Magic and gameplay

Well last night went a little slower than I anticipated.  So any feedback is appreciated on using the battlemap or not or whether it just seems that the slow down was the magic system.

As for magic, my apologizes to Darin for being the magic guinea pig.  With an open system my intention was to kind of show you guys what I would allow and what was too vague through gameplay.  I can see that is not going to be practical so I will work on revamping the system to get you something a bit more predictable.  I was hoping to keep rules out of it so that the system would be more fluid, but it looks like there needs to be more structure than is currently in place.

The crux of the problem I think lies in the difference between Darin's description of healing with 2nature and 1mind, and Chris's description.  Although both have the same goal, Darin's sounded to me more of someone trying to justify getting to a 3d effect rather than Chris's description sounded more like he was trying to use ether in an unusual but effective way.  And I realize that people are going to bring different descriptions and such to the game, so I need some way to take the judgement call out of the system.

I will lay out something more like a language and see if that solves the problem, hopefully without over complicating things.

Just a clarification as to why it might have seemed that I was picking on Darin's casting and not Wendy's (really the only two that were using ether).  Darin's use of ether usually did not contained a controlling ether, I should have pointed this out or clarified it more precisely, but the Symbol, Aura, Prayer ethers are what are used to bind an ether to an effect whether you are enhancing an arrow, or healing a body, there needs to be something to tie the ether to the object of affect.

Again I will attempt to come up with a more predictable system to clarify this, I may have to resort to spells, but hopefully I can get a syntax down that will keep it more open.

The Karma Marker

Something to look for on a battlefield near you is the Karma marker.  It may appear suddenly, it might be something you have to look for, but killing a critter with a karma marker will put free karma into play.  After a Karma marker has been claimed (the GM will let you know on the off chance you haven't spotted it yet) the very next person to land a crit (friend or foe) will be the proud recipient of +1 permanent karma and sometimes a bit more for the battle at hand.

The Karma marker might be the person on the battlefield that the fight revolves around, but it could also be held within the peon that could potentially tip the balance.  It can be found just about anywhere on the field, but is not always present, only on battles that fate has felt the need to tip the scale will the Karma marker appear.  And not always when or where you might expect it.  One thing is certain, when the marker is spotted by anyone, EVERYone on the battlefield will instinctively know of it.  It might turn the tide for good, or evil!

Pantheon

This is brief, but these are the known gods of the realm.  I will put more detail into it later.

Varisus, worshiped as the god of creation

God of the riteous, she denies that the other gods are truly gods, though she does admit that Chaudrin, her twin brother is near her status but because he chose the domain of death, she does not regard him as a true god of creation

Khelmer, worshiped as the god of knowledge

Fallgothen, worshiped as the god of battle and hope

Chaudrin, worshiped as the god of the opressed and physiclly harmed or deformed.  Twin brother to Varsus, he is sometimes called the god of war, butchery, and wasted dead

Whaylonor, the god of struggle, family, and the home.  She embodies those of strong will but weak of arms.  She is the mother and protector when all else is lost.

Antimys, a hermaphrodite god of the seasons and change.  A messanger to the mortal world, an exacutionor to the foes of the gods, in charge of season, time and change.  Often the herold or omen of doom.

A bit about gemstones

Just a note about gemstones, all ether has a gemstone associated with it, and each stone will have a type, and a maximum capacity.  The type you can think of as kind of a purity but it may also be because of the size of the gemstone.  For example, you might have a large poor quality stone, or a small fine stone that could be potentially of the same energy level.  Thus I have decided to use a somewhat arbitrary letter rating for the type of gemstone, and a number that follows that indicates the natural maximum of the stone.

Better types of gemstones can be potentially overcharged and hold an additional amount of ether.

I won't be sharing the table for all players, though I will go a bit more in depth for anyone who has the gem cutting study.  But I will give you a couple of examples:

R is the lowest type of gem and there really is no limit to the second characteristic but  1-2 would be fairly common types of gem, 3-4 would be very nice gems, 5-6 would be exceptional, 7+ would be unique.

With this being said, lets take for example the gem you found a Jade that is o3.  This is of the quality "o" (one above R).  Jade is associate with Symbol ether, and when this gem is fully charged it will hold 3 symbol ether.

Gems regain ether naturally on their own without any player intervention; they check for ether recovery after 1 hour, if this check succeeds, it has one ether that can be used.  If it fails, it will not check again until the next sunrise.  It will continue checking each sunrise UNTIL it has 1 ether, after which it will check again every 5 days to see if it has accumulated a second ether, then every 5 days to see if it recovered a 3rd ether.

This slow recovery might lead the characters to the thought of trying to hurry things along.  This can be done but it comes at some risk to the stone.  Each type of gemstone will have a durability rating, brand new Jade has a durability rating of 30.  Anytime a character has an extra symbol ether summoned and would like to put it into the jade they would have to roll based on a table to store the ether.  In this case lets use the example of the jade with 2 charges but can take a 3rd.  For an "O" type stone a player with an extra symbol ether would have to make a DC17 Ether Manipulation; Disband Ether check.  Any failure would result in 1 point of damage to the stone.  Should 30 points of damage accumulate to the stone, it will lose one letter rating (becoming in this case an R type), and one power level (in this case becoming 2).  So this stone would become an R2 when its durability reaches 0, then that durability is reset.  Incidentally once the stone is at the R level, when it loses durability it loses 2 of its power, so an R2 or R2 would be destroyed, while an R3 would become an R2.

