AWW: Street Rat

This early morning sneak preview (brought to you by I need to stop eating things with peppers and onions late at night) is a highly-stylized alternate take on the "rogue" character. This is an example of why AWW takes the "so so so many" approach to character qualities on top of letting you smash two together. If you wanted to make this kind of character using only traditional character class type building blocks, you'd need to take small parts of many of them.

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STREET RAT
Basic Abilities
[A] One Jump Ahead: Cut by 3 any additional movement penalty or speed penalty for cluttered environments, rubble, unstable surfaces, or any slope not steep enough to require a check for climbing. Add +1 to any check to move quickly, jump, keep your balance, or climb, or any dodge check made in a turn when you're making an Athletic Check. This bonus increases by +1 at each odd level of experience. When dealing with or moving over artificial structures, the bonus doubles.

[A] Street Savoir-Faire: When you're in a city, add +2 to any check to find someone or something, and to any Influence Check, Perception Check, or Deception Check dealing with someone of the street and working classes. From level 1, add your level to this bonus. Use half the bonus when outside the city but dealing with people who lead a mostly hand-to-mouth existence. Most inhabitants of farming communities and other small villages would qualify. When dealing with characters of negative Wealth, you can use their Wealth score as a positive bonus on any Influence Checks, as long as you haven't been unfriendly to them.

Standard Abilities
Low Profile: Add your level to any check to hide in a cluttered or crowded environment or to avoid attracting attention in a crowded room or public place.

Crumbs of Humble Piety: You can feed yourself and two others per level for free when in a city.

A Pocket Or Two: Add half your level to any check to pick pockets, swipe unattended objects, or snatch an item away from someone. This same bonus adds to disarm effects, and you're considered trained in unarmed attacks to disarm and can make them using Deception or Dexterity. You have an additional point of Resources per level that can only be used to acquire items in a city or a large marketplace, though often you won’t be strictly “purchasing” them. These points cannot be combined with other Resources or Treasure for a purchase unless you're in a black market situation. Ignore "criminal" as a complicating factor when you shop.

No Points For Style: In an urban environment or anywhere cluttered, you can add a die to any check you push that benefits from One Jump Ahead, but in doing so you cause a disturbance that prevents stealth (clatter of shingles, overturned barrels, snapped laundry line) and may attract negative attention. Alternately, you can add a die to any dodge attempt, but once you do so, you must spend an action recovering your balance or breath in the next round. There's no penalty for being unbalanced in this fashion, except for the loss of an action.

Advanced Abilities
Level 2 Friends In Low Places: Once per adventure when in a city or inhabited place with poor or working class people, you can find a friendly contact (an old friend or new one, or possibly a friend of friend) who will give your group shelter if possible and provide one item worth up to 1 GP for every two full levels you have, or else act as a temporary companion worth 1 GP for every two levels. Your friend has knowledge of local events and people of importance, acting as a resource allowing your group to make Knowledge Checks on these subjects or adding half your level to the check of anyone who already could. When dealing with your contact, you can also add that bonus to checks to locate items. Your contact can carry messages and hold onto items for you, but many will not risk their lives or freedom without a similar service in return. If the contact is less mercenary, the Storyteller may instead put them in peril that requires you to assist them. If you imperil a contact and do not rescue them or they act as a companion and come to serious harm, you lose the use of this ability for the next adventure.

Level 4 Rough Honor: You can add +1 to any Influence Check or social attack that hinges on the idea of fair play or honoring deals. This bonus increases by +1 per additional level, and doubles when the check or attack is being made against someone who has actually betrayed or is in the process of betraying you or your group. The bonus is lost if you have double-crossed them, even if they don't know it. As long as you've played fair, then even if you fail an Influence Check to sway a traitor, you will almost always be given some concession or mercy.

Level 6 Hard Knock Life: As often as once per round, you can re-roll any reactive check to spot, avoid, or endure harm, including Defense Checks of any kind.
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Before anyone asks: yes, yes I am proud of how many of them ended up being show tune references.

The "No Points For Style" ability is to distinguish the Street Rat's well-honed but amateur techniques from those of an Acrobat

Readers might wonder at references in this and a few other CQs to the ability to feed/support oneself and others in particular environments, since AWW doesn't track rations or have rules for them or track money with the kind of granularity that would be needed to pay for meals.

Mostly, these abilities are "background" abilities. They wouldn't come up much in the course of most adventures because the game doesn't revolve around hanging out in a city, but in case you ever need to quantify the city survival skills of a Street Rat character, there you go.

