Planet of War

My last post was about a setting inspired by William S. Burroughs. Today, I've got a setting inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This is purely coincidence.


The gimmick here is a pulpy, sword-and-planet version of Mars, amped up to God of War or 300 levels of crazy, over-the-top violence. Major trappings would be taken from the various occult correspondences new agey types associate with the planet: war, iron, blood, fire, strength, wrath, vengeance, competition, that kind of thing. I'd also make shameless use of the usual pulp Mars tropes: It's an ancient, fallen world, a desert dotted by the ruins of more noble and advanced civilizations.

• hot, arid environment, warmed more by underground fires than the sun
• dry canals, ruins, fossilized vegetation, the dust of dead seas
• subterranean water reservoirs
• civilization generally in its iron age
• planet, conveniently, is loaded with iron
• lots of other fun, weird, powerful fantasy McGuffin materials, both naturally occurring and created through alchemy (not above Herculoids-style "energy rocks", here)
• primitive guns, along the lines of carryable cannons
• crazy alchemical weapons, like swords that burn when exposed to the air, and hammers that generate a jolt of electricity on impact
• low gravity, so jumping really far is a major element of locomotion, and very crazy architecture is possible
• lots of huge, dangerous fauna (possibly unnatural), including beasts bred and armored (and alchemically mutated?) for battle
• warring empires, rival clans, blood debts, ancient enmities

Naturally, a Burroughs-style take on Mars necessitates multiple races of Martians. And, of course, that's also the kind of thing that's a lot of fun in RPGs. It seems a little unlikely for a whole mess of sapient species to emerge independently, though, so I'm gonna say my Martians are all technically one species divided into several wildly divergent bloodlines, possibly through some millennia-long eugenics program in the planet's forgotten past.

Iron Tribe

• sense and generate magnetic fields (powerfully enough, in many cases, to deflect sword blows)
• consume raw metal ores and refine them in their bodies
• hairless, dark gray skin, made shiny and tough by iron content
• can encode and read information in the magnetic fields of small bits of ferrous metal
• more vulnerable to non-ferrous weapons (and, for the same reason, often carry at least one non-ferrous weapon for use against their own kind)
• tend to wear armor made of brass, as it doesn't interfere with their magnetic capabilities
• known for aloof and superior demeanor when dealing with other tribes, consider personal honor paramount
• currently a powerful force on Mars, and sometimes claimed to be the tribe that dominated the planet's lost Golden Age

Stone Tribe

• large, powerfully built
• tough skin, which thickens to plate-like carapace on back, shoulders, other areas
• yellow-orange-brown coloration, tusks, blunt features, stiff manes of hair
• great craftsmen of sturdy, solid stone and metal constructions, such as buildings and simpler weapons, also known as sculptors
• highly traditional, formalized culture, where uncontrolled emotion is looked down on
• little political ambition; willing to work as soldiers or craftsmen for other groups without any qualms
• great respect for scholarship and history
• hold particularly stable territories, where they are responsible for much of the world's agriculture

Sand Tribe

• like smaller cousins to the Stone Tribe
• tough skin, but no carapace, agile rather than powerful
• pink-red-brown range of coloration, no tusks, short tails
• incredibly sharp senses, and able to absorb and process a massive amount of detailed information at once, good memory
• traditionally nomadic, living in caravans that chase good weather and good hunting, with some permanent encampments in reclaimed ruins
• adaptable, pragmatic, fall easily into any cultural niche, but rarely found in any position of power over other tribes
• known as ingenious scavengers, even thieves, unrestrained by personal dignity or moral compunctions
• associate easily with other tribes, and always eager to trade
• skilled at riding, and breeding beasts for war, convenience, or consumption

Wind Tribe

• small, lightly-built
• using powerful legs and tails, able to jump great distances
• extrude temporary gliding membranes from their backs, like sheets of spider silk
• natural skin color is a soft brown, but somewhat able to change color to match environment
• armed with small claws, better for climbing than fighting
• tend to wear loose, neutral-colored, abbreviated clothing, to avoid impeding gliding membranes and camouflage ability
• traditionally live in high, difficult-to-reach areas, separate from more integrated Martian societies
• work as messengers, spies, and assassins in integrated societies
• paint faces and bodies as a sign of security, power, and honesty ("I don't have to be able to hide.")
• deadly ambushers, prefer poisoned javelins hurled silently from great heights, en masse

Smoke Tribe

• tough, deep red, somewhat scaly skin
• resistant to heat, poison, and disease
• decent night vision, and typically live in caves and subterranean settlements, frequently in close proximity to the fire caverns which heat the planet's surface
• mine and refine much of Martian society's exotic alchemical materials, and are known as the planet's greatest gunsmiths
• not especially light-sensitive, but tend to be nocturnal for the advantage their night vision gives them
• typically wear dark, thick, concealing clothing
• ambitious, often at odds with the Iron and Water Tribes

Water Tribe

• fully amphibious, as effective underwater as on land
• pale, pinkish, slick-skinned, hairless, adorned with elaborate fins and crests
• very powerful night vision, somewhat vulnerable to direct sunlight
• low-level magnetic sense, a much weaker version of the Iron Tribe's ability
• almost strictly subterranean, controlling most of the Martian water supply, as well as having underground farms and access to precious gems
• powerful force on Mars, limited by their aversion to the light and dryness of the surface, often acting through hired servants and mercenaries from other tribes
• ancient rivalry with the Smoke Tribe, who also seek to control the deep places of Mars
• holders of some of the Golden Age's lost secrets, particularly medical and biological sciences

The various tribes traditionally (since the end of the Golden Age, anyway) live apart, but come together in some of the few powerful, cosmopolitan cities, and in bandit nations made up of the exiled refuse of other settlements. They're capable of interbreeding, but attraction between tribes is uncommon. Also, hybrid children tend to lack either of their parents' strengths (although they do sometimes display some wholly their own).

The sort of plots I'd run a Planet of War game with would be straight out of Conan and Greek myth: clashes of civilization and savagery, the disputes of powerful families played out between nations, ancient secrets misused, settlements menaced by monsters and bandits, and so on. I'd want to do both violence and intrigue, so ideally all characters would be capable in a fight and also have a bunch of stuff they can do outside combat.

I'm not entirely sure what system I'd use. Exalted seems like it could easily be perfect, but I've never used it myself. Same story with Feng Shui. Naturally, I really dig the idea of using Spirit of the Century, and that's definitely an option. SotC is crazy-ass-stunt-friendly, it would save me the hassle of actually coming up with stats for all the different tribes, and Mike Olson's Spirit of the Sword hack would be a great resource for the sword-and-sorcery stuff. Of course, if I do feel like doing crunchy work, some flavor of D&D could work nicely. Planet of War would be a nice way to experiment with 4e, at last (although, honestly, I should probably run 4e straight before I start messing with it).

