Paths, pt 2

Few recognized Tepektu as a seer. He loomed over most men, with a champion's shoulders and the grace of some unnamed, forgotten hero. Bereft of his hood, his face was broad and regally handsome, an emperor's portrait carved from polished teak wood. He'd used this proud bearing to his advantage for years, building a business as a spice merchant, and later, as a broker for goods one had great difficulty finding. He was often assumed to be the half-noble by-blow of some Betrani prince, and in time, he'd become the rich and powerful merchant lord everyone assumed he was.

Few would recognize the true reasons for his success, also. He kept his arcane skill a secret, for he knew how much power the unknown gave him over others. But Tepektu's ability to read the Influences was profound. His talent in sifting through the facets of causality had kept him moving, kept him reaching for more opportunity.

It had also infected him with a degree of fatalism.

Before him, moving under his huge dark hands, discs named for events and people shifted back and forth in a web, and he scowled at one small collection of them. Tepektu rubbed at his chin, considering the patterns.

This is how he ferreted out secrets. He would map the Influences, watch the names shift back and forth through the web, and he would note where they did not go. He would study the areas that went untouched, and then he would divine where those areas matched. In those blank spaces, secrets hid.

For some while now, the problem was in four parts, each bumping into the areas he intended to explore. There they were, again, and again: the Lady of Mirrors, the Wolf-Queen, the Star-binder, and the Gate Warden. Ever since they'd beaten him to the tomb of Camwhyr, he'd been dedicated to staying three steps ahead of them, and so far he'd done so. But lately, in his map of fate, they were leaping through obstacles like lightning to the earth.

Tepektu noted other groups moving along similar paths, but none so close to his as they. They knew of him, but they'd never seen him except once in a vision. He knew they were doomed to meet eventually. No matter what decision he made, if he remained dedicated to his course, they would meet. This did not trouble him; there had been others, before.

Tepektu was still here. The others were not.

Watching the four progress through his map, however, troubled him. Tracing the Influences that pushed at them, tugging their path into swerving here or there, he saw grand and dreadful things. The eruption at Sinid that destroyed a city, the death of one of the Three from poison, the strange dead-star that fell on the plains of Uryashar, the raising of a massive temple near Pesh, the hollow man epidemic at Yhelm, the hags from Dourmoor; whether or not these four were involved or even close to any of these dreadful events didn't matter.

The pattern mattered. The ripples pushed and pulled at the choices the four had, and steered them ever onward, driven by whatever their own ambitions might be. They were carrying a great momentum, and finally, he saw now the empty space that these events surrounded. There were portents, huge and far-flung, and Tepektu was watching at the right place and right time to understand what they enclosed.

At the moment, he did not know if the four understood. But he believed they did.

Tracing his hand along the threads, he examined the silvery collection of icons close to him. Around the Ring-Maker were the Locksmith, the Riddled Prince, the Fire Twin, the Eclipse Daughter, and now, finally, the White Ribbon. Reading the Influences underneath his outspread fingers, he let his hand shift along with the whorls and pools of event and counter-event.
Tepektu's quick, grasping mind studied the icons on the way, and chained them together with symbols. It was inevitable. The four would cross his path again. Both of them were aimed at the Moonstone, an icon prefacing the large hollow in the center of the pattern.

When he came to a conclusion and finished interpreting the Influences, he sat back in his chair, folded his massive arms, and frowned. It was with deliberation and determination that he selected a new icon, one made of burnt black wood, and set it firmly into the center of this space.

His study was utter stillness for some while before a voice addressed him.

“And what is that marker for? The end of the world?”

“No,” replied Tepektu. “It is a time when the world wishes it could end.”

Paths

Last game of DnD, my players encountered an oracle, who discussed with them some of the events going on that they were unaware of. Naturally, it's a bit cryptical, given that the oracle didn't know precisely what the truth was either, but the players got a fair amount out of it. In essence, there were five other 'parties' running parallel to the player group. These parties had their own agendas, but due to circumstance and coincidence, tend to follow along the same courses the players do.

Originally, to give the players something to think about, I was going to post a brief snippet of the views of these other parties, and what's happening with them. And that got me thinking about how many stories go unspoken in my campaign. Very nearly any NPC with a name has a backstory and a history. Half of them just sort of explode out of my poor head, fully created, and less than a fourth ever get their full story revealed. So, as a periodic addition here, I'll be posting some pieces of NPC information that never got (nor is likely to be) revealed. This is not only for the DnD group's benefit...I'll be including NPCs from other games too, and I'd like to think some people NOT in my games (I don't have time to run for everybody these days) will get some inspiration and enjoyment out of it.

