Alex Greene

I can do the ramsons - there's a place near where my folks live, and the air is just rank every Spring from all the beds of wild garlic. No vampires will come near the place. As for the dogs, Hecate gets to eat chicken and like it. Dogs are for hunting with. I'm with Artemis here - she would approve of the dogs staying off the dinner plate.

This is the 100th post for this blog, and we are at a crossroads. Many paths are open ahead of us now. I can list some roads down which to travel, and I can think of others. But these are the ones off the top of my head. 1. I can wrap up my take on Modern Mythras with a look at how to integrate psionics, a look at GM'ing, and some scenarios and vignettes. Between all of these, I can get us to my birthday at the end of June. 2. I can review selected titles which have already been published to date. 3. There will be some new titles coming out soonish - once they're out, I would like a good long look at those. There are two titles which I will be very happy to review. 4. I can continue to present my takes on Modern Mythras, and throw in some Mythras Core fantasy scenarios and vignettes, too. 5. Something else (tell me about them in the comments). So, at this point, I'm going to head on over to that crossroads at midnight, bring along some bread, some cooked chicken, and a bottle of the good rum, and sacrifice them all to Hecate. Then I'll sit a spell at the crossroads and wait. Inspiration will come, soon enough.

Taking a hiatus tonight. I've got a double length season finale for The Chronicles of Shirae to write up this weekend.

Last week, we opened with a look into how magic can be called up in a modern Mythras setting. Now, it's time to look at the kinds of workings magicians can call up, either to bamboozle the players or something the players can do themselves. So this week, we will be looking into the grimoire of a young witch called Agatha, who's reading Philosophy and Economics at St Charisma's Finishing School, in a fiction setting called Night Chess. Here are two of Agatha's friends. Meet Bob and Shadow. Lastly, introducing the Three Mean Girls of the setting - Lisbeth, Janey, and Muriel. Here are two of the teachers, Miss Bremner and Miss Challis. The theme of this setting is Dark Academia. The tone is sultry and mysterious; the premise, grasp the nettle to win the day. Appropriate atmospheric music can be found here - Jarre - Red Sun on Youtube Recap Before we look into the grimoire, let's remind ourselves of the Invocations and Manifestations - the things we want to do, and the way we do them. Invocations Sensory / Information Gathering Perceiving - sensing surface data Knowing - in-depth information; telepathy; divination Revealing - revelation of knowledge hidden from the caster Understanding - wisdom; illumination Manipulation Nudging - giving a push to something that is already happening Warding - applying the caster's will to protect the target Swaying - overt control over the subject; being able to halt something entirely Concentrating / Attenuating - making something more or less intense by increasing or decreasing its characteristics, Attributes, Intensity etc; a more powerful form of Nudging Transforming - temporary and permanent changes, affecting the target's base nature; shapeshifting, Sculpting, Transmogrify, enchanting items Creating / Destroying - Creation and destruction Manifestations Chant - repetitive chanting, gestures, dance (Acting, Dance, Musicianship, Sing, Seduction) Sigil - drawing, inscribing, carving a symbol onto a thing: includes enchantment and disenchantment (Art, Craft) Circle - classic magic circles drawn on the ground, more elaborate rituals surrounding it than mere sigil crafting (Art, Craft) Brew - something which must be consumed to release its effects (Craft (Brewery, Cookery, Cosmetics)) Poppet - an effigy of the target, like a voodoo doll (Art, Craft) Tag - using a part of the target, such as nail clippings, a piece of masonry from a building and so on (Craft) When creating an effect, the character declares their intent to use magic, sets a time frame, such as one minute, a few hours and so on, and states the Invocation and Manifestation - such as a Perceiving Chant, a Transforming Sigil, a Warding Circle and so on. The Games Master determines the difficulty of the task, the player makes a Magic skill check against that difficulty grade, and the spell takes effect. Note how this process skips Magic Points, Range, Duration, or Targets. This isn't about the numbers. Can the caster do the thing they want to do or not? Opposed Magic Checks - A Shortcut Match the Intensity of your working against the critical range of the opponent's resistance skill, which is either Endurance, Evade, Willpower, another Magic skill, or a Passion. The Intensity of both the magician's working and the target's resistance is based on the difficulty check at the time. If the Intensity of the working is greater than that of the target's resistance, it succeeds; if it is equal or lower than the resistance, the working fails. Example: Agatha's Magic skill is 62%, giving her workings a maximum Intensity of 7 on a Standard check. She is casting a Revealing Sigil to sense what Janey is doing in the college library this late at night. Her Standard check has an Intensity of 7, against the inexperienced Janey's Willpower of 45 (Intensity 5), also a Standard check. Agatha learns that Janey is looking for a specific tome about the Tarot. Example: Lisbeth wants to break up Bob and Shadow, so she attempts to drop a Perfidy Curse (a Swaying Chant) on Shadow to make her imagine that Bob is cheating on her with Agatha. Lisbeth's Magic skill is 65, so her Intensity is 7. However, Shadow is wearing an Eye of Horus amulet, and its Magic skill of 68% was cast with an Easy check, so it is effectively at 88%, an Intensity of 9. Lisbeth's working hasn't got a chance against Shadow's amulet, and bounces clean off. Agatha's Grimoire Agatha's Grimoire is a loose bound folder with a leather cover. She calls her Grimoire Sebastian. The pages of her Grimoire are bound in polypockets in this folder, which only seems to open to Agatha's hand. Inside this Grimoire are the words of her Invocations, and instructions on how to construct the Manifestations which carry the power and make it appear in the world. Drag To Hell Swaying Circle, Resist (Willpower) This illusion was cast by Agatha, with Bob and Shadow assisting, in the circle they found in the Secret Quadrangle between the gym and the History Faculty in Chapter Six. This ritual, in Chapter Thirteen, created an illusion in Lisbeth's dreams, of demons dragging her down to Hell. Dowsing Revealing Sigil A forked hazel rod was used by Miss Challis in Chapter Four to discern the course of the underground river which ran beneath the well in the Cedar Grove. The Elder Futhark rune Laguz had been carved into the bark of the forked stick. Perfidy Curse Swaying Chant Chapter Seven saw Lisbeth's infamous attempt to break up the relationship between Shadow and Bob by imposing a state of paranoia and jealousy in Shadow's mind. The chant read The serpent's green eyes long to see / His love was never real for thee. The attempt failed. Runes of Bonding Transforming Sigil, Resist (Willpower) Lisbeth's worst bitch move in Chapter Eleven came when she drew up a charm on a sheet of parchment and slipped it into Agatha's book on Kant during class. Agatha had no idea what hit her for the duration of the Chapter; it took the combined efforts of Shadow, Bob, Miss Challis, Miss Bremner, and even Muriel to bring her out of her period of enslavement to Lisbeth. Chainbreaker Transforming Circle, Resist (Willpower) This spell was used successfully at the end of Chapter Eleven to bring Agatha out of her binding before she could throw herself off the roof. Note: a Tag was also included in the Circle. The presence of the additional focus increased Miss Challis' already formidable 87% Magic skill to 107%, and the presence of the other participants in the Circle boosted the Intensity a further +2 ro 13, which steamrolled over Lisbeth's Intensity 7. Winning Smile Nudging Brew Muriel's little glamour spell in Chapter Five, this was a little charm she laid into her lip balm before sneaking off campus to visit her boyfriend Tom. The effect was to increase the chances of Tom becoming enamoured of her, without having to boost her natural CHA of 16. Power Walk Concentrating Chant, Concentration This was Muriel's more powerful chant to increase her CHA by up to her Magic skill's Intensity, as used in the Chapter Ten club scene. As long as she walked, the crowds parted before her like the Red Sea. Vicious Sleep Swaying Brew, Resist (Endurance) A draught of valerian and other herbs, this concoction was used in the sequel, Shadow Backgammon, by Janey on Miss Bremner, to send Miss Bremner into a deep sleep plagued by a nightmare of her weaknesses and flaws brought to confront her in an Inquisitorial trial in her mind. The Dire Poppet Swaying Poppet, Concentration, Resist (Willpower) Miss Bremner's revenge in Shadow Backgammon involved a poppet of Janey, fashioned by Miss Bremner, into which she jabbed a silver hatpin several times, in different areas, to cause Janey intense pain for a week. Hecate's Strength Concentrating Brew Miss Challis used this rite on herself in Shadow Backgammon, piercing the skin of her thumb with a hawthorn thorn and letting her blood infuse a concoction of herbs in a pot, which she drank. For the remainder of the scene (which lasted until the following sunrise), her POW and CHA were boosted by the Intensity of this spell. Draft of The Wise Understanding Brew A sacrament of St Charisma's inner circle of witches, this arcane brew bestows upon the drinker the blessings of an audience with Hecate Herself. For the remainder of the week, the drinker feels Hecate's blessings upon them, making their Influence, Magic, Oratory, and Seduction skill checks one grade easier. Frequently consumed by Miss Challis and Miss Bremner, the recipe is first listed in Shadow Backgammon.

There was a reason behind the absence of Arcana, formerly known as Spheres.

