tabletop games – Page 6 – PopCult Reviews

Origins 2017: Urban Shadows

Origins 2017 has come and gone. My time at the convention is spent mainly in the Games on Demand space, a venue where around eight GMs offer a menu of tabletop RPGs. For the cost of two generic con tokens, you get a space at a table and a one-shot game of approximately four hours. This was my third year to attend Origins and it felt very different from the previous years. I’ll get into more of that in my wrap up post on Saturday.

One great addition to Games on Demand was a Boarding Pass system. In years past, the line for GoD at Origins has been an unwieldy beast, requiring players to stake out a spot an hour or more in advance or risk losing their chance at a game they wanted. There was some discontent between GoD and con-goers who thought their pre-purchased tickets applied in this venue the same as their spot at a Shadowrun or Pathfinder table. The compromise of the Boarding Pass was beautiful in my opinion. Onto my first game of the con:

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Masks: Refugees AP Part 3

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We began our session with anti-mutant protests right outside Dr. Green’s clinic, a known safe place for mutants. A counter protest also showed up in support of the mutants and police were present to keep things from escalating. Ajax and Monster were working at the time, and both had to temper their personal feelings. Though they did spy an unmarked armored truck out of which a small squad of SWAT-like soldiers emerged. They hung back, but something about them rubbed Ajax the wrong way. The shelter was located in a district called The Tumbledown, which came from a devastating earthquake decades ago. Ajax takes advantage of that fact and uses his geo-manipulation just to rattle the earth beneath the protestors enough that they are scared away by a minor tremor.

The Order - Shooting Star — Shooting Star, the speedster member of The Order

The next day, an explosion is heard in the skies of Halcyon City, and smoke is seen coming from The Panopticon, the floating island headquarters of The Order. Ajax and Shatterstorm are in class at Halcyon High. Shatterstorm is easily able to excuse himself due to his frequent work at his dad’s laboratory at the University. However, Vice Principal Quesada remembers Ajax ignoring him when he left the other day to deal with Risk Imsit. Quesada is hearing none of Ajax’s excuses and sends him back to class. To help, Shatterstorm sets off the fire alarm, and the entire student body is rushed outside. Quesada tries to keep an eye on Ajax and loses him in the crowd.

Ajax and Shatterstorm meet up with Sparks and Monster, and the four fly Sparks’ ship to dock with the Panopticon. On board they find American Steel battered and beaten. He tells them the “thing” is in the labs before passing out. Sparks’ AI D.A.D. brings Steel to the sickbay while the Refugees continue. They head to the anti-gravity generator and get it back online, so the island isn’t on the verge of crashing into the city. Then they head to the labs but get sidetracked on the way from cries of help in the holding cells. Risk Imsit, the alien bounty hunter who tried to return Sparks to Rio Prime, is being manipulated by strange disruptions in the gravitons on board. He’s rescued and accompanies the Refugees to the labs.

In the labs, the Refugees find Timekeeper containing a strange cloaked figure in one of her time bubbles. Shooting Star and The Badge lay unconscious on the ground. There’s no sign of the occultist Mr. Phantasmo. The block of Ifritium taken by the Order lays in chunks nearby, the team making the inference that this cloaked figure emerged from the stone. Sparks’ wrist device tells her the device is in the room and she identifies it as the ornate belt the cloaked one is wearing. Shatterstorm manipulates the gravitons around the time bubble and snatches the belt, which ends up containing a small piece of Ifritium. The time bubble shatters and Timekeeper goes hurtling through the walls of the facility.

The cloaked figure eyes the new challengers and acknowledges Shatterstorm by speaking an ancient form of Obrijianian, the language of Shatterstorm’s birthplace. He also appears to have the same powers as Shatterstorm, but more refined and able to manipulate gravitons on a much larger scale. The cloaked one refers to Shatterstorm as “grandson.” A battle ensues and ends with the cloaked one blasting a hole through the Panopticon and flying away. The Refugees message AEGIS who say they have a ship on the way, however, the cloaked figure intercepts and kills everyone onboard, crushing the vessel into a small piece of metal scrap.

Villain - Impetus — Impetus, master of gravity and ancestor of Shatterstorm?

