Homebrew tabletop system- playtesters requested

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

The short version of the skill list, shorn of accompanying blurb and the typesetting that phpBB is going to have a fit over.

Some skills appear under more than one attribute; this is not a typo. Leadership, for instance, can be taken under any of the social attributes, and this is to represent differences in style. Someone who has leadership under Charm, for instance, is obviously going about it differently from somebody who has it under Temper, one representing 'Better to be feared than loved' and the other 'Come on, men, who's with me?' more or less. A Fellowship- based Con is different from a Charm- based Con, too- Fellowship is more a matter of telling them what they want to hear, playing on their prejudices and preconceptions, Charm is about- trust me, it may sound crazy but I can make this work. That sort of thing.

Anyway, this is it, semi- comprehensive- there are other skills a character could develop, certainly, but probably not from the word go. If you can think of anything I've left out, let me know.

Temper;
Animal Handling, Bargain, Determination, Interrogate, Intimidate, Leadership, Persuasion, Resist Magic, Resist Persuasion
(Notes; mostly self exlanatory, although a temper- based peresuasion skill might as well be labeled "bullying" because that's what it amounts to, and Resist Magic is a wierd one. Leave it for now, there are cultural artifacts attached to it, I'll explain later.)

Fellowship;
Acting, Bargain, Carousing, Con, Culture, Human Perception, Leadership, Oratory, Politics, Streetwise
(notes; culture has nothing to do with spaceships, it is basically the know something about that bunch of people over there skill. Culture (elvish) for instance, gives a basic idea of their history, some cluse as to who their movers, shakers and celebrities are, and some grasp of the language- the higher the level, the more you know obviously. Human perception is the, what is this person really thinking? skill.)

Charm;
Acting, Allure, Animal handling, Banter, Con, Courtliness, Perform, Persuasion, Resist persuasion
(Notes; if you ever want to appear at court, courtliness is what you need. Pretty straightforward, although there are lots of 'perform' specialisations to be had.)


Mental;
Logic;
Artillerist, Debate, Economics, Evaluate, Geology, Herbalism, Law, Mason, Rites&Rituals, Politics, Perception, Physician, Runes, Survival, Theology, Tracking
(Notes; I'm going with the old mediaeval three guilds system for medicine, theorising and diagnostics under Physician, cutting and stitching and so on under Surgeon, medicines and maladies under Apothecary. Oh, and Perception is an absolute must.)

Creativity;
Alchemy, Art, Burglary, Composition, Dance, Inspire, Musical instrument, Preaching, Scrounge, Surgeon, Tactics
(Notes; there are a lot more skills that could potentially go here, but let's not overload it, yes?)

Education;
Apothecary, Business, Craft, Culture, Cypher, Evaluate, History, Legends and Lore, Monstrology, Survival, Vet
(notes; craft has to specialise, this is for things like pottery, parchment- makers, the like. Day to day useful stuff unlikely to fall to an adventurer. Monstrology would be cryptozoology in a sane world, and elves have been known to use Veterinary skill on humans without penalty.)


Physical skills;

Strength;
Athletics, Axe, Brawl, Club, Craft, Labourer, Lance, Maul, Shield
(Notes; lots of 'ug, bludgeon' stuff here. Labourer has to specify.)

Endurance;
Athletics, Resist survival, Resist injury, Resist disease, Survival
(notes; mostly resistances, as you can see- this bit of the rules might be getting tuned up soon.)

Agility;
Athletics, Burglary, Dance, Dodge, Martial Arts, Riding, Sleight of Hand, Stealth, Survival; most weapon skills, must be taken individually
(notes; weapon skills are by individual weapon type, but with heavy bonuses for commonalty- someone who can wield a longsword effectively is going to be fairly capable with a broadsword form the off, for instance.)

I trimmed some of the fat off the list as it was being typed up, so there you are. I'll talk about magic and why you have to be crazy, the local fashion in stabby things and why there are so many people with chivalric codes walking around in a setting with a civil service, later.

[Vehrec]

Ok, the big ones that leap out at me from the mental disicplines are Geology, Herbalism Physician, Alchemy, Art, Appocothary, Surgeon and Craft, specializing in dye making. They all tie together, you see. He'd much rather be dosing his patients with very small amounts of poison to cure them than cut into their bodies while they're still red and pulsing. The medicines he makes with Alchemy from plants and minerals, but that crosses over into the kind of knowledge that lets one create a truly stunning burnt sienna or Azzurro Oltramarino. Since good or even middling pigments of these kinds are very valuable, they make a profitable side interest, and can fund his own medical experiments and research for his book on anatomy.

Unfortunately, wouldn't you know it, getting a reputation for experimenting with magic and dissecting bodies gives people the wrong ideas... More on this later.

