Gaming Stuff

Tabletop RPGs and occasional pondering video games I wish existed.

[thryth-gaming]

Blog Table of Contents

Stuff flanked by * * is a link to my main blog, which has a lot of real world stuff and if you're trying to avoid doom scrolling, be aware that drifting from that post may lead to that.

The Gorgon Archer and Character Creation

Monster of the Week Stuff

Personal Stories and Such

Divine Blood Stuff

Sentinels of the Mulitverse stuff

Other RPG Systems

Video Game Pondering

Board Game Play Reports

Assorted Tabletop RPG Essays

[thryth-gaming]

Palladium: Mystic China

Mystic China is an extension of Ninjas and Superspies and deals with dedicated martial artists, chi magic, demons, intrigue involving immortals and rival martial arts schools. This is one of the Palladium games that features much less random chance than some.

TMNT and Other Strangeness, Ninjas and Superspies, and Mystic China are all written by Erick Wujick and have some systems unique to these games. Also, I can't say how much he is immersed in the culture, but at the very least, he's familiar with a lot of classic Chinese literature and classic martial arts and Chinese fantasy films.

As a note, reading back, Ninjas and Superspies does have some random background generation charts, so I might go back to that. I'll probably do a Dedicated Martial Artist so I can show off how having two martial arts works.

The steps of Character Creation are as follows:

Step 1 - Determine the Eight Attributes (3d6 roll, +1d6 if a 16-18 is rolled)

Step 2 - Select an OCC, PCC, or RCC. (Occupational, Psychic, and Racial Character Classes)

Step 3 - Determine Potential Psychic Energy based on the character's OCC, PCC, or RCC. If this isn't listed, then 2d6 + PE.

Step 4 - Determine Hit Points - Usually 1d6 + PE

Step 5 - Select Martial Art Forms, Martial Art Abilities, Skills, and Equipment

Step 6 - Look up Attribute Bonuses

Step 1 - Rolling the Eight Attributes

I'm going to roll 4d6 and drop lowest unless that leaves me with 16-18 at which point I add the fourth die. These will be adjusted by the character's skills and martial art forms later, but this is what I rolled and then assigned (because I'm not doing this in order).

15, 11, 13, 13, 10, 12, 18, 21

(IQ) Intelligence Quotient - 11

(ME) Mental Endurance - 21

(MA) Mental Affinity - 18

(PS) Physical Strength - 12

(PP) Physical Prowess - 13

(PE) Physical Endurance - 15

(PB) Physical Beauty - 13

(Spd) Speed - 10

High willpower, very likeable, and good endurance. Average to slightly better than average on everything else.

Step 2 - Select an OCC, PCC, or RCC

First, let's stick to the classes in Mystic China and Ninjas and Superspies and list those options. However, I am going to rule out the OCCs that don't deal with the martial arts systems like the Capitalist Entrepreneur OCC (Yup)

Character Classes

Dedicated Martial Artist OCC (N&S)

Worldly Martial Artist OCC (N&S)

Chun Tzu (philosopher) OCC (MC)

Demon Hunter OCC (MC)

Jian Shih (weapon based) OCC (MC)

Nei Chia Wu Shih (meditative) OCC (MC)

Wai Chia Wu Shih (open hand) OCC (MC)

Blind Mystic PCC (MC)

Fang Shih (Geomancy) PCC (MC)

Tao Shih (Immortalist) PCC (MC)

Wu Shih (Chi Arcanist) PCC (MC)

Reformed Demon RCC (MC)

Fox Spirit RCC (MC)

I crossed out several above because of the limits they place on character creation. Fox Spirits have martial arts powers and techniques but don't actually have martial arts. Reformed Demons, Demon Hunters, Blind Mystic, and Tao Shih are heavily limited to specific styles (though Demon Hunters and Reformed Demons have some hilarious bits to them). I'm not really interested in a weapon based style here, so I'll avoid Jian Shih.

Dedicated and Worldly have the most freedom in choosing martial arts styles, but I'm going to focus on the Mystic China OCCs. So I'm going to pick up the Nei Chia Wu Shih meditative martial artist to go with the high Mental Endurance.

This requires at least 12 ME which we have.

Step 3 & 4 Determine Hit Points & PPE

The Nei Chia Wu Shih has the standard HP of 1d6 + PE and starts with 4d6 PPE.

There is also Structural Damage Capacity, which is a sort of early type of Hit Points representing minor bumps and bruises while HP represents vital health. The Nei Chia Wu Shih has a base of 20 SDC.

Finally, Chi starts at the level of the character's PE after all skills and bonuses are added.

Resulting in the following (before skill and martial art bonuses)

SDC: 20

HP: 18

PPE: 14

Chi: 15

Step 5 - Select Martial Arts and Skills

Mudra

Before moving to martial arts, lets start with picking the character's Mudra which they gain as a function of their class. They gain the three basic mudra plus ten others of their choice. Mudra are mystical hand and body signs through which the martial artist channels their Chi.

Mudra of Protection: Mudra of Silent Contemplation, plus four others.

Mudra of Evocation: Mudra for the Collection of Alms plus three others.

Mudra of Self-Possession: Mudra of Tranquility plus two others.

Any one Mudra for the Manipulation of Objects.

The ones I'm taking are:

Mudra of Silent Contemplation - prevents meditation from being broken unless you chose to break it.

Three Smoke Mudra - protection against mental attacks

Mudra of Subtracting Oneself from the Sight of Others - become less noticeable and concealed from chi senses

Mudra of Deflection of Negative Chi - protection from negative chi skills

Mudra that Quenches Hellfire - protection from magical and infernal fire. (not normal fire)

Mudra for the Collection of Alms - draws attention to your bowl for collecting alms. Does not compel generosity though.

Mudra for the Evocation of Healing Energy - speed up healing

Mudra for the Evocation of Power - wake up beings of positive chi, kick start electronics, cause pain to beings of negative chi.

Mudra of Unification - reunites bodies and souls.

Mudra of Tranquility - Recover Chi, ISP, and/or PPE quickly. Protect from Negative Chi

Mudra of Appeasement - Encourage unwelcome spirits to leave the body

First Mudra of Unmoving - A sort of stasis, conserve air, go without food and water.

Mudra for the Handling of Mystic Mirrors - allows the user to use the mirror's ability to reveal invisible entities while moving and fighting.

Martial Arts

This is the list of forms available to the Nei Chia Wu Shih.

Ba Gua Kung Fu (Eight Trigrams) *

Ch'in-Na (Seizing)

Fu Chiao Pai Kung Fu (Tiger Claw)

Gui Long Kung Fu (Dragon Spirit) *

Han Yu Kung Fu (Chi Katas) *

Hsien Hsia (Immortality) *

Hsing-I Kung Fu (Mind Shaping) *

Lee Kwan Choo (Non-Violent)

Mien-Ch'uan Kung Fu (Cotton Fist)

Monkey Style Kung Fu (Monkey Katas)

Pao Chih (Animus Development) *

Shan Tung Kung Fu (Black Tiger) *

Pao Pat Mei Kung Fu (Leopard Style)

Shao-Lin Kung Fu (Classic Style)

Tai-Chi Ch'uan (Exercise Style)

The ones marked with an asterisk were introduced in Mystic China while the others are from Ninjas and Superspies. Since I'm likely to return to this for TMNT and Other Strangeness I am again focusing on the ones printed in this expansion.

As a note, the Dedicated and Wai Chia Wu Shih martial artists are each able to choose two martial arts, having a primary and a secondary. Also, moderately hilariously, there is a martial art form (not available to this class) representing the martial arts of Hong Kong martial arts films, complete with its own set of unique powers.

I am going to choose Ba Gua. The character barely matches the entrance requirement of 11 IQ, but blows the requirement of 10 ME out of the water.

I flipped between this and Hsing-I but eventually settled on the one that feels more fluid and relaxed.

This martial art form provides the following attribute bonuses:

+10 Chi

+1 ME

+1 PE

And the following combat skills:

Attacks per Melee Round: Two

Escape Moves: Roll with Punch/fall/impact. Maintain Balance

Basic Defensive Moves: Dodge, Parry, and Automatic Parrry

Advanced Defenses: Circular Parry

Hand Attacks: Palm Strike, Knife Hand, Fingertip Attack, Backhand, Rotary Palm Strike

Basic Foot Attacks: Sweep Kick, Backward Sweep, Tripping/Leg Hook.

Special Attacks: Body Flip/Throw, Disarm, Forearm Combination Parry/Attack

Holds/Locks: None

Weapon Katas: Optional (there's a specialty kata they can choose)

Modifiers to Attack: Pull Punch, Knock-Out/Stun, Critical Strike

And the following bonus Skills & Abilities

Two martial arts powers from Chi Mastery or Specialty Kata. Including two kata unique to Ba Gua.

Language Skill: Chinese (Mandarin Dialect)

Training Skill: Feng Shui

Philosophical Training: Taoism

For her powers, I am going to take one of the unique Ba Gua katas and a Chi Mastery power. Taking any Chi Mastery power does give you the three basic Chi Mastery abilities as well:

Pan Gung Bi Weapon Kata: These are palm weapons that are easily hidden and described as being slipped on like rings onto the middle finger. I can't find pictures so I don't know if this is just a ring, or some kind of disk the martial artist holds to their hand via a ring. In any case, it adds damage to some hand attacks and allows blocking attacks that would usually damage a hand, like blades.

Chi Healing aka Chi-Atsu: The ability to use chi to heal bodies, including your own if you're conscious.

Chi Awareness - Basic chi ability. Sense chi in the area.

Chi Relaxation - Basic chi ability. Calm the mind, resist mental stress or the influence of drugs.

Chi Combat - Ability to match your chi against that of other chi masters.

Skills

Most of the character's skills come from the OCC and they have the following:

OCC SKills

Meditation (+20%)

Chinese Language: Stage 4/Classical Chinese Literacy

Other Languages: Three Other languages or dialects (+5% each)

Artistic Calligraphy (+5%)

Wilderness Survival (+10%)

Begging (+10%)

Fasting (+5%)

Oriental Philosophy: Taoism or Buddhism (+8%)

We already get Mandarin and Taoism from Ba Gua so taking the following:

Cantonese

Amoy (Taiwanese Chinese)

English

Buddhism

We then get four Nei Chia Wu Shih Related Skills

Communication: Basic Radio only (+5%)

Computer: Operations only

Cultural/Domestic: Any (+5%)

Cultural Games: Any (+5%)

Electrical: Basic Only

Espionage: Any

Medical: Any

Physical: Any (+10%)

Pilot Skills (Basic): Any

Science: Any

Technical: Any

Temple: Any (+5%)

WP: Ancient Chinese: Any

WP: Modern: Any

I'm taking the following here:

Gymnastics

Athletics: General

First Aid

Medical Doctor

And they get four secondary skills from any of the above sections with the edition of Mechanical skills. None of the secondary skills get a bonus and some specific skills apply a penalty when taken as a secondary skill. I'm taking:

Boxing

Running

Automotive Mechanics

Chinese Mythology - Taoist

Gymnastics, Boxing, and Running provide the following attribute bonuses:

Gymnastics: Several subskills

Gymnastics: +3 to roll with punch/fall

Gymnastics: +2 PS

Gymnastics: +1d4 PP (3)

Gymnastics: +1 PE

Gymnastics: +3d6 SDC (5)

Boxing: +1 attack per melee

Boxing: +2 Parry/Dodge

Boxing: +2 Roll with Punch/Fall

Boxing: +1d4 PS (2)

Boxing: +3d6 SDC (10)

Running: +1 PE

Running: +4d4 Spd (7)

Running: +1d6 SDC (4)

Athletics: +1 Parry/Dodge

Athletics: +1 Strike with Body/Block Tackle (1d4 damage)

Athletics: +1 PS

Athletics: +1d4 Spd (1)

Athletics: +1d8 SDC (7)

Level Bonuses

I will also note the level 1 bonuses for both the Ba Gua martial art and the Nei Chia Wu Shih class.

Nei Chia Wu Shih: +3 save vs pain, +2 save vs possession, +1 save vs horror factor

Ba Gua: +2 parry and dodge, +1 to hand strikes, +1 damage with hand strikes

Step 6 - Look Up Attribute Bonuses

With all that, we can set the attributes now at:

IQ: 11

ME: 22

MA: 18

PS: 17

PP: 16

PE: 18

PB: 13

Spd: 18

And the following secondaries:

HP: 21

SDC: 46

Chi: 28

PPE: 14

They do not get ISP because they are not a psionic.

The character has six extraordinary attributes providing the following bonuses:

Mental Endurance: +4 to save vs hypnosis, mental attacks, and psychic phenomena

Mental Affinity: 50% chance to invoke trust or intimidate

Physical Strength: +1 damage in hand to hand combat

Physical Strength: Carry 340 lbs, Lift 680 lbs

Physical Prowess: +1 to strike, dodge, and parry

Physical Endurance: +7% save vs Coma/Death

Physical Endurance: +2 save vs toxins

Physical Endurance: Carry maximum weight for 72 minutes, 36 minutes if running or fighting.

Physical Endurance: Lift maximum weight for 18 melee rounds (4.5 minutes)

Speed: Run 360 yds/m per minute

Finalizing

There is one bit of character randomization left and that is to create a Chinese name. This doesn't matter to the game mechanics really, but is included to give a bit of the flavor of old Kung Fu movies. We roll twice on what is described as a "very simple-minded list" of words that can be represented by a single symbol and "sounded cool". And these are not representative of real world Chinese names but are rather representative of the sort of iconic aliases you find in Kung Fu stories.

I rolled a 45 and 43 giving a two-part name of "Li Lang" or "Carp Waves".

There is a note on Li saying "The very luckiest of names. The same as calling someone 'Lucky.' Another character with the sound 'Li' refers to the quality of great social grace and proper ritual, so nicknames might be 'Cordial' or 'Propriety'"

So, let's say the silly English translation of this that would be in the subtitles and or how she'd introduce herself in a Wu Xia movie is "The Cordial Wave".

And then rolled for a family name and got Cho.

So with all that we have:

Cho Li Lang (Cordial Wave Cho)

Nei Chia Wu Shih OCC

IQ: 11

ME: 22

MA: 18

PS: 17

PP: 16

PE: 18

PB: 13

Spd: 17

Derived Attributes:

HP: 21

SDC: 46

Chi: 28

PPE: 14

Combat Skills:

Attacks per Melee Round: Three (including Boxing)

Escape Moves: Roll with Punch/fall/impact. Maintain Balance

Basic Defensive Moves: Dodge, Parry, and Automatic Parrry

Advanced Defenses: Circular Parry

Hand Attacks: Palm Strike, Knife Hand, Fingertip Attack, Backhand, Rotary Palm Strike

Basic Foot Attacks: Sweep Kick, Backward Sweep, Tripping/Leg Hook.

Special Attacks: Body Flip/Throw, Disarm, Forearm Combination Parry/Attack

Holds/Locks: None

Weapon Katas: Optional (there's a specialty kata they can choose)

Modifiers to Attack: Pull Punch, Knock-Out/Stun, Critical Strike

OCC Skills

Meditation 42%

Chinese Language: Stage 4/Classical Chinese Literacy

Chinese: Cantonese 55%

Chinese: Amoy 55%

English 55%

Artistic Calligraphy 40%

Wilderness Survival 45%

Begging 18%

Fasting 59%

Oriental Philosophy: Buddhism 78%

Martial Arts Skills

Chinese (Mandarin) 50%

Feng Shui 15%

Taoism 70%

OCC Related Skills

Gymnastics: Sense of Balance 60%

Gymnastics: Climb Rope 80%

Gymnastics: Climb 30%

Gymnastics : Back Flip 80%

Gymnastics: Prowl 40%

Athletics: General

First Aid 50%

Medical Doctor 70% / 60%

Secondary Skill

Running

Boxing

Automotive Mechanicals 40%

Chinese Mythology - Taoist 35%

Martial Arts Powers

Chi Mastery: Chi Awareness, Chi Relaxation, Chi Combat, Chi Healing

Special Kata: Pang Gung Bi

Incidentally here are the level up charts for both Ba Gua and Nei Chia Wu Shih OCC.

