[S&S] Setting: The Mythic Past, the Haunted Present

[DannyK]

I'm wondering about the range of cultures included.  I guess I can think of a fair range of primitive cultures in cold places -- Eskimos, Norsemen, northern Plains Indians... but I wonder if it might work better to settle on a single basic culture system (the Norse stuff seems very cool to me).  That way you could lay out the basics, while allowing for considerable variation and customization by players.  By reducing the overall range of cultures, you allow the setting material to be much deeper, and the descriptors to be less generic and more evocative.  And there's still plenty of variation possible, with conflict between the ruined-city-dwellers and the nomads and the shipborne raiders.  

This occurred to me while reading about the sample players you mentioned: Katyaaq Katyaaq Siksrikpak seems to be the odd man out.  And while we certainly need a good Vikings-vs-Eskimos RPG... this is maybe not the place.

About the Saga: perhaps the player's goal is to get a saga of their own, or at least their own stanza, but at first they might start out just being strongly identified with a particular bit of a Saga.  

For example, Thegn Olsdvaald, the guy who lives in the cool tumbledown city of bells, might start out being strongly identified with Hrugnar, the famous monster-slayer who cleansed the city of demons during the legendary foudning of Hreidhar.  When he gets to be big, the skalds start adding verses alluding to his deeds; someday, when he's become a titanic figure in Hreidhar history, Thegn's saga gets popular.  

Ooh!  Nice twist on this!  This sets up a nice automatic competition for glory between the heroes and the Shades; if Thegn's Saga becomes a standard, maybe it displaces the story of how some ancient hero killed an entire clan in one day to reclaim his honor.  Much glory to Thegn, but one very pissed off Shade.  

Man, it's really a clever, deep idea you have here.  I like how it taps into all kinds of anthropology and mythology.

[Old_Scratch]

I'm wondering about the range of cultures included.  I guess I can think of a fair range of primitive cultures in cold places -- Eskimos, Norsemen, northern Plains Indians... but I wonder if it might work better to settle on a single basic culture system (the Norse stuff seems very cool to me).  That way you could lay out the basics, while allowing for considerable variation and customization by players.  By reducing the overall range of cultures, you allow the setting material to be much deeper, and the descriptors to be less generic and more evocative.  And there's still plenty of variation possible, with conflict between the ruined-city-dwellers and the nomads and the shipborne raiders.

Yes, I think this is a reasonable suggestion. However, what I'm trying to avoid is a repeat of the Kirk Douglas film "The Vikings" unless that's what players really want. In appearance and some surface details, there's going to be some continuity and similarities between each. The way men and women relate. Each people is going to of course claim that the First Hero was their ancestor and only they can summon him, and of course each group pays close attention to burial rites.

But at the same time, I don't want this to be a Norse-rip off game, with these just being Vikings with the serial number filed off. They look like Norse, but they've been transformed by their particular context. So what I'm trying to do is hitch a ride the imagery of the Norse while making them distinct so that after the initial design, people feel like they are playing a fantastic and unique set of people, not Wikings or Vykyngs or some sort of cheap viking knock-off.

This occurred to me while reading about the sample players you mentioned: Katyaaq Katyaaq Siksrikpak seems to be the odd man out.  And while we certainly need a good Vikings-vs-Eskimos RPG... this is maybe not the place.

Of course. Fair enough. But imagine Scandinavia: Katyaaq Katyaaq may not be an Eskimo. He could be a Lapp from Finland. In the far North where horses won't live and great herds of mastadons roam, you have the Sled-People. Tall Northmen, with rune carved spears, sleds that are the shrines to their ancestors, and a strange connection to their dogs. It is said that the Sled People's dogs have souls as well, and that when a Shade visits its progeny, the dogs recognize the Old Soul, and sometimes, an old, grizzled sled dog, you know, the one with one-knowing eye and tattered ears, is able to journey into the Winterlands, barking and bringing back lost ancestors.

