[Paladin] Legacy: a Vagrant Story

[anonymouse]

So, here's the setting my sibling and I are going to be playing Paladin in. It's based on the Playstation game Vagrant Story, which we're both extraordinarly fond of.

There were a few snags converting it into Paladin. First, the primary source of supernatural stuff is the Dark; it's definitely bad mojo, unless controlled by someone with a strong will. The paladins in the setting, then, aren't good people who only touch Light Animus; they're people who mess with the Dark Animus but, in the process, "convert" it. Or.. something. I dunno yet. Definitely not absolutionism, I can tell you that. =/

To me, a bunch of this seems pretty forced. Its late, I've been beating my head against this for a couple of weeks, and we're playing tomorrow-- er, today, actually, now that I look at the clock. So I'll see how it holds up. Part of the problem to me right now is that it's simultaneously too sketchy for my tastes, but also too detailed for what the setting summary should be. Maybe after playing a couple of sessions I can clean it up into something better.

We're going to be using the Active/Reactive/Light/Dark attribute setup that Mr. Nixon advances in this thread, as well as the other changes mentioned there. Having Dark Animus only go up when one gains a Mark is actually pretty good for this setting. When my mind's fresher, I'll go over all the stuff tonight before the session and tie some of it together.

It's a first draft! There are some contradictions (at least, between what I meant to write and what I actually wrote). If anyone has comments, I'd love to hear 'em, especially if you've played the game.

Backdrop
When Duke Bardorba died, and his hold on Parliament disappeared, it was only a matter of time before chaos broke out once again in the Kingdom of Valendia. What started as open political infighting escalated into another civil war. Two years after the Second Fall of Lea Monde, King Hollis IV was assassinated, and the Cardinal Boera emerged from the bloodshed as the new ruler of Valendia.

Twenty years have passed. The Cardinal's health is failing, and dark times have fallen on the kingdom. Though Lea Monde is long-since lost beneath the waves, the evil within its walls did not evaporate as the Knights of the Cross have claimed..

Having claimed the power of the lost city by right of the Blood-Sin, Ashley
Riot, ex-Riskbreaker, departed to the very edges of Valendia and beyond, into the Wildlands.

A year ago, Ashley formed the Harbingers on the edges of the Wildlands. He had pulled its members from those who, like himself, had been molested by the Dark, and carried deep sins - their own Blood-Sins - on their souls. Though none could match his mastery of the Dark, each Harbinger did learn to control it to an extent. The Harbingers were formed with a simple motto: hold back the Dark. Lea Monde was not the first wellspring of the Dark, and it was not the last.

It was in the west that the first of the beasts appeared.

The Knights of the Cross call them the Summoned; towering behemoths, man-shaped demons wielding massive blades and sowing destruction in their wake. The Knights claim that they are the work of sorcerers within the kingdom, and a new Inquisition has begun. Two cities in the Jorai Plains have already fallen to the creatures, and are said to be overrun with monsters.

Ashley Riot, long-since assumed dead by the Valendia Knights of the Peace, has once again disappeared. Before leaving, he told the Harbingers of things he had seen: another legacy of the Dark, as in Lea Monde, lay within the heart of the kingdom; the Summoned were a part of it; the Harbingers would be the only force capable of saving the kingdom; and that the Cardinal was important to all of this.

Organisation, Faith, and Charter
Two dozen individuals make up the Harbingers. Ashley Riot had searched for some of them, and others had sought him out first. All are dedicated to safeguarding the Dark; and, more importantly, repenting for their own sins.

Though very clearly a martial order, there are religious undercurrents. Ashley hade made quite sure that everyone understands he is no messiah or martyr, and though a few still revere him as something of an immortal, his wish is respected. Personal belief in higher powers usually stem from Iocus, and a number of the spiritual teachings of the Harbingers come directly from the writings of the old Iocus priesthood.

There is also a great deal of debate amongst members as to the nature of the Dark. While it quite easily corrupts mortals, and can birth the terrible abominations Ashley fought within Lea Monde, it also has more benign powers. It can even be drawn on to empower the Riskbreaker combat arts the Harbingers use to combat the Dark itself, to great effectiveness. And while the traditional elements of the kingdom claim the Dark pours from "wellsprings" - such as Lea Monde - Ashley and others dispute this; they can draw on the Dark anywhere. It seems more likely it coalesces in particular places, more like a sinkhole than a wellspring. No concrete belief about the Dark ties the Harbingers together, save that it is not, in and of itself, an evil thing.

