Category: Lampblack & Brimstone

Another magical tradition for my dark fantasy Freebooters game, in the same style as this one: https://plus.google.com/108011757230733144917/posts/jLv4R8TEFi2

This time, I added a cut-down custom spell template table (to prevent some clunky configurations of the words I picked), and a minor tweak to equipment and spell generation to emphasise the tradition’s focus on staves.

It’s interesting seeing how classifying the same word as either a Form or an Element changes the outcome of spell generation. I moved ‘Hound’ back and forth between the Form and Element lists before settling on Element. Freebooters is an enormous amount of fun to fiddle with. Very keen to see what you do with the second edition, Jason Lutes!

The Wanderers

In ages past, a tribe of winds was driven from the vaults of heaven. Among them were the Wending Wind, the wise Serpentine, the Weeping Wind, the Graven Wind, the Wind of Pyres, the Thief-Wind, and the Ravelwind. Banished to the corners of the earth, the Pariah Winds withered and died.

But here, centuries later, come the Wanderers: grey-cloaked; bearing staves; never lingering. The wizards of Aulderley, with their close smiles and their secret speech.

A Wanderer always begins with a staff as a magical focus. When rolling her initial spells, she may change one of her Form words to “Stave”.

Wanderer Spell Template Table

1. [Element] [Form]

2. [Form] of [Element]

3. [Form] of the [Adjective] [Form]

4. [Form] of [Adjective] [Form]

5. [Wizard Name]’s [Adjective] [Form]

6. [Wizard Name]’s [Adjective] [Element]

7. [Wizard Name]’s [Form] of [Element]

8. [Wizard Name]’s [Element] [Form]

Form

1. Aspect

2. Bane

3. Boon

4. Breath

5. Charm

6. Company

7. Hall

8. Glyph

9. Incarnate

10. Mantle

11. Mastery

12. Portents

13. Oath

14. Road

15. Seeming

16. Sight

17. Spell

18. Stave

19. Spear

20. Word

Element

1. Ages

2. Blight

3. Bronze

4. Change

5. Fury

6. Hound

7. Might

8. Moon

9. Oak

10. Pyres

11. Quicksilver

12. Rain

13. Roads

14. Secrecy

15. Sense

16. Stones

17. Thunder

18. Will

19. Winds

20. Wrath

Adjective

1. Binding

2. Bright

3. Exiled

4. Ensorcelling

5. Far

6. Fleet

7. Graven

8. High

9. Howling

10. Last

11. Ravelling

12. Restless

13. Serpentine

14. Singing

15. Thieving

16. Weeping

17. Wending

18. Wild

19. Wise

20. White

Further dark fantasy noodlage! This time, a tweak to the cleric class. This one is partly motivated by D&D clerics being weird as shit and me not knowing what to do with them, and partly because religion is such a critical part of a fantasy setting’s tone. I want something a little gothic and baroque.

The Pray, Bless and Curse moves in the FotF cleric class are fantastic. I’ve limited my change to the Disciple move, and plugged it into the existing system. This version grant two domains rather than one because (a) I’ve added weapon restrictions, and (b) some of the domains are narrow or favour colour over practicality.

Disciple

You belong to a holy order of the Peregrine Church. Choose your sect from the list below and record its domains. Invent and record the tenet of your order which you deem the most important.

The only weapons you know how to use are the staff, the sling, the cudgel, the dagger, and one more associated with your order’s saint (often, it’s the weapon that martyred them).

The Crescent Order of Saint Beliphas the Bookbinder. Ink-stained scholars and historians, frequently reviled. Domains: Lore and the Moon. Arms: the spear.

The Owls, an order of St. Vigea of the Watchpost. The Owl, in her cloak of feathers, is teacher to the ignorant, pardoner to the penitent, and wolf to the heretic. Domains: Truth and Winter. Arms: St. Vigea’s followers may carry a sword, but only as long as they forsake armour (the truth is two-edged, and its weirder must not fear its cut).

The Ashen Order of St. Colchis, the Lampbearer. Silent shepherds of the lost: black-fingered and often blind. Those who Stray from the Path. Domains: Fire and the Wild. Arms: a forester’s axe.

The heretical followers of St. Bernhardt the Smith, who gather in fire-flickering caves to perform rites of toil in honour of their Living Saint. Domains: Craft and the Winds. Arms: a smith’s hammer.

The Rooks, an order of St. Astea the Gravedigger. A smiling sect that tends the dead, watches barrows, and salts graves. Domains: Protection and the Dead. Arms: the bow.

