The town of Zamość

Petwia's House of Refuge

Petwia's former residence now functions as a house of refuge, a place for the destitute to find a meal and a bed.

As Petwia is Jewish, the Catholic Church, which normally underwrites such enterprises, won't provide any aid, so the fiscal support needs to come from Petwia, summing to 8gp a month. This money covers food and upkeep costs for the boarders and caregivers.

As this 8gp a month goes towards tikkun olam, Petwia will receive 160xp each month (the value of the donation in silver pieces).

Tarot Crawling

I've uploaded a new set of rules to itch.io that use Tarot cards to prep and then run a wilderness area for exploration. The reason I'm linking it here is that the last page of the zine describes the primary function of bells within Gelgelim.

I've written about bells before. As a quick recap, bells ward off bad things (thieves, storms, spirits, witches, bad luck, demons, etc.), but it is difficult to model that at the table unless these warded-against forces actually plague the characters. And I'm not interested in making my players' lives more stressful in their urban interactions. However, by assigning 'bad luck' types of events to Tarot cards, which I present in the zine as an alternative to random(ish) encounters, I find a use for bells.

Bells make traveling more safe by reducing the chances of bad things happening. Different modalities and melodies ward off different things, and better bellringers can choose to weave together these modalities and melodies to abjure against more things at once. At the table, the player chooses some number of cards to avoid from a pre-selected list (boginky, spirits, delaying circumstances, catastrophe, traveling accident, and a few others). If I would reveal that card while the characters travel, I instead shuffle it back into the deck. If I draw that card again, the bells have no effect.

Silver bells repel boginky, both the card that invokes them and, if encountered anyways, will keep them at bay as long as the bells sound.

A New Beginning

About two weeks ago, I shuttered development on the Sea of Shadows. Questions of cultural appropriation had hounded me from the beginning, but seeing JB's new project, I realized that 1) the Sea of Shadows was, no matter my care and attention to detail, an appropriative project and 2) there are some phenomenal designers already working on places and spaces like what I wanted the Sea of Shadows to be (Zedeck Siew's and Munkao's http://athousandthousandislands.com/ is an excellent example). I felt an ethical need to refocus my (colonizing) attention away from the Sea of Shadows. I'd love to return there with other, better qualified designers, but that is a dream for another time.

Instead, I have started work on a new region within the same world: Gelgelim, from the Hebrew word for wheels. As a Jew and a Pole, there is a vast treasury of Slavic, Ashkenazi, and Polish folklore that is weird and interesting and worth exploring. My players agreed to take the plunge with me and we created new characters and begun a new game within Gelgelim a couple of weeks ago.

The following is the description of the setting as it appears in the Core Book. I'll have posts on bears, birds, boginky, bells, and kabbala coming out in the next week or so (I'm on a half-vacation with WiFi, so I've the time to bang all of this out).

“Gelgelim channels Polish, Slavic, and Ashkenazi lifeways with a dollop of Irish and Welsh folklore into an area some 360,000 square miles large (about the size of Germany or Japan). To the north lie the toxic ruins of the Azintheen Empire, filled with bronze monstrosities and powerful magics. The rugged lands to the west resist exploration. And Chornilis, the black woods, blocks southward and eastward travel.

“The time is a century after the Scorching, a man-made cataclysm that destroyed the Azintheen Empire, boiling the land and souring the sea. In Gelgelim, the forest responded to the Scorching by expanding hundreds of hectares in a single day, consuming towns and cities and blocking passage east. The remaining towns and villages of Gelgelim have yet to fully recover. Toxic ashfalls and contaminated water have claimed many a would-be explorer, and the bears roaming wild have claimed many more.

“For money, fame, power, or the good of your village, you have decided to brave these dangers and explore the wilds. Good luck.”