Magic is tricky to implement in any roleplaying game. Implementing it in a modern game is problematic, to say the least. First of all, let's address the main issue that very few game designers have actually come from a profession which practiced magic, either of the stage variety or of the occult variety. Not many workplaces send out advertisements saying that they are hiring wizards and witches. There aren't many people on LinkedIn who pursue occult interests - or if they do, they keep it off their feeds. The issue of magic in roleplaying games is that they are presented as some form of superpowers - wizards flying, summoning fireballs, creating rays of intense cold, conjuring walls of fire or entities of pure shadow and darkness. None of this really presents magic as something magical -what we would recognise as displays of supernatural prowess, the marshalling of occult forces, and the unleashing of arcane powers. Magic should not look like displays of CGI superpowers in some summer tentpole movie. Let's take a look at what is called The Subtle Art. The Subtle Art Let's start with a definition of magic. Magic is the Art of making things happen. Magic makes things happen which would otherwise not be likely to happen. Your chance of being shot by a dog is low, but not zero, for instance. Magic makes the odds of something weird happening so much greater as to be almost certain. The force which defines magic is the Will of the magician. All workings are an act of Will, to bend reality to favour the magician's desired outcome - whatever that outcome may be. The greater the Will, the more likely that the magic will trigger the necessary changes. But here is where roleplaying games get things wrong. Small Hinges Open Big Doors Magic is not about big, flashy effects. The best example of this heinous sin is the Mythras Core Sorcery spell Wrack, which casts a spectacular spray of harmful energies towards the target to overwhelm them. The image accompanying this spell shows a wizened old man casting a spray of darkness from his hands. Only, what is the sorcerer's goal - to expend all that energy in a big flashy spray, or to inflict damage on the target? Consider a subtler-looking spell which has a similar effect - the sorcerer dangling a poppet of the target over an open brazier, lowering it slowly towards the fire as the victim screams in agony from flames which they alone can feel. Or perhaps, the sorcerer jabs a pin into the poppet's face, causing the target to feel a lancing pain between their eyes. The sorcerer could simply tie a red thread about the target's right arm, temporarily paralysing it, or begin dropping alcohol onto the poppet's mouth to induce a state of drunkenness in the staggering target. The power of the magician comes from the application of their accumulated body of arcane knowledge to accomplish major effects through the expenditure of as little force as possible. You can make a pendulum swing wildly from one almighty push, or through a series of small, well-timed pushes. Magic is the small push, applied many times to achieve a great effect. Magic turns on small hinges, but those tiny hinges open huge doors. Invocations Magic operates on a number of levels, called invocations. The lowest levels of invocation begin with a much-overlooked level of magic: the most subtle of all. Note that where specific spells from Mythras Core are mentioned, it is only to show mechanically what a specific level of magic is capable of. Perceiving. This invocation is at the level of information - just observing, without applying meaning to what is being perceived. This information can be seen, heard, felt, smelled, or tasted - and it does not have to be physical - the magician could be picking up on activities on the spirit planes, or gathering information on the microexpressions and body language of people nearby to read their emotions and reactions. This is the level of cold reading and perception of the astral realm of the local area and local spirits. Knowing. This invocation is one level up from the level of Perceiving. At this level, knowledge is drawn from the generalised information field surrounding the planet. Every living thing generates an information field, containing the sum of their actions and decisions. This level of magic taps into that information field to obtain the knowledge the magician needs. This level of perception incorporates divination, sortilege, Tarot cards, runecasting and oracles such as the I Ching, as well as astral travel and communing with spirits. Whatever has to be plucked out of the air, rather than observed happening in one's surroundings, comes into this category, which is at the level of data. This is the level of empathic and telepathic mindreading. Revealing. The next level of invocation is Revealing, which opens up levels of understanding concealed from the magician. This is the lowest level of knowledge; and at this level, the magician is discovering phenomena not known to them, not deductible from existing clues. This is deep level knowledge, the equivalent of "X Ray vision," or a deep telepathic probe. Understanding. The highest level of perception magic, this invocation brings together what the magician has obtained from the lower three levels, to produce a model which allows the magician to understand the why, as much as the what and who. This is the level of wisdom, sometimes called illumination. Nudging. The lowest invocation of influence, this level merely accentuates something which is already going on. Examples: A running person finds their speed being increased or decreased, or if they are turning left they find themselves almost being pulled more strongly in that direction - or conversely, to the right, if the magician wishes for the runner to change their direction. Whether this operates on a physical level (such as increasing a fire's intensity) or an emotional level (such as making a hungry person even hungrier) depends on the target; but in general, nudging spells work more efficiently on minds than they do physical phenomena. Spells such as Haste and Hinder from Mythras Core would come into this category. Spells from Mythras Core such as Attract Harm, Draw and Repulse also come into this category of invocation. Warding. This invocation of control is about applying the Will of the magician to reinforce the target's existing reality against something which could cause it to be changed. Example: a spell to allow a fast runner to continue to run quickly, by deflecting a magical spell from a second magician intended to slow her down; or a working to protect somebody's mind from being read, or to prevent a spirit from possessing the person so protected. Damage Protection, Spell Protection, and Spirit Protection from Mythras Core would come under this category. Swaying. The invocation of overt control, this is about completely overriding the target's existing condition. Whereas a nudging spell causes an object in motion to go a little faster, or a hungry person to feel more hungry or for someone who felt hunger for a piece of meat to feel hunger for bread instead, this spell compels a stationary target to move, for instance, or compels a mind to think a thought that it had not been thinking at all (such as imposing a desire to eat in the mind of someone who had not been hungry). At this level, workings can also stop a running process entirely. Example spells include Animate, Fly, Dominate and Enslave, as well as Imprison, Banish, Evoke and Summon. It can be argued that Tap (Characteristic) fits in here. Most of all, the Abjure family of spells sits firmly here, as does Transfer Wounds. Concentrating / Attenuating. This is the invocation of Enhance and Diminish Characteristic, Grow and Shrink, Palsy and Smother. This enhances and augments a particular aspect of the target, making it physically larger or smaller, stronger or weaker, and in particular with living beings raising or lowering their characteristics. Spells of healing which boost the target's healing rate come into this category. Spells which weaken the damaging effects of elemental forces, such as making fire less intense, also come into this category. Transforming. The previous invocations more or less kept the target intact. This level alters the target's fundamental nature, changing features of the target or even remaking the target into something else. This is the level of Sculpt, Transmogrify and Shapechange. Invocations of this type leave the target changed. Some forms of healing magic work at this level, too - their effects are permanent, in that the injury is permanently removed, but such spells cannot prevent the target from acquiring new injuries later on down the line. This is also the level of deaging / youth / aging suspension magic, such as the rare Tap (Youth) and Abjure (Aging) spells. Creating / Destroying. The ultimate invocations, these weave something into existence out of nothing, or conversely rip apart its pattern, causing it to disappear from the world. These invocations work best against inanimate substances, conjuring fire or ice from the air for instance. Workings at this level are rarely cast: lesser spell effects can be used with greater effect. Do you really need to conjure up a wall of ice, for example, when you could transform the water vapour in the air into a wall of ice, or - better yet - create a strong sense of aversion in the mind of a pursuing enemy, simply letting their own minds stop them from crossing into the room you are in? Remember: small hinges open big doors. If the goal is to create an avalanche, it might be less effective to unweave a large section of an overhanging snowbank to destabilise it, than to magnify the sound of a gunshot. Manifestation The second key to your workings is how you wish the working to manifest. Here is where your spells get to look and feel occulty, supernatural, arcane, and scary. Manifestations are how your magician establishes an arcane connection with the target. Some of these manifestations only work at sensory range; others have no range restriction. These manifestations always look, sound and feel scary and occult, such as items covered in mystic symbols or daubed in blood. They are meant to be scary. In a modern Mythras game, if your spells are not scary, they aren't magic. The process of creating a manifestation is not quick. Even a quick chant could take up a number of combat rounds; and while some workings can be prepared on the fly such as sigils or charms, others can take hours or days to prepare in advance. This can be represented by an appropriate skill check, which is listed with each type of manifestation. See "Skills" following. Chant This is most commonly encountered out in the field. Your character chants something unintelligible, the skies darken, a wind picks up, and weird flames engulf their enemies. Your character must know some chants to intone or sing, which means the magician must be free to speak and to gesture. This manifestation includes use of gestures. (Acting, Dance, Musicianship, Sing, Seduction) Sigil Your magician takes time to draw a veve, or paint an inscription or diagram on a wall, or to slip a piece of paper inscribed with runes under the target's door. The written word is the medium through which your Will is imposed on the world. (Art, Craft) Circle More elaborate than a sigil, a full circle takes several minutes at least to draw on the ground, for example in chalk or salt. More permanent circles can be painted onto the ground, taking hours or days to prepare. (Art, Craft) Brew Something which is consumed, which can be anything from a pinch of something soluble to put in a drink, to a batch of soul cakes, or a well-brewed hearty beer, or a shampoo to rinse into your hair. This can extend to cosmetics, soaps, waxes, powders or candles. The more militarily-inclined might experiment with using Semtex as the consumable medium for somewhat explosive spells. The chalk your magician uses to draw a Circle, for instance, could be infused with a spell in its own right. Brews have a limited lifespan; they must be used fresh. (Craft (Brewery, Cookery, Cosmetics)) Poppet A poppet is an effigy of the target. It can be any size from a small, crude voodoo doll, to a life sized effigy stuffed with straw, with a photo of the target's face stuck to the effigy's "head." Poppets can be used at unlimited range against the target. (Art, Craft) Tag Another classic occult tactic, tag spells use tissue samples from the target, or pieces of clothing worn by the target. Nail clippings, hair, even blood and teeth, can be used. Tags can be combined with poppets for a greater connection. Tags have a limited lifespan, but can be used at unlimited range against the target. (Craft) Declaring Your Working When your magician character wants to create a magical working, you need to declare the following to the Games Master. - The invocation; - The manifestation; - The target; - The goal; - The time taken to prepare the working. Magic is going to be a slow process. The necessary gathering of occult materials and forces, the settling into gnosis, all take time. If the ground has been prepared in advance, such as a poppet or tag or circle, then the magician needs only settle into a state of gnosis and, in that state of mind, link together the invocation and the manifestation. The following can be used to establish how long it may take for a magician to enter the requisite state of gnosis. Magic is a slow process, which seems to have very small effects - but those effects can lead to profound changes. Small hinges open big doors. Skills The primary skill here is Gnosis (INT + POW). The magician can use this skill to enter a state of gnosis, which enables them to cast their workings. The manifestations of the workings may be prepared ahead of time and carried on the magician's person, such as a sigil or packets of powder for brews, and the magician need only use their chosen method of gnosis (meditation, dance, ingestion of some sort of herb) and take the time to enter the gnostic state. If the magician wants to speed up the process, for instance if their Gnosis skill is 56% and they want to enter gnosis within 1d6 combat rounds rather than 1d6 minutes) they can accept an increased grade of difficulty in the Gnosis check for each step down the table. In the above case, they need to accept two grades of difficulty to be able to enter gnosis in 1d6 combat rounds, rather than 1d6 minutes. Once the magician has entered a state of gnosis, they remain in that state for the duration of the encounter, unless they are injured or they choose to leave the state of gnosis. Once they have entered gnosis, the magician can use pre-prepared manifestations (such as a brew or a sigil) with a time of 1 combat round to cast. The skill used to prepare the manifestation is important. Optionally, the magician may make an appropriate skill check to create the manifestation in advance. If the check is a fail or a fumble, the manifestation is of insufficient quality to create a link; the working automatically fails. If the check is a critical success, the manifestation actually makes the Gnosis skill check at the beginning of the encounter one grade easier. Magic Points? This setting does not need Magic Points. Your magician characters don't need to spend, or recover, Magic Points from doing workings. The act of magical creation to make the manifestations attracts sufficient power from the universe to make the workings viable when cast. Shrine, Temple, or Laboratory Depending on your character's tradition, they may set up a sacred space to study and prepare the manifestations, and to meditate and practice their chants. Within their sacred space, whether it be a shrine, a Temple, a Lodge, or a Laboratory, all Gnosis checks are one grade easier. The environment is designed to make it easier to enter a gnostic state quickly and more deeply. It is in a state of gnosis that the inspirations come to create new invocations, and new manifestations. Grimoires Each new invocation developed by the magician can be written down in a Grimoire. Specific workings (specific invocation and specific manifestation) can be written down as Rotes; these can be prepared in advance, and always take 1 Combat Round to cast regardless of whether the magician is in a state of gnosis or not. The magician can remember a number of Rotes up to their INT score. Anything beyond that will require that they gain access to the required Rote from their Grimoire (requiring 1d6 Combat Rounds to access, then 1 Combat Round to cast). Rote descriptions must include the following - Invocation; Manifestation; Goal. If the Manifestation requires difficult-to-obtain materials, such as Semtex, heroin, gold, uranium, or some endangered wild flower, these should be written down as well as possible substitutes such as parsley for cannabis. Experience Rolls Creating Rotes requires one Experience Roll per new Rote created. Learning a new invocation requires 2 Experience Rolls. Learning a new manifestation requires 2 Experience Rolls. New invocations and manifestations each require 1 month of study. If there is a teacher, their Teach skill can reduce the time to learn by 10% times the critical range of the teacher's Teach skill. A Peek Into The Grimoire Next week, we'll look through the magician's Grimoire and list some workings, including their invocations and manifestations, as well as the kinds of goals and targets they are expected to have.

