Day 23: Sigil and Shadow - Aden Mavren, student and warlock

And now for the darker side of Sigil and Shadow. Let's create a monster. I mean, a Shadowed character. For this one, I will let the rolls on the background help determine a few things. I think it might be fun to create the Warlock who made Kiyana's life difficult.

The four Shadowed castings are Afflicted (by some supernatural bane that negatively influences everyday people), Devoted (cultists, warlocks, and the like), Host (possessed, half-demons, and so on), or Ravenous (vampire, werewolves, etc.). Obviously, Aden Mavren will be a Devoted. This makes his Drive "Servitude", meaning he recovers a Bone any time he devotes a scene to serving his patron. He also gets to ask the patron for a geas, a task that when fulfilled also grants a Bone.

For his background I roll an 80, making him a student. The plot thickens. He does not get an oddity (57). As a student he is a member of the Working Class (not to be taken literally, we are talking second-lowest income level in the game), and as such can choose to get the skill education. There are no associated perks yet. Instead, I get to roll what he studies to become, and then get to choose a perk from that list. A 33 means he studies to be... Clergy. The dice love me today. This means perks to choose from now include Defender, and Resolved. I go with Resolved; Defender means he has an easier time protecting others, and that sounds just wrong. Resolved gives +5 to Will. This brings me to his abilities, I go with Strength 45, Dex. 55, Logic 50, and Willpower 60. I am also starting to think Arden played around with some obscure "prayers" he found in a very rarely-read ancient book at the back of the library and initially thought he was making a deal with an angel. By now he knows better, but it is also too late to turn back. And a big part of him doesn't want to anymore, anyway.

Again I spend one bone to get a third skill level, and he gets Education (Theology), Larceny, and Arcana (Umbra). The latter means that if I also give him the ability to cast shadow magic, he is actually good at it. Poor Kiyana. As a Shadowed, Aden gets two Manifestations and one Burden. For the Manifestations I choose Blink, which in his case means he can step through shadows at medium range to more-or-less teleport, and Channel (Umbra), which lets him actually work shadow magic. For his Burden I choose Strange Compulsion - in Aden's case, he refuses to ever step into direct light. If he would ever try to step out of the comforting shadows, he would have to pass a Willpower check at -20. Yikes. I do not have to choose spells - magic in this game is rather freeform, and when playing Aden I could describe an effect based on Shadow magic, and the game would spit out a difficulty.

Now Decriptors - Aden is easy to anger and gullible. But he has an infectious smile going for him and is cool under pressure. Finally, he owns an (old, battered) minivan, a sword, a pistol, a Surveillance pack, and an Occultist pack. 

Done!

Day 22: Sigil and Shadow - Kiyana Nenge, monster-hunting librarian

Sigil and Shadow is an Urban Fantasy game published by Osprey that uses the D00lite engine, so quite a bit should sound familiar from the Art of Wuxia entry. For this one, I will use a character sheet designed by R. E. Davis (thanks!).

The game divides PCs into two groups, the Illuminated, and the Shadowed. The former are essentially normal people that for some reason or another have been dragged into confronting the supernatural - priests, private eyes, elementary school teachers, or what have you that have seen too much and now cannot pretend otherwise. The Shadowed are former mortals who have touched the supernatural and have become something else. So, your vampires, werewolves, warlocks, and so on. Mechanically, each group is subdivided into four so-called Castings, but I will talk about that a bit later. I think to better understand the process I will make two characters. Today will be an Illuminated, tomorrow someone Shadowed.

But first a really quick overview of the cosmology. The reality here consists of the Nether (or Shadow, or Umbra), separated from our world by the Curtain, a metaphysical barrier that protects our world, the Extant, from the chaos of the Nether. There are places where the Extant stretches through the Curtain, into the so-called Echo, which is somewhere between these two places. These are dark places of supernatural influence with dream- or nightmare-like qualities. The supernatural in this game is not cuddly and nice. Everything else in the game derives from this basic principle. 

Now to make an Illuminated PC living in this world. How about we create Kiyana Nenge, librarian responsible for the theology sublibrary of the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. Kiyana is around 35 years old, and a short while ago she ran afoul of a small group of local Warlocks that use some more ... interesting... tomes in the library. They sent a demon after her, she was lucky enough that a member of the local motorcycle gang saw that and came in to help. Let's assume he is another PC, but one that we won't make. This event has convinced Kiyana that the supernatural is real, and needs to be fought.

The four Illuminated castings are distinguished by what drives them - Seekers, Hunters, Protectors, and Keepers. I assume the first three are clear, the last one is the kind of person that wants to keep the supernatural hidden to prevent it from spreading. I think Kiyana would be a Hunter - Seeker might fit a librarian, but she is in it to eliminate evil. So, Hunter it is. In mechanical terms, this means she has the Drive "Victory" and therefore will receive a Bone every time she manages to undermine a supernatural entity. As in Art f Wuxia, Bones are the meta-currency of the game, used to boost rolls and gain limited narrative control. 

Next, I am supposed to roll a d100 twice for Background and Oddities. I kind of determined the Background already, so I spend one of Kiyana's three bones. which means I get to choose it instead of having to roll it. This means the bone is permanently lost. I'd say Scholar fits best, meaning she has a Lower Middle-Class lifestyle, and I get to choose from the perks Encyclopaedic Mind or Well-to-Do, or add Skill Training in Education. I will choose later. Oddities are weird trinkets that a PC can have from the get-go. That only occurs when rolling a match on a D100; I get a 58, so nothing noteworthy.

