The Fallen: a Trollbabe offshoot (long)

[Spooky Fanboy]

I like Trollbabe a lot. IMO, if done right, it is the best game for portraying Lone Wanderer/Man with No Name/Sword&Sorcery protagonists. This is the character; these are the journeys. Conan could easily be done with these rules, as could Elric.

Still, while I appreciate the charms of the setting, there's elements there that just don't do it for me. For one thing, I crave more magic.

I love magic. I love magic-users. I enjoy The Dying Earth stories involving Rhialto and Turjan. I have warm fuzzy feelings in my heart for Eldritch Ass Kicking. I love them in particular because they ask pointed questions that I always enjoy exploring: What do you do when you know you can do anything and everything? Where do you start? How much power is too much? Are there times when using power isn't the answer, even if it would accomplish your goals? Just because you have a hammer, does that automatically make everything a nail to be pounded down?

On the other hand, sometimes that material takes too cynical a view of human nature. People can learn, and grow, and even, in time change. We call this wisdom. It is slow in coming, if it comes at all, but it's presence cannot be denied.

In that vein, I present to you The Fallen.

The earth is old, and worn down. The sun is red, cold, and flickering. There is no moon; a powerful wizard pulled it out of the sky a long time ago for building material for his castle. Though the weather changed, the seas and oceans shifted, the cries of the populace to restore the moon went unheeded. The wizard is dead now, and few recall where his glorious castle is at this late date. Monsters created by powerful wizards as guards, cattle, servants, experiments, or all of the above roam the land, much to the terror of it's human inhabitants. Civilization has slowly decayed, to the return of superstition and savagery. Strange religions and customs spring up between peoples, and woe betide the stranger who isn't aware of them! Magic is schizophrenically coveted and feared. People have become ethically supple in accomplishing what they want. It's a new Dark Age, and it only makes it worse that there are many decaying reminders of the greatness of ages past.

The Fallen are, one and all, the most powerful wizards, sorcerers, and enchanters of this or any age. They delved deep into the secrets of magic, only to discover at the height of their knowledge that The Infinite was simply too large to be mapped. This shook them, and there are still echoes of that calamitous discovery resonating today. The appeal of academic accomplishment soured for them; they began to abuse their power in the name of entertaining themselves: nation-building (and nation-razing), foul experiments, perversities swollen large, gratuitous and vulgar displays of power at the slightest provocation, religions established in their names...all this and worse occupied their time as they came to grips with the fact that there was a ceiling to what they could accomplish, and only so much that their insight and power could ultimately do. Many ended up killing themselves as the centuries past, either deliberately or through an unconscious death-wish. Many played with forces too dark, and were destroyed or lost forever. A few survived, their legends known at every corner of the universe, and there are many who still wish them nothing but death and misery.

You are one of these Fallen. You reached too far, fell, and took much of the world with you. Some of the monsters roaming the world are descendants of ones you created. Some of the biggest disasters the world endured sprang from your hubris. Only in the last few centuries has wisdom asserted it's hold on you, and you roam the lands to try to right the wrongs you did, to keep the hope of the world alive, or perhaps you simply look for novel experiences and continued justification for your existence. (Life: The most addictive substance of all!) Perhaps a bit of both.

You roam; in the end, everyone either wants to use you for their own ends or they end up fearing and hating you. Not always: there are a few who appreciate who you are and what you're trying to accomplish. But they are very few indeed. Besides you have had thousands of years of comfort; travel stirs you and helps you purge your guilt for your misdeeds.

You try to avoid magic, unless there are no other options. You fear falling back into the "magic solves everything" mindset of previous centuries. Most populations barely tolerate magic, and those that do usually seek to exploit it, heedless of the past. Both fear you and your power, and unless they can enslave or destroy you, they want nothing to do with you.  And there is another problem, the one that brought about the disaster of times past: your Daemon.

When a Fallen casts a spell, it is the simple instructing of the forces of the universe to move reality toward a more agreeable direction. These spells do one thing only. Each new circumstance requires a new spell. Finding the right "instruction set" for reality can be a tedious, time-consuming problem. The Fallen thought they had solved this problem when they discovered a way to bind the Daemons, powerful forces governing reality that could, in theory do anything much better and faster than a spell ever could. By binding them, the Fallen could instruct them as to how to "appropriately" shape reality. (In game terms, invoking the Daemon is the only way to get large-Scale magical effects.)

