Faces of Urda: Paulus Still

A typical villain: “You’re at my mercy, madam. Now let me explain how merciless am I…”

Some say that the Undead Chancellor could have survived his assassination if not for a single Slavian agent that attacked him. The spy was no match for the lich, but Ven Rier could not resist the temptation of explaining all his plans to the helpless opponent. During his monologue a dirigible filled with explosives crushed at his base.

This might or might not be true, but Paulus Still believes strongly in this rumour. Paulus is a dwarf technomage whose career flourished during the days of the Undead Reich. Now he is in hiding and he has only desire – to find out why do the evil masterminds always gloat before finishing their enemies?

Paulus wants so badly to understand it that he became an Uhrwerk to make sure that he will research the matter systematically and logically. Since then he has examined various hypothesis, mostly by provoking and analyzing many confrontations between famous heroes and villains. He operates from an underground lab located below one of Vanadia’s great cities and filled with strange graphs, works of famous psychoanalysts and old newspapers. Many Children of the Undead Reich find him insane, but some are willing to cooperate with him, gaining his brilliant inventions in return.

As intelligent as he may be, Paulus is not very sensitive about human nature. He can’t see that the reason for villainous monologues are usually the pride and cruelty of evil masterminds, always needing to prove their superiority. Paulus can’t even see that he has these features himself – to the point of having one unconditional reflex programmed into his clockwork heart. Yes – the reflex of explaining his plans to helpless opponents! He hasn’t discovered it yet because he rarely engages personally in any conflict, but when he does, it will be a great surprise. And a material for further study…

 

Adventure ideas

Daring – Paulus has imprisoned a friend of our heroes and threatens to turn him into a ghoul unless they record three villainous monologues for him. It’s a matter of finding three evil masterminds and being defeated by them…

Exploration – it’s said that in the middle of the Lemurian desert hides the mummy of Black Abdul. He is a criminal mastermind from ancient Khemre known for never gloating about his deeds and Paulus will do everything to meet him.

Investigation – a noble gentleman disappear and then it turns out that he was a hiding villain. Our Ladies and Gentlemen have a great chance to investigate his crimes, but as soon as they find some really important clues he returns and tries to thwart their quest. All this is, of course, arranged by Paulus.

Society – maybe the villains always gloat because it’s a part of common knowledge that they do? To check it Paulus is conducting an experiment on the field of sociology. He has blackmailed a famous journalist into writing a series of articles accusing Extraordinary Ladies and Gentlemen of defying social order and dabbling in the affairs reserved for the police. And fighting evil on one’s own indeed becomes unfashionable! Our heroes have to stop the spreading of this opinion or the next time they save the world their reputation will be ruined!

 

Paulus Still

 Default conflict: combat

Opponent, dice pool 3d10, challenge 5

Abilities:

  Artificial heart: armor +3*, endurance +3*.

  Brilliant inventor: once per session Paulus can suddenly create a gadget with two traits and use it until the end of the session.

  Evil Gloating: when Paulus or his ally finish an enemy during a combat, Paulus begins to gloat and explain his plans. He doesn’t act during his next turn and the finished opponent returns to combat without any challenge markers and gains a token.

  Heartless: automatically passes courage tests, cannot use bluff, empathy and expression or be affected by empathy, expression or intimidate skills.

  Skills: academics (psychoanalysis) 6(9)/8+, technics 12/8+.

  Steam-powered hand: brawl +3*, takes two tokens with a raise.

  Technomage: control machines and missile.

Combat: brawl 12*/8+, firearms 9/9+; defense 19*. Brilliant inventor, evil gloating, steam-powered hand, technomage.

Chase: athletics 6/8+; endurance 17*. Brilliant inventor, technomage.

Discussion: intimidation 12/10+;  confidence 20. Brilliant inventor, heartless. Paulus doesn’t want to convince anybody about anything, so he prefers fighting to talking. If he has any allies, he usually backups them during a discussion.

 

 

Paulus was originally written for Polish website polter.pl and the version above owes much to Aleksandra “Jade Elenne” Wierzchowska, the editor of the last incarnation of this NPC.

Faces of Urda will be one of regular series appearing at Steamagination, containing NPCs from all around the world of Wolsung. I can’t tell you how often will it appear, but I can tell that the next thing I’ll post here will be third part of A Game of Shops.