After failing to get ahold of his father, Shatterstorm leads to the team to Dr. Batin’s lab at Ditko University. Dr. Batin is there working and appears shocked to see them, though his son senses something off in the gravitational field in the room. The cloaked one reveals himself, having manipulated the gravity of the light in the room to conceal himself. A second fight begins that leaves Ajax miles away with multiple fractures and unconscious. Through distraction and manipulation, the cloaked one is eventually taken down, but not before it is revealed that Dr. Batin is simply a graviton construct, an illusion. AEGIS arrive and lock the villain up, coding the name Impetus onto his cell. However, Dr. Batin is still missing.

Ajax is in the Halcyon metahuman hospital and receives a call from his parents that they will be having a conversation about his future with the Refugees. He also receives a video message from his villainous former mentor Croydon Samford (who is currently on trial for crimes against humanity). Samford hints that they will be seeing each other soon and attached an encrypted data file. Sparks is finally contacted by her father, The Grand LeBon of Rio Prime, who explains his desperation to get her back to her homeworld: He is dying and needs her to run the planetary industry. Senator Hu’s anti-mutant legislation has led to the development of a private security force, Vanguard, a subsidiary of BanCon Industries to help quell tension in urban areas. Things are looking dire for the Refugees with one more session before a hiatus.

Masks: Refugees AP Part 2

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We kicked off our first full session of Masks: Refugees with our characters in their personal lives. Sparks has offered up her home/spaceship to Monster, who is actually homeless. Sparks, whose entire race has been inspired by pop culture from the 1980s, as her ship taking the form of a suburban home complete with a white picket fence and a tree house in the backyard. However, her ship is parked in the middle of a gentrified urban

dad — D.A.D, the artificial intelligence on Sparks’ ship.

block, so it sticks out like a sore thumb, saves the hypno-inducer that causes people to just glance over it most of the time. Her onboard A.I. is named D.A.D. and appears as Greg Evigan from My Two Dads. His personality is modeled after cool sitcom dads from the 1980s though he shifts into a stoic mode when emergencies occur. Her race is known as the Duranians. We also established that Sparks’ native language would destroy human brains, so human minds have evolved to mishear the words and replace them with common nouns. Her mother’s name is heard as Queen Diamond when spoken, for example.

Since the first game session, I’ve built out the Duranians a bit more. Their homeworld is Rio Prime, and Sparks’ dad holds the title of The Grand LeBon. A cultural revolution was occurring at the same time transmissions of Earth culture from the 1980s were intercepted. As a result, their society now looks like America circa 1985.

Across town, Akil Batin aka Shatterstorm is helping his father, Professor Batin at Halcyon University with a shipment that has arrived from their home country of Obrijan. Despite the ongoing civil war there, the Professor was able to obtain a block of a pure element with a strong effect on gravitons. The Professor believes this element may be tied to his family’s abilities to manipulate gravity. Mishaps occur when he attempts to break a chunk off, and Akil begins to hear a voice emanating from the massive monolith, beckoning him to come closer and embrace his power. Akil holds back and gets a great excuse to leave when an alien vessel arrives at Sparks’ place demanding her return to Rio Prime.

garryn_bek — Risk Imsit, intergalactic bounty hunter

Ajax is in the middle of class when the alien invasion lockdown drill occurs. He skips school despite protestations from Vice Principal Quesada and meets up with the Refugees. The alien ship, an obvious junker, unloads some refurbished strike drones who blast open the door of Sparks’ house. Monster plows into them creating an opportunity for Sparks to reconfigure an old block cell phone into a one use teleporter that pops the team onto the ship. Shatterstorm and Ajax use their powers to crush and destroy mecha-tentacles that emerge from the walls to bind them while Sparks and Monster find the engine room and disconnect the fusion core. The Refugees storm the control deck and find bounty hunter Risk Imsit there, having taken up the reward offered by The Grand LeBon to bring his daughter back. Sparks uses her pheromone powers to enamor Imsit and convince him to leave Earth.

However, The Order arrives this time with The Badge (shield bearer), Shooting Star (speedster), and Mr. Fantasmo (occultist) in their line up. They immediately screw up the headway the Refugees made with Imsit and demand that he must be turned over to AEGIS. Sparks tries to use a holographic communication with her mother citing intergalactic treaties about extradition, but The Badge counters with a more masterful knowledge of the law. Sparks is obviously pissed and Imsit, still in his charmed stupor is taken off.

