TROIKA! Character Set #2 (Version 1)

More Troika!, since that's where my mind's at! Who knows, maybe I'll get to my own d66 table? Probably not. Trying some fancy stuff with specials and new spells. Let me know what you think of it!

1. Angel Amnesiac

You are like a human, but with wings. You have a golden band floating above your head. It’s cracked. You don’t remember anything but your name and what you can do, but not why you can, or why others can’t. Time to find out I guess.

Possessions:

• Cracked Aureole

• Flaming Sword (how do special weapons?)

• Billowing White Robes
• Strangely Melodious Robes

Advanced Skills:

4 - Sword Fighting

3 - Singing

1 - Language: Celestial
1 - Angelic Spell: Fear (Assume frightening presence with loads more wings and loads more eyes and smoke and lightning and holy choruses)
1 - Angelic Spell: Random

1 - Angelic Spell: Random

Special:

Angelic spells and memories are locked until a way is found to repair the aureole. A fun option might be to wait with rolling the random Angelic Spells until this is managed, discovering them together with the character.

Spell List: 1d3 (tens) + 1d6 (singles)

11. Babble
12. Banish Spirit
13. Befuddle (hearing heavenly chorusses in the mind)
14. Coal Resolve
15. Ember
16. Exorcism
21. Fear (so many wings and eyes etc.)
22. Fire Bolt
23. Flash
24. Invisibility
25. Light
26. Peace

31. Presence
32. Sleep
33. Teleport
34. Thunder
35. True Seeing
36. Undo 

2. Initiate in the Mystical Order of Janitors

You look like a normal janitor, but you hold the keys to secret knowledge granted to you by Janus.

Possessions:

• A Mop and Bucket OR A Toolbox

• Blue Coveralls.

• A keychain with 20 keys of different sizes and materials.

Advanced Skills:

2 - Secret Signs (Mystical Order of Janitors)

2 - Small Repairs

3 - Cleaning

1 - Janitorial Magic: Looking Through the Door (Looking into the now, the past, or the future, either here or elsewhere, as long as there is a door or window to look through.
1 - Janitorial Magic: Skeleton Key - The key used can open any lock, if the spell succeeds.

Choose One: 1 - Pole arm Fighting // 1 - Maul Fighting // 1 - Knife Fighting 

Spells:

11. Astral Reach,
12. Breach,
13. Find,
14. Grow,
15. Helping Hands, 

16. Ironhand, 

21. Levitate, 

22. Light, 

23. Lock, 

24. Open, 

25. Protection from Rain, 

26. Quench, 

31. See Through, 

32. Sentry, 

33. Shatter, 

34. True Seeing, 

35. Undo, 

36. Ward.

Special:

Mystical Janitors can use keys to enhance certain spells, if they can be somehow be used as a normal key should in the casting of the spell. 

Roll on each table for each key:

1. Iron: substitutes 1 stamina

2. Iron: substitutes 1 stamina

3. Iron: substitutes 1 stamina

4. Silver: adds +1 to spell skill level

5. Gold: substitute 1d6 stamina

6. Ivory: opens hidden knowledge

1. Small: +2 to spell level, but lesser effect of the spell.

2. Large: Fills a small slot on its own.

3. Antique: opens to the past, but not farther back then the age of the key.

4. Found: looks/opens to another location, on the same sphere.

5. Found in the Humpbacked Skies: looks/opens to to another location, regardless of sphere.

6. Heavy: fills a small slot on its own.

Other keys might be used to different effects, based on the GM’s discretion.

3. Simian Bass Player

You’re a primate that plays the bass.

Possessions:

• Either an Electric Bass or a Contrabass

• A fancy suit with a floral shirt.

• A Knife

Advanced Skills:

3 - Play the Bass

2 - Climb

2 - Etiquette

1 - Knife Fighting

1 - Brawling

1 - Acrobatics

4. Unwilling Messiah

People believe you are the Messiah, and you actually might be, but you just want to sleep in and play video games. You wish they all would just leave you alone. They don’t. Will you get away from your calling or will you succumb?

Possessions:

• Portable Video Game System

• Nondescript Trench Coat

• Soft, Downy Sleeping Pillow

• Cozy Blanket

• A Baseball Bat

Advanced Skills:

3 - Playing Video Games

2 - Sneak

2 - Sleep

2 - Spell: Mystical Visions

1 - Being Pursued by Devoted Followers

New Spell: Mystical Visions:

Every Time the Unwilling Messiah has an exceptional experience, test Mystical Visions. 

