Flamepunk: Flamerunning

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Overview of Flamerunning

This section describes rules for Flamerunning.

Flamerunning

The Realm of Flames / Flamespace

The Realm of Flames is a world of elemental fire that is perceived by way of concepts, inhabited by demons, elementals and ghosts, and is governed by its own laws of metaphysics. It is a hostile environment, not entered into willingly by the non-Adept, but also the source of arcane energy that powers both sorcerous magic and the world's technology.

Society has evolved based on the manipulation of Flamespace energy, and the ability to control and manipulate Flamespace is one that gives much power.

Through the arcane science of Pyromancy, society has created a vast number of Obsidian Pathstones which allow access to Flamespace. Each Pathstone creates a single Node in flamespace, and are connected by a FlameWeb of Pathways that allow entities to travel between them.

However, the Nodes and Pathways of the FlameWeb do not cover the whole of Flamespace. Indeed, Flamespace itself is immeasurably vast, perhaps many times larger than the physical world itself, and the FlameWeb covers only a fraction of a fraction of its breadth. The uncharted and untamed Greater Realm of Flames is a place where no mortal can easily go, and is extremely hazardous even to the most adept Pyromancers.

Pathstones, Auras, Nodes and Pathways

A Pathstone is an arcane monolith, designed to allow Pyromancers access to the Flameweb. All Pathstones incorporate two physical components - an obsidian "heart" and a "living flame". The "heart" is a carved and rune-encrusted block of obsidian, which acts as a focus for pyromantic magic. The "living flame" can be any fire, supernatural or mundane, that is near to the obsidian heart. The living flame is not fundamentally any different from any other fire, but without one nearby the Pathstone will simply not function.

In physical terms, the heart of a Pathstone can be anything from a stone tablet that can be carried in one hand to a vast obsidian-laced pyramid, many hundreds of feet high. The greater the size of the heart of the Pathstone, the greater its power.

An area around the Pathstone's heart is designated its Aura. The Aura is the physical area which is within the Pathstone's area of arcane influence. Any burning fires within the Aura of the pathstone become living flames that allow the Pathstone to function. If all the fires within the Aura are extinguished, then the Pathstone will cease to function.

The size of the Aura is determined by the size of the stone, and also by the arcane craftsmanship of the builder. The handheld "decks" popular with flamerunners have an access range of 1 or 2 yards at most, ordinary man-sized Pathstones have an aura of a hundred yards or so, and the Grand Pathstones that are built into the greatest Cathedrals and guild Pyramids have an aura of ten to twenty miles.

Within Flamespace, each Pathstone creates a single self contained realm called a Node.

The appearance of a Node is determined by the Pathstone'sdesigner, and is called the Videra. Videra vary greatly, and their size and complexity is very much dependent on the power of the Pathstone. For example, a blazer's deck might have a node that appears to be just a small fishing boat, afloat in a sea of flame, while the Grand Cathedral of Sardukar has a videra that is a vast gothic Paladin's Fortress, with spires rising in six different directions from a hexagonal planar core.

The Videra is little more than a visualisation, and size is important only as an indicator of the power of the Pathstone. Ultimately, everything within a Node can be affected from anywhere within a Node, and travelling within the boundaries of a single Node can be done withint he blink of an eye, simply by visualisation and imagination. For example, within the Node of the Grand Cathedral of Sardukar, it is perfectly possible to step off a tower's battlements and reappear anywhere within the fortress complex, and with mind's eye it is possible to perceive the whole Cathedral at once from anywhere in it.

Needless to say, for inexperienced Blazers this can lead to a few migraines...

Blazers and entering Flamespace

FLUFF HERE

'Runners access it through rune emblazoned obsidian obelisks, hence the network of information stored there is often referred to as the Obsidian. One doesn't physically enter Flamespace (it would kill a living person, though perhaps with the appropriate fire-protections...but no, pyronautic exploration has not been achieved yet), instead one projects their soul through the Obsidian, using the web/network of dead spirits as their pathway for projecting their consciousness through the Realm of Flame.

Ghosts and Elementals

The spirits of the dead, who go the Realm of Flames after their lives, are the medium for storing and accessing information in Flamespace. This is the collected stored data, which is to say, the Obsidian.

Flamespace is also useful for controlling elementals remotely and spying anywhere where there is a flame to use as a viewpoint. The smaller the flame, the more difficult running it is, and expert runners boast of using candleflames, while others still wonder if it would even be possible to run a lit match.

Initiative and Combat Rounds

Order of Action

The same rules for determining initiative are used in flamerunning combat as for physical and social combat:

• Actions are declared then immediately resolved when it is a character's turn.
• The character with the most dice left in his action dice pool acts next.
• If action dice pools are drawn, then players act before non player characters.
• If players are drawn in action dice pool, then they can decide who goes first.
• If the above factors do not tell you who goes next, the GM arbitrarily decides, taking into account drama and expediency.

A character can choose not to act when his turn comes round by "setting aside" one or more dice. These set aside dice cannot be used for the rest of the round, but are returned to the player's dice pool at the end of the round.