The Harbingers now make their way back into the heart of Valendia. Vale, the capitol, and Valnain, seat of the VKP, are both focus points of Harbinger activity. There are also individuals in the Jorai Plains, fighting the Summoned, and within the Graylands to the east, the next likely target of the demons. As always, they search for the sorcerers who have control of the Dark, and of the places where it springs from.

With no central base of operations, individual members rarely interact. They can sense when another of the order is within a mile, and can communiate telepathically via the Dark.

Code
Minor Laws
* Harm no innocent.
* Fight the creatures of the Dark when and where they arise.
* Do not reveal your control of the Dark to others.

Major Laws
* Aid your fellow Harbinger.
* Never give in to the Dark.
* Repent.

Unbreakable Law
* Seal the Dark in stone or flesh, but do not allow it to be used for torment.

Arms
Trained in the Riskbreaker style of fighting, Harbingers are not tied to a particular weapon. Experience with all manner of arms - including unarmed fighting - gives them a versatility they regularly exploit, and most carry two or three different weapons.

Against the Summoned, however, only the demons' own blades can slay them. Most of the Harbingers within the Jorai Plains and the Graylands have begun carrying these, at least when not travelling into urban centers. Their training in both the physical arts and the Dark are the only things that allow them to wield such massive weapons.

Powers
As a result of their Blood-Sin and encounters with the Dark, Harbingers have a number of supernatural abilities at their call. Training within the order has granted increased control over these powers. They can:

   * shrug off and heal mortal wounds;
   * perform feats of strength and speed;
   * read the soul-memories of another;
   * influence and cloud the perceptions of others;
   * manifest their willpower in a psychic attack;
   * sense and speak with other users of the Dark over great distance;
   * channel the Dark into devestating martial combat;
   * perceive through the eyes and ears of someone they are Attuned with.

Some Harbingers also have sorcerous talent: they may be able to cast spells, or be able to control creatures of the Dark. These talents always draw directly on the Dark, however, and so are rarely used.

Special Rules
Any creature touched by the Dark - whether having been in a Dark-saturated area, or by using sorcerous talent - leaves no body behind when they die. Their flesh dissolves into motes of black light, and a shadow-version of themselves, an undead, will likely haunt the area they die in. The original body becomes pure Dark. If such a person dies with at least twice as much Light Animus as Dark Animus, however, the motes are a white light, and they do not become undead. Their body is still lost.

Magic is a ritualised form of the Dark, a way of forcing it into a particular pattern or form. It can only be learned from grimoires, and is broken down into four forms: the Path of the Warlock, the Path of the Shaman, the Path of the Enchanter, and the Path of the Sorcerer. Use of magic draws completely on the Dark, and no Light Animus may be used in its casting.

Each Harbinger is a carrier of a deep, horrible crime, real or imagined: their personal Blood-Sin. This is manifest as a tattoo, a physical representation of their communion with the Dark and its resonance with their guilt. This is represented with a Level 1 Mark.//

[anonymouse]

Waugh! Can't edit your post after six hours? That's.. really, really annoying. I'm sure there's a spectacularly great reason, but.. bleh.

Anyway. Some last-minute changes and thoughts, now that its had some time to stew:

The whole "order" part of the order irked me a bit. I just haven't been able to come up with a suitable leader and hierarchy; I don't want Ashley to be in charge, but I can't think of anyone else (either from VS, or a new character) who should lead it either (maybe Joshua Bardorba, the duke's son? I have other plans for him, though).....

So I think I'll go with a kind of loose group of alliances. This emphasises the lone-hero aspect of VS, which works well since I've only one player! the Harbingers have come together due to Ashley's influence, but they don't have a leader per se. Maybe a council? Each member has an equal voice, since there are so few of them.

I'm also going to play up the major internal conflict: to defeat the Dark, you must use and conquer the Dark. There's no alternate "good mojo" a Harbinger can draw on. If they don't harness the Dark, they get their butts kicked. If they do, they risk losing to it. Light Animus - in the form of physical feats - can only do so much against a sorcerer or dark paladin.

