• This section is for roleplays only.
    ALL interest checks/recruiting threads must go in the Recruit Here section.

    Please remember to credit artists when using works not your own.

Dice Pirates of the Darkening Skies - OOC

Main
Here
Characters
Here
Lore
Here

Grey

Dialectical Hermeticist
Fair warning, I've been reading a lot of The Gentlemen Bastards books lately.

Discuss character ideas, ask questions, natter.

The setting doc hasn't been updated in a while but it's still mostly accurate. Darkening Skies
 
Last edited:
Well then - glad to be here. Maybe let me start with a few general questions: How rare is magic? Thus far, I've found that some people are gifted with it; just wondering how many "some" might actually be. You know, there's some worlds where every village has a healer in there; and some where there's just a handful of mages in the entire country.
Then there's the patterns of magic in the text - if I'm not mistaken, those are exclusive, right? Or are there spellcasters who can manipulate fire, wind, and whatever else is on the list?
Looking at the purely mechanical side of the system - what does it take to be a mage? There's obviously the applied magical theory in the mental skill section - is there more, like the typical spell lists that are familiar from other systems, or will the kind of thing one wants to do simply make the rolls more difficult?
Question about the Shaydensea: How's the weather there? Without gravity, things might become quite weird. I'm mostly wondering of how much use a mage of the pattern of the Sapphire Storm would be there; it seems like a natural fit for the usual airships, but things might change in that particular environment. The text only mentions Chronomancers and Shadows.

As for a first concept: I have my eyes on the treefolk, likely a younger one; where younger might still mean older than most other characters, given their potential age. As my questions suggest, I then have my eyes on the magi, and the pattern of the Sapphire Storm in particular. Following the winds' call away from the familiar forests, until at last, she reached the Shaydensea. An airship became a new home; a merchant vessel at first, but those men fear danger as it means risks. The pirates, on the other hand, see risks as opportunity, and so she aligned herself with them. Some call her too playful, not made for the tough life in the skies; she reminds them of a gentle autumn breeze, letting leaves dance through the air without purpose. Those are the ones who haven't seen the storm's fury within her unleashed.

Things might change along the road, this is the first idea I got when I read the post. Oh - I did not read through the entire document, so just point out if I missed the part that answers my questions.
 
Tell me more about the Rats! They kind of sound like furry kobolds.


Oh! And given this is a pirate game with airships, are there firearms?
 
How rare is magic?

I usually hover around 0.1% of the population, with slight increases for a kind of... meta-heredity. For example, the ruling powers of the Stormcircle are Stormlords and most of the time, their children are Stormlords, with an equal chance of them being a different kind of Magus or just an ordinary mortal. But people born in the vicinity of lots of Magi or big magical constructions increases the chances of being a Magus.
For our purposes, just letting you be a Magus is fine.

if I'm not mistaken, those are exclusive, right?

They are exclusive, although the ultra-rare Magi known as Conduits focus on anti-magic but have the ability to use the other Patterns at a lower level of power.
Which would, I think, not be a bad pattern for a Dryad to have.

what does it take to be a mage?

Strong Willpower. Anything else depends on your preferences in how you use your magic - like Craft or Navigation, for a Stormlord.

will the kind of thing one wants to do simply make the rolls more difficult?
Kinda.
In a nutshell; the more powerful the exercise of the Magic, the more difficult to the roll.
There's a full-ish write-up here: Magic Only
It's been on my rewrite list for a month or two so I haven't had a chance to get on it, but that should be sufficient - you can always ask more questions!

How's the weather there?

It's most still, foggy air that flows in weird currents. It might make some rolls a little more difficult, but there's nothing to do stop a Stormlord from functioning at full power.
And the utility of a Stormlord when raiding outside the 'Sea is really handy.

Tell me more about the Rats! They kind of sound like furry kobolds.


Oh! And given this is a party game with airships, are there firearms?

There are firearms, invented by Orcs, and a great equalizer when dealing with Magi or people beyond ordinary mortality.
There are also a kind of weapon called 'casters, which are basically gun-shaped wands with offensive spells built into them.

Rats!
Rats are usually 4'2'' at their tallest, furry... you know, rat-people.
They're not very different from humans, in a lot of ways, since they share human societies. Especially in the Stormcircle - some Spires are ruled by noble families of Rat Magi, and in most Spires engineering crews are made up of humans and rats working together; humans for heavy lifting and big tools, rats for getting into service hatches or climbing up conduits.
But like people, you meet all kinds of rat.
Oh, but one common habit is chewing flavoured chunks of wood to keep their teeth from growing out of control not unlike someone would smoke a pipe.
Every player group I have had, has decided rats dress in flawless Victorian fashions with little pocketwatches in their waistcoats. I do not know why.

