LARP Rules once more
Reprint of the rules on a public post so that everyone can be directed here to see them.
Basic Rules
What is LARP
This is just a little background information on LARPing for those who may be interested but don’t understand what this weird thing that I’m going on about is. LARPing stands for Live-Action Role Playing and that pretty much covers what it is. Instead of sitting around a table saying what your character is doing, you actually act it out. If you’re giving someone a hug, you walk over and hug them and if they try to hit you for it then they take a swing at you with a (foam rubber) sword. All of the skills for LARP’s mainly cover what you can do, rather than how good you are at it. If you’re nimble and quick on your feet then so is your character and if you’re a ham fisted klutz who couldn’t hit a barn without a couple of practice swings first then so is your character (and you might want to think about being a magic user).
Hits
Each persons body is split into 6 hit locations: Head, body, left and right arm and left and right leg. Each location has a basic single hit point (the toughness skill and armour can increase this). This means that if you get hit there once you loose the use of the location (as it now has zero hits points). If it’s an arm or a leg then that limb has effectively been broken or chopped up a bit. Stick it behind your back if its an arm or start hopping if it’s a leg, but as you’re a tough hero it doesn’t slow you down too much. If it’s your head or torso then you’ve been quite badly hurt and knocked unconscious. You should fall over and your character will not wake up until the next morning. If a location which has been taken to 0 hits gets hit again, that’s when the fun starts. That location has now taken really serious damage and could kill you if not seen to soon. Start timing under your breath as soon at it reaches -1 hits. If it was your chest or head that was on -1 then if you manage to count to 5 minutes without anyone healing you then I’m sorry, your character is dead. Dead Dave, everybody is dead. If it is a leg or arm which is on -1 hit then firstly you are in extreme pain, more even than your hardy character can really cope with, and secondly if your count reaches 5 minutes then your chest instantly goes to -1 hit, no matter how healthy it was before as trauma and lack of blood take their toll. At that point start a new count to five minutes for there. Finally if all six hit locations get taken to -1 hit points at the same time then you are dead instantly without any count or get out clause. You are a fantasy hero, it’s a dangerous line of work.
Backgrounds
The world is a bog standard fantasy setting in the vein of Lord of the Rings or any other major fantasy series. The inhabitants have got about as far as inventing steel and catapults but no further. Definitely no gunpowder. Magic exists and is a fairly accepted part of every day life, as are non-human races. As well as the usual elves, dwarves, halflings, goblins etc. There is a plethora of other, less well known races. Pretty much if you can conceive it, it doesn’t break the fantasy setting and it doesn’t require any special rules to play (the main examples there are vampires and werewolves. Both are pretty much impossible to play without a special ability or two being added to the character), you can play it. The same sort of thing goes for your character’s background. I haven’t devised a map of the world or anything like that yet, I’m going to try to work it around people’s backgrounds. So if you decide that your character comes from a land where the culture is a mix of samurai, steppe nomad and ancient Aztec, where all right handed children are killed at birth and not owning at least two goats is counted as treason then that place will be added to my map (probably somewhere a long way away where no one will ever have to interact with it). The same thing goes for background knowledge and skills. If your character is an elf who’s been alive for hundreds of years and spent that time perfecting his culinary abilities so that he is now the best soufflé chef to ever walk a battlefield, fine. You don’t need to stick to stereotypes either. If you decide that your dwarf is actually a sensitive soul who has dedicated his life to peace, protecting the environment and practising the noble arts of origami and flower arranging that’s also fine by me. What does not work (and will get you asked to leave the LARP) is anything along the lines of ‘I know I don’t have the herb lore skill, but my characters background says that he spent 20 years apprenticed to the master herbalist in his old town, so he must know what this herb is anyway!’. Provided you stay away from that side of things however, you have free reign over your characters background, and remember, the more interesting and in depth it is, the more likely it is to generate plot for your character. And we all know plot is a good thing don’t we!
Armour Repair
To repair armour you must have the appropriate Armour Proficiency and spend 1 minute per point of damage taken role-playing repairing the armour. You may repair other peoples armour if you have the skill for it and multiple people may work at repairing one set of armour at once.
Natural Healing
If you have taken damage and there is no healer to heal you then you regenerate one point on each location every night. This means that if you have the Toughness skill, get taken down to 0 hits on some locations and do not get healed then you would wake up the next day with one hit on those locations. You would still be in pain and be weak, but you would be conscious.
Knocking people out
To knock someone out you must subdue them. This involves hitting them on the head (lightly) or body with a blunt weapon under 30 inches long and stating that you are subduing them (see damage calls below). Subdual hits cannot take someone below 0 hit points and if they do take someone to 0 on the head or body then that person is considered unconscious and will wake up unhurt but groggy after 10 minutes.
Damage calls
These are the basic calls that you need to make when you hit someone with a weapon. Normally the standard ones are not so important, but as it’s dark for the playtest people won’t necessarily be able to tell if you’re attacking with a sword or a club, so:
Sharp: The call made when you hit someone with an edged weapon (e.g. sword, axe). Does one point of damage to all who are not immune to sharp weapons.
Blunt: The call made when you hit someone with an bashing weapon (e.g. mace, quarterstaff). Does one point of damage to all who are not immune to bunt weapons.
Subdue: The call you make when trying to knock someone out. May only be used with blunt weapons under 30 inches. Does one point of subdue damage to those not immune to subdue.
Through: The call made if your weapon ignores armour (e.g. if it has had the sharpness spell cast on it). Does one point of sharp damage ignoring armour.
Crush: The call made if you have the Strength spell cast on you or equivalent. If the location hit by a crushing blow has any armour on it then all the armour is destroyed. If it does not then the location is taken straight to -1 hits.
Out Of Character
Being ‘out of character’ (basically saying that you are not playing your character at the moment and don’t exist in the game world) is signified by sticking a finger up in the air. Your character cannot see anyone who is walking around like this or interact with them in any way unless specifically stated otherwise. Please do not use this too often. Acceptable times are pretty much limited to ‘I’m off to the toilet’ and ‘I need to get a ref to check on this and there isn’t one here at the moment. I’ll go find one.’ Monsters will do it more often. Also if I am wearing the luminous yellow ref jacket I am automatically out of character.
Out Of Character Calls
These are all calls which are considered to be out of character and require action from the players rather than the characters. They will be mainly made by myself or people helping me to ref.
Time Freeze: Stop whatever you are doing and stay where you are. Close your eyes and hum. Will soon be followed by:
Time In: Follows after Time Freezes. Open your eyes, stop humming and continue what you were doing. For your character no time has passed. Anything which has changed about the game world has done so instantaneously.
Man Down: Someone has been hurt out of character. Acts like a Time Freeze except any player may call Man Down if they or someone around them is hurt. Closing eyes and Humming is not necessary with a Man Down call.
Fire: Should not be necessary as the events will mostly be outside, but still... Fire indicates that the area is on fire (out of character, not in character). Stop whatever you are doing and leave the area. Again, Fire may be called by players as well as refs.