[Master_Baerne]

Would it be convenient for you to suggest skills for me? I hate to be an inconvenience, but something's come up that's going to require most of my energy for the week.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

I know the feeling, he says from the depths of an IT retraining course...

Right.
Under Temper, I'd suggest Bargain and Resist Persuasion.
Under Fellowship, Human Perception, Streetwise, and probably Acting.
Under Charm, three of; Con, Banter, Perform, Persuasion

Under Logic, Law, Evaluate, Preception in order of ascending priority
under Creativity, theoretically Con could go here, so if not on charm then here; Burglary, obviously, possibly Dance if you want the character to be able to blend in high society; possibly also Stealth.
Under Education, History- also the closest there is to a library search skill unless I invent one specifically, so useful in that regard, at least local and maybe one other Culture

Under Strength, probably Athletics, maybe Club for a non- lethal weapon choice, or a Craft.
Under Endurance, Survival, the wilderness bit- just in case. Resist injury, probably.
Under Agility, well, Stealth, Sleight of Hand and Dodge for definite, possibly also an edged weapon, something concealable that won't get in the way at social events or sprinting across the rooftops, probably Shortsword. i'll stat them up in a moment or three.

[Master_Baerne]

And here's my character, version 1.1

Valette
Temper: 9; Valette prefers to go around things, rather than through them. This applies to everything except the defining force in her life, that secret I don't know anything about.
Fellowship: 15 (14+1); it's helpful to be able to blend with the crowd and my character's had a lot of practice.
Charm: 14 (13+1); see above.

Logic: 12; above average.
Creativity: 13; the preference for elegant solutions and the lack of strength combine to help Valette's innate creativity along.
Education: 11; somewhat spotty formal education has been supplemented with scraps of random knowledge performed

Strength: 9 (8+1); Valette is a rather slightly built person.
Endurance: 10; average.
Agility: 14; it's helpful for thieves.


Advantages:
1ap Empathy; switched for Cast-Iron Stomach because the latter doesn't make sense for my character.
2ap Wealth; who says crime doesn't pay?
Hmm. This leaves 7ap unbalanced... Guess I'll have some magic.
2ap Attuned; the vast amount of practice Valette's had at thievery can be applied to any robbery she's gathered information for - Think of it as an additional filter for the information to be viewed through.
2ap Supernatural Awareness; for whatever reason, she can just barely see hints of the unreal in the world around her.
Which leaves three more. I'll plug those into my attributes with 1 for Strength, 1 for Fellowship, and 1 for Charm.

Disadvantages:
6ap Secret
2ap Reputation - She's a thief and con artist, and despite Valette's habit of switching identities fairly often, she's becoming known for it.
2ap Duty - Off-and-on search for information related to her own identity may require extra effort if a lead pops up; I'm not sure if this counts as a disadvantage or not.

Skills:
Temper - Bargain +8, Resist Persuasion +7
Fellowship - Human Perception +13, Streetwise +12, Acting +12
Charm - Con +10, Perform +8, Persuasion+ 10

Logic - Law +8, Evaulate +8, Perception +8
Creativity - Burglary +9, Dance +6, Scrounge +8
Education - History +8, Elven Culture +6, Legends and Lore +8

Strength - Athletics +9, Club +6
Endurance - Survival +6, Resist Injury +10
Agility - Stealth +9, Sleight of Hand +8, Dodge +7, Shortsword +6


Note - I don't know what cultures there are to have knowledge of; is Elven Culture acceptable/useful? Also, I figured Legends and Lore would work, as Valette's been searching out information of every sort with an almost obsessive diligence.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Some of the numbers don't quite add up.

Temper, attribute 9, default 3, two skills at half a point each from there up to six, 3 points, 6 points remaining, that should be Bargain 10 Resist Persuasion 8.
Fellowship, fine.
Charm, 14, so default five, three skills half a point each up to 10, should be Con 13 Perform 11 Persuasion 12.

Logic, default is 4, so, three skills at half a point each up to 8, Law, Evaluate and Perception should all be 10.
Creativity, default is 4, so again three at half a point each up to 8, Burglary 11 Dance 9 Scrounge 11.
Education, default is 4, History 10, Legends & Lore 10, Elvish Culture 9. Useful in an odd sort of way, especially to the ongoing plot= there are definitely alternatives, but I like it.

Derived values(Rule mechanics bit); mental initiative 6, shock resistance 6, psychic integrity 6.
This bit will get explained when we start talking mechanics.

Physical skills, off strength, default is 3, should be Athletics 10 Club 8.
from Endurance, should be default 3, Resist Injury 11 Survival 8.
From Agility, default is 5, so skills at half a point each from there up to 10, that should end up as Stealth 14, Sleight of Hand 12, Dodge 10, Shortsword 8.