Man, I am digging this whole idea. I don't know if I'll ever end up doing anything with it, but I'll definitely add it to the pile for future reference.

LWaSH session 6: Loose ends resolved

Okay, so in last night's session of Lost Worlds and Secret Histories (5/27/2008), we finally finished up the big fight from the previous session, and also played out that phonecall that called Myrna away from the main action back in session 4. Herr Wolf pretty much stayed preoccupied throughout this session, since his player had other commitments, and Arthur Chamberlain remained absent, since his player was sick. Also, this was Abraham Hale's last session (unless I end up NPCing him or something), since his player is moving.


Lost Worlds and Secret Histories
Summer, 1937 - London, England

Myrna, called away from the rest of the team's investigation by a phone call, finds herself on the receiving end of aggressive questions and legal threats from Sergeant Alphonse Pendergast of the police. He demands to know just what she and her associate (Marko) said to Sir Felix Swillby-Hinderlap-Swillby when they questioned him just about an hour before, and also warns her to drop her own investigation into the Swillby affair and let the police handle things.

Myrna, being very socially capable, manages to defuse his anger, and gets him to admit the reason for his sudden attention: Sir Felix left his hotel quite abruptly after talking to Myrna and Marko, leaving the police no way to contact him, and little clue as to his state of mind. The Sergeant is suspicious of the Van Helsing Society's mysterious nature--it's not exactly public knowledge that they investigate the supernatural, after all--but Myrna's mildly coquettish demeanor flusters him badly, and she manages to put him off the scent. However, she, in turn, is cowed by his legal authority, and disengages from the conversation before he can extract any promises of noninterference from her, but also before she can get much information out of him.

Meanwhile, back at Bad Bob's warehouse headquarters, Abraham Hale, Marko Kraljević, Robin Stormchaser, and Herr Wolf are mopping up the remains of their fight against the blackshirts and Nazi agents.

Behind the warehouse, Blackshirt leader Robert "Bad Bob" Roberts flees his one-time ally, the knife-wielding Nazi madman known as Herr Zahn, through the rainy night, hoping to escape in a truck with his surviving henchmen. Robin, fearless as ever, chases after Zahn, and Marko races out of the warehouse after her. Abraham, all the way on the other side of the warehouse and suffering from a minor leg wound, decides to get back in the car and simply drive to the action. Wolf is still inside the warehouse, bandaging the grievous wounds Abe inflicted on Herr Blitz, the Nazi turncoat.

Robin shoves Herr Zahn, and the berserk German slips on the wet cobblestones, falling into a puddle. Instead of picking himself up, however, he tears open his shirt, revealing a metal plate covered in arcane designs. He turns his knife on himself, hacking and sawing at the light-gague chains the hold the plate onto his body. Robin and Marko aren't occult experts on Herr Wolf's level, but they do recognize that whatever that plate is supposed to do, breaking the chains that fasten it to Zahn will stop its effects, not activate them.

Happy that Herr Zahn is distracting the Van Helsing team, Bad Bob and his five remaining blokes pile into the lorry and start up the engine.

It's about then that Abraham comes around the corner, turning hard so that his car fishtails on the wet street, skidding towards the blackshirts' truck sideways. Abe leans out the window, and--with typical flawless accuracy--fires a round into the lorry's gas tank. The truck explodes, blasting Bad Bob and four surviving--but somewhat concussed and scorched--blackshirts into the street. Part of the car flies off and hits another nearby truck, this one a flatbed stacked with petrol barrels. The steel drums come loose . . . falling in a heap on top of the prone Herr Zahn, crushing one of his arms completely and knocking him unconscious.

The blackshirts, deprived of their escape, stand and fight, until exploding fuel barrels and sheer terror of Marko's inhuman resilience whittle their numbers down. Eventually, Bad Bob stands alone, shot in the shoulder by Abe and unable to handle his shotgun. Robin, taking advantage of his injury, simply manhandles him into the trunk of the Van Helsing Society car.

Police whistles begin to sound in the distance. Abraham delivers a dire--and entirely honest--warning to the two blackshirts who surrendered during the fight, forever cementing a very healthy terror of the Van Helsing Society into the English far-right community. They run like hell when told to do so.

The police whistles are getting closer, and now the bobbies can be heard running on the cobblestones. Marko dashes back into the warehouse to ransack its office and retrieve Sir Felix's stolen parcel, and also collects Herr Wolf and Herr Blitz, exiting at the front of the building. Robin and Abe--with Bad Bob still in their trunk--drive the length of the warehouse to meet them there, and see the remaining petrol cans atop Herr Zahn explode in their rear-view mirror. Marko, Wolf, and Blitz pile in, and the whole group speeds back to the Society clubhouse.

There, Abraham interrogates Bad Bob, who sings like a bird after a little persuasion. Bob reveals that the Nazi party has been supplying his gang and other blackshirt groups with money and weapons for a little less than a year, now. Just days ago, these three German agents--Blitz, Zahn, and Stahl--showed up and demanded a favor in return: They were to procure a postage parcel from Sir Felix Swillby-Hinderlap-Swillby's flat. All they were told was that the Nazis were interested in something a scientist named Bagsnip had found in Africa, and they needed information in that parcel to pinpoint his location.

The blackshirts stole the package for them (not knowing they'd left behind a couple items that fell out of the box: the photo and Magnetophone recording which were later found at the scene of the crime), and Herr Blitz managed to radio the vital information to some unknown party shortly before the Van Helsing team tore into their headquarters.


So now the team knows that Bagsnip has indeed found some dangerous artifact, and that the Nazis don't have it yet, but do know where to find him. With any luck, our next session will feature a trip to Africa!

I was really surprised that Myrna didn't completely destroy the Sergeant in her social conflict with him. She really outclassed him in every way, but somehow the dice were just not on her side, that night. Marko had a really awesome moment when he actually got to invoke his own complication ("Full of Holes", or something like that) to improve his Intimidation role (with much success, too). Abraham was definitely the star of this session (appropriate--since it's his last--but totally unintentional), managing to do lots of great trick shots and scaring the hell out of people. He totally shut down Herr Zahn right before the Nazi bastard was about to become a real problem for the party. It was beautiful.

LWaSH session 5: War in a warehouse!

Man, it's taken me forever to get around to writing this one up. This session was played Tuesday, 5/13/2008 (not 5/20/2008, because people just didn't feel up to gaming that night), and while it was probably our longest session to date, it should be simple enough to summarize as it was basically just one big fight scene.