Exceptional Experiences include but are not limited to: A Good Night’s Sleep, A Very Fine Meal, Falling in Love, Being Knocked Out, Being Dumped, Receiving a Compliment from Someone You Look Up too, Being Robbed, Watching a Cat Video, …
The Visions might be of things to come, that have already happened or that are happening right now. They might also be a calling by a god or demon or other mystical entity (like the mystical three eyed goat on the top of Mount Granola.)

Special: 

Every time you enter a new location, roll Being Pursued by Devoted Followers to see if you’ve been found out. The GM might include bonuses or negatives for the locations, like if it’s crowded, or if you are not in civilized lands, or …
Remind your GM about is at the start of the first session. After that, it’s their responsibility.

5. Infernal Bureaucrat

You are a devil that likes contracts very much and are traveling the spheres for someone wanting a hellish contract made. You can use the souls gained with these to power your magic.

Possessions:

• A Jar containing 1d6 floating Souls

• Form Fill Contracts (5)

• Parchment (5) and Blood Red Quill

• A shadowy, black cloak

Advanced Skills:

2 - Bureaucracy

2 - Etiquette

1 - Spell: Random

1 - Spell: Random

1 - Spell: Random 

1 - Spell: Random

1 - Spell: Random

1 - Spell: Random

Special:

Infernal Magic can be used by substituting a soul for the cost of stamina. Each regular, human soul used counts as 1d6 stamina (roll when used). Some special souls might give more, some might less.

6. Royal Beautician

Your customers might already be kings, queens and emperors, but you make them look the part.

Possessions:

• A beautycase filled with the tools of your trade (Large)

• Either a Brick Filled Handbag (damage as club) or Brass Knuckles (damage as club)
• A Taser (as Pistolet, but non lethal)

• 100 Business Cards (Small Item)

Advanced Skills:

4 - Trade: Beautician

2 - Gossip

2 - Etiquette

1 - Brawling or Fist Fighting

1 - Pistolet Fighting

TROIKA! Character Set #1 (version 1)

So, recently I've been thinking about Troika a lot again, and I've gotten back into creating characters for it.  This time I'm going about it, thinking how interesting it would be if they showed up at the Blancmange & Thistle Hotel (the adventure in the back of the book). So I've been treating it a bit as a psychedelic version of the joke where some people walk into a bar. Thinking which types of characters would be fun to play in that adventure. I'm grouping them in sets of six (because you can roll a d6 for them in that way).

Anyway, here they are:

1. Forest Wild Man

Dressed in leaves and your own hair, covered in dirt and rippling muscles, you are a man or woman of the woods. Civilization is confusing, but intriguing. Will you endure the strangeness of it or will you flee back to the trees?

Possessions:

• A Wooden Maul
• Clothing made of leaves

• A small animal friend that lives in your hair. (tell us which animal and give it a name)

Advanced Skills:
3 - Animal Friend 

3 - Wrestling

2 - Maul Fighting

2- Surviving Nature

2. Misplaced Teenager

You were just minding your business, trying not to get bullied while also catching the eye of that classmate you find pretty and cool. You should’ve never walked into that new curio shop and bought that mystical book. Somehow now, you are in the book. Will you ever get out? Do you want to? You never finished binging that series! 

Possessions:

• Backpack full of school supplies

• Packed Lunch

• 1d6 of loose change

• Weird book. (Describe it)

• School Uniform or Leisurely Teen Clothing.

• Choose One: A) A football, B) Glasses, C) A Sketchbook and pencil or D) A Skateboard.

Advanced Skills:
3 - Hormones

1 - Sports

1 - Maths

1 - Foreign Language of Choice (limit: normal school taught languages. French, Spanish, Latin, Greek, German, …)

1 - History

1 - Science

1 - Social Studies

1 - Arts

Special:
• Add +1 to one of the school subjects and -1 to another. If you want another language, you can add that as well.

• Change one of the subjects to Hate [Subject]. For example: 2 - Hate Maths.

3. Blob

You are a gelatinous blob. You have no bones, no face, no pockets. You are a simple life form. 

