You and your fellow raiders marched half a day to the monastery. The rain soaked through your mail and leather, leaving you cold and sullen. Captain Kejak Ironsides learned of this monastery through a monk taken captive in a raid two years ago.
Unfortunately, the southerners somehow of your coming, and laid an ambush for you. A rain of arrows and screaming footmen came charging down the hills to right, and out of the woods to your left. If you were lesser men, this might have spelled your doom.
But you are not a lesser man. You are a Sea Wolf! One of Crom's chosen! You and your people have brought fire and terror for generations, and today is no different. The foeman will learn what a true warrior is when our axes split their shields and our swords spill their blood!
How will you fight?
A. Charge them with your squad (ferocity) (Desperate risk, Great effect)
B. Form a shieldwall with your squad (Resolve) (normal risk, normal effect)
C. Shoot the archers with your bow (if you have one)( normal risk, normal effect)
D. Something else.Welcome to Viking: Sea Wolves! You and up to three others are capable warriors of the Sea Wolves, a band of Viking marauders. You pillage and plunder, and bring death and ruin to your enemies, and needed goods back to your people so that they survive another coming winter.
Your Viking has 3 stats
Ferocity: Attack, Martial, Anger, Intimidation, Berserker
Resolve: Defense, Determination, Endurance, Stubbornness, Smithing, Juggernaut
Cunning: Speed, Persuasiveness, Quick-witted, Deceitful, Archery, Looting
You decide what skill you use! Either use one that best fits the situation, or try to use the one that you have the highest points in! But if your action doesn’t fit your stat, expect some difficulties when you use ferocity to calm a crying child.
There are also numerous skills you can get that make you able to do a certain task well, such as dual wielding, sorcery, smithing, command.
Roles work by rolling the number of points you have in dice (i.e. 2 points equal 2 dice) A 6 is the best result, putting you closer to your goals with little to no negative to you. A 4 and 5 is still successful, but depending on the risk and effect of the roll, may have little negatives, to being harmful. 3 is either you succeed, but at great cost, or reassess and attempt to approach from a different angle . 1 or 2 are failures, either increasing risk or lowering effect of your next actions.
You can slowly increase your stats over time. Also, you can use 2 fate points to add a die to your roll, or an ally can spend 1 fate point to assist you and add a die. Also, you can take a Dark Bargain, gaining a die for this roll in exchange for something sacrificed, from an item, to being surprise in battle, an unexpected ambush attacks the rear of your men, or something else. The GM will either offer one, or you can suggest one.
All characters start with 5 fate points. You can use these fate points to influence the world in multiple ways.
-Assist yourself (2 fate points) or Assist a teammate (1 fate point) with one bonus die
-Resist Damage, reduce or evade consequences, will spend 5 fate points minus your rolls (Based on relevant stat)
One gets fate points back by sacrificing a captive to the Northern gods, done by a Rune Priest or one trained in the proper ways of sacrifice.
Most commanders offer captives as sacrifices for themselves and their men.
Name:
Stats: You start with 5 points, max in one stat is 3, you can have zero in a stat (roll 2, will take lowest)
Ferocity
Resolve
Cunning
Trait: Pick one
(Fearsome, Determined, or Cunning) Commander: gives you bonus in command using your highest stat
Pillager: gain 1.5X Goods from looting
Slayer: +1 effect in combat
Juggernaut: Reduce level of damage taken by one (can go to zero)
Favored by: Crom: god of war
Frendir: god of wolves
Allfather: King of gods
Valinor: god of thunder
Gives a bonus to interactions with Priests, prayers, fate.
Weapon of choice: gains a proficiency in this weapon type
Brief physical description:
If you don’t make it in, feel free to make a character still! Your character can pop up as a secondary character in the sea wolves. While he or she will be under my control, feel free to make suggestions. Once a protagonist dies, their second in command will have the first opportunity to promote their character to a protagonist. Then it will go to the one who waited the longest.