Ending the Round

Once all characters in the combat have no dice left in their action pool, the round ends.

Each character moves all set aside dice back into their action dice pool, then recharges a number of action dice equal to half their Focus rounded up.

For player characters this will generally be three action dice.

A player's action dice pool cannot exceed their Focus from this.

Tactical Positioning

Nodes

Flamespace is divided into discrete areas called Nodes. In the physical world, a Node will be represented by a single Pathstone. As noted previously, Pathstones have a certain "aura zone" within which a blazer can Flameleap and within which the world can be affected by Flamespace Manipulation.

Within Flamespace the Nodes are represented by single places, which may vary in representation according to how they were initially visualised. This area is deemed the Videra of a Node, and any entities within this Videra are presumed to be able to interact with each other.

Nodes are...

Movement and Range

• Coterminous is in the same Videra. You can only make attacks against entities who are coterminous to you.
• Proximal is one node removed, no more than a single Pathway away. You can automatically sense the presence, nature and avatar appearance of any entity in a proximal node, but you can't attack them or interact with them.
• Distal is two or more nodes removed, with more than a single Pathway needed to be traversed to reach the target. You cannot sense any entities distal to you, nor can you attack or interact with them.

It takes a single action to travel down a Pathway to move to a Proximal node. The Hit Target of this check is usually the default (5 or 6), and the Defence of this check depends on the circumstances (for example a clear and easily accessed pathway has no defence, a conceptually difficult (or temporally sinusoidal) pathway might have one to three points of defence, whereas one laden with arcane countermeasures might have four or more points of defence).

A failure on a move action indicates that you fail to traverse the Pathway, and must stay where you are at present.

Attack Rolls, Defences, Damage

The system for taking actions in combat is the same as in the basic rules with a few variations.

Attack Rolls

An attack roll in combat will vary in Hit Target according to what sort of attack is being made, and the level of training of the attacker.

There is no default untrained attack - to make a Flamerunning attack requires special training. Consult the appropriate trait sections for details: ((links here)).

Defences

Defence applies after the action roll, just as in the basic rules.

There is no default untrained attack - to make a Flamerunning attack requires special training. Consult the appropriate trait sections for details: ((links here)).

Damage

Damage is usually equal to the success level of the attack roll.

Other factors may apply:

• Some attacks (via certain advanced Traits) have special effects that increase the damage on a successful hit. The most common effects will be "if this attack hits, add +X to the damage" or "if this attack hits, multiply damage dealt by X", but there are many different special effects depending on the attack.
• Some effects (via certain advanced Traits) will affect the damage of hits against you. The most common effect will be "when an attack hits you, deduct X from the damage dealt, to a minimum of 0 damage dealt", but there are numerous different special effects with different abilities.

Damage is applied directly to the receiving character's Will Points. When a character is reduced to 0 Will, he has been taken out of action. He suffers the consequences of being taken Out of Action, according to his type.

"Out of Action" in relation to Flamespace Combat

A character who is taken Out of Action will suffer various effects, according to what type of being he is.

Blazers will be Banished. A banished character immediately disappears from Flamespace, and his conscious mind returns to his physical body.

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System Permutations

No Stacking Defences

As stated in the basic rules, you can only make a maximum of one reflexive action in response to an action against you.

Essentially, this means that if someone attacks you, you can social dodge, or you can social parry, or you can use another defence, but you can't do more than one of those things. Also, you can't "stack" the same defence - you can't, for example, declare three dodges against a single attack.

Note that some paths to avoiding social injury don't count as reflexive actions, so can be used freely. Intrinsic Resistance, for example, takes no action to use, so will specifically does stack with any other defences you use.

Special Effects and Non-damaging attacks

In addition to just doing damage, some attacks will inflict special effects.

Sometimes this will be explicit from the rules. For example, for every six on the (post-defence) attack roll the Flamespace attack Inflict Slowdown removes one dice from the target's action dice pool.

Sometimes, though, special effects will be a consequence of what the player is trying to do, or a product of the environment. For example, rather than aiming to just attack an enemy, a character could try to position themselves between that target and a Node exit, so the enemy cannot leave that way.

Generally, achieving a special effect is more difficult than just dealing damage. The GM should reprsent this by adding to the Dodge Defence of the attack.

GMs are encouraged to play loosely with these rules, and use the following guidelines:

• If what a player is doing is fun or cinematic, or plays off the specific combat situation in a cool way, err on the side of low increases in Dodge Defence.
• If a player is just angling for an extra advantage, or has used the same trick before in the same combat, err on the side of high increases in Dodge Defence.

You can justify higher Dodge Defence bonuses by saying that an enemy is prepared for that trick now you've done it once already, or by saying that getting the advantage that the player is seeking is harder and less straightforward and effective than just trying to drop their opponent.

Pages Related to this Topic:

• Combat and Conflict

• Social Traits
• Mental Traits
• Arcane Traits

• Will Points
• Pyros