I thought I wouldn't get into magic systems in my Modern Mythras blogs, but recently I've been watching some old classic movies such as The Devil Rides Out and The Wicker Man, and they reminded me of something which can have its place in a modern Mythras setting. The Occult. Here's the thing. Magic systems in all roleplaying games suffer from one plain, boring fact. They aren't magic. I mean it. Nothing since the original TTRPG has ever come close to the heart stopping terrors of real world occult practices. It's all just been a list of "spells" which might as well be comic book superpowers. Your "magic man" is just someone who's carrying a list of special effects, which might look good if this were a Hollywood movie with a big SFX budget and a couple of supercomputers to whip up the CGI. But this is a roleplaying game, and real magic comes from the imagination. So should the magic in these games. The Occult And Horror Magic comes from occult sources, and the occult is serious business. If it isn't scary, it isn't magic or you're not doing it right. The Occult and Power Magic should be a tool used by people who seek power, whether as protagonists or as antagonists. Magic and The Magus The four pillars of magical practice, the Four Powers of The Magus, are - To Know; To Will; To Dare; and To Be Silent - or Velle (to Will), Audere (to Dare), Scire (to Know), Tacere (to Keep Silent) in the original Latin. To Know acknowledges that Magic is a process of self-knowledge. The goal of the Magus, Witch, or other practitioner is Knowledge, because Knowledge Is Power. To Will means to have the wherewithal, the desire, to apply the magic to the world. To Dare means to go beyond what people are expected to do, to transcend the ordinary experience in pursuit of the extraordinary. To Keep Silent means to keep one's counsel and secrets, and not just blurt out everything to every rando. Magic and Lifestyle To be a magician doesn't mean that you get to fling around fireballs. Magic is an unconventional lifestyle. It means being an exceptionally knowledgeable nerd type who dresses weird, often has bizarre dreams, and plays musical instruments like ocarinas. Magicians don't go along the roads that magical characters do in fantasy novels - there are no "ice sorcerers," "darkness sorcerers," "machine mages" or "shadow witches" in the real world, only practitioners. Some may style themselves witches, sorcerers, but a lot call themselves occultists. Few people actually take on official titles such as wizard, vitki, magus, druid and so on, and these are usually of cultural significance. Magic and Mystique With a practitioner, there is usually something a little bit more to them. There's always something up their sleeve. You cannot be better than a half-assed thaumaturge if you show everybody your tricks. WHether your magician is a protagonist or an antagonist, there has always got to be a sense of something hidden behind the scenes; something concealed; something they don't want you to know. If, at any time, a magician is completely exposed, they instinctively wrap themselves in the shadows of ignorance to cloak themselves from too much scrutiny. Magic and Mental Toughness Magicians and other occult practitioners tend to look unflinchingly at the reality of the world. It shows in their eyes. There's a light burning behind them which is usually only a reflection of what they are seeing. That makes them less likely to feel ordinary levels of fear. Fear of death, public speaking, nudity - they never seem to bother practitioners. Not even bad dreams bother them, which is a sign of something. What it is a sign of, I leave you to imagine. Magic and Mind Control The Power of Suggestion is always a powerful tool at the disposal of practitioners. Hypnotic language, gestures, use of spiral patterns, mandalas, even herbs, music or mystical arts: whatever is at hand, magicians will learn to use with great effect. Easirt to convince a person to run indoors because they believe it is going to rain, than to spend hours unbalancing thermal columns of rising air over a nearby body of water to actually induce rain. Magic and Mundanity Practitioners may find that their magic works along the most boring, ordinary, mundane lines. Demons do not pop up out of thin air into that magic circle; streams of rainbow coloured lights do not fly from the mage's fingers; and walls of fire don't pop up at the snap of the fingers. Yet they still accomplish strange, often beautiful, and frequently terrifying effects through sheer coincidence: a mist might descend over an area to obscure the magician and their companions, or lightning strike the exact tree under which the magician's enemy was hiding. Magic and Modernity Modern practitioners do a lot with little nowadays, and what they can do is astonishingly impressive if they are attuned to the modern milieu and expectations. A practitioner could use a mobile phone to cast a spell ("Like to charge; retweet to cast") or to carry around their grimoire of known, rote-codified spells. Rituals can be held online, to great effect because they can involve masses far greater than one can squeeze physically into a tiny little room. Magic and Modern Mythras To see what sorts of spells, workings, charms, talismans, divinations and so on can be incorporated into a modern Mythras game, tune in next week where we will be opening the Grimoire of the Modern Mage for Mythras.

Roleplaying game adventures have been shown to benefit greatly from structuring them like stories. This has not always been the case. The earliest released tabletop RPG scenarios have been straightforward "dungeon delves," where the characters have focused their attention on purely tactical concerns such as the effectiveness of their combat skills, the optimisation of the damage they inflict, and so on. Structuring an adventure like a story allows you to run individual dungeon delves - or, in the case of modern games, tactical missions to take some physical objective such as a warehouse, an office under siege, or the location of a heist - as part of something greater. They give such combat scenarios context. The structure we are addressing here is the Three Act Story. In the case of modern Mythras games, adventures which come in the form of a three act story allow the Games Master the luxury of being able to design tactical missions to occupy entire sessions within the story. The story structure of the adventure adds context to such tactical combat-related pursuits, because their place within the story has meaning. Three Acts, Nine Beats The three-act structure is divided into smaller stages. At each stage, progress is made within the adventure. Decisions are made, characters learn things, and there is rising action and tension right up to the final confrontation. Between the acts, there are major turning points. These feel like reversals, and in fact they are. Sometimes, the reversals feel like almost complete defeat for the characters. And yet, despite being crushed by the bad guys, the characters manage to rally around and bring the fight back to the antagonist - and either win, or in the case of escape or rescue scenarios - survive. Act One: The Setup Act One sets up the characters, their background, and the story. Exposition At the start of a story or campaign, this is Session Zero, chargen and character building. This part of the adventure establishes who the characters are, what they value, what motivates them, and what they want. You’ll also use this beat to paint a clear picture of your characters' world. What’s your normal? What challenges do they face? Who’s important to them? Inciting Incident This is the event that sets the adventure in motion. The inciting incident presents your party with a decision. The adventure type is established at this point. It could be espionage, a romance, a chase, a rescue, a heist - this is where you lay out for the players what they will be doing in the next few sessions. This beat forces your characters to make a decision that will alter the course of their life. Plot Point One This is the moment when your characters actually commit to the adventure presented by the inciting incident. Plot Point One can happen immediately after the inciting incident. Or you can give your characters time to cling to their comfort zone, ignore the decision, or receive guidance from a mentor. This requires adding in a scene containing an encounter. If they choose to ignore the encounter, up the stakes. Involve a loved one. Entangle them in the very core of the adventure. Or you could have the antagonist make their presence known, as if to warn the characters of the consequence of ignoring them. In the end, they must make a clear, decisive choice. And make it obvious that the decision will set your characters’ path in a whole new direction. Act Two: Confrontation This act is the reason for the adventure. This is where you pay off the promise of the first act. Here is where the adventure, mishaps, hard-learned lessons, and budding relationships come to the characters. Rising Action Here, you introduce the characters to a world or experience that is completely different from everything they know. Introduce new allies and enemies. Nail your characters with obstacles that expose their weaknesses and challenge their assumptions. Expand on the central conflict and help your reader get to know the antagonist better. The greatest source of tension is the unknown. It’s not really about beating the final boss, because your characters just started the level. Right now, they’re dodging the bullets and learning the rules of the world. In a fantasy adventure, here is the perfect place to install a dungeon delve. This part of the adventure is where a chunk of the tactical action takes place - your characters are raiding a suspected drug den, maybe you're hunting down a nest of vampires (if you're borrowing from After The Vampire Wars) or fighting off Disruptors (if you're running a Luther Arkwright scenario). Midpoint This part is smack in the middle of the adventure. Here is where you add a major event, discovery, or twist that points your characters in a more dangerous direction. In fact, this should be the most dangerous obstacle your characters has faced yet. Of course, the definition of “danger” depends on the nature of your story. Your rom-com heroine doesn’t need to spearhead a drug bust or avenge her mentor’s death. It’s enough for her fake dating scheme to turn into an all-too-real engagement scheme. In the case of, say, an Escape adventure, here is the scene where the characters' attempts to pick the lock on the door seems to succeed, only for them to discover that behind the door lies a brick wall. The antagonist may seem to have won, and the characters' plans look to be utterly defeated. In an espionage game, the characters are surrounded by gun-toting thugs or knocked out by the villain who released gas into the room to incapacitate them. In the case of a rescue mission, this is the bit where the xenomorph snatches away little Newt just before Ripley can reach her. In the case of a mystery, the characters discover their prime suspect dead, and they are back to square one with all of the clues they have gathered turning out to be red herrings. Plot Point Two Your characters prepare for the danger ahead. This could mean training, gathering advice, personal reflection, a solid pep talk, or even a period of denial and avoidance. Whatever preparation looks like for your characters, this beat should reflect their growth. This is the moment when they go from reactive to proactive. But this is the part of the adventure where the characters confront their Dark Night of The Soul. This could be the part of the story where the antagonist flexes their muscles and shows their full force, or the full extent of their menace. This part of the adventure is intended to make the characters, and by that I mean the players, feel despair at the scale of the task ahead of them. Time, then, to wrap up the session and, the next time, open with ... Act Three: Resolution The final three beats of this story, this is where the beleaguered characters rally around, gather their resources, even level up. If this is the end of a campaign, you are allowed to give them as many Experience Rolls as they need to complete their character progression. Regrouping and Gathering Resources Build their skills as far as they can go. Resolve all conflicts existing between characters and their Connections (Allies, Contacts, family, lovers, loved ones, even Rivals). Gather your strength. The final stages of the conflict are upon you. By this stage, the characters will have confronted all their fears and weaknesses. The antagonist will not be able to attack them through those flaws again. They can’t win this battle without facing their fears, acknowledging their weaknesses, and confronting the false belief that has been holding them back. And let’s be real: that’s a lot of things to have to do in a pinch. So it’s not looking good. ‍Climax The hero gets to their feet as dramatic music plays. Their Starship emerges from Spacedock as triumphant music swells, but it's bittersweet because everybody knows she is not coming back from this one last mission. In the climax, your character uses the lessons they’ve learned and their natural strengths, old and new, to make a mighty comeback and claim victory. The climax is usually a one-scene situation, especially in thrillers, adventures, and mysteries. But it doesn’t have to be. If it fits your story and genre, the climax can unfold over a few scenes. Denouement This is the time to release the remaining tension. The denouement is the final beat where you tie up loose ends, restate the theme, and demonstrate your characters’ transformation. Whether it is a continuing adventure or the end of a campaign, the characters return to their pre-adventure existence, laughing and joking on the Bridge of the ship as it sails off towards some nebula, or riding along in the back of the van with the people they'd rescued, or emerging from the courthouse to see the villain being hauled off in chains. Wrap up the adventure, take your notes, assign Experience Rolls - or if this is the finale, thank your players. Just remember the one most important lesson about storytelling - Give your adventures a three-act structure. The individual details of what goes on during the adventures may deviate from your script as written, but the structure of your story, the challenges and obstacles you place between the characters and their victory, will make the players feel that every part of the ride - highs and lows - was worth it. And if you do your job well, they may come back to play many more adventures, and/or recount the thrilling tales of their characters' exploits to others. Give them what they want, and they'll all live happily ever after.

