Characters in Legends of Alba

Waaaay back in July I wrote about some rules ideas for the game, and finished up by saying that the next step was to have a look at building some characters. So in the 3+ months since that post I've been working on the Character creation process for the game and am delighted to be writing today that I have some thing to share:

Here is a sort of preview, WIP, very non-final draft for Character Creation!

A few caveats:

• In the Homelands section, the Kingdoms of Alba are all named, but 'The Storm Isles' is the only available option just now.
• In the Heritage section, I want to include more options here as I quite like these. For those select few who know what this means, I've not forgotten The Lizard Legion. There's no way this game is getting finished without the option for you to play as a lizard person if you want.

Even just getting to this point, it's been an interesting, challenging and fun process. My initial idea for making characters was to have you roll for your Clan and that would be it (so the clans would be similar to Backgrounds in Troika or Failed Careers in Electric Bastionland). But I wanted Alba itself to have a stronger presence, even when making your character. So your character's homeland has become the most significant decision or roll you'll make in the Character creation process, and that feels right to me.

art by André Houot, via The Lost Treasure Chest

As for the Clans themselves I'm quite happy with where they're at. I enjoyed writing the mottos and bringing a little bit of Westeros energy to them. And I think they achieve another aim that I had for this process, which was for it to serve a dual role as a referee resource as well. For instance, if you're the person running the game, and you wanted to introduce an NPC who happened to be from the Seawolf clan, you could have a quick look and see that the Seawolf equipment list includes charcoal and chalk hair dye, so a noticeable detail about this NPC might be their jet black hair with white streaks through it.

Perhaps my favourite discovery from this has been the Truths mechanic. Truths are exactly what they sound like: True statements about your Character. If one or more of your Character's Truths would be beneficial when making a Check, you can re-roll the Check. Depending on the Truth and the situation, the Truth might mean you don't even need to make a Check.

Having decided on that, I revisited how Fire might work. Fire is not that easy to get. So when it is used it should be big, it should be impactful, it should be your Character realising their full potential. So: When your Character has to make a Check, you can burn Fire to automatically succeed on the Check. Guidance for the referee will be to offer the player the chance to describe the best possible outcome, if they wish.

There's more I'd love to get into but I'm already way over the time I have for writing this post, so I'll round off with a sample Character I rolled up last night using this Character Creator. The notes at the bottom are my initial thoughts on what this character would be like, using the results from the Character Creator as prompts. I found these ideas came pretty naturally but I've had my head in this stuff for a while now, so it might be useful to include some guidance for new players on fleshing out their character in this way.

Meantime I've come up with a character that I'd be excited to play, which is a good starting point at least!

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Name: Ada Wavesplitter

Homeland: The Storm Isles (Survived the worst winter by staying ahead of the storm)

Heritage: Ùruisg

Service: Messenger

Talents: STR +2 | SKL +5 | SNS -1 | SLF +0

Clan Wavesplitter: To the surface, the best

Oath of Renown:

* Gains Fire when her actions improve the reputation of The Wavesplitters.

* Broken if she wilfully denies or conceals her belonging to The Wavesplitters.

Truths:

* A seasoned sailor

* Makes weather predictions, usually accurate

* Gets restless if she stays in one place too long

* Sees things others miss

* Knows how to conserve stamina

Equipment

* Hook-heeled hatchet

* Round studded shield

* Horsehoe chestbrand

* Companion moss

* Hooded crow (can repeat one short phrase)

Notes:

As a messenger and a sailor, Ada has spent a lot of time traveling aboard the ships of The Wavesplitter fleet, delivering important messages between clans. 'Skill' is her best Talent, and she conserves her energies well, so she prides herself on her speed and reliability as a messenger. She takes her work seriously, keenly aware of how it reflects on her clan. And of course, she can be heard proudly talking up The Wavesplitters whenever she can, as sworn in her oath.

I don’t think there would be one particular ship or crew she always sails with, her work is so ad-hoc that she has to be flexible, finding passage with whoever suits the job. Her secondary Talent is 'Strength', so she’d probably prove quite useful at sea. And while her ‘Self’ Talent has no bonus (so she's not particularly charismatic) she would have to have learned how to get along with others quickly. I’d role-play her as a positive, can-do sort of person, with a grin that comes easily to her face as long as she's traveling.

