Being broken (Design Domingo #17)

Once one of your Failed Traumas has maxed out at 5, you don’t have to check your unkept dice when rolling that Trauma any more. You just flee, fight, or freeze as if you’d failed the roll. The only exception is when your Hardened Trauma is enough to void the effects anyway, in which case you suffer no effects at all. Otherwise, you have your short-term freak-out, increase no Traumas, and life goes on. Of course, it’s not really that simple. The first time you hit Failed 5 in a single Trauma, you pick up some kind of mental aberration. You and the GM should work out your insanity together. Note that a permanent madness should play off your personality and your Virtues and their complements. Also keep in mind that insane people can often get along quite well in the world, if with occasional struggles and difficulties. An automatic freak-out in a Trauma you’ve maxed out on doesn’t give you another aberration. One per Trauma is plenty.

Some permanent forms of madness include:
• Phobia. If something drove you mad, it’s quite likely you’ll develop a debilitating and irrational fear of it. If someone only talks about it or shows you a picture of it, you have to make a Will roll in order to avoid freezing or panicking. If you’re exposed to the thing itself, you automatically freak out regardless of what any dice roll.
• Trauma Bond. This is like a phobia, but instead of the actual stimulus, you get scared around something incidental to the trauma. If your father molested you in the mornings before going out to the fields to work, you might repress your memories of that event but dawn itself would set you off.
• Flashbacks. This is also known as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (or PTSD for short). If you’re exposed to any element that was present during the trauma, you’re in danger of reliving the event. In the example given above, dawn might sometimes be a perfectly okay time of day for you—but other times, it might make you relive the event. Or sometimes you might flash back from hearing footsteps on the threshold, or simply from waking up in a bed that reminds you of the bed where the assault took place. There are many examples of combat veterans who flash back at the sound of metal clanging, or when in a setting similar to that where combat occurred.
• Blackouts. You can slip into a semi-conscious state and simply wander away in an attempt to flee your past. When you come to, you have no recollection of your flight. These blackouts (or “fugue states”) can last for days and cover a lot of territory. You’re usually non-violent and seem pretty dazed—you’re just wandering away. Threatening stimuli usually snap you out of a fugue. So can the presence of friends or trusted individuals.
• Addictive Behaviors. You can smother your memories of the past with any one of the countless chemicals available in this magical and medieval world (even without magic, drugs are by no means the sole property of modernity). Alcohol is a perennial favorite—powerful and easily available. Marijuana, milk of the poppy, and other depressants might appeal to you because they deaden the pain and make everything seem okay. On the other hand, uppers like caffeine or coca leaf give you vital illusions of being in control.
• Philia/Obsession. You may develop an unhealthy affection for an individual, object, or action that you perceive (for whatever reason) to have “saved” you from the trauma. The target of your affection didn’t necessarily have to save you directly ~ you see some sort of salvation connection that isn’t necessarily rational. This philia could result in a desire to constantly be around that person/object/area, or it could result in a compulsive repetition of the saving action. If you said a specific prayer when you were “saved,” you might develop an obsession with that prayer, say it constantly, carry prayer beads at all times, etc.
• Delusions. You believe something that simply isn’t true because it covers up the pain. Delusions in response to trauma can range from flat denial to elaborate confabulations that rationalize or justify the experience.

The author of the game, who has been struggling to find the spoons to apply for disability on the basis of mental illness, wants to remind you (continuing to use and modify Greg Stolze’s words) that going mad is not a cliché- ridden Oscar-grabbing thrill ride of hammy acting. Don’t approach it as an opportunity to get wacky. Respect it for what it is: a fundamental and often unexpected shift in the mechanisms of your own mind. Going mad can leave you naked. It changes your choices, often limiting them until you adjust to simply not thinking the same as other people. It means your mind has been stressed so hard for so long that in the moment of panic, only illogic, symbolism, pure refusal, self-doubt, and/or primal animal reactions remain. Fight with tooth and nail. Flee headlong, abandoning everything and everybody. Or freeze, shut down, turtle up in hopes the threat somehow overlooks you. Once the moment passes, the more insidious side of insanity can emerge. A mental illness does not change or replace your essential character. Instead, it often brings that character to the fore in distorted and disproportionate ways. If you were always cautious, you become recklessly violent—but only if the caution was just a mask for a powerfully repressed impetuousness. If you genuinely were cautious, permanent madness is more likely to come to you as an irrational caution, a disproportionate caution, a caution that makes no logical sense—but which has a meaning to you that transcends logic. Insanity is the absence of your rational side. It is the twisting of options. It is when you cannot choose between reasonable paths because you can no longer judge them. Madness is what you see when you’ve got nothing left to fall back on.

What does chivalry get me anyway? Or sociopathy, for that matter? (Design Domingo #16)

Chivalrous people are recognized by their ideals, behavior, and reputation. Although six different traits are admired, chivalry does not hold a person to have a minimum value in all of the requisite traits, as does religious virtue. Instead, chivalry strives for an average high quality from among them. If a character has a total of 45 or more in those traits which are appropriate to their chosen domain of chivalry (an average of 7 or 8 in each), they may become chivalrous. First, though, they must swear an oath to their lord to always do the following (the oath is the same, regardless of in which domain a character expresses their chivalry): “To protect and succor the widow, the orphan, the poor; not to slay or deny a vanquished and defenseless adversary; not to take part in a false judgment or treason, or to withdraw if it cannot be prevented; to never give evil counsel to another; to help, if possible, a fellow being in distress.” Once they swear this oath, your character gains the benefits of being a chivalrous person. If their total in the requisite traits should ever drop below 45 for any reason, they lose the chivalrous benefits until such a time as their requisite scores once again total 45 or higher.

The six virtues of the battlefield are Generous, Energetic, Modest, Just, Merciful, and Valorous. Martial chivalry gives a supernatural boon called the Armor of Honor, which reduces the damage from each attack that hits those who follow it by 6. In addition, such people gain a +1 bonus on any roll involving social interaction.

The six virtues of the home are Chaste, Energetic, Honest, Modest, Prudent, and Temperate. Domestic chivalry gives a +1 on any roll involving social interaction and, whenever such a character receives money (whether being paid, selling something, performing their occupation, just plain charity, or any other reason), they receive an additional 25%.

The six virtues of the heart are either Chaste or Lustful (depending on the nature of your love), Forgiving, Generous, Honest, Arbitrary, and Reckless. However, the Courts of Love are even more demanding than the chivalry of war or seneschalry; to follow the chivalry of love, a character must have a beloved. The precise nature of the amorous affair is shaped by the individuals involved; it may be chaste or not, as long as it is devoted, consumes much of their time and energy, and is not unrequited. Despite the scandalous nature of adultery, romantic chivalry recalls old Galatic practices of polyamory, and so monogamy is not required. The lover must also have five or more ranks in in three of the following skills: Animal Empathy, Craft, Perform, Diplomacy, Linguistics, Gaming, Listening, or Archetype skills. The beloved, of course, decides which three skills — i.e., those that they find most appealing in a potential mate. At least once per year, the lover must prove their passion for their beloved by doing their bidding, occasionally even under duress. This activity must be played out, either with the party or solitaire. Finally, the lover must entertain their beloved with presents or entertainments worth at least 100 gold pieces per year. Romantic chivalry gives a +5 bonus to any roll which furthers their romance with their beloved. In addition, its devotees receive a +1 bonus to all social rolls for every successful year they have maintained their love affair, even if their love was kept secret throughout the year.

Taken together, a character’s religious and chivalric focus ~ whether or not the character lives up to their ideals ~ are referred to as that character’s alignments. They generally function similarly to D&D and Pathfinder’s alignment systems. If one needed to, one could consider the religious focus to be the equivalent of the moral axis (Good v. Evil) and the chivalric focus that of the ethical axis (Law v. Chaos). A character’s alignments, however, are not the only extreme state your character might find themself in.

Soldiers, bonesaws, and almsgivers know about getting callous. When you’ve seen enough horror, it loses its power to horrify you. The higher one of your Hardened Tramas gets, the more it takes for that kind of stress to rip up your head. Once your Hardened Trauma reaches 10, you’re so jaded and blasé about it that nothing in that category of stress can endanger your mind. This is not a good thing. Mental stress makes us vulnerable. But it also makes us human. If your Hardened Traumas rise too high, you become so completely callous that you are unable to feel fear at all. That’s because you are now cut off from a broad range of emotional experiences that everyone else shares. You’re “hardened” all right: hardened into an emotional fortresses, completely isolated, unable to make a fundamental connection with other human beings.

