Did you know you can become a Watch Associate? Well, you can.

Requirements:

• You have to pick a district to commit to. (Every district has a separate watch)
• You have to pay a 50sp “recognition fee”.
• You must be at least 3rd level, and have demonstrable combat skill. (They don’t need low-level bumblers — each district already has dozens of them)
• You can’t previously have been a Watch Associate and been debadged

Benefits:

• You get a watch symbol to wear on your chest
• You’re no longer bound by the weapon and armour laws
• Bonuses to influence the watch, as long as you have plausible grounds for something being a law-and-order matter
• Can accumulate Favours with the watch for upholding the law, and trade them for watch assistance when perhaps you shouldn’t get it

Downsides:

• Criminals and the underclass are less likely to trust you
• If the watch (any watch) ask you for help, you have to do so – or lose a watch Favour
• If you’re arrested for any crime, you lose two watch Favours
• Hit -3 Favours and they’ll have that badge back

 

Immergleich Bleak Herald (dawn edition), 9 March 936 —

“… one reason for these higher prices is a shortage of metals. Aggressive raids by Vuur is the line coming from High Towers, but word on the ground is that the miners in The Crease dug too deep and woke things best left sleeping. …”

There is a new Immergleich price list and a version of the LotFP price list with the price-changed items blacked out. Some lower-end items, especially weapons and armour, are now somewhat more expensive. On the plus side, there are many fun new things to spend money on.

“… this claw-scarred veteran notes that many would-be adventurers underestimate the advantage that better equipment could give them. Of course, he observes, the best items are hard to come by, and indeed often illegal. “But when did that ever stop anyone?”, he chuckles … “

Note that items marked as Rare or Very Rare on the new price list require specific in game action, or a whole downtime action, in order to buy or sell. And prices are less stable than for Common items.

” … but she doesn’t buy it — “the one thing I’ve found in life is that you can never know when you’re about to make a breakthrough. You can think “This is a plateau. This is as good as I’m going to get”. And you can start to get dispondent — “maybe 12 is just my physical limit”. But if you keep pushing anyway, you might go to train one day and find you’re eating 15, maybe 18 pies in a hour.”” … “

If you look at the latest house rules, you’ll see that I’ve rejigged the xp table some. Generally, progression is faster. I’ve also made explicit that level 6 is top of the ladder – progression beyond is possible, but xp won’t do it. I’m also planning to offer a retirement option that gives some benefit to the player’s future characters.

You may also notice that Thieves have been moved to the regular xp track, leaving you all wonderfully unified. I have some ideas for compensation which Thief players can try out next session.

The Immergleich Panick, 28 Feb 936 —

MURDER WITH AN ARROW, HANGING

Three MURDEROUS THUGS were tried today in the Court Physical for MURDERING Deela Cribzin with an ARROW. She was a Court Runner, and only EIGHTEEN. They were the CRIMINALS Crursa Fell, Pockridge Bolut, and Nob Pouring. They had no bow, so they FORCED the arrow through her head WITH THEIR HANDS. They claimed they were innocent, that someone else had fired the arrow, but with their TERRIBLE CRIMINAL HISTORIES no-one believed them. After a trial by combat against the Judicial Champion Urzzzz Urzzz, a cave troll, Judge Crinthia Srebs told the survivor that they were WORSE THAN A MONSTER and sentenced them to be hung.

WAR IN PITSIDE

Pitside is “like a WAR” said Toftman Phile Ward yesterday, after his barge was SET ON FIRE. Gangs of ANGRY YOUTHS knife each other in alleyways, while old women are TAKEN FROM THEIR HOMES and EATEN. Notorious extortionist Bolls Cornut, who has a HORRIBLE MOUTH instead of a hand, leads one gang. Kylissa Ept, who is suspected of two MURDERS, leads another. And the MAD WIZARD “Joke”, who is NEITHER A MAN NOR A WOMAN and who NEVER SMILES or laughs leads a third gang, who may not be people but be SOMETHING ELSE.

No-one has heard from The Queen, the CRIMINAL MASTERMIND who some say rules Pitside, but sources in the warzone say she is probably behind all this.

 

 

Immergleich Bleak Herald (late edition), 10 Jan 936 —

“Leramore Verdun is tonight in chains beneath the House Verdun towers, chief suspect in the murder and mutilation of his brother Garamore on or about the 7th of January. Circumstances of the murder are unclear, but it was common knowledge that the two brothers had been at each others throats through swords, spears and art magic since the turn of the year.

What we do know was that Garamore was found decapitated and emasculated in front of a stunning fresh canvas entitled  “The Goddess in her Glory”. The canvas, sadly, will forever remain unfinished. The symbols and patterns implied by swift brush strokes on the great arching ceiling will be studied and imitated by artists for generations, but Garamore was clearly killed before he painted the “goddess” herself, who is nowhere to be seen.

Sources close to Leramore say he maintains his innocence, and that despite their differences he always loved his brother. Sources formerly close to Garamore say that Leramore is an asshole and that hanging is too good for him.

The house is now lead by Synaesthesia Verdun, Leramore’s niece. This has suprised keen observers of house politics, as Synaesthesia was was previously eighth in line after Leramore’s and Garamore’s wives and adult children. When publicly questioned  on this matter, Synaesthesia expressed regret that their current location and disposition were unknown.”