What I've done is taken one feature: a reliance upon sleds and dogs, imported it into a Norse culture, and twisted and warped it so that it fits, and doesn't feel like Vikings against Eskimos. With any luck, none of the cultures I'll describe will look *exactly* like anything historically. We'll see...

About the Saga: perhaps the player's goal is to get a saga of their own, or at least their own stanza, but at first they might start out just being strongly identified with a particular bit of a Saga.  

For example, Thegn Olsdvaald, the guy who lives in the cool tumbledown city of bells, might start out being strongly identified with Hrugnar, the famous monster-slayer who cleansed the city of demons during the legendary foudning of Hreidhar.  When he gets to be big, the skalds start adding verses alluding to his deeds; someday, when he's become a titanic figure in Hreidhar history, Thegn's saga gets popular.  

Ooh!  Nice twist on this!  This sets up a nice automatic competition for glory between the heroes and the Shades; if Thegn's Saga becomes a standard, maybe it displaces the story of how some ancient hero killed an entire clan in one day to reclaim his honor.  Much glory to Thegn, but one very pissed off Shade.  

Man, it's really a clever, deep idea you have here.  I like how it taps into all kinds of anthropology and mythology.

That's exactly the direction I'm going for! You put it beautifully, and I sort of glossed over the implications. Both Shade and Shadewalkercrave  the same thing: Glory and immortality. To be fawned over by their followers. Both need each other. The Shade needs a body to inhabit to relive life and to be present to be remembered. The Shadewalker, in a world where the ancestors are revered and are present, need to ascend to the same level, competing with the glory of the ancestors by invoking them and engaging them on their level.

Yet there's another facet, another paradox which I haven't gotten to:

The Shade craves becoming human.

The human, craves becoming a Shade.

This relationship is based on envy.

And then if you take into account that the Shade has the need for glory, a trait that the Shadewalker is after, you've got dramatic tension right from the start. And what happens if a character has multiple ancestors for whom they are Shadewalking? The dynamics can be potentially explosive! A Greek tragedy with gods warring over their descendent's soul!

Thanks for the feedback, its given me a few ideas and also challenged me to be a bit more rigorous in my distinctions and descriptions!

And I wanted the game to have a very strong ethnographic component, so the last comment really pleased me.

[DannyK]

You know what would be really cool ?  If there was some rules for becoming a culture hero.  Maybe that's getting too far into Heroquest territory, but it would rock.

[Old_Scratch]

Hiya,

My experience suggests that Price is best started as a -1, then let the players tune it as they see fit by introducing goals/oaths. It works tremendously well for the Sword approach. There's really no need to tweak it otherwise - the effect you're hoping for is right there in play, and it develops better in play than it does as a "gee I'm gonna have it be this way" part of character creation.

Best,
Ron

Thanks Ron! I just wasn't clear in my original statement. When I stated that I wanted them to be more than just a -1 penalty, I didn't mean a higher penalty than that, I just didn't want the Price itself to be perceived as simply a penalty. So then rather describe in each price when the penalty would be applied, I merely left the description of the Price. I want characters to choose a Price because it feels right, not because they're worried about a -1 penalty in situation X. Once the character has chosen it, the GM and the player can hash out the details of when the -1 penalty will come into play. I'm planning on running this with people who aren't familiar with the game, and I want them to focus on the atmosphere, I certainly don't want to trigger a min/max response from them that I know two of them are prone to. I'd like to mitigate that while letting them get the feel of this particular game and its setting.

[Old_Scratch]

You know what would be really cool ?  If there was some rules for becoming a culture hero.  Maybe that's getting too far into Heroquest territory, but it would rock.

Well, I believe I hinted at the First Hero in my first posting in one of the descriptors, but its really just a reference and I really haven't elaborated upon him yet, but he could be a sort of Culture Hero. He's really the first ancestor, the first man, with all sorts of contributions attributed to him.