Pamphlet Up and Other News

I've been spending a lot of time browsing the ttrpg materials on itch.io, and I'm somewhat impressed. Itch.io is a game distribution platform primarily for software, but there's a fairly robust ttrpg community doing good work there, mostly micro-RPGs, ttrpgs for groups of 1 or more people to be played in a single session. These games often focus on exploring interpersonal relationships and collaborative storytelling rather than the tension-release cycle of adventure games like Alexis' or mine.
Itch.io's most significant feature, however, is the game jam. Anyone with an account can host a jam, which is an open submission forum for games dealing with some topic decided by the jam's creator. Some of these topics are thematic, some are structural. The game jam allows you to find and follow other creators who do similar work and to give your submitted work some publicity. Itch.io handles payment if you want to charge for your material. My account page has my first 'published' product, a free-to-download pamphlet describing a sequence of 7 nights by a crossroad. I'd love feedback, if you wanted to give it a read. Itch.io gives me a place to publish material that won't see the light of day in my regular game for a while (we had a TPK last session and are starting a new game in a different region, so much of my private brainstorming on the Stone Cult won't be immediately useful). I can build a body of work outside these blog posts with the Stone Cult and practice some skills that need honing (like dungeon design).

In other news, I've changed the name of my game from Prodigy to Saharjin. Ultimately, this is because there is another roleplaying game called Prodigy on the market, and although our games are completely different, I took this as an opportunity to find a name that speaks more to what my game is about: Saharjin is the name of the magical rainforest that dominates much of my setting.

Thanks for sticking with me. Now that I've my ADHD medication and it's turning into summer, I'm looking forward to being more active and posting more content.

Cultural Capitals

[This is an excerpt from the Prodigy Book]

Prodigy takes place in and around the Sea of Shadows, a mystical place south of the equator, where myths and legends lurk just beyond city gates. This world is diverse in peoples, places, creatures, and beliefs. Consequently, there are many ways to wealth and secrets to uncover for the bold and clever.

         For ease of use, the Sea of Shadows divides into several cultural capitals, urban locations that represent the confluences and conflicts present within the game’s setting. Chapter 14 discusses each in more detail. Games should start in or near one of these cities, moving elsewhere as the players desire.

Blyth is a hotbed of anti-Tarluskani activity. Rebels flock to the city, whose Tarluskani overlords grow increasingly draconian in response.

The Catacombs are the underground holt of the Archivist people and home to the best libraries and research apparatus imaginable. The Catacombs sponsors teams of scholar-explorers to acquire new knowledge and bring it home.

Glenden Wood is the home of vice and free enterprise. Almost anything imaginable can be found there, for a price.

Hackerith Hill straddles the two territories of the Tarluskani Empire: the Khanite cities and Deliverance. Yet its proximity to the jungle and Nithya have weakened the Tarluskani Empire’s hold over the city.

Jask is home to a deeply divided Tarluskani population. Many have grown comfortable in their role as people of property and bureaucratic power, but nostalgia for a nomadic past is rapidly rising. The enslaved Khanites sit precariously between these two factions.

Korg hosts the dreaded Pirate Sovereigns of Korg, with their gem-hued magics, who protect the islands from the Tarluskani’s advances yet also terrorize the indigenous peoples who were there first.

Ophir is the largest city on the Wildlands, the capital of the Yanera tribes, and one of the few places in the savannah welcoming of foreigners.

Reyjadin, once named Avondon, is the heart of the Tarluskani Empire’s expansionary efforts. The Tarluskani reforms have brought new wealth and prosperity to the city, some of which have trickled down to its inhabitants.

Sha’aryam is both a ruined Azintheen city and the nearby encampment. Glory seekers brave the city’s metal defenders for untold wealth and long-lost technologies.

Tarlusya, capital of the Tarluskani Empire, is a decadent place, having grown fat from the sweat and blood of the enslaved Khanites.

Yrsh sits on Saharjin’s edge and is just as mercurial as the magical rainforest. The jungle’s ever-present threat has forced an uneasy alliance between the Tarluskani authorities, Nithya forest-worshippers, and Azintheen explorers.

