Nobilis: a Game of Sovereign Powers Unlikely Flowerings

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Nobilis: a Game of Sovereign Powers� Unlikely Flowerings Unlikely Flowerings The first humans emerged from the Garden into a world of savagery and grime. Beasts and birds and fish hunted, and killed, and ate, and the ones most often eaten were the ones who harmed no others at all. The sky poured water and stony ice and jagged lightning down upon them and the thunder shouted its rage. The first humans built themselves a shelter from sticks and leaves; and a fire from stones and wood; and they learned to kill what they wished to kill and protect what they wished to protect; and as Eve brought forth a child in suffering and pain, she said: “Truly, this is an age of miracles.” —fromCarryout, by Emily Chen Nobilis: A Game of Sovereign Powers Unlikely Flowerings BYJenna Katerin Moran (akaR. Sean Borgstrom) With Design and Development Contributions by:Neil Laughlin, Chrysoula Tzavelas, and James Wallis Release and Distribution Assistance by:Brad Elliott and Hsin Chen of Eos Press All contents are copyright the original author. All rights reserved. Distributed by Eos Press with permission. All the characters and Dedication events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. Copies of materials are intended solely for your personal, noncommercial use, and only n honor of the birth of if you preserve any associated copyrights, trademarks, or other no- tices. You may not distribute copies to others for a charge or other I consideration without prior written consent of the owner of the ma- Robin Michael Alexander Maginn terials except for review purposes only. The Eos logo is trademark and copyright © 2008 by Eos Entertainment, LLC. and the birth of Eliza Caroline Ann Wallis and in the hopes of greater joy for all those who play Nobilis. Unlikely Flowerings (release 1, version 1.1) Contents Exclusive Attributes...............................................................................................................................................................9 Alchemy...............................................................................................................................................................................10 Alchemy Scores............................................................................................................................................................11 Level 0: Student.....................................................................................................................................................11 Level 1: Practitioner..............................................................................................................................................11 Level 2: Alchemist................................................................................................................................................12 Level 3: Master Alchemist....................................................................................................................................13 Level 4: Grandmaster Alchemist...........................................................................................................................14 Level 5: Worldbreaker...........................................................................................................................................15 Alchemy Rules..............................................................................................................................................................16 Floral Influences....................................................................................................................................................16 Precision Work and Imprudent Alchemy..............................................................................................................17 Crafting and the Circumstances of the Game........................................................................................................20 Dynamic Alchemy.................................................................................................................................................22 Alchemy Miracles.........................................................................................................................................................23 Level 0: Alchemical Analysis................................................................................................................................23 Level 1: Alchemical Trivia....................................................................................................................................23 Level 2: Essential Alchemy...................................................................................................................................24 Level 3: Improbable Alchemy...............................................................................................................................26 Level 4: Alchemical Mastery................................................................................................................................26 Level 5: Alchemical Wonders...............................................................................................................................27 High Summoning.................................................................................................................................................................29 High Summoning Scores..............................................................................................................................................30 Level 0: Severed Sage...........................................................................................................................................30 Level 1: Companion to Monsters..........................................................................................................................31 Level 2: Lady of the Beyond.................................................................................................................................31 Level 3: Peer of the Most Distant Realm..............................................................................................................32 Level 4: Sovereign Beyond...................................................................................................................................33 Level 5: Empress