Professional Documents
Culture Documents
BY RON EDWARDS
CREDITS
Interior design and layout and cover design by Nathan Paoletta, ndpdesign.com
Cover art by Mike Perry, mikeperryart.com
Interior art by
Phillip Simpson, coroflot.com/plsimpson4225
Rachel Kahn, portablecity.net
Amos Orion Sterns
Juan Ochoa, juanochoascrapbook.blogspot.com
Tony Dowler, tonydowler.com
Dyson Logos, rpgcharacters.wordpress.com
Sarah Jacobs-Tolle, racerxmachina.deviantart.com
Jez Gordon, gibletblizzard.blogspot.com
Adam Schmidt, misteradam.com
ADEPT-PRESS.COM/HEARTBREAKER-REDEMPTION-PROJECT
AUTHORS NOTE
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Table of Contents
Authors Note
CH 1 ORIGINAL METAL
The absolute rundown
All about play
Beginnings
CH 2 IRON FOLK
The backdrop
The Crescent Land
CH 3 FORGING STEEL
Creating the Circle
Preparing a venture
Play gets going
- p.4
- p.5
- P.9
- p.10
- p.12
- p.16
- P.19
- p.19
- p.19
- P.43
- p.43
- p.54
- p.68
Circle of Hands is about survivorship, not victimhood. Some of us think our survivorship is earned, beginning with
searing clarity about the past converted into a forceful drive forward.
- P.93
- p.94
CH 8 FANTASY HEARTBREAKERS
At the time
The first essay
The second essay
A look back
CH 9 HEARTBREAKER
REDEMPTION
The found object
Gray Magick
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
Character Sheet
- P.137
- p.137
- p.138
- p.139
- p.141
- p.159
- P.161
- p.161
- p.161
- p.166
- p.171
- P.175
- p.175
- p.181
- P.214
- p.216
This game draws directly on human trauma for its horror and for its very purpose. It begins by overcoming denial
and therefore presents if I do say so myself one of the grittiest contexts for play yet published in a role-playing
game. Its dressed up a bit in the trappings of fantasy but gains no distance via cartooning. Cruelty and misery are
here, in clinical detail and without apology.
Yet doing this artistically can fail, into bathos and misery porn. Human pain is tragically inflated today, meaning,
devalued in currency, at maximum volume for minimal value. My friend Paul says it well:
Im horribly disturbed by the way our television programming harvests and renders up human emotions and life
dysfunction for audience consumption. Im disturbed by the Jerry Springer Show. Im disturbed by The Glee Project,
where the judges encourage high school kids to savage their adolescent emotions and lay them bare while performing,
so their singing has emotional power. Were emotionally dead American couch potatoes who cant feel alive without
consuming the emotions of youth and life trauma. Were vampires.
I think RPGs can activate us in productive ways, by engaging our creativity, by putting us in human proximity, collaborating over something meaningful. An RPG doesnt need the base, disgusting packaging of human trauma for the
consumption of others to be a powerful experience.
Ive done my best to hear Pauls warning and to find the way to bring us closer, rather than recoil in fear or betray
into cheap spectacle.
This is not a trigger warning. Its a hand held out to either side, ready for clasping, no longer withdrawal, no longer
therapy, but in fierce joy for creating something fantastic and awful, which is to say, full of awe at what we are.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INSPIRATION
- p.94
- p.99
and groups
- p.102
- p.104
death
- p.109
characters
The killing
Fighting unnamed people
Tools of violence
Injury, recovery, and
CH 6 GRAY MAGIC
Metaphysics
Oaths
Wizards
Spellcasting
Spell list
- P.111
- p.111
- p.115
- p.116
- p.118
- p.121
PARTNERS IN CRIME
Listed without permission:
THE COMMUNITY
Backers
The Circle of Hands Kickstarter campaign in February 2014 exceeded its $6,000 goal with a total of $9,586, for a
return to me of about $8,600 after Kickstarter and Amazon fees. The art and production costs for this book were
paid with these funds.
One Strong Grasp
Steven S. Long, Fealoro, Andrea Ungaro, John Bogart, Al Billings, Dennis Kadera, Steve Hickey, Karl Miller, Jace Java, Christoph
Boeckle, Scott Dorward, Zed Lopez, Andy Kitkowski, FelTK, Jeremiah Frye, Joshua Bearden, Daniele Di Rubbo, Michael Fake,
Naas, Shinya Hanataka, Alex Fradera, Felix Girke, Bendik Vedeler, Vincent Arebalo, Markus Schoenlau, Neall Raemonn
Price, pdcurry, Empcho, Brian Wille, illotum, Joshua Rainey, Akiazoth, Davide Pignedoli, Czigny Pter, Thomas Fitch, Chad
Reiss, kalyptein, Dennettlander, Alan Barclay, Mr. Mario, James Schmitz, Ezio Melega, Grant Howitt, Robert Bersano, Arn
Poulsen, Matt Machell, Seann Ives, David Mihola, Asen R. Georgiev, Ville Halonen, Ziliuse, William Scott Palmer, Doug
Bolden, Nerf, Jonas Schitt, Michael Walsh, Brandon Davey, Ty (Troll) Sawyer, Herman Duyker, Brad Ellison, Dan Maruschak,
Shimrath Nimrod, Gordon Landis, Marius Bauer, Cthulhuspawn Azathoth, G. Hartman, Stras Acimovic, Fagner Lima, Eric R.
Duncan, Jeffrey Hosmer, Boris, Roderick Edwards, Kevin W. Kulp, Stewart Wieck, Jordan Raymond-Robidoux, Tobie, Rocky
& Yoshi, Phillip Bailey, Matt Clay, ihmcallister, Richard Greene, Reverance Pavane, William Chung, Simon Berg Jakobsen,
Goran Radovic, Luca Veluttini, Claes, David Morrison, Walter, jbrownd, Lisa Padol, Simon Mawdsley, Simon Ward, Donogh,
Matthew Caryl, Dave Sherohman, Morgan Hay, Mauro Ghibaudo, Russell G Collins, Marc Margelli
Circle Knight
Rafael Chandler, John Willson, Jonas Mockelstrom, Luke Crane, Justice Platt, Christopher Weeks, Christopher Mitchell, Eric
Franklin, Christopher Chinn, Victor Garrison, Tim Koppang, Justin & Adre Smith, Christian Nord, Thomas Walker, Ed Heil,
Juliusz Doboszewski, Wade Jones, Erik Bernhardt, Michael S. Miller, Kyle Simons, James Ritter, Chris Gardiner, Guillaume
Carr, Joe Beason, Joel Rojas, Brian Vander Veen, Martin Deppe, Antero Garcia, Mendel Schmiedekamp, Nathan Black, Rene
John Kerkdyk, Jon Edwards, Gethyn Edwards, Marc Majcher, Paul Czege, Brandon Salinas, Jason Leisemann, Ryan Percival,
Doug Baumeister, Kirt Dankmyer, Anders Nordberg, Gary Anastasio, Scott Martin, Clinton Dreisbach-Nixon, Dan Behlings,
Steven Douglas Warble, Jesse Alford, Ian Cooper, Mike Olson, Phillip Lewis, Antonio Reyes, Mark Somogyi, Giulia Cursi,
Orion Cooper, Benjamin Van Sickle, Adam Boisvert, Topi Makkonen, Jonathan Lee, Dmitry Gerasimov, Richard Mundy, Sam
Zeitlin, Edouard Contesse, Petter Wss, Spencer Keoppel, Alessandro Ricc, Jonathan Davis, Jason Paul McCartan, Joe Prince,
Robert Rees, Fabien Hildwein, Sage LaTorra, Adam Tannir, Nat Barmore, Brendan Conway, Paul Hedrick, Klaus Ole Kristiansen, Radek Drozdalski, Flavio Mortarino, Guy Shalev, Vladimir Filipovi, Fabian Stroh, Luigi Amedeo Bianchi
Hard Core
Judd Karlman, Chris Bloxham, Douglas Bailey, Martin Ralya, Mark Malone, Jrgen Mayer, Adams Tower, Simon Brunning,
Ed McW, Edoz, Jonathan Korman, Lawrence Saker Collins, Larry Lade, Filthy Monkey, Robert Strickland, Patrice Mermoud, Adam Rajski, Declan Feeney, Dan Wood, Ralph Mazza, Esteban Osorio Gallardo, Johan Karlsson, Justin Akkerman,
Simon Smith, Mark Delsing, Vincent Baker, Eric Mersmann, Tom Pleasant, Gregor Hutton, Jeremy Friesen, Justin Hamilton,
Code Decode, Mike Sands, Wade Geer, Nicola Urbinati, Dylan Clayton, Anthony Deming, Vern Ryan, Martin Greening,
Jesse Burneko, Stephen Dewey, Jesse Butler, Matt Whalley, Bruce Curd, Lee McDaniel, Trip the Space Parasite, Casey Garske,
Jason Blalock, Arturo Cavari, Lester Ward, Jonathan Colin Madden, Markus Bruckhardt, Lorenzo Gatti, Iacopo Frigerio, Piers
Conolly, Brett Easterbrook, anonymous1453, anderland, Scott Anderson, Cameron Eeles, Love Dahlgren, Simon Rogers, Henry
W, Richard Forest, Products for Robots, Raven Daegmorgan, Damon Van Demark, Andreas Davour, Alan Sharland, Mike Wallace, Sean Bourke, Charles Perez, Brazil808, Clyde L. Rhoer, Timothy TravelingTim Salisbury, Wayne Rossi, Okerampa, Rich
Karpusiewicz, Christian Mller, Antoine Fournier, Davide Di Antonio, BC Parker III, Oliver Granger, Mark Solino, Shawn P
Inner Circle
Keith Senkowski, Matt Snyder, Willow Palecek, Eddie J. Brown
Full Circle
Marco Behrmann, Tomas Hrenstam, Martin Frjd, Moreno Roncucci, Michele Gelli, Giorgio Grigio, Antonio Caciolli, Raffaele Manzo, Luca Cecchinelli, Russell Hoyle, Braden Badger Spooner, Finn McCool Hoyle
During the Kickstarter, I made my preliminary notes for the game available and invited backers to playtest. Many
accepted the invitation and provided a variety of insights and suggestions at the Adept Press forum. Even more
than the money, this feedback became the primary benefit of the pre-publication promotional campaign.
Ive credited significant input from playtesters throughout the text, occasionally quoting especially helpful phrasing.
For anyone considering a similar development process, I strongly recommend that playtesters provide only
reports of what happened at their tables and personal impressions of the setting, but not suggestions about design
or writing. Enforcing this principle dramatically improved the utility of the feedback.
PERSONAL THANKS
To my friends John Marron and Margie Klugermann
lo these many years past, in play and design!
To the playtesters, many of whose notes and suggestions youll see credited right where they had the
most influence.
Gray Magick ~1993: Margie Klugermann and several
people whose names have passed from memory
Gray Magick, 2012: Peter Charnley, Megan Pederson,
Sam Rivier
Circle of Hands, 2013-2014: Rasmus Lundholm, Rickard Elim, Johan Kemi, Sarah Richardson, Brian
Wille, Mark Malone, Mark Delsing, Joe Beason, Per
Fischer, Moreno Roncucci, Alessandro Ricc, Mauro
Ghibaudo, Vern Ryan, Joshua Bearden, Gethyn
Edwards, Benjamin Edwards, Joseph Edwards, Justice Platt, John Willson, Peter Liaw, Mitchell Rozen,
Christian Scarlato, David Rti, Keith Senkowski,
Nathan D. Paoletta, Eric Mersmann, Tim Koppang,
Larry Lade, Mike Holmes, Jen J. Dixon
To Mike Holmes for fifteen years of dialogue concerning realism and settings, Meguey Baker for her
thoughts on social contracts, Marshall Burns for
music consultation, and Jake Norwood for special
violence and weaponry head-banging.
To the many readers and commenters, especially
Chris Chinn, Raffaele Manzo, Anna Kreider, Kira
Magrann, and Sara Williamson. Most of these dialogues are archived at the website.
To the Inner Circle backers, listed above.
To the Kicksnarkers (you wretched, ruthless bastards), especially Eric Franklin and Caius Ward.
To Caias Ward, again, for help with the poetic text on
the back cover.
PERIPHERY
PHILOSOPHY
MUSIC
Chapter
1O
riginal
Metal
Circle of Hands
THE ABSOLUTE RUNDOWN
The thing about RPG rules is, everyone wants to know and understand everything all at once. So here you are.
This is everything about the game in a single massive, semi-ordered data-dump. After this list, everything else in
the book is merely procedural explanation and helpful detail.
The setting is called the Crescent Land. Culturally, its
equivalent to 10th or 11th century north German and
Baltic Europe its not medieval, its not feudal, and
its not chivalric. Id say Dark Ages except historians
dont say that anymore screw it, the term applies.
Dark Ages fantasy.
The most common technological materials are wood,
wrought iron, and leather.
The only armor used is the mail hauberk, simple
shields, and simple helms. No plate armor, no limb
armor, no barding for horses, and no body armor at
all for most people.
The chief weapon is the spear. Only wealthy people
have swords. Regional weapons include the great axe,
the francisca, and the chained mace. There are no
such things as daggers, longswords, specialized pole
weapons, or longbows.
A thrown spear, or a spear used in a mounted charge,
goes right through mail, so look out.
There isnt any heraldry and no knightly culture.
Brace yourself for human horror. Its a time when
torture is on hand, power is almost entirely determined by immediate ruthlessness, and no one knows
the first thing about hygiene, sustainable agriculture,
geography beyond the immediate area, or history
besides vague legends.
Theres no education. People only know what their
family circumstances and limited geographical experience provide.
The map shows an extensive crescent-shaped shoreline, with the ocean to the east. The lands along the
waters edge, north to south, are forested Famberge
(fam-BEAR-geh), mountainous Rolke (ROLE-keh), and
sea-hugging Spurr, with Famberge also including
most of the inland north. The inland to the west is
wide, rolling Tamaryon. These are not nations, but
subcultural regions within a single culture.
10
Regions dont have governments, only local hierarchies based on raw power and immediate history.
Its mostly about villages, clans, banditry, fortified
strongholds, and families, shaking out into a stratified
society based on who has the most wealth crops,
animals, weaponry, connections with a lot of people
being miserable. Petty war among ever-changing alliances is the default condition.
Two magical forces are at war, black and white. They
are savagely effective, diametrically opposed, utterly
inhuman, and ultimately destructive, represented by
fanatical wizards, and manifested in actual locations.
They are stagnating and obliterating the culture.
Black magic is called Rbaja (ur-BAH-ja), and in its
extreme form, taints and scorches the landscape into
stinking pestholes filled with undead.
White magic is called Amboriyon (am-BOR-eeyon),
and in its extreme form, gathers in clouds from
which angelic beings descend and lead people into
what looks like virtue until it enlightens them
into amorally perfect form or even erases them from
reality.
The prevailing religion of the culture is not centralized, similar to minimally-institutional Buddhism.
It is opposed to the magical forces, directed toward
steadfastness, endurance, survival, and submission
when it shifts to resistance, it gets crushed.
Cannabis is not native to the region but is cultivated
where possible, and its leaves are dried and smoked in
most social situations. Its resinous extract is smoked
in religious observances.
The Rolke region is newly liberated from the magical
wars, united under a young king. He has instituted
extensive reforms and sworn to defy both Amboriyon
and Rbaja by using white and black magic together.
Original Metal
Y ou play characters whove banded together to
support the young king in Rolke, who opposes both
kinds of magic, and you are not only a trained fighter
no matter what your social background and prior life,
but you use both kinds of magic at once. This group
is called the Circle its the only one.
The Circle is the sole institution in the setting with
any glimmer of a better life free from the not-so-Cold
War between Amboriyon and Rbaja. Its also unique
in that no social background is excluded.
All player-characters are outstanding physical badasses. If their background doesnt indicate this, then
the Circle trained them up.
The fictional culture includes sex and gender bias.
Female Circle members, who are armored fighters,
are yet another society-challenging innovation of the
Circle.
Everyone makes up two characters, and thats the
Circle. For any given adventure, you can play any
Circle character you want, although not twice in a
row. There are no Circle NPCs.
Characters are described by four attributes, two personality traits, one or more professions, a resulting
social rank, a few interesting details, and a Key Event.
Other things follow from their professions too.
Theres a single GM, the same person throughout
play. He or she does make up two Circle members
at the start, along with everyone else. His or her job
after that is to prepare the adventures, play the various other people and foes, and monitor the tripwires
that turn a scenario vicious and horrible.
Play does not concern events at home. The young
king and the circumstances of his presence in Rolke
are never seen. The characters are played during their
ventures.
Ventures are created using random components and
a specialized process to combine and refine them.
Ventures include local people with interests of their
own and difficult locations. They also include the
chance for knowledge, lurking threats, and the fell
influence of Rbaja, Amboriyon, or both.
11
Circle of Hands
Original Metal
Anyone may swear mighty oaths tapping into black or white magical power. Doing so brings great power and great
consequence.
All Circle members know a few white and black spells. Your character can also be a full-on wizard, who knows
all the spells. Yes, every single one.
Magic is powered by ones own bodily energy. Wizards must be physically very tough, vital people. Magic has no
other practical limiting factors no resolution roll or anything else.
Spells are rated either black or white, with values of 1 to 3. Its value is both the energy it costs and the number of
color points the caster fills in.
A character has nine slots to fill in with color points, from casting spells or swearing oaths. White points cancel
black and vice versa, but if all nine are either white or black, then more magical consequences appear. Its OK
to do this, but the effects are permanent. Unlike ordinary wizards, Circle members use this option tactically, not
ideologically.
Its true that wizards are more powerful and flexible than non-wizards, but the wizards tend to hurt themselves
too much to run around unsupported. The two kinds of Circle knights are the same when it comes to plain old
spear and sword mayhem.
Few non-wizardly people can stand up to a Circle member in open combat, but they do have local social roles and
status, whereas the adventuring Circle members are far from home.
Monsters and dangerous beasts add danger but also pathos of their own, unlike the outright horror of manifestations of Amboriyon or Rbaja. Creatures of Amboriyon are unbearably pure avatars or disastrously enlightened
eidolons; creatures of Rbaja are foul, all too cunning undead or insane, disturbing demons.
Non-Circle wizards are always a threat, serving Amboriyon or Rbaja. No one knows if the magical war is due to
actual scheming overlords or to the mere accumulation of so many scheming wizards.
12
MULTIPLE VENTURES
BACKDROP
SITUATION
SCENES
A particular spot
A time of day or night
Whos there
What just happened
Actions and responses
Crises and threats
Opportunities
Consequences
13
Circle of Hands
Keith Senkowski insisted that I
include a big overview of play here.
PROCEDURAL OUTLINE
2Preparation
Original Metal
like GM/player. All such talk has it completely insideWhen you see hard limits to your own sensibilities
out. Instead, all the real-people roles, game rules, and
in the backdrop, which is to say, Chapter 2 of this
character roles are embedded in a real-world social
book, then your choices about preparation are valid,
scene, made of who these people are and why theyre
socially assertive means of getting those limits into
hanging out together. This scene includes everything
play. Given the second concept above, I Will Not
imaginable about how people
Abandon You, that also means
relate to one another, specific to
that whatever you do put in there,
this particular group at this parI Will Not Abandon You youre accepting responsibility for
ticular time, whether they know it
others possibly finding it at their
or not, or say it out loud or not.
limits.
3First adventure
Deaths, tripwires, tallies
Immediately after: roll to increase scores
FIRST PREPARATION
4Preparation
GM preps next venture
Players choose characters: any they didnt
just play; revise spells as desired
5Next venture
FIRST VENTURE
14
PREPARATION
6
REPEAT
NEXT VENTURE
TECHNIQUES
What does all that mean for real play? Thats scenes,
and what goes on in playing a scene is happening to
your character or right in front of him or her, and that
is not a whole lot different from it happening to you.
How can a group possibly functionally play such that
I Will Not Abandon You is not an ongoing exercise in
gonna shock ya now?
I wont leave you on your own with this one, so the
rules include plenty of techniques concerning Lines
and Veils, concepts I first wrote about in Sex & Sorcery
(2003).
Lines are ones personal limits to content being
in the fiction at all.
Veils are ones personal limits to content being
explicitly depicted, implying that its presence is
acceptable as long as its narrated and imagined
less directly.
Im even butting into your game myself because I cant
fathom or stand crossing certain Lines in playing
Circle of Hands, so Im injecting some built-in Lines for
player-characters into the rules, for different reasons
in each case. Its called Plot Armor, as follows:
Infection could easily happen to Circle knights
except that in the stories made through playing
the game, it happens not to.
Sexual activity is certainly an option for a Circle
knight as directed by the player, but the GM
is not to presume it for purposes of starting a
scene, or to depict it without the player initiating the events.
Pregnancy does not occur for Circle knights
without the player expressly saying so.
Rape does not happen to Circle knights as
with infection, it could in fictional terms, but
those are not the stories we are making here.
15
Circle of Hands
Chapter 4 includes rules and best practices for working with Lines during play. Again, the easy point is
not gratuitously to cross evident Lines and jump
around in others trauma zones. The more relevant
point concerns getting close. If its No One Gets Hurt,
then in-scene depictions stay well within the Lines,
so knowing what they are and establishing beware
signals are the key. However, for I Will Not Abandon
You, play stalks along those Lines, or perhaps inks/
outlines them when we discover where they really are.
For that to work, Veils are the outstanding technique
to master. Chapter 4 includes rules toward that end.
DISCOVERY
Why bother with Veils if you can wall it all off with
pre-play Lines? Why would I have put any of that
torture, rape, wretchedness in the backdrop at all? I
have an end in mind, and I think its a good one.
Reality and real people in it are messy, uneasy, desperate, passionate, reflective, and confused. They exult,
they feel relief, they suffer in agonies of the body and
mind, they cry out. All of us feel so much the same,
think in so many of the same ways, and are born, live,
and die those the same, most of all. And yet always
alone, his or her own person, no other in that place
and at that time.
Whereas Rbaja and Amboriyon are so abstract,
extreme, and inhuman: more than simple color, but
rather the blackest void and the most flawless white.
Our paltry colors are mere reflections of the visible
light spectrum, but Rbaja and Amboriyon do not
absorb or reflect they are. There is no individuality
of experience. The whole magical war loves the clarity
of this Black and this White. Wizards seek its purity.
The Circle defies both, even daring to use them
opportunistically while refusing to submit. In defying opposed poles of purity, they seem like relativists,
but theyre actually struggling into a different, richer
framework for moral action.
Its all embedded in the gross, mixed-up mess of
BEGINNINGS
I wanted monsters and cosmic magic, certainly, but I really wanted human evil and human pain. I wanted combat
that felt like fighting, with fear and desperation just ahead of effective tactics. I wanted damage not merely to tick
down a fuel tank, or even just to penalize, but to hurt. I wanted a knife to be a deadly weapon, as dangerous as a
great-axe in the right time and place. I wanted a reason to fight which made sense to me. I wanted wizards to be
physically tough. I wanted scary, raw, scarring spells that visibly sprayed and spattered. I wanted shocking powerful magic that wasnt limited in multiple stifling directions. I wanted characters to be vivid at the start, but also to be
16
Original Metal
unfinished, to have somewith a well-known fanwhere to go. I wanted
tasy RPG, typically the
in 1990, i wanted fantasy role-playing
all of us playing to care
most institutionalized
and it just was not happening.
about the characters.