 

A Terrifying Truth

Greetings, dear visitor!

A Game of Shops is far from over but I’ve decided that writing about this campaign over and over again is not a very good idea. These are the first days of Steamagination and I want to give you a taste of each sort of article I’m going to post here. Designer notes are, I hope, quite interesting but beside them I want to give you much material that you could use directly during your sessions. So today I give you an antagonist – albeit quite an unusual one. It comes along some notes on using Reputation, but I hope you’ll find them useful rather than distracting.

 

A Terrifying Truth

             Some things are not meant to be known by mortals. Others are simply so outrageous that simply hearing about them can ruin the worldview of those of good standing and noble heart. A Terrifying Truth is not a creature, but a fact so terrible that it can damage one’s composure or even sanity.

 

Why should the characters bother?

A Terrifying Truth: every time you cast a spell somebody on Urda loses a year of life.

The very idea of a Terrifying Truth is based on the fact that in Wolsung it’s sometimes the rules and not the player that decides how does the character react to a certain event. For example, a scandal can cause one’s Reputation to drop. This decreases Confidence and makes it easier to persuade the character into doing something during a discussion. Notice that other participants of such a discussion don’t need to know about the scandal – it means that losing a point of Reputation makes a character feel bad about himself! It’s perfectly logical because Wolsung‘s heroes are Extraordinary Ladies and Gentlemen, so they have their standards and when they don’t stand to them they really can lose some confidence until a chance for redemption appears*.

If game rules can tell a character to feel bad about something then, I think, they can also tell him to be terrified by a very disturbing fact. A betrayal of a trusted friend, a proof that half of Vanadia’s monarchs are doppelgangers or a vision of universe being ruled not by Divine Couple, but by alien, incomprehensible and tentacled Outer Gods certainly can do some harm to one’s mind and mood.

 

A strange discussion

Rules-wise confronting with a Terrifying Truth is a discussion. Such a truth has its skills, dice pool, challenge markers and Confidence. The most typical stake of losing this discussion is being paralyzed by dread and allowing something to happen, ex. letting a villain escape. Victory doesn’t mean that the Truth turns out to be a lie – it means only that our Ladies and Gentlemen can cope with newfound disturbing knowledge and act freely.

A Terrifying Truth can discuss with the characters during a confrontation (not necessarily a discussion) with an ordinary antagonist. For example, a vampire can reveal that the PCs will themselves turn into vampires when they kill them** and then attack. The heroes will be simultaneously assaulted by him (combat) and by thoughts of a villainous bloodsucking existence (discussion with a Terrifying Truth). To handle this simply, be kind for the players – allow their characters to use the higher defence (Confidence or either Defence or Endurance) value against attacks of any sort and give them a single pool of challenge markers, once again using the higher of Composure and either Brawn or Agility.

 

Talking about the Truth

A Terrifying Truth: there are dinosaurs in the forest behind your country estate.

There are many ways to describe a Terrifying Truth interestingly. You can for example decide that every attack of such an opponent is a retrospection – a scene of a friendship with an uncovered traitor, an inconspicuous article from a newspaper that hinted at a curse that lays upon a hero’s family or a nightmare that now makes sense. Gazing into future can also be interesting, so you may describe the consequences of the Terrifying Truth that our heroes are just imagining, like a new Great War erupting because of the intrigues of doppelgangers that replace Queen Titania and other important figures.

If you have no ideas, you can simply describe how awful one feels about the newfound truth. This, however, should be only a contingency plan – events, even imaginary, are usually more interesting than thoughts. At least at the game table.

Pieces of the Truth

            Having said all that I finally can give you some stats for Terrifying Truths. Here they go! There is one general rule applying to every one of these opponents:

            Fighting your fears: a character can fight a Terrifying Truth using one of these skills: courage, expression or persuasion. The first represents facing the truth, the second – overcoming the doubt using emotions and the third – rationalising the revelation. Each of these tests should be role-played accordingly.

 

An Outrageous Scandal

Tastes and beliefs of Victorian Ladies and Gentlemen can be easily offended. During a serious play an Outrageous Scandal can represent a shocking event like a suicide of a respected politician or a radical theory like evolution or psychoanalysis. During a less serious one you can confront your players with the fact of a gentleman wearing short trousers.

