Homebrew tabletop system- playtesters requested

[Lord Relvenous]

K, so with my 5 points XP, I think I'll try to develop the fighting skill of de Andorra somewhat, but also explore more than just fighting.

Temper: 14
Fellowship: 12
Charm: 9

Logic: 11
Creativity: 9
Education: 11

Strength: 14
Endurance: 11
Agility: 15

Advantages:
Wealth 2ap: de Andorra has done well for himself in the mercenary business, allowing a small amount of financial liquidity.
Allies 3ap: de Andorra has many former campaigning buddies and compatriots spread across the land. In a pinch, favors can be called in, friendship renewed, or debts collected. Although this group would be willing to help in most cases, it isn't always a sure thing. The members of this group are no strangers to the criminal underworld nor situations where killings need happen.
Reputation 1ap: While no celebrity, de Andorra is known in the mercenary world.

Disadvantages:
Enemies 2ap: Just as de Andorra has made friends in the mercenary world, he has made enemies as well. While he does not seek out conflict, his blunt nature and disregard for the opinions of others has landed him in hot water before.
Code of Honour 3ap: de Andorra will not back out of a contract, nor renege on a deal. His word, once given is completely binding on his actions. This is hardly the case with many other mercenaries and employers, meaning that de Andorra has encountered situations where his unbending nature has put him in situations he might not have reached if he were more flexible.
Exile 5ap: de Andorra would be killed if he returned to his place of birth.

Skills:
Temper: Determination (14), Resist Persuasion (14)
Fellowship: Streetwise (10), Bargain (10), Oratory 6+6(12)
Charm: Courtliness (13)

Logic: Perception (12), Survival (11)
Creativity: Tactics (13)
Education: Business (12), History (12)

Strength: Shield (13), Brawl (11), Axe (10)
Endurance: Resist Injury (12), Athletics (11)
Agility: Longsword 16+2 (18), Riding (11), Flail (12)

Also, I had an idea for a modifying of my disadvantages. Something like this:
Enemies 2ap: Just as de Andorra has made friends in the mercenary world, he has made enemies as well. While he does not seek out conflict, his blunt nature and disregard for the opinions of others has landed him in hot water before.
Enemies 1ap: de Andorra vocally and physically opposed Theresa in front of many other members of the church. That is sure to bring some ill-feeling from her followers.
Code of Honour 4ap: de Andorra will not back out of a contract, nor renege on a deal. His word, once given is completely binding on his actions. Considerations of personal safety are usually secondary in a situation where his duty conflicts with his survival.

Would those work? Also, is de Andorra still just kinda dying waiting for stuff to happen?

[Norade]

Safrac sees the perfect person to help heal his companion, but he is with a dark elf and a human. However the tone of things seems hostile, the way they stand suggests that the druid and the elf dark elf don't get along very well. They're not really about to come to blows, but it speaks of very high tension. Mathilde is already there and she looks ready to do something hasty. Thus the orc sets down his ward, his chances of getting healing will go up greatly if he can catch the eye of the druid or eve get Mathilde's gull attention.

Still unknowingly using as much movement enhancing magic as he can Safrac waits for the senior Paladin to make a move and then charges in as fast as he can with a hard two handed swing of his hammer aimed for the elf's mid section. Shifting his grip up towards the head of his hammer he then tries to ram the head up into the elf's jaw. He hopes that the added weight of attacks will create and opening soon, and if they don't he'll try to use sweeps, aiming low while he allows Mathilde to go high for a kill shot.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Relvenous, Baerne, looks fine to me so far- the new definitions, I'll think more about later, but a provisional 'yes'.

This action, initiatives;
Caranthir, 21 (yes, he is that fast...)
Mathilde, 17
Safrac- 15
the mad druid- 14
Rav- 13
the gholem-12
Mathilde's followers- 11
Valette- 9

The first move is his, and it consists of two actions, a flourish of his hand-and-a-half blade that sends a wash of lung-roastingly hot air howling towards you, laden with toxic gas, thick, choking, red- hot dust and sharp, fast fragments- like something belching out of the mouth of a volcano, which is pretty much exactly what his blade is supposed to replicate.