Background
Such as it is
The world and setting is (as I’ve mentioned in the backgrounds section of the basic rules) mostly unformed at the moment. A small amount however (the part that you’re in at the moment) is set. The LARP is set on a mid sized island which is part of a large chain. Until recently the islanders made a frugal but fairly safe living farming the island and staying mostly out of people’s way. The island was used as a re-suply base by a large group of pirates and slavers who had a deal with the locals along the lines of ‘We dock here whenever we feel like it to rest and re-suply. You provide us with what we went at those points and we don’t burn your villages, kill whoever tries to resist and sell the rest of you to the highest bidder!’ However, a couple of days ago a revolt started on one of the slave ships approaching the island. The prisoners escaped, killed the crew and beached the ship on the island. The peasants, faced with the choice between defying the (currently absent) pirates or trying to capture and turn in the armed, bloody and angry looking strangers who had turned up in their village, agreed to a alliance against their old lords and began fortifying the old hill fort in the centre of the island. Soon after that the villages were burning. After a long and drawn out battle the pirates were driven off and their leader killed by one of the newcomers, however many were dead and yet more were badly wounded. Amongst the fallen is Lord Aran Stormbrow, the old lord of the island and Father Paolo, his chief adviser and High Priest to the islands ancestors. A council of the surviving village elders has been called at the fort along with representatives of the newcomers being invited as well to try to make good the situation and plan for the future, for while this pirate assault has been defeated it was but a small part of their fleet and the pirate kings attention is sure to turn this way soon...
The main character types
Village elders: Those the people here look to for leadership. Respected as being the wisest, noblest, scariest or best at bribing that their village has to offer. All have lived on the island for at least five years and probably longer. They know the people and the ways here (note, this does not mean they have to like them). Almost exclusively humans none of them are likely to be overly proficient in combat, magery, or rituals, none of these being things that a farming village is likely to have much use for.
Escaped Slaves: Can be pretty much anything. They just have to have been kidnapped by pirates at some point (and yes, if your character is too great and good and honourable to be taken alive, remember that pirates aren’t. You could easily have been coshed while sleeping in a cheap tavern and woken up chained up in the hold). Can be of pretty much any race, belief or skill set but probably has an ingrained hatred of pirates and slavery by now.
Use Your Imagination: If you want to play someone else and can come up with a good reason why they’d be on the island and invited to this meeting then email me the basics off list and I’ll give you a Yay or Nay on it. If it’s interesting enough I’ll probably go with it though.
Skills
Each starting character has 20 points to spend to buy skills. All of the skills on this table plus some extra ones will be avaliable to purchase with XP. Information on Magery, Calling and Healing is in the ‘Magic’ section which follows later.
Combat Skills
Dagger Use - You may use any weapon of 16 inches or less in length - 1pt
Melee Proficiency - You may use any weapon of 16 to 42 inches - 2pts
Polearm Proficiency - You may use any weapon of between 42 inches and 6ft - 3pts
Bow Proficiency - You may use bows and crossbows - 6pts
Throwing Proficiency - You may us throwing weapons - 2pts
Shield Proficiency - You may use a shield as well as your main weapon - 3 points
Ambidexterity - You may wield a weapon of 42 inches or less in either hand provided you have the appropriate skills for those weapons and/or wield a weapon in one hand and spellcast with the other - 3pts
Light Leather Armour Proficiency - You may use padded armour or soft leather armour provided you wear the appropriate clothing. You gain one extra hit point on every location where you wear Light Leather Armor. - 2pts
Heavy Leather Armour Proficiency - You may use hard leather armour or studded leather armour provided you wear the appropriate clothing. You gain two extra hit points on every location where you wear Heavy Leather Armor. You may also use Light Leather Armour as though you had the apropriate skill. - 3 pts
Chain Mail Proficiency - You may use chain mail, ring mail or scale mail provided you wear the appropriate clothing. You gain Three extra hit points on every location where you wear Chain Mail Armor. You may also use Light Leather Armour and Heavy Leather Armour as though you had the apropriate skills. - 4 pts
Plate Armour Proficiency - You may use plate armour provided you wear the appropriate clothing. You gain four extra hit points on every location where you wear Plate Armor. Those locations are also immune to effects of the Sharpness spell and the Keen Eye skill. You may also use Light Leather Armour, Heavy Leather Armour and Chain Mail Armour as though you had the apropriate skills. - 8pts
Toughness - You are exceptionally tough and can take an extra hit in battle - 8pts
Magical Skills
Empowered - You have magic in your blood. Pre-requisite skill for Magery, Calling, Healing, Ritualist, Scroll Use, Scroll Creation, Item Activation and Detect Magic - 2 pts
-Magery - You may cast Mage (offensive) spells. - 4 pts/level
-Calling - You may cast Caller (defensive) spells. - 4 pts/level
-Healing - You may cast Healing spells. - 4 pts/level
-Ritualist - You may conduct rituals. You have a ritual power rating equal to the number of points you spend on this - 1+ pts
-Item Activation - You may activate the special powers of certain items (e.g. sword that does extra damage if you have this skill, cup that heals if someone with this skill drinks from it) - 4 pts
-Scroll Use - You may use scrolls regardless of whether you could normally cast the spells on them - 4 pts
-Scroll Creation - You may create scrolls. You may only create scrolls of Mage, Caller or Healing spells that you can cast. - 8 pts
-Detect Magic - You can tell if an item or creature is magical or if there are any long standing magical effects in an area - 3 pts
General Skills
Evaluation - You can tell the rough value of an item and if any special materials have been used in its creation - 2 pts
Recognise Forgery - You can tell if a supposedly valuable item is genuine or forged (remember that even if you know it is fake, other people may not) - 2 pts
Literacy - You can read the language of the area - 1 pt
Numeracy - You can count - 1 pt
Medic - You may bind peoples wounds and generally minister to them. - 3 pts
Map Use - You may make and read maps. Note that being able to read any names on them requires Literacy - 1 pt
Herbology - You can identify useful herbs and administer them if they do not need special preparation. - 4 pts
Alchemy - You have a basic knowledge of am alchemists tools and apparatus. Required for Potion Creation and Poison Creation. - 2 pts
-Poison Creation - Given the right ingredients and equipment you can create poisons - 5 pts
-Potion Creation - Given the right ingredients and equipment you can create potions - 5 pts
Magic
When you buy a the ability to cast magic spells your character gains access to one of the ‘schools’ of spellcraft. These are detailed below along with a description of the spells available to them. Magery, Calling and Healing all cost 4 character creation points per level. Each level provides you with 4 spell points to use per day an also with access to the spells of that level. For example, If you have bought Magery at level 2 (costing 8 points) then you would have 8 spell points to use per day and access to the spells Fumble and Strikedown (costing 1 point each to cast) and Fear and Bolt (costing 2 points each). With magery 1 and calling 1 (also costing 8 pts) you would again have 4 mage spell points and 4 calling spell points per day and the spells Fumble and Strikedown (which cost 1 mage spell point each to cast) and Dismiss Unliving and Barrier to Bolts (both costing 1 calling point to cast).
Magery
Magery is the use of power innate within the Mage to affect the world. This can be power of the book learned sort or something the Mage just naturally knows how to do but the ability to do it comes purely from inside. Due to this Magery is by far the most aggressive of the main schools of magic, granting the power to hurt someone from a distance, destroy objects or make your enemies run in fear.
Sample vocals: ‘I draw upon my power to strike you down.’, ‘By the power within me I shatter that sword.’
L1) 1 pt - Fumble. Target enemy drops their weapon.