Derived values; physical initiative 6, damage reduction 5, damage bonus 3, fatigue 20, wounds 5.

Presence 11; halo effect 3.
Destiny 12; occupation bonus Thief, 3.
Fortune 13; rerolls 3, mana 12.

Equipment- hmm. Wealth 2 isn't quite enough to go splashing around on magic, but it is enough for most mundane equipment. Burglary gear (lockpicks obviously, small mirror, dust for revealing hidden doors and panels, crowbar, felt slippers, etc) of decent average quality normally kept hidden. Valette can afford to be well dressed, and 'things to help me not die' are the fashion this season, so in addition to clothing, leather armour, damage reduction 3. Shortsword, above average quality- one hand short melee dv 9.

I'll start giving explanations and worked examples of the mechanics once Vehrec (where are you?) catches up, and anyone else out there who wants to give it a go chimes in, but basically, the character at the moment's broad but shallow; a lot of skills in a lot of areas, but how many of them are genuinely good enough to bet her life on I'm worried about.

Looking ahead, I want character growth to be relatively fast- two to six points a session is standard and 4-5 is usual, so characters can change direction relatively quickly, there isn't a development plan you're locked into. I'd strongly suggest that the first priorities for raising should be the physical stuff. She's not a combatant, and there are hard times coming. Especially as she chases that secret...

posting for length, more in a bit.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

The elvish culture is interesting in that regard; a small footnote about something Valette really ought to know already, thaumaturgical detection. Wizards fit into society- after some fairly drastic ups and downs- as high end profesionals, upper middle class; they charge for their time, the guild enforces that. They are also, generally, insane.

I mean that in the strictest sense of the term. I was forced to make a decision for compehensibility- no funky physics. Gunpowder works just fine (although there is distinct historical precedent for alchemical weapons, among which it is counted, being as dangerous to the user as the target)- there's no way to change that without changing the way oxygen and carbon interact.

Now, consider motion magic, the ability to impart movement directly to objects; consider it especially, as an experimental tool. How easy would that make lab work? How well would medicine be served, by the diagnostic use of healing magic? Many other possibilities.

It is extremely difficult to be smart enough to make magic work for you without also being smart enough to realise that there's no way in hell that it can work at all. It's simply not necessary. It is a product, or by- product, of sentience; Mind Makes Magic. As a wizard, you can do things that flat- out defy reality, that the universe really ought to jump up and down on your head for. If they weren't at least a little bit crazy before then, most wizards soon get that way.

Resist Magic, remember that skill? Culturally it's associated with the old feudal orders, and for good reason. Either because they genuinely stand for Truth and Justice or some such, or more likely because they're just as mad in their own way, the spiritual disciplines of the chivalric code serve as some considerable protection for a true knight.

Thaumaturgy is too important to war and high politics to be shunned, but who in their right mind would trust the inmates of a self- regulating asylum? There aren't that many solutions to the problem, and there was an extraordinarily brutal thaumaturgical dictatorship within elvish living memory.

Kuquan has a relatively complex state structure, ministers and departments, but in practise what has happened is that the chivalric orders have achieved a mutually beneficial balance of terror/symbiosis with the guilds, each officially watching the other, and the old fighting nobility has managed to land a remarkably high proportion of the top jobs. Well, had until recently. The old order has more or less successfully perpetuated itself into the new structure, although that was one hell of a wobble just gone by.

Officially it is a human kingdom, but there are strong groups of nonhumans within the borders, and they have their influence- Kuquan is more liberal than most of it's neighbours, thanks to the influence of an elvish queen consort three centuries past, and it's own internal diversity.

They are the outside loop; the theorists and thinkers, the entities who remember things the humans would rather have forgotten, and they have seen generations worth of secrets come and go- but they undoubtedly have an agenda of their own.

[Vehrec]

Still alive, got distracted for a few days by the possibility of a friend visiting, but life happened.

Here's an awkward mistake filled, unchecked fist draft of the stats.

Temper 4(resist persuasion(12), determination(12)) Fellowship 4(politics(10), bargain(14)) Charm 3(courtliness(11))

Logic 4 (Geology(8), herbalism(9), physician (14)) Creativity 5(alchemy(16), surgeon(12), art(9) Education 5 (Apothecary(19), Craft; dyes(10))

Strength 3(Athletics(11)) Endurance 4(Resist disease(14), Resist injury(10) Agility 4 (Dagger(8), dodge(16))

I'm fairly sure I made some doozy mistakes here. but I'm too tiered to find them right now, so they'll have to wait for morning.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Life happening is good. The numbers actually look fine; not that I'm awake yet, but nothing leapt out as glaringly wrong- although one of the choices, I would ditch Geology for the time being, go with Perception which is really one of the must have skills.

