Tweaked Saint Gratien a bit: reduced MD to 1 and Poise to 4, and changed Invocation of Sanctity (spell parry) to Invocation of Vigilance (can't be staggered). This makes him a much more approachable threat as a mage while still being dangerous.
Added Dispositions to Points 5, 6, and 9.
Added more formal descriptions to every point (except 1, which was pretty good).
And on the 28th I decided month 1 is wrapped! Got The Delta Sinkhole, a nasty little swamp region with 9 points, two new enemy types, some nasty ambush stuff, an optional boss, and an NPC! Makes a nice transition area.
A reorganized body text, with a manuscript edited by Marx Shepherd
A full relayout
Art by Galen Pejeau and Mykell Pledger
A few minor additions and rules changes
If you have the game, you now have the final release version as well!
As per tradition, there was a release-version typo found on Efficient which has now been fixed in v1.0.1. (I’ll have the epub updated as well in a bit.)
Day 22! At the end of this week, it's mostly all sketched out.
Monday, 1/16: Point (7), the shallows. Last week we defined Saint Gratien, the Major Threat of the area. This is where he is, shuffling around mindlessly. He can be attacked here, or potentially bypassed (Default Aggressive, 5-6 Occupied).
Tuesday, 1/17, Point (8), the detritus pile. A mountain of materiel and bodies, piled into the back corner of this area. You can grab a Poleaxe here...however, it's harder to sneak back, because approaching the pile makes it shuffle around - meaning Gratien is more likely to be disturbed (Default Aggressive, 6 Occupied).
Day 15! Halfway through. Here's the daily for that:
Monday, 1/9: Point (1), the Sanctuary. (I'm going to be using the Sanctuaries to do two things. First is re-emphasize the Anointed's connection (via ritual) to the Church; second is to give some way to foreshadow some themes of the area. This is done from the description of it and a prayer set at each.) The place is new, but hastily-erected: it's half fallen apart. This Sanctuary's prayer is: "Pray for the forgotten, those left in the wake of disaster and war. May they find refuge and stillness." (If you're keeping score...nothing here has found refuge and stillness.)
Tuesday 1/10: Point (6), the walkway north. There's an encounter with 2 + 1/extra Scavengers on the way: by default half of them start behind you, but if you do something tricky on the approach you can avoid being surrounded. You can find a Wakizashi further up the walkway afterwards.
Wednesday 1/11: Saint Gratien, part 1. (This is the Major Threat in the area - because this is an interstitial region, he's optional, but you get some good stuff. Based on the Attribute combo, he's a Conviction/Knowledge enemy: relating to faith and corruption.) A tall, gangly man with no arms and desiccated skin. His clothes are half-rotted, revealing a carved lump under his skin under the right side of his chest.
Health 40, PD 1, MD 2, Poise 6. Pretty tough to stagger, pretty resistant to magic.
Trait: Any Mag. Harm received splashes to all nearby (at range 0B)
Thursday, 1/12: Saint Gratien, part 2. Gratien's actions are all Incantations. I pictured him as one of the original Anointed from the Age of Legends/Daggers, so he gets to have one of each kind: he learned Storm before it was a Blasphemy. (Will probably revise some of these in whatever cleanup pass I do, he's a little too anti-caster focused at the moment.)
Prayer for Wrath: Range 0T, Mag 2, Mighty 4, Forceful. (Uses when something's at Range 0-1.)
Invocation of Sanctity: Evade 3-, Spells only, reflects back at caster. (Uses when targeted by magic.)
Channel Storm: Range 2-4, Mag 2, Multi 5. (Uses when nothing is at Range 0-1.)
Dangerous Action: Projected Wrath: Range 1B-2B-3B-4B, Mag 4, Mighty 6, Forceful. Immediate: Move back 2, adds 1 to Encumbrance of all swamp tiles. (He'll initiate this at the end of a round when put below 30, 20, or 10: the Immediate thing happens, and then at the end of the next round the rest happens. It can be canceled by dealing 10 Harm or staggering him in the interim.)
His default Behavior is that he goes after anyone with Talismans.
Friday, 1/13: The Talisman of Saint Gratien (a reward for beating him) is a mass of bone embedded into his breastbone, carved into the symbol of the ancient Church. The corruption leaked into it causes it to repel magic in its vicinity.
Weight 3
1 Tier 2 Slot: Prayer
1 Tier 2 Slot: Invocation
1 Tier 2 Slot: Blasphemy
Parry (Spell)
Having 1 of each is unusual, but less flexible than most talismans, and most don't have Parry of any kind. Most are also Weight 1-2 instead of 3.
Saturday, 1/14: Invocation of Implacability. (This is another reward for beating him.)
Tier 1, Conviction 3, 4F
You're immune to anything that would add extra encumbrance (beyond Encumbrance from your equipment Weight). Lasts until the Region Clock advances.
Sunday, 1/15: Made an NPC. Barnabas is a pious low-country sanctuary tender. He'll ask Anointed to put Gratien to his final rest, and teach them the Invocation of Implacability in exchange for it. He also unlocks all Tier 1 Invocations/Prayers for selection between Regions - my plan is to allow players to choose 1 thing from a list that starts with "everyone's starting equipment" and expands out as they meet NPCs or find things.
Next week, I'll put Gratien and Barnabas in points 7-8-9 and assess what we're doing from there. Might use that last week as a polish week if I run out of content to fill. We'll see!
The Delta Sinkhole entry as above, now with a little map.The Half-Dreg entry and two points, as well as two combat maps.
Three entries so far. Map is going on that first grid for space reasons. I definitely didn't screw up and write Point 1 on Jan 9th already. Ignore that (1) on the map for now. Combat maps for fights go on the grid on the right (they're hexes in the actual game, but the way I have it set up is basically hexes).
Ok. This is the part where I talk more firmly about the scenario. (See the map above.)
The goal of this scenario, as repeated from above, is the same goals as Level 0 in general:
Establish some "starting points" for characters, and give some playstyle options.
Figure out, through play, what kind of people your characters were and are. (The Background mechanic is the obvious version of this, but even more subtle decisions inform a character.)
Make sure the party is a persona non grata in some way.
Get the party a spaceship. That's a major part of the game going forward.
I had more to do here than just present a fun adventure. I was tasked to present a jumping-off point for the rest of a campaign! And I think it worked.
The idea I have is basically a downriver swamp that was enough of a crossroads to build walkways over it. Over time, it’s been clogged with the detritus of centuries of war from upstream: materiel, corpses, undying warriors left as waste. The near-constant flow had attracted scavengers, making it hard to maintain; and eventually there was nobody left to maintain the walkways.
I'm in a posting mood because I'm putting off finishing writing a press release/kit so I figured I'd ruminate a little bit about how I put the Liminal Void Quickstart rules and scenario, Escape from CICP-1, together. Mild spoilers for the scenario under the fold if you care about that sort of thing, but most of the big scenario stuff is going to be in a follow-up post, but also it's just long and this seems polite.
Figured I'd get a little into the sausage on one particular thing I found that I'll be using quite a bit.
Cyclic dungeon generation is a really, really cool thing that I saw posted about on twitter (from @riseupcomus I believe?), and from there I've seen other people posting about it too. In general it's a great read just for picking out good design patterns for making little moments in a level, dungeon, etc - Zelda is described as the big influence but you can see this kind of technique for design going pretty clearly into a lot of soulslike areas, for instance. So I decided to give the randomization from it a shot! I'm intending a mix of bigger "destination" regions and smaller "interstitial" regions so I'm not terribly worried about the size at this juncture, but it's built such that you can pretty easily compound on it if you want.