Monster and Ajax head off to their regular volunteering at a clinic/shelter run by Dr. Green. Dr. Green is an Iraq war vet who had her skin turned green from toxic chemical agents. No powers, just green skin. She is incredibly empathic and focuses on helping vets, runaway kids, and battered women at her shelter. She counsels Ajax about defying authority at school and how he needs to think about doing what will lead him to a better future, not returning to who he used to be. The calm is interrupted by a special announcement about anti-mutant legislation proposed by Halcyon’s own Senator Victor Hu. Senator Hu speaks from the floor of the Senate explaining that self-made metahumans are real heroes, while mutants born from accidents or mistakes of nature need to be curtailed and more aggressively vetted. The legislation gives BanCon Industries a contract to construct Mutant Evaluation Centers to temporarily displace America’s mutant populations til they can be registered and partnered with a metahuman mentor. Monster is so angry she destroys the television.

the-order-american-steel — American Steel, one of The Order

Sparks is fuming from The Badge when DAD suddenly announces that a Duranian artifact has been detected within the city. His triangulation leads her to Professor Batin’s office and the block of what is now being called Ifritium. Shatterstorm has a rough interaction with his sister Amira who is reaching a boiling point about being boxed out of the family’s heritage. He and Ajax debate with Sparks about how to deal with the element. They settle on contacting The Order for help, despite Sparks’ protestations. Arriving from their floating base, The Panopticon, The Order (this time Shooting Star, Mr. Fantasmo, and American Steel) want to crack the Ifritium open. Ajax tussles with American Steel and, despite no one ever have before, wrests Steel’s Atomic Sledgehammer from his hands. The Order is visibly pissed and announced they will be taking the Ifritium with them. Shatterstorm thinks it’s for the best despite the fact that how angry his father will be and Ajax is in supreme cocky mode.

Masks: Refugees AP Part 1

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This weekend I kicked off a new game of Masks, the Powered by the Apocalypse tabletop roleplaying game by Brendan Conway. Like most first sessions of PBtA games, it is mostly world building and learning the fundamental dynamics and relationships of the characters. The line up for our team of teen heroes is made up of:

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Board Game Review – Die Macher

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After a recent session with our local roleplay group, my friend Jason remarked that he was looking to get four additional players to play a game he’d purchased recently. The game was Die Macher, one I’d never heard of, but he explained was about German parliamentary politics. The game is notoriously complicated and he was chomping at the bit to play. While these types of games are not necessarily my forte, I nevertheless agreed to give it a try. Maybe it would be fun?

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Monsterhearts: Waterhole AP Part 1

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My wife started running a campaign of Monsterhearts a few weeks ago, and we have two sessions in so far (one session of worldbuilding and one of actual play). I will be chronicling it from my character’s perspective. So far it is a great group who really click with the nature of the game.

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Tabletop Actual Play – tremulus

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In 2015, I ran a magnificent series of games using the tremulus system, a Lovecraftian Powered by the Apocalypse game that focuses on investigation and creeping horror. Ever since then, I’ve wanted to run it again with the same set up: just me and two players. The intimacy of that setting created a great atmosphere and it has gone down as one of the best things I’ve run/participated in. Here is the actual play I wrote up and originally posted on the tremulus G+ community.

The Protagonists

Malachi Arkton, the Sorcerer, played by Dan Luxenberg –Malachi is a traveling mage who was brought to Ebon Eaves through his own sense of the mystic and the town’s troubled Mayor who seems to be cursed.

Annabelle Leighton, the Philanthropist, played by Ariana Ramos – Annabelle was brought to Ebon Eaves due to her family’s connection to the town. Her great-grandfather was a free man, escaped from the South. Her family later established themselves in Philadelphia and have amassed a fortune which she has brought to Ebon Eaves to build a school for the poor, rural farm population there. She brings Byron, a streetwise ex-con bodyguard and Pennyworth, an erudite driver

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Character Development – 7th Sea Second Edition Part 2

Read Part 1 Here.

