[FATE 3.0] Legends of Anglerre - out soon

[Kiero]

For those who aren't aware, Legends of Anglerre is a fantasy spin-off of Starblazer Adventures, a sci-fi game powered by the FATE system (similar to Spirit of the Century).

According to the marketing blurb:

Imagine your patrol ship strafing a fleet of galley's defended by dragons and sorcerers! Shoving a massive battle axe in the hands of the Starblazer Adventures roleplaying game, this stand-alone fantasy interpretation of the popular FATE rules features two detailed settings: Anglerre, the world featured in the original Starblazer fantasy comics, and the brand-new setting, Lords of the Hither Kingdoms.

For me one of the big selling points, besides being stand-alone is that it's half the size of the massive Starblazer Adventures, coming in at around 350 pages.

One thing that does put me off a little is the crunchy Stunts, same as SotC and SBA have. I never use them, I don't like long lists of things that might require reference to the rulebook in play. I always use generic Stunts which saves a load of hassle.

Something which appeared in a blog post of one of the developers is a random encounter generator. I've included it here for those who don't click links, but spoiler-blocked so it doesn't fill the page. Thought that might appeal a little to some old-school purists, even though this is a thoroughly modern game.

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Fantasy: The Power of Random Limitations

So it's been a while since I've posted anything about "Spirit of the Sword," or "Swords of FATE," or "Heroes of FATE," or whatever we call it when we bother to call it anything. But most of the San Diego group got together to play it again on Saturday, and it went swimmingly. I forgot to use my own Scale and Size Factor rules when they fought that drake, but... whatever. I have a feeling the results would've been more or less the same, apart from John's character essentially one-shotting it (which was still cool and cinematic and good).

Most notable about that impromptu adventure was its impromptu-ness, powered as it was by the random adventure/NPC/opposition generator I am writing/have written/wrote for Legends of Anglerre. Call it a stress-test of an untested piece of RPG hardware. I have to say it worked pretty great. Referring to it as an adventure "generator" may be a bit inaccurate, as it doesn't determine every single detail of the adventure for you, but it does provide more than enough, in my experience, to give you the inspiration for an adventure, which is then easily created by you and your mind.

When it comes to creative pursuits, there are two things that always get me going: limitations and randomness. I love the old AD&D DMG's endless array of tables, tables, and more tables for randomly determining just about anything from the bonus on that longsword to the air quality in a room. An especial favorite of mine was the random dungeon generator -- I never got tired of that thing and the "What the hell is that doing there?" moments it invariably produced every time I used it. My own adventure generator takes a lot of inspiration from the DMG, most important of which is placing random limitations on adventure creation and forcing the user to justify how any of this makes sense.

The adventure ended up being this: The party (recently returned from the Free City of Neyid, where their defeat of a necromantic cult has earned them some renown back home) is hired by an incanter (i.e., a magic-user-type) named Abarrotz to escort him from one city to another. Exactly why he needs an escort is obvious to all: The road passes through a forest that's home to some especially fierce and dangerous bandits, led by one Kaxen, another incanter. Why an incanter has taken to a life of crime isn't known, but then again few have escaped his clutches intact enough to tell speak about it. The party agrees, and the encounter with Kaxen & Co. happens right on cue, with the party emerging victorious (no thanks to Abarrotz, who pretty much plays the victim the whole time).

Once they pass through the forest, they arrive in a small town, a waypoint for travelers along the road. Thanks to Kaxen's reign of terror, the townspeople haven't seen a ton of business lately -- so they're understandably pleased when the party shows up with Kaxen in tow. The innkeeper's prejudices make him reluctant at first to host the weirder members of the party (which consists of a human military-type-guy, a satyr shaman, a troll writer, and a jungle elf... jungle elf), but some choice words from the human and a lot of goodwill from the townsfolk eventually change his mind. Plus, the troll tells the story of the fight with Kaxen (and his "one and one score" bandits) a few times, and everyone's down for hearing that. One of the merchants in attendance even picks up the tab for their lodgings that night, although Abarrotz insists on quarthers of his own instead of rooming with his employees.