So, here we have the Path of Hunger.


For a long time, Naello had been terrified. It had been a quiet thing at first, a vague whisper of unease, but as he grew older, his fear grew in turn. His faith hadn't given him respite against the slow inevitability of age, and as his warrior's body tired and weakened, his desperation had grown.

He knew perfectly well that what he'd done was wrong, but how could he have continued to help the world if he became some doddering old man?

Now, cast out from his home city and despised by all those who were once peers and friends, he scowled out at a tangled, thorn-riddled forest, wishing the bleak iron gray of the sky into the hearts of those four who had made a ruin of everything.

The deaths in the city hadn't been his fault. The horrors that followed would never have happened if the four hadn't interfered, but they had.

Naello still had resources, and he intended to prove to the world that he wasn't finished yet. He refused to be remembered as a monster, and refused to succumb to the underhanded treachery that fate had chosen to deal him.

Word had reached him that the dwarf Adun was slain. Martel the Gorecrow, an old foe, also slain. The four had been responsible for both, and now they were running some errand for Caradoc, the one man who never trusted Naello, even from the beginning.

Turning from the stone maw of his window, Naello looked at the black-wrapped huddles behind him, and felt a chill.

These are loyal, he reminded himself. They are loyal, and they will die to do what is right. And I will tell them what is right.

“Listen well. These are the ones you must kill...”


In the days that passed, some farmers near the edge of the wilderness would look up, feeling unease, but they would see nothing, and return to work. Rumors of shadows in the woods grew, and children weren't allowed to stay out after dark. No one knew exactly why, but their instincts told them with a shudder that something was out there.

Much later, bones would be found in the forest, hidden, and gnawed clean. The occasional lone traveler would be noted missing, but most of the bones would go unnamed.

The five moved unseen. They would listen at windows in the evening, loping silently along back roads and hidden paths, covering great stretches of ground because their hunger made them tireless. Skulking, they collected whispers and rumors, and over time built a path to take them to their quarry. The five moved like the black talons of a single hand, slipping from the dark thickets of the wilderness to the edges of country roads, and then further north and east to lurk in wide fields and scattered forests.

A month since Naello had unleashed them, they circled a township nestled in some verdant hills, and caught a scout near there. They told him what they wanted to know, and they ate him, and took his bones to leave no traces. They were not the first devourers in that area, they knew; they'd found old ghoul tracks.

When they came near the burial mound hidden in the woods, they felt the faint tingle of consecration on the area, and fanned out, pale shadows wrapped in black, flitting between pool of moonlight and streak of midnight, shifting slowly, intent on their task.

Early that morning, Caer Ondal's villagers heard a frightening ululation in the night, and they wondered if the ghoul-worshippers had not yet been wiped out.

The truth was that the neshniya had found the scent they'd been seeking for so long. By sun-up, they were already miles away, hunting for Naello's designated prey.

Excerpt: The Hand of Bethor

“Most years, they stay in the wilderness. We see their witchlights and the violet flames in the distance. It is not well to enter that land, because of the work they do... some years, they come out and bring their work against us. They shout of freedom and power, but we have seen what they are. They are all mad.”
Herennya, Matriarch of the Hhanash iron druids

“The Church of Bethor is insidious beyond measure. Somehow, though they are all mad, many choose to join them. Their numbers swell when they skulk in our cities. Soon after, the battle is joined, and the Church of Bethor attempts to enslave all those who do not join their blasphemy. They hold great power, but it is power which destroys their own as well as others.”
From the roster of Blasphemous Cults, in the High Temple of Kesr.

“Bethorans aren't mad in the way most people think. They see the world differently, maybe, but they're very rational. At least, the leaders are. Look past the insane cultists, look past their zealotry, and you'll notice... they're smart. They plan, they plan far ahead, and they're good at improvising when things don't go well for them. It's easy to say they're just madmen, but the Bethorans have been in the world for over five hundred years. Clearly, they know what they're doing... whatever that is.”
From the personal journals of Wallace Rievenfeld


Viewed as insane cultists with an obsession for stealing enchanted items, the Bethorans are actually a sophisticated and ancient society who views magic as an essential form of expression. Though splinters of the organization have secretly lodged in cities far from their homeland, most still consider the Bethorans as backwards-minded fanatics who have little to no order at all.