Lost Worlds and Secret Histories
Summer, 1937 - London, England

Following directions they extracted from the blackshirts they roughed up last session, Abraham, Marko, Robin, and Herr Wolf come to a dockside warehouse where the alleged perpetrators of the Swillby burglary--another blackshirt gang run by a man called "Bad Bob"--are reputed to have their headquarters.

Abe hears German and English voices inside raised in agitated debate. Robin, uninterested in making plans of attack or investigating quietly, simply knocks on the front personnel door. Abe waits for the footsteps to approach the door, and then kicks it open, knocking unconscious the blackshirt behind it. Not to be outdone, Marko grabs the giant cargo doors, and tears them open as well.

Inside the cluttered, smoky warehouse, Bad Bob and his gang of blackshirts--a much tougher, more criminal, less political bunch than the ones the PCs beat so badly last session--are rushing to investigate the commotion, and all of them are armed with guns. To make matters worse, there are also three Nazi agents there, all wearing long, dark-gray coats and hats in an attempt to be inconspicuous. They are...

• Herr Blitz: lightning-wielding war sorcerer!

• Herr Zahn: knife-wielding bersker with unnatural speed and ferocity!

• Herr Stahl: hulking, steel-reinforced, man-machine abomination!

The fight that follows is long, full of awesome stunts, and increasingly complicated. Abraham fights with a tommygun in just one hand and a pistol in the other, shooting chains and pipes from the warehouse ceiling to come crashing down on his foes. Robin dashes in fearlessly, using her homespun charm to convince some blackshirts to surrender, and her mysterious connection with the thunderbird to harness Herr Blitz's own lightning against them. Marko wades into hordes of lessed men like a titan among dolls, fighting with both his fists and mace. Herr Wolf uses his arcane knowledge and sinister charisma to much greater effect than his gun.

A major turning point in the conflict comes when Wolf frees the bound lightning elementals that gave Blitz his powers, causing the sorcerer's book of magic to be burned away in the process. Wolf soon manages to convince Blitz to turn his coat, but no sooner does the Nazi sorcerer defect than Abraham shoots, blinds, and nearly kills him! Wolf made his pitch in German, of course, and Abe distrusts foreign talk almost as much as he hates Nazis.

Seeing the inevitable defeat of his side, Bad Bob flees the scene, taking a few of his blackshirts with him. But Herr Zahn, incensed at this betrayal, chases after him. Robin, in turn, chases both of them out into the rainy London night.

Meanwhile, back in the warehouse, Marko defeats Her Stahl, and puts the self-loathing proto-cyborg out of his misery by crushing his head. The remaining blackshirts surrender. But Robin is chasing after the maniac Zahn his equally-loathesome prey all alone!


We left off on that cliffhanger. Assuming we can get the right people together for tonight's session, we should be resolving it in just a few hours! And, hopefully, I won't take two whole weeks to do the writeup for it.

Stuff I learned: Real fights in Spirit of the Century--as opposed to the cakewalk I handed them last time--are even more fun . . . but it's possible to go overboard. SotC PCs are tough enough that they're really tough to threaten, but it's very possible to hand them a fight that'll just take retardedly long. Also, the Fate ladder is kind of a pain in the ass. I hate being told that somebody got a result of "Fantastic" and then trying to remember if that's actually a +6 or +7 in real money. (Absurdly, I still remember the descriptiors-to-numbers conversions for the freaking Marvel Super Heroes RPG. Now that is some wasted brain space.)

LWaSH character: Herr Wolf

Yeah, I saved the most insane character concept for last.

Herr Wolf
The Man Who Used to Be Hitler
(played by Jim)

ASPECTS
• Stoically Take the Pain
• Misunderstood Artist
• Pride of the Master Race
• Inducted Illuminatus
• Unausprechlichen Namen
• Humility of the Fall
• Secret Historian
• I Am the True Hitler!
• "Guys, We Need to Focus!"
• Hitler Must Be Stopped!

SKILLS
+5: Resolve
+4: Mysteries, Rapport
+3: Academics, Art, Intimidation
+2: Athletics, Awareness, Empathy, Guns
+1: Contacting, Endurance, Investigation, Stealth, Weapons

STUNTS
• Psychic
• Right Place, Right Time
• Smooth Recovery
• Unflappable
• Voices from Beyond

This version of Adolf Hitler--war veteran, failed artist, nationalist, Illuminatus, and occultist--performed a ritual to summon an angel that he hoped would grant the German people power and glory. And he succeeded. What he didn't expect, however, was that he'd call a fallen angel, or that it would fulfill its bargain by stealing his name and leading Germany to power in his place. So, yep, this character is the real Hitler, and the one running Nazi Germany is a demon.

Now reduced to a state of metaphysical namelessness, he cannot convince anyone of his old identity, regardless of the evidence he might offer. Instead, he must fall back on an old nickname, "Herr Wolf". It's still not a true, metaphysically-meaningful name, however, so people find it difficult to even really think about him. This is represented by the "Unausprechlichen Namen" aspect (German for "unspeakable name"). It can be useful when he wants to avoid being tracked down, but makes it essentially impossible for him to rise in the ranks of any organization again.

Naturally, his "Pride of the Master Race" aspect has already been a lot of fun. Since this is a pulp campaign set in 1937, I'm inevitably going to be setting up a lot of Nazis as antagonists . . . forcing Herr Wolf into situations of divided loyalties. He's already used such a situation to talk a Nazi agent into defecting when he found himself unable to simply shoot the man, and that was awesome. Especially when Abraham Hale (who hates Nazis and doesn't trust people who speak foreign languages around him) took disagreed violently with this decision, and decided to shoot the Nazi agent, who had just surrendered. Better yet, the Nazi survived, but lost an eye to Abe's hail of gunfire.

Herr Wolf has also been making great use of his Mysteries skill and Spirit of the Century's declaration mechanics. For those unfamiliar with the game, it actually lets you use a PC's knowledge in an area to decide what the facts are in a related situation, rather than simply rolling to see if the GM has to tell you about something they've already decided. It was just such a move which, in our third session, determined the powers of Abraham Hale's monkey idol.

Oh, and did you notice the slightly-Photoshopped mustache in Herr Wolf's portrait, there? I figured that, as Hitler's slightly-less-evil twin, he is absolutely required to have different facial hair from him.