Derived values,
mental initiative 7 shock resistance 8 psychic integrity 7

physical inititative 6 damage reduction 6 damage bonus 3 fatigue 21 wounds 5

Presence 11; halo 3
Destiny 11; occupation bonus (Doctor) 3
Fortune 14; rerolls 4

Equipment; beyond the clothes you stand up in, the real standout skills there are Apothecary, Alchemy and Surgeon. There will be a small lab at wherever you're lodging, and you will have a bag of surgical instruments and potions that hopefully have some medicinal effect (two rolls against fortune for gear quality follow, one good, one bad...)- you have good instruments, a full set made to high quality, actually worth +1 to Surgeon skill, but the medicine chest is at a low ebb.

Magic; this bit can get filled in now, too. You have fields of magic, and those seven attribute points translate to seven points of power and fourteen points of skill.

Don't think spells; think colours. With that ability you can do anything that that ability can, its essentially freeform at this point. Describe the effect, the random number bit happens, your power dictates the scale of the effect, your level of success the control you have over it.

Nailing this down precisely, getting the interlocking rules of thumb out of my head and into print is part of the point of this, but you have a mana pool that should be 26 to begin with and rises if your Power does, the wilder and broader an effect is the more mana it uses. Trivialities like lighting a candle with Fire are essentially free.

For a doctor, I'd suggest as a power, take the extrovert physical of Talents, and go with Talents 7, the single skill of Life 14. Mana isn't per diem; it regenerates more slowly than that- for you, nine points a day (based on a product of mental attributes).

[Vehrec]

All right, but he's still gonna be pretty oblivious, might have to worry about that later.

As for magic,I think your suggestions has grown on me since I first read it. Extrovert physical might not be my first thoughts when I created this guy, but all magic users are insane as you said. He's now a stuffy bookworm who creeps away to crypts to cut open corpses, but also has this neeed to go out and demonstrate his new knoledge of anatomy... heck, maybe he let's people watch when he gets cutting. So yeah, I think I'll roll with that suggestion.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Right. Proper Plot Post One, plus more immediate background... the paper version, some eleven, twelve hundred days have elapsed since Day Zero. The plot has got more complicated, the enemies have got a lot nastier, and dropping you into the middle of that would simply not be fair. Back to Square One.


Autumn, the four hundred and twenty- sixth year since the official end of tyranny, and four hundred and twenty- five years since the founding of the kingdom, proclaimed from a gilded throne in a marble hall built on the ruins of a city of giants three thousand years older still...a throne on which now sits an idiot.

Not even Justinian IV's closest supporters would call him a good and wise king; just, when he manages to think of it, perhaps, but skilled in the ways of the world, no. Personally chivalrous and upstanding, but a poor lord and poor leader of lords, no more likely to suddenly grasp the realities of war and lead the host to glory and profit than he is to learn to fly by flapping his arms.

Which made it all the more unfortunate that the politics of southern Vathlin put him in a situation where he had to try the former- someone arranging the latter for him is becoming increasingly more likely.

For a two word description of the shape of the land you grew up in, elbow- shaped. Kuquan is the root and the first half of a stubby peninsula, with a high spinal mountain range that divides north and south- the range runs northeast to southwest, and as it fades out into high uplands which themselves shade into increasingly hot and dry plains, your land ends and your southern neighbours' begins.

Kuquan is a patchwork of natural barriers and man and other being- made corridors, what would have been three kingdoms and a dozen smaller principalities before the rise of the Terminal Empire- which most people refer to as the Empire of the Black Towers after their most common and feared symbol.

The Black Towers ruled Kuquan as a single suzerainty, and after their overthrow the Empire of Tol Authran administered and reorganised it as such, until someone suitable was found "whose arse the throne fitted" to manage it and try to hold this diverse, liberty- minded, economically and theologically divergent patchwork together as a coherent nation.

King Agadh I's success and that of his descendants and successors has been mixed. Justinian IV was probably the worst of the lot. Kuquan's diversity has been it's strength more often than not, to be fair, but the southern neighbours...

[GM Disclaimer; what does "Zarthan" mean to you? If your brain instantly clicks and says "H. Beam Piper"- mine didn't. It must have been rattling around my head for some time and registering as something vaguely fantasy- like, when I was trying to come up with a name for the far end of the peninsula that was what popped out. I've been calling them that for far too long for it to still jar, if it grates on anyone I'll try to think of something else.]

The five principalities of Austral, Edral, Higher, Further and Greater Zarthan inhabit a hot, dry, hard land, and that has changed them; arguably, it's made them worse. They are overwhelming- majority human, harsshly ruled and hard-handed as a result, xenophobic to a fault, and they have just come to the bloody end of a centuries- long pogrom against the nonhumans within their land.

