paper, but most people who meet her smiling face agree that she's one of the loveliest people they've ever met, both physically and personality-wise.

As a note, there is an optional stat called "Conviction" which I will include. Spending these allows you to spend them to do things like Dodge an attack, Re-Roll a check, or get an extra action. It starts at 3 and increases as you level. You regain spent Conviction by leaning into your Drive. So Promise would regain Conviction either when she makes a special effort to be prepared for something, or when she leans into cynicism and her tendency to expect the worst causes problems.

Promise - Modern Gorgon Archer - Level 1

Background

Origin: Paranormal

People: Spirit-Born (Gorgon)

Profession: Survivalist

Drive: Survivor

Abilities

Accuracy 2 (Bows)

Communication 3 (Bargaining, Persuasion)

Constitution 1

Dexterity 2

Fighting 2

Intelligence 2 (Occultism)

Perception 2

Strength 1

Willpower 0 (Courage)

Talents

Novice Attractive

Novice Living on the Fringe

Novice Psychic Projection

Novice Tactical Awareness

Psychic Traits

Power Points: 14

Force: 10

Powers

Psychic Blast

Hallucination

Other Traits

Health: 21

Defense: 12

Toughness: 1

Speed: 12

Conviction: 3

Resources: 3

Spirit-Born Danger Sense

Social Traits

Reputation: Friendly Face

Relationship 1: Mayor Megan Odom (Always holds me welcome)

Relationship 1: Chelsea Orr (My first and best customer)

Relationship 1: Agent Tonga (We travel the same fringes)

Gear

Bow

Survivalist Gear

Clothing

Advancement

So, we're going to advance Promise to Level 12. Some advancement is based on the campaign mode and she is in a Cinematic game (Green line)

Combined with the stuff that's standard for all modes, she gets the following each level:

1d6 + Constitution Health

1d6 + Willpower Power Points

+1 Toughness and Defense every 4th level

+1 Resources per level (plus story rewards)

+1 Conviction every odd-numbered level

+1 to an Ability every level (see below for rules)

New Ability Focus every level

Level 11+ you may improve an existing Focus from +2 to +3

A new Talent degree every level, going to say every 3rd level can be a psychic or arcane talent.

A specialization Talent at levels 4, 6, 8, 12, 14, and 16. In addition to the normal Talent.

She cannot improve the same Ability twice in a row, and once an Ability gets to 5, it costs two improvements to increase. So increasing Dexterity from 5 to 6 would take three levels at least because a character can't take Dexterity twice in a row.

With that in mind these are her level advancements:

Level 2

Health +4 (25), Power Points +6 (20)

+1 Resources (4)

+1 Willpower (1) (improvements to Power Points already figured in)

Perception (Tracking) Ability Focus

Novice Archery talent

Level 3

Health +2 (27), Power Points +6 (26)

+1 Resources (5)

+1 Conviction (4)

+1 Accuracy (3)

Willpower (Psychic Projection) Ability Focus

Novice ESP Psychic Talent

Level 4

Health +7 (34), Power Points +10 (36)

+1 Toughness (2) and Defense (13)

+1 Resources (6)

+1 Willpower (2) (improvements to Power Points already figured in)

Dexterity (Stealth) Ability Focus

Expert Archery Talent

Novice Hunter Specialization Talent, her Prey is "Servitors", creatures summoned or crafted by mages.

Also, she gains a new Relationship slot here. Going to apply it to Saif al-Salem.

Level 5

Health +9 (43), Power Points +5 (41)

+1 Resources (7)

+1 Conviction (5)

+1 Constitution (2) (Improvements to Health already figured in)

Constitution (Tolerance) Ability Focus

Novice Scouting Talent

Level 6

Health +3 (46), Power Points +3 (44)

+1 Resources (8)

+1 Dexterity (3)

Fighting (Snake Hair) Ability Focus

Novice Inhuman Legacy: Inhuman Weapon

Expert Hunter Specialist Talent

Inhuman Legacy is from a fifth AGE game called Cthulhu Awakens which is far more horror oriented than what I was thinking for this but the Talent meshes well with the talents in Modern AGE as far as power level and mechanics go, so I went with it. I do like that she is both absurdly attractive and blatantly inhuman. I'm assuming at this point her snake hair is now physical rather than spirit and she must hide it in more conventional way when dealing with people who find the supernatural disturbing.