Their major opposing force is going to be the Knights of the Cross, the Crimson Blades. The Riskbreakers and other VKP militia may be enemy or ally. I think Bardorba will be on the Harbinger's side, with whatever forces he may have at his disposal (but the Graylands are going to be under attack next).

The demon-things are just a plot hook. I need something to draw the Harbingers back in. I may actually wait on introducing them. I'll wait and see what kind of character the sibling ends up creating, and when and where and how he wants to start. Maybe just drop him right down into the middle of a battle as the first scene, go from there; the game started more or less the same way, but a small bit of exposition before all the fightin' (and plenty in-between battle scenes as locations changed).

Long day at work, but I'm fired up. I'll post a log in Actual Play, methinks, sometime tomorrow. I wish I had a tape recorder, or an MP3 recorder would work even better! Ah well.

[anonymouse]

Well, I've been going back over the Code. It needs some work, and some of the backdrop is going to change minutely (some names, places, slight timeline reorganisation). Will have to take some time tomorrow night to work on that.

I'm changing how Arms works for the Harbingers, too. In VS, Ashley starts gaining abilities called Break Arts, which are a mesh between his combat training and drawing on the Dark. They work as attacks that drain his HP, but do neat stuff (inflict status abilities, change the Element-type of the damage, et cetera). I think I'll adapt it by doing: for every point of attribute damage you take, you get to reroll a die: the roll is counted as a  success on a 4, 5, or 6.

I've been using http://www.babynameworld.com/ for ideas for names, specifically the French and German lists (if anyone has other lists, that'd be great!). Two NPCs I'm going to be introducing next game:

(m) Vachel: Smarts 2 (Active) / Tenacity 1 (Reactive)
(f) Acacia: Brawn 2 / Patience 1

Both are members of the Peaceguard, who I'm writing up as the main police force in the kingdom. My player'll probably encounter them on the road, trying to protect some refugees.

I skipped on L/D attributes; they're not paladins, and so the attributes become unnecessary from a mechanical point of view (well, damage, but..). It also emphasises that they're "mooks" (where did this term originate?) with no great spiritual connection to anything. Abilities seemed likewise unnecessary at the moment; maybe I'll flesh 'em out anyway.

The third NPC, who I hope to use to jump-start things, is another Harbinger:

(m) Audric duSont: Discipline 3 / Experience 3 / Optimism 3 / Confidence 1
Abilities: Break Arts (Arms), Mneumonics, Clairvoyance
Animus: 5 / 2

Audric's a little more worldly, so I upped his attributes. "Mneumonics" is weird; I want him to have a really good memory, but keep to the one-word style descriptors that Paladin uses (and I like, so). It probably won't come up in play as something I need to actually roll. Clairvoyance is his main talent with the Dark; I thought about either making that his actual Dark attribute, or maybe adding a 'Talent' to characters, but I think it best if I keep the system-meddling to a minimum and stick it as an Ability.

Humm. That's all for now. Just thinking aloud at the moment, mostly.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

I'm finding this fascinating - it seems to be tying wild video-game fantasy to Paladin, which is wonderful.

How are the Laws working in play? Are there two that have come into conflict with each other more than once?

[anonymouse]

I'm finding this fascinating - it seems to be tying wild video-game fantasy to Paladin, which is wonderful.

That's the idea. ;) Paladin suits that style of story really well, especially the "lone hero" type. Vagrant Story already had a lot of Paladin-like elements in place (a number of organisations with likely Codes, the Dark), and it's one of our favourite games. So it works out pretty well.

How are the Laws working in play? Are there two that have come into conflict with each other more than once?

Unfortunately, not yet. Second session is Thursday (today/tomorrow, depending on timezone!), and the first session was purely combat. In fact, I've been working on revising the Code so that it takes into account some things I've been mentally working out (*points to Revision/Revised thread*).

the Code of the Harbinger
Minor Laws

[*] A Harbinger uses the Dark with care.
[*] A Harbinger never forgets.
[*] A Harbinger always acts on instinct.
[*] A Harbinger never acts without thought and purpose.
[/list:u]
Major Laws

[*] Never allow a sacrifice to the Dark.
[*] Never allow yourself to be overtaken by the Dark.
[/list:u]
Unbreakable Law

[*] Never repeat the Blood-Sin.
[/list:u]

I toyed with the idea of only having 3 Major Laws, or maybe 2 Unbreakable, and no others.. but I decided to go with the mostly-standard setup for now. The idea of an "all Laws are equal" organisation is maybe something I'll explore if I ever run/play in a different Paladin game.