The next morning, Abarrotz is gone. Door's locked, window's ajar. The satyr and jungle elf find evidence of his passing down below, behind the inn, but starting a good 30 feet from the inn itself. There's been some effort to cover them, as well, but not enough to fool the jungle elf's Legendary (+8) tracking effort. Following the tracks leads them into a deep forest, where they're soon set upon by giant wolf spiders -- literally. They have wolf heads set upon big black spider bodies. One of them is clearly larger and nastier than the others, who seem to be her "pack." The fight ends with the party victorious (but poisoned, in at least once case -- a Moderate consequence that the satyr fails to heal). While Abarrotz is nowhere to be seen, in the webbing they find his hat.

Traveling on a little further, they come upon a hill and the sounds of battle. Atop the hill, they see Abarrotz, bleeding from a dozen small cuts and surrounded by a couple dozen gobliny-koboldy things that we immediately start calling "gobolds." The gobolds are clearly having too much fun making sport of him to kill him right away. After a brief discussion among themselves, and a shouted negotiation with their erstwhile employer for higher pay, the party takes on the gobolds, though sorely outnumbered. (And the troll takes a Severe consequence of "Spear in the Eye"! Yay, Severe consequence!)

Once that's over, Abarrotz apologizes for the deception and confesses his true purpose. He only needed the party to get past Kaxen, but his mission after that required such discretion that he couldn't risk telling them about it. Out here in the forest, according to his research, is a powerful but forgotten artifact, the Chalice of the Dragon. While he was able to avoid the wolf spiders through magical means, he was caught completely off-guard by the gobolds, who have infested the area without anyone knowing. Their presence here may indicate that they have found the Chalice, which would be very bad indeed, for it purportedly lets whoever drinks from it summon and control dragons. (Dragons are extinct in the setting, so this is an especially big deal.) Though they bear no particular love for Abarrotz, the party grudgingly admits that gobold-controlled dragons would be insanely bad and worth stopping. Plus, I manage to compel all but one of them into wanting to keep the Chalice for themselves, so they have a personal stake in it too.

The gobolds' tracks through the hills leads them to some ruins and a gobold shanty town/hut-rich village that's sprung up around it. From a distance, they see dozens more of the things going about their daily lives -- and the jungle elf sees a glint of silvery metal from within a ruined stone structure. The players, all good little metagamers, instantly agree that it's the Chalice. They come up with a plan that involves the sneaky types (the jungle elf and satyr) circling around to the side to snatch the Chalice, while the non-sneaky types (the human and the troll) provide a distraction with a frontal assault. Both teams end up fighting (and eviscerating) a bunch of gobolds, but it all goes to hell when an important-looking gobold in fancy clothes drinks from that damn Chalice. Suddenly there's a huge spitting drake thundering through the village, terrifying/trampling any gobolds that get in its way. After some back and forth, the jungle elf runs up its back and jams the pointy end of his taiha into the thing's skull, instantly killing it.

When the party recovers, elsewhere in the village they find Abarrotz and the fancy gobold playing tug-of-war with the Chalice, until the satyr charges up and headbutts the thing out of their hands. Who ends up with the Chalice is something we'll tackle next time.

Okay, so -- I didn't type that out just to go on about my game. I typed it out as an illustration of what the random generator randomly generates. Sure, it didn't name Kaxen or come up with the wolf spiders (that was the work of one of the players) or determine that they'd fight a drake in the end, but it did come up with the seeds for all that. It told me that the main plot would be about escorting someone somewhere, but that en route there'd be plot complications involving a missing person and a guarded treasure. It told me that the first encounter would be with a spellcastery leader and his 21 minions in a forest, that the next scene would be in a village (also in a forest) and that the innkeeper there would be prejudiced, and that the last encounter would involve something with Legendary (+8) (!) Ranged skill and a lot of minions. Et cetera. It gave me all the components of a solid adventure and demanded that I make sense of them, and I'm really pleased with the results. Some stuff I came up with in advance, some stuff we came up with together at the table (e.g., the players decided the artifact would be a chalice, and I was pretty quickly able to figure out what it did). Behold, the power of random limitations.

I just wish I'd remembered the Scale and Size Factor rules for that drake....

Allegedly it's coming out in December, though other places say January 2010.