Level 7

Health +8 (54), Power Points +6 (50)

+1 Resources (9)

+1 Conviction (6)

+1 Communication (4)

Communication (Seduction) Ability Focus

Expert Attractive

With her Communication going up she gains a new Relationship Slot, going to apply it to Jaden Ellis.

Level 8

Health +5 (59), Power Points +7 (57)

+1 Toughness (4) - Constitution improved earlier

+1 Defense (15) - Dexterity improved earlier

+1 Resources (10)

+1 Accuracy (4)

Willpower (Faith) Ability Focus

Master Archery

Master Hunter Specialization

She gains another Relationship tie here, going to say she now has a girlfriend: Evie Awad. Huh, Evie... and I used an Egyptian surname. Accidental Mummy reference for the win.

Level 9

Health +3 (62), Power Points +12 (69)

+1 Resources (11)

+1 Conviction (7)

+1 Willpower (3) (improvements to Power Points already figured in)

Communication (Etiquette) Ability Focus

Expert Inhuman Legacy, choosing One with the Unnatural

Level 10

Health +3 (65), Power Points +4 (73)

+1 Resources (12)

+1 Dexterity (4)

Intelligence (Tactics) Ability Focus

Master Attractive

Level 11

Health +3 (68), Power Points +4 (77)

+1 Resources (13)

+1 Conviction (8)

+1 Communication (5)

Communication (Etiquette) Ability Focus improves

Expert Tactical Awareness

Communication goes up so she gets a Relationship slot, going to intensify the Evie one to rank 2.

Level 12

Health +3 (71), Power Points +4 (81)

+1 Toughness (5)

+1 Defense (17) - Dexterity improved earlier

+1 Resources (14)

+1 Accuracy (5)

Ability Focus (Bows) improved

Master Inhuman Legacy: Inhuman Ability (Communication)

Novice Liaison Specialization Talent

She gets two Relationship slots here, one from her level and one from her Communication going up (Inhuman ability breaks the 2 advance rule for normal Ability improvement). Going to add both to Evie... I'm sure there's some people accusing Promise of using some sort of mind control... but that just isn't one of her powers.

Note that "Liaison" as a specialty requires a Membership and I'll just assume that she earns that somewhere in game play. You can't gain it in level-ups on its own. As a farther note, the Modern AGE Companion has rules for taking Talents and Specializations past Master degree, but I decided not to use those rules. I wanted to take things to Level 12 to get to the second specialization and to have a chance of getting an improved Ability focus. The Resource improvement assumes that she doesn't lose any resources over the course of the game.

For the Liaison, I'm giving her the following Organizational Focuses:

FBI Occult Investigations

Anima (spirits associated with worldly things)

LGBTQ+

Timber Fields (town she starts in)

Cosplayers

Sacred Dark Cult (her family's cult)

In any case at level 12, she is an accomplished hunter, but now she's also become an incredibly beautiful, clearly inhuman being that serves as a friendly bridge between humans and the supernatural. If the setting began with the supernatural covered up then I don't think it really is any longer. I'm going to give her some random Reputations.

In any case, here's the wrap up.

Promise - Incarnate Spirit-Born - Level 12

Background

Origin: Paranormal

People: Spirit-Born (Gorgon)

Profession: Survivalist

Drive: Survivor

Abilities

Accuracy 5 (Bows)

Communication 6 (Bargaining, Persuasion, Seduction, Etiquette)

Constitution 2 (Tolerance)

Dexterity 4 (Stealth)

Fighting 2 (Snake Hair)

Intelligence 2 (Occultism)

Perception 2 (Tracking)

Strength 1

Willpower 3 (Courage, Psychic Projection, Faith)

Organizational Focuses

FBI Occult Investigations

Anima (spirits associated with worldly things)

LGBTQ+

Timber Fields (town she starts in)