Default conflict: discussion

Opponent, dice pool 3d10, challenge 4

Abilities:

Outrageous!: an Outrageous Scandal is, well, outrageous. A character attacked by it with a raise must discard one card.

Discussion: outrage 9/8+; confidence 16. Outrageous!

 

A Lovecraftian Mystery

A Terrifying Truth: tentacles are eveywhere!

One of the hallmarks of the cosmic horror genre – an evidence that something’s fundamentally wrong with the universe as a whole or that the role of life as we know it is accidental and insignificant. A Lovecraftian mystery is more dangerous to those with great knowledge because clues about the real nature of the universe can be found in every story and every science.

An example of such a mystery can be a carving that shows an ancient war between bizarre creatures that shaped continents and accidentally created sentient life.

Default conflict: discussion

Opponent, dice pool 4d10, challenge 6

Abilities:

Clues toward the terror: a Lovecraftian mystery has no skills on its own. Instead it attacks using his victim’s academics, nature or occultism. These abilities aren’t normally used in a discussion but a Lovecraftian mystery uses them without any penalties. 

Edge of madness: a character attacked with a raise reduces his dice pool by 1d10 for one round.

Sanity loss: a character whose Composure was reduced to 0 because of losing the discussion with a Lovecraftian Mystery can get a scar – Sanity Loss: courage -3, occultism +3.

Discussion: opponents’ skills – see clues toward the terror; confidence 18. Edge of madness.

 

A Personal Tragedy

Losing a loved one, a fortune or a chance to fulfil one’s dreams. A Personal Tragedy is usually an enemy of only one player and fighting it is a good end of a personal sub-plot. If you’re using a Personal Tragedy this way you should make it a part of a confrontation that engages all the characters. That way nobody will get bored by the scene. Of course only the person to whom the tragedy refers can attack or be attacked by it.

Using personal sub-plots in Wolsung is interesting, but remember to divide them evenly among all players!

Default conflict: discussion

Opponent, dice pool 2d10, challenge 3

Abilities:

Isolate: by getting a raise on attack roll. To break the isolation a character must attack a Personal Tragedy with a raise.

Discussion: grief and disappointment 9/9+; confidence 14. Isolate.

 

Don’t go too far

A Terrifying Truth: your friend has died and his spirit is enslaved.

One final thing is that Terrifying Truths shouldn’t be too powerful. Struggling with one’s doubts is a great material for a good scene, but giving in to them completely should rarely happen to heroes. If you run a confrontation with a Terrifying Truth and an other antagoniste you may even decide that the Truth can’t perform a finisher so that doubt and despair will only weaken our Ladies and Gentlemen, not overwhelm them.

What’s more, overcoming one’s fears is very motivating, so a character finishing a Terrifying Truth should earn a token.

 

Well, I haven’t had an idea that this post will grow to such a long read. I simply like the topic of Ladies and Gentlemen’ psychology and morality too much to limit myself when writing about it.

 

*By the way there are other ways to explain Reputation loss – for example deciding that journalists are following the characters everywhere or that Reputation is a mechanical simplification that doesn’t always need to have an impact on the story. But honestly I think that the version presented in this article best suits the atmosphere of Wolsung.

** It’s not clear how does vampirism work in Urda, so it might well be true.

 

A Game of Shops, part two

Greetings, dear visitor!

Just to remind you: the campaign developed like a picture, starting from a humble concept and becoming a complete story.

Let’s go on with the story of designing Promised Urda – a campaign I’ve finished to run a few days ago. As I’ve written yesterday, it was “a Game of Shops” – a mix of maintaining a colonial store in the Sims-like style and investigating complex intrigues that took place around our Extraordinary Ladies and Gentlemen. Yesterday I’ve written about the Sims part – new rules that made business more exciting and challenging. Now it’s time to write about the plot.

Despite the “complex intrigues” I’ve mentioned above the campaign started as one A4 sheet of paper with a few names and sketches of single scenes. I knew that I couldn’t predict all the ideas my players might have – assuming I could do it would be foolish – so I wanted the plot to shape itself according to the players’ actions. And it shaped into a really good story.

Why did it shape so well? I think that’s because I’ve created NPCs and situations that could be interacted with in many ways by the PCs and that could interact with each other. It’s a very important thing in Wolsung, where players are powerful and able to change the world around their characters in many ways. Let’s see an example of how does it work.