Traits

185462 Knowing all this I was ready to start assigning points to Cano’s Traits. Traits are essentially the same as Abilities in other RPGs, the primary attributes of all characters. All Traits start with a score of 2, with 2 additional points to spend. Your Nationality also gives you a choice of two stats to bump up by 1. I decided Cano was more of an agile fighter than pure muscle so increased Finesse to 3. His faith steals his mind, so Resolve was changed to 3. As a native of Castille, he could add to Finesse or Wits and decided his emphasis on diplomacy over combat made Wits the appropriate Trait to go up. This left Brawn and Panache at their standard of 2 points.

Backgrounds

Backgrounds allow you to flesh out your character’s past and add more mechanical pieces. Each Background provides Skills that your character can pull from. They come with a Quirk, an Advantage and then a suite of skills.

The first Background that seemed like a given was Soldier. The Quirk is that I earn a Hero Point when I stick to a plan disregarding any danger that might come to me. My first advantage as a Soldier is that I am an Able Drinker, meaning that alcohol will never affect me not matter how much I drink. The second Advantage will be that I’m a Riot Breaker, meaning as an individual fighter I can take on hordes of minion-like enemies without taking much damage. As a Soldier, the skills I get are Aim, Intimidate, Notice, Warfare, and Weaponry.

The second Background I chose was Orphan. My reasoning was that Cano’s father died when he was young and his mother became so devoted to the Vaticine that Cano was for all intents and purposes left to survive on his own. His Orphan Quirk is that I gain a Hero Point when I put myself in danger to befriend or accompany a person who is alone. My two advantages are Brush Pass and Reckless Takedown. Brush Pass gives me the ability to take from or place on a person a small handheld object. Reckless Takedown lets me immediately take down a Brute Horde of enemies taking 1 Dramatic Wound as a cost. Being an Orphan, the skills I acquired were Athletics, Brawl, Empathy, Hide, and Intimidate.

Skills
You get 10 points to spread out amongst the build of skills acquired from your Background. I decided that Cano is a very aware person and so Empathy, Intimidate, and Notice are his top Skills at 3 points each. Everything else will be set at 2 points except for Brawl which is at a 1 because Cano chooses to resort to that last.

Aim 2

Athletics 2

Brawl 1

Empathy 3

Hide 2

Intimidate 3

Notice 3

Warfare 2

Weaponry 2

Advantages

You are given 5 additional points to buy more Advantages. Indomitable Will seemed like a natural fit due to Cano’s devotion to his faith. With Indomitable Will Cano may spend a Hero Point to immediately resist seduction, intimidation, or any type of coercion.

The second Advantage for Cano will be Quick Reflexes. This Advantage lets me choose a Skill and lets me have an additional Raise when using it. I decided on Notice, emphasizing Cano’s heightened awareness of his surroundings, due to both the paranoia of being pursued by occult elements in the Vaticine and his own combat training.

Arcana
Every hero has a Virtue and Hubris decided by the Sorte Strega, a Witch’s Tarot deck. I decided that The Devil would be an appropriate choice for Cano. His Virtue, Astute, will be that after a Villain spends a Raise for an Action. The Action will fail, but the Raise will still be lost. Cano is always aware of his enemy’s actions and heads them off at the pass. His Hubris will be Trusting meaning Cano will receive a Hero Point when I accept a lie or lopsided deal, an interesting counterpoint to my Indomitable Will.

Story
One of the most interesting pieces of character creation in 7th Sea is your ability to develop a story path for your character. It reminded me a lot of Fronts in Apocalypse World but player-created rather than by a GM. The first step is establishing a goal. My story concept is to Cleanse, specifically to purge the evil from The Vaticine and this will involve finding sympathetic parties who can help me flush it out and destroy the corruption. My Goal is that Cano would be heralded by the Hierophant for saving the Vaticine and be made the Lord of the Holy Guard. The mechanical Reward at the end of the story would be that after passing through four steps, I would earn the 4 point Hard to Kill advantage. It’s not necessary to detail all steps at the outset so my First Step will be to locate Sister Romona Paquita, an exiled nun who was already aware of the occult sect.

Cleanse: The Vaticine is beset by evil from within. I must find those who can help me flush it out and destroy it.