[thryth-gaming]

Palladium Character Creation

I recently did a blog entry on my Gorgon Archer blog for Palladium's game Nightbane. At the time I said I might do character creation in some of the other games as well. Just they won't be gorgon archers, so I'm posting them here.

So, this is going to be it's own index page in a little bit here.

Mystic China

There are some things to consider about Palladium games.

Amazing Settings

For the most part, Palladium engages in a substantial amount of worldbuilding. It's unique settings like Rifts and Nightbane involve a lot of neat elements. Even its generic fantasy setting is well done. Eriick Wujik clearly did a lot of research for Mystic China and it has the flavor of a passion project. TMNT And Other Strangeness hits deep into the feeling of the original Eastman and Laird comics.

Palladium does lean toward grim settings especially dark fantasy and horror. But there are concepts in these systems that I do love to borrow for other ideas, usually with substantially more optimism.

Power Imbalance

Palladium games are bad about having extreme power imbalances within themselves. Pointing out that you can have a normal human, unpowered scholar on the same team as a demon from hell doesn't really do a good job of explaining this because there tons of systems now that can do that easily, in ways that are very fun and give everybody a spotlight. Unfortunately, Palladium is not one of those systems.

I'm increasingly of the opinion that power balance is a mirage that will just vanish as you approach it. But at the same time, you have to consider how many chances players are getting to have the spotlight. It has some well-intentioned advice but the system itself doesn't really give many tools to support giving as much spotlight to non-combat as combat. This is really just the same mistake that D&D makes where there's a large swath of interactions where the mechanics basically come down to "just roleplay it".

There's also a lot of the philosophy where realism is given priority over fun gameplay. This extends to some of the way they approach their fantasy elements. The biggest example of this I'd point to is the Nega-psychic, a skeptic who disbelieves so hard that they've become an psychic dampener. The player is encouraged to get close to other players to watch what they're doing and try to catch them cheating. This, of course, would mean afflicting the other players with the nega-psychic's anti-supernatural field. And if you try to play against this to, you know, make it easier for the team to defeat the monster, then you run into a rule where if the nega-psychic ever comes to believe the supernatural is real, then they instantly lose all of their powers with no possibility of replacing them with something else. So, yes, the game literally requires a player to troll other players.

Lots of Moving Parts

Palladium has a lot of moving parts. It's a game that looked at the intricacies of AD&D 1st editions Speed Factors and armor that works better or worse depending on what sort of weapon is used against it. And then decided to make it more detailed. It's got a lot of clever bits, and a lot of unnecessary bits.

There are tons of bonuses and stats to manage. Enough to make Pathfinder 1e blush. You have separate bonuses to parry, dodge, and roll with impact. You have Armor Rating, Structural Damage Capacity, Inner Strength Points, Potential Psychic Energy, Horror Factor, and so many others. There's just a whole lot of things to keep track of. I'd say over all it's simpler than Shadowrun, but that's not a high bar.

Some Legitimately Neat Blends of Concepts

It is very clear that Palladium was developed around the concepts used by D&D. It uses classes, it had experience charts that varied from class to class as AD&D and early editions of D&D did. And it used a lot of the same terms such as alignment. However, it expands on these in what were eye-catching ways at the time.

The skill system is very interesting and seems to be somewhere between "what if AD&D Thief skills but for everything" and Call of Cthulhu's percentile based skill system. What's interesting to me is how the skills are arranged in most of the classes. Most classes have three lists:

Core skills with minimal to zero choice flexibility but hefty skill bonuses

Other skills important to the class with substantially more flexibility but lesser bonuses.

Secondary skills with a lot more flexibility but no bonuses representing the character's personal interests and hobbies.

Also, this is probably the first game where I saw task difficulties based on the power of the enemy or difficulty of a task. Aside from rolling against AC, D&D, Hero System, and Call of Cthulhu all had their target numbers inherent to the character. For example, the list of Saving Throws for classes and levels in older versions of D&D

Likewise Hero System and Call of Cthulhu skill checks were the player trying to roll under the number of their skill level (3d6 for Hero and percentile for Call of Cthulhu). Sometimes different creatures or situations would apply a bonus or penalty.

However, Palladium expanded the difficulty class line of thinking that D&D used for hitting armor class specifically to saving throws. However, it still had the difficulties inherent to the PC for its skills. But it was still a push in the direction where skills where mostly noted as bonuses to rolls.

While Palladium uses alignment, it doesn't use the same matrix at all. There are three broad categories of alignment: good, selfish, and evil. And each of these has a list of "what would this character do in this situation" notes. It's a more nuanced take on alignment that was impressive to me as a teen and probably would have been mind-blowing if I hadn't started with Hero System's psychological limitations and had extensively played games without alignment systems already.

The alignments are:

Good: Principled and Scrupulous

Selfish: Unprincipled and Anarchist

Evil: Miscreant, Aberrant, and Diabolic

This was further pushed by Ninjas and Superspies adding the descriptor of honorable, non-honorable, and dishonorable alignments as well as Mystic China expanding on that to add the Taoist alignment (which, honestly, has a host of problems that make me facepalm in modern days).

Honorable: Principled (Good), Unprincipled (Selfish), and Aberrant (Evil)

Non-Honorable: Scrupulous (Good) and Anarchist (Selfish)

Dishonorable: Miscreant (Evil) and Diabolic (Evil)

Taoist alignment was considered "Good" but I can't find whether it was considered Honorable or Non-Honorable.

Overall, the needle didn't move alignment much. It was mostly based on Siembada not liking "neutral" alignments at all. Systems like Hero System handled nuanced character motivations and morality much better, for instance. And many systems just moved increasingly toward not using alignment at all and just having NPCs react to PCs appropriate to how they behave.

And then we come to variety of just neat systems that individually are all very fun, but all together add into the fact that there's a lot of mechanics to remember:

Hand to Hand combat is very detailed, more so than pretty much any other system of the day with the possible exception of Hero System depending on what edition you're talking about.

Marital Arts is even further expanded upon by Ninjas and Superspies as well as its expansion Mystic China. With an intricate system of marital arts powers and techniques as well as pretty well researched chi powers.

Psionic powers and Spell casting use a point based economy primarily (I think Palladium Fantasy holds tighter to spell slots and Hero System tends toward less restrictive spell and psychic use)

The TMNT and Other Strangeness has a very fun and extensive mutation set up.

Bionics and Cybernetics are extensively developed, rivaling Shadowrun in its specifics. Vehicles and mecha also benefit from this.

The Nightbane Morphus forms is another fun system for creating unique monster forms though it, and other randomized power selection options in other games, add in to the power imbalance problem.

[gorgonarcher]

28th Game - Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition (Epithet)

Call of Cthulhu is one of the oldest still being published TTRPGs. The first edition was released in 1981 and the game has maintained mostly the same ruleset for that entire time, though admittedly, I haven't seen every edition. The 7th edition presents the only major adjustments to game systems I can remember since the early 90s.

I've said before that the edition wars and vast differences between different D&D editions is rather unusual in the TTRPG hobby. with most games you usually see massive rules shifts between 1st and 2nd editions, especially for indie products where the creator comes back with lessons learned (note to self). But the constant re-defining D&D has experienced for the past fifty years is odd.

As an example, the 7th Edition differences aren't even as severe as the differences between D&D 3rd and D&D 3.5.

Another note is that this is the first game we're going to do a epithet gorgon. Call of Cthulhu does not have any characters who aren't human. So, we're going to have a person that is referred to by other people as "gorgon". Given the connotations of the term, she's likely at least not conventionally attractive or possibly an outcast for some other reason.

Anyway, let's move on to the character creation.

There are five steps.

Step One: Generate Characteristics

Step Two: Determine Occupation

Step Three: Decide Skills and Allocate Skill Points

Step Four: Create a Backstory

Step Five: Equip Investigator

Step 1 - Generate Characteristics

The older editions of Call of Cthulhu used a system similar to D&D with stats between 3 and 18 as determined below.

Strength, Constitution, Power, Dexterity, and Appearance used to each be determined by rolling 3d6.

Size and Intelligence are determined by rolling 2d6+6.

Education is determined by 3d6+3

And then some of those would be multiplied by 5 to determine other traits.

Power x5 became Max Sanity and Luck.

Int x5 became Idea

Edu x5 became Knowledge

In addition, when you rolled a check for like Dexterity or Strength, then it would be multiplied by 5 to determine the percentage you need to get under on the d100 roll. Because, yes, Call of Cthulhu does all it's rolls by trying to roll underneath the percentage of as a skill on a percentile roll.

Now, the 7th Edition of Call of Cthulhu cuts out some of the steps above... a little bit as they are all set up as percentages.

This is how the stats are generated now.

Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Appearance, and Power are still determined by rolling 3d6 but now you multiply by 5.

Luck is now also determined by rolling 3d6 and multiplying by 5.

Size, Intelligence, and Education are now all determined by rolling 2d6+6 and then multiplying by 5.

So, we'll roll these now.

3d6 Rolls

15 (75)

9 (45)

11 (55)

17 (85)

7 (35)

13 (65)

2d6+6 Rolls

12 (60)

9 (45)

14 (70)

With this, I'm going to assign the following.

Strength (STR) - 45

Constitution (CON) - 55

Size (SIZ) - 60

Dexterity (DEX) - 85

Appearance (APP) - 35

Intelligence (INT) - 70

Power (POW) - 65

Education (EDU) - 45

Luck (LUCK) - 75

In the past editions, the minimum age would be your EDU + 6. In the 7th edition, instead you choose an age between 15 and 90 and you adjust your stats based on which age you chose.

I'm going to say about 35 or so. Let's say 37. Which says to make an improvement check for EDU.

Improvement checks are how Call of Cthulhu characters basically level up. If you've succeeded on a skill during a case, then at the end of the case you roll that skill and if you roll over the percentage, then you can improve your skill by 1d10. Basically this means it is easier to advance your skills when they're low skill, because at that point you're more likely to roll higher than the skill.

Basically, on an improvement check, you're trying to fail skill checks.

So, let's roll the Improvement against this character's EDU of 45.

I rolled a 64. That's higher than 45. This would be a fail in gameplay, but because this is an improvement check, it means we roll some to add to the EDU. I roll a d10 and get a 9. This means that the character's EDU is now 54.

The full age chart is here:

After we've determined the full percentages, we also have to determine "Half" and "Fifth" values for cases when the roll is more difficult than normal. These are determined by division and rounding down.

STR: 45, Half: 22, Fifth: 9

CON: 55, Half: 27, Fifth: 11

SIZ: 60, Half: 30, Fifth: 12

DEX: 85, Half: 42, Fifth: 17

APP: 35, Half: 18, Fifth: 7

INT: 70, Half: 35, Fifth: 14

POW: 65, Half: 32, Fifth: 13

EDU: 54, Half: 27, Fifth: 10

LUCK: 75, Half: 37, Fifth: 15

We then use these characteristics to determine other attributes

Damage Bonus, based on STR + SIZ

Build, a new trait, is also based on STR + SIZ

Hit Points, based on CON + SIZ

Sanity, equal to POW

Magic Points, equal to one fifth POW

MOV based on the relative comparisons of STR, DEX, and SIZ

Speak Own Language, equal to EDU

Starting with Damage Bonus, we use this chart:

This character's STR is 45 and their SIZ is 60, resulting in a total of 105. This comes to no damage bonus and a build of 0. So basically, fairly average.

For Hit Points, you add CON (55) + SIZ (60) and then divide by ten, rounding fractions down. I've noted this character's values above, so it comes to a total of 115. Divided by ten and rounding down gets us to 11 HP.

Finally, for MOV we look at SIZ (12), STR (9), and DEX (15).

If neither DEX nor STR are equal to or greater than SIZ, then MOV is 7.

If either DEX or STR are equal to or greater than SIZ (or all three are tied), then MOV is 8.

If both DEX and STR are equal to or greater than SIZ and there is no tie, then MOV is 9.

For this character, DEX (15) is greater than SIZ (12), but STR (9) is less. So MOV is 8.

That brings us to the following Attributes.

STR: 45, Half: 22, Fifth: 9

CON: 55, Half: 27, Fifth: 11

SIZ: 60, Half: 30, Fifth: 12

DEX: 85, Half: 42, Fifth: 17

APP: 35, Half: 18, Fifth: 7

INT: 70, Half: 35, Fifth: 14

POW: 65, Half: 32, Fifth: 13

EDU: 54, Half: 27, Fifth: 10

LUCK: 75, Half: 37, Fifth: 15

Damage Bonus: None

Build: 0

Hit Points: 11

Magic Points: 13

Sanity: 65

MOV: 8

Age: 37

As to what exactly these numbers equate to in a narrative sense, we have a chart for that.

This means that she's slightly under average human strength, a bit healthier than the average person. Slightly under average human size, aery fast and nimble, smarter than average, fairly strong willed, and just shy of a high school graduate.

Step 2 - Determine Occupation

This is determined the same way you determined occupation in older editions: you choose it. Though it gives a small paragraph on the idea of creating new occupations, namely not to give an occupation more than eight skills in it's package.

Now, the differences here come in how the Occupations are set up.

In older editions, there would be a list of skills and then you would get a number of points to spread between them equal to your EDU (4-21) x 20. In this case, you get a list of skills, then a Credit Rating range followed by a way to determine how many points you have for your skills.

In most cases, the points are EDU x4, which is generally going to be the same number of points you'd have gotten by multiplying the old system's EDU by 20. However, several occupations determine skill points by taking EDU x2 plus another attribute times 2.

For example, the farmer uses EDU x2 and either DEX x2 or STR x2 and the musician uses EDUx2 and either DEX x2 or POW x2.

Also, let's talk that Credit Rating range. In older editions, Credit Rating was a skill like any other that would show up in a package like with Dilettante. Not every package had Credit Rating. In 7th edition, you still buy Credit Rating with points as normal, but it is supposed to fall within certain range for example.

The farmer needs to have a Credit Rating between 9 and 30.

A lawyer will fall between 30 and 80.

A dilettante will fall between 50 and 99.

A drifter will fall between 0 and 5.

This does mean that you will find some of your points pre-spent in order to reach the minimum Credit Rating score.

We'll do with the actual assigning of the points in Step 3, but for now let's go with choosing an occupation.

I'm thinking our character lives on the edge of some community doing a mix of hunting and farming on some old family land. Both Drifter and Farmer have some of the stuff appropriate to a person that does a lot of farming, but we're going to go with Farmer.

Farmer comes with the following:

Art/Craft (Farming), Drive Auto, one interpersonal skill (Charm, Fast Talk, Intimidate, or Persuade), Mechanical Repair, Natural World, Operate Heavy Machinery, Track, Any one Other Skill

Credit Rating 9-30

Skill Points: EDU x2 plus either DEX x2 or STR x2

So that brings us to next step.

Step 3 - Determine Skills and Allocate Skill Points

After choosing farmer as her occupation, I'm also choosing DEX as the stat to determine starting Occupational Skill Points. On top of this, we get a number of skill points to assign to any skill we want referred to as Personal Interest skills. These are determined by Intelligence x2. In older editions that would have been Intelligence x10 but because 7th edition Attributes are 5 times higher at base than the Attributes of earlier edition, this comes to the exact same number of points in either edition.