Prodigy Character Creation Rules

I've been reworking the Prodigy book, making a clean .word document and copying over content in its near-final form. For those who are curious, I'm attaching my character creation chapters. They contain all of the information necessary to create a character for Prodigy.

An Addendum for Character Creation

When I was first looking at the wealth of material on Alexis’ blog, I was struck by the detail in the character background generator, which compares a d20 roll to a character’s attributes, filling in part of the character’s history (with accompanying mechanical impacts). I loved the concept, but implementing it in my own game was rather difficult, as I have 5 ability scores, ranging from 1 to 6. When I started using cards for hirelings, I also removed dice rolling, instead placing cards in a 5x3 grid, summing the rows to generate a number between 3 and 30 that I converted to 1-6 in a bell curve.

It struck me recently that I could use tarot cards to accomplish a similar result, with some added interpretive benefits. I present the following set of rules as an add-on to the character creation process. They flesh out a character’s personal relationships and history with enough vagueness for the Facilitator and players to come to a mutual understanding about the impacts of this history on the game. The cards identify 5-6 individuals important to the character. For games that avoid inter-player conflicts like Prodigy and most D&D-adjacent games, I recommend allowing different characters to have NPCs in common but have another person’s character as one of these 5-6 individuals. For more storytelling-focused games, do what you will.

The mechanical implications of this are simple. Each character has a heart card that typifies them. Whenever that heart card appears in a card mechanic later in the game, it means that the character has a personal stake in the events transpiring. If the heart card appears in the player’s hand, this personal connection works in their favor and grants a benefit. If it is played against them, the character immediately loses or takes some penalty.

The Deck: one tarot deck (78 cards)

Shuffle the deck and have the player draw 1 card at a time. One character can be generated at a time from one deck (shuffle between readings).

The first card is the Heart card. This determines how others perceive your character at first glance. It also determines the character’s birth month. I use 13 lunar cycles in my world and have assigned them accordingly. Each lunar cycle shares the first letter with the solar month it resembles, with Equivocation as the 13th month (the change between wet and dry seasons happens halfway through Equivocation).

We next lay out a 5x3 grid:

We sum each row to get our attributes. Most Tarot cards have a number (aces are 1). Court cards are assigned a value based upon their station: Page is 1, Knight is 2, Queen is 4, and King is 8. We convert these sums to attributes as following:

From this point forward, we interpret the cards to infer a character’s personal background. This reading is performed as the character reaches adulthood, before they choose a trade. It does not force a character down a certain path, but players should feel free to let the cards suggest a profession.

Cards 3, 8, 13 represent the character’s past, present, and goals, respectively.

Cards 1, 6, and 11 reflect the character’s social circle, their kin (chosen family or biological relationships). The first card describes this network overall. The second corresponds to the character’s connection with the social circle. Card 11 indicates the person in this social circle with which the character is closest.

Cards 2, 7, and 12 further explore the social circle. Card 2 personifies the leader of the group. Card 7 reflects the group’s emotional core, and card 12 typifies a member of the group lurking on the group’s fringes.

The social circle has at least 3 members (as card 11 might correspond to cards 2, 7, or 12). Its full size is equal to the number of adjacent pairs of cards in the spread of the same suit (major arcana acts as its own suit). Adjacency works along a grid axis, so no diagonals.


Cards 4, 9, and 14 correspond to a mentor or guiding figure, someone who has had a large impact on the character but remains distant. Card 4 describes this person as they relate to the character, while card 9 indicates their occupation. Card 14 details this figure’s current status – their goals and life circumstances.


Cards 5, 10, and 15 encompass a long-standing and significant relationship. Card 5 describes a formative shared experience that bonded the character to this person. Card 10 explicates the current relationship between the character and this person, while card 15 indicates this person’s current goals.

Chases and Pursuits

We had a chase in my game last Monday and I realized that what rules I had for pursuits were not sufficient. I've hopefully now rectified the problem.

