Through Darkening Skies - original weird fantasy sky pirate adventures

[Excession]

You may enjoy this RP if you also like: Black Sails, Exalted, Berserk, Howl's Moving Castle, the Yakuza franchise
This RP will be for 4-6 players, a group of misfits, cutthroats, and scoundrels with hearts of gold.
The mechanics are easy enough to learn, a dice-pool system that's simple to use but has mechanical depth if you want to engage with it.
No prior experience with this game or tabletop games required. All skill levels welcome.
One post a week is ideal, once a month is acceptable.
No set post length - just post what you feel is necessary to move things along and satisfies you creatively.

===========================

The world is vast and strange, where sorcerer-kings rule from steel towers, where a secret society of mystic engineers controls an ancient city with literal iron fists, where noble houses descended from the gods themselves sweep bystanders up in their epic feuds and romances.
What's an honest criminal to do?

You five misfits, criminals, and tortured souls have been set a task - to recover a mystical artifact before the Desolator Annan can reach it and wreak her terrible revenge on Zendis City.

What destiny will you forge in these darkening skies?

=============================================

You have a slew of options for fun characters.
Here are some examples if you just want to dive in - yes, yes, it is a reference.
SAMPLE CHARACTERS

And this is the city the story will start in.

Humans
Among the most widespread peoples on the continent, humans are hardy, industrious, and diverse. Humans seem to meddle in anything new they find and have reshaped the world since the end of the last war. Many of the world's Magi are human.

Rats
Humankind's best friend, rats and humans have worked and lived together for so long now you'll rarely find a society with one and not the other.
Short, dexterous, and furry, with powerful senses, rats are sometimes joked to be the brains to humans' brawn.

Trollkin
The insular Trollkin live in the cold north; huge and wise woolly Trolls, stoic and disciplined Orcs, and cunning, inventive Goblins.
It's rare for one of their kind to be exiled, but it happens, and a Trollkin cannot live without some kind of family.

Crantiré
The mysterious rulers of The Awakened Wood, the Treefolk, rare and wise. They rarely leave their strange and hostile homeland; those that do are often powerful Magi.

Elementals
The other inhabitants of the Wood, who some call the guard dogs of the Crantiré. Roving clans who can harness elemental energies and defend the borders of the Wood with furious zeal, practicing esoteric martial arts that bend fire, earth, wind, and water to their will.

Scions
Said to be the descendants of the gods who left this world in disgust long ago. The seven Houses are powerful militarily, magically, and politically, unbound to any nation. Each Scion is a living legend, or on the way to becoming one.

I'll link more setting and mechanics stuff on request; not looking to overwhelm anyone.

CURRENT CREW:
Our glorious Goblin captain
Our noble ship's doctor
Our enlightened indentured monk

[Jerkchicken]

This might be up my alley.

[Excession]

Nice, welcome. If you have questions about anything feel free to ask.

[Jerkchicken]

How does character creation work?

[rush99999]

How does character creation work?

@Jerkchicken

What he said.

[XxFellsingxX]

Tentatively interested.

[Excession]

A good question. I was planning to save the big details, but check out the sample character sheets to see how this shakes out.
And I should say since chargen for a new system is always a bit daunting I'll knock together sheets for people if they ask.
First, you pick a Species - human, rat, Trollkin, etc. This is of course important for character roleplaying but it also impacts your Attribute base and cap.
You'll see 9 Attributes on the sheet. Every character has at least 1 point in each and cap at 4. Humans actually start at Fitness 2 and cap at 5, as an example.
You get 60XP to spend on Attributes unless I find the distribution array I wrote, somewhere.
Costs go 3, 6, 9, 12.

You'll also see a stack of Skills - those start at 0 and go from 1-6.
At 3 a Skill branches into specialties. So you might have Melee 3, and then Melee (Swords) 4 and Melee (Axes) 5.
Costs go 2, 1, 2, 3, 6, 9 and that is intentional.