So, for our "Gorgon" we have the following:

Occupation Skill Points: 278 (EDU: 54x2 + DEX: 85x2)

Personal Interest Skill Points: 140 (INT: 70 x2)

So, let's start with occupation skills and credit rating. We're choosing Intimidate for the interpersonal skill and Survival for the "other" skill. Each of these has a starting value listed below

Art/Craft (Farming) 5

Drive Auto 20

Interpersonal Skill: Intimidate 15

Mechanical Repair 10

Natural World 10

Operate Heavy Machinery 1

Survival 10

Track 10

Credit Rating: 0

And we'll allocate the following points.

Art/Craft (Farming) 45

Drive/Auto 9

Intimidate: 40

Mechanical Repair: 30

Natural World: 20

Operate Heavy Machinery 34

Survival 40

Track 40

Credit Rating 20

That is the full 278 points of our Occupation skills. I'll do the totals below when we're done.

So, now we'll do some of the Personal Interest skills.

On a side note, I heard a great justification for a farmer knowing occult way back when in the Scion discord server. Basically, farmers have a load of folk knowledge and live out on the edges of society where the supernatural things are most likely to happen. Granted, "Occult" in Call of Cthulhu is more a matter of the history of cults, secret societies, and the like. Still, it's a good argument and one I agree with.

But, anyway, the skills I'm interested in mostly are below along with their starting levels:

Climb 20

Dodge half DEX (42)

Fighting: Brawling 25

Fighting: Axes 15

Firearms: Bow 15

Firearms: Rifles/Shotguns 25

First Aid 30

Jump 20

Law 5

Listen 20

Navigate 10

Occult 5

Spot Hidden 25

Stealth 20

Swim 20

We're not going to hit all of those skills. And I'm assigning as follows.

Dodge 10

Fighting: Brawling 15

Firearms Bow 40

Law 10

Listen: 15

Navigate 10

Spot Hidden: 20

Stealth: 20

That is all of our 140 points of personal interests. Now to list just the skills we added points and are thus above their default starting level:

Art/Craft (Farming) 50

Dodge 52

Drive Auto 29

Fighting: Brawling 40

Firearms: Bow 55

Intimidate 55

Law 15

Listen 35

Mechanical Repair 40

Natural World 30

Navigate 20

Operate Heavy Machinery 35

Own Language: English 54

Spot Hidden 45

Survival 50

Stealth 40

Track 50

Credit Rating: 20

Step 4 - Create Backstory

So, first we're going to turn to fantasy name generator and drawing from Colonial American names to hit that 1920s feel a bit better I find a lovely virtue name in the form of Comfort and we'll pair that with the surname Dunlap (but the married name Graham).

Comfort Dunlap was once married and had a beautiful child. Unfortunately, in the wake of a fire she was terribly scarred, her husband was dead, and her husband's parents leveraged their money to make sure they would have custody of her child. She exhausted herself in a fight for her child, both financially and emotionally, and eventually vanished off to her hometown and her parents old farm. After ten years, the locals have sort of put her in the category of someone not to talk about more than necessary. One of the crueler more well read people in town early on referred to her as "the gorgon at the old Dunlap place" and it stuck to her irritation.

Step 5 - Equip the Investigator

In the prior editions, wealth was determined by a 1d10 roll but in 7th edition is determined by your Credit Rating. Roughly the wealth is as follows:

Penniless - Credit Rating 0

Poor - Credit Rating 1-9

Average - Credit Rating 10-49

Wealthy - Credit Rating 50-89

Rich - Credit Rating 90+

Super Rich - Credit Rating 99

This is an odd one for me, because I used to understand Credit Rating as your ability to pass as a respectable person so you could have high wealth but moderate to low credit rating, such as if you're Howard Hughes in his grungiest era or just any minority in any era. I suppose it is a sacrifice on the altar of streamlining.

Anyway, there's a chart that shows how much money a person gets based on the time period and your credit rating. There's three sections in the wealth section:

Cash - Money you have on hand.

Spending Level - Prices below which the game says you don't have to track.

Assets - Land, vehicles, and other long-term value things.

Comfort here has a Credit Rating of 20, which puts her at Average and the chart for the 1920s puts her at:

Cash: CR x2 ($40)

Spending Level: $10

Assets: CR x50 ($1000)

Her assets include a swath of undeveloped land. Much of the land has been fallow for decades while she lived with her husband and on her own she's only managed to bring back a small patch. Beyond that she has a used and battered pick-up from the 1910s.

I'm not doing the full purchasing here, but that's the gist of the character.

Comfort Graham (nee Dunlap)

STR: 45, Half: 22, Fifth: 9

CON: 55, Half: 27, Fifth: 11

SIZ: 60, Half: 30, Fifth: 12

DEX: 85, Half: 42, Fifth: 17

APP: 35, Half: 18, Fifth: 7

INT: 70, Half: 35, Fifth: 14

POW: 65, Half: 32, Fifth: 13

EDU: 54, Half: 27, Fifth: 10

LUCK: 75, Half: 37, Fifth: 15

Vital Stats

Sanity: 65

Hit Points: 11

Magic Points: 13

Other Traits

Damage Bonus: None

Build: 0

MOV: 8

Age: 37

Skills

Art/Craft (Farming) 50

Dodge 52

Drive Auto 29

Fighting: Brawling 40

Firearms: Bow 55

Intimidate 55

Law 15

Listen 35

Mechanical Repair 40

Natural World 30

Navigate 20

Operate Heavy Machinery 35

Own Language: English 54

Spot Hidden 45

Survival 50

Stealth 40

Track 50

Credit Rating: 20

Wealth

Cash: $40

Spending Level: $10

Assets: $1000 (fallow land, undeveloped, old house, old pickup)

[thryth-gaming]

Palladium Games - Nightbane

So, Palladium Games are pretty infamous for being wildly unbalanced in the worst possible way. Obviously Rifts is the poster child for this having the wildest power swings in ways that are borderline unplayable.

But there is just something really wacky about playing Nightbane (originally Nightspawn). Even if every player decides to play one of the titular creatures, because the monster shape is randomized meaning your team in their "true forms" could consist of:

An almost human person with maybe some extra eyes.

A werecreature

A cyborg

And a random soulsbourne boss, massive and afflicted with wounds which will never truly heal

[thryth-gaming]

Spook Squad human agent: The entrance is heavily fortified and staffed with several guards. If we can distract some forces to there then the rest of us can sneak in.

Nightbane: Cool, Kylie can take care of that.

Spook Squad: You mean that mid-twenties woman in a convenience store unifrom?

Nightbane: Oh yeah, her retail work rage must have been channeled when she gained her true form. Kylie, show him.

Kylie becomes a ten-foot long giant scorpion with robotic legs and pincers, seven pairs of tiny human hands emerging from the chitin around her shoulders and afflicted with massive bleeding wounds.

Spook Squad: Oh.

[thryth-gaming]

In case you think I'm exaggerating:

It says "ignore over 61%" but I suspect that's a typo... the Animal Form table lets you roll up Bear or Amphibian options... neither of which exist. Palladium Games are rife with typos.

[thryth-gaming]

Palladium Games - Nightbane

So, Palladium Games are pretty infamous for being wildly unbalanced in the worst possible way. Obviously Rifts is the poster child for this having the wildest power swings in ways that are borderline unplayable.

But there is just something really wacky about playing Nightbane (originally Nightspawn). Even if every player decides to play one of the titular creatures, because the monster shape is randomized meaning your team in their "true forms" could consist of:

An almost human person with maybe some extra eyes.

A werecreature

A cyborg

And a random soulsbourne boss, massive and afflicted with wounds which will never truly heal

[thryth-gaming]

Spook Squad human agent: The entrance is heavily fortified and staffed with several guards. If we can distract some forces to there then the rest of us can sneak in.

Nightbane: Cool, Kylie can take care of that.

Spook Squad: You mean that mid-twenties woman in a convenience store unifrom?

Nightbane: Oh yeah, her retail work rage must have been channeled when she gained her true form. Kylie, show him.

Kylie becomes a ten-foot long giant scorpion with robotic legs and pincers, seven pairs of tiny human hands emerging from the chitin around her shoulders and afflicted with massive bleeding wounds.

Spook Squad: Oh.

[thryth-gaming]

Palladium Games - Nightbane

So, Palladium Games are pretty infamous for being wildly unbalanced in the worst possible way. Obviously Rifts is the poster child for this having the wildest power swings in ways that are borderline unplayable.

But there is just something really wacky about playing Nightbane (originally Nightspawn). Even if every player decides to play one of the titular creatures, because the monster shape is randomized meaning your team in their "true forms" could consist of:

An almost human person with maybe some extra eyes.

A werecreature

A cyborg

And a random soulsbourne boss, massive and afflicted with wounds which will never truly heal

[gorgonarcher]

27th Game - Nightbane (Palladium Games)

I have a sort of love-hate thing with Palladium Games in general. They have some of the most flavorful game settings around and 16-20 year old me found the wide-variety of character classes, the skill system, and the interesting systems of magic and martial arts quite fun. But now that I'm older, the game is unbalanced in the worst way and character creation is ruled primarily by random chance.

What do I mean by "unbalanced in the worst way"? Well MotW is also a bit unbalanced, but the of the creator philosophy there is "I don't care about balance as long as everybody is having fun." Whereas the attitude of Palladium Games tends to be more "I don't care about balance as long as it's realistic." And the games often sacrifice fun game play because something else is "realistic."

In addition, the system's originator, Kevin Siembada is... convinced of his own genius and rabid about his insistence that his system is perfect and should never be changed. So there's that.

When I was considering what games to use to make this character I considered Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness as well as Heroes Unlimited. Unfortunately, TMNT's snake rules are in a supplement I don't own and Heroes Unlimited is actually one of the companies more bland products.

So I settled on Nightbane, a game about shapechanging creatures who initially think themselves normal humans... or maybe they are normal humans that are transformed. Nobody is really sure what the truth is. Each Nightbane has a unique "True Form" that may be formed of the circumstances that leads to their change, or their true personality, or something else entirely. Again, no one's really sure.

Long ago, the Nightbane used their strange powers of shadow and dimensional travel to aid the forces of Earth in resisting the power of the Lords of Night, ancient nigh-immortal sorcerers who feed on human misery. These Lords of Night were banished to a realm of shadow that exists beyond mirrors where they remained for thousands of years. The Nightbane's involvement in the defense of this world was forgotten over time save by the immortals who were there, and they were persecuted along with the mages and other occult powers that helped defend the Earth.

Now, the Lords of Night have returned, quietly, taking over the governments of the world and instituting a thousand horrors small and subtle to afflict the day to day lives of people. And the Lords of Night remember the Nightbane and how their powers were a sort of weakness for these immortal psychic vampires (Nightbane do double damage to Lords of Night and their servants).

There are three side notes to this game. The first is that this is one of the few Palladium games that gives primary writing credit to someone other than Kevin Siembada. In this case CJ Carella. In addition, it used to be titled Nightspawn... then Todd Macfarland sewed Palladium. I used to own a copy of the original title, but I sent that off to Critical Role ages ago while trying to clear space. Finally, the creation of a Nightbsne's "True Form" is usually determined by rolling on random tables. I'm instead just going to build it because otherwise making a gorgon deliberately would be nigh impossible. I'm also going to use a broad category of Nightbane form that I invented for myself as a kid called "Lycanthropic Beuaty" which uses Animal Features, Unearthly Beauty, and Nightspawn Characteristics. As a note, the options to create a gorgon aren't exactly the most powerful options on the form tables, but it's worth noting that powers of these features is wildly variable... see my comments about Palladium games being a bit unbalanced in the worst way.

Another side note, if I can find the Snake rules for TMNT I'll probably make a separate gorgon archer right up for that, since that game has unique mechanics and is primarily credited to Erick Wujik. I may also eventually pick up another Palladium game by Wujick to do an epithet gorgon archer by toying with Mystic China and Ninjas & Superspies unique and extensive martial arts mechanics. I may also make a Beyond the Supernatural character in order to dig into the psychic power rules.

Regardless, let's move on to building the character.

Step One - The Eight Attributes

To start with, we determine the eight attributes by, of course for a game that is not far removed from D&D, rolling dice. You roll 3d6 and if a 16, 17, or 18 is rolled, then a fourth die is rolled to add to that. These can be modified by forms, chosen classes, and some skills.

The eight attributes are:

Intelligence Quotient (IQ)

Mental Endurance (willpower)

Mental Affinity (charm and charisma)

Physical Strength (strength)

Physical Prowess (agility and dexterity)

Physical Endurance (stamina and constitution)

Physical Beauty (yep... this is a thing)

Speed (running speed is this x20 yards, maybe modified by other powers)

So... I'm going to modify things a bit. I'm rolling 4d6 and keep the highest. If that is a 16-18, then I will add the fourth die. I normally don't do homebrews unless the system encourages it, but purely rolled stats aren't very fun for me. So I'm using this method.

Rolled a 17 + 4 = 21 - good start

12

13

9

9

Rolled a 16 + 1 = 17

8

15

All right, ordering these as follows:

IQ: 12

ME: 13

MA: 9

PS: 9

PP: 21

PE: 8

PB: 17

Spd: 15

So, that's where we start. What does that translate into?

It's also important to note that supernatural creatures use strength to determine unarmed damage and also have higher multiples when determining how much they can lift as compared to normal humans.

I won't put down the final bonuses, because these stats are going to go up.

(and yes, I'm again doing a pretty gorgon)

Step Two - SDC and Hit Points

Palladium games use two types of health:

Structural Damage Capacity, aka SDC, represent flesh-wounds and minor bumps and bruises. You have to get through SDC in order to reach Hit Points

Hit Points,representing severe injuries.

Note that some games have a third type called "Mega Damage Capacity" for impossibly tough entities. 1 MDC is roughly equivalent to 100 SDC or HP, but also, usually weapons or powers that deal SDC or HP damage can't even scratch MDC. (Supernatural creatures usually bypass this).

Hit Points are based on your PE plus a d6 for each level including the first. Also note that while this will apply to our Nightbane gorgon's human form, their inhuman "True Form" will have more than this and we'll determine that later.

For now, we've rolled a 3 plus the 8 PE, and we get 11 HP. Her human form is a bit weak. But that'll go up a bit as we add bonuses.

For SDC, characters with police, military, athletic, or detective backgrounds have 1d4x10 SDC. All others have 3d6. Again, this will be modified by the fact we're a supernatural shapeshifter whose True Form will be tougher. Also, several skills and powers will improve it.

I'm going to say she has an athletic background due to the archery thing. Honestly, this doesn't have to be the case, she could have picked up archery after the fact, but we're going to say she was already an archer before discovering her world was invaded and she'd become a monster.

I rolled a 4, so that's 40 SDC.

Combined her human form has:

11 HP

40 SDC

Step Three - Choosing a Class

Palladium games breaks down classes into:

Occupational Character Classes - where your skills are based on a character's training and background.

Psychic Character Classes - a typical human character with a certain category of psychic powers.

Racial Character Classes - a character whose powers and skills are roughly based on their nature as an inhuman creature

The Nightbane game has the following classes in the base book:

A generic Psychic PCC

Nightbane, Doppleganger, Wampyr, Guardian, and Secondary Vampire RCCs

Sorcerer, Mystic, Nightbane Sorcerer, and Nightbane Mystic OCCs

It also encourages you to consider using PCCs and OCCs from other games. Which is likely why there's no OCC for human soldiers or spies and such.

Guardians are entities with light powers. They seem to be transformed humans but no one is sure if they're aliens, angels, or something else.

Wampyr are what happens when something goes wrong with a vampire transformation. They're not connected to the Vampire Intelligence that started the line of the vampire that tried to kill them and they know every vampire weakness. This makes Wampyr natural vampire killers.

