Knights of the Lich Queen: a variant Paladin setup.

[anonymouse]

This is my setting/set-up document. I'll start running a thread in Actual Play sometime on Saturday, once I have the first session. Consider it a rough draft.

The whole idea is from Polyhedron #159 (flipside of Dungeon #100) and comes to you via James Wyatt, D&D3E guy extraordinaire. It's an awesome concept, but I've got just one player for it, and D&D's a hassle with only one person. And also pretty boring. So here's my attempt at making a kind of Anti-Paladin setting, with an overarching theme of discovery and eventual ascendence.

Changes:

* Dropping Light and Dark animus and traits. There's just Will, which represents ability to shape mental and arcane energies (psionics and magic).
* Going with the simple Active/Reactive bit from the proposed revision.
* When you spend a point of Will/animus, you decide whether it's "Light" or "Dark".
* Will points you spend don't disappear; they accumulate.
* Inertia is based off the "sente" idea I worked with my Vagrant Story game (see an AP thread somewhere). It's also a measure of character level. It somehow adds to your rolls to make sure you stay Active; I'm still fiddling with specifics at the moment. Inertia begins at 5. When it hits 17, you must submit to the Lich Queen for absorption and death, I think.
* I may wind up jumping up to d12s or d20s instead of d6, not sure yet.

Code:

Knights of the Lich Queen
    ------
   a Paladin variant

       *-------*
      (incursion)
       *-------*

the invasion has begun.

You are a githyanki Knight, warrior of the planes and instrument of
the Lich Queen's will. You wield a seven-foot-long silver sword bathed
in the essence of three dead gods, and live upon the endlessly drifting
carcass of a fourth.

the Queen has decreed that for the first time since the Proclamation
of Two Skies, the gith shall move.

Time does not pass within the Astral Plane, and so there is no real way
to tell how long your race has prepared for this, but countless
civilisations within the Prime have risen and fell since your people
broke away from the illithids eons ago.

Your first duty is simple: see to the destruction of a human city.

Active:
Reactive:
Inertia: 5

Will: 1

Abilities:
---------
>Arms (Silver Sword)
>
>

Powers:
---------
Lay enemies low with a blast of mental energy.
Move as fast as the wind with a burst of speed.
Command astral ships.
Lift small objects with willpower alone.
Jump from one point to another nearby by blinking between planes.


EXPENDING WILLPOWER
* Spend a black stone to act in the Name. Narrate full outcome. Gain a Mark of Servitude.
* Spend a white stone to act Apart. Roll for success. Gain a Mark of Self.

IMPROVING CHARACTER
* Spend 5 Marks of Servitude to increase your Inertia by 1.
* Spend 10 Marks of Self to increase any number by 1 or gain a new Ability.
* You gain one new Ability every 5 ranks of Inertia.

[Valamir]

I like it.
But why drop the light / dark distinction rather than simply reversing which one is considered "good" and which "bad"?

[Alan]

I like it.
But why drop the light / dark distinction rather than simply reversing which one is considered "good" and which "bad"?

Clinton once told me that, with Paladin, he wanted to create a game that brought the evil of fantacism front and center. (I'm paraphrasing.)

Why not just have a nice justifying rational for the Githyaki and keep the dark/light and good/bad dichotomies?

[anonymouse]

I'll admit it's less of a Paladin game and more of an Anti-Paladin. I like parts of the system, and so am tweaking it a bit for my purposes.

The Light/Dark sides -are- still there, but the difference shows itself during and after being used, rather than before. That's what the Marks represent (used in their own definition, not the game definition). Get a lot of black Marks, you're the standard, evil, Lich-Queen loving githyanki. And depending on whether you go Light (Apart/Gith) or Black (Subservience/Queen) determines the base success.

Game may or may not happen now, so maybe it's a moot point and just a different way to take it. I like it, though.