LWaSH character: Marko Kraljević

Marko Kraljević
Immortal Serbian Folk Hero
(played by Nesko)

ASPECTS
• Marko's Mace
• Strength of 10 Strong Men
• Living Legend
• Short Fuse
• Man Out of Time
• Champion of Christianity
• Sees the Heart
• No Man Should Be Chained!
• Darling of High Society
• Because My Honor Demands It

SKILLS
+5: Might
+4: Endurance, Weapons
+3: Academics, Athletics, Resolve
+2: Alertness, Intimidation, Mysteries, Rapport
+1: Empathy, Engineering, Investigation, Stealth, Survival

STUNTS
• Animal Companion: horse (quality: Great, skill: Athletics)
• Herculean Strength
• Piledriver
• Weapon of Destiny: Marko's Mace (advancement: Arcane)
• Wrestler

Marko Kraljević (literally, "Marko, the King's Son") is a Serbian historical figure with a huge amount of heroic folklore attached to him. Since this is Spirit of the Century, this version of the character is definitely the mythic one. He was born in the 1300s and granted superhuman might by a vila (fairy), and grew up to become a great hero, fighting against the Turks. His death was prophesied to be be only a temporary state, one which would end when the Serbian people needed his protection once again.

In our campaign, Marko was awakened to fight the last gasp of the Ottoman Empire, a gigantic clockwork war machine called the Mechanical Turk. He and Abraham Hale defeated it together, in fact. Since then, the Van Helsing Society has taken him in, giving him a place in the world (and, not incidentally, making sure this supernatural superhuman isn't running around Europe unsupervised).

Marko is absolutely the heavy hitter in this campaign. Between his great strength and endurance, and his titanic, magical mace, he's terrifyingly effective in combat. He's not strictly a bruiser, however: His high Academics skill and friendly, inquisitive nature have given him plenty to do when there isn't a fight available.

LWaSH character: Myrna

Myrna
Famous Reporter and Socialite
(played by Brigid)

ASPECTS
• Debutante
• Educated at Wellesley
• Gay Divorcèe
• Intrepid Girl Reporter
• One True Love
• Another Tight Squeeze
• Not in the Face
• How Do I Make This Go?
• Damsel in Distress
• Fat Alimony Check

SKILLS
+5: Rapport
+4: Contacting, Investigation
+3: Alertness, Empathy, Resources
+2: Burglary, Deceit, Gambling, Resolve
+1: Art, Academics, Leadership, Sleight of Hand, Stealth

STUNTS
• Best Foot Forward
• International
• Linguist
• Popular Gal
• Quick Eye

Myrna doesn't have a last name, as far as I'm aware. The player was having trouble coming up with one that she liked, and I think we just decided that, after her divorce, she discarded her husband's name but didn't go back to her maiden name. Also, she's a famous society pages reporter, so she might be known by just her first name. She's somewhat based on Brenda Starr, down to her melodramatic love life. It's a different kind of pulp from what Spirit of the Century is usually about, but it is most definitely pulp.

Myrna is a totally non-fighty character--no combat skills whatsoever--so I'm actually really looking forward to throwing the characters fights while she's around, and seeing if she participates at all. SotC is a system that absolutely would make it possible for her to contribute, but then again, she's also got that "Not in the Face" aspect which should make her do her bes to stay out of the fray. I bet she could use her Alertness and Empathy to discover aspects about her enemies and share them with the more direct participants, though.

Of course, she's an absolute ninja in social situations. She already rolled so well while attempting to charm a police officer that I decided that he's now thoroughly smitten with her. I've yet to get her into a real social conflict, though. I've really got to try that out soon.

LWaSH character: Arthur Chamberlain

Arthur Chamberlain
Vatican-Trained Thief of Ancient Artifacts
(played by Brian)

ASPECTS
• Uncommon Thief
• Edinburgh Street Urchin
• Lupin the Mentor
• Artifact Acquisitions
• Many Identities, Many Personas
• Spear of Destiny
• Why Is It Always Cultists?
• It's the Artifacts, Stupid.
• Storm Cloud Stalkers
• Like Robin Hood with Style

SKILLS
+5: Burglary
+4: Deceit, Stealth
+3: Athletics, Mysteries, Sleight of Hand
+2: Academics, Contacting, Investigation, Rapport
+1: Alertness, Drive, Engineering, Guns, Resolve

STUNTS
• Clever Disguise
• Human Spider
• Personal Artifact: The Spear of Destiny (advances: transmutation, unnoticeable)
• Quick Exit
• Tripwire Sensibilities

This character's name is actually Oliver McIntosh. "Arthur Chamberlain" is actually just his English persona, and the one he uses while functioning as a member of the London-based Van Helsing Society. (He's also got a host of other international identities, named James McCrimmon, Rene Girard, Helmut Schwartz, Roger Johnson, and Igor Leonov.)

His deal is that he was born Scottish and poor, the son of an Edinburgh pickpocket. His father was eventually caught and hanged, and he was taken in by a Catholic-run orphanage. There, his natural talents for thieving were noticed, and the Vatican ended up grooming him as its "Artifact Acquisitions" expert. That is, training him to steal dangerous occult objects for either safekeeping or prudent destruction.

One object he actually held onto was the head of the Spear of Destiny. Interestingly, he's found that is has the ability to change into any simple object of similar size. Also, it has some property which causes people to overlook it if they aren't looking for it rather specifically. These qualities make one wonder if this artifact actually has anything to do with the spear that pierced Christ's side, or if it might be something else entirely.

Anyway, Arthur has so far only participated in the first bit of this adventure, and I'm sorry to say I was a really poor GM for him. We decided to stay behind any keep watch over the scene of a break-in (someone else's work, I should specify) while the rest of the party was elsewhere, and I didn't use that to hand him anything cool. I should have had some new player show up and attempt a second break-in, or at the very least compelled one of his aspects to encourage him to do something. Instead, the player just decided to infiltrate the police-controlled crime scene himself out of boredom.

Anyway, notes on some of his odder aspects: "Lupin the Mentor" refers to the fact that he was very possibly trained by the son of Arsène Lupin (and the father of Lupin III). "Storm Cloud Stalkers" refers to a curse he suffers as a result of an incident with a storm-related artifact: Storms follow where he goes. I wouldn't say it's literally cartoonish dark clouds hovering over his head, but I figure that the weather is just a lot more likely to turn stormy when he's around. (This actually offers huge opportunities for synergy between him and Robin's "Thunderbird" aspect. Plus, she's got a crush on him, so she's totally likely to be tagging along with him anyway.)

Anyway, I hope to do better by Arthur in the future.