A large army organised with little chivalry or concept of laws of war, that they can't afford to demobilise all at once, a huge does of hate still in their blood, and the only land border they have is with Kuquan.

Under those circumstances, maybe Justinian wasn't entirely stupid; at least he tried to call his country to arms...

more later, for length.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

...and comprehensively mishandled it.

The full details aren't known to anyone who wasn't directly involved, but what has been reported and rumoured was that the king threw away his brothers' and the lord marischal's plan, and tried to organise it himself.

This included trying to raise a levy from Auvaine County using a muster and taxation roll that was more than a century old; an invitation to death or glory to the Count of Hallach so poorly worded he thought it was a command to commit suicide, and promptly raised a levy against the king; nonhuman allies either so overly flattered it started to smell, or insultingly taken for granted; Unthen County, inland and as close as the place has to a centre of industry, ordered to produce lightly armed skirmishers and small boats for amphibious work- mistake after mistake after mistake, so much so it came close to prompting a revolt of the nobility.

In fact, that was what was generally expected to happen in the spring. A great many other fault lines became visible under the stress, and by late autumn, when the grand council called to try and forestall trouble fibnally admitted failure, it was looking increasingly like the country might be about to forestall the foreign war by having a civil one all of it's own.


First important question to the characters; where were you during the middle of all of this? Loyal to the crown, despite the poor qualities of the man who wears it? Tired of being shackled to a system at the mercy of whatever damned fool happens to be born first, and wanting reform? Standing up for local independence?


His majesty screamed for help to keep his throne, to his ultimate overlord, the Emperor of the Empire of Tol Authran. Hoping for intervention, mediation, civil service advice, peacekeeping. What they got was a newly formed unit built around some highly radical ideas by a globetrotting ex- mercenary, with a theory to prove and a reputation to make.

Their name has already become a curse. Less than five thousand strong, the Twentieth (Cataphract) Regiment of Cavalry, Striking Phoenix, moved that winter- came in with the snow and left chaos and carnage in their wake. Their numbers were at points estimated at up to fifty thousand, for the sheer shock they inflicted. Accounts speak of feats of arms and feats of magic without precedent; firestorms that cut the heart out of cities, armies shot and cut to pieces in moments.

Not what anyone wanted, least of all his majesty; particularly as they seem to have been very even handed about who they exploded, swallowing up quite as many loyal supporters and slighting at least as many of their castles and forts as they did of his majesty's enemies.

We open in the wake of their devastation; in Auvaine City itself, the heart of the county at the heart of the kingdom.

Auvaine County's northern boundary is the Silverfoot Range, part of the great spinal mountain range of the continent; two major rivers flow down off the mountains, meet and join in Auvaine, and the county town stands on the banks of the one that curves in from the north- east, the Chura.

At least a thousand years ago, there was a town on a hill that the river curved around the foot of. It's spread since then, up and down stream and across to the other bank. Near the mountains, well served by barge traffic and paved roads, it is a stone- built city with plenty of water, which was good when bits of it started to catch fire.

They hit an hour before dawn, threw fire over the walls, smashed down the gates, and charged in. They left before a noon which was blotted out by smoke, the fortified townhouse of the Count scattered brick by brick, the temple quarter burning, the old fort by the town centre collapsing, the high court and the city chambers pools of lava.

It was precise, but it was not remotely surgical. They left damage and wildfires everywhere, with no-one to organise anything. Fire-fighting was haphazard, community work, shambolic but- ultimately- effectrive.


It's five days later. Of a city of forty thousand normally, swollen to perhaps seventy thousand by refugees, there are at least twenty thousand without homes and nobody's counted the dead yet. The Count is very, very dead, the seneschal is dead, the aldermen are sizzling away nicely at the bottom of a pool of molten rock- no-one knows who's in charge.

Most people are getting over the shock and looking around, starting to wonder- what now? Vehrec, your character still needs a name- I can assume, I think, that he's been up to his elbows in intestine, and is just now staggering out of an improvised theatre in a warehouse by the docks and realising it's daytime. Baerne, what's Valette been up to? What's out there is a looters' paradise, simple thuggery seems to be the order of the day and will be until things calm down a little.

[Master_Baerne]

The way I see it, Valette will consider anything not nailed down as fair game; things that are nailed down are made more attractive as targets by the fact that they're unfair game. She'll probably start with the abandoned homes of the well-off, then move down to the petty thugs - not because she cares muchabout justice, but because they'll have more to steal.

Umm, she was probably doing the same thing before the city was... aggressively redorated, though to a lesser degree. Likely, she's been taking advantage of the influx of people to gather more information. That sufficient?