You’re a sociopath:
~You become a sociopath when you have a score of 10 in two or more Hardened Traumas, or when the total sum of your Hardened Traumas exceeds thirty-five.
~You can no longer gain bonuses from your alignments. You just can’t relate to such intense states of soul and mind anymore.
~You cannot use or benefit from divine magics until you begin to feel again. The gods rely on an empathic connection to grant their power to mortals, and sociopaths slam that particular door shut.

Getting callous towards threats is a dead-end street. Where’s the challenge in being a null? What’s the excitement in deadening your head? It also cuts off options. Your emotional inputs are clogged. True, you don’t get scared when something nasty happens. But you also couldn’t care less when something good happens. You’re so emotionally insulated you can’t feel a damn thing. Nothing is worth doing because you know there is no payoff. No pleasure, no sensation of success, no satisfaction in camaraderie. It all loses meaning. It may be that you dig this for a while. If you approach it as an opportunity to give you and your group interesting problems, maybe there’s some value there. But you can’t maintain it for long. The bonds that hold you to the group don’t last when you’re a walking corpse. Make some trouble, explore this terrain, and then fight your way back to life. When you’re ready to fight back to human feelings, don’t just roll dice. Talk it out. What drove you to this strange place? The rest of your group can help. They might take the roles of other people interacting with you for a bit, asking questions and probing to the heart of where you went wrong. Then roll the dice.

Chivalry in the three domains (Design Domingo #15)

In addition, all religious characters gain a +1 bonus on all social rolls, as the charisma of their devotion impresses all those they meet, if only subconsciously. If a religious character ever fails to maintain their required Virtue values, even by a single point, they immediately lose these benefits.

Many people across the continent of Galatia strive to live and act in accordance with the chivalrous ideal. Some few work to maintain two ideals at once (being both religious and chivalrous knights, for instance), though this is a great challenge not easily met. Centuries ago, early in the reign of Dyonna Vezia, the Warrior Queen of Roses, the great sage Seyort Artwametontas wrote the first descriptions of high chivalry and then illustrated them in epic poems of grand adventure and romance, and his definition of chivalry has formed the basis for their elaboration by less skillful writers and poets since. To Seyort, chivalry embodies the loftiest values of true courage, a passion for justice, elegance, and culture ~ that is, right conduct, sensibility, and the proper handling of personal relationships. These values are then expressed in the two domains of chivalry, which Seyort defined as the battlefield and the home. To be chivalrous is to be civilized in Galatic eyes, and much of the empire’s history has been composed of looking outwards to spread the ideals of chivalry by beating down everyone who disagrees (chivalry, after all, does not preclude violence).

Finding no place for themself in the noisy danger of combat or the slow importance of the home, the nonbinary sage Hwivargin Drynemetontas introduced the Court of Romance to Galatia a couple of centuries ago during the reign of Queen Eliesia the Half-Elven. Queen Eliesia’s kingly human father had forcibly married her mother in order to leverage the ancient fey ties between land and monarch and add the elfin realm of Dalmat to the Empire. This was the courtly atmosphere of Drynemeton (the capital of Galatia) in which Hwivargin extended Seyortite ideas of chivalry into a third domain ~ the heart. Their writings kicked off the popular activity of fine amor, or “courtly love” ~ a principle decree of which is that it is everyone’s duty to flirt with well-spoken guests and to receive flattery from them. Fine amor remains an invention of social outsiders, misfits, the disenfranchised, and poets to recognize and reward those who neither fight nor support. It is love for love’s sake — romantic and passionate love that must be contrasted to the emotionless, political attitude of arranged marriage. Courtly romance gives social power to people who previously had none (or at least very little).

In time, Hwivargin’s Court of Romance has formed the basis of formalized social events known as the Courts of Love. Selected members of a court (usually people of nonbinary gender and/or outsider status ~ many include, for example, the court fool) preside, with everyone else as audience. People may come to this court to inquire of the rules, to complain of their lover (who nonetheless remains anonymous, of course), and/or to receive the judgment of the court whether an action — “a theoretical activity, of course . . .” — is romantically “correct” or not. If the Court of Love condemns an affair, or any activity involved in the affair, it might even rule that the love must be ended!

Part of the allure of courtly love is its forbidden nature. It is directly opposed to the practice of matrimony, for “True Love” is liberating while matrimony is bondage. Thus the most intense of all romances involves a married woman cheating on her husband. The purity of their bliss sets both lovers free from the gross material concerns of a world drained of its magic these past 12 centuries and places them into that rarefied realm of emotional commitment. The fact that adultery is forbidden by both Church and Emperor makes its consummation all the sweeter. But courtly love is not just the work of a back-door lover ~ simple lust is only a base reflection of True Love. Courtly romance is delicate and formalized, and its practitioners are required to go through proscribed stages. Troubadours are an important part of the romantic scene. They write and sing passionate songs that praise a beloved’s beauty, grace, generosity, and chastity. The poems are often disguised, using the names of ancient lovers so as not to name the lady directly. Thus the poet pretends to be entertaining everyone, but in secret sends his love and messages to someone in the court.

There are a number of behaviors expected of lovers in courtly romance. Firstly, they must adore any upon whom their heart might shine in word, thought, and action, with an overwhelming preoccupation. When problems occur and only failure and frustration ensue ~ as is, of course, inevitable ~ the doting lover must be nourished by their agony until love becomes the all-encompassing passion of their life. In fine amor, lovers are subordinate to their beloveds, vassal to the object of their affections. This humble and submissive attitude of the lover was an idea entirely new when Hwivargin first formulated it, at a time when the primacy of one’s desire over the wishes of the one desired was otherwise unshakable and no doubt insufferable in both social and clerical circles, as exemplified by the actions of the queen’s own father. Sadly, this attitude is still a pitifully young idea in many Galatian courts. The deliberate role reversal is a reaction against the bondage imposed by the prevailing attitudes. It exalts Love, transforming it into something new.

Chivalry in any domain supports the protection of the weak by the strong. Before its acceptance, most people lived by the attitude that “might makes right” in all of life. Chivalry seeks to turn that attitude into one of noblesse oblige, the belief that nobility obligates one to behave honorably and benevolently. This definition of chivalry places its emphasis upon refining a person’s duty. A devotee of romance honors all who might be their beloved and must do everything in their nature and ability to protect them, to deliver them justice, to respect them, and to do their bidding. They must honor every possible beloved as if they actually were their own beloved. Of course, a lover must also be true to his love. Infidelity is the worst offense of all. Like religious people, those known as chivalrous knights must meet certain requirements; those that do gain magical benefits for as long as they maintain those requirements.

Devotion has its benefits (Design Domingo #14)

Characters who follow the practices and ethics of a religious way of life with a strict devotion get an advantage in game. Bonuses are awarded to characters who maintain a minimum value of 8 in all of the traits pertinent to their religion, as listed above. Such characters are usually treated as embodiments of the virtues of their faith. They must strive to exercise their virtues during their daily lives; they attend religious services as much as possible, and must attend them on the high holy days of their religion every year. Many also maintain a very involved daily practice of personal prayers and rituals.

Religious characters receive benefits as follows.
Orthodox Galatian Church (OOC)*: +12 hit points
Penguernite Interpretation of the OOC*: +6 hit points, +4 damage
Cults of the Firstborn**: +4 hit points healed whenever they heal (either naturally or by magic)
Phaetian Heresy***: +4 hit points, +6 damage
Galatic Imperial Cult: +4 hit points, +6 damage
Difficult Gods****: The angry gods’ gifts are highly individualized to the individual and to their plans for that individual; they can include blatant magical abilities and effects, like fire-breathing or mind control.
The Archmage Remembrance*****: +2d6 damage
Pyronism*****: +6 hit points, +2 hit points healed whenever they heal (either naturally or by magic)
Fairy Faith: +10 ft. base speed, +2 hit points healed whenever they heal (either naturally or by magic)
Religion of the Two Kingdoms******: +6 damage, +2 hit points healed whenever they heal (naturally or by magic)
Elfin Pantheon: +10% experience whenever experience is granted
Hrumdail Orcs: +2d6 damage
Locorruil Orcs: +25% when receiving money (whether being paid, selling something, performing their occupation, just plain charity, or any other reason)

* The OOC and its Penguernite Interpretation both focus their worship on the various deities who rule Mount Orippus, who made the same journey the humans did in coming to Galatia, if by different roots. Mount Orippus, the ancient epic known as the Exiad relates, is where the first of them (they’ve added to their number since) settled and offered shelter to the migrating humans. The Orippan deities are King Zerus (god of the noble sky where sun and storms live in balance), Garfligga (god of courtly love, humor, and gnomes; Keilone and Kraljevic Blathus’s husband), Monarch Shertes (deity of marriage and its resultant intrigues in the night), Kraljevic Blathus (elfin god of beauty, light, poetry, and failed immortality; Keilone and Garfligga’s husband), Hrumdas (orcish god of righteous rebellion), Keilone (chivalrous ruler of those who die from some weakness of the body; Kraljevic Blathus and Garfligga’s partner), Thorthmes (god of cosmopolitan and well-traveled knowledge), Feronseta (deity of nature’s justice), Mosaifis (dwarfin deity of smiths and duels), Hathnar (minotaur goddess of all the pleasures and wisdoms of civiization), Eospanre (halfling deity of pastoral peace, quiet passion, and getting comfortably lost), and Mannike (human deity of victory). In case it isn’t clear, a ful half of the Orippan deities ~ Monarch Shertes, Keilone, Feronseta, Mosaifis, Eospanre, and Mannike ~ all have some form of nonbinary gender.

