Grate-Scratcher Archetypal Image and the Kivians

Svetana Milevic -- a Grate-Scratcher Burglar

Svetana is short and slim near to the point of emaciation. She has pale, unhealthy-looking skin, and large (I mean inhumanly large) eyes with irises so light they almost blend into the whites. She is in her early 20s. Her hair is limp and straggly in a dirty gray under a pair of dark goggles she wears across her forehead. She wears plain, dark rags, mottled in grays and dark reds (a makeshift urban camouflage for a city filled with brick and stone) -- and they look like they used to be 18th-century peasant garb, reminiscent of Les Miserables. What skin shows is splattered in mud and grime, as though she’d been living in a sewer for years (as indeed she has). She carries a thick length of rope with a grapnel on it on one shoulder, a crowbar in her belt, and is removing a lockpick from a leather case. Her lips are thin, but pressed into a grin of smirking happiness.

Picture after the jump:

Pariah Archetypal Image and the Shertasi

Marcek Rystyna-per -- a Pariah Information Merchant

Marcek is short and slim. He is in his late 30s. He has dark skin, hair, and eyes, rather Middle-Eastern features. His thin cheeks are permanently stained with tears, which glow with a black light. He has a short goatee. His head is covered by a skullcap in dark orange and purple stripes. He wears an Elizabethan-era tunic and pants (“slops” or “trunk hose”) in black, gray, and purple, simple and severe. He has a stuffed-full scroll-case on his belt, ink-stained fingers, and a quill pen in one hand. His face says he knows more than you, and wants you to know it.See the image after the jump:

Promethean Archetypal Image and the end of the Ma'ar

Phaedra -- a Promethean Explosives Artificer

Phaedra is tall and statuesque, with the high breasts and aquiline nose of a classical Greek statue. She is in her early 20s. Her skin is burnished a dull red, and her veins glow with a dim orange light. Her hair is cut in a “Cleopatra” hairdo, ash-gray, and her eyes look like glowing coals. She wears a flattering Greek tunic with bare legs. She holds a small black-powder grenade (like from Pirates of the Caribbean or old Looney Tunes cartoons), and is lighting the wick with a small breath of fire. She has a pyromaniac’s glee in her eyes. Image after the jump:

Realms - Niontia Unprime 236

We begin with a piece of concept art, for the Dead-Blooded bloodline, and then we will travel to Niontia Unprime 236.

Elexender Gwaiotus - a Dead-Blooded Blightshifter

Elexender is a dour, serious-looking young man in his early 20s. His skin is sallow and unhealthy-looking, his black eyes sunken. Part of his lip has rotted away, leaving his teeth visible. His straight black hair is cut into a style like the wigs of the Revolutionary War. He wears an 18th-century nobleman’s outfit -- waistcoat, breeches, cravat -- in stark, plain black, and it is old and not well-cared-for. He holds a skull in one hand, with the other hand making an arcane gesture at it. The skull appears to be regrowing its flesh. He stares at the skull with an intense look of concentration.

And the image, after the jump:

On Archetypal Images and Realm Geography

As I've worked on this blog and my playtest campaign, I've realized two things: People want images, and I'm not very good at visual thinking. Hence, I decided that if I were to get across exactly what a "Rural" or "Grate-Scratcher" Iooked like, I would need some are. I wanted to get an "archetypal" image of each Bloodline, like those one might see in the Race descriptions in D&D or what have you, and also a bit of the Archetypes (similar to Classes in D&D or what have you). So I asked my fiancee to commission some art for me for Christmas. It turned out to be a Valentine's Day Gift, but whatever... For the next ten posts, we'll supplement the main topic with short discussion on the Bloodline pictures I got from artist Amy Clark (check her stuff out at deviant art). This is the the description I wrote for my fiancee, who sent it on to Amy:

Thewton Wells -- a Rural Explorer
Thewton is short and stocky -- perhaps five-foot-four and extremely thick -- but well-muscled. He is perhaps 30. His skin is a deep, deep tan -- though with Anglo-Saxon features -- and his hair, shaggy and mossy (see below), and eyes are both deep brown. His skin is caked in a half-inch of thick loam, with moss and small flowering plants sprouting all over his body -- if there’s a spot where his natural skin is showing, it’s singular and unusual. He wears a ragged pair of coveralls with neither shirt nor shoes, with a large backpack complete with a coil of rope, bedroll, and pickaxe. He has a confident, simple smile.

