Sourge of the Soulless

I didn't have a Nuts & Bolts ready for this week. My writing continues to come in fits and starts and often with great difficulty. But I do have this. It's the elevator pitch for a setting. A different take on something like the World of Darkness. I dunno if I'll ever have the chance to expand on it (or if I even want to, sometimes ideas like this are best when kept simple and unembellished). Either way, I present it today in lieu of a N&B so that there's at least something this week....

Image Source: https://www.deviantart.com/art/Liberty-Of-Soul-369815852

Souls.

It's all about souls.

When mankind was birthed into the world there were a finite supply of souls allocated to humankind. When a man, woman, or child died its soul was freed to return to heaven, elysium, or wherever you would believe souls to reside between lives. When a child was born a soul descended from that realm to live in the world of flesh once more.

But humankind's population exploded.

The number of souls dwelling in the beyond dwindled and the time a soul had to rejuvenate itself shortened. These tired souls were more belligerent, more callous, and less in touch with nature.

In time mankind's numbers exceeded the souls available.
That's when everything changed.

Children were born with the souls of animals.
The changing ones.

Children were born with souls from the spirit realms.
The magi.

Children were born with souls stolen from the realms of faerie.
The fey-touched.

And others ... others were brought back from death's door. Brought back to life after their soul had departed.
The soulless ones.

A scourge to the living. Enemies to all.

Nuts & Bolts #139 - Hacking the Cypher System - Damage Tracks (Again)

The damage spiral from the Hordes miniatures game.

Two weeks ago I posted about an alternate damage track for games where insanity and mental degeneration was needed. It also works well for games of social intrigue where you are trying to unnerve your opponents and force them into actions that are advantageous to you. Since then I've been thinking that with just one more alternate damage track for Speed you could transform Cypher's heath system pretty radically. Yes, it would mean more bookkeeping, and yes it's a bit more complicated, but consider the advantage of characters having more than just a single way to be taken out of action, and having more thematic effects from various types of stress and harm.

The Core rules for Impaired, Debilitated, and Dead work very well for Might, with the character becoming Impaired after half their Might is gone, Debilitated when they hit zero points, and Dead if they suffer any additional damage. As always a GM can have creatures who have special attacks (poison, necromancy, etc.) that can bypass the pool points and deal damage direct to their Might damage track. Coupled with the Mental Damage Track from two weeks back (click here) we're 2/3 of the way done!

Speed pool is all that remains and a speed damage track is actually pretty easy. The following kick in when a character's speed pool reaches 1/2 its normal value and then when they reach zero. Alternately special attacks like stun weapons, sleeping gas, painkillers, and the like may move the character directly down the damage track.

• Fatigued - The character is starting to tire. The character finds that actions take a little more of their reserves to execute.
• Gathering one's energy is difficult. A fatigued character must spend 1 additional point when using any special ability take has a cost. 
• Exhausted - The character's reserves are spent, they may be in otherwise good physical health (e.g. no Might damage) but their exhaustion shows in shaking muscles and general exhaustion.
• Exhaustion robs the character of much needed mobility. They are treated as having an Inability in all tasks related to movement including Speed Defense, running, swimming, jumping, etc. In addition all movement rates are halved. 
• Unconscious - Insensate. Asleep. Knocked-out. 
• The character is out and unable to perceive their surroundings, defend themselves, and the like. They'll wake after a duration equal to their next available recovery roll, and may well not know where they are. 

Taken in conjunction with the previously proposed mental damage tracks players will be encouraged to build more well rounded characters. It also allows the GM a wider variety of options for disabling characters without killing them or ruling directly from GM Intrusion to render them unconscious or otherwise at the mercy of enemies or situations. 

Nuts & Bolts #138 - Review: Kamandi Challenge #9

Kamandi Challenge #10 is out today! So let's discuss #9. Spoilers henceforth.

Prior issue reviews:

• Review: Kamandi Challenge #1
• Review: Kamandi Challenge #2
• Review: Kamandi Challenge #3
• Review: Kamandi Challenge #4
• Review: Kamandi Challenge #5
• Review: Kamandi Challenge #6
• Review: Kamandi Challenge #7
• Review: Kamandi Challenge #8

Vitals

Published By: DC Comics • 31 pages • $3.99 • full color • Art: Kevin Eastman & Freddie Williams II • Words: Tom King

What's In It?

Spoilers ahead folks last warning!




OK, where were we? Oh, right, treading water (literally and figuratively) and at the mercy of a sea serpent... And then everything went black and white. Before I even get into the story I need to talk about the art. I've spoken my mind about the art because I'm trying to review this series from all angles and objectively. The art has been everything from great to middling in quality. Perhaps if I were an artist I'd be more prone to upgrade or downgrade the art in certain issues, but even at its subjective worst it's been better than anything I could muster.

It's also been consistently in full color. Generally rather richly so. Not so this issue, which when I first flipped it open in the store struck me as odd, and then I realized I knew this art. I don't know crap about 99% of comic art, but I instantly recognized Kevin Eastman's handiwork. Hyper detailed black and white with a lot of shading. A rounded look to everything that makes thing look softer and stranger. And technology that looks like it borders on organic. After last issue the art for this made my dread melt away, I was ready to read!

Which is good because this story turned out pretty awesome. It's not perfect, but it's the kind of story that makes you want to read more. That makes you anxious for the next issue, and makes you curse the month wait to get it. Kamandi wakes from darkness, presumably swallowed whole by the serpent from the last issue, although this is now explicitly shown. He is in a rough-hewn chamber with several mutant animals. There's a door, and shortly after he wakes it opens and allows a robot (or maybe an alien wearing strange armor?) into the room. Without a word the robot takes of the mutants and leaves, the door closing behind. Kamandi's attempt to stop it is thwarted with little more effort than a backhand from the robot that sends the boy hurling across the chamber.

They, the prisoners, soon settle into routine. Kamandi trains and every time the robot arrives to take another of the prisoners he attempts to stop it, and every time he is defeated with almost casual ease. As the days tick by Kamandi trains his body as his cellmates dwindle in numbers, always he tries to save them and always he is defeated.

Until he is alone.

And finally the robot comes for him.

We never get so much as a hint of where the prisoners are taken or what lies beyond the strange door. The robot never utters a sound. Kamandi never gives up trying to fight, but in the end he too is taken into that white light beyond the portal.

The story is simple enough, but it is the struggle and the conversations that each of the prisoners has that makes this issue so interesting to me. They pose ideas of what lies beyond; a perfect world, or a never ending hell of similar rooms. The imagination of  the reader is left to fill in the story until the next issue resolves it, and while in the grade whole this may not end up the greatest issue of the series, that open ended nature makes it the greatest until #10 releases.

Rating: 90% - An great story that captures your attention and imagination.