Goal/Ending: My hero is heralded by the Hierophant for saving the Vaticine from the corruption and made the Lord of the Holy Guard.

Reward: This is a four step story that will earn my hero the 4 point Hard to Kill advantage.

First Step: Find Sister Romona Paquita, the exiled nun whose writings on the demonic sect were forbidden.

Details
The last few elements are Details that flavor out the character further. Cano’s reputation is of a Faithful man. This would be how others who know him describe him. He knows the languages of Old Thean, Castille, and Montaigne. He has 2 favor with Močiutės Skara and 0 wealth points to begin.

Creating a character in 7th Sea has made me much more interested in playing a campaign or even one-shot in this system. Before I cracked the pages open I was very lukewarm about playing in a “pirate game, ” but after reading more about the world and seeing how involved creating story is on the player side, I would love to jump in a game.

Next: Unknown Armies Third Edition.

Scarlet Heroes – Session 1

flying-whales In setting up this session, I started looking through some Dungeon Crawl Classics and settled upon The Dreaming Caverns of the Duergar. I made some notes to modify, mainly taking out the dragons (Ariana decided not to include them as part of our world) and put in the Remnants, the original inhabitants of this world. I printed out four pieces of grid paper, fired up the laminator, and then used packing tape to affix the four together into one large foldable map. Printed out a hex map as well to plan the overworld and I had all the pieces together.

The story hook involved our PC, Ella Pips the Halfling Mage, discovering a wounded Psionic Dwarf from the planet Odrion on her family’s shipwhale ranch. Because of the remote location of the ranch, Ella’s father had to ride his tapir into town for the local doctor. The wounded Dwarf, Groobor spoke through a fevered haze and told Ella his companions were trapped in an old cavern to the South of the ranch. He emphasized that his friends only had a limited time before something terrible happened to them. Ella checked the shipwhale she was in the process of midwife-ing, Belle, and saw she was still 36 hours away from birthing. So, Ella and her brother Griffo set off the caves in the South.

Once they were deep in the tunnels a cave-in occurred and left them seeking an alternate way out. As they ventured further they found dwarves that looked corrupted by some unknown sickness or entity. Some of them had been driven mad but it was apparent these inhabitants had been here for awhile and were not the friends of Groobor. On the second floor, Ella and Griffo encountered Sorethin, a Lizardfolk being held captive by these twisted dwarves. Our hero successfully discovered a trap door that allowed the trio to pass into a deeper portion of the cave where Remnant ruins were found, particularly those related to the worship of long-forgotten deities. They shut down a massive drill machine one of the dwarves was piloting and became pinned down on a narrow bridge by crazed dwarves sniping with crossbows.

Sorethin made a run for it, abandoning Ella and her brother. She suddenly realized she had heard of this Lizardfolk before on trips into town with her pop. He was a mercenary from the native Lizardfolk population that had killed two diplomats from the Kaphis colony. Apparently he decided to hide out in the cave and became the prisoner of these mad dwarves. The merc takes one poisonous arrow too many and falls as Ella and Griffo make there way to the next level of the caves. They also discover hundreds of wooden crates containing high quality swords and daggers, enough to arm a military force.

In this humid portion of the cave Ella discovers mushroom and fungus forests as well as the Vegepygmy tribe that harvests and lives off these resources. They are very non-confrontational and run when approached, seeking reinforcements. Ella and Griffo decide to skip that confrontation but she ends up sprayed with spores from a poisonous flower whose roots take up an entire chamber. Not sure of the long-term effects, she pushes on until they find the full ruins of a lost Remnant civilization as well as…a living Remnant! They fail to defeat the powerful being and when Ella wakes up she is in the clutches of Jernum, the leader of these twisted Psionic Dwarves who has plans for her and Griffo.

It was definitely a session about getting comfortable with the OSR style of play after years of Powered By the Apocalypse. Though I did use the Fronts mechanic from Dungeon World as it is pretty much system agnostic. I’m also looking to incorporate pieces of The Perilous Wilds into our overworld gameplay and world-building. All in all, I am looking forward to seeing where this story goes. For now, I will be cannibalizing pre-made modules and as I become more comfortable maybe writing up my own adventures.