LWaSH character: Robin Stormchaser

Robin Stormchaser
Daring Pilot of the "Blaze of Glory"
(played by Sarah)

ASPECTS
• Tomboy Next Door
• Where the Action Is
• Thunderbird
• Smokin' Like a Chimney
• Storm Chaser
• Last of the Barnstormers
• "Anything Art Can Do, I Can Do Better!"
• Rashness of Youth
• Freedom from Religion
• Dread of the Depths

SKILLS
+5: Pilot
+4: Athletics, Engineering
+3: Fists, Mysteries, Science
+2: Alertness, Endurance, Rapport, Resolve
+1: Art, Contacting, Deceit, Resources, Survival

STUNTS
• Acrobat
• Barnstormer
• Fly by Night
• Personal Aircraft: The Blaze of Glory
• Walk Away from It

Robin is an extremely fun character. She's a farm girl who found herself piloting planes as part of relief operations during the dust bowl, and had a high-altitude encounter with an Indian thunderbird spirit. Despite the fact that she's very specifically built around the whole pilot concept, she's been able to take a lot of the roleplay spotlight and participate quite nicely in combat.

Her "Anything Art Can Do, I Can Do Better!" aspect is one of the coolest ones in the whole campaign. It refers to the party's thief type, Arthur Chamberlain, and is driven by Robin's unconscious (but entirely obvious) crush on the dashing young man. Theoretically, she could invoke it to actually do anything she sees him doing, but mostly it's been used to compel her to tag along with him. And, since he's a stealthy guy and she has no skill in that area, this could really get both of them into trouble. Also, her "Rashness of Youth" aspect is awesome for making the whole party get up and get going. Robin is utterly fearless and pretty impatient, and every male character in the party (this is 1937!) is driven to protect her, so she can really drag them along behind her.

She's proven she can take care of herself quite nicely, though. She just recently used that "Thunderbird" aspect--representing a mysterious connection to a Native American lightning spirit--to absorb electricity shed by a Nazi sorcerer's spells and use it to charge up her punches, which was exactly the kind of thing I'd hoped she'd end up doing with it.

Also, I really dig her shtick of trying out exotic tobaccos and any other theoretically-smokable substance she can fit into a hand-rolled cigarette.

I think the character's crowning brilliance, though, is her plane: The "Blaze of Glory" is defined as whatever plane she's currently flying, as long as the title's previous holder has been destroyed. This is going to fucking rock.

LWaSH character: Abraham Hale

Okay, it's about time I started posting character bios for the PCs from my Lost Worlds and Secret Histories game.


Abraham Hale
Gun-Slinging Scourge of the Supernatural
(played by Gerry)

ASPECTS
• Enemy of the Devil
• His Own Brand of Religion
• Gun Nut
• Wisdom of the West
• Finding the Weak Spot
• Rube Goldberg Shot
• The Harder They Fall
• Speak American, Damnit
• I Hate Nazzys!
• ...Woulda Given Us Wings

SKILLS
+5: Guns
+4: Alertness, Intimidation
+3: Endurance, Fists, Survival
+2: Athletics, Might, Stealth, Resolve
+1: Drive, Investigation, Mysteries, Rapport, Weapons

STUNTS
• Danger Sense
• Iron Determination
• Tracker
• Trick Shot
• Two Gun Joe

Originally conceived as sort of a 1930s gunslinger version of Solomon Kane, Abraham Hale has quickly developed into an extremely distinctive character. His background is a story about how his sister was possessed by a demon, and killed by their preacher father in his attempt to exorcise the thing, leading Abraham to conclude that the supernatural should be fought with guns rather than faith. (In fact, that "His Own Brand of Religion" aspect actually refers to the fact that he believes that God has abandoned the world, which is really interesting.) He then went on to fight cultists and other occult evils, including--just before the beginning of this campaign--a trip to Africa that involved pterodactyls. As Abraham's player says, every pulp hero has to go to Africa at some point.

He also likes a drink, now and again, a trait which was used to such great humorous effect ("Hell yeah, I'm drunk!") that I wish it had made it into his aspects.

His "Speak American, Damnit" and "I Hate Nazzys!" aspects have already been great for fueling intra-party conflict, as one of the other PCs actually used to be Adolf freaking Hitler. That "...Woulda Given Us Wings" aspect, representing his fear of flying, is also bound to be fun, since another PC is primarily a pilot. And the game's plot is already pointing back towards Africa...

Variant rule alert!
Abe's been making good use of his Trick Shot stunt in a way which might not be completely okay with the Spirit of the Century rules. The description of the stunt states that it gives a bonus to attacks against inanimate objects, and cannot be used to attack other characters. However, I'm letting him use it to attack characters indirectly by shooting down suspended objects and such. The way I'm handling it, the player has to come up with the details of the shot, set the target number himself, and make a Guns roll (with the +2 from Trick Shot). If the roll misses that target, the shot fails and nothing happens. If the roll meets or exceeds it, though, that target number (and no more, regardless of how high the player rolled) is treated as an attack roll against the hapless sucker standing under the chandelier. (Maybe shifts past that target number might let the indirect attack hit multiple opponents? Not sure.)

Speaking of variant rules, I'm really looking for a chance to use Mike Olson's badass showdown rules with this character. I've just gotta come up with the right opponent for him...

LWaSH session 4: Things are definitely getting pulpy, now.

Well, it's taken me forever to write this up, but I didn't have any trouble remember what happened last Tuesday, since Jim was good enough to provide me with a remarkably high-quality recording of the session. And wow does my voice sound terrible. My own wife couldn't even recognize it. But it's all extremely clear, and totally got the job done. It also did a great job of showing me exactly how much time we spend chatting on various tangents, so that's something we clearly still need to work on.

However, everybody gets the system, now, so things are going a lot quicker than the previous session. Also, we finally got some properly pulpy elements into the mix, including our first fight scene!


Lost Worlds and Secret Histories
Summer, 1937 - London, England

It's the day after the events of the previous session, and PCs are at the London headquarters of the Van Helsing Society, discussing the burglary at Sir Felix Swillby-Hinderlap-Swillby's apartment and the leads they currently have on the case. Arthur Chamberlain isn't present, as he was called away on Vatican business in the early morning.


Marko Kraljevic--who has lately been hitting the books in an attempt to catch up with a world six hundred years ahead of his own time--manages to recognize the landscape in the photograph recovered from the crime scene as possibly being somewhere in north-eastern Africa (although not quite as far north as Egypt).

The metal canister discovered along with the photo is finally opened, and is revealed to contain a Magnetophon tape. Only Robin--the most technically-minded of the bunch--is able to recognize the cutting-edge audio recording technology.

