Musings on tabletop roleplaying. A mixture of homebrew ideas, observations, and theory discussion; plus occasional reviews, utilities and inspirations. Verbose, amateurish, under-edited, over-written, not especially serious.
A friend of mine has set up a website selling charming cards and illustrations, and I thought I'd give her a shout out: Mo Little Art. Well worth going to check out the cute animals and striking colours even if you're not up for buying anything. Frog Soup is my current favourite.
The perils of negative marking (see here, or here, or ) are revealed to the stealthless Necropolitans in Episode 028: Two of you are stealthing, and one of you is hitting things with a stick
Secrets of a long-vanished species are revealed as the Necropolitans explore the Nameless City in Episode 027: That's not how it works
Anyone who listened to the podcast earlier may be confused to see this post change. This is due to me unearthing several missing recordings that I hadn't even realised were missing (due to doing all the audio editing retrospectively).
Piracy! It's a crime! You wouldn't steal an orphan, would you..? It's an otter disgrace tonight in Episode 026: Do you have orphans right now!?.
"A game for bold and meddling kids".
I picked up a copy of Cat Elm's The Vampire Next Door ages ago, but only recently had the opportunity to actually run it. I've now run it twice - once for an actual one-shot (about 2 hours), and once for a two-part game that ran to roughly 3 hours.
I don't have a bad word to say about it.
Anyone who listened to the podcast earlier may be confused to see this post change. This is due to me unearthing several missing recordings that I hadn't even realised were missing (due to doing all the audio editing retrospectively).
Let the bullying commence! I accidentally begin my extended reign of Jaal-terrorising with the advent of the Tiny. Wooden. Statues... in Episode 025: My bad, almost committed murder.
Special thanks to Marche Towers Art for the gorgeous Necropolitans commission he did for us, he was a pleasure to work with and I'm delighted with the result.
Anyone who listened to the podcast earlier may be confused to see this post change. This is due to me unearthing several missing recordings that I hadn't even realised were missing (due to doing all the audio editing retrospectively).
In this episode, we discover the whole drowning and tentacles business wasn't the last bit of misery to emerge from that shipwreck. You can probably make some educated guessses about what comes next, in Episode 024: The weasel has just drunk the last of the mimic.
Anyone who listened to the podcast earlier may be confused to see this post change. This is due to me unearthing several missing recordings that I hadn't even realised were missing (due to doing all the audio editing retrospectively).
In this episode, at long last, the Necropolitans are rescued from the desert (jungle) island! They embark on a series of nautical adventures which are certainly not due to me not having got round to reading the second book yet. Seaquakes and shipwrecks ahoy! in Episode 023: Everyone knows that mummy octopi are not scared of cooking
Anyone who listened to the podcast earlier may be confused to see this post change. This is due to me unearthing several missing recordings that I hadn't even realised were missing (due to doing all the audio editing retrospectively).
The Necropolitans finally uncover the ancient and exciting secrets of the temple, revealing the location of a lost city that promises absolutely fabulous wealth and definitely no unstoppably awful monsters. They're more concerned with being stuck on this island and the whereabouts of that missing serpent lady, though... find out more, in Episode 022: Allow us to inspect that which is in your hole
Anyone who listened to the podcast earlier may be confused to see this post change. This is due to me unearthing several missing recordings that I hadn't even realised were missing (due to doing all the audio editing retrospectively).
Previously-unheard content emerges Lazarus-like from the mists, as we hear what actually went down in the lost Temple of the Vampire God or whatever. An extremely cordial exchange occurs between the wise and thoughtful scholar and these undead brutes, descending inevitably into farce and brutality, in Episode 021: She stretches over two pages
Anyone who listened to the podcast earlier may be confused to see this post change. This is due to me unearthing several missing recordings that I hadn't even realised were missing (due to doing all the audio editing retrospectively).
The party are exploring an evil temple that would be vaguely horrifying if they weren't undead. We question the importance of prewritten paragraphs of things that happened thousands of years ago, he says, glancing at his GM notes of things that happened thousands of years ago. Also: good thing vampires are subtle. Find out more, in Episode 020: You are in a hole
Have you a lair that is plagued with bothersome heroes? Can't take a nap without a howling barbarian trying to bisect your torso? Treasury depleted by the depredations of ravening rogues, money-grubbing mages, and tediously commercial Lawful Evil clerics capable of casting Resurrection for you? This irregular column aims to help you find affordable solutions to your PC Problems.
As every disreputable villain knows, money buys quality. If you want to make fortresses more impregnable, traps more undetectable, spells more devastating or minions less inclined to betray you at the mere suggestion of a bribe or threat, you're going to have to splash out. Stronger materials, more devious lackeys and more potent magics always have their cost. And that's absolutely antithetical to our mission here - to give You, our valued reader, more snap for your silver.
Sometimes when I'm out running my mind goes wandering. Here are some powers you could have in a GURPS game. They are arguably useful, but deeply questionable nonetheless.
6 points. You see distinct traces whenever someone views an area with their X-ray vision. This power doesn't reveal people, but the extent of their X-ray vision is clearly visible to you, and you can use it to deduce their location.
Detect (Rare; X-Ray Vision; Reflexive, +40%; Vision-Based, -20%) [6]
6 points. You can accurately mimic any ringtone you've heard, and have an extensive repertoire of memorized ringtones to call on. If you have the Mimicry (Electronics) skill, you can roll against Mimicry rather than IQ to use this ability.
Mimicry (Accessibility, Only ringtones, -90%; Voice Library, +50%) [6]
6 points. By calmly concentrating for 30 seconds, you can cause lost and 'borrowed' teaspoons within 32 yards to teleport to your location. The ability is subtle enough that colleagues don't notice anything; however, the strain it puts on your body leaves you paralyzed for 1 minute, with an HT roll to recover once per minute thereafter. As such, it's best used when you can guarantee some privacy.
Affliction 1 (Accessibility, only misplaced teaspoons, -100%; Accessibility, Useless under stress, -60%; Advantage, Spoon Warp, +1%; Area effect, 32 yards, +250%; Backlash, Paralysis, -150%; Emanation, -20%; Malediction 1, +100%; No Signature, +20%; Requires Concentration, -15%; Takes Extra Time (x32), -50%) [6].
Spoon Warp is Warp (Anchored, afflictor only, -40%; Blind Only, -50%; Exoteleport, -50%; Modified Carrying Capacity, 0.05 lb, -90%) [20], reduced to [1] by GM fiat to represent its realistic value.