The thing is, every group claims him as theirs. And to claim that you are the Shadewalker of the First Hero would be a very political thing - you'd earn the envy and hatred of others, especially those Shadewalkers already claiming to be hosting him already! Lastly, any Shade could claim to be the First Hero or any other culture hero for that matter. So if you want, as a player, to assert that your character is a Shadewalker of a Culture Hero, that's cool... I might even include rules for it, but I think its best if there is some ambiguity as to whether these Shades are really who they claim to be...

I've been wanting to post a sample People for some time now, so introducing one now with a particular version of the Culture Hero or the First Hero might be appropriate. Especially after I'm still smarting from the earlier comment "while we certainly need a good Vikings-vs-Eskimos RPG", I find that maybe I'd better be a bit more forthcoming with examples. Ultimately, the feel should be Northmen, but with a twist that makes them other than some guy with a horned helmet.

As I noted earlier, I'm a bit wary of outlining a bunch of cultures lest the characters feel like they should be basing their off of mine. This group is relatively safe to use, since they're more angled towards NPCs and potential adversaries as will be seen in their description.

The Grinning Men, the Fanged Men

Origin Myth

The First Hero is the first father of all the Grinning Men. He had Twelve Sons and they ruled the earth, the other animals quailed in fear, and mimicked their language, aped their actions, in a travesty of the First Hero and his Twelve Sons. These twelve sons would form the twelve warring clans of the Grinning Men. But the source of this interclan warfare is a result of the death of the First Hero.

As he lay dying, he summoned his twelve sons together into the mystery lodge in which he lived. For three days the Twelve Sons fasted, and drank nothing but the First Hero's words of wisdom. And on the last day, as he lay dying, the First Hero told them, as he pointed to his skin: "This is my body and flesh which I give you: partake of my flesh and do this in remembrance of me, so I will always be with you." He grabbed a chalice and knife, and drew a blade across his wrist, and as the blood drained into the chalice, he then stated: "In this cup is my blood, which is spilled for you, which you will drink to seal forever the bonds between us. My flesh shall be your meat, my blood shall be your mead, and forever we will be one, flesh of my flesh, and blood of my blood."

And the twelve sons feasted upon their still-living father. But the story goes that as each ate his fill, one of their number hid a cup of blood, and stashed the divine flesh within his clothing, and thus ate less than his fill. As a consequence, this god thief, the flesh traitor was weaker than his siblings. But worse, when he left, he shared out the flesh and blood with his children and other outsiders for trinkets and women and song. The other eleven brothers, when they discovered the truth, swore to destroy the god thief and his monstrous progeny.

At one time or another though, each clan has accused the other of being the clan of the god thief. The main rival of a clan is always the accused, and in the long history of the clans each has accused every other one of the clans at one time or another of being the traitor clan, so the truth of who is the traitor is unknown to all.

Culture and Society
The Grinning Men are greatly feared and reviled by all the other peoples. Living deep within the hills and mountains, they rely heavily upon herding and raiding of others, and are among the fiercest of all the people. It is not tough to distinguish a Grinning Man from any other Northmen, for the Grinning Men file all their teeth down to points. For the Grinning Men, it is forever a reminder of their own mortality, for when speaking to another Grinning Man, each is reminded by the sharpened teeth of their peers that they too will one day die, as well as a sign of devotion to the teachings of the First Hero.

The Grinning Men are not savages, they believe themselves the first endowed with words and wisdom of the First Hero, and that language was stolen by them by the animals, who through speaking words, turned into mockeries of the Grinning Men. Each word is a sacred and ritual act, and thus the Grinning Men are taciturn and quiet, relying heavily upon a facial expressions, gestures, and sign language to speak of mundane things, for typically only weighty issues are to be discussed using the First Hero's Gift. Among the other Northmen, the Grinning Men will speak, but only using simple words, lest they give away any secrets or words that the other Northmen have not yet stolen. To the Southrons, they Grinning Men will not speak at all, although they may mock them by speaking in gibberish.

