The Near Roofs
This month is kind of confusing because I had a nasty face-first fall after my knee dislocated (they do that) followed by days of exhaustion and then a week of migraines and I don't really remember what I had planned for Patreon content for the month before that. I've been fine since like the day before yesterday so this isn't serious, just... well.
How about a preview from the Far Roofs, which will be my first major diced IP? (Possibly my first ever?)
So the way this game happened is basically, every now and then I want to do a diced game, but I always run into the fundamental problem that when I actually analyze how something should work, it makes more sense diceless. Like, I always wind up feeling that if I actually know what you are supposed to be doing in a situation in a game, then ... it's almost always one thing. Probably with a significant axis of player-level variation, but not, like, a list of twenty things that should each happen 5% of the time, or whatever, much less something that should only happen 30% of the time but should happen super-well 5% of the time.
This is not me mocking d20-type systems, for clarity. More than half of the games I have loved to play were diced. More than half of the games I want to play but don't have the energy or opportunity to play right now are diced. Just ...
It's the problem with trying to build towards a diced game from an environment of thought that isn't using those foundations already.
So when I found a mechanic that I liked that actually worked, that ... honestly wasn't actually specifically a diced mechanic, but which didn't get in the way of doing a diced system with it? I wrote down the whole system core really quickly and then frantically began to try to figure out what of my existing already-written setting things I could pair it with.
The best option, unfortunately, was Fortitude: the Far Roofs.
The reason I say "unfortunately" there is that I've had a basically complete Chuubo's supplement, like, 160k words? something? sitting around for years, one of my favorite Chuubo's sourcebooks really, that's what that is, waiting for me to get the Arcs book out so that the character writeups in it will make sense, and using that setting for something else ...
Well ...
I worry that I will at the very least have to do the Chuubo's version kind of low-budget and without its own kickstarter because people will have already seen a lot of the content. At the worst, I'll decide I can't release the Chuubo's version as a print book at all, but will have to just release it all here or something.
... but, but, but, they paired together really well.
So what you're going to be seeing ... soonish? Probably 2023, maybe 2Q, although that's also when Nob4 is loosely scheduled so one of them will have to move to avoid me competing hard with myself ... is this new system, plus the Fortitude rats content.
For universality, I've moved this stuff out of Town qua Town. The rats are still Fortitude rats. Town is still assumed to exist. ... but here and there on Earth, waterways and Fortitude rats have shown up, and so you can set your story in a place that doesn’t need Chuubo’s lore like I dunno Portland or Baltimore or even Twin Peaks instead.
... I mean, if you're a Chuubo's fan, you can also just set things in Town!
But there’s that.
The book's completely written, I could theoretically jump into layout, but there's resource stuff finicky enough that I feel like I have to playtest for a while before moving forward. Otherwise, you’ll hit all these mechanics and they’ll hum like a perfectly-tuned engine that isn’t in gear and takes you nowhere at all. ^_^
Anyway, the bit I wanted to share today from this is a bit about the Near Roofs, which is to say, the part of the rats' rooftop home that isn't the Far Roofs yet.
I have checked on google and I don’t seem to have ever shared this, even the parts that existed before. So here you go!
**
The Near Roofs
This bit’s from when you’ve just reached the Near Roofs—maybe gotten over your initial shock, maybe walked around up there for a while, maybe gone from the stuff that’s more like “your own house’s roof” to something more foreign and interesting to you.
You’re still in, or at least over, your town.[1]
Eventually, this kind of place is going to be all safe and known territory to you, all old hat to you, because ultimately it is just a part of regular old dull boring wherever-you-happened-to-be-living. It’s not magic. It’s just ... Portland. Suzhou. Whatever. Seattle, Baltimore, Fortitude, or St. Paul.
... but for right now? On your first trips up there? It’s mysterious and wondrous and strange. Maybe even a little frightening. The place you’ve lived for so long is suddenly defamiliarized to you; you find places that you have a hard time accepting are actually there.
This is a good time to introduce any changes in the real world that are necessary to having the game work—
Like, the rats arrive places by ship, so there’s a river, lake, or oceanfront somewhere,even if your city is landlocked. Maybe it’s not visible from the ground, if you want to hew closer to the established contours of your home, and that’s probably weird and a little magical ... but that doesn’t really matter here; it’s not a magic that makes the roofs themselves any stranger.
Too, it’s useful here to have the roofs be kind of interesting and detailed. To have a lot of them that are relatively safe, relatively low. It’s possible that you’re living somewhere where you couldn’t find that. Where all the roofs are dull, or interesting but rickety and high. If you need to change that kind of thing, introduce some variety or a bit more safety, this defamiliarization process is a good time to bring in something new.