** The Firstborn embody the wild powers of nature: sky and wind, sun and fire, sea and water, mountain and earth. Shaped by the consciousness of the Old Peoples from the pooling and rushing currents of magic in a young Galatia, they are related to the spirits of places and plants and animals and such, but share also in the inhumanly grand concepts that mark the gods. They are Kellide of the Deep, Mithar the Azure Goddess, Zoleh the Flaming Sun, and the youngest of them, Zerus Sky-Ruler. Yes, the youngest of the Firstborn also rules over the Orippan pantheon.

*** The Phaetian Heresy split from the OOC more than five centuries ago, sparking a generation-long war with Phaetia which only ended when Dyonna Vezia, the Warrior Queen of Roses awed the Pharaoh of Aeytus and absorbed his kingdom into the Empire, renaming the new province after her new husband. Seyort developed chivalry under the Warrior Queen of Roses; recognizing the sequence of events that led to such a momentous event, Dyonna Vezia ended any official repression of the Heresy. Naturally, not everyone appreciated that decision, but the Heresy remains popular in Aeytus and Penguern, with a significant presence in Sardis as well. The Heresy focuses its worship on King Zerus and Queen Shertes, Thorthmes, Hathnar, and the non-Orippan deities Disonis (the boundary-breaking, paradoxical deity of rulership, magic, wine, theater, and madness; held supreme even over Zerus, who is said to have dominion over rulers themselves but not that which they hold, by the Heresy), Nafdes (the grieving ruler of all the dead), Shecire (the crossroads and threshold deity who will take you where you need to go, especially if you’re dead), Phaitos (the travelling god who smiths secrets), Nesthias (goddess of hearth and home), Phareya (the god who fell in love and lust with the horizon), Barestes (the feline deity of killing), Abesis (child-deity of wild luck), Scanerdus (Keilone’s less-chivalrous replacement in the afterlife), Anphrubitis (seductive death who judges you once you die), Apelpo (the evil dragon who breathes prophetic fire), Dimheteper (the deity who uses crops to heal), and Shorecles (crocodile god of advenure in the wetlands). In addition to Shertes, Disonis, Nafdes, Shecire, Barestes, Abesis, Anphrubitis, and Dimheteper are all nonbinary.

**** These gods aren’t worshiped as part of a unified religion with a general understanding of the divine. Rather, they are lumped together systematically because the various individuals and cults that worship the tend to rally around similar themes. If you want your character to worship one of these gods in this way but to have a slightly different set of special virtues because there is no doctrine or overall philosophy bringing the worshipers of these deities together, negotiate that with your GM; sounds like fun! The Difficult Gods are Disonis, Shecire, Barestes, Scanerdus, Apelpo, Freithnus (the fire that allows things to grow from the ashes, the panic and slaughter that allow civilization and its chivalry to grow), Locorrus (orc god of competitive merchants, commercial trickery, and strongarm tactics), Sorbutairus (fiery giant god of the freedom found in conflict, whether war or nature red in tooth and claw), Thiunatrus (old-fashioned draconic god who still preaches that might makes right), Herxmotor (sneakier, slipperier, less fiery, and smaller version of Sorbutairus; a wyrmtongue rather than a soldier), and Loldura (drow goddess of failure and resentment)

***** The only Galatian religion older than these two is the Cult of the Firstborn. They date back to 1200 years before humans came to Galatia the second time, and the practices, philosophies, ethics, and beliefs of the arrogant Archmages and the shadow-wielding Pyrons. The latter liberated the various races the former had either enslaved or created and then eslaved in a great war that led to a huge battle. Not much is known about them, and neither has been seen since to teach the realm what they were like.

****** The continent to the south, dominated by a realm of desert sands and ocean depths called the Two Kingdoms, plays host to a religion taking its inspiration from both Islam and William Blake, which preaches submission to the creative impulse within.

A quicky concerning Galatan religion (Design Domingo #13)

Honor is the sum of the traits that a culture finds admirable, necessary, and important. Virtues are not fixed, but vary according to the beliefs of the people. Future expansions of the Middens and Morals ruleset will examine what happens when different culture with different sets of Virtues meet and interact. In general, whatever behavior (i.e., trait) is the opposite of a virtue is perceived as a vice. The relative virtues and vices of the faiths common to player characters in Middens and Morals are as follows.  {Some of the names are place-holders; please forgive me if I change them later}

Virtues of the Orthodox Orippan Church (OOC): Chaste, Forgiving, Merciful, Modest, Temperate.
Virtues of the Penguernite Interpretation of the OOC: Chaste, Energetic, Generous, Modest, Temperate.
Virtues of the Cults of the Firstborn: Generous, Energetic, Honest, Lustful, Proud.
Virtues of the Phaetian Heresy: Chaste, Honest, Just, Merciful, Temperate
Virtues of the Galatic Imperial Cult: Chaste, Generous, Just, Merciful, Modest
Virtues of the Difficult Gods: Vengeful, Selfish, Deceitful, Cruel, Suspicious
Virtues of the Archmage Remembrance: Generous, Proud, Worldly, Indulgent, Reckless
Virtues of Pyronism: Chaste, Energetic, Just, Prudent, Temperate
Virtues of the Fairy Faith: Vengeful, Honest, Proud, Arbitrary, Worldly
Virtues of the Religion of the Two Kingdoms*: Chaste, Vengeful, Just, Mystical, Temperate
Virtues of the Elfin Pantheon: Valorous, Proud, Lazy, Prudent, Just
Virtues of the Hrumdail Orcs*: Valorous, Generous, Energetic, Vengeful, Reckless
Virtues of the Locorruil Orcs*: Deceitful, Proud, Energetic, Prudent, Suspicious

* These three sets are approximations in Galatic Virtues of those valued by these three cultures. The Two Kingdoms are a distant, foreign country with a completely different culture, whereas orcs of both religions have based their ways on rebellion and uniqueness. The first expansion of Middens and Morals into different societal systems will be focused on the orcs, and the second on the Two Kingdoms.

It's about time for an example, wouldn't you say? (Design Domingo #12)

EXAMPLE OF ROLLING IN PLAY
Samalibosi’s had a sheltered life as a relative of the king, so she has Hardened Violence 0, and Failed 2. Her Merciful is 7 and her Honest is 6; she’s a 2nd-level bard, so her Attack is +1 and her Will is +2. One day, while she’s checking out a parcel of property she’s inherited, someone shoots an arrow at her, proclaiming that her wicked uncle, the Duke Esorbma has seized her inheritance. The archer refuses to accept merely wounding Samlibosi and gladly agrees to duel her. The fight is fierce, but Samalibosi is hoping to temper each stroke of the steel with the knowledge that the archer is merely a hired agent and not the architect of her distress. The GM agrees that such an approach would be within her character, and so tells her to roll a rank-3 MeFV+Attack 29 roll to represent the first minute of her duel, when she’s on the defensive. The dice come up 3, 6, 7, 7, 9, 11, and 12. She needs to keep the 11 and the 12 in order to have any chance of succeeding on the roll, which will happen if she keeps either the 9 or one of the 7s. However, keeping the 9 will force her to act Cruelly towards this henchman, so she keeps one of the 7s in order to preserve the chance of Mercy. This leaves all but one of the unkept dice higher than the intensity of the roll, so she also keeps her wits about her, utilizing them in a measured flurry of parries and footwork. Her reward for staying cool is Hardened Violence 1. The majority of kept dice are higher than her Virtue, but not all of them are, so she rolls 1d10 and compares it to her Cruel. The roll ends up being 4, one point higher than her Cruel.