As to vampires. In Palladium's multiverse, Vampire Intelligences are eldritch abominations like great blobs with a host of tentacles and eyes. They make deals with people for power, transforming them into Master Vampires. (truthfully, the person who made the deal is destroyed utterly and replaced with a piece of the intelligence in that person's shape and hints of that person's memories and skills). Master Vampires can turn people into Secondary Vampires, again, a piece of the vampire intelligence, but one on which the personality of the victim has imprinted itself. As such, Secondary Vampires sometimes turn against the bulk of the other pieces of the Vampire Intelligence. When Secondary Vampires transform someone, there's a chance it's another Secondary Vampire, but it may also be a Wild Vampire, feral beasts with only shreds of the victim's mind and and lacking the intelligence of a Master. The goal of the Master is to create enough vampires to reach a critical mass which will allow the Vampire Intelligence to physically enter into the world.

Yes, Palladium vampires are a Cthulhian eldritch nonsense.

There are also some RCCs meant only for NPC villains: Nightlords, Nightprinces, Master Vampires, etc.

In any case, we're choosing a Nightbane class.

Nightbane RCC - the basic package of a shapeshifting person that used to be human.

Nightbane Sorcerer OCC -learned and studied wizards who mix their natural powers with magic.

Nightbane Mystics OCC - nightbane who mix their powers with innate magic.

Note: Palladium equates sorcerers to educated wizard style casters and mystics to more "primitive" magic traditions mixing psychic powers with magic... and yes "primitive" means the examples they have of mystics are drawn from a lot of marginalized or colonized cultures.

We're going to go with the basic Nightbane RCC. No magic for this character, just their innate powers and skills.

Step 3.1 - Basic Nightbane traits

The following are aspects of the Nightbane RCC.

Natural Powers

The Becoming, shapechanging, 1 melee round (15 seconds) unless you succeed an ME save of 12 or higher. +1 at first level, and an additional +1 per two levels. On success takes less than one attack (about 3 seconds). Every nightbane's transformation process is unique.

Nightvision in both forms, further in Nightbane form

Sense other Nightbane

Supernatural Attributes as per other creatures of magic

Mirror Walk - use mirrors to cross into the Nightlands

Immune to all forms of mind control

Immune to all forms of transformation outside their own powers including petrification, vampire transformation, curses, turning to mist, etc

Various traits associated with their unique physical form.

Talents - Nightbane powers, start with one free, can permanently spend PPE to gain more. Gain additional "free" talents at levels 4, 7, 10, and 12

Nightbane Attributes and Traits

Facade (human form) Attributes: rolled as normal

Morphus (true form) Attributes: +10 to PS, PE, and Spd, +6 to PP, particular traits may add other bonuses.

Facade SDC: 30 + skill bonuses (meaning we'll lose 10 from the 40 I rolled)

Morphus SDC: 2d6x10 + Facade SDC - rolled 10, so +100 SDC

Facade HP: Standard, PE + 1d6 per level

Morphus HP: PEx2 + 2d6 per level - rolled 8

Heal 10 SDC/HP per melee round (game doesn't specify which form)

Morphus Horror Factor: Base 6, max 18, modified by traits

Facade Combat: As human

Morphus Combat: +1 attack per turn, use supernatural strength for unarmed damage, some forms have other attack types/

Facade Bonuses: +2 to save vs magic, +1 to save vs horror factor, +1 to save vs disease, all on top of attribute and skill bonuses

Morphus Bonuses: +1 on initiative, +2 to strike, parry and dodge, +3 to roll/pull punch, +4 save vs magic, +3 to save vs psionics, +3 to save vs disease, and to +3 to save vs horror factor; all in addition to attribute and skill bonuses.

Personal Psychic Energy: PPE - Facade's PE + 3d6x10 +20. Rolled 14.

RCC Skill Package

6 Secondary Skills from the list of "Other Skills" but without bonus percentages

Part 3.2 - Skill Packages

The Nightbane RCC also asks us to pick a skill package based on their training and upbringing. This is unusual, since usually each class has a specific package rather than a set of options.

Basic skill package - High schooler or college freshman new to adventuring.

Resistance/Spook Squad trained - A nightbane from a military, law enforcement, or espionage background, or else who joined one of the guerilla resistance groups named soon after changing.

Nocturne/Lightbringer/Seeker trained - A nightbane that was trained by one of the various arcanist organizations.

Warlords trained - A nightbane part of the nightbane led Warlords gang or who comes from a gang background.

We're going to assume a raw new Nightbane, so going with the basic skill package. The weakest of the four. But I will briefly describe the factions here:

The Underground Railroad - oldest known Nightbane organization focused on securing safe places for the Nightbane.

The Resistance - splinter group of the Underground Railroad that is focused on resisting the darklords.

The Nocturnes - an ancient order of mystics and creatures that cooperate to study and fight the Nightlords. They failed to stop the invasion and now seek ways to repulse it.

The Seekers - an ancient order of mages and arcanists. The largest such order in the world (especially after the smaller orders were pretty much destroyed by the Nightlords)

Lightbringers - a group of humans, nightbane, and guardians that try to protect people from evil.

Warlords - a large gang operation commanded by Nightbane.

Spook Squad - when the invasion came, the intelligence and military organizations of the world were taken over were possible, destroyed where necessary. The spook squad is the collective of the survivors and their attempt to start a resistance. They have nightbane and other supernaturals in their number, but are a largely human dominated organization that tends not to trust their psychic, magical, or inhuman members.

I'm not sure which group if any our gorgon yet belongs to.

The basic skill package looks like this:

The following automatic skills.

Basic Math - Base Skill: 45% + 5% per level

English - Base Skill: 50% + 5% per level

English Literacy - Base Skill: 30% + 5% per level

Computer Operation - Base Skill: 40% + 5% per level

I'm going to give her the following skill two choices:

Cooking - Base Skill: 35% + 5% per level

Technical: Computer Programming - Base Skill: 30% + 5% per level

And the following "other" skills

Hand to Hand Expert = combat bonuses

WP: Archery and Targeting - combat bonuses

Photography - Base Skill 35% + 5% per level

First Aid - Base Skill: 45% + 5% per level

Athletics (general) - no percentage, attribute bonuses

Running - no percentage, attribute bonuses

Automobile - Base Skill: 60% + 2% per level

Lore - Demons and Monsters - Base Skill: 35% + 5% per level

Wilderness Survival - Base Skill: 30% + 5% per level

And then secondary skills:

Korean - Base Skill 50% + 5% per level

Korean Literacy - Base Skill 30% + 5% per level

Japanese - Base Skill 50% + 5% per level

Japanese Literacy - Base Skill 30% + 5% per level

Automotive Repair - Base Skill 25% + 5% per level

Gymnastics - various sub-skills and attribute bonuses

Which brings to the following skill percentages. Note that her IQ is not high enough to add any bonus proficiency. Skills that provide bonuses rather than have percentages will have their own section.

Automobile 60%

Automotive Repair 25%

Basic Math 55%

Computer Operation 50%

Computer Programming 30%

Cooking 50%

English 70%

English Literacy 50%

First Aid 45%

Japanese 50%

Japanese Literacy 30%

Korean 50%

Korean Literacy 30%

Lore - Demons and Monsters 35%

Photography

Wilderness Survival 30%

Athletics

+1 parry and dodge

+1 roll with punch or fall

+1 PS

+1d6 Spd (2)

+1d8 SDC (8)

Running

+1 PE

+4d4 Speed (12)

+1d6 SDC (2)

Gymnastics

Kick attack at first level: 2d4 damage

Sense of Balance - 50% + 5% per level

Parallel Bars and Rings - 60% + 3% per level

Climb Rope - 70% + 2% per level

Back Flip - 70% + 5% per level

Base Climb 25% (or adds 7% to Climb skill)

Base Prowl 30% (or adds 5% to Prowl skill)

+2 to roll with punch or fall

+2 PS

+1 PP

+2 PE

+2d6 SDC. Rolled 8.

WP: Archery and Targeting

+20 ft per level of character

+1 to parry with weapon

+1 to strike at levels 2, 4, 6, 8, 11, and 14

Rate of Fire: 2 at 1st level, +2 at 3rd, +1 at 5. 7. 9, and 12

Hand to Hand Expert has the following table:

This brings the attributes to:

IQ: 12

ME: 13

MA: 9

PS: 12/22

PP: 22/28

PE: 12/22

PB: 17

Spd: 29/39

Facade HP: 15 (3 rolled + 12 PE)

Facade SDC: 48 (30 + 8 + 2 + 8)

Morphus HP: 52 (8 rolled + (22x2 PE))

Morphus SDC: 148

PPE: 172 (160 + 12 Facade PE)

Morphus Horror Factor: 6

I'll total combat bonuses later

Step 3.3 Building the Morphus

Okay, normally, you'd roll on the Morphus tables to determine what traits your character has and various traits have vastly different levels of power so the game doesn't want to let people just choose. Probably because they don't trust people to choose for flavor and instead just choose whatever they think is most powerful.

Because of this, when I made Nightbane in the past, I would usually start with rolling the Morphus before choosing skills and then move on to the rest of the game. So for this I'm assuming an Animalistic Beauty (homebrewed category I made as a kid. Resulting in the following:

Animal Form - Snake - Scaly Skin: +1d6x10 SDC (60), +1d4 Horror Factor (2)

Unearthly Beauty - Physical Perfection: +1d4 PB (1), PE (4), and PS (3), and 4d6 SDC (14)

Nightbane Characteristics - Unusual Facial Features - Facial Tentacles (Medusa style of course): +1d6 SDC (5) and +1d4 Horror Factor (1)

Between skills, rolls, and nightbane characteristics, we come to the following:

This brings the attributes to:

IQ: 12

ME: 13

MA: 9

PS: 12/25

PP: 22/28

PE: 12/26

PB: 17/18

Spd: 29/39

Facade HP: 15 (3 rolled + 12 PE)

Facade SDC: 48 (30 + 8 + 2 + 8)

Morphus HP: 60 (8 rolled + (26x2 PE))

Morphus SDC: 227 (48 + 100 + 60 + 14 + 5)

PPE: 172 (160 + 12 PE)

Morphus Horror Factor: 9

Horror Factor

For reference, a Horror Factor save requires rolling a 1d20 versus the creature's Horror Factor. A failed roll means:

Lose initiative, don't even roll

Lose one attack/action the first melee round

Last person to act.

Cannot defend against the first attack that melee (no parry or dodge)

The character shakes this off after the first melee round.

What this means is that when people see Diana, if they roll an 8 or lower on 1d20 (possibly with bonuses), then they get shocked and horrified.

Step 3.4 Talents

Now we choose the initial Talent and decide if we want to buy more Talents by permanently spending PPE. However, PPE is also spent temporarily to fuel the powers.

Only one of the many talents really stands out and it is an "Elite" Talent, meaning it's only available to Nightbane with the right sort of Morphus traits. In this case an Animal Form.

The talent I'm taking is Lady of the Wild, which lets her control snakes, the creature they have an animal form of.

That said, it does talk briefly about making your own Talents, so I'm going to adapt the Shadow Blast talent.

I'm going to call it "Shadow Arrow".

Creates an arrow made from black energy which can be fired from a bow. The arrow deals 1d6 damage per PPE spent. So a 10 PPE arrow would deal 1d6x10 (10d6) SDC/HP.

Limitations: Requires a bow. Only usable by the Morphus form. The Nightbane can only spend 3 PPE per level of experience. Range per the bow used.

This means that with her short bow, she has somewhat less range (though that will change as she goes up in level and her WP Archery gets better) and she can do somewhat more max damage but not too much. (max 3d6 per level vs max 4d4 per level).

That'll cost 5 permanent PPE to acquire on top of Lady of the Wild.

Step 4 - Equipment and Money

At step four, we determine how much money the character starts with, which we use to buy gear. Nightbane start with 3d6x100 worth of gear and cash. I rolled a 17 for a $1,700.

I'm giving her a short bow ($130) and 48 Arrows ($80). Nothing else stands out as necessary for the purposes of this blog.

Step 5 - Round Out Your Character

This is the point where you add details and check out the experience table you're using. The table for the Nightbane basic RCC is here:

As for rounding out the story.

I'm going to say Diana Park was a normal college student up until Dark Day happened. Like many other people, the advent of Dark Day caused her to have her first Becoming, revealing herself as a nightbane, something which she had no understanding of at all. She fortunately managed to survive the initial, hidden assault of the Lords of Night and has since found herself floating from faction to faction trying to find some sort of stability and common footing. Up until that happened, she was hoping to become a game designer.

And that brings us to the following:

Diana Park - 1st Level Nightbane

IQ: 12

ME: 13

MA: 9

PS: 12/25

PP: 22/28

PE: 12/26

PB: 17/18

Spd: 29/39

Facade HP: 15

Facade SDC: 48

Morphus HP: 60

Morphus SDC: 227

PPE: 167

Morphus Horror Factor: 9

Facade Run Speed: 580 yds(m)/minute

Morphus Run Speed: 780 yds(m)/minute

Talents

Lady of the Wild (Snakes)

Shadow Arrow

Skills

Athletics

Automobile 60%

Automotive Repair 25%

Basic Math 55%

Computer Operation 50%

Computer Programming 30%

Cooking 50%

English 70%

English Literacy 50%

First Aid 45%

Gymnastics: Back Flip 70%

Gymnastics: Basic Climb 25%

Gymnastics: Basic Prowl 30%

Gymnastics: Climb Rope 70%

Gymnastics: Parallel Bars and Rings 60%

Gymnastics: Sense of Balance 50%

Gymnastics

Hand to Hand: Expert

Japanese 50%

Japanese Literacy 30%

Korean 50%

Korean Literacy 30%

Lore - Demons and Monsters 35%

Photography

Running

Wilderness Survival 30%

WP: Archery and Targeting

Facade (human form) Bonuses/Combat

Two hand-to-hand attacks per melee round

Two bow shots per melee round

Carry 120 lbs

Lift 240 lbs

Nightvision 200 ft

Sense Nightbane 300ft

Fist - 1d4

Gymnastic Kick - 2d4

+4 Strike

+5 Parry (+7 with bow)

+5 Dodge

+3 Roll with Punch, Fall, or Impact

+2 to save vs Magic

+1 to save vs Disease

+1 to save vs Horror Factor

35% Charm/Impress

Short Bow Range 340ft/104 meters

Short Bow Damage 1d6

Morphus (true form) Bonuses/Combat - there was no guidance on how the gymnastic kick would change but the game does say that if the Morphus uses a sword then they should add the supernatural melee damage to the sword's damage, so that's what I did with the gymnastic kick.

Three hand-to-hand attacks per melee round

Two bow shots per melee round

Carry 1,250 lbs

Lift 2,500 lbs

Nightvision 500 ft

Sense Nightbane 300ft

Restrained Punch 2d4+10

Full Strength Punch 3d6+10

Power Punch (2 attacks) 6d6+10

Restrained Gymnastic Kick 4d4+10

Full Strength Gymnastic Kick 3d6+2d4+10

Power Gymnastic Kick 6d6+2d4+10

+1 Initiative

+9 Strike

+10 Parry (+11 with bow)

+10 Dodge

+6 Roll with Punch, Fall, or Impact

+10 to save vs Magic

+6 to save vs Poison

+3 to save vs Disease

+3 to save vs Psionics

+3 to save vs Horror Factor

+22% save vs coma/death

40% Charm/Impress

Short Bow Range 340ft/104 meters

Short Bow Damage 1d6

How crazy can a Morphus get?

Three examples of other Nightbane true forms.