Character generation can be done in a number of ways. One of them involves the tables listed in Mythras Core - including the Background Events and Family tables - but there is another method. Lifepaths. Originally created for Traveller, Lifepaths - which were focused on careers in that 2D sfrpg - can be useful methods to allow a character to develop a little history to them, beyond the Background Event table (a modern version was published last week in this blog). Each Lifepath should be unique for each character. They indicate the path the character's life took from around age 14 or some arbitrary age. 14 is the default, because it includes the last four years of one's formative memories - their strongest, most life-changing ones. The years during which your character lost their childhood, and became the adult they are in play. Dice Needed You'll only need a d6 or a d10 for these tables. Starting Play Roll on the Family tables in Mythras Core to establish your character's family as they were at age 14. If you don't fancy that, consider just creating your own family from scratch, or deciding that your kid had been in the system for some reason (and you get to pick that reason, whether it involved your character losing your parents, or the State intervening to pull you away from an otherwise chaotic life). The First Four Years These are times for childhood sweethearts, or childhood enemies. If your character went to school, these are times of facing down the schoolyard bully, of boring lessons, or of skipping school altogether and spending your days kicking around the back alleys or back country, losing yourself to the streets or the land. Passions Here's where you can choose your Passions, as described in Mythras Core. Culture and Career At this stage, you can choose your character's Culture and Career, as described in Mythras Core. Values Lifepath Events Once a year from age 14, roll on the table below to see what happens each year till the time your character enters play. Cash Table Starting cash is just that - the amount of money your character can call upon, in the form of an independent income, once they enter play. This cash is a liquid asset. Property, vehicles, and material goods such as weaponry, jewellery and so on, do not count - this is income the character does not have to convert from some other source, e.g. selling off heirlooms. This cash can represent a steady income from a job which requires minimal attendance, a trust fund, interest from a lottery win, or ill-gotten gains from some low-maintenance scheme which just runs itself such as blue chip investments in the stock market. Roll 1d10 twice, once for the Cash Tabls column and once on the Level of Wealth column. If you rolled "enough to live on for 1d6+6 weeks," you'd have a bit less cash on hand if you were Middle Working Class, than if you'd rolled "enough to live on for 1d6+6 weeks" and you'd rolled "Upper Class, Bottom Rung." Entering Play As Games Master, you are encouraged to get the players to develop new Allies and Contacts during play, and to make sure they roll on the Cash and Level of Wealth table. Don't forget to ask them to complete the final step - to describe their characters' name and general appearance. Round it off by letting the players describe what they'd expect to find in the character's pockets, and with that you are good to go. Next Week Starting Play in Modern Mythras requires an Inciting Incident. Next week, we'll go through the Three Act Structure which informs play from the small scale (adventures) to the grand scale (campaigns).

Let's look into your characters' back stories. There is a point to looking into the back history of the player characters in a modern setting. Backgrounds can set stakes for the Games Master to leverage; but they can also serve to ground the player characters in the setting, making them part of the setting, belonging to the story. Here is a modernised version of the Background Events Table from Mythras Core. These are for inspiration purposes. You can either pick, or roll, your background event. The table is broken up, but it's all one d100 table. There is so much potential for character development. Mythras Core has an extensive set of background tables for generating family connections, to deepen your characters' origins. I'd recommend familiarising yourself with those tables on page 25. Though look at pages 21-24, as well - there is a lot of material there which can be used in a modern campaign without modification. We'll be looking at adopting a technique pioneered by Traveller in the next blog: Lifepaths.

I have to take a hiatus again tonight. The next blog post goes live next week.

Imagine, now, a chargen session from a fairly standard fantasy roleplaying game. Pseudo-mediaeval background, all swords and horses, the bad guy's a sorcerer who wears a silk frock and lives in a tower at the edge of the country, they always look like this guy - and has Wrack:- and we need serious characters to take this guy seriously. So here's the conversation. Player: Okay, that's the characteristics and attributes rolled, er, culture, profession, skills, oh yeah and Combat Styles. GM: Yeah, I recall you spent an awful lot of time choosing those Combat Styles. Player: They're the best balance of cultural aesthetic and stopping power. GM: I got you. Now, Passions. Player: Forget that. GM: Doesn't your character care for anybody? Hate anybody? Player: Yeah, I, er, hate that bad guy. The Wrack sorcerer one in the frock. GM: No, not that. I meant someone in your past - Player: Yeah, okay, that guy with the pornstache once drove by me on a rainy day and splashed me, and that's why I want to cut his head off - GM: Okay, that's a bit dark, but do you have folks back home, a childhood sweetheart, anything? Player: Nah, I'm good. Let's get to the tower so I can start slaughtering monsters. This might sound familiar to some of you. Some Games Masters might be guilty of letting this sort of thing ride because their games are all just dungeons through which the characters roll, slaughtering creatures indiscriminately. Games set in a modern world aren't like that. Note: I'll be referencing some of Lightspress Media's sourcebooks for their DoubleZero game. It's set in a modern world, and characters in this setting need to rely on their wits and skills alone. No access to supernatural abilities or powers to save the day. You can take the settings and just port them right into Mythras without needing to tweak any systems, because the game is pretty much light enough, rules wise, that you can run the game using the Mythras Core Rulebook or Mythras Imperative, though Mythras Firearms and Mythras Companion would be really handy to have also. Stakes Stakes are things or people who are important to the player characters. They may be loved ones, offspring, family members, pets, friends and so on. Other stakes include one's reputation and honour; money; freedom; and even, in some cases, lives. Here's what game designer Berin Kinsman of Lightspress Media has to offer about stakes in DoubleZero: Mystery:- Stakes are the potential risks or consequences that the player characters face in an adventure. The stakes can be personal, such as the loss of a loved one or the damage to the player characters' reputation, or they can be societal, such as the continuation of a crime wave or the loss of innocent lives. They might be more global, like saving the world or preventing a disaster. Stakes help to create tension and suspense in a story, and can make the players care about the outcome. High stakes also make a character's choices and actions more meaningful, and drive the plot forward. That book offers the following stakes for mystery genre adventures:- The life of the victim In many mystery adventures, the victim's life is at stake and the player characters must solve the mystery to save them. This should create a sense of urgency and pressure. It can motivate them to keep working and to overcome any obstacles that they encounter. The safety of others In some cases, the stakes in a mystery adventure might be the safety of others, such as the victim's loved ones or the general public. If the culprit is not brought to justice, they might continue to pose a threat to others. The player characters must solve the mystery to protect those at risk. The reputation of the player characters The stakes might be the reputation of the player characters, who are trying to prove their worth. If they fail to solve the mystery, they might lose the respect and trust of others. They must overcome this obstacle to achieve their goals. One other stake, not mentioned in that book:- Proof of Innocence In many mystery dramas, the police scoop up the wrong suspect for murder, and it is up to the player characters to uncover the clues to prevent this innocent third party going down for a crime they did not commit. Even if the innocents are the characters themselves. The stakes are somewhat different in a game themed around romance (such as Lightspress Media's genre book Romance):- In a romance story, the stakes are often related to the development and success of the romantic relationship between the player characters. Some common stakes include: • The potential for the couple to achieve their happily ever after and find fulfillment and happiness in their relationship • The risk of the couple breaking up or experiencing a tragic ending if they are unable to overcome the challenges and obstacles that stand in their way • The impact of the couple's actions and decisions on their personal lives and the lives of those around them, such as friends and family members • The potential for the couple to grow and learn as individuals and as a couple, and to become better people as a result of their experiences in the romance. Overall, the stakes in a romantic adventure often revolve around the potential consequences and rewards of the couple's actions and decisions, and the impact that these have on their relationship and their personal lives. The first big setting for DoubleZero, the spy setting Licensed, has these stakes:- BETRAYAL OF TRUST Deceiving and betraying others can have serious stakes for both the player characters and the people they interact with. They may be forced to lie and manipulate others to complete their mission, but this can also lead to mistrust and alienation from those they care about. The player characters may also be deceived and betrayed by others, which can put them in danger and complicate their mission. In some cases, the stakes of deception and betrayal can be life and death, as characters may be willing to do anything to protect their interests and survive. ENEMIES WIN If the player characters fail to achieve their goals, their enemies can achieve their own goals, which could have serious consequences for the player characters, their organization, or the world at large. EXPOSURE OR CAPTURE If the player characters are discovered by their enemies, they may face severe punishment or even death. Being exposed can also compromise the success of their mission and put others at risk. They must constantly be on guard and take steps to avoid being discovered, such as using disguises and false identities. If they are captured, the player characters must use their wits and training to escape and continue their mission or face the consequences of failure. FAIL THE MISSION The mission may be of critical importance to the player characters' country or organization, and failure could have dire consequences. They may face personal repercussions for their failure, such as being fired or punished. In some cases, the stakes of failing may be global, as the mission could have far-reaching effects on international relations and world events. The player characters must therefore do everything in their power to succeed. INJURY OR DEATH Player characters may be trained in combat and other forms of self-defense, but they are still at risk. This can have serious consequences for them, as well as for their mission and those they are working for. They may be willing to sacrifice their safety to complete the mission and protect others. The threat of injury or death adds tension and suspense to the story, as the players wonder if their characters will survive and succeed. LOSS OF RELATIONSHIPS The player characters' work might also put their personal relationships at risk, such as causing strain on their family or romantic relationships, or causing them to lose friends or allies. LOSS OF REPUTATION The player characters may be working for a government agency or organization that values its reputation and standing in the international community. If they fail their mission or are exposed, it could damage the reputation of the organization and undermine its ability to operate effectively. They may also face personal repercussions, such as being ostracized or losing the trust of their superiors. The threat of loss of reputation adds another layer of tension to the story, as the player characters must strive to protect their reputation and that of their organization. PERSONAL HARM The player characters might also face personal harm or injury as they carry out their missions, such as physical injury, psychological trauma, or death. PROFESSIONAL CONSEQUENCES If the player characters fail to complete their mission, they might face consequences such as being fired, demoted, or punished by their superiors. They might also face the failure of their mission to achieve their intended goals, which could have serious consequences for their organization or for global security. Stakes and The Modern Mythras Game Before plunging into a Mythras game set in the modern world, it is a good idea to look at the stakes involved. Perhaps something in the characters' backgrounds, Cultures, Professions, or of course Passions, can supply you with something or someone they can care about. Something which will prompt them to become embroiled in the story, entangled in it, and perhaps even cause them to want to take risks to save people they love, or to block efforts of Rivals and Enemies before they cause damage to their reputations, for instance. Look to the above examples, for instance. Your characters should have something to protect - a resource, a loved one, their name. Those stakes should be at risk of being jeopardised at some points in the campaign. The characters must do something to prevent some awful loss from happening, which would set them back big time. Having a stake in the game allows you, the Games Master, to use them as a central part of the Turning Points for Acts I and II of your stories or campaigns. More about that later. Where to get those stakes? A good place to generate loved ones or more abstract connections and entanglements to complicate the characters' lives is through background events. We'll be coming to that in the next post.