The Bethorans are actually two connected groups. Bethoran purebloods are those born Bethoran, usually raised in their magic-tainted homeland. Adopted Bethorans are outsiders who have been accepted into Bethoran culture. These groups work in conjunction to further the goals of the Bethoran whole, although many adopted Bethorans are not sane enough to understand the bigger picture, and are used as a barrier to those investigating the truth of the Bethoran movement.

The Vision of Bethor

Skybending was the first magical technique known to humans. In this method, the magician becomes a funnel for raw magical power, and attempts to shape it with his will as it explodes out of him. Though this process is capable of incredible creation, it is also inherently dangerous, and prolonged skybending in a given area can create various forms of magical pollution. As such, skybending in the current age is completely forbidden in nearly all civilizations.

Humans learned the fundaments of modern magic from the High Elves. The elves presented a cleaner, more efficient wizardry, allowing a reliable technique that did not corrupt the surroundings. Most humans jumped at the chance to learn, but there are rare exceptions mentioned in history. One such name was Bethor Chainmaker.

Bethor was a very successful skybender and warrior, chieftain to a large nomadic clan in what are now the wilds of Amboq. Accounts of the day state that he refused the elven teachings, calling them subtle tyrants who were attempting to control and subjugate humanity by restricting their power. He claimed they feared human ascension, though he did say it was a justifiable fear, for he believed humans are mighty.

Bethor's philosophy was that magic is the purest expression of the human will, and therefore, any attempt to codify or constrain or restrict magic is an attempt to restrain and limit human potential. He believed that magic is for all, and should be used in all situations.

In response to the quickly spreading elven influence, Bethor's clan absorbed several other large clans in the territory, and began to teach skybending to anyone with the fortitude to use it, as a prelude to waging open war. Accounts differ wildly on the events of Bethor's war, but it is true that he drove the elves away from his people, using massive magical assaults that claimed the lives of many of his own people as well as the enemy. The arcane fallout from these magical assaults would be the the foundation for the bizarre and erratic magical influences that blanket the Amboq, influences which would increase further from generations of skybending.

It is uncertain what happened to Bethor himself. It is assumed that any further records of Bethor's life are somewhere in the Amboq, if not destroyed. After the war, his people fortified their homeland and presumably retreated to develop the foundations of modern Bethoran culture. Would-be invaders avoided the Amboq, afraid of the seething magic that had racked the land, and the Bethorans did not leave the Amboq for several generations. The true history of the Bethorans remains unknown, and few historians are willing to brave the Amboq for further records..

Metagame

It's been a while.

I tend to be ambitious about running my games, and unfortunately, my ambition got away with me this time. Due to impending schedule changes, I have to postpone my Dark Heresy game until further notice. This gripes me a bit; I was looking forward to it, but my other two games are going really very well, so I don't feel I have much room to complain.

Speaking of which, I've been mentioning some peculiarities of pacing in one of those games. Specifically, the game is Kult, which for those not familiar, is in the 'personal horror' genre. I've run a good many Kult games up to this point. The base system is not particularly good, in my opinion, but the way the game handles sanity (itself very subjective in the game) is quite elegant, and there is a strong mechanical impact on facets of the character's personality... or vice versa. I believe that this touch is one of the keys as to why Kult games tend to go through the same stages, regardless of the player base or the story the GM is running.

In Kult, at least, stages of the game are defined by character development, and they come at particular break points. Though the break points might be spaced differently from game to game, they follow the same order, and in my current game I was able to predict them to the very session they occurred. The curious might define these stages as follows:

Exploration: Upon discovering something not in the world view, the PCs start edging out of their normal environment. This brings them closer together as a group, often regardless of differences. Their curiosity pulls them forward.

Attachment: At this point, the PCs have attached their desires and ambitions to events. This is usually where the players themselves have gotten a better feel for their characters, which I believe is a strong contribution to this breakpoint. This is the place where directions are decided upon, which invariably leads to:

Conflict: The world isn't what they thought it was. Now, the PCs are finding that THEY aren't who they thought they were, and neither are their friends. I describe this moment as me putting guns on the table, and the PCs all pointing them at each other. Part of this is certainly a deeper understanding of the characters being played, but it is also a natural reaction to something else that tends to occur by this point in a Kult game... which is, PCs lose control of themselves and their uglier sides tend to show.

