83Tower-Top Observatories

The looking glass trembled in Mr. Stargazer's hands. He had to make sure. Tottering to the messy pile of charts that spilled from the nearest table, he leafed through them hastily until he came to the age spotted piece of parchment that he sought. His trembling fingers traced the lines of the diagram the paper held until he reached the spidery drawing that depicted the constellation of the Rose Resplendent. He trotted back to his looking glass to confirm his misgivings. Yes, there was no mistake; the thorn of the black prince had pierced the constellation. He could see the glow of the battle quite clearly through his eyepiece. The prophet of the Grey Tower had foreseen this event many years ago. 'When the prince grasps the Rose Resplendent in his thorny grasp, his fiery blood will rain upon the earth and those born under this aspect will drown the world in an orgy of bloodlust.'

Mr. Stargazer lowered his looking glass at last, stroking his luxuriant beard in thought. This was not good at all...

A glint in the night sky returned his attention to the celestial bodies. "Ooh, a comet!" he exclaimed delightedly – all thoughts of doom vanishing as he traced its course across the clear night sky.

Here are a few of the advantages that you can purchase at character generation.

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Endurance – 1 pt

You are unusually hardy. Add a health point to the Heavily Injured level of your Health Profile.

Mother of Invention – 1 pt

You have a knack with construction and cobbling things together from what you have available. You gain 1 bonus die to Pragmatism tests related to crafting.

Noble Rights – 3 pts

You have some minor noble blood flowing in your veins. Increase your starting Status score by 1 point. Write a brief sentence or two to explain your ancestry.

Here's part of the Craft Guild feature entry. This entry is more detailed than most others because of the wealth of different crafts practised within (and without) the castle.

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09Craft Guild

There was treachery afoot and apprentice carpenter Scrapeboard was in it up to his neck. Scampering through the twisting passages of the guild house at this hour of the night would gain him a beating if he were caught. That was without the incriminating documents wrapped carefully in his cloak. The papers that his master wanted delivered to his archrival, Guild Master Stackpile, contained details of an indiscretion and demands for money to keep quiet. It was a calculated risk. If it became common knowledge that Stackpile was consorting with the wife of the Stone Masons Guild Master, then the scandal would be massive.

Only the mice witnessed Scrapeboard placing the papers outside the Guild Master's chambers. Thankfully, they remained quiet and the young apprentice scampered back to the dormitory with his heart thumping in his throat.

Player Character Information
Stat Mods: Pragmatism +1, Bearing +1
Occupational Skills: 1 Craft (see below) 3, Haggle (Bearing) 3
Status: 3

Description

Craft Guilds are normally hotbeds of political manoeuvring and scheming as members try to climb the ranks. Small guilds hold just a handful of craftsmen, whilst large and powerful ones can boast dozens of practitioners – all scrabbling for prestige and power. Local features can easily become involved with plots hatched both inside the guild and those used against it.  

Due to the breadth of crafts practised within the Stone Horizons it is all but impossible to give an accurate description of what the typical Craft Guild looks like. Instead, you'll find below a comprehensive list of crafts. Choose a craft from the 42 listed below, make a note on your character sheet of the Occupational Skills granted by that craft, and then extrapolate the Guild's appearance and size based on the local area.

Carpenter (Wood Working)
Description: Carpenters are found all over the Stone Horizons and practice one of the oldest trades (some say the second oldest). His work can be seen everywhere and he is normally a well thought of member of society, if not as rich as some other tradesmen.

Occupational Skills: Carpentry (Pragmatism) 3

One thing that my playtest highlighted to me, was i think there needs to be a section giving guidelines in creating the play area. We followed a set pattern in creating ours that i think will be the best way to take forward.

1. Players chose the features for the area and write basic character sheet
2. The group create customs & community to give the area flavour
3. GM creates problems for the features
4. GM creates NPCs for the area and ties them together with the plots & problems already created.
5. Players finish chargen by spending their development points on Affiliations, Signature moves and Advantages to tie their characters into the area and the NPCs present.
6. Players give their characters Goals. These are informed by the area already created.
7. Play!