It's about then that they are approached, somewhat abruptly, by a fellow Society member who they've seen around the clubhouse but never really spoken with. He introduces himself as Howard Lovecraft, one of the Society's experts on pre-Holocene civilizations. (He is, in fact, H.P. Lovecraft. Sadly, his work and name aren't famous enough in 1937 for any of the PCs to know that was publicly believed to have died a few months before this meeting.) He expresses great concern over the possibility that any artifacts in the possession of Sir Felix Swillby-Hinderlap-Swillby might have been stolen, as the man is known to be in correspondence with a number of rogue academics who have been prying into dangerous secrets of forgotten epochs. Chief among these is Professor Horace Bagsnip, an archaeologist who is searching for evidence of Lemurian influence on the early peoples of India and eastern Africa. As Bagsnip has resisted all proposals of cooperation from the Society, and the Lemurians are believed to have created terrible living weapons, Bagsnip--and, by extension, Sir Felix--could be dealing in some very dangerous things.

While Marko discusses what little is known--or suspected, anyway--about the Lemurian people with Howard, Myrna begins looking into contacting Sir Felix. Robin, knowing a Magnetophon player would be difficult to find and expensive to purchase in England, gets to work building one herself.

Myrna manages to get ahold of John Hastings, the same police constable she charmed at the scene of the burglary the day before. Very eager to help the glamorous girl reporter, he provides her not only with the name of the hotel Sir Felix is now staying at--the Hotel McGuffin--but his specific room number. Myrna Heads out with Marko to speak to Sir Felix Swillby-Hinderlap-Swillby about the break-in.

Sir Felix turns out to be quite cooperative, and explains that he was robbed by, of all people, a gang of blackshirts! They battered down his front door with a fasces, and demanded to know where "the package" was. The only package he could think of was the most recent shipment of notes and such sent to him for safe-keeping by his good friend Professor Horace Bagsnip. Sir Felix had only just had a chance to unpack the contents of the box and lock it in his roll-top desk, and never got to see exactly what the professor sent him before the fascist thugs knocked him out (or, more accurately, pushed him into a wall, jarring loose an authentic Zulu spear mounted there, which fell on Sir Felix's skull, rendering him unconscious).

Sure enough, Sir Felix later heard from the police that the roll-top desk (along with his cash box) had been broken into and looted. He's not very confident that the police will retrieve Professor Bagsnip's stolen materials, however, as he suspects their own far-right tendencies prevent them from leaning very hard on the blackshirts.

Meanwhile, back at Society headquarters, Robin has completed her jury-rigged Magnetophon player. Wolf and Abraham enter the workshop just as she starts the mysterious recording. At first, only static is distinguishable, but the sound of chanting soon becomes apparent. In fact, it's a style of chanting that Abraham recognizes: It's the Nubian Snake People, an eerie and possibly inhuman race he has encountered in the past (although only briefly).

The next sound, however, is something wholly new to all present: A monstrous, piercing wail rises over the chanting, sounding something like an air raid siren, but perhaps a living one. The sound is literally mind-numbing, and both Robin and Abraham are stunned and stupefied by it. Herr Wolf, however, manages to maintain his focus and observe how his comrades simply blank out and stand mute throughout the remainder of the sound. Then they tape ends, and the two regain their faculties.

At that moment, Myrna and Marko return, and the five all share what they have learned. Myrna is called away by a phone call, but Robin, Abraham, Wolf, and Marko begin to make plans to follow up the blackshirt lead. Robin, having spent more time exploring the streets of London than the others, knows the part of town where blackshirts are likely to be found, and immediately resolves to head out looking for them. The rest, naturally, realize they must follow for the sake of her safety.

Abraham borrows a car from the Society motor pool, and takes the other three out into the foggy London evening. Guided by Robin's directions, they eventually find a group of five blackshirts loitering on a street corner. Robin immediately approaches their leader--a man named Nigel--who promptly tells her to go back to America. Abraham pulls a gun and threatens to start shooting kneecaps if he isn't given information about the burglary of Sir Felix's flat. Nigel and company are duly frightened, but claim to know nothing of the crime. It's obvious to all present that they're lying.

Alerted by the commotion, another 12 blackshirts begin to approach quietly, hidden by the fog. Abraham hears them, however, and fires into the mist at leg height, managing to kneecap one man without even seeing him. This makes his point to Nigel very clear, and the terrorized blackshirt wails that the break-in was done by "Bad Bob and his blokes!"

The remaining 11 ambushers immediately rush out of the fog at Abraham, but he neatly fires off five rounds in quick succession, shooting a kneecap with each one. Wolf shouts something to the effect of "This is what happens to those who oppose the Führer!", trying to give the impression that this incident is the work of German agents (and Adolf Hitler himself!). Marko then picks up two of the attackers, and propels them into the remaining four, knocking all six unconscious. Robin kicks one of the prone blackshirts.

Abraham rifles the pockets of the downed men, checks the ID cards for names and addresses, and warns them "We were never here." Now completely terrified of Abraham and Marko, they agree wholeheartedly.

With no remaining opposition, the group gets the details of Bad Bob from the now-eagerly-helpful Nigel. They're told that he's the head of a different, more dangerous blackshirt splinter group, less political party and more organized criminal gang. Also, they've got ties to the fascist governments of other nations. Nigel supplies information on where they can be found.


So, lessons learned: Fights in Spirit of the Century are fun as all hell, and we need more of them. However, the PCs are seriously badass, so they need much better opposition than a bunch of lame Nazi-wannabes. Furthermore, conflicts can be really, really quick, so I should be less hesitant about resolving social interactions as full-fledged social conflicts.

Finally, while we've gotten much better at just getting down to play instead of chatting for a half hour first, I do need to keep a tighter rein on our focus throughout the session. I need to herd these fucking cats. Should be easier tomorrow night, actually, since most of this bunch just saw each other on Saturday at our monthly Amber game.

Lost Worlds and Secret Histories character sheet

I'm finally putting the finishing touches on the custom character sheet for my Spirit of the Century campaign, "Lost Worlds and Secret Histories". The deal is, all the PCs are supposed to members of this 1930s monster-fighting organization, the Van Helsing Society. So I tried to build the character sheet to looks sort of like an actual personnel file from that organization, completely with smudged stamps, paper clips, and vintage fonts. It's very much inspired by coyotegrey's extremely awesome NEMESIS character sheet.

Anyway, click the thumbnail to see it at a halfway reasonable size. This sheet is for Abraham Hale, Gerry's character. He's supposed to be kind of a Solomon Kane / Charlton Heston / cult-fighting gunslinger character. And, yes, that's Lance Henriksen we used for the portrait.

LWaSH session 3: Actual play at last!