That's not to say they don't have any mechanical effect. The economic subgame in AWW, instead of being "I saved a million gold pieces so I got a +50 sword", is more about the ebb and flow of treasure in a high-risk, high-reward profession of heroic adventure. Accordingly, not only do you get more money when your party is doing well, but you rack up expenses more quickly when you do poorly.

And one of the ways that an adventure can go poorly is if it grinds to a temporary halt in the middle, resulting in serious downtime. If you end up camping outside the dragon's den for a week while you figure out how to open the door or have to go back to town so the party's sage can spend several days digging around in the library, that's called "idling" and it costs money. The game assumes that you're adequately provisioned for the adventure in general, but that assumption doesn't cover time spent idle. The price is nominal in a small town or an ordinary environment, but in big cities and harsh environments the cost per person per day can be punishing if you don't have some means of sustaining yourself, either through a special ability like this one or recognizing an opportunity in the adventure.

Tuesday, September 10th

The Daily Report

Yesterday, I did my first bit of really random, sit down and let the words flow writing in months. The end result wasn't exactly usable, but that's part of the point of the exercise. The idea that efforts need to be good to be worth the effort stops people from trying.

Not much else to report at the moment.

The State of the Me

95 degrees today. The temperature for tomorrow has inched up a couple of times, but the long term forecast beyond Thursday still looks favorable.

The unexpected downside to my basement retreat is that when I don't have to go up or down stairs to snack, I end up doing more of it late at night and closer to bedtime. The past couple of nights I've been having some late night indigestion that keeps me awake. As a lifelong insomniac who has only started sleeping healthily in the past few years, I think I've probably missed out on a lot of opportunities to recognize my body's signals in these areas.

Hopefully now that I'm making a note of it I can avoid the trap tonight.

Plans For Today

Honestly, I'm probably going to be going back to sleep for a bit. My goal for the day is going to be to have tomorrow's chapter written out in full, so that I can spend tomorrow finishing it. Like I said yesterday, if the next few weeks are going to low output, I want to make them high quality.

AWW: Gear Alternatives, Mystic Patrons, and Invokers.

One of the things that's been creeping into AWW as I work to fill out the options in the Basic Character Guide is things that cost Gear Points but aren't actual items. Companions were the first whole category of these, but they crop up in other areas. One of the possible forms for spell focuses (in addition to scrolls, runes, gemstones, and the like) is words of power. I moved "techniques" from the details section to the gear section after realizing that they work more like gear and that multiple character qualities already offer them as an alternative to gear to begin with.

With the addition of another category of "not quite gear"--mystic patrons--I've decided to organize them all into their own sub-chapter called Gear Alternatives. This helps players who want a character who travels light find what they're looking for and also makes a handy way of delineating exactly what's covered and what's not when it comes to the ways you have of scrounging up an item in play... the well-stocked character might find a battleaxe they forgot they had, but they don't have a horse in their back pocket, much less a forgotten word of power or a secret martial arts technique.

(Stuff that belongs to a category of gear, like words of power, will be mentioned in both places, so you don't have to look in two different places for the rules regarding spell focuses and all the types of spell focuses.)

You're probably wondering what a mystic patron is. Basically, I realized that one of the more complex parts of the Theurge CQ (the "divine spellcaster") would end up being duplicated across multiple future character qualities in a "reinvent the wheel" sort of way, and since it ate up a lot of real estate in the one page limit for ability rules, this would make all those characters rather limited in terms of individual scope. Worse, there would be some odd/bad side effects if a character had two or more of these CQs.

So I genericized the concept and off-loaded it into gear system. As attached to the Theurge, a mystic patron was a (usually) higher being that agreed to let you call upon a portion of their power for the equivalent of spellcasting. For a warlock (lowercase because there's not a CQ for it yet, though the concept is supported in the game), the mystic patron is a (usually) lower being who does the same thing. As long as you don't double-dip on certain dramatic advantages of a mystic patron more than once per scene, and don't ever use the most dramatic/attractive abilities, the nature of the patron and the pact is just background stuff, lightly flavored roleplaying fluff... the idea being that such patrons have far too many "clients" for any individual one to be of much/any importance.

But when you draw too deeply on the power, you also draw their attention and have to repay your use of the power with a favor that will range in magnitude depending on how much they approve of the ways you use their power, with small tithes or even the equivalent of a prayer of thanksgiving sufficient if you're a good and faithful servant. The player defines the patron's nature, but the Storyteller interprets it.