In a pursuit there are two major events that must occur for the escapee to successfully elude their pursuers: they must break line of sight and then avoid the ensuing search. In order to break line of sight, the leads (those fleeing) must gain enough distance from their follows (those chasing) in order to break line of sight and then maintain it. If one ducks behind a corner and, mere milliseconds later, the follow ducks behind that same corner, it is unlikely the maneuver gained the lead anything. Given several seconds, however, the leads' chances increase dramatically.

As I usually do before making new rules, I scoured the internet to see what other folks had suggested. Unfortunately, almost every set of chase or pursuit rules I found were modelled after action cinema chases, which are less a pursuit and more a fight sequence that takes place while traversing difficult terrain, and I consequently needed to reframe much of what I found. The following rule still requires a fair amount of complication (having rules for multiple groups herding or hounding a lead, longer-duration chases, etc.) but should cover my bases for now.

There are 6 positions in a chase. Rather than tracking exact yards covered, I care about approximate ranges, using the number 6 for convenience.

1: Follows catch up to leads
2: Hot on Their Heels
3: In Pursuit
4: In Pursuit
5: In Pursuit
6: Follows have lost the leads

We determine the initial distance between leads and follows via card draw. A diamond is position 2, heart is position 3, club is position 4, and spade is position 5.

We track the chase on a minute-by-minute basis, which incorporates my rules on how long characters may sprint: their Strength modifier minus 3 equals the number of minutes they may run. Every minute spent running thereafter requires a Constitution test of increasing difficulty starting at Apprentice. Unusually for a pursuit, characters who fail this test may take damage equal to the difference between their result and the difficulty to continue running.

At the beginning of each minute, we determine how the characters are grouped. Characters of equal AP in the same position form a single cluster. Each cluster draws 1 card per AP and may draw more if all cluster members take 1 damage per additional card.

Follow clusters compare their cards to the nearest lead cluster. If they are able to cancel out the lead cluster's cards, they advance by 1 position. If not, the follow falls behind by 1 position. To make this somewhat easier, we allow clusters to manipulate their cards.

Diamonds are a trump suit, meaning that a diamond beats any other non-diamond, regardless of numerical card value, and that only a higher diamond beats a diamond card. The Ace of Diamonds cannot be bested.

Clubs can become diamonds via a successful Constitution test.
Spades can become diamonds via a successful Gymnast test.
Hearts can become diamonds via a successful Understanding test.
The difficulty for these tests depends upon the numerical value of the card. 2-6 is Apprentice, 7-10 and J are Professional, Q and K are Expert, and Aces require a Master-difficulty test.

However, follow clusters who are 'Hot on Their Heels' may not adjust their cards - they must be lucky to finally overtake the leads.

Faction Skills

As I mentioned in the previous post, each faction has a set of affiliated skills. Members of that faction can access training in those skills more cheaply, folks hired from the faction are more likely to have the indicated skills, and advancement in the faction is contingent upon developing them.

Developing Factions

This post outlines how factions can serve player characters.

Characters gain different benefits depending upon their relationship with the faction in question, referred to as their Faction Status.

Unknown characters have little or no prior history with the organization. The faction is not likely to seek the characters out for work, and the character is not likely to get much out of the faction.

Known characters are recognized by local faction members. Characters gain this status after completing a significant favor for the faction or interfering in their affairs. If viewed positively, the faction is likely to seek the party out when they have need of outside help, and those viewed negatively are likely to the be the targets of harassment.

Regional Member characters are basic, run-of-the-mill members of the faction. They know and are known to all local faction members, may access faction resources and spaces (like training discounts, medical care, etc.), may hire other regional members as hirelings, and may amass faction favors. Characters who join a faction at character creation start at this status, and characters may earn this status if they are Known, in good standing with the faction, and spend 6 months being initiated (free of charge). These benefits come with some additional responsibilities: in addition to a 10% tithe of all wealth due in the month of Judgement, Regional Members are also always on-call if the faction higher-ups need a task accomplished.

