System Document

Here's a link to the System Document in Google Documents.

Making stuff with Alchemy

This is a bit of a system note about making non-magical things with Alchemy.

The relevent skill is Philosophy, and it requires both a laboratory and reagents to proceed.

Coloured Salts: difficulty 11, produce coloured flames when burnt
Gunpowder (small amounts): difficulty 13 - enough for a flash-bang in a fire, not enough to do damage.
Poison (simple): difficulty 9 - a simple poison that has to be consumed, but doesn't have a disguised taste or appearance, a strength equal to the roll. -3 for disguised appearance, -3 for disguised taste, -5 to be weapon deliverable
Acid: difficulty 15 - strong enough to dissolve or weaken metal, needs to be kept in glass, strength 9 attack

The Seven Hearts of Magic

Susarra of the Desert
Panjirei in the Western Sea, drowned in a Tsunami
Ossora of the Rivers - once a rich and powerful city, it was sacked by its enemies, and destroyed so thoroughly that it survives only in the afterlife
Frozen Kalikai - beneath the northern ice
Eightfold Pagoda of the Heavenly Way
Silent Ways - deep, deep underground
Ghoma - A floating city that wanders the seas
Savalia - a city built around a volcano in the deep jungle, inhabited by people with the heads of animals
The City of Ivory - exists in the Dreamlands

Here's some ideas for downtime actions

There seems to be a little vagueness about what you can do with downtime actions, so I'll give a few suggestions and comments here. Firstly, there's not too much in the way of concrete rules, since it's more about the plan or idea that people come up with. OTOH we'll decide some issues with skill rolls - so for example if someone wants to make money as a musician, we'll make a skill roll and use that as the basis for how much money they earn.

Some things people might want to try:

Joining one of the magical societies that has a public face and accepts members with some requirements or conditions:

Flame Society (all you need to do to join the Flame Society is swear loyalty to the leader)
Far-Talking Guild (there's a test to take)
Aquifer's Guild (you need shedloads of cash and to be a woman)
Catholicon Guild (healers - you need to pass an exam)
Children of the Transcendent Mother (you need to survive an orgiastic ritual - they teach beserker body magic)
Alchemists
Wardens (Warding and Protective Magic & Blessing)

Stonecutters

Investigate the magical societies that are a bit more secretive -
Sandwalkers
Weathermongers' Guild

Animal shifting
Demon-summoning cults
Assassins guild
Dream Merchants - part of a religion - buy and sell elements of dreams
Curse-makers - lepers

Barbers - everyone knows that the barbers of Susarra have some strange magic, but they keep things pretty close to their chest

Mysterious rat worshipping Cult

Try to earn some money

You need to suggest a plan - it could be practising a trade, selling dreams, working as a leg breaker for a criminal gang or fight in the Arenas.

Try to make some contacts
Again, give us an idea how you're going about this

Try to track down a mastercrafted weapon, or alchemical products

Investigate a loose end from an adventure
And really, anything else you can think of.

Another magical society

Children of the Transcendent Mother

Description: Cults that can attract the rootless or directionless thrive in Susarra, and the Children are one of the most successful. Hailing from foreign lands, they teach a type of magic that preaches both an understanding of the body, and ultimately the mind. But it is the fact that they preach understanding of the body through the satisfaction of it's animal lusts that undoubtedly attracts the vast majority of their worshippers.

System:

Skill: Union of Body and Mind

Roll:

Child may attempt the following as a single round action (and they'll probably be used most often in combat):

- 7 - Beserker Power (ignore a single damage aspect)

- 11 - Beserker Fury (ignore a point of damage)

- 13 - Animal Magnetism (gain the 'intoxicating aroma' aspect)

The Ritual of Union: A Child may attempt the ritual, which takes approximately a minute or so. They gain the following aspects, depending on what they roll (and don't forget, the first invocation of each is free):

Botch - Epileptic spasms

7 - Uncontrollable fury

9 - Terrifyingly Fast

11 - Unyielding Endurance

13 - Engorged flesh - the Child swells up, their muscles doubling in size and gaining inches in height

15 - Ferocious Strength

17 - Unable to tell friend from foe

19 - Bestial Clarity (an aspect that's useful for seeing through illusions and deceptions)

The following aspects could be invoked during the Ritual of Union if the Child takes the time to indulge properly: 'Drunk', 'Pleasures of the Flesh'

Joining Requirement: To join the Children one must participate in one of their orgiastic rituals, indulging in wine, strange scented incenses and fruit bursting with sickly corruption and still be able to complete the ritual of rebirth at dawn, before they will be accepted.

Mechanically the Character must make two rolls - one of Toughness and one of Willpower, both with a difficulty of seven.

Membership Requirement: A Child who does not regularly participate in the rituals and social life of the faith, will find that they are taught no more of the cults secrets.