The Heritages - intentionally - give only a very general idea of appearance, aiming for just enough to give a distinct silhouette but still allow players maximum freedom of expression here. For Ada's appearance, I can see her having square pupils and slightly curved horns that arc backwards from her short, tufty, golden-brown hair. She has light speckled fur on her back and forearms, gradating to darker coarser fur that entirely covers her legs.

For her “worst Winter” event, I imagine a sudden storm left her stranded with a small crew on a remote isle as the full terror and darkness of that Winter closed in. It was too dangerous to stay, so there was no choice but sail on in the terrible weather from island to island till at last the roiling seas had calmed and they could return home. Her 'Senses' are her worst Talent, so she’s normally quite oblivious to the world around her, but this experience left her with a keen intuition for changes in weather patterns, and she often casts an anxious eye to the sky if dark clouds roll in.

She has a lot of time to do herself between sea voyages, during which she talks to the moss (fixed onto her leather shoulder strap) like an old friend. I do like the weirdness of the companion moss a lot! It's also a nice contrast as a companion for Ada (moss typically grows on things that stay still for a long time, but she HATES to stay in any one place for too long...) 

*******

That's all for now, until next time!

Tabletop Scotland 2024

I went to Tabletop Scotland at the weekend and it was awesome! This was my first time attending and I was blown away by how much there was to see, and the positive atmosphere and enthusiasm that seemed to energise the whole event. I felt like I could have happily drifted around the makers’ stalls talking to the artists, writers, designers and crafters there about their cool stuff indefinitely.

I was also pleasantly surprised by the abundance of indie RPGs on show. It was hard not to have ideas sparking off in my head about games I JUST CAN’T WAIT to run, harder still not to just spend ALL OF THE MONEY on weird little books and new games. I did spend more than I planned but have zero regrets and wanted to highlight a few standout faves:

"Odd Jobs" by Macguffin & Company

Macguffin & Co. was the first stall I stopped at and although I didn’t realise it at the time I’m 90% sure the person I spoke to was Jonathan Sims, whose voice I’ve listened to for hours on the excellent audio drama The Magnus Archives. He made a great pitch for their book Odd Jobs, which is a collection of RPG Micro Settings. These are intended for running short campaigns and are system agnostic, which is not something I’ve seen much of. I was really impressed by the diversity and imagination in the settings themselves, and looking forward to running one of these as a break from my regular games.

"For Small Creatures Such as We" by Blackwell Games

I was keen to check out Blackwell Games after seeing Anna Blackwell speaking about Fantasy & Folklore in games at one of the panel discussions. When I got to their stall there was a copy of For Small Creatures Such as We, open at this page:

One does not simply walk away from space otter.

Sold! This is a solo/co-op sci-fi game where you play the Captain of a spaceship and travel around the galaxy doing jobs to get paid and have adventures. There’s a big emphasis on customising your ship and hiring your alien crew as well, so my partner and I are really excited to play this one together and see where it leads us.

"Maskwitches of Forgotten Doggerland" by Handiwork Games

My favourite discovery from the convention. I’d not even heard of Handiwork Games and it turns out they are based in Falkirk, which is actually where we were staying over the Tabletop weekend! I was hooked by the mixed media cover-art (which reminded me a bit of Dave Mckean’s Dust Covers), and reeled in by the title. This is a game in which you play witches in the mesolithic era, travelling through true wilderness between primitive settlements, helping the communities there and banishing dark spirits. It’s a rules-lite, story-focussed game and the vibe is very much in the same wheelhouse as my version of Hags in Legends of Alba. It’s exactly what I want to see in a game about witches: Exploring a vision of the witch as a healer, a sage, a wise woman with a strong voice in the community. I couldn’t wait to get this one home to start reading, and cracked it open on the tram back into Edinburgh from the venue. Aside from the game itself there are also really interesting stories about its artwork, and the inspiration for its setting. This book really is something special.

That’s by no means an exhaustive list of the games I fell in love with at Tabletop Scotland, and not even close to a list about everything I enjoyed at the convention, but it is all I have time to say with this post. I’m already excited for next year’s event and who knows? Maybe I’ll have something to run or show off for Legends of Alba by then! 

Till next time!