Intraregional Member characters are senior members, active in two distinct areas. They have all the benefits of a Regional Member, but can access them both in their home region and one additional area of their choice. Depending on the size, organization, and goals of the faction, these regions may be defined differently. Characters are promoted to Intraregional Member status if they are a Regional Member in good standing, are Professional-tier in at least one faction skill, and spend 6 months ingratiating themselves in their new region (free of charge). While their responsibilities are the same (10% tithe and being on-call), they are able to ask for more with their favors.

Chapter Head characters dedicate considerable in-game time to the service of their faction. They gain considerable benefits but lose some character autonomy. Characters can become Chapter Heads if they are Intraregional Members in good standing, are Professional-tier in at least three faction skills, and spend 6 months at the chosen location. Chapters are usually located within cities, and the character gains a leadership position at one of the chosen city’s chapters. Characters must spend at least two months each year in residence at their chapter and pay the 10% tithe, but they are no longer on-call. In addition to being able to use their favors to greater effect, Chapter Heads may also dispatch 2d6 faction members to perform any task within the faction’s purview.

Regional Head characters are almost full-time faction employees, trading 6 months per year of faction service for authority over a large swathe of the game world. They have full authority over all faction members within their jurisdiction and can assign them at-will, as long as they keep within the mission of their faction. Regional Heads must still pay the 10% tithe. Unlike the other Faction Statuses, Regional Head positions are finite and rarely vacant. Ascending to the position will take sly political maneuvering, calling in favors at the right time, and a quest or two. This is the highest status possible for a player character.

Leaders take charge of the entire faction. This is a full-time commitment – player characters who reach this rank become NPCs.

Faction Favors

Factions operate on a quid pro quo basis – every time the characters accomplish a job for the faction, in addition to their payment they also gain a favor. Depending on the faction status of the characters, they can spend this favor in a variety of ways.

Regional Members can request up to 50gp of goods or the assistance of 1d6+1 members for 24 hours.

Intraregional Members can request up to 100gp of goods or the assistance of 2d6+2 members for 24 hours.

Chapter Heads can request up to 500gp of goods or the assistance of their entire chapter, 1d6*10 members.

Regional Heads already have full access to the faction’s coffers and may direct regional members as they wish, and thus no longer need to amass and expend favors to receive those benefits.

Additional Faction Perks

Regional Members and above may access skill training in the faction’s skills. Available instructors are typically Professional in the desired skill (3-5 ranks) and Professional Teachers. Regional centers will have Expert-tier instructors available. Because they are the faction’s teachers, students may pay the reduced rate.

Regional Members and above may also seek out faction members when looking for hirelings. Whenever a skill would be randomly determined, the player may choose a skill of the same type (Mental, Physical, or Social) from the list of faction skills, although a single skill can only be chosen once.

The Tarluskani Empire

Half a century after the Scorching, a man named Isram united the Tarluskani tribes dwelling in the desert north of the Khanates. He named himself Warlord Isram and directed his horde southward, conquering the city-states and enslaving the populace.

After the Khanite subjugation, Isram transitioned to Reyja, declaring her rule the first of the Tarluskani Empire. She gave the tribes of her most trusted supporters command over a city each before marching her forces south through Saharjin to invade Deliverance. She perished in the siege of Avondown, Deliverance’s final stronghold, and her wife’s ward, Arbab, took command of the Empire. They renamed Avondown ‘Reyjadin’ in Reyja’s honor and distributed command of the newly-conquered provinces over to their most trusted generals before returning to the Empire’s capital, Tarlusya.

The Empire resembles a constellation of loosely-aligned districts, each governed by a single tribe. While all pay fealty to Emperor Rajj, the tribes frequently squabble with each other when unsupervised. Each tribe has a specific glyph marking their flags, armor, and official seals.

A Tarluskani’s tribal heritage is central to their identity. It determines their allies, their enemies, and their sacred stories. Acting honorably is crucial; their behavior reflects on how others will view their tribe. Disputing a Tarluskani’s honor can only be resolved with a swift apology or a duel to the death. Disrespecting an entire tribe usually leads to a far more unpleasant fate.