D&D, and to inspire
I wanted to get to know the party, experience the
audiences with a home-grown fantasy setting but
events that would become its collective memories,
so strongly buy into the assumptions of the play
see its members develop and the whole membership
theyre fixing that the mission is subverted. Tons of
change. I wanted to see things happen in adventures,
games like this have been published, peaking in the
not because the GM says if you get the silver widget,
late 1990s.
the realm is secure, but because some player decided
Theyre less common now and less heartbreaking
to do something and made it happen. I wanted playbecause digital print doesnt require you to pay for
ers to decide for themselves whom they wanted to
five thousand copies to set a reasonable price-point.
kill. I wanted awesome cosmic forces in opposition,
D&D-inspired design and publishing has also taken
but characters who were not pawns. I wanted stuff
on several new forms with plenty of creative and
to happen in our very first session, and never to let
publishing savvy, quickly spawning a whole library
up. I wanted to look back on a game with grim pride,
of games about dungeons and elves with not a heartremembering moments of breaking-points, fury, tragbreaker in sight. However, crowdfunding has brought
edy, and shared joy at the table.
its new versions of deadlines, promises, high hopes,
A few influences kept me thinking I could somehow
and a big opening outlay of funds.
get this. RPGs like The Fantasy Trip, Fighting Fantasy,
In a dialogue about my essays, Mike Holmes wrote,
or Prince Valiant were out of print or on the fringe,
Everyone should write a heartbreaker, which means
but I saw something there which diverged from my
their own heartbreaker, in part to expose and resolve
long experience with the Hero System, GURPS, Rolepersonal ambiguities about fantasy role-playing.
master, and BRP. Magic: the Gathering hit me as hard
At the least, its a lot of fun. Moreover, in doing so,
as anyone else with the perfect evocation of a setting
knowing what they know now, a person may find its
wracked by color-coded magical war.
heart and bring it whole into a retooled design. Some
Like many role-players, I have a personality disorder
of those authors I wrote about hit it right away long
called Must write games. My first real efforts came
ago, e.g. Kathleen and Joe Williams with Legendary
to about six distinct designs, from 1986 to about 1994,
Lives, and some other people have done it right out of
almost all obviously founded on whatever I was
Mikes advice, such as Clinton Dreisbach-Nixon with
playing at the time. Soon after Magic: the Gathering
The Shadow of Yesterday and Ralph Mazza with Blood
was released, I wrote one called Gray Magick and
Red Sands.
playtested the hell out of it.
The crazy thing is that at the time of writing those
It wasnt the most ambitious of those various designs
essays, I totally forgot this Gray Magick thing of mine,
that would be Bullshit-Less Role-playing or BSL,
which almost certainly must be some form of denial.
from a little bit earlier but it had a lot of passion in
I found it much later in a pile of old stuff, actually
it. I thought Id totally chucked fantasy role-playing
while looking for BSL. It totally qualifies as a Fantasy
out the window considering my long history with
Heartbreaker and should have been front-and-center
Champions and my disgust with mainstream fantasy
in the second essay. Playtesting it again, I was struck
fiction of the time. But I hadnt. Like so many others
by its power, and how easily the heartbreaker-ness
of approximately my age and approximately my pop
blazed into what I really want with a bit of loving care.
culture history, I was trying to redeem it by starting
Now its time to take Mikes advice myself, the way
over, doing fantasy role-playing right.
I failed to do when writing the essays. In my case
Ten years later, I wrote two essays about this disand perhaps yours too it takes the form of dusting
tinctive branch of RPG publishing called Fantasy
off a manuscript from ones youth to discover that its
Heartbreakers and More Fantasy Heartbreakers
embarrassing features can be forgiven and forgotten,
you can find them in this book too, with some annoor may not be such bad ideas after all, and that you
tations. Briefly, theyre about publishing games which
can discover that its not about the breaking, its about
are sincerely intended to solve mechanics associated
the heart.
17
Chapter
2I
ron
Folk
THE BACKDROP
This chapter is about the whole tapestry of geography and culture, which means the fictional situations of play
characters and location are initially conceived in front of it.
The rundown in Chapter 1 is probably enough for most of the people in play. This chapter is here to clarify and
specify those brief points, if anyone has questions, and especially, for the GM to prepare immediate locations for
ventures, with their geography, inhabitants, and local history. But the situation isnt simply a lift from the backdrop
with more details. It may be exemplary of the backdrop content, or it may be atypical in some way. And it will have
members of the Circle riding into it, which makes quite a difference indeed.
BACKDROP
SITUATION
SCENES
A particular spot
A time of day or night
Whos there
What just happened
Actions and responses
Crises and threats
Opportunities
Consequences
We all want our setting to be solid. But all the map books and reams of texts and representational objects used
during play will not make that happen. Prior to play, backdrop will always be detached and blurred, no matter
how big or detailed it is, which is why this chapter isnt a gazetteer. Its here to get the cycle started, to inspire
and provoke character and situation creation, and then we can play. Chapter 3 shows how to use backdrop in an
organized way to get those characters and situations built.
The more we play scenes, the more powerful the situation becomes in the imagination, and as the scenes change
the situation, then the backdrop finally comes into focus, and now, sure enough, we are playing these characters
in this setting. Thats what the rest of the book is about.
19
Illus. Tony Dowler
Circle of Hands
The society most closely resembles 11th century central and northern Europe. Its not medieval: there is no
feudalism, no manor, no realm, and no monarch. The
regions are merely subcultures; there are no borders.
The northern coast and the highlands to its inland
are called Famberge, a hilly, forested area characterized by small constantly-warring fiefs. The majority
of the inland map, north to south, is called Tamaryon,
a region of rolling hills and winding rivers; it is mainly
peasant farms and villages. The comparatively small
center of the coastline and the
most mountainous region is
Its not medieval: there is
called Rolke, and the southern
no feudalism, no fiefdom,
coast is called Spurr, maritime
no realm, and no monarch.
and bellicose.
Tamaryon is a plains-and-rivers
countryside, dotted with farming villages and rare
hilltop forts. The culture includes the makings of an
all-mans law body of practices, which could sustain
a formidable society but for the constant disorganization by white magic. Amboriyon is strong here, with
the cloud-citadels a common sight overhead. Raiders from Famberge turn the broad northern reaches
into a constant low-level hell, and river ships from
Spurr establish further and further centers of power
inland, weapons-first. Literary references: Henryk
Sienkiewiczs With Fire and Sword, Poul Andersons
Hrolf Krakis Saga.
Famberge (fam-BEAR-geh) is a forested land of winding low ridges and lowland swamps, with a soggy
coast. Its ruled in patches as crude fiefdoms, whose
nominal rule changes hands through shocking
sudden wars and by assassination. The culture is
constantly wracked by raids, counter-raids, and turf
battles, with no general rule of law it all depends
what the local strongman thinks, and how long he
lives. Rbaja and Amboriyon are deadlocked here,
so wizards feud constantly, interfering with and
manipulating the war culture and contributing to
the local destruction and misery. The coast is hard to
settle, although a fishing culture has sprung up, subject to ruthless trade practices and raids from Spurr.
20
Iron Folk
Food is extremely local; the only food that gets transported more than a few miles from its source are
the cereal grains, wheat and rye, which are eaten in
every imaginable version of mash and bread. Along
with these, anywhere in the Crescent Land, get
used to eating plenty of root vegetables like turnips,
burdocks, purple carrots, white parsnips, and huge
radishes; a veritable ton of beans and cabbage, and
whatever meat is most common locally. Such meat
is most often beef (using the term loosely, including
oxen as well as cows), or depending on location could
be mutton, goat, pork, horse, poultry, dogs in some
places, or any of a variety of game such as deer, hare,
squirrel, wild birds like pheasant, or boar. Fish and
shellfish are obviously the primary meat along the
seacoast. Neither corn (more properly maize) nor
potatoes are known to the area. Fruit is available
seasonally, mostly berries, with some members of
the peach group and various grapes. Salt is a prized
additive and not too easily come by, as is honey which
is collected from wild bees.
One of the customs in the port town of Spurr, crucial
for maintaining its population, is to bake bread in
huge ovens every night, to be distributed throughout
the day in enormous quantities to anyone and
everyone who wants it.
THE PEOPLE
21
Circle of Hands
22
THEIR WAYS
SOCIAL RANKING
Society and its practices are not founded on principles-based law or authority or status, and all power is
local. The social rankings are not designed but rather
emergent, nor are they even quite understood. They
are, however, quite real.
Peasantslive by minimally skilled labor, or if skilled,
inconvenient labor. Wood is gathered, animals are
herded, fires are kept burning, dung is gathered,
semi-frozen fields are broken by plow, slaughtered
human bodies are gathered, and no one really
notices that the peasants are doing it. They rarely
leave their home communities unless traveling
with seasonal work or fleeing from violence.
The terms villein, peon, and serf do not
apply, because members of this social rank are
not tied to a particular plot of land (albeit many
never leave one), nor forced to work, nor considered anyones property.
A special sort of peasant is the low entertainer,
who does travel, indeed lives by doing so, but
can expect hospitality, lodging, and social treatment as a peasant.
Freemenare not above many peasants tasks,
especially farming, but they exert authority and make decisions about these tasks, and
they organize work efforts and governance,
among themselves if no one else. In groups
freemen can be a considerable social force.
Freemen include a significant fighting force, in
numbers if not in organization or general skill.
A well-established community can muster a
militia or be rallied to fight with gentry.
Professionalsin this coin-less society are best
understood as contractors for highly skilled, difficult, or dangerous work. They are paid through
patronage in terms of living space and privileged
conditions, with the understanding that they
might be doing whatever it is for someone else.
Gentryenjoy the most material privileges, by
definition, as they are the few people in communities who do not labor in order to live, and
whose upbringing focuses primarily on conflict
with other gentry. By modern standards, the
difference in quality of life between gentry and
everyone else is slim, but it matters a lot in terms
of infant mortality and personal longevity.
Iron Folk
Many gentry do not have special titles, only
famous nicknames that sometimes approach
the quality of a title. The term baron is used
to indicate armed defense of or control over a
territory, including fortresses.
Social rank is set by what you do; its only hereditary
insofar as people learn what to do from their home
communities and family associations even for
gentry. Although perceived as a fundamental and
immutable aspect of ones identity, and although
its certainly consequential in every way, its more
mutable than the stereotype of Dark Ages society.
Yes, most people remain in the professions and
social rank in which they were raised and everyone
thinks thats the way it is, but as much as 10% of
the population shifts social rank from their parents
at any given time.
The gentry are the most regionally variable rank.
In Famberge, every mans a chief if he or she
can command thugs to terrorize a community
strategically enough to maintain power through
seasons and years. Here, gentry sit at the top of
resource extraction.
In Tamaryon, gentry arise as leaders within
social networks and therefore managers of
resources, sometimes shaping collective opinion via the seasonal moots and sometimes at its
mercy.
In Spurr, wealth is based on trade-and-raid and
the management of risk, so gentry emerge as the
privileged offspring of mercantile success.
In Rolke, social status was continuous with and
similar to that in Famberge, but given recent
events, its now in a ferment of reconstruction;
gentry are now more defined by allegiance than
by privilege. The most extreme example is the
Circle itself.
Continuity of power is constant through networks
of clan relationships and marriage, but its less tied
to persons than to situations. Individual respect and
authority across the social ranks is emergent from
circumstances, whether positive like a shared effort
to repel wolves during winter, or negative like the fear
of starvation and torture.
Gentry status is not synonymous with family, as
extended families in the Crescent Land include a
range of social ranks. You dont get to be gentry just
because your brother is. As a related point, direct
23
Circle of Hands
24
The culture doesnt include ownership of or commerce in people. The edge of more far-flung human
trafficking shows up in the intermittent contact
with other cultures in Spurr, but no local practices
preserve this status. Most raiding in the Crescent
Land concerns goods, and bringing captive people
home with you is a good way to get killed one day,
so thralldom isnt an acknowledged status. Even if
such a captive were to be kept in servitude, and if
this situation were to be sustained for him or her, no
collar would be involved and no one would assume
the persons children would be in the same position.
Iron Folk
As far as social authority goes, women do in fact
wield power all over the Crescent Land, but in two
ways: (i) being the brains and force alongside a face
husband, and (ii) through remarkable personal force,
usually participating in armed combat. Both ways
work, and neither is actually exceptional, but they
are typically perceived as individual cases, i.e., more
exceptional than they really are.
At first glance, the culture of the Crescent Land seems
prudish. Women cover their hair and wear fulllength dresses, men do not strut about bare-chested.
The body is almost never exposed, except during
work in hot conditions. However, it is not a puritan
culture, merely modest. Sexual matters are not topics
of shame but reserved for specific situations.
A woman typically covers up thoroughly when
dressed and reserves nudity for privacy, but if she
were nude or partially so in ordinary events, like
changing clothes, and someone walked in accidentally, she wouldnt scream or feel ashamed. A man
changing his clothes doesnt care whether others are
in the room or not, but hell turn away and everyone else will happen not to look in that direction.
Similarly, certain public actions are considered not
really naked or immodest. Women and men who
would never fail to stay covered when dressed also
FAMILY
25
Circle of Hands
to an extended network of cousins and other marriages well past the range of genetics. Personal surnames
typically refer to this network and one marries into
it as much as or more than marrying that particular
person. The constellation of social ranks and professions within it is practically a community of its
own, itself networked with other such groups. When
this extended family become widely-known for any
reason, positive or negative, its called a clan.
So marriage isnt the unit, nor is it an expression of
a special emotional relationship. Its a feature within
this larger, more significant unit. Not everyone marries or has kids, but everyone belongs to an extended
family and probably to a clan.
26
Iron Folk
and exchange of all kinds. Given some resources
and some skilled labor available, merchants, priests,
entertainers, and artisans can be supported and provide a stimulating environment.
Furthermore, the culture has little if any infrastructure to deal with disproportionate hardships. Hard
times hit due to droughts, hard winters, occasional
disease, and human strife, turning a once-thriving
village community destitute, and for many there is
no recourse besides finding somewhere else to live.
For a population with minimal geography and few
skills aside from their previous way of life, this goes
poorly, and die-offs of over half the original community arent unusual. Less drastic hard times are still
pretty bad, with losses of up to half the very young
and all of the very old.
People deeply feel their ownership of land, resources,
social circumstances, and items, but its personal and
social, not legal. The only real recourse against ones
stuff being taken away is the community buy-in that
it belongs where it is. That serves adequately most of
the time, but as with so many things, it can be overridden with greater force. The distinction between he
stole it and times change is very much a matter of
social power and implicit threat.
Since wealth is real but money is not, high-quality
utility items take on an intermediate, money-like role
for display and significant gift-giving, but not com-
SPIRITUALITY
Religion as such isnt very institutionalized and is generally disconnected from overt social power. The culture
shares a common or at least baseline array of practices, including a number of fixed phrases and some common
symbology, but in any given place, its always couched in local history and geography. The idea of standardizing
doctrine hasnt occurred to anyone, and there is definitely no book beyond a few disconnected writings that
few have ever seen. The rites are typically simple and include the display and a bit of wasting of whatever local
resource is most abundant.
The common doctrine is similar to textual Buddhism: life is grim and nothing protects you from pain, the best one
can do is develop practical ethics and arrive at a heartfelt, personal decency. It is not particularly metaphysical,
although it includes many symbolic details regarding spiritual things. Its also not ecstatic and doesnt concern
contacting the divine or anything like it. When all is said and done, its pretty boring in whiz-bang miracle or
spectacle. Instead its all about being decent and steadfast right here in the real world with real people.
Here and there, and everywhere a little bit, in the course of time, local customs and spiritual standards get factored into the practices, sometimes with startling results, simply because the people there know thats how
it is and dont give a hoot about whether the widespread, common-baseline doctrine is consistent with their
goat-sacrificing or their gentry-get-married-naked rite.
27
Circle of Hands
28
Iron Folk
the Circle and its use of both black and white
magic, and just as many abominate the practice
as double the danger.
TECHNOLOGY
29
Circle of Hands
are thought of as little better than draft animals
themselves.
Iron Folk
HEALTH
MATERIALS
30
METAL
31
Circle of Hands
ANIMALS
32
Iron Folk
Every so often, especially among social ranks and
professions with some leisure time, people adopt
local animals as pets, especially dogs and hawks.
Typically the animals never quite lose their working
status, but they come to be physically and socially
more attuned to people and their quasi-family status
through selective breeding, especially dogs in Famberge and hawks in Rolke and, a little oddly as far as
everyone else is concerned, snakes in Spurr. Cats are
a rare animal in the Crescent Land and most people
have never seen one, but here and there they can be
found as semi-wild farm animals and occasional pets.
33
Circle of Hands
NARCOTICS AND
PSYCHOACTIVE SUBSTANCES
No institutionalized or expected standard for education exists. Obviously every person in the Crescent
34
Iron Folk
The term book means a collection of related documents in a case or set of matching cases, but codex
binding using sewn-in pages is unknown. The most
sophisticated version is a sheaf of parchment or
vellum pages folded into a well-made protective case
made from wooden boards or boiled leather, pressed
very flat using straps and buckles. Its a rather large,
hefty thing, not easily portable, that you keep on a
table or a lectern. Its certainly a prized possession. If
you own one and arent a scholar, then scholars know
who you are and will make themselves as useful to
you as they can.
MUSIC
Singing is part of life, and only some of it is entertainment or leisure. Planting and harvest time bring lots of
harmonic work singing among the freemen and peasants, and a variety of similar if simpler chants or group
singing can be found across many professions. A lot
of it is merely call-and-response, but some is similar
to historical plainsong and plainchant: soaring held
notes over a repeated ten or twelve-bar rhythmic arc.
Horns are also common tools, made from animal
horn, wood, clay, or light metal, shaped straight or
curling, with no valves or stops. Theyre used mainly
ceremonially, usually for gentry functions, but hardly
ever in music.
Scholars write and read more in the sense we understand and have their own characteristic technology.
Paper is unknown in the Crescent Land, and the
closest equivalents are made from animal skin, i.e.,
parchment, and the most prized version from calfskin, called vellum. Sheets are rarely bound flat and
are most commonly prepared as single-sheet scrolls.
Textual integrity is not observed too carefully, and
many parchment sheets are used as palimpsest, as
old text is scraped off to make way for new.
Illus. Rachel Kahn
35
Circle of Hands
wear kooky clothing or costumes. They typically set up on their own in a public area, without a stage or special
props, and just get going, aware of what time of day will be most appreciated by the people there. A performance
includes loud rhythm instruments like drums and pipes and funny things like ocarinas, little skits with frequent
belch and fart noises, juggling, and some ground-level acrobatics. As with all service providers in the culture,
pay comes in the form of food and shelter for a fortnight or even a season, socializing, and not being killed.
High entertainers are analogous to the historical skald or scop: essentially poets with musical accompaniment
with their own system of standards and education, living in wealthy households permanently or seasonally.
Typically they chant and play in alternation, with the material including complex themes, rhymes and content
spanning riddles, legendry, and politics. The main tradition is not literate outside its own symbology and doesnt
overlap much with scholarship, although certainly some scholar somewhere is doing his or her best to get as much
of this material written down as possible.
High entertainers typically use portable harps and lyres. Foreign instruments equivalent to the oud and zither
are sometimes seen and heard, although they are not manufactured nor their techniques taught in the Crescent
Land by more than a handful of people.
36
Iron Folk
In a land without much institutional memory and
without accountable social responsibilities, few organized efforts exist to reverse or prevent misery.
This is not nice fantasy. The world is often cruel. Even
the most decent characters have seen a person killed,
often for no good reason. Many of them, the most
decent I mean, may well have done it.
In a community, people who run afoul of social
approval can be ostracized or expelled, either one
functionally a death sentence, especially when
accompanied by amputation or branding. But sometimes cruelty is subtler and becomes part of the
local way of life. It always starts with petty privilege
associated with social ranks, professions, or clans,
expressed as chronic cruelties visited upon designated professions and families. Theyre marginalized
in food and shelter, censured quickly compared to
and even in place of others, and punished excessively.
Once entrenched, such practices get folded into local
custom and spiritualist language, then escalate and
become tied to specific people and clan associations
of power. Dont look for any arc of justice here.
More organized, multi-community power typically
emerges from cooperation and a sustainable division
of labor. However, when gentry become organized in
certain ways, it also emerges from beatings, torture,
enforced hunger, examples, and messages. Not
to put too fine a point on it, once the family ties and
economics of gentry become well-established, some
of them turn to simple extraction to maintain as
much privilege and as much lack of accountability
as they can force people to endure. Whole systems
of governance and commerce can form around pockets of such communities, each one presided over
by gentry aided by fighting-men who rely on them
and the system of oppression for their own survival,
each petty ruler fighting with nearby rivals as well as
against desperately-mobilized locals.
Such fighting has nothing to do with armies or
squads marching to engage one another. Its primary
target is people and communities, seeking to destroy
and terrorize. Sometimes the local warband defends
the community, and sometimes not; sometimes the
community includes its own muster of defenders,
and sometimes not. In each uprising or series of raidreprisals, the people who fought with the losing side
die like dogs, transfixed by spears from horseback, or
they flee to nearby areas, their children and elderly
dying of exposure in the night as they travel.
TOOLS OF VIOLENCE
Weapons are rarely manufactured in bulk and distributed as such, if ever. Instead, your spear-point was
probably made no more than ten miles away. There is
no systematic effort or policy directed toward developing the technology; developments are emergent
and local.
37
Circle of Hands
38
Iron Folk
39
Illus. Sandy Jacobs-Tolle
Circle of Hands
SOMETHING NEW
40
The kings efforts were and are notable for its inclusion of, even reliance upon non-gentry social ranks
for organization and leadership. The king has issued
a widespread proclamation to expand the ranks of the
Rolke gentry through fealty to himself and through
deeds of merit, as opposed to deeds that gain color
tallies. This revolutionary concept is causing quite a
stir across the lands. People travel to join the cause,
and the hardest, most committed of them become
Circle knights. In addition to ranking among the
deadliest fighters known in the Crescent Land, they
practice white and black magic simultaneously.
The term knight does not mean anything like most
literary usage, instead reaching back to the word
knecht which literally means servant or committed
person. The equivalent word would be Kreisknechten,
sworn to the circle. (Words like gesith and thegn
may also apply.) Many medieval tropes concerning
knights do not apply at all: no squires, no decorated
shields, no jousting or tournaments.
The player-characters are the veteran bad-asses in
the Circle created by the young king in Rolke. Some
may have helped him in his rise to power; others have
arrived since, drawn by the new ideals. Play focuses
on the actions they take to secure the gains made by
the new regime, to combat the forces of Amboriyon
and Rbaja at their worst, and to open inroads to
others who might listen.
And thats where the Arthurian stops. Instead of
heroic noble icons stiffly posing on tapestries, these
characters are products of their age and backgrounds
perhaps striving for something new and different,
but producing it more in the crunch and by the
sacrifice of their bodies and minds, rather than by
clear design. Stories and play should be more reminiscent of Kurosawas ronin films the political and
epic background permit us to step into the utterly
personal and utterly passionate local story. The Stars
Spartacus series also qualifies in just the same way. A
good way to look at it is that the characters are committed to the ventures potential to help the king, but
play is less concerned with the venture as a mission
and more with the passions and actions of the characters in the moment. The ideals of the Circle are one
thing, but its human agents and their personal fates
may be another.