And here's the picture after the break:

Archetypal Individuals

Hello, all. I was going to make this post about religion in the City, as a follow-up to my post on gods. Unfortunately, real life has intervened, so I will have to postpone that column. However, I'm not going to leave you with nothing. Here are a few physical descriptions of archetypal individuals, examples of the various Bloodlines of the City. Enjoy.

Thewton Wells -- a Rural Explorer
Thewton is short and stocky -- perhaps five-foot-four extremely thick -- but well-muscled. He is perhaps 30. His skin is a deep, deep tan -- though with Anglo-Saxon features -- and his hair, shaggy and mossy (see below), and eyes are both deep brown. His skin is caked in a half-inch of thick loam, with moss and small flowering plants sprouting all over his body -- if there’s a spot where his natural skin is showing, it’s singular and unusual. He wears a ragged pair of coveralls with neither shirt nor shoes, with a large backpack complete with a coil of rope, bedroll, and pickaxe. He has a confident, simple smile.

Phaedra -- a Promethean Explosives Artificer
Phaedra is tall and statuesque, with the high breasts and aquiline nose of a classical Greek statue. She is in her early 20s. Her skin is burnished a dull red, and her veins glow with a dim orange light. Her hair is cut in a “Cleopatra” hairdo, ash-gray, and her eyes look like glowing coals. She wears a flattering Greek tunic with bare legs. She holds a small black-powder grenade (like from Pirates of the Caribbean or old Looney Tunes cartoons), and is lighting the wick with a small breath of fire. She has a pyromaniac’s glee in her eyes.

Efrael lev-Zeron -- a Leovite Priest
This one might be a little tough -- Efrael has leonine feratures, but is *not* an anthro. The look of Vincent from the old Beauty and the Beast TV show is pretty much perfect. He has a flattened nose, cleft lip, and distinct fangs. He is covered with a fine golden-brown fur, and a distinctive shaggy mane. He is in his early 30s. He has thick finger- and toenails, almost claw-like. He is tall (six and half feet tall) and thick-bodied, well-muscled but not overly so. His eyes are a golden yellow. He wears white robes reminiscent of Old Testament Jewish priests (though without the jeweled breast-plate), with a stylized sun on his chest. He has a kindly, welcoming look on his face.

Closk Hotblood -- a Kipman Soldier
Closk is a mongrel. He has features from half-a-dozen different animals. Primarily, he is human -- tall, heavy-set, imposing, a physique reminiscent of a bull or bear. He also features a bear’s muzzle and ram’s horns. His eyes are human, an intense blue. He is in his late 20s. He has patchy fur all over his body, interspersed with tan skin and the occasional patch of reptilian scales. One hand looks like a bear paw, while the other is human. He has the backward-jointed legs and hooves of a sheep.He is dressed in ragged clothes like that of a 19th-century peasant, heavily soiled and patched -- a coarse canvas shirt and ragged pants, with a jerkin of studded leather armor over it. In his human hand, he carries an old, heavily-notched hand axe. His face tells the viewer to die horribly.

Tessiria Aderino -- a Sky-Carver Courtier
Tessiria is thin and tall, looking slender at best, if not emaciated. Her eyes have no irises, instead being a solid light blue, and her long hair, waving in an unseen breeze, is stark white. She is in her mid-40s. Her skin is pale and tinged with a light blue, with white, cloud-shaped markings appearing across her skin. She is dressed in a long, flowing Renaissance dress, perhaps inspired by Lucrezia Borgia’s dress in the attached picture. She should look sexy, supercilious, and terrifyingly cruel.