[BobVosh]

mmm I do like a good sci-fi system. However after many threads with the "fate system" I must finally breakdown and ask: what is the basics of the fate system?

[Saph]

Oh, Starblazer Adventurers? I remember the guy who published that.

He signed up for our London gaming meetup a year or two ago. It was impossible to miss that he'd published Starblazer Adventures, because in just about every post he wrote he'd mention Starblazer Adventures. Then when we went to Dragonmeet we met the guy selling copies of Starblazer Adventures.

Unfortunately, since no crowds of eager players got in touch with him wanting to play Starblazer Adventures, he never actually came along to our meetups. :P

[Kiero]

mmm I do like a good sci-fi system. However after many threads with the "fate system" I must finally breakdown and ask: what is the basics of the fate system?

FATE is a development from Fudge of old, and that used Fudge dice; d6s marked with two faces with "-", two blank and two with "+". You rolled four of them to generate results between -4 and +4, which averaged at 0 with a bell curve. Starblazer Adventures and therefore Legends of Anglerre don't use 4dF, they use d6-d6 (ie one is positive, one negative), which produces a pyramid rather than bell curve, the results aren't quite as focused around 0.

Characters are composed of three main properties: Aspects, Skills and Stunts. Aspects are the hippy-indy part of the system, they are player-defined properties of the character that are ways of drawing attention to what they want to be in the game. They should be both positive and negative, as in be able to be used by the player to gain an advantage (by invoking them), but also be able to be used by the GM to force the player to have their character behave in a certain way (compelling them). This push and pull is facilitated through FATE points, creating an economy. They can be anything, beliefs, motivations, connections to people, special backgrounds, whatever.

Skills are the concrete part of FATE and familiar to anyone who's played RPGs. They define what your character is good at, and are rated on a ladder which tacks descriptors to the numeric values. They range from 0 (Mediocre) to +8 (Epic). Skills are used for resolution of everything mechanical in the game, often opposed rolls (though there's also the regular "beat this target number" too).

They're assigned either through a structure (eg you get 1 Superb (+5), 2 Great (+4), 3 Good (+3), 4 Fair(+2), 5 Average(+1) - called the pyramid, there's also the column) or point-buy. There's no randomness in chargen.

Stunts are vaguely like Feats, they're ways of cheating the normal run of things in specific situations. The advantage of them is that unlike Aspects, they don't require expenditure of FATE points to work. SBA and LoA have long lists of these appended to each Skill, which often involve trees of pre-requisites. Not to my tastes, personally, I prefer to use generic ones, which add a semi-player defined bit which I think balances nicely with Aspects and Skills.

Results are measured with two Stress tracks, Health and Composure. Taking a "hit" causes Stress, which you either mark off your track, or can choose to absorb with a Consequence. Consequences are complications, and act as fragile Aspects. They're also more interesting than just marking off Stress, though you can only take three before you're taken out of the scene.

Upshot is you have a pretty damned robust system that can be tweaked for a range of genres, though Aspects and the potentially meta-gamey nature of them isn't to everyone's tastes. And lots of people don't like either 4dF or d6-d6.

[Kiero]

I should add that Starblazer Adventures, as written, makes a pretty damned good system for Spelljammer, if you don't much fancy either AD&D2e, or converting it to 3.x or 4e. Although I'm waiting for LoA to finish my adaptation (for the magic).

[Kiero]

Here's the contents listing, given as a taster-teaser.