The system is built to dramatize these issues, especially in its magic mechanics. Therefore for every
character, the route taken depends on what the character does during the course of the game.
Iron Folk
CONTEXT VS. DIRECTIVES
The ventures of the Circle happen in front of this backdrop. As the constructs in the book and on your papers
turn into a played-in, lived-in setting, youll discover and develop who the knights are. The following questions
and issues will be raised and addressed, without pre-arrangement or tedious debate or even any need to pause.
Who are the Circle knights, in moral terms? Are they a beacon of hope or a gang? Are they resolving social ills
and personal crises, or are they bringing fear and pain? They begin scarred and driven, but how psycho are they?
What events turn them from more-or-less welcome guests into killers? What might they sacrifice, and for whom?
These questions are yours to discover and see at their dramatic peaks.
Your characters are obviously of the setting, knowing little beyond its values and its cultural vocabulary. They
present a vivid portrait of its regions, its customs, and its social ranks, as well as most especially the immediacy
of force in all things.
However, they also profoundly affect the setting. By definition, your player-characters are the veteran core of the
Circle. When you play this game, you are not playing in the same setting as anyone else when they play, because
their knights are that core in their game. That means the Circle is a completely different entity in every single game,
defined by your choices during character creation and most especially by your actions during play. Therefore you,
far more than I, become the setting authors when you play.
This effect jumps front and center because the Circle also presents a social shock to its own culture. Without planning to do so, its members have re-interpreted the meaning of social rank, overturned and replaced the politics
in one region, and invented a completely revolutionary magic. They are literally a new power in the Crescent
Land, and because they are almost as new to these novel ideas as anyone they encounter, they are literally, if
inadvertently, the founders of a new social value system. Even if they dont exemplify it, they will prompt it, or
struggles about it.
The backdrop is good fuel because Ive deliberately put in much tension between its sensibilities and our own. By
pulling out its most engaging details for yourself and getting them into the situations, by playing scenes in those
situations with color and verve, youll give that backdrop purpose and an imagined force it could never have had
on the pages of a book. You and no one else will ultimately define this setting. All this stuff you just read in this
chapter is there to be mined or invoked toward that end.
41
Chapter
3F
orging Steel
This is about the situation of play: specifying the content and putting together the tools for playing your game.
BACKDROP
SITUATION
SCENES
A particular spot
A time of day or night
Whos there
What just happened
Actions and responses
Crises and threats
Opportunities
Consequences
Who are the Circle knights? Where have they traveled, and which ones? What is happening there?
Its also about how people get together to arrange for play: a group including three to six people, one of whom
will serve as game master (GM) throughout the course of play. A venture is typically begun and completed in
a single session, from two-and-a-half to four hours depending on its complexity and the events developed in the
moment. The design also assumes multiple play-sessions with the same people, preferably at least as many as
there are participants.
The group prepares in two ways:
They first meet to create the Circle knights who will serve as a
common pool to draw upon when the ventures begin.
Everyone, GM included, creates two knights.
The GM prepares the venture for each session.
Each player chooses a Circle knight from the common pool
to play in this venture.
43
Circle of Hands
Do the initial individual work on scratch paper. The
required features are, in order:
Attributes
Homeland
Traits
Professions
Social Rank
Sex
Magic
Details
Name
Arming
Key Event
44
HOMELAND
Forging Steel
This character is from Tamaryon. Looking over the
descriptions in the text, I think of a farming society
constantly subverted by white magic from the overhanging cloud citadels, with a steadfast people and
well-established priesthood.
45
Circle of Hands
Social rank is a critical feature of the setting, so review
their meanings as described in Chapter 2.
SEX
46
MAGIC
Forging Steel
DETAILS
47
Circle of Hands
Forging Steel
Name: consult the red die result without reference to Charm, and consult the names list accordingly.
1: grim, crush, edge, a weapon, or anything similarly harsh or violent
2: bright, brave, soft, beauty, happy, or anything similarly uplifting
3: any of the god or blessed meanings, which are cultural vestiges of Pananthuri culture
4: one syllable
Peasants use a single name, always in the diminutive form (the bulleted entries).
Freeman have a full name but are often called the diminutive form, if available, with no real distinction
between the uses. Some freemen use their region or a descriptive nickname as a surname.
Professionals use names similarly to freemen, but always use a surname as well, whether a parents name, a
husbands, the profession, or some adjective related to the profession.
Gentry only use full names, not diminutives, as well as a surname derived from the least recent family
member associated with power typically a couple of generations back. The surname is used in a general
way toward buildings and symbols of power in the local area, and gentry might address one another by
surname in the context of local authority.
This detail may seem a bit trivial or over-formal, but I saw one too many people struggle with the naming step
during playtesting, and a little prompt or constraint overcame that problem very nicely.
Male names
raven
BJRN bear
ALWIN
ARTUR
BALDUR bald bold
BARTHOLOMUS
BERNHARD bern bear
BENNO
BERND
BERTHOLD beraht bright wald
rule
BERTRAM beraht bright hramn
DIDI
DIETRICH, DIETERIK eud
people ric power
DIRK, DIERK
TILL, TILLO
DIETFRIEDeud people frid
peace, protection
DIETHELM eud people helm
helmet, protection
DIETMAReud people meri
famous
EBERHARD eber wild boar
EBBE
48
HEINRICH
ARNE
FRITZ
ARNDT
KURT
HEINO
5: two syllables
ALBRECHT
FREJ
GEERT
GERNOT ger spear hnod crush.
GERULF ger spear wulf wolf.
GILBERTgisil pledge, hostage
beraht bright
GISBERT beraht bright
GREGOR
GNTER gund war hari
warrior
ERDMANN
HAGAN
EVERT
ERICH, ERIK
ERNST
ERWIN hari army win friend
EWALD ewa law, custom wald
rule
FALK falcon
FILIBERT filu much beraht
bright
GUSTAF
HARALD
HARTMANNhard brave, hardy
man
HARTMUT hard brave, hardy
muot mind, spirit.
HARTWIG hard brave, hardy
wig battle
HARTWINhard brave, hardy
win friend
HENRIK
HEINER
HEIKE, HEIKO
HEINZ
HEILAGR holy, blessed
HELGE
HELM helm helmet
ELMO
HELMFRIED, HELFRIED helm
helmet frid peace
HELMUT, HELMOLD helm
helmet muot spirit, mind
MALTE, MALTHE
HENDRIK
HENNING
HERBERT, HERIBERThari army
beraht bright
HERMANN
HERMENEGILD
HILBERT, HILDEBERT hild
battle beraht bright
HILDEBRAND hild battle
brand sword
HORST wood, thicket
HUBERThug heart, mind
beraht bright
HUPPERT
INGO
INGE
INGOLF, INGULF ing god
lfr wolf
ISIDOR
IVO iv yew
KAI
KARL, KARLMANN
KASPAR
KNUT kntr knot
KOLOMAN
KONRAD kuoni brave
rad counsel
KORD
KUNO
LAMBERT, LAMPRECHT land
land beraht bright
LAMMERT
LANZO
LEBERECHTlebe live
recht right
LEOPOLD leud people
bald bold
49
Circle of Hands
RODOLF, HRODOLF
ROLF
RUDI, RUEDI
ROGER, RUDIGER hrod fame
ger spear
ROLAND hrod fame land
Forging Steel
VEIT
KORA
SIGISMUND
RAIMUNDE
SREN
TORBEN
LINDA
WULFGANG
UTZ
WULF
WOLFRAM wulf wolf
hramn raven
UWE
Female names
ERMENTRUD
HELGA, HELLA
ERNA
HENRIKE
HERMINE
ADELINA, ALINA
FREJA
HERTA, HERTHA
ALEIDA, ALIDA
F R I E DA ,
ADELA, ADELE
ADA
ADELHEID
ALEIT
ELKE
HEIDA, HEIDI
AGATHE
ALFREDA
ASTRID
AVA avi, desired
BERTA, BERTHA beraht bright,
famous
BRIGITTA, BRIGITTE
GITTA,GITTE
B R U N H I L D b r u n a r m o r,
protection hild battle
DAGMARdagr day mr maid
DIETLINDE eud people linde
soft, tender
EBBA
EDITH
50
FRIEDE fried,
frid peace
FRIEDERIKE
FRITZI
GERDA
G E RT R AU D, G E RT RU D
ger spear ru strength
INGE, INGA
TRUDI
GISELA
GISA
GU D RU N g u go d r n
secret lore
GUNDULA gund war
GUNDA
HEDWIG hadu battle, combat
wig war
HEDY .
JESSIKA
HEINRIKE
KATJA
HEIKE
KARLA
KLARA
LULU
MARTHE
TABITHA
TABEA
ROSWITHAhrod fame
swin strength
SABINE
THERESE
ULRIKA, ULRIKE
RIKE
SASKIA
SIEGHILD sigu victory
hild battle.
SIEGLINDE sigu victory and
linde gentle, soft
SIGI
MATHILDE, MECHTILDE
SILKE
ODA
UTE
VILMA
VERENA
VRENI
WA L B U R G A w a l d r u l e
burg fortress
WA LT R AU D w a l d r u l e
ru strength
I roll 6, 5, and 1 for the three dice in order. This knights Charm is 5, so her details are Fierce (6 + 5 = 10), Emblem (5 +
5 = 10), and for her name, something brutal.
As gentry, she does not answer to any diminutive versions, and I note that Krimhilde means mask and battle
which is her past to the letter. As gentry, she uses a surname based on a recent ancestor, and I choose Falk. Other
gentry and people inclined toward formality might call her Baron Falk.
Start some notes on the knights physical description
at this point, if you havent already. The Iron Folks
most common features are thin-stranded straight
hair, blonde or light brown hair color, blue or gray
eyes, light skin color, high cheekbones, and epicanthic folds. However, much darker curled hair, dark
brown or black hair color, dark brown eye color,
medium to dark brown skin color, a wider range of
facial structure, and no epicanthic folds are also evident, usually as a couple of these features at a time.
ARMING
51
Circle of Hands
However, Circle knights have received training independently of their individual backgrounds. First, determine
from the list above what kind of arms or fighting is
appropriate for the persons profession prior to joining
the Circle. If he or she has no martial background, then
add a single professional or gentry weapon, usable
either on foot or mounted. If in doubt or if you dont
care, choose the spear. Such characters are also trained
in the use of mail, cone helmet, and shield.
As gentry with martial (high), Krimhilde is already
skilled with the spear, sword, and bow; she is
armored with the kite shield, mail including a
gambeson, and spangenhelm; coming from Tamaryon also grants the great axe and francisca; and like
everyone she has a personal knife. She doesnt carry
around all this stuff personally, but rather chooses
whatever she likes from this list at any given point.
During a venture, the knights are accompanied by
a small functioning support staff, such as horse and
mule handlers, haulers, financiers, hunters, or guides.
Therefore itemizing ordinary equipment such as lanterns or bedrolls by character is not necessary.
KEY EVENT
Forging Steel
The character gets two professions, and thinking that it works well to have two from adjacent
social ranks for an Ambitious character, I choose
Priest and Scholar. I recall that all characters
will be competent fighters, and also that to be
a Circle member, a priest needs to have become
heretical regarding magic.
The characters social rank is Freeman, with a
strong desire to be Professional.
I decide that he is male; the character begins to
take form in my mind.
For his six points of spells, I choose Demon 1,
Black Speech, Stimulant, Repair, and Perfection.
For Demeanor, I get 2 + 8 = 10 Formal; for Feature,
4 + 8 = 12 Emblem; and 5 on the red die, for two
syllables for his name. He is Meinrad Good, with
the surname arising from his priestly background.
The character clicks together in my mind: of
course, hes formal, he cares about the niceties
of social rank; of course he wears an emblem
showing off his scholarship, as that profession
goes with the social rank he desires.
He has no prior martial background, so his
combat skills were trained entirely by the
Circle, resulting in a spear, round shield, cone
helm, mail (gambeson underneath), and a
personal knife. He also still has
his pipe, tools for preparing
cannabis resin, and
hat from his
priestly
background.
Something happened to your character which was a Key Event for them. As a direct result of that event something
within them broke, such that joining the Circle was suddenly the only choice which made sense thereafter.
The event involved one or more of:
Community
Family
Gender
The event will typically have had unpleasant qualities such as abuse, defeat, cruelty, helplessness, manipulation,
death, failure, betrayal, ruin; it could have been caused by your characters actions or by anothers; those actions
could just as easily have been ill-intentioned or well-intentioned; the event could have been focused on your
character alone or extended to others they care about.
Whatever the details, this event crystallized for your character into the fixed memory of a single, vivid moment which could equally have been before, during, or after the event itself.
52
A LOOK AT
THE CHARACTER SHEET
Social rank
53
Circle of Hands
PREPARING A VENTURE
If youre the GM, come to a play session with a prepared venture in hand. It might be described as zeroing in on a
single place in the backdrop, with its own pocket of emergent conflict, and its most definitely a matter of personal
choice and responsibility. A lot of the preparation is determined by dice, but a lot isnt, most especially those things
skirt along the Lines.
LOCATION
Roll 3d6, black, white, and red just as in character creation. If they display all different numbers, then the
location is in Rolke, the most likely place for Circle
knights to be running around doing things. If any
two or all three match, then the location is as follows,
based on the value of the matched dice:
1-2: Tamaryon
3-4: Famberge
5-6: Spurr
I roll my three dice, resulting in black 4, white 1, and
red 3. This venture takes place in Rolke.
Now specify a little bit more on pure personal interest, first by indicating a spot on the map within the
region. Think about how ordinary life there might
look: what work goes on there, what do they eat, how
much force and violence is exerted daily, what gets
traded around at the larger scale, how are the dead
handled, how explicit is the religion, how does the
local liquor taste, what are the animals, what are the
local details of clothing
54
Forging Steel
COMPONENTS
1Humanitarian crisis
Massacre, battles, natural disaster, famine,
ethnic cleansing, oppression as bad as one
may imagine, given the standards for this
venture
Focus on human agency in either perpetration or in response.
Circle knights try to solve obvious problems
to garner good will
4Knowledge
A piece of foreign technology, a historical
fact, an informational document like a map,
or something similar
It may or may not be obviously present, but
if this is the lowest-numbered component,
55
Circle of Hands
REFINING THE COMPONENTS
56
Forging Steel
ence (7) in Rolke. In that case, the strife between
the merchants higher uphill and the freemen working the docks had no intrinsic connection with the
wizard who was in one of the ships offshore, and
during preparation, no connection or pull needed
to be invented.
The procedures of play and the decisions made by
characters open plenty of doors for elements across
the components to become connected, and to ignite
new conflicts. Front-loading it during preparation
only gums up those procedures.
NAMED PEOPLE
Make up named people according to the number of
components:
One: three named people, for a total of three
Two: two for each component, for a total of four
Three: one each, for a total of three
And later during preparation, if you want, add
one more named person to the venture
The basic, rather pure concept of soap opera is
intrinsic to the people for each component. Period.
Never dont have soap opera, because its what the
people are for. Theyre already itched out of their
comfort zones, in the grip of strong emotions, and
full of definite opinions, already near to the point of
acting, or as you might see it, acting out. When more
than one person is involved in a given component,
then they may be strongly tied together or strongly
opposed.
Do not double-dip anyone across the components; make separate ones for each. They dont
even have to know one another.
Always conceive of them relative to the components and be sure to give them names.
Think in terms of the Crescent land values:
social class, relative wealth, kinship, social
authority and reputation.
Brainstorm a bit about special interests, past
history, problems, strong emotional attachments; just one or two thoughts are fine at this
point.
Add one more named person to a given component if you think it needs a little more casting.
So, two people for each component, each pair
involved in some kind of emotional situation.
For the map, I instantly conceive of a survivor from
the butchery at Maganburg, whos managed to pre-
57
Circle of Hands
many battles for others, and is now a scarred, cynical, older chief, with a community of perhaps two
hundred people in and around Maganburg who look
to him for leadership. His name is Eckhart; he preys
upon a trade route, not entirely to kill or to loot, but
for rare valuables which he gives to the wyrm (once
every six months or year is enough), at the very least
to keep it off his small communitys neck.
Although Eckharts tough and obviously cruel
toward those outside his sphere of leadership, his
son is his real problem: a young man who envies
his fathers toughness and respect, and who dreams
of laying waste to anyone who offends him with
the power of the wyrm. This would be Ivo, already
called Eckhart-Son, which he dislikes.
At this point, set their scores, using 8 5 4 2. The only
relevant mechanics lie in Brawn and Quickness, but
assign the other two to help you develop your sense
of the person. Choose one person to have a sum of
scores equal to that of the highest-sum Circle knight
currently in play. Also write down their professions
and social rank explicitly.
Wulf: Brawn 5, Quickness 2, Wits 8, Charm 4; low
martial + scholar, freeman. He is missing part of one
leg and has some neurological damage too, hence the
low Quickness.
Vreni: Brawn 2, Quickness 4, Wits 5, Charm 8; outdoorsman + low entertainer, peasant.
Eckhardt: using Meinrad Good as the presumed
highest-score Circle knight in play, that gives me 26
points, distributed as Brawn 6, Quickness 8, Wits 5,
Charm 7. I can visualize him easily; he uses mail that
once belonged to the former ruler of the area, whom
he probably killed. His professions are low martial +
merchant, freeman.
Ivo: Brawn 5, Quickness 8, Wits 2, Charm 4; low
martial + outdoorsman, freeman. A dangerous
man with a spear and with his equally hot-headed
friends, and he knows the area inside and out, but
lacking his fathers life-experience and caution.
If the people in the preparation include a wizard,
then he or she has Gifts equal to the number of
knights in the venture, as rolled in the relevant section of Chapter 6.
In the case of a single component, you have three
named people to enmesh in some kind of awful soap
opera, so mix it up with some verve.
Forging Steel
tion with his or her social rank, and youre all set,
especially when the game mechanic called ascension
gets going, as explained in Chapter 4.
Circle knights do not arrive to solve anyones personal problem, they are not responding to a call for
help, they do not have to be restoring order and civic
decency to a community, and they do not have to root
out a specific source of evil. Therefore engineering
your named charcters as mechanisms to get to those
things is unnecessary. My and others best Circle
games so far have been extremely lightly prepared in
these terms.
The named people merely live there, thats all, and
they have specific actions and agendas wrapped up
with the overall component concept theyre built
with. Come up with individuals who exemplify these
things, and put them into cross-purposes or difficult
circumstances concerning what they want. Expunge
all thoughts of whether they are right or will work
or character flags or anything like that. Anyone who
strikes you as caught up with that specified component, with any degree of soap opera, will do.
58
59
Circle of Hands
Forging Steel
Spurr: Lich Citadel
60
61
Circle of Hands
Forging Steel
62
63
Circle of Hands
Forging Steel
64
65
Circle of Hands
I also use any of the many little maps available online from a hundred sites, with a bit of effort to stay
consistent with the Crescent Land setting (there are
no multi-level underground complexes).
Forging Steel
in play boils over into more explicit, uncompromising form. The effect is, simply, a drastic and striking
change in the situation. Whatever visual or other
sensory details you might imagine, say to yourself,
Thats not enough, and turn it up another notch.
A tripwire and its effects are prepared, but not planned.
It may or may not be triggered, completely left up to
the events of play.
If Wulf is harmed in any way. Triggering this
tripwire means that Vreni mobilizes a considerable
number of local people against the culprit.
If the wyrms private lair is disturbed. Triggering
this tripwire means that the wyrm goes wild with
rage. This doesnt mean the wyrm is irrelevant until
that happens, because it could act on its own, or
Eckhart could exploit his alliance with it, at any time
Im still honoring the point that nothing should necessarily combine any details of the two components,
in that neither tripwire includes both the map and
the wyrm.
Tripwires arent there to be either goals or as hidden
traps, so the GM isnt obliged to drive toward them or
manipulate players into them. Similarly, the players
dont know what they are, so no one will be seeking
or avoiding one.
Theyre merely there. Waiting patiently.
A BIT AT SEA?
Think viscerally and sympathetically with the peoples priorities, and understand why they are the way
they are. Even if they are cruel, vicious, selfish, violent
people, dont make them psychopaths.
Its grim yes, but not insane. No one is a serial killer,
the wyrm is not a rampaging horror why? Because
a venture is about moral difficulty, not about designated kill-eligible foes. Anyone might be friendly to
one or more Circle knights and be reasonable at least
in the context of his or her priorities. Theres plenty of
danger here, but exactly what sort, and from whom,
and why, is left to the events of play.
WULF IS KILLED
ECKHARTS
FORTRESS
TRIPWIRES
66
67
Component 2
Component 1
Tripwire
(the wyrm)
Location
(the map)
Named People
Circle of Hands
Its rather nice not to worry about story control, with no need to rehearse upcoming play events. I dont have to
pre-plan named characters reactions to the Circle knights; those will come directly out of the player-characters
actions and the players rolls. I dont have to think about a climactic scene or designate a bad guy or final boss.
Dont worry about how hard it is. A given venture is not supposed to be hard, medium, or easy in mechanics terms.
Its merely interesting and thats all.
Dont worry about how good it is. These prep tools Im providing are spot-on perfect for generating exactly what
you need for play, and the only thing you need worry about being good is play itself, for your part alone.
PLAYING MY CHARACTER
68
Forging Steel
The Key Event is unique to the character. It
really changed him or her, leading to total commitment to the Circle. It may be over and done
with, or it may be an open psychological wound
which a venture may expose. Look over that
Event and remember that to this person, this is
now who he or she really is.
Although all Iron Folk are identifiable in terms of
homeland, social rank, and often profession, Circle
knights are a bit different in their own way. For one
thing, they are competently armed and armored in
ways that such socially diverse individuals would
never otherwise be. They all wear the emblem of the
Circle. They may display evidence of both white and
black magic, again, not only unfamiliar but actually
unbelievable to those versed in the matter.
By definition, social tensions or contradictions among
Circle members are treated as secondary to their
shared commitments and are not built to be automatic sources of conflict between player-characters.
They may be either expressed as given during ordinary interaction, or openly set aside and ignored due
to genuine respect, or whatever else arises organically
from play.
69
Chapter
4C
ircle of Steel
The backdrops in place, and the situations productive components are prepared, both for the Circle knights and
the location. Now its time to discuss the real layer if you will: putting time and consequence into the fiction,
making stuff happen, using resolution mechanics, seeing stuff happen, accepting and developing immediate
threat/actions for characters in a word, playing scenes.
BACKDROP
SCENES
SITUATION
A particular spot
A time of day or night
Whos there
What just happened
Actions and responses
Crises and threats
Opportunities
Consequences
This is where it gets personal. Something may be in the backdrop, and when alls said and done thats mere words
on paper, but this-right-here is what your character is seeing, and whats happening to him or her, and thats one
little social and imaginative step away from it happening to you.
I Will Not Abandon You is the riskier, harder-hitting social contract about the fictional content. Its when you play
not to protect one another, but to stay with one another through it. I dont mind saying Ive been doing this for a
long damn time, and here are the ways the only ways this works.