Some types of stones can be overcharged.  An "O" type can be overcharged one level (holding in the case of an o3 stone, a maximum of 6 charges).  This type of action is harder to do, and also more potentially damaging to the stone.  Let’s take the example of the jade o3.  Should you find yourself with 3 extra symbol ethers and want to put them into the stone, you need to put them in ONE AT A TIME.  The DC for this stone would be DC28 to add one charge (DC25 base +1/current charge).  Any failure does 2 points to the stone, and if you fail by 10 or more, you do 2+d4(the die for jade).  If you fail, you must make a control slippery ether check at the same DC or lose that ether.

Before you think that overcharging and such is impossible, there are some types of stones out there that can be overcharged at least one level with roll being automatically successful, and overcharging to 4x their capacity for as little as a dc13 check.  These of course are the most precious and useful items to a Caster.

Chromen and Dark Caster

After searching the bodies of the slain you find that one of the goblins was holding most of the gear.  The Human had the fewest items of gear, but probably the most interesting:

Goblin lacky:  Sling (with 13 bullets), 2 week of dried foodstufs, lockpicks (simple), 0.2 lbs of exotic spices, vial of ink, 50' silk rope, whetstone, fishing net, 4 person tent, all arranged in a backpack

Goblin Ranger, Javelin, Sling (with 15 bullets)

Dark Caster, Quarterstaff, Money belt (can hold up to 20 coins of any denomination, +15 to pick pocket DC). Ring (a woven design commonly seen with leather knotwork, the top the ring widens into what appears to be a fanged mouth, within the mouth is set a piece of amber with a small bug captured within).  A copper neck chain, with a silver pendant in the shape of a square spiral, set in the center is a rough piece of jade (type o3).

Total money:  33 chit, 5 silver marks, 2 gold marks, 1 loose ruby

Journal entry #3 By Silas Volgast

 

We rode into town thinking we would see the town burning and demons everywhere, but none were seen.  We found Bromburr along the road and he told us where to find the farmer's wife.  We had Arien go get the elders while Dorne and I went to see where the wife was being held for her deathwatch.  We found that the wife made her recovery over night and left town early that morning.  That is incredibly too fast for any normal person.  Arien met up with us as we came to see what was taking her so long in getting the elders.  She must have had a tough time convincing them of our story.  The mayor was really agitated by her and was muttering not nice things about elves and women.   The mayor gave us permission to track down the wife and bring her back if we could.  After looking for tracks for a while we came upon to farmer's coming into town to report their cattle had their hearts removed from them.  Thinking that is our prey, we headed out to see if it was true.  What we encountered was two goblins and a tall figure casting the deadliest of magics.  We defeated the evil creatures and are ready to return to our search. 

Personal notes:

Arien used her magic to raise herself to a higher advantage to pluck the creature full of arrows.  While it didn't work in this combat it was a good strategy.  I will have to remember that one.

Dorne again impressed me with his brute strength and fighting.  He cut down the magic user in two swings of his sword.   Only to have White Crow take him out with his pets.

White Crow is a very odd person.  He used magic to slow our opponents and made us immune to the effects.  (very clever I need to see how he did that.)  Where did he get those snakes? 

Myself I learned that I could resist some of the effects of the evil wizards magics but not all of it.  I took a major wound to the chest.  My insides are all messed up.  I think it will take time before I recover from the magics.  What I need to know is how he made the casting of ether easier to do in my area and how he used the cow heart to do it.  I saw with my own eyes he used it in some fashion but I need to know more.  Also if I resisted most of his first spell, I should have resisted the second spell as well, but I failed in that respects.  I must strengthen my mind to farther attacks. 

Journal Entry #2 by Silas Volgast

 

We defeated the dire wolves and found the farmer's wife, dead in the middle of the road.  We thought it best to have one of us take the body back to Hallsbury for the Death Watch.  Burrmorr decided to take her back while we three traveled on to the farm.  We back tracked the wolves to the Farmer's home where we found an old man with a trained bear.  I thought for sure the bear was going to charge but I was surprised.   Our apprentice boy spoke up and started talking to the crazy man.  I guess crazy loves crazy because they took to liking each other.  The man's name is White Crow and he was from Palsey, a city just 3 to 4 weeks from Rothschurin.  He explained he is part of the Silver Council and he was on a quest to hunt down some demon half breeds.  The farmer and his wife being some of them.  He showed us to the home where he had killed the farmer.  The evidence of his corruption was by the extra organs inside his slain body.  We also found the barn was corrupted by a foul mixture of blood, flesh and rot all confined to one stall.  Later I deduced it looks as if something crawled out from inside of the filth.  We know the farmer had two children and we found a grave of what seems to be the oldest son, Lance.  We decided to wait the night out and see if anything else came back.    Something did come back in the night because when we went back to the house the farmer's body was gone without a trace of footprints.  When we told White Crow about the seeing how the girl was doing in the town and to see if the wife awoke from the Death Watch, he became very agitated and insisted  we make haste to the town because he is sure the Hybrid beast and the girl would be putting the town folk in peril. 

Personal Notes:

Dorne did surprise me by either his stupidity or his bravery by taking the lead while we covered his back with our bows.  While I still haven't seen his fighting skill yet because I was busy with the other wolves in the first battle, he may be of use to me.  I still hope to met his master to learn more about his strategies in combating the demons.

Arien I haven't got a good lead on yet.  My uncle always told me never to trust elves.  They will always tell you half truths and when it matters most, they will run from battle.  They left us to die those many years ago and maybe he is right.  I will watch my back with her for the time being. 

White Crow, is a crazy man.  He is hell bent on killing anything connected to demons.  While I am looking for ways to defeat the demon hordes, I don't want to rush into things without thinking it through some more.