The Rite of the Diffraction of the Baletl

For my scenario "The Gate to Hmakuyal" at Con of the North this past weekend, I created "The Rite of the Diffraction of the Baletl", one of the secret rituals of the Temple of Lord Hru'u, Supreme Principle of Change. The rite teaches humility, revealing the impermanence and irrelevance of personal and clan status before Lord Hru'u, as well as demonstrating the illusory character and interchangability of the person, self, and memory (i.e., the Báletl, or Spirit-Soul).

This ritual is only carried out in certain Inner Shrines within the temple. The temple typically invites groups of acolytes to participate in the ritual as a reward for devotion to Lord Hru'u and dedication to their studies. Pilgrims and devotees, particularly high status individuals who are financial patrons of the temple, may also be invited to participate in this ritual, although never at the same time as acolytes.

Once successfully cast, the spirit-selves of those seated in mediation are diffracted and shared among the presiding priests and participants. Fragments of memories, desires, experiences, and secrets are randomly transferred among the seated participants. The presiding priests' memories and experiences are NOT shared however.

***

Two priests preside over the ritual. The participants must fast for at least 12 hours prior to the ritual, and must be seated in meditation for at least three hours. Once this has occurred, the junior priest will need to make a Chusetl roll of +3, and the senior priest a Hlakme roll of +3 to fully instantiate the rite.

Each seated participant should roll 1dF.

• On a + roll, the participant gains an extremely useful memory from another person seated in mediation. This takes the form of a persistent additional aspect. The memory's potency as an aspect lasts for one scenario. It can be invoked once per session for free. 
• On a blank face roll, the participant gains a memory which lasts for the remainder of the session. It can be invoked once for free.
• On a (-) roll, the participant gains a terrifying or otherwise negative memory. This counts as a Moderate Consequence. 

Night Magic in Thraya

It's called the Spell Corpus, even though Latin is not spoken on Tekumel. This week I converted 25 spells from Swords & Glory Vol 2 for use in Fate of Tekumel. The approach I took with the conversions was inspired by the Fate Freeport Companion, an implementation of Fate that enables the creation of discrete, specific magical spells. My focus in the last few days was on converting Tekumel's "universal" spells to Fate. Universal spells are the 25 most common spells that anyone in the Five Empires - regardless of temple - could be expected to learn.

My next step will be to convert Swords & Glory's "generic" spells: those specific spells shared by a group of temples with common thematic interests (e.g., both the temple of Vimuhla and the temple of Karakan have an interest on spells that wreak destruction on an enemy). The last step will be converting "temple" spells: those spells which are the proprietary secrets of one specific temple.    

Now of course with all these great spell conversions, we needed to do another Fate of Tekumel playtest. So we did one on Thursday night, set in the city of Thraya. Each of the PCs chose to create a sorcerer-priest so we could test the magic system. 

But who were the PCs? Well, Lord Máyu hiTunkesh of the Blue Shadow Clan is the Governor of Thraya. He's a Wuru worshiper in a city dedicated to Lord Belkhanu and the other Lords of Stability. His family has controlled the city for hundreds of years. And the clan's not getting any smaller: Lord Máyu has 510 children, 32 wives, and 251 concubines.

Our players decided to create the siblings of one of the Governor's high status concubines. The PCs had been summoned back to the clanhouse Governor's Palace for unknown reasons. But they soon learned that they had been summoned there because their mother had recently died.

Soon the PCs were in the midst of a murder investigation involving poisons derived from Underworld creatures, and following the trail of fungal bread crumbs that led to the ritual festivities being carried out by followers of Hru'u at a wealthy clanhouse in the city. Everyone had some spells to cast, and the finale was both... terrifying and out-of-this-world!

Literally: Phantasms, Terrorization, and The Labyrinth of Elongated Shadows all cast simultaneously at the group of Hru'u worshipers summoning a demon.

Because of some of my custom game aids, the joke name for this session was "Laminations of the Flame Princess."

We'll be continuing to playtest these magic rules at U-Con next week! 

The Grammar of Sunuz

There are four major published works for Tekumel that deal with magic:

• Mitlanyal, Vols. 1-2 - A series of essays describing Pavar's pantheon including the five Gods of Stability, the five Gods of Change, and their respective Cohorts and demons. Mitlanyal also includes information on the Planes, Tsolyani astrology and descriptions of specific spells used by the priests of the various gods.
• Swords & Glory, Vol. 2 - The ultimate simulationist spell-list for magic in Tekumel. This is the most comprehensive spell corpus for modern Tsolyanu.
• The Book of Ebon Bindings - Tekumel's notorious book of demonology; since demons come from elsewhere and must be summoned, this book also discusses magic and the Planes.
• The Tongue of Those Who Journey Beyond: Sunuz (also known as The Grammar of Sunuz) - This text describes what is perhaps the oldest language still spoken on Tekumel: Sunuz, the language of the worshipers of the Pariah Deities. The very script of this language (which includes letters and numbers) is magical, and an understanding of this language and its script still influences magical practice on Tekumel today.      