Possessions:

• Half digested skeleton

Advanced Skills:

4 - Absorb

2 - Assume Shape

2 - Sticking to things

2 - Digest

4. Intergalactic Junkyard Scrounger

These vagabonds scour the multiverse, scrounging in the garbage left behind by all civilizations, looking for treasure. 

Possessions:

• A bundle of trash-treasure (heavy)

• Knife for prying

• Lead Pipe for bashing (as Maul)

Advanced Skills:

3 - Scrounge

2 - Wayfinding

2 - Repurposing

1 - Awareness

1 - Climb

1 - Acrobatics

1 - Secret Signs: Junkyard Scroungers

1 - Maul Fighting

Special:
You may Test your Luck to just so happen to have exactly the (common) discarded tchotchke, bauble, or gewgaw the situation requires.

5. Traveling Door to Door Salesman

Traveling door to door and sphere to sphere to sell your goods, you can be encountered practically anywhere.

Possessions:

• A cheap suit

• A suitcase of novelty snow globes (or pots and pans, screwdrivers, encyclopedias, pocket gods, …)

• A crumpled picture of their family

• A cheap, rundown car

Advanced Skills:

3 - Sales Pitches

2 - Fist Fighting

2 - Smiling

2 - Driving

6. Snail Pilgrim

Bound by mystic contract to carry a small giant snail on their back until it finds a place it is satisfied with to live these poor souls can be seen carrying their large burden throughout the spheres. When more than one of them is in the same spot in the same time, things can get sticky, as a battle of dominance over potential spawning grounds commences. Once a spot is claimed and approved by the snail, it will be terraformed for them to inhabit.

Possessions:

• Small Giant Snail (heavy)

• Walking Stick

• Good Walking Shoes

• A terraforming starter kit.

Advanced Skills:

4 - Hiking

2 - Localized Terraforming

2 - Stick fighting

2 - Following Directions

Adventure Idea: A Dragon's Tears

Recently, through some talk on a roleplaying games forum about violence in games, my brain started thinking. One of the tracks it rode upon was the one where a lot of the quests, problems and assignments the player characters in roleplaying games get are clearly and easily solvable with violence. Then, at one point during walking from the station to school, a thought struck me. Potion ingredients. You see, me and my wife are reading through the Harry Potter books together (I've never read them before, and it has been a while for her) and I guess the end of the second book (The Chamber of Secrets) had stuck with me. I'm not gonna spoil it, but those that know, know how it applies.

I was thinking how tears are not an easily harvestable ingredient from mystical creatures. You can't gather them by killing and skinning, like they are dragon scales or something. You have to go about it another way. And that made me think about why people might cry. It might be by telling it a sad story (like a thief's tragic backstory) or listening to a beautiful song (Bards and Disney Princesses, you're up!) or Priests and Prophets trying to instill guilt of some kind. (Clerics, Paladins, ... it's your chance). It's also a delightful chance for the roguish prankster players to think outside the box, like buying carts full of onions and start cutting them in front of the dragon. (Like many fairy-tale heroes.) There might still be those who might to use pain to make the dragon cry, but that gets into torture and X-card material and is clearly non-heroic behavior.

Anyway, I wanted to put these thoughts to words and get them out, so here are two ideas or story seeds to get this problem to your characters.

Story Seed: The Anchorage of Amontillado

DISCLAIMER: This contains grim and dark material, which is unusual for me (I mean, I made a game where kids play Carebears, for crying out loud.). If you do not like grim and dark material, you should skip this post.

I’ve been reading up on hermits lately, because it’s an NPC trope I like and I’ve got some hermits in the Dreamwoods that I want to flesh out. I went to Wikipedia, looked up Hermits and got reading. While not applicable to my setting right now, I came upon a strange idea that spoke to me and gave me an idea for a horror story/ horror game idea. Now, I myself don’t like to play horror. Reading it, sure, fine, but playing it (or even sometimes watching it) is a bit much for me, but I thought some of the readers might like it.

Anchorages, according to Wikipedia are a specific kind of religious hermits that seek seclusion in a drastic way. They get sealed in to something ranging from a cottage to a single cell. Sometimes outside of society but mostly in the city, sometimes built against the church. Sometimes the sealing-in happens by bricking up the door. The anchorage gets their food and other essentials delivered by people and gets to devote their entire life to prayer and devotion. They might be called upon to give advice or being asked to pray for something by people, but otherwise they don’t really have a social life. They can come from any station, clergy or not, and often are people who have nothing to lose, like elderly people, or widows, but not always.