1 pt - Strikedown. Target enemy falls over. Their chest or shoulders (depending on whether they fell forward or backwards) must contact the ground before they can get up again (for those who cannot fall for medical reasons, fall to your knees for an appropriate amount of time). The target may still fight while on the ground.
L2) 2 pts - Fear. Target enemy runs away in terror (role-play it) for 10 seconds.
2 pts - Bolt. Does one point of damage to a target enemy. Is stopped by armour.
L3) 3 pts - Halt. Target enemy stands still for 10 seconds. They may still fight and do anything which does not involve moving their feet.
3 pts - Sharpness. The weapon that the spell is cast on ignores armour for the next 5 minutes. May only be cast on bladed weapons. Call ‘through’ while using it. (contact)
L4) 4 pts - Piercing Bolt. Does one point of damage to the target ignoring armour.
4 pts - Strength. The person this is cast on does extra damage for the next 5 minutes provided they use whatever weapon they wield 2 handed. Hits with that weapon will destroy all armour on the location it hits. If there is no armour on the location it will be taken straight to -1 hit points. Call ‘crush’ while using it. (contact)
L5) 5 pts - Shatter. Breaks any non-living, non-magical object of approximate size 6ft square or less.
5 pts - Paralyse. The target may not move at all for the next 30 seconds.
L6) 6 pts - Soulfire. Takes whatever location is targeted straight to -1 hit points, destroying whatever armour is present as well. May not be countered.
Calling
Calling is the ability of the pious and faithful to call upon their ancestors for aid. Anyone using calling must have an ancestor or group of ancestors that they follow and who grant them their power. As it is an ancestor looking after their faithful calling is a heavily protective school of magic, granting its followers and their allies a much better chance of surviving battles.
Sample vocals: ‘I call upon the ancestors to hallow that sword.’, ‘I call down the power of the ancestors to bless you.’
L1) 1 pt - Dismiss Unliving. Does exactly what it says on the tin. Costs one point per level of the unliving. Multiple callers may combine points to destroy high level unliving.
1 pt - Barrier to Bolts. As long as the caster is touching the target and chanting then the target is immune to thrown and projectile weapons as well as the ‘bolt’ spell. (chant) (contact)
L2) 2 pts - Hallow. Makes an area of aprox. 10 ft radius from the target impassable to low level undead (except for the target if it is undead) for 10 minutes. Target may be a person or inanimate object.
2 pts - Barrier to Blunts. As long as the caster is touching the target and chanting then the target is immune to blunt weapons. (chant) (contact)
L3) 3 pts - Barrier to blades. As long as the caster is touching the target and chanting then the target is immune to sharp weapons. (chant) (contact)
3 pts - Counterspell. Counters any one spell targeted within arms reach of the Caller. If the spell targets someone other than the caller then they must touch the target to counter it. (contact)
L4) 4 pts - Mute. The target cannot speak for 30 seconds.
4 pts - Cleanse Magic. Removes any spell which has a lasting effect (strength, sharpness, befriend, avatar, etc.).
L5) 5 pts - Blessing. Grants the target 1 extra hit per location. These last until all used or the character sleeps, whichever is sooner. (contact)
5 pts - Resist. Grants the target one counterspell to be used whenever they want. This lasts until used to counter a spell or the character sleeps, whichever is sooner. (contact)
L6) 6 pts - Avatar. The caller gains magical Plate mail armour and the equivalent of the strength spell. The armour lasts until all used or the character sleeps, whichever is sooner, and grants all of the bonuses of the Plate Armour Proficiency skill without the need for a physical representation of the armour. This armor may not be repaired except with the Mend spell.
Healing
Healers are perhaps the hardest to explain of all the magical schools. Their power comes directly from some kind of link with the power of life itself. They have the ability to tweak this power in subtle ways, but, de to the nature of the connection, never in a way which is directly harmful to the target. By far the most well known use of the power is channelling extra life force into a person to heal them, but there are other, more subtle uses too.
Sample vocals: ‘I call upon the power of life to heal this wound’, ‘I use the power of life to cause you to sleep’.
L1) 1 pt - Heal. Heals one point of damage. (contact)
1 pt - Chant of Anchorage. Puts the target in stasis as long as the chant is kept up. The character will not die from disease, poison or massive damage while the chant is maintained. Note. This does not hold ememies or anything similar, it merely prevents the body from sickening or dying (chant) (contact)
L2) 2 pts - Soul Scan. The caster can tell what kind of Creature the target is and any unusual physical effects on them (disease, poison, etc.) (contact)
2 pts - Embolden. Makes the target immune to fear for 30 seconds. Removes any fear effects they are suffering from. (contact)
L3) 3 pts - Cure Disease. Cures any non-magical disease the target is suffering from. This does not protect them from further exposure. (contact)
3 pts - Purge Poisons. Removes the effects of any non-magical poison from the target. It does not make them immune to poison or heal any damage they have already taken as a result of it. (contact)
L4) 4 pts - Mend. Repairs any broken non-magical object measuring approximately 6 ft square or less. (contact)
4 pts - Befriend. The target acts as though the caster is their best friend for the next 5 minutes or until any hostile action is taken in the vicinity of the target.
L5) 5 pts - Sleep. The target is sent into a magical sleep. For the first 10 seconds they cannot be woken, after that loud noises or shaking will bring them round.
5 pts - Heal all. Removes all damage from the target and fully heals them. Also removes any non-magical diseases or poisons they are suffering from. (contact)
L6) 6 pts - Chant of Shielding. The caster becomes immune to all normal damage and all magery as long as the chant is kept up and caster carries no weapons. (chant)
Necromancy
Necromancy is your classic dark magic. It is generally for use by your classic moustache twirling bad guys and intelligent animated skeletons with eerie glowing eyes only (i.e. it’s only for monsters). Necromancy has the power to rip apart people’s souls and destroy their life force before raising them again afterwards. PC’s shouldn’t have access to any of this except under exceptional circumstances but I’m sending it out as people will need to know what the calls do if one is used on them. Level by level it works the same as other magic schools...
Sample vocals: ‘By my dark Necromantic power I Raise you as a Ghoul!’ or ‘I use the dark power of Necromancy to Rend your Soul!’ Maniacal laughter afterwards is optional...
L1) 1 pt - Raise Minor Unliving. Turns any recently dead body into a skeleton, zombie, ghoul, wraith or any other minor undead that seems fitting. These will be under the full mental control of their creator. May only be used on the truly dead not those in their grace period (grace period is the five minutes between a location going to -1 hits and you actually dying). (contact)
1pt - Interrogate Spirit. The necromancer may force any one recently dead but not undead person to answer 5 questions truthfully and to the best of their ability. The questions must be direct. Anything ambiguously phrased will not receive an answer.
L2) 2 pt - Embody Minor Unliving. The necromancer may draw any minor unliving into themself either to heal themself or to gain a special ability of the creature for a short duration. The process destroys the undead. (contact)
2 pt - Soul Theft. The target takes one point of damage (ignoring armour) to the targeted location. The necromancer heals one point of damage to the same location.
L3) 3 pt - Drain. The necromancer may steal the spell points from any character in their grace period. They may not steal more spell points than they themselves have used. (contact)
3 pt - Desecrate. Creates a circle of 10ft radius around the target that no living thing may enter bar the caster and target (if living).
L4) 4 pt - Soul Rend. Does one point of damage to the targets head, torso and both of their arms.
