These are mostly combat-related stats, although they can be relevant to other things as well.
A zero in a stat is exceptionally bad; A zero in Shield or Luck are the exceptions to this, as you'll see in a moment. 5 is average and 10 is rather great, and everything between 10 and 20 is various shades of excellent. You all start at 5 in each except for Shield (which starts at zero), and with 10 extra points to spend in them. Stats may be lowered down to 1 to gain additional specialization elsewhere, except for Propulsion, which may be lowered all the way down to zero if you wish to be as stationary as a floating sky castle can be, and Luck, which may be zeroed if you’re afraid of RNG events. This gives you a total of 30 points at the start, which you can freely redistribute 28 of at the start.
Propulsion: Regardless of what your engine
is, this determines how powerful it is at pushing thy castle about the skies of Alzeran. Zero propulsion is essentially up to the whims of the winds to push you, while 20 Propulsion could do battle with a hurricane, although depending on your Integrity at the time, it may be the
only part that remains intact if you decide to actually fight one. Can be augmented by things that improve your engine(s) and decreased by having bad things happen, like engines being shot off/exploding/struck by falling space rocks. At five propulsion you will move 1 block per major turn, at ten you can move up to 2, at 15 you can move up to 3, and at 20 you can move up to 4 spaces per major turn.
Structure & Integrity: How well-built and intact your sky castle is, and the current state of it. Integrity is based on Structure, so adjusting your starting Structure stat will also adjust Integrity accordingly.
Zero Structure means your claim to the skies has crumbled to its end and fallen onto the surface like the aforementioned space rocks. 20 structure is a
very tough nut to destroy. Integrity equal to your current Structure means you are more or less undamaged, while less integrity than structure means you've taken notable damage. Integrity can temporarily be improved higher than Structure (and past 20 as well) by doing things like bolting armor plates to most of your outer walls or similar things, but repairs will only bring Integrity back up to your Structure. Actions that improve the castle as a whole physically are good for these. Major structural changes (like losing engines) will permanently decrease structure (and thus max base integrity) until replaced or worked around.
Integrity is doubled for the purpose of taking damage when resolving combat actions.Shield: Magical or technological-based bonus Integrity, basically. Intercepts all forms of damage (the exception being sabotage performed while physically on the sky castle itself) before integrity does. If you are starting with more than 5 of this, you should have a reason for it. Hiding in a cloud bank will give a point of this for free, assuming said cloud bank is not evaporated by lava cannons or something before you get attacked. Shield does not regenerate for free by default unless you have 20, and if you have made it to 20 you probably have a power source to generate it
anyway. (Max starting shield stat is 19.)
Shield is not doubled for the purpose of taking damage when resolving combat.Population: How many peasants/servants/mechanical robocommandos/purple wizards/chosen ones there are in your sky castle, in a very general and simplified fashion. Zero population means you've died and so has everyone that could keep the place afloat, and will quickly lead to no structure either unless it gets possessed or something. 1 Pop means that you (or your replacement) and a bare minimum skeleton crew are still surviving on your likely heavily damaged sky ruin. 20 means your floating sky castle cannot hold any more population and will probably have problems happen occasionally due to overcrowding. -1 population means you
are the sky castle (not just the ruler of it) and makes this stat mostly irrelevant. An amount of population with a * on it (like 5*) means the castle will collapse (or implode, or explode, etc) like a load-bearing boss if your ruler is killed, but will not happen unless you set it up as such. In combat, this can be reduced if you take heavy enough damage. Setting up the star if you want it costs an extra point into pop, while having -1 costs ten points.
Luck: How often you (probably) will get an event during a major turn. This stat is inverted from the rest; zero luck means you will get no events ever, unless the event effects everyone else (and thus get turned into a global event) or something you did triggers an event on its own. 10 luck means that your sky castle, your stats, or potentially even your ruler's life is going to be affected by the whims of the RNG every major turn, for better or for worse. A d10 is rolled to determine events, if its less or equal to your luck, you get the event, whatever it turns out to be. (So if you have 4 luck, and it rolls a six, then nothing happens to/for you because you aren't
that (un)lucky. Luck cannot go above 10, and if you somehow into negative luck I probably will have bad, reality-altering things happen to your castle~)
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Power: This is a very flexible stat that depends on what you want it to do, and is separate from the main 5 above as far as points go. Also a very overview-like stat, similar to population. By default it only goes up to 20 like the other castlestats, but with gm approval, you can use this as weapon/defense point caps instead, or for something else with a different maximum number entirely. Creativity is key here to making the best use of how the power stat works for you instead of adding an entire other system of stats to the game. I’m fine with doing the latter if
nothing else works and you're
absolutely sure of it but less things to keep track of is better.
Examples of things you might use the power stat for are thus: Are you freeform spellcasters? This is mana, and is based on what you do to generate mana. Perhaps it drains population to boost mana (which then is used for spells), or maybe it just takes a lot of work. Or it collects naturally but is limited per major turn.
Does the sky castle have an engine? Redirect all power to propulsion and speed up for awhile, or boost the destructiveness of your weapons batteries. Is it a steam engine? Nom a cloud, do more things at once.
The two major points of it: What is it doing/how does it do it (like the mana example), and what can happen to it to negatively or positively affect it? (like the engine getting damaged and requiring repairs, for example) You need both of those points described if you need this stat for something. If you don't need it, it can be ignored for your castle.