60 points. You are capable of supernatural feats of deduction and preternetural sensitivity, but drawing on your gifts risks imperilling your very soul. When you activate your detective powers, you gain a +4 bonus on Body Language, Criminology, Detect Lies, Intelligence Analysis, Interrogation, Observation, Savoir-Faire (Police), Search, Shadowing, and Streetwise. Displays of talent also gain a +5 reaction bonus from police officers and PIs. Alternatively, by meditating for a few seconds, you can attune your mind to virtually any substance or object of interest, and sense them at a distance. However, each use of your powers is a diabolical bargan that requires a Will roll to activate - for good reason!
When you use your powers, you are wreathed in a choking fog of sulphurous brimstone, and a withering aura of evil. Your eyes glow red, teeth sharpen, and bony spines extend from your temples and vertebrae. All reaction rolls incur a -4 penalty from anyone who can observe these; animals react at -8 instead, while those who see animals' reactions or have Animal Empathy take a further -1. Your presence causes grass to wither and insects to curl up dead.
Thanks to your diabolical appearance, while channeling these powers, you suffer -1 to your Disguise and Shadowing skills, and others gain +1 on attempts to identify or follow you (including their Observation and Shadowing rolls), or +3 in outdoor environments. They also gain a +2 on rolls to deduce the truth behind your abilities.
Cruelty seeps into your mind, making you cold to the emotions of others (see Callous, p. B125) and bestowing 20 points of Corruption each time you accept your infernal bargain (see GURPS Horror, pp. 146-8).
While you channel evil power, you are vulnerable to "turning" by particularly holy individuals. Worse, if you perish under its influence, your soul will go straight to the Hells! Even at the best of times, your aura is steeped in second-hand evil - you can stride unharmed through the shrines of dark gods and wield their artefacts, but you balk at the powers of goodness as though you were yourself an agent of Evil.
Functions and Detects as Evil [0] + Natural Copper 4 (Corrupting, -20%; Temporary Disadvantage, Bad Smell, -10%; Requires Will, -5%; Temporary Disadvantage, Callous, -5%; Temporary Disadvantage, Damned, -1%; Temporary Disadvantage, Detect as Evil, -1%; Temporary Disadvantage, Frightens Animals, -10%; Temporary Disadvantage, Lifebane, -10%; Temporary Disadvantage, Unnatural Features 3, -3%) [34] + Modular Abilities 30 (Divine Inspiration; Trait-Limited, Only Detect, -50%; Corrupting, -20%; Temporary Disadvantage, Bad Smell, -10%; Requires Will, -5%; Temporary Disadvantage, Callous, -5%; Temporary Disadvantage, Can be Turned by True Faith, -1%; Temporary Disadvantage, Damned, -1%; Temporary Disadvantage, Frightens Animals, -10%; Temporary Disadvantage, Lifebane, -10%; Temporary Disadvantage, Unnatural Features 3, -3%) [26].
Take the stress out of mortal combat by imaginging your enemies nude? Not content with laser cannons and monomolecular blades, you have sought out or invented the ultimate weapon. Roll against Guns (Rifle) to attack a target within 100 yards, with normal range penalties (p. B550). You can aim to benefit from Acc 3. On a successful attack, you deal 5d corrosion to creatures and objects made of cloth. The weapon doesn't harm other targets, but any fabric they wear has its DR reduced by 1 for every 5 points of damage rolled.
Since it's a weapon, your rifle can be destroyed (DR 10) or stolen (with a Quick Contest of DX or ST).
Corrosion Attack 5 (Only fabric, -80%; Based on Guns (Rifle), Own Roll, +0%; Breakable, DR 6-15, -10%; Size -1 or -2, -20%; Can be stolen, Quick Contest of DX or ST, -30%; Superscience, -10%) [10].
You can afflict your enemies with a terrible curse, if you're willing to pay the price. If your enemy loses a Quick Contest of HT vs. your Will, they are subject to constant misfortune - the first to suffer, the last to benefit, and always at the GM's whim. However, you die immediately and unpreventably from natural causes.
Affliction 1 (Disadvantage, Cursed, +75%; Malediction 1, +100%; Temporary Disadvantage, Terminally Ill (One Month) (Time-Spanning (One Month Prior) +50%), -150%) [13].
This is part 2 of a discussion about making something you could call a Lawful Good kingdom in Pathfinder:
"Basically, can it actually be both good - however you want to define that; greatest good for the greatest number is probably a working starting point - and feudal. Can you have castles and banquets and things, and subsistence level farming peasants outside to supply the tassels and banquets and things, and still be good?"
In the first part of this, I looked at the average working humanoid and discovered that the Profession rules for earning a living, coupled with costs of living rules, allow a fairly comfortable existence. Our peasant Jay "lives in their own apartment, small house, or similar location—this is the lifestyle of most trained or skilled experts or warriors. They can secure any nonmagical item worth 1 gp or less from their home in 1d10 minutes, and need not track purchases of common meals or taxes that cost 1 gp or less."
All this, as a 1st-level peasant for the price of a week's salary per month (10gp). Jay earns 12gp per week, giving 51gp per month (assuming 30 days), so they have 41gp left, after minor taxes.
The rules don't cover taxes in much detail. There's general advice which has one figure:
A good rule is for the GM to tax the party once per character level for an amount roughly equal to a single encounter’s total treasure value at their APL. The GM could also split this amount into multiple taxes or fees over the course of that character level. For example, a party of 3rd-level PCs on the Medium track should be taxed about 800 gp.
For non-adventurers, that's not terribly helpful. Our peasants aren't gaining levels through encounters, so there's no sense of how often a tax would apply. For a 1st-level character, the Medium value is 260gp, so if we were using that, Jay would owe a tax of 7 months' salary at an unspecified interval. Maybe that really is the annual tax rate? 50-60% of income is the going rate in the Nordic countries.
Since we're assuming that Lawful Good kingdom will provide beneficial public services, the Nordic countries seem a reasonable model. High taxation, but high services. So yes, let's take the 260gp/year figure at least for now. It's not going to work for high-level peasants - nobody is earning enough to pay 67k a year as a peasant farmer.
Jay is therefore paying 21.7gp per month in income tax, and still has just shy of 20gp in spending money every week.
Now let's look at what extras we could get for Jay, either through personal spending or through taxation.
Food and water are the first priority – preferably nourishing food and pure water to drink and cook with, followed by tasty food and clean water to wash in.
A Lawful Good government should be organized enough to identify people with magical potential, and train them to cast 0th-level spells. A number of traits give access to cantrips, even for those in non-magical professions.
Cantrips like purify food and drink and create water are absolutely transformative. Food can be stored for longer at the household level, and crucially, restored to edibility even after going bad! Real-world civilisations often have periods of scant food over winter or dry periods, when little grows and stores are getting thin or rotting. With a widespread system of basic magical training, there should be enough people in every village to ensure an absolute basic level of sustenance.