I've altered the list of features slightly - there was a gap and some features were too similar to each other. In are Botanists Domes, Entertainers Halls & Canal Networks and out are Arboreums, Workshops & Warlords Compounds.

Quote from: One Horse Town;283188I've altered the list of features slightly - there was a gap and some features were too similar to each other. In are Botanists Domes, Entertainers Halls & Canal Networks and out are Arboreums, Workshops & Warlords Compounds.

Good choices, Dan!

-clash

Quote from: flyingmice;283202Good choices, Dan!

-clash

Cheers! Entertainers were a glaring ommission.

Waay back in the thread i posted an example of an artefact left behind by the Architects. This sort of stuff will be appearing in The Architects book. It was pretty complicated with skill checks here and doodads there. Now that the skill system has been culled, all that is going to become Tricks or Signature Moves that the holder of the artefact can attempt should he Master it. The same is going to apply to Special Features. This is going to cut the page count by a bit, i imagine.

Clash, what do you reckon to including what i am tentatively calling a "Campaign Template" to fill that space?

I don't want to write adventures as such, because that'll be impossible unless you limit the features that characters can come from. So, the idea is that a "Campaign Template" is a series of events that can be overlaid onto any area of play, thus not restricting choice of starting areas.

There are a string of events that build into an overarching campaign that doesn't rely on set features or play areas but add to all the problems & politics of the play area.

I have a great idea for one for the Architects book. The Matrix meets The Invaders meets The Trueman Show.

Named, Project Alpha-7.

Quote from: One Horse Town;283242Cheers! Entertainers were a glaring ommission.

Waay back in the thread i posted an example of an artefact left behind by the Architects. This sort of stuff will be appearing in The Architects book. It was pretty complicated with skill checks here and doodads there. Now that the skill system has been culled, all that is going to become Tricks or Signature Moves that the holder of the artefact can attempt should he Master it. The same is going to apply to Special Features. This is going to cut the page count by a bit, i imagine.

Clash, what do you reckon to including what i am tentatively calling a "Campaign Template" to fill that space?

I don't want to write adventures as such, because that'll be impossible unless you limit the features that characters can come from. So, the idea is that a "Campaign Template" is a series of events that can be overlaid onto any area of play, thus not restricting choice of starting areas.

There are a string of events that build into an overarching campaign that doesn't rely on set features or play areas but add to all the problems & politics of the play area.

I have a great idea for one for the Architects book. The Matrix meets The Invaders meets The Trueman Show.

Named, Project Alpha-7.

That sounds like a neat way to get around a potential sore-spot - i.e. lack of adventures/campaigns. It's also a great way to show GMs how to set up an effective campaign in a very odd setting! Great idea!

-clash

Quote from: flyingmice;283245That sounds like a neat way to get around a potential sore-spot - i.e. lack of adventures/campaigns. It's also a great way to show GMs how to set up an effective campaign in a very odd setting! Great idea!

-clash

Cheers! There's lots that can be done with it, with a little thought. Our brief pbp gives the idea of the "Natural Disaster" Campaign Template - that can be put anywhere, anywhen. Plague, invasion, rise of a new cult, financial collapse, new discoveries. Those and loads more can be overlaid onto any play area without restricting player choice or the problems that already exist there.

Maybe there's a campaign template book in the future somewhere, a bit like Worlds of the Dead for AFMBE...

Actually, i'm going to try to get a couple of example Campaign Templates into Veiled Horizons in the advice section. Might up the pagecount a bit and put a week on the finish date.

Quote from: One Horse Town;283252Actually, i'm going to try to get a couple of example Campaign Templates into Veiled Horizons in the advice section. Might up the pagecount a bit and put a week on the finish date.

Best to do it.

-clash

Just finished the Taverns/Inns entry. As usual, i'm making more work for myself, but anyway, i included a random name table with 100 entries in it.