While most in Deliverance avoided slavery, almost all in the former Khanite city-states are still enslaved. Non-ethnic Tarluskani, both slaves and freefolk, can join a tribe through a decade of military service to the Empire.

The Islands of Korg

The islands of Korg stand between the Sea of Shadows and the wide ocean beyond. When the Tarluskani invaded the Azure Sultanate, the surviving Khanite bureaucrats and merchants fled to Korg. There, they established an independent principality, sustained through piracy. These immigrants became the Pirate Sovereigns of Tal Afar. While they initially preyed only on Tarluskani vessels, their principles have eroded with time.

          The Pirate Sovereigns keep to themselves, playing intrigues against one another and plotting the next big adventure, leaving the ordinary folks in Korg free to do whatever they please. Consequently, no one in Korg cares what or how someone fucks, provided they do not make a mess. As emotional attachments provide an obvious vulnerability, those in committed relationships (queer or otherwise) work to keep them quiet.

          As the center for piracy, Korg caters to a rough crowd. While many children are born in Korg, few survive to adulthood. Those that do were often nourished on the tall and not-so-tall tales traded among the more seasoned pirates.

The Khanates

As a reference for my players, I'm posting publicly some general overview information about each of the large regions they currently know about.

North of Saharjin, but south of the northern desert lies a constellation of city-states known as the Khanates. While currently the seat of the Tarluskani Empire, before the Scorching these cities were part of the Azure Sultanate. A Khan ruled each city-state, advised by an army of ministers. Constantly feuding, each city vied for influence with both the Azure Sultan and the mystic Threnna peoples from Saharjin. The Tarluskani took advantage of the Scorching’s devastation and quickly overran the city-states, enslaving all their citizens.

All Khanites are branded, usually on their forehead or cheek. Slaves have three choices: toil in slavery until death, enlist in the Tarluskani military to be freed after ten years, or escape and flee slave-catchers forever. Escaped or freed slaves often hide their tattoo with scarring or a new tattoo.

Most Khanites have adopted the customs and dress of the Tarluskani and study the Myths of Fiája. Consequently, little remains of the culture of the Azure Sultanate. Some activists work to revive the practices of the Azure Sultanate, but the Tarluskani government takes a dim view of such efforts.

Expanding the Card Mechanic

After teaching my players the Persuasion rules and having them come up several times during the running, I'm pleased to say they worked exactly how I wanted them to, with a few adjustments.

During our discussion after the fact about the new mechanic, one of my players suggested I find other uses for it, other skills that's resolution could best be determined through this card process. We brainstormed a list, and I've now a table that lists each skill and the unique failure conditions for each suite and face card (except for Artist, which will need its own table).

	Caravanner	Mechanist	Persuasion	Ritual Mishaps	Wildcrafter	Wrangler
Hearts	Social	Jam	Bitterness	Changed	Tainted food	Defiant
Ace	4 ranks principle	Lock sealed	New enemy	roll 2d4+2d6	Half inedible	Cannot be trained
King	3 ranks principle	4 people to unstick	Followers, hirelings accosted	roll 2d4+1d6	Third inedible	4x time to retry
Queen	2 ranks principle	3 people to unstick	Party waylaid	roll 1d4+1d6	Quarter inedible	3x time to retry
Jack	1 rank principle	2 people to unstick	Reputation tarnished	roll 1d6	Quarter inedible	2x time to retry
Diamonds	Add card	Break pick	Bribery	Greedy	Misidentified	As hearts
Ace	ranks +2	Break 4	Bribe as 14	4x	All weeds	Unbroken
King	ranks +1	Break 3	Bribe as 13	3x	75% weeds	4x time
Queen	ranks +1	Break 2	Bribe as 12	3x	50% weeds	3x time
Jack	ranks +1	Break 2	Bribe as 11	2x	50% weeds	2x time
Clubs	Physical	Noise	Violence	Drained	Broken gear	Feral
Ace	4 ranks principle	6d6 yards	All-out assault	1 injury	8 pieces	Eats people
King	3 ranks principle	6d4 yards	Kidnapping	Take 3 damage	6 pieces	Attacks people
Queen	2 ranks principle	4d6 yards	New faction involved	Take 2 damage	4 pieces	Afraid of people
Jack	1 rank principle	4d4 yards	Lodgings assaulted	Take 2 damage	2 pieces	Retry +1 cards
Spades	Mental	Slowed	Negation	Flawed	Infected	As clubs
Ace	4 ranks principle	Quadruple time spent	Negate and duplicate	Higher tier ritual	Take 1 injury	Eats people
King	3 ranks principle	Triple time spent	Negates 3	All random	Take 3 damage	Attacks people
Queen	2 ranks principle	Double time spent	Negates 2	Random ritual	Take 2 damage	Afraid of people
Jack	1 rank principle	Double time spent	Negates 2	Random focus	Take 1 damage	Retry +1 cards