Now, I think you understand the title of this post by now, being a not very subtle reference to the Poem: The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe. Let me tell you this story seed.

1) In the town of Amontillado (do feel free to change it up to any town in your current world that fits for the story) a certain young widow has taken the vow of the Anchorage. She takes place in a cell built against the church and is bricked in. People provide food and she gets her time to devote herself to her Lord.

2) People come to ask for her prayers, which she gladly does. In time she starts giving advice as well. The people appreciate it and they start to love her greatly. She starts receiving visions, which she records in her cell and sometimes shares. Specifically when it’s about the person coming to ask for advice.

3) People come more and more and listen to her advice and teachings. They believe to be in the presence of a living saint. There might even be some miracles that happen because of her. Finding lost livestock, healing of sickness, etc.

4) At one point a local noble or other person of import comes to her for prayer. He asks her to pray for forgiveness for him as he has killed his wife and buried her secretly. Overflowing in divine grace, she prays for his forgiveness, and becomes concerned for him.

5) A year later he comes to her again, and asks for the same thing. He had remarried and in a bout of jealous rage, killed his wife again. Again, she forgives, but is concerned and asks him to change his ways.

6) A year after that, the same thing happens again. He got married again, but oops, he got angry again and killed another wife. “Please pray for my forgiveness.” But this time she refuses. The lord will not forgive the unrepentant. He must first change his ways.

7) A young woman comes to her, asking her to pray a blessing over her upcoming marriage. It is with the local noble. The Anchorage warns her not to do it, that he is not a good man, but has evil in his heart. The young woman takes the advice to heart and breaks off the engagement. She is never seen again.

8) The local noble, furious about the Anchorage, starts spreading lies about her. That she’s a witch, and that her visions and miracles are witchcraft, given to her by the devil himself. He starts spreading rumors that he’s seen her talking to a snake. That she’s in her cell naked. That at the night of the full moon she escapes in the form of a bat to go dance naked in the moonlight in a witches cabal.

9) People start doubting her, and many things that would be normal are seen as suspicious now. The food is dwindling, people start spreading rumors, exaggerating former rumors, etc. In the end, they brick up even her windows and let her starve to death.

10) Recently, a big crash was heard, and the sealed door has burst open. Her ghostly appearance has been seen, taking vengeance upon the people, sometimes accompanied by the ghosts of the killed wives. The target? The noble and his household specifically, and the town in general.

You could start at the end and have a ghost-haunted town to have an adventure in, but you could also use this as an impending doom, starting from the top, kind of like Dungeon World and its fronts.

The Dreamlands: TYRANT - The King of All Snakes

 

Last of the Dreamland's most notable inhabitants, for now. I'm dreaming up more about what kinds of hermits could be living in there, but noting concrete yet. Not entirely thrilled with the layout, but it's good enough for now. The HP and attacks are all dependent on the heads according to rules for a Hydra, so I tried to make that trackable, but it feels cluttered and taking up too much space. I might revisit this.

The Dreamlands: The Dreamwoods General

 

This is the general information about the Dreamwoods. Perhaps Slumberwoods would be a better idea so as not to be to repetitive. In any case, these are the general things to know about it. Arborix, being a special thing, has been detailed before, and The King of Snakes is currently in the making, getting at least a page itself. The green box will hopefully at one point be substituted by illustrations of Yip-Yip Birds or forest gnomes, but yeah, this is it for now for this region. I might at one point dream up a guide for the colours of dreams and running a forest gnome village or something, but for now I'm taking my dreams to the King of Snakes. Should you want to submit some ideas, feel free to pitch in with what other kind of magic/abilities the forest gnomes could have.

The more I am dreaming up these things, the more I find that OSE might not be the best system to run this in this whimsical, dreamlike way, and that perhaps TROIKA! or RISUS might do better. But for now, for making this world, I will keep doing the OSE thing, as it makes me learn and understand the system more.

Children of Bastion: Looking for Cat

 So here's the deal.

I've been working on a game for use in class that uses the frame-work of Electric Bastionland's map-making and some of Dreaming Dragonslayer's tips for playing with children. I don't have time or energy to type it out and translate it and everything, but I hope to soon make an updated version that works better.

I want to talk about it though because recently on a forum we got talking about happy games and why there are so few of them where it seems to be "baked in", while there are a lot where horror or grim nihilism seem to be baked in to them.