With a sigh of relief, Samalibosi’s character is about to use her freedom of choice in the situation, unbound by Virtue or Vice, to accept a merciful surrender from the archer when suddenly the GM, a devious smile on their face, decides that the close nature of the roll means that Samalibosi hears a cry from the woods whence the archer emerged. A man is tied up amongst the bushes, having worked the gag out of his mouth. It is Samalibosi’s beloved, who cries out that Samalibosi’s uncle’s assassin had planned to kill him. Samalibosi’s character changes their mind about their planned course of action and chooses death for the unhappy failure of a murderer. The victim gets his revenge, the dastardly uncle’s plot is for the nonce defeated, and a marriage is planned, but no checkmarks are written next to either of Samalibosi’s Virtues since both rolls failed (even though a very significant event took place).

A few weeks later, after she’s recovered somewhat from the ambush, she’s jumped by a man in a mask and leather armor as she’s leaving the marketplace. He tries to cut her up with a dagger, and she responds in kind. This one is a rank-1 CoFV+Attack 18 roll. She gets 1, 2, 5, 7, 7, 8, and 10. Since she’s already got Hardened Violence 1, she doesn’t have to worry about the numbers on her unkept dice, so she keeps the 10 and one of the 7s, a 50/50 split between above her Virtue and not. Samalibosi has complete freedom in this situation, unmodified by conscience or damage. Fleeing to her new home, she runs right into the clutches of her uncle. He’s broken into her castle and is waiting for her. He ties her up and begins interrogating her about “the chamber of the undying.” She truthfully tells him she knows nothing but he doesn’t believe her, so he starts burning her hand with a log from the fireplace. Resisting this torture is a rank-3 HoHV 24 roll (he’s not very good at torture). Now, she’s already succeeded at one rank-3 Violence roll, but she only has Hardened Violence 1, so she does have to check her unkept dice. Her Honest is 6, so she rolls 6 dice and keeps 2 of them. The results of the dice are 1, 1, 3, 5, 10, and 12. She refuses to give into her uncle and his use of detestable methods, so she keeps the 10 and the 12, just beating the DC. However, that means that 3 of the 5 unkept dice are equal to or lower than the intensity of the roll, giving her Failed Violence 1. She can freeze, fight, or flee, and she must not tell the truth (though she resisted the torture, and thus won’t tell her uncle what he wants to hear, all of her kept dice were higher than her Honest). Her player decides that she’d try to flee, and so Samalibosi begins desperately thrashing against her bonds and screaming a wild story she’s making up on the spot about her aunt stealing from her churl of an uncle. She thrashes so violently that she hurts herself ~ and this convinces her captor that she’s telling the truth. Incensed at his wife’s supposed betrayal, he momentarily forgets about the chamber of the undying and rushes off to confront her, leaving Samalibosi there. The GM then tells Samalibosi’s player to roll a rank-2 EnHH+Escape Artist 18 roll to work her way out of the ropes.

ALIGNMENTS AND EXTREME STATES
Idealism and faith can help make a person a hero. By ascribing to and behaving in accordance with certain values ~ that is, by maintaining a minimum value in a number of prescribed Virtues ~ a character gains certain rewards and benefits beyond those given to people of lesser honor. Some of these gifts are of a magical nature. Devotion and dedication reach beyond the world and its limitations, and the world bends itself to reflect the shining example they set. Heroes remake the world in their exalted image, and the right kind of villain does the same.

Intensity in tent cities in ten cities (Design Domingo #11)

An Example of Trauma in Action: You swing your holy leaden mace at a wizarding weirdo, and make a rank-4 CrFU 41 roll to do so. You have Hardened Helplessness 2, but that doesn’t do you any good. You only have Hardened Unnatural 2. You have to check the unkept dice, of which there are three. One of them comes up higher than 4, and so you increase your Failed Unnatural by 1 and flip your lid, attacking the mage with mindless frenzy. The wizard defends herself by using a magical attack which lets her tear chunks out of you with her bare hands. Your Reflex roll to defend against the spell is a rank-5 CoHU 33 check, but since you are already out of your mind, you don’t even have to look at your unkept dice. You just increase your Failed Trauma for the first one. If, instead, two had been higher than 4, you would change Hardened Unnatural to 3.

Sample Intensities for Violence Rolls
1 ~ Defend against a weapon—shot at or slashed.
2 ~ Witness an act of torture.
3 ~ Get attacked at random. Resist brief torture.
4 ~ Strike a killing blow against someone in a fight.
5 ~ Be present at a massive battle, with hundreds of deaths on both sides.
6 ~ Perform an act of torture.
7 ~ Deliberately kill a helpless target.
8 ~ Resist torture for an hour or longer.
9 ~ Witness a brutal mass execution.
10 ~ Watch as someone you love is tortured to death.

Sample Intensities for Unnatural Rolls
1 ~ Experience a preternaturally strong deja vu.
2 ~ See a creature or machine that cannot logically exist.
3 ~ Realize that a vision you had of the future has come true.
4 ~ See convincing proof that 2+2 does not equal 4.
5 ~ Be successfully attacked with magic.
6 ~ See someone you know killed by magic, without any visible or “rational” cause.
7 ~ Have a conversation with a loved one whom you know is dead.
8 ~ See an animal with human features.
9 ~ See the dead rise.
10 ~ Realize that the reason you and your husband of ten years have never had children is that he’s not really a human being.

Sample Intensities for Helplessness Rolls
1 ~ Unintentionally humiliate yourself in public.
2 ~ Be exiled from a land you love.
3 ~ Fail at something when it’s imperative that you succeed.
4 ~ Get dumped into a pit of maggots.
5 ~ Spend a month in gaol.
6 ~ Watch your spouse committing adultery.
7 ~ Be placed in a situation where you have to either saw off one of your limbs or die.
8 ~ Watch someone you love die.
9 ~ Watch someone you love die because you tried to save them and failed.
10 ~ Be possessed, yet conscious, as your body commits unspeakable acts against your will.

Sample Intensities for Isolation Rolls
1 ~ Spend a day without seeing anyone you know
2 ~ Spend five hours deprived of sensory input.
3 ~ Spend three days without talking to another human being.
4 ~ Be abandoned by someone you love and trust.
5 ~ Spend a week in solitary confinement.
6 ~ See someone you thought you knew intimately behaving in a fashion completely contrary to her normal behavior.
7 ~ Spend a month in a country where no one speaks your language and where you can’t make yourself understood no matter how hard you try.
8 ~ Be deeply, painfully, and violently betrayed by someone you love.
9 ~ Be treated like a stranger by your closest friends.
10 ~ Spend a month deprived of sensory input.

Sample Intensities for Self Rolls
1 ~ Break a minor promise.
2 ~ Be confronted with proof that your self-image is incorrect. (“I’m very responsible; I’m sure I’ve written you back every time I said I would.” “Actually, you’ve ignored me so many months I started keeping track in my journal. Lessee, November, December, . . . January . . .”
3 ~ Secretly gratify an urge that is unacceptable to your upbringing and background. (Spit on a religious icon of your faith, date a person of another race if raised in a racist home, have a homosexual affair if you come from a homophobic background, etc.)
4 ~ Lie to conceal some aspect of your personality from a close friend or loved one who trusts you implicitly.
5 ~ Fail to act on one of your Virtues above 6 because it’s “too dangerous.”
6 ~ Deliberately deceive someone you love in a way that is certain to cause them terrible pain if they find out.
7 ~ Discover that you have inadvertently committed an act of cannibalism.
8 ~ Deliberately act completely contrary to one of your Virtues above 6.
9 ~ Kill someone you love.
10 ~ Deliberately destroy everything you’ve risked your life to support.

Complications from die-rolling (Design Domingo #10)

OK, so now we know how to figure out if our character succeeds at what they’re trying to do. But wait, there’s more!

Before you get too comfortable with your chances of success, you should know that the dice can have effects on your behavior beyond merely indicating success or failure. We are rolling with traits called Virtues and Traumas, after all! Sometimes behavior takes precedent over conscious intent; most of us have experienced doing something without thinking, and every roll in Middens and Morals contains the chance for that to happen. Count the kept dice that have results equal or lesser than your score in the Virtue at hand. This number indicates whether your character acts from their best self, their worst self, or the usual combination of the two that most of us spend the most time acting from. Your character might not take the action you set out to do when you made the roll thanks to the result; if so, simply narrate a new version of your character’s actions.

