Attempt at Mechanics
Feb. 16th, 2005 10:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeregenesttantaene animis caelestibus irae moves closer to some sort of ready to play the thing in my mind. So here's some mechanic thoughts.
1. Begin with a concept of your Nephilim
Start with a basic conception of the Nephilim: who do you want to play? As the characters are all a tightly interlinked circle this should be done as a group.
2. Choose a dominant Element
Each Nephilim is made from one of five elements, the four classical elements (fire, earth, air, and water) plus a fifth element, that of Moon. The elements are distributed around a Pentacle with a major and minor neutral and opposed being chosen.
There will only be one of each element in the circle. The players will need t come to consensus on who plays which element.
Example: Fred will be fire.
3. Choose a Metamorphosis
Metamorphosis represents the Nephilim's inner being, its elemental self. As the Nephilim gains in power and understanding, the metamorphosis into this elemental being becomes more complete. Each metamorphosis brings two transformations, the material and the spiritual. These metamorphoses are usually, but not always, resonant with mythical imagery.
The Spiritual Metamorphosis: Each element infers behavior, traits, moods that build the personality of the Nephilim with the mood of the dominant element infallibly imprinting the total Nephilim personality.
The Material Metamophosis: The chosen metamorphosis has an obvious and overwhelming affect. It actually modifies the physical body, mirroring the spiritual life of the Nephilim.
As five elements make up all Nephilim, so to do five emotions form the Metamorphosis. As these personality traits grow in power increasing physical manifestations upon the world, with each of the five traits linked to a specific Transformation.
Chinese Portrait
Each metamorphosis is delineated using the Chinese Portrait method. He list of questions is variable and below are only examples (more may be added).
Develop the Metamorphosis
Metamorphoses are usually mythical entities, so choose one that’s appropriate.
List five personality traits and the accompanying transformation.
Definine a Chinese Portait. You may take any of these as a skill.
Take a 17 in all of these.
Example: Fred chooses the phoenix, representing the creative aspects of fire. His five personality traits/transformations are:
His Chinese Portrait looks like this:
Note: The Importance of Personality Traits
The Nephilim’s personality matter as much as his skills. Sometimes this will be with contests in which a personality trait is used as a primary ability, but most often it will be when characters augment other abilities with their personality traits.
"How many personality traits can be used to augment a contest?" The answer: as many as are relevant.
"How do you determine which personality traits are relevant?" A personality trait is relevant if, and only if, it is passionately engaged in the contest. The key here is that the personality trait used to augment must be something that reveals a part of the character’s personality as he profoundly interacts with the situation. It cannot be something that the character doesn't care that much about, or which doesn't make a statement about who they are in the situation, or that just plain isn't relevant to the roll.
4. Past Lives
The characters will incarnate in five eras of history. These eras of history will be chosen by the group (each player gets one era). A note should be that play will happen in each era.
Each past life should, mechanically, be composed of the following:
Host Life: This general skill represents what the character gains from their host in that era.
Specialized abilities: These are skills taken from the past life that further define what you gained. On average you want to take 2-5 of these.
Magic abilities: 4 to 6 magic skills representing what the Nephilim learns in an era. Not all magic is available in every era. Choosing an Arcanum counts as a magic ability.
Relationships. There should be 2 or 3 of these. These should be relationships that carry forward to the modern day. These can be to other players.
Flaws. There could be a couple of possible flaws here.
Example: Fred incarnated as a warrior in Homeric Mycenae. He looks like this:
1. Begin with a concept of your Nephilim
Start with a basic conception of the Nephilim: who do you want to play? As the characters are all a tightly interlinked circle this should be done as a group.
2. Choose a dominant Element
Each Nephilim is made from one of five elements, the four classical elements (fire, earth, air, and water) plus a fifth element, that of Moon. The elements are distributed around a Pentacle with a major and minor neutral and opposed being chosen.
There will only be one of each element in the circle. The players will need t come to consensus on who plays which element.
Example: Fred will be fire.
3. Choose a Metamorphosis
Metamorphosis represents the Nephilim's inner being, its elemental self. As the Nephilim gains in power and understanding, the metamorphosis into this elemental being becomes more complete. Each metamorphosis brings two transformations, the material and the spiritual. These metamorphoses are usually, but not always, resonant with mythical imagery.
The Spiritual Metamorphosis: Each element infers behavior, traits, moods that build the personality of the Nephilim with the mood of the dominant element infallibly imprinting the total Nephilim personality.
The Material Metamophosis: The chosen metamorphosis has an obvious and overwhelming affect. It actually modifies the physical body, mirroring the spiritual life of the Nephilim.
As five elements make up all Nephilim, so to do five emotions form the Metamorphosis. As these personality traits grow in power increasing physical manifestations upon the world, with each of the five traits linked to a specific Transformation.