The suggestion is to be generous but within limits, and mostly look at the character of specific acts that benefit from drawing on the patron's power. Just as players are assumed to be playing characters who want to have heroic adventurers, it can be assumed that any cosmic power that chose to hitch their wagon to the character's star is going in the same direction as they are. An infernal might approve of the general mission because the rewards will tempt the hero, a celestial being might approve of it because it serves the greater good. If the Storyteller can't figure out an agenda for the patron that would cause them to support the player character being in the adventure/plotline the Storyteller set, then it's to wave their hands and say something about "mysterious ways".

A mystic patron is most useful to a user of magic. If you have a Magic score or the equivalent, the most common "power draw" is the ability to boost magic you'd be attempting anyway. If you don't, then basically once per scene you can try a spell with someone else's moderately good Magic score. (The "Power" attribute of mystic patrons ranges from 3 to 5, which is not as great as the best wizards of the mortal world, but again, many clients. It's not a measure of how powerful your patron is, it's a measure of how little attention they can spare you.) Which is a useful thing to be able to do for 1 GP, but less useful than being able to potentially rescue a failed magic attempt when you're going to be magicking all over the place anyway. Other uses for a mystic patron can be bought as a trait for them, or provided by CQ special abilities. Some of them count as a power draw, some of them don't.

Any benefit a patron provides can be withheld once you've incurred a favor and haven't paid it, whether it counts as drawing power or not, but this is neither automatic nor a total binary shut off. Your patron can refuse to aid your personal endeavors if you're clearly shirking your duties, but loosen the cosmic purse strings when you're actively working towards their agenda or towards repaying the favor.

It's often (thought not compulsorily so, except for Theurges) attached to a detail called "invoker" that changes the nature of a character's magic. An invoker uses their Magic score for spellcasting (or any attribute they can substitute, for themed spells) as normal, but it doesn't represent the same force that wizards and vanilla magical beings manipulate. So a wizard can't detect a divine (or infernal) invoker and is at a penalty to negate or counter their spells, and the reverse is true. The divine and infernal invokers can detect and negate each other freely, because their "magic" operates on the same continuum. The other definitely defined categories of invokers are elemental (whether you're a general elementalist or a specialist, because again same contnuum), natural (witches and druids), spirits of the dead and undead (which are different things, but again, treated as the same category for detection and other interactions).

All invokers have a mystic patron (a 1 GP base patron is the tangible benefit of taking the detail, since the "polarity shift" is kind of a toss-up), but not all characters with a mystic patron are an invoker. You can be a wizard who is also a warlock, whose Magic is vanilla magic that sometimes receives an infernal push. An invoker's personal ability to use magic is not something the patron can/will turn off, in accordance with the idea that a character's base abilities belong to the character. For whatever reason, they were able to or allowed to establish an open line to a power source. If as the character grows they ever break ties with their patron, then either they'll establish a new one or discover that the time they've spent channeling raw power from the cosmos has enabled them to do the same with magic-magic.

Even with the Storyteller Generosity Clause, taking a mystic patron and drawing on their power adds a layer of complexity to a character that not everyone will want to deal with. It's not *necessary* to take a mystic patron to say that your character has been blessed by a god or has made a deal with a devil... not every gift comes with the same strings attached to it. All of the "Touched" abilities (Storm-Touched, Life-Touched, etc.) explicitly represent this kind of supernatural gift without a tie to a patron. The mystic patron system exists for characters where this kind of bargain/pact/servitude is such a central part of the character concept that it would feel like something is missing if it didn't have any impact on gameplay.

As I mentioned above, only one Character Quality right now makes direct use of the mystic patron, and that's Theurge.

Other ones I have plans for (some loose, some quite spelled out)

• Warlock is explicitly flavored for being shackled to an infernal power. While the Theurge has a lot of abilities revolving around prayer (either requiring uninterrupted periods of relative peace, or being tied to words of power), the Warlock's theme is temptation... they have a greater and more attractive range of things that count as power draws to ensure that the character is indebted to the patron more often.
  
• Thaumaturge is the generic wizard-with-a-patron.
  
• Imp Bound is a warlock variant that has a representative of their patron traveling with them, a familiar (can switch between an imp form and a tiny animal form) who unlike most companions is not under the player's direct control. I might genericize it and scrub the infernal implications from the name, so you could have a guiding genius or guardian angel or whatever.
  
• An unnamed one (with the internal working title of "Constantine" in my head... it works as shorthand for my purposes but doesn't describe the character concept at all except as a pop culture reference) that allows you to break one of the inherent rules of the system and have two mystic patrons, who must be opposed to each other.

