Chapter 0 - Session 3
The Shape of the Company
Events and Actions
This session was the final character creation and preparation meeting before play began in earnest, and the GM confirmed early on that all six player characters begin the campaign at the age of fourteen. The GM opened by asking each player to give a "big picture" account of their character, going around the table, after which a number of characters received deeper background treatment. Ross was absent; the GM summarised Knick Nab's concept on his behalf. Donovan was present for the first portion of the session but left early.
Donovan described Noddy as a Mixed Man — Common stock mixed with High, leaving him tall at six feet nine inches but extremely lean. Despite his height, Noddy has cultivated a manner of making himself invisible: he slouches, makes no eye contact, takes up as little space as possible, and is simply not noticed. He grew up in the rubble of Cliff Town after its collapse, surviving entirely through luck and guile, with no knowledge of his parents and no resources beyond what he could scavenge or steal from the detritus that falls from above. His aspiration is the Mystic path, though he does not yet know what that means; the GM was explicit that it should be understood for now through the lens of chance and survival — Noddy's uncanny, near-impossible luck at staying alive is itself the seed of his coming power, and by his own reckoning he is the luckiest man he knows. The GM sketched out how wide that path might eventually run: a Mystic draws on both open and closed Essence and Mentalism, meaning Noddy's future spellcraft could span creation and destruction, discovery and concealment — confusing or frightening a foe, conjuring fog or clearing the air, blurring into shadow, taking on another's shape, even working alteration on solid objects like rope — but whatever form it takes should grow out of Noddy's own survival instincts: his animal handling, his foraging, his hard-earned knack for knowing what scraps of refuse are safe to eat. His Boon is a familiar spirit that currently inhabits a seagull — an entity that can communicate with him across the barrier between its animal vessel and himself, watch over him while he sleeps, and potentially grow in capacity over time.
Allen described Werner De Rendal as a nobleman's son from the far north, at the very threshold of the frozen wastes where only the sea provides any wealth. The De Rendal family was once enormously prosperous from whaling — supplying oil, ivory, and blubber — but the decline began generations ago and accelerated when the Great Change disrupted all the old sea patterns. Werner's grandfather, a renowned sailing expert whose knowledge of harsh northern waters was unmatched, was commissioned by the king to lead an expedition westward before the Great Change — an impossible voyage by all ordinary reckoning. He left, the Great Change followed not long after, and neither he nor confirmation of his fate ever returned. Werner's father Kasimir kept to the whaling trade long past the point of viability and has left the family broke and indebted. Werner has been sent south with letters, papers, and the last of his father's favours to seek a commission in the Navy. His fighting skills will center on harpoon, cutlass, and eventually heavy ship's cannon — a natural continuation of the family's whaling trade, since some of the earliest naval cannon were adapted from harpoon guns, leaving the De Rendals an unusual grounding in naval ordnance even as their fortunes declined. His Boon is the De Rendal name itself — a ducal-level title, still recognised and still capable of opening the right doors, even if the wealth behind it has long since evaporated.
Alain gave the full picture of Infurious Montesigna, known as Riu: the third son of Baron Justinius Mona III, a distinguished family of horse breeders from the Plains. Being a third son, Riu carries no obligations to the family trade and has been free to follow his own passionate curiosity, which runs entirely toward books, lore, languages, and the faint edges of what might be magic. He has recently acquired a small pet squid — Squidly III, the third because the first two suffocated before he resolved the ventilation problem — which he keeps in a purpose-built bottle with an ingenious lid that prevents escape while allowing free gas exchange. His interest in the squid is practical as much as affectionate: he has read that the finest magical inks use squid ink as a base. He is bound for the Capitol to access its libraries. Though he had presented Dabbler as his intended profession in the previous session, he revised his plans during this session, moving away from Essence-based semi-spell use and toward the Lay Healer path instead. He has no practical experience of magic in either direction yet. He arrived at the Capitol recently, having journeyed from the coast where he acquired his squid, and finds the city far more chaotic and militarised than he expected — the whole Capitol is plainly on a war footing.