Access to create water also means you can keep livestock and crops alive during droughts. While you’re not going to be seriously irrigating, an apprentice can produce 2 gallons of water per six seconds, 20 gallons (about 4 bucketsful) per minute. Obviously we don’t expect anyone to do this every 6 seconds for a full working day; that would be wildly incompatible with our Lawful Good kingdom’s ethos. Still, it’s a lot.
You can bolster this with a few well-chosen investments, either directly or through supporting infrastructure. A goblet of quenching costs 180gp, but provides enough fresh, clean water for a family of 4 to drink. That’s a significant investment for the average citizen, but Jay can save up for one within a couple of years even at high tax rates. Unlike household appliances, magical items don’t usually wear out, and it's clear from canon that they can easily last for centuries. Thus, each one is a permanent boon to your people! You could encourage their proliferation further by having salaried state wizards make and sell them at cost, or decreeing that artificers must pay a tithe of items like this. They only cost 90gp to make, and are perfect for apprentices and minor priests to practice their crafting with.
On a national level, disease, malnutrition and injury are bad. They cause misery for the population, which is more than enough for a Lawful Good king to take action. On a practical level, they mean less productive workers, smaller harvests, and resources expended in treatment. Any kind of recruitment, from armies to state officials, has a smaller pool of viable candidates. People age quickly and can do less in their old age; the elderly, sickly and injured need care from people who could otherwise be doing other things. Ensuring everyone has clean water to drink and decent (if basic) food means a happier, healthier, more successful society.
Hygiene is another important tool for public health. Accessible clean water means fewer infections, and easy cleaning of infections and wounds. Utensils and medical implements can be kept clean, too. You avoid the risk of zoonoses by not sharing water sources with animals. Other simple spells – notably prestidigitation - can clean up even without water and soap, and remove stubborn stains and oil. Traditional laundry techniques put a lot of strain on fabric with pummelling, hot water, and strong soaps, so using magic should reduce wear and tear.
For those in messy professions, fastidiousness is a 1st-level spell that keeps you spotless and wards off disease. It would be a boon to medics, butchers, tanners, nightsoil collecters, miners and many more. For 1,800gp we can craft a magic item that casts it whenever you say the magic word - something like a magic curtain you pass through on your way into the workplace. It's not cheap, but it would great for morale and keep workers healthy. In fact, you could erect something like this at the entrance to an industrial quarter, and let all the city's workers file through, though that would be slow, at 600 people per hour.
For a number of reasons, toilet facilities make a big difference. Hygiene is obvious, as poor sanitation can spread disease and parasites. Toilets help control pollution and keep an environment pleasant. They can also be important tools for public safety, as people nipping into the bushes or a dark alley are vulnerable to attackers - a real-life problem in many places.
Luckily, magic offers us the chance to build clean, hygienic toilets without the disruption and challenges of massive infrastructure projects. I present the Mark I Prestidigitoilet.
Once cast, a prestidigitation spell enables you to perform simple magical effects for 1 hour. The effects are minor and have severe limitations. A prestidigitation can slowly lift 1 pound of material. It can color, clean, or soil items in a 1-foot cube each round. It can chill, warm, or flavor 1 pound of nonliving material... Any actual change to an object (beyond just moving, cleaning, or soiling it) persists only 1 hour.
The Mark I is a sturdy 6-ft. cubicle containing a toilet seat with bowl, and a basin. It's imbued with a permanent prestidigitation effect. The enspelling costs 1000gp, as it's a cantrip cast at caster level 1.
When someone places their hands in the basin, it focuses the prestidigitation spell there, cleaning their hands. Otherwise, the spell cycles through the cubicle, cleaning it one 1-ft. cube at a time. The entire thing contains 216 1-ft. cubes, which would take 1296 seconds to clean, or just under 22 minutes. That's far better than nothing, but not great.
However, we don't really need to clean the entire thing constantly. The actual toilet is only around a 2-ft. cube, giving 8 cubes, which take less than a minute to clean. It's fairly reasonable to have customers wait 1 minute between uses to ensure a clean toilet. In fact, if the customer stays put, the Mark I guarantees a clean posterior as well - essentially a combination self-cleaning toilet and bidet.
If we're allowed some flexibility with the 'intelligence' of the spell, we could program it to do a full clean at intervals.
Depending on how we interpret the "clean" part of the spell, the Mark I may dispose of sewage. If not, we'll need provision for removing it, but we can at least keep the facilities hygienic. If we have the toilet full of water, a purify food and drink spell will do the trick, since it explicitly "makes spoiled, rotten, diseased, poisonous, or otherwise contaminated food and water pure and suitable for eating and drinking".
Breakages can be a significant drain on household and business finances. This means another really useful spell is mending.
This spell repairs damaged objects, restoring 1d4 hit points to the object. If the object has the broken condition, this condition is removed if the object is restored to at least half its original hit points. All of the pieces of an object must be present for this spell to function.
For households, broken crockery, tools, and damaged clothing will need replacing. It's likely to disproportionately affect the poor: they're likely to buy cheaper goods that break more easily (the classic Boots Theory). Children tend to break things easily but don't earn income, so families with children will have a higher burden. We can also guess that infirmity and disabilities increase the likelihood of accidental breakages, again placing higher costs on vulnerable people. So this is a good point of intervention.
Again, this is a cantrip, and will cost 1000gp as a permanent effect. However, it has a casting time of not 6 seconds, but a full 10 minutes. That's a bigger issue. We can only repair 6 items per hour, so a hard maximum of 144 per day.
I'm envisioning here basically a box that you put broken things into and leave for 10 minutes while it 'cooks' them back together. Or maybe the boxes are mundane, but you pile them up on a magic table and it cooks them one at a time.
An advantage we do have is that the spell isn't worried about cost. You can repair a diamond ring as easily as a wooden spoon. If we assume people will prioritise repairing the more costly items, it can be fairly efficient. But let's take a conservative assumption: we're repairing broken cups, at 1gp each. The table of marvellous repair will fix 144 cups per day, paying for itself in a week. Well, probably a bit more with the cost of the table, call it a fortnight. After that time, the repairs are essentially free - they increase the disposable income available to the populace, and avoid unnecessary waste, while likely benefiting the poorest most. After all, the wealthy aren't going to waste 10 minutes hanging around for a 1gp cup to be fixed, let alone queue for it.
This service can also provide employment: someone to explain the process, hand out boxes, or do it on clients' behalf. On a modest salary, it would be well-suited to a retiree or someone unable to manage more physical or complex jobs.
Wealthier households and large businesses could easily have a box of marvellous repair of their own, perhaps at a higher caster level to allow repair of heavier items. A high-end restaurant with expensive china could save a lot of money in the long run. A jeweller would find the box handled fiddly repairs of delicate items much better than they could, since the difficulty of the repair isn't a factor. An artisans' guild might splash out 5,000gp for the 5th-level variant, which can repair a full set of masterwork tools (5 lb.) in a mere ten minutes - a hundred uses would cover the cost.