Each result of a roll has special implications, and high or low trait values may influence interpretation. The Virtues quantify a character’s likelihood to act in one of two generally opposed ways. Therefore it is not enough to know merely that a character does not feel particularly merciful — the player must know whether the character actually acts cruelly. The binary traits of Middens and Morals define the chances of either. If all of the kept dice are equal to or lesser than your Virtue, write a checkmark next to the Virtue, and your character acts strongly in accordance with the Virtue. The action need not be outrageous or extreme, but ought to be apparent enough to be noticed enough by others, and to make the character feel that they have revealed strong emotions or perhaps even compromised etiquette, strategy, practicality, their word, or suchlike in some way. If there are some kept dice that are higher than the Virtue, but the majority are equal or lower, your character acts in accordance with the Virtue. This result indicates that your character felt, and was moved by, the feelings and values expressed by that Virtue. Thus, if they made a Merciful roll, they feel that they should grant mercy in this instance. You may decide precisely what action ensues within that limitation. Write a checkmark next to the Virtue if and only if the action is somehow significant to the story or your character. However, you may choose to have your character act in the opposite manner: The penalty for disobeying the roll result is a checkmark next to the opposite Virtue. If the majority of kept dice are higher than your Virtue, roll a single d10. If the result is less than or equal to your score in the opposite Virtue, your character acts in accordance with that second Virtue. Otherwise, you may choose freely how the character will act. No checks are written. If all of the kept dice are higher than your Virtue, the opposite Virtue gets a checkmark, and your character immediately acts in accordance with the checked Virtue. If, by some chance, the divide between higher and lower/equal to your Virtue is an even split, 50/50, no checkmark is written, and your character may do whatever the hell they wanna.

The next time your character gets a chance to rest and introspect after having achieved something of at least minor significance to them or the story, look to see which Virtues have checkmarks next to them. For each one, starting from the upper left of the list and proceeding from left to right, roll 1d10. If the roll is higher than the associated Virtue, increase that Virtue by one (make sure to reduce its complement by one to maintain the necessary total of 10).

One of the key tasks of the GM is to decide when an action performed by a character deserves a checkmark as described above. The action need not have been preplanned as a test or challenge, nor need it be the result of a roll. For instance, if a player decides that his character will slay a peasant who has insulted him, the Gamemaster is more than justified in giving that knight a checkmark for both his Proud and Cruel traits, even though no resolution rolls took place.

But wait! There’s even more!

Every roll also has an intensity level determined by the GM that reflects how rough the situation and the action can be on your character’s mental stability. Different stresses have different intensity levels, ranging from 1–10. These are also called ranks. The higher the rank, the more extreme the stress and the more you’re likely to suffer. If your Hardened Trauma of the same type as the one you rolled is the same as the rank of the stress or higher, however, you don’t have to worry about it. You automatically keep your head because you’ve faced this down before and prevailed. Example: You make a rank-4 CrFV 48 roll. You have Hardened Violence 5. You don’t have to roll.

Just like the dice you kept determined whether or not you acted in line with your Virtues, the dice you don’t keep determine whether you lose your shit. If the majority of these dice are higher than the intensity level of the roll, increase your Hardened Trauma of the type rolled by 1. If the majority are equal to or lower than the intensity, increase the appropriate Failed Trauma by 1 instead and choose one of three reactions: panic, paralysis, or frenzy; the roll may have other long-term effects as well. If you panic, you run away at high speed. You can take no action except to run full out in the direction farthest from what made you panic. On the other hand, disturbing events often produce paralysis: indecision, terror, and a general “deer in the lantern-light” effect that persists until the stimulus ceases. This can be completely silent, or accompanied by screams and moans. Frenzy is just what it sounds like. You attack the source of discomfort with any means at your disposal. You can’t dodge or attempt any fancy moves, like multiple attacks on a single target. You just swing or punch or start biting. You act like this until the stress that triggered the behavior is gone. Until then, you must follow your choice. If you frenzy against someone who can beat the holy heck out of you, you are not able to run away. You fight until you or your opponent is dead. While you’re in any of these states, the unkept dice of your rolls have no other or more effect on your mental state or Traumas. You’re too screwed up to process any other stresses. If, by some chance, the divide between higher and lower/equal to the intensity level is an even split, 50/50, neither your Hardened or Failed Trauma is increased, and your character may do whatever the hell they wanna.

The basic resolution mechanic in Middens & Morals (Design Domingo #9)

TABLE: Effects of Traits on Spellcasting
Virtue 1-4: can’t cast spells tied to this trait
Virtue 5: can cast up to 2nd-level spells; no bonus spells
Virtue 6: can cast up to 4th-level spells; 1 bonus 1st-level spell
Virtue 7: can cast up to 6th-level spells; 1 each bonus 1st- and 2nd-level spells
Virtue 8: can cast up to 8th-level spells; 1 each bonus 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-level spells
Virtue 9: can cast up to 9th-level spells; 1 each bonus 1st-, 2nd-, 3rd-, and 4th-level spells
Failed 0: can’t cast spells tied to this trait
Failed 1: can cast up to 2nd-level spells; no bonus spells
Failed 2: can cast up to 4th-level spells; 1 bonus 1st-level spell
Failed 3: can cast up to 6th-level spells; 1 each bonus 1st- and 2nd-level spells
Failed 4: can cast up to 8th-level spells; 1 each bonus 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-level spells
Failed 5: can cast up to 9th-level spells; 1 each bonus 1st-, 2nd-, 3rd-, and 4th-level spells
Hardened 0-1: can’t cast spells tied to this trait
Hardened 2: can cast up to 1st-level spells; no bonus spells
Hardened 3: can cast up to 2nd-level spells; no bonus spells
Hardened 4: can cast up to 3rd-level spells; 1 bonus 1st-level spell
Hardened 5: can cast up to 4th-level spells; 1 bonus 1st-level spell
Hardened 6: can cast up to 5th-level spells; 1 each bonus 1st- and 2nd-level spells
Hardened 7: can cast up to 6th-level spells; 1 each bonus 1st- and 2nd-level spells
Hardened 8: can cast up to 7th-level spells; 1 each bonus 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-level spells
Hardened 9: can cast up to 8th-level spells; 1 each bonus 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-level spells
Hardened 10: can cast up to 9th-level spells; 1 each bonus 1st-, 2nd-, 3rd-, and 4th-level spells

How To Make Rolls
When you want your character to do something that requires a roll, you’ll negotiate with your GM to identify one of the 26 Virtues and one of the ten Trauma scores that applies to what you’re trying to do. For example, many (but not nearly all, or even most) attempts to hurt someone in combat involve Valorous and Hardened Violence (abbreviated often as a VaHV roll). Use your character’s motivations, reasons, and emotional experiences to determine which Virtue and which Trauma to use ~ WHY your character is taking the action and HOW they feel about it is what’s relevant here. Talent, training, and such things are usually much clearer decisions, and are reflected by things like skill ranks and feats and such. Once you know which Virtue and Trauma are involved, grab a number of d12s equal to your score in the Virtue and roll them.

Choose a number of those rolled dice equal to your Trauma score plus one and then total the results of those dice. Add the skill ranks relevant to the action at hand, and any other modifiers that might apply (spells, magical items, feats, etc.) If the total equals or exceeds the Difficulty Class (DC) of the roll, your character has succeeded! When abbreviating a roll for quick notations and speedy reading, create a four-letter abbreviation consisting of the two letters indicating the Virtue and the two indicating the Trauma; add a plus sign and the relevant skill (if there are any modifiers that will always be added, indicate those with one or more additional plus signs) and follow the whole thing with the roll’s Difficulty Class. Thus, a difficulty 60 Intimidate roll using Cruel and Failed Isolation could be written as a CrFI+Intimidate 60 roll.

Sample Difficulty Classes
0 ~ Mundane ~ Getting out of bed; remembering the details of your equipment
6 ~ Very Easy ~ Striking an immobile target; recognizing an old friend
12 ~ Easy ~ Carrying half your weight; finding a misplaced item
18 ~ Average ~ Lifting your weight; remembering someone you’ve seen once before
24 ~ Moderate ~ Jumping a ten-foot ditch; recognizing someone in disguise
29 ~ Difficult ~ Scaling a cliff without rope; finding a well-hidden object
34 ~ Very Hard ~ Diving safely from a waterfall; remembering someone’s exact words
44 ~ Heroic ~ Out-wrestling a troll; naming all of your ancestors in order
64 ~ Impossible ~ Shattering stone with bare hands; outwitting a god

There are times when simple success is not enough. When a character needs to accomplish something truly spectacular, something which will warrant mention in the songs and legends told about them to future generations, Inspirations are the means by which that can be accomplished. When a player declares they are acting with an Inspiration, they are choosing to voluntarily increase the DC of the task his character is attempting, by an increment of 5 per Inspiration. Inspirations are generally made when a player feels their character’s heavenly virtue, psychological damage, and abilities will allow them to easily exceed the DC for a given task. The most common use of Inspirations is to allow characters to perform special actions in combat, but individual GMs can allow any number of different effects with sufficient Inspirations; after all, the world itself is bending to your character’s fulfillment of both parts of being a mortal in the world. Players who wish to try unconventional or creative actions that are not covered by the basic rules should simply ask the GM how many Inspirations will be required to succeed.