Start with Veils
Pull them aside when it strikes you, without
planning
Scenes move a situation through time and consequences, changing it. The transformed situation becomes a piece
of history, finally bringing time to the backdrop, making it solid at last. Make sure those scenes are exciting for
you, a little tough, a little disturbing, and trust those people at the table to stay with you, as your Crescent Land
finally earns its label as a setting.
All right, now on to it.
71
Circle of Hands
Circle of Steel
TALKING
You are not conveying the setting from an original
source in order to play, you are making it by the act
of playing.
WHAT IS THE GM
Our hobby language dichotomizes the terms GM
and player, and I dont think any re-terming is going
to change that. I can only say here that in playing Circle
of Hands, the term doesnt mean a social organizer or
a rules-referee, but one of the players who attends to
certain tasks: preparing the venture, and during
play, mostly about starting and stopping scenes. When it comes
A couple of playtesters were concerned that eliminating permanent character ownership would decrease
peoples commitment to play. However, the result was
always just the opposite. In a way, youre wonderfully
free: you get to ask and answer who am I? for this
GETTING INTO IT
Start in the middle of traveling to the venture location, with no play back home at all, no briefing scene
or anything of the sort. Play begins well out of the
main citadel in Rolke, into areas beyond its immediate reach. Descriptions begin with the transition into
these areas, continue with further travel, and end
with the transition into the destination. The GMs
job at this time is landscape and scenery celebration,
establishing the integrity of the imagined geography
and providing the players with a sense of what its
like to travel in these lands. I recommend describing
whatever details of ecology, animals, and food seem
most informative and fun.
Circle knights travel with what might be called a
support staff, mainly people who tend the animals,
pack supplies along, scout ahead, hunt or fish,
arrange lodgings with communities, and similar
activities. They always include a couple of outdoorsmen. Theyre almost all local people at any point in
the journey, cycling in and out of the traveling group
as it moves through the ordinary personal traveling
ranges of multiple communities. They arent servants or lackeys and cant be ordered around, nor are
the Circle knights responsible for their safety. This
shifting-cast group is assumed to be around throughout the venture, but they are not named or explicitly
played, and if circumstances are such that the GM
absolutely has to threaten them, he or she treats them
as a single target.
ARRIVAL
72
73
Circle of Hands
accept your social activity. They assume youre going
to provide it: butchering, hunting, farming, smithying, religious work, and whatever else is implied by
a persons social rank and profession. Do it, and your
needs get folded into everyone elses, such as that may
be in this particular spot. Bluntly, failing to provide
that social activity is the mark of a psychopath, as far
as everyone in this culture is concerned.
Circle of Steel
AS EVENTS PROCEED
74
By definition all non-Circle wizards are in this category, as they only come into play via the preparation
components. These people are incredibly powerful
and are certainly affecting the lives of every other
person in the situation, or are about to. Even more
named people come into view via ascension, which
turns incidental or background individuals into consequential and active characters.
do badly with the locals, they hate you, and they try
to kill you, lets see if you get out of there, and never
mind the elaborate back-story with the butchers
daughter, her panther friend, and the lurking lich.
75
Circle of Hands
play, basically a more vivid experience, and that in
itself is a good thing, but it doesnt do much necessarily. As I keep saying, though, this is a violent
society. People react to perceived threats and seize
upon solutions with a great deal of social and physical force. Crosses provide the opportunity to show
this happening, with the following two effects.
TRIPWIRES
76
Circle of Steel
AFTERMATH
Finish the session by describing the long-term consequences of the venture for the young king and Rolke.
By default, it turns out well. Even if the place was left
a smoking ruin, or even if all the Circle knights died
horribly, or even if the depraved Rbaja wizard was
left ruling supreme, the outcome still works out well
for the long-term arc of the halting, not-especiallydirected social changes that began with the cultural
revolution in Rolke.
Theres no need to justify or explain how that happens. Dont try to nail the long-term outcome down
either in its own details or as a direct consequence
of the events in the venture. You dont even have to
try to tie it all together with the results of hitting the
tripwire during play. At the very least, word of how
the members of the Circle did their best eventually
has some effect, and such things are culturally diffuse
and cant really be controlled or directly attributed to
single events. You can look at it as an arc of justice if
you like, for which even unlikely events such as massacres or disasters can rebound in positive ways.
77
Circle of Hands
The only way for this long-term effect not to happen
is for the Circle knights to hit all the tripwires during
a venture. In that case, well, it wasnt a good day for
the Circle or for the king, and whatever the longer
arc of Rolke and the Crescent Land may be, the aftermath of this venture would be one of the grimmer
moments of adversity for it.
Single-component ventures offer the interesting
combination of being less complex, but also of an
all-or-nothing tripwire in this effect.
You can see, I hope, that theres no real way for the
people playing the Circle knights to work toward
or against these outcomes. They dont know what
the tripwires are during the venture, so cant try to
avoid them. You cant really say the possible negative
outcome is all their fault, at least not in terms of
direct blame. The defeat is a more abstract, longterm, post-venture, non-play issue, about the venture
but not necessarily anything that happens in the
venture in play-terms, including the details of the
tripwire. Tying it to the tripwire(s) only serves as a
useful signal.
SOME THOUGHTS
FROM PLAYTESTING
Learning a game and teaching a game typically
happen at the same time, so all the textual verbiage in
the world like this chapter falls at the wayside when
people sit together with fixed tropes and procedures
in mind. Circle of Hands is its own thing, in play, and
assuming we know how to play a fantasy game or
BETWEEN VENTURES
Circle knights who survived a venture have a chance to improve their attributes. Choose a single attribute currently at 9 or less, and roll 2d6. If the result is higher than its current value, improve its value by 1. Regardless of
the result, no other attributes may be tested this way at this time.
NEW VENTURES
For the second venture and all thereafter, the GM briefly describes one of the components of the upcoming
venture and says what region its in. You pick any of the Circle knights you want excepting the one you played
last time. When you choose the new one, if he or she is not a wizard, you may trade out the spells as you like,
maintaining points equal to Wits, always both white and black.
Ventures can re-visit locations. If the people playing the Circle knights all want to go somewhere in a previous
venture, they can. The GM prepares as usual but if necessary, overrides the rolled location. Alternately the GM
may say, upon rolling, to say, Hey, this result would be perfect back at that location we played before, and to
override the rolled location in order to use the components at the preferred spot.
When revisiting a location, the GM should make up new named people associated with the component or components for this new venture. The named people the characters already know from the previous venture can
certainly still be there and still be played, but they arent associated with the preparation components.
78
Circle of Steel
NEW PLAYERS AND MISSING PLAYERS
LONG-TERM PLAY
from the king and his holdings, too, such that ventures set in Rolke still require a fair amount of travel.
Since there is no resulting arc of setting-level accomplishment from a string of ventures, the only real
payoff is internal in each one: moments of pure
character expression in action and at risk, ending in
triumph or disaster.
Achieving that result is enough for me, without a
larger arc to embed it in. Therefore play should end
primarily because everyone playing thinks that the
dramatic outcomes within ventures have hit a high
point, serving as an intrinsic climax.
BIGGER ISSUES
The larger story of the Crescent land over time, specifically the fate of Rolke, is not itself a play mechanic
or even an expected feature of play. Whatever that
saga is, yes, to the characters, the Circle is instrumental
in the outcome. But play and we as people dont make
it happen through our actions and ideas at the table,
i.e., not as a direct effect of the ventures we play.
79
Circle of Hands
A lot of playtesters were interested in getting a bigger perspective, broadening the scope, thinking about the larger
setting, and considering the resolution of the magical war. The trouble is, up-scaling our attention to these makes
the drama of an individual Circle knight smaller. Thats my main concern in practice. Im prioritizing emergent
story for individuals, much as the fictional development and personal fates of Batiatus or Gannicus or any other
important character in the recent Stars Spartacus series was the emergent story, not the fate of the slave rebellion.
Even a larger map is unknown. Im dealing with a Nordic-German Dark Ages analogue culture in a region which
combines the geography of the Levant and the Baltic, with the ecology of the northern California coast. Where in
the world is this? Near the equator, near a pole? What is that crescent bay, half of an inland sea or the coast of an
ocean? What isolates it from the surrounding areas, where are the trade routes of other human populations located?
What is this world? Is it a world, in the sense of a planet going around a star? Is it an other-dimensional Earth? Or
is it something completely different, like a ... dare I say, like a lozenge?
What are the overall weather patterns (into which the described seasons fit), how long is a year? In fact, whats the
whole sky like? Is the sun a sun? Is there a moon, like our moon, and does it do the same things, visually?
Is the magical war more broadly fought over continents, perhaps even globally?
I dont know and I dont want to know. To a great extent Im letting the regions isolation do the work for me staying close to the cultures limited knowledge level lets me play stupid about world-building, and for this games
character-centric focus, thats the way I like it. For example, the sun, moon, and stars of the Crescent Land are
either just as we know them, or so close that the peoples experience of them cant be distinguished from ours,
without explaining (or knowing) why.
Im thinking about the early presentation of Glorantha, which originally encompassed a pretty small area, with
implied more stuff out there, but with a lot of mythic and magic history concentrated in that small area. More
recently, the game Shadows of Esteren does a nice job of the same thing. The logic is, sure, there may be more of
the world, but whats happening here is powerful and moving, so lets stay right here.
Or maybe Im merely too close to it at present. Maybe Ill conceive of more world one day, or maybe someone
else will generate great ideas through play.
80
Circle of Steel
WHAT THE ATTRIBUTES DO
Brawn exerts physical force upon the world. Its primarily used for delivering damage and dealing with
injury, and hypothetically for some kind of strength
or lift action, although I never saw the latter in a
playtest.
Quickness is about reactivity of all kinds, both physical reflexes or alertness of attention. Its the primary
attribute for combat effectiveness. It does not refer to
raw speed, which is less important than the ability to
move quickly without falling down or forgetting that
somethings in the way.
Wits orients a person in difficult or vague circumstances, including geography, social dynamics, and
connections among known details. It does not refer
to memory capacity or education.
At all times, rolling with an attribute uses its current value, which is often reduced by injury or other
problems.
It is possible for a Circle knight to have one attribute
at 10, which given a 2d6 roll and a target of 12, seems
like automatic success. And in optimal circumstances,
it is, which is awesome, dont get me wrong. However,
the aforementioned reduction is still a possibility, as
is rolling with a single die under many circumstances.
HELPING
NOTICING
PROFESSIONS RULES
81
Circle of Hands
Keep other exceptions extremely rare. Exceptions
would be the most basic unskilled human actions,
which require a roll only under very adverse conditions, and in which case the relevant attribute score
may be used. In my playtesting, no such roll has yet
been employed.
Circle of Steel
CHARM IS EVERYTHING
At the community level, a stranger is afforded nearneutral hospitality for a reasonable time on the
conditions that he or she pitches in with community
work, behaves in a reassuring social rank-specific way,
and eventually moves the hell on down the road. It
may be taken as given that when the Circle knights
arrive and if no one simply starts killing people or
zapping spells from the first minute, theyll be made
welcome by the various social and professional
groupings in the admittedly taciturn, grim, practical
way of the Crescent Land.
The named people in the venture are more opinionated. To them, these newcomers must stay or leave,
help or be squelched, fight for them or get killed, or
82
Wits rolls are going to be a potential problem for players and GMs who are used to a trail of bread-crumb
clues in their games.
Fortunately, a lot of things are perceived without Wits
rolls, simply through social rank and profession. If
theres a village in the mountains and everyone has
iron heads on their spears, then you dont need to use
Wits to find the smith, or to find that hes a couple
of villages away. The GM does well to throw tons of
this kind of information at the players so they can feel
secure that their characters soak up a lot of information simply through their own life-experience and
membership in the culture.
Wits rolls most concrete applications are to get familiar with locations and to pick up quickly on intimate
social ties like kin and romance. To keep this from
getting confusing, reserve these rolls for proactive
analyses of whats just been said during play.
A couple of people interact in some way which
implies a relationship, and a player calls for a
Wits roll to see if his or her Circle knight gets a
social-emotional insight into what it might be.
A local person walks the knights through a
confusing system of gorges and gullies to get to
a lake, and a player calls for a Wits roll to see if
his or her Circle knight stays oriented during
the traverse.
These rolls are also good for helping shape ascensions of NPCs. Use a Wits roll to find someone whos
good at midwifery, or an old person, or whatever, even just the guy who makes wagon-wheels and
knows how to fix or make shields all of those are
key to seeing lots more named NPCs appear who are
not standoffish toward your character, and the Wits
rolls pave the way.
83
Circle of Hands
They are not, however, not lie-detectors, clue-finders,
or a tool to work your way through the story. The
positive side of that is that a failed roll is not a block or
stall-out. Its consequential because a character might
not get out of the single-die hole for particular things,
or because the worst features of a dangerous location
might descend upon him or her, or because the social
environment of the venture changes. As with Charm
rolls, rolling vs. Wits usually establishes context for
quite a bit of later resolution.
84
Circle of Steel
People of Tamaryon generally understand avatars and eidolons better than in other regions, to
the extent of organizing socially against them,
but also succumbing to them all the harder.
ASCENDING INDIVIDUALS
or otherwise known only in terms of group membership, Whats your name? When this happens, grab
a name from the list in Chapter 3.
Other slightly subtler bits of play always do it too:
A Circle knight might seek an individual
implied by previous activity: I go find that guy
we talked to earlier, or similarly, the GM might
do the same: Its the same guy you talked to
earlier. Doing this requires a Wits vs. 12 roll.
A Circle knight seek an individual previously
unknown, but reasonably inferred to be in a
current group: Send me your toughest man!
or I look for one of the scholars who seems like
he knows what hes doing, or Which guy looks
like he might be in charge? Doing this requires
a Wits vs. 12 roll.
Some spells automatically ascend unnamed
characters theyre cast upon, as indicated in the
spell descriptions in Chapter 6.
An ascended person has Brawn, Quickness, Wits,
and Charm of 4 each by default, and the GM has the
option to rearrange this total in any way that seems
suitable for whatevers been established about him or
her so far. He or she also has the relevant professions
and social rank as established already in play, with no
need to adjust them to the limits of character creation
in Chapter 3.
All of the rules concerning Charm rolls apply to justascended people; nothing about ascending someone
establishes a relationship that supercedes the Charm
vs. 12 roll. Ascending unnamed characters but following up with failed Charm rolls essentially means the
Circle knight is going around irritating the hell out
of people.
85
Circle of Hands
The example character in Chapter 3, Krimhilde,
doesnt encounter any problem at all, as she is obvious
gentry. Even for non-gentry women knights, the social
semiotics of their arms and armor are actually in
their favor: no one says, Why is the silly little woman
wearing armor, they say instead, accurately, Oh shit,
that woman must know exactly what shes doing.
A local community in the Crescent land is tied together tightly by kin, economic necessity, and shared
history, much of it violent. Therefore sexual activity
is a big deal; everyone cares about whos doing what
Whether the experience is to include this
with whom. As outsiders, Circle knights actions are
content, which should model the best literary
under scrutiny and judgment. They are plot-armored
and cinematic examples rather than gore-porn,
regarding romantic commitment and pregnancy, such
misery porn, or exploitation.
that players can choose what happens either way. A
If present, the degree of explicit presence in
Circle knight could well end up married during or
the imagined material is its own variable to be
following an venture, for example. The events leadjudged by anyone and everyone playing.
ing up to it, though, may well incur individual and
There is no right answer,
community responses which
because its a specific issue for
would have been a big part of
the venture.
A local community in the the table. A flat no to the first
Crescent land is tied togeth- is just as good a way to play
Rape is a reality of the Crescent
this game as any other. And be
er tightly by kin, economic
Land in the range of 10-15%
careful: there are bad ways to
necessity, and shared history,
of women, somewhat less for
include it, and its presence in
much of it violent.
men. In a war-raid or other
the backdrop isnt license for
circumstances of social and
crossing Lines in scenes.
physical disempowerment, some of the men commit
rape, toward men and women, sometimes horrifiRELIGION
cally, sometimes including murder. This culture has
Community religious practice is always an effective
no over-arching rule of law: in those times and places
venue for organizing and political power, and a lot of
when raw force is the prevailing power, then rape is
individual and group actions may take on the local
both available and unaccountable. It fits right into the
religious vocabulary. Priests, when present, prompt
use of cruelty and intimidation as social order.
even more social action than gentry or other more
overtly-powerful people, because their opinions
The result is not a rape is OK culture, far from it. Its
spread invisibly through groups. Since interacting
a constant fear, not an accepted norm most people
with them is subject to Charm rolls just like everyone
hate it at a knowledgeable, visceral level. That means
else, screwing that up carries its own special problems.
that unaccountable, above, can be overcome. Any
degree of social support for the targeted persons
Aside from basic issues of scarcity or violence, the
can prompt both prevention and retaliation. Group
main thing religious feeling will be directed toward is
action may well ensue, and not even gentry status
the open use of magic. Doctrinally, the religion of the
helps against that. Even the most powerful person,
Crescent Land is opposed to it, but people dont really
who counters group retaliation with group action of
practice doctrine so much as adopt its terms to their
his or her own, can expect a knife in the dark sooner
own daily use. The general populace of the Crescent
or later.
Land isnt well-informed about Circle knights use of
both types of magic, and religious views toward magic
Circle knights are plot-armored against rape; it does
are locally various enough to prevent a consistent
not happen to them for whatever in-fiction justificaresponse to it. Most people are scared of magic, but
tion may be imposed. My reasoning is that the game
theyre going to be pretty pragmatic about judging its
revolves around morally murky problems for the
use to be good or bad.
knights, and that rape directed toward them would
86
Circle of Steel
ALL SORTS OF ADVERSITY
GROUPS AND SCALE
GETTING LOST
87
Circle of Hands
Cone helm, mail, and most weapons: tend after
a fight, or negate the advantage die in further use
Steel arms and spangenhelm are effectively
invulnerable as long as they receive routine
care, which doesnt have to be role-played, and
as long as they are not targeted by magic such
as the Ruin spell.
88
ANIMALS
Circle of Steel
they seek to escape and will strike fiercely to do
it.
Snakes are treated as domestic pets in Spurr,
and they are similar to cats in the Crescent
Land: they just do their own thing around the
place and avoid anything unfamiliar, becoming
dangerous only if cornered or restrained.
Animals ascend to beast status as soon as they have a
roll directed at them individually which differs from
ordinary domestic practice (see Chapter 7).
A priest is expected to manage others use judiciously, and those who dont, as well as those
who themselves display the signs of over-use and
addiction, tend to lose reputation rapidly. One
factor that keeps these problems rare is that the
stuff is not especially common and is not distributed
in an organized way.
89
Circle of Hands
If a person indulges in the red podes unique
listening ability, then he or she rolls Wits vs.
12, for which failure means addiction; this roll
is repeated with each experience. A pode addict
experiences no long-term mechanical effects
but see the description in Chapter 7 for certain
other considerations.
TORTURE
The main killer is infection of injuries by environmental bacteria. The people know nothing of
disinfection or sterile technique, and a person with
an infected wound either survives, perhaps with
a permanently-disabled limb, or dies of gangrene.
Almost all puncture wounds into a body cavity are
fatal. This is one of the primary reasons influences
from Amboriyon get welcomed into communities.
90
Circle of Steel
DIRECT CONTACT WITH
AMBORIYON AND RBAJA
91
Circle of Hands
Each time a person makes use of any of these, he or she must make a Wits vs. 12 roll or simply disappear into the
clouds or the murk, permanently. The number of relevant Marks act as a penalty to Wits, and for this roll, this
number is not offset by Marks of the other color.
Circle knights must find ways to destroy zones if they can, more generally, to force a withdrawal of the Rbaja or
Amboriyon presence entirely. Ordinary magic doesnt work obviously toward these ends, for example casting
Distort or Wrath toward the other colors manifestation. Zones do not cancel out or balance, merely accelerating
each ones subornment of reality for each, and each gaining part of the territory in question. A variety of ways
remain to be discovered as the Circle gains knowledge and experiments with different ideas, which is left to
individual groups to develop in play.
Chapter
REALISM
I can tell you exactly what I mean by this term. Realism isnt what the mechanics do, but what you say
when you turn the mechanics into fictional narration.
illing
92
5K
93
Killing
Heres a minor bit of advice based on playtesting: the scene-setting, non-player-character playing person doesnt
have to be the rules-savvy, procedural, and in this case weapon-geeky person too. Its quite liberating to take on
one of those roles without the other, and if two people do this at the table, everyone benefits greatly from both.
SETTING IT UP
POSITIONING
Get this known snapshot into place without yacking and adjusting, and then the procedure gives you
all the time and opportunity you need for any such
actions.
When two or more named characters all want to act at once, which certainly includes fights, begin with a communal announcement of what every character is just beginning to do, right at this moment. The best way to
think of it is that in the fiction, its all going to happen simultaneously, not in a string of stop-motion actions, and
therefore every character is launching at once. None of the characters are acting yet; its about intention rather
than narration. So people can announce in any order regardless of the characters relative speeds. Even if what you
describe is responding to what someone else is doing, thats fine the dice will let know you how well that goes.
Then the action kicks in hard. The initial
sequence for when the actions land is set by
current Quickness. If you see a Quickness tie,
roll a black die for one character and a white
die for the other, re-rolling ties until different
results occur, and the higher value goes first.
12:00
3:00
Tokens
for each
character
94
this fight or re-set the order in any way except for the
above bullet points. There are no rounds or units of
time or action above the level of individual actions.
Play continues by seeing whos at 3:00, then wrapping
that token around to the end, and thats all.
A, B, and C are fighting D, E, and F. Here are the
announcements: A attacks D with a spell, B attacks
F with a spear, C attacks D with an axe, D is doing
something else requiring a vs. 12 roll, E attacks A
with a spear, and F attacks B with a spear.
Lets say their Quickness values follow the alphabetical sequence, with A being fastest.
D
C
12:00
Its really not much different from the textual damage-tables method as long as you have a strong idea of what such
a table, perfectly designed, would tell you under such-and-such conditions.
3:00
D
C
12:00
Circle of Hands
3:00
95
Circle of Hands
The above text assumes that all the characters survive
their various travails to perform their stated actions.
If D had been vaporized by As spell, he wouldnt have
been pulled into Cs clash. If D had been hurt in the
clash with C, then he would have gone to the back of
the order behind C. If F had injured B during their
clash, then B and F would still have wrapped to the
back of the order, but first F and then B.
INSIDE CLASHES
To review for a second, a clash occurs when a character attacks another with a weapon. The attacked
person is in the clash too, pulled in.
Each player rolls 2d6, black and white, and uses the
sum twice, once for offensive and once for defense.
The characters Quickness is added independently
to each, and the resulting offense and defense totals
are matched against the other characters defense and
offense, respectively.
96
COMMITMENT
THE ADVANTAGE
Killing
The GM says who gets the advantage based on the
following criteria, in order of importance (highest to
lowest):
Someone just took a bad hit, like shieldedge to the face, or an unexpected francisca
thrown at his or her back, or is otherwise
physically inconvenienced, as evidenced
by a failed Quickness roll when trying to do
something. This is a good way not to have the
advantage.
You chased down the other guy on the road, and you
have the great-axe and he has the knife, so you were
assigned the advantage die in the opening clash. But
he tries a desperate tackle-and-stab on you, his roll
is amazing, but yours stinks even on three dice, so it
works. This clash is resolved with its damage, if any.