4 pt - Possess. The character must follow simple instructions given to them by the Necromancer to the best of their ability for the next five minutes. These orders may not be anything that directly harms the character. (contact)
L5) 5 pt - Terminate. The necromancer may instantly kill any character in their grace period. (contact)
5 pt - Decay. The necromancer infests the character with a magical disease which causes them to loose one hit from every location every minute. (contact)
L6) 6 pt - Empower Major unliving. The necromancer may create Lichs, Wights, Mummys and other powerful, self aware undead creatures out of the recently deceased. While these will not be hostile to their creator, neither will they blindly follow orders. (contact)
(contact): You must be touching the target to cast this spell.
(chant): This spell is maintained as long as you keep up a chant invoking it.
Rituals
Each ritualist may condust one ritual per day, either on their own or with help. The power of the ritual depends on a mixture of the skill level of the ritualist, the ammount of help they are provided with and how well the ritual is role-played.
Rough guide to power levels and results:
10-20: Provided that they were not attempting anything too complicated, the ritualist probably manages to keep themselves and all others in the ritual circle alive. Whatever else they were attempting fails though.
20-30: The ritualist manages to create a minor plot effect (remove the magical warding on a door, form a bit of land into a bridge over a river, etc) or a minor magical item (item that stores a couple of Chaneling cards, lab equipment that halves the time to create poisons, etc)
30-40: The ritualist manages to reate a moderate plot effect (re-power all friendly spellcasters who did not contribute to the ritual, shatter all weapons that are brought through our frount gate, etc.) or a moderate level item (enchanted sword, banner giving all within 10 feet immunity to fear, etc)
40+: Major effects or items (level 20 dispell on all undead on this island, making the island invisible, permanent ‘crush’ effect on a weapon, etc.).
How to get the levels:
Ritualist: The ritualist’s levels entirely depend on how many points they have spent on the ‘Ritualist’ skill in character creation.
Contributers: Any magic user may help a ritualist be appearing in the circle with them and aiding with the ritual. Moreover, every 5 spell points spent by contributers adds 1 to the power level of the ritual. No more than 6 people may aid in any one ritual.
Role-play: The ritual itself must be acted out by the ritualist and their contributers. It should last betwen 5 and 15 minutes and will be awarded between -5 and 10 bonus points by a ref (i.e. me) acting as ritual marker.
Ritual circles: No bonus points are awarded for performing a ritual in a ritual circle (small, magically charged areas of land), however 10 points will be deducted from the score of all rituals conducted outside of a circle.
Experience
The basics
Experience is awarded to characters for turning up to sessions of the game at a rate of one point per session (yup, nice and simple). Experience points can be spent on buying skills by either grabbing me before or after one of the events or sending me an email about it. What you can buy are all the skills which are available to new characters (at straight cost) or anything off of the ‘advanced skills’ list below. Please note that both experience points and extra skills are linked to the characters so if your character dies you loose all the extra skills and half (rounded up) of their accumulated experience. The playtests do count as sessions so those who survived the first event now have one point of XP for their characters. For the armour proficiencies, upgrading from one to another costs the difference in points between them (eg. upgrading from Light to Heavy Leather costs 1pt whereas going from Light Leather to Plate would cost 6pts)
The Advanced List
Create Magical Potion (requires Potion Creation) - Allows you to create magical potions with the right ingredients and equipment. - 7pts
Create Magical Poison (requires Poison Creation) - Allows you to create magical poisons with the right ingredients and equipment. - 7pts
Analyse Ingredients (requires Potion Creation for potions and Poison Creation for poisons) - Allows you to study a non-magical poison or potion and deduce what ingredients were used. - 3pts
Refine Ingredients (requires Alchemy) - Allows you to refine alchemical ingredients into more potent forms. - 5pts
Quick armour repair (Requires any Armour Proficiency) - Allows you to fix your armour in half the time (i.e. 30 seconds per point rather than one minute). - 2pts
Armour Mastery (Requires Any Armour Proficiency) - The character may take one extra hit on the armour than is usualy allowed (eg Light Leather Armour can take 2 hits per location with this skill and Plate Armour can take 5). - 6pts
Irrepressible Voice - The character is no longer affected by the mute spell. - 6pts
Firm Grip - The character is no longer affected by the fumble spell. - 6pts
Seen It All - The character is no longer affected by the fear spell. - 6pts
Sure Footed - The character is no longer affected by the strikedown spell. - 6pts
Iron Constitution - The character becomes immune to all non-magical poisons. - 8pts
Create Written Forgery (requires Recognise Forgery and Literacy) - With this the character can forge most kind of written documents. If they have the Scroll Creation skill they may create forged scrolls. - 7pts
Create Forged Item (requires Recognise Forgery). - With this the character can forge money and precious or magical items. The character must come up with a convincing explanation of how they are going about the forging. - 8pts
Create Forged Potion (requires Recognise Forgery and Potion Creation) - Your character can create fake alchemical potions that either have no effect or have a different one to advertised. - 8pts
Create Forged Poison (requires Recognise Forgery and Poison Creation) - Your character can create fake alchemical poisons that either have no effect or have a different one to advertised. - 6pts
Perform Second Ritual (requires points in Ritualist) - The character may perform 2 rituals per day. - 6pts
Detect Ancestral Interference (requires points in Calling) - The character may detect if there is ancestral power in an area or if someone is being possessed or influenced by an ancestor. - 4pts
Detect Demonic Interference (requires points in Calling) - The character may detect if there is demonic power in an area or if someone is being possessed or influenced by an demon. - 4pts
Power Sense (requires points in Calling) - By spending one point of calling power the character may divine the dismiss level of most undead. - 2pts
Power Source (requires level six in any of the magical schools) - The character gains an additional 10spell points per day. - 5pts
Source of Balance (requires level three in Magery, Calling and Healing) - The characters spell points form one common pool which may be used for any magics. - 5pts
Inspire (requires points in Calling or Healing) - The character may make those within hearing range immune to fear by spending one magic point and giving a rousing speech or singing a cheering song. The effects last as long as the character keeps talking or singing. - 10pts
Tracking - The character may find any recent tracks in an area and will have an idea of what sort of creatures may have made them. They will also be able to follow the tracks provided the ground is suitable. - 4pts
Climb - The character may climb walls, trees or other barriers by standing next to them and making climbing motions for 20 seconds. After that they are considered to be at the top of the obstacle and out of melee range. - 5pts
Beastmaster - Your character knows animals. Whenever confronted by a non-magical creature you know what it is, whether it is likely to be hostile and have a rough idea of it’s strengths and weaknesses. - 4pts.
Keen Eye - Your character may ignore armour whenever they are using a bladed weapon. - 9pts
Unnatural Strength - Your character has the effect of the Strength spell permanently. - 10pts
Lockpicking - Your character may open any non-magically warded locks provided you role-play picking the lock for an apropriate ammount of time - 4pts
Escapism - Your character may escape any bonds given enough time - 4pts
Honest Shopper - You may hide one small object on your person in a way that normal searches will not find. - 6pts
Veteran Searcher - You can ignore the effect of the ‘Honest Shopper’ skill. - 5pts
They are normally better formatted than that but it doesn't seem to transfer well from word to lj...