Beyond......................................................................................................................................33 High Summoning Rules................................................................................................................................................34 Learning High Summoning in Dynamic Nobilis...................................................................................................36 Pacts.......................................................................................................................................................................37 Creatures of the Beyond........................................................................................................................................38 Build Points...........................................................................................................................................................40 Coercion................................................................................................................................................................41 Adharmic Subversion............................................................................................................................................42 Dynamic Coercion.................................................................................................................................................43 High Summoning Miracles...........................................................................................................................................51 Level 0: Animal.....................................................................................................................................................51 Level 1: Monster....................................................................................................................................................51 Level 2: Horror......................................................................................................................................................52 Level 3: External Inheritor....................................................................................................................................53 Level 4: Noble.......................................................................................................................................................53 Level 5: Unearthly Noble......................................................................................................................................54 Nobilis: A Game of Sovereign Powers Imperfect Command.....................................................................................................................................................55 Imperfect Knowledge...................................................................................................................................................56 Student of Summoning.................................................................................................................................................57 Patronage.............................................................................................................................................................................59
Recommended publications
  • SILVER AGE SENTINELS (D20)
    Talking Up Our Products With the weekly influx of new roleplaying titles, it’s almost impossible to keep track of every product in every RPG line in the adventure games industry. To help you organize our titles and to aid customers in finding information about their favorite products, we’ve designed a set of point-of-purchase dividers. These hard-plastic cards are much like the category dividers often used in music stores, but they’re specially designed as a marketing tool for hobby stores. Each card features the name of one of our RPG lines printed prominently at the top, and goes on to give basic information on the mechanics and setting of the game, special features that distinguish it from other RPGs, and the most popular and useful supplements available. The dividers promote the sale of backlist items as well as new products, since they help customers identify the titles they need most and remind buyers to keep them in stock. Our dividers can be placed in many ways. These are just a few of the ideas we’ve come up with: •A divider can be placed inside the front cover or behind the newest release in a line if the book is displayed full-face on a tilted backboard or book prop. Since the cards 1 are 11 /2 inches tall, the line’s title will be visible within or in back of the book. When a customer picks the RPG up to page through it, the informational text is uncovered. The card also works as a restocking reminder when the book sells.
    [Show full text]
  • Game Design and Role-Playing Games
    This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in Role- Playing Game Studies: Transmedia Foundations on April 4, 2018, available online: https://www.routledge.com/Role-Playing-Game-Studies-Transmedia-Foundations/Deterding-Zagal/p/book/9781138638907 Please cite as: Björk, Staffan and Zagal, José P. (2018). “Game Design and Role- Playing Games” In Zagal, José P. and Deterding, S. (eds.), Role-Playing Game Studies: Transmedia Foundations. New York: Routledge, 323-336. 18 Game Design and Role-Playing Games Staffan Björk; José Zagal This chapter explores role-playing games (RPGs) from a design perspective. While there are many approaches to acquiring knowledge about RPGs, designers of RPGs often consider the structural elements of a game—its rules and the entities on which the rules act—and how they will interact with each other. One complication of game design, and RPG design specifically, is that “games” involve and describe both the artifacts that makes playing possible – the things we buy in stores – and the gameplay artifacts enable and encourage. While game designers can exert control over the artifact (e.g. a rulebook or software), their ultimate goal is to encourage a certain kind of gameplay. Thus, gameplay, which primarily depends on the player’s behavior, is out of their direct control. Salen and Zimmerman (2004) refer to this as “second-order design” and stress the importance of playtesting to see if the game artifacts generate the desired game activities when used by the intended target group. However, they also stress the importance of game designers having a structural understanding of games as systems so they can anticipate how specific design configurations will work.