It's happened plenty of times. I have the glimmering of an idea, and sit down to dash off a quick scenario. Something short, simple and punchy. Suitable for a con game, perhaps.
Then something happens. I'm not sure what.
What emerges from the fog is a vast, creaking beast numbering a couple of hundred pages and weighing in at a quarter of a million words.
It happened with The Perishing of Sir Ashby Phipps, my gentle Victorian mystery.
It happened with The Wolf Who Cried Boy, my modern conspiracy cleanup crew adventure.
It happened with the "short, introductory adventure that touches on the distinctive features of Call of Cthulhu" I started, currently under the working title of Cried the Lady.
And the same thing with the Wolf Boy prequel I have in the works.
So seriously, how do people actually write short, one-shot adventures? Because if I could work that out, I might get a whole lot more things written.
I suspect this partly comes down to my own playstyle. I'm an inveterate busybody, always eager to poke at the setting and see what's there. Who maintains the machinery in the abandoned fortress? Wouldn't the chef know roughly how many people were at dinner? If the players rent a top-floor apartment across the street, what can they see going on in the grounds of the mansion? I naturally think about these things, and just as naturally put the answers into what I write.
And certainly I've been frustrated before by scenarios that don't consider what seems like a plausible course of action. That probably plays a part. What if I decide that actually, we aren't so different, you and I? Or call the police and report the obviously criminal actions of the highly-arrestible demographic, instead of mounting an illegal armed raid in search of evidence they're also doing something else that isn't illegal?
It's not that I want to stop writing long scenarios. I enjoy the process of assembling the whole thing, lovingly placing a minor NPC here, a handout there. But I'd like to have short-form writing in my toolkit as well, and as yet it's not something I feel at all skilled with.
You thought paper cuts were the worst that could happen?
Neither mummified apes, nor poisonous spiders, nor almost total inability to hurt anything, will stay these messengers about their duty.
Creative solutions abound. We debate the rules for readied actions. That damned spiritual weapon gets its comeuppance. Obviously evil statues are obviously evil.
Part 27 of the campaign is now up on Archive.org at Episode 027: Enormous tiefling, obvious gnome
A friend recently raised a question about dice mechanics, and while I won't go into the details, it sparked some thoughts about dicepools.
The broad idea was something transparent, allowing degrees of success for comparison, and not requiring maths at the table.
When avoiding maths, I tend to think of dicepools as a starting point. I don't know if this will work out but let's give it a shot.
The idea I have in mind is, for now, a pretty basic one. You'd roll a handful of dice, looking for values of X or more. Immediately we hit the downside that this isn't actually all that transparent - odds for dicepools are not all that intuitive. Okay. Let's blatantly ignore that for now and move on...
For comparisons, we could say that higher values are better. So the target might be fixed at a 4+, but when the margin of success matters, your 5+ beats their 4+. For an opposed roll, this can essentially set the target difficulty.
Okay, for a five-die pool looking for rolls of 4+, we have 97% chance of getting 1 or more, then 81%, 50%, 19%, and finally a mere 3% chance of getting 5 successes.
Looking for 5+, we go 87%, 53%, 20%, 5% and 0.4%. A group of n 4s is always less probable than a group of n-1 5s and more probable than n 5s. For example, going by sheer rarity, 4x4s should beat 3x5s, but lose to 4x5s.
Looking for 6+, we go 60%, 20%, 4%, 0.3% and 0.01%. A group of n 6s is always less probable than a group of n+1 4s or 5s, or a group of n 5s. It doesn't work entirely neatly, though - 3x6 is less likely than 4x5, but 2x6 is just as likely as 3x5, and 1x6 is more likely than 2x5.
One straightforward way of handling opposing rolls would be to have dice cancel out. Let's say you roll 4, 4, 5, 6, 6 and the opponent rolls 4, 6, 6, 6. The opponent's first two 6s cancel out both of yours. Their third 6 cancels your 5 (since it's higher) and their 4 cancels one of your 4s. This leaves you the victor with a single roll of 4.
In this model, having a bigger pool should make you more reliable at overcoming opponents. Sure, the novice might get a lucky 6, but if you're rolling more dice, you're more likely to roll some 6s and cancel it out. Conversely, if you're putting up a defence (or setting the difficulty of a challenge) you're more likely to roll a high number that the novice will struggle to cancel.
Is this significantly different from just having a dicepool without that comparison? I'm not sure...
Okay, let's think about another approach. What if rather than contributing to the size of your pool, your skill determined the target number you were going for? I feel the more intuitive way to do this is rolling equal to or less than your skill, because descending numbers being better was bad when it was THAC0 and hasn't improved since.
So if you have a skill of 1, you need to be rolling 1s. If you have a skill of 3, anything from 1-3 is a success. We'd compare these like blackjack, so your successful 3 beats the opponent's successful 2.
I feel like I slightly prefer this, because higher skill makes you more reliable at getting successes, rather than extending the maximum number of successes you can achieve.
This could be part of the classic Attribute vs. Skill model, with Attributes + circumstantial bonuses determining the size of your pool, and Skill making it easier to get successes. I'm not sure that's necessary, but it's an option. One downside there would be that having both as adjustable axes makes things less transparent, at least when creating characters: you'd potentially need to think about the impact of both on a particular ability.
On Sunday night I finally hit "Publish" on The Perishing of Sir Ashby Phipps. It's been seven eight years in the making.
Behold, The Perishing of Sir Ashby Phipps
I promised a short story as incentive for hitting £1,000 in donations to Azadi. This is that story.
I dunno if you ever went to Creggo’s? I mean, R. Cregeen’s Collectibles. It was down by the Ropewalks, off Back Roscoe, until they gutted that whole street after the fire a few years back. A grotty little shop that give off the impression it’d been squeezed like toothpaste between a tyre place and a builder’s merchant; thin shopfront, but it went far back and spilled out into a beautiful sprawling mess of shelves and cubby-holes.
If anybody ever knew what the R was they never told me. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d forgot it himself, except I don’t reckon he ever forgot nothing.
I went down there one day after I knocked off at lunchtime, just prowling about seeing what was new. Mazza was there and we got talking about all kinds; he’d picked up a set of antique programmes and theatrical posters I promised to go and see. Not really my thing, but he wanted my take on the design work. After a bit he asked if I’d heard any more about Lara Al-Yaqoobi.
I never had much to do with her; bit too intense for me, that woman. Brilliant though. I seen her at a poetry night down Bootle way about a year before, and she done a couple of readings that had everyone like rabbits in the headlights, really dug their fingers in your brain. Serious authority on esoterica too, especially Assyrian and Spanish works, which is how I’d come to talk to her a few times.