In the next clash, now you two are wrestling in the
mud, and he has the advantage, because there is no
way that great-axe is doing you a lick of good now.
So, you want to pull out your knife. Good enough
you have a Quickness vs. 12 roll to make on your
action (and if his action gets in there beforehand,
youll want to go double-Quickness on defense). If
you do, then on the next clash, the GM yet again, as
required, re-assesses the situation from scratch.
In a thrashing in the mud with knives situation, its
likely to matter most whos pulled whom into that
next clash, so if its not you, I suggest spending the
Brawn to make it that way.
All sorts of rolls vs. 12 can be played similarly to the
above example.
Youre caught in unfamiliar terrain, which the GM
considers to be making the key difference in the fight.
Do you have a profession thats relevant to this terrain? Then stay defensive in the clashes if you cant
avoid them, and go for a Wits vs. 12 roll to get oriented, which means subsequent advantages can be
determined by other criteria.
Surprises and reversals matter in the same way.
Lets say youre fighting a guy with a chained mace
who according to the GM has the advantage for
some aspect of the situation (could be anything,
dont argue). Youre scooting around on the defensive
while that terrible thing is rattling your head in its
helm, and wham! Your buddys thrown francisca
nails the son of a bitch from over there somewhere.
On the next clash, the GM says to himself, Look this
guy just took a freaking axe hit from an unexpected
direction that has to have wrecked his rhythm,
plus hes hurt, and in that guys next clash, probably
with you, assigns his opponent again, you the
advantage die now. Remember to thank your friend.
I know you want a huge matrix showing exactly
which weapon gets an advantage over another, per
terrain type. This is not that game either. In your
game, I am not the GM. I have harsh words for the
person who is. Ready?
The book wont do it for you, it is not a person and
all it will say is, you do it. Ive provided quite a lot of
food for thought about the weapons and fighting in
the setting. There are also a few, a very few mechanics
97
Circle of Hands
associated with some of the weapons, listed in a brief
table. After that ... its up to you. Thats the GMs job.
You know the characters and the immediate terrain
and circumstances of their violent encounter. You
know the actions completed until now, the stated
intentions, and the current action at 3:00 to nail down
what everyone is doing, exactly, at every moment. So
with each and every clash, you go down that list and
choose the key detail which seems to you to assign the
advantage die.
Dont amass a huge list of minor advantages and
disadvantages per character. Instead, look at the situation and decide what single feature matters the most,
and to which character the advantage therefore falls.
MULTIPLE PARTICIPANTS
98
only difference being, instead of adding 3 per combatant, add 6 if anyone in there is using a knife. Yes, your
knife is just as dangerous to you as to anyone else in
a scrum.
Do not shoot arrows or bolts into a scrum unless you
dislike everyone in it. If this happens, then assign a different number on a single die to each person in it, then
roll the die and that person is hit, taking 6 Damage.
Four people are in a scrum, all assholes and elbows,
as my dad used to say, and a person with a crossbow
shoots into the mix. The potential targets, which is
to say all of them, are each assigned a value, 1, 2, 3,
or 4. The GM rolls a die, resulting in a 2, and that
person takes the bolt. If the result were 5 or 6 then no
one would have been hit.
Dont forget that a bolt ignores mail and gambeson,
and that shields dont apply to a scrum situation.
When a character is confronted by four or more
people who genuinely want to hurt him or her, shift
to the rules for fighting groups.
Killing
Another action of this sort is fleeing the whole fight, which is often perfectly reasonable. If youre in a clash, then
youll have to get out of that first. Assuming youre not in a clash, then then getting out of the immediate range
of anything else is an action of its own. If the immediate terrain poses trouble for you, for example if youre in a
forest and lack the Outdoorsman profession, then you must make a Wits vs. 12 roll using a single die. If you have
a relevant profession, or if the circumstances offer no particular adversity, then getting away entirely is merely a
matter of saying so when you get to 3:00.
If youre attacking at range, aiming at someone who is not able to strike back, and no ones attacking you right
now, then the action becomes a simple Quickness vs. 12 roll. Turkey shoot!
However, if your archer or weapon-thrower is targeted by another character, in any way, he or she is pulled into
a clash at the attackers turn.
You could give up the intended shot entirely and merely alter the intended bowshot (or thrown axe or whatever)
to target the attacker in the clash. A clash can be at range just as easily as in melee, if the weapons permit. So this
clash might be arrow-on-arrow, or arrow-on-charging sword strike.
Or if you really want to keep the original target, then you could throw your split into full defense to get through
this clash and take the intended shot when you get to 3:00.
Remember that stating intent lets everyone know youre about to shoot an arrow, so you can expect to people to
try to pull you into a clash before you let go of the bowstring if at all possible. If you dont want to risk a series of
fully-defensive splits, then spend Brawn to go to 3:00 right away.
THE KILLING
Against unnamed characters and groups, no further rules are needed for injury and death. The following rules
apply to named characters, beasts, and monsters.
INJURY
99
Circle of Hands
If she had been armored only with her helm, then it
would have stopped 3 points for a total of 6 Damage
received, divided into 3 Brawn and 3 Quickness,
reducing her to Brawn 4 and Quickness 3.
If either Brawn or Quickness is brought to 0, but the
other is positive, then the character is visibly fatigued
and battered, and if his or her Quickness is above 0,
must split either 0/all or all/0.
It so happens that Krimhildes opponent in the
clash was not as heavily armored, and his or her
protection stopped only 4 of the 9 received, so the
opponents Brawn and Quickness were reduced by 2
and 3 respectively.
And then it so happens that the francisca I mentioned earlier hits the opponent between the shoulder
blades, doing enough Damage to reduce his or her
Quickness to 0, although Brawn remains at 1.
Krimhilde comes up at 3:00 as the opponent was
shifted to the end of the order by the blow, and she
now has the advantage, and the opponent doesnt
even have any Quickness to commit with, protected
only with the naked 2d6 roll. Krimhilde reasonably
commits 12/0 for what will almost certainly be a
gruesomely fatal blow.
NARRATION AND
THE EXTENT OF DAMAGE
Heres that realism in action.
Killing
ARMOR
Damage Stopped
Limitations
Gambeson
-1
-3
Cone Helm
1 vs. flail
-1
Spangenhelm
1 vs. flail
-2
-2
100
101
Circle of Hands
WEARING ARMOR
Mail is a highly specialized garment. It does not impede combat motions, as that would defeat the purpose,
but it does make any other activity more annoying as shown in the table, and its too heavy to wear in any other
circumstances. One does not ride around in ones mail, but keeps it in the pack-horses luggage and pulls it on
in the knowledge of upcoming combat. For surprises, too bad grab your shield and go, just like everyone else.
This isnt like most fantasy role-playing situations. In circumstances of play that are not explicit preparations for
armed violence, the characters are presumed not to be wearing their mail. Its not difficult to put on, but it is a bit
unwieldy and typically people help one another do it, if they have the opportunity. Remember: having gone to
the effort to put it on is a serious social statement: that you intend to kill someone, right now.
John Willson asked about an intermediate situation, which arose in playtesting: the Circle knights were searching
for outlawed bandits through wild territory all day, likely to find a fight at some point, and some of them chose to
wear full armor. In this case, if and when a fight occurs, then accumulated fatigue and physical aggravation factor
into the advantage within clashes. Plenty of factors feed into advantage too in this case, most obviously possible
ambush by either side, but the downside of wearing armor that long would definitely be one of them.
102
Killing
This isnt investigation. Its merely ordinary life
and actions. If your character has been in the barn
before and looked it over with farmer or low-martial
eyes, then everything I just said about the turf doesnt
apply a bit, and you have two dice, not one. That even
works if he or she had been in any of the local barns,
not necessarily this specific one.
In the moment is the worse case, because bluntly,
doing this is either unlucky if you had no choice, or
simply stupid.
You can improve things by doing something which, if
successful, negates the advantage pretty well.
Attacking successfully will do the job. Lets say
your character is fighting two guys in there. By
hook or crook and luck, you kill one of them with
just your single die, so from that point forward
you can get two dice. Imagine it in pure fictional
terms and I think you can see how that would be.
If you have a relevant profession, e.g. farmer in
this case, then a successful Wits vs. 12 roll will
similarly orient him or her enough to use two
dice for fighting from that point forward.
More specific actions can play a similar role in
the fight, far too many to list and all highly situational. Off the top of my head, if your character
has a profession relevant to horses like Martial
(high) or Outdoorsman, and if theres a horse
or two in the barn, then he or she might hide
among them to strike from ambush, or spook
them to confuse and endanger the foes.
The other way to improve things is simply to cheat,
with magic, magic, and magic.
Various spells have direct effects, especially
against unnamed characters Blast, for instance,
simply vaporizes one of them, and you can bet
youll have both your dice for fighting after that.
Others are less drastic, providing extra dice like
Bless or Stimulant, or providing abilities that will
restore you to two dice in these circumstances
like Perfection or Cat.
Still others are even more drastic and can obliterate the lot of them, like Erupt or Wrath.
How about when you have a combination of named
and unnamed characters in a group? In this case,
fighting the unnamed characters is resolved right
before the Circle knight at 3:00, i.e., when he or she
gets there, theyre always there first, and you cant
spend B to jump ahead of them.
GROUPS
103
Circle of Hands
Killing
One of the unpleasant things about being killed by a mob is that its not fast. However, at least it does provide plenty
of time for the above tactics. They kill you before you can try anything isnt an issue. The GM only says Fine, they
kill you if youre stupid enough simply to try to fight them as if they were an individual.
TOOLS OF VIOLENCE
UNARMED COMBAT
The game mechanics do not distinguish among striking, grappling, shoving, throwing, choking, and all
that stuff. The only mechanics feature is that damage
is accumulated normally, but being brought to Brawn
0 and Quickness 0 does not kill a person, but renders
them helpless. Such damage is healed exactly as an
injury.
Therefore, beating someone to death is an extremely
deliberate act. First you render them helpless and possibly in complete surrender, then you deliver enough
damage to do it all over again. For this second phase,
use the victims (no longer opponents) original B and
Q, but only as banks to compare with the inflicted
Damage. The victim has no points to allocate to
defense, so the mechanics lead to immense Damage.
This is how you kill someone with an elbow strike,
as requested by Keith Senkowski. It begins with any
kind of roughing-up, enough to reduce the person
to Brawn and Quickness of 0. The narration of the
Mechanics
Knife
Francisca
WEAPONS
Advantage suggestions
+1 defense in a clash
Sword
+1 point in a clash
Spear
Thrown, mounted
charge ignore mail
Reach
Flail
Ignore shields
Option to entangle
Great Axe
Shield Slash
+6 Damage not +B
Crossbow
104
Damage exceeds
shield armor value
+1 Damage in a clash
Short Bow
Damage is fully
stopped by armor
+1 Damage in a clash
Shield Strike
Thrown
Staff
The knife is a tool for eating and for small, daily tasks.
Its considered part of ones clothes much as modern
people think of their shoes. Its not very sturdy and only
sharp enough to be useful and therefore dangerous. It
varies a lot in length, but is typically about eight inches
because thats easiest to make. At its most weapon-like,
its over a foot long, similar to the Nordic sax. This form
is used mainly by raiders from Spurr, who prefer it as a
combined tool and weapon aboard ship. The Crescent
Land culture includes no daggers, poniards, dirks,
misericordes, or specialized throwing knives.
Breaking
INCIDENTAL WEAPONS
Fleeing targets
Jams see text
105
Circle of Hands
tained contact damages the tissue badly, but a person
does not go up in flame when struck by a torch or
upon falling into a campfire. Living people and beasts
receive only Quickness damage from a flame attack,
although if permanent injury is sustained (by Quickness reaching 0), it can be quite terrible. Undead
flesh is no different and also sustains no injury at all
because such a creature feels no pain. Animals are
sometimes afraid of fire but if you hit them with it,
they respond with murderous panic, so the whole
heroic imagery of holding off wolves with torches
doesnt apply too well.
FOR-KILLING WEAPONS
Killing
The shield is a melee weapon. It can deliver a reinforced shoulder-strike to take a foe off his feet, or
slash with the edge neither of which delivers mere
unarmed stun damage, either. These strikes are both
excellent means to make sure the foe does not have
the advantage for his or her next action. So is successfully all-out defending using a shield because there
really isnt any such thing as a mere block with it;
when you use it skillfully enough to protect yourself
that well, by definition youre wrecking the other
persons balance and momentum. Its also useful
for teamwork, in the right circumstances, for the
shield-wall tactic.
106
The chained mace, or flail, needs some special attention. You dont spin it like helicopter blades. Its held
with the chains dangling down, swinging back and
forth, and used like a handled whip, usually sidearm.
Therefore the haft is a bit short, the chains are pretty
long. Its a shield-weapon, saving overhand strikes
for the moment after feeding a foe the shield-edge or
taking him or her off-balance with a flat-on strike, so
never mind parrying. Its not about beaning people
with the heads at all, nor about penetrating armor
instead, its about whipping with the chains, which
doesnt miss and fucking hurts, rattling heads inside
their helms, ruining technique with other weapons,
or setting up for someone with a spear to nail the guy.
Thats why the heads are relatively small and blunt,
sometimes merely slightly-heavier rings, solely to
increase the chains momentum.
MOUNTED COMBAT
107
Circle of Hands
the horse may hurt a couple badly with bites and
kicks, but its going down eventually.
So you can see that all of this is hard on the horses,
who arent animal-friends or comrades in arms,
but rather more throwaway tech, like shields. In a
big battle, pound for pound, horsemen are welladvantaged against footmen, but such fighting will
certainly litter the ground with still-kicking, screaming animals with broken legs, or with three or four
spears transfixing their bellies. In smaller-scale
engagements, which way it goes depends very much
upon individual decisions and luck in the moment.
RANGED WEAPONS
108
Killing
SOME THINGS WHICH DO NOT HAPPEN
Weapons cannot be poisoned.
As described above, people cant be set on fire by hitting them with a torch.
You cannot kill a person by grabbing their head and snapping their neck. The closest equivalent requires forcing
submission first as per the unarmed damage rules.
Fighting is a bad proposition all around. Not only is some other person trying to kill you, terrible accidents happen
all the time.
When both characters in an armed clash roll doubles, apply the following interesting things to both characters
as they apply:
Whoever succeeded in delivering Damage, stopped by armor or not, also sees his or her weapon break,
unless its constructed of steel (a sword or some great-axes).
Whoever was protected from Damage, in whole or in part, sees the relevant armor or shield break, unless
its constructed of steel (a Spangenhelm).
If unarmed Damage is delivered, then it is resolved as if it came from a lethal weapon.
If an attribute roll was involved, whether successful or failed, then the relevant tool or a crucial item of
clothing is ruined (a boot or shoe is always a good choice).
In practice, its no big deal to forget to apply these rules considering everything else thats going on, especially while
playing for the first time. But once you get used to the general procedures, start looking for the simultaneous doubles.
Fights with unnamed characters are considered mishap-free, or rather, mishaps are merely folded into narrations
for failed rolls.
109
Circle of Hands
DEATH
When a blow takes both scores down to 0 at once, the person playing the attacker has the option to state that the
effect is instantly or near-instantly lethal.
When a character is reduced to 0 Brawn and 0 Quickness, but not simultaneously, he or she is immobilized
through shock, stun, and fatigue. Clinical death happens later, and in this culture, once taken this far on that path,
theres typically no coming back, unless one receives help right away or is aided by magic.
One source of such help is the support staff associated with the knights during a venture. They arent a crack
medic squad who teleport where theyre needed, but if its at all plausible that they can get to a stricken knight
and get them out of immediate danger, then they will.
In either case, if the character does not die, then see the above rules regarding maiming.
WRAITHS
A Circle knight who is killed during an adventure becomes a wraith, a unique status for Circle knights due to their
command of both colors of magic. A wraith is not technically undead and has full mental faculties and volition
of the person when alive, rather than
the warped and color-specific caricatures produced by ordinary magic. The
character continues to participate in the
adventure, until it is finished, at which
point the character is gone forever.
A wraith is present in any played scene,
which permits a kind of scene not
otherwise observed in this game, with
no living player-characters present.
A wraith cannot take ordinary physical action, but it is not helpless at all.
Unmanifested, it can only be detected
by magic senses. It can manifest visibly
to anyone and in that form it can speak
to other Circle knights. It cannot be
affected by physical means, but can be
targeted as a person by magic.
6G
ray
Magic
METAPHYSICS
There is no out-of-game access to the principles of
Rbaja and Amboriyon. They cannot be said to want
something, or even to be about anything. In-game,
the various priests, wizards, and scholars of the Crescent Land offer a thousand and one explanations
Black magic is deadly because under its influence life multiplies uncontrollably. Rbaja is the magic of fertility and
fecundity. The swamp hisses with life. The darkness contains all color but releases none, it absorbs all light and all
warmth. Of course bodies rise from the grave. Under the influence of Rbaja, a body needs no animating soul, the wriggling flesh dances on its own. What is else is disease but an abundance of life?
White magic is attractive to humans who are horrified by the messiness of life, of sickness and bloody violence. It
offers freedom from all filth, even the dirt in ones own thoughts. A beloved child slain by disease, a husband stabbed
in the dark, or a wife who died in childbirth all are victims of the seething griminess of life. Amboriyon offers a pure
unsullied, memory of them. There are, in our world, companies who will for a fee, take the ashes of a deceased pet or
loved one and forge them into artificial gems. Amboriyon can turn any one of us into diamonds if we wish.
Black magic fills the void brought on by scarcity, loneliness, and loss of another kind. Why preserve the memory of
the dead when you could have them back, after a fashion. Why lie cold and alone when demon dolls willingly warm
your bed? Why starve when you can sustain yourself on blood? Why should any forego the blessing of conception?
The power of Rbaja, can make any one of us into a garden, albeit unweeded, and possessed by things rank and vile.
110
Chapter
Thats one way to look at it. In the Crescent Land, perhaps some hash-buoyed discussion at a religious ritual has
mused over such things. One participant might have gone further to suggest that Amboriyon and Rbaja are not
manifestations of life and death as we experience them, but idealizations, abstract and pure, which distort and
magnify the ordinary versions of these things, ultimately to the point of removing them from existence.
111
Circle of Hands
COLOR POINTS
On the character
sheet is a row of nine
Gethyn Edwards
entries, labeled Rbaja
arrived at the most
and Amboriyon at its
usable graphic for this.
two ends. When your
character uses magic during play, you draw in little
circles in these positions, to indicate the color points
the character has gained by using magic. The circles
starting at Rbaja should be filled in, and the ones
starting at Amboriyon should be open.
112
Gray Magic
and then,
A Circle knight can use magic judiciously to avoid filling up the chart with a single color, remaining free
of Gifts and Marks. Alternately, he or she may gain
Gifts of both colors to minimize the effects of Marks.
Or such are the ideals of the Circle, anyway. No one
has tried it before.
aJ
113
Circle of Hands
Rbaja
aA
114
Gray Magic
OATHS
A Circle knight or a named person may swear one oath per venture. Beasts, monsters, and creatures of Rbaja or
Amboriyon cannot swear oaths.
Hearing an oath sworn is unmistakable. It cannot be faked or concealed. The persons voice doubles or triples in
volume and crackles with metaphysical force, reverberating with strange harmonies for Amboriyon or backed
with cosmic screams for Rbaja. It even transcends the medium of voice; no ordinary means of preventing speech
suffices to stop an oath from being sworn.
PHRASING
Rbaja
Inflicting pain upon a living person or beast
The destruction of an object or a physical
location
The destruction of an avatar or an eidolon
The raising of a currently living person or
beast as undead
Amboriyon
The restoration to true death of an undead
The protection of a person or beast against a
specific attacker
The preservation of an object or a physical
location from a specific threat
The destruction of a demon
The oath phrase may include a how or when
phrase of some kind, but this part is not binding. One
might say with this blade! but if you end up killing
the thing with a pickaxe, the oath is all right with that.
The oath phrase finishes with a designated, specific
target, e.g., a given person or group, not a man or
whoever did this.
Krimhilde is fighting a ghoul, and swears a white
oath: I will slay this foul ghoul! Saying These
three ghouls! could also work. It could not have
been a ghoul or any ghoul or an undead thing.
The means of fulfilling an oath are not pre-set, being
instead completely open to the needs of the moment.
An oaths color implies or requires nothing about
values, social mores, or decency of any sort. Note
that killing a living being is not a valid object for an
oath, because that it is perfectly suitable as part of the
means for any oath.
Most wizards, not in the Circle, believe that oaths
OATH MECHANICS
115
Circle of Hands
What actions qualify for relevance? Literally trying to do it obviously counts. And doing something antithetical or
refusing to try obviously doesnt. But everything else is an edge case, such as trying to break out of confinement far
away from the object of ones oath. In the interest of avoiding tedious negotiation during play, the rule is simply to
apply the oath bonus when the player wants it, as long as the action is not literally contradicting the oath.
Krimhilde gets the oath bonus as long as shes fighting the ghoul; thats easy. If the fight were cut short for some
reason, and events landed her in some scuffle or interaction far away from the ghoul, she would still receive the oath
bonus at the players option for whatever actions were going on. The only situations in which she would not receive
the bonus would include fleeing from a fight with the ghoul or trying to make friends with it anything absolutely
antithetical to destroying it.
The resulting value on that die also provides the same number of Color Points of the appropriate color to the
characters chart.
The oath die showed 4 in Krimhildes roll, so she marks four color points for Amboriyon on her chart.
To end the oath during the venture, either fulfill it or formally renounce it. Unfulfilled oaths remaining at the
ventures end do not carry to the characters next appearance, but impose both a Mark of the appropriate color
and permanent -1 to an attribute of the players choice.
WIZARDS
LEARNING MAGIC
WIZARDS SENSES
116
Gray Magic
THE CIRCLE
117
Circle of Hands
SPELLCASTING
THE BASICS
118
Gray Magic
attention recognizes both of those things immediately due to the actions involved, explicitly described
or not. A wizard also absolutely and instantly knows
what spell it is, even if he or she is not observing
directly with ordinary senses.
SPELLCASTING RESOLUTION
SUMMONED CREATURES
119
Circle of Hands
PUMPING
OPPOSITIONAL SPELLS
Gray Magic
SPELL LIST
UNNAMED CHARACTERS
Unnamed characters are often affected more extremely by spells, as described for the relevant spells. For
example, Blast injures a named character according
to the results of a dice roll, but simply obliterates an
unnamed character.