I have a bunch more notes on these guys, but I think the above is probably more than enough for players to deal with in character creation.

More dark fantasy FotF noodling – this time on magic. Rather than having one big list of forms, elements and adjectives to generate spells, I’m hoping to convey setting flavour through distinct magical traditions. Each tradition gets its own custom table for spell names.

During character creation, magic-users choose which tradition they wre trained in, and roll their spells on its tables. In play they can learn new words – even from different traditions – as normal. Here’s my first stab at a tradition:

The Empty House

The bleak arts studied by the necromancers of the Cairnwoods. Their study requires the imbibing of poisons grown on abandoned graves, provoking vision-explorations of a vast, silent house. Its hearths are cold. Its doors are numberless. But behind one of them, it is said, lies the Ivory Crown once worn by the King of the Dead.

Form

1. Call

2. Candle

3. Circle

4. Crown

5. Cup

6. Curse

7. Subtlety

8. Door

9. Feast

10. Guide

11. Guise

12. Mark

13. Mouth

14. Noose

15. Oath

16. Sentinel

17. Servant

18. Shroud

19. Tongue

20. Whisper

Element

1. Ash

2. Bone

3. Clay

4. Cold

5. Death

6. Dust

7. Ghosts

8. Gloom

9. Glory

10. Gluttony

11. Grave-gold

12. Mist

13. Midnight

14. Palefire

15. Poison

16. Quiet

17. Sight

18. Solitude

19. Spite

20. Cairn-stone

Adjective

1. Bleak

2. Binding

3. Colourless

4. Deep

5. Harrowing

6. Hollow

7. Hungry

8. Icy

9. Joyless

10. Last

11. Lingering

12. Lonely

13. Moonless

14. Old

15. Patient

16. Sapping

17. Stirring

18. Thirsty

19. Unseen

20. Untiring

I don’t think this is quite there, yet. Some fruitier words would give it some sparkle. Also, I feel like this might benefit from a custom spell name template table as well, but I haven’t worked that out yet.

Noodling with ideas for a dark fantasy Freebooters game. I want to get rid of demihuman races and alignment, and am planning to replace them with heritages. A heritage grants a choice of bonus stat and a selection of virtues and vices from which you pick one of each.

I haven’t decided what to do about the special moves that demihuman races get in FotF. Tempted to skip them, but maybe I should invent some new moves for each heritage.

Aulderly: A mizzly land of shepherds, rhymers, and wizards. There are no roads in Aulderly; its inhabitants navigate by standing stones, jutting lonely on the heaths. Do not read what is engraved on them; the Devil adds to them in idle moments.

– +2 CHA or +2 LUC

– Virtues: Generous, Courteous, Dependable.

– Vices: Boastful, Liar, Doubtful.

Tantea: The plague-raddled, festival-addicted City of Steeples. Listen! Plainsong from the churches. Debauches in the golden palaces. Doctors droning to draughty lecture halls. Anguished curses from the Yellow Quarter.

– +2 INT or +2 CON

– Virtues: Tactful, Pious, Patient.

– Vices: Ruthless, Vain, Zealous.

Dolor: a brooding land of forested mountains, where the Beliphasean knights war upon the old clans of pass and peak and their grey, wicked gods. Silvered helm against mouthless war-mask. Hammer against spear.

– +2 STR or +2 WIS

– Virtues: Loyal, Defiant, Disciplined.

– Vices: Inflexible, Moody, Merciless.

The Cairnwoods: A pale forest, populated by scowling trappers, silent hunters and cats. Tread softly: when the moon is narrow, ragged necromancers pick over the ancient, stony graves.

– +2 DEX or CON

– Virtues: Humble, Focused, Resourceful.

– Vices: Obsessive, Disloyal, Irritable.

The Riverlands: A wolf-land; a honey-land. Where creaking lords cradle grievances in their oaken halls, hounds curled at their feet. Crow-flocked trees. Blood in the snow. Swords of blue steel.

– +2 STR or WIS

– Virtues: Just, Cautious, Generous.

– Vices: Reckless, Vengeful, Envious.

Scathe: The white wasteland. Birthplace of the counter-Church. Graveyard of saints. Its people are travellers, riders, falconers. Their old dynasty has fled, their crowns stolen by the Thief-Kings who reign in the black-towered cities.

– +2 INT or DEX

– Virtues: Forgiving, Frugal, Ambitious.

– Vices: Cruel, Greedy, Hasty.

After choosing a heritage, you answer the following question:

Are you:

– kind of an asshole? Choose an extra vice from the general list.

– striving to be better? Choose an extra virtue from the general list.