Here’s a few places to explore.
[1] as noted, I've dropped a strict dependence on Town. The playtest game I'm running is actually splitting the difference and taking place in "Fortitude, WA."
Eight Banners
This bit’s up north, near the burrow Little Nymh. Here rats can fly banners from the roof to mark their victories—any victory, really, although they’re grouped, more or less, by scale. There are a lot more than eight banners here, and in fact, it’s closer to two thousand; the eight banners of the name recognize five great victories:
awakening as Fortitude rats;
the Hallow’s-Eve victory, when the Mystery named Hedge the Fang took over the bodies of seven hundred cats and tried to kill the local rat population—but they drove him out and lost fewer than a thousand rats, two hundred cats, and five or six of the Big Folk (humans, that is) thereby;
the peace accords, struck between the Rat King and his rivals Neven and Kysely Vertigen, that ended the “Usurpers’ Age;”
the rats’ discovery of a magical sailing route from Fortitude, the land of their origin, to ... well, originally, the dwarf planet Eris, but let’s say here, the town where the game is set, instead; and
their defeat of the monster Typhon at Thresher’s Woods.
The remaining three of the eight major banners are currently blank; this signifies that they have not yet defeated the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy[2], conquered the world, or made an end to Death.
It’s a pretty gorgeous span of roofs; they’ve chosen good ones, with solid construction and chimneys or second stories that offer epic views of the waterfront and your town. It’s fun to walk along the Lower Banners, where rats have put up small plaques to relatively small deeds and fly the appropriate streamers—here’s one, for instance, commemorating a litter where all the kits survived their first month; here’s one for counting the teeth of the Mystery named Goblin; here’s one for five years of love and marriage; and here’s one from the valedictorian of Professor Roza’s academy!
The street of Great Banners is even cooler, but I haven’t been there; nevermind flying a banner, you’re only supposed to go there and look as a commemoration for some great occasion in your life, so I’m saving it for something special. Maybe when this book comes out! That’ll probably have happened by the time you’re reading this, though, so you could certainly go there and see.[3]
[2] a particularly noxious Mystery.
[3] I can't believe I was wrong on this one. Just can't believe it. I was so sure!! It just made so much absolute sense!
Heaven’s Sleeve
This bit’s not far from the water.
These are pretty ordinary roofs. They’re not really crowded together but they’re not terribly far apart either. The slopes are modest and consistent. The tiles are red, white, and gray and mostly made of slate. It’s not until you go up near the top and look down the length of them that you see anything at all special or interesting here.
If you do that, though, you might catch your breath.
The roofs are like a branching road, or river, or a waving bit of cloth. They run together in the distance—you only really see the gaps between them up close—and become this great sweep of pathway that parallels the shore, touching the harbor in several places, and has breakaway paths that lead past intriguingly colored clusters of rooftops and up into the city’s heart.
The rats call this place Heaven’s Sleeve, and the story goes like this.
Once upon a time, Cneph the Maker wandered down to Earth—to this very city, in fact! When he turned to leave again, he caught his sleeve on the nail of a house. It ripped off and grew into a hydra of great waving streamers. These lay themselves down to become the region the rats call Heaven’s Sleeve. Because of this only most of Cneph the Maker could leave the world—he had to leave a portion of himself here, as he’d left a portion of his robe.
Kaoru’s Cross[4]
This bit’s roughly central. It’s where two major roads cross down below.
The buildings near here tend to have conjoined roofs. That means that when you’re looking down from above, the crossroads is two deep, crisscrossed trenches in the rolling hills of the roofs. Those trenches are gaily colored, with rows of trees and bits of white and red plaster visible from above to either side. Good smells drift up. You can hear people walking along the way, and occasionally the jingling of bikes. The roofs aren’t wholly contiguous—there are plenty of other little roads that break them up, and a few architectural separations—but there’s an overall sense of evenness to the terrain, like you’re on rich red ground and you’ve opened up the earth to see a marvelous miniaturized world of people walking around below.
The rats’ll tell you that Karme Kaoru fought here with the Mystery named Salamander, aka “Indiscretion;” it unleashed a terrible fire, but she caught it up, transformed it, and used it to re-fire the terracotta of the rooftop tiles. Ever since, they’ve been indestructible, like rat-gum-treated rooftops, and just a little bit warmer than you would think they’d be.
[4] but WHY is she cross, Jenna?! Is it because you're telling everyone about her little, uh, indiscretion?
The Red King’s Road
This bit’s starts at the waterfront and it runs northwest.