Amboriyon
Amboriyon
Instant
Beacon, Healing, Master, Repair,
Waft
Instant
Absorb, See, Soothe, Purge, Purify,
Dazzle, Forward
Prolonged
Blade, Blank, Glow, Perfection,
Haze, Step, Stop
Instant + Ritual
Cure
Creation
Beast 1, Ward
Prolonged
Shining, Counter, Glamor, Grow,
Vine
Prolonged + Ritual
Bless, White Light
Creation
Avatar, Beast 2
Amboriyon
Instant
Restore, Wrath
Prolonged
Righteousness, Sink, Spirit, Statue,
Throng
Prolonged + Ritual
Calm, Link, Preserve
Creation + Ritual
Eidolon
Creation + Ritual
Store
Rbaja
Rbaja
Instant
Confuse, Contort, Noxify, Palsy,
Web
Instant
Blast, Fake, Infect, Reflect, Ruin,
Scar, Warp
Prolonged
Black Speech, Drugges Envenom,
Itch, Seem
Prolonged
Berserk, Curse, Dominate, Flesh,
Hate, Stimulant, Trailtwister
Creation
Cloud, Walk
Creation
Demon 2
Creation + Ritual
Demon 1
Rbaja
Instant
Die, Rip, Sacrifice
Instant + Ritual
Erupt, Pox
Prolonged
Pain, Rage, Suck
Prolonged + Ritual
Puppet, Storm
Creation
Demon 3
Creation + Ritual
Distort, Lich
120
121
Circle of Hands
Gray Magic
Perfection
Amboriyon
Balm
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: One beast, monster, or person
Effect: The targets Brawn and Quickness are both
restored by 3. An attribute may only be restored to
its original level with this spell, not increased above
its base level. Balm only affects physical injury, not
Brawn lost to spellcasting. If it is cast upon oneself,
the Brawn spent to cast it offsets the gain to Brawn.
Unnamed characters: The target receives complete
healing of injury, but not restoration of maimed or
missing body parts.
Variants/options: A single additional die may be
rolled by pumping 1 Brawn, but no more.
Beacon
Beast 1
Duration: Creation, Ritual: No
Effect: A 1-point beast of the casters choice appears
(see Beasts). It obeys the summoners commands until
its Brawn or Quickness is reduced to 0 or below, after
which it can be forced to obey with a Charm vs. 12 roll.
Variants/options:
Hawk: Brawn 3, Quickness 6, flight
Blade
Duration: Creation, Ritual: No
Target: One person
Effect: An ordinary sword is safely created in the
persons grasp
Unnamed characters: Ascend if given the sword
Variants/options: Additional blades may be created
simultaneously by pumping Brawn 1:1.
122
Blank
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One person, item, or small area
Effect: The target does not emanate magical vibrations and cannot be perceived as magical by a wizards
special senses.
Unnamed characters: Ascend upon casting the spell
Opposes: It can still be perceived as magical by the
target of a Perfection spell.
Glow
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One person
Effect: A gleaming silvery light source appears. It is
the only way to create light within a Cloud.
Variants/options: The light is emitted either from a
small object held or worn by the person or as a hanging, drifting globe near him or her.
Haze
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One person
Effect: +3 to his or her defensive Quickness total
during combat.
Unnamed characters: Ascend upon casting the spell
Master
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: One person
Effect: 1d6 is added to any single roll involved in
making something, or the spell permits such a roll to
be made in the absence of suitable materials.
Unnamed characters: Ascend when spell is cast
Variants/options: Both effects can be achieved simultaneously by pumping 1 Brawn.
Stop
Repair
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: A broken weapon, piece of armor, or object
no larger than a door or table
Effect: It is entirely restored.
Opposes: Ruin, either at the time of casting or in targeting the subject of a prior Ruin spell
Step
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One person
Effect: The target gains nearly perfect balance and
coordination, gaining the combat advantage bonus in
appropriate conditions and permitting actions usually reserved for professional entertainers.
Unnamed characters: Ascend when spell is cast
Waft
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: One person
Effect: Arrested in a fall or potential fall. Waft does
not permit powered or directed flight.
Unnamed characters: Ascend upon casting the spell
Ward
Duration: Creation, Ritual: No
Target: Object
Effect: Serves as an alarm to warn its holder of
nearby intent to harm or otherwise interfere with
him or her.
Variants/options: The warning is always sensed by
the caster, and he or she may also set it to be visible,
audible, or tactile, or any combination of these, so that
it is noticeable by others. Additional sites for warning
may be created in the area by pumping Brawn 1:1.
Amboriyon
Avatar
Duration: Creation, Ritual: No
E ffect : An avatar of the casters choice appears
(see Avatars). To obey the caster, the avatar must be
befriended or placated, depending on its type.
Variants/options:
A unicorn may only be summoned with a supplication by a person who is suffering.
A pegasus may only be summoned by a person
with a martial profession.
A valkyrie may only be summoned into a current
battle with more than about a dozen people involved.
Beast 2
Duration: Creation, Ritual: No
Effect: A 2-point beast of the casters choice appears
(see Beasts). It obeys the summoners commands until
its Brawn or Quickness is reduced to 0 or below, after
which it can be forced to obey with a Charm vs. 12 roll.
Variants/options:
Small bear, Brawn 9, Quickness 6
123
Circle of Hands
Bless
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: Yes
Target: One person, beast, or avatar
Effect: +3 to the attribute of the casters choice, which
may exceed its ordinary value. This is effectively a
mini-Oath for that attribute, without gaining color
points via the bonus.
Unnamed characters: Ascend upon casting the spell
Opposes: Curse
Cure
Duration: Instant, Ritual: Yes
Target: One person, beast, or monster, including the
caster
Effect: The target person or beast is cured of all disease, fatigue, and injury, but does not regrow missing
or maimed body parts. If cast upon oneself, the spells
cost is not restored.
Unnamed characters: Ascend when spell is cast
Dazzle
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One person
Effect: Quickness rolls lose a die, including in combat,
but he or she also gains a bonus die to Wits rolls.
Resistance: None against the spell being cast, but
the affected person may pump 2 Brawn to cancel the
effect.
Unnamed characters: The target is rendered completely helpless
Forward
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One person
Effect: The target perceives the route which affords
the least immediate danger and is not subject to the
perceptual effects of Storm.
Unnamed characters: Ascend upon casting the spell
Opposes: Trailtwister
Glamor
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One person
Effect: The target gains 3 Charm.
Unnamed characters: Ascend when the spell is cast
Variants/options: The caster may pump 1 Brawn to
increase the gain to 6
124
Gray Magic
Grow
Purge
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: One person
Effect: The target is cleared of poison including the
effects of Envenom and recovers quickly from its
prior effects
Unnamed characters: Unchanged
Shining
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One person wearing armor
Effect: The armor gains +3 protection.
Unnamed characters: Ascend when the armor they
wear is targeted by the spell
Soothe
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: One person or beast
Effect: The target becomes sleepy and less capable of
action, reducing rolls by one die. The effect is terminated if the target is attacked or subjected to forceful
interaction.
Unnamed characters: Ascend when the spell is cast
Opposes: Berserk; it also counters the berserk component of Rage and the effects of Hate for one victim, but
it does not cancel either spell or oppose its casting.
Purify
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: Substance or object, including ore
E ffect : The target is purged of decay or other
impurities; in the case of ore, a single metal of the
casters choice remains. If cast upon a corpse, the
body becomes a polished skeleton. The spell does
not make an inedible substance edible, nor does it
reverse the effects of Noxify.
Variants/options: The caster may pump Brawn to
increase the number of objects affected 1:1, or pump 2
Brawn to affect an area.
Store
Duration: Creation, Ritual: Yes
Target: The caster
Effect: The 2 Brawn spent are added to a storage
pool, which appears as a glowing nexus of energy.
After casting, the caster may recover normally and
spend the stored Brawn to cast white spells at any
point until the next dawn or sunset. The stored Brawn
may not be expended for enchantment. Once used,
the Brawn is gone. A person cannot have more than
one Store operating at once.
Variants/option: The stored energy may float in the
air or be bound into a staff, gem, or anything else the
person carries.
Vine
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: Area
Effect: Existing vegetation twists and grows according to the casters will: a wall, a net, or anything
else physically possible. The plant
may grow to twice its size; it does not
become animated aside from its functions as barrier or entanglement. An
entangled person or creature, must
roll Brawn vs. 12 to escape. At the end
of the spells duration, the affected
plants die.
U n na m e d c h a r ac t e rs : Rendered
unable to move, communicate, or act
effectively
White Light
Duration: Creation, Ritual: Yes
Target: Area
Effect: Creatures of Rbaja may not
easily cross the boundaries designated by the caster in any fashion
(e.g. flying, burrowing). It may pump
Brawn against the spell to cross, but
the boundary remains and the creature incurs 1d6 Damage as it crosses,
which is not stopped by Armor.
See
Duration: Instant, Ritual: Yes
Target: One person
E ffect : The caster perceives the persons entire
experiential history, but not thoughts, opinions, or
data-based information in the persons mind. Later
during the venture, the caster may recall specific
details with a Wits vs. 12 roll.
Resistance: No
Unnamed characters: Ascend when the spell is cast
against them
Illus. Juan Ochoa
125
Circle of Hands
Gray Magic
Spirit
Amboriyon
Absorb
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: Any spell in the process of being cast or a
currently active prolonged spell, powered by Brawn
2 or less
Effect: The target is canceled and the Brawn used to
cast it is co-opted as per the Store spell, either initiating a Store or adding to an existing one.
Resistance: It is always opposed by the target caster in
a comparison of expended Brawn, including pumping.
Eidolon
Duration: Creation, Ritual: No
Effect: An eidolon of the casters choice appears (see
Eidolons). To obey the caster, the eidolon must be
befriended or placated, depending on its type.
Variants/options:
Guide
Lammasu
Silver dragon
Link
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: Yes
T arget : The caster and one designated person,
animal, avatar, or demon.
Effect: The two beings included in the Link may each
use 1 to 3 of the others attribute points as bonuses at
will, stating the amount and the attribute per action
at 3:00. While being used in this fashion, the points
are unavailable to their original owner. The points do
not revert and are re-stated with each action.
Unnamed characters: Ascend upon being included
in this spell
Preserve
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: Yes
Target: One person or beast
Effect: The target is protected from ongoing harm,
aging, or decay of any kind. The spell does not protect
against attacks and has no healing properties.
Unnamed characters: Ascend if targeted by this spell
126
Quell
Duration: Instant, Ritual: Yes
Target: A natural or magical storm, landslide, eruption, or similar phenomenon
Effect: The phenomenon ceases, replaced by mild
weather and conditions, although the effects of the
prior phenomenon remain.
Opposes: Erupt or Storm
Variants/options: The caster may pump 1 or 2 Brawn
to reduce the hours for ritual casting to two or one,
respectively.
Restore
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: One undead creature
Effect: It simply and finally dies.
Resistance: The target may pump Brawn to exceed
Brawn spent on Restore
Righteousness
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One weapon
Effect: None immediately, but if and when the target
weapon or its wielder is subject to attacking magic,
and if it or they survive, it inflicts 3 additional Damage
until the Righteousness duration is ended.
Unnamed characters: Ascends those who wield such
weapon
Sink
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: An area
Effect: A stationary, swirling magical well is created
in the air; all magic cast in the Sinks proximity costs 2
additional Brawn; prolonged spells currently running
must have 2 Brawn pumped to them immediately or
dissipate.
Throng
Statue
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: A specially-prepared statue
of clay or metal
E ffect : The caster animates and
commands the target. It has Brawn 9
and Quickness 6, and it is effectively
invulnerable to ordinary combat
damage. It always splits for maximal
offense (12/0). It is not alive and cannot
be killed in any ordinary sense of the
word. Its Quickness is not reduced
by damage. It is capable of standing guard and taking pre-arranged
action against specific individuals,
and of pursuing a designated target.
Although it is not mighty enough to
destroy any possible barrier quickly,
it is relentless and will eventually get
through most human-crafted barriers. Although Statue is not a ritual
spell, if you dont have a statue handy,
then building one is a lengthy and
expensive project.
Wrath
Duration: instant, Ritual: No
Target: Area of a size of the casters choosing between
a patch big enough to cover a small room, and about
a quarter acre
Effect: An Amboriyon zone is created.
Unnamed characters: All in the area are killed; the
GM may choose to ascend one of them, who survives
127
Circle of Hands
Gray Magic
Drug
Rjaba
Black Speech
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: Caster
Effect: Undead respect the target and listen to him or
her instead of taking other action; given a successful
Charm vs. 12 roll, they will act as he or she directs.
Variants/options
A draugr or skeleton under someone elses control can be commanded using Black Speech,
given a Charm vs. 12 roll to wrest control from
their current master.
A draugr can supply limited information (see
description in Chapter 7).
A ghoul can supply limited information but
is almost impossible to sway from its favorite
topic.
Cloud
Duration: Creation, Ritual: No
Target: Area
Effect: All light sources in the immediate area are
extinguished, and all target actions in that area
receive a 1d6 reduction, as does attempting to leave
the area of effect.
Unnamed characters: Completely helpless
Opposes: None which prevent the spell from taking
effect, but Glow provides the single working light
source in its effect and Perfect Senses permits its
target to act normally.
128
Confuse
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: One person or beast
Effect: The target becomes incapable of targeting
other characters in any way, or of speaking
Resist: None which prevents the spell from taking
effect, but effect is removed if the person or beast
pumps 2 Brawn.
U nnamed characters : Completely incapable of
directed action or communication
Contort
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: One person, animal, or monster
Effect: The targets body becomes sufficiently malleable and flexible including the pelvic symphysis
and the fused skull bones to permit passing through
frighteningly small openings. All items worn or carried are affected as well.
Unnamed characters: Ascended upon casting of the
spell
Demon 1
Duration: Creation, Ritual: Yes
Effect: A 1-point demon of the casters choice appears
(see Demons).
Variants/options
Imp
Splotch
Doll
Envenom
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: Weapon or other item used against the skin
(cup, clothing, blanket); alternately, food or drink
Effect: The target inflicts 1d6 Damage upon its user,
or in the case of a weapon, upon suffering ordinary
Damage from it after armor.
Resistance: None
Unnamed characters: Kills instantly
Itch
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One person or beast
Effect: The targets Quickness is reduced by 1 and he or
she cannot benefit from the advantage during combat.
Resistance: None
Unnamed characters: Rendered completely helpless
Noxify
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: Organic, non-living substance
Effect: The target becomes disgusting and unusable;
it has no effect on living targets, nor can it target anything currently Purified.
Variants/options: The caster may pump two Brawn
to affect all objects within an area
Palsy
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: One person, beast, demon, eidolon, or avatar.
Effect: The target becomes unable to change position
significantly or move coherently enough to attack.
Resist: None which prevents the spell from taking
effect, but effect is removed if the person or beast
pumps 2 Brawn.
Unnamed characters: Rendered completely helpless
Seem
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One person
Effect: The target looks, sounds, and smells like
anything else of the casters choice, subject only to
size constraints. This spell is completely ineffective
against Perfect Senses. The spell does not confer any
abilities.
Resist: To fool an observer who has reason to doubt
the semblance, the target must make a Wits vs. 12 roll
Unnamed characters: Ascends when spell is cast
Walk
Duration: Creation, Ritual: No
Target: One corpse of a person or beast
Effect: The target becomes either an undead skeleton or draugr (see Undead). It obeys the casters desire
immediately at 3:00; such commands are integrated
into the casting of the spell.
Unnamed characters: Ascends when spell is cast
Variants/options: The spell produces either a draugr
vs. skeleton based on the condition of the corpse.
Web
Points, Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: Area
Effect: The target area is covered with sticky webs.
Any person or creature in the area is constrained in
movement and actions and must make a Brawn vs. 12
roll to act or escape.
Unnamed characters: Trapped and helpless
Variants/options: The caster may pump to reduce
the dice rolled to escape.
129
Circle of Hands
Gray Magic
Dominate
Rjaba
Berserk
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One person
Effect: The target suffers no Quickness penalty from
Damage and may neither all-out defend nor retreat.
For the duration of the spell, he or she is incapable of
speech and cannot make Wits rolls.
Resist: None
Unnamed characters: Ascend upon casting the spell
Opposes: Soothe
Blast
Demon 2
Duration: Creation, Ritual: No
Effect: A 2-point demon of the casters choice appears
(see Demons).
Variants/options
Fake
Duration: Creation, Ritual: No
Effect: A fabricated object of the casters choice, no
larger than may be carried by hand, is created from
minimal materials. It looks serviceable and even tests
well, but crumbles when it is used in earnest.
Nzagg
Nightmare
Eye
Flesh
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One or more corpses of people or animals
Effect: A wall is created with strength equal to the
bodies combined original Brawns. If damaged, it will
regrow 5 Brawn per action. The bodies used do not
necessarily retain their original integrity, such that
the wall is about 5 by 5 per human-sized body.
Hate
Curse
Infect
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: One person or animal
Effect: The target person or beast contracts a nonfatal, non-contagious fever.
Unnamed characters: Rendered miserable and helpless
130
Reflect
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
T arget : A spell in the moment of its casting by
another
Effect: The target spell is directed to another target
of the casters choice
Ruin
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: Non-living object, approximately humansize or less
Effect: The object is broken.
Opposes: Repair
Scar
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: Person
Effect: The target loses 1 die of effectiveness with
Charm; the effect recovers similar to injury.
Resist: None
Unnamed characters: Disfigures them terribly
Variants/options: Removes 2 dice with an additional
1 point of pumped Brawn
Stimulant
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One person or animal
Effect: The target person or beast adds two points to
either Brawn or Quickness as desired by the caster,
which may exceed its original value. When the spells
duration is over, the target suffers 1d6 Damage.
Unnamed characters: Ascend if this spell is cast on
them
Trailtwister
Points, Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: An area
Effect: People and beasts in the target area will go
anywhere, even backwards, except where they wished
to go. Once affected, a person or beast may try a Wits
vs. 12 roll to overcome the effect.
Unnamed characters: Hopelessly lost
Opposes: Forward
131
Circle of Hands
Gray Magic
Warp
Pox
The target instant or prolonged white spell is transformed into a black spell, i.e., it confers black color points upon its
caster. The caster of Warp may also pump 2 points of Brawn to change the spells effect into a Curse.
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: A spell of Amboriyon in the moment of its casting by another
Effect: The target spell is converted to Rbaja, conferring black color points rather than white.
Rjaba
Demon 3
Duration: Creation, Ritual: No
Effect: A 3 point demon appears (see Demons).
Demons summoned with this spell are not interested
in deals or commands and simply go into action as
they see fit. An imp must be involved in the summoning process.
Variants/options:
Dancer
Lich
Yoggoth
Angel
Die
Duration: Instant
Ritual: No
Target: One person or beast
Effect: The target loses 3 Brawn from the target.
Resistance: None
Unnamed characters: Killed instantly
Variants/options: The caster may pump Brawn 1:1 to
remove additional Brawn from the target.
Distort
Duration: Creation, Ritual: Yes
Target: An area
Effect: The spell creates an Rbaja zone in the immediate area. All corpses within the designated area
become draugr.
Unnamed characters: Flee in terror, some disappearing, some driven mad.
132
Erupt
Pain
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One person
Effect: For every 3 full Damage points inflicted by the
target person after armor, 1 point of Brawn is made
available to the caster of the spell for healing injury.
Points in excess of those are made available for casting black spells; these latter points must be utilized
during the current scene or they dissipate.
Resistance: No
Unnamed characters: Ascend when spell is cast
Rip
Puppet
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One person or undead
Effect: The target obeys a single willed, non-verbal
order from the caster at any point in the spells duration.
Resistance: The target may negate the command with
a Wits vs. 12 roll; if successful, he or she incurs 1d6
Damage.
Unnamed characters: Ascended when targeted with
this spell
Rage
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: No
Target: One person
Effect: The target, who must be nude, is transformed
into a bestial form with armor 6 and is considered
armed when bare-handed, including +1 to Damage
similar to a great-axe. In combat, the person is Berserk
as per the spell and may acquire combat advantage in
beast-favoring circumstances. The subject may end
the spell prior to its duration with a Wits vs. 12 roll.
Unnamed characters: Ascend if targeting
Opposes: None, but the berserk component may be
overcome by Soothe
Sacrifice
Duration: Creation, Ritual: No
Target: One or more persons or beasts.
Requirement: The caster must kill one or more persons or beasts just prior to casting this spell, which is
its own physical action
Effect: For each 3 of a victims Brawn, one point is
stored as a storage pool, which appears as a black
shadow. The caster may spend the stored Brawn to cast
black spells until the next dawn or sunset. The stored
Brawn may be expended for enchantment. Once used,
the Brawn is gone. More Brawn may be added to the
shadow with additional castings of Sacrifice.
Unnamed characters: Not eligible an unnamed
person or animal must be ascended before killing it
for this spell to work.
Note: Sacrifice does not require spending Brawn.
Storm
Duration: Prolonged, Ritual: Yes,
Target: An area
Effect: A storm is raised in the area, complete with
darkness, rain, lightning, and thunder; if cast in an
arid location, raises a sandstorm. Peole and creatures
in the area of effect suffers reduced visibility, reduced
movement, and disadvantaged actions, except for
creatures of Rbaja.
Unnamed characters: Hopelessly lost and disoriented, killed at the casters option
Suck
Duration: Instant, Ritual: No
Target: One person or beast, whom the caster must touch with an ordinary action; requires Quickness vs. 12 if
the target tries to avoid being touched.
Effect: The target loses 3 Brawn as a physical injury and the casters injuries are healed by this amount. Excess of
2 or higher has the effect of a single Stimulant spell. This spell costs no Brawn unless it is pumped.
Unnamed characters: Ascend when this spell is cast on them
133
Circle of Hands
SPELL COMBINATIONS
134
Gray Magic
ENCHANTMENTS
135
Chapter
7L
ight and
Darkness
USING THIS
A prepared venture for Circle of Hands ultimately concerns soap opera. You dont put creatures in there unless the
preparation components in Chapter 3 say so, and if they do, then you specify them toward the harshest, grimmest,
or squickiest human problem as indicated by the red die. Raw logistic challenge isnt the issue; if you put in a
monster, for example, then maybe it outmatches the Circle knights, and maybe it doesnt. Doesnt matter.
Since the people, animals, and creatures in a venture arent boss fights or speedbumps, this chapter offers both
the various useful numbers for each being and, at Keith Senkowskis suggestion, a little rubric for orienting it or
them for preparation and play.
PREPARATION
Manticore:
In the wilds
Recently disturbed or its territory newly
entered
Kills a person, eats his or her brain, and
relocates to that persons home area
At a community, where people are beginning
to go missing; the people there probably dont
know what it is
It proceeds along the kin and social ties of
the victims it eats, remaining hidden and
taking a victim once every week or ten days
if this pattern becomes evident, social
strife may ensue as people blame old clan
or family problems
If youre hunting for whatevers doing it, or
searching for missing people, itll lure you
to its lair
Lets say your preparation includes the component #4
set in Famberge, and youre looking at the monsters
of that area. You can decide whether the manticores
rubric fits with your notions of what the other prep
elements are, like the people and the locations. You
can even find some place in the middle of the rubrics
path which seems like the right starting point for
your particular creature in this particular situation.
Some of the rubrics are linear and others represent
branchings or alternatives; the difference should be
apparent in context.
Ive found that if the component (5, 6, or 7) is by itself,
then the flow chart or rubric works well from the top,
but with other components in play, enough stuff is
happening that the creature fits better already further
down through its branches.
137
Circle of Hands
IN THE MOMENT
Descriptions during role-playing are harder than they look. My personal failing is not describing enough, so that
I look back at a session and feel as if it had been conducted in partly-finished, sometimes stick-figure terms. I
know that using game terms and creature names by themselves isnt enough, as it seems flat, and yet long-winded
purple prose is no fun either.
Theres no easy answer, so are some thoughts from my playtesting, acknowledging that I struggle with it too.