Fun fact; in this setting kobolds are actually a multi-species cultural group who live in a pocket dimension where a city dumps its trash.
 
What type of guns are available?

(Pardon the short questions, part way distracted and asking while I have a few minutes to spare)
 
What type of guns are available?

(Pardon the short questions, part way distracted and asking while I have a few minutes to spare)

No worries!
Revolvers are pretty popular, as are shotguns (among pirates, a short-barreled 'deck sweeper' is often owned by the captain, first mate, or boarding leader) and bolt-action rifles. There are not automatic weapons yet.
But technological and social changes with world-altering impacts are things you can expect in this game.
 
Here is a city you will probably visit, and that your character might come from.
 
Them some fun guns. Any details kn how they operate or what properties they have?

And you mentioned airships! I do love me some airships. Getting into some ship on ship combat could be pretty fun.

But before I get carried away on ideas! Is there a class system or is it a sort of make your own type of deal?
 
Any details kn how they operate or what properties they have?
Normal guns are just guns.
'casters though, come a lot of different flavours.
Beamcasters fire accurate, high penetration lasers.
Flamecasters are like flamethrowers.
Icecasters fire volleys of icicles.
Railcasters are like little railguns.
Boltcasters shoot bolts of lightning.
Biocasters fire all kinds of weird shit like teeth, spikes of bone, or toxic spores.
Paincasters induce crippling pain in the target but don't do physical harm.
And you can end up with plenty of weird unique models.

Is there a class system or is it a sort of make your own type of deal?

No real class system. You just pick the Attributes, Skills, and Advantages to represent your character's career to date. You can have a dumb Magus with a great axe who still good at Magic, for example. Different species do have some special rules.
There are some special templates that can be applied, though.
Eotran Monks have to abide by their vows, but get magical tattoos and martial arts.
Inquisitors get special weapons and access to Inquisitorial infrastructure, like trained goons or laws they can invoke to do their duty.
Arcanotechs get Guild privileges and special cybernetics.
Vampire is not a profession, but it does preclude a lot of other templates and gives you some special rules.
Scions have some special rules that can behave a bit like a class.

There is probably at least one other I'm forgetting right now. I'm going to put this in the first post of the thread, and I just realized how badly put together the contents page is so I'm going to try and work up the patience to fix that today. Darkening Skies
 
Characters thread will go up soon.
Just making my mind up about how to structure the sheet.
 
How intense do you want to use the dice?

I am a firm believer in only asking for rolls when failure is as interesting as success.
If your character can reasonably be expected to succeed at something, they will. If they're more likely to fail than not, I'll let you know but you can choose to roll if you want.
If anyone asks to roll for something, they're free to do so - I won't necessarily ask anyone to roll Awareness to spot an ambush; getting a sense for that is on you.
Combat is always rolled out, because this system is high lethality, so the smartest move is to avoid fighting - if you do fight though, play it smart.

If I correctly recall the last time I ran a game in this setting on RPN, there'd be a roll maybe every fifteen posts or more outside of high pressure situations.
Like fleeing back to the landing pad atop a collapsing tower, pursued by a horde of ghouls; that might have needed more frequent rolls.
You know, maybe I can find one of the old threads to give you an idea.
 
I am a firm believer in only asking for rolls when failure is as interesting as success.
If your character can reasonably be expected to succeed at something, they will. If they're more likely to fail than not, I'll let you know but you can choose to roll if you want.
If anyone asks to roll for something, they're free to do so - I won't necessarily ask anyone to roll Awareness to spot an ambush; getting a sense for that is on you.
Combat is always rolled out, because this system is high lethality, so the smartest move is to avoid fighting - if you do fight though, play it smart.

If I correctly recall the last time I ran a game in this setting on RPN, there'd be a roll maybe every fifteen posts or more outside of high pressure situations.
Like fleeing back to the landing pad atop a collapsing tower, pursued by a horde of ghouls; that might have needed more frequent rolls.
You know, maybe I can find one of the old threads to give you an idea.
Sounds good. Will you be the one that calls and do the rolls or the players that do it?
 
Sounds good. Will you be the one that calls and do the rolls or the players that do it?

I'll adjudicate results where they're not obvious, but whether I do the rolling or the players is up to what the group wants; either is fine by me. I trust people not to cheat their rolls.
 
Grey Grey

Well, I don't quite know your system yet. Looking at the CS I see a lot of similarities to Exalted char creation. While I have handbooks to that, i dont quite have one for here.