She kept some pretty screwy company, though, and the fringes she was hanging out on had seedy neighbours, like. There was this old Scottish couple, lived in that white corner house at Parkgate overlooking the marsh. Probably still do. They bought a book off me once; lovely 17th-century folio herbal-and-folklore from Andalucia, cash on delivery. I never had a more uncomfortable cuppa in my life, sat there and the pair of them gloating over the pages, giving me glances and saying the weirdest things, trying to draw me out. It was like having tea with someone’s maiden aunt, if she was also a used car dealer and a part-time witch.
Well, she’d dropped out of sight suddenly a few weeks before, and nobody knew where. Turned up missing at a few engagements, not a word said. Dutton tracked down an address in the end, but the place was pretty much cleaned out, and the landlord said he’d never actually met her.
I’d heard she caused a scene at Leung’s place a while back, and that raised a few eyebrows. Mazza said lately she’d been coming out with the kind of talk that makes you back off, straight-up paranoia. The Masons were watching her, apparently, looking for secrets smuggled out of Spain just ahead of the Inquisition. She’d been mixing with people what take what’s wrote down far too seriously, and a couple of manuscript dealers the likes of us wouldn’t touch. Five-finger imports, if you know what I mean. Maybe she got into trouble and had to light out fast. Or maybe she ended up in a mental ward. Cheerful stuff.
It makes you think a bit, cos in this business the distance between professional zeal and full-on psychotic obsession isn’t so very far. Nobody likes to talk about that. There was an awkward pause, and we moved onto other topics until he had to go and pick up the kids.
I wasn’t meaning to buy nothing, but I found myself a nice little watercolour landscape that I fancied, not too pricey, pre-war, so I wandered over to the till.
“Watercolours today, is it? I see you and Marron there were having a nice chat. Doing well, is he?”
“Not bad. He was just catching me up on that business with Al-Yaqoobi,” says I, passing him the picture. It occurred to me that she’d actually been a regular here, not surprising considering everything. You never knew what you might find at Creggo’s, but it was a treasure-trove. “You knew her, didn’t you?”
“That’ll be thirty quid. I did and all, clever lass that, good eye for unusual pieces. So what’s the news?”
“Nothing you could call news. Nobody’s got a clue. A load of nonsense about Triads mostly.”
Creggo licked his fingers and skinned one paper bag from the tight stack under the counter. The rumour of a knowing smirk slunk over his face and dove out of sight down the neck of his horrible jumper.
“Is that what they’re saying, now?” He made, to his credit, a half-arsed effort to instil the words with genuine curiosity, but it come out like a schoolkid winding up sir by asking questions of carefully-calibrated daftness.
I cocked an indulgent eyebrow at him. “Last I heard, yeah. Why, what d’you reckon?”
“Well, people have all kinds of theories, don’t they. I’m just running the shop here. You can’t go expecting miracles.”
He was maybe going for ‘inscrutable’, but pulling off inscrutability relies on beginning with at least the subtlety of the average bull walrus. The two cans of Hen he generally downs of a lunchtime weren’t exactly doing him no favours neither. If he’d opened the drawer and pulled out a placard with “ask me, ask me!” wrote on it in scarlet board marker, and then proceeded to do a tap routine while using it to sign “I know something you don’t’ know” in semaphore, that would’ve seemed comparatively deadpan, is what I’m saying.
I wasn’t exactly in the mood for playing games, to be honest. Creggo’s got a cryptic way with him at the best of times, like, and I half reckon he only ran the shop so’s he could play at being a knock-off Sphinx. He loves casting out these enigmatic phrases, and then if any poor sod bites he’ll wind them up and leave them hanging until he feels like he’s got his weekly dose of condescension in. Proper does my head in sometimes.
You might wonder why he gets any customers, but he knows his stock, and that goes a long way. To be fair, when he’s feeling helpful he can reel out this unbelievable stream of information. He’s been at six universities as far as I know, and I’ve heard him talking at least eight languages without batting an eyelid. It’s not like he’s not entitled to be a cocky git, which is more than most people can say. Annoying, yeah, but he always seemed a decent bloke otherwise, like.
I give him a broad shrug and said I understood he couldn’t go sharing no confidences. Privacy of the client, and all that, a businessman like him. A bit close to the bone, maybe; he flicked an eye and said as how she had been to see him not too long ago. After a spot more back-and-forth he cracks.
Apparently Al-Yaqoobi was hunting down a particular bit of info and she come to Creggo’s looking for it. There was a set of cellars downstairs where he kept a lot of the stock, and he let her rent one out while she worked on some of his books. Didn’t know what she’d been doing, and didn’t ask, cos he frankly didn’t care. I’m pretty sure he just seen it as another chance to play the big man doing a favour.
“Take a look if you want. You know the way.” He had a knowing look on him, like there’s a big secret joke lurking behind his eyes. “Room nine.”
I sort of weighed it up in my head. Most likely he’s just skitting somehow and there’s nothing to find. On the other, I know he’s been dangling bait at me but that doesn’t mean it’s not making me hungry, like. And who doesn’t love a mystery?
There was no door on the cellars, just a manky wooden bead curtain what was probably quite nice fifty years ago. It had a stylised pattern of an elephant on it – Thai work, I think – but the damp or mould or something got to it, so it looked like the elephant was slowly succumbing to leprosy. I glanced at it, and then back at him. He raised an eyebrow at me.
“Maybe she wrote herself into a corner,” I said, and give him a nod and strolled on through.
******************************************
Like he said, I’d already been down there once, about a year before, when he wanted a hand fetching up some books I’d ordered. The stairs are proper narrow, maybe eighteen inches, and there’s no handrail on the outside even though they go down at least ten foot; plus the ceiling slopes down low overhead, so descending is this calculated exercise in self-control. I’ve no idea how the old devil carted all his stock up and down there.
I flicked on the puny lights before I went down – cheapskate only had a few bare bulbs hanging up there to light the whole place. How Creggo ever found anything in there was another mystery, but if it turned out he was part mole on his mam’s side it wouldn’t especially surprise me, like. It was dead quiet, in both senses of the word, like the darkness just swallowed up any noise along with the light. I had trainers on, so I didn’t make a sound creeping down and holding onto the inside rail for dear life.
The cellar must have been the full length of the shop, and maybe a couple more too. It had red brick walls what I’d call probably late eighteenth century, given the height and brickwork; older than the shop, which meant it was probably left over from an old warehouse, and some enterprising landlord slapped a shop on top to make use of the place when they were redeveloping. There were dock-off heavy wooden shelves everywhere, right up to the ceiling, jam-packed with books and boxes, jutting up to the walls here and there so’s you couldn’t see right down the cellar.