The pyroclastic flow hits, Safrac refuses to be intimidated by it- and brute determination pays off. Scary, especially the fact that he can wield such power and apparently quite casually at that, but resisting hostile magic is part of a knight's training, so there you are.

There are screams and a howl of rage from Mathilde, some of her followers were not so lucky, and she's already swinging for him when she comes out of the cloud- they shift backwards and forwards a little, a fast, probing clash, her silver blade against his dark and baleful glow; he parries most of her striokes, and with his free hand blasts a glittering red-and-green helix into her- she staggers back, needing a moment to recovr and counter it, and that is when Safrac charges in.

[Kheitain]

The gholem sees the fight about to break out again and sets out across the rooftops to see what these people are doing now. Moments ago they were fighting together towards a common foe, and now they've turned on each other, it's madness.

By the time he gets to the scene Mathilde, the elf and Safrac have already exchanged blows. The guardian has had enough, the elf was an ally only a moment ago and this fight has to stop. Next thing he'll know Mathilde will turn on him too.

The guardian reaches out to the pot plant carried by Valette and asks it to grow and snake along the ground towards the fight. Once it gets in between the three combatants he'll get it to corkscrew up tightly dividing the three of them. Assuming Valette drops the thing as it grows the gholem will drop to touch it directly and shape it's roots through the cobblestone as well as regurgitate all of the fertilizer he presently has stored.

[Kheitain]

Quick addition:

Once the pot plant has corkscrewed up between the combatants the Gholem will make it burst into bloom. He understands that this plant shouldn't be blooming at all and hopefully the elf will too, he's going to make a point of it and literally have it cover itself in small Blue Flowers with larger blooms bursting right around eye level for those fighting.
It's his hope that someone will pause long enough to think.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Relvenous; the jester says 'We're in their crypt, it has more holes than they like to think, and waiting here might be a bad idea. I can try to smuggle you out, try to smuggle help in?'


Norade, Kheitain; Safrac moves to support Mathilde, swings for the elf- three fast, flashing passes that Caranthir manages to catch the first of and deflect upwards, the second he gets the tip of his sword inside the sweep of the hammer and tries to flick it out of the orcish knight's hands, deflecting it enough to miss but not managing to disarm, but the third one he simply sidesteps-

and it is the druid who catches and hooks the hammer with the leverage of his two- handed staff- axe. Holds it locked there for a moment, and says to Safrac "This is mad, talk some sense into your principal, I'll see what I can do with mine."

Then he has to step back and deal with Rav and the pot plant. It would be a lot less complicated if making the plant grow hadn't worked, but it does- and the texture of the thing to work with, it's rules of growth, are so out of place- the damn' thing's inhabited. It fights, struggles for it's own shape as it grows, and achieves some measure of it; it doesn't want to have roots, it wants to have arms and legs. It's succeeding, too.

Rav in fact has her blade raised, she has very little in common with Caranthir and the ethnicity she belongs to would very much like to see him dead, so why not? the druid gets to her first, though- a bluish- grey cone of light, Animal and Life magic, she just sags floppily to the ground, and he looks over his shoulder and says 'keep her there.'

His new ally (also on a 14) is an orc; female, middle height, festooned with bags and pouches and things, holding a longbow- and openly wearing as a sash the red-yellow-orange field recognition colours of the Twentieth Cataphract.

[Norade]

The druid speaking and staying his weapon allows Safrac a moment to stop acting and think for a second, a second is all he needs and he turns to Mathilde and says, "He's right, let's stop this here. There is no reason to kill a man that was helping us against the elves we just fought. I should have said so earlier, but something about the battle has me moving faster than I'm thinking."