These are pretty ordinary roofs. They’re solid enough underfoot, and they’re not that high, and the gaps between them are pretty small—all in all, they’re good beginner’s roofs. They aren’t particularly mythic or impressive in themselves. To me, though, the things that happened there give them some grandeur.
The Red King’s Road is one of the remnants of the Usurper’s Age, when a whole litter of siblings and a number of cousins and even a handful of foreign powers engaged in war, actions, and rebellion against the throne of the King of Rats.[5] “The Red King” was one of those unruly siblings: he rebelled, and he lost, and he walked this road when returning to his throne and grave.
His isn’t the only story, or the only rooftop region, emerging from that time. There’s a similar history to the Corpse Duke’s Runway, the Traitor Prince’s Gallows, the Sword Princess’ Path, and to Kysely’s Edge; not to mention Konrad’s Court and Neven’s Solace, distinguished from the previous in that Konrad and Neven both reconciled with their King.
[5] Rat generations go fast, so you may well have been alive when all this “ancient history” happened; though, if you want to say that the rats weren’t public at the place where you live yet, though, that is fine.
The Republic of the Living
The white roofs of this place are the keep of the Living Mayor, who broke off from the Rat King’s kingdom some while after the Usurper’s Age and declared himself an independent power. There he sacrificed his mortality, with the help of the Mystery “Malambruno,” and sank his flesh and mind into his domain, animating the upper and lower roofs of his republic with his own spirit. Now he is every spinning vane, every laundry line, every roof tile and every gutter; and thus the rats of the Republic of the Living may always retreat to the high places and know safety if the Rat King invades them from below. The matter is essentially notional now, as the Republic of the Living and the Kingdom of the Rats long ago made peace and reunited; now the Republic is only the Living Mayor himself and those disaffected rats who want to make a show of political dissent by signing on.[6]
[6] In Chuubo's there's also bonus Region Properties here,
The Living Mayor is watching;
Iconoclasts are welcome.
In case you wanted to know. ^_^
Thresher’s Woods
This bit’s off to the northwest.
The name refers to a space of rooftops, telephone phones, and a scant few trees. It’s not a real forest, but if you sit or lay down here, if you get your eyes low enough, you’ll understand why the rats see it as one. Dark wood is a common construction feature here. Protruding attic windows cast grim shadows. Telephone poles and their wires loom. The place feels and smells like you’re in a light forest.
Thresher’s Woods is a relatively well-traveled region. You can often find a news-rat about or a place to buy a rat-sized meal. There are fire-pits scattered through the region on stone roofs: the humans below receive a tiny stipend and free fire insurance in exchange for allowing the rats their fires up above. Rats that spend so long on the roofs that they don’t feel comfortable in the burrows any longer often set up residence here in Thresher’s Woods, so you’ll see tiny laundry lines and other signs of habitation scattered here and about.
Here’s how the rats tell the story of the place.
In the old days, in the Autumn Dynasty, there was a crop of heroes like nobody’d ever seen, or has ever seen again. They were astonishing. It was an era of warriors like Chryseis Moriko, who could take on a Big Folk soldier toe-to-toe and come out the better; of thieves like Alen Aleksei, who stole his father back from Death; of geniuses like Zlatan Petrova, who invented refrigeration; and of heroes like Kristen Lukenya, who might as well have been a Mystery, save only that she died and once she’d died she did not bother to return.
There were too many of them, and the world too small. That was their curse. They did their best to live under the rule of the Rat King and devote their attention to the Mysteries, but it was too difficult. Little feuds grew large. Tempers grew hot. They called the local rats under their various banners and they waged war such as Fortitude rats have rarely seen; and one by one, they cut each other down, here, in the span of roofs called Thresher’s Woods.
It was not until the war had almost ended, not until there were scarcely seven out of seventy of the great remaining, that Typhon came to make an end to all the errant rats. It is their great triumph and their monument that her skin flutters in the wind, a golden kite of flesh, on the street of Great Banners and from the highest telephone pole peak of Thresher’s Woods.[7]
[7] I have a gorgeous color picture of Thresher's Woods to use in the final book, though ... I'm not sure I can hit the price point I want for the book if it's in color!! It troubles me. I am thinking maybe there will be an inset frontispiece with a few color pages if I go B&W?
Wingmaidens’ Reach
These roofs are clean and ever-so-slightly luminous. The Wingmaidens’ Reach is mostly made of the roofs of houses, but its northern edge extends to warehouses and a cannery. There is an extensive birdcote in the central portion that resembles a fantasy palace, which, in some respects, it has become.