First Character - Kylie Stiltson

Basic Appearance - 97 - Bizarre - Unearthly Beauty, Nightbane Characteristics, Animal Form, and Stigmata

Unearthly Beauty - 55 - Physical Perfection - +1 PB, +3 PE, +3 PS, +18 SDC

Nightbane Characteristics - 86 - Two Characteristics (ignore results 81% or higher)

Nightbane Characteristic 1 - 27 - Biomechanical

Biomechanical - 42 - Mechanical Limbs. The body and head are organic, but the legs, pincers and tail are mechanical. +4 PS, +1d4x10 SDC (20), +4d6 speed (17), +1d4 Horror Factor (3)

Nightbane Characteristic 2 - 61 - Unnatural Limbs

Unnatural Limbs - 41 - 2d4 (7) Pairs of Tiny Arms and Hands along shoulders. Physical Strength of 4 each. Deal 1 damage in combat if foe gets close enough or 1d4 if wielding small objects. +1d4 (1) Horror Factor.

Animal Form - 14 - Amphibian (Amphibian options are missing from the game - rerolling)

Animal Form Reroll 1 - 8 - Bear (guess what, this also isn't in the book despite being on the table)

Animal Form Reroll 2 - Arachnid

Arachnid - 10 - Full Arachnid - Giant scorpion, +4 PS, +2 PP, +2 PE, +1d4x10 Speed (10), Leap 20 ft/6.1 m), +3d6x10 SDC (90), +2 Initiative, +1 Perception rolls, +6 Horror Factor. Pincers add +1 attack per melee round, do 3d6 hand to hand damage, Stinger 3d6 damage + poison 4d6 damage / 2d6 on successful save vs poison) - could have been a spider, went with scorpion

Stigmata - 48 - Eternal Wounds - Horrible wounds that never heal. +3d6 SDC (10), +1d4 (3) Horror Factor

Okay, so Kylie goes from normal human woman into a giant scorpion with robot legs, massive bleeding wounds, and a cluster of tiny human arms and hands about its shoulders.

Bonuses from these traits all told:

+1 PB - it's a perfect specimen of giant eternally bleeding cyborg scorpion

+5 PE (Physical Perfection and Full Arachnid)

+11 PS ( Physical Perfection, Mechanical Limbs, and Full Arachnid)

+27 Spd (Mechanical Limbs and Full Arachnid)

+138 SDC (Physical Perfection, Mechanical Limbs, Full Arachnid, and Eternal Wounds)

+13 Horror Factor, which would be 19 save the maximum is 18

Leap 20 ft

+2 Initiative (on top of the +1 all Nightbane in Morphus get)

+1 Perception rolls

+1 attack per melee (on top of the +1 all Nightbane in Morphus get)

Pincers 3d6 hand to hand damage

Stinger 3d6 + 4d6 poison (2d6 on successful save)

Second Character - Sawa Aoki

Basic Appearance - 29 - Inhuman but Beautiful - Unearthly Beauty and Nightbane Characteristics

Unearthly Beauty - 48 - Elfin Features. Slender and delicate features, oversized eyes, vaguely pointed ears. +7 PB (minimum 17). +1d6 inches to height (6)

Nightbane Characteristics - 55 - Alien Creature

Alien Creature - 57 - Unusual Skin Color - Roll or pick one. +1 Horror Factor

So, this morphus is a pretty elfin woman with, let's say silver skin. And she gets the following benefits:

+7 PB

+6 inches height

+1 Horror Factor (7)

Third Character - Lola Callazo

Basic Appearance - Lycanthrope - Animal Form

Animal Form - 37 - Bat

Bat - 66 - Bat Wings - Fly Speed of 30, +1 dodge when flying, +4d6 (17), +2 Horror Factor.

So, Lola basically just grows some bat-wings and that's it. Which gives her:

Fly Speed 30 (600 yd(m)/minute)

+1 dodge when flying

+17 SDC

+2 Horror Factor (8)

I really did not expect to get "Bizarre" on the first sample. So this group has:

a gorgon

a silver-skinned elf

a bat-winged woman

and a giant cyborg, eternally bleeding scorpion with tiny human arms and hands along its shoulders which is perfectly proportioned

And all four are the same species.

[thryth-gaming]

The Abandoned and Fiction

So, now that Mystic Marginalia is available for backers of Hunter's Journal and Slayer's Survival Kit, I'm going to go ahead and make a list of some fictional characters that fit the Abandoned playbook, organizing it by type of Abandonment

Sole Survivor

The sole survivor is a character who was the only person to survive in the wake of a monster attack or other incident, usually supernatural in some way for this game.

Rebecca "Newt" Jordan is the main example of this type of abandonment as she is the only person to still be both alive and uninfected by the time the marines arrive to investigate why the colony stopped communicating with people. Mostly at Night and Get away from them are directly inspired by her.

Sasuke Uchiha similarly makes the fact he survived the slaughter of the Uchiha clan the major focus of his personality for pretty much the entire series. You could definitely say that he has the trust issues movies and frequently makes decisions that result in a worse life for him overall so that he can pursue his obsession of facing his brother.

Urchin

Hanna from the isometric stealth game Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream is a child of unknown parents who has grown up as a thief on the streets with her brother. She was at one point part of a small band of other orphans organized by a woman named Alva who seems to have been a doctor at some point. Small, skilled with a blowgun, and clever, she knows all the ins and outs of her city.

As a note, the blowgun might have been included as a weapon option if I had played this game before writing the playbook so:

Blowgun (0-harm close quiet reload sleep)

From an 80s TV show about a homeless kid and her dog who are squatting in an unused room in a rental property. She gets discovered by the building owner who decides to become her legal guardian. Punky is a friendly, free-spirit who keeps a happy face to fight against the struggles she's had as a homeless orphan. Note, there was later a spin off starring the same actor as an adult in which Punky adopted a child herself. The Glass is Half-Full isn't a line I remember her using, but the move is inspired by characters like Punky.

Lost in the System

One of several kids in a group home for orphaned girls, Annie keeps up a bright-eyed friendly and tough persona as a way to protect the other girls in her house while their foster parent forces them to do endless work and collects the money for taking care of them. There's always tomorrow is directly inspired by a song from the musical production of this story.

While we generally only ever hear about that part of Jesse's life second hand from off-hand dialogue or files she finds in the course of the game, a younger version of her definitely matches the Lost in the System style of Abandonment. (she also honestly could fit Stolen Away and Sole Survivor as well) From the point her hometown was destroyed on until she was no longer a minor, Jesse bounced between mental institutions and foster homes.

Exploited Heir

Yagami Hayate was introduced as a pleasant young girl in a wheelchair being cared for by a group of four people. It would eventually come out that Hayate was being manipulated and used for her vast magical powers in order to fuel a corrupted magic book. While the four people taking care of her were genuine, they were also magical constructs, free-willed by subject to dispersal in a way that the villain used to bring Hayate to despair and trigger her magic to go into overdrive. Likewise, he exploited her youthful poor health (which was due to being linked to the book...note the adult version is standing) to manipulate the magic beings into committing various crimes to prepare the ultimate plan. Somewhere out there wasn't directly inspired by her, but her desire for connection is certainly used against her in keeping with that move.

Any one of the Baudelaire Orphans from a Series of Unfortunate Events also fits this trope very well. As their parents seem to have been murdered by Count Orloff who has now weaseled his way into being their guardian in order to get his hands on the vast Baudelaire fortune. They also end up very good at spotting when something is off about one of their foster parents.

Neglected

A brilliant young girl whose parents barely seemed to acknowledge that she existed, Matilda is the poster case for this Abandonment. Even before she developed telekinetic powers, Matilda was taking care of herself and learning how to do all the adult things a young child should never have to worry about.

Two pictures because the line is said while her back is turned. Mira is definitely an example of someone who inspired this style Abandonment. So much so that one of her lines is used as the characteristic quote for the whole playbook. Honestly, the whole KPDH group feels like they grab from the Abandoned move set.

Stolen Away

Peter Pan is the main inspiration for this style of Abandonment. Carried away by fairies as a child, Peter dwelled in an island where magic was the norm and he never aged. Mercurial and uncomprehending of human culture, Peter eventually chooses Neverland over returning to the world. Come and Get Me was directly inspired by cases with Peter Pan fighting Captain Hook by luring him out into places where his flight gave him clear advantage and even the environment was dangerous for hook.

Peter Quill, aka Star Lord, was taken away by space pirates rather than fairies, but he nevertheless hits a lot of the same notes as Peter Pan. Raised outside of what Earth humans in the United States consider normal society, he is a chaotic and impulsive trickster of an adventurer that was definitely Stolen Away.

Castaway

Chuck Noland, Tom Hanks character in Castaway, had the misfortune to be on a plane when it crashed over the ocean. He made it to an uninhabited island and struggled to learn how to survive for almost five years before managing to create a raft and setting out onto the ocean to try and make it back home. He is the direct inspiration for this style of Abandonment.

I have not seen the show, but practically any of the characters from the Yellowjackets could fit the idea of someone that found themselves stranded in the wilderness far from any help. In this case you can also add in the Lord of Flies style escapades that apparently occur over the course of the show. The adult versions of the girls are all definitely marked by it for the rest of their lives.

[thryth-gaming]

[thryth-gaming]

The Abandoned and Fiction

So, now that Mystic Marginalia is available for backers of Hunter's Journal and Slayer's Survival Kit, I'm going to go ahead and make a list of some fictional characters that fit the Abandoned playbook, organizing it by type of Abandonment

Sole Survivor

The sole survivor is a character who was the only person to survive in the wake of a monster attack or other incident, usually supernatural in some way for this game.

Rebecca "Newt" Jordan is the main example of this type of abandonment as she is the only person to still be both alive and uninfected by the time the marines arrive to investigate why the colony stopped communicating with people. Mostly at Night and Get away from them are directly inspired by her.

Sasuke Uchiha similarly makes the fact he survived the slaughter of the Uchiha clan the major focus of his personality for pretty much the entire series. You could definitely say that he has the trust issues movies and frequently makes decisions that result in a worse life for him overall so that he can pursue his obsession of facing his brother.

Urchin

The urchin is an Abandoned who has grown up on the streets with no one or next to no one to take care of them. They are often outwardly cheerful, but may instead present a tough exterior.

Hanna from the isometric stealth game Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream is a child of unknown parents who has grown up as a thief on the streets with her brother. She was at one point part of a small band of other orphans organized by a woman named Alva who seems to have been a doctor at some point. Small, skilled with a blowgun, and clever, she knows all the ins and outs of her city.

As a note, the blowgun might have been included as a weapon option if I had played this game before writing the playbook so:

Blowgun (0-harm close quiet reload sleep)

From an 80s TV show about a homeless kid and her dog who are squatting in an unused room in a rental property. She gets discovered by the building owner who decides to become her legal guardian. Punky is a friendly, free-spirit who keeps a happy face to fight against the struggles she's had as a homeless orphan. Note, there was later a spin off starring the same actor as an adult in which Punky adopted a child herself. The Glass is Half-Full isn't a line I remember her using, but the move is inspired by characters like Punky.

Lost in the System

An Abandoned who has been "Lost in the System" is one who is ostensibly being taken care of by a system in place. For children this is often orphanages, juvenile corrections, and foster care, while for adults it could be things like mental institutions or perhaps prisons. Regardless, the system that claims to be there to protect them has caused them nothing but trouble and harm.

One of several kids in a group home for orphaned girls, Annie keeps up a bright-eyed friendly and tough persona as a way to protect the other girls in her house while their foster parent forces them to do endless work and collects the money for taking care of them. There's always tomorrow is directly inspired by a song from the musical production of this story.

While we generally only ever hear about that part of Jesse's life second hand from off-hand dialogue or files she finds in the course of the game, a younger version of her definitely matches the Lost in the System style of Abandonment. (she also honestly could fit Stolen Away and Sole Survivor as well) From the point her hometown was destroyed on until she was no longer a minor, Jesse bounced between mental institutions and foster homes.

Exploited Heir

An exploited heir is someone who has inherited something of great value. This could be power, a bloodline, titles, or the classic heaps of money. They have a legal guardian who has ill-intentions towards them, planning to manipulate and use them for the guardian's own purposes.

Yagami Hayate was introduced as a pleasant young girl in a wheelchair being cared for by a group of four people. It would eventually come out that Hayate was being manipulated and used for her vast magical powers in order to fuel a corrupted magic book. While the four people taking care of her were genuine, they were also magical constructs, free-willed by subject to dispersal in a way that the villain used to bring Hayate to despair and trigger her magic to go into overdrive. Likewise, he exploited her youthful poor health (which was due to being linked to the book...note the adult version is standing) to manipulate the magic beings into committing various crimes to prepare the ultimate plan. Somewhere out there wasn't directly inspired by her, but her desire for connection is certainly used against her in keeping with that move.

Any one of the Baudelaire Orphans from a Series of Unfortunate Events also fits this trope very well. As their parents seem to have been murdered by Count Orloff who has now weaseled his way into being their guardian in order to get his hands on the vast Baudelaire fortune. They also end up very good at spotting when something is off about one of their foster parents.

Neglected

The Neglected Abandoned has a family. Or at least they live in close proximity to people that most would assume is their family, usually because of a blood relationship, but who don't act like their family at all. They've had to take care of themselves because the people that are supposed to be there for them either don't care or just are always distracted by other things.

A brilliant young girl whose parents barely seemed to acknowledge that she existed, Matilda is the poster case for this Abandonment. Even before she developed telekinetic powers, Matilda was taking care of herself and learning how to do all the adult things a young child should never have to worry about.

Two pictures because the line is said while her back is turned. Mira is definitely an example of someone who inspired this style Abandonment. So much so that one of her lines is used as the characteristic quote for the whole playbook. Honestly, the whole KPDH group feels like they grab from the Abandoned move set.

Stolen Away

When the Abandoned was Stolen Away, they were taken from the family and home they were meant to have and brought into world full of wonder and danger. They have grown up in ways that may be seen as feral or even alien and have difficulty fitting in "normal" people.

Peter Pan is the main inspiration for this style of Abandonment. Carried away by fairies as a child, Peter dwelled in an island where magic was the norm and he never aged. Mercurial and uncomprehending of human culture, Peter eventually chooses Neverland over returning to the world. Come and Get Me was directly inspired by cases with Peter Pan fighting Captain Hook by luring him out into places where his flight gave him clear advantage and even the environment was dangerous for hook.

Peter Quill, aka Star Lord, was taken away by space pirates rather than fairies, but he nevertheless hits a lot of the same notes as Peter Pan. Raised outside of what Earth humans in the United States consider normal society, he is a chaotic and impulsive trickster of an adventurer that was definitely Stolen Away.

Castaway

The Castaway is an Abandoned who found themselves stranded far away from other people. This is usually due to an accident or natural disaster. They have had to survive in the wild against dangerous hazards or even monsters.

Chuck Noland, Tom Hanks character in Castaway, had the misfortune to be on a plane when it crashed over the ocean. He made it to an uninhabited island and struggled to learn how to survive for almost five years before managing to create a raft and setting out onto the ocean to try and make it back home. He is the direct inspiration for this style of Abandonment.

I have not seen the show, but practically any of the characters from the Yellowjackets could fit the idea of someone that found themselves stranded in the wilderness far from any help. In this case you can also add in the Lord of Flies style escapades that apparently occur over the course of the show. The adult versions of the girls are all definitely marked by it for the rest of their lives.

[thryth-gaming]

Silly Thing Group Built Hunter Group

Made this with polls as part of a silly thing in my work-team to do on breaks. My team members voted on things and I broke ties where I needed to. There were a lot of tries, so I tried to split options up so that everybody had at least one thing they voted for.

EDIT: For context "Silly Things" is the name of our team chat channel where I post something non-work related each morning to just start conversations about.