[Vehrec]

Would something like Randolf Alfman do for a name? As for politics, he's by nature a fence sitter when it comes to things that might negatively impact his lifestyle. That got him thrown out of town when the Lord required all his vassals and their families to personally renew their oaths in an ambitious message to the King. He decided he'd rather leave until that was either forgotten or forgiven than put his name to anything definate.

Now, after that mess, he might have different opinions. More open to expressing opinions on the matter certainly.

[Master_Baerne]

He decided he'd rather leave until that was either forgotten or forgiven than put his name to anything definate.

I think Valette and Randolph will get along very well.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Right, I'm just going to make a couple of assumptions to put you in contact...

Baerne, plundering the abandoned homes of the wealthy is an excellent plan, and there are good pickings to be had; two instances, one quite succesful- some money and trinkets, for what they're worth right now- and a painting that caught Valette's attention.

A seascape, a square rig chasing a lateen in wild weather, foam flying and ten foot waves, not far offshore- something caught your eye about that. The ships, the heraldic banners they were flying, the coastline they were racing past, something caught your attention, made a little voice at the back of your head say 'I know this, I was there...'

That will bear doing something about. There was another incident; a house that wasn't quite as abandoned as it looked- there were looters/squatters already there, and Valette had to run for her life. Burglary is never a sure thing, is it?

The third place that caught your attention was actually inhabited, and presumably secured- an overheard comment about a survivor, a wealthy man- Baronet in fact, a major landowner by the name of D'Cearach- throwing a "thank the gods we're alive" party in essence. At least he ought to have an intact house full of thievable things, and security all looking the other way.

It's a three story building, the upper story smaller with a collonade around it and window/doors that open on to it. As you droop down off the roof onto the collonade, there's distant yelling to cover any noise- but something doesn't smell right. In both senses. There's nobody keeping watch, and a faint scent of decay in the air.

Pick the lock on the door, the yelling's getting closer but what of it- and you realise the doorframe is lined with oiled wool, to keep the sounds and smells of the city out. And other things in- whatever kind of celebration of life they were planning must have involved a party game based in some way on skunks. The stench is incredible, it's practically visible to the naked eye. Something very, very foul is in there- and the Baronet was seen alive only this morning. What are you going to do?


Vehrec, it's late afternoon by the time you surface, finally ahving found time to sleep after having snatched catnaps here and there between emergencies for most of the last five days, such a session- and for such a reason- as you never hope to see again. You gave up when you were more of a risk to the patients than otherwise, and nobody bothered to wake you up.

The 'hospital' was an inn next to an apothecary's; the innkeeper just opened his doors, and the place is packed now. Some patients lost, some simply too badly hurt to save- but most of them are alive, the deluge is over, the crisis has broken, and it's more or less time to figure out what to do now. Your colleagues in medicine had to deal with the patients on the upper floors of the inn, of course.

Standing talking at the back entrance to the inn that opens onto the stables and yard, with one of said colleagues in fact; an elf, surprisingly. There are a few around, most of them diplomatic, mercantile or thaumaturgic, although Aluvreath has just admitted he's actually a vet by profession.

'Which is how I managed to cope, in point of fact, although I have no doubt most of my patients would have tried to lynch me if they had known, or been in fit state to attempt to do so. Ah, detachment...I think I would have been very much less use to them if I had treated them with the dignity they deserved. How can you cope when it is one of your own, a sentient with a sense of being and a meaning to their life, someone exactly like you, there on the table?'

You're still thinking of an answer to that (feel free to provide a snappy comeback later) when he adds 'Speaking of being lynched-' and pulls you back into the yard, out of the way of the group that has just turned the street corner.

Some of them are drawn toward the inn sign, but only until they catch the smell of blood and alchemy hanging around the place; they pass you by, but there are a large number of them- fifty or so, and from the shouting and the waving of weapons, improvised and otherwise, something nasty is about to happen somewhere.

You lose the coin toss, and set out after them to help clear up the mess; by the sounds of it, they're the contents of an alehouse and they have a specific target in mind- a landowner who they heard was just about to celebrate his survival, apparently somewhat prematurely. From the shouts of 'lynch the useless bastard', they intend to at the very least ask him where he was and why he didn't do anything. Probably just before they string him up.

There is one violent incident on the way; a sherriff's man, one of the local law, tries to stop him- they just roll straight over him, cutting his throat and stealing his sword, club and helmet on the way.

Checking if there's anyhting that could be done for him puts you slightly behind the mob, when they arrive at a fairly large and well- buitl house, break down the outer gate, then start on the door- there's a crashing sound, some item of statuary used as a battering ram, then sounds of retching and howls of disgust, and a truly vile smell reaches you.

The mob are reeling back from the grounds, most of them puking- a couple of balls of cotton wool soaked in camphor ought to take care of that, but it smells as if something died in there months ago. Far too much decay for a man- and a family and household- who were seen alive only that morning.