Marcek Rystyna-per -- a Pariah Information Merchant
Marcek is short and slim. He is in his late 30s. He has dark skin, hair, and eyes, rather Middle-Eastern features. His thin cheeks are permanently stained with tears, which glow with a black light. His head is covered by a skullcap in dark orange and purple stripes. He wears an Elizabethan-era tunic and pants (“slops” or “trunk hose”) in black, gray, and purple, simple and severe. He has a stuffed-full scroll-case on his belt, ink-stained fingers, and a quill pen in one hand. His face says he knows more than you, and wants you to know it.

See you next time!

City Generation - Clovenmouthe Part 1

Welcome back to our series on district building. So far, we've covered Sylvennis, the seething stew of aristocratic scheming; Templedowns, the inspiring/asphyxiating religious center; and Council Heights, where idealistic politicians go head-to-head with the vilest schemers. Today we'll head the opposite direction, over to the lowest-class district -- the slum of Clovenmouthe.

Upon reviewing my posts, it looks like I have said nothing about Clovenmouthe - but a few ideas are in my head, so let's start with those:

• It is the residence of the lowest of the low -- those unfortunates who barely make enough to scrape by, if that -- and is filled with crime, violence, misery... and, oddly enough, in some places more contentment than the richest houses of Sylvennis.
• It is ruled by the Iversdotter street gangs, who keep safe those under their protection -- for a price.
• The main Bloodlines present are the Kipmen (mongrels of animal and man), Dead-Blooded (part man, part undead, and hated by everyone), Grate-Scratchers (underground-dwelling scavengers), Rurals (uneducated farmers who grow plants right on their bodies), and the ruling Iversdotters (magical clones of a single woman, living in a martial society).

So, with those pieces, what else can we derive? The first rich piece of setting I see is the idea of the ruling gangs. I see these as rather more positive than street gangs in our own world -- they have a code of honor, and honestly take care of the civilians they extort "protection money" from. But they're not saints, either -- the Iversdotters take much from their charges, sell them drugs, disrupt their lives with gang wars... It's a broken system, but the best the City has to offer these poor people. So -- since the City government must have little to no influence in Clovenmouthe, what responsibilities must the gang leaders take upon themselves?

• Police and courts: Whether they have their own actual police force or if it is more spread out and less official, the gangs must keep order in their holdings, which means catching those who break the rules and dispensing justice. Traditionally, gang justice is swift, efficient, harsh -- and not necessarily correct, with an accusation almost always leading to a conviction. "Better safe than sorry" and "Guilty until proven innocent" are the watchwords in Iversdotter police work.
• Public works: With no City workers coming in to fix the roads, pipes, or what-have-you, it's up to the gangs. They're unlikely to put this at a high priority, but they do need to make sure that the roads and such are up to a certain standard, or else their drugs won't get to their locations, their troop movement will slow, and their citizens will rise up in revolt.
• Taxation: Taxes or "protection money" -- it's pretty much a matter of labels, either way it's people paying money to a more powerful entity to take care of them. And the poor of Clovenmouthe need taking care of.
• Business and Trade: Much of this business is taken care of by the City's guilds (which I will address in the section on Orhall), but the gangs do need to ensure that their citizens are treated well enough by the guilds' businesses and factories to continue their responsibilities to the Iversdotters. Trade is highly regulated, if not in the way we might expect -- keeping an iron fist on their profit margins is the highest priority, especially when transporting drugs and weapons that might be illegal in other parts of the City or other Realms.
• Foreign Politics: "Foreign" in this case means other gang territories, other districts, seldom if ever venturing outside the City. The gang leaders need to ensure their areas of control will not be threatened, politically or militarily, so sit-downs and summits are common occurrences -- as are armed conflicts.

