Difference between revisions of "Free From the Yokai College"

From RPGnet
Jump to: navigation, search
(Created page with "House Name: The Invisible College<br> House Playbook: The Teachers of Ancient Truths == Stats == Reach: +2<br> Grasp: -1<br> Slight: 0 == Health == Mood: -1<br> Favor: +1...")
 
Line 1: Line 1:
House Name: The Invisible College<br>
+
'''House Name: The Invisible College<br>
House Playbook: The Teachers of Ancient Truths
+
House Playbook: The Teachers of Ancient Truths'''
  
  

Revision as of 15:13, 25 September 2020

House Name: The Invisible College
House Playbook: The Teachers of Ancient Truths


Stats

Reach: +2
Grasp: -1
Slight: 0


Health

Mood: -1
Favor: +1


Backstory

Once the Invisible College was the Resplendent College of Sages. Their academies were centers of learning throughout the Land, drawing students from many of the different peoples of the lands. The scholars of the College did not just value learning, however, but wisdom, tradition, reverence for the ancestors, and justice. They were led not simply by those who were the best educated, but the wisest and most fair. As a result, those educated at the College’s academies found employ throughout the land as trusted advisers, magistrates, diplomats, and the like.

Then the Empire invaded. While others kneeled before the Empire, the College refused, maintaining the sanctity of their traditions and opposing the cruelty and injustice of the Imperial occupation. For this, the Empire tried to destroy them, razing their academies and slaughtering their elders and students. But the College endured, going into hiding to become the Invisible College. Their members still sought to help the people of the land, but now as wandering teachers. To defend themselves, they also become warriors and salvagers, going into the ruins of cities destroyed by the Empire, propitiating the spirits of the dead, and recovering lost lore. During this time, many other religious groups assimilated into the College, as they worked together to preserve as much lore as possible.

Now that the Empire is vanquished, the College seeks to rebuild. But they are still a shadow of their former self and still roam the land as teachers and seekers of lost lore.


Customs

  • Rule: The Council of Sages, men and women elected for their learning, wisdom, and—in the current age—heroic exploits.
  • Populace: All from the highest to lowest must learn the lore of the past, even if it haunts them.
  • Culture: Scholars forced to become, if not warriors, than adventurers. Traditionalists forced to innovate to protect their traditions.


Background

  • Doctrine: Know Yourself to Unleash True Potential: You can use Surplus: Morale as if it was any other intangible Surplus (e.g. Attunement, Leadership, Peace, Prestige), and your characters always benefit from the Meditative tag.
  • Inheritance: Characters add +1 to Lore or Bravery and always know how to read and write. In addition, they can sense when spirits are nearby, and may take a Flesh Wound to communicate with them.
  • Lifestyle: The Furthest Reaches: Your methods are drawn from the ancestors of all Houses. Your characters may start with one ritual from the traditions of another House.


Assets

  • How do you teach? Peripatetic Philosophers: Followers: astute, genial
  • How do you defend yourself? By not looking like a threat: Outfit: utility, subtle
  • What are your greatest treasures? Birch-bark tests, the earliest writings made by our people. An ancient spear, heirloom of a warlord lost to the past. Bring a treasure out of storage once per age to accomplish an impressive feat--effects and cost to be determined by the GM.


Moves

General House Moves

  • Call in a Debt, when you call on a House you have Influence over, lose your Influence.
  • Claim by Force to seize or maintain control of a resource: + Grasp
  • Fall into Crisis, when Mood would go below -3, erase a Need and pick one problem.
  • Flush with Resources, when Mood would go over +3, erase a Surplus and pick one benefit.
  • Hold Together to resist hardship, temptation or infighting: + Mood
  • Lend Aid when you involve yourself in the actions of a House you have influence over, lose Influence over and pass them a die to use per advantage or disadvantage.
  • Read the Wind to call on your House’s agents and allies: + Reach
  • Right Tool for the Job, when your House uses their resources to confront a crisis, eras an appropriate Surplus and mitigate or resolve the problem.
  • Subterfuge when your House infiltrates other factions: + Sleight

House Specific Moves

  • Alliance Move: When you teach others a new way of gaining strength from the Land, gain Influence on them.
  • Endurance of the Hills: When you Claim by Force or Enter Pitched Battle to maintain control of a resource, gain Surplus: Attunement as soon as the battle is joined.


Traditions

  • Eyes of the Ancestors: When your lore keepers gather to Enact This Ritual to seek a vision of the past, they see a past event. They cannot control the precise point in time they visit, but it will always include a fragment of ancient lore, a clue to an unanswered crime, or an insight into your ancestors’ culture.


Influence

Influence Over

  • Brethren of the Sea, who despoiled the Jade Academy of the Ancestral Sages (the College’s original headquarters): +1
  • The Free City of Gorath. The College taught them how to hold back the beats of the Moors of Ere'Dune because they took pity of the refugees, they thought it would a useful alliance, and they wanted to bond the new-comers to the land.: +1
  • The Forgers of the Marbled City, who mined beneath the College’s ancient site: +1

Under the Influence of


Resources

Ancient Writings: Surplus, kept at The Labyrinthine Crystal Caves
Crops: Need
Land: Need
Lumber: Need
Vellum: Surplus, kept at The Labyrinthine Crystal Caves


History

  • How did the Empire treat your house?: Outcasts: +1 Favor
  • Which House did you teach an ancient secret to? We taught Free City of Gorath how to hold back the beats of the Moors of Ere'Dune because we took pity of the refugees, we thought it would a useful alliance, and we wanted to bond the new-comers to the land. +1 Influence on them.
  • What was most strange about the Imperial scholars who tried to learn your ways? That they carried around multiple copies of books casually, as if they books did not have to be laboriously copied by hand—because they did not have to be. From the Imperial scholars, we learned the secrets of the printing press.
  • What terrible curse did your ancestors lay on a House long gone that haunts you to this day? The Church, to never truly be at home in these lands—which has pushed the Church to alter the Land so it can become their home. The Black Market of the Jagged Skull for valuing wealth over learning, wisdom and tradition, cursed to always have to operate in the shadows? They gain +1 Influence on you.


Landmarks

  • The Ancient Past: The ruined Jade Academy of the Ancestral Sages, once the headquarters of the College, destroyed by the Empire.
  • The Imperial Occupation: The Imperial Academy and Museum, where the works of learning and art of our ancestors were taken by the scholars of the Empire after they pillaged them. There, the Imperial scholars studied these treasures and put them on display as the primitive work of a dead people.
  • The New Land: The Labyrinthine Crystal Caves, that house the remnants of our ancient library and now serve as our headquarters.