Pat described Cosimo Cellini Scivio as a young man who grew up in the Capitol working in construction, specialising in the intricate rope work used to build domes, keep walls plumb, and operate cranes — a rigger. His nickname, Scivio, is a truncated Italian word meaning something like slippery or slimy — Pat prefers to render it "silky" — and, like any nickname, it was given to him by others, not chosen for himself. He worked extensively on churches for the Divinity of Two and is genuinely devout, having served as an altar boy and witnessed things in the back rooms of religious services that are not written in any book. He aspires to become an Illusionist, though what that means in practice is not yet clear to anyone; he has floated one concrete idea already, adding a sense of touch to his fantasms so that an illusion of a staircase, say, could actually be climbed, and the GM noted his path may share real synergy with Noddy's, since both trade in concealment, misdirection, and things that are not quite what they seem. He has a weakness for gambling, which led to a serious incident: he incurred a debt to a member of the clergy, who came to the construction site to collect. A very heavy stone fell from Cosimo's crane and killed the man. Whether this was deliberate remains ambiguous even to Cosimo himself. He has been on the run since, wracked with guilt but unable to confess to the same institution that might condemn him. His Boon will be spectacular, but Pat has declined to describe it publicly — it will manifest through roleplay at the appropriate moment.
The GM described Knick Nab in Ross's absence as a young man of one-eighth Elven heritage, taken from the Northern Highlands at a young age and brought to the Capitol to work as a pickpocket for a minor underworld figure who runs a gang of young thieves. He is sharp, flamboyant by nature, and has visions of leadership. His Boon is an ability to perceive what people truly want at their core — not what they say they want, but the real and sometimes unspoken desire beneath the surface — which he intends to use for leadership rather than manipulation.
Scala laid out Manuel de Barret's story — known as Mani — in further detail. His family belongs to the House of Cloth, the merchant guild for fabrics, and while his father is now a respected merchant, he has a past as a smuggler; the family's roots lie in a pair of river towns straddling a waterway that feeds toward the Capitol, a position that has long made them skilled at moving goods between the coast and the interior. As the third child — his elder brother handsome and capable, his sister brilliant and sought-after — Mani was sent to the Ropolos School, a prestigious boarding school in the Capitol that has recently opened its doors to the merchant class, partly for financial reasons and partly because wartime creates demand for capable people regardless of birth. Pushed around by noble classmates at school, he grew large and strong for fourteen and eventually gave as good as he got. The school's fencing master refused to teach anyone who was not noble, which Mani found infuriating. He found an alternative teacher in the school groundskeeper, a former Marine who taught him blade work and brawling as it is actually practised aboard ships, dismissing formal fencing drills as no substitute for a dozen real boarding actions on a swaying deck. The tradition he has set his sights on mastering is Mangos and Rapier. He has a small dueling scar as a result of a fight he picked with someone he should not have. Still stung by being told his birth would always be a barrier, he has come to see the war and a Navy commission as a leveler — a chance to prove that skill counts for more than blood. His Boon is a talisman — an old coin worn around the neck — that will make him substantially resistant to magic. He does not have it yet; it will come to him during the campaign.
The session ended with Scala presenting the substantial collection of hand-painted 3D-printed miniatures he had produced for the game: naval marines, sailors, ruffians, Islander types, civilians, and bartenders, each crew painted in its own distinct colours so that, if two ships' crews ever ended up mixed together in a boarding action, everyone at the table could tell at a glance who belonged to which side. Individual miniatures had been prepared for each PC: Werner in a proper Navy coat reflecting his errand to seek a commission, Cosimo in a brown leather jacket, Mani with a feather in his hat, and Noddy barefoot and hatless but for a plain undyed wool cap, carrying a length of rope instead of a weapon. The GM confirmed that actual play would begin in the next session.
NPCs & Creatures
None encountered.
Locations
None visited.
Conflicts
None.