This game is made to let children create a world and play it, so there's a lot of cute happy and silly energy.

In today's session (which accompanies the story where Mary and Martha are sad because their brother died) the pupil's character got a letter from their grandma that she was sad because her cat (Mimi) was lost. The pupil's character came from a neighborhood in Bastion where people like cats a lot. (determined through session zero like play somewhere before) The PC would then go and look for the cat. Using the map to navigate was fun since he had to navigate the map we drew together, choosing a path (letting his bike be converted to sail the canal and meeting a class of kindergartners who asked how that bike worked, ...). Arrived at Grandma's place we got a description of the cat (a black cat with a red ribbon) and went looking. 

He decided he had seen the cat on the way and I went with it and so we went on the way. We crossed the group of kindergartners again who were talking about a cat they had seen with a red ribbon. Perking up at this he asked what colour the cat had. The kids said 'white', and he started laughing like I told him the best joke ever. Then he asked if anyone had seen a black cat. A kid said 'Yes, I did! It had a blue ribbon!" (He laughed again. I guess I'm a genius?) and then he asked if someone had seen a black cat with a red ribbon and one kid had. He convinced the teacher and the class to show him where. He had bid them all goodbye and gave them all a hug, ending up hugging the las one, realizing it was a black cat with a red ribbon (the end of class bell had just gone) and he rushed it over to grandma being treated to cookies and having a big old party.

All in all a big success.

The Dreamlands: Arborix - King of the Forest

 

The people who have been following along my dreaming and drawing of the Dreamlands that I started to share recently are already somewhat familiar with Arborix, the Forest Dragon in Hex 15. Seeing their popularity on the NSR discord and on the Cauldron, I decided to finish them up well enough to share even here. Some things have changed from the previous version and I've attempted to make them some custom made spells. Seeing as the spells are mainly for them I'm not really worrying about it but once people play in this world they might want to get the opportunity to learn magic from Arborix and then I'll need to figure out some stuff about what level these spells would be. (Since these would be pretty fun to have as spells) I will accept guidance on this here. Anyway. The next people I've been dreaming more about (and who have changed a bit since the hex-map) are the bee-shepherds from hex 1. People wanted to learn about the Yip-Yip Birds as well, and that will come up soon to I think. Whatever comes next here will come next. For now enjoy this dragon. Feel free to ask questions, but I won't promise to give answers to them. I hope the resolution is enough to read. (It gets bigger when you click on the picture)

The Dreamlands - Designing a hex of hexes using OSE

So, life has been hectic and I haven't blogged a lot. I still commute to work though, using the train and walking some distances. As such I've started to dream up a fantasy world using mainly the wilderness encounter tables from Old School Essentials. It's both escapism and learning the GM side of the game and deepening my understanding of how these things work.

I had tried these things before, but always got way to ambitious in my scope, so the projects fell to the side, having learned from them, but not finishing them in the least. This might be another one of these, or it might be the one. I don't know. For now it's just an escapism thing that I'm willing to share with the world.

So, I made a hex of 19 hexes itself, since I think that's how it works in OSE. One big hex fits four small hexes (I think 24 miles is the big one, 6 is the small one). As such some of these hexes are actually hexes crossing the border into the next big hex (I think 1, 3, 8, 12, 17 & 19). But once again. Keeping it small, not worrying about that now.

Liking how the Black Hack (2e) did hex-map randomization, I took that as a start and set 1-3 on a d6 as grassland, 4-5 as another randomly rolled type of land (1d8 and each is a terrain type other than settled and city) and 6 as special, meaning that it would be out of the normal rules. If grassland was rolled on 4-5 with the second roll it would become special too. I think that was how I did it.

Then I rolled one encounter on the Random Wilderness Encounter Tables for each hex and started interpreting things. Asking myself questions, interpreting results, moving things around to where it seemed more reasonable. For example I rolled a small Roc for the grassland in 9, but wondered where it would nest. The only hills hex rolled is hex 6 so I ruled that the nest is there, but it's hunting grounds cover multiple hexes, up till 9, making it be a reasonable encounter in this place. Sometimes my imagination started to run on it's own and I added things here and there to fit to the inspiration goals/guides I set for myself.

Anyway. The main part is now done, so I am sharing it. Now the idea is to work on the different parts on it, detailing things slowly and dreaming things up a bit more. Who knows what will happen.