Two powerful gentlemen

One of the few things I’ve prepared was a Big Mystery designed to draw the players’ attention every time they would get bored by their enterprise. It was the mystery of how did they acquired their store. For they hadn’t bought it by their own money, instead it was given to them by a mysterious benefactor – Florian Widnacki, a recently dead businessman from the Free City of Ujście. Widnacki lived and died in very strange circumstances – nobody ever saw him face to face and he died a few days after moving part of his fortune from Ujście to Vidlice (the city where the campaign took place). Players knew all that from the beginning, but they had to investigate a lot to find out the truth. And the truth was: Widnacki didn’t existed – his last will was forged by Maurycy Segitbaum and Nikodem Brulnicki, two most wealthy men in Vidlice.

Segitbaum earned his fortune by hard work and great knowledge of economics while Brulnicki used his charisma and boldness to become filthy rich thanks to a few daring investments. The two gentlemen always argued whose business methods are better and finally they decided to check it by means of a wager. They forged Widnacki’s last will and thus gave the PCs an opportunity to gain a fortune, wondering if inexperienced persons could handle such a chance – Segitbaum believed that they’ll fail while Brulnicki was counting on them.

Besides this base outline of the plot I’ve prepared a few ideas on how Segitbaum could thwart our Gentlemen attempts – for example he knew how to send an unexpected and pedantic inspection from the tax office to their stole. I supposed that my players would want to investigate Ujście and find out more about Widnacki, but I’ve not prepared any actual clues. I’ve simply noted that getting to the bottom of this mystery requires “three TN 15 tests in Ujście” – for me such a note is an elegant and simple way to prepare a sub-plot that allows the players to be creative and use their PCs’ talents in any way that pleases them. Of course each of those tests has to be logically explained.

This “benefactor plot” worked well for a simple reason. From the very start Brulnicki and Segitbaum were very interested in players’ progress, but the players didn’t know why. They knew, however, that the two are powerful and wealthy. So my players did what probably every group of Ladies and Gentlemen playing Promised Urda would do: become interested in Brulnicki and Segitbaum, trying to earn their favour or be better then them at business. Those two businessmen simply had to be interacted with and this ensured that when the players learn the truth their relationship to both “benefactors” will already be complex.

Lots of small plots

A single intrigue, no matter how good, is not enough for a good session – especially when this session claims to be somehow inspired by A Game of Thrones. So I’ve spiced everything up by adding a few minor NPCs. The main idea guiding their desing was the same – every one of these NPCs must be able to play many roles in the plot and to interact with other NPCs in some interesting ways. Writing about all of them could bore you, so I’ll describe only one of them – Witold Duwacki, my variation on Dr Jekyll.

Witold swears not to have read Jekyll&Hyde, so he probably took inspiration from venrierists’ Wehrwolf SS.

Witold worked for Brulnicki, who wanted to expand his offer of military products with an elixir that would make soldiers braver and more dangerous. To satisfy his employer Witold prepared a drug that relieves an individual from any moral constrains. It worked, but when Brulnicki tasted it, nothing happened – this businessman was already too amoral! He got terribly afraid that somebody may find this out and ruin his reputation. To prevent this he fired Witold and destroyed all his research. So now Witold holds a grudge against Brulnicki, looks for a new employer, tries to reconstruct a dangerous substance and use it on himself to become dangerous for Brulnicki… there are lots of ways in which he can become important for the PCs as an ally, enemy or somebody ambiguous.

What happened to Witold during my sessions? Quite interesting things – and you’ll learn them soon. Next time I’ll write about how the minor NPCs became major NPCs… and about a policeman whom I’ve invented in five seconds during the second session and who became more important than any of these NPCs. This story should appear here on Friday. Stay tuned!

Or maybe you want to read about something else? Maybe my gaming experience bores you and you’d like to see an NPC, an adventure or a review of one of Wolsung supplements? If it’s so, just write it below.

 By the way, Witold should be read “Vitold”. English “V” sounds much more like polish “W”. Vidlice is also written “Widlice” in Polish, but I’ve decided to change this spelling because that’s what usually happens to names of cities in foreign languages.

 By some another way, today I’ve accidentally stumbled upon an article by Ed Greenwood that covered a very similar topic. If you have time it surely won’t be a bad idea to read it.