Khareo's Tale #4 - Yelling a devil down

This session report is a continuation of the previous session: Speaking of the devil. 

Act 2, Scene 3 - The poison apple

The sister decided to head for the Arc society to consult the library. Neither managed to find something about devils, but Mary convinced another member to help. Martha eventually found out that devils are usually insubstantial and invisible. Devils are made of black magic and are motivated purely by malevolence. Interestingly, they are repelled by true faith and white magic.

The following day around lunchtime, Lady Fremton came to talk. She confirmed that they really had been sent by Silvardo Torrens. Reassured, Lady Fremton explained that she was haunted for two years by a devil named Merbaum. He first preyed on her husband for a reason that she did not know, requiring to be fed gold every night. Once that he got on the brink of bankruptcy, her husband attempted to resist. Merbaum use wicked curses to make him sick until he died. Since that day, the devil visits her almost every night, demanding more gold. Lady Fremton obliged under the threat that Merbaum will go after her relatives. Lady Fremton was now penniless and tormented by creditors.

Mechanism to adjudicate Astrological Divination

In the campaign Khareo's Tale, a lot of the plot revolves around astrological divination rituals. Knowing what to provide as the outcome of a divination spell can be difficult to gauge. This is particularly so if you want to consistently scale the usefulness of the information with respect to the margin of success. This post describes how we are doing it on our campaign. 


This is a joint post with Sophie Blouin, who brainstormed with me and had the idea of buying destinies using powerful prophecies (which I find very cool). 

In a nutshell

Astrological divination is concerned with position and timing. The better is the divination roll, the more precise is the prediction in these two scopes. Astrology is a ritual subject to normal ritual modifiers (GURPS Thaumatology) and some specific one about the object of the divination. A star chart prop was designed to simplify the adjudication of divination checks. 

The star chart. The number indicate the MoS cost of each area.
Latin is used for flavor, but the English word is shown in smaller print.

This post is further divided into three sections: Ritual Magic modifiers, Interpreting the results and examples.

044 - Dashing through the snow

... with a 900 lbs crystal ball!

Act 44, Scene 1 - Dashing through the snow

After cleaving the Palantirs from the altar, the two living members of the company set on foot to reach the Raven before nightfall. Sir Galdor was weighted down by his armor. Halin offered to carry his hauberk to lighten his load. To maximize their speed, they decide to travel on the hard ice of the fjord, which should put them on sight of Mulkan at some point. Finbert, as a wraith, decided to follow the two and scout ahead. 

The snow was falling with increased intensity. By the time that the pair was passing east of Mulkan, the visibility was less than the width of the fjord. Finbert flew over to the village to take stock. The Lossoth of Mulkan were picking up the pieces after the wave of destruction of the afternoon. Halin and Sir Galdor never realized that they had passed the village.

Khareo's Tale #2 - The pendant and the foil.

Act 1 is an introduction to get the players to settle into their characters. I picked two of these events as they involved fun play from each PCs. 

Act 1, Scene 1 - Martha's swashbuckling at the fair

GM's note: I thought that a bit of action to send the campaign off would work well with a 6 years old gamer! Chloe isn't familiar at all with Martial Art's combat options, but I narrated the combat as best as I could, using figurines and acting, and proposed options for her. She totally loved the ideas of feints and to use the serendipity engine to find combat openings. It worked very well: the action was fast paced and engaging. All that I needed to do is to translate what she wanted to do in GURPS terms, and tell her her target number before rolling. 

Mary and Martha went for a whirlwind tour of the Chilkarro Market to pay off outstanding tabs. The month of July had been good for business. At the fair, Martha spotted a fencing tournament and decided to enter. Her opponent was a tall man: not as fast moving as she was, but definitively with a longer reach. To win the 10 silver crowns, all that she needed to do was to score three hits. Martha played safe at first: a few parried strikes were exchanged to size up the competition. Then, she carefully evaluated her opponent and waited for him to slip and leave something open. While he was looking at her smallsword, she slapped him with her off-hand [ Serendipity Engine Opening, off-hand attack +1 to strike / -1 to defend vs waiving the ability to dodge this turn. ][+]. This blow was just enough to shock her opponent and get him to miss on the counter-attack. Martha made a feint low then scored a point on the man's chest.

Khareo's Tale #3 - Speaking of the devil.

Act 2, Scene 1 - Something wicked written in the sky

Martha woke up late as usual: her night spent on the roof peering at stars and drawing on sky charts had this way of flipping her sleep cycle upside down. In the kitchen, she met with her mother and her neighbor, Silvardo Torrens, a prosperous fur trader. Silvardo seemed worried. He asked Martha for advice about helping a friend that he thought was in trouble. Martha asked him some details about his friend such as full name, birthplace and time of birth. Silvardo was worried about Lady Fremton. He was hoping that Martha could help.

Khareo's Tale #1 - Introducing the Characters

This mini campaign is designed to be played with my two daughters: Sophie and Chloe. They are eager to play GURPS, and have some interesting ideas to seed the story. Sophie wants to try her hand with Ritual Path Magic using the Energy Accumulation mechanics (with black and white aspected magic). Chloe wants to play a swashbuckling gal with a fond interest in Astrology. I chose the Alchemical Baroque setting, which they gave me for my birthday (hint, hint). I am also using the most interesting Tome of Adventure Design to create stories and NPCs.

Starting Point

The location is Khareo, a semi-independent city state on the Southern Plains of the Known Lands. Khareo is a port city with a mercantile tradition. Fishermen are bringing a boon from the sea and export fresh and smoked stocks inland. A steady stream of traders from the Golden Archipelago also come ashore and flood the city's market with exotic wares from the Sudentland.  These goods are then sold for export to the prosperous North. The majority of the Khareo citizen are of the Architecturalist denomination, although there is a sizeable Horologicalist community that co-exists in relative peace.

Khareo's politics is somewhat tumultuous: an attempt on the life of Queen Sharma D'Ossani III was made 3 weeks ago. The unlikely assassin: the Lord of Saffronderry, a Solar noble betrothed to her. One stream of rumours claims that the Lord was caught and executed on the spot: war with the Solar empire is imminent. Another rumors stream claims that Lord Saffronderry was bewitched into the murder attempt, then mysteriously disappeared.

Character awards for Reclaiming Khazad-dum: Into Mirkwood

This is a long overdue post about character awards for this campaign. It covers all actions since the beginning of the Ardacer's adventure after splitting from the diplomatic mission near Lake-Town. This includes ten days of overland travel and the action seen in the last two days.

Drolf

Drolf has spent quite a bit of time settling into his command position. He has taken interest in Intelligence Analysis ( 1 cp ). He did take the lead in the battle of Browek Bridge ( 1 cp into Strategy ), but deferred to his subordinates quite a bit as well. His leadership was used during the heroic action of Browek Bridge ( 50% chance of gaining 1 cp, success ). Drolf participated into an heroic action and gets to place 1 cp into any combat skill or technique, or related attribute. I really liked the use of meditation as a way to cope with nightmares ( 1 cp in meditation + 1 free cp ). 

As a side note, your men are hoping for a bit of looting. You promised them spoil, and Mirkwood is frankly not that great for it, but Drolf can sense that the concern is bouncing around the mercenaries with increasing frequency.