We'll integrate these into our game the next time we play and see how things turn out.

Monster Descriptions 4-9

As the muck falls from this humanoid beast, its scales shine in transcendental patterns. One of its four arms plucks a fish from the swamp, wriggling desperately.

The eagle-headed lion shakes its wings like a wet dog, flinging feathers and fur everywhere. Its eyes glitter with a cruel intelligence that encompasses all it sees.

Bright red, this bird stalks the reeds. Its golden beak shines in the sunlight as the bird gobbles a small frog.

The sun abruptly vanishes as the bird flies overhead. Its large yellow talons seem well-suited to carrying cattle, and this bird looks hungry.

This deer appears rather ordinary, until it steps into the sunlight and its crystalline antlers shimmer. The blotching on its chest wriggles into a series of arcane glyphs.

Spines hang haphazardly off this warthog, each several inches long and razor sharp. Saliva drips from its tusks as the beast scrapes at a rotting log.

Home Ownership

My players have bought a house in the city. Bamboo makes houses inexpensive, and they are tired of needing to pay for an inn each night. This makes me happy as a Facilitator - my players are literally investing in the city, investing in the setting. Their buying a house is a sign that I am doing something right.

This does invite a new and interesting question. Given my framework of blocks and neighborhoods, how do I make rules for owning and managing a household?

The first thing I want to address is how the neighborhood affects the price of the house. The number in my price list is for the construction itself, not fitting it into an existing urban space. It seems reasonable to multiply the house price by the number of blocks within a given neighborhood, a reflection of how scarce space is within the area. Furthermore, not all types of buildings are available in all neighborhoods.

Now, to make this choice more interesting, what advantages does owning a home in a neighborhood provide? There is first an important distinction between having a home in a neighborhood versus having a home in a specific block. Each block is a space made up of not only streets and buildings but also of people, people who have known each other a long time. Adventurers are not likely to become members of a block, but their home's nearness to them should confer some sort of mechanical benefit.

Establishing a home requires more than simply purchasing a building. After moving in, the inhabitants must spend a week meeting and greeting their neighbors to unlock the benefits of their chosen location. This involves a lot of eating and drinking and costs double the daily rate. If the party waits more than a month after purchasing the home, the neighbors' first impression is negative and the benefits will be lost.

Assuming the players spend the week, they may access all blocks within their neighborhood at half-price. This benefit lasts a full year. By spending a month socializing (spending double the daily rate), this benefit can be renewed and extended another full year. This benefit is conferred per character, not per household - each principal character (excluding hirelings, followers, and henchfolk) must either directly participate in the socializing or have one of their henchfolk represent them.

In the city, it is customary to have two people tending the house. This ensures that someone is always present in the building even if errands must be run. The two will ensure that food is purchased and ready to eat when the house's other inhabitants return.

This will do for now, but I'll return to this in the future with rules describing how decorating the house can provide benefits for those who live there.

Paying per Day

Now that I have players wanting to spend time doing stuff in the city, I needed to price out the price of activities in the city. Most of my prices revolve around the cost to physically manufacture a good, but services by their nature aren't products. Their value requires a different pricing logic.

