Interlude: Game Content

[sythyry]

Interlude: Game Content

Nendrai Friend (-3 Disadvantage): You are friends with a nendrai, in a situation which obliges you to have frequent contact with the nendrai. If there is trouble or turmoil in your life for some other reason, and your friend finds out about it, she will try to help you, and then you have much more trouble and turmoil. (She cannot understand that the trouble she has caused is actually troublesome.) However, you can occasionally get useful magic from her. (Many people on Strayway have this.)

Child Adventurer (+4 Advantage): You were involved in harsh adventures as a young child. You have picked up 5×d8 experience points in each of the following: Cley Base, Magic Resistance, Brawling, Claws and Teeth, Crushing Weapons, Thrown Weapons, Life Base, all athletics skills, Empathy, Etiquette, Friendliness, Guile, General Knowledge, Languages, Natural Science, and Social Knowledge. (All the kids now have this.)

Child Victim (-5 Disadvantage): You were killed repeated as a child, and it was one of the formative experience of your life. You will suffer lifetime fears about the means of your death, interpreted broadly, and will suffer Trouble 3 if you are confronted with in the future. (Quendry will fear magical weapons.) You will suffer hideous and sticky nightmares for the rest of your life, which cause you Trouble 2 for d6 hours after you wake up each morning. However, you did gain 60 experience in Life Base. (Quendry and Ochirion can take this.)

Office Worker (+2 Advantage): You have worked for several years as an accountant, scribe, secretary, or some other such office worker, and done so with an adventurer's eye. You have learned: Bargain (30 exp), Etiquette (30 exp), Friendliness (20 exp), Guile (30 exp), Interrogate (20 exp), Intimidate (20 exp), General Knowledge (30 exp), History and Literature (10 exp), Judge Value (30 exp), Languages (10 exp), Law (30 exp), Social Knowledge (30 exp). (Zascalle used this to great effect.)

Despised (-5 Disadvantage): Something that is overwhelmingly important to you, and is broadly known, is despised and hated by most primes; e.g., perhaps you are known to be transaffectionate in a city which does not like such things. Roll three botch dice on any social interaction with a normal person who knows about you. A single botch indicates indicates insults and contempt, probably unintentional. A double botch indicates disgust; a -5 penalty on most social rolls, and the interaction will go poorly. A triple botch is a social disaster: the encounter goes as poorly as possible, and you somehow make a particular, though probably short-term, enemy of the person you encountered. (A revealed Dark Secret can turn into Despised.) (All of the Strayway crew in Eigrach has this -- even the cisaffectionate ones.)

Adventurer True Love (+4 Advantage): You and one or more other PCs (all of whom must take this Advantage) are true loves; far and away the most important people in each others' lifes. You have a Broad Circumstantial Bonus, giving you a +1 bonus on all s20 rolls made when trying to assist, rescue, impress, or please each other. However, when flirting with anyone other than a True Love, roll two botch dice for ensuing disasters. (Yerenthax and Jyondre have this.)

Sorcerer's Assistant (+3 Advantage): You have worked for several years as a sorcerer's assistant. You did some magic, but more supplying cley, laboratory organization, dealing with customers, background research, and other assorted things. Experience in Cley Base (30), Concentration (20), Magic Resistance (5 × d8), Magic Theory (30), Meditation (30), Bargain (20), Empathy(10), Etiquette (20), Interrogate (10), Intimidate (10), God's Tongue (10), General Knowledge (10), Natural Science (10), and ten other magical arts and skills (5 each). You have 12 complexity-5 spells and 6 complexity-10 spells, mostly specialized or even whimsical ones that particularly useful adventuring. (Phaniet has this).

Anything else from Sythyry's Vacation you'd like to see described in game terms?

Comments

Hmm...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Why is "Nendrai Friend" only -3 as a Disadvantage?