Let's look at Backgrounds in our modern Mythras game. What do Backgrounds look like in the main Mythras game? Let's look at the Core Rulebook. Background Events Background Events are notable things that have happened in the character’s life before he began his career as an adventurer. Some are formative; some are fortunate and some are unfortunate. Background Events are optional, but using them adds to the character’s history, and can be used by creative players and Games Masters as hooks for scenarios or even complete campaigns. If using Background Events you may feel free to choose an event that appeals or roll randomly. Random rolls may produce very interesting, but potentially conflicting results. If a roll is not to your liking or seriously disrupts the idea and concept you have for your character then do re-roll the event. Background Events should enrich the character – not disrupt it. If your starting character is older than the Mythras standard, then you may gain multiple rolls on this table (see Age, page 31). If you roll a result twice, re-roll one of the results. If two results contradict each other either discard both and roll again, or agree with the Games Master how best to make both results work together. Background events uniquely define a character, because they reflect their different paths, the roads down which they travelled to get to where they are. Unlike Mythras Core, based in a fantastic world, the modern milieu can be far more dependent on a person's background because they root the character to their culture, and they can inform the other players and Games Master on how the character is likely to react to a crisis. An example of a person whose background is important is a character, Velvy Schur, from the 2023 season of a long-running BBC TV show, Silent Witness, which focuses on a team of forensic pathologists. Velvy Schur came to the show early in January 2023, at the start of their 26th season, as a young, eager pathologist who is eager to learn everything about the world. Velvy Schur comes from an Orthodox Jewish background. According to the back story, Velvy has been shunned by his strict family, and has spent several episodes finding his place in a more secular world. There is an article on Velvy Schur here. The character is played by actor Alastair Michael, who says that his character has brought a greater understanding of his own Jewishness to his personal life. On a personal note, I wish the actor much success in his journey, and I love his portrayal of a man bereft of his culture, questing to find a new home and fam, and also to find a connection to his past despite the severance which clearly burns like an open wound. I've been tempted to create a Modern Background Events table, but there are some really good tables in The Design Mechanism's roleplaying game Destined. They may need a little tweaking. Maybe there'll be something for you soon, right here on this blog. Backstory Backgrounds are why, for instance, two soldier player characters, both born on the same day, coming from the same neighbourhood, with the same characteristics, skills, and Passions, right down to the Combat Styles, can still be totally different persons. One might have been born and raised in relative prosperity, to a loving family of soldiers where several generations of the family served with honour and distinction. Character A might be a really good soldier, even officer material - but they may be labouring under a heavy burden of expectation from their family that they will be following in their parent's footsteps. Character B might be born into an immigrant family, a second generation citizen who loves the country they were born into, and became a soldier to serve and protect that country and, by extension, all of the people from their parents' culture who were given a home there. They may even be a soldier to take the fight to the country from which their parents once came, to help put down the insurgents who drove their folks out of their homeland in the first place. Different backgrounds - different reasons for being in that uniform. I know, there was a bit of real world politics there. But modern Mythras does have the risk of politics coming into it, and yes, it can be polarising; but this allows each player to bring something to the gaming table that a fantasy scenario in some far-off shared world or galaxy far away cannot have. Backgrounds allow the players the chance to tell stories about their own selves, their own backgrounds and cultures. And they allow players a chance to explore what the backgrounds mean to them. This gives them a stake in their characters and their development, and what happens to them. And stakes bring meaning to any game. The higher the stakes, the greater the meaning. And meaning brings immersion, which adds to the enjoyment of the game. We'll explore this theme further, next week.

One topic has been dominating gaming for the past few weeks. I thought I'd drop a short blog post to address this situation. OGL 1.1. On a personal note, this matter bothers me. As a gamer, Games Master, and product developer, I quite enjoy the whole experience of gaming. I've been using roleplaying games to explore all manner of topics, from diplomacy to sexuality to, frankly, NSFW stuff which I have kept away from public consumption. Many of the games I enjoy carry the OGL license at the back, and it does bother me that some scumbags are trying to rip up protections which had been ringfenced by the old license. Then Paizo came along with this announcement. You can go and read it on their website, but there are highlights I can share with you tonight. For the last several weeks, as rumors of Wizards of the Coast’s new version of the Open Game License began circulating among publishers and on social media, gamers across the world have been asking what Paizo plans to do in light of concerns regarding Wizards of the Coast’s rumored plan to de-authorize the existing OGL 1.0(a). We have been awaiting further information, hoping that Wizards would realize that, for more than 20 years, the OGL has been a mutually beneficial license which should not–and cannot–be revoked. While we continue to await an answer from Wizards, we strongly feel that Paizo can no longer delay making our own feelings about the importance of Open Gaming a part of the public discussion. We believe that any interpretation that the OGL 1.0 or 1.0(a) were intended to be revocable or able to be deauthorized is incorrect, and with good reason. We were there. Shots fired. The announcement continues. Paizo does not believe that the OGL 1.0a can be “deauthorized,” ever. While we are prepared to argue that point in a court of law if need be, we don’t want to have to do that, and we know that many of our fellow publishers are not in a position to do so. And then Paizo drops the mic. We have no interest whatsoever in Wizards’ new OGL. Instead, we have a plan that we believe will irrevocably and unquestionably keep alive the spirit of the Open Game License. As Paizo has evolved, the parts of the OGL that we ourselves value have changed. When we needed to quickly bring out Pathfinder First Edition to continue publishing our popular monthly adventures back in 2008, using Wizards’ language was important and expeditious. But in our non-RPG products, including our Pathfinder Tales novels, the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, and others, we shifted our focus away from D&D tropes to lean harder into ideas from our own writers. By the time we went to work on Pathfinder Second Edition, Wizards of the Coast’s Open Game Content was significantly less important to us, and so our designers and developers wrote the new edition without using Wizards’ copyrighted expressions of any game mechanics. While we still published it under the OGL, the reason was no longer to allow Paizo to use Wizards’ expressions, but to allow other companies to use our expressions. We believe, as we always have, that open gaming makes games better, improves profitability for all involved, and enriches the community of gamers who participate in this amazing hobby. And so we invite gamers from around the world to join us as we begin the next great chapter of open gaming with the release of a new open, perpetual, and irrevocable Open RPG Creative License (ORC). Paizo then patiently outlines what this means. The new Open RPG Creative License will be built system agnostic for independent game publishers under the legal guidance of Azora Law, an intellectual property law firm that represents Paizo and several other game publishers. Paizo will pay for this legal work. We invite game publishers worldwide to join us in support of this system-agnostic license that allows all games to provide their own unique open rules reference documents that open up their individual game systems to the world. To join the effort and provide feedback on the drafts of this license, please sign up by using this form. The closing lines offer hope to us all. We’ll be there at your side. You can count on us not to go back on our word. Forever. We haven't heard from many other game publishers. Stellagama Publishing are working on a contingency plan. At least one game publisher has sworn to drop the OGL document from their future core rulebooks and supplements. Lightspress Games, one of my favourite publishers outside of TDM, has released a book, for free, as Public Domain. You can use terms found in Berin Kinsman's book Open Glossary and use this book as a reference in your own published fantasy adventure modules. Being public domain, terms such as "good" and "chaotic" and "dragon" can be drawn from Open Glossary. I recommend adding a link to the book on DriveThruRPG in your own works. Here's the link. The whole OGL mess has not ended. As of the time of posting, it's only just begun. But between Paizo and other publishers, including ones who jumped in behind Paizo such as Chaosium, it's not hopeless. I'll get back to talking about Mythras next week. I mean, unless someone else does a Wizards all over the gaming industry.

So I'm back, with more ramblings on modern day Mythras. This first post of 2023 is short. Here's a summary of some of what's to come this year. Backgrounds - Where your character comes from is as important as where they are now. Lifepaths - An option, creating your characters through a lifepath a la Traveller. Origins - Borrowing from Scott Crowder's option for character generation as presented in M-Space Companion. The Arcane - Exploring different paths of occult power, including looking at sourcebooks from M-Space, Luther Arkwright and even Destined. All these are to come in 2023. Stay on this frequency.

Just breaking silence to wish everybody a Happy New Year! 2022 is over. Roll on 2023!

Theoretically, you can run an entire Mythras Modern game based solely on your characters' Passions. In this article, we'll be looking at Passions, and how they can apply to the modern Mythras setting. Passion Plays So many stories can be driven by Passions, and not just the Adventurers'. A man can be driven by obsession to pursue his ex, and the Adventurers have to protect her from his violent pursuits. The Adventurers could be among the passengers of a flight which is hijacked by terrorists. Or they may be hired to escort a young prodigy to a performance, despite the youngster's reluctance to be parted from her fresh new girlfriend ... whereupon the characters may find that the prodigy's parents have a less than wholesome ulterior motive behind this mission. Whole adventures and even campaigns can be driven by a desire for something, a fear of something or someone to be overcome, or simply the wish to do the right thing ... even if the right thing is not immediately obvious. As has been pointed out in a previous post, your character should pick three Passions. One should be central to your character's Career, one should be a Passion which keeps pulling the character away from the day job (and propels them into adventures), and the third one could be either positive or, more likely, negative. A character who has a wife and kid back home might have Love (Family) as their third motivator, but Thrillseeker in the third slot would be far more interesting, not to mention painting the character as a bit of a deadbeat. Hamartia As much as characters like to be seen by their players as invincible, it is far more interesting to give them a hamartia, tied to at least one Passion - such as a family for the thrillseeker. A hamartia is a fatal flaw - a common device in fiction. Superman's hamartias are Kryptonite, magic, light from a red sun, and the normal humans whom he calls his friends. Other superheroes have their hamartias, and not the green rocks kind - often, their weakness would be their secret identity being compromised, or some villain using a loved one as leverage, and so on. A character's hamartia can even be a personal flaw, such as alcoholism, or being a daredevil and thrillseeker, always being drawn to the high-risk activities such as BASE jumping off the tops of skyscrapers or breaching security at Area 51 to see if there really are advanced stealth planes retrofitted with captured alien technology, or even real aliens, dead or alive. If the character follows their hamartia Passion, they could get into some sort of trouble. It could be any kind of trouble - with the law, or with one's family, or with organised crime, or similar. However, there should always be some sort of payoff - the thrill of discovery, the endorphin rush of surviving that BASE jump, and so on - to make the risk totally worth it. Driving Passion In 2022, Renegade rebooted the old World of Darkness game Hunter: the Reckoning. In this reboot, Hunters are Driven: their central driving Passion lends them dice to succeed in tasks which would be impossible otherwise. In this setting, their Drive would probably offset the Difficulties of skill checks, much like a Passion can be used to augment a normal skill, such as an engineer's Passion of Fix Anything augmenting their Mechanic skill. Perhaps the Intensity of their Passion could augment the relevant skill in the same way as the Augment Skill Talent of Mystics from Mythras Core. Your characters could likewise be driven by their highest Passion. It could just as easily lead them to victory as to trouble - a character who has a Passion linked to a grand vision he received in a dream could succeed by means of that Passion more than his skills - "if you build it, they will come," and so on. The Driving Passion should really be something which gives the character hope; give them a reason to get up off the floor when they have been beaten down; give them a reason to live. Each player should think carefully about what that Driving Passion could be, or should be. And tie in their other two Passions, and even their Career and Skills, to that Passion, since it is likely to be this Passion which sent the character off in the direction of that Career in the first place. A Passionate Life Your character should be passionate. They should be fired up to do things their peers cannot, and will not. Whatever draws the characters towards fires and fights, or has them standing in the open air under the roiling storm clouds with lightning flashing all around them, should be one of the most powerful motive forces in their life. Even if the Passion is something more prosaic and less adventurous such as Master My Field Of (Career) or Become (Ruler Of Some Corporation), it should be something the character acknowledges as integral to their lives, and the force behind their greatest successes ... and their most embarrassing failures and defeats. Because it's all totally worth it, no matter the cost. And that's all part of the price they pay for living lives of Adventure.

I'm taking a break over Yuletide. The last post for this year goes live tomorrow, Sunday, December 18, at 22:00. There will be no posts on December 24 or December 31. This blog will come back on the air again on January 7, 2023. Yuletide Blessings and a Happy 2023 to you all!

