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"This World is Islands. The island are the top of drowned airtight skyscrapers.
You can play a Iguanoid, cocofolk, Sandhopper, or Foamling
The classes are Beach Comber, Tamperer, Big Liar, and KingCrab. You seek to grow your village with modern conveniences and monster flesh"
As fun as making quick allusions to possibilities is, I'm going to flesh this out, using the Roger Sg Sorolla's 52 page rule book as the mechanics
village mechanics:
By bringing back exotic foods you will grow in status and power. So various things have a Food value instead of a gold value. Divide by 10 and that's how many meals that things is worth, if you want that number to mean something.
Not everything that is edible is worth exp. Same way not everything sellable is worth exp. Your village is fussy okay?
Modern convinces like comfy chairs or cheese grater found in the underworld will also be worth meals, though no-one eats them. Just everyone is grateful for you bringing it back that they don't mind you not fishing or root digging like everyone else.
Your village provides one thing for the party at the start of each session (other than the first) : a thing is like "restore all your hit points" or "1d4 0 level losers accompany you to help drag the tree" or "start digging a really big pit".
Any thing additionally requires rolling your Esteem on a d6. It starts at one and goes up by one everytime anyone in the party goes up a level. It can be reduced by bad things happening to the village or the party embracing themselves. It represents both the size, health and talent pool of the village and how much they will do for you. After you roll your Esteem reduce it (temporally) by one. So if it is 6 you get 2 things automatically and the next thing has a 1 in 6 chance of failing (by rolling a 6, because it is now 5, you dig?)
At higher levels the d.m might decide to have the village be able to do fancier things for you or have some things cost more temporary esteem or have a esteem gambling mechanic or have the esteem tradable in for the creation of NPCs or many other ways of making this more complicated. Anyway this is a basic way to represent you are dragging shit back to make people happy.
The Peoples:
They are different peoples thought they generally live together in ad hoc villages. Some villages go crazy and worship blood robots or feed people to fang pits but at least cocofolk and foamling can live side by side.
Iguanoid:
Brightly coloured iguana people. They can swim and hold their breath for ages have natural leather armour and claws and bites like having a dagger on them. They are made of meat and blood and thus are Delicious to Carnivores
CocoFolk:
These are like coconuts evolved to look more and more like people and now they are people. When they get old they bury themselves and turn into a cocofolk tree, which if pestered enough might wake up enough to answer questions about the old days. Their skin is as hard as leather armour and they float so well they will need to hang on to something very heavy in order to sink. They breathe as a human would however. They are made from wood and plant stuff and coconut milk and flesh, therefore are Delicious to Herbivores
Foamlings:
These are delicate sylph looking people formed from ocean foam and parts of them partially turn into water. Once a day they can turn into a puddle of water for a round per int point. Trying again after that requires a successful mind save or forever more remain a pool of water. They can never again enter the ocean, it is a solid mass to them. They need to breath and eat as a human. They dissolve into sea foam when they die , and are Palatable to Carnivores but Extremely Delicious to Ocean going predators (because the ocean hates them).
SandHopper:
An upright walking sand flea. Narrow , and chitin is somewhat translucent and not as hard as it might seem. Can leap as far as a human could throw a cat. Made of bug parts so only Palatable to Carnivores but Delicious to Insectivores
CLASSES:
BeachComber:
Scavengers and opportunists, learning what is nessacery to survive and quick to experiment and explore new ways of thriving.
Their motivations are generally to find new and better ways of living and surviving and obtain status by being the first to discover new foods, lands and tricks.
Melee: +1
Missile:+1
Saves: Choose one out of mind, body and speed: that gets +9 the other 2 get +5
Bonus to the following skills:
Forage
Notice
Tutu
Can use any armour or weapon
level 1 : Player can spontaneously declare their character has just the right mundane item on them, once a session, if they reasonable would of had an opportunity to obtain before hand
level 3: Can reconstruction an idea of what has happen in a location
level 5: Standing in the right place. When characters position goes from vague to suddenly important you can choose the most favourable place to be (as long as it only mildy abuses plausibility)
Scavengers and opportunists, learning what is nessacery to survive and quick to experiment and explore new ways of thriving.
Their motivations are generally to find new and better ways of living and surviving and obtain status by being the first to discover new foods, lands and tricks.