Now that we've figured out basically how the Iversdotter gangs will take care of Clovenmouthe, we'll stop here and wait until next time to cover religion and culture. See you next time, for City Generation - Clovenmouthe Part 2

Character Generation: Archetypes

In the last few posts, I've occasionally mentioned "archetypes." As bloodlines tell where a character comes from, an archetype tells what they do. The first thing to note, in contrast to D&D, is that archetypes are purely optional. In D&D, your class is who you are. In Fate, things are more flexible -- you can make a character who specializes in anything, or in nothing at all, with a random assortment of skills and stunts. However, some guidance can be helpful, and certain types of character are traditional in the high fantasy genre. Hence: archetypes.

Each archetype is a profession or vocation, with recommended skills and stunts for the character to choose in order to be most effective. Each archetype has two or three sub-types, or "builds," reflecting different ways that type of character could go.

The archetypes are:

Artist

• An extremely rare character type (unless paired with magic as per the D&D Bard), the performer or painter isn't terribly useful in many RPGs -- but as two bloodlines in the City hold art in the highest regard, the Artist is far more useful in the City than they might be out dungeoncrawling.
• Builds: Artiste, Avant Garde, Artistic Crafter

Athlete

• An unconventional character type, I nonetheless feel the runner (inspired by Mirror's Edge) and acrobat have serious potential in a primarily urban setting.
• Builds: Equestrian, Runner, Acrobat

Battlecrafter

• This character type is loosely analogous to the "spellsword" or "magic knight"-type character, capable of swinging sword in one hand and slinging spells with the other.
• Builds: Elementalist, Battle-Form Shifter

Burglar

• A classic character role, capable of sneaking, opening locks, and disarming traps. Simple, basic, but useful.
• Builds: Assassin, Cutpurse, Second-Story Man

Commander

• This character role -- a leader of men, focused on assisting their compatriots both in and out of combat -- was uncommon until recently, but more RPGs (notably, D&D 4th edition) include it now.
• Builds: Bureaucrat, Crime Lord, Platoon Leader

Court Crafter

• A Crafter working for the noble houses, skilled in social skills as well as magic. Court magicians and soothsayers have a long history in fiction but not in roleplaying, and I sought to change that.
• Builds: Counselor, Relicsmith

Courtier

• Another character type usually represented only in modern or future RPGs and abandoned in fantasy, the courtier knows everyone and puts people together -- particularly appropriate for a campaign filled with court politics and class warfare.
• Builds: Attendant, Information Merchant

Explorer

• One of the few archetypes designed for the world outside the City, the Explorer is an expert in the wilderness and foreign cultures.
• Builds: Ranger, Realmshifter

Mountebank

• A character type often lumped in with the Burglar, the mountebank is a con artist, an expert in deceit -- again, forgotten in fantasy where the PCs only interact with quest-givers and monsters, but appropriate to an urban setting.
• Builds: Master of Disguise, Swindler

Philosopher

• The scientist and medic -- often neglected in fantasy games, I feel it is vital in a world with the approximate technology level of the 18th century.
• Builds: Artificer, Physician, Sage

Priest

• Priests in many RPGs are magic-users, calling down the gods' wrath or healing word, the City has no interventionist deities. Therefore, these priests fulfill a social role more like their historical models, wielding political influence and soothing wounded souls.
  
• Builds: Cultist, Lightspeaker

Soldier

• The basic "fighter" type, whether a professional or amateur. A core and simple character type.
• Builds: Archer, Duelist, Thug

Street Crafter

• In a magic-rich society, it only makes sense that the street magicians and traveling fortune-tellers  have genuine magical abilities. That's what this archetype is.
• Builds: Fortune-Teller, Performer

Trader

• A specialist in money and goods. Arguably the least exciting and adventurous archetype in the game, but I think it has potential.
• Builds: Caravaner, Junk Merchant

There are obviously other types of character to create: Dragonriders, magical archers, ninja, but my archetypes cover most of the kinds of characters likely to appear in The City of Lives. With these archetypes in place, players have guidance but also freedom. Join me next time as we continue Character Generation for Phases.