You tell me your action or plan, and the stat you intend on using. You can tell me here if you intend on taking a Dark Bargain, and if someone is assisting you, or you can decide that before i post the result. I may or may not ask questions about your intent. I decide the Level of Risk: it can be controlled (you have a large advantage), standard ( neither large advantage or disadvantage, but there is risk) or desperate ( You are doing a very dangerous action). I also determine the level of effect based on the situation.
Rolls work by rolling the number of points you have in dice (i.e. 2 points equal 2 dice) A 6 is the best result, putting you closer to your goals with little to no negative to you. A 4 and 5 is still successful, but depending on the risk and effect of the roll, may have little negatives, to being harmful. 3 is either you succeed, but at great cost, or reassess and attempt to approach from a different angle . 1 or 2 are failures, either increasing risk or lowering effect of your next actions.
You all start off armored in a chain hauberk, with a steel cap (horns are optional) along with armored boots. Feel free to come up with your own weapon combinations,here are some options.
-Two handed axe/hammer: uses ferocity
-Shield with sword/one handed axe: Uses either ferocity or resolve
-Dual wielded sword/ axes: uses ferocity or cunning
-Spear: uses resolve or cunning
-Bow with short sword/seax: uses cunning
I’m going to offer the first Dark Bargain; which if you take will give you an extra bonus dice. This one is going to be for the whole group, so a majority has to say yes to accept it ( 2 yes and 2 no’s means no Dark Bargain; but 2 yes and 1 no, with 1 no vote, accepts the Bargain).
The Dark Bargain is: in exchange for 1+ dice on your next roll, a messenger will escape on horseback and warn the local lord of your presence.
Command: To command companies in battle effectively, I think that is more of a ferocity trait, as I also equated that with martial skill. But there are traits which you will be able to buy with skill points which will allow you to use your desired trait to command armies in battle
Resistances:The point of resistances is if something happens to you and/or your men, you can be like "No, that didn't happen". The injuries weren't as bad as they seemd, or the weapon was deflected by your armor. You were protected by fate. So to do that, you will roll the most relevant stat (like ferocity for commanding your men, and resolve dealing with personal injuries) and subtract that number from 5, and that is the cost to your fate points to resist damage. ( For example: Einar decides to resist the damage he took. He rolls his resolve and gets (2,3,4) 5-4 =1 so he spends 1 fate point, and since it was only a minor injury, Einar loses that wound. However, if he rolled (1,1,1) 5-1=4, so he would have spent 4 fate points to heal a very minor injury. So it can be a bit of a gamble, you just have to decide if the injury is worth the potential cost
If you decide to take a group action, the leader of the group (most likely the character with the highest relevant skill) covers for the entire group, and shores up where others are weak. All character’s roll their relevant dice, and if a character rolls below a 4, the group leader spends a fate point to cover for them. The action still succeeds, but it may cost a few fate points for the group leader. (Example, the group decides the best way to attack the footmen is sneaking around their positon, and launching an attack from behind. Jóra, with the highest cunning, is chosen to lead the group in the sneak action. Einar manages to roll a 4, but Frømund and Sihylde both roll a 2. Jóra spends 2 fate points, and covers up for their blundering around, and leads the group in a flanking position, and then they roll to attack and shoot arrows and what not.
So post your character, and your first actions! Remember, you and the other protagonists are badasses. You will fight tooth and nail to really claim a place in the world, but you are favored by fate, and that gives you a chance of carving out a great destiny for yourself. The challenges you face will be decided by yourself, and who you test yourself against. Don’t be afraid to push yourself, as that is where glory is won. May your saga be long, and your victories many!
I took several ideas from John Harper's excellent Blades in the Dark rpg, I highly recommend checking it out. And if you have any questions, feel free to ask!
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Topic: Viking: Sea Wolves-Chapter 1: Fur and Fang (Read 27036 times)