Homebrew tabletop system- playtesters requested

[Norade]

The magic was sudden and unexpected, one moment he's atop the wall, the next he's shrinking and then running towards the elf wearing full plate. As he runs he wonders for a moment why he's so small and what he's doing on all fours and covered in fur. Yet as he reaches his foe suddenly he's proper size, an ork again and starring down a stunned looking enemy.

His ally asks him if he might like to keep his claws, but he's too busy trying to make hammer meet elf with a hard two handed downward swing. After he swing he starts to step sideways, circling his foe ready to strike again when the next opening appears. One might think he would be wary to get struck again so soon after healing, but Safrac wants nothing more than to end this bout quickly and get back to dealing with the church, and maybe with a warm bed as well.

[Lord Relvenous]

Sorry, I'm in the run up to finals week, so pretty busy.

Okay, so quick question: Rereading all the story posts, is it Mathilde or Theresa that is talking to the elves? Mathilde goes to speak with them, but then you told me it was Theresa. I'm confused. :/

Anyways, when the elves move to attack, De Andorra immediately moves to whoever was talking to them, and says,
"Ma'am, the Ork those elves are attacking is our responsibility, whether he be a prisoner or freed. How will it look if we let these elves attack him? We must join in his defense at once. We might be hurt after the recent struggles, but we cannot let others think we cannot control things even here in our own walls. I ask for permission to attack, and hope that others would join me in defending our honor."

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Relvenous, what happened was that the senior paladin, Mathilde, wanted to deal with them but she got distracted by sorting out Safrac, and the pushy junior, Theresa, managed to get to them first.

Finals- well, you want your head in the right place for that. Probably the stupidest thing I ever did deliberately was to sit the Civil Service fast- track entrance exam on the Wednesday of a week that I had final exams on the Monday and Thursday of.


Kheitain, it's a terminology issue; the Creature Powers thing is the internally consistent, according-to-the-rest-of-the-rules description for what you had down as Nature Magic. That's how it is usually described, and it's basically so I can sidestep the normal, thematic magic system and give traditional mythological creatures their traditional abilities, which then sets a precedent for the rest of the type. Creature Powers; Vampire and things, for instance. (Bram Stoker, not Mark Rein-Hagen.) You don't really want to know about Creature Powers; Baalrukh, and the gholem has a line on the master list all of his own now.

Plot things happening; the first flurry on top of the wall (which is about 2ft broad)- the tree-dancer is fastest, she tries to leap past the gholem to get at the druid, she's pretty good- gets clipped by the gholem, not landed on, but put far enough off balance that as she lands, the druid hooks her leading foot with the blunt inside edge of the axe and pulls, knocking her off her feet; she recovers by rolling off the wall and spasming against it, throwing herself into the garden.


Baerne, I'm the last person in the world to be able to complain about anyone else's typos (apart from anything else I typed "ytpos" the first time,) but that one's actually funny. Same general rule applies though, real life first.

There's another player wanting to join, with quite a dark character concept, I'll play him in where you are in a bit- nothing much appears to happen for a while, Valette gets some rest, and I'll tell you once she notices what is actually happening.


Safrac- two seconds of swinging and dodging with this one remind you of the best and the worst of facing off against elves. The best being that as arrogant, pompous, stuck- up and supercilious as they frequently are, they remarkably often commit themselves beyond their real abilities, and can be led into overextending themselves and making mistakes. The worst being they're often almost as good as they think they are.

He decides to parry, raising his main blade ito a high block aiming for the haft of the hammer, trying to damage Safrac's weapon, and simultaneously sidesteps to his right; the weapons connect with a loud crack and a flying chip of wood, blocked and slightly but not seriously damaged- the elf tries to roll the blade round and upwards aiming to take Safrac's left arm off; Safrac half- turns to meet him, catches the blade and tries to use the lenght of his hammer to sweep the longsword out of the elf's hand- he rolls with that, retaining his weapon, and lunges with the off- hand shortsword that Safrac only just steps out of the way of.


Relvenous, Theresa listens to that, thinks, hears the sizzle of magic and the clang of metal; says 'Lucie,' her next senior warrior, 'through the garden,' and adds to the rest of her team which includes de Andorra, 'with me' and starts running along the outside of the temple. She didn't say anything about who they mean to attack, you notice.