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LEGENDS OF ANGLERRE - CONTENTS
FOREWORD
- CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
WELCOME TO LEGENDS OF ANGLERRE!
WHAT IS STARBLAZER?
WHAT IS FATE?
WHAT’S A ROLE-PLAYING GAME OR ADVENTURE GAME?
WHO DO I PLAY WITH?
WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY STORY TELLER?
“LEGENDS OF ANGLERRE” AND “STARBLAZER ADVENTURES”
- CHAPTER TWO: HOW DO I PLAY THIS?
HOW DO I PLAY THIS?
THE CAST OF LEGENDS OF ANGLERRE
CHARACTERS: THE BASICS
RULES SUMMARY
PLAYING THE GAME
- CHAPTER THREE: CHARACTER CREATION
CHARACTER CREATION
ADVICE ON CHARACTER CREATION
CHARACTER ADVANCEMENT
- CHAPTER FOUR: RACES
OVERVIEW
HUMANS - THE FANTASY “STANDARD”
FANTASY RACES
UNUSUAL RACES
CREATING YOUR OWN RACES
- CHAPTER FIVE: OCCUPATIONS AND CHARACTER TYPES
OVERVIEW
OCCUPATIONS AND OCCUPATION ASPECTS
UNUSUAL OCCUPATIONS
WHAT’S NEXT?
- CHAPTER SIX: EQUIPMENT
OVERVIEW
ACQUIRING EQUIPMENT
EQUIPMENT LISTING
SERVICES
- CHAPTER SEVEN: ASPECTS
OVERVIEW
PICKING CHARACTER ASPECTS
USING ASPECTS
- CHAPTER EIGHT: SKILLS AND STUNTS
SKILLS AND STUNTS
ASSESSMENT AND DECLARATION
THE SKILL LIST
GENERAL STUNTS
CREATING YOUR OWN SKILLS AND STUNTS
- CHAPTER NINE: POWERS
OVERVIEW
SPECIAL ABILITY STUNTS
POWER SKILLS AND STUNTS
SETTING-SPECIFIC POWERS
CREATING YOUR OWN POWER SKILLS AND STUNTS
- CHAPTER TEN: DEVICES, ARTIFACTS, AND MAGICAL ITEMS
OVERVIEW
SPECIAL ITEMS IN PLAY
EXAMPLE SPECIAL ITEMS
- CHAPTER ELEVEN: FATE POINTS
OVERVIEW
GAINING A BONUS
INVOKING AN ASPECT
TAGGING AN ASPECT
POWERING A STUNT
MAKING A MINOR DECLARATION
REFRESHING FATE POINTS
EARNING FATE POINTS
- CHAPTER TWELVE: HOW TO DO THINGS
OVERVIEW
GENERAL RULES
HOW TO DO THINGS WITH POWERS
RUNNING THE GAME
- CHAPTER THIRTEEN: CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL
OVERVIEW
SIZE VERSUS POWER
BASIC SCALING
HOW TO CREATE A CREATURE
SIZE-RELATED STUNTS
SPECIAL CREATURE TYPES
DEFENDING AGAINST GIGANTIC CREATURES
- CHAPTER FOURTEEN: GODS, GUILDS, AND EMPIRES
OVERVIEW
CONSTRUCTING AN ORGANIZATION
ASPECTS, STUNTS, AND SCALE
ORGANIZATION ASPECTS AND SCOPE
ORGANIZATION SKILLS
SPECIAL SKILLS
HOLDINGS
USING ORGANIZATIONS
CONSPIRACY!
PLAYER INTERVENTION
HIGHLIGHT SCENES!
EMERGENCY SCENES
PLAYING IT OUT
BATTLE FLEETS AND BRAVE ARMIES
“EMPIRE-BUILDING” CAMPAIGNS
SAMPLE ORGANIZATIONS
- CHAPTER FIFTEEN: SAILING SHIPS AND WAR MACHINES
OVERVIEW
CREATING CONSTRUCTS
CONSTRUCT SKILLS AND STUNTS
GENERAL CONSTRUCT SKILLS
MANOEUVRE SKILLS
OFFENSIVE SKILLS
DEFENSIVE SKILLS
HOW TO DO THINGS WITH CONSTRUCTS
- CHAPTER SIXTEEN: THE FOG OF WAR
- CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: TEMPLATES
- CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: EPIC AND MYTHIC GAMING
- CHAPTER NINETEEN: COLLABORATIVE CAMPAIGN CREATION
COLLABORATIVE CAMPAIGN CREATION
CREATING CAMPAIGN AREAS LIKE CHARACTERS
- CHAPTER TWENTY: PLOT STRESS
CAMPAIGN, GROUP, AND CHARACTER PLOT STRESS
CAMPAIGN STRESS
ORGANIZATION, GROUP, AND CHARACTER PLOT STRESS
BUT THAT’S NOT ALL...
WHICH PLOT STRESS?
HEALING?
- CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: KEEPING IT IN THE FAMILY
- CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: TREASURE!
- CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: OTHER WORLDS, OTHER REALITIES
- CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: TWISTED TIPS
- CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: THE ANGLERRE CAMPAIGN SETTING
- CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: LORDS OF THE HITHER KINGDOMS CAMPAIGN SETTING
- CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: BESTIARY
- CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: CAMPAIGN GENERATORS
APPENDIX ONE: RULES SUMMARY
APPENDIX TWO: USEFUL TABLES
APPENDIX THREE: SHEETS
APPENDIX FOUR: MAPS
DESIGN NOTES

