Valiant Pilgrimage

September 13, 2024

_{Last time I did a brainstorm session like this was for Persona: 1, 2, 3. This one's way shorter though. The idea is to flesh out some kind of specific JRPG-inspired campaign structure for Valiant Horizon.}

So let's say there's these crystals, right? Used to be 12 of them - nowadays there's, uh, let's say 3-5 PCs crystals remaining. Each of them has the power to maintain the last few villages that stand in the world and prevent them from being swallowed up by the darkness that has consumed the rest. The crystals' power is not infinite. Every decade since the beginning of known history, each crystal chooses a Hero: someone to carry on its legacy to perform the Ritual of Rebirth at the origin of life, which imbues the crystal with their soul for the sake of all. The herald of life then returns their crystals to their village to maintain it until next time. There's never been any resistance on the road of rebirth: it's still hallowed ground, after all.

Valiant Persona, Part 3 of 3*

February 5, 2024

*Before I release the extra edition that tacks on like 2 more posts.

In Part 1 we established what kind of game we're using. In Part 2 we tied together Valiant Horizon's class system with the tarot thing Persona has going on. In this final installment (because at this point more beyond what I'm covering here would involve just making the thing) we're gonna think about using what we set up in part 2 for a session and campaign structure.

Valiant Persona, Part 2

February 4, 2024

So we started poking at turning Valiant Horizon into Persona in Part 1 by establishing initial premises of what even this kind of game is like. It's got a lot of the DNA of urban fantasy/masquerade style games (WoD, Unknown Armies, etc) but with a very different emphasis, and especially the fact that there's a harder divide between the two "halves". Now we start digging in to what we want to do with that.

Valiant Persona, Part 1

February 3, 2024

I'm thinking about Persona* a lot lately, partially because P3 Reload is out and I kind of want to play it but also it's $70 so fuck that shit. But partially it's because I realized while putting together the playlist for Valiant Horizon how well the two concepts overlaid with each other with only a little reflavoring/stretching:

• Normalish people given extraordinary power
• Powers come from discrete beings with archetypical distinctions that are intended to match with the character
• Huge emphasis on relationships and building both towards understanding that archetypical power better and being closer to the person who wields it, is associated with it, etc.

_{*3-5. I know 2 has its fans but I've never played it and honestly it's a little longer in the tooth than I have patience for nowadays. I'm sure 1 has its adherents too but I don't know them.}