[Kheitain]

Thanks for clearing that up, and woo-hoo Kheitain made a special entry in some future monster manual .

The gholem feels the clip and uses the force to help start a roll as he hits the ground on the outside of the wall. Springing up he forgets the Tree-Dancer in favour of the enemy right upfront. Watching Safrac and the elf trade blows so violent a chip flies from Safracs warhammer. He circles the Swordsman forcing him to divide his attention. Taking full advantage of construct immunities he simply tries to grapple the nimble creature, accepting any sword blows in an effort to simply crush the life out of him.

[Lord Relvenous]

Well, de Andorra will just follow. He won't speak any more until he sees what Theresa plans. He readies his weapons.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

The initiative order for that fight is going to be the elf, whose name is Ayadrel (15), Safrac (14), the gholem (11, surprisingly- thought it would be higher); on the other side of the wall, it's the druid, the elf- both on 14 but the tiebreakers go to him. Once the Krylanyans get there, after the first two rounds, things are going to get messy.

Ayadrel doesn't have anything other than magic which can do much damage to a gholem, and doesn't fancy his chances of getting a shot off in the middle of a melee without being splatted in return. What he actually does is athletics- tries to dart past Safrac to put the orc between him and the gholem to stop the gholem getting him, and trying to cut Safrac in passing; another clash of hammer and sword, parried- but he does manage to use Safrac as a shield, for now at least.


Relvenous, they have their blades out, seven of them, (two others going with Lucie through the temple to come out in the garden), and Theresa spots the situation, takes it in, thinks how maximum advantage is to be gained for her side- that is, the temple and the faith, and her personally; orders "We save the elf from the orc and the gholem. Tomas, the orc, Julith the gholem."


HarrionGreyjoy, now would be as good a time as any-you're one of the people sitting around one of the bonfires at the D'Cearach house. Introduce yourself.

[Norade]

Safrac parries the Ayadrel's blade again, though this time the meeting of sword and hammer doesn't result in his hammer being damaged. However in doing so he allows the elf to dodge away from where the gholem was attempting to crush him. The orkish knight figures his best bet is to try and allow both him and the gholem to hit their lone foe so he turns to face the enemy and swings his hammer low in a one handed blow that is less designed to hit than it is to allow him grab the enemy by the shoulder and turn him back towards the construct. Should that fail he'll want to move to allow his unlikely ally a clear line to their opponent.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Ayadrel is using a long and a short sword- not a great combination to get all that close to. Ayadrel dodges the blow, steps away then flows back; isn't all that worried about being grabbed, and Safrac realises at the last moment that's because the elf's shortsword is heading straight for the inevitable weak spot in his armour, under the armpit of the hand doing the grabbing.

Safrac shoves him out of the way, the shortsword grates off the chestplate of his armour, and the elf realises, a second too late, that he's managed to manoeuvre himself into the path of the gholem.


Baerne, Valette notices that a couple of the people around the fire, on the house side of the fire in particular, are lookng glassy- eyed, swaying a little.

[Kheitain]

The gholem rushes in as soon as he sees the opening. The over eager elf swordsman tries for a killing blow that narrowly misses, putting himself directly in the gholems path. This time the gholem wades in a right-left-right elbow-left knee flurry forcing the elf backwards towards Safrac. This fight has to end quickly, the sword wielders don't scare him but he understands that Safrac's luck won't keep up and they are about to be outnumbered.

[Lord Relvenous]

Oh, shit. I saw this one coming. Well I have absolutely no idea how to handle this. Anyone got any suggestions? I'm trying to think of ways to stop the Krylanyans from attacking without getting us all on the bad side of the temple. Any ideas?

[Norade]

(I'd suggest that save, doesn't mean kill those attacking the elf. All it takes to save both parties any injury is to take control of the situation.)

[Master_Baerne]

Valette gets up and nudges Rav, nods her head in the direction of the odd-looking people, and walks slowly in their direction. She's being especially careful to avoid gas weapons after the encouter at the in, so she holds her breath as much as possible and takes small sips of air when necessary.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Baerne; Valette notices, you're not sure if Rav does because she immediately starts sprinting for the edge of the smoke cloud, that the people immediately in the lee of the house and the people downwind of the funeral pyre seem least affected.

