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[IronyOwl]

The noble fortress of Blacksmouth, which looks to you oddly like a muddy wooden palisade, is under siege by various foul things. They have one solution- hurl unskilled, rag-clad peasants at them and hope everything works out.

That rag-clad peasant is you.

Spoiler: Premise and Gameplay (click to show/hide)

You start off as a penniless, skilless peasant with no equipment or ability of any kind. Assuming you survive this patently unfair situation, you'll probably learn rather quickly as a result. You might even earn payment or other rewards for doing especially well, though you kind of doubt it.

The fort has a variety of areas and services, and is more or less under constant, low-level siege. Thus, wandering off to shop in the middle of battle is not frowned upon, though if you spend too much time away from the action your superiors will likely throw you- quite likely literally, you've seen them do it- back into the fray.

A certain set of enemies and allies will usually be described for you, but feel free to take an action to search for more or try to find something specifically.

Different enemies will have different strengths, behaviors, lootables, etc. Unless you specify otherwise, you will almost always be going in with a mob of similarly useless peasants, but they're not likely to last long. Tougher enemies may have stronger, more professional allies fighting them.

Spoiler: Quick Mechanics Explanation (click to show/hide)

You gain bonuses to rolls by improving skills or having favorable conditions or better equipment. You improve skills by using them, and the higher the roll and more penalties applied, the more experience you gain in that skill. Conversely, rolling low or having a lot of bonuses decreases your experience gain. You increase your hit points by taking damage, and again the more damage you take, the faster your hit points increase.

You may be able to build, find, or loot things to aid you in between being mauled by superior adversaries. Getting creative might have its advantages, especially if you've got nothing to lose.

Spoiler: Skills and Rolls (click to show/hide)

Skills are broad groupings of related actions, like Swords, Two-Handers, Necromancy, Cooking, or Herbalism. Be creative, but remember that more specific skills tend to be more powerful than more generalized ones.

Skills provide bonuses to rolls made using them, and gain experience for rolling well on such a task. Note that trivial or nondangerous situations may grant less or no experience, if you can find such a thing in the first place.

Name	Bonus	Experience to Next Level	Total Experience to Attain
Inexperienced	-1	2	0
Dabbling	+0	4	2
Novice	+1	8	6
Apprentice	+2	16	14
Adept	+3	32	30
Expert	+4	64	62
Master	+5	128	126

Skills increase through use. More specifically, rolling higher numbers gives experience in that action. Not only does experience gain ignore modifiers, it actually adds their inverse directly to experience gained. In other words, attempting an action with a -1 penalty will always grant at least one experience point; a -2 will grant 2, etc, while a +1 will award one less point than normal, a +2 two less (to a minimum of 0), and so on.


Non-contested rolls use a d6 and gain experience as follows.

Roll	Experience	Effect
6	+2	You succeeded better than expected. May have unfortunate side effects.
5	+2	You succeeded perfectly, or at least as perfectly as you could given the circumstances.
4	+1	You succeeded. Note that depending on the action, this might still not be quite what you wanted.
3	+1	You succeeded somewhat. Usually this means less of an effect than you intended, or progress made but not completion.
2	+0	You failed. Depending on the action, this might just mean nothing happened, or it could have negative consequences.
1	+0	You failed miserably, making the situation worse. Good luck.

Above 6 or below 1 are generally just more severe forms of their respective effects.


Contested rolls are opposed d10s, and gain experience differently. Note that bonuses to your roll and penalties to an opponent's, and vice versa, are interchangeable.

Roll	Experience
10	+4
9	+3
8	+2
7	+1
6 or lower	+0

Spoiler: Hit Points And Dying (click to show/hide)

All players start the game with 1 HP. This is exactly as terrible as it sounds, save for the fact that you don't die instantly upon reaching 0 HP or lower.

Any time you take damage, your hit points gain experience equal to the damage taken. When your hit point experience equals your current maximum hit points, your maximum hit points increase by one. This means being reduced from full to 0 or fewer HP will always increase your HP total by one.

Upon being reduced to exactly 0 HP, you will fall unconscious but remain stable.

Anything below 0, and you fall unconscious and start dying, taking damage over and over until you stabilize, are stabilized, or reach -10 HP and pass on. Every turn, you make an opposed roll against the amount of damage you suffered in excess of your current HP on the attack that pushed you into negatives. In other words, if you are dropped to -2, you potentially suffer 2 additional damage per round. Success on this roll means you take no damage; failure means you do.

You may also make d6 rolls to stabilize yourself.

Roll	Effect
6	Regain consciousness and cease taking damage, but suffer one final bout of auto-damage
5	Reduce damage taken each round by 2
4	Reduce damage taken each round by 1
3	Reduce damage taken this round by 1
2	Increase damage taken this round by 1
1	Increase damage taken each round by 1

Examples:

Bob has 1 HP, and takes 1 damage from a startled peasant. Bob collapses, but is in no danger of perishing unless actively terminated. He may wake up, unable to do much, on a good roll, and will otherwise have to wait to heal to do anything.

Sally has 4 HP remaining, and takes 6 damage. She is now at -2 HP and must roll against taking 2 additional damage each round.