[Master_Baerne]

Against her better judgement, Valette slips a small mirror out of her belt pouch and pushes the door open a crack. Assuming no one immediately tries to stab her, she uses the mirror to peer around the corner - as low as possible, so as to avoid anyone inside's sightline.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

At a general guess, the basement should be where the servants and working spaces of the house like kitchens go, the ground floor is the public floor- atrium and offices and dining room and anywhere guests might be invited into, the first floor [British terminology] would be spaces for the retinue and their needs, the second floor that you're breaking in on the Baronet's own and his family's.

Just to clear up any residual confusion, Kuquan is divided into thirteen counties, all of them on the overgrown side by most European standards, several thousand square miles. There are another dozen or so men and women who can claim the title, mostly lords of the state. Then we have the four Bs in descending order, Baron, Baronet, Banneret and Bachelor- the last two being grades of knight, a Bachelor being a private knight who commands only his own retinue of men and women of lower social standing, a Banneret being usually an acknowledged expert who leads and commands other knights and their retinues in combat.

A Baronet is the next step up, not having the same rights of peace and war, tax, law and justice as a Baron, but still a major landowner, and it is a job that attracts and requires retinue. Unlikely to have a court wizard, but he probably does have- although, thinking about it, probably 'had'- a chaplain of some faith or other who might have had talent, and he could certainly afford to hire a wizard. There really should be magical security.

Half a second after Valette starts kicking herself for not thinking of this, you realise that nothing has happened. A few papers scattered on the floor, a dropped winecup- nobody waiting with sword raised, just that terrible- ah.

This looks like some kind of study, two large tables, one of them piled with ledgers and documents at one end, the other covered in some sort of painted baked clay model that you would guess is an actual map of the baronet's lands; paintings on the walls, a marble statue of a deity in one corner and another of an ancestor opposite, scrolls and books on the shelves along the walls-

some of them may be of value, unless you're much mistaken the scrolls are probably contract documents, but they must have soaked up the smell by now. Fencing them to anyone- the only people you could think might be able to decontaminate them are the wizards' guild.

There is also a body, a human several months gone judging by how much of the flesh has fallen off the bones; partially slumped over the edge of the table, and he seems to have run himself through with his own sword. Heraldry on his sword- hilt and signet isn't the same as that on the map and stamped on the ledgers, so one of the baronet's officers of court rather than the man himself. Not enough of an expression left to read, but you very much doubt he died happy.

From the trail of, well, slime behind him, he came in from one of the adjoining rooms; a ladies' work room, embroidery and jewellery and weaving- some of this has been ransacked already, some of the materials and tools from the jewellery workshop taken, and two bodies; one of them apparently took her own life also, the other died attacking someone else- the suicide richly dressed, the other a servant, possibly a bodyguard. The servant looks almost intact, the suicide is badly decomposed.

There is a master bedroom, locked chests along both walls beside a four poster bed, but no presence living or dead; a sweeping staircase down, two dead bodies on the stair, one rotted, one intact with only a small, possibly rapier, wound in the back. In one of the other upper rooms, you find the baronet. At least, a skeleton sitting in a leather armchair, all the flesh reduced to a puddle of foul ooze on the chair and the floor, clothes rotted too and the chair starting to go.

Multiple murders with poison, probably have had to be exotic and expensive to do that, at least some of it delivered as blade venom. You can hear someone coming in the front door. What now?

[Vehrec]

Randolf will be cursing and forcing his way through the mob now that it's lost its momentum, basically telling them to let someone who knows what he's doing to come through and have a look. Right now, he's worried about the possibility they've cracked open some sort of magical plague left by the Striking Phoenix. Check the men who broke it open, keep anyone from rushing in (probably very easy) and getting a better idea what the hells is happening.

Which may involve putting himself in harms way and using himself as a test subject to see if this is airbourne, unfortunately...

[Master_Baerne]

There's clearly more here than meets the eye, and Valette has no to meet someone else's eye, especially the law or a retainer of the extremely dead man in the chair. Anything small and immediately identifiable as important - including the signet ring, which might yield some clues on further study - gets swept into a pouch, and she either heads back the way she came, if the stairway's clear, or ducks into the most convenient hiding spot, if not. Care will be taken to not alert anyone who might be on the staircase to her presence.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Bits in brackets are game mechanic things that happened.

Vehrec, (Physician skill roll- critical failure; reroll- critical failure; reroll- 7, more than half under, good success)- Randolf checks a few of those closest to the ornate, archwayed door, hoping it isn't and fearing that it is. They seem so violently ill that it might be medical duty to scream 'plague', after all. In fact, depending on how contagious this is, there might be no point- then you come across one of the leaders of the mob, big greying heavyset man in his late forties, sitting there trying to breathe through a rosebush.