Anglerre is the sword and sorcery setting (humans only, plus demons), Hither Kingdoms is the LotR-a-like (elves, dwarves, etc) high fantasy one. Both are there either to be used, or as examples of doing those genres.

[Kiero]

Another teaser from the book, this from the setting description for Anglerre:

A Call for Heroes
Twenty years have passed since the defeat of Vargonax, and today Prince Veyne, King Iagon’s only son, leads Anglerre against its enemies. It has spent the respite following the destruction of Riyalh recovering from near destruction and rebuilding Illondre almost from scratch. The lost Mage Stones that had once protected the city were irreplaceable, and the damage to border cities like Vost’r was almost as great. Worse still was the human cost: with so many soldiers, civilians, and leaders dead society teetered on the verge of collapse.

Despite the incredible devastation King Iagon had somehow managed the rebuilding, helped by Myki Saladoth and his Abarics, who had remained as the new royal bodyguard, and by Raven Myrdan, who lent his magic to heal the generally magic-shy kingdom. Sadly, even then Anglerre could not rebuild rapidly enough to prevent Suvethia doing the same.

During the rebuilding a new leader rose in Suvethia. Subarax was the chief disciple of Vargonax, one of the few who had survived the war. Establishing a new stronghold in the ruins of Riyalh, Subarax has used the gates opened by the Qilaan, and the magic the Priest-Kings learned from them, to raise a new army of sorcerous mutants to attack Anglerre and the world beyond.

Knowing nothing of this new army, old King Iagon was slain in a surprise attack at Sméd’dic that echoed the fateful death of Osric two centuries before. Since then Anglerre has been under such constant siege that Prince Veyne has not had time for a formal coronation; the crown lies unworn in Sméd’dic, while Prince Veyne leads the heroic defence against Subarax’s hordes.

Valiant as the young ruler is, it’s unlikely that force of arms - even aided by Myrdan - will win this war against sorcery. Prince Veyne knows no magic, and it’s in magic that the winning of this war most surely lies. Knowing this, King Iagon dispatched adventurers to search the dark recesses of the world for knowledge with which to fight Suvethia on its own terms - but they were too late. Now, Prince Veyne seeks his own heroes, both on the battlefield and the mysterious realms of sorcery, if he is to survive.

Heroes like you.

And the same for the Hither Kingdoms setting:

Lords of the Hither Kingdoms is a high fantasy setting of elves, and dwarves, magic and monsters; a mediaeval world, emerging from a dark age, where petty principalities war against one another and an ancient evil from over the sea.

A thousand years ago the Empire of the First Alliance united the lands of elves, men, and dwarves. That empire is long dead, its lands fought over by barbarians. In the far west, the ethereal city of Selantium still clings to life, last outpost of the Old Empire, where elves and men live in harmony. Every year Black Ships from across the Sea of Stars arrive filled with Goblinkind at the Black Isles of Angor, Rift, and Way, and the King Over The Ocean, who tried to invade the First Alliance in antiquity, continues to throw his trollish and goblin hordes at the remnants of Empire.

The fate of the world hangs in balance. Danger is everywhere - and yet great adventure, too. Will the flickering lights of civilization grow stronger, or be extinguished for ever by darkness? In these perilous days, a stout heart can change the world, and the world cries out for heroes.

Heroes like you.

[dsmiles]

Sorry, guys. This belongs over in the Gaming (Other) forum.

[Kiero]

Sorry, guys. This belongs over in the Gaming (Other) forum.

Uh, why? LoA is a tabletop roleplaying game, this is a tabletop RPG forum:

An all-purpose board for discussions of any and all role-playing games.