Then I can either choose a panel of four pre-made rolls or distribute 50 points in packages of 5, with basic scores starting at 40. I like Strength 45, Dexterity 50, Logic 60, and Willpower 55. This will influence skill scores later, and also means she has no damage bonus in combat. As in other D00lite games, SnS has 10 skills, and I get to distribute levels to two. Here, each only gets one level. I also can get one more from my background, if I so choose, and spend a bone for a third skill. Untrained skills either cannot be used at all, or at -20 percent penalty. Basic scores are derived from the associated attribute, and each level adds +10%. I spend a bone to get three skills and choose Education, Investigation, and Social. Kiyana has spent some time in the library after all. 

For Education and Social I have to choose a focus; the bonus from the skill level applies only to the focus area, the other fields count as trained but do not get the bonus. So they are rolled at the flat score. Education is Theology, and Social is focussed on Academia. Then I choose to take the perk Encyclopedic Mind from my background list; this will allow me to roll Logic if I want Kiyana to recall a relevant detail she might have forgotten or overlooked initially. Since Kiyana does not have any special powers I skip that section, and then I get to choose descriptors, which might influence rolls when they come into play. The rules suggest at least one positive, and one negative one, so how about two each? Kiyana can't keep secrets and can't drive, but she is charismatic, and a font of trivia. 

As a final touch, I get to calculate some derived stats and buy equipment. Which as in other d00lite games comes as basic packs, plus weapons and vehicles. I get to choose five, and at least one has to be a pack. The game does not care too much about equipment - if it makes sense that something is well within the means of a PC of a certain lifestyle, they can buy it. Higher lifestyles mean that a PC is more easily recognized if something really obvious happens and that they might have additional social responsibilities. I choose the Medic, Investigator, and Survivalist Packs, a Revolver, and a Knife.

Done.

Day 5: Art of Wuxia - Ye Ying, fiery leader

Art of Wuxia is surprisingly enough a Wuxia-themed RPG. It uses the RPG engine that drives most of DwD games, called D00lite; as far as I know, that engine was originally published in the space opera game Frontier Space, which is apparently based on an older RGP called Star Frontiers? In any case, there are multiple RPG products with high mechanical similarity, so AoW might serve as a good introduction. The character generation for it is very similar to Covert Ops, a D00lite game in the espionage genre that I have played a few years ago. Interestingly enough, Osprey has also published an Urban Fantasy game using the engine recently, Sigil and Shadows. I might come back to that one at one point.

D00lite is a D100 system, rather lightweight, and kind of focussed mostly on the game side of things. It uses some metacurrency, but is not massively concerned with emulating reality. I like the system overall, but have since playing Covert Ops found others that fit me a bit better in the espionage genre. If I feel like playing some Wuxia, I might give AoW a spin, though.

Let’s start.

First, I need to roll Attributes. AoW has four, Str, Dex, Log, and Wil. We can use a pre-determined set instead but where is the fun in that? Four rolls of 5D10+30, then distributing, gets us Str 59, Dex 65, Log 58, Wil 69. Not bad!

I feel we need a name, and after reading up a bit on culturally appropriate naming for Wuxia characters I decide to borrow a name suggested in a Reddit post by a Chinese native wuxia fan: Ye Ying (“夜荧 - the little luminescence of the night, 荧 is also an old name for Mars”). She will be a fearless warrior and leader of heroes.

Next, I choose one Primary, and one Secondary out of the list of ten skills. Basic skill scores are calculated from the attributes, and these two will get +20 and +10 respectively. I go with Warrior for Primary, and Leader for Secondary. In addition, I also get to give a level to two skills (adding another +10 per level) and need to define specialization in some cases. Leader and Warrior get a level each, I feel Ye Ying will be rather focused, intense even. Then I calculate skill scores and make decisions on specializations. Since around half the skills cannot be used unskilled we get to skip those, and a decision on specialization needs to be made only for Warrior. That skill is a bit special in this game since you learn a specific style of Kung Fu. If you wish to learn another, you need to learn that one as a separate skill.

Ye Ying does strike me as having hidden depths, so I choose an internal style, "Ten Styles of Life Taking Swift Sword". To copy the description: “The Lustrous Phoenix Society made this style famous. It is favored by those that use agility over strength; the melee weapons are often used in pairs.” This means Ye Ying knows Qi Healing, Lightness, and Transfer Qi at the start, essentially 'magic' skills that allow the more fantastical abilities of Wuxia martial arts. I also choose Counter Attack as her first technique.

Now we need to come up with one negative, and one positive descriptor of our fine warrior's character: “Ye Ying is nearly always irritated. She does like to dance and sing.” Her moral code also gets determined, by choosing from options in five areas. She is Very Kind, Somewhat Focused, Somewhat Selfish, Very Deceitful, and Totally Brave. So that this is less confusing - all of these have a spectrum that includes their opposite. So she could have been Cowardly instead of Brave, modified by intensity. She is, however, brave indeed.

Equipment-wise she will start life in the game with two Jians (a type of sword), some Needles (which are surprisingly deadly in her hands due to her chosen style, potentially deadly throwing weapons), clothed in Heavy Furs, riding her horse with her trusty dog at her side, and a flute on her lips. She owns 14 tl (local currency in this fantasy world).

In the final step we calculate some secondary stats and fill in some Background:

"My family had a really large number of children, though my parents were poor farmers. I left as early as I could to seek a life of adventure." I fill in some text on her life philosophy, and in a party game would have to define relationships to two other PCs.

Here she is!