'Just death. Smelt him before.' After a cautious sniff you realise he's right, it's the smell of advanced decay- although anything that smells that bad is probably a health hazard anyway. And how did they get that way?

(Apothecary, more than a quarter under- excellent success, Perception- bare pass.) There are two doors, outer and inner, both heavy wood studded with iron. The outer was opened normally, but the inner has clearly been smashed open- still on it's hinges, but scrap and splinters where the lock should be.

The entry hall is designed to be impressive; there's a polished wood double staircase with carved bannisters going up to the first (british terminology) floor, and in the space between them there's a lifesize equestrian statue of one of the Baronet's ancestors. Someone's draped across the base of it, lifeless but physically intact; there's a pile of bones in a puddle of goo in the doorway of a room on the right, probably a woman from the remains of a boned corset, and a body on it's side just where it would have been driven back from the door.

(Physician, just over half)- examining that one, no great feat to tell actually, he's been slashed repeatedly- probably with a poisoned blade judging from the discolouration around the wounds on clothes and flesh, but he died of the physical wounds before the poison had a chance to spread through his system.

That tells you a couple of things. There are poisons and potions that can literally make a person's flesh rot and fall off their bones; there's even a legitimate medical use for them, in small doses- trying to destroy wens and tumours. They require a lot of alchemy- work to distill down to that kind of potency, and they're fiendishly expensive as a result.

It's unlikely the people of this house were killed by plague, rather more likely that they were done in by somebody's complicated and expensive vengeance; but bodies in an advanced state of decay, artificially rapid or not, are a likely source of plague and a hazard, so-

(attack roll 10, defence on your Dodge more than a quarter under, 3)- there are the sounds of mixed terror and rage, and someone- a gabbling blur in a dress, one of the female servants of the house wielding a roasting spit, comes out of the door in the side of the staircase that leads down to the cellar, and attacks- badly. You have time to see her coming and get out of the way- she's crazy with fear. What do you do?

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

To explain the peculiar timing of these posts, I was writing on my way out of the door for the one that's morning my time.

(various opposed Perception vs. Stealth rolls)- Baerne, Valette manages to hold her nose and cover her eyes with the same hand, and fumble the signet off the dead man's finger. The other obvious source of valuable things- there's probably a strongroom dug into the rock under the house, but there are those chests in the bedroom, and if you could stand the smell, the details of who owns, who owes and who inherits could be invaluable, especially to those involved... wonder if anyone else has thought of that?

Actually, the study window has a good view, one of the reasons the house is built like that, and you can see people coming. A handful of armoured men from one direction with a mob of spectators behind them, a larger gaggle of semi- armed men wearing mostly black coming from the other.

[Master_Baerne]

I'm sure the documents, regardless of how smelly they may be (and it's a recently-sacked city, lots of things will smell bad), hold the key to future riches. She'll grab them. Do the two groups look to be hostile towards each other? If so, Valette could perhaps escape in the confusion.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

If you wait until you can identify faces and hear what they're saying, it'll probably be too late to escape over the rooftops unless they do start swinging at each other. That option's a gamble. Out through the house might work, there are a lot of people in the garden.

(Streetwise roll, two attack/defence rolls on behalf of the NPCs, interesting outcome there.)

As they get a little closer, and you pepare to duck out on the balcony, you recognise the respective sides involved. One of them, the men in chainmail, are following the parish under- sherriff, a hangover of a feudal title- basically, the law in the old city centre; Airton Kal by name, his reputation (which functioned as a bonus to your Streetwise) is as competent but uninspired, out for a quiet life, not above corruption. He's not supposed to be a fool, which makes what happens next quite surprising.

The other one, the main reason you don't recognise him and his men immediately is because you don't believe it. Arcangelo de la Novara, man of complicated reputation- an old friend of the Count's, foreigner who settled here, and if the thieves around here were stupid enough to have a guild, there's a good chance he would be President for Life.

Which, on the face of it, makes very little sense; so little, in fact, that it might actually be true. Kal spots Novara, they exchange a few words, evidently not friendly ones; swords come out of scabbards, the undersheriff's men seem content to let their leader settle this- Novara's people move to support him but he waves them back.

There is a brief, flashing swirl of blades- a flip, a twist, a knee to the bollocks, and the sherriff is kneeling on the ground, with Novara standing over him, sword at the sheriff's throat. He says in a loud stage voice for public consumption, 'Authority to wield a blade...does not equal competence. How badly am I going to have to puncture you, to let some sense leak in?'

[Thanas]

I'll move this to Gaming and Computers as it is not a STGOD and pure tabletop RPGs are supposed to be run in the Gaming forum.