The most solemn moment in Grinning Man society is the death of a peer. In a ritual abhorred by all other Northmen, the Grinning Men embark upon ritual cannibalism of their own family or friends. The deceased is butchered and eaten in a long feast in which the secret language is shared and spoken freely. As the flesh is devoured, the devoured spirit's will live on forever in the bodies of all their friends, family, and their descendents. It is only in being consumed that one may return to the flesh and live on for eternity.

However, a mundane, unimportant, or crazy person is dragged out into the forest to allow the wild animals to consume it, returning the spirit to the wilderness where its soul belongs, not amongst the cultured souls revered by the Grinning Men. Those who have dishonoured or shamed the clan are merely butchered and fed to domesticated pigs and dogs or captive slaves.

When the Grinning Men capture or defeat a powerful Northmen or Southron foe, such as a war leader or Shadewalker, they will drag the body back to their own home, to devour the flesh and thus the power of the spirit. By consuming a powerful fallen foe, they can draw upon the foe's strength and most importantly, reclaim that lost bit of the First Hero stolen from them! In the eyes of the Grinning Men, the only people capable of rivalling their power are those immorally possessing some of the stolen essence of the First Hero. That essence is the only thing that allows lesser people to even rival the power of the Grinning Men. Finally, by consuming the flesh of a fallen foe, they deny their rivals the ability of drawing upon that very power.

A few notes:

I was only conscious of one influence when I originally wrote this, the Last Supper imagery which I wanted to incorporate, and was the last idea I had for it. What originally prompted this idea was the question: What do they do with their dead? Each group would have their own answer, but for this group, there is no distinction between the divine and the physical, so thus eating their dead ancestors and keeping them near seems like a neat little trick. The Last Supper thing was added in there later just as a twist for the reader. I also wanted it to have a deeper theme, for flesh and blood are powerful symbols and should be reflected in the origin myth and resonate in the current culture as well.

The filed teeth remind me of one of the people's of the Black Kingdoms in Conan, as well as "Biter" from Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. In both cases, cannibals and people with filed teeth are seen as sub-human savages, but I wanted to raise these two elements up to one of elitism and superiority over other people. I really wanted to subvert the cannibal is sub-human paradigm, at least in the context of this group.

[Old_Scratch]

I think the standard Sorcerer Initiative system works fine in most cases. When Hagrid the Ageless, Entitled Son and Servant to Magnar the Bloodless leaps off the prow of his dragonship onto the rocking deck of a rival ship and shears the head off of his first foe before the foe can even react, pausing only to exult in his triumph before leaping further into the fray, the initiative system seems to work just fine.

But what if what is important is not who is fastest, but who is the most right? In a world of ancient rivalries, prodding ancestors whispering ancient grievances in your ears, and hated foes, and the same duels fought endlessly, I've got something else in mind - angry, hateful, bloody battle, driven by ancient animosities where nobody seeks to defend, but hacks mechanically at their foe with little regard for their own wounds, almost beserk in their fury.

Hagrid the Ageless, Entitled Son and Servant to Magnar the Bloodless looks across a body strewn battlefield at Agmar the Tenth, the First, the Last, the Eternal of his line. Both, prodded by fate and destiny and the demons in their minds, have found each other on the field of battle.

What follows is a battle echoed in the past and the future, fought long ago, and likely to be fought again, only in different vessels. Perhaps insults or comments are exchanged: Hagrid: "You've come to be butchered again. Slaughtering a pig like you is too good a work for a fine blade like this, a blade that has killed kings!" Agmar: "Aye, I know of your handiwork. The blood of murdered women and babes has quenched that blade as well! Remember, I witnessed your monstrous deeds at the Far Fells, just before I cut your hand off and you fled like a coward to die in some cave somewhere! I relish seeing your cowardice again!"