Character Development: 7th Sea Second Edition Part 1

Character Development – 7th Sea Second Edition

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7th Sea Second Edition is a role-playing game created and developed by John Wick, Rob Justice, and Mike Curry. The game is centered around the exploits of pirate culture in a fantasy version of 17th century Europe and its associated colonies. Stories told with this system are expected to high adventure full of intrigue, romance, and some sorcery thrown in for good measure. The official setting is that of Théah, a continent rules by various nation-states that are in turn connected to a central church and its theology, sorcerous powers and magic, and the remnants of a lost civilization called the Syrene.

Conflict resolution in the game is handled by the GM declaring a player action as a Risk. The player clarifies their Intent and the GM responds by telling them the appropriate Skill and Trait. These scores are added and the corresponding number of ten-sided dice are rolled. Sets of 10 are the desired outcome and the more you can make the better (7+3, 2+3+5, etc). Each set of 10 is a Raise and can be spent to accomplish everything from overcoming the conflict to inflicting wounds and even establishing a fictional detail.

I read through the details of the setting’s nation-states to determine what sort of character I wanted to create and decided upon Castille as the place of origin. Castille is essentially Spain, even with the emphasis on the Vaticine Church as the chief governing body over the monarchy. With the Church looming so large I wanted to create a character deeply connected to it but in conflict with the powerful organization. I was intrigued by the idea of corruption within the Vaticine and thought up the idea that there could be a society within the Church that were actually worshippers of demonic occult powers. Their long-term goal would be the collapse of the Vaticine internally with their faction rising up to control the organization. My character would be someone who witnessed their dark rite and who they in turn found out saw them at work. I struck upon the idea of a church guard, like the Swiss Guards of the Vatican. This man would be a veteran of war, seeking peace as a soldier for the Church. Now the demonic conspiracy has framed the guard as a heretic, making it seem that he was the one indulging in the dark arts. The guard is now on the run, seeking the help of Church exiles who might also be aware of the conspiracy and know how to aid him in revealing this truth to the world. The guard would be named Moisés Cano.

Once again, I used the three metrics of Maslow, Myers-Briggs, and Covey to determine aspects of my character’s psychology and needs.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Cano is definitely focused on basic needs somewhere between Physiological and Safety. His excommunication from the Vaticine and the subsequent manhunt based on false charges has our hero struggling to find a safe place for more than a few days.

Myers-Briggs – INFJ

After going through the test I found Cano was an INFJ. This means he is like less than 1% of the population, inborn sense of idealism and morality, he is a dreamer but establishes concrete steps. Cano is soft-spoken but with strong opinions and he fights, fiercely for his beliefs. In everything he does, Cano works toward balance, not advantage. He can easily play the role of an extrovert, but needs time to meditate and decompress. In his eyes, the world is full of inequity, but he does not believe it has to be that way. This religious determination can easily wear him down. He is extremely private and finds it hard to open up to others personally. authenticity in romantic relationships and a kinship of shared values is essential in Cano’s mind.

7 Habits Maturity Continuum

Our hero is still struggling with the Private Victory on his way to Independence. He is definitely being proactive (Habit 1) and has begun with the end in mind (Habit 2). However, Cano has not yet put first things first (Habit 3), getting embroiled in other’s problems and stories taking him off track from his personal goal.

20 Questions

Part of 7th Sea character creation are 20 Questions before you even touch the numbers and mechanics of the game. I absolutely love this feature and works especially well for my approach in character creation in this series.

What country is your Hero from? My hero hails from Castille.

How would you physically describe your Hero? My hero is male, physically well built from years of military training, he has the faint trace of a vertical scar across his eye the remnants of a war faraway. Jet black hair with wisps of white through the temples. He walks with a slight limp in his right leg, another souvenir from the war.

Does your Hero have recurring mannerisms? My hero prefers to stand in the background and is very hesitant to step forward and make himself known, especially in intense conflicts. He will let a smile slip through when caught off guard and finds himself trying to suppress it without success.

What is your Hero’s main motivation? My hero desperately seeks to find any who can help him reveal the occult sect taking over the Vaticine.