A character can make a maximum number of Inspirations per roll equal to a quarter of their level, rounded up. An 8th-level character, for instance, can make 1 or 2 Inspirations per roll, but not 3. Some mechanical effects grant a character Free Inspirations. These give the benefit of having made an Inspiration without actually increasing the DC of the roll in question, and do not count toward the maximum number of Inspirations that may be made per roll. Free Inspirations may also be used to reduce the DC of the task being attempted by 5 instead of augmenting the roll in the same way as a normal Inspiration.

Inspirations are not without risk, however. If a player declares Inspirations on a roll, and the result of their roll fails to meet the new, increased DC, the roll fails. This is a failure even if the result of the roll meets the original DC but falls short of the new, increased DC.

Traumas, completed (Design Domingo #8)

Isolation Trauma
Isolation is a subtle danger: it corrodes your sanity by denying you input. You rely on other human beings for feedback. Without the opinions of others, you do not know how to judge yourself. When you become resistant to isolation, you overlook social morés and unwritten rules because you’ve forgotten how to conform to the expectations of others. If you’ve suffered from isolation, you become very needy. These are not mutually exclusive: it’s possible to be very clingy and still be unable to pick up hints about when your behavior is unacceptable.

Failed Isolation is often used to make Climb, Swim, or Disable Device rolls when escape or reconnecting with a friend or group is the goal, or Escape Artist, Fly, Ride, Knowledge (geography, local, nobility), Linguistics, Diplomacy, Handle Animal, and Perform rolls in general. Stealth, Knowledge (dungeoneering), Will, Survival, Bluff, and Intimidate rolls sometimes use Hardened Isolation, and both Failed and Hardened Isolation are often used to make Profession rolls.

The Effects of Various Levels of Failed Isolation (FI) Trauma on Personality
1 ~ You can interact in society and get through your everyday life with no real problems. You’re maybe a little shy with people at first, but you feel a kind of gratitude whenever a new acquaintance doesn’t reject you.
2 ~ You’re a bit nervous around new people, eager to make a good impression. This could be expressed as shyness or through “chatterbox” behaviors.
3 ~ If you sleep alone, you sometimes suffer from insomnia. Perhaps you don’t like silence when you’re by yourself, and always keep a your hands beating out a rhythm. Sometimes, when you’re not paying attention, you talk to yourself or think out loud.
4 ~ Sometimes when you’re isolated (either all by yourself or surrounded by strangers) you have panic attacks—a sense of intangible, impending doom. Your skin flushes, your breath becomes rapid and labored, you sweat. Simply put, you show the signs of being in mortal danger, when there is no danger around.

The Effects of Various Levels of Hardened Isolation (HI) Trauma on Personality
1–3 ~ There are no really obvious signs of your experiences. Perhaps you’re a little standoffish or curt.
4–5 ~ You can be unthinkingly rude, breaking in during the middle of a conversation before someone’s done speaking, scratching yourself in an indelicate fashion, or telling the truth when it isn’t diplomatic to do so. (For example, you might blurt out “Damn that’s an ugly haircut!” instead of saying “Wow, that’s a new look for you, isn’t it?”)
6–7 ~ You lack patience with people who don’t immediately understand what you’re trying to tell them. Your natural inclination is to repeat the same explanations (which are obvious to you) over and over, or just give up. (This is just your first impulse; it can, of course, be overcome if you pay extra attention. In game terms, this means that your Diplomacy and other social skills aren’t penalized any time you make a roll, but you might have a little bit of trouble in casual situations.)
8–9 ~ Unless you’re concentrating, you lack dialogue skills. You don’t like it when people interrupt, but you frequently interrupt others. You also don’t see the point of a lot of social conventions such as clothing, grooming, etc. You might still shave every day, but it all seems a little silly.
10 ~ At some level, you not only don’t care what people think about you: you can’t understand how anyone could care. You are very aware that people are inherently alone, that we can never really understand anyone or communicate anything but the most rudimentary ideas and feelings. You know everyone is an island, in the final analysis. Especially you.

Self Trauma
This is the trickiest one. It’s your guilt and self-loathing, but it’s more than that. A major trauma is when you find out you’re not the person you thought you were, by breaking a promise you honestly meant to keep, or by standing idly by when your values (or what you thought were your values) are desecrated. It’s your sense of alienation from self that provides, perhaps, the deepest terror. Where other Traumas measure how, well, traumatized you are by things that happen to you, Self measures how traumatized you are by your own reactions to those things. To put it another way, the only thing you can ever really be 100% sure of is “I think, therefore I am.” The Self Trauma measures how uncertain you are about the “I” in that statement.

Both Failed and Hardened Self have a tendency to become the primary Trauma used for all rolls after a character falls victim to one of their Vices (that is, the lower of the two Virtues in a pair), as they struggle to predict their own actions in the intensity of the moment. Many characters use either Failed or Hardened Self for Sleight of Hand rolls, especially the first few times they use it; both are also sometimes used with Stealth to appear inconspicuous or to blend in or with Knowledge (history, nature, planes, religion), Heal, Profession, Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguise, Perform, and Use Magic Device rolls. Failed Self is sometimes used to make Fly and Ride rolls (reflecting the connection between animal and humanoid) and Knowledge (local) and Sense Motive rolls, too. Survival and Intimidate rolls sometimes use Hardened Self.
Failed Self governs the spellcasting of sorcerers.

The Effects of Various Levels of Failed Self (FS) Trauma on Personality
1 ~ You don’t have any real kinks yet, but every now and again you feel a sense of dissociation, an eerie moment when you feel alienated from your own character and motivations. “Sure, I know I’m Greg Stolze,” you might think, “but who’s Greg Stolze?”
2 ~ The “who am I?” moments come more frequently. You tend to become introspective whenever someone mentions “truth” or “lies” or “promises.”
3 ~ Half the time your words and actions feel oddly forced, fake, or rehearsed to you—as if, rather than yourself, you were an actor playing the role of you.
4 ~ You frequently feel like you’re watching your every action from the outside. You have little or no sense of will or volition: it’s as if you’re a passive observer, along for the ride while your body goes through the motions.

The Effects of Various Levels of Hardened Self (HS) Trauma on Personality
1–3 ~ There are few external signs of your interior struggle: people may sometimes find you to be a little brittle or “phony”-seeming.
4–5 ~ Even when you’re telling the truth, people often think you’re lying, unless you make a particular effort to act “natural.”
6–7 ~ You’ve lost a sense of connection to those who were previously close to you. You can predict the actions of your friends, relatives, or lovers, but you no longer know exactly what you feel about them.
8–9 ~ Half the time, you only know you’re telling the truth if you take a minute to think about it. Truth and lies aren’t nearly as important as they used to be—back before you quit lying to yourself . . .
10 ~ Life has been pared down to the essentials for you: you no longer have opinions about music, food, or fashion. You’ve lost the ability to enjoy or dislike things, because there’s so little “you” there to interact.

Traumas, continued (Design Domingo #7)

Unnatural Trauma
It hurts your brain to think of things that don’t belong in your concept of the world. Contemplating infinity for too long, seeing proof that sometimes 2 + 2 = 5, and understanding how magic actually works are all unnatural traumas. It’s more subtle and unnerving than Violence. Everyone recognizes that violence exists, even those who are insulated from it. Unnatural traumas don’t just attack your idea of safety. They attack your idea of how the universe works.

If Hardened/Failed Violence are often used to run away from or towards battle, Hardened and Failed Unnatural are both often used in Climb and Swim rolls involving magic and the supernatural. Both can attune a character to the workings of the paranormal and so are often used to make appropriate Perception, Appraise, and Knowledge (arcana, dungeoneering, planes, religion) rolls. Hardened Unnatural is often used to make Disable Device and Intimidate rolls that involve magic or spells somehow, as well as Craft rolls to produce an enchantable item and Linguistics rolls involving otherworldly languages. Spellcraft, Will, and Use Magic Device rolls all often use Hardened Unnatural in general.
Hardened Unnatural governs the spellcasting of wizards. They also use it to calculate how many skill ranks they receive each level. Only one other class ~ bards ~ enjoys the benefits of a single trait governing both.

The Effects of Various Levels of Failed Unnatural (FU) Trauma on Personality
1 ~ At this level it’s pretty hard to tell. Perhaps you become a little superstitious—pestering the local fortuneteller daily, watching for “lucky” numbers, avoiding cracks in the sidewalk, etc.
2 ~ You have a few nightmares, and you are suspicious of and/or fascinated by occult and religious books, places, paraphernalia, and people.
3 ~ You frequently feel like you’re being watched, even when there’s no one around. Sometimes it seems like you hear voices in “white noise”—sounds like the wind in the trees, the sloshing of servants washing clothes, or the noises of the marketplace.
4 ~ The nightmares are frequent, and often you don’t know you’re dreaming until you jerk awake. Sometimes you feel like there’s someone—or something— watching you and you can almost see it out of the corner of your eye. When you whip your head around, there’s nothing there.

The Effects of Various Levels of Hardened Unnatural (HU) Trauma on Personality
1–3 ~ There’s little to distinguish you from the average person, except perhaps a tendency to snort derisively when someone mentions their “intuitions.”
4–5 ~ You tend to listen very closely and intently when someone discusses the paranormal or supernatural, trying to figure out if they know something or if they’re just talking trash.
6–7 ~ You now know and accept that there are vast, incomprehensible forces governing the universe. It strikes you as odd when people act as if they’re in control of their lives: you know better.
8–9 ~ Things that average people consider “meaningless coincidences” strike you as deeply, intensely funny because you see the connections that they do not. You may develop a reputation for laughing inappropriately.
10 ~ You are no longer surprised by violations of ordinary logic. Everything is “normal” to you—talking foliage, spontaneous combustion, and stigmata are as ordinary and reasonable as carts, dogs, and rain.

Helplessness Trauma
A sense of control is crucial for feelings of safety, even when it’s completely unmerited. When you have been challenged by helplessness, you can lose your ability to gauge how “in control” of a situation you are: you may feel powerless when the situation is not completely lost, or you may ignore real impediments from a misplaced sense of capability.

Failed Helplessness is involved in determining the maximum amount of weight your character can carry, as well as sometimes being used to make Climb, Swim, Disable Device, Fly, Ride, Sleight of Hand, Knowledge (engineering), Appraise, Heal, Perception, Sense Motive, Diplomacy, Handle Animal, and Use Magic Device rolls. Rolls to perform feats of strength, too. Hardened Helplessness, on the other hand, is involved in calculating your character’s Armor Class (AC), and is often used to make Fortitude and Will rolls, too, while both Failed and Hardened Helplessness are often used to make Reflex, Acrobatics, Escape Artist, Stealth, Craft, Knowledge (local, nature, nobility), and Survival rolls.

The Effects of Various Levels of Failed Helplessness (FH) Trauma on Personality
1 ~ At this level you’re fairly normal. Perhaps you’re a little finicky or meticulous, trying to eliminate the possibility of something going wrong.
2 ~ You have a tendency to get unreasonably nervous and pessimistic when small things go wrong. You may be irritated if someone is just a few minutes late, or if a tool you’re using suffers a minor break.
3 ~ You have an intense dislike for surprises, even good ones. They remind you of the essentially unpredictable nature of reality, and that scares and annoys you.
4 ~ You find it very difficult to trust anything. Your friends, your own abilities, even your memories could be false, waiting to betray you. You have a tendency towards obsessive-compulsive behaviors such as checking your residence two or three (or more) times every time you leave to make absolutely certain no one’s snuck in. You attempt to be prepared for every eventuality.

The Effects of Various Levels of Hardened Helplessness (HH) Trauma on Personality
1–3 ~ You don’t have any major behavior or attitude shifts yet, just minor things. You tend to be pessimistic and fatalistic, perhaps.
4–6 ~ Your fatalism has increased. When things go wrong in a big, bad way, or when trouble comes from a completely unexpected or unlikely source, you handle it with a remarkable lack of affect. (This is not necessarily incongruent with the behaviors of Failed Helplessness 2+: it’s perfectly possible to be freakishly calm about big things and freakishly upset about little things.)
7–9 ~ You have a boundless faith in the ability of chaos to screw you over. You can easily believe that even the most suspicious of mishaps is simple random chance. (“So my plow blade broke and a sharp piece of metal flew at my face. What makes you think someone tinkered with my plow? Shit happens.”)
10 ~ The distinction between “intentional” and “accidental” is pretty much lost on you. Maybe you believe that everything is completely predestined, or maybe you believe that everything in the world happens due to chance. The one thing you find hard to swallow is the idea that we are the captains of our fates.

The other half of the equation: Traumas (Design Domingo #6)

In addition, your character has five Traumas, each of which has a Hardened score from 0-10 and a Failed score from 0-5. These measure how close you are to going crazy, freaking out, freezing like a frightened deer, falling on your sword, or running into the night howling like a wolf. These things happen when you start talking with demons, melting your face to win friends, and exorcising the supernatural resonance of a sex crime. It’s tough stuff, and the medieval world offers little to stand between you and going completely gonzo batshit. But why go crazy if you already live there? If you’ve had some heavy trauma in your life (which is depressingly common), you can go ahead and put up to three points, total, into any of your character’s Failed Traumas. For each one you add, you can also put a point in a Hardened Trauma as well. They don’t have to be in the same Traumas ~ if you’re going to be crazy, be your own special kind of crazy. And if you want more than three of each, talk to your GM. Remember to wear clothes.

You’re going to face a lot of threats and do a lot of things out there, and not all of them are physical. You’re going to be exposed to stresses that are beyond the normal, experiences that challenge your mind’s ability to fit them into your view of how the world works. These stresses are measured by the Traumas. As mentioned before, there are five scores that measure how resilient or susceptible you are to different mental stress: Violence, the Unnatural, Helplessness, Isolation, and Self. It’s quite possible to be very casual about, say, Violence, while being a basket case when it comes to the Unnatural.

Each Trauma has two scores. Hardened Traumas represent stresses you’ve endured, and they are scored 1–10. Failed Traumas represent stresses that have broken you even just a little bit, and they are numbered 1–5. It’s common to have nonzero scores in both versions of a single Trauma. Someone who’s deep in both directions on Isolation probably has a highly ambivalent attitude towards being alone, which is perfectly in character for people who have been repeatedly exposed to that mental stress. Someone with the same situation for Violence feels little or nothing when exposed to most forms of bloodshed, but when something is so shocking that it gets through the hardened barrier, the result is devastating.

Remember that the following descriptions include examples of rolls that each Trauma is often used to make, but that these are suggestions and indicators of frequency. Once again, a character’s reasons and emotional realities determine which trait is used for any given roll; talent, ability, training, and more esoteric things in that category are described with skill ranks and feats.

Violence Trauma
You have an instinctive revulsion towards actual violence. It’s stressful to hurt others, to watch others get hurt, and to get hurt. This Trauma also covers the fear of death that everyone suffers from in varying degrees.

Though it is relatively easy to imagine situations for every Trauma to contribute to any given kind of roll, both Hardened and Failed Violence are probably the most common to use when making attack rolls. They are both often used to make Perception and Knowledge (dungeoneering) rolls and also Craft rolls that produce arms, armor, and the like. Like Valorous/Cowardly, both are also often used to make Climb, Swim, and Sense Motive rolls. Failed Violence is involved in calculating your character’s Armor Class (AC) whereas Hardened Violence is involved in calculating hit points. Hardened Violence also adds to damage rolls, like Cruel and Vengeful and is also often used to make Appraise rolls to appraise arms, armor, and the like. It’s sometimes used to make Will, Heal, Survival, and Intimidate rolls.

The Effects of Various Levels of Failed Violence (FV) Trauma on Personality
1 ~ At this level, you’re superficially fine. Perhaps you’re a little edgy whenever a knife in the room happens to be pointing your direction.
2 ~ You are very aware of violence, both as it exists and as it is depicted. It strikes you as somewhat odd that so many people don’t realize that the violence in the stories and songs of troubadours is very different from real violence.
3 ~ You get alert or uneasy every time you see blood, even badly faked blood in a play (or even a puppet show) or when someone cuts a rare steak. Sometimes you have nightmares about violence you’ve witnessed.
4 ~ You instinctively take a defensive posture whenever there’s a loud noise or raised voice nearby. Your nightmares are frequent, and you have a hard time looking at anyone without imagining (if briefly) what you would do at that moment if they attacked you.