This week's blog post looks at combat. Frankly, this is my opportunity to review Mythras Firearms. Modern Combat In the modern world, "combat" typically means "armed conflict," which is synonymous with "firefight." Mythras Firearms This title was probably the most - coveted Mythras supplement in 2021. What does Mythras Firearms teach you? What do you think are the most useful skills in modern combat scenarios? Curiously enough, Combat Styles are at the bottom of this list. In order, the most useful skills have got to be:- - Perception: you need to be able to be aware of your surroundings. Clear those corners. Check those angles. Work out where the vantage points are, particularly in a built up area with overlooking rooftops and windows everywhere. - Insight: to read the room. You're going to be either in an entirely empty room, which should trigger your suspicions right away if you'd been expecting targets or hostages, or you're going to be bursting into a room full of people who are going to get angry that you're interrupting their poler match or something. - Evade: Pretty much essential in any firefight, because once the bullets begin flying, you do not want to be standing out in the open. - Oratory: not only useful in rallying the troops, Oratory is used to communicate tactics to one's subordinates. This skill also incorporates military hand signals for silent communication between teammates in one's unit. - Knowledge (Tactics and Strategy): Tactics are how you win the current battle. Strategy is how you end the battles and come home. You need this for two things: one, like a generalised large-scale combination of Perception and Insight to work out where all the targets are, and what you think their leader is doing, and also so you can work out what to do in the fight, and how and where to move your teams to neutralise your enemies and come back alive, with any hostages intact if there are hostages in the situation. Contents of Mythras Firearms The book goes right into it, detailing new Combat Actions, new and modified Special Effects, and new Spot Rules for firefights. Juicy stuff, followed by a section on creating your own firearms, with rules for new Weapons Traits. What comes next is a nice set of tables for different firearms, starting with Black Powder arms (you are allowed to stock up on these for Fioracitta, by the way), then modern firearms and a whole load of energy weapons and exotic guns. They're all there, waiting for your characters to grab them up. Use them in the modern game, or in Luther Arkwright, After The Vampire Wars or your own setting. The book doesn't go into the tactics of fighting against armed targets, nor the hazards of running into a built up area, possibly at night and in pitch darkness. There are books available on the internet which are helpful here. Source: http://www.thinklikeahorse.org/images3/building clearing raid.pdf Source: https://ufpro.com/us/blog/itcqb-one-man-room-clearing-tactics Go and look up these sources. Your characters will thank you for it. I am assuming that I'm addressing players who've never been in a job which has exposed them to FIBUA or CQB; people who never served. Fighting in Mythras Modern is not like fighting in Mythras Core. You do not ask if you can attack the enemy after spending your AP on a Charge. You don't, because the enemy will have unloaded the mag of their AR-15 into your character and you'll be rerolling a new guy. Conclusion This has been a surprisingly brief post for me to write. The most important takeaways from this have been that combat in Mythras Modern is fierce, ferocious, short, and deadly; your characters will need a bunch of non-combat skills to survive, primarily Perception and Evade; and you'll need to plan battles to involve your whole unit fighting together if you want your character team to see the light of day.

In our previous posts, we've explored Cultures, and checked out Careers. So now it's time to look at the Skills. The Skills chapter of Mythras Core pretty much covers everything you need to know about using those Skills - difficulty levels, augmentation, trying again, opposing skill checks, and so on. If you want to brush up on the basic rules on rolling skills checks, begin with Mythras Core Rulebook, pages 37-38, then pages 50-52. New Skill Check The Skill Value Check is something I'm borrowing from a forthcoming Kelestia Productions title, HârnMaster and The World of Kèthîra (HMK). You use the critical range for your skill check (10% of the skill roll you make at the time, not the skill level on your character sheet). So if your skill is 67%, and it's a Hard skill check, and you're using the Simplified Difficulty Grades Table on page 38, the critical range for your skill check will be the critical range for (67% - 20%), i.e. the critical range for 47%, or 5. Make your skill check. If the skill check is a Critical Success, add +1 to the critical range value. An ordinary success doesn't do anything. A normal failure deducts -1, and a fumble reduces the critical value by -2. So if the above Hard skill check gave a Critical Success, the value would be 6; a nomal success would yield a value of 5; a normal failure would give a 4; and a fumble would give a 3. Some skill checks will yield unique answers (e.g. magic rolls), and fumbles could produce unwanted results despite the character's success, but in general the player should compare the final figure with this table below. These could be the equivalent of Enhancements (page 66 of Mythras), little flourishes added to the character's skill check. A lot of characters have high to very high skill percentages, and it is highly unlikely, even with a fumble on a Herculean roll, that they would roll a zero or below on the above table; but even with a positive result, Grandmasters could still face some sorts of complications resulting from a fumble, even if they do land - literally - on their feet. This new type of skill check ensures that (a) a fumble on a critical skill check becomes unlikely to kill the character, even if it is a dangerous, high-risk skill check and their base skill level is very small; and (b) even a Grandmaster can still make humiliating mistakes, even with all the odds stacked in their favour. Use this kind of test when your character is faced with a skill test such as Athletics to parkour across a gap between two rooftops, Explosives to defuse a bomb, even Seduction to make a move on the Ambassador's wayward daughter. Anything with a life-or-death outcome. Standard Skills A character's Standard and Professional Skills are very much a product of their Culture and Career. It's entirely likely that even the most isolated of characters are going to have a very different spread of Standard Skills to the list given in Mythras. That is due to the very different Cultural expectations of modern characters. Standard Skills Lists Urban and Suburban Athletics STR+DEX Brawn STR+SIZ Bureaucracy INTx2 Computers INTx2 Conceal DEX+POW Customs (INTx2)+40% Dance DEX+CHA Deceit INT+CHA Drive DEX+POW Endurance CONx2 Evade DEXx2 Influence CHAx2 Insight INT+POW Native Tongue INT+CHA+40% Perception INT+POW Sing CHA+POW Stealth DEX+INT Streetwise POW+CHA Swim STR+CON Unarmed STR+DEX Willpower POWx2 Rural Athletics STR+DEX Boating STR+CON Brawn STR+SIZ Conceal DEX+POW Customs (INTx2)+40% Dance DEX+CHA Deceit INT+CHA Drive DEX+POW Endurance CONx2 Evade DEXx2 First Aid INT+DEX Influence CHAx2 Insight INT+POW Locale INTx2 Native Tongue INT+CHA+40% Perception INT+POW Ride DEX+POW Sing CHA+POW Stealth DEX+INT Swim STR+CON Unarmed STR+DEX Willpower POWx2 The different spreads of Standard Skills are due to the prevalence of bureaucracies in pretty much every modern state. From buying groceries to purchasing real estate, everything leaves behind a data trail, and Bureaucracy is the fine art of getting access to those data trails, whether to track people down or to make life miserable for them. The same deal goes for Computers - everybody has one nowadays, and they make and receive calls, take photos, post to social media, and create all kinds of documents detailing every aspect of their lives, from the number of hours they sleep at night to their pulse and blood sugar levels, to things like pictures of their cats, videos of police atrocities, and sex tapes. Many people run their entire businesses and lives through their mobile phones, and it makes sense to at least have Computers as a Standard Skill, even if they only know how to open apps with that skill. Locale has been swapped out for Streetwise for Urban and Suburban Cultures, simply because the likelihood of someone from a thoroughly-urbanised 'hood knowing the difference between wild belladonna and a patch of nettles is very low, as compared to them reading the street for signs of brewing trouble. Locale has been left in for Rural Cultures, as have Ride and Boating - though some Cultures come from locations where Boating is more prevalent than either Ride or Drive (such as coastal regions) and some Rural Cultures might swap Pilot for Boating, e.g. locations with great expanses of wilderness such as Australia's Outback. First Aid is likewise missing from the Urban and Suburban lists. If your character's concept is First Responder (paramedic, Doctor, other kind of health care official, lifeguard, mountain rescue, lifeboat crew and so on) you can leave in First Aid as a Standard Skill. Swap it out for Streetwise, if you like, unless your character is running a criminal sideline in dealing to make money. Professional Skills There are a lot of changes from Mythras Core. Acting CHAx2 Acrobatics STR+DEX Art POW+CHA Bureaucracy INTx2 Commerce INT+CHA Computers INTx2 Courtesy INT+CHA Craft DEX+INT Culture INTx2 Disguise INT+CHA Electronics DEX+INT Engineering DEX+INT Explosives DEX+INT Forgery DEX+INT Gambling INT+POW Knowledge INTx2 Language INT+CHA Locale INTx2 Lockpicking DEXx2 Mechanic DEX+INT Medicine INT+POW Meditation INT+CON Musicianship DEX+CHA Navigation INT+POW Oratory POW+CHA Research INTx2 Ride DEX+POW Science INTx2 Seamanship INT+CON Seduction INT+CHA Sleight DEX+CHA Streetwise POW+CHA Survival CON+POW Teach INT+CHA Track INT+CON Bureaucracy - a Professional Skill only to Rural Cultures; a Standard Skill to Urban and Suburban Cultures. Practically mandatory for anyone who works within The System, whether they are bureaucrats, law enforcement, military and so on. Computers - likewise, a Professional Skill only to characters who come from any Rural Cultures, particularly the Off The Grid Subculture. If you need to hack a system, you'll need Computers. Electronics - as for Mechanic Skill, but specifically for repairs and electronics of all kinds, rarher than physical items - that's the province of Mechanic, below. You'll need this skill to defeat electronic security systems, alarms, laser tripwires and so on. Explosives - the ability to plant, analyse, and defuse explosive devices. Forgery - the skill of creating not only fake identification devices such as cards, cloned phones and so on, but also the ability to create a convincing paper trail, and even to manipulate and doctor audiovisual media, from social media photos to audiovisual evidence of UFOs. Knowledge (specialised subject) - A new Skill, replaces Lore. Represents the depths of a character's personal knowledge about a particular subject (the specialised subject). Language - There is no separate Literacy skill here. The rise of Babble and Duolingo makes it virtually impossible not to learn a language's written form at the same time as the spoken form. Locale - listed as a Professional Skill only to Urban and Suburban Cultures. Remains a Standard Skill to all Rural Cultures and Subcultures. Mechanic - Replaces Mechanisms skill, but retains the same functions. Medicine - Represents one's personal knowledge of healing and long-term treatment of illness, injuries, and wounds. Includes surgery and surgical medicine. More modern than Healing in Mythras Core, because this SKill can be used for more advanced medical and surgical procedures than simple poultices, bloodletting, trepanation, and application of leeches. Meditation - The only magical skill included in this list, Meditation allows a character to double their recovery from fatigue, lost Prana Points - see the post on Magic - and Tenacity. It can also augment Endurance and Willpower checks. Research - An all-new skill. Represents the ability to dig through non-bureaucratic records (which requires Bureaucracy) to come up with information. Can be used to augment Bureaucracy, Knowledge, and Science checks. Ride - this is a Professional Skill only to Urban and Suburban Cultures and their Subcultures. Science (specific science) - An all-new skill. Represents knowledge within the specified field of Science, e.g. Mathematics, Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Zoology, Botany, Organic Chemistry, Pathology, and so on. Streetwise - Only a Professional Skill to characters from any of the Rural Subcultures or the Rural Culture itself. All The Skill In The World These skills lists describe the character's occupational strengths - the skills they are best at, and weaknesses - the ones with the lowest values. They don't necessarily point to the character's personality, only to their skill strong points. Rather, the character is the sum of their Culture, their Career, their Skills, their Passions, and their Backgrounds - plus whatever touches are given to them by the player. This look at Modern Mythras Skills does not take into account two sets of skills: Combat Styles, and Magic Skills. These will be covered in the last two posts from this blog for 2022, before I take a break.