Melee: +1
Missile:+1
Saves: Choose one out of mind, body and speed: that gets +9 the other 2 get +5
Bonus to the following skills:
Forage
Notice
Tutu
Can use any armour or weapon
level 1 : Player can spontaneously declare their character has just the right mundane item on them, once a session, if they reasonable would of had an opportunity to obtain before hand
level 3: Can reconstruction an idea of what has happen in a location
level 5: Standing in the right place. When characters position goes from vague to suddenly important you can choose the most favourable place to be (as long as it only mildy abuses plausibility)
King Crab:
This class focuses on protecting themselves and constantly add and modify their own personal set of armour, using bits of shell, hide, old coins, wood and bark etc. tough, make armour from coral and exoskeletons and other hard things. Their motivations are generally developing personal power, and obtaining status for their might and endurance.
Melee: +2
Missile: +0
Saves:
Body:+9 Mind:+7 Speed:+3
Can use any armour or weapons
Bonus to the following skills:
Anoint
This class focuses on protecting themselves and constantly add and modify their own personal set of armour, using bits of shell, hide, old coins, wood and bark etc. tough, make armour from coral and exoskeletons and other hard things. Their motivations are generally developing personal power, and obtaining status for their might and endurance.
Melee: +2
Missile: +0
Saves:
Body:+9 Mind:+7 Speed:+3
Can use any armour or weapons
Bonus to the following skills:
Anoint
level 1: Their personal armour counts as heavy and goes up by 1 every 2 levels.
level 3: Big arm: incorporate a monstrous limb , attack or similar as part of their armour, allow the ability to use that as a natural weapon , possibly with reduced damage from the original if the originals damage was more due to the beasts strength
level 5: incorporate a monstrous ability into your armour that is based on its skin , shell or hide, like fire resistance, camouflage , spell deflection etc.
Note all King Crab armour upgrades assume you have access to appropriate monster parts
level 3: Big arm: incorporate a monstrous limb , attack or similar as part of their armour, allow the ability to use that as a natural weapon , possibly with reduced damage from the original if the originals damage was more due to the beasts strength
level 5: incorporate a monstrous ability into your armour that is based on its skin , shell or hide, like fire resistance, camouflage , spell deflection etc.
Note all King Crab armour upgrades assume you have access to appropriate monster parts
Tamperer:
Tamperers can't leave anything alone, they provoke, investigate, fiddle, explore and experiment. While the beachcomber seeks to learn new things out of pragmatism , the tamperer just does stuff to see what happens.
They are generally motivated by (often slightly malicious) curiosity
Choose one from Melee and Missile, that gets +1
Saves:
Body: +7 Mind: +7 Body +7
Bonuses to the following skills:
Tutu
Forage
Anoint
Notice
Can use any armour or weapons
level 1: Can modify one thing about a complex device or magic device for one use with a successful tutu check
level 3: Can choose the target of a missed shot
level 5: Can steal a device ability or a magic ability from its point of origin and store it on them with a successful tutu check. The point of origin has to be distracted or not currently active to use this. Only one can used .
Big Liar:
Someone who makes up stories so convincing they become real. Seeks out new things to discover and new people to talk to.
Melee/Missile:+0
Saves:
Body:+3 Speed:+5 Mind: +11
Bonuses to the following skills:
Anoint
Notice
Can use any weapons or armour
Can cast spells as a wizard or a prophet (choose at character creation) as per normal 52 page rules.
level 1: you can speak to all animals
level 3: you can speak to all living things , and anyone giving their word to you must keep it or be forced to do something else that you will
level 5: Once a day if you tell someone something out of combat they must save or believe it
Someone who makes up stories so convincing they become real. Seeks out new things to discover and new people to talk to.
Melee/Missile:+0
Saves:
Body:+3 Speed:+5 Mind: +11
Bonuses to the following skills:
Anoint
Notice
Can use any weapons or armour
Can cast spells as a wizard or a prophet (choose at character creation) as per normal 52 page rules.
level 1: you can speak to all animals
level 3: you can speak to all living things , and anyone giving their word to you must keep it or be forced to do something else that you will
level 5: Once a day if you tell someone something out of combat they must save or believe it
SKills:
Forage:
This skill is used when the play wants to get something from the local environment and its relatively simple only time consuming. The success of this skill often means a good number or quality of the thing is found , with failure meaning only a token amount is found. Sometimes the a failure means nothing is foraged.
Examples "I wish to gather a number of small trees for making stakes" is a forage check. Success means the wood is very good quality (possibly giving a bonus to damage etc) or found quickly or in great number.
"I will see if their is any fresh water nearby" that's a forage check. Failure means no fresh water nearby.