That was the theory. In practice, the Binding gave these Daemons a bit of an attitude problem. They cut corners on their instructions, they sometimes sabotage the Fallen's efforts in subtle ways, they play mind games with their Fallen "masters", and in general give as much backtalk and grief as they can. Though ways were invented to discipline these problem children, nothing could eliminate the root problem. Over time, the Daemon bound to the Fallen became that Fallen's perfect foil, either by emphasizing th e worst of the Fallen's character flaws, or by contrasting and clashing with the Fallen, sometimes playing the Devil (or Angel) on the Fallen's shoulder. (This is brought into play with Scale modifiers, determined by whether the magic was appropriate to the opposition and Stakes in question. If a Fallen uses a Daemon for something a smaller-scale spell or non-magical action could easily accomplish, the Daemon usually gets a real attitude problem about it, and the Fallen knows this. More often than not, invoking a Daemon usually exacerbates the situation in ways ranging from the embarassing to the near-fatal. This why they are invoked rarely.)

Character creation is slightly different than trollbabe, as the Fallen must also include their Signature: some supernatural telltale that might give them away to perceptive onlookers. Maybe ghosts rise and try to talk to the character, maybe storms center on them if they stay in one palce for too long, maybe inanimate objects speak and can act in a limited fashion in their presence. This should be mostly color, but can either be useful or a hindrance in certain circumstances.

Also, the character is susceptible to a certain Vice or Vices. It could be power-tripping, sex, intoxication, sloth, becoming picayune and obsessive about details, gourmandism, etc. I'm not sure how to assimilate this into Trollbabe mechanics. Any ideas?  

This game has a darker overtone than your standard Trollbabe story; the character is known for her past misdeeds and will have an uphill battle fighting both her worst impulses and the people around her. Rewarding moments are going to be few and far between. Still, it allows characters to raise mountains and shake heavens, so I'm all for it. Comments? Criticisms?

[Bob McNamee]

You could include these kinds of  things as a replacement for the Character sheet Items... one Human, one trollish. and the Telltales in place of the 'Horns'

These things will mostly color the narration.

Perhaps the Daemon would be an automatic Relationship that all the Fallen start with.

[Bob McNamee]

Perhaps you would want to alter the rolling scheme.
Using Ron's new changes...
if you have a Number of 6
Fighting (1-n-1)  is 1-5
Magic is (n+1-10) 7-10
and
Social (lowest plust N) is 6-10

You might want to swap it around so that Magic is always the way Social is...lowest plus the Number. That way it can never be the worst rolling method, and is sometimes (5,6) one of the best methods.

This way it would be Social and Fighting at extremes and Magic is always a decent choice.

[Spooky Fanboy]

You might want to swap it around so that Magic is always the way Social is...lowest plus the Number. That way it can never be the worst rolling method, and is sometimes (5,6) one of the best methods.

This way it would be Social and Fighting at extremes and Magic is always a decent choice.

I think I'm gonna leave it as is. Here's why:

It's assumed that the characters are recovering magic-holics. They don't want to fall back into the old mode where "fireballs are the answer." Not only did that get them in trouble, it's kinda boring, after awhile. In fact, I can see valid reasons for having Magic your lowest stat: you haven't used it in so long, you've forgotten a few things! You enjoy using your muscles, your wits, and your way with words to solve things!

That said, I could allow the above as an option. Or make Magic by default the biggest stat, instead of Social. But I hope that's not an option many people ask for.

[John Harper]

Spooky, I really like what you've got going here. I can see it working as a setting for Sorcerer, too.

There is no moon; a powerful wizard pulled it out of the sky a long time ago for building material for his castle.

Man... that's so cool.

[Spooky Fanboy]

Feng:

And so stolen from Jack Vance's The Dying Earth series.

But whereas that gentleman's work casts a colder eye on humanity's foibles, and doubts our ability to truly learn and grow, I would hope that this variant would emphasize the ability to mature and do meaningful works with the life we are given.

[Spooky Fanboy]

I wanted to put some fiction here regarding my Fallen setting. I apologize if this is off-topic.

***

Kylos woke shivering. The cold morning dawned; the sun tinted the morning world parchment yellow with blood untertones. The wooded hills he lay in were muted; the fauna (and flora) seemed to be holding their breath. At first, he did not notice; his head and limbs ached from what he guessed was the drunken debauch the night before.

Kylos loathed and feared his drinking; it brought forth horrible things. It brought forth headache, weariness, and nausea. Shame and guilt. Fear, for his memories were never complete the next day. And, if something spectacularly wrong had occured, his Metatron, Tasm, would be around soon enough to bear the bad news and revel in Kylos' misery.

Kylos unwound himself from his wrap of blankets and his knapsack, on which his head had rested, lurched to the nearest tree, and vomited. He could not endure facing Tasm and a cold, flickering morning both on a full stomach.

Catching his breath and equillibrium, he remembered. The cruelest thing about his drinking was that he never truly forgot; his memories had learned how to swim through his alcoholic deluges.

It was the girl he'd seen, bathing in a nearby stream. After many moons of travelling, he'd been taken with her slender body, just starting to ripen, her taut skin still not covering the contours of her ribcage. Her dark eyes had captured the glow of midday, made it dance. Her voice sang freely and the birds had joined in the song, adding their chirps and cries in the background. He had watched her, hidden behind a fallen tree, feeling an old stirring in places he had almost forgotten.