As a note, this group was determined to mostly be going against ghosts and spirits. So the low toughs might be part of that. I like that the ancient Egyptian hero can sense emotions so like can tell if an object or room is possessed because they feel emotions that shouldn't be in an inanimate object. And the Host possessed by a Valkyrie gets tactical advice from their passenger as well as has blood that is a rare ritual component and can sense magic. Then of course there's the djinn whose magic is dangerous and may cause harm whether they mean to or not and the Flake who is weirdly precognitive in some ways, as well as being able to detect lies.

Also.. person sort-of possessed by valkyrie... walking around with a magnum.

The Flake

Charm +0

Cool +1

Sharp +2

Tough -1

Weird +1

Moves

Suspicious Mind

Sneaky

Connect the Dots

Basic Weird Move: Trust Your Gut

Gear

Big Knife (1-harm hand)

Hold Out Pistol (2-harm close loud reload)

Watchman's Flashlight (1-harm hand innocuous)

The Host

Charm -1

Cool +2

Sharp +1

Tough +1

Weird +0

Symbiosis - Valkyrie Spirit

Benefit: Non-Physical Symbiote

Benefit: Can't Be Possessed

Downside: Magical Aura

Moves

Defensive Adaptation: Whispered Advice

Balanced Neurochemsitry

Open Your Mind

Basic Weird Move: Sensitive

Gear

Magnum (3-harm hand close reload loud)

Tattered Novels

The Exile

Charm +2

Cool +0

Sharp -1

Tough +1

Weird +2

Moves

Immortal Name

Confused

Basic Weird Move: Empath

Gear

Egyptian Armour 1pt (2 with Shield)

Martial Arts (1-Harm Hand)

Sword (2-harm Hand)

Shield (1-harm hand +1-armour

Originally from mythical Egypt, was trapped in a spell for centuries

The Monstrous

Charm -1

Cool +1

Sharp +1

Tough +0

Weird +3

Breed: Djinn

Curse: Inimical (powers twist reality in unintended ways)

Natural Attack: Life-Drain (1-Harm Intimate Ignore Armor)

Moves

Unnatural Appeal

Flight

Basic Weird Move: Use Magic

Gear

Brass Knuckes (1-harm hand quiet small)

[thryth-gaming]

Blue Bottle Bonanza

So, painting bottles blue is not exactly a replacement for having blue bottles.

Broken glass and paint splatter everywhere.

No way to tell if the monster/curse did it or Nora's magical backlash.

[thryth-gaming]

Monster of the Week Links

Monster of the Week stuff

General

Media Recommendations

Codex of Worlds and Team Playbooks

Huntober Stuffs

Huntober 2024 (31 links to mystery drafts on google drive)

Huntober 2024 Extras (14 links to other blog posts not listed here)

Huntober 2025 - Adapting Pop Culture to MotW

Narrative Advice and Character Builds

Escalating Curses

The Chosen and The Forged

Immortal Characters

Can you do the thing? - Hacking in MotW

Weapons in the Narrative

What is 1 Harm?

Variations on a Theme

Same Breed, Different Hunters: Vampires

Agents of Unknown Powers (The Envoy)

Non-Romantic Pararomantics

General World-Building Stuff, May or may not include gaming stuff

Ghost Hunting and Horror RPGs

The Supernatural in Flirting with Death

Final Girl and Monster of the Week

Character Concept: Prophecy (Monstrous > Summoned)

Character Dynamics (an examination of a fiction I'm planning)

Just Character and Team Builds

Ryoko Saotome for MotW

Sa for MotW

Hunter Team based on Spotify listening stats

*Willow Weaver Monster of the Week*

Theoretical Monster of the Week Teams

Exercise in a "Broken" Build - Penny Varela

Harmony

Prophecy Day to Day

Time Loops

That Long Old Lonely Road - Character Thoughts

Regan Garnier and Hero Forge mini

Fandom Character and Team Builds

Katalepsis Reframed as MotW series

Late Start Kasumi Tendo MotW build

The Flexibility of Team Playbooks

How to be a Werewolf - Starting four characters

Choosing and Blending Playbooks - K-Pop Demon Hunter of the Week

Benevolence, MotW and K-Pop

Canton Crew MotW Playtest

Canton Crew moves

Canton Crew Timeline

[thryth-gaming]

did some mild re-organization to put the blogs which are various examples of the same core theme into a category of their own.

[thryth-forge]

New Design

Been a while since I posted here.

Regan Garnier, 19, Hispanic, born to wealth, parents died young and she lived in brutal accomodations while her cousin used her inheritance. At 18 they tried to sacrifice her to some eldritch force and it was only interrupted when she desperately interrupted the summoning by calling out to a different entity: Bloody Mary.

She knows how to research and identify local spirits that she can summon for aid and remains terrified of that first summon which has seemingly laid a claim on her.

The Abandoned

Charm -1

Cool +2

Sharp +1

Tough +0

Weird +1

Basic Weird Move: Summoner

Basic Summoning Knowledge - must research the local spirits to find one to summon

Bloody Mary - relatively easy, available everywhere, but is a Monster instead of an Ally making her extremely dangerous to summon.

Abandonment: Exploited Heir - something terrible happened to her parents when she was young and she was "raised" by her cousin, a member and maybe leader of a cult that used her for her money and tried to sacrifice her.

Moves: Mostly at Night, Trust Issues, Unquenchable Vitality

Gear: Switchblade, workclothes, Packard 734 Speedster, summoning notes, various accouterments.

[thryth-gaming]

The game is set in 1938, btw.

[thryth-gaming]

Magic!

Regan (Abandoned): I need to summon this ghost of a railway conductor who died while being attacked by wild animals seventy years ago while blowing a whistle for help. So, I should have two candles because he's a ghost, a bell because he was a conductor, and seven whistles because of the crisis annnd here we .... I forgot about the wolves ... shit shit shit shit... ow! ow! ow! ow!

Nora (Spooktacular): I need a salmon. Yes. A salmon. It's associated with the search for truth. I don't know if I need it alive. I'll figure out how to use it. No, it's not in an established spell, I just think it is something I really really need to have on hand to divine for information. I'll figure something out, don't worry about it. Magic's easy. Give me a few minutes, witch hazel, and a salmon and I can bring you wonders.

[thryth-gaming]

Different approaches to magic

Abandoned: Magic is a terrifying power that has saved my life several times.

*brings out all the PPE, plans out rituals as much as possible, researches intensely, still expects things to go wrong*

Spooktacular: Magic is wonderful and amazing.

*throws everything at the wall with cheerful abandon. and everything goes off without a hitch*

Gumshoe: Hey, do you need this?

*grabs random thing that might possibly be useful in a ritual*

[thryth-gaming]

Big Magic - Desperate Measures Arc 18-19

Okay, it's been a bit since I got a bit further on this story. I let myself be consumed by K-Pop Demon Hunter, Jentry Chau vs the Underworld, Wenclair, Supercorp, and several RPG projects....

...and also the crushing horror of late-stage capitalism.

Some of these things are a much more enjoyable variety of consumed than the other.

Note, I did not really realize the phrasing of that when I typed it, but eh, I'll leave it. Feels in character to Katalepsis.

Anyway.

So, these two arcs are all about Big Magic. The crew has done Big Magic in the past, including some pretty high scale stuff. But these two events here, the siege spell and the dream-walk, are both so much bigger scale than what they've done in the past. As a note, I'd previously given them the team move of Bell, Book, and Candle from the Coven team playbook. That move specifically says that every participating member of the Coven counts for three people. It basically serves as a way to justify why they're able to do much bigger rituals and effects than would be normal for a group of their size.

In the story it's because they're more ambitious and experiencing pressure to take big risks. So they're doing stuff other mages find insane because:

they trust each other

they're willing to take the risks for each other

("The Real Friendship is Magick!" - My Little Horses)

Anyway. Big Magic is what the game calls any sort of magic that requires setting up a full on ritual. Normal Use Magic can sometimes require ritual elements, but Big Magick cannot compromise on it. It takes effort, preparation, and time. Back when we were working on what was then Hunter's Journal and would eventually be split into Hunter's Journal and Slayer's Survival Kit, one of the articles I wrote was about player directed Big Magic. The title of that article, on page 208 of Slayer's Survival Kit, was "Desperate Measures: Using Big Magic".

In that I broke down the sort of scales for Big Magic into:

Tactical

Climatic

Cosmic

Tactical Big Magic is when the team wants to use magick to solve an obstacle that is in the way of solving the case on its own but requires something that is beyond the scope of Use Magic. Like, for instance, if they want an effect that will last longer than 30 minutes, affecting large groups of people, large areas, or affecting a long distance.

Climatic Big Magic is for cases when the ritual is meant to solve the core problem of the current mystery: the main Monster or Phenomenon.

Cosmic Magic is what happens when the characters are looking to make a substantial and permanent change to the world of the game as a whole. This could be something like creating a permanent bridge to an extradimensional space, creating an extradimensional space, creating a substantially strong blessing or curse on a region, things like that.

Both the Trebuchet and the Dreamwalk probably fall in the narrative overlap between climatic and cosmic. (And yes there's overlap, narrative categories are not clean-cut things). But what really stands out is that these are both hunter-initiated rituals.

To some degree, yes, they are reacting to the actions of Edward Lilburne and The Eye, but they have well and truly taken the initiative here and begun to drive the action themselves. They are actively shaping the strategic environment, forcing Edward to react and trying to avoid letting The Eye get a chance to react.

Now there is a comment in Monster of the Week called "The Countdown" which is a key element of prepping for a mystery. It is a list of events starting with the first major event which the hunters have a chance to witness or even stop and leading up to the point at which the danger reaches its logical, terrible conclusion.

The Countdown is:

Day

Shadows

Sunset

Dusk

Nightfall

Midnight

Midnight is where everything goes wrong and while I am often tempted to make Day the inciting incident, that's supposed to occur before the countdown. As said, the Countdown is a list of actions the hunters can and presumably will try to stop. It includes the actions of the Monster/Villain/Phenomenon/Haunt behind the mystery, its Minions, actions taken by Bystanders, and Location specific events as well.

These are basically the main flashpoints of the event if the hunters never got involved. By and large, as a Keeper, I've found your hunters will probably send the entire thing off the rails pretty early on. This is by design, and the Countdown mostly serves as quick guideline for the major motivations and players in the mystery.

Would the small town sheriff go painfully gung-ho and make things worse?" Sounds like something to put on the countdown.

Would that school teacher try to help by sneaking into the city hall to see what the cult is up to? Yup, Countdown.

Is the long dormant volcano going to erupt soon? Put it on the countdown. The players are unlikely to stop it, but that event is going to affect the story.

Will the vampire try to turn one of the bystanders? On the countdown.

Will the pack of werewolves serving the pack leader decide to raid the local tavern? Put it on the countdown.

The reason I diverted over to this is because part of my advice for major hunter-initiated big magick is for the hunters to make a list of the six most points in the ritual that are most likely to go wrong. This is not necessarily the literal parts of the ritual but everything leading up to it as well.

Recruiting help

Acquiring resources and materials

Securing the location

Researching things

All of those are examples of what I'm talking about.

So... basically, I ask the hunters to create a Countdown for themselves and just like they will try to upset the Monster countdowns, the narrative going to get in the way of the ritual Countdown.

Another note is that the biggest big magic events will be a string of separate mysteries rather than separate events within a mystery.

In this case:

Collecting help is threatened by Aym's whole deal.

Researching the spell is threatened by Felicity's and Evelyn's animosity.

As an example of a string of mysteries representing a massive ritual... in my first series, the hunters realized the evil cult was using places of tragedy to destabilize reality so that an eldritch horror could consume the universe... with the assumption that they'd rule some of the fragments. (yeeeeah) At one point the hunters decided that instead of chasing the cultists around to stop their rituals, they were instead going to complete their own rituals at sites of long-held celebrations.

This culminated in eight mysteries as they performed missions to Kyoto, Jerusalem, Mexico City, and Louisville. In each case, the first was to recruit local mystics and find a good location. This involved dealing with some local semi-unrelated dangers as part of finding the site and recruiting helpers... then another mystery for the actual ceremony... and all four of these ceremonies were part of the process to defeat the main threat.

Likewise, in a recent series, the players had to:

Discover the witch's secret (she was hiding from death by ghosting through the network of possessing demons, hijacking demon-hosts and passing as just another demon)

Go to an underworld to make a deal with a death god (they settled on Hades)

Interrupt her own ritual.

Prepare a spell that would make her visible to the death gods.

Lure her out into the open.

Trap her in a single, specific body.

Call Hades to deal with her.

Hold her down metaphorically and metaphysically speaking long enough for Hades to show up while she's trying to kill them.

The upshot of this is that even with casting the Trebuchet ritual being a full mystery on its own while researching it was a separate mystery with its own dangers. Those are still individual fragments of a larger plan or ritual aimed at getting Heather equipped to handle Maisie's rescue.

Now, I'm getting a bit tired, so I'll come in later and edit in some updated characters because boy howdy do I think some updates are warranted here.

Character updates

All right, so there's a lot of danger and development here. As usual, the 1st person perspective means that we have the clearest idea of what's going on with Heather and everybody else we're getting second hand information on what's going in their situations.

And I'm going to go ahead and give everyone three advancements and we're going to see me circling around to some playbooks that players used to have and take some chances to trim some things that no longer have lost much of their narrative impact.

Heather

Let's start with Heather as usual. Now, I've been watching her develop and expecting her to shift into The Divine the way she was going... but instead she went in a very different direction: The Host.

This is one of the playbooks I wrote when Evil Hat requested that we give them more sci-fi oriented character options. As designed it is built to handle cases like Jadiza Dax, Venom, Ghost rider, Birdy the Mighty, and other such things where you have two entities sharing the same body.

So one of her updates is going to be "Erase one used Luck point" which is one of the advancements I've often been avoiding because it's hard to see in the narrative... but honestly, she feels significantly less doomed by the end of Arc 19. The second is going to be "Change Playbooks" to The Host so now we have to look at what elements of her are staying and what we're discarding.

Honestly, it's more about what's being dropped than what's being kept.

The Sight, Third-Eye, They are My People, Strange Paths, and Dark Negotiator all still feel appropriate.

I think Burn Everything is going to get dropped because she's stopped brain-mathing people to death and has instead started going death-squid with physical attacks.

Force of Nature is no longer appropriate because summoning her tentacles is no longer an effort and I'll do with that later... in the Gear section oddly enough.

I'm going to drop Glamour and Unknown Heritage. Yes, her powers still make her ill and disoriented at times, but with this revelation at the end of Arc 19, these have dwindled in narrative significance. She talks about her tentacles constantly and revealing them has become less of the shock value implied by the Glamour move. Also, her issues with pain and sensory overload are now down to the point that they can be handled by the basic methods of handling consequences. In other words, she's matured past her changeling stage. She still has questions about her identity and place in the world, but not to the same extent.

Now, Inhuman Talent I wasn't certain about, but I think I am going to go ahead and drop it under the assumption that these capabilities are being folded into the benefits of her new playbook.

I'm also dropping Zone of Strangeness. Rereading it removes the necessity for Act Under Pressure entirely for some situations and I don't think that's what's going on. There is another Searcher move I think will fit her better, but I'll get to that with the third advance. Honestly, I should probably have used that one from the original.

I'm also keeping all the Advanced moves (Use Magic, Act Under Pressure, and Manipulate Someone) because we're getting near the end of the story here. But, I'm going to consider her to have already used one of those options. (Use Magic came from a Changeling specific advance).

Now, on to what we're getting from the Host and we'll start with her symbiosis with two benefits and one downside.

Aligned Motivations is a given. For my second, I'm tempted by:

Unaging - there seems to be implications of this but unconfirmed

Can't be possessed - this is debatable as there are some cases that feel like she does experience some versions of possession at times.

Subtle Physical Improvements - there's nothing subtle about them, but the fact that the tentacles are sometimes invisible might count.