Them Against Us: This is where it gets tricky. The isolation gets to the PCs. They don't have anyone to turn to except themselves... better the familiar enemy than the unknown, in the worst case. In a way, the party turns inward to try and deal better with the outside influences. It doesn't tend to be the least bit comfortable.

There are a couple other points, but my Kult players read this, and I don't want to spoil the surprise.

Each Kult game I've run (and been in), these happen, right on schedule. This doesn't come from any attempt to steer the players. They react to story lines and situations, and this pattern just ends up happening. I find it fascinating to consider why, and chatting with my players about this got me to thinking about patterns that happen in other RPGs. In My Life With Master, this sort of irrevocable progress is actually mechanically supported, which is one reason I regard the game as utter genius, but in Kult the process is far more organic. I do believe that those games which provide mechanical support for character personality elements are those which might have a stronger set of patterns (Humanity in Vampire, Mental Balance in Kult, Sanity in Call of Cthulhu, etcetera, though the CoC pattern seems to be 'investigators go mad/die').

I'll be looking at my games closely. You should, too. You might be surprised at what behavioral models you find at the table.

LARP dynamics? That's an entirely different beast. I'm not going there.

Well, not this time.

A quick update

What with classes finishing up, along with a friend's impending wedding and a number of other busy-nesses, I've let this sit for a little while. So, here's a few quick notes to tide people over.

1/ Paizo, if you hadn't heard, is essentially allowing its audience to playtest their upcoming Pathfinder system, which is DnD 3.75. I'll be posting my full impressions on this soon. You can download the Alpha rules set for free on their website... check it out, and join in.

2/ I've been looking at the pieces of 4.0 that keep creeping out there. I'm interested, but I admit, anything that gets really hyped up always leaves me cold. It's an anti-marketing reflex, I suppose. Now, that said, I like some of the concepts they are kicking around, but while reading about 4.0, I happened across a quote, which is the basis for /3.

/3 A fellow stated that he was happy about what he'd heard regarding 4.0, because it will make the monsters smarter.
....
No.
No, no no.
YOU make the monsters smarter. The game system, no matter how cool it is, does not magically enhance the intelligence level of your encounters. The system is just a tool to resolve conflicts, and it may offer you more options to determine the outcome (i.e. the simple 'I swing and hit' as opposed to a system that allows hitting, grappling, tripping, stunning, frying eggs in combat or whatever else).
Systems, depending on their architecture, will bias the feel of a game. But ultimately, the one running the game has control over the system. It's a tool. It doesn't use you.

/4 I do, very much, enjoy the general movement towards simplification that is going on with the fantasy RPG market today. I have a general sense that fantasy gaming is beginning to turn full circle, and head back to its roots.
Of course, that means it'll probably turn into a cottage industry again, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Well, unless you want to make money writing games.


More to come, soon.

Level Up! pt 2

In Destined, there are many planes of existence, but all of them overlap in a central bubble, which is the Destiny Plane. All other planes are limited by their nature in potential and change, but the Destiny Plane represents all of their possibilities. Within the Destiny bubble, there are universes upon universes flowing in a constant stream of actions and consequences and events. The strongest of these streams within a stream is the Destiny Prime, which represents the campaign world. Whether or not it is one single world among many, or several universes in itself isn't important for this discussion. What is important here is that destiny flows strongest through the Prime.

Destiny here is not a passive force. It isn't a foreordained doom or prophecy that comes to pass automatically. Destiny in this cosmology is fluid, and uncertain. However, it does obey certain laws. We'll examine these laws in the context of levels.

Levels, in the Destined setting, are interpreted as accumulations of destiny (not that any character has any notion of this). The more levels one has, the more significant one's destiny has become, be it through personal decisions or mere circumstance. When a character goes from level 1 to level 5, they are forcing their will for change upon the cosmos, and though destiny is grudging, it will move once enough momentum is generated.

As the character continues to advance in levels, they face greater difficulties, because destiny naturally seeks equilibrium. This is one reason why higher level encounters, before apparently unnoticed or simply not there, abruptly crop up when characters reach a higher level. Destiny pushes back, when it gets pushed... to the point of suddenly throwing momentum into a local ogre, say, who the characters might remember as being a lowly warlord. This local ogre suddenly finds things happening in his favor, and behold, he becomes a monstrous emperor with a great army. When one carries great destiny, others of similar weight are drawn to you. This works both ways; a standard fantasy trope is that a mighty evil overlord appears, only to be overthrown by an unlikely group of heroes... who level up very quickly, don't they?