His fantasies getting the better of him, he had stood up and walked forward. "Forgive," he said, "I am a simple traveller and I mean no harm. I was wondering if your family was nearby. I have goods to trade for a place to stay the evening." His eyes, of their own accord, soaked in what they could of her body.

Upon hearing him, the girl spun in his direction, her knife (resting, he saw, in a sheath tied around her waist with a leather strip) quickly drawn. When she saw him, and heard his speech, she continued to bathe, eyes on him. She submerged herself up to her neck in the water, smiling all the while. "My tribe lives in these hills. It is good fortune you met me, stranger. We don't usually like outsiders in these parts. Too many bad people in the world. But if you want to trade, and bring no danger with you, I can talk to them." To his delight, her voice had not lost any of it's music, nor her eyes their sparkle. Nor, he thought soberly, her hand it's knife. Young she was, but naivete died quickly in this age.

He consented to walk with her back to her tribe. She put on her shawl, a long shirt really, cinching the leather strap around her slender waist. On the way there, she asked him about his travels. What were the monsters like, outside the mountains? What were the people like? Was it true that there were still wondrous ruins beyond the valleys below? Had he ever seen any of the Fallen? He tried not to wince at that last question; if she or her tribe suspected what he was; there would be no rest for him that night. He could not bear the thought of her lovely voice freezing up with fear.

He could not endure her knowing that, of all the monsters that might ever visit her tribe, he was the worst, most dangerous in existence, save for others of his kind. He was what they called "The Fallen"; long ago, he had been a scholar, a scientist of sorts, a discoverer of powerful magics that had been deemed impossible under the science of the day. He had brought new light and wonder to the world, in a time when science had all but explained everything. Finally, mankind hoped, a complete and comprehensive understanding of the universe was within their grasp.

But it was not to be. Even with the nigh-infinite power and knowledge granted them by their bound Metatrons, the universe and it's mysteries were beyond their total reach. Humanity had stretched as far toward the heavens as they could, and it still could not satisfy. They had all degenerated after that, his former colleagues and himself, playing at being gods and abusing their powers in the most flagrant, vulgar fashion simply because they could. Kylos had lost count of his hideous experiments, his angry curses which had leveled towns, forests, and mountains, his lusts and excesses. His regrets. Why should he keep count? They were always eager to regain his acquaintance in his dreams.

He wondered what myth their tribe told of the Fallen. Did they say that angry gods had destroyed them, driving the survivors mad? Did they say that the devils the Fallen had pacted with had finally demanded their due? None of it, however colorful, was true; Kylos and his kind had not been pushed from their towers, they had jumped. Willingly. Some had died happily, while others, like him, fell still.

The keening. That was what he heard. When the wind blew in a certain direction, there was an eerie, unearthly wailing that came and went. Where were the tribespeople, and what had happened them? And why were there skeletons, clean, intact skeletons, lying around a dead fire? Why did they look as if they'd collapsed in the midst of a celebration? Where were the signs of struggle? Why could he not remember what happened?

Did he want to?

He turned and ran, running toward the wailing. Somehow he knew that that way lay the answer to his questions. He owed these people. It was the least he could do.  

***

Kylos found them, not  very far from their campsite. It was all he could do to not scream. For the second time that day, he vomited. Then he wept.

Their flesh, their muscles, their eyes, their organs, all of it had been seemlessly woven into a grotesque canopy that stretched between two tall trees. It undulated back and forth; there was no wind. Their eyes fixed on him; their wailing was louder, much more fearful now when the wind blew. Someone, something, had to pay for this violation.

Then he heard it: *thup-thup-thup-thup-thup-thup-thup-click-tap-tap-tap-tap*. His flesh rippled, his arm hairs raised. He turned around, bracing himself.

The creature that stared back at him from atop a small rockpile was a nightmare, an abomination born not of this world. It appeared as a monstrously oversized human skull, glowing a cancerous, sickly green, even in the light of the sun. The pupils of it's wet, rolling eyes were a vibrant orange, and held a twisted excitement. It's six legs were ribcage-thin, tapering to fang-sharp points at the end. Black veins pulsed along it's body. It was a large as a hunting dog, or a small wargyr.

Kylos glared at it. He did not ask it what it was. He did not ask it's guilt or innocence. He simply pointed at the hideous work and asked, "Why?"

Air should not have moved between it's fleshless lips, over it's nonexistent tongue, to give it a voice. But then, this creature was impossibility incarnate. "Because," Tasm answered, "you asked me to."

"No."

"Yes, you did. You were quite adamant about it, as I recall. Alcohol and affronts to your dignity bring out your sense of poetic justice. Always did."