Youre not the animator or the movie screen, providing the full visuals and motion so that others may soak them
in. Instead, youre only talking so that others imaginations have enough to work with. In turn, if you listen while
they speak, and then more fully detail what you heard them say when you respond, youll find theyll do the same
with you.
When playing people and ordinary animals, try it from the observing characters eyes, filtered through and focused
by his or her social rank and profession. Lacking an outdoorsman perspective, even the sight of an ordinary creature
like a hawk is jarring, composed of startling details, especially if its up close. Lacking a martial perspective, one may
see a horse that can be ridden during a fight as a nearly-supernatural monster.
In play, Ive also been holding off on the explicit names for beasts, monsters, and the Rbaja and Amboriyon
creatures until after theyve been established as a visual presence. Try describing it in pieces, focusing first on the
familiar, then on the unfamiliar. When it moves describe its actions with one or two details, then if it gets injured,
describe that with one or two details.
Incidental animals are a constant part of life: domestic dogs and horses, herded animals including goats,
sheep, and cows, wild animals including many small
mammals, wolves, bear, deer, and plenty of birds
from sparrow to hawk to pheasant. In regional terms,
Tamaryon is associated mainly with boar and oxen,
Famberge with wolves, smaller wild pigs, and horses,
Spurr with snakes and hawks, and Rolke with a distinctive regional panther.
People in the Crescent Land live and work closely
with animals, so briefly describing animals in this
way during play helps the group to engage with the
culture quite a bit. For them to matter more, a character has to be seriously in their space and seriously
doing something they like or dont like, which effectively means ascending them to the Beast category
(below) in a specific situation.
Peasants are human beings. However, as far as everyone else is concerned, and as far as peasants who dont
know one another are concerned, they are incidental
people a person in this social rank is perceived as
138
UNNAMED PEOPLE
NAMED PEOPLE
BEASTS
These are not just an animal, but rather the nonhuman version of named people as placed into an
adventure by the preparation system, as well as
animals ascended through interacting with them
during play. Such a creature recognizes individual
people and forms strong, wide-ranging connections
with them, such as protectiveness, friendship, and
hatred. It has attributes and acts as a character, with
motivations and relevance to the human community;
it may or may not have a literal name given it by that
community. Play them with agency and reactivity just
like named people.
All beasts use the following rubric. It will make most
sense to begin them a few steps into it.
Ordinary life
The beast receives help from a person
The beast is provoked by a person or unexpectedly survives a human threat
Involvement with human community
139
Circle of Hands
Dont use 8 5 4 2 for them, but the following values
for Brawn and Quickness. Wits and Charm typically
arent used directly, nor should they be applied outside the parameters of the animals identity.
A small animal typically has Quickness 6 and
Armor ranging from 0 to 3. If its little, like a
housecat, then its Brawn is 3; if its capable of
damage and actions similar to a human, then
its Brawn is 6.
A big animal, larger than a human, typically has
Brawn 9 and Quickness 6, with Armor ranging
from 0 to 6. Generally placid and focused upon
its ordinary eating habits, this sort of creature
is capable of much fury when provoked, and it
can attack multiple human-sized opponents at
once, positions permitting.
A swarm of tiny creatures is rated by units equal
to how many people it can hit with an attack.
It doesnt have Brawn, but only Quickness 6,
Armor 0. It always acts at full offense (+12/+0),
and the Damage it does is determined by the
roll alone, but ignores ordinary armor. Hitting
it successfully removes a unit.
Beasts in Tamaryon
Beasts in Famberge
Wolves are not inclined to bother or attack people
most of the time, but they become interested in lone
individuals when game is scarce, and if hunted, they
seem to get the intended roles confused.
They act together using the group rules in
Chapter 5, not so much for fighting in a human
or battle sense, but for isolating, harrying, and
exhausting single targets.
Brawn 6 Quickness 6, Armor 3
The forest man is a strangely benign bipedal beast
in the thick forests who resembles a slight, short
shambling person with long hair hanging from most
of its body. They do not speak and use no technology.
Sometimes they help lost travelers, leading them to
safer areas or to usable paths. Forest men fight back
when hunted, but given their facility with the terrain,
they prefer to escape if they can.
Brawn 3, Quickness 6, Armor 0.
The sad thing is that its meat is excellent and
tasty, Eating it restores injured Brawn and
Quickness by the result of a 1d6 roll; e.g., a roll
result of 3 returns 3 to each characteristic, to a
maximum of its original level. Therefore people
have been known to hunt forest men for food.
Eating its meat once or twice has no long-term
effect, but making a habit of it makes a person
eligible to become a ghoul upon dying.
140
Beasts in Rolke
Beasts in Spurr
Rats are not native to the Crescent Land but have
been transported to some coastal communities in
ships cargo. Contrary to stereotype, rats are not filthy
or disease-ridden, and individuals carefully avoid
people.
The Dominate spell can induce them to act as
a squirming, spilling horde capable of horrific
damage.
MONSTERS
These creatures are much like beasts, but they have human-like features or features which prompt specific behaviors
in humans. They dont think like people and are generally predatory or indifferent to people personally, but the way
they interact with people or human practices produces unique problems for a community.
Monsters are not associated with Rbaja or Amboriyon, and they do not register as magical to spells or wizard
senses.
As with beasts and people, they act with agency and react flexibly however, according to highly individualized,
strange logic with odd correspondences to humanity. I hope that you will personally connect with them, or with
the people close to them, and feel squicked out about it. The term monster really means something; its not just
about animals with big teeth.
Charm rolls are either folded into their rubrics appropriately or ineffective against them in any way.
The rules for arrows effects on beasts apply to monsters as well.
Monsters In Spurr
Mansnake
People who have taken sick in Spurr sometimes tell of fever dreams in which a huge, sinuously gliding snake has
come to speak with them, and of waking to a remarkable recovery as promised, if they were to murder a specific
person, always already known to them. Sometimes other people remind the recovered person of the snake, in
their speech or mannerisms.
Prep and play
141
Circle of Hands
A person currently in the murder-cycle, i.e., not
actively refusing, shows no physical symptoms, but if
killed in any way, his or her skull ruptures to disgorge
a long serpent with shiny dark green scales, more
than one would think possible to be packed away
inside a persons head.
Brawn 6, Quickness 9, Armor 0.
The emerged mansnake fights if cornered,
but otherwise attempts to wriggle away; if its
injured or killed, it dissolves into vapor.
How mansnakes initially get into hosts, and where
they come from in the first place, are unknown. Most
people think its just a legend.
Circle knights are plot-armored against hosting a
mansnake.
The golden
Some people undergo a change associated with gold:
their irises change color and their hair becomes lighter
and shining. They prefer to wear the metal and can
even smell it nearby. Such a person generally seems
improved, especially socially, gaining +1 to Charm and
to one other attribute, as well as becoming a bit less
concerned with physical gratification like food and sex.
Manticore
This is my favorite monster. A manticore has a lions body and limbs, but a huge and swollen scorpions tail with
sting. Its face is that of a senile old man. It lairs in rank places, like swamps or cliff faces coated by bird droppings.
A manticore is about as intelligent as a wild pig and cannot speak, but if it eats a victims brains, it can imitate his
or her voice and utilize certain memories, those most useful to lure people closer.
Brawn 9, Quickness 6, Armor 6.
It stings when circumstances of combat make a +12/+0 split feasible, typically either upon ambushing someone or late in an encounter against a badly wounded opponent or prey.
In addition to ordinary damage, the stung target must make a B vs. 12 roll; failing means all his or her
Quickness rolls are penalized by a single die for the remainder of the scene.
Since neither really big cats nor scorpions are known in the Crescent land, its abilities are a bad surprise, and
require a Wits vs. 12 roll to acquire the advantage die. It is also remarkably stealthy for such a big and grotesque
creature.
Prep and play
In the wilds
142
143
Circle of Hands
Spider-hags
A spider-hag lives alone in deep forest thickets or submerged in isolated ponds. It has long spindly human
limbs as well as four even longer and more spindly
spider-limbs, and multiple eyes, but is not capable of
human social interaction or language with the exception
of its own name and learning others names.
Sport fighting
Monsters In Rolke
Pode
A pode is a squishy creature which wedges itself
into the bottom of natural cavities and crevices, or if
necessary, digs itself a hole. At adulthood it is merely
the size of a pancake, but nothing feeds on podes and
they are long-lived, so it is not unusual to encounter
one whose clotted, puddling mass exceeds twenty feet
in diameter. The ochre or beige male of the species
is passive and offers no harm to anyone except the
microbes it absorbs from soil, but the female alters
its lair to trap prey, especially large mammals. It is
almost always gravid, which turns it a dark red color.
A red pode is a nasty thing to encounter, especially
after an ankle-breaking fall.
Brawn 3, Quickness 6, Armor 0
In additional to the danger to individuals, peoples lives may have taken a more complex turn long after they
frolicked with a spider-hag, resulting in social strife if the past is revealed.
Monsters in Tamaryon
Wracker
A wracker is a huge lizard with a wide flat head and rounded snout which results in a disturbing or possibly cute
human caricature; its long torso is just the right height for hanging many saddlebags or trunks from its ridged,
narrow back. Properly fed and managed, its an excellent beast of burden. They are good swimmers and if the
water is not too deep, they can act as barges as well as wagons.
Wrackers labor with and for humans, but are not truly domesticated as their breeding choices cant be controlled.
People have learned merely to release them during mating season, when they wont work anyway, and let whatever
happens, happen.
Wrackers can speak, a startling feature for people who arent used to them. Their topics are limited, mostly about
the immediate situation or being hungry or in some other physiological urgent state, and their vocabulary is con-
144
145
Illus. Juan Ochoa
Circle of Hands
About sharing more experiences
About acquiring more paste
The majority of people using it experience no recognizable effects aside from a few hours of mellow high
(see Chapter 4), but a few people become addicted.
Roll Wits vs. 12 roll, with failure meaning
incipient addiction. Further use requires an
additional roll, which results in physiological
addiction. Such a person eventually runs off
with a crazy urge to mate with a female pode,
and that doesnt go well.
Circle knights are plot-armored against pode addiction.
Wyrm
A wyrm is a cranky, vicious thing, mostly serpentine,
with two or four short muscular legs, which it uses to
anchor and augment its slithering, coiling, or climbing, or to fight.
Brawn 9, Quickness 6, Armor 9.
Ogres
Ogres are about eight feet tall and extremely human
in appearance aside from obesity well beyond the
range of people in the Crescent land, and from being
typically bald or with only patches of hair. However,
they do not process information or otherwise act as
social primates, being behaviorally more like oxen.
They live in small family groups, with no language or
technological capabilities at all, not even fire.
Creatures of
Amboriyon: Avatars
Monsters Throughout
the Lands
146
Avatars embody purity; they focus on the environment to remove of it any conceivable taint. They do not speak,
but they understand whatever is said to them, and they act in such assertive ways that their intention is clearly
communicated. Avatars may be summoned by magic, but they also emerge spontaneously from the clouds of
Amboriyon to wander around, especially when circumstances arise which favor their particular quirks, by type.
Avatars activity is always about a personal relationship, based on companionship, approval, and implicitly the
concept of salvation, rescuing the person from conflict. Their values toward this end are simple: white points
and Gifts of Amboriyon are good, and black points and Gifts of Rbaja are bad. To gain an avatars help, one must
establish this relationship according to the steps in its rubric.
In combat, avatars always split their Quickness evenly between attack and defense, unless otherwise indicated
in the individual description. When hurt, they bleed ordinary blood, but its appearance on their perfect forms
evokes such pathos and dignity that all opponents except for creatures of Rbaja must make Charm vs. 12 rolls in
order to strike them after that.
Unicorn
A unicorn is stunningly beautiful, smooth and blindingly white, with cosmic empathy spilling from its gaze and
a remarkably long horn.
Brawn 6, Quickness 9, Armor 3.
It moves with perfect balance and coordination, gaining the combat advantage bonus on uneven or confusing terrain.
Its horn qualifies as a spear in terms of combat mechanics, and it may also use it to purge a person of poison
(including the effects of the Envenom spell), an organic substance of decay, and an inorganic substance of
impurities. If removed from the unicorn, the horn has none of these properties.
Prep and play
A unicorn is a ruthless cleanser of undeath, cruelty, and emotional and physical suffering. It begins with a speciallyadopted friend who has been victimized by these or similar events, and turns its attention to the problem, proceeding
strictly through the following scale:
147
Circle of Hands
Destroy any undead
Destroy Rbaja magic as indicated by black color
points and Gifts, including its users
Slay the perpetrators of cruelty and injustice as
perceived by its companion
Cure and eradicate disease
Bring an end to any and all suffering among
people; the easiest way being to kill them
Bring an end to any and all strong emotion
among people; as above
Valkyrie
A valkyrie is an idealized, inhumanly beautiful
woman-seeming thing, arriving or being summoned
only to an existing battle situation. If summoned with
a pegasus, the valkryie is riding the pegasus and benefits from its Armor. If arriving spontaneously from
Amboriyon, they are always riding pegasi.
Pegasus
A pegasus is a gorgeous winged horse, both larger and more graceful than the typical horses of the Crescent land.
Brawn 6, Quickness 6, Armor 6.
It can fly and perceives the route which affords the least immediate danger to wherever its rider wants to go;
it is not subject to the perceptual effects of the Storm spell.
Its rider uses its Armor score if he or she has less than 6 points of armor.
Fighting from the air, a pegasus is incredibly dangerous, as it swoops down and runs on its opponents,
against which the only real defense is to hurl oneself flat. It can bank to a remarkable degree, so that its rider
may fight normally during the same action. It always flies fast and cannot hover.
A pegasus companion gained by a Circle knight as a Gift differs only in that it will tolerate black color points, but if
the character gains a black Gift, the pegasus flies away for the duration of the current adventure.
148
Creatures of
Amboriyon: Eidolons
Eidolons are not encountered and must be summoned, and to remain permanently, enchanted.
However, in or near an Amboriyon zone, such
summoning may be performed without knowledge
of magic, although it does cost 3 Brawn as per the
Eidolon spell.
Eidolons embody transcendence; they focus on human
attitudes and actions. Their judgments are assertive,
authoritative, and presented as final a person is the
chosen one, and this place shall meet its fate. They are
eloquent and conversational, as altering human behavior is their first priority. When they are summoned,
they observe and listen to the people present, then
soon intrude with authority. They are fixated upon
people with black color points and/or Gifts and focus
their proselytizing or summary judgment on them.
In combat, eidolons always split their Quickness
evenly between attack and defense, unless otherwise
indicated in the individual description. They do not
bleed, but when they are wounded, they give off coruscating light effects which negate 1-point spells cast
toward them.
They do not act in groups and no more than a single
eidolon is ever included in a venture.
Guide
A guide is a pleasant-appearing, rather generic and
androgynous humanoid, dressed in a simple robe
and barefoot. A guide never fights nor even defends
itself.
Brawn 6, Quickness 6, Armor 0.
Spells powered by 2 Brawn or less are negated
in its vicinity, whether at the moment of casting
or in their ongoing effects. The Brawn powering
these spells is absorbed and stored as a usable
pool for the Guide.
It heals injuries to anyone when asked, at 1d6
restored Damage per Brawn point it spends
out of its store; it actively seeks to do so for
injured people with black color points.
149
Circle of Hands
Prep and play
Lammasu
A lammasu is a shining, massive lion with eagles
wings and a classically handsome human face. It
seeks to aid a person to perform the single most
extreme act possible in his or her interests as the
person sees it.
Brawn 9, Quickness 9, Armor 6.
Its body is itself a small Amboriyon zone which
negates violent weather and environmental
effects, whether natural and magical.
In combat, a lammasu remains earthbound,
using frightening tactics like twenty-foot horizontal leaps and wing buffets that encompass
thirty-foot arcs on either side, usually retaining
the combat advantage. It flies only to travel.
Lammasus despise manticores, and if any are in the
area, a lammasu makes it its business to hunt them
when its not occupied with the person its mentoring.
Prep and play
150
A silver dragon is never present at the start of a venture, but certain portents herald its potential.
Silver Dragon
A silver dragon is an astounding, bewildering presence. No one could mistake one of these for a wyrm.
Although wingless, it hovers or rockets through the
air, coiling and spiraling in perfect circles within
circles, the patterns punctuated with exploding
points of light.
It perceives and understands the current social
and geographic situation profoundly well and thus
cannot be surprised or tactically deceived; however,
unlike the Guide, it equally profoundly does not
interact directly with anyone and is not concerned
with opinions or specific actions.
Its only goal is eradication. It does not care a bit about
what a person without black or white Gifts does or
does not do.
A silver dragon is a combat horror.
Brawn 12, Quickness 9, Armor 9.
Limbless, it fights by coiling around opponents
and biting. It does not swoop down, so it can
be fought normally although it is technically in
the air.
It breathes pure white flame by spending 2
Brawn, requiring no attack roll; the targets
Quickness is penalized to a single die, including
in combat, but he or she also gains a bonus die
to Wits rolls.
It casts 1 point white spells as if it were a wizard,
with ordinary Brawn cost.
It can fight groups as if they were individuals.
If a silver dragon is killed, an Amboriyon zone forms
unless its slayer successfully makes an immediate
Once present
Its presence expunges all current black color
points in that scene from existence.
The air becomes especially cold and clear; ordinary effects such as smoke or fog are minimal
at most.
Charm rolls do not yield the ordinary results
as interactions with beasts and named people
are notably and unusually bland; only dedicated attempts to engage will generate standard
results with Charm.
It appears in one of three ways:
Summoned
Assess summoner: if he or she has no white
Gifts, then annihilate.
Personal transformation through a Gift of
Amboriyon
The portents escalate
A person succeeds with a Wits vs. 12 roll in
trying to understand them.
Draugr
To raise a draugr, the wizard needs a fresh, at least mostly whole corpse from a person or beast, casting either Walk
or Distort. A draugr is a walking corpse but it is no pushover. It does not move weirdly or stiffly; it is not clumsy and
can, for example, climb a rope. It moves at normal human speed including a steady run. Its expression is always
and solely one of natural-seeming determination. It reeks with a baked, dusty smell of death old staleness, not
rank bacterial rot.
Draugr do not experience hunger or any other sensation, and they do not eat anything. They do not rest. They
are not laborers. They are killers.
151
Circle of Hands
It has Brawn and Quickness of the target person
or creature when he or she was alive, or 5 and 5
if that information is not relevant, and Armor 0.
Arrows and bolts have no effect on it, but handheld weapons do ordinary damage, assuming
the attacker is striking to break and sever rather
than, for instance, against blood vessels.
Its insides are doughy and stuck together; it does
not bleed. It takes damage only to its Brawn,
not to its Quickness (half of the Damage of the
attack is lost), and it will fight until hacked apart
(a total of twice its Brawn).
After that, it reknits its wounds unless it is
destroyed by extensive dismemberment or by
intense and prolonged fire. The reknitting process is not terribly concerned about conforming
precisely to the anatomical arrangement prior
to being wounded.
It has very little memory of its former life; a person
who questions a draugr using Black Speech must
make a Wits vs. 12 roll to get anything useful out of
it, such as how its body died or the persons concerns
when he or she was alive. However, such communication isnt really two-way as a draugr doesnt care a bit
about living concerns any more.
Haunt
A haunt is not created by a spell but rather by a dying
persons Charm vs. 12 roll as he or she swears a mighty,
passionate black oath. A beast may do this as well.
Ordinarily this roll is made at 1d6, but in or near an
152
Ghoul
A person who routinely practiced cannibalism may
rise from death as a ghoul with a successful Charm
Lich
A lich is created voluntarily by casting the Lich spell
on oneself, which is also committing suicide. The
spell may be cast as an enchantment, furthermore, it
may utilize Brawn gained from Sacrificing something
or someone else. If cast in or near an Rbaja zone, the
spell is automatically an enchantment.
A lich looks like the person in life at first. Beginning swiftly and proceeding slowly, death withers
and hollows its face and body until it becomes all
desiccated, with the fibers of its muscles stuck to its
bones, covered with the paper-like remains of its skin.
A lich has its original professions and mental faculties, although one may fairly say that the latter were
already deranged to be casting the spell in the first
place, and its behavior is subject to the ordinary
interaction rules such as Charm rolls. It experiences
muted, variable sensations, similar to that of a phantom limb, as well as a persistent chill.
Dont mistake a lich for a person. The phantom limb
concept applies to its emotions as well, flickering in
and out and experienced more as a what was that
than an authentic response. It has a single desire:
whatever it didnt get in life, despite all of its magical
and probably temporal power. That desire remains,
obsessive, monomaniacal, and impossible to satisfy,
so central to the lichs being that it may never even
mention it.
153
Circle of Hands
Wealth and privilege
A specific sort of romance
Regard for a particular artistic or intellectual
achievement
Mere power, destruction, or vengeance are not candidates. Other, grubbier undead are concerned with
those.
The lichs Brawn is equal to the wizards black
color points at the time of death (including the
casting of Lich), and all other scores are the
same as when the wizard was alive. A lich has no
intrinsic armor but may wear ordinary armor.
It retains black Gifts, if any were present.
A lich can cast all the black spells, but may only
cast white magic, if it knew any originally, along
with a Warp spell.
If Brawn and Quickness are brought to 0, it will
spatter and disperse into muck and dust, which
also happens at the end of the spells duration.
If the Lich spell had cast without enchantment,
the lich is transformed into a haunt; however, if
it was cast as an enchantment, the lich re-forms
at the next dawn or dusk unless the remains are
destroyed utterly or targeted by Purify or Restore.
Doll
A doll is an obedient, low-affect Uncanny Valley humanoid
which serves as the sex partner of its summoner or anyone the
summoner designates, without negotiation and with complete
compliance to its partners wishes. In any other circumstances,
it otherwise behaves quietly and inoffensively. A doll vocalizes
only during sex and does not actually speak.
Sexual contact with the doll inflicts 1d6 Damage immediately
and again at the end of the current scene; the latter effect is
counteracted if he or she has more sex with the doll prior to
that point, which does not inflict more damage.
Brawn 3, Quickness 6, Armor 0.
A doll does not fight voluntarily and does not defend itself
Its bite deals +1d6 Damage which does not heal through
ordinary means
Illus. Juan Ochoa
154
Illus. Juan Ochoa
155
Circle of Hands
Prep and play
Imp
An imp is a small, winged grotesque humanoid. It
automatically and involuntarily provides a 3-point
Brawn battery for its summoners or designated masters magical use, once between each dawn and dusk
(and vice versa), at no harm to itself.
Brawn 3, Quickness 6, Armor 3.
156
Splotch
A splotch is a nasty, icky wet patch of rotten-seeming
dark stuff, coagulating from the ichor when a demon
is killed, or if summoned for some reason, disgorged
from the summoners mouth.
A splotch does not speak or otherwise communicate,
but it acts aggressively against anyone except its summoner, if there was one.
Brawn 3, Quickness 6, Armor 0.
It attacks all-out (+12/+0), doing damage and
also attaching to its target.
Once attached, it continues to attack, and at that
point, armor doesnt protect against it.
Eye
Whatever cloth, leather, or other clothing-like material it sticks to becomes disgusting and unusable.
Nzagg
A nzagg is a vicious, brutish, ape/dog/boar thing,
prone to sudden rage and with a taste for atrocity. It
does not speak, but its intentions are typically quite
clear. Each one is visually distinctive and recognizable, with its own fur color pattern, skin excrescences,
and facial details, and its given a name by its summoner.
