Heartstone Codex

Sam's Fantasy Craft game.

Currently: Set-up.

Time: YP498, the Month of Ganud and Hilfe, the first snows are melting

Place: Abbey of St. Alcuin, Sunium in the Saphetian Alliance, Southern Sirdehaar

Links: Recruitment IC OOC Fantasy Craft mathey's review post

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Cheatsheet

• Adventure 1 Menace level II (Routine) Threat +0 / 1 dramatic scene / encounters minor-significant
• Scene 3 Standard
• Temporary Qualities: none

GM Action Dice = No. PCs + 2(Menace) = 6 + 2(2) = 10d6: 8

• Spends: Denedran track / Singetorix sling

PC Action dice & Conditions: 3d4:

• Osrick Godstone Spent: 0
• Zahra al-Nouri Spent: 0
• Denedran Green-Eye Spent: 2 Cond.: Distracted from physical activities +2 error range
• Ysuelt Spent: 0
• Singetorix Spent: 0
• Miriam Spent: 1
• Siyavash "Sukhbataar" Spent: 0
• Khadia Spent: 0

Marching Order:

• Denedran
• Siyahash
• [gap]
• Khadia
• Ysuelt
• Tyrrha & Parsnip
• Zahra
• Osrick
• Miriam
• Singetorix

XP Awards:

• 25 Getting Armand to explain what the "package" is
• 25 Seeing through the priestess Zelaya
• 25 Realizing there would likely be watchers outside the monastery
• 50 Not saying yet
• 25 spotting and identifying Makra
• 45 defeating the snow folk

=150

Player Characters

Ordered by proposed social rank

Minor Nobility & Priesthood

• Osrick Godstone (The Pugilist), Giant Adept and Priest of Zagros, M 39yo. Dedicated to gathering and classifying knowledge as part of an order of mystics/philosphers.
• Zahra al-Nouri (Koren n'Rhys) Hathari priest-scholar, student of Saurian mysticism, focus on their symbolic/tattoo magic, F 19yo.

Citizens & Soldiery

• Denedran Green-Eye (mathey) Tegay mountain man Warden and Scout, Heartstone Knight and member of a hero cult, veteran of Eastern campaigns, M 25yo.
• Ysuelt (Deamon) Kurilese Aristocrat and Assassin, neglected daughter of a nobleman, F 20yo.
• Singetorix (Julius Sleazer), Giant warrior from Sirdehaar

Commoners

• Miriam (tomas) Saphetian street urchin and reformed Burglar for a street gang, F #yo. Was saved by a Heartstone knight and acts as an agent for the order

Foreigners

• Siyavash "Sukhbataar" (Asen_G) Vister nomad Lancer and axe-wielder, M 20yo.

• Isandre under construction (Drifter)

• Khadia (Stacie_GmrGrl) Saurian traveler from the Thousand Cities wandering the Empire and other lands in search of ..... something

Setting

• Permanent Campaign Qualities: Ancient & Miracles & Sorcery exist N.B. Qualities related to characters are with instructions for chargen, below.
• Calendar and Birth Alignments
• Empire - languages, customs, politics.
• History - and creation myth.
• People and Places - the four edges of the world are ruled by fierce Giants and are impassable. Just in case you were thinking of going there.
• Races
• Religion, Gods, Giants, Nymphs, Saints, Alignments

Tegayet

About the Game

Premise: Over the last few decades, some of the most important ideas of the age have been formulated into a series of iconic images and illuminated texts. At a remote abbey, a site for pilgrimage, they are to be bound into a codex and then copied, to be distributed by pilgrims around the Hugaar Empire. However, the past two years have brought increasingly rapacious incursions of western barbarians. As the spring snows melt and the mountain paths open, an armed group of pilgrims arrives at the abbey asking for refuge. As always, the abbey opens its gates. But an ancient saying is remembered: When the spring snow melts, Death knocks at the gate.

Setting & Feel: The main inspirations (no more than that) are Europe in the Dark or early Middle Ages, the relation between East and West and in particular religious conflicts such as those over iconography. Invasions of barbarian hordes, usually invited to invade by political factions. The interplay between religious devotion and political expediency. Illiteracy is predominant, and knowledge is in the hands of a few. True Good and Evil do exist, but are very infrequently encountered; no temporal power has a monopoly over either. The intention of all of this is as coathangers for interesting characters, a scaffold for intrigue and for adventure. Not anthropowanking, or anything which might scare people off.