Spaced evenly round the walls there were these arched doorways, although the doors can’t have been period. They had porthole windows in them, and by the look of it they’d been cannibalised off a ship in the late Victorian. Beautiful brasswork, though I didn’t recognise the mark. It might’ve been dark, but everything was clean; you don’t want any dust around, it rots the paper. Must’ve been handy with a brush, that man.
I waited a couple of minutes for my eyes to get used to the murk down here, then I started looking for room nine. As soon as I turned the corner, the shelves cut off sight to the stairs, and I might as well have been a mile underground for all I could tell. Although I’d been practically sent down there, I didn’t feel it was right to go snooping around too much, like. Saying that, I couldn’t help having a sly dekko at some of the stock he kept down here away from the casual punters. That time before, I never went past the first shelf.
Tell you what, there was some lovely items down there: I saw a Bardslay History of Music with all the gilt intact and hand-coloured plates, which I’ve got to admit I took down and spent a minute or two venerating; and a couple of Chinese paintings that must be worth a mint if they aren’t fakes. I took a glance through one of the portholes as I was passing, but it didn’t look like there was anything in there except an empty armchair in the corner. Considering how the rest of the place was stuffed, that was a bit strange, like. Maybe it was his smoking room or something, I thought.
There was a butterfly big as your two hands spread, pinned up in glass, midnight blue and almost glowing. A complete run of Great Houses of England and their Histories you could almost call mint. An absolutely stunning pocket poetry book from somewhere Slavic; I couldn’t read a word, but the binding was this exquisite silver-embossed rose suede, and there was the most delicate leaf tracery spreading from the gild edging to wrap around the verse.
Anyway, I pulled myself together to stop gawping so’s I wouldn’t get Creggo passive-aggressively asking me what I thought of the merchandise. It can’t have took more than a couple of minutes to get to the room, but it felt like about a hundred years. I’ve spent my share of time in library basements and titchy little alley bookshops whose owners are apparently allergic to windows and dusting, but there’s something about dark, quiet, old places what just slows everything down somehow. Like as though all that time what’s pent up in the bricks presses down on your body and on your mind. I never was much cop at physics, but it’s like a cousin of gravity, or you could even say it’s the other kind of gravity in the flesh. Obviously that’s daft, but you know that feeling you get sometimes in cathedrals or proper forests, where it’s like a sense you never knew you had suddenly sweeping in and nailing your tongue down?
Seeing as how Creggo taunted me into going down there, I reckoned he was up to something. He probably knew the atmosphere of the cellar was liable to weigh on people’s minds. So, given how much he likes talking down to people, it seemed like he’d probably rigged up something to make people jump, then he could skit at them for freaking out. I was half inclined to just chuck it in and head back upstairs, but on the other hand – sometimes he did know things, and if there was any clue down there what happened to Al-Yaqoobi I couldn’t stand to pass up the chance. Plus I didn’t want him calling me a wuss.
I walked slowly to the door with IX painted on it in fading white, and paused a minute to think. If Creggo was setting this up as a prank, he’d almost certainly have rigged things up so’s customers would press up against the porthole for a proper look, and then get a jump scare right in their face. So I narrowed my eyes and peered through from a couple of yards back.
Between the miserly lighting, the shelves and the titchy window, there wasn’t much light getting in there. It wasn’t much of a room, from what I could see. There was a desk in there right enough, over in the corner, with your classic cheap wooden chair. I seen a few books on top of the desk, and sheets of paper; someone had been taking notes, or maybe doing inventory, or even binding loose pages back in.
No sign of any mischief this side, so I wasn’t expecting a bucket on my head. Let’s get this over with, I thought, so I leaned forward and basically give the door a jerk like I was opening it.
It didn’t move. Instead, there was a flicker of movement, and something like a mannequin sprung up at the door, rattling around like it was on springs, even banging into the porthole a couple of times.
It’d have give me a shock right enough if I’d been pressing my face up against the glass, but since I was expecting it, it just looked ridiculous, a spindly sort of vague scarecrow thing. It was a clever trick, like; whatever gimmick he had to set it off, I couldn’t make it out. Didn’t really matter, though. Suspicions confirmed. Time to leave.
I was a bit surprised not to see Creggo peering round a corner somewhere gawping at me, but no sign of him. He’d probably be happy enough taking the mick out of anyone what actually went down there. No need to watch, he could imagine it all, way more humiliating that it’d ever be in real life. Although now that I looked, the closest door, room VIII, that was open now – maybe he’d ducked inside?
No sign of him, or anything much in there; just a funny smell, like old rotting metal, maybe. And yet.
There’s nothing inherently sinister, or even weird, about an open door. But now that I looked around, as far as I could see in the tobacco-yellow gloom, all of them doors were open now. They’d opened without a sign of anyone, without a sound. When I shoved that handle I’d been stretching every nerve for a sign of whatever trick Creggo was pulling; I’d have heard a mouse twitch a whisker.
My whole brain stopped, like I’d run into a patch of treacle. I’ve dealt with trouble before, I wasn’t scared exactly, just – none of my instincts had any idea how to react to a simple little inexplicable turn like that. It wasn’t fight-or-flight or anything; it was like how a crowd just stands there staring while something kicks off in front of them.
After probably a minute or two, I shook it off a bit and started back for the stairs, still not really thinking straight. There was that stink what I couldn’t quite put a name to, and that was bugging me like hell. Where did that come from anyway, unless it was out the rooms? And then I stopped for a sec when I seen them Chinese paintings again, not looking exactly, just pointing my eyes at them like when you wake up groggy and spend five minutes staring at a kettle before you remember how it works. Sort of turned my head that way, and I deffo heard something down the far end, like cloth dragging on the floor.
Well of course, I squinted a bit to try and make out what was going on, and I seen something moving, but it wasn’t Creggo.
There was this lumpy shape shuffling along, or waddling maybe, more like a heap than anything. It was slow and awkward, but there was something about it even just from a glimpse. I stopped dead and caught my breath just staring after it, willing it to disappear. Even my shadow tensed up. It took forever just to lumber off behind the next shelf.
When I finally felt safe enough to move, I started creeping forward again, looking for those stairs it felt like I hadn’t seen in a century. Then I saw movement again, up ahead. The first one was well off in the shadows, but this one was just passing under a bulb when I caught sight of it and it made my blood run cold, swear to God.
I don’t really know how to describe it. It was partly like a mass of twisted cloth, all tattered and manky, something you might find mouldering away backstage of a ruined theatre. Or, and I appreciate this sounds hilarious, like some kind of rotting armchair covered in stinking shrouds, heaving itself forward with just this sick damp grating sound where the trailing folds dragged along behind. And they might be lumbering and squat and mouldy, but there was something in there that just set my mind screaming hellfire.