Non-Physical Symbiote - feels tempting, the story positions the tentacles as the other/self and making the tentacles as non-physical would be sort of a way to place the refraction into the soul completely rather than dependent on physical body. Also, the tentacles and biorector having a very physical presence feel like it dismisses this option.

Efficient Metabolism - Honestly, this feels like it could be the best option with the bioreactor being more efficient as the story progresses. This also covers the many-hands-make light work spreading of neural burden going on.

Yeah, so Aligned Motivations and Efficient Metabolism are the two benefits here.

Now, the downside. If I'd had inkling of this prior to Arc 19, I'd have said Limited Communication was a windmill slam, but that's not the case anymore. So the two things I'm looking at are:

Biological Needs - lemons, raw fish, soy sauce, pineapple slices, etc

Magical Aura - when magical people first meet Heather they are... concerned ... to put it politely.

Obvious Mutations - The tentacles among other things. I actually almost overlooked this one because of the ability to hide the tentacles.

Honestly, I think Obvious Mutations can fold together both the biological needs (especially since they're food cravings that don't involve exotic materials) and the reaction people have to her. So I'm going with that.

Now on to moves, we get three, one of which is mandatory. And I've narrowed down the other two choices to a collection of four (I left out the options I'm not considering).

For Defensive Adaptation, I'm just leaping to Whispered Advice which means she gets something on any Read a Bad Situation attempt, even if she rolls badly. Which means in such cases she'll be getting one, two, or four Holds on such rolls. And with Third Eye she's got even more use out of Read. (and honestly, there's some Abandoned and possibly Interface moves I might want her to consider borrowing... though she'd only get one because one of her borrowed moves is definitely a Searcher one)

Now the other two options.

I'm leaning heavily toward Open Your Mind because Heather does a lot of looking past the obvious and looking for chances to turn anything into an Atonement mystery where she can find a non-violent solution to any problem.

Collaborative Effort is descriptive of her working with her tentacles, but by the same token, Heather's take on teamwork is more "I'll take care of this task and you take care of that task" rather than sharing a task with someone. A valid take, but it doesn't really fit with the Help Out roll in the game.

Mutual Survival means that while she's already unstable (ie bleeding out) she'll heal faster and take less damage from surrounding dangers. She definitely does survive and hang on with a lot of danger.

And boy, thinking of this means I've thought of another move she could borrow... this brings me to a total of four potential moves that make sense for her to borrow... given she's only able to borrow two, that'll be interesting.

Finally, Balanced Neurochemistry means she has resistance to mind control and emotional manipulation and also her blood makes for good ritual ingredients. The last hasn't appeared in the story, but the first has.

Honestly, since the playbook allows for picking up two more Playbook moves, she'll end up with all four of these, so this is a question of which two she's starting with. And I think I'm going with Open Your Mind and Balanced Neurochemistry

Now, a thing I haven't done much in the past ... I'm going to actually talk about gear.

Two of the gear options for the Host are integrated items, meaning they're part of the person. One of these is symbiotic blade and the other is symbiotic stunner. Neither of these is exactly descriptive of the tentacles so we're going to make a similar variation on that:

Tentacles - 2-harm Hand/Intimate Useful Integrated Retractable

I'm using "Retractable" to account for her ability to hide them.

Now for her third advance, I'm borrowing a move and boy do I have a list:

The weakest of these is Take the Shot, it is something Heather does... blow her entire tactical wad on a single shot. However, I don't think it has as strong an argument for being a core part of as compared to the other three.

The other three are all just so good for her. I'm going to go ahead and go with The Glass is Half-Full for now because Heather interrogating her surroundings for resources is a big part of these later arcs.

Which does mean I get stuck between Underdog and Just Another Day later on.

But anyway, that covers Heather.

Raine

Okay part of me wants to rotate Raine back to Hard Case and part of me wants to put her into the Crooked. The Crooked doesn't really fit because she doesn't really have the "Heat" issue. No old nemesis tracking her down and her back history as a recurring issue. Then again, while she's still a bad-ass the story isn't lingering as often on her combat skills. It assumes they're real and solid, but it's not central character focus.

Likewise, the issues that came up that had me mark her as the Monstrous also feel resolved. I could take the advancement of escaping the curse, but over all Monstrous just doesn't feel it covers her anymore.

Weirdly... she feels a bit like the Professional and the "agency" she's working for is basically the Coven. She's returned to her position as the central supporting pillar of the family, identifying what people need and supporting them appropriately. She's very much leaned into the role of the person who is subtly helping out everybody around her.

This is going to be a case where I shuffle around her ratings as well as adjust her moves.

So let's start with ratings, I'm going to shuffle the lines around a bit, still going with +2, +1x2, +0, and -1.

Charm +1

Cool +2

Sharp +0

Tough +1

Weird -1

Then on to her agency, I need to pick two "Resources" and two "Red Tape" items. You can see this when I first wrote up Nicole Webb back in Arc 7. However, now we're going to grab some of the new options. I'm going with the following Resources and Red Tape to describe the "Agency"

Resources: Like Family, Strong Allies

Red Tape: Otherworldly Meddling, Cryptic Missions

I briefly considered "Under Siege" but that feels like it's going to be resolved soon, so leaving it off in favor of Otherworldly Meddling (for obvious reasons) and Cryptic Missions because while they have clear ideas on what they want to accomplish, they're all operating a bit in the dark on what it takes to get there.

Like Family was a given but for the second I juggled around with Strong Allies (true), Non-Human Integration (true), and Occult Diplomacy (true). I chose Strong Allies because ultimately this is a resource, something that is primarily a benefit even if it does produce a problem now and again.

Now, this is an unusual interpretation of the "Agency" I'm using the concept of the Agency to describe the various problems that face the team and also how Raine often finds herself interacting with both the other hunters and their allies and associated bystanders. On this point when Raine rolls "Deal with the Agency" and has a low roll, it's going to not going to because she has angry superiors but because circumstances are presenting problems.

As a note... there's a third-party playbook called the Freelancer which is basically The Professional minus an agency, and I almost used that instead of Professional, but as I worked with it, I realized the advancement options didn't really go anywhere that fit Raine's situation. So I went back to Professional.

Anyway, onto moves.

I'm keeping: Furnace, the Hard Case improved Health, Partner, Tactical Advice, Preternatural Speed, and the haven she picked up from Monstrous. The Curse and Natural Weapon both feel like they can stay too. She's still focused on her protector role and she's still capable of massive damage when she wants to apply it.

Everything else is getting dropped, some of it was there to compensate for the mess her ratings were in while she was a Monstrous, so they don't serve a purpose anymore.

For Professional moves I'm taking the following:

I almost went for Bottle it Up and it would have been really fitting before Heather and her had the talk about burying her identity, but now it feels that's something she's already gotten past.

That covers one advancement: Change playbooks. For the other two advancements I'm improving her Cool and Tough each by 1.

Evee

For Evee's first two advancements I'm giving her two more Advanced moves and a +1 Sharp. The Advanced moves she's getting are Investigate a Mystery and Act Under Pressure.

I am going to move Evee out of Pararomantic. This is entirely because her and Praem's relationship has definitely stabilized and is no longer the sort of doomed relationship that playbook revolves around. I also considered bringing her back full-circle to Expert. tion is to help Heather rather than for the knowledge's own sake. But I had two other thoughts.

The first was The Searcher. It's sort of like The Expert but instead of using previously acquired knowledge, the Searcher is actively seeking out new knowledge. The second is the Abandoned and I first thought that "it doesn't fit because she's no longer abandoned and she knows it" but I actually think it does fit because her experience with being abandoned is now coming out firmly in just how strongly she is determined to support her found family. It's sort of like she now has the safety and space to place those issues front and center and deal with them.

I'm going to drop Bonding Time because that's primary use was to maintain the relationship. Since the relationship has stabilized and is no longer at risk of falling apart anymore than a regular mother/daughter relationship, this move no longer serves a purpose.

I'm dropping Dark Past not because she no longer has a dark past but because it doesn't feel like we're going to see new threats and dangers come out of that. It's a fact of the character that's no longer center stage.

Pretty much everything else is being kept.

So on to choosing her Abandonment and moves. The first is easy. She's clearly the exploited heir.

And for her two Abandoned moves I'm choosing the following:

And yes, this does mean that Evelyn has a lot more question options when she Investigates a mystery. For a fun thing, when you use the "Flexible Investigations" options she gets to ask one of these questions just for free.

Praem

So, the Protector playbook suffers from something a lot of third-party playbooks have: the level up advancements lack a bit of depth. The idea of being a protector is still pretty core to her, but the playbook isn't giving her much room to advance. Oddly enough the playbook that mostly easily carries on the theme of trying to protect people is the Wronged... which is the playbook the Protector is thematically trying to avoid being and Praem certainly hasn't lost loved ones in the way the Wronged assumes happened. But there's still a lot of protection oriented moves in that playbook so there you go.

I briefly considered the Divine, but its moves don't all mesh with what Praem is doing in the narrative even if she is an eldritch creature with a mission.

I'm going to drop I Can't Lose You and You'll Have to Go Through Me and also Got Your Back. Got Your Back I'm dropping because I'm picking up a similar move from the Wronged. You'll Have to Go Through Me generates experience for acting to protect people and just doesn't seem necessary. I'm mostly dropping I Can't Lose You because it forces you to spend Luck to protect people... and I just don't see why it would be necessary to force that for someone who is just already doing it.

The Wronged gets a Mandatory move of I Know Your Prey where the prey is "Mages". Then she gets a selection of two other moves from the Wronged selection. And I'm going with these:

NEVER AGAIN is the move I'm replacing Got Your Back with and I'm giving her Fervor as a way to improve her ability to deal with people... especially since her method of argument is very tough love at times.

And so that's one advancement and for her next two I'm going to give her +1 Sharp and another move from Wronged:

And that covers Praem.

Zheng

Zheng's pretty simple. I feel like she's still the Exile so she's staying there for now. For her three advancements, I'm giving her +1 Weird and +1 Sharp, then giving her another Exile move.

I'm not exactly sure the knowledge of Zheng's name really fits but honestly, this thing of "Zheng's scary y'all" really does fit her character... so yeah, I'm willing to put it in as "close enough."

Seven-Shades-of-Serial-Development

Sevens is another character who has stayed pretty much on course as the Envoy for these arcs. So for her advancements I'm giving her +1 Cool, Advanced Help Out and Use Magic, and then giving her a secondary task as a Watcher so she can use her Secret Wisdom Holds in two ways. Her main task was Guide.

This is pretty simple and direct and wraps up Sevens pretty well.

Twil

Twil isn't exactly coming full circle but she is going back to an older playbook I once gave her, namely: Initiate. Her interactions and position as go-between between her family and the 12 Barnslow Drive Coven has definitely been ramped up in these latter arcs.

I'm going to say she's getting Advanced No Limits and Protect Someone for her first advancement.

I'm dropping Don't Worry, I'll Check it Out and What Could Go Wrong because she is nowhere near as bad about going off on her own as she used to be. Everything else looks good to stay.

The Sect Move is the same as before and then for her moves she's getting the following:

As a note, unarmed and natural attacks are considered "Old-fashioned hand weapons" so her claws now get more damage and she's better at protecting people.

She's also gotten pretty damn good at helping people and being where she needs to be so... Helping Hand.

Finally, again, That Old Black Magic is one of those moves that predates the alternative basic weird moves, so in Twil's case she can basically do +Weird to do a weaker version of Investigate a mystery using her supernatural senses. But it does let her roll a +1 instead of a -1, significant odds in creases.

And she still has one more advancement left so she uses the Initiate option to increase her Cool by +1 bringing it finally to +2.

Lozzie

I was originally planning on leaving Lozzie as the Visitor and I honestly still could. It is definitely allowed to hit a level up and just... not spend it if you don't want to. I've seen that happen a few times now in game play. But she's somehow used the majority of the Visitor advancements I'd want to give her. The remaining ones are about making official contact between Earth and her home or retiring from active hunting.

So I think I'm going to lean into her connection to the Knights and shift her to the Covenant.

I don't see any moves that need to be dropped, so she's just going to keep everything. Her Ally is going to be her Knights and Caterpillars as a Rolodex (she rarely fields more than one or two at a time but we know she's gearing up to more)

For her Covenant moves I'm choosing the following:

As far as Fast Friends go, let me just produce exhibit JAN in fact, I'm going to assume Jan is an ally made with that move.

With Smash Cut she's often sending her knights to handle things off screen. (Granted part of this is because due to Heather's 1st person perspective a lot of actions by other characters are off-screen, but still.)

For a second advance I'm giving her a second ally type which is just her Knights and Caterpillars again as a Unit for the times she does order the whole group to do things.

The last advance is going towards borrowing a Mundane move: Let's Get Out of Hero.

And honestly, she should have had this very early on, I just hadn't looked at Mundane when I originally wrote her up... but she does the above ALL THE TIME.

Nicky

For Nicky I've gotten as much out of The Gumshoe as I want for her. However, I do think it's all still relevant so I don't think she's actually going to lose anything. But from here, I'm moving her over to be the Flake, which is the conspiracy theorist playbook. But the heroic sort, not the real world terrible people sort. Basically, this just really hits the deductive prowess part of Nicky's character.

The Crooked was also on the table with her prior gang being the police, but they haven't been a story element ever since she retired.

Nothing feels obsolete in her moves, so she's keeping everything.

A lot of people look at Suspicious Mind and just balk "Wait, there's no roll, the hunter just knows automatically?" And it works counter to their expectations of Insight checks and the like. But seriously, this is like the best tool a hunter can give you. Because without a roll you can just instantly generate a lead for them because someone they just spoke to lied. And it might not be clear exactly what part of what they said was a lie and won't be clear precisely what the truth is ... unless the question was binary.

For Often Overlooked I wouldn't even need her to "act all crazy" just to act under the radar... in other words, fly casual.

Connect the Dots is just the iconic Flake move. The whole murder-board, red-string, notebook filling, whiteboard diagram chaos of it.

This brings her to two more advances left and the Flake can take a haven so, I'm going to assume that given she's doing occult detective stuff, that she may have gotten Evee to ward up her home and office a bit. So I'm giving her a Lore Library (case files) and Protective Spells. Then I'm having her borrow a Crooked move Friends on the Force because she likely does still have a few cop friends. Both of these are total conjecture and speculation for which we don't have much if any visible proof of, but they do make sense.

The 12 Barnslow Coven

I usually do this first but forgot so here it is at the end. I'm giving the Team Playbook three advances. Two moves borrowed from other Team Playbooks and an Ally: Fliss and Aym.

Bell, Book, and Candle is something I gave them back when they were the Coven rather than the Guardians of the Borderland. I originally dropped it in favor of just generally upping the scale of the story as a whole... so basically the world caught up with them. But after these two arcs? yeah this is warranted again.

A Multiverse of Friends is something that is pretty subtle. But every once in a while some person they worked with or helped in the past will show up to help in a particular circumstance out of surprise. The most recent of these events being Jan and Tenny showing up as surprise elements of the dreamwalk.

And yes, still marking Tenny as an ally because the whole team mostly keeps her out of the danger.

-------

The Sharrowford Coven

Team Playbook: Guardians of the Borderland

Team Style: Born and Raised

Team Ally: Zheng, Kimberly, Tenny, Jan & July, The Church of Hringewindla, Fliss & Aym

Team Enemy: The Lilburne Family

Team Move: Walkers between Worlds, Otherworldly Intuition, Wardens

Team Assets: Exploration Gear, Workshop, Mystic Workshop, Portal, Slush Fund

Carried Over Moves: Laws of Hospitality; Shared Dangers (Last Survivors)

Carried Over Assest: Headquarters, Archive, Leyline Map, Wards and Barriers, Ritual Cupboard, Armory

Improvements

Take another Team Playbook move: Otherworldly Intuition

Make the next mystery about your team enemy, giving you a chance to interfere in their plans.