Intentions for the Game:

• Players who don`t have the rules – If I can drag good players in, ones who don’t a priori know chargen or the rules (people like Asen, Chalkline, Mr.A), then I am more than happy to put the extra effort in.
• Open-ended and long-running – I may use an episodic structure in order to introduce breaks.
• Character advancement and development – I see interesting characters as the centre for any game. So, characters must be rooted in the setting.
• Not railroaded – you are half-way through a ‘dungeon’; you get the notion that going back the way you came will confuse the hell out of the enemy – go for it!
• Participatory – (1) Please contribute to the setting, ideas for adventures, for NPCs. (2) this is the first time I run Fantasy Craft (I have mostly run Hero Quest) so I will need help with rules and with inevitable slip-ups.
• Occasional need for tactics. I love situations where players have to use their noddles to achieve some tricky objective, e.g. how to get across an open area of ground which is being watched, how to demonstrate to the local lord that his right-han man is a traitor, etc.
• Use of social and other skills as an alternative to bopping folk over the head (a major reason for choosing Fantasy Craft – there is crunch but there are also other options).
• Failure is Fun – if your characters tries something and fails, we try to make the result more interesting than if (s)he had succeeded. Check this out: http://www.heroquest-rpg.com/support/na_defeat.html.
• Friendly and with a lack of posturing – this comes from the choice of people to play with.
• Characters may have secrets. However, these should be made known to all at the ‘table’ except where short-term secrets add spice to a particular situation.

Wiki & Posting to forum:

• Please do edit the wiki. There is lots which could be expanded upon (e.g. see foot of front page), although I want to hold on to a veto.
• Please post IC in the present tense, third person, and remember to include your character's name somewhere.
• Small OOC comments are fine at the foot of an IC post, with "OOC:..." and (a) italics, (b) colour Plum, or (c) spoiler tags (last is good for longer stuff).
• When you are taking actions, please be explicit as possible - best is to have lines ready on the character sheet to copy and paste, including page references if possible. Include Invisible Castle rolls but note that i will take some rolls for you (for speed or for some detection or perception things).
• When I get things wrong or piss you off, please let me know asap so I can edit posts and retro-fit as necessary.
• I hope to be able to post largish posts (where necessary) around twice a week, smaller ones through the week. Inevitably, things will get rocky at times.
• Once we get going, I will move this section, and the chargen section, off the front page, to keep this as a hub and for a list of characters and history.

Chargen

1. I roll for your stats - best 3 of 4d6, in fixed order. I give you a choice of three arrays. I also roll your birth month and day (twice, you choose) - this will give you a Birth Alignment (see Blessed feat below).
2. We discuss your idea for a character. Please give some of the setting stuff a quick read – it is intended to inspire ideas (fingers crossed).
3. Choose origins. Human is the default race, but there are variants and other races avilable, on the races page. Your homeland will also be a very important choice.
4. Choose level 1 class. Note that some options will make little sense in the current game (e.g. Explorer – it is based on literacy an consulting public libraries all the time).
5. Why is your character overwintering at the abbey? Some suggestions:
   • member of a religious order (priest, monk, nun, knight), local or visiting – could be one of the abbey illuminators.
   • member of the local community, or visiting it
   • pilgrim, vagabond or refugee who has been taken in
   • spy (!)
   • other
6. Make character, using standard rules but taking note of the following “campaign qualities”:

Campaign Qualities Related to Chargen:

• Hyper-fast feats - Characters take an extra feat at each level (including 1st)
• Characters take a third feat at first character level, Blessed (i.e. one step along an Alignment Path). This will be determined by the month of the character's birth - I will roll a d12 twice and tell you the two options - you pick one of these. Nota Bene – the esult needn`t be something integral to your character just yet, and it could be something (s)he seeks to resist.
• Illiteracy: No-one is literate unless they have the specific feat, Literacy. Note that there will be alternatives to writing, where it is needed for magic, say. E.g. a fetish could substitute a scroll. My preference is that only one or two characters be literate.
• Iconic classes variant: No character loses action dice (or is otherwise penalised) for not taking an iconic class. Instead, they gain 1 action die if they take that class.

New Feats:

• Literacy. Can only be taken at character level 1. Available to: Explorer, Keeper, Mage, Priest and Mage classes, or to Hathari.
• Lock of Hair. Some spells which are directed at an individual can be cast without the individual being present, provided the caster has in his/her possession an item belonging to that character, such as a lock of hair. Available spells are those of the following types: Curse, Blessing ...more? Trick: The caster can delay the spell so that it occurs only following some predefined trigger. This costs 1 action die and the associated spell points cannot be recovered until the spell has been triggered.