Both close in battle, swinging their blades at each other, incensed and immune to the injuries they suffer, striving only to cut their foe to pieces, even if it cost them their own life. After a mad few seconds both stagger back, breathing raggedly, blood oozing from ghastly wounds, until one staggers and falls in the snow...

So what I'm toying with is a Saga Duel or Saga Scene or Duel of Honor or something of the sort where driven by a heady mixture of hatred, history, and honor, two foes go toe to toe, throwing caution to the wind, shrugging off their own injuries in a terrible battle where both may easily die.

In this case, Initiative is thrown out the window. All penalties for damage are only resolved at the end of the action, both are so frenzied that they shrug off injuries that might kill instantly a lesser mortal. I'm also toying with one more mechanic: a sort of "intensity" modifier, a bidding process between the two combatants that increases the intensity and potential butchery of any battle. One or the other initiates the challenge and raises the ante by one bonus die for both the combatants. If the other desires, they can raise the ante by another bonus die, this can increase until the number of bonus dice is equal to the smaller pool used by either of the players. For example one is throwing four dice and the other six: the could ante or bid up to four additional dice: eight for the first and ten for the second combatant. The attacks are resolved simultaneous (defense is carried out on one die for the "suck it up defense". Then, after the attacks have been resolved the penalties accrue at the end, possibly resulting in the death of one or both of the participants.

I guess what I'm trying to capture is one mad moment of frenzied blood-letting. Would this work in the context of the Sorcer combat system? Does it fit the feel of the world?

[Mike Holmes]

Sounds good to me. There might be odd ramifications with some of the demon powers, however....

Anyhow, this is looking more and more like a supplement. :-)

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

OS, the Sorcerer action/order (not "initiative") system works just fine for stuff like what you're describing.

1. Use the Sorcerer & Sword rules for buying down and saving victories. Blood flows and spurts but no penalties hit immediately.

2. Don't abort to defense. Carnage everywhere. Combined with #1, "blood flows and spurts" hops up a notch.

3. Permit Will and Humanity rolls (for hatreds and sympathies respectively) to factor is as motors for rolled-over victories. Moral weight and emotional intensity enter the picture mechanically.

Best,
Ron

[Old_Scratch]

I'm not sure if anyone really noticed (since nobody has mentioned it), but everything has been very male-centered in this setting to date. That was intentional. I'm much more confident about the male perspective on Sorcery than the female perspective... so I'm really hoping for some feedback on the following part.

I've only begun to sketch out female sorcery here, since I'm not sure if its interesting enough or fits the feel of sorcery. So please, any thoughts at all, respond!

Two ways to do sorcery for women:

1) Women cast spells just like men. Imagine blood-frenzied Valkyries singing songs to their own warrior ancestors (presumably female) as they carve up foes with slender blades chilled with spirit ice. Everything written before is applicable to men.

2) Women have their own unique form of sorcery, proposed below.

I'm not an essentialist, believing that women are a breed apart and dramatically and fundamentally different from men. However, in much of the pulp literature, women are seen as mysterious, strange, alluring, and having strange powers that can charm and control men, and in such a male dominated society, I want women to have power on par with men, but different, mysterious, and foreign to create tensions between the two genders. So in exploring the themes of the genre and the ideas of the world, I've decided to create two different binary sorcery systems, one for men, the second for women. Everything that has come before is applicable only to men.

Descent is patrilineal in this society, and women cannot call upon their ancestors, but they have access to power perhaps far more powerful than any single ancestor...

Female Sorcery in the Mythical Past, the Haunted Present

All Northmen believe that they may one day wield great and immortal powers, but among the womenfolk of the Northmen, they already have that power.

It is said that the power of the womenfolk stems from the First Wife (as the Northmen call her) or the First Mother (as the womenfolk acknowledge her in their secret rituals). It is said that the First Wife or First Mother blessed all of her daughters with the power to bear children as she did, and that all women bear that divine spark of energy, and the act of giving birth is the result of sorcery. There is nothing mundane about motherhood, the whole process is steeped in arcane beliefs, rituals, and the power of an ancient blessing.