A nzagg eats voraciously and grows dramatically, increasing to twice human size or conceivably
more, so its Brawn may be 6 or 9
A nzagg can transport itself to any location in the
venture, specified by geography, so here rather than
to this person wherever he is. It only understands
one command, kill, and it considers itself free to
decide how and how much, nor does it understand
the concept of targeted person beyond everyone
and anyone present.
Nightmare
157
Circle of Hands
To direct the groups collective action with a
Charm vs. 12 roll at any time, with no need to
be present
These effects can be perceived through wizard senses
or the Sight spell directed toward the people themselves.
Additional body parts may be provided to affect additional groups. Without a group to influence, the eye
soon turns upon the person currently engaged with
it, then seeks someone else.
Prep and play
Angel
158
Yoggoth
A yoggoth is a black-and-violet cloud, usually a
surrounding fog, with many tooth-filled maws and
dangling tentacles.
It has Brawn 1, but replace that with 3 per creature killed using the Sacrifice spell during its
summoning. The points gained by Sacrifice are
expended in providing this effect.
It has Quickness 6, Armor 6.
It can attack and defend in an area, against
everyone in the area at once.
Its normal attack seizes a victim, doing normal
damage, and the next round it tries to swallow
him or her whole, resisted by Brawn vs. 12.
Its horrifying appearance overcomes one opponent on its turn unless they roll Wits vs. 12 a
single success protects the person throughout
the encounter.
Failing the Wits roll means the person
becomes incapable of targeting other characters in any way, or of speaking; he or she
may remove this effect by pumping 2 Brawn.
Inside it is an Rbaja zone, such that if a person or
beast is killed by its attack:
It becomes a draugr (see Undead), with its
emergence just following the yoggoths next
action, then proceeding to the end of the action
order.
If a yoggoth is injured:
A storm is raised in the area, including darkness, rain, lightning, and thunder. People and
creatures in the area of effect suffer reduced visibility, reduced movement, and disadvantaged
actions, except for creatures of Rbaja. Unnamed
Dancer
When initially summoned or when encountered
in any context outside of a fight, a dancer is a small
statuette made of bronze or pewter, about a foot long,
depicting a stylized armed person.
A QUICK REFERENCE
You cant go wrong with the classics. I was pleased to
re-read Karl Edward Wagners Death Angels Shadow
and to find that the antagonists in the three stories are
picture-perfect for, in order, a monster, Amboriyon,
and Rbaja.
159
Chapter
8F
antasy
Heartbreakers
AT THE TIME
By February 2002 Sorcerer and its first two supplements had been published in book form, and a year later the set
was completed with Sex & Sorcery. I organized the first Forge booth at GenCon in summer of 2002 and planning
the next, as well as working on Trollbabe, my first game as an established publisher. For those who remember,
the Forge itself was a hotbed of discussion, design, and excitement. For my part in that, I was only glad that the
whole GNS thing was finally settling down and I could think about games. The first things I thought about were
Glorantha, which I wrote about elsewhere, and these two essays.
161
Circle of Hands
whose update-intervals grew longer and longer. And
considering when most were published, before most
printers changed their policies regarding small print
runs, print costs must have been enormous, in the
$6000-plus category for standard paperbacks. Some
of the games contain cardstock inserts, too. Vanity is
vanity, sure, but we are not talking about small sums.
So whats the point of the essay? For once, my issue
has nothing to do with GNS. All of these games are
solidly nested in Simulationist (Setting), Gamist, or
Gamist/Simulationist baskets, and most of them are
quite coherent. For once, Im talking about content,
what some call genre, and the means of generating
it through the mechanics of play. So screw GNS, lets
talk about something else. Cue videotape.
Fifth Cycle - 1990, Shield Laminating, by Robert
Bartels
Hahlmabrea - 1991, Sutton Hoo Games, by Dan
Fox.
Of Gods and Men - 1991, Non Sequitur Productions, by Jeffrey Konkol
Darkurthe: Legends - 1993, Black Dragon Press, by
Matthew Yaro and Colin Murcray
Legendary Lives - 1993, Marquee Press, by Kathleen and Joe Williams
Neverworld - 1996, Foreverworld Books, by Erin
Laughlin
162
Fantasy Heartbreakers
adventurer who grows very powerful and might die at any time, and all context and judgment and outcomes are
the exclusive province of this guy called the GM (or whatever), case closed. They precisely parallel what AD&D
role-playing evolved into during the early 1980s. Each of these games is clearly written by a GM who would very
much like all the players simply to shut up and play their characters without interfering with whats really happening. They are Social Contract time bombs.
Finally, the last painful thing. Check out the self-perceived innovations, like these listed on the back of Forge:
Out of Chaos.
Select proficiencies such as Final Blow, Field Repair, Assassination, Mounted Combat, and Blind Fighting! [AD&D2,
late 80s] No more arbitrary experience points! The more you use a skill, the better you get! [RuneQuest, c. 1977]
Realistic combat mechanics! Armor that can be destroyed! [The Fantasy Trip, 1980] Two separate defensive values!
[(Sigh) Champions, 1980]
The same applies to just about all the noted innovations - the spell paths in Fifth Cycle are straight out of Rolemaster, for instance, and Hahlmabreas magic crystals are straight out of RuneQuest.
163
Circle of Hands
Of Gods and Men: roll 7d10 for each of six attributes, taking the five highest as a total.
Legendary Lives: roll d6 for each of twelve attributes, adding the result to a given value set by
race; these values are highly differentiated by
race such that the roll doesnt make much difference.
Darkurthe: Legends: roll 2d6 + 4 for each of five
attributes, with a couple of options listed (e.g.
roll six times and take the best five).
Pelicar: roll 3d10 for each of eight attributes,
ignore the lowest, total the other two and add 10.
Forge: Out of Chaos: roll 2d6 and 1d10 for each of
six attributes, with the tens die acting as a decimal
(e.g. I roll 8 on the 2d6 and 3 on the d10, so I have
an 8.3 in that attribute); three other attributes are
determined randomly as well (e.g. Speed d4 + 1).
Dawnfire (the normal-est): roll 2d10 for ten attributes and arrange to suit.
To me, each of these appears to be a solution to the
fact that, in old D&D, rolling 3d6, in order, to determine ones ones attributes was a near-guarantee
of a really shitty character - hence the widespread
cheating in character creation and the proliferation
of house rules such as the above. (By house rules,
I mean patch rules - fixing a problem by adding correcters, rather than proceeding from base principles.)
Fantasy Heartbreakers
PART THREE: WOW!
And now, at last, those things which astound and fascinate me about the games ... although I have to start
with the fact that few of these things seem to have
been well-understood by the authors as innovations,
at least not to the extent that they deserve.
The basic notion is that nearly all of the listed games
have one great idea buried in them somewhere. Its
perhaps the central point of this essay - that yes, these
games are not only AD&D knockoffs and hodgepodges of house rules. They are indeed the products
of actual play, love for the medium, and determined
creativity. Thats why they break my heart, because
the nuggets are so buried and bemired within all the
painful material I listed above.
Some examples include the exceptionally fun
randomized life-path creation in Legendary Lives,
which granted was first presented to role-playing
by Cyberpunk, but here takes on a spritely, fun quality. I would very much like to play the cultist Draco
character I produced using this method, without reservation, and I have a clear image of his highly prized,
rather sporty scarf. (A Draco fire-conjurer with an
ascot! I mean it, it worked.) This game also sports
the semi-diceless system, which is to say, all rolls
are made by players against target numbers, which I
have praised highly regarding The Whispering Vault,
published some years later. I rather like the setting in
Of Gods and Men, and Forge: Out of Chaos is irresistibly
honest about itself; I almost feel as if Id played with
the authors just by reading the book.
164
PART FOUR:
BUSINESS AND MARKETING
165
Circle of Hands
Fantasy Heartbreakers
stores via slush-fund ordering is the best they can hope for, meaning no in-store sales or even recognition of
their presence. And even if they get to end-users, their aggressively retro mode of play and presentation cannot
compete with those games which defined that mode of play and command the loyalty of those who value it. In
terms of the tiers, these games are what define small press: imitative game design, low-budget presentation, and
minimal customer interest. To the retailer of the 1990s, such a game is not re-ordered, even if it sells.
These are indie role-playing games. Their authors are part of the Forge community, in all the ways that matter.
They designed their games through enjoyment of actual play, and they published them through hopes of reaching
like-minded practitioners. It is not fair to dismiss the games as sucky - they deserve better than that, and no one
is going to give them fair play and critical attention unless we do it. Sure, I expect tons of groan-moments as some
permutation of an imitative system, or some overwhelming and unnecessary assumption, interferes with play.
But those nuggets of innovation, on the other hand, might penetrate our minds, via play, in a way that prompts
further insight.
Lets play them. My personal picks are Dawnfire and Forge: Out of Chaos, but yours might be different. I say, grab a
Heartbreaker and play it, and write about it. Find the nuggets, practice some comparative criticism, think historically.
Get your heart broken with me.
166
167
Circle of Hands
They also got hold of a Julie Bell painting for the
cover clearly done specifically for the game; Id like
to know whatever story is behind that.
Fantasy Heartbreakers
OVERALL MUSINGS
168
AN INTERESTING PROPOSAL
169
Circle of Hands
Im going to take D&D Fantasy as a just-plain-given,
deliberately taking the naive assumption that everyone just knows what role-playing is, what fantasy
is, and what this hobby is all about, given only D&Dbased culture as the foundation. Also, Ill work
straight from what I enjoyed about reading the text
and playing the game - working toward getting them
centrally into play, without questioning any assumptions of why that stuff was in there, or considering
where it came from before it was in there.
what you add. So, um, a salamander characters Agility starts at 10, and you roll this 4d6, getting (perhaps)
an 11, divide and round to 6, so his or her Agility is 10
+ 6 = 16. To colorize things up, Id put in a randomized
table for motive, all being fun and active like Fame,
Profit, Virtue, Vengeance, and that sort of thing. Id
stress that not one of them actually dictates behavior,
just sets up what youre interested in increasing for
the character. Itd be very lightly reinforced in the
reward system.
170
Fantasy Heartbreakers
rewards for creatures killed or puzzles solved, and
then set up a point-scheme to spend them. But spend
them on what? Levels or no levels? I think that Ill
be innovative again and jettison levels (be sure to
put that on the back of the book and into the introduction). Therefore character improvement will be a
matter of improving skills, attributes, and secondary
attributes, as well as maybe changing profession for
lots of points. But the word level has to be retained
in some way. Ill have to think about that. Maybe itll
be a hit-point thing, so that certain plateaus of points
earned (not spent) result in higher hit points and
higher magic scores.
Is this a valuable exercise? Surprisingly, Im enjoying
myself. Im pretty tempted to start a notebook for this
game, to be titled whatever the setting ends up being
called. It would mainly concern the ongoing war and
interactions among the lava-living salamanders and
humans, with lots of intermediate contact and societies among the two. Obviously ruins of both human
habitations and salamander communities would be
the dungeons.
But maybe the exercise is only valid for some people,
and perhaps its a generational issue. My own first
role-playing game experience was indeed old-school
D&D. In terms of us folks, yes, I think Mikes point
is valid. But ... what about those role-players who
were born into an entirely different set of starting
assumptions? Nowadays, a lot of folks first game was
probably Vampire.
Lets also consider that a form of D&D has recently
become available that is far more mechanically satisfying, if perhaps less intriguing, than the original(s),
and thus less likely to instil its users with any number
of frustration-issues. And as well, that if setting for its
own sake is ones primary creative drive, then D20s
your huckleberry.
A LOOK BACK
AH GEEZ, DID I SAY THAT?
That what if I did it example in the second essay is bad. Not only is it not kind of lame on its face, its terrible
dishonest crap given that Gray Magick was sitting forgotten in a manila folder the whole time. Just red-sharpie
that right out and replace it with the majority of this book.
I completely missed the boat about Legendary Lives, which I realized upon playing it a few times. It does belong
in the essay, but for all the good reasons and none of the design criticisms I wrongly attributed to it. Thinking
about that also leads me to reconsider my phrasing about the bit of genius stuck in the mire, which has become
rephrased and over-repeated as the nugget in shit, far more insulting than what Id written. I did not characterize
171
Circle of Hands
the games as either unplayable or necessarily poorly
designed; like an assortment of RPGs grouped in any
category theyre all over the map for that.
172
Fantasy Heartbreakers
insulting miniscule profit margin through the three-tier distribution system, the crowding-out of shelf space
by companies like TSR and FASA, the impossibility of paying for promotion and convention presence through
sales, and the impracticality of the internet. The game could have been Gods own fantasy role-playing system, the
funnest and most inspiring thing ever, and itd still be chewed up and spat out by the market-fixing of the time.
Sure, the term is critical but these games authors didnt screw it up, they got screwed over. I cant say it enough:
my essays are about the Heart, not the Breaking. (Nathan Paoletta came up with that line, credit where its due.)
Todays danger
For a bit there, Id thought the phenomenon had met its end, given digital print and print-on-demand. At least
now if your content qualified, then you werent going to watch double-digit thousands of dollars vanish into the
ether for it. However, crowdfunding has brought heartbreaking design + publishing back with a vengeance, with
its sunk-cost investment masquerading as a windfall, and its admirable but also treacherous wish for it and make
it happen message.
No one was happier than I to see the three-tier distribution system die its well-deserved, gooey death, and so
much about crowdfunding is so wonderful, but sure enough, heartbreakers are back, and I love them with great
agony still.
173
Chapter
9H
eartbreaker
Redemption
I cleaned it up for fun, fixing the fight example, getting rid of the Tarzan talk for the spell descriptions,
and little things like that. Id seen the timing for spells
during combat work well during playtesting but had
never managed to get the instructions for it right
in the text. I knew that the unarmed combat rules
werent sound. I went through the pages and marked
such stuff, and found myself intrigued enough to
spring it onto some friends.
175
Circle of Hands
Playtesting immediately showed that the culture
and genre were opaque. The Priest profession meant
almost literally nothing, so players shoveled whatever
assumptions or tropes they wanted into it, and the
Noble trait was not only equally empty, but punched
a hole into every playtest because it was mechanically
attractive. Both illustrated that no real notion of the
fictional society existed, and more generally, there
was no context for the characters, no situations at all.
Apparently various colorful people would just have
adventures.
Itd be one thing if I knew exactly how to do it but
merely omitted writing it down, but instead, the
adventure was a big void in my mind. Every playtest, I had to put them into a half-finished adventure
situation in order to play at all. But the setups had no
buy-in, and no connection to the choices people had
made in making their characters. Thats why every
time we tried it, the characters did the adventure
but went nowhere as interesting entities of their own.
This void got emptier every time I looked at it, and
I turned to refining minor procedures as they stood.
Heartbreaker Redemption
176
Finally, the procedural tweaks and appropriate terminology hit a plateau, and there was no denying that I
had to think about how the setting related to play, and
how it contributed to who the player-characters were
and what kind of situations they found themselves in.
Again, the key was faithfulness to my earlier self and
his work not in the details, but in emotional and
technical goals. At this point, there was no question of
an Apocalypse World hack, or Burning Wheel, or whatever none of that speaks to the original drive to try
to find it, this thing, whatever it was, and while using
my up-to-date design skills on it, to honor it fully.
In this re-reading, the faithfulness paid off. I spotted
the two paragraphs that had been sitting in the original manuscript, waiting for me to notice:
177
Circle of Hands
At least I didnt have to come up with something new,
because it was sitting right there. Which also meant
that the whole problem of what to be, what to do,
had been solved already by Prince Valiant: abandon
the whole notion of independent actors entirely,
take it straight to Rolke and the circle of influence
or agents associated with the young king, and what
would I call this circle, let me think
The old notes about multiple characters had become
the solution. The mechanical Circle concept, trading off characters, solved all sorts of problems that
confused me because they were problems, like why I
couldnt bring myself to include a dramatic advancement/improvement process, or why I didnt want to
plot-armor characters against being killed.
Now I had a concept for play, a mechanical context
for character creation, a term, a visual image, and a
rock-and-roll song: all there in one quick mental snap.
Playtesting stopped being retro noodling and became
genuine design tests as well as promotion. The cultural stuff now became enjoyable research. I scaled
Heartbreaker Redemption
THE SPEAR
The solution to the heartbreaking factor in publishing is easy: dont stay closeted and dont throw money
away, the same message that founded the Forge. In
this case, I did something a little extra with it, in enlisting active playtests of the very early draft through
the Kickstarter campaign. They contributed quite a
lot, and although I cant know for sure, I suspect the
material needed a lot of external hitting with sticks,
more than I could do myself because it was such a
strange process. I could design the hell out of it but I
couldnt critique it well.
I might have re-forged and re-shaped it, but they led
the extensive, practical work to make it into an effective weapon, something a person can hold and use.
AN INVITATION
178
179
Glossary
Glossary of Terms
3:00: the arbitrary "go" position on the circular clockstyle diagram used to organize actions during a
complicated situation, especially combat.
Advantage: the extra die granted to one participant in
a Clash based on prior events.
Amboriyon: the metaphysical condition and location
characterized by white magic; one of the two sides of
the magical war.
Ascension: altering the status of an unnamed person
or ordinary animal to that of a named person or beast,
respectiv ely, during play. An ascended individual
gains mechanical agency based on attribute values.
Avatar: the lesser type of Amboriyon creature, including the unicorn, pegasus, and valkyrie.
Profession: the skill-set and primary medium of interaction among individuals; profession defines and
limits a person's skill-set and refines his or her range
of perception based on social rank.
G
9
Details: striking components of a character's appearance, including the Feature and Demeanor.
214
Rbaja: the metaphysical condition and location characterized by white magic; one of the two sides of the
magical war.
Ritual: a requirement for casting certain spells,
extending casting time into hour units; more than
one spell may be combined into a ritual, using the
casting time for the longest.
Rolke: the coastal mountain range and corresponding
shore of the Crescent Land.
Roll vs. 12: The standard resolution roll, using 2d6 by
default, adding the value of a single relevant Attribute; a final result of 12 or better indicates success.
The standard penalty reduces the roll to a single die.
Scenes: the smaller units of play in which fictional
actions, events, and consequences occur. Spells may
not be cast outside of scenes. Brawn spent for spellcasting or to change the order of action is recovered
at the beginning of a new scene.
Scrum: a multi-person combat situation in which
considered, targeted attacks are not possible.
215
Two magical forces are at war, black and white. They are savagely
effective, diametrically opposed, utterly inhuman, and ultimately
destructive, represented by fanatical wizards, and manifested in
actual locations. They are stagnating and obliterating the culture.
Black magic is called Rbaja (ur-BAH-ja), and in its extreme form,
taints and scorches the landscape into stinking pestholes filled
with undead.
White magic is called Amboriyon (am-BOR-eeyon), and in its
extreme form, gathers in clouds from which angelic beings
descend and lead people into what looks like virtue until it
enlightens them into amorally perfect form or even erases them
from reality.
The prevailing religion of the culture is not centralized, similar to
minimally-institutional Buddhism. It is opposed to the magical
forces, directed toward steadfastness, endurance, survival, and
submission when it shifts to resistance, it gets crushed.
Cannabis is not native to the region but is cultivated where possible, and its leaves are dried and smoked in most social situations.
Its resinous extract is smoked in religious observances.
The Rolke region is newly liberated from the magical wars,
united under a young king. He has instituted extensive reforms
and sworn to defy both Amboriyon and Rbaja by using white
and black magic together.
You play characters whove banded together to support the
young king in Rolke, who opposes both kinds of magic, and you
are not only a trained fighter no matter what your social background and prior life, but you use both kinds of magic at once.
This group is called the Circle its the only one.
The Circle is the sole institution in the setting with any glimmer
of a better life free from the not-so-Cold War between Amboriyon and Rbaja. Its also unique in that no social background is
excluded.
All player-characters are outstanding physical bad-asses. If
their background doesnt indicate this, then the Circle trained
them up.
The fictional culture includes sex and gender bias. Female
Circle members, who are armored fighters, are yet another
society-challenging innovation of the Circle.
Everyone makes up two characters, and thats the Circle. For any
given adventure, you can play any Circle character you want,
although not twice in a row. There are no Circle NPCs.
Clash resolution compares mutual offense and defense simultaneously, and every exchange gives the advantage to one side or
the other.
Play does not concern events at home. The young king and the
circumstances of his presence in Rolke are never seen. The characters are played during their ventures.
All Circle members know a few white and black spells. Your
character can also be a full-on wizard, who knows all the spells.
Yes, every single one.
Ventures are created using random components and a specialized process to combine and refine them. Ventures include local
people with interests of their own and difficult locations. They
also include the chance for knowledge, lurking threats, and the
fell influence of Rbaja, Amboriyon, or both.
A ventures outcome for the Circle in general, and for the young
king in Rolke, is most likely successful by default. Its purpose in
play is to showcase the characters, develop their passions, and
bring them to fateful conclusions.
A character has nine slots to fill in with color points, from casting spells or swearing oaths. White points cancel black and vice
versa, but if all nine are either white or black, then more magical
consequences appear. Its OK to do this, but the effects are permanent. Unlike ordinary wizards, Circle members use this option
tactically, not ideologically.
Its true that wizards are more powerful and flexible than nonwizards, but the wizards tend to hurt themselves too much to
run around unsupported. The two kinds of Circle knights are the
same when it comes to plain old spear and sword mayhem.
GIFTS
KEY EVENT
Mark which
weapons and
a r m o r yo u
know how to
use (by Social
Rank).
Knife
Hatchet
Club
Staff
Tattooing
Slender build
Mismatched eyes
Distinctive work-related injury
One piece of bright clothing
Metal ornament
Blaze
Emblem
Facial scar
Well-groomed
ARMING
Sling
Bow
Hand Axe
Crossbow
Whip
Merchant
Outdoorsman
Priest
Sailor
Scholar
Wi z a rd ( mu s t
have at least one
other profession)
SEX
Round Shield
Kite Shield
Cone Helmet
Spangenhelm
Gambeson
Mail
Spear
Sword
Francisca
Great Axe
Chained Mace
MARKS
Shy
Friendly
Blunt
Formal
Fierce
Stoic
Serene
Artisan (specific)
Entertainer (low)*
Entertainer (high)*
Fisherman
Farmer
Martial (low)*
Martial (high)*
PROFESSIONS
HOMELAND
FEATURE
TRAITS
NAME
Knife
Hatchet
Club
Staff
DEFENSE
____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
I WILL ____________________________________
OATHS
CURRENT QUICKNESS
CHARM
CHARM
Rbaja
Amboriyon
Every time you cast a spell, you gain points on the chart below, filling in from the
appropriate end towards the middle (dark circles for Rbaja, open circle for Amboriyon).
If you have 9 points of all one color, gain a Gift and check for a Mark of that color.
Spear
Sword
Francisca
Great Axe
Chained Mace
CURRENT BRAWN
SPELLS
ATTACK
WITS
WITS
TOTAL PROTECTION
Sling
Bow
Hand Axe
Crossbow
QUICKNESS
QUICKNESS
COMMITMENT
Note which
weapons and
a r m o r yo u
have with you
right now.
ARMING
BRAWN
BRAWN