To Caranthir he says, "I'm glad that things didn't end badly before I came to my senses."

[Kheitain]

I just realised that I've been calling it a Pot plant.

Shocked by the plants attempt at taking a humanoid shape the gholem recoils and jumps back onto the side of the building. He flips up and grabs the edge of the roof with his feet and just hangs there, arms crossed. He watches with particular interest Safrac, who seems to have spontaneously channeled divine magic similar to Mathilde.

The fight makes absolutely no sense to him so the gholem will not be participating unless directly attacked, he made his effort to stop it entirely.

[Norade]

Once Safrac is done speaking he looks at the plant and it takes a second to fully see what's going on and then recoils from the plant. It's trying to be human shaped and he doesn't understand why. He wonders what the gholem is doing as he jumps back away seemingly afraid and he can't figure out what's going on and who's doing it.

[Master_Baerne]

Valette barely has time to react before the plant she's carrying starts to grow, and her attention is immedciately captured by it. Realizing after a moment of almost-panic that the plant is not actively trying to hurt her, she drops her sword to the ground and checks to see what condition Rav is in. That done, she says;

"Well, that was interesting. Perhaps we'd all be better off discussing this like civilized people, as they suggest?"

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Was away at a show over the weekend down in north Wales; on the right, a magnificent square castle, an example of Edward I's pacification efforts, on the left an early Norman motte and bailey.

Of course, fighting up and down the slope of both of them sort of takes the charm away...a few things went personally wrong for me, but overall it was a good show, even if the Welsh (it was organised by Cwmyd Ial, and welsh gaelic is as bad as scottish gaelic when it comes to pronunciation vs. the written word) are a bit mad on the subject of hills.

As a general fantasy note, it's amazing how much earth and stone moving had to go into what would seem to be a relatively simple floor plan; castles are much less complicated and much more expensive than the game books make them look, and the amount of man hours and tonnage of rock that would have to go into, and out of, a dungeon is gargantuan.


Anyway, Mathilde is the problem now; she's not particularly keen on calming down, looks around you all, says 'But-'

The druid points out 'How well do you know the elves? Drop him, if you could, and what do you think would happen next- who do you think we'd get to replace him, and what do you think their policy would be on starving humans?'

'Are you saying we're at their mercy?' she says, and you all notice she's moving very stiffly and apparently suppressing a great deal of pain.

'I'm not overly happy about this either- I'd like to have a private word with you about this quid pro quo you seem to be assuming I'm in favour of.' Caranthir says to the druid, and turns to glare at the approximately elf-shaped piece of living wood that used to be the pot plant. 'Behave yourself.' he says to it- and it isn't magic, it's just straightforward leadership and rank, but it- actually, she- does.

The female orc, and for the purposes of the thread I will not attempt to reproduce her thick accent, says 'That's the problem with civilisation, isn't it? You can kill a few people with a good sword; you can kill a few thousand with a bad decision. Think I prefer barbarism, to be honest.'

'Don't suggest that to my kin, you might start a trend.' Caranthir points out. 'I believe there is a lot to discuss, and I would no more walk into your temple in ease,' he adds to Mathilde, 'than you would come for a walk in the woods with me- I suggest the messily departed's private chambers. Ths is going to be easier for you to explain,' he says glaring at the druid, 'with a map.'

What are you all doing, who are you talking to?

[Vehrec]

Sorry about that long absence, I've been caught in one of my anxiety loops that causes me to get worried about what I missed and the possibility that I'll be mocked for missing it.

Randolf has been behind the fights until now, cleaning up, stitching up the wounded and otherwise working his best skills. It also gave him a bit of a crash course in elvish physiology from a hands on perspective. While fascinating, its not put him in the mood for what he sees at this point-extra casualties to work on is the main thing he sees with the Gholem and the plant-elf getting a double-take.

