Episode One: The Bridge

The sun seemed to rise later than you expected, casting brilliant shadows across the bridge that led into the city.  You had camped together with some others who were also keen to get into Bellonia.  The bridge stood over a deep ravine, the fog of morning keeping the bottom obscured.

After gathering your gear, your small band begins to make their way to the bridge.  The bridges surface is black, with the heat of the day already beginning to radiate off it.  Before you cross the bridge, a small band stands across from you, on the other side of the bridge.

“What of you?” Shouts the leader, her hand resting on his sword.  They look bedraggled, with few possessions among them.  They eye you warily.

The leader (1) wears light armor and is carrying a sword.

The man (4) next to her is carrying a staff and wearing a cloak.

The man (2) to the left of the leader looks like he has a claw instead of a right hand.

The woman behind them (4) has an arrow notched in her bow, pointed at the ground currently.

The environment has the following rolls.  4, 2, 5.

meta:  

Environment rolls: Use these rolls if you want to use the environment to describe your characters action.  For example, if you want to chop down a tree to block an NPCs path, you might use these rolls.  Or if you wanted to jump off the bridge and swim across, you might use these rolls.  You must use the first roll first, and then the second and so on.  If we need more, I’ll roll them as needed.  

NPC numbers: Next to the NPCs in a scene will be a number.  For example Leader (5).  The 5 indicates the number that you must beat.  That does not mean you must strike the NPC.  You can use any other skill.  Think about what you want from the NPC.  If you want information, talk to the character.  You might use strength if you are intimidating the NPC or spirit if you are trying to win him over.  

Your Rolls: Post your rolls for your abilities, bonus die, traits and item below in your first post.  Use this format: Strength (3): 6, 4, 1. 

 

Welcome to Bellona, The Autumnal City

Bellona is a strange place.  It was once a great city, the cradle of civilization, but that time has long since passed.  In fact, many have forgotten this city even exists.  The city, though, holds secrets and many splendors of an ancient age.  Small pockets of gangs, wanderers, families, scavengers and fortune seekers.  A rudimentary social system functions in Bellona, with the 20 or so major groups keeping each other in check.

• It is claimed that the city holds within the secret to eternal life.
• The depths of the ruined library is reported to hold the formula for changing lead into gold.
• The god that was worshiped at the sacrificial altar is rumored to still walk the city streets.
• The gap between the living and the dead is threadbare in the city.  It is said there is a way to travel to the gates of Hades in the city.

Your character has just heard of Bellona from someone they know, and is travelling there.  In the comments below, give a one-two sentence descriptor of a person in Bellona your character knows.  I’ll flesh them out as it fits with the story. 

Post your character here.  We will be using Abstract Dungeon for our ruleset for this play by post.  I will be posting a new encounter or event each week on Sunday.  We’ll roleplay through the encounter and then you guys will make a decision on what to do next.

Abstract Dungeon: Wound Table

Below is a table for random wounds.  Wounds can be as minor as a temporary loss of dice, to permanent loss of dice to major injury to death.  If you don’t want to take a specific random wound, roll again twice.  You cannot get the same wound twice, so roll again if you roll the same wound. This only counts if it’s the same roll, not the same result, i.e, if your result is death from different rolls, you have to take the new death result.

The GM might tell you to roll on a specific table based on the specific type of damage the character took.

Directions. Roll 2d6.  The first d6 will tell you which subtable to reference.  The second d6 will tell you the result.

Subtable 1: Strength Wound

1. Death. Your character has died from a massive blow to their body.
2. Major Injury (permanently lose one strength die).  Your character has taken a major wound to a part of their body.  One arm now dangles from their body, much less useful, or they walk with a limp, for example.
3. Major Injury (lose one strength die until you rest for a week). Your character has taken a major wound, that will take a week to fully recover from the wound.
4. Minor Injury (Lose one strength die until you rest). Your character has taken a minor wound, and likely is limping a little until they rest.
5. Minor Injury (Change one strength die to a 1). Your character has taken a minor wound.  They might be limping, but can fight through the pain to still try a feat of strength.
6. Minor Injury (Change one strength die to half, rounded down, it’s current value). Your character has taken a bit of a knock.

