Invincible Armada

[Jay_Loomis]

It's 1586. The Queen has heard rumors that the Spaniards are amassing a naval force unlike any the world has seen to strike at England. In her desperation to defend the land she loves, she turns to the wise women and cunning men, the magicians of her land, to stop the threat. Once persecuted, those who deal in magic are now England's only hope.

Each player takes the part of a powerful magician in revealing the untold story of the Spanish Armada, and the making of the British Empire. Frail and sickly from the trials of their arts, each magician travels with a strong companion to the far reaches of the world to spy on the Spaniards, to foil their plans, and lift the cloud of doom that hangs over England.

But the Spanish sit not idly by while Elizabeth casts her net of spies to the seven seas. A new inquisition has formed. Headed by Cristobal, the Accuser, they are sworn in the name of God to destroy all the abomintations that serve the harlot Queen.



That should do for a teaser. More to come.

[matthijs]

Looks cool. Will there be a GM?

[adgboss]

another game with heavy political over tones. Awesome! I am eager to see how magic is handled. I also like the description of it taking a toll on people's bodies. Very good visual there.

Sean

[Jay_Loomis]

Honestly not sure about a GM yet. I'm thinking no, but the week is still young!

[Jay_Loomis]

So it's totally not going to get finished in time, but:

You play a magician, but you're wasted away from channeling mystic powers. As a result, you end up telling stories about your companion, who isn't magic, but is tough in other, more conventional ways.

There is no centralized GM. Everyone contributes to everyone else's story in a structured way (keep reading).

Magic is codified using the symbology of the seven known plantets (this includes: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, the Moon). This doesn't mean that the magicians draw their powers from the planets, but the planets describe the "personalities" of the various types of energy that magician do tap into.

When you go to play, you and the others (no more than four, I'm thinking) sit down and talk about what each character's assignment is. This setup part of the game is freeform with final authority over a magician's assignment belonging to its player.

Then you randomly determine who starts for the session (or work it out however you like). Everybody gets two types of cards to start with: spell/obstacle cards and ritual cards.

When you frame a scene you put out two octagonal ritual cards. Each ritual card has eight sections (each corresponding to an edge of the card). Each section contains one of the magical planetary symbols and one descriptive word). You frame the scene by putting two edges together and incorperating the descriptive words from both touching sections. So one description might say "ambush" and the other might say "injury". As the controller of the ritual cards, you get to decide to which side of the conflict the description applies. Usually that means that bad things happen to the Spaniards and their allies and good things happen to your companion, but whatever.

Your other cards are double ended. Read one way you get the list of magical symbols needed to complete a ritual. Read the other way you get descriptions of obstacles (e.g. "Enemy Artillery" or "Powerful Henchman". To resolve a scene, you must match pairs of the symbols on the ritual cards so that each symbol on one of your spell card is represented by a pair of matched symbols. You then play the spell card and resolve the scene according to the guidelines on it.

Other players have the opportunity to play obstacle cards to introduce adversity to the scene. Doing so has a (currently undefined) mechanical advanctage for their own scenes giving them incentive to do so.

So basically you go around the table manipulating the octagonal ritual cards until the controlling player matches the symbols and calls down some magic.

Dice are rolled to get control of ritual cards and rotate them. Some circumstances can force a cut to one of the other players' scene. The size of the ritual you pull of counts toward the target number for the big climax scene for the adventure. When you have enough points to make it happen you get your climax scene andresolve it.

More rules and stuff need to be nailed down. But that's where I'm going. Like I said, there's basically no way it can happen before Sunday night. But I do think I'll keep working on it.

[hamsterprophet]

Right on. I'm digging this alot, and I hope you do get it done!

-Nathan

[Doug Ruff]

[monkeyking]

New Inquisition? The Inquisition was in full force 1834! It was barely a spring chicken in 1586.

... and dude, I'm totally playing Prospero.