They were burning a variety of things that gave sweet- smelling smoke in the upwind pyre, basically as fumigation, and Rav's obvious conclusion is that some sneaky elf has managed to add a fairly hefty dose of sleeping gas to that; most of the people not directly in the wind shadow (the lee) of the house are already starting to keel over. What does Valette do?


At the temple, the fight is over in seconds. Assumng Safrac actually hits him. What happens is that Ayadrel overextends himself, tries to fend off the gholem and lunge at Safrac at the same time, as well as sweep aside any attacks coming from him- his longsword blade clangs off Safrac's right leg, a hit but a poor one without enough momentum to get through the armour.

He is still half- extended when the gholem clatters into him, he lashes out- and the gholem meets him halfway, being caught by the tip of the blade scything fast (and doing some injury- 1 ID), but meeting elbow to elbow, and there's a very nasty splintering sound.

It seems to come from the elf, but he quickly controls his pain, slashes for Safrac's jugular with the shortsword, but fails to make contact- a clean (wound penalties) miss. That in itself is proof he's up to no good. Anyone other than a complete fanatic would have the sense to fall over after having a joint mangled like that.

The Krylanyans are not best pleased; Safrac can drop the elf if he likes- it would take very little more damage. From inside the garden, though, there is a horrible long, warbling, female scream.

[Norade]

Safrac isn't going to kill the elf, though he knows that it would be within his right to do so. Instead he aims to shatter a leg so that no matter how badly the elf wishes to fight he can't do so. This will of course cause no small risk to the elf, and without healing it could very well kill him, yet not aiming for a killing blow is enough to satisfy his sense on honor.

With that taken care of he hears the female scream and he tells the gholem, "Go over the wall again, and see what that scream was about. I have people to talk to. If you need me to help then shape the wall so I can reach you by climbing it."

He assumes the construct will listen to him, it was obviously programed to fight and likely to take orders, he figures that since they've fought together it may listen to him. With that done he walks to where de Andorra and Dame Theresa are standing ignoring the two others dispatched to the fight. He nods to his so far ally and looks coolly at Theresa, she's not a friend, but she is worthy of his grudging respect.

Still looking to Theresa and showing no signs of stopping for them he says, "Thanks for the help, but next time let me deal with things on my own."

He's going to look for Mathilde and he jogs past the elf near the temple's entrance and heads towards the courtyard assuming that will be where she headed.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Hm. Least complicated part of the situation first; as the men of Safrac's lance heard that scream they rushed into the garden, to find the female elf, disarmed, naked, and curled up into a foetal ball, with the druid holding a small plant and a glowing crystal leaf. Mathilde was just behind them.

The druid apparently started to trying to talk to them, Parrol will report this exactly, "You do realise we're technically on the same side..."- realised Mathilde was having none of it, "ah." and did something with air and earth; the gholem more or less follows parts of it, he basically phantoms himself as an air current, or appears to- there are a few wrinkles in there that say it's more complicated than that.

He leaves a cloud of dust behind, Mathilde tries to catch him with one of the magics of the goddess- sword and shield, create a barrier, wall him in, but she's trying to catch air with a net.

She vaults up on to the wall after him, see if she can detect which way he went, and spots what's happening in the alley beside the temple where Safrac is.
Theresa is not a happy person; she looks at the situation, looks at the fallen elf, and before de Andorra can try to calm her down raises her blade and is about to attack Safrac when Mathilde orders her to stand down. Which she does with extremely poor grace.
Theresa would obviously prefer to attack, but there is a brief shouting match between them- the senior paladin asserts her dominance, and the junior, Theresa resents it.

'Everyone, the south chapel hall. Including the wounded. we can treat them there and try and work out exactly what just happened.' The politics have obviously just got very confusing.

In the middle of all of this, just after you get to the hall with most of the asesmbly, and start assessing it as a battleground- two injured elves, Theresa's people looking daggers at everybody, Mathilde's own guard are all there- a junior acolyte comes up to her. 'A rat just handed this in at the main gate.' and gives Mathilde a leaf.