Subtable 2: Agility Wound

1. Death. Your character has died from a massive blow to their body.
2. Major Injury (permanently lose one agility die).  Your character has taken a major wound to a part of their body.  One arm now dangles from their body, much less useful, or they walk with a limp, for example.
3. Major Injury (lose one agility die until you rest for a week). Your character has taken a major wound, that will take a week to fully recover from the wound.
4. Minor Injury (Lose one agility die until you rest). Your character has taken a minor wound, and likely is limping a little until they rest.
5. Minor Injury (Change one agility die to a 1). Your character has taken a minor wound.  They might be limping, but can fight through the pain to still try a feat of strength.
6. Minor Injury (Change one agility die to half, rounded down, it’s current value). Your character has taken a bit of a knock.

Subtable 3: Spirit Wound

1. Death. Your character has died from a massive shock to their soul.
2. Major Injury (permanently lose one spirit die).  Your character has taken a major wound to their soul.  They have less faith than they once did.
3. Major Injury (lose one spirit die until you rest for a week). Your character has taken a major wound, that will take a week to fully recover from the wound.
4. Minor Injury (Lose one spirit die until you rest). Your character has taken a minor wound, and has seen their faith shaken.
5. Minor Injury (Change one spirit die to a 1). Your character has taken a minor wound.  They might be limping, but can fight through the pain to still try a feat of spirit.
6. Minor Injury (Change one spirit die to half, rounded down, it’s current value). Your character has taken a bit of a knock in their spirit.

Subtable 4: Intellect Wound

1. Death. Your character has died from losing their mind.
2. Major Injury (permanently lose one intellect die).  Your character’s mind has seen things it shouldn’t and has become unhinged.
3. Major Injury (lose one intellect die until you rest for a week). Your character has lost something from their mind.  It will take a week of quiet reflection til they are back to normal.
4. Minor Injury (Lose one intellect die until you rest). Your character is concussed and it will take a rest before they are back to normal.
5. Minor Injury (Change one intellect die to a 1). Your character is likely concussed.
6. Minor Injury (Change one intellect die to half, rounded down, it’s current value). Your character has taken a bit of a knock to their senses.

 

Subtable 5: Trait Damage. The player chooses the trait they want affected.  Temporary losses must affect a trait that currently has a die in it.  If there is no traits with a die in it, it is automatically a permanent loss.

1. Permanent Loss of a trait.  One trait no longer accurately describes you, or no longer gives you an advantage.
2. Temporary loss of trait (take one week of rest before trait is back).
3. Temporary loss of trait (take two days before trait is back).
4. Temporary loss of trait (take one day before trait is back).
5. Temporary loss of trait (change one trait die from it’s current value to 1).
6. Temporary loss of trait (change one trait die to half it’s current value).

Subtable 6.  Item damage.  The player chooses the item they want affected.  If there are no items with dice on it, only a 1-4 can be rolled.  Reroll a 5 or 6.

1. Destroyed.  The item is completely destroyed.
2. Ir-repairable.  The item, while still recognizable as the item, cannot be repaired.
3. Long repairs.  It will take a week or two to repair the item, but the character thinks they can get it back in order.
4. Short repairs.  It will take two days to repair the item.
5. Minor damages (change one item die from it’s current value to 1).  It’ll still work, just not well.
6. Minor damages (change one item die to half it’s current value).  The item is just a bit dented.

Bellonia Characters

Post your character sheets below.  Use the following format.  I would recommend copying this to a word document or wordpad first so you can save it on your own computer.

You can download the rules for Abstract Dungeon at the sneak attack press website.

Just copy and past this into a comment.  When you want to add something to the character sheet, just reply to your comment.

Special Rules:

Character Sentence. I’m using a form of Monte Cook’s Numenara idea of a character sentence.  That should tell other players a lot about what the character is like.  For example, you might write, “A strong human who kills his enemies with a sword.”  Immediately, there is an idea about what your character does.

Family Heirloom.  Each character starts with one item that is important to that character.  It should be something that ties into the backstory that you have in mind for your character.

XP.  At any time a player can spend 1 XP to gain an additional bonus die.  If you gain 5 XP, you can turn it into a new trait.

Wounds. If a player is unable to defeat an enemy, they take a wound.  If they take 3 wounds, they roll on the random wound table.

Actions. Each player can take one action.  They cannot take an action until a day in real time has passed or all other players have taken an action.

Character Sheet

Character Name: XXXXXX

Character Sentence: An (adjective) (noun) who (verb)

XP: 

Wounds: [ ] [ ] [ ]

Toughness: # of dice

Agility: # of dice

Spirit: # of dice

Intellect: # of dice

Traits:

Additional Description: