[UA] Unknown Ages

[Benjamin Lee]

--- John Tynes <john at tynes.com> wrote:
> With that, I'd like to wrap up this conversation and
> get back to doing what
> we enjoy here: talking about weird stuff! I didn't
> mean for this to become a
> wake; we have far too much fun on this list for
> that.
> 
> <- John Tynes - john at tynes.com -

Alright, I’ll start by rehashing an old idea for my
own amusement.  UA recast as a Fantasy game- in this
case, a brutal savage Sword and Sorcery prehistory (or
perhaps, previous history) in which sly slinky catlike
sorceresses utter unspeakable Names in order to
beguile the hulking brutes and killers she uses to
warm her bed and wet her crimson-stained later.  

In which brutish- yet devilish clever- barbarians from
the North adventure and whore and kill and steal and
live free, despite the so-called laws of civilized
man.  

In which ancient fallen orders of the Elder Races
linger at the fringes of the world- a world haunted by
demon and fell beats and walking dead.  A world
teetering on the edge of oblivion, destined to be
wiped away and remade, less then dust.

Unknown Ages lost in the forgotten murk of deepest
time.



So the skinny.

This riff is made up of some of my own ideas, and some
ideas from other people which have been posed over at
rpg.net, and here to this list.  I’m not trying to rip
anyone off, but rather to dump all the things I liked
or which inspired the rest of this thing into a single
place.  All in good fun.



Mechanically, it works pretty much like Unknown Armies
as if painted by Frazetta, with the following tweaks.


SKILLS
RIDE is a default Speed skill rather than Drive.
LORE is a default Mind skill rather than Education.

New skills which would come in handy:

ARMOR-  bear the weight of armor without penalty. 
Subtract the Armor skill from all penalties from
wearing armor.

SHIELD- use a shield (or perhaps, a grabbed opponent)
to block attacks.  Up to the max of your Shield skill,
different size shields impose a negative shift on
attacks.

No Firearms obviously, though Archery fills the role
of a ranged attack.  Bows are Long, Compound, and/or
Laminated (+3 damage for each) and arrows can have
armor piercing tips (-3 damage, ignore armor).







ARMOR
Armor is rated based on three questions: 

Is it Ridged? 
Is the armor made of an unyielding material such as
metal? 

Is it Covering? 
Does the armor cover more than half your body area? 

Is it Heavy? 
Is the armor thick and sturdy? 

Basic light armor- a leather jerkin for example- will
stop 1 point of damage per attack. Each 'Yes' to an
above question adds 3 to this protection, but imposes
a -10% shift to all actions involving Speed, including
initiative. A suit of jointed plate armor with all
three questions answered YES, would thus stop 10
points of damage per attack.


SHIELDS

Small Shield: -10% vs Melee; -5% vs ranged 
Medium Shield:  -15% vs Melee; -10% vs ranged
Great Shield:  -20% vs melee; -20% vs ranged

You can also attack with a shield using that skill,
adding +0/+3/+6 for damage.


POWER OF THE GODS

Avatars are basically given god-names for the fantasy
setting and used without change.  People who channel
divine force are considered Clerics, Divine Madmen,
Priest-Kings, saints, and holy warriors.  The
conception (whether right or wrong) isn’t that reality
is created bottom-up based on patterns of human
behavior, belief, and thought, but human behavior
belief and thought are created top-down by divine
beings who capriciously toy with the lives of mortal
men.  The gods are mostly selfish absentee assholes.  
 


BLACKEST MAGIC

Magic is still based off a Soul skill which must be
the Mage’s Obsession skill.  It still involves
charge-building rituals and a body of related effects.
 The Schools of magic are much less symbolic and
postmodern, and don’t generally involve a strong
internal paradox… here it’s more like irony.   Here is
the basic skinny on some possible schools:


NECROMANCY
Domain:  power over the dead and undead

Minor Effect:  cause minor withering, raise spirits,
commune with the dead
Minor Charge:  contemplate death and the dead-
preferably in particularly morbid environment

Significant Effect:  cause significant withering,
raise corporeal undead, command spirits to your will,
steal life like a vampire
Significant Charge:  Ritually enact your own death &
burial and spend night sleeping in your own tomb;
construct a monument to Death; engage in perverse
ritual mockery of life (plant a field with gravel as
if it were seed, have sex with a corpse, bind another
person’s wounds with infected bandages and maggots
etc)

Major Effect:  raise an undead army; become undead
yourself; slay hundreds
Major Charge:  die and rise from your own death;
celebrate death on a mass scale (on the order of the
Pyramids)- turn a society to Death.

Blast Style:  Withering Touch.  Cheep (1 charge per
blast)  but requires a touch to work.  Causes victim's
body to wither and age, bursting open with puss and
maggots.  Quite nasty.

Taboo:  Act in such a way as to celebrate life (have
sex, plant crops, tend to another’s wounds etc).

Notes:  Necromancy is a great school if you happen to
be a Stygian priest-king or something.  You can use
you power to create a great necropolis, in which
people live in tombs and sleep in coffins.  Mad
charges to be reaped from such an arrangement.



MYSTICISM
Domain:  power over thoughts, the mind, and perception

Minor Effect:  read surface thoughts, create minor
illusions, shock a person’s mind, put a person into
light hypnosis
Minor Charge:  deny the flesh, focusing on the mind
(go without food or sleep, or expose yourself to the
elements while meditating on the higher mind).

Significant Effect:  control thoughts, read secret
desires, create fantasy illusion scenarios, travel the
astral plane, blast a person’s mind to chaos.
Significant Charge:  mortify the flesh, ignoring pain
and need to invigorate the mind (inflict ritual
injuries while mediating for several hours- 10 wound
per charge at least)

Major Effect:  transfer your mind to another body;
swap minds of two or more subjects, read a person’s
mind utterly and completely, make someone your total
and utter slave, utterly destroy someone’s mind.
Major Charge:  permanently reduce the flesh- loosing a
significant body part through ritual sacrifice while
meditating (self-castration is popular in the East). 
Deny your body’s needs while surrounded by temptation
for weeks (starve yourself while sitting at a table
loaded with your favorite foods until you are almost
dead).  Lots of Self and Helplessness checks here.

Blast Style:  Mystics reach inside the minds of their
victims and scramble their thoughts and fry their
nervous systems.  A victim blasted by a Mystic has no
idea where the attack is coming from, and if slain,
leaves an unmarked corpse behind.  

Taboo:  Indulge the flesh for pleasure (eat more than
required to keep you alive and healthy, have sexual
relations for a purpose other than to produce an heir,
bathe more than basic health demands, or dress in
clothing more sumptuous than the needs of climate or
modesty).

Notes:  Mystics are often these crazy dirty old men
living in caves on the top of mountains.  They
generally have a great deal of insight (from all that
mind-reading and astral projection) but are usually in
poor health from their self-denial.  The other side is
the Eastern mystic- the humble-seeming court advisor
or minister.  Often a Eunuch, this Mystic is a
devilish schemer who uses his powers to further his
ambitions. 



DIABOLISM
Domain:  the summoning and binding of Demons and other
Eldritch Horrors from Beyond

Minor Effect:  Summon a Minor demon to perform
service.  Banish a Minor demon.
Minor Charge:  Sacrifice food, drink, drugs, and
valuables of significant value; make living sacrifices
of animals.

Significant Effect:  Summon a Significant demon to
perform service, or summon half a dozen Minor demons. 
Banish a Significant demon, or half a dozen Minor
demons.
Significant Charge:  Make living human sacrifices;
sacrifice goods of unique priceless value.

Major Effect:  Summon a Major Demon to perform
service, or summon up to half a dozen Significant
demons, or a dozen Minor demons.  Utterly banish a
similar number of demons.  
Major Charge:  Sacrifice your loved ones or hundreds
of other living human beings.  Sacrifice artifacts of
singular power and magic.  Sell your soul to a Demon
Kahn.  You can only do this last one once… and then
you are subject to the Kahn’s every command (resisting
is a Rank-10 Self and Unnatural check).

Blast Style:  None exactly, but Minor demons inflict
+3 melee damage, Significant demons inflict rolled
value damage, and Major demons pretty much instantly
kill people.  Being attacked by a demon will often
lead to both Unnatural and Violence checks.

Taboo:  If you ever break your Contract  with one of
your demons, all the rest of your bound demons will
get testy and try and break their pacts with your
(your metaphysical authority is weakened every time
you break a Pact).  This requires a Magic skill roll
vs the Demon’s Soul stat.  If it wins, it’ll likely do
it’s damnedest to eat your face off.  

Notes:  Unlike most schools, Diabolism lets you build
the charges needed to work the magic either before or
after you actually summon up a demon.  If built
before, you spend the charges and roll the dice
normally, and use this energy to feed the demon and
secure the Pact.  If you charge up after- essentially
summoning on credit- then the Demon (and thus, the GM)
gets to specify the charging conditions under which
will pay for the spell.  This is how most Diabolists
get into real trouble (well, this an sacrificing
people).  

The cost of a spell depends on the power of the demon
you summon.  This also determines the time it takes to
summon the demon- generally an hour per charge spent. 
Here is the skinny on demon summoning:

Basic Demons:  Your basic demon has the following
stats, and will perform 1 service with a duration no
greater than 1 day.  This service can be fairly
complex- “Find and slay Agoth the Nothman” is just
fine.  As is “Carry me upon your back to the High Peak
of Shelas.”  You can sometimes bribe a demon to
perform services beyond those in the original Pact-
but at double the normal cost in Charges and a Magic
roll.  The unnatural effects a demon can produce are
one-shot deals.  They will one perform a finite number
of such magical feats for you, though offering more
charges can increase their numbers.  They can have
Body skills which reflect their demon physiology
though- such as Flight or Burrowing.  

Minor Demons
Stats:  200
Attack:  +3 damage
1 Minor unnatural effect.

Significant Demons
Stats:  250
Attack:  rolled value as damage
1 Significant unnatural.

Major Demons
Stats:  300
Attack:  instant death
1 Significant unnatural.

+1 Minor Charge:  Add 5 Stat points; Add 1 extra Minor
unnatural effect; increase duration of service by 1
day; add one command to the pact of a Minor demon.

+1 Significant Charge:  Add 15 Stat points; Add 1
extra Significant unnatural effect; increase duration
of service by 1 week; add one command to the pact of a
Significant demon.

+1 Major Charge:  Add 50 Stat points; add 1 extra
Major unnatural effect; increase duration of service
by 1 month; add one command to the pact of a Major
demon.



DRUIDISM
Domain:  Life and nature, fertility and growth

Minor Effect:  command an animal to perform simple
service; heal a minor wound, increase fertility; hide
easily in natural setting
Minor Charge:  Feed blood to the soil and the roots of
sacred trees (at least 10 Wound points worth, though
it need no be yours)

Significant Effect:  command many animals to perform
minor service, or one to perform complex service (such
as fighting for you). Heal significant wounds,
increase fertility dramatically, become one with
natural settings.
Significant Charge:  Feed great amounts of blood to
the soil- at least 100 wound points worth, at least 10
of which MUST be yours.

Major Effect:  
Major Charge:  Feed the life’s blood of one or more
beings- at least 300 wound points worth.  This leaves
the sacrifices dead.

Blast Style:  Turn the wilderness against the victim-
birds swoop and attack, limbs fall on him, vines trip
him, trees fall and crush him.  A Druid’s Blast
doesn’t hit immediate, but lingers until he is in a
setting where it can do the most good.  Such Blasts
hang around for as much as a week before hitting, as
circumstances dictate.  

Taboo:  allow harm to come to natural settings under
your protection (beyond the normal cycle of tooth and
claw and predation).  Further, adopting too many of
the ways of civilization will cause Taboo- dressing in
loom-woven cloth, wielding weapons of steel, or
wearing armor made from anything but hide and leather
will Taboo a druid.  Also note that using natural
creatures from your wilderness to Charge is instant
Taboo… those civilized men who wander in your wood
should beware.

Notes:  The magic here is pretty straightforward, but
the irony is that the Druid gains power over life by
ritually sacrificing life.



WIZARDRY
Domain:  wizardry is the power of words, spoken or
written, and the way words can persuade, awe, or
dominate.  Words can be used to change a person’s
whole world view.

Minor Effect:  Make a suggestion which the target will
accept as reasonable.  Curse or bless a target in such
a way as to affect his fortunes in a limited way.

Significant Effect:  Issue commands which targets will
find hard to disobey.  Curse or bless a target in such
a way as to affect his fortunes in a broad way.

Major Effect:  Utterly entrance targets with your
words, altering their core belief systems (you can
rewrite their Obsessions and Triggers).  Make terrible
curses or wondrous blessings.

Blast Style:  The Wizardry blast doesn’t inflict
damage, but is does impose overwhelming awe and
majesty.  This causes both Fear and Unnatural stress
checks in those who the Blast is directed against. 
Rank-4 for Minor blasts, Rank-8 for Significant
blasts.  This Awe can affect more than one person
easily if they can clearly see and hear the Wizard who
uses it.  

Taboo:  Wizards must always be careful with what they
say- their words carry power even if they don’t intend
them to.  They don’t charge up like normal mages, but
rather once they have used their words to carry power,
they become carriers for accidental magic.  Each use
of Wizardry CRATES a charge (or charges) which hand
around, waiting to discharge at the GM’s discretion
based on what the Wizard says.  For example, an angry
wizard who utters “Damn you eyes, why can’t you keep
up!” could accidentally Curse one of his companions
with blindness (or at least a big negative shift to
Notice rolls).  These charges work high to low, so
Majopr charges erupt first, then significant, then
minor ones.  Wizards are known for their taciturn
natures and their tendencies to speak in riddles for
good reason.  To speak too clearly courts disaster.


-Ben







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