Renaming:
The Protag: Mourn Blacklaw, called The Harrower. Typhon BloodStar was a little too flamboyant for a Solomon Kane-ish char.
Blacklaw comes, again, from my sci-fi/fantasy initiation in the late 60s. Magus Blacklaw is the hero of John Jake’s The Planet Wizard. In this case, Magus appears to be his actual first name, rather than a title.
My earliest SF/F heroes, even before I found REH, were John Carter of Mars, Adam Reith of Planet of Adventure, and Magus Blacklaw.
The Doggo: Skōl is the name of the great wolf who, in Norse mythology, will swallow the Sun at Ragnarok. Basically a “wolf in space”, so I think it’s appropriate.
Skōl is a neodog, a la Starship Troopers. As such, he has the following Assets in-game:
- Intelligence: RAH makes an unfortunate comparison in the book regarding the relative intelligence of neodogs. In the Forge, neos are “chimp smart”.
- Speech: As per Mr. H: They are capable of articulate speech, though their vocal cords cannot form certain consonants like ‘b’, ‘m’, ‘p’, or ‘v’. Humans simply have to “train their ear” to understand their unique accents. (Or provide them with some kind of speech synthesizer. CSN)
- Psionic Tracking: Neodogs have the psionic ability to track sentient beings by their “mind-scent”. This is a form of psychometry – they read the traces of mind-scent left on the environment by the passage of a living being. They cannot, unfortunately, track any kind of undead revenant.
- Scent Tracking: In breathable atmos, neos can also track by scent. They can track undead by physical scent.
Iron Vows:
From the rulebook:
For the people of the Forge, an iron vow is sacred. When you hold a
piece of iron and declare your solemn promise to serve or aid someone, or to complete a personal quest, your honor is bound to that vow. Those who undertake these sworn quests are called Ironsworn. Abandoning or recanting an iron vow is the worst sort of failure.Iron vows are the core of playing Starforged. It is your vows that drive you. These goals create the context for your adventures and challenges. As you complete vows, you gain experience and new abilities.
All quests are vows, but not all vows are quests. A vow to keep silent about something is a promise that is either kept or not – there isn’t an “end” to such a vow, in the sense that a quest ends with some attainment.
Momentum:
Momentum is a fairly complex mechanic in the game, but it boils down to this:
Characters accumulate Momentum by succeeding in various Moves. Momentum can then be “burned” to replace the Risk roll in a Move. However, Momentum must be burned in full, and not incrementally.
At the beginning of the next round of play, usually the next “scene”, Momentum “resets” to a specific value, usually +2.
Example:
A character has Wits2 and Momentum +6.
The character rolls a 2 for his Risk, a total of 4, and the Challenge dice are 7 and 9.
Normally, this would be a No, but the player can burn Momentum and replace the 2 with a 6, for a total of 8, resulting in a Weak Yes.
For the rest of this round/scene, the char has zero Momentum.
At the beginning of the next round, the char’s Momentum “resets” to the char’s Momentum Reset value, +2.
Oracle and Move Notation:
Going forward, Oracle rolls will include the odds (Certain, Nearly Certain, Likely, etc), the d100 threshold for those odds, the actual roll and the outcome, as in:
Oracle : <Odds> (<Odds%>) : <Roll> : <Outcome>
Oracle : Likely (60) : 31 : Yes
Move rolls will include the base Stat and value, any +/- modifiers and a brief explanation, and the outcome:
<Move Name> : <Stat>=<Value> +<Mod> (<Mod Note>) : <Outcome>
Swear an Iron Vow : Heart=2 +1 (sworn to a Connection) : Weak Yes