Farspire, City of Heroes
Farspire, Town of Heroes, was noted for the fact that it constantly churned out individuals of the highest calibre. The most skilled craftsmen, politicians, and warriors all found their start in the city. The origin of this phenomenon is much debated, but there is no debate that this began in the Spring of the year 1439 of the rein of The Fey King. In that spring, Farspire was little more than a hamlet of a couple of humans and dwarves nestled in a mountain pass when it was assaulted by a raiding party of goblins and orcs…
You awake to the sound of screaming just outside the weak walls of your home. You can smell them long before you see them, goblins have come inside the walls of Farspire in the middle of the night, and it’s clear their intentions are violent.
This is intended to be a high turnover game, where characters are either killed in the pursuit of great deeds, or retired to advance the world. In either case, the end of every character promises greater beginnings for the next, and hopefully even more heroic of deeds. Hopefully, this will result in a world that is constantly moving forward, while at the same time a wide variety of new characters are brought in to experience it.
The degree of RP and direction of the story is in the hands of you, the players. Any life can be played out, from a baker to a beserker.
To create a character, select between one of the available souls (a prerolled list of race, HP, SP, Attack, and Defense), and give the character a name, description, and class. Once claimed, a soul is taken off the list of available souls. New souls will be rolled as space is available, and only once all existing souls have been claimed. Filling out the Name, Class, Stats, and Resource die for a new character is sufficient to claim the soul, you can fill out the description at your leisure. These are strictly first come first served.
Classes are purchased using whatever Spirit Points you have stashed since your last death, and any excess SP can either be banked for the future, or invested in Resource die at a rate of 1 SP per (resource die), 3 SP per 2 [resource die], and 5 SP per 3 {resource die}. Earning SP is discussed below, and you begin with none.
Name:
Race:
Description:
Class:
HP:
MP:
Attack:
Defense:
Wounds:
Skills:
Resource die: (An abstraction of wealth. When you try to purchase something, you will roll one or more of these die against some obstacle for the purchase. After rolling them, these die are lost, so you must be careful how you allocate them.)
Inventory/Equipment:
The outcome of every action is determined by rolling a collection of d6 die. The nomenclature is as follows: {a} + + (c) + d means roll a die and take greater than 1, b die and take those greater than 2, and c die and take those greater than 3, and add d points, and that is the number of successes.
In combat, the number of successes you roll is subtracted from your enemies number of defense successes, and then that number is subtracted from their HP. Even a nonlethal blow can result in wounds. Each 6 rolled counts as a wound die, and the number of wound die is capped as the excess of the attack roll over the defense roll. 1 wound die is a superficial wound, with no functional consequences, 2 is a minor wound that will have some small impact, but will fade without treatment, 3 is a midi wound that has a small lasting impact, and will require attention, 4 is a major wound that can significantly alter the course of combat, 5 is a severe wound that could be fatal without treatment, and 6 is a traumatic wound, with the window of only a single turn to prevent death. Any loss of HP not due to a wound can be recovered at a rate of 1 HP per turn while resting. This is subject to rebalancing as need be.
In the use of skills, the process is similar, except that in the large majority of actions only 1 success needs to be rolled for the action to be successful. Only in the case of extraordinary or heroic actions is it necessary to roll more than 1 success. That being said, in all cases additional successes yield better results.
If you’re trying to use a skill you don’t have yet, you’re going to need to be lucky. Specifically, a die will be rolled on which only 5 and 6 are successes. 1 and 2 can results in negative consequences depending on the skill being attempted.
Skills will grow according to how many times they’ve been used, requiring 3 uses to learn, 5 more to advance from (1) to (2), and 7 more to advance from (2) to (3). After (3) skills begin changing die types ((3) goes to [1]+(2),etc and [3] goes to {3} + [2]), with a difference of 2 uses in the requirement for each level.
If you take an action not governed by a skill, such as searching for an item or person, or attempting to lift something heavy, etc. a 1d6 will be rolled with RtD outcomes.
SP represents the power to cast spells. It is spent while performing magical actions and recovered similarly to HP.
There are two ways for your character to exit the stage of the game. The first is that they might be killed, either in combat, a fatal mistake in a spell, or something as absurd as a pig falling on their head. This is an abrupt end and leaves you with nothing more or less than the Spirit Points you’ve accumulated along the way.
The alternative is to gracefully enter retirement. This means that not only do you get to keep your accumulated SP, but your character has the opportunity to define a new class based off of their skills, the result being that all newly generated characters can begin with this class.
The newly generated class includes skills, equipment, and spells that the new character beings with. These must be spells or skills the character already possess, or equipment that could be readily acquired. It also contains limits on which characters can pick it. This must include purchasing the previous class the character used (i.e. if you pick Brute as your first class, and retire as a Soldier, picking Soldier will require paying the cost of Brute, and having its advantages), and can also include limits of other sorts (i.e. limiting to certain races, limited starting resource die, or minimum thresholds on certain starting stats). These other limits will decrease the cost of the created class. The cost in SP will be equal to the sum of the skills granted, plus the expected costs of the equipment, minus some value depending on the limitations imposed on the class, at my discretion. This is subject to future balancing.
SP is earned as a consequence of successful deeds. In combat, this is concrete. Killing certain entities may be worth a given amount of SP. However, this is also abstract. What is worth SP is partially based off of your character’s apparent goals, and whether or not they are making strides in accomplishing them, but also in what accomplishments are considered noteworthy. I’ll give out SP when somebody accomplishes something that I feel deserves it, but also feel free to nominate others for SP, and give reasons why you think they’ve earned it. Please refrain from asking for SP for yourself, unless you genuinely believe I simply missed something. If that’s the case, bring it up once in a PM and then accept whatever judgement is given.
It’s worth noting other actions may affect future characters in other ways. For example, befriending a race and bringing them into the town will make them available for future characters, acquiring great artifacts of public benefit may give bonuses to all future characters, etc. These could also have detrimental effects.