[Kiero]

More teaser-age, this time some sample characters:

Basically, FATE character creation can be done two ways: one is basically a straight point buy, which you can do solo. The other is a collaborative, much more narrative approach, where you get together and basically tell your character's story to one another, bouncing off one another for ideas. It's usually done in "phases". Formally, the phases usually run as follows:

Phase One: Early Life
Phase Two: Your First Adventure
Phase Three: Guest Starring in Another Character's Adventure

Now, Chris and I played VERY loose with those phases in our session, basically chatting through early life and how the two characters met, and arriving at more or less the same end point - with the backstories of two relatively "low level" characters.

When you do this "phased" character creation, you're trying to achieve three things:

1. A list of "Aspects", which are descriptive sentences about your character which you can actually use in play to get bonuses to rolls (and other things).
2. A "pyramid" of skills. Roughly, at this level we were looking to derive 1 Level-3 skill, 2 Level-2 skills, and 3 Level-1 skills. Again, we derived these from the back story.
3. 3 "Stunts", which are like D&D Feats. They're usually linked to your skills, and you get 1 stunt per phase. Legends of Anglerre includes lots of pre-created Stunts, but you can also create your own. Stunts give you bonuses, or allow you to "break" the rules in some way.

So, that's what the first part of the character creation did. At the end of that, we had two characters, as follows:

CHARACTER #1: NATHANIEL STONE

ASPECTS:
(Phase One)
Scarred grim face from the Plague which orphaned him
Devoted student at Meister Abelheim's Chair
(Phase Two)
This blessed sword saved our lives when the soldiers burned Aachen!
What world of dream or nightmare is this?
(Phase Three)
I will save Meister Abelheim's soul from darkness before I slay him! (Future Aspect)
Is this witch-child Elara sent from God?

SKILLS:
Good (+3) Skill: Academics
Fair (+2) Skills: Melee Weapons, Alertness
Average (+1) Skills: Resolve, Warding Power (Magic), Athletics

STUNTS:
(Nathaniel's stunts are from the book)
Circle of Protection [Warding Magic]
Scholar [Academics]
Flawless Parry [Melee Weapons]


CHARACTER #2: ELARA DUNETHALL

ASPECTS
(Phase One)
Grannie said I'd have the knowledge when I needed it
And I learned to dance across ancient ruins
(Phase Two)
My dad's sword makes me feel good when I'm alone
I might look young but I'll hold my own in the bar or the field
(Phase Three)
Grannie said to watch for one who'd guide me
The song in my head guides the dance of my sword!

SKILLS
Good (+3) Skill: Athletics
Fair (+2) Skills: Melee Weapons, Alertness
Average (+1) Skills: Rapport, Survival, Stealth

STUNTS
(Chris opted to "roll his own" stunts using the stunt creation rules, rather than use the pre-created ones in the book)
Song of the Dance: when making Athletics tests without armour may add +1 to Athletics
Song of the Sword: when fighting without armour may add +1 to Melee Weapons skill tests
I Know Where This Goes: +1 to Survival skill checks in ruined places. (I figured all that playing in the ruins of their ancient city means she’s very at home in places like this.)

*****

So there are our two characters at "first level", ie relatively low-power beginning characters. We then decided to advance them to the next "power level" - which I'll cover in the next post.

So, I've already said you can create characters in just 3 phases - that's what we did to start with. That creates competent but basically "low-level" characters. But you can do much more than that. Using additional phases, you can add more Aspects, Skills, Stunts, and other stuff to your character, making them more powerful. You do something similar using the advancement system during play, but you can also do it during character generation. That way, you can create "middle-level" and "high-level" characters, and even go beyond that into truly heroic and even demigod-like characters.

In our session Chris and I decided to work through another Phase (a 4th phase) of character generation, which is what our second conversation was about. We assumed some time had passed - in my mind it was about a year - and we'd been adventuring together (this is all character creation backstory remember).

This time, our goal was to come up with 2 new Aspects, 1 new Stunt, and to "upgrade" our Skill Pyramid so the top (or "peak") skill was Great level (+4). As one of my new Aspects I chose to have this weird demonic "eye" replacing my own. I could have stopped there, and just used it as an aspect, but I wanted to give it some powers, too, so I took it using the "Magical Item" stunt, which allowed me to select 3 "improvements" (or special abilities), which I listed.