Story so Far

...

Notepad

For thought / discussion

• Aim to run game:
  1. based in one geographical location, with some local exploration and troubleshooting;
  2. with a looser prequel to that (which could go in a different direction), or
  3. with things falling apart - i.e. society is crumbling due to invasion, plague or what have you.

Needs particular work / input

1. Local NPCs
2. Gods
3. Names for: Emperors, the Granite Tribe (I don't like that)
4. Organizations
5. Underworld (not if there is reincarnation!)
6. Prophets

Cool Ideas

1. Place where the first dragon was born, not far from home.

Might be nice to have an idea at some point

1. Sirdehaar tribes

Thoughts from recruitment thread

...that have NOT necessarily been addressed or incorporated...

Drifter:

-Prophets. Some of them real. For new approaches to the divine.

-A world that is, mostly, on the ebb of the cycle of history. From the ebb will rise some great power...but who will it be?

-Crises of faith, conversions of entire city states to new religions - by force or by inspiration. What actually happens when a god loses their worshippers...and is it true that the underworld is ruled by ancient former gods lost to the Kindred, [shorthand for the human-elf-giant thing] and not devils at all?

Prophets, who's words and deeds change the religious thoughts of entire nations. Moses. Zarasuthra. Gautama. Confucious. Trippitakka...and a few conners and duds...

Asen:

I have one word for these characters: Huns!

AJC:

Why are the barbarians sweeping across the lands? Is this necessarily a bad thing?

What is the state of the empire? Really like the idea of the the hired mercenaries - are these also barbarians (from another land)?

Is the concept of enlightment related to the Empire only, or generally acknowledged throughout the land?

Saw a comment re your preference of a "lack" of Good and Evil...does this mean that things are all various shades of grey...what about absolutes such as angels/demons/etc?

What are the relations between the various races? How do they perceive each other?

Drifter again:

So, we are looking at a reasonably innovative [tactics and perhaps some technology- wise] nomad nation that is invading/skirmishing with a massive but corrupt at the core Empire...

If the barbarians are emulating mongols then they are well trained, well led and have a few tactics that will baffle the empires entrenched military.

If the Empire is emulating the [later?] Byzantine Empire then it has corrupt administration and political systems alongside genuine zealots, some pretty cool technological gimmicks of their own and a bunch of barbarian feoderates of questionable loyalty.

Maybe the few remaining drakes in the west have no love for the Empires Knights, who have hunted them in the past to near extinction.

If you are considering twists, give the Nomads access to serious rocketry and mysterious subject troops from the far East to make and use them.

I really like the idea of some form of Saurian nation to the South, and making it a cultured and ancient Empire, formed out of a number of riverine city states spread across the equivalent of the entire Nile system. Taking its current unified form of various Sultanates/Satrapcies based around culture, sub-species or environment, but ruled spiritually by a Divine Majestrix. You'd basically have everything from primitive 'lizardmen' to a sophisitcated series of city states and at least one Metropolis, where hundreds of thousands of Saurians and other races rub shoulders.

It might seem pretty peaceful from the outside, but its peoples fight a whole range of internal wars, from regional tournaments to 'wars of flowers'[assassin wars] to subject race proxy wars. This is seen as good and healthy by the Sacred ruler who is the physical host of the spirit of their primal progenitor. She would be a living goddess, and all of her husbands would be considered sacred,as would her offspring. Her choice of husbands and semi divine children are based on the relative power of different factions and regions within the empire, and she can mate with any member sub-species [or different species, when it comes to it] by assuming their form. It is a unique power granted to each Majestrix.

mathey:

It may be appropriate to come up with an order of monks or scholars or some combination of the twain to be responsible for the codex initially. Given the state of affairs, they may have ended up on the wrong side of a religious or political argument and been whittled down to a small number. They'd likely have their own spin on the contents of the codex, possibly more or less accurate than most readings, possibly pretty crazy or apocalyptic.

This order may be self-reliant and self-sustaining at this point, or maybe it has support from some warrior clan or sect to provide them with security. I think that could open up some potential for bookish as well as soldierly concepts with a deep bond with the campaign McGuffin from the start.

Sam:

A "whole fighting order" can easily be twelve people, if it is only just getting started.