This week, following on from our look at modern Cultures, it's time to look at Careers open to player characters. Job Versus Career Go to Google. Search for "career" and select Images. You'll get endless rows of pretty, smiling business people sitting behind computers, or shaking hands in meetings. Diverse. Modern. Utterly, spirit-crushingly boring. Now look for "Adventure." Select Images. You'll typically see people standing atop a mountain, or kayaking in bright lycra. It's nut exactly what we think of when we think of adventures, is it? Careers are important to modern humans. Mythras approaches Careers as groups basic collections of expected skills. A farmer is likely to have Brawn, Perception, Endurance, and Track; an athlete is likely to have Athletics, possibly Acrobatics. Careers in the modern world mean something very different. Careers, as defined in ordinary life, aren't so much collections of basic skills, but are more like ways of distinguishing your status in society. The emphasis is not so much on your skills - admit it, does anyone you know have percentage scores next to the listed skills on their resume (and how many of you have your best Combat Styles listed on those resumes either)? - as your income, your tax bracket and your social mobility options. So with that, let's look at Careers, as they apply in Mythras, and shoehorn them into the modern game. Modern Adventurers Your characters are phenomenal people. In the modern milieu, your characters' Careers basically define your background, your origins, and the resources you can bring to bear. What you are, in the present day, is Adventurers. Those fine people at Merrian-Webster have definitions for "Adventurer" - 1 : someone who seeks dangerous or exciting experiences : a person who looks for adventures: such as a : soldier of fortune b : one who engages in risky commercial enterprises for profit 2: somewhat old-fashioned : one who seeks unmerited wealth or position especially by playing on the credulity or prejudice of others Adventurers do not necessarily fit in with their livelihoods or lifestyles. The best of the best, who focus on their income-providing real-life careers, don't generally jump into dangerous situations without giving it much thought. If trouble comes to them, they respond by backing away and inserting walls of lawyers and/or hired thugs to protect them. Most paragons of their careers are risk-averse. When there is danger, they protect their income streams first, then their reputations, and then their status. Usually, they fall at the protecting their reputations bit - and then watch the other two go away pretty sharpish. Adventurers put their reputations first. Your income stream and status don't mean anything if you've destroyed your reputation with an ill-chosen swearword in a public place or, worse, a well-aimed punch to the face of someone who just mocked your beloved wife. The reputation, in the case of Adventurers, tends to be along the lines of "free-wheeling sybarite," "paradoxically-reclusive playboy," "wealthy playa," "gentleman bastard", "arriviste", "parvenue", "vixen," and "femme fatale." The less-adventurous are likely to throw epithets at such venturesome types, such as "bad boy," "wolf," "creep," and so on. Not that the characters would notice such insults - the lioness does not turn whenever a little dog barks. Interests and Passions What would your characters be interested in? Those would be your Passions. Think of something your character loves doing that is part of their Career. A championship motorbike racer would love redlining their wheels to go as fast as possible. A hustler would love to go right into the thick of some social event,go right up to the most dangerous person in the room, and lie through their teeth - and have that mover and shaker believe every word. Pick three Passions. One of those Passions must be central to your Career. This is essential. A world-leading surgeon is going to put Saving Lives as a core Passion. It's interesting to have one negative Passion, and typically those can be along the lines of Never Get Caught, Risks Are For Cowards and Come Out On TOp, No Matter What. A favourite negative Passion for first responders and lifesavers is Be Seen To Be The Hero, and honestly this has got so many of them into trouble because it leads to top cops framing people just to keep their arrest quotas at the top of the league, medics going rogue and turning into modern day Harold Shipmans, and star athletes turning to anabolic steroids later in their careers, as their aging bodies find themselves no longer able to keep up with the competition. Lastly, their one remaining Passion should be something which keeps dragging them away from their Careers. A high-ranking bureaucrat is hardly going to make that step from being eighteenth in line to Chief Accountant and instead embrace the life of a lion tamer ... or even a lumberjack ... unless they have a Passion which leads them away from their day job. What Passion would so consume you that it would spirit you away to some far-flung part of the world? What Passion would have you driving through the Atacama Desert, with a dozen pings on your phone from Doreen back in Sales asking if you're coming back to work next Monday? Skills We're going to look at Skills next week; but there are a few things which need addressing here. Modern Mythras has access to some Skills which are not in the Mythras Core Rulebook. Computers, Demolitions, Electronics, Sensors, Knowledge, and Research are right at the top of the list. Firearms turn up among the Combat Styles. Knowledge replaces Lore, and Research augments appropriate Knowledge Skills. A character can use Research to obtain information fron amywhere: you can carry hundreds of gigabytes' worth of documents in PDF and epub form in modern phones and microSD cards, whole libraries' worth of knowledge. Nowadays, one cellphone can access, and carry, more knowledge than several Libraries of Alexandria. All at your fingertips. Urban and Suburban Cultures and Subcultures are very unlikely to have Locale as a Standard Skill. Criminal, Militant, and Underground Subcultures can be assumed to have Streetwise as a Standard Skill, with Locale as a Professional Skill. We haven't touched upon magic, psionics, the supernatural, or superpowers here. Up to this point, the emphasis has been on skill-based approaches. The supernatural and weird stuff will come in later on. This is a look at the characters as skilled, competent, daring, yet all too human people. We can move on to mind reading and conjuring up storms afterwards. I'm taking a cue from Berin Kinsman's game DoubleZero, which is a beautiful non-Mythras game system available through Lightspress Media. DoubleZero focuses strongly on skill-based adventures in the modern game, but it can be used for gaming in historical eras, or cinematic action movie settings, or even in gaming soap opera dramas with dishy doctors, hunky firefighters and lifeguards, and the sultry Girl Next Door with a reputation for using and discarding every man she sees. For each of these Careers, only three Standard Skills and three Professional Skills will be listed. This leaves four slots open for each category to fill with Skill Points. By the way, you can use the Skill Points allocation system from Mythras, or use the Skill Pyramid from Mythras Companion. However you choose to distribute those Skill Points, the skills listed are core skills for each Career, with the rest being optional to you. As usual, Customs and Native Tongue get +40% free. This list does not cover Combat Styles. You can assume everybody here knows how to handle at least one firearm, either because they were given training as part of their job, or because they went for training for self-defence with a private firearms training instructor at some local gun range. Athlete Athletics, Endurance, Willpower Acrobatics, Courtesy, Oratory Celebrity Dance, Influence, Sing Courtesy, Musicianship, Oratory Detective (includes bounty hunters and paranormal investigators) Insight, Perception, Streetwise Bureaucracy, Sleight, Track Engineer Brawn, Perception, Willpower Electronics, Engineering, Knowledge (optionally, swap out Electronics for Mechanic) Law Enforcement (Police, Federals) Influence, Perception, Unarmed Bureaucracy, Knowledge (Law), Oratory Criminal (includes Assassin, Gangster, Grifter, Hacker, Sex Worker, Smuggler, Thief, Vigilante) Deceit, Stealth, Streetwise Commerce, Lockpicking, Sleight Journalist (includes citizen journalists, bloggers, vloggers and so on) Insight, Perception, Stealth Art (journalism), Oratory, Research Medic Endurance, First Aid, Perception Knowledge (Medicine), Medicine, Survival Military (includes Pilot, Sailor, Soldier) Athletics, Perception, Unarmed Demolitions, Engineering, Survival Scientist Insight, Perception, Willpower Research, at least one Knowledge (some science field), Teach Secret Agent (includes Undercover Agent) Deceit, Streetwise, Stealth Culture, Disguise, Sleight Other Careers There are so many other career options. Literally every job on Earth. It's not about the actual thing you do, as such, as much as it's about how it shapes your individual approach to life. There might not be much appeal in putting a hotel receprionist through scenarios out of a Hollywood action thriller, but sometimes it can be entertaining to put such a fish-out-of-water civilian character through the wringer and see what emerges from the other side. Look at Sarah Connor at the start of The Terminator as compared to Sarah Connor towards the end of T2. So pick a character, think of their Culture (where they grew up), and their Career (how the world sees them), and next week we'll look at those Skills. It'll be a bit on the shorter side - so many of the Skills are effectively unchanged from Mythras Core - but there are enough changes to warrant a good long look at what you'll need to play in the modern world.

Thank you!