For anyone who has any questions about these or who would like a properly formatted version of these emailed to them please get in touch with me a mr_serendipitous@hotmail.com. Thanks, Ben
Basic Rules
What is LARP
This is just a little background information on LARPing for those who may be interested but don’t understand what this weird thing that I’m going on about is. LARPing stands for Live-Action Role Playing and that pretty much covers what it is. Instead of sitting around a table saying what your character is doing, you actually act it out. If you’re giving someone a hug, you walk over and hug them and if they try to hit you for it then they take a swing at you with a (foam rubber) sword. All of the skills for LARP’s mainly cover what you can do, rather than how good you are at it. If you’re nimble and quick on your feet then so is your character and if you’re a ham fisted klutz who couldn’t hit a barn without a couple of practice swings first then so is your character (and you might want to think about being a magic user).
Hits
Each persons body is split into 6 hit locations: Head, body, left and right arm and left and right leg. Each location has a basic single hit point (the toughness skill and armour can increase this). This means that if you get hit there once you loose the use of the location (as it now has zero hits points). If it’s an arm or a leg then that limb has effectively been broken or chopped up a bit. Stick it behind your back if its an arm or start hopping if it’s a leg, but as you’re a tough hero it doesn’t slow you down too much. If it’s your head or torso then you’ve been quite badly hurt and knocked unconscious. You should fall over and your character will not wake up until the next morning. If a location which has been taken to 0 hits gets hit again, that’s when the fun starts. That location has now taken really serious damage and could kill you if not seen to soon. Start timing under your breath as soon at it reaches -1 hits. If it was your chest or head that was on -1 then if you manage to count to 5 minutes without anyone healing you then I’m sorry, your character is dead. Dead Dave, everybody is dead. If it is a leg or arm which is on -1 hit then firstly you are in extreme pain, more even than your hardy character can really cope with, and secondly if your count reaches 5 minutes then your chest instantly goes to -1 hit, no matter how healthy it was before as trauma and lack of blood take their toll. At that point start a new count to five minutes for there. Finally if all six hit locations get taken to -1 hit points at the same time then you are dead instantly without any count or get out clause. You are a fantasy hero, it’s a dangerous line of work.
Backgrounds
The world is a bog standard fantasy setting in the vein of Lord of the Rings or any other major fantasy series. The inhabitants have got about as far as inventing steel and catapults but no further. Definitely no gunpowder. Magic exists and is a fairly accepted part of every day life, as are non-human races. As well as the usual elves, dwarves, halflings, goblins etc. There is a plethora of other, less well known races. Pretty much if you can conceive it, it doesn’t break the fantasy setting and it doesn’t require any special rules to play (the main examples there are vampires and werewolves. Both are pretty much impossible to play without a special ability or two being added to the character), you can play it. The same sort of thing goes for your character’s background. I haven’t devised a map of the world or anything like that yet, I’m going to try to work it around people’s backgrounds. So if you decide that your character comes from a land where the culture is a mix of samurai, steppe nomad and ancient Aztec, where all right handed children are killed at birth and not owning at least two goats is counted as treason then that place will be added to my map (probably somewhere a long way away where no one will ever have to interact with it). The same thing goes for background knowledge and skills. If your character is an elf who’s been alive for hundreds of years and spent that time perfecting his culinary abilities so that he is now the best soufflé chef to ever walk a battlefield, fine. You don’t need to stick to stereotypes either. If you decide that your dwarf is actually a sensitive soul who has dedicated his life to peace, protecting the environment and practising the noble arts of origami and flower arranging that’s also fine by me. What does not work (and will get you asked to leave the LARP) is anything along the lines of ‘I know I don’t have the herb lore skill, but my characters background says that he spent 20 years apprenticed to the master herbalist in his old town, so he must know what this herb is anyway!’. Provided you stay away from that side of things however, you have free reign over your characters background, and remember, the more interesting and in depth it is, the more likely it is to generate plot for your character. And we all know plot is a good thing don’t we!
Armour Repair
To repair armour you must have the appropriate Armour Proficiency and spend 1 minute per point of damage taken role-playing repairing the armour. You may repair other peoples armour if you have the skill for it and multiple people may work at repairing one set of armour at once.
Natural Healing
If you have taken damage and there is no healer to heal you then you regenerate one point on each location every night. This means that if you have the Toughness skill, get taken down to 0 hits on some locations and do not get healed then you would wake up the next day with one hit on those locations. You would still be in pain and be weak, but you would be conscious.
Knocking people out
To knock someone out you must subdue them. This involves hitting them on the head (lightly) or body with a blunt weapon under 30 inches long and stating that you are subduing them (see damage calls below). Subdual hits cannot take someone below 0 hit points and if they do take someone to 0 on the head or body then that person is considered unconscious and will wake up unhurt but groggy after 10 minutes.
Damage calls
These are the basic calls that you need to make when you hit someone with a weapon. Normally the standard ones are not so important, but as it’s dark for the playtest people won’t necessarily be able to tell if you’re attacking with a sword or a club, so:
Sharp: The call made when you hit someone with an edged weapon (e.g. sword, axe). Does one point of damage to all who are not immune to sharp weapons.
Blunt: The call made when you hit someone with an bashing weapon (e.g. mace, quarterstaff). Does one point of damage to all who are not immune to bunt weapons.
Subdue: The call you make when trying to knock someone out. May only be used with blunt weapons under 30 inches. Does one point of subdue damage to those not immune to subdue.
Through: The call made if your weapon ignores armour (e.g. if it has had the sharpness spell cast on it). Does one point of sharp damage ignoring armour.
Crush: The call made if you have the Strength spell cast on you or equivalent. If the location hit by a crushing blow has any armour on it then all the armour is destroyed. If it does not then the location is taken straight to -1 hits.
Out Of Character
Being ‘out of character’ (basically saying that you are not playing your character at the moment and don’t exist in the game world) is signified by sticking a finger up in the air. Your character cannot see anyone who is walking around like this or interact with them in any way unless specifically stated otherwise. Please do not use this too often. Acceptable times are pretty much limited to ‘I’m off to the toilet’ and ‘I need to get a ref to check on this and there isn’t one here at the moment. I’ll go find one.’ Monsters will do it more often. Also if I am wearing the luminous yellow ref jacket I am automatically out of character.
Out Of Character Calls
These are all calls which are considered to be out of character and require action from the players rather than the characters. They will be mainly made by myself or people helping me to ref.
Time Freeze: Stop whatever you are doing and stay where you are. Close your eyes and hum. Will soon be followed by:
Time In: Follows after Time Freezes. Open your eyes, stop humming and continue what you were doing. For your character no time has passed. Anything which has changed about the game world has done so instantaneously.
Man Down: Someone has been hurt out of character. Acts like a Time Freeze except any player may call Man Down if they or someone around them is hurt. Closing eyes and Humming is not necessary with a Man Down call.
Fire: Should not be necessary as the events will mostly be outside, but still... Fire indicates that the area is on fire (out of character, not in character). Stop whatever you are doing and leave the area. Again, Fire may be called by players as well as refs.