    [Show full text]
  • Shadowrun, Fifth Edition, Preview Two | Catalyst Game Labs
    SHADOWRUN >noun Any movement, action, or series of such made in carrying out plans which are illegal or quasilegal. WorldWide WorldWatch 2050 archive INCOMING MESSAGE FROM M. WRATH: Hoi chummers! This is a preview of an in-progress version of Shadowrun, Fifth Edition, and proofing is still under way. Spelling, grammar, "p. XX" references and so on may be updated before heading to press. Get more info at www.shadowruntabletop.com SHADOwrun, fiftH eDitiOn • preview twO SECTION.02 SHADOWRUN CONCEPTS advancing the story, and the gamemaster should feel that THE GAME & YOU they can keep the story moving ahead without having to engage in prolonged and distracting discussions about As a player in a Shadowrun game, your primary objec- the rules. The more members of the group work together, tive is to make things happen. Many of those things the better their chances of shooting people in the face for should be awesome. The gamemaster will set up a story money in spectacular and amazing fashions will be. for you, then your character will decide how to respond For more advice on running a Shadowrun game and to the initial setup and all the events that happen once working with players, see Gamemaster Advice, p. 332. the story gets rolling. Sooner or later—hopefully soon- er—you’ll face a challenge, something that requires you to test your abilities. The rules are here so that you and HOW TO MAKE the gamemaster can determine the outcome of your ac- tions. Did the shot from your Ares Predator V hit the ork THINGS HAPPEN ganger right between the tusks? Are you able to sneak past the sleepy dwarf guard without waking him up? Did Your Shadowrun character does all the things a normal you counter the stunball the troll mage threw at you and person does, along with the occasional grand theft, dissolve it into millions of pieces of glittery mana? espionage mission, or hit job.
    [Show full text]
  • 1498344312964.Pdf
    JUNE 23th 2017 This is a compilation of pdf share threads since 2015 and the rpg generals threads. Some things are from even earlier, like Lotsastuff’s collection. Thanks Lotsastuff, your pdf was my inspiration. A HUGE THANK YOU to the Anon Brigade, who do the digging, loading, and posting. Especially those elite commandos, the Nametag Legionaires, who selflessly achieve the improbable. - - - - - - - – - - - - - - - - – - - - - - - - - - - - - - - – - - - - - – Don't think of it as a library index, think of it as Portobello Road in London, filled with bookstores and little street market booths and you have to talk to each shopkeeper. I arbitrarily classify a ‘Collection’ as a library of different games and a ‘Trove’ as a library of a single game. It has been cleaned up some, labeled poorly, and shuffled about a little to perhaps be more useful. There are links to ~16,000 pdfs. Don't be intimidated, some are duplicates. Go get a coffee and browse. Some links are encoded without a hyperlink to restrict spiderbot activity. You will have to complete the link. Others are encoded but have a working hyperlink underneath. As Anon says; “Surely in Da Archive™ somewhere.” Part I is the Personal Collections. They are Huge. You need to go to each one and look at them. They often have over 1000 links each. Part II is the Alphabetical Section. Well........ when I say “alphabetical”, I really mean artistically arranged according to my whim and level of sobriety. Part III SNAPSHOTS OF DA GENERALS will be stored at the bottom of Da Archive If you are online, go directly to the Generals, they may be more up to date and the people there often know the subject better.
    [Show full text]
  • Timeline Tree of Tabletop Role-Playing Games Pascal Martinolli
    Timeline Tree of Tabletop Role-Playing Games Pascal Martinolli To cite this version: Pascal Martinolli. Timeline Tree of Tabletop Role-Playing Games. Donjons & Données probantes, Nov 2018, Montréal, Canada. 2019. halshs-02522264 HAL Id: halshs-02522264 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-02522264 Submitted on 1 Apr 2020 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial| 4.0 International License TTTTRPG - Timeline Tree of Tabletop Role-Playing Games, Celebrating more than 40 years of innovations in game designs Free Kriegsspiel movement Referee renders decisions Midwest Military Simulation Association past Strategos: A Series of American Games of War (...) [Totten CAL, 1890] 1960 on tactical experience only (not on rules) (1963) Pascal Martinolli (CC-BY-NC-SA) 2016-2019 [1860-1880] github.com/pmartinolli/TTTTRPG v.20200118 Diplomacy [Allan B. Calhamer, 1954-59] 1950 PC centered game-play fostering emergent roleplay Modern War in Miniature 1966 [Michael F Korns, 1966] Braunstein 1967 [David A Wesely, 1967] Hyboria [Tony Bath, 1968-1973?] PC centered play-by-post wargame 1968 Random personality creation Fantasy world building campaign. Long-lasting consequences of PC decisions on the game-world 1969 The Courrier [of NEWA] Strategos ’N’ two-pages set of rules 1970 One figure = One character Simulation & Gaming WARriors vs GAMErs (Perren S) Castle & Crusade Society Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association [David A.