Then you can pick Advantages, one social, one physical, and one mental. These confer a +1 die bonus on relevant rolls for three specific skills. Social Advantages are the easy example; they're stuff like 'Criminal Underworld, +1 die on Persuade, Mingle, Empathy when dealing with criminals' but you can get creative.

Lastly there's a bit of math on Derived Stats for combat. You can read more here but I might need to update that. I'll have a nice neat set of tables and such if we get as far as an actual creation thread.

You can also add complicating templates on top of some Species, like Magi, Inquisitors, Monks, Vampires, mutations, cybernetics, martial arts styles...

[Jerkchicken]

Thanks for sharing the link. It's similar to whatever they're calling the white wolf system now but with D12s and with a noticeable smaller dice pool, and the other differences.

[Excession]

Yeah I got my start in WW games and L5R way back when. I've experimented with other models for other games (got a prototype running off the Apocalypse Engine and some other less typical stuff) but for this particular game I was happy with this broad design approach.

[rush99999]

@Excession

I believe I shall be making a goblin character. I think that one mind in six bodies thing you've given them is a neat concept.

Are all six bodies the same gender or does the composition vary from goblin to goblin?

Also, how is magic resistance determined?

[Excession]

@Excession

I believe I shall be making a goblin character. I think that one mind in six bodies thing you've given them is a neat concept.

Are all six bodies the same gender or does the composition vary from goblin to goblin?

Also, how is magic resistance determined?

@rush99999

Daring! Shit I'll need to review their stats and do a coherence pass, no one usually picks them.
Goblins are sterile with heavily atrophied reproductive organs, unless they've decided to adopt foreign gender norms and had some or all of their bodies magically modified. If they have a gender as most other cultures would recognize it, all six Goblins would express it, but goblin is itself functionally a gender in Trollkin society. Outsiders typically default to considering goblins as men, or male, and most goblins don't care enough to correct them.

I take fantasy anthropology perhaps too seriously.

And Magic Res is just Willpower + any modifiers from items, special techniques, mutations, implants, enchantments.
Goblins actually enjoy a +2 Magic Res bonus against most Heartwrights and Necromancers because they don't know how to work their magic on the unique structure of the goblin mind and soul.

[rush99999]

Daring! Shit I'll need to review their stats and do a coherence pass, no one usually picks them.

@Excession

Speaking of coherence, when you say 'Goblin receive 3 Attribute points per member' do you mean that Goblins get 18 extra Attribute points and lose three of those points every time a body dies?

[Excession]

Uhh you know what let me get some sleep and go over that again; I think my original intent was to split those over physical Attributes and then Social and Mental buys work as normal but I want to consult my notes and modernize the design a bit. Almost everything else has been overhauled at least once in the last ten years except Goblins because no one was picking them and giving me test data (but I can apply the lessons learned from everything else to bring 'em in line).

I'll get back to you in like 12 hours give or take thank you for being patient.

[rush99999]

No problem. Sweet dreams.

[Excession]

Still pondering Goblin logistics, running some numbers to try and keep bookeeping low.

Anyone else interested, have character ideas? The sooner I can start thinking of what plot threads to weave the better.

[XxFellsingxX]

Thinking of playing a Troll, but haven't decided much beyond that yet ^^;

[Excession]

With two kinds of Trollkin this will probably be helpful, then.

Big lore dump

At the end of the world, on the southern shore of the ice wastes, lies the great city of Trollhaven. It is the home and only city of the Trollkin, who have never in their long history been inclined to venture far for long nor seize more lands.

At the heart of the metropolis is the High Fane, carved from ice and snow. A vast complex specially designed for acoustics where the great woolly Trolls dwell. Tall as two humans, with thick coats and large tusks, the Trolls live in contemplation of The Resounding Cry; the last syllable of the song their deity, Mother, sang to bring the world into being. Visitors to Trollhaven can hear the echoing trollsong from the Fane at all hours, said to be strangely comforting. The Trolls lead the Trollkin - spiritual guides, temporal adminstrators, a council of elders to discern the future of their people.

