Chapter 0 - Session 2

The Full Party Assembles

Events and Actions

This session continued the character creation process with a fuller group present. The GM took the opportunity to share an overview of the Known World via a map and to expand on several points of world lore.

Mani (Manuel de Barret), played by Scala, was introduced as a Common Human of the Mariner culture. He comes from a family of means — not noble, but wealthy through the fabric trade and, when times are hard, through smuggling. His father's connections run along the coasts and rivers of the North, with fine cloth and other goods flowing through port towns toward the Capitol; the family's home is a harbour town at a river's mouth, well placed for shipyards and river trade alike, though their growing ambitions have lately drawn them toward the Capitol itself. Mani was given a formal education, including tutored lessons in music, history, philosophy, and swordsmanship — but he was never allowed to forget that he lacked the blood of a nobleman. This injustice has become the central fire of his character: he intends to prove that skill, not birth, makes a man great. As a Fighter, he expects to develop breadth across many weapon types, beginning with the blade. He took Prodigy (Blade) as a talent, granting him a natural facility with bladed weapons from the outset, alongside Golden Throat (for charm and persuasion), Pressing Advantage (a bonus to his follow-up attack after landing a solid blow), and Ambidexterity, clearing the way for him to one day fight with a blade in each hand — a rapier paired with a main gauche. His tutoring also left him with an eye for fine materials: he put ranks into Philosophy and into Materials Lore, specialising in fabrics — a fitting complement to a family whose wealth is woven, quite literally, into cloth. Rather than simply killing his opponents, he means to make a habit of disarming them and keeping the hilts of their broken weapons as trophies — a swordsman's reputation is worthless if no one lives to spread it, and he is untroubled by the fact that this approach will make him enemies as readily as it makes him famous. Being feared means little to him; he wants to be known, and intends to make himself a fixture of taverns and gathering-places once his reputation is worth spreading — playing the instrument his tutors taught him and, in time, perhaps setting his own exploits to verse. His Boon was also settled this session: an old coin or medallion, not yet in his possession, that will one day make him strongly resistant to magic — an odd gift for a young man with no facility for or interest in the arcane.

Riu (Infurious Montesigna), played by Alain, was introduced in this session. He comes from a minor noble family on the Plains, known for horses. A younger son with no obligation to carry on the family's core work, he has been free to follow his own obsessive curiosity — books, lore, the mechanisms of things, and the faint scent of magic at the edges of understanding. He is working toward the Dabbler profession, a semi-spell user of Essence, though at this stage he is simply a bookish young man who has come to the Capitol to access libraries and pursue his interests. A dabbler's talents lean roguish as much as arcane, and Riu already sees his own niche clearly: not a housebreaker or a picker of locks, but a pickpocket, light-fingered and quick to vanish into a crowd — and he has an eye for traps as well, both setting and disarming them, a natural extension of his fascination with mechanisms. His most notable talent is an eidetic memory — once he has read something, he does not forget it. True to his magpie approach to knowledge, he spread his language study thin rather than deep, picking up a smattering of several written languages — including fragments of a language claimed to belong to the elves said to live beyond the mountains, and even snippets of a written magical language — rather than mastering one or two. Rather than take the usual Multilingual package of ten ranks in a single language or five ranks apiece in two, he asked for and received the same ten points split three ways across several written-only tongues, which suited a mind more interested in breadth than fluency. His curiosity even brushed against the Divinity of Two's own liturgical writing, of which he now knows a very little — a dangerous thread to pull, since scholars who go looking in that direction draw the authorities' suspicion. He and the GM spent a long stretch of the session trying to define his Boon: Riu wanted something like a knack for improvising working devices out of mundane, scavenged materials, tying into his fascination with machinery and his theoretical dabbling in magic. The GM worried aloud that such an ability could unbalance the game and floated alternatives — an improvising chemist's knack for gunpowder, an intrinsic understanding of unfamiliar peoples and customs, or a spell-like ability to intuit the true nature of an unfamiliar object on sight — but no final form was settled by the end of the session. In the course of the discussion, the GM let slip that some of the world's oldest structures, including the Capitol's own castle, have no known builders or surviving records of their construction. He mused that somewhere in the world there may be a whole class of scholars who keep the old records — a mystery, and a possible source of answers, that struck a chord with Riu's scholarly and mechanical bent.