This the menfolk know, but little more. Men draw their power from their ancestors, their fathers for whom they are named after, but the women have no family, leaving their own and marrying into a different clan or family. Women draw their power, once instructed at the puberty rites at the rituals conducted by the mystery cults, that all women can wield magic, drawing upon what they call the primal power, the first energy that existed in the world, the potential for creation. This primal power, primal source, or first act, is channeled by all women when they conceive and give birth, and for most women it is the only significant moment when they draw upon that energy, for all women are warned of its dangers in the sacred rites women learn. Everyday usage of this power is more mundane, a muttered act of thankfulness over cooking soup, a brief prayer over a child's fever, or songs of mourning for the dead.

Some women however, draw upon the primal power, using its innate potential for the purposes of attaining power and bending the political, religious, and physical worlds to their will. This has profound implications, and while this power rivals that of the Spirit Ancestors, things can go horribly awry as well. How can this primal power rival that of the ancient warrior heroes? Nearly every woman is tapped into the primal source at the moment of their birth, and it is whispered in their secret meeting halls that it is there that their soul will return, and thus almost every woman who has ever lived has come from and returned to the primal power. Every bit of gossip, every lived experience of the past is contained somewhere within the power. Again, nearly all women are connected to this knowledge on some level, and it is this power that gives women their keen sense of intuition and foresight often lacking in the menfolk.

Those women who tap into the source for great power are known as Wyrds. As they tap into the primal source that exists in the past, the present, and the future, they have incredible power of augury and divination. They question the ancient souls at the source, look through the eyes of their sisters in the present, and commune with the souls at the end of the future, seeing from the first moment on earth until the last moment. Such visions are not entirely reliable however, and all women using their Wyrd-sight risk madness and worse. Most of these oracular women are feared but respected, and only a few women choose such a route.

There are those Wyrds who go even further, the Wyrd-Wytches, who drain the power of the source to wield magics in the real world. Such women tempt fate by creating some sort of relic that captures energy from the source, bringing it into the physical world. Such energy-filled vessels are sentient, often tainted with the souls of former Wyrd women themselves who have tapped into such energy. Bound in items or anchored to bodies or locales, these primal spirits often have malign reputations. Animals fear to trend in such an area where the primal power flows unchecked and uncontrolled. These Primal Demons can be highly dangerous, away from the source they become tainted by the physical world and in particular, the needs, demands, and personalities of their summoners.

Whereas the Wyrds are respected, the Wyrd-Wytches are feared and mistrusted. Ostracized, they are rarely accepted anywhere, and their exile blights their soul and the demons they summoned. There are countless dark tales of immortal Wytches with unholy hungers that haunt the forests with their maddened spirits.

That's a sketch of Female Sorcery.

How it differs from Male Sorcery? I wanted female sorcery to be distinct, powerful, and yet to compare favorably with male sorcery.

1) All women are by nature magical, whereas men have to beg and plead and bully their ancestors to have access to those powers.

2) Female Sorcery is steeped in secrecy and gender-specific lore that is only taught to females. All men are ignorant of the exact nature of female magic. I want female Sorcery to have a sort of secret-sisterhood feel, but one where all women are in on the secret, this counters the male-bias in the setting. The women aren't of any clans or families, they are of a powerful community stretching through time and space.

3) Distinctive from male power, providing for tension between male and female as misunderstandings arise. Women are as powerful as men, but men don't quite understand female power and can't relate to it either.

4) A slippery slope approach: Women have the innate power, and they may gradually be drawn into Wytchdom by temptation.

5) Tensions within female communities: Yes, all women are powerful and related to the same source of power, but the temptations of power may draw some and not others, and I want for communities to be suspiciously eyeing their peers for signs of trespassing and draining off of power.

I have a lot of other ideas, some descriptors, cosmology, and power changes, but I don't want to launch full into this unless it fits the setting and the system. What works, what doesn't? Looking forward to your feedback!