Sheldon has 1 HP and takes 9 damage. He is now at -8 AND has to roll against 8 additional damage a round, meaning he is completely and utterly screwed.

Spoiler: Signing Up (click to show/hide)

Name:
Description:

That's it. No skills, no possessions, no backstory. Well, you can include a backstory if you want, but the commanders probably aren't going to read it.

This is primarily a testing ground for mechanics I'm working on, and as such things are prone to change and instability. That said, I hope to have a hilarious and probably unfair time with you all.

[IronyOwl]

WAITLIST:

Terrance Clarence (Spinal_Taper)
Full black beard

Athelos Adaros (Caellath)
Younger sheepdog peasant

Notto Rotten (Mullet Master)
Latrine Cleaner 2nd Class

Jerod Ligamen (Tiruin)
Shaved Negro

adwarf



On vacation:

Bertrand (10ebbor10)
Mud, mud and literacy
1/1 HP
Currently engaged in polite conversation with a pleasant guard.

[IronyOwl]

Bestiary


Eight-foot Tall Werewolf
+13 Attack
+11 Defense


Bright-Eyed Brittle Skeleton



Hobbit-Sized Fishman
+2 Attack
-1 Defense

[IronyOwl]

Graveyard


Bryan the Slopper (lawastooshort)
Pony slop
-9/5 HP
+0 Dodging (2/4)
+0 Wrestling (0/4)
Face eaten by jackal.

Sam (Nirur Torir)
Farmer
-19/1 HP
+1 Stonethrowing (6/8)
+Throwing Rocks+, -3 Attack, +1 vs Heavy, +1 vs Mobile
Headband
Instantly rendered into fine meaty chunks by a shounen werewolf.

Urist McNotADwarf (Toaster)
Not a dwarf!
1/1 HP
-Iron Spear-, +3 Attack, +2 vs Heavy, +2 vs Mobile
Died to a samurai skeleton.

Benjamin (lawastooshort)
Washerwoman
-18/1 HP
"Stumbled" into a pike held by a guard, who was just minding his own business before and after the incident.

[Darvi]

Name: Rather Dashing
Description: Isn't dressed like a peasant; Doesn't smell like a peasant; Certainly isn't on fire like a peasant.

[lawastooshort]

Name: Bryan the Slopper
Description: With non-descript hair and frequently red face, Bryan the Slopper smells like pony slop. He's been slopping the ponies for nearly two years now, and at least he doesn't smell like fish slop any more. He quite likes his hat and his favourite food is carrots. Oh yes - he is of average size and build. Nearly forgot that bit.

[Caellath]

Name: Nedenir Adaros
Description: A very common lowly peasant of average peasant build, of peasant origin and in peasant clothing. His black hair is long and tangled and his eyes are hidden under dirty locks, which do not prevent him from seeing and flailing (just to drive my point home, he is like a dirty, peasant sheepdog).

[10ebbor10]

Name: Bertrand
Description: Ye olde peasant: Mud colored hair, mud colored clothes and mudcolored glasses. Can read and write.(Slowly and badly)

[Nirur Torir]

Name: Sam
Description: Sam looks like a farmer.

[Darvi]

and his farm was recently burninated.

Ftfy.

[IronyOwl]

Turn 0: Why? Why Not!


You all huddle around the wooden platform you've been herded in front of. An imposing man in shining silver armor and a flowing blue cape strides magnificently up to you from inside the building behind it.

"Noble defenders of Blacksmouth!" he cries. "You have all been tasked with the defense of this fortress! I expect you to all do your solemn duties, give your lives if you must! FOR BLACKSMOUTH!"

There's a noticeable silence from the rabble, but the nearby guards repeat the cheer.

"Why aren't you doing this?" a rather small voice asks from the crowd, trying not to gather too much attention.

"I'm glad you asked!" the armored one booms. "Efficiency! The foot soldiers must soften up the enemy before the commanders can engage in battle!"

The other peasants look at you questioningly. You don't think they think that makes any sense.

"Well, off with you now!" he booms, making shooing motions with his hands.

"A-are we going to be given weapons?" another quiet voice asks.

"What? Weapons? Uh..." He looks around a bit. "I'm sure there's... things around. And anyway I have great confidence in your resourcefulness. Figure something out!"

The guards begin making somewhat lazy prodding motions with their very, very sharp halberds. You figure that means you're supposed to go fight now.


Rather Dashing (Darvi)
Not on fire, doesn't smell much
1/1 HP

Bryan the Slopper (lawastooshort)
Pony slop
1/1 HP

Nedenir Adaros (Caellath)
Peasant sheepdog
1/1 HP

Bertrand (10ebbor10)
Mud, mud and literacy
1/1 HP

Sam (Nirur Torir)
Farmer
1/1 HP

[Caellath]

Nedenir then...goes to fight, while searching for anything he can use as a weapon or even better, as a shield (other peasants are not out of question).

[10ebbor10]

Seeing the choice between being stabbed now or being stabbed later. Betrand decides to choose the latter.

Look for a weapon or shield.

[Darvi]

Find a pitchfork or an axe or something. Also  piece of cloth or something for Nirur.

[lawastooshort]

Bryan will look for a pony to commandeer and will fetch his pony slopping bucket.

If successful with the bucket search, wear bucket as rudimentary head armour.