Mythras set in a modern game can look so different to games set in more traditional fantasy settings. Even contemporary settings such as After The Vampire Wars has elements of urban fantasy, but a modern setting combined with a Mythras engine can incorporate elements of science fiction, horror, or even mysteries. Let's look at the Cultures available to modern characters - there are Urban, Suburban, and Rural, but these can be divided into subcultures - Urban, into Criminal and Militant, Suburban into Underground, and Rural into Off The Grid and Wandering. Urban The world's human population has tended to cluster in cities. Cities, towns, and similar locations are crowded, usually filthy, smelly, and often the driving force behind their civilisations' advancements. Cities are also the traditional centres of power, particularly capital cities which are the centres of civil governments and the highest courts in the land. Skills Standard Skills Deceit, Drive, Influence, Insight, Perception, Stealth, Unarmed. Example Combat Styles Civic Defense, Close Quarters Combat, Fighting In Built Up Areas, Self Defence. Professional Skills Bureaucracy, Commerce, Computer, Engineering, Knowledge, Mechanisms, Research. Cultural Passions - Loyalty to your fam - Represent your people - Protect your assets, financial and otherwise The Urban Voice The first I heard about the trouble was when my sister posted to Facebook. She put a video up on Messenger for me, and that was when I saw it for the first time - the big, ugly flying drone which took out that armoured truck. We were chatting about it on Whatsapp when those Feds came out of the woodwork and confiscated the phones of everybody in the area at the time. So I took her video, and made it viral. There was no way those MiBs could make the evidence of their crimes disappear on me. Criminal Criminals are people who break the law. Honestly, that's practically everybody. The law is there to be broken, sometimes. Some people believe in honour among thieves; other people don't. Criminals can be sane but evil; opportunistic; scheming; desperate; sometimes sociopathic. But this is the subculture of people who make a career out of illegal activity - organised crime members running rackets, career burglars, counterfeiters selling fake designer goods, drug dealers, sex workers, scammers ... you name it. Skills Standard Skills Athletics, Brawn, Deceit, Drive, Evade, Stealth, Unarmed. Example Combat Styles Drive-By, Muscle In, Self Defence. Professional Skills Commerce, Culture, Gambling, Knowledge, Lockpicking, Sleight, Streetwise. Cultural Passions - Chase that payday - Keep your friends close - Omerta The Criminal Voice Look, I never did what they say I did, Your Honour. I was just waiting on that street corner, with a package a friend had given for me to hold onto while he went into the house next door. Yeah, the boarded up old house covered in graffiti. How was I to know it was drugs, man? I don't know what those two undercovers rolling by the corner seventeen times told you, I never touch the stuff! Hey, sometmes I do wish I'd gone down the road my brother took, though. He's a second storey artist. Almost no place he couldn't get into. Mind you, he's doing the fourth year of a ten stretch so I guess he should have put in more training in running fast than in climbing, maybe. Militant Some people are not content with their lot. For some reason or other, they want to smash everything down. From homegrown terrorists who want to be internet famous to protestors who block major thoroghfares and stop commuters getting to their workplaces, to karens driven by hubris and a mobile phone camera, to ex-military snipers shooting at civilians from the back of a car, militants are angry, driven, and violent. Skills Standard Skills Brawn, Conceal, Drive, Evade, Perception, Stealth, Willpower. Example Combat Styles Close Quarters Combat, Combat Sniper, Drive-By, Knife FIghting. Professional Skills Craft, Culture, Demolitions, Engineering, Mechanisms, Oratory, Streetwise. Cultural Passions - Hate the Enemy Civilisation - Hurt People - Make Somebody Pay The Militant Voice Look, they call me and my crew vigilantes, but we're only trying to keep the streets safe. Have you seen them lately? They're crawling with all sorts of criminal scum, and it's our job to do what the cops can't do, and we've got to go in there and take the trash out. Suburban The suburbs are far from the streets of the inner city, but that doesn't mean that there's nothing going on there. Sometimes, the strangest people gather behind closed doors even as their envious neighbours keep spying on them through twitching net curtains. Skills Standard Skills Conceal, Deceit, Drive, Influence, Perception, Unarmed, Willpower. Example Combat Styles Self Defence, and three other Combat Styles. Keep them surprising. Nothing's going to chock your players than to see that harlmess non-player character soccer Mom suddenly come over like Sarah Connor and pull an assault rifle out of the trunk of her car. Professional Skills Pick seven Professional Skills. Make them surprising; your peaceful-looking suburbanite could surprise you with an in-depth knowledge of Acting, Disguise, Sleight and Stealth, or their knowledge of how to run an illegal cannabis grow in their back yard. Cultural Passions - Keep It In The Family - Protect The Neighbourhood - Watch Strangers The Suburban Voice It's a lot quieter out here than in the inner city, buddy. That means everybody round here knows everybody, and we're all up in each other's business. You're a stranger to these parts, so on behalf of the Citizens' Committee, we're going to keep a close eye on you, pal. Underground The suburbs are a hotbed of closed-circle activity. Everything from swinging parties to actual occult rituals, chances are you'll find some group of suburbanites going at it as though the world were coming to an end. They are closed minded, secretive, and mistrustful of most strangers. And they are connected - if anything happens to one of them, everybody knows about it; and if a kindly stranger jumps in and helps out someone in distress, they become somewhat of a local hero. There is never any middle ground. Skills Standard Skills As for Suburban. Example Combat Styles As for Suburban. Professional Skills As for Suburban. Cultural Passions - Keep It Behind Closed Doors - Protect The Secret - Close Ranks If One Of Your Circle Gets Busted The Underground Voice Okay, here's the thing. I'm not going to take you into the back room until you promise to do two things. First, you've gotta leave your hangups at the front door back there, right? Second, when you go in, put your car keys in the big bowl in the centre of the room. I'll get to that shortly. I promise. Is your blindfold comfy? RIght, then, here we go. Rural Out in The Sticks, The Boondocks, The Back O'Beyond, whatever you want to call it. People are fewer and further between, you are more likely to encounter an animal than a person on your morning commute, and the affairs of the leaders of nations seem like a fantasy. Rural people know what's really important, and they band together if there's trouble of any sort. Skills Standard Skills Athletics, Boating, Brawn, Endurance, Locale, Perception, Unarmed. Example Combat Styles Basic Fisticuffs, One-Handed Firearms, Two-Handed Firerarms, Knife Fighting. Professional Skills Commerce, Survival, and Track. Pick another four, at random, to reflect the fact that a lot of rural people pick up the oddest skills in the name of self-sufficiency. Cultural Passions - Care For Your Land - Keep Strangers Out - Circle The Wagons In An Emergency The Rural Voice Well, son, I can't rightly say where that thing went. Could've gone down to the Williams farm, or taken a sharp left and gone up the road that takes you right back to the big town of Tolerance, twenty miles thataway. Yes, I think that might be where they went. I suggest you go and follow it, understand? Off The Grid Sometimes, you just have to get away from it all, and find some out of the way place so remote that nobody can find you or track you down. No cell coverage. No internet. No power, beyond maybe a little generator in a shed out the back. No running water. Who knows what kinds of crazies set up their homes in such places ... Skills Standard Skills As Rural. Example Combat Styles As Rural. Professional Skills As Rural, except swap out one skill for Demolitions if you are creating some swivel-eyes Unabomber type. Cultural Passions - Get Off My Lawn - Get Off My Lawn - Get Off My Goddamn Lawn The Off The Grid Voice *smashes window* *sound of an AR-15 being racked* You Feds'll never take me alive! Wandering Some people live for the road. They are the ultimate in living off the grid. The perfect example is the literary character of Jack Reacher - always living out of a suitcase, metaphorically speaking. Wanderers can either be living like survivalist Ray Mears, or form part of a caravan of travelling folk following a route, such as funfair carnies. Skills Standard Skills Athletics, Boating, Drive, and Ride. Pick any three other Standard Skills. Deceit and Insight are always good. Example Combat Styles As for Rural. Professional Skills As for Off The Grid. Cultural Passions - Keep Moving - Keep Your Head Down - Keep Yourself To Yourself The Urban Voice Hey, don't mind me. I'm just passing through. Modern Cultures Your characters can come from a broad variety of different Cultures in the modern game, as compared to the four simple Cultures from Mythras Core Rulebook. You can have fun creating characters from the above Cultures, or mix and match and come up with Cultural backgrounds of your own - Police, Military, First Responder, Academia, the Clergy ... If you can think about it, I'm sure you'll have a great time creating it.

The cover image this week is of a landmark district in an American coastal town, Cape May, New Jersey. So let's take a look at the basic unit of any Mythras adventure, the player character. Since pretty much every sentient being on Earth is going to be human, we can stick to the human template for characteristic and attribute generation as presented in Mythras. No elves, halflings, orcs, goblins or Tolkienesque creatures. After The Vampire Wars presents rules for Fae, Vampires, Werewolves and so on. We can look at non-human beings in a Mythras Modern setting later - for right now, all the characters, and antagonists and non-player characters, are likely to be human. Before we enter the Twilight Zone, it is important to establish a baseline of what I laughably call "normality." Characteristics and Attributes The characteristic generation system outlined in Mythras, page 6, works just great for a modern setting. Create your character's basic STR, CON, SIZ, DEX, INT, POW, and CHA the same as in Mythras. There are no Magic Points. Use the term "Prana Points" from Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across The Parallels. You can also use the Tenacity rules from that sourcebook, if you don't have Mythras Companion. Other Attributes are just the same: Luck Points, Hit Points, Movement and so on. Standard Skills Page 11 of Mythras introduces every character's Standard Skills. Use the list on page 11, with one exception: Locale. It's highly likely that Locale skill won't be part of their repertoire of skills. The advent of supermarkets in the latter half of the 20th century saw a steep decline in people's ability to hunt and forage in the wild for food, and the introduction of online shopping effectively killed off Forage skill for good, apart from a handful of people in organisations such as the Scouts and Guides, people with military training, and a few weird people who insist in living off the grid. What skill replaces Locale as a Standard Skill will be covered in a future chapter, Skills In Modern Mythras. Cultures What sort of Cultures will one expect to find in a modern Mythras game? The most common are Urban, Suburban, and Rural, but there are others: Underground, Militant, Wandering, Criminal, and Off The Grid. Each Culture and Subculture will have its own Cultural Passions, Cultural Skills, and Voice - and next week, we'll cover those in detail. One thing - as well as the Culture you come from, you can also be more specific, and indicate where on Earth you come from. An American from the Deep South will view the world differently to a Brit from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a French sommelier who works in a Paris cafe, an Australian train conductor, and a Delhi jitney driver. All Professions come from Urban Cultures, but each Terrestrial Culture has its own unique vibe, worldview, and Voice. This means that you can play a character from your home town and cultural background, and your character's worldview can be your own; or you can choose an authentic, realistic lifestyle completely other than yours, and live through their eyes. Youtube vlogger, parish priest of a small village in Kent, ex-US Marine, plasterer from Chepstow, motorbike courier from Cape May ... you're an adventurer, and in this game you will be walking a mile in the shoes of people you could bump into just around the corner.

Let's open up the doors to your imagination, and take a stroll. - You're a bunch of ex-military types, all surviving members of your unit. You're the squad leader, and you and your buddies are driving along a country lane to the Badger's Drift, the pub in town. Tonight, however, your weekly trip down the pub is interrupted by a brilliant light lancing up into the sky. It's coming from a saucer-shaped vehicle which is sitting in the middle of the road ahead. - You're a hypnotherapist. Your new client has just turned your world upside down. 'My husband,' she has just said. 'I think he's trying to kill me.' - You're hanging around the apartment block where you all live. One of your buddies is demonstrating a weird new ability of theirs - they can practically predict the future. They've persuaded you all to put in bids for tomorrow night's lottery. Two unmarked black Cadillacs suddenly roll up. They don't look like the local drug dealers' cars - they drive Lexuses. Four men pile out of the Cadillacs. They are practically identical - black suits, black fedora hats, white shirts, black ties. Black shades. They are all tall, slender, and gaunt, like undertakers. They walk funny as they approach your crew. What do you do? And what game are you playing? Well, what you do depends on your characters, your backgrounds, and your training. But the game you're playing ... is Mythras. Modern Setting The background for the game doesn't really matter. Whether you're riding a destrier to Castle Porovel in the Principality of Lambida, a flycycle tooling along at Mach 2 across the Great Plain to meet the Grass Kings of RIngworld, or a quadbike through the New Forest for a rendezvous with the Lymington Ley Line Explorers, Mythras can be used for them all. The focus for the next few weeks' worth of blogs is on a modern setting. Ideally, the stories can be set anywhere in the last ten, or up to ten years into the future. As of the publication of this blog, that's anything from January 2012 to December 2032. But if you like, you can set your stories in any time period which people call "modern" - from the 1950s through to the 2040s, if you like. What makes this era familiar? - Transportation: The modern game has modes of transportation available which allow you to travel anywhere on the globe; from bicycles to aeroplanes, from quadbikes to helicopters, from roller skates to trucks. Want to have your characters travel from Holyhead to Paris? They can hop onto the Dublin ferry, and from there arrange for overseas or air travel to France, or they can go by road to Manchester and hop on a plane from Manchester Airport. The world is only a few hours away. - Communications: The internet has opened the world to your fingertips. Everything from emails to VOIP chats, ro old fashioned phone calls, texts and social media posts. If someone has an online presence, you can reach them. - Information: Along with the ability to connect with anyone, anywhere, the internet has brought the world's knowledge to the palm of your hand. Your cellphone can access vast libraries of data, knowledge, and literature, from all over the world. You just need to know where to look, and how to look. - Business: We live in the age of capitalism, where a modern businessman can run their entire life from the comfort of their cellphone. From keeping track of your finances to actually paying for goods and services contactlessly, But even before our cells became such versatile tools of commerce, we're familiar with credit and debit cards, loans and overdrafts, and paying for goods with plastic. - Weapons: There is an entire supplement, Mythras Firearms, which looks at these. Guns, guns, guns. Something which would make fantasy settings far more interesting, and the fight scenes all too brief. A Look At All Things Modern This is the start of a series, looking at all the different options available to Games Masters of Mythras who want to adapt the Core Rulebook to a modern setting. In the coming weeks, we'll be looking at modern backgrounds, modern skills, modern Passions, and a good long look at the supplements Mythras Companion and Mythras Firearms. Then we'll be looking at different kinds of modern settings, and presenting ideas for different kinds of modern scenarios and campaigns to whet your appetite. So settle into the driver's seat of your favourite car, turn on your entertainment centre, and listen to your favourite tunes as you set off on a long trip through all things Mythras Modern.