Just as destiny can pool against the dam of a high level character, it can also drain from a place when equilibrium is met. Though it is difficult to simulate mechanically, I judge that accumulated destiny fades if the possessor does nothing with it, or has achieved his goals, or otherwise ceased to carry momentum. In a good many legends, great heroes eventually die from some small, minor thing after they've done with being great heroes, and I use that as a proof. Hercules is slain by a poisoned shirt, for example. Sure, it was assumed it was a very nasty poison, but maybe he just didn't have the saving throw he used to.

In my campaign, I restrict this increase/decrease effect to NPCs only. I'm continually toying with a mechanical representation of this, inspired by the excellent Spiritual Attributes mechanic of Riddle of Steel (fantastic game, play it if you get the chance). In sum, the SA mechanic means that your character only 'levels up' when they are pursuing certain aspects of their life which are tremendously important to them, and further, those SA's provide mechanical benefit. A peasant who believes in his cause can be a surprisingly strong adversary to a well-trained knight who doesn't have a cause at all. I see destiny as working in the same way. Sometimes it is thrust upon someone, usually to counterbalance the actions of another. Sometimes it is gathered unconsciously by those who have something to prove to the world.

The notion of the Destiny Prime spawned some other ideas, also. If there is a Prime, then there are alternate realities within the Destiny Plane that have branched off from decisions made in the Prime. These decisions are significant enough to create a different stream, but most of these end up flowing back into the Prime. Some, however, do not, and form bubbles of their own. Perhaps one day, their events, histories and contents will be seamlessly integrated into the Prime if they grow close enough, but until then, they rest apart. Some fundamental decision, somewhere back in the chain of causality, made these bubbles very different sorts of places. The inhabitants of the Prime are utterly unaware of these destiny bubbles, and would probably be disturbed at some of them.

My submission to the Wizards of the Coast setting search competition was one such bubble, a world called Rhoa. In Rhoa, conflict is hard-coded into the flow of destiny; there will never really be peace there. The divergence from the Prime ensures that conflict will continue. This makes it a brutal, visceral sort of place where beauty is precious and fleeting. The setting has gone through several stages of refinement and expansion since its creation for the competition, and I'll be sharing some facets of it in later posts.

Final note for today: My players are all awesome. I'm a happy man.

Level Up! pt 1

Levels are a common way to designate degrees of power in RPGs. How levels are interpreted, and the size of the power difference from one to the other can vary, but if levels exist, there are some questions lurking in the background.

What is really the difference between level 1 and level 5? How many people of a given level are there? If earning a level is a more or less permanent thing (barring undead exposure or temporary death), then why is it most people never get past level 1? Surely a level 1 commoner racks up experience points enough to become a level... 5 commoner during the course of a full lifetime.

'Leveling up' means more skills, more powers, more hit points, and occasionally more spells. A higher level person is simply harder to kill, and when you use your average in-game scale for damage ratings, anyone beyond level 5 is practically superhuman. A level 10 character fades next to the earth-shaking power of level 15. And before anyone scoffs and points out 'omg, but look at all the level 20-30s', I'd like to remind them that realistically (if you can use such a word here), 95% of the game world's population is going to be level 1.

Perspective, please. Level 10 means, to the average joe, you are unstoppable. You are a mighty hero (or terrifying villain, or just powerfully indifferent). How high levels are depicted in an RPG is a topic for another day, but we'll touch on it briefly here.

I've noticed a fair amount of neglect in showcasing just how significant higher level characters are in the world. Part of it is that most GM s keep to the basic strategy of 'Can the PCs do this?' At high level play, the tagline shouldn't be whether or not they can, but whether or not they Should. This is particularly important in games like White Wolf's Exalted, where the system guarantees that the PLAYERS shape the story, regardless of what the GM might have in mind. A GM who tries to do the usual dungeon-crawl-and-faceoff-versus-powerful-bad-guy tactic may find themselves a little overwhelmed. In DnD the power scale runs a much wider range, with a higher degree of uncertainty in the mechanics. But the significance of a high-level character's actions should definitely be made plain.

Again, the question of 'should', rather than 'can we'?

My brain locked on to the reasons why, precisely, a high level character became so powerful. Why weren't there so many of them? How hard is it, really, to level up? The system of experience points converting to levels is a very abstract concept, and one that has seen a fair amount of parody.

So, I created a cosmology to explain it. This was the spark that eventually generated the default campaign setting that I use, which I simply call Destined (yeah, fine, shoot me, it's what I've got at the moment).