In the central cote of Wingmaidens’ Reach live the seven ternmays, rat heroines cursed by Malambruno to adopt the skins and wings of terns. They must take on the form of a tern one day in four, from dawn to dusk, and may do so at other times as often as they like. They tried at first to undo or escape this curse but after learning that ternmays are functionally immortal, beautiful to other rats, and can fly as often as they like, they stopped trying to reverse it.
The Wingmaidens’ Reach has acquired a portion of the peril of the far rooftops; it is an innate geas of the place and all that transpires there that beauty has a price.[8]
[8] In Chuubo's, this too is a Region Property. ^_^
Traveling with the Rats
This bit’s about the travel customs of the rats. It tells you what kinds of things the rats will be doing when you’re out on the roofs in a traveling or exploration scene.
If you’re lucky you’ll see them at play.
They’ll have little races, from here to there or possibly around and about everything — they don’t typically need exact rules for this to have fun, not like adult humans might, as long as there’s a clear sense that the other rat is doing something related to their race. You’ll see them chasing one another around and around and around up an old chimney, skittering past an unexpected bird’s nest on the way, quite possibly exaggerating the risk of falling off for effect; and then, if one of them is losing, he or she might decide suddenly that the real aim of the race is to jump off the chimney from halfway up, scramble along a weathervane, and jump out before the weathervane turns about onto the roof of a nearby house.
They’ll play hide and seek. This is particularly common if there are enough of them that a few of them can get ahead of you while one or two stays beside. They’re mature enough not to really acknowledge that they’re playing hide and seek—instead, it’s “that goof! Where’s he got off to now?” or “good grief, she’s gotten lost again?”—but you can tell by the smugness when they do find one another or when, after not being found, they strut back to the group.
They’ll play fight, now and again. This is awesome fun for them, and they’ll usually be giggling or boggling their eyes[9] with good humor the whole time—chasing, pouncing on, and struggling to pin their opponent, with an ultimate aim softly biting or tapping the neck.[10]
Even when it’s not safe enough to play, or when they’re not in the mood, they still hardly ever go from one place to another in a straight line. They will always be exploring, looking at their world and the roof from all directions, exclaiming in soft joy, wonder, or surprise at this and that. They’ll run up a television antenna, if they can find one, or up any weather vane, or along an attic roof. They’ll go back and forth between nearby roofs, or between a roof and the branches of a nearby tree, for no real reason other than that they can. They’re most comfortable and happiest when they’ve thoroughly explored the space around them, even when they’re in places they should technically already know.
Sometimes even in the near rooftops they’ll start acting really cautious or aggressive. They’ll tell you stories of bad things that have happened nearby, or poke at the rooftops skeptically with their swords, or make plans for coping with horrible danger. Do not be concerned. They are hamming it up for you. Seriously, any time you hear a rat admitting to fear, or hinting that you should be afraid, you’re getting yourself set up to have your leg pulled—they are perfectly capable of hiding their reactions and talking out of your range of hearing, and that’s exactly what they woulddo if they were genuinely concerned. At the very least, say, “For serious?” and, if they agree, say, “Promise?”
Because I guess something scary could be going on, but if you can’t get them to promise to it, then what’s really going to happen is that you’re about to see a scary mask propped up on the roof or you’re walking somewhere where a bat might fly out at you, and they’re getting ready to laugh and laugh at you when you get scared. As for why they’d do such a mean thing, well, it’s the same reason that people scare children—it’s to make you more cautious when you wouldn’t be, and less scared when you would.
[9] Did you know that rats’ eyes can sort of pop out and vibrate in their sockets when they’re really happy? It’s called boggling! It can definitely take you by surprise.
[10] The rats of Fortitude tend towards neoteny in their fighting — a standard fight is a children’s game persisting into adulthood, rather than the kind of fight anybody could take seriously. That’s why they’re laughing! Boasting, arguing, and tests of skill are conceptualized as extensions of these fights, so you’ll often see a rat rubbing at its neck when particularly impressed, or tapping another rat’s neck when it thinks it’s being particularly impressive. In case you’re wondering, in a serious fight, their instincts will tell them to bite the enemy’s rump. Their brains, of course, will probably be telling them either to use a weapon or to back down.