The rest of the city is a hive of activity, where the Orc children of the Trolls live their lives in upkeep of the city. Sturdy and lightly furred, Orcs are infamous to outsiders as lacking imagination, blunt and open - but such outsiders have never seen them in their element. Orcs mostly adore engineering and the city is a testament to their cooperation, pragmatism, and regimented thought. Everything is functional almost to a fault, straight and angular, efficiently built with a particular aesthetic bent provided by their commitment to amplifying the Song through the stucture of the city itself. While Trolls give the big-picture orders and deal with external powers, the Orcs accept delegation for running infrastructure, construction, maintenance. They are also the frontline soldiers of Trollhaven when they are forced to violence, an unbreakable line of riflemen and pikes. Were it not for their lower numbers they would be the most formidable military force this side of Great House Lezek. As it is, the Orcs ensure Trollhaven is a valuable and prickly trade partner, mining worldseeds and ores from the land beyond the city, devising new mechanisms and chemicals.

The Goblins are the last of the Trollkin but by no means least. As small as Ratfolk, each Goblin is a single mind in six bodies. This makes them excellent sailors and airship crew, and while they support Orcs as part of the labour force at home and adding an extra creative spark to their works, for centuries Goblins were the only Trollkin to rove beyond their home. It is said no explorers have seen as much of the world as Goblins.

Trollhaven does not use money. The people work always for the good of the whole, under the guidance of the Trolls. Orc quartermasters staunchly manage the food and materials of their districts to ensure there is enough for everyone. This does make Trollkin culture quite rigid - noncomformity is punished harshly by exile, and many Trollkin can barely survive cut off from their community. Those who do are eccentrics found around the Known World in odd professions. Their most strict tenets are twofold; neither Orcs nor Goblins may sing, for that is a sacred act only for Trolls, and to manifest the power of a Magus is to demonstrate disconnection from Mother. Both are punished by exile.

A single ward of Trollhaven called Quarantine is given over to visitors to the city. Foreigners are not permitted to enter the rest of the city and barely tolerated where they are, but the Trolls decided this was necessary for diplomacy. Thus Quarantine is filled with embassies, mercantile company offices, and a small tourist industry run by those who felt out of place everywhere else.

Trollhaven sells metalwork, firearms, gunpowder, worldseeds, and fossils to the outside world. They import primary materials, especially wood, and meat. Trolls are obligate carnivores and not so ascetic they are averse to sampling morsels from distant lands. The city doesn’t require trade too desperately but following a series of resource wars instigated by outsiders (and one holy war instigated by the Trolls), it was decided commerce was the best way to keep the peace.

Trollkin loyalists who leave home are often scholars and archeaologists, such as Trolls looking for traces of Mother or Orcs seeking to learn from foreign architecture. Trollkin exiles are often eccentrics or Magi; Trolls who cannot hear the Cry over the magic roiling in their soul, Orcs who shamed themselves serving as mercenaries, one-Goblin acappella bands on the run.

[Benzaiten]

I might attempt to throw my hat in the ring.

[Excession]

<Snipped quote by Excession>

Speaking of coherence, when you say 'Goblin receive 3 Attribute points per member' do you mean that Goblins get 18 extra Attribute points and lose three of those points every time a body dies?

@rush99999

After much consideration, current version will be:

Each member of a Goblin has Str 1 Dex 2 Fit 2, which each additional member contributing to a roll adding +1 up to a cap rasonable for the task at hand (6 Str is achievable if, for example, something is big enough for all six members to get a grip and lift it up, but they can't manipulate something hand-sized with that kind of strength).
You get 40XP to spend on Mental and Social Attributes, and any single member can benefit from those so you can multi-task.

I am not averse to you having a vehicle or perhaps a small mech.

[TaintedMushroom]

I'm thinking a House Lybar scion who leans heavily into the drunken doctor type, just an initial idea that comes to mind.