The Effects of Various Levels of Hardened Violence (HV) Trauma on Personality
1–3 ~ Superficially, you’re much like everyone else.
4–5 ~ Your attitude towards violence shows on your face when the subject comes up in conversation, unless you work to keep it hidden. It might be intensity, or nervousness, or just a grim silence, depending on how you cope.
6–7 ~ Violence is a common feature of your mental landscape. Unlike less-hardened people, you show little reaction at all when it is discussed or depicted in fiction.
8–9 ~ Your callousness shows in your every word and expression unless you make a continuous effort to suppress it. Again, the exact tone is up to you: it could be bitter and harsh, feverish and vehement, or icy cold.
10 ~ It’s not hard for people to realize that the deepest horrors of torture and brutality have become commonplace to you, unless you work very, very hard to keep it hidden—which means you come off as tense and guarded all the time. The death of others, or yourself, has no intrinsic significance. You might prefer to stay alive, but it’s only a matter of personal taste. Life, in the abstract, doesn’t mean anything.

Finally! The last of the Virtues! (Design Domingo #5)

MYSTICAL (My)/WORLDLY (Wo)
Mystical people look to the spiritual world for guidance; Worldly people concern themselves with the affairs of this world -- many religions measure piety by the Mystical trait, while others measure piety by the Worldly trait, for their religion is of this world.

A mystical character often dwells on spiritual matters, and is aware of them and their implications in the material world. (This is not the same as worship, which is an action rather than a belief.) A mystical person is a spiritual person. An extremely pious person is devout or zealous, perhaps even saintly. Worldly indicates profligacy, taking great pleasure in temporal things such as fine clothes, comfortable furnishings, good music and poetry, and the best company. Do not confuse Worldly with Indulgent; the two often go hand-in-hand, but they are not the same.

Mystical is often used to make Knowledge (arcana, planes, religion), Spellcraft, and Use Magical Device rolls. Worldly, on the other hand, is involved in determining the maximum amount of weight your character can carry and in calculating hit points and is often used to make Knowledge (engineering, geography, history, local, nature, nobility), Profession, and Sense Motive rolls. Sometimes, it’s used to make Climb, Swim, Fly, Ride, Fortitude, Appraise, Craft, Linguistics, Survival, and Handle Animal rolls, as well as rolls to perform feats of strength. Both Mystical and Worldly are often used with Perception rolls.
Paladins use Mystical to determine how many skill ranks they receive each level.
Mystical governs the spellcasting of clerics, while Worldly governs that of druids and rangers.

PRUDENT (Pru)/RECKLESS (Re)
Prudent people look before they leap and think things through before acting. Reckless people believe in deeds, not words and trust in their instincts and skills to preserve them.

The prudent character gives thought to what they do before they act. Such a character is called cautious, and excessively prudent people are called shrewd, circumspect, or discerning — or “slow to act.” The reckless character acts before they think things through, without concern for anything but the immediate consequences. An extremely reckless character is called careless, or a hothead.

Prudent is involved in calculating your character’s Armor Class (AC) and is often used to make Reflex, Disable Device, Escape Artist, Sleight of Hand, Stealth, Appraise, Craft, Knowledge (engineering), Perception, Profession, Sense Motive, and Survival rolls. One of the common traits used to make attack rolls, Reckless is also used in Climb, Swim, and Acrobatics rolls, as well as rolls to perform feats of strength and Fly or Ride checks to charge or increase your mount’s speed beyond its wont. Both Prudent and Reckless are sometimes used to make Will and Intimidate rolls.
Barbarians use Reckless to determine how many skill ranks they receive each level.

TEMPERATE (Te)/INDULGENT (In)
Temperate people restrain their appetites and eat wisely and drink little. Indulgent people party the night away and eat and drink until they are fuller than full.

Temperance means that a character takes only what he needs of food, drink, and other temporal needs. They are frugal and abstain from excess. Extreme temperance indicates asceticism, perhaps even self-mortification. An indulgent character is a gourmand: they take pleasure in food and drink, both in quality and quantity. Extremes of this indicate gluttony and drunkenness.

Temperate is sometimes used with Fly or Ride rolls to reflect the careful treatment of the mount, as well as Survival rolls. Indulgent, on the other hand, is involved in calculating hit points; it’s also often used to make Appraise rolls and certain kind of Craft (like Craft (food)) and Knowledge (local, nobility) rolls. Temperate is more often used to make Fortitude rolls than Indulgent, but sometimes Indulgent can be used to reflect a body that’s used to handling new and strange excesses. Both Temperate and Indulgent are sometimes used to make Will and Heal rolls.
Monks use Temperate to determine how many skill ranks they receive each level, while sorcerers use Indulgent.

TRUSTING (Tr)/SUSPICIOUS (Su)
Trusting people assume the best of everyone until proven otherwise; Suspicious people fear the worst of everyone until proven otherwise.

One who is trusting tends to believe information without any inclination to suspect its falsity. An excessively trusting person is gullible and credulous, perhaps even a dupe. Suspicious indicates that a person is unlikely to believe what they hear unless proof is offered. An extremely suspicious person is called a skeptic or a doubter. A naturally suspicious person might still be extremely pious, however.

In some cases, jealousy is included under the Suspicious trait. Thus when someone acts jealous, they may start making rolls with Suspicious. Furthermore, Suspicious is one of the common traits used to make attack rolls, as well as being involved in calculating your character’s Armor Class (AC), and is often used to make Reflex, Disable Device, Escape Artist, Appraise, Will, Perception, Profession, Sense Motive, Bluff, and Disguise rolls. Trusting is sometimes used to make Handle Animal rolls. Both Trusting and Suspicious are often used to make Knowledge (local, nobility), Linguistics, and Diplomacy rolls.

VALOROUS (Va)/COWARDLY (Co)
Valorous people do not shrink from honest, fair battle. Extremely valorous people do not shrink from possibly suicidal battle. Cowardly people seize any chance to avoid combat.

To be valorous means to be brave and courageous, willing to place oneself in danger for the sake of victory, friends, or the simple love of battle. Many PCs, by dint of being the protagonists in an action-adventure story, are valorous, and thus might be referred to as doughty, stalwart, or valiant. Extremely heroic individuals are often called fearless or intrepid. Valor may be exhibited not only in combat, but whenever risks to one’s health or wellbeing are involved. Cowardly means to be fearful of pain and of harm to one’s self. Someone who is extremely faint-hearted is labeled as a poltroon, dastard, craven, caitiff, or recreant.

As mentioned before, the types of stories told in fantasy RPGs tend to privilege Valorous characters, though Cowardly heroes can be a helluva lot of fun. Accordingly, these two Virtues are very often used to make a wide variety of rolls in Middens & Morals. To start with, Valorous is one of the common traits used to make attack rolls, and is sometimes used to make Fortitude and Will rolls, too. Battlefield medicine often uses Valorous to make Heal rolls, and Valorous can reveal information about your opponent when used with Perception. Cowardly is involved in calculating your character’s Armor Class (AC) and often used with Stealth rolls and Perception rolls to detect ambushes and surprise attacks. Both Valorous and Cowardly (depending usually on the direction one is moving in relation to the enemy) are often used to make Climb, Swim, and Sense Motive rolls and feinting, ambushing, distracting, and other such tactics often use either Valorous or Cowardly to make Bluff rolls. Though swashbucklers and the like are probably using Proud or Reckless to make Acrobatics rolls, there are times when either Valorous or Cowardly will be more appropriate.
Fighters use Valorous to determine how many skill ranks they receive each level.

Virtues, continued (Design Domingo #4)

GENEROUS (Ge)/SELFISH (Se)
Generous people keep only what they need to maintain their station and reward their followers well; Selfish people are stingy and accumulate wealth all for themselves beyond their station.

Generous determines the impulse, learning, or desire to share with others. It includes the largesse of barbarian chieftains, and also the famed virtue of Charity. Extremely generous persons are called unselfish, magnanimous, and big-hearted. Selfish is the desire to possess, keep, and further accumulate things for oneself. Greed is usually a component of selfishness. This possessiveness usually regards material property and wealth, with the character being known as a miser or hoarder, but it might apply to glory, so that the character always wishes to keep the most glorious tasks and duties for themself. Very selfish persons are labeled both stingy and self-serving.

Generous is often used to make rolls to perform feats of strength or Heal rolls when your character is helping someone out, or with Handle Animal rolls in general. It’s sometimes also used with Fly and Ride checks involving overland travel, where endurance and being well-fed determine your mount’s performance more than anything else. In some cases, jealousy is included under the Selfish trait. Thus