    [Show full text]
  • Design Patterns of Successful Role-Playing Games
    Design Patterns of Successful Role-Playing Games (DRAFT) by Whitson John Kirk III Forward by Mike Holmes 9 / 26 / 2005 Copyright © 2005 by Whitson John Kirk III. Some rights reserved. Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 You are free: · to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work · to make derivative works Under the following conditions: Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor. Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes. Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one. · For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. · Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder. Your fair use and other rights are in no way affected by the above. This is a human-readable summary of the Legal Code (the full license). The full text of the license and disclaimer can be found at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ Table of Contents Table of Contents Table of Contents ................................ iii Success Reward .............................139 Dedication.............................................iv Template ........................................142 Forward..................................................v Trait................................................146 Acknowledgements ..............................vi Trauma Gauge ...............................149 Introduction
    [Show full text]
  • Push DOODLES New Thinking About Roleplaying Volume 1 INTRODUCTION
    2006 CLIO CHIANG COVER ANNIE RUSH Push DOODLES New Thinking About Roleplaying Volume 1 INTRODUCTION JONATHAN WALTON EMILY CARE BOSS 13 LEAD EDITOR, LAYOUT, WRANGLING COLLABORATIVE ROLEPLAYING: THE CONTRIBUTORS REFRAMING THE GAME PIERS BROWN RICH FOREST LIZ HENRY JOHN H. KIM 37 BEN LEHMAN IMMERSIVE STORY METHODS THOMAS ROBERTSON FOR TABLETOP ROLEPLAYING PEER EDITING VICTOR GIJSBERS SHREYAS SAMPAT 53 JESSICA HAMMER MRIDANGAM BRAND ROBINS ANNIE RUSH PAUL TEVIS EERO TUOVINEN 69 MOYRA TURKINGTON AGAINST THE GEEK, CHOICE GUEST COMMENTARY JONATHAN WALTON 85 JOSHUA KASHINSKY WAITING FOR THE QUEEN/ ADDITIONAL WRITING TEA AT MIDNIGHT CHRIS LEHRICH OFFICIAL MASCOT THE FORGE PLANNING VOLUME 2 PUSH EDITORIAL FORUM LULU.COM PRINTING, DISTRIBUTION CONTRIBUTORS EMILY CARE BOSS is a graduate student studying forestry and conservation at UMass - Amherst. Her contributions are grounded in ritual, psychology and over a decade of free-form, collaborative play. Her first published game, Breaking the Ice, was released in the summer of 2005. CLIO CHIANG recently graduated from Commercial Animation at Capilano College. She resides in Vancouver and occasionally contributes to the Flight anthology. JOHN H. KIM is interested in the broad range of roleplaying, from Scandinavian live-action to miniature-based skirmishes. He has been writing on RPG theory since 1995, starting on rec.games.frp.advocacy and his website. His day job is programming in the San Francisco Bay area. SHREYAS SAMPAT fills his blog, Raven Swallows the Sun, with interactive fiction and food writing. Occasionally, musings on game design land there too. Some of his ancestors are crows. EERO TUOVINEN heads Arkenstone Publishing, a Finnish indie RPG import, retail, and publishing company dedicated to improving Finnish roleplaying culture.