Chinese Portrait
Each metamorphosis is delineated using the Chinese Portrait method. He list of questions is variable and below are only examples (more may be added).
- If I were a tree, I would be
- If I were a metal, I would be
- If I were a color, I would be
- If I were a human activity, I would be
- If I were a work of art, I would be
- If I were a weapon, I would be
- If I were a natural phenomenon, I would be
- If I were an animal, I would be
- If I were an object, I would be
- If I were a mythological being, I would be
Develop the Metamorphosis
Metamorphoses are usually mythical entities, so choose one that’s appropriate.
List five personality traits and the accompanying transformation.
Definine a Chinese Portait. You may take any of these as a skill.
Take a 17 in all of these.
Example: Fred chooses the phoenix, representing the creative aspects of fire. His five personality traits/transformations are:
- Creative/aura of inspiration
- Honorable/Lightness of Body
- Loyal/One of the Crowd
- Reckless/Fiery Appearance
- Stubborn/Minimal Body movements
His Chinese Portrait looks like this:
- If I were a tree, I would be Myrrh
- If I were a metal, I would be red gold
- If I were a color, I would be Purple
- If I were a human activity, I would be the artistic impulse
- If I were a work of art, I would be “Songs of Innocence” by William Blake.
- If I were a weapon, I would be a sword
- If I were a natural phenomenon, I would be Thunder
- If I were an animal, I would be the salamander
- If I were a mythological being…I am a mythological being
Note: The Importance of Personality Traits
The Nephilim’s personality matter as much as his skills. Sometimes this will be with contests in which a personality trait is used as a primary ability, but most often it will be when characters augment other abilities with their personality traits.
"How many personality traits can be used to augment a contest?" The answer: as many as are relevant.
"How do you determine which personality traits are relevant?" A personality trait is relevant if, and only if, it is passionately engaged in the contest. The key here is that the personality trait used to augment must be something that reveals a part of the character’s personality as he profoundly interacts with the situation. It cannot be something that the character doesn't care that much about, or which doesn't make a statement about who they are in the situation, or that just plain isn't relevant to the roll.
4. Past Lives
The characters will incarnate in five eras of history. These eras of history will be chosen by the group (each player gets one era). A note should be that play will happen in each era.
Each past life should, mechanically, be composed of the following:
Host Life: This general skill represents what the character gains from their host in that era.
Specialized abilities: These are skills taken from the past life that further define what you gained. On average you want to take 2-5 of these.
Magic abilities: 4 to 6 magic skills representing what the Nephilim learns in an era. Not all magic is available in every era. Choosing an Arcanum counts as a magic ability.
Relationships. There should be 2 or 3 of these. These should be relationships that carry forward to the modern day. These can be to other players.
Flaws. There could be a couple of possible flaws here.
Example: Fred incarnated as a warrior in Homeric Mycenae. He looks like this:
- Mycenaean warrior
- Melee Spear
- Survival
- Drunken Debauchery
- Sorcery, Casual Magic
- Sorcery, Ritual Magic
- Tower Arcanum
- Underwent the Quest for Golden Fleece (he was on the Argo)
- Loves Taygeta
- Betrayed the Chariot Arcana
no subject
Date: 2005-02-16 07:33 pm (UTC)So there's only going to be five players then.
Interesting. Have you developed out how the magic will work under this system?
later
Tom
Number of Players
Date: 2005-02-16 07:37 pm (UTC)Magic
Date: 2005-02-16 07:40 pm (UTC)I'm currently thinking along the lines that HeroQuest magic pretty much is a series of abilities and augments. So I have the abilities, inscribed spells (spells writen on your soul) would be augments, and other, variable augments will be all the cool hermetic stuff.
ideas?
Re: Magic
Date: 2005-02-17 06:35 am (UTC)One of the things I really like about HeroQuest Magic is how it accomadates 3 variant types of worship (monotheism, polytheism and animism) at the same time and gives all of them a very different feel without using any special rules (although there are some "flavor" rules about how you gain your spells and how you can apply them, the end results are usually the same).
Even if Hermetic Magic is the one "True" magical path, I think it'd be neat to use the rules to play up the different fields of study within Hermeticism. So you've got strong proponents of astrological magic, kabalistic magic, etc.
Also, if I'm in this game, I want to use Hermetic Chess (was it Hermetic or Golden Dawn Chess? I remember seeing it in one of my books and I've always had a fiendish desire to try playing the sucker). I suppose that's just "Can actually play Hermetic Chess: 17" like everything else, but you know what I mean.
later
Tom
Re: Magic
Date: 2005-02-17 07:56 am (UTC)And "hermetic" by its very nature is syncresitic, its what you make use of.