The Near Roofs
For the GM, or anyone who is up for handling this part of things.[11]
Some things you might say when the characters are traveling the Near Roofs:
“tell me about the views of the water”
“tell me about the rats that you see moving here and there on the roofs”
“tell me about the rat habitations that you find”
“tell me about the rats you see hawking food, newspapers, treasures”
“tell me about the warden-rat you see, pensive, with the air of a guardian”
“tell me about the music of the rats”
“tell me about the banners the rats fly”
“tell me about the temple of the rats, and the music that rises from it”
“tell me about the garden of the rats”
“tell me about the roofs that kind of feel like a desert”
“tell me about the roofs that kind of feel like water”
“tell me about the roofs that kind of feel like a forest”
“tell me about the roofs that kind of feel like the sky”
“tell me about the roofs that kind of feel like the city (in miniature)”
“tell me about the roofs that kind of feel like a glade”
“tell me about the roofs where the rats have their advanced industrial project”
“tell me about the roofs that kind of feel like the hills”
“tell me about the roofs that kind of feel like an alley”
“tell me about the roofs that kind of feel like a port”
“tell me about the roofs that kind of feel like an island”
“tell me about the roofs that kind of feel like your home”
“tell me about how you pass through the Lower Banners, up north, with its flags and kites and its waterfront view”
“tell me about the banners you read there, and the accomplishments of the rats”
“tell me how you look up at the street of Great Banners; will you visit it when you have an accomplishment that’s worthy?”
“tell me how you pass through Heaven’s Sleeve, down by the water—do you go up high to see how the roofs flow together to form a great branching road?”
“tell me, do you know the story of Heaven’s Sleeve? (pg. XX)
o Do you think a rat here might tell you?”
o Want to share with a friend?
“tell me how you pass through Kaoru’s Cross, near the heart of the city, with a crossroads like two deep, crisscrossed trenches in the rolling hills of the roofs”
“tell me what you hear from the people who walk there; from the jingling of bikes”
“tell me how it feels to walk on the rich red roofs of Kaoru’s Cross, solid as the ground?”
“tell me, do you know the story of Kaoru’s Cross? (pg. XX)
o Do you think a rat here might tell you?
o Want to share with a friend?”
“tell me how you walk the Red King’s Road, from the waterfront off northwest—good beginner’s roofs, I’m told, with solid tiles and fairly short gaps for when you’re jumping”
“tell me, do you know the story of the Red King’s Road? (pg. XX)
o Do you think a rat here might tell you?
o Want to share with a friend?”
“tell me how you pass through the Republic of the Living, where every spinning vane, every white-topped tile, every laundry-line and every gutter is inhabited by the spirit of the ‘Living Mayor’ of the rats?”
“tell me of the rats who live here, officially forsaking the governance of their King?”
“tell me, can you feel the presence of the Living Mayor on these roofs?”
“tell me, do you speak to him—the Living Mayor—through some chimney-flue or gutter-wind?”
“tell me how you pass through the northwest Thresher’s Woods, where the roofs feel like a forest, and there are tiny fire-pits and laundry lines scattered here and there around the outside of rats’ homes?”
“tell me, do you know the story of the Thresher’s Woods? (pg. XX)
o Do you think a rat here might tell you?
o Want to share with a friend?”
“tell me how you pass through Wingmaidens’ Reach, where beauty has its price?”
“tell me of the fairy-tale birdcote at its heart?”
“tell me how you see the ternmays passing overhead?”
“tell me, do you know the story of the Wingmaidens’ Reach? (pg. XX)
o Do you think a rat here might tell you?
o Want to share it with a friend?”
“tell me how you walk
o the Corpse Duke’s Runway, and what the roofs are like there;
o the Traitor Prince’s Gallows, and what the roofs are like there;
o the Sword Princess’ Path, and what the roofs are like there;
o Kysely’s Edge, and what the roofs are like there;
o Konrad’s Court, and what the roofs are like there;
o Neven’s Solace, and what the roofs are like there
“tell me of the roofs you walk—what do they feel like, here? do you know their name?”
“tell me, do you know the story of this place?
o Do you think a rat here might tell you?
o Want to share with a friend?”
“speak to me of the rats racing and chasing one another on the roofs?”
“speak to me of the rats at their games of hide and seek—and their excuses, not to admit that they’re at play?”
“speak to me of how the rats explore the space around you as you go?”
“speak to me of the play-fights of the rats—their eyes boggling, their voices giggling, chasing and pouncing or with play-swords dueling until one is softly bitten or tapped upon the neck?”
“speak to me of how the rats pretended that there was trouble coming ... only to have it be a prank?”
“speak to me of something the rats ran up, or found?”
[11] I haven't completely formalized the rules for using these sections yet; that's pending playtesting. I'd like to take inspiration from Belonging Outside Belonging stuff and just let anyone pick up relevant pages, but I'm not sure it actually fits with the flow of play. Possibly it's good this way, possibly I need to understand Belonging Outside Belonging better, possibly I need to stick to tradition, possibly I need to innovate in a slightly different direction. I am yet to find out!