Werner De Rendal (Allen) confirmed a piece of his background this session: his family are renowned old-school sailors of the North, with particular skill in reading northern waters and navigating by them — a pedigree well suited to a Mariner background, even if the family's fortunes have since faded. Among his weapon skills he chose the harpoon, marking him as something of a whaler as well as a general seaman, a natural extension of that same seafaring pedigree. The GM also noted, without elaborating, that Werner's family has some as-yet-unexplained connection to the great climate shift of a generation ago — a thread Werner himself does not yet understand.

For Knick Nab (Ross), it was confirmed that his 1/8 Elf racial heritage grants him Night Vision and Efficient Sleeper for free. He spent his 18 racial development points on Fast Attack and took the Light-Boned flaw (a genuine fragility, consistent with a childhood of malnourishment), which returned 15 points, giving him 23 remaining to spend on further talents. His Boon was also confirmed this session: through simple conversation he can draw out a person's deepest wants and desires, whether or not they intend to reveal them — a gift he already sees as the foundation of the leadership he hopes to earn one day.

Noddy (Donovan) also continued building his character this session. His race was confirmed as Mixed Man and his profession as Mystic — though at this early stage that manifests as nothing more mystical than remarkable luck: things simply seem to go his way. His background was confirmed as Urchin, the hazardous-environment option, and not merely an ordinary rough upbringing but the worst of it — he was raised in the depths of the city's sewers, and has never known anywhere but the Capitol.

Pat (Cosimo Cellini Scivio) was not present for this session.

NPCs & Creatures

None encountered.

Locations

None visited.

Conflicts

None.

Learnings and Discussions

The Known World (Map Overview): The GM presented a map of the Known World as the characters currently understand it. The North and the South are divided by a mountain range with a small number of strategic passes. The Capitol is the largest city in the North and the seat of both Royal and Divinity of Two power. Islands lie off the coast; beyond them, the open ocean has only recently become navigable due to the Great Change. Further afield, rumour holds that a reclusive people with elven blood live beyond the mountains to the east, among ruins resembling pyramids, though no Northerner has ever seen one. Far to the south, past the Sands, lies the domain of the Cult of Fire — a different people again, dismissed by those in the North as charlatans who fake miracles with gunpowder and stage tricks.

The Great Change: Described again for the newer players — this was not a gradual shift but a sudden, cataclysmic change in ocean weather patterns roughly a generation ago. No prophecy warned of it. Before it, ships kept close to the coast and to a scattering of nearby islands, navigating by dead reckoning; no clock yet built is accurate enough for reliable open-ocean navigation, so sailors still find their way by these older methods even as they push further out. The result of the Change is that deep ocean travel to the West is now possible, and both North and South are racing to exploit what lies beyond.

Slavery in the North: The North relies heavily on enslaved labour. People from the Channel Islands and beyond who are brought north are, in most cases, enslaved. Islanders (referred to as "high humans" in game terms) are a distinct race; in the North, a person of Islander descent is presumed to be a slave unless proven otherwise. This is a defining feature of Northern society that separates it from the more egalitarian South. Since the Great Change opened the deep ocean to travel, this supply of enslaved people has widened further still — ships are now returning with captives taken from newly-reached lands far beyond the Islands, feeding the same trade.