'It's a ransom note, written in appallingly bad elvish- "I have, something, her soul to a pot plant." Trapped, transmigrated? Could be. "if you want to put her body and soul together again, turn up at the D'Cearach house at the third quarter of evening. Bring the orc, and don't hurt the gholem. Your resident lunatic druid." Goddess, why me?' she asks looking up at the ceiling.

[Master_Baerne]

Right, then. Valette heads upwind of the smoke cloud, and tries to find somewhere to hide. She gets the feeling that what's coming will not be a proper situation for someone of her skillset.

[Norade]

Safrac narrowly avoids his second fight of the night and fourth of the past day when Dame Mathilde stops Theresa from engaging him in another battle. He nods to the senior Paladin and hurries to the south chapel hall as she asks. Along the way he meets Parol and hears of the events in the courtyard. It's too much for him to deal with so he gathers his men far from Theresa's group.

As they form a small not he says, "Things are more complex than I had feared. We have allies in this temple, de Andorra and Senior Paladin Mathilde, we have an allies in de Novara, a local of much reputation, and we have a very different sort of ally in a gholem that seems to have taken a shine to me. Yet we also have enemies, those elves, the common man and woman, and Dame Theresa. I am not the man to sort these this, my mind is built for other things... Parol, what do you advise?"

Before his man can answer, a stir fills the room and a note is read. His night is far from over and he suspects that this will make things yet more complex. Shaking his head he steps out from his group and into the room's center.

In the clear he turns to Mathilde and says, "We'd best be moving then, better to settle things quickly and try to ease some pain while we can..."

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

'Sir,' Parrol says to Safrac, 'he was looking at my stripes when he said that, and he's a heretic to these people, isn't he? Same side's got to mean army, and the only other unit through here apart from us is those mad bastards. He could be taking the salt-' (meaning, being paid by the Imperial Army- same root as the word "salary" after all)- 'as a scout.' He does not look as if he approves of that.

Then there is the leaf, and Safrac stands and says his piece- Theresa is on her feet within a second to object. 'You are technically my prisoner, and have no right to propose to move anywhere. You attacked a guest of the temple, and-'

Mathilde overrules her. 'If we have to go through this again, we're doing it with blades- is that what you want, a leadership challenge, now of all times?'

Theresa visibly screws up her courage to the sticking point, and says 'Yes. Before things get any worse under you? Yes, it is.'

They lock eyeballs for a moment, and Mathilde looks away first- Safrac and de Andorra both reckon she could have won that but chose to allow the challenge to go ahead. Why?

'It'll take time to prepare the chapel, and this business is a matter of urgency. I'll leave you behind to do that, and see if you can find anyone at all willing to follow you.' Mathilde says to Theresa. 'My team, Sir Safrac you and your lance, the gholem, and I suppose we had better bring the elf.' The tree- dancer has been reduced to a tabula rasa; all the autonomic reflexes are still there, she could probably walk if pointed in the right direction, but no mind, no intelligence at all. 'Let's go and see what this is all about.'

Relvenous, Baerne, story posts for your characters in a bit.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Baerne; Valette indeed finds somewhere to hide, an apple tree in the gardens, just next to the wall and at the edge of the plume. She checks first to see that it isn't full of elf- and it isn't, but there is someone else there.

A young man in multiple layers of green and brown, most of them torn, holding a staff, with a hawk perched on his shoulder. 'Typical, the same trick over and over again...still, I suppose it works. Here, hold this pot plant.' He says, handing a plant to Valette.

'Have you worked out who's trying to do what to whom yet? The bunch behind that smoke cloud, and I really wouldn't advise your dark elf friend to get too close to them, are after D'Cearach's papers.

They're not above rifling through the lower reaches of the mind of anyone who saw them to make sure they plugged all the leaks...bloody typical, they would be here right now. Stay hidden while I make this as embarrasing as possible for them.' he says, and heads off in the direction of the elves.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

(Sorry about the multiple posts, I'm feeling particularly scatterbrained today.) Relvenous; attached to Theresa's team, de Andorra gets left behind at the temple.