Anoint:
Anoint means smearing potent fluids or oils on a weapon or tool for task at hand. It can also involve the incorporation of objects to empower a weapon or tool. The anointment must involve something precious being sacrificed , or the anointment is significant or connected to the task. It can be done between sessions or in play , especially if the player gives a bombastic speech. Having a successfully anoint weapon or tool means a number of free rerolls are gained (only one reroll can be used per roll) = to the amount you succeed the check by.
Examples of Anointing: the blood of one slain by a monster used to anoint a weapon used for it.
A child of the task attempted being slain and used to anoint a great fish hook to fish up a beast capable of feeding the village
A bone of ancestor of hated rival incorporated in a weapon against that rival
The hair of a grieving village used to make a rope to trap a child eating giant.
One anointment can be attempted per session on a item. If the things used in the anointing are particular potent or epic or cool maybe give the player one free reroll and the anoint roll giving them bonus rerolls if successful
Notice:
as per 52 page book.
Tutu:
This means to craft , fuck around , modify , or tinker with something. It is used to discover subtle properties of an object or a device, or turn raw components into a useable form, e.g. turning a fishes spine into a spear etc. Failure generally means you can try again next session. IF the tutu-ing seems do-able by anyone success mean it's done faster or better than usual.
ADDITIONAL rules:
Forage:
This skill is used when the play wants to get something from the local environment and its relatively simple only time consuming. The success of this skill often means a good number or quality of the thing is found , with failure meaning only a token amount is found. Sometimes the a failure means nothing is foraged.
Examples "I wish to gather a number of small trees for making stakes" is a forage check. Success means the wood is very good quality (possibly giving a bonus to damage etc) or found quickly or in great number.
"I will see if their is any fresh water nearby" that's a forage check. Failure means no fresh water nearby.
Anoint:
Anoint means smearing potent fluids or oils on a weapon or tool for task at hand. It can also involve the incorporation of objects to empower a weapon or tool. The anointment must involve something precious being sacrificed , or the anointment is significant or connected to the task. It can be done between sessions or in play , especially if the player gives a bombastic speech. Having a successfully anoint weapon or tool means a number of free rerolls are gained (only one reroll can be used per roll) = to the amount you succeed the check by.
Examples of Anointing: the blood of one slain by a monster used to anoint a weapon used for it.
A child of the task attempted being slain and used to anoint a great fish hook to fish up a beast capable of feeding the village
A bone of ancestor of hated rival incorporated in a weapon against that rival
The hair of a grieving village used to make a rope to trap a child eating giant.
One anointment can be attempted per session on a item. If the things used in the anointing are particular potent or epic or cool maybe give the player one free reroll and the anoint roll giving them bonus rerolls if successful
Notice:
as per 52 page book.
Tutu:
This means to craft , fuck around , modify , or tinker with something. It is used to discover subtle properties of an object or a device, or turn raw components into a useable form, e.g. turning a fishes spine into a spear etc. Failure generally means you can try again next session. IF the tutu-ing seems do-able by anyone success mean it's done faster or better than usual.
ADDITIONAL rules:
Beasts have a hunger value. This is a number that if rolled or under on a d6 means the beast will try and kill eat someone (not always in that order). Small beasts will stalk and strike when the party is separated or weakened, bigger beasts will try and snatch and carry off the biggest, or drive off the rest of the party. Mindless will just attack and try and eat regardless of party strength or response.
HUnger: roll on a d6. If someone is delicious roll 2 dice and keep the worst opposite if playable
If something is Very Delicious as above but also move encounter table up or down one if that would bring an encounter to eat them
Encounter tables:
There always should be an encounter, with simple herbivores and environment conditions taking the place of a "no-result" encounter.
Encounters with beasts should range from the tricky to catch but worth food (fast moving herbivores, possibly lead a pursuing party into a environment hazard or creature lair) , big dangerous herbivores that only attack if provoked (and worth food) , big dangerous carnivores that are rarely hungry (pythons) and stuff that is from below (ghosts, glass elementals, business men). The environment can serve as a form of traps , tricks and treasure , with trees with valuable fruit that release hallucinating gas, bird eggs atop dangerous cliffs etc.
The Down Below serves as the traditional dungeon environment with weirdness and technology, old magics etc. There is less food here but more Modern Conveniences and items of potency etc.
Beasts on the island also should be valuable for powerful items that can be made from their blood , hide and teeth. Treat the concept of a monsters lair with treasure instead as the monsters body instead. You can still have lairs and stuff as well.
The whole eco system and foraging as dungeoneering is inspired by Mike F's Terruzeng island stuff.
I will come back to the idea of using encounter systems to represent an ecosystem at some point because it has been something on my mind for awhile