I’d pulled back behind the nearest shelf before I realised. It was one of them moments where your brain locks out everything it doesn’t care about no more, because it knows you’re just a finger away from dead. I knew sure as I ever knew anything, nothing I done ever mattered more than not letting them notice me.
When the sound finally died out, I made myself peek round the corner and there wasn’t nothing there, so I dragged myself out and kept going. I had to walk past where it’d been, and there was these damp marks on the floor, and that rancid coppery stink that sent a shiver right through me. I was stalking along, trying not to tread in the marks, trying not to breathe, trying to look every direction at once, like. You wouldn’t believe some of what Creggo had down there in them back shelves, I couldn’t help running my eyes over it. Most of the stock was boxed up, but if even one of them labels was true… look, there’s people’d literally kill for some of them books. You ever see a first edition Zimmerman? Yeah, that one. And I swear to God one was labelled “Copeland, author’s copy, annotated”.
I was just creeping up past room II, nearly at the stairs. The way the shelves stuck out down there, I had to walk right by the doorway to get out. With the door flung back it felt like I was tiptoeing past a tomb, or a cave, and I could barely bring myself to move a muscle. I could practically feel death spilling out of it. I was stood there for a good while before I could get a hold of myself and start across, and it can’t have took more than three or four seconds but it felt like an hour, and the whole time this terrible sense of exposure and a tingle down my back and left side, just waiting for something unspeakable to touch me. I didn’t dare to look inside. Something might be looking back.
Then I heard a brushing sound from right inside. The only thing that stopped me from screaming out, or breaking for it, was pure instinct. I just had time to slide up between the door and the wall before something come slithering out the doorway like a caterpillar. It was like iron hands grabbed me all round so’s I couldn’t move an inch, not even to breathe, not even to blink or shut my eyes so I wouldn’t have to look at it. I seen it crawling past, and the clothy tatters was flapping gently, pulsing even – like a sea anemone, or maybe gills. It passed about a foot away, and paused for a minute, like it was sniffing around for something. Finally it lurched away, so slowly it hurt, and me still thinking it’d turn round any second and that’d be it.
After about a century, it rounded a corner, and I started breathing again and wished I never. The reek was like fire in my lungs. You can’t imagine it; this oily, salty, metallic stench just laced with that bitter stink of thick white mould – I don’t often see them in dreams now, thank Christ, but I do feel that stink in my throat, and I know they’re close, waiting for me to turn round.
When I could stand straight again, I crept weakly round the corner, towards that sliver of daylight from the top of the stairs, where it filtered through the curtain. I was shivering all over from fright and exhaustion and from fighting down the urge to vom. I seen the shape of the stairs ahead, with the light sharp on the corners of them, and then just before I could get my hopes up I seen something else.
There was someone else moving uncertainly towards the stairs as well; moving like I must’ve been, with knees bent and arms tensed, hunched over a bit, and head up to stare all around. Only they didn’t seem frightened, like. More like a cat somehow. Stalking around quietly so’s it wouldn’t be heard coming. And now it crept a bit closer to the stairs and some light fell on it, and I seen its body was too thin, and its face was the wrong shape. It looked like it might go up, and then it stared up at the curtain for a while and hunched, like a cat raising its tail.
It crouched for a moment down beside the stairs, and I realised it might just stay there and block me out. That moment I hated it more than I ever hated anything. Then it sort of shrugged and started turning back, and I was panicking instead.
Thank God, there was a sort of niche in the wall there, you know, the sort what gives access to a fusebox or some such, a few foot deep. With the shoddy lighting down there it was black as pitch and I slipped in right to the back, pressing up against the wall. There was something rammed up against my back that must’ve been the electrics but I didn’t care, because it was coming. I heard it pacing slowly towards me, and a sort of rasping noise that must’ve been breath, only dry as dust. More like sandpaper. And I seen it step across the front of the niche, with the light behind it, and it stopped and turned towards me.
I couldn’t see nothing but a black shape. It took one step into the shadow, like it wasn’t certain; I got the impression it might even be blind. I couldn’t even move, I was dead on my feet, too tired of it all to do anything by then. There was that kind of inevitability, like when you brake for the lights and in your rear view mirror you see the van behind you wasn’t paying attention and it’s just growing and there’s nothing you can do but wait for the crash. It slowly raised one of them hands towards my face, and I could see it was too long and too thin, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away. The fingers passed maybe two inches from my mouth. The dry crackle of that breath was so close, I could feel it ever so faintly on my skin.
Then it slowly turned away, and slunk back out into the cellar, and I heard the brush of it against one of the shelves growing fainter.
There was no way to know when it was safe to move, if it ever would be. I could always hear movements somewhere nearby. But eventually I needed to move more than I wanted to hide, and slipped out. There was nothing in sight then, and no sign of anything lurking by the stairs. I took my chance and scurried up like a little rat, and I was never gladder of anything than passing back out through that old bead curtain.
Creggo wasn’t at his desk no more. I looked around, and I seen him down one of the rows, holding a couple of books ready to reshelve. He was stood there staring at me with a look I never could place, and we just stood for a minute without saying a word. Then I walked out, with the bell tinkling behind me.
I never went back there. I didn’t go home neither. I got the train out of town and stayed with a couple of old friends, and once I was feeling strong enough I took myself off to Aberystwyth and did a bit of reading. Whatever happened with Al-Yaqoobi, I don’t think anyone’ll be hearing from her – at least I hope not. As for Cregeen, well, who knows whether he picked the shop or it picked him. After the fire they bulldozed the whole street, and I went past and seen for myself they’d dug it out nice and deep to lay foundations for some office blocks.
I never could bring myself to check round the salvage yards, and ask if anyone happened to reclaim them doors.
Through relentless questioning and furtive research, I have unearthed the secrets of two heretofore obscure martial arts and brought them, quivering, into the light. These rare traditions are presented below in the GURPS format for the interest of hoplologists.
If you'll excuse me, I need to phone up and find out why my life insurance policy has been abruptly cancelled.
6 points
This style claims to have originated in the Great Library of Alexandria, where weapons were forbidden. It was first documented in Byzantium in the 9th century, and slowly spread across Christendom as literary culture did. The books of the period were both immensely valuable and often heavily bound, making them effective improvised weapons and even shields for monks who rarely carried weaponry. It has persisted in academic institutions, benefiting from the secrecy and heavy traditionalism that lingers in library circles. Tight-lipped librarians don't discuss the style with outsiders, and usually profess ignorance.
In other worlds, Bibliokration is one secret style amongst many. The stern librarians of arcane universities or secretive institutes may use this style to defend their collection from thieves, black-ops assault teams, and brawling students. Proprietors of occult bookshops meld it with psychic talent and magical defences.