Two things happen; a messenger arrives from the temple of Valdemiron, looking quite nervous, to inquire what all the fuss is about- and to inquire as to their terms for handing Safrac over as a prisoner. All that is visible of dame Theresa's face is her mouth and chin, and from that evil smile, things are not going to bode well for Safrac.

She deals with that herself, 'in earshot' is about as much as de Andorra can get without being obvious; but it's blatantly clear she has no respect for Mathilde, openly defying her instructions and authority, and arranging for the orcish knight to be handed over shortly before midnight. She obviously believes she's going to win.

The second thing is that she takes de Andorra aside. We're not talking slam up against the wall and snarl here, but close. 'She planted you on me, she can't think I don't know that, but things are moving too fast for her. Her time's over. She's made mistakes, she's making more, she's starting to lose her grip. Who are you going to cling to, the past or the future?' Theresa, what little of her is visible, looks positively wolvish.


Vehrec, if you're reading this, what's Randolf doing? He can feel life magic being used- I'm assuming he's somewhere in the lee of the D'Cearach house, watchigover the injured and waiting until they can be transferred into a fumigated and aired building- they're not in a perfect place as it is but it's better than most of the alternatives. Someone, perhaps a shade less skilled but with significant raw power, is using life magic to scan for those who haven't been rendered unconscious by the gas. What do you do?

[Kheitain]

First off, I'm sorry for the late reply. I've been working two jobs the past couple weeks and the past three days have been both jobs every day. I finish one on the 14th so it won't be for much longer at least.

The gholem shifts about astoundingly bored by all the talking, and incredibly confused as to why all of a sudden he and Safrac aren't crushing this Theresa human and her followers into fertilizer. He very nearly silences Theresa himself when she jumps up, shouting something about a prisoner. Some kind of contest of dominance occurs between her and the woman with the metal bodysuite, which seems laughably out of place in this environment. As Mathilde turns to leave he finally breaks his silence and asks her "What about that one?" indicating the crippled and near dead male elf. "It's crippled and I want to give it to my tree, and those ones too." he continues in his strange thrumming voice, pointing at Theresa's group.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Backtracking a little; Theresa seizes on that, and starts shouting about this being the choice of allies, the people you place our trust in? Mathilde ignores that, and says to the gholem 'You mean, murder him and use him as fertiliser? He certainly has comrades, probably has family and may even have friends who would want him back...at least want him for ther own trees. Besides, it would be bad hospitality.'

[Norade]

To Parol, "That druid or whatever he is did aid me when I needed it. Though I dislike the implications of his being here, he has value... I must say, I am glad to have a man like you help see this clearly though."

That done he tries to speak to Theresa but is cut off and soon anything he would say is lost to the verbal barbs going back and forth. In the end he has Parol form his lance up outside while he makes an attempt to dissuade Theresa from her current path.

He keeps his distance but he says to her, "Do not let your lust for power ruin you and this temple. I can see plainly enough that every bad word about this temple would be said again louder should what you're planning come to bear fruit. Do not sully what little good name Mathilde has managed to salvage for you."

With that he joins his lance, Mathilde, and the gholem and starts to move toward the specified location where the fires are burning.

[Kheitain]

"Murder?" the gholem echoes, "it's crippled and in pain, why would they want it back?" Gesturing to Theresa and her bunch he simply states "I don't like those ones." He turns and fist-walks following Safrac and Mathilde out.

Seeing their intended direction he asks them, "Do we have to go this way? It's scary and I don't want to go there..."

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Obviously I can't tell you exactly what you're going to find until it happens; but on the way, Mathilde says to the gholem, 'We do. My goddess wants me to go to these kind of scary places and try to make them less so- and there are some people who deserve to be scared, or worse.'

Which is basically a throwaway line, until she listens to the words coming out of her mouth, and seems to come to some kind of decision. Doesn't look as if she likes it much.


Vehrec, are you out there? Randolf's conscious, surrounded by unconscious people and there are elves approaching who have an interest in making conscious people less so, along with possibly quite literal brain drain.

Baerne, that pot plant- some kind of small shrub- feels unnaturally heavy, is warm to the touch, and if she listen carefully Valette can hear it screaming. What is she doing about it?