Sighing irritably he covers half his face with one hand and takes in the Tableau. "Are you all quite done here? Or is there going to be some more work for me tonight? I must say, you all have a talent for keeping me in business, I hope I'll turn a profit for this." He then bends down over Rav since she's the one who's unconscious at the moment, but spares a scathing glance for Mathilde. She seems near the end of her rope, and pushing your limits is something he can understand, but he's got little patience for.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Yay, you're back;

it is the druid who says 'Tonight, not unless something else goes spectacularly wrong- which it probably will, I expect you to try to kill me later. In the longer term...you're right, I do have a lot of explaining to do. Is dame whatsit, D'Cearach, in a fit state-' he glances over at her- 'no, you'll have to represent her.'

Is anybody probing for information, trying to ask a private question, before you all get to the upstairs study?

[Norade]

(Might Randolf have fixed up my wounded lance mate well enough that he'll make the night? I ask because if he has then Safrac can stay quiet, if not he'll really want to talk to the druid.)

[Vehrec]

(He'll have made a go of it, if the poor fellow was here. We can probably ask for the appropriate skill rolls, which reminds me I need to put some of those points in surgery.)

[Norade]

(Yeah, he was right near the combat, I set him down so I could charge. He was alive, but had a bad head wound and maybe more wrong with him. Surgery wouldn't help though so you'd need magic.)

[Master_Baerne]

Valette smiles thinly at the female orc.

"I've always thought it was interesting that specific individuals are more likely to survive large-scale catastrophes, even if tens of thousands die. Suggests something about the universe, don't you think?"

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Symond is very, very crunched; the head wound wasn't that bad, it was the serious wound to the chest, terminal wound to the stomach- he was going to die of that in a matter of minutes, internal bleeding. It will require magic, lots of it, to make him not die, and the healing time is going to be very long- something around six days, and pushed so deeply into the dark and winding recesses of his own head he might suffer considerable personality change when he wakes up. On the other hand, it does work, he will live.

Baerne, the orc- she's about six foot two, not quite as broad across the shoulders as Safrac, thinks about it for a second and says- if you know what an authentic Brummie (Birminghamese) accent sounds like, that- 'Well, yes, the universe is out to get us, mostly; tries to kill us all from time to time, and the smarter, faster and nastier manage to make it through. Problem is, the best- meaning, the worst- are usually the ones who push themselves to the front, end up in charge and cause the next catastrophe.' she says, looking at Mathilde- and also glancing at the druid.

'I'm Hara. I'd ask you if you've seen my brother, but if you did he was probably trying to kill you at the time, so it's not the sort of thing that makes for good conversation.' She is obviously not a simple barbarian thug, and from the padded pouches and the clanking noises some of them make, at least one of her bags and bundles has a saw sticking out of it, you'd guess she's a field medic.

[Norade]

Going with Randof being to spent to do it I'll speak to the Druid as quickly as I can and say, "I have a man down and well hurt, your methods fixed me well enough and I would take on a debt to you in order to get my man fixed. He has a very short time left unless you're able to aid him with something potent. That was the reason I rushed into that fight so quickly, I wished to free your attention to ask for your help."

(This might be a back track, as I needed to know if Symond was helaed or not before continuing. Once that is sorted I wil be speaking quickly to Mathilde and then to Hara.)

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Symond was healed; Randolf got to him, with magic -I'm assuming. It would be instantly obvious that it was necessary. Two of Mathilde's guard weren't so lucky, the pyroclastic flow killed them. She would very much like to kill Caranthir, but there are too many animal eyes watching his back, and too many dark- green shadows about the place all of a sudden.

Safrac notices that she's holding her back rigidly straight, unlike her normal, limber self, and it's not simply out of poise. She probably would swing for the elf if she had half a chance, and also if she was physically capable of it.

What Caranthir hit her with was elvish Happenist magic, Stabilise and Simplify, mainly aimed at her liquid metal suit; a partial success, freezing it up and reducing it's power- and part of the way the suit is linked to her is that some of it is in her blood and nervous system.