Here's numbers 41-45.

41The Sad Sod Singing            
42House of Reflection            
43Bentiron's Bar & Grill            
44Toadstall Hall            
45The Grinning Gargoyle

Huh, i finished the section on Campaign Templates sooner than expected. Here's a little bit about them, although the example template isn't going to be posted, as a teaser it's called What Lies Beneath.

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What is a Campaign Template?

Put simply, it is an over-arching story that you overlay onto the problems & politics of the area you have created. It does not replace those problems - it runs alongside them. Think of television serials such as Babylon 5, Supernatural, or if it floats your boat, soaps. Most episodes have a distinct story that is contained within it, or run for a limited time. These stories are not lessened by being finite in length and are enjoyable in their own right. However, when a run of shows has a story running in the background that resurfaces every now and then with new revelations that progress it, then it has an over-arching plot. This plot might intersect with the smaller stories every now and then to a greater or lesser degree, but generally, it is apart from them unless it grants resolution or forwards these lesser problems in some way. That is the purpose of a Campaign Template. It is the over-arching plot that intersects with the play areas problems & politics, but does not subsume or replace them totally. If you have a story in mind that your play area does not promote via its problems & politics, then you can create that story by manufacturing a Campaign Template.

The Template

Theme:

Objective:

Important Players:

Events:

Episodes:

Those five headings are enough to create your template. By now, you should have an idea as to the theme, objectives and important players that you want to introduce over the course of play. That's the easy part. To make a campaign that your players enjoy interacting with requires you to put more meat on the bones – you need to prepare the specifics of the campaign. Don't worry, you do not need to finalise it all straight away, but if you prepare in advance to some degree, creating your template does not seem so much hard work. You can fill in future events at a later date. You should have a general idea of what those future events will be, however.

There are two components to a Campaign Template. They are Events and Episodes. Events are happenings that are slipped into the game at your leisure and are finite in nature (although they should advance your campaign to some degree and progress in order) and Episodes are distinct occurrences that may take a session or two of play to complete and act as milestones in your story. The trick to running a successful Campaign Template is not to have the Events and Episodes run concurrently – have them crop up in-between the PCs tackling problems that already exist in the play area. Variety is the spice of life.

As an example and an aid, I am including a basic sample Campaign Template below.

Just finished the College Grounds feature entry and i fear i've fallen into cliche. Here's the Day in the Life section of the entry.

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A Day in the Life

Contrary to popular belief, students do have a daily routine on campus. The tutors set this routine at the beginning of the year and if you want to pass your exams, you'd better stick to it. Lessons begin after a communal breakfast in the college scullery and continue until lunchtime, when there is a short recess. Then it's back into the lecture halls and experiment rooms until late afternoon. After that, the student's time is his own, and it's here that they get their reputation for debauchery and reckless behaviour. Drinking, gambling, and romantic liaisons are pursued, whilst vendettas are followed and spying enacted – unsanctioned duelling is also rife. College grounds are no place for the uninitiated after-hours. Once they have had enough, the students grab what sleep they can before the next day.

Quote from: One Horse Town;283899Just finished the College Grounds feature entry and i fear i've fallen into cliche. Here's the Day in the Life section of the entry.

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A Day in the Life

Contrary to popular belief, students do have a daily routine on campus. The tutors set this routine at the beginning of the year and if you want to pass your exams, you'd better stick to it. Lessons begin after a communal breakfast in the college scullery and continue until lunchtime, when there is a short recess. Then it's back into the lecture halls and experiment rooms until late afternoon. After that, the student's time is his own, and it's here that they get their reputation for debauchery and reckless behaviour. Drinking, gambling, and romantic liaisons are pursued, whilst vendettas are followed and spying enacted – unsanctioned duelling is also rife. College grounds are no place for the uninitiated after-hours. Once they have had enough, the students grab what sleep they can before the next day.

Sounds about right from what I remember...

Of course we had to duel with rocks... and we liked it!

-clash