Background
Such as it is
The world and setting is (as I’ve mentioned in the backgrounds section of the basic rules) mostly unformed at the moment. A small amount however (the part that you’re in at the moment) is set. The LARP is set on a mid sized island which is part of a large chain. Until recently the islanders made a frugal but fairly safe living farming the island and staying mostly out of people’s way. The island was used as a re-suply base by a large group of pirates and slavers who had a deal with the locals along the lines of ‘We dock here whenever we feel like it to rest and re-suply. You provide us with what we went at those points and we don’t burn your villages, kill whoever tries to resist and sell the rest of you to the highest bidder!’ However, a couple of days ago a revolt started on one of the slave ships approaching the island. The prisoners escaped, killed the crew and beached the ship on the island. The peasants, faced with the choice between defying the (currently absent) pirates or trying to capture and turn in the armed, bloody and angry looking strangers who had turned up in their village, agreed to a alliance against their old lords and began fortifying the old hill fort in the centre of the island. Soon after that the villages were burning. After a long and drawn out battle the pirates were driven off and their leader killed by one of the newcomers, however many were dead and yet more were badly wounded. Amongst the fallen is Lord Aran Stormbrow, the old lord of the island and Father Paolo, his chief adviser and High Priest to the islands ancestors. A council of the surviving village elders has been called at the fort along with representatives of the newcomers being invited as well to try to make good the situation and plan for the future, for while this pirate assault has been defeated it was but a small part of their fleet and the pirate kings attention is sure to turn this way soon...
The main character types
Village elders: Those the people here look to for leadership. Respected as being the wisest, noblest, scariest or best at bribing that their village has to offer. All have lived on the island for at least five years and probably longer. They know the people and the ways here (note, this does not mean they have to like them). Almost exclusively humans none of them are likely to be overly proficient in combat, magery, or rituals, none of these being things that a farming village is likely to have much use for.
Escaped Slaves: Can be pretty much anything. They just have to have been kidnapped by pirates at some point (and yes, if your character is too great and good and honourable to be taken alive, remember that pirates aren’t. You could easily have been coshed while sleeping in a cheap tavern and woken up chained up in the hold). Can be of pretty much any race, belief or skill set but probably has an ingrained hatred of pirates and slavery by now.
Use Your Imagination: If you want to play someone else and can come up with a good reason why they’d be on the island and invited to this meeting then email me the basics off list and I’ll give you a Yay or Nay on it. If it’s interesting enough I’ll probably go with it though.
Skills
Each starting character has 20 points to spend to buy skills. All of the skills on this table plus some extra ones will be avaliable to purchase with XP. Information on Magery, Calling and Healing is in the ‘Magic’ section which follows later.
Combat Skills
Dagger Use - You may use any weapon of 16 inches or less in length - 1pt
Melee Proficiency - You may use any weapon of 16 to 42 inches - 2pts
Polearm Proficiency - You may use any weapon of between 42 inches and 6ft - 3pts
Bow Proficiency - You may use bows and crossbows - 6pts
Throwing Proficiency - You may us throwing weapons - 2pts
Shield Proficiency - You may use a shield as well as your main weapon - 3 points
Ambidexterity - You may wield a weapon of 42 inches or less in either hand provided you have the appropriate skills for those weapons and/or wield a weapon in one hand and spellcast with the other - 3pts
Light Leather Armour Proficiency - You may use padded armour or soft leather armour provided you wear the appropriate clothing. You gain one extra hit point on every location where you wear Light Leather Armor. - 2pts
Heavy Leather Armour Proficiency - You may use hard leather armour or studded leather armour provided you wear the appropriate clothing. You gain two extra hit points on every location where you wear Heavy Leather Armor. You may also use Light Leather Armour as though you had the apropriate skill. - 3 pts
Chain Mail Proficiency - You may use chain mail, ring mail or scale mail provided you wear the appropriate clothing. You gain Three extra hit points on every location where you wear Chain Mail Armor. You may also use Light Leather Armour and Heavy Leather Armour as though you had the apropriate skills. - 4 pts
Plate Armour Proficiency - You may use plate armour provided you wear the appropriate clothing. You gain four extra hit points on every location where you wear Plate Armor. Those locations are also immune to effects of the Sharpness spell and the Keen Eye skill. You may also use Light Leather Armour, Heavy Leather Armour and Chain Mail Armour as though you had the apropriate skills. - 8pts
Toughness - You are exceptionally tough and can take an extra hit in battle - 8pts
Magical Skills
Empowered - You have magic in your blood. Pre-requisite skill for Magery, Calling, Healing, Ritualist, Scroll Use, Scroll Creation, Item Activation and Detect Magic - 2 pts
-Magery - You may cast Mage (offensive) spells. - 4 pts/level
-Calling - You may cast Caller (defensive) spells. - 4 pts/level
-Healing - You may cast Healing spells. - 4 pts/level
-Ritualist - You may conduct rituals. You have a ritual power rating equal to the number of points you spend on this - 1+ pts
-Item Activation - You may activate the special powers of certain items (e.g. sword that does extra damage if you have this skill, cup that heals if someone with this skill drinks from it) - 4 pts
-Scroll Use - You may use scrolls regardless of whether you could normally cast the spells on them - 4 pts
-Scroll Creation - You may create scrolls. You may only create scrolls of Mage, Caller or Healing spells that you can cast. - 8 pts
-Detect Magic - You can tell if an item or creature is magical or if there are any long standing magical effects in an area - 3 pts
General Skills
Evaluation - You can tell the rough value of an item and if any special materials have been used in its creation - 2 pts
Recognise Forgery - You can tell if a supposedly valuable item is genuine or forged (remember that even if you know it is fake, other people may not) - 2 pts
Literacy - You can read the language of the area - 1 pt
Numeracy - You can count - 1 pt
Medic - You may bind peoples wounds and generally minister to them. - 3 pts
Map Use - You may make and read maps. Note that being able to read any names on them requires Literacy - 1 pt
Herbology - You can identify useful herbs and administer them if they do not need special preparation. - 4 pts
Alchemy - You have a basic knowledge of am alchemists tools and apparatus. Required for Potion Creation and Poison Creation. - 2 pts
-Poison Creation - Given the right ingredients and equipment you can create poisons - 5 pts
-Potion Creation - Given the right ingredients and equipment you can create potions - 5 pts
Magic
When you buy a the ability to cast magic spells your character gains access to one of the ‘schools’ of spellcraft. These are detailed below along with a description of the spells available to them. Magery, Calling and Healing all cost 4 character creation points per level. Each level provides you with 4 spell points to use per day an also with access to the spells of that level. For example, If you have bought Magery at level 2 (costing 8 points) then you would have 8 spell points to use per day and access to the spells Fumble and Strikedown (costing 1 point each to cast) and Fear and Bolt (costing 2 points each). With magery 1 and calling 1 (also costing 8 pts) you would again have 4 mage spell points and 4 calling spell points per day and the spells Fumble and Strikedown (which cost 1 mage spell point each to cast) and Dismiss Unliving and Barrier to Bolts (both costing 1 calling point to cast).
Magery
Magery is the use of power innate within the Mage to affect the world. This can be power of the book learned sort or something the Mage just naturally knows how to do but the ability to do it comes purely from inside. Due to this Magery is by far the most aggressive of the main schools of magic, granting the power to hurt someone from a distance, destroy objects or make your enemies run in fear.
Sample vocals: ‘I draw upon my power to strike you down.’, ‘By the power within me I shatter that sword.’
L1) 1 pt - Fumble. Target enemy drops their weapon.