Okay, as of last Tuesday, we are finally playing Spirit of the Century at last! We finished up character creation (man, the process of choosing stunts is fraught with dilemmas), and then had a good couple hours of actual play. We didn't really get a lot story progress done--really, I'd just call that session a prologue--but we're all getting acquainted with the mechanics of the game, and there was some really fun roleplay and aspect use going on.

Anyway, I'm going to type up the events of the session here. This is primarily for reference purposes, so I can't promise it'll be entertaining.


Lost Worlds and Secret Histories
Summer, 1937 - London, England

Myrna--international socialite, intrepid reporter, and member in good standing of the monster-fighting Van Helsing Society--gets a phone call from her friend and sometime informant Agatha Worbley, a rich old widow with a passion for gossip and a scatterbrained manner that may or may not be a facade. Agatha reports that Sir Felix Swillby-Hinderlap-Swillby--a minor baronet and amateur anthropologist of their mutual acquaintance--was robbed the night before.

Myrna, knowing that Sir Felix is a person of some minor interest to the Van Helsing Society, contacts a couple other Society members: Marko Kraljevic, the giant Serbian folk hero, and Arthur Chamberlain, the Vatican-trained artifact thief. Together, they drop by Sir Felix's burglarized apartment, and discover that the crime scene is still secured by the police, and that Sir Felix himself is now giving his statement at the police station after a short hospital stay. Myrna charms the police officer guarding the door--leaving him seriously smitten with her--and gives him a calling card to deliver to Sir Felix.

Myrna returns to her London residence to make some calls and chase down more information on Sir Felix, Arthur stays behind to watch the crime scene, and Marko returns to the Van Helsing Society's London headquarters. There he finds the cultist-fighting gunslinger Abraham Hale, recently returned from Africa, thoroughly enjoying a whiskey, and very much looking forward to returning to his home in Arizona. Herr Wolf--the mysterious mystic who was once Adolf Hitler--is just returning to the London clubhouse after a trip to the Louvre, and seethes with jealousy towards the French artists because of his own failure in art. The brilliant young pilot Robin Stormchaser is also at the clubhouse, having a smoke atop the observatory as usual.

Hale has brought back an obscene--and apparently indestructible--monkey idol from his trip to Africa, and is asking Marko about a way to dispose of the thing. Wolf, still in a foul mood, interrupts and informs them that the idol obviously has the power to summon the great apes of Africa to fulfill a single request of the wielder, and denigrates both the workmanship of the idol and Marko's intelligence. This, in turn, provokes Marko's anger, but Abraham defuses the situation.

Marko then seeks out Robin to deliver a gift from Myrna--a package of French cigarettes--and also tells her about the situation with Sir Felix. Robin, certain that Arthur can't possibly manage his surveillance assignment alone, decides to head over to the flat to help him out (or show him up). When she comes downstairs, however, Wolf recognizes the national origin of Robin's cigarettes, and--in a fury of anti-French sentiment--shouts at her and tries to take them away. She's far too quick for him, however.

Unswayed in her resolve to go help Arthur out, Robin continues on her way to the crime scene, allowing Abraham--rather drunk, by now--to escort her through the London night.

Meanwhile, Arthur has decided to disguise himself as a police officer and infiltrate Sir Felix's flat. He manages to trick the officer at the door, and has a look around inside, finding that the front door was battered in, both a cashbox and a roll-top desk were broken into, and Sir Felix's many exotic souvenirs seem to be untouched.

Just then, Robin and Abraham show up. Abraham, too intoxicated to fully understand the situation, is simply starts shouting for Arthur. This immediately draws the attention of the cops inside the flat, and forces Arthur to hide to avoid scrutiny. One police officer tells Abraham to go home, and might be on the verge of trying to take him in, when Marko and Wolf show up. Wolf shakes hands with the officer, and discovers that he's a Freemason. Wolf, himself an Inducted Illuminatus, uses this to manipulate the cop into allowing him a look inside the flat, while Marko babysits Abraham and Robin.

Inside, Arthur approaches Wolf, and points out his findings. Wolf has a closer look at the desk, and discovers two interesting things: a small, disk-shaped metal canister, and a photograph of a great stone in a desert, encircled by lightning. Taking these objects--entirely with the consent of the Freemason police officer--the Society members headed back to their headquarters.


...And that's where we left it! Typed up, it really looks like a hell of a lot of stuff happened, but really, things were going pretty slowly. I had to stop and check the game book more often than I'd like, and there was much looking for places to roll dice or store poker chips (our "fate point" tokens). Next time, we'll hopefully have our shit a little more sorted out. Also, I hope to get to use SotC's conflict rules, whether it's for physical combat or some social conflict. Also, now that everyone's finally got their character sorted out, I can enter them into the custom character sheets I made! I'll probably show those off here soon.

LWaSH session 2: More character creation

The Tuesday Night crew continued--but didn't quite complete--development of their Van Helsing Society operatives last night, and it was loads of fun.

The players finally got to do the "guest star" phases of character-building, meaning that they all picked names out of a hat and then had to figure out ways to work their characters into guest roles into each others' pulp novels. This lead to some weird and difficult chronology questions, and one character only got a single guest star in his book, since it took place too early in history for most of the group to logically participate in it (which, of course, lead to another book getting three guest stars instead of two).

I think if I had to do it all over again, I'd hack the standard SotC character generation so that Phase Three was the character's solo novel (and, probably, canonical first adventure), while Phases Four and Five are for team-up novels with only two stars each. I think that'd be a lot easier to manage.

Anyway, we didn't quite complete everybody's guest star roles, but we did manage to get a whole lot of skills-and-stunts stuff done. I'm hoping to help people finish up via email.

Highlights of the session include:

• One player deciding that the aspect she got out of a guest-starring role was a competitive, anything-he-can-do-I-can-do-better relationship with the main character . . . which is the character's way of expressing a crush that's obvious to everyone but her


• That same player deciding that her plane, "Blaze of Glory", is less a specific aircraft than a title and role that's bestowed upon any plane she flies . . . as long as the previous Blaze has been destroyed (That is so freaking brilliant!)


• Much discussion--and even a drawing!--of Marko Kraljevic's arch enemy, a steam-powered war robot built by the Ottoman Empire called The Mechanical Turk


• Lots of moments where people's various novel plots and the specialties of their guest stars clicked together perfectly


• Cool decisions about where to get photos to illustrate the character sheets: Marko the Slavic folk hero is likely to be played by Rade Serbedzija, Arthur the gentleman thief will be David Tennant, and Abraham the cultist-fighting gunslinger will be Lance freaking Henriksen.