She's got to be in fairly severe pain, so much so that the main reason she's even trying is that she refuses to give the elf the satisaction. What's Safrac saying?

[Norade]

He tries to match pace with her then slow to get her to fall back to the end of the line with her and even then he's not sure that anything whispered won't be heard, but he can hope the female orc and the other medic's conversation will mask their own. Once they are far enough back he takes a good look at Mathilde and sees that she's struggling to stay composed let alone fight. He shakes his head a bit at this outwardly showing disapproval, but inwardly knowing he would have, and indeed has, done the same if and when something motivated him.

Speaking in a quiet yet very serious voice Safrac whispers to the wounded Paladin beside him, "This is madness, you know you can't fight like this and even if you did get cut down by him what would that change, your death won't bring them back and fighting will only make it more likely that others die? You know I have your back, and I know that you and I think the same. Trust me when I say that we'll solve this at a better time."

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

'My head,' she admits, 'is telling me all these things and more; but my gut is saying there's a lot more to it and very, very little of that will be good for us.
He has an agenda, probably has a dozen and jumps between them according to whatever will advance his objectives most, whatever they happen to be. The settlement he intends to ram down our throats may be worse than further fighting.'

He can, of course, hear every word, but is choosing not to react. Apart from grinning faintly.

[Norade]

"All true enough, but you and I couldn't stop him now if we tried even if the druid and the gholem wouldn't try to break us up... But enough of this, I need to thank the Medic that saved Symond and I trust you to do the thing that is right in the long term," says Safrac as he walks ahead to the two medics.

To the male medic that had magically healed Symond the orc knight quickly says, "Thank you for saving my man, I owe you one. Must be tiring to be running around cleaning up after men like me."

Then to Hara he introduces himself, as without his tabard or shield he has no colors, "From the twentieth I see, I'm third of the seventh myself. Are you here as aid to the city, or have they decided to chase down the scum that left this city to burn again?"

[Kheitain]

I don't think theres all that much for me to do at this exact point.

The gholem keeps pace with the group, if for no other reason than to stay close to something mildly familiar. He leaps from rooftop to rooftop zigzagging across the main street when he must. That plant, disturbing though it was has given him a lot to think about when it comes to protecting his next chosen area. Could he make a tree that wants to stay being a tree? Could that tree defend itself? What's the difference between me and the pot plant? He decides he'll ask the next old tree he sees. In the meantime he's going to figure out what this crazy human wants.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

With straightforward, traditional orcish logic, Hara says (and remember I'm translating her accent), 'Which side of a bunch of homicidal loonies like that would you prefer to be on? My brother ran away from home to join the army and see the world, and I went after him to try to stop him before he caused too much trouble...I think I might have been a bit late there.' she says, looking around the ruins.

'I was basically following in the wake of the army trying to catch up with him, when the druid and I got intercepted and offered the chance to believe in reincarnation, that or do a little job for them. We're basically under Recon, only been in a few days and if it goes on like this...

Yes, the line are berserkers. Separate species, separate tribes, separate clans and loyalties- if the rest of the army wants to stop them, the best thing they can do is let them alone; so much internal tension, the entire formation's wound up taut like a bow string, and their command set it up that way on purpose, used that, getting them to drive each other, egg each other on, dare each other to go further and further, be worse and worse.

Don't expect aid, or mercy, or remorse or anything like that, from the line of battle units, or anything much other than "Ha ha, that was fun, let's do it again". There are only a handful of specialist units away from the main body- I hope- who aren't blood crazed maniacs.' Being a relatively unreconstructed traditionalist from the borderlands, there is a trace of pride there at belonging to a bunch of blood crazed maniacs, but this was going a bit far even for that.


Kheitain, the gholem runs out of rooftop fairly quickly and has to drop down by the group as you all enter the townhouse. It's fairly smoky, the fumigation has achieved something at least, and the gholem finds himself next to a very worried- looking druid as you all go up the staircase.