[DannyK]

About the death-duel stuff: it seems to work very nicely.  Just one comment: it's great when the player decides to go berserk on his worst enemy and risk his own death in order to take the other guy down.

But what about when the PC takes on a hostile NPC Shadewalker, and the NPC escalates things to the point where neither is likely to survive?  

This is either a flaw or a feature; it might make the PC's overly reluctant to take on enemy Shadewalkers.

[DannyK]

After seeing some stunning pictures in the New York Times review of "The Day After Tomorrow", I was struck with the thought of running a game set in Ice Age New York, with Manhattan as forbidden holy ground, and one of those big climactic fights going down in iced-over Central Park.  

It's one of those "a cool image is worth a thousand words" moments.

[Old_Scratch]

After seeing some stunning pictures in the New York Times review of "The Day After Tomorrow", I was struck with the thought of running a game set in Ice Age New York, with Manhattan as forbidden holy ground, and one of those big climactic fights going down in iced-over Central Park.  

It's one of those "a cool image is worth a thousand words" moments.

That's funny! When I first started writing this setting up, I kept getting a similar image myself of New York - but from about 7 or 8 years ago!

Twelve Monkeys - the Terry Gilliam film. The beginning of the film the protagonist is wandering around a frozen NY and you see that Lion roaring. I thought it was a very stunning and stark image, but it didn't immediately seem to have anything to do with my setting exactly! Wait! Saber-toothed tigers!

Saber-toothed tigers are now in the setting. The capital of the Emperor of the Warmon Dynasty. Not just the palace of the Emperor, but one of the greatest repositories of artifacts and tokens of power imaginable.

Now a ruined building, gaping with fallen columns like shattered teeth. A few bones and armor stick out of the snow cascading down the steps. A saber-toothed tiger emerges from the darkness, snarling, loping with feline grace. A few moments later torch light appears. A stout man in furs appears, bearing the stolen loot of an empire, his rough bag carrying unimagined wealth: relics of dead saints, the first sword ever forged, the only parchment bearing the writing of a god, diamonds the size of your fists, tears of oracular virgins turned to crystal and shining with colors never before seen...

The tiger growls and bristles, the snow drifts swirl as the wind howls, a ghostly image appears, the last Emperor, rendered in white and grey and silver and black, with blood still oozing from his wounds, staining the snow beneath with blood. The image shimmers and wavers in the winds. A voice whispers "You have plundered our land, but you shall not desecrate our sacred artifacts...".

The fur-covered figure spits into the snow. "Fah! My father slew you two decades ago! And I bear not only his blade, but his shade as well! Let us cross blades! Its not often you get the pleasure of slaying a second time!"

Anyone got any idea of what a saber tooth might be statted out as? Stamina 7 or 8?

[tetsujin28]

So, Scratch...when we gonna be able to buy this? :-)

[sirogit]

I once used a sabretooth tiger in a one-shot Sword&Sorcerer game. I always envision them having the abilities Special Damage(Teeth) and Vitality(why does this seem so appropiate? Something about their ancientness, and a cat's tenacity and resilence to peril.) at power equal to their stamina, even if they're not Demons per se. 6-8 Stamina, High Will and whatever Lore seem appropiate.

I'd concur with Ron that the default Sword&Sorcery combat rules are all about an intense frenzy, providing neither of the combatants are willing to back down, so I don't see the use of modifying them.

Everything I've read of this system seems totally awesome. If you're looking to include rules for becoming a shade, it seems to me it would make sense basing it off the rules for becoming a Lich, with the alteration that your Humanity score plays in part in keeping your legend -yours-, so that the Shade retains your name and aspects of your legend rather than the Shades you have used.

[DannyK]

Shucks, if I hadn't talked myself into running another online Nobilis game, I'd be highly tempted to run a game in this setting, just using what O.S. has posted so far.  

Maybe by the time the queue gets that far, it'll be all nicely done.  :)