Warlock and/or Thaumaturge will almost certainly be in the Basic Character Guide when it goes on sale, but the others are kind of more specific than I want to get in the basic set.

The note that the last one allows you to break a rule that says you can't have more than one patron might be making you think that AWW has finally expanded to include forbidden combinations, because what about a Warlock/Theurge? The answer is: you can do that. You just have one patron for both CQs. A Theurge is usually tied to a god and a Warlock is usually tied to a devil, but the abilities of each CQ just define the relationship to the patron in terms of how their powers are used. A Warlock/Theurge might be an infernal priest who has been given the ability to perform wonders freely with the borrowed power in order to better oppose the celestials and tempt mortals over to the infernal side, or might be the servant of a god who is pulling out all the stops to keep this one mortal on their side for whatever reason.

Even without such crosses, you can define the nature of the patron in any way you like. You can take the Warlock CQ to mean a witch who channels the powers of the natural world but understands that a balance must be struck. The character in the game world would not be a warlock in social terms, in the same way that not everyone with the Assassin CQ is a hired killer (or even necessarily a killer). You would just be using this set of mechanics to bring about a character concept that revolves around power that's attractive but dangerous/costly to use.

AWW Fluff: The Aretean Pantheon

The Empire of Aret is the largest political power in the southern reaches of the continent of Kethia. The Human-ruled empire worship many deities, but chief among their pantheon are nine goddesses who are simply called The Nine Ladies, or the Nine, or sometimes the Ladies. Many scholars (particularly the less pious ones) believe that they are likely the remnants of multiple pantheons that merged as different religions came into contact with each other in the early days of trade and travel that eventually gave rise to the empire. Melaketh, Avalla, Kel, and Leydan are pointed to as examples of "earth goddesses", as opposed to Renessa, Prospera, Elysine, and Margol as "sky goddesses", with Arete being a local goddess who is given prominence purely for being the patron of a powerful city.

Melaketh is a goddess of earth and healing. Areteans believe she is the daughter of the world and that she herself gave birth to the land they live upon. The name of the continent "Kethia" in fact is said to come from her, though since it's called things like that in many languages far beyond the most expansive borders of the empire, it's just as possible that the Aretean name fo the goddess comes from the name for the continent. She is the goddess of farmers and midwives, and is called the Bringer Forth of Life.

Her symbols include the sickle and many plants, but especially ivy. Her holy days are the equinoxes, which are called by the faithful "Melaketh's Awakening" and "Melaketh's Repose." She embodies the Aretean virtue of patience.

Prospera is a goddess of flame and fortune. She is watches over gamblers, merchants, and travelers. Because she is favored by merchants and traders, Prospera is the one of the Seven with the most fame beyond Aret's boundaries, where her portfolio has expanded to include adventurers.

Prospera's symbols include the sun, and three tongues of flame branching like a trident. Those who are about to conduct a high-risk venture often burn something of nominal value as a sacrifice to Prospera, to ensure luck. Aretean merchants conducting a deal often burn an offering together, so that no party may have an undue advantage over the other. Prospera's holy days are the Aretean New Year, which begins seven days after the winter solstice. The festival is actually a varying length holiday that is counted as one day liturgically, to help correct for irregularities in the calendar. Many religious prohibitions and even laws are relaxed during Prospera's Day, and it is common for people to switch roles with another (spouses with each other, parents with children, officers and soldiers, nobles and their servants) during the long day.

Prospera is called the Thrice-Married Virgin, because she is said to have married three men (demigods) and was satisfied by none of them, until her eye fell upon the form of Melaketh spreading out beneath her and was smitten. Traditions differ as to whether Melaketh returns Prospera's affection or not; some claim that they are married, and others that Melaketh is oblivious to Prospera's love. Most modern clerics interpret the conflicting stories of previous generations as a depiction of the ups and downs of their relationship.

Despite the possible alliance between their patron powers, priests of Melaketh and priests of Prospera do not get along with each other. A particular bone of contention is the meanings of the seasons: does Melaketh awaken in the spring because Prospera comes around more often, or does Prospera come around more because Melaketh is awake?

There is a small religion called the Cult of the Lovers that reveres both goddesses equally, dedicating themselves to the sacred marriage of Prospera and Melaketh. They are viewed as heretical by traditionalist followers of the individual goddesses, but many couples prefer the Lovers for wedding ceremonies. The winter as a whole is sacred to the Lovers, but in a low-key way: the cultists quietly celebrate the long nights when their beloved matrons are sleeping together.