1 pt - Strikedown. Target enemy falls over. Their chest or shoulders (depending on whether they fell forward or backwards) must contact the ground before they can get up again (for those who cannot fall for medical reasons, fall to your knees for an appropriate amount of time). The target may still fight while on the ground.
L2) 2 pts - Fear. Target enemy runs away in terror (role-play it) for 10 seconds.
2 pts - Bolt. Does one point of damage to a target enemy. Is stopped by armour.
L3) 3 pts - Halt. Target enemy stands still for 10 seconds. They may still fight and do anything which does not involve moving their feet.
3 pts - Sharpness. The weapon that the spell is cast on ignores armour for the next 5 minutes. May only be cast on bladed weapons. Call ‘through’ while using it. (contact)
L4) 4 pts - Piercing Bolt. Does one point of damage to the target ignoring armour.
4 pts - Strength. The person this is cast on does extra damage for the next 5 minutes provided they use whatever weapon they wield 2 handed. Hits with that weapon will destroy all armour on the location it hits. If there is no armour on the location it will be taken straight to -1 hit points. Call ‘crush’ while using it. (contact)
L5) 5 pts - Shatter. Breaks any non-living, non-magical object of approximate size 6ft square or less.
5 pts - Paralyse. The target may not move at all for the next 30 seconds.
L6) 6 pts - Soulfire. Takes whatever location is targeted straight to -1 hit points, destroying whatever armour is present as well. May not be countered.
Calling
Calling is the ability of the pious and faithful to call upon their ancestors for aid. Anyone using calling must have an ancestor or group of ancestors that they follow and who grant them their power. As it is an ancestor looking after their faithful calling is a heavily protective school of magic, granting its followers and their allies a much better chance of surviving battles.
Sample vocals: ‘I call upon the ancestors to hallow that sword.’, ‘I call down the power of the ancestors to bless you.’
L1) 1 pt - Dismiss Unliving. Does exactly what it says on the tin. Costs one point per level of the unliving. Multiple callers may combine points to destroy high level unliving.
1 pt - Barrier to Bolts. As long as the caster is touching the target and chanting then the target is immune to thrown and projectile weapons as well as the ‘bolt’ spell. (chant) (contact)
L2) 2 pts - Hallow. Makes an area of aprox. 10 ft radius from the target impassable to low level undead (except for the target if it is undead) for 10 minutes. Target may be a person or inanimate object.
2 pts - Barrier to Blunts. As long as the caster is touching the target and chanting then the target is immune to blunt weapons. (chant) (contact)
L3) 3 pts - Barrier to blades. As long as the caster is touching the target and chanting then the target is immune to sharp weapons. (chant) (contact)
3 pts - Counterspell. Counters any one spell targeted within arms reach of the Caller. If the spell targets someone other than the caller then they must touch the target to counter it. (contact)
L4) 4 pts - Mute. The target cannot speak for 30 seconds.
4 pts - Cleanse Magic. Removes any spell which has a lasting effect (strength, sharpness, befriend, avatar, etc.).
L5) 5 pts - Blessing. Grants the target 1 extra hit per location. These last until all used or the character sleeps, whichever is sooner. (contact)
5 pts - Resist. Grants the target one counterspell to be used whenever they want. This lasts until used to counter a spell or the character sleeps, whichever is sooner. (contact)
L6) 6 pts - Avatar. The caller gains magical Plate mail armour and the equivalent of the strength spell. The armour lasts until all used or the character sleeps, whichever is sooner, and grants all of the bonuses of the Plate Armour Proficiency skill without the need for a physical representation of the armour. This armor may not be repaired except with the Mend spell.
Healing
Healers are perhaps the hardest to explain of all the magical schools. Their power comes directly from some kind of link with the power of life itself. They have the ability to tweak this power in subtle ways, but, de to the nature of the connection, never in a way which is directly harmful to the target. By far the most well known use of the power is channelling extra life force into a person to heal them, but there are other, more subtle uses too.
Sample vocals: ‘I call upon the power of life to heal this wound’, ‘I use the power of life to cause you to sleep’.
L1) 1 pt - Heal. Heals one point of damage. (contact)
1 pt - Chant of Anchorage. Puts the target in stasis as long as the chant is kept up. The character will not die from disease, poison or massive damage while the chant is maintained. Note. This does not hold ememies or anything similar, it merely prevents the body from sickening or dying (chant) (contact)
L2) 2 pts - Soul Scan. The caster can tell what kind of Creature the target is and any unusual physical effects on them (disease, poison, etc.) (contact)
2 pts - Embolden. Makes the target immune to fear for 30 seconds. Removes any fear effects they are suffering from. (contact)
L3) 3 pts - Cure Disease. Cures any non-magical disease the target is suffering from. This does not protect them from further exposure. (contact)
3 pts - Purge Poisons. Removes the effects of any non-magical poison from the target. It does not make them immune to poison or heal any damage they have already taken as a result of it. (contact)
L4) 4 pts - Mend. Repairs any broken non-magical object measuring approximately 6 ft square or less. (contact)
4 pts - Befriend. The target acts as though the caster is their best friend for the next 5 minutes or until any hostile action is taken in the vicinity of the target.
L5) 5 pts - Sleep. The target is sent into a magical sleep. For the first 10 seconds they cannot be woken, after that loud noises or shaking will bring them round.
5 pts - Heal all. Removes all damage from the target and fully heals them. Also removes any non-magical diseases or poisons they are suffering from. (contact)
L6) 6 pts - Chant of Shielding. The caster becomes immune to all normal damage and all magery as long as the chant is kept up and caster carries no weapons. (chant)
Necromancy
Necromancy is your classic dark magic. It is generally for use by your classic moustache twirling bad guys and intelligent animated skeletons with eerie glowing eyes only (i.e. it’s only for monsters). Necromancy has the power to rip apart people’s souls and destroy their life force before raising them again afterwards. PC’s shouldn’t have access to any of this except under exceptional circumstances but I’m sending it out as people will need to know what the calls do if one is used on them. Level by level it works the same as other magic schools...
Sample vocals: ‘By my dark Necromantic power I Raise you as a Ghoul!’ or ‘I use the dark power of Necromancy to Rend your Soul!’ Maniacal laughter afterwards is optional...
L1) 1 pt - Raise Minor Unliving. Turns any recently dead body into a skeleton, zombie, ghoul, wraith or any other minor undead that seems fitting. These will be under the full mental control of their creator. May only be used on the truly dead not those in their grace period (grace period is the five minutes between a location going to -1 hits and you actually dying). (contact)
1pt - Interrogate Spirit. The necromancer may force any one recently dead but not undead person to answer 5 questions truthfully and to the best of their ability. The questions must be direct. Anything ambiguously phrased will not receive an answer.
L2) 2 pt - Embody Minor Unliving. The necromancer may draw any minor unliving into themself either to heal themself or to gain a special ability of the creature for a short duration. The process destroys the undead. (contact)
2 pt - Soul Theft. The target takes one point of damage (ignoring armour) to the targeted location. The necromancer heals one point of damage to the same location.
L3) 3 pt - Drain. The necromancer may steal the spell points from any character in their grace period. They may not steal more spell points than they themselves have used. (contact)
3 pt - Desecrate. Creates a circle of 10ft radius around the target that no living thing may enter bar the caster and target (if living).
L4) 4 pt - Soul Rend. Does one point of damage to the targets head, torso and both of their arms.
4 pt - Possess. The character must follow simple instructions given to them by the Necromancer to the best of their ability for the next five minutes. These orders may not be anything that directly harms the character. (contact)
L5) 5 pt - Terminate. The necromancer may instantly kill any character in their grace period. (contact)
5 pt - Decay. The necromancer infests the character with a magical disease which causes them to loose one hit from every location every minute. (contact)
L6) 6 pt - Empower Major unliving. The necromancer may create Lichs, Wights, Mummys and other powerful, self aware undead creatures out of the recently deceased. While these will not be hostile to their creator, neither will they blindly follow orders. (contact)
(contact): You must be touching the target to cast this spell.
(chant): This spell is maintained as long as you keep up a chant invoking it.
Rituals
Each ritualist may condust one ritual per day, either on their own or with help. The power of the ritual depends on a mixture of the skill level of the ritualist, the ammount of help they are provided with and how well the ritual is role-played.
Rough guide to power levels and results:
10-20: Provided that they were not attempting anything too complicated, the ritualist probably manages to keep themselves and all others in the ritual circle alive. Whatever else they were attempting fails though.
20-30: The ritualist manages to create a minor plot effect (remove the magical warding on a door, form a bit of land into a bridge over a river, etc) or a minor magical item (item that stores a couple of Chaneling cards, lab equipment that halves the time to create poisons, etc)
30-40: The ritualist manages to reate a moderate plot effect (re-power all friendly spellcasters who did not contribute to the ritual, shatter all weapons that are brought through our frount gate, etc.) or a moderate level item (enchanted sword, banner giving all within 10 feet immunity to fear, etc)
40+: Major effects or items (level 20 dispell on all undead on this island, making the island invisible, permanent ‘crush’ effect on a weapon, etc.).
How to get the levels:
Ritualist: The ritualist’s levels entirely depend on how many points they have spent on the ‘Ritualist’ skill in character creation.
Contributers: Any magic user may help a ritualist be appearing in the circle with them and aiding with the ritual. Moreover, every 5 spell points spent by contributers adds 1 to the power level of the ritual. No more than 6 people may aid in any one ritual.
Role-play: The ritual itself must be acted out by the ritualist and their contributers. It should last betwen 5 and 15 minutes and will be awarded between -5 and 10 bonus points by a ref (i.e. me) acting as ritual marker.
Ritual circles: No bonus points are awarded for performing a ritual in a ritual circle (small, magically charged areas of land), however 10 points will be deducted from the score of all rituals conducted outside of a circle.
Experience
The basics
Experience is awarded to characters for turning up to sessions of the game at a rate of one point per session (yup, nice and simple). Experience points can be spent on buying skills by either grabbing me before or after one of the events or sending me an email about it. What you can buy are all the skills which are available to new characters (at straight cost) or anything off of the ‘advanced skills’ list below. Please note that both experience points and extra skills are linked to the characters so if your character dies you loose all the extra skills and half (rounded up) of their accumulated experience. The playtests do count as sessions so those who survived the first event now have one point of XP for their characters. For the armour proficiencies, upgrading from one to another costs the difference in points between them (eg. upgrading from Light to Heavy Leather costs 1pt whereas going from Light Leather to Plate would cost 6pts)
The Advanced List
Create Magical Potion (requires Potion Creation) - Allows you to create magical potions with the right ingredients and equipment. - 7pts
Create Magical Poison (requires Poison Creation) - Allows you to create magical poisons with the right ingredients and equipment. - 7pts
Analyse Ingredients (requires Potion Creation for potions and Poison Creation for poisons) - Allows you to study a non-magical poison or potion and deduce what ingredients were used. - 3pts
Refine Ingredients (requires Alchemy) - Allows you to refine alchemical ingredients into more potent forms. - 5pts
Quick armour repair (Requires any Armour Proficiency) - Allows you to fix your armour in half the time (i.e. 30 seconds per point rather than one minute). - 2pts
Armour Mastery (Requires Any Armour Proficiency) - The character may take one extra hit on the armour than is usualy allowed (eg Light Leather Armour can take 2 hits per location with this skill and Plate Armour can take 5). - 6pts
Irrepressible Voice - The character is no longer affected by the mute spell. - 6pts
Firm Grip - The character is no longer affected by the fumble spell. - 6pts
Seen It All - The character is no longer affected by the fear spell. - 6pts
Sure Footed - The character is no longer affected by the strikedown spell. - 6pts
Iron Constitution - The character becomes immune to all non-magical poisons. - 8pts
Create Written Forgery (requires Recognise Forgery and Literacy) - With this the character can forge most kind of written documents. If they have the Scroll Creation skill they may create forged scrolls. - 7pts
Create Forged Item (requires Recognise Forgery). - With this the character can forge money and precious or magical items. The character must come up with a convincing explanation of how they are going about the forging. - 8pts
Create Forged Potion (requires Recognise Forgery and Potion Creation) - Your character can create fake alchemical potions that either have no effect or have a different one to advertised. - 8pts
Create Forged Poison (requires Recognise Forgery and Poison Creation) - Your character can create fake alchemical poisons that either have no effect or have a different one to advertised. - 6pts
Perform Second Ritual (requires points in Ritualist) - The character may perform 2 rituals per day. - 6pts
Detect Ancestral Interference (requires points in Calling) - The character may detect if there is ancestral power in an area or if someone is being possessed or influenced by an ancestor. - 4pts
Detect Demonic Interference (requires points in Calling) - The character may detect if there is demonic power in an area or if someone is being possessed or influenced by an demon. - 4pts
Power Sense (requires points in Calling) - By spending one point of calling power the character may divine the dismiss level of most undead. - 2pts
Power Source (requires level six in any of the magical schools) - The character gains an additional 10spell points per day. - 5pts
Source of Balance (requires level three in Magery, Calling and Healing) - The characters spell points form one common pool which may be used for any magics. - 5pts
Inspire (requires points in Calling or Healing) - The character may make those within hearing range immune to fear by spending one magic point and giving a rousing speech or singing a cheering song. The effects last as long as the character keeps talking or singing. - 10pts
Tracking - The character may find any recent tracks in an area and will have an idea of what sort of creatures may have made them. They will also be able to follow the tracks provided the ground is suitable. - 4pts
Climb - The character may climb walls, trees or other barriers by standing next to them and making climbing motions for 20 seconds. After that they are considered to be at the top of the obstacle and out of melee range. - 5pts
Beastmaster - Your character knows animals. Whenever confronted by a non-magical creature you know what it is, whether it is likely to be hostile and have a rough idea of it’s strengths and weaknesses. - 4pts.
Keen Eye - Your character may ignore armour whenever they are using a bladed weapon. - 9pts
Unnatural Strength - Your character has the effect of the Strength spell permanently. - 10pts
Lockpicking - Your character may open any non-magically warded locks provided you role-play picking the lock for an apropriate ammount of time - 4pts
Escapism - Your character may escape any bonds given enough time - 4pts
Honest Shopper - You may hide one small object on your person in a way that normal searches will not find. - 6pts
Veteran Searcher - You can ignore the effect of the ‘Honest Shopper’ skill. - 5pts
They are normally better formatted than that but it doesn't seem to transfer well from word to lj...
For anyone who has any questions about these or who would like a properly formatted version of these emailed to them please get in touch with me a mr_serendipitous@hotmail.com. Thanks, Ben