I've read most of the Mitlanyal, and this weekend I read The Grammar of Sunuz. The Grammar sheds light on many aspects of magic on Tekumel. The text begins strangely enough with an essay on scrying. Its core argument bears a family resemblance to Mao's 1963 essay "Where Do Correct Ideas Come From?" in the sense that it attempts to outline different sources of knowledge. It's an odd introduction, but its placement is important since Sunuz is the language used by worshipers of the three Pariah Deities: She Who is Not To be Named (the Goddess of the Pale Bone), the One Who Is, and the One Other. 

Whereas Tekumel's gods are manifest and imminent, the Pariah Deities dwell in the Planes Beyond. They seek to consume this and other Planes. In this sense their interests and orientations are quite alien to those of the deities of Tekumel, who for the most part are involved in the affairs of this Plane and arguably "care" to greater and lesser degrees about what happens to their worshipers. None of this is the case with the Pariah Deities, however much they reward their worshipers. 

One has to look far (i.e., far into the Planes Beyond) in order to reach, see, and communicate with these inimical deities. The letters and numbers of the script of Sunuz give you the tools for doing that, as well as for protecting oneself from the Pariah Deities' deadly influence. Just ask the tattooed Livyani.

Converting Empire of the Petal Throne's Magical Skills to Fate

Over the last two days, I have converted the EPT priest and magic user "skills" to Fate, using the Fate Freeport Companion as a guide. A few of the items on the skills list are indeed skills, such as the skills that confer the ability to knows 2 ancient languages or knows 2 modern languages, and the astrology skill. Those I am rendering as simple stunts. Here's an example of Astrology as a stunt:

Astrology: Take a +2 to WIS to Create an Advantage while observing the influence of the sun, the four planets, and Tekumel's two moons. This stunt provides insights into the influences and motivations surrounding a person or situation, uncovering a hidden Aspect.

So much for skills that are skills.

Here is an example of a skill that is a spell.

Telekinesis (Cost, Per Scene): Roll CHA to use your mind to move a solid object through air or water, but not through walls, etc. Weapons or missiles may not be moved this way, but the spell itself can be used to do harm. Target defends with DEX to get out of the way of the spell.

Some of the text in both these skills quotes the description in EPT. Neither is an exact replication of the EPT mechanics, however; Fate works differently as a system than EPT. For example, the description of Telekinesis in EPT says you can use it twice per day. We've described it for Fate as a Per Scene spell, meaning it can be used once per scene; the next level up is Per Session, meaning the spell could be used once per game session; the next level up from that is Per Scenario, meaning that the spell could be used once per scenario.

I'm thinking that people creating characters will be able to purchase three spells for one point of Refresh. Starting spells are selected at this cost from either/both of the priest and magic user skills lists. This is the cost for the first seven "skills" on each list. If you want some of the skills that are higher on the lists than the first seven on each list, the Refresh cost will be higher.

Hopefully we'll have the chance to test out some of these conversions today at CONvergence!  We may also do some conversions from the actual EPT spell list (as opposed to skill list) while we create characters.

Time for Lord Qon, Time for Fireworks

I spent the afternoon at CONvergence. When I left for the con, I felt sad leaving home. It had been a beautiful, cool morning, and the family had spent a pleasant morning on the couch.

It was parallel play.

The Anubian Ambassador was sitting in Carlos' lap, while he watched the World Cup and Wimbledon. For my part, I sat next to them reading about the mysteries of Lord Belkhanu and his faithful Cohort, Lord Qon. (And we might add that Lord Qon and the Ambassador have a bit in common).

But back to the Con we went. 

It was a nice respite from people complaining online about inclusion in gaming. Imagine that! I was with 7,000 people for an entire afternoon, and nobody complained about that one paragraph in Basic D&D supposedly being "unnecessary"!

In the afternoon, Rachel Kronick of the Blade & Crown blog was part of a great panel on how to have a game and - a life - as you get older. Really, the panel was all about how to make sure you can persist in gaming as life gets more complex, which it invariably does as you age. I know that when my dad passed away, I stopped gaming for almost a year, and that's just one kind of complication that gamers face in later life.  

I can't say I walked away from the panel with any magic bullets, other than a greater awareness of the importance of:

• Making explicit agreements at the table about the schedule, frequency, and length of gaming sessions;
• Taking turns running things, so no one feels stressed or overwhelmed;
• Carefully considering the style and format of games we choose to play:
• Are there workarounds or shortcuts that reduce GM preparation or facilitate greater improvisation?
• Are there games - Apocalypse World with its playsheets, and Technoir with its city templates - whose design makes it easier for both the players and the GM to get a game going"

So that was good, as was the wonderful moderation of Beth Kinderman. Yes, a CONvergence panel in which the moderator actually moderated. Beth engaged the panelists and audience in a way that enriched the discussion. No huge digressions, no audience talking over the panelists!

I came home and had dinner with the family. Later the three of us went to see the fireworks. Before and after the fireworks, I set out to convert Empire of the Petal Throne's priest and magic user "skills" into spells for Fate of Tekumel.  I was surprised to discover (re-discover?) that some of the original EPT "skills" were quite powerful - especially items 8 and up on each list!  

We'll be testing these conversions at the table tomorrow!