This is a cool thing about FATE in general: you can actually add "stuff" to your character as part of character generation, whether it's gadgets, masterwork weapons, magical items, even sidekicks, companions, lackeys, henchmen, retainers, warhorses, ships, carriages, baby dragons, whatever!

So, after chatting through the adventures of our 4th phase, we found we'd actually talked ourselves right up to our first huge adventure - the raid on Meister Abelheim's lair. We already had lots of detail for the GM to run with - the name and nature of the bad-guy, the location, the type of foes (lots of nasty summoned demonic types), and our ultimate goal - "save Meister Abelheim's soul". This is the cool thing about the collaborative character generation in FATE: done right, you actually generate a lot of the campaign detail yourself as a player in character generation!

So, at the end of our 4th Phase, our "upgraded" characters looked like this:

CHARACTER #1: NATHANIEL STONE

ASPECTS:
(Phase One)
Scarred grim face from the Plague which orphaned him
Devoted student at Meister Abelheim's Chair
(Phase Two)
This blessed sword saved our lives when the soldiers burned Aachen!
What world of dream or nightmare is this?
(Phase Three)
I will save Meister Abelheim's soul from darkness before I slay him! (Future Aspect)
Is this witch-child Elara sent from God?
(Phase Four)
Ruby Eye of the Dark Drake
This fire cannot be denied!

SKILLS:
Great (+4) Skill: Resolve
Good (+3) Skills: Elemental Magic (Fire), Melee Weapons
Fair (+2) Skills: Academics, Warding Magic, Alertness
Average (+1) Skills: Endurance, Athletics, Intimidation, Survival

STUNTS:
(Nathaniel's stunts are from the book)
Circle of Protection [Warding Magic]
Scholar [Academics]
Flawless Parry [Melee Weapons]
Ruby Eye of the Dark Drake (Magical Item stunt with 3 improvements : Multitarget, Augment Attack, Power Battery)

OTHER CHARACTER STATS:
Physical Stress Points: 6
Composure Stress Points: 7
Fate Points: 6
Equipment: leather armour, longsword, Ruby Eye of the Dark Drake


CHARACTER #2: ELARA DUNETHALL

ASPECTS
(Phase One)
Grannie said I'd have the knowledge when I needed it
And I learned to dance across ancient ruins
(Phase Two)
My dad's sword makes me feel good when I'm alone
I might look young but I'll hold my own in the bar or the field
(Phase Three)
Grannie said to watch for one who'd guide me
The song in my head guides the dance of my sword!
(Phase Four)
I will unlock the secret of the song to destroy those who wrecked our family and home (Future Aspect)
This scar...sometimes I feel...a darkness inside me

SKILLS

Great (+4) Skill: Melee Weapons
Good (+3) Skills: Athletics, Alertness
Fair (+2) Skills: Stealth, Survival, Rapport
Average (+1) Skills: Resolve, Empathy, Academics, Endurance

STUNTS
(Chris opted to "roll his own" stunts using the stunt creation rules, rather than use the pre-created ones in the book)
Song of the Dance: when making Athletics tests without armour may add +1 to Athletics
Song of the Sword: when fighting without armour may add +1 to Melee Weapons skill tests
I Know Where This Goes: +1 to Survival skill checks in ruined places. (I figured all that playing in the ruins of their ancient city means she’s very at home in places like this.)
Song of the Light: +2 to Melee Weapons OR Athletics when fighting without armour and facing more than 2 foes

OTHER CHARACTER STATS
Physical Stress Points: 6
Composure Stress Points: 6
Fate Points: 6
Equipment: Father's Sword, torn and somewhat burned clothing!

*****

So, that's the end of the character creation session. It took us about an hour, and as hopefully you can see we ended up with a couple of pretty kick-ass characters - quite capable of looking after themselves in a fight and with interesting background which should generate a lot of follow-on adventures.

Our next step is to go through some actual play sessions and have a look at how these characters actually fare!

[Kiero]

Anyone who's going to Dragonmeet in the UK, the game is being demo-ed there. So you'll get to see it for real, or possibly even play.