Inner mystery: The inner mystery of the Children is one of the mind. Characters must undergo a complex and demanding ritual that leads to an almost figurative rebirth, but in which they gain the same understanding of the inner mind as the outer body.

11 / 10 / 09 - Arden Solders Mission By Luke Lanyon-Hogg

The Mercenarys Guild were approched by a trader named Arden Solder who wanted a business partner of his, another trader called Don Eldar, killed for cheating him. Arden was quite adamant that Don must be killed in his home at a given time and in a gruesome way, so as to send a message to anyone else who might try to cheat him.

A little investigation showed that Don was an arms dealer who had a monopoly on arms deals in the magic quarter of the city by having his thugs beat up any competition. So the Mercenarys posed as arm dealers, wanting to strike a deal with him; upon talking with Don it seems he has never done deals with Arden. Arden put this down to Don being scared of him. However a little investigation showed Arden to be a rare goods merchant who dealt mostly with the magic guilds, in particular with the Flame Society and Arden was overheard saying in a tavern "I've got those mercenaries completely fooled, we can proceed as planned".

Nevertheless the Mercenaries decided to go ahead with their mission and despite a few members having second thoughts about killing in cold blood, dispatched Don in a suitably bloody way. But in a moment of post-killing looting the Mercenaries realised some one else in the house with them, whos reaction to the mercenaries trying to get into the room was: "What was that?", "Shit its the Mercenaries!". The Mercenaries bust in in time to see three men running into the shadows, each with an armful of books froms Dons study. . .

A sample magical society

Flame Society

Description: One of the most open guilds, the flame society teach a destructive magic that allows wielders to fling fireballs with abandon.

Skill: Fire Magic is a skill that can be used to make ranged attacks against groups of opponents. Thus the Fire Magic skill is substituted for both the Weapon Skill and Strength Skill when attacking with this magic. There are two principle ways of using it: Fire Pilum (speed +0, attack +1, defence -2, damage +2) which targets a single person or Fireball (speed -3, attack +2, defence -3, damage +3) which can target a group upto 10 paces in diameter.

Roll:

Fire Magic is used as a combat skill. On a botch, the caster is damaged by their own spell and takes 1 hitpoint of damage.

9 - light a campfire (fine control does not come easily to the flame society)

Joining Requirement: The only requirement to join the Flame Society is to swear loyalty to Gerast Maximus, the leader and founder of the School.

Aspects:
Aspect - If a member of the flame society can spend roughly five minutes firewalking on hot coals, then they gain a bonus aspect of 'Friend to Fire' that lasts for approximately an hour. Like other aspects, the first invocation of this does not cost a fate point.
Also a member of the Flame Society may go through a ritual that involves permanent scarification with a heated iron. This grants an aspect 'Sacrifice of Fire' which can be used to boost the Fire Magic Skill, and may also grant fate points when the subjects scars are a disadvantage whether by horrifying onlookers or attracting attention.
Inner mysteries: It's rumoured that Maximus has access to deeper secrets of fire magic that he has only taught to those who have earnt his trust.

Here's a link to the Setting document, as stored on Google Groups.

Inspiration

A few quick suggestions for source material that people may find useful:

Conan (more specifically the RE Howard Conan stories and the Marvel comics, the film's also always worth a look)
Elric - especially some of the stories about Tanelorn and Nadsokor
Dunsany
Fafhred and the Grey Mouser

A little article on Timbuktu's history.
Photos of Cairo's Old City

First post

Okay, this is going to be the update space for the Secrets of Susarra game.

The basic idea for the game isto run a fantasy adventure game with a large group of players, multiple GMs and a persistent world. PCs will belong to a general pool, notionally all being members of a ‘Mercenaries’ Guild’ in the city, in which the campaign is set. Each week the GMs will turn up with missions: adventures planned to last for 3-4 hours game time, pitched as missions assigned through the guild. That should mean that a lot of delays can be eliminated, and the adventure started as quickly as possible. Each adventure should be concluded on the afternoon, except in special cases. The missions might involve something fairly straight-forward like guarding a caravan or become a little more challenging - investigating a murder, stealing a sacred ruby from a temple or engaging in diplomacy.

This means that during the week between sessions we can update the city to take account of events, circulate the ‘news’ and plan for the next week. It also means that over the course of a term, all of the players should play in the same group at least once, and that every regular player should experience playing under each GM.

Additionally players will be allowed downtime actions to carry out plans outside the relatively restrictive mission framework, allowing them to set and achieve personal goals such as learning magic, investigating unresolved plot-threads and pursuing recurring enemies.

This framework means that they can choose how much to involve themselves in the downtime elements, and play each week won’t be dependent on the presence of individual players or GMs. The system will be designed to give some benefit to players who attend regularly, by rewarding them with rank and additional aspects, but by giving all characters additional skill points at the same rate, whether or not they attend sessions.