Two points in assets: Mystic Workshop

Take another Team Playbook move: Wardens

Two points in assets: Portal, Slush Fund

Ally: Jan and July

Ally: The Church of Hringewindla

Take another Team Playbook move: Something Different: A Multiverse of Friends

Take another Team Playbook move: Bell, Book, and Candle

Ally: Fliss and Aym

-------

Heather Morell - The Changeling The Host

Charm +2

Cool +0

Sharp +1

Tough -1

Weird +3

Unknown Heritage: Homo abyssus

Strange Thoughts

Sensory Overload

Allergy to own powers (body trying to adapt to soul)

Symbiosis: Refracted Heathers

Benefits: Aligned Motivations, Efficient Metabolism

Downsides: Obvious Mutations

Moves

Basic Weird Move: Use Magic

Advanced Moves: Use Magic, Manipulate Someone, Act Under Pressure

Host Moves: Defensive Adaptation (Whispered Advice), Open Your Mind, Balanced Neurochemistry

Changeling Moves: Glamour, They are my People, Inhuman Talent: Pneuma-somatic adjustment, Force of Nature, Strange Paths

Borrowed Moves (Host): The Glass is Half-Full (Abandoned)

Borrowed Moves (Changeling): Zones of Strangeness (Searcher), Dark Negotiator (Monstrous)

Carried Over Moves: The Sight (Spooky), Burn Everything (Hex), Third Eye (Spell-Slinger)

Harm: 0/7 (Unstable at 4, Dead at 8)

Weapons:

Burn Everything A - 3-harm, area, magic, obvious (Use Magic)

Burn Everything B - 3-harm, ignore-armor, magic, obvious (Use Magic)

Tentacles - 2-Harm Hand/Intimate Useful Integrated Retractable

Improvements

Mark Use Magic as advanced.

Take another Changeling Move: Force of Nature

Get +1 Weird, max +3

Take another Changeling Move: Strange Paths

Take a move from another Playbook: Zones of Strangeness (Searcher)

Take a move from another Playbook: Dark Negotiator (Monstrous)

Remove one Unknown Heritage tag. You’ve now integrated well enough to avoid issues.

Get +1 Charm, max +2

Mark two basic moves as advanced: Manipulate Someone, Act Under Pressure

Erase a used Luck point

Change Playbooks The Host

Take a move from another playbook: The Glass is Half-Full (Abandoned)

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Raine Haynes - The Monstrous The Professional

Charm +1

Cool +3

Sharp +0

Tough +2

Weird -1

Breed: Slasher

Curse: Duty (Protect Evee and Heather)

Natural Weapon: Fighting Instinct 3-Harm Hand/Intimate

Moves

Basic Weird Move: Trust Your Gut

Advanced Basic Moves: Kick Some Ass, Protect Someone

Professional Moves: Battlefield Awareness, Leave No One Behind, Tactical Genius

Monstrous Moves: Unnatural Appeal, Something Borrowed: Just Another Day, Preternatural Speed

Carried Over Moves: Furnace (Hard Case), Brute Force(Protector)

Borrowed Moves (Monstrous): Partner: Heather; (Empathic Connection, Speak in each other's Names, Separation Pains) (Forged); Tactical Advice

Agency: The Sharrowford Coven

Like Family, Strong Allies

Otherworldly Meddling, Cryptic Missions

Haven

Luxurious

Convenient

Fire: 0/13 (Fire increases when)

Each 1 Harm suffered

Each time a friend is hurt

Each time someone defies Raine

Natural Weapons:

Fighting Instinct (3-Harm Close/Hand/Intimate)

Gear

Motorcycle Leathers (1 armour)

Harm: 0/9 (Unstable at 5, Dead at 10)

Improvements

Get +1 Cool, Max 2

Take a move from another playbook: Partner (Forged)

Take a move from another playbook: Tactical Advice (Forged)

Gain a haven, like the Expert has, with two options

Take a natural weapon pick: add a range: Close

Take another Monstrous move: Preternatural Speed

Get a +1 to any rating, max +3 (Tough)

Mark two basic moves as advanced: Kick Some Ass, Protect Someone

Change Playbook: The Professional

Get +1 Cool, max +3

Get +1 Tough, max +2

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Evelyn "Evee" Saye - The Pararomantic The Abandoned

Charm +2

Cool +0

Sharp +3

Tough -1

Weird +2

Guide

Praem Saye-Morell

Nature of Relationship: Mother (Evee) and Daughter (Praem)

Trouble in the Relationship: Unprecedented, Uncharted Waters

Abandoned: Exploited Heir

Moves

Weird Move: Use Magic, Summoner, Warding

Advanced Moves: Use Magic, Warding, Investigate a Mystery, Act Under Pressure

Known Summons: Tardus venandi, Servitors

Abandoned Moves: Trust Issues, Mostly at Night

Pararomantic Moves: Monster Empathy, Spirit-Touched, Bonding Time, The Power of Love

Borrowed Moves: See, it all fits together (Flake), Often Right (Expert)

Carried Over Moves: I've Read About This (Expert), Dark Past (Expert)

Haven: Mystical Library, Protection Spells, Magical Laboratory, Guardian

Relationship Status: 0/7 (relationship breaks at 7)

Gear:

Memento of her and Praem's relationship.

Bone Wand - serves as a requirement to some magic

Harm: 0/7 (Unstable at 4, Dead at 8)

Improvements

Get +1 Weird, Max +2

Take another Pararomantic Move: Bonding Time

Get +1 Charm, Max +3

Take a move from another playbook: See, it all fits together (Flake)

Take a move from another playbook: Often Right (Expert)

Take another Pararomantic move: The Power of Love

Change basic weird move Summoning to Warding

Mark two basic moves as advanced: Warding and Use Magic

Mark two more basic moves as advanced: Investigate a Mystery and Act Under Pressure

Get +1 to any rating (Sharp), Max +3

Change Playbooks: The Abandoned

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Praem Saye-Morell - The Protector The "Wronged"

Charm +1

Cool +2

Sharp +0

Tough +3

Weird +1

Won't Be Wronged

Evelyn is my mother and I will protect her.

Moves

Basic Weird Moves: No Limits, Empath

Advanced Moves: Protect Someone, Help Out

Wronged Moves: I Know my Prey (Mages), NEVER AGAIN, Fervor, What Does Not Kill Me...

Protector Moves: I Can't Lose You, You'll Have to Go Through Me, Hardened, Got Your Back, Lost Time

Borrowed Moves (Protector): Soothe (Divine), Something Strange: 1 Armour and incredible strength (Visitor)

Carried Over Moves: Prepared to Defend, Keep Going and Going

Harm: 0/10 (Dead at 11)

Armor: 2 (Hardened, Something Strange)

Improvements

Take a move from another playbook: Soothe (Divine)

Get +1 Sharp, max +2

Take a move from another playbook: Something Strange (Visitor)

Take another Protector move: Lost Time

Get +1 Cool, max +2

Get +1 Tough, max +3

Mark two basic moves as advanced: Protect Someone and Help Out

Get +1 to any rating, max +3 (Charm)

Change Playbooks: The Wronged (even though all her loved ones are fine)

Get +1 Sharp, max +2

Take another Wronged move: What Does Not Kill Me...

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Zheng - The Summoned The Exile

Charm -1

Cool +3

Sharp +1

Tough +3

Weird +1

The Apocalypse

The Death of the King (her shaman)

World War (forced into the Mongols' continual wars)

Famine (side effect of war)

Plague (hit several times in the Mongol invasions)

Betrayal (several of her masters suffered this)

The Beast Slouches Into the World (facing Ouran Juh)

Breaking the Seal (Heather breaks the control tattoos)

Moves

Basic Weird Move: No Limits

Advanced Basic Moves: Kick Some Ass, Read a Bad Situation

Summoned Moves: Absolute Badass, Should I Feel That? Freakish, Mayhem, Whatever

Exile Moves: Learned, Hearty Constitution, Warrior, Immortal Name

Borrowed Moves: Unquenchable Vitality (Monstrous), Tactical Genius (Professional), Asphalt Jungle (Gumshoe), Immortal (Monstrous)

Harm: 0/7 (Unstable at 4, Dead at 8)

Weapons

Red Right Hand/Unarmed - 3-harm hand magic

Improvements

Take another Summoned Move: Mayhem

Take another Summoned Move: Whatever

Take a move from another playbook: Unquenchable Vitality (Monstrous)

Take a move from another playbook: Tactical Genius (Professional)

Get +1 Weird, max +3

Mark two basic moves as advanced: Read a Bad Situation, Kick Some Ass

Change to another playbook: The Exile

Take another Exile move: Warrior

Take a move from another playbook: Immortal (Monstrous)

Take a move from another playbook: Asphalt Jungle (Gumshoe)

Get +1 Cool, max of +3

Get +1 Weird, max of +3

Get +1 Sharp, max +3

Take another Exile move: Immortal Name

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Seven-Shades-of-Sunshine - The Spooktacular The Envoy

Charm +2

Cool +2

Sharp +1

Tough -1

Weird +3

Overseer: The Yellow Court

Values: Truth, Artistic Expression

Concerns: Strict Rules

Task: Guide

Secondary Task: Watcher

Moves

Basic Weird Move: Use Magic

Advanced Moves: Use Magic, Act Under Pressure

The Show: Magic & Illusions, Problem Solvers

Spooktacular Moves: A Negligble Price, The Game is Rigged

Envoy Moves: A Certain Point of View, No One Listens to Zathras, Prime Directive, The Council has Made a Decision

Borrowed Moves: Shapeshifter (Monstrous), Angel Wings (Divine), But I play one on TV (Celebrity), Collaborative Effort (Host)

Harm: 0/7 (Unstable at 4, Dead at 8)

Gear

Access to Exclusive Places (Carcosa)

Whispered Revelation (0-Harm, Intimate Stun)

Improvements

Get +1 Cool, max +2

Get +1 Sharp, max +2

Get +1 Weird, max +3

Take another Show option: Problem Solvers

Take a move from another playbook: Shapeshifter (Monstrous)

Take a move from another playbook: Angel Wings (Divine)

Change to another playbook: Envoy

Get +1 Charm, max +2

Take another Envoy move: Prime Directive

Take another Envoy move: The Council has Made a Decision

Take a move from another playbook: But I play one on TV (Celebrity)

Take a move from another playbook: Collaborative Effort (Host)

Get +1 Cool, max+3

Mark two basic moves as advanced: Use Magic, Help Out

Pick a secondary Task as well as your first (Watcher)

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Twil Hopton - The Mundane The Initiate

Charm +2

Cool +2

Sharp -1

Tough +2

Weird +1

Breed: Werewolf

Curse: Vulnerability (Silver)

Natural Attack: Claws (3-harm hand), Fangs (3-harm intimate)

Sect: Church of Hringewindla

Good Traditions: Magical Lore, Like Family

Bad Traditions: Mystical Oaths

Moves

Basic Weird Move: No Limits

Advanced Moves: No Limits, Protect Someone

Initiate Moves: Ancient Fighting Arts, Helping Hand, That Old Black Magic

Mundane Moves: What Could Go Wrong, The Power of Heart; Don't Worry, I'll Check Out, Trust Me

Borrowed Moves (Mundane): Supernatural Sense: Scent (Monstrous), Dutiful: You Are the Champion, Doubt (Chosen)

Carried Over Moves: Invincible, Sect Move

Harm: 0/7 (Unstable at 4, Dead at 8)

Armor: 2 (Invincible)

Improvements

Take a move from another playbook: Supernatural Sense (Monstrous)

Take a move from another playbook: Dutiful (Chosen)

Get +1 Cool, max +2

Get +1 Charm, max +3

Take Another Mundane Move: Trust Me

Mark two basic moves as advanced: No Limits and Protect Someone

Change playbook: The Initiate

Get +1 Cool, max +2

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Lozzie - The Visitor The Covenant

Charm +2

Cool +1

Sharp +2

Tough -2

Weird +3

Expatriation

Outside: Bizarre, Variable, Extradimensional, Nomadic

Why Left: Wanderer, to meet new people and find new horizons.

Why stay on Earth: To Befriend

Why drawn home: Homesickness, literally

Covenant

Knights and Caterpillars: Rolodex

Knights and Caterpillars: Unit

Jan Martense

Moves

Basic Weird Moves: Use Magic, Sensitive

Advanced Moves: Use Magic, Sensitive

Covenant Moves: Covenant, Fast Friends, Smash Cut

Visitor Moves: Something Strange (Adapted to Strangeness); Different World, Different Rules; Always Learning; Being Neighborly, Taste of Home

Borrowed Moves (Covenant): Let's Get Out of Here

Borrowed Moves (Visitor): The Sight (Spooky), Dark Desires (Pararomantic)

Ally: The Knights of Camelot

Harm: 0/7 (Unstable at 4, Dead at 8)

Improvements

Take a move from another playbook: The Sight (Spooky)

Take a move from another playbook: Dark Desires (Pararomantic)

Take another Visitor move: Being Neighborly

Get +1 Charm, max +2

Get +1 Sharp, max +3

Take a second basic Weird move: Sensitive

Mark two of the basic moves as advanced: Use Magic, Sensitive

Take another Visitor move: Taste of Home

Repair your "spaceship" so you can fly again, (she can slip again, yay)

Get +1 to any rating, max +3 (Charm)

Gain an ally: alien, local animal, or local friend (The Knights)

Change playbooks: The Covenant

You gain a second ally. Pick a different style for them.

Take a move from another playbook: Let's Get Out of Here

-------

Detective Sergeant Nicole Webb - The Professional The Gumshoe The Flake

Charm +2

Cool +2

Sharp +3

Tough +0

Weird +1

Agency: Sharrowford Police Department

Resources: Official Pull, Recognized Authority

Red Tape: Hostile Superiors, Skepticism

Code: "Attention to detail, it's part of the job"

Moves

Basic Weird Move: Trust Your Gut

Advanced Moves: Act Under Pressure, Investigate a Mystery

Flake Moves: Connect the Dots, Often Overlooked, Suspicious Mind

Gumshoe Moves: Occult Confidential, "Just one more thing", Jessica Jones Entry, The Postman Always Rings Twice

Professional Moves: Deal with the Agency; Mobility (Anonymous, Toolkit, Gas Guzzler); Bottle it Up; Battlefield Awareness; Leave No One Behind

Naked City: Local Police, Accountants, Media, Occultists

Borrowed Moves (Flake): Friends on the Force (Crooked)

Borrowed Moves (Professional): The Naked City: Local Police, Accountants, Media, Street Criminals (Gumshoe), Monster Empathy

Haven (Office)

Public Face

Convenient

Protective Spells

Lore Library

Harm: 0/7 (Unstable at 4, Dead at 8)

Improvements:

Take a move from another playbook: The Naked City (Gumshoe)

Increase Sharp +1, Max 2

Increase Charm +1, Max 2

Take a Professional move: Leave No One Behind

Take a move from another playbook: Monster Empathy (Pararomantic)

Change playbooks: The Gumshoe

Gain an Haven like the Expert has, with two options

Take another Gumshow move: Jessica Jones Entry

Increase Tough +1, Max 2

Take another Gumshoe move: The Postman Always Rings Twice

Get +1 Sharp, max +3

Get a +1 to any rating, max +1 (Weird)

Mark two moves as Advanced: Act Under Pressure, Investigate a Mystery

Change Playbooks: The Flake

Gain a Haven like the Expert has

Take a move from another playbook: Friends on the Force (Crooked)

Side note.... poor Nicky... so unlucky in love. Maybe she's taking the noir detective thing too far.