The spells Detect Evil and Protection from Evil don’t make sense in Immergleich. There’s no essential evil, and no alignment. I have therefore reworked them in a way that does make sense:

Know Humanity

• Cleric level 1
• Duration: Instantaneous
• Range: Line of sight

The caster discovers the general type of any creatures or intelligences within their line of sight, according the following classes:

• Human
• Near-human (e.g. crossbreeds of humans with other species, humans with significant chimeric modification)
• Nonhuman (e.g. other species, synthetic intelligences, undead) (NB the spell makes these apparent by not detecting them at all, so if they are not obviously “alive” the caster will get no clue that they are)
• Alien (things not stable in the material world e.g. godforms, demons)

Protection from Nonhumans

• Cleric level 1
• Duration: 1 Round/level
• Range: Touch

The target gains a resistance to any creature that Know Humanity would class as “Nonhuman” or “Alien”.

Such creatures take –(caster level) to hit the target, and the target gets +(caster level) to save (where allowed) against any effect they cause. Additionally, the target gets a save against any Magic-User spells cast by such creatures even when the spell does not normally grant a save (success means half effect if that has an obvious interpretation, otherwise no effect).

Protection from Nonhumans , 10’ Radius

• Cleric level 4
• Duration: 1 Round/level
• Range: 0

As Protection from Nonhumans, but effects all humans and near-humans in a 10’ radius about the caster.

LotFP/the Immergleich system is class-and-level. But the only LotFP classes are oriented towards combat and adventuring. What about the many characters who aren’t about that? Most NPCs are in that category, and we’ve established a somewhat porous boundary between “PC” and “very friendly NPC of modest stature”.

This is salient in Immergleich as we’ve used Mestival Dihafeland as a PC, and she clearly is not of an adventuring class. We ran her as zero-level, which is ok, but doesn’t allow for any progression.

Commoner class

Design goals

I want a class that

• Lets Mestival (and characters like her) retain her established character and traits and abilities
• Can be used for many NPCs and a few occasional-use PCs
• Provides (or at least points at) a baseline model for levelled characters who aren’t a major combatant class
• Is less adventuring-effective than most, but isn’t useless there

Basic features

• Hit die is d4, with min roll of 3 at first level and 2 at later levels. And an +2 hp at first level.
• Flat +1 attack
• Choose two saving throws to be good at

Special abilities

Professional Experience — choose one of:

• Two Backgrounds and claim bonuses for both
• Take one Background twice

Either way, when both their backgrounds apply to a d20 check, they get double skill bonus.

Skilled worker — double the benefit of any downtime activity

Superstitions — 1 in 6 chance (vs normal NPC 1 in 10) of having a useful fortune-telling method they can use once per day. Player picks what stat it uses.

Untapped Potential — can become another class later:

• On any level progression, if they’ve been acting like another class, they can take a level as “Apprentice <classname>”. Their changes for that level are then based on that class’s 1^st level abilities.
• At the next level, they can either swap back to commoner/civilian, or convert completely to the new class
  • Their new level is based on xp, not current level.
  • Recalculate everything that needs recalc
    • For rolled things like hp, they can chose to keep old total

Other special abilities I’m considering

These are lifted from http://dailyosr.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/revised-commoner-class.html:

• Extra “common sense”/”blissful ignorance” bonus on saves vs magical mental effects esp illusions (probably +2)
• Bonus to hide in a crowd or otherwise not be recognised (because they look and act very ordinary), enhanced further if no visible armour or weapons.

(Edit later on 23 April — moved to d4 hit die, added bonus hp at first level, to emphasise their poor combat effectiveness without making them even more vulnerable at first level)

(Edit on 14 June — removed reference to Thief progression as that’s no longer a thing. May upgrade Commoner abilities at some point to compensate for loss of this benefit.)

Interviewer: So, there’s trouble on the hill?

Confused woman: Oh, yeah, there’s definitely trouble.

Interviewer: On the hill?

Confused: Yeah. Over the Verdun estate, morning after Null Day. It was really scary.

Interviewer: What was?

Confused: The thousand foot high metallic-paint dragon. Terrifying.

Interviewer: This metal dragon, what did it do?

Confused: Got ripped up by the watercolour sky hands and the gouache demon-birds.

Interviewer: That was the end of it?

Confused: On no, it got much worse.

 

 

 

Where did you come from? What have you done? Beyond those given by your class, what are your skills? You get to choose a Background for your PC, which can be any single trade or occupation name, which captures this. When you attempt a task that your Background gives you expertise in, you get a bonus (unless you’d get a bonus anyway because of your class).

A mechanically-useful background is one that complements your class, giving you expertise (and thus a bonus on an attribute check) where your class would not.

The game assumes that level 1 characters are net broke, apart from their initial money allocation, and do not have access to significant local resources. So if you define a background that implies such (e.g. “Merchant Adventurer”) then it is implicit that you have fallen on hard times at the point you enter the game.

Examples — scholar, mercenary, blacksmith, prostitute, noble, sculptor, chef, travelling tinker, farmer, galley slave, …