Cosplayers

Sacred Dark Cult (her family's cult)

Talents

Master Archery

Master Attractive

Novice ESP

Master Inhuman Legacy

Novice Living on the Fringe

Novice Psychic Projection

Novice Scouting

Expert Tactical Awareness

Specializations

Master Hunter

Novice Liaison

Psychic Traits

Power Points: 81

Force: 13, Psychic Projection: 15

Powers

(Psychic Projection) Psychic Blast

(Psychic Projection) Hallucination

(ESP) Psychic Sense

(ESP) Premonition

Inhuman Traits

Inhuman Weapon: Snake Hair 1d6+Strength Impact damage

One with the Unnatural: Animist Spirits and Spirit-Born

Inhuman Ability: Communication

Other Traits

Health: 71

Defense: 17

Toughness: 5

Speed: 14

Conviction: 8

Resources: 14

Spirit-Born Danger Sense

Social Traits

Reputation Honorfic: Friendly Face

Reputation Honorfic: The Rainbow Serpent

Reputation Honorfic: Bane of Abusers

Reputation Honorfic: Pain of Pundits

Membership 3: Sacred Dark Cult

Membership 4: Timber Fields LGBTQ+

Membership 1: Twitch Partner

Relationship 1: Mayor Megan Odom (Always holds me welcome)

Relationship 1: Chelsea Orr (My first and best customer)

Relationship 1: Agent Tonga (We travel the same fringes)

Relationship 1: Saif al-Salem (He helps me with my legacy)

Relationship 1: Jaden Ellis (Neither of us trust the politicians)

Relationship 4: Evie Awad (My anchor, my heart, my love, and the center of life.)

Gear

Bow

Survivalist Gear

Clothing

[orangesquidy64]

How my first Dungeons and Dragons campaign went

>recently joined a D&D meet at a new Dayhab I go to since the old one I used to go was showing signs of going out of business, wanted to give it a try since my brother plays it more than I do

>Had to pick a Premade character, chooses a Paladin named Sir Stabsalot, not really paying much attention about their stats since it's complicated for a noob like me

>Joined a table with a group of people after picking a Character, DM teaches me how the dice works as the group sets up to play.

>My character is in Jail along with another noob, Let's call them Animal since they turn into various animals throughout the entire game

>Animal turns into a rat and tries to use their tail as a key but failed,so I tried to break out using my strength. Didn't get a good roll and a Kolbold guard laughs at me.

>the rest of the party breaks into where Me and Animal is locked up, They will be referred to as Dagger(they mainly fought with Daggers), Cloak(they were invisible for a good chunk of the game), and Kolbold(they had 3d printed dragon stuff with them)

>the trio began to fight guards while Animal retreats to a different room as a rat still after attacking a guard, Cloak joins with Animal as a Wolf to some stairs.

>Managed to break the bars after trying a second time to break free, The Kolbold guard runs to where Animal and Cloak are and I began to follow them

>The Guard tried to attack me but my character has a AC of 20+2(Meaning only critical hits could damage me), I then attack the guard after getting a good roll with both dice I had to use, Chops their arm off the Guard and brought their health down to the single digits. Animal and Cloak joins in to kill the guard. Kolbold probably fears Sir Stabsalot due to how brutal they attacked their kind that works in the dungeon

>Helps the other party members takes out the remaining 2 guards and begins Shenanigans with investing the dungeon

>Later on, Dagger inspected a room with cracks on one of the walls, I decided to check it out since I have a lot of strength. Uses my shield to break the wall and I turned the entire wall to sand before getting both gold and a scroll

>We were so close to doing a boss battle but it was time to since the meetups are 3 hours long. I was hoping to see if I could beat the bosses since my character was pretty strong if I was lucky enough

I believe that Sir Stabsalot would definitely be a fusion between Guts, Doomguy and Link due to being a powerhouse and I would definitely recommend him to next month's D&D meetup to anyone new to the game.

Plus it's crazy that I'm new to the game yet this character I picked managed to carry of people who knew this game more than I do.

This is what Sir Stabsalot looks like despite how I imagined how they look