The Divinity of Two's Grip on Reproduction: The Divinity of Two holds enormous social power because reproduction in the North requires the Church's blessing. Unions not blessed by the Divinity of Two either fail to produce children or produce children described as "misshapen" — who are killed at birth, along with consequences for the parents. This gives the Church leverage over every family in the North, regardless of rank, and explains their unchallenged religious authority. Knick Nab's misshapen ears are a dangerous secret in this context: by Northern law, he should not have survived infancy.

Magic in the World: Beyond the power of the Divinity of Two — granted, it is said, directly by the Father and Mother above — there is no real magic in Northern society: no wandering wizards, no spells sold in the street. What the Cult of Fire calls a miracle is dismissed in the North as cheap trickery with gunpowder and smoke, and the "witchcraft" attributed to Islanders is written off the same way. Whatever the truth of those claims, the power wielded by the Divinity of Two's own paladins and clergy is real and unmistakably magical — which is part of why their authority goes unquestioned. Anyone found practising magic outside the Church's sanction is branded a heretic and hunted down by the Divinity's own paladins, with predictably final results — a fact that makes the North a dangerous place for anyone harbouring a secret they cannot explain away.

North vs. South: The North's great military strength on land is its cavalry — horses are a major resource and a symbol of status. The South lacks this advantage but has become competitive at sea. With the war now largely a naval conflict, the North's cavalry advantage counts for less than it once did.

Trade and Smuggling: Mountain passes are the primary land routes between North and South. In peacetime, control of these passes generates enormous wealth for those who own them. In wartime — as now — the passes become fortified military positions and trade ceases. The alternative is smuggling, whether through mountain routes or by ship. Mani's family has historically been positioned to exploit both channels.

Languages: There is one common language shared across the North and South. Additionally, Islanders have their own language. A further, more exotic language exists beyond the Sands to the far south, unknown to most Northerners. Mani's background in maritime trade gave him some exposure to this desert tongue, and he took one rank in it.

Weapons and Combat: The group discussed the weapon skill categories in the new rules: melee (blade, chain, halberd, and greater versions; pole arm), ranged (bow, crossbow, sling, thrown, exotic), shield, and unarmed. Black powder weapons — pistols, muskets, and cannons — fall under ranged as separate skills within that category. The GM noted that the physical environment should shape weapon choices, particularly on ships: large weapons are impractical below decks, short blades and pistols dominate in confined spaces. Firearm technology in the world is flintlock — expensive and uncommon among ordinary people, though standard issue for soldiers and an absolute requirement for pirates, who are expected to keep guns and blades ready at all times. Ships remain entirely wood and sail, with no steam power of any kind; the pressures of the Great Change and the ongoing war are pushing shipwrights toward larger vessels capable of longer blue-water voyages, which in turn has made timber one of the most valuable goods moving through the mountain passes. Sloops remain fast, common, and a pirate favourite for short raiding runs, but a poor choice for crossing open ocean. For a sense of scale, the largest single castings anyone in the Known World can presently manage are things like great cathedral bells — true ironclad warships remain a technology generations away.

Shipboard Roles and Hierarchy: The group learned how authority is structured aboard a naval ship. Beneath the captain, the Quarter Master and the Master of Sail each command roughly half the crew's watches: the Master of Sail holds the deep technical knowledge of navigation, sail arrangement, and shipwork, while the Quarter Master oversees the ship's goods and material. On a more piratical vessel, command runs from the captain through lieutenants down to midshipmen — a rank traditionally reserved for the nobly born, since a common sailor promoted to midshipman would be seen as badly out of place. Below the officers, respected specialists such as the bosun, the carpenter and carpenter's mate, and the surgeon (more a knife-handy barber than an educated doctor) each hold real authority within their own domain. Marines, when carried, do no shipwork at all — they are cargo until there is a fight, at which point they fight from the deck or are put ashore.

Talent: Direction Sense: A talent was identified that grants a significant bonus to navigation by detecting the planet's magnetic field. With the campaign's emphasis on sea travel, the group noted this would be highly valuable for at least one party member to possess.

Items Gained

None.

Items Lost

None.