Prospera embodies the Aretean virtue of passion.

Avalla is a goddess of death and mystery. She is usually depicted wrapped in a cloak or else draped in veils, which are sometimes stylized as spider webs. She is called "The Fair" in reference to the impartiality of death; to suggest that death is cruel or capricious is considered terriblly unlucky in Aretean society. Pious and superstitious Areteans who so much as overhear such a declaration will beg the goddess's pardon or offer up flattery in prayer.

Avalla's symbol is the lily, a traditional funerary symbol in the Aretean peninsula. Blood lilies, a white lily with a spot like a drop of blood on the lower petal, are said to be a sign which marks her passage through the world when they're found in the wilderness, though they are also cultivated by her priests. The solstices are her sacred days, a fact which causes some friction between her priests and those of the Lovers every midwinter.

Avalla embodies the Aretean virtue of mercy.

Renessa is a goddess of wind and water. Unlike Avalla, she revels in the image of being capricious and merciless. Prayers to her--especially those for mercy in a storm--are often hedged with phrases like "if it be your will", and left open-ended rather than asking for specific boons, so as not to suggest that the goddess is at the disposal of mortals. Aretean sailors pray for "safe arrival" and their families ask for their "safe return" rather than asking for a safe journey... the journey is up to the goddess, and she does not like to be told what to do.

Renessa's symbol is the moon over (and partially behind) a cloud over the waves. The full moon is her sacred day, with the second full moon in a month being the the holiest day of the year, except in years where this will happen twice. In that case, it's the seventh full moon. Though her priests always keep a weather eye out for omens that point to another day when it seems like Renessa is in the mood for a feast.

Renessa embodies the Aretean virtue of change.

Margol is the goddess of music and art. She is believed to dispense muses throughout the world. Families who pay for their children to take lessons in painting or poetry spend almost as much in offerings to Margol, so that their progeny may have the divine spark of talent.

Margol's symbols include a golden harp and an ivory mask. Her festival is the Margoliad, a week-long competition for playwrights, actors, and musicians that follows the New Year.

Margol embodies the Aretean virtue of creativity.

Kel is the goddess of strength, labor, and athleticism. Called Kel the Rough-Hewn, Kel is envisioned as being simple and straightforward in her approach to things. She has no temple hierarchy or full-time priesthood; her shrines are found in the homes of workers and in gymnasiums and bathhouses. "Kel's Day" is a special feast declared usually once a year (sometimes more often, in times of plenty or simmering unrest) by the emperor. It is a day of rest for laborers, and often coincides with athletic games.

Kel embodies the Aretean virtue of duty.

Elysine is the goddess of learning and communication. She is the goddess of scholars, scribes, teachers, artificers, philosophers, and diplomats, as well as many wizards. Her symbol is a triangular motif made out of three sets of double lines joined by circles in the corners. Few people realize what it's meant to represent, which is three scrolls that roll into one another endlessly. The owl, the cat, and the fox are also sacred to her. The holiest time of the year to Elysine is the annual symposium hosted by the three largest universities of Aret.

Elysine represents the Aretean virtue of reason.

Leydan is the goddess of retribution, vengeance, and sorrow. Her priests speak of "the two sorrows" of the aggrieved, those being the sorrow that precedes vengeance and the sorrow that follows it. That's not to say that they counsel against vengeance… rather, they warn petitioners to go into it with their eyes open, and offer spiritual assistance to those who find themselves at a loss after having their vengeance.

Leydan's symbol is the raven, or the raven's feather. Her feast day is in the late spring, and it brings a special dispensation. Any Aretean may dissolve a marriage or family bond on Leydan's Day. Even children can remove themselves from their parents, though they must either have another willing guardian or else enter one of the state orphanages (may run by Leydanites). Leydan's priests call this annual ritual "the small evil that prevents great ones". Even those in untenable marriages or family situations seldom take advantage of this dispensation, though… though custom and law dictates that there can be no stigma or recriminations for these sanctioned dissolutions, there are customs that supersede custom.

Leydan represents the Aretean virtue of responsibility.

Arete is the goddess of justice, wisdom, and war, as well as a personification of the city of Aret itself. As such, her highest holy day is the anniversary of the city's founding. She is also invoked on other civic holidays, such as the emperor's birthday. Few people worship Arete specifically, though soldiers pray to her before battle. Her priests are all government employees. Her symbol is an eye whose pupil is the fulcrum for a pair of scales, with crossed swords behind it. This is also the seal of the empire.

Arete represents the Aretean virtue of greatness.