• The Hitler character's "Unausprechlichen Namen" aspect, describing his state of metaphysical namelessness after his identity was stolen by the demon who went on to become der Fuhrer (people have trouble even remembering him, and could never possibly believe he's actually Adolf Hitler, even in the face of evidence)


• Outside of the game, the near-unanimity of our Chinese orders, leading several of us to become General Tso's Army

So, all in all, a lot of good fun, and we're not even playing, yet. The hypothetical pulp novels this session produced are so cool I wish I could commission an artist to do a nice color piece for each, which I could then Photoshop into a set of book covers.

LWaSH session 1: Character creation

Okay, the Tuesday Night crew got together last night for our first Lost Worlds and Secret Histories session. Six players showed up for this one instead of the four which I'd originally been expecting. I kind of worry about the difficulties inherent in getting a total of seven adults with jobs and lives together for a few hours every week, but the two new players are awesome folks, and I'm really excited about having them involved.

Anyway, since we only meet for very short sessions (and have a fairly dire pre-game chatting problem), we only managed to make it through the first three phases of character creation, but it was loads of fun, and the characters that they're creating are cool as all hell. I'll have to see if I have everybody's permission to actually talk about my players by name (and hopefully link to their websites, too), but I figure it's okay to discuss their character concepts. So get a load of this:

• Scottish street urchin raised by nuns and trained by the Vatican as a thief to retrieve sacred or dangerous artifacts


• Intrepid girl reporter, socialite, and gay divorcee; sort of a character from the pulp subgenre of "thrilling romance", and also very Brenda Starr


• Religious, gun-toting, supernatural-evil-fighting cowboy; sort of a latter-day Solomon Kane with a little Charlton Heston thrown in


• Immortal, superhumanly-strong Serbian folk hero Kraljevic Marko, a legend searching for a place in the modern world


• Tomboyish, chainsmoking daredevil pilot with a plane called "Blaze of Glory" and a mysterious connection to a Native American thunderbird spirit


• ADOLF FREAKING HITLER. The idea here being that this guy, the real Hitler, was supplanted by a demon who then went on to lead the Nazi party and Germany itself. So this ought to be interesting.

Can you see why I'm all excited? This is going to rock hard.

Anyway, we're setting this game in 1937 instead of Spirit of the Century's default of 1922 or thereabouts. Also, instead of the Century Club, the PCs are going to be members of the Van Helsing Society, a group dedicated thwarting supernatural evils. We'll figure out the details together as we go along.

Next Tuesday, we'll do the remaining phases of character generation, in which they'll all figure out how they guest-starred in each other's adventures--giving them all some amount of shared history--and then we'll get to the mechanical stuff, choosing skills and stunts. Skills should go pretty quickly, but I should probably put together some stunt suggestions to speed that part along.

When they're done with everything, I'll be able to give them all their custom character sheets. I've almost got the design done already, actually, but I wanna type in all their info for them instead of having them actually write it all down all over again.

Tuesday Night campaign chosen!

Ohhh, awesomeness. Last night, my weekly gaming crew came to the end of our latest World of Darkness arc, and decided what they want to play now that my turn in the GM's chair is coming up again. They voted, there was a tie between Lost Worlds and Secret Histories (a Spirit of the Century campaign) and Professor Bennick's Class (which I'd run with either Dungeons & Dragons or True20). A coin was flipped, and LWaSH won!

Barring catastrophe, we'll be doing the famed SotC character generation next Tuesday, and--since I'm not using the Century Club of the game's default setting--figuring out what kind of group the characters will all be part of, or else how they'll know each other and why they would work together (because I ain't doing a "you all meet by chance" kind of deal). I'm not even going to come up with a plot until I know what kinds of people the PCs are (although, naturally, I've got a pile of ideas already).

Thomas Allen does cool shit with pulp covers

I've been on something of a pulp kick thanks to Spirit of the Century, and that lead me to this article on Thomas Allen, an artist who's been doing some very cool things with cut-up pulp novel covers and a camera with a really shallow depth of field (man, I love that effect).

There are more pictures available at this gallery site.

[SotC] Ambrose Goodfellow: The Critic of Crime

I am hugely excited about Spirit of the Century, a pulp adventure roleplaying game based on the deeply brilliant Fate system. I still haven't gotten a chance to play the game yet, but, by God, it looks like fun. I'm hoping to it for my Tuesday night crew (shout out to Brigid!), eventually.

Anyway, one of the really cool things about this system is that even the character creation is an extremely fun, fast-moving creative exercise. The centerpiece of any character is a list of ten "Aspects", traits created by the player which describe the character's identity, background, personality, possessions, mottos--everything that defines the character's nature and shtick beyond the usual mechanical skill rankings and such. But these Aspects do actually have mechanical weight! They can both help and hinder a character whenever they might logically apply to a situation.

If you've got an Aspect along the lines of "lives in the woods", then you can use it for a bonus when attempting to do things like follow tracks, identify mushrooms, hide in foliage, or anything else you might reasonably apply it to. The main limitation is that you've gotta spent a "Fate Point" to use an Aspect. And where it gets completely brilliant is the way you get Fate Points: by letting your Aspects be used against you. So when your backwoods hermit is in the big city and interacting with big city people, the GM can offer you a Fate Point to do or say something inappropriate. And you can refuse . . . but only if you spent a Fate Point instead of taking one.

Anyway, it looks like a huge amount of fun, and I'm jonesing for it so badly that I'm making characters I'll probably never do anything with. Here's my latest, a guy who's kinda supposed to be a pistol-packing, mystery-solving, slightly Oscar Wilde-ish art critic.

Ambrose Goodfellow
The Critic of Crime

ASPECTS
• "Dead men tell tales."
• dressed fashionably and impeccably
• friends in low places
• lust for secrets
• magnificent bastard
• notorious indiscretions
• pearl-handled revolver
• rapier wit
• sexual invert
• too famous for prison

SKILLS
+5 - Art
+4 - Empathy
+4 - Investigation
+3 - Guns
+3 - Rapport
+3 - Resolve
+2 - Contacting
+2 - Deceit
+2 - Academics
+2 - Resources
+1 - Alertness
+1 - Athletics
+1 - Drive
+1 - Intimidation
+1 - Stealth

STUNTS
• The Artist's Eye (This allows him to guess personal things about someone by examining their creative works.)
• Five Minute Friends (He can make friends very quickly.)
• Razor Tongue (He can craft the perfect insult to enrage or manipulate someone.)
• Poison Words (His insults can sway the opinion of a whole crowd against a person.)
• Quick Eye (He can quickly scan a scene for clues.)