    [Show full text]
  • NOBILIS 101 Written by Ry Herman I've Trying to Make This an Easy-To
    http://www.cs.utah.edu/~cms/gaming/ry_synopsis.html NOBILIS 101 Written by Ry Herman I've trying to make this an easy-to-understand boiling down of Nobilis concepts and rules, so that people can get a handle on the world and a start on making their characters. I'll start with the world and its concepts, and then do a section on rules, at least those which are significant to making a character, which is most of them, quite frankly. The section on the world duplicates a lot of the information that was in Nathaniel's post explaning the game, but I'd recommend at least skimming it anyway, as I tried to make it less confusing. Questions are welcome. And I apologize for any typos, it's late. So, to begin: THE WORLD 1) Player Characters The PCs in this game are Nobles, beings which are responsible for / represent / embody / are one aspect of the nature of existence. This might be an object and class of objects, quality, idea, philosophy, theoretical construct, social movement . pretty much anything that could be used as the subject clause of a sentence. So, this aspect can be juist about anything in the conceptual lexicon : Fire, Salinity, Calendar Days, Weirdness, Punk, Missing Socks, BDSM, Phlogiston, Straight Lines, Objects Moving At High Speeds, or Telecommunications would all be valid ideas for Nobles : and of course there are thousands and thousands of others. Opening a dictionary to a random page usually results in a few good ideas. Nobles who represent concepts which do not actually exist in the real world, or which are more abstract, are by no means less powerful than those who represent more "present" concepts.
    [Show full text]
  • NOBILIS CYOA (Lite Edition) JUMPCHAIN COMPLIANT by Bug Quickstart Version
    NOBILIS CYOA (Lite Edition) JUMPCHAIN COMPLIANT By Bug Quickstart Version “Beyond the sky, the world ash stretches from Hell to Heaven, supporting countless worlds besides our own. Between these strange realms, divine powers and the wild fight a war to control and define the whole of Existence, one idea at a time... or to unmake it altogether. The Nobilis stand in the front lines of this celestial struggle. Once they were mortal. Now they are something more. Each infused with a piece of Creation's power and given mastery over one part of reality. Love, War, Music, Steel, Thunder, Agony or any of Infinity's components: A Noble is its incarnation, master and protector.” - Nobilis: The Great White Book Welcome to life at The World Ash. This is the world you’ll live in for the next 10 years, amidst gods and mortals. Take this 1000 CP and good luck making good use of them. ​ ​ Disclaimer (aka, my childish rant): This idea has been on my mind since about a month after I discovered jumpchain and, has been shot down when proposed to the thread (totally fair though, it was way too big a project to risk taking on it as my first jump). I did put aside the long ​ ​ ass jump-doc I was working on, but I still wanted my jumpers to become Nobles, to see the World Ash, ride an Aaron’s Serpent, fight (and maybe marry) Excrucians and fix Humanity’s Imperial nature, possibly as an end to the chain. So this jump came to be, inspired by the Omnibus Old WOD Jump in the format.
    [Show full text]
  • RPG Design Patterns Revision-G
    Design Patterns of Successful Role-Playing Games by Whitson John Kirk III Edited by Michael R. Cantrell Foreword by Mike Holmes 9 / 13 / 2009 Copyright © 2006 by Whitson John Kirk III. Some rights reserved. If you make changes, add your name to the Contributor’s section on the cover. Please do not alter the Dedication, Forward, or Acknowledgements sections. Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 You are free: · to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work · to make derivative works Under the following conditions: Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor. Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes. Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one. · For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. · Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder. Your fair use and other rights are in no way affected by the above. This is a human-readable summary of the Legal Code (the full license). The full text of the license and disclaimer can be found at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ Table of Contents Table of Contents Table of Contents ............................................................................................................iii Dedication........................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • RPG Design Patterns Revision-G
    Design Patterns of Successful Role-Playing Games by Whitson John Kirk III Edited by Michael R. Cantrell Foreword by Mike Holmes 9 / 13 / 2009 Copyright © 2006 by Whitson John Kirk III. Some rights reserved. If you make changes, add your name to the Contributor’s section on the cover. Please do not alter the Dedication, Forward, or Acknowledgements sections. Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 You are free: · to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work · to make derivative works Under the following conditions: Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor. Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes. Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one. · For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. · Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder. Your fair use and other rights are in no way affected by the above. This is a human-readable summary of the Legal Code (the full license). The full text of the license and disclaimer can be found at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ Table of Contents Table of Contents Table of Contents ............................................................................................................iii Dedication........................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]