Learnings and Discussions
Cliff Town: The Capitol has a third district beyond High Town and Low Town — or rather, had one. Cliff Town clung to the cliff face itself, below the Hill and the House, home to those who had nothing and no place to belong. For some, it was less a fate than a refuge: predation on the underclass elsewhere in the city — including the risk of being sold into slavery — was severe enough that disappearing into a slum nobody wanted to enter could be the safer choice. A landslide, of uncertain cause, destroyed the entire area not long ago. The rubble remains: navigable but ruinous, with the sewers of the affluent districts above now exposed and draining through it. Guards patrol the old entrances, preventing both entry and departure. No explanation for this has been publicly given. Noddy lives in the ruins.
The Great Change and the De Rendal Expedition: Werner's grandfather was specifically sought out by the king for a westward expedition before the Great Change, because of his unmatched knowledge of harsh northern sailing conditions. He departed, and the Great Change followed within roughly a year. No one has seen him since, and no official account has ever clarified what happened. The Great Change also disrupted the whaling routes the De Rendal family depended upon, changing sea patterns, pushing ice flows into previously clear channels, and scattering the whale populations whose locations had been accumulated over generations of family knowledge.
Gunpowder Technology: The world is fully in the gunpowder age, sitting somewhere between a sword-and-spear army supplemented with guns and a gun army that only occasionally needs sword and spear. Flintlocks are the standard for those who can afford them; matchlocks exist but are becoming outdated, and rifling has not yet arrived. Naval combat at range is conducted with cannon and musket, but a crew that means to capture a ship rather than sink it will sweep the deck with musket fire and chain shot instead of holing the hull; once ships are alongside, cutlass and pistol dominate.
North–South War and Resources: The current war between North and South is primarily naval, driven by competition for resources and territory in the newly accessible West — including, on the North's side, a much larger new source of enslaved Islanders than existed before the Great Change. The South rejects slavery outright and has no interest in the West for that purpose, one of the clearest philosophical divides between the two nations. On land, the North's cavalry advantage is so overwhelming that its armies barely bother to form up before charging in, and that advantage counts for nothing at sea, which is why the South pushed the conflict there. That cavalry is bred and supplied by families like Riu's in the Plains, whose horses are the backbone of the Northern army even though Plains nobility carries less prestige at court than the coastal nobility currently ascendant around the King. The mountain passes between North and South are closed in wartime; legitimate trade ceases, which pushes families like Mani's into smuggling. When the passes are controlled, their owners extract significant revenue from the trade that flows through them; in wartime, that income disappears entirely for whichever side holds them.
Boons: Each player confirmed or clarified their character's Boon in this session. Noddy has a transferable familiar spirit, currently housed in a seagull. Werner's Boon is the weight of the De Rendal name — a ducal-level title that still commands access even without wealth behind it, though Werner himself admitted he doesn't yet have a clear sense of what that will mean in practice beyond invitations to places others wouldn't get; the GM noted it's meant to carry real weight precisely because Riu's family, while also noble, holds only the rank of baron. Knick Nab's Boon is the ability to perceive what people truly want. Mani's Boon is a magical talisman conferring resistance to magic, which he has yet to acquire. Cosimo's Boon will be revealed through play.
Devoutness and the Divinity of Two: The characters vary in their actual belief. Cosimo is genuinely devout, having served in the church from a young age. Riu's family, as Plains nobility, observes the Divinity's requirements as a matter of course. Mani views the Divinity as infallible — it is simply the frame in which he was raised. Noddy has had no formal religious exposure at all. Underlying all of this is a fact everyone in the North accepts as simply true, not mere doctrine: a couple whose union has not been blessed by the Divinity of Two cannot conceive at all, or if they do, the child is malformed and does not survive. Securing that blessing amounts, in practice, to paying the Church, which is why piety alone is never enough — Werner's family, still deep in debt despite their noble name, understand that without money for the blessing, their line itself is at risk. The North's devotion is enforced as much as felt: the Divinity of Two commands the loyalty of the King's Army and Navy, and the Censures — feared enforcers likened to inquisitorial assassins — hunt down those who deny its primacy. Other faiths are not tolerated in the North, and past rebellions against the Church's authority have never lasted. Enforcement is markedly looser in the South, and looser still to the east, though how people manage the matter of children in either place without the same reach of the Divinity is left an open question.
Items Gained
None.
Items Lost
None.