"No, no no no no no no no, NO! Tasm, I demand you restore these people! This is vile! How could you?"

Tasm continued to grin, would no doubt have done so if had even been capable of making another expression. "Are your certain you want to do that?" There was a note of triumph in it's voice; it knew something of the night before, something Kylos did not. Something that Kylos knew would make matters even worse. "Or could it be that, in your drunken stupor, you do not remember, or choose not to remember, what happened last night?"

"Out with it, Tasm. Tell me, damn you, and at least try to contain your enthusiasm."

Tasm rubbed his forelegs together, and said, "Follow me." Angry but curious, Kylos followed Tasm over to a pit, recently unearthed by the look of it, and glanced down. Bones, and ones not nearly as fresh as the others around the campsite.

"It appears you stumbled your way into a tribe of cannibals. From what I've gathered, they hunt others as stupid as yourself to supplement their diets when game gets scarce, as well as by raiding the occasional caravan. Or did you not think to ask how the tribe fed itself during the last harsh winter? Or how it had so many happy, well-nourished children? Or where they got their unusually advanced weaponry from?"  

Suddenly Kylos remembered everything.

He had followed Kelai to her tribe. They appeared suspicious at first, but with his affable nature and interesting trinkets, he had thawed them enough to smile. There were many children, and a few more girls of Kelai's age, eager to talk to him and hear his tales. Even the adults had seemed impressed and listened respectfully.

They had asked him to stay the night, as they were having a celebration. They had many stores of food and wine, some of which they brewed according to their own special recipes. How could he refuse? The dances were athletic and stimulating; the wine even more so. Often he looked for Kelai among the tribe; he saw her a few times at a distance, talking to her cohorts, pointing at his direction and giggling. She saw him glancing and waved.

At night, when few remained standing, and even he felt weighed down by drink, Kelai came within his vision, and beckoned him to a nearby cave. He staggered willingly after. In the near darkness, he caught a glimpse of her eyes, her teeth. She beckoned him next to her, and sat on his lap. She leaned forward, to whisper to him...

He felt the shock of her knife, as it violated his flesh, piercing through the ribcage to his heart. He heard her cry out, and saw the tribesmen, now wide awake, come rushing toward the cave. In the torchlight, he saw rather than felt Kelai squat over his prone body, writhing obscenely over him and mocking his lechery, his wild tales, his foolish drunkeness, much to the amusement of her cohorts. Her teeth looked longer and sharper in the dancing light. He heard them plan to skin him, cook him, and distribute his goods among the tribe. Some wondered out loud how someone so gullible as he was able to survive in these lands, especially without quality hunting gear or friends. They would soon find out.

They could not have known he was still alive, but healing from the mortal blow. They could not have guessed as the sorceries that sustained him. They were off celebrating when Tasm came, and were properly horrified as he bitterly issued his condemnation.

He mocked them as they wept, begging him to spare them, offering him Kelai if he would leave and not harm them. He laughed mirthlessly at Kelai's pleading, at her attempts to blame the tribe so that she would be spared. He had Tasm weave them together, still alive, while their bones danced for his amusement. And he emptied their wine.

***

He was back at the river, watching Kelai as she bathed. As she sang, her eyes dancing in the sun, his heart broke just a little bit more.

He had Tasm rewind the time in the mountains. It was easier that way. He planned to go back to the villiage he'd recently left, to inform them about the tribe of cannibals in the mountains.

Tasm had snorted with disgust. "Why be merciful to this trash? Why not leave them as they were? Do you think the village will be any kinder to them once they know?"

Kylos had straightened out his clothing and knapsack, ready to return to the past. "Perhaps they will; usually the children are spared." He glanced longingly at the canopy of flesh; somewhere in there, was a beautiful girl with a body and voice of magic. An image, however false, of innocence and sweetness he sorely missed.

Tasm objected. "Whatever you hope to gain from this, it won't work. You can erase this so it never happened, but you will never forget. You won't let yourself."

And Tasm was right, damn him. Even now, Kelai's voice had lost it's former enchantment. Her lithe body held less wonder. Her eyes seemed sinister, turning the light within them cold and unfriendly. How could he have been so blind?

He remembered, again, after he'd left his tower to walk the world he'd created and almost destroyed so many times. He remembered another young girl, so similar to Kelai, who had heard him in the night as his dreams threatened to suffocate him. She comforted him, and was his companion for so many years. She too sang beautifully. She willingly shared his fire, his travels, his warmth, his passion. But when he showed her his magic, she recoiled in horror, the world's past still too fresh in her mind. One morning, when he awoke, she had vanished. He had not pursued her.

He walked away from the fallen tree where he'd hidden, tears streaming down his face. He hoped he would never step down this path again, but knew full well he would, sooner or later.

***

"I want, once and for all, not to know many things. Wisdom sets limits to knowledge too." (Nietzsche)