The markets reference in a city reflects the amount of monetary exchange happening within the city environment. We can use it to reflect how affluent the city is.

market references * value/reference gives us the money that trades hands in one year of the city

Dividing that value by the number of days in the year and the number of citizens gives us the amount of money an average citizen spends per day. Thus, if the player is out doing stuff in the city, they ought to spend at least that amount, and so this daily rate is the fee to access city services like arenas, casinos, etc. 

Monster Descriptions 2 and 3

Right out of the gate, I missed my monster description for yesterday, so here are two.

The burrow descends into the hillside, just large enough to crawl inside. Upon entering the dark, a menacing croak rumbles through the passage, and two yellow eyes stare balefully out.

The clearing is pitted with large holes, wide enough to swallow someone hole, but what commands attention is the great worm stretching out of one, whistling out of its circular maw. Its red skin glistens with some sort of fluid, a fluid that lingers at the edge of each hole.

Persuasion Examples

The previous post on Persuasion rules was concise, but needs some illustrating.

Our initial encounter is fairly straightforward: the party has been caught wandering the city after curfew. There are 4 watchmen and 6 party members. The watchmen are Novice Ascetics while the best Orator in the party is Apprentice.

The watchmen draw a Jack of spades but, because they have no ranks in Ascetic, draw a replacement card: the King of diamonds. I keep drawing until we get a number card: the 9 of diamonds. Even though the Orator is a Novice Grokist, I still play this card faceup. I shuffle the deck before the players draw. The player draws 2 cards, the Queen of diamonds and the 9 of clubs.

The player chooses the Queen, and the players succeed - they pay the requisite amount (the daily wage) and may be about their business. If they for some reason chose the 9 of clubs, they would fail and must pay 512 * the daily wage (this is less terrible than it might sound: in the players' current city, Tal Afar, the wage is 8 bronze pieces, making the required bribe equal to 17 gold pieces). If the players cannot or will not pay, the watchmen in question will hound the party for the next 9 days. Regardless of whether they pay or not, the watchmen insist the party return indoors (and will fight if the party refuses).

As a second example, a new party wishes to access the University of Reyjadin's archive on ritual magic. The attending archivist is a grumpy old woman who has no time for dirty adventurer types. She is a Professional Ascetic, while the party's best Orator is but Apprentice. Because the player cannot play enough cards, the attempt ends immediately, with no consequences for the party (although, consequences will certainly follow trying to access the archive anyway).

If the party then spends some time developing their rhetorical skills and return once their Orator is a Specialist, we draw cards. The party's Orator is an Apprentice Grokist, which reveals the first two of the archivist's cards. I draw faceup the 10 of spades and the 10 of hearts, and then draw facedown the 5 of spades. The first card, the 10 of spades, determines the trump (spades).
The player then draws their four  cards: the 9 of diamonds, 6 of hearts, 10 of clubs, and King of clubs. They may only use 3 of their 4 cards directly against the archivist and must choose their 3 before the archivist's final card is revealed. They choose both clubs and the 6 of hearts, since it matches suit with one of the faceup cards. The 9 is removed - it can be used to modify the played cards, but can't directly attack one of the archivist's cards.
I reveal the archivist's final card, the 5 of spades, and the player now must decide how to allocate their cards. They can't beat all of the archivist's cards and are now trying to mitigate the damage from failing. Because each undefeated spade will remove one of their cards, they can't avoid the penalty from the 10 of hearts. Consequently, the players are stuck outside of the archive until the archivist cools down (10 days later).

For a third and final example, our now-Specialist Orator encounters the same watch patrol as before. The watch draws an 8 of diamonds, played faceup, while the player draws 4 cards: the 7 of hearts, Joker, ace of spades, and King of spades. The player chooses the 7 of hearts to oppose the watch's card. They discard a card to transform their heart into a diamond, and, because the card is now a diamond, they spend double the daily rate to increase the 7 to an 8, which defeats the watchmen's card. The players pay the watchmen 18 bronze pieces and go about their way.