Because the style revolves around wielding books, practitioners may learn the Improvised Weapons (Books) perk as soon as they have a point in Brawling (instead of the usual 10 points in skills and techniques).
Skills: Brawling; Intimidation; Professional Skill (Librarianship); Stealth; Throwing. At appropriate TLs, add Computer Operation/TL.
Techniques: Disarming; Ear Clap; Fighting While Seated; Hammer Fist; Kicking; Papercut; Two-Handed Punch; Uppercut.
Cinematic Skills: Invisibility Art; Kiai; Light Walk; Mental Strength.
Cinematic Techniques: Focus Kiai; Hand-Clap Parry (Only with an open book); Shush.
Perks: Extra Option (Rapid Fire with thrown weapons, Only with books); Fearsome Stare; Grip Mastery (Books); Form Mastery (Books); Hefty Tomes; Improvised Weapons (Books); One-Task Wonder (Spot book theft); Professional Quiet; Sure-Footed (Ladders and kickstools); Unusual Training (Hand-Clap Parry, Only with an open book); Unusual Training (Invisibility Art, Only in libraries); Unusual Training (Kiai, Only against noisy targets); Unusual Training (Light Walk, Only in libraries); Weapon Adaptation (Melee weapons to Brawling, Only with books).
Optional Traits
Secondary Characteristics: Improved Perception.
Advantages: Contact Group (librarians); Eidetic Memory (Only book details, -80%); Higher Purpose (Curate knowledge); Language (any); Rank (Academic or Company); Silence; Single-Minded; Trained By A Master.
Disadvantages: Callous; Focused or Single-Minded; Odious Personal Habit (Pedantry); Phobia (Fire); Vow (Silence, Only in libraries); Workaholic.
Skills: Detect Lies; Fast-Draw (Book); Lip Reading; Speed-Reading; Research; Shield; Teaching; any appropriate subject-matter skill.
Techniques: Attack from Above; Low Fighting; Memory Palace.
6 points
This style arose amidst the brutal wrangling of parliamentary lobbies. It is a patchwork style above all else, shamelessly stealing from other traditions without heed for anything other than brutal effectiveness.
The style’s distinctive feature is its seamless fusion of self-defence and self-aggrandisement, blending one-to-one brawling with mass media offensives. Few White Hall practitioners survive long without acquiring an array of scars, though they are typically ethical rather than physical. No known schools exist for White Hall, and even the style’s name is more a matter of popular association than a formal title. It’s perpetuated through exposure and apprenticeship.
Skills: Brawling; Carousing; Fast-Talk; Savoir-Faire (Parliament); Sleight of Hand (Rhetorical).
Techniques: Coordinated Attack; Counterattack; Evade; Pig in a Poke; Reverse-Sacrificial Block; Short Change; Spinning Attack; Targeted Attack.
Perks: Dirty Fighting; Drunken Fighting; Technique Adaptation (Coordinated Attack defaults to Propaganda); Technique Adaptation (Evade defaults to Fast-Talk); Technique Adaptation (Feint defaults to Makeup, Only during interviews); Technique Adaptation (Projection defaults to own guilt, Only when lacking moral high ground); Technique Adaptation (Short Change defaults to Public Speaking, Only against the general public); Technique Adaptation (Spinning Attack defaults to Propaganda); Technique Adaptation (Staying Seated defaults to Propaganda); Technique Adaptation (Strangle Hold defaults to Propaganda, Only against the Overton Window).
Optional Traits
Advantages: Administrative Rank; Contact Group (Media Proprietors); Contact Group (CEOs); Contact Group (Disgraced Millionaires); Political Rank; Status; Wealth.
Disadvantages: Alcoholism; Bully; Callous; Compulsive Liar; Cowardice; Greed; Lecherousness; Low Empathy; Megalomania; Obnoxious Personal Habit (Braying Laughter); Selfish.
Skills: Connoisseur (Wine); Current Affairs (Business); Diplomacy; Finance; Law; Makeup; Politics; Propaganda; Public Speaking; Savoir-Faire (High Society); Scrounging; Shadowing (Only when “in the wilderness”).
Hard
Default: Prerequisite skill-3.
Prerequisite: Brawling or Judo, the Improvised Weapons (Books) perk, and Trained By A Master; can't exceed prerequisite skill.
You can snap an open book closed around an opponent’s face. You must first take a Ready action to open the book; a successful Fast-Draw (Book) roll can negate this.
While their face is trapped, your victim can’t use bites and similar attacks (except to attack your weapon) and is blinded. Targets with unusual anatomy may be affected differently.
You suffer a -5 penalty on Quick Contests when your target tries to break free, or if you attempt a takedown (+0 if you are using both hands).
This technique may be used defensively to parry a bite, headbutt or similar attack; base it on the prerequisite skill’s Parry.
Average
Default: Kiai-2.
Prerequisite: Kiai.
You can channel your chi more tightly, preventing anyone other than the victim from hearing it.
Average
Default: Brawling-3.
Prerequisite: Brawling and the Improvised Weapons perk; cannot exceed Brawling.
You deftly rake the edge of a document across an opponent’s skin, creating a shallow – but painful – cut. Roll Papercut and note the margin of success, minus any DR. Instead of injury, your victim suffers moderate pain (p. B428) for a number of seconds equal to this total. On a critical success, your victim suffers severe pain instead!
Average
Default: Prerequisite skill-1.
Prerequisite: Intimidate or Kiai.
Instead of inflicting mental stun, this technique renders a target temporarily speechless, preventing them from talking or even crying out.
Hard
Default: Politics-8.
Prerequisite: Politics and appropriate Rank; cannot exceed Politics-3.
This technique allows you to interpose a subordinate between yourself and physical or professional danger. To use it, a subordinate must be within stepping distance of you. This is a type of Block; roll this technique instead of your normal Block. On a success, your subordinate becomes the target instead of you; he can defend himself as normal. You can attempt this technique even with a superior, but any failure is treated as a critical failure!
Modifiers: A modifier equal to the difference between your own relevant Rank and your proxy's; this is a bonus if you have higher Rank, and a penalty if you have lower Rank.
This perk combines the benefits of Huge Weapons (SM) and Huge Weapons (ST), but only for using books as improvised weapons.
You can use a specific Professional skill instead of Stealth to move quietly and avoid drawing attention. Typical examples are servants, waiting staff, librarians, and duty nurses. This only applies in the course of your duties or in similar circumstances, e.g. eavesdropping on customers’ conversations, or exploring a library without being noticed.
It’s not appropriate for professions that revolve around stealth, or for sneaking up on people; assassins, snipers, and the like must raise Stealth instead.