Do you have a character creation guide available?
 
Also! Any character ideas yet from my player friends?

Am happy to have preexisting relations if some good ideas are available. But I'm thinking that guns would be a fun things to play with. That, or maybe the captain or helmsman of an airship.
 
Also, some example characters from the convention games I've been running in this setting.
 
I'll have to look into the magic system some more, didn't have the time for a proper read yet - but my plan of a magic-using dryad is mostly certain. If I go with storm, then something like navigator seems appealing - would have some possible backgrounds with anyone who's close to those in charge. Not planning on much of an officer role myself, at least not the kind that leads men. Got more of a specialist role in mind, personally. No guns for me - I imagine some nice, archaic longbow or something like that. Maybe use the wind for some impressive arrow action... is a storm-summoning sharpshooter a thing?
 
I'll have to look into the magic system some more, didn't have the time for a proper read yet - but my plan of a magic-using dryad is mostly certain. If I go with storm, then something like navigator seems appealing - would have some possible backgrounds with anyone who's close to those in charge. Not planning on much of an officer role myself, at least not the kind that leads men. Got more of a specialist role in mind, personally. No guns for me - I imagine some nice, archaic longbow or something like that. Maybe use the wind for some impressive arrow action... is a storm-summoning sharpshooter a thing?

Extremely yes.
 
What does Chargen mean?


Also! I think I can wrap my head around it easily enough. It's like declared simplified.


Goblins! When it says one mind in six bodies. Would that mean we control six goblins as if they were one character? And they stand on each others shoulders while wearing a trenchcoat?


Mayhaps add a point buy menu. I didnt see one. Something that tells what things are worth in xp.


When it comes to starting xp, you said it was determined by the characters background. Do we choose or do you? Or is it determined by how well we right up a background?


Is there a lost of transcendent paths? I saw that mentioned and not sure what it means. But from context it seems like something akin to prestige classes.


How broad or narrow does our skill focuses have to be?

Is there a list or rule set or xp cost to having equipment?
 
I'll have to look into the magic system some more, didn't have the time for a proper read yet - but my plan of a magic-using dryad is mostly certain. If I go with storm, then something like navigator seems appealing - would have some possible backgrounds with anyone who's close to those in charge. Not planning on much of an officer role myself, at least not the kind that leads men. Got more of a specialist role in mind, personally. No guns for me - I imagine some nice, archaic longbow or something like that. Maybe use the wind for some impressive arrow action... is a storm-summoning sharpshooter a thing?
I think I'll be going for a pilot specialized human! Should that be the case, they would work pretty closely with a navigator.

Torn between fancy gunslinging or swashbuckling with some sort of magical cutlass if such a thing is possible to obtain.

Grey Grey is it possible to focus on onboard weaponry like ballistae or cannons?
 
What does Chargen mean?
Character Generation
Goblins! When it says one mind in six bodies. Would that mean we control six goblins as if they were one character? And they stand on each others shoulders while wearing a trenchcoat?
Yes, they're like little hive-minds.
Mayhaps add a point buy menu. I didnt see one. Something that tells what things are worth in xp.
Hm, I have one around here somewhere.
Ah, "At character creation, you have 60 XP to spend on Attributes. All Attributes start at 1, with the cost for the next levels being 3, 6, and 9. This means you can conceivably have 1 Attribute at 4, three at 3, three at 2, and one deficient. But there's room to juggle."
When it comes to starting xp, you said it was determined by the characters background. Do we choose or do you? Or is it determined by how well we right up a background?
I generally encourage people to stick with the 60/60 band but if your backstory implies some bonus XP is appropriate I'll usually dole some out.
Is there a lost of transcendent paths? I saw that mentioned and not sure what it means. But from context it seems like something akin to prestige classes.
There is a list in the main document, but the short version is:
Magi, of which there are 12 kinds who different kinds of Magic.
Eotran Monks, who are basically Shaolin vampire hunters.
Arcanotechs, mystic-engineers from the secretive guild who run the City-Engine to the north.
Inquisitors who are not going to be relevant here, I don't think.
The Twilight Caste, the warrior-priests of the Vampire theocracy of Kroms.
Arguably, Vampires and Scions, but I'll cover them in more detail if anyone is likely to pick one.
How broad or narrow does our skill focuses have to be?
Narrower is better - Melee; Swords is too broad, whereas Melee: Rapier, for example is fine.
Is there a list or rule set or xp cost to having equipment?
Nope, I'll usually allow any equipment that makes sense for your character to have.

is it possible to focus on onboard weaponry like ballistae or cannons?
Yup.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top