Took me some time, but I finally came up with some Minor Laws I'm pretty okay with. They seem to fit what I'm going for, and simultaneously fulfill the necessary roles of Minor Laws (that is, easy to break through carelessness, but only small DA gain).


I like the second Major Law; basically, if you ever wind up with more DA than LA, you've just broken a Law.. and get more DA for it. This is obviously an on-event thing, or else it'd just loop until the paladin exploded or something. I still think it's pretty cool.

Sacrifices to the Dark are how most sorcerers would gain their power, I think. To the Harbinger, the emphasis is not whether or not the person dies, it's making sure they don't die furthering the Dark. Going to try and explore this some.. because someone can be "sacrificed" without a whole lot of ritual. Simply killing someone in a heavily tainted place might be enough to cause the sacrifice, if things were already prepared..

I've also changed the backdrop some; the leader of the Harbingers is now simply called the Vagrant, sometimes the Hunter or the Seer. The sibling and I will know who it is, obviously, but this helps reconcile the awful fanfic-like trap I was finding myself in. =/ The less character names I bring over from the game, the better I'll feel.. at least until the time's right.

I should add some links, in case you're curious about the source material: the official site is old, but still has a fair amount of information if you don't mind the occasionally broken English. This page has a "Plot FAQ" (scroll down a bit) which recaps all the story in the game line-by-line; a script.

(edit: fixed the code-list and the GameFAQs link)

[Blake Hutchins]

Hey,

Some interesting stuff here.  Is it just me, or do Minor Laws 3 and 4 conflict?

- A Harbinger always acts on instinct.
- A Harbinger never acts without thought and purpose.

Best,

Blake

[anonymouse]

That was my intent, but after playing with 'em today, it's probably too artificial. So, the Minor Laws will have to go under a bit of revision.

edit: continuing..

Yes, this is definitely my main struggle with Paladin right now; coming up with a Code that isn't a completely cookie-cuttered or cliched. I know what I don't want is the standard, "Don't kill innocent people," or, "Be calm and focused," kind of thing. the Harbingers are drawing on some dark mojo, and while the ends don't quite justify the means, it's getting pretty close.

So..

'Don't use your abilities carelessly' is.. enh. It just is. Thinking on it, it's a crap Law, because I doubt my player (or most players) ever would. It's too vague, in that I'd have to use arbitration to enforce it. I'll probably ditch it, and just assume it's one of those things-learned-in-training.

'Don't forget things' is at least somewhat unique. It places an odd importance on memory.

The other two.. guh..

The whole Code is really getting me down. I need some Minor Laws that can be easily broken if the Harbinger wants to, but that don't feel wholly artificial or completely lame. Sigh.

[Blake Hutchins]

Maybe focus on having some of the laws reflect dark actions to support their connection to the "dark mojo."   Even something thematic like, "Never walk in full sunlight" might fit the bill.

Best,

Blake

[anonymouse]

For Minor, I've settled on 'A Harbinger never forgets,' 'a Harbinger fights only the Dark,' and 'a Harbinger always moves towards Darkness

The first places an emphasis on 'knowing thyself' in something of a mechanical way. The second is one of the easy-outs; if you waste your time, energy, and training on some average ruffian or rogue, that's some Dark Animus for you. I actually had the second law in my first draft for the setting, and cannot, for the life of me, imagine why I removed it.

The third.. I'm still waffling on. Basically, I wanted it to be something along the lines of, 'Don't hang around somewhere that's not part of the Grand Mission' type of thing; if it's not saturated with the Dark, you need to get moving to somewhere that is. My original thought had been, 'Always sleep in the Dark', forcing the Harbinger to always be somewhere where stuff is goin' down. Maybe I'll still use that.. we'll see. Game tonight!