What is your Hero’s greatest strength? Greatest weakness? My hero’s strength lies his in-depth knowledge of the secret signs and rituals of the secret societies within the Vaticine, helping him find allies no matter which port he comes to. My hero’s weakness are his anxiety attacks brought on by PTSD. Things he saw in the war and the dark rites he witnessed within the walls of the Vaticine leave him prone to these attacks when triggered.

What are your Hero’s most and least favorite things? My hero’s favorite thing are his morning prayers and meditations. They bring him a centered peace that he hopes one day will be permanent. His least favorite thing are onions, onions are disgusting.

What about your Hero’s psychology? My hero wants nothing more than to resolve conflicts without bloodshed, he has seen too much in his lifetime. He will do any and everything to negotiate and compromise even with the deadliest buccaneer or cunning scallywag. My hero often uses food and drink as a negotiation tool, always a simple meal, bread and ale, thinking it will bring he and his adversary together as equals.

What is your Hero’s single greatest fear? That he will lose his peace and end up killing again. He knows he may have to shed blood in self-defense and has from time to time, but he always pulls himself back from unleashing the sort of blood-fueled rage of his youth in the war.

What are your Hero’s highest ambitions? His greatest love? My hero’s greatest ambition was to rise amongst the ranks of the Vaticine Guard until he became one of the anointed protectors of the Hierophant. His plans were put on hold after uncovering an occult conspiracy within the church and fled from those who wish to silence him. My hero’s greatest love is that of the way of peace and sharing his faith with all those he crosses paths with.

What is your Hero’s opinion of his country? My hero deeply loves Castille but worries that the Vaticine has had so much corruption sewn into it that now it’s evil is leaking out into the streets. He saw signs of demonic entities plaguing the land through famine and pestilence.

Does your Hero have any prejudices? My hero still finds his hatred of the Montaigne raised despite his best efforts to suppress it. He saw his comrades brutalized in the war with Montaigne and is always a hair’s breadth away from giving into the violence seething through his veins.

Where do your Hero’s loyalties lie? Despite being far from home and the headquarters of the church, my hero is ever loyal to the Vaticine. This does not mean he believes all clergy above questioning, in fact he will challenge those he sees as committing heresy towards the Articles of Faith.

Is your Hero in love? Is he married or betrothed? My hero loved one of his fellow soldiers, his commanding officer, but she was killed before his eyes. The nightmares still wake him up on nights that are too still and quiet.

What about your Hero’s family? My hero comes from the Cano family. His father is a veteran who found no peace within the faith while his mother was devout. His father turned to drink, likely related to his own PTSD and disappeared for weeks. He was found dead, succumbing to the elements. This pushed our hero’s mother further into the faith. Because he was the son of a soldier, our hero did not come from wealth. His mother poured all their money into the church and when was of age our hero conscripted into the service. Our hero does not know much about his paternal grandparents except that his father was disowned by them for choosing to serve, as they wanted him to go into the priesthood.

How would your Hero’s parents describe him?

Mother: “He was a good boy, until he turned on the faith. I do not know if he can be redeemed now after what the fathers told me. The sins he has committed will require the deepest atonements.”

Father: “I don’t know what sort of man he will grow up to be, likely ruined by my own actions. I have made a place for him in this world without any sort of honor. I have buried him before he has had a chance to live.”

Is your Hero a gentleman or gentlewoman? My hero attempts to be a gentle within the boundaries of his faith, and this leads him down a somewhat chivalrous path. He does not seek the affections of any maiden, but to bring light and truth to the world.

How religious is your Hero? What sect of the Church does he follow? My hero is a highly devout member of the Vaticine Church. He has been labeled a heretic by the church proper due to witnessing the dark occult rites of a corrupted cardinal. While he still practices as a private individual, he struggles to find a way to redeem himself and burn away the corruption in his beloved church.

Is your Hero a member of a guild, gentleman’s club, or secret society? My hero has found himself in the growing favor of Močiutės Skara, a society driven by a compassion to help and aid others.

What does your Hero think of Sorcery? My hero believes all sorcery is making concert with the devils of the earth. He is highly opposed to its use.

If you could, what advice would you give your Hero? Let the peace of your faith guide you, but do not allow yourself to be blinded to the truth.

Next week: Plugging all this character work into the actual mechanics of the system!