Deafness is -10, and it's not fatal, and it leaves a person able to live a fairly normal life. Being around Vae is frequently fatal, and the closer a friend she is, the less normal she makes someone's life. I could see handing out -3 to everyone on Strayway who isn't particularly close, since they'll get caught in the nimbus, but I'd expect several of the main characters to have something stronger and poor Sythyry is probably getting more than 10 points of disadvantage out of that relationship. Especially if you count the mayhem caused by departing crew who have decided that getting far from the nendrai is their top priority. I suppose a Disadvantage could be lowered if it's escapable, but well, Sythyry still hasn't gotten away from Vae and I'm not all that confident about other people's ability to depart from her presence effectively.

Re: Hmm...

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

Nendrai Friend is only -3 for probably the same reason Shifter Hybrid is +7. It may have its quota of doom and then some, but from an adventurer's point of view it has some MAJOR fringe benefits. In the case of a shifter hybrid, those benefits are substantial, especially for a mage - that's at least two Verbs that will have a substantial knack; any other magical traits of the species; physical traits of the form of the moment, and some ability to change at will, though not to resist it for too long; and a species and a half's worth of starting experience. In the case of a helpful nendrai, yes, the nendrai may try to help you and royally botch it, but they may also try to help you and succeed.

It may be disastrous for your social life, but as an adventurer, it has some definite pluses.

Re: Hmm...

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

Hmm. In game terms, what has Sythyry gotten from Vae? I remember Sythyry getting some protective spells similar to primes' bound spells, which may or may not count against the bound-spells limit. Even if they do, they can be more complex than even Sythyry could cast, and that's pretty useful. And there's the "defense grid" aspect of Vae being able to horribly slaughter enemies. ("Sleeth Friend" is worth negative points despite the usefulness of having a Sleeth at your side, right?) Oh, and Vae once gave Sythyry an ordinary-to-us but fairly valuable extradimensional spade.

Re: Hmm...

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Sleeth Friend is worth negative points because: (1) it's a good way to have the Sleeth care at all about the party; (2) there is a social stigma from being associated with a Sleeth in many cases.

In game terms, Sythyry has gotten insanely high magic skill scores from having constant nendrai encounters. (Admittedly, a PC would have much higher scores from gaming out all 81×123 nendrai encounters!) Sythyry occasionally gets useful magic from her. She makes a tremendously imposing guardian, as she did during the encounter with the philosophers and nycathath on the inistella on the way down. In the early days, Sythyry didn't but could have gotten quite a bit of money from trading with her. Plus a degree of fame and honor in Vheshrame for protecting the city from her, using her as a weapon of delicious and nutritious war against Oorah Thrassen, etc.

(I was going to say that zie got a quick teleport to Srineia, but that opened up the universe to the horrible thing from outside -- a perfect example of the Nendrai Friend disad in action!)


A clever PC would surely exploit the situation far more effectively that Sythyry did, I think.

Re: Hmm...

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Just so!

Re: Hmm...

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Disads get costs that reflect how good or bad they are for player-characters doing player-character sorts of things, not how good or bad they are for the person having them. For example, Zi Ri immortality is a +0 Advantage -- however nifty it is for the immortal, it is pretty much useless in the few months or years of a typical campaign.

Nendrai Friend has some serious gaming advantages. You do get powerful spells now and then, and sometimes they can be pretty helpful. When you learn to manipulate your nendrai properly, you can get other advantages, like using her to intimidate powerful monsters even when she's not around. You do get experience for nendrai encounters on a regular basis -- I should add that to the description -- though I would expect most of them to happen during gameplay so you'd get experience for them anyways.

Sythyry's relationship with Vae is more than the regular Nendrai Friend at this point, though that's how it started out.

Re: Hmm...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>You do get experience for nendrai encounters on a regular basis -- I should add that to the description -- though I would expect most of them to happen during gameplay so you'd get experience for them anyways. <<

Adding that would certainly help clarity. *ponder* You might also simply point out that "Nendrai Friend" has advantageous and disadvantageous effects, and -3 is typically what's left after working that equation.

>>Sythyry's relationship with Vae is more than the regular Nendrai Friend at this point, though that's how it started out.<<

Mentioning this would also help.

Re: Hmm...

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Many of our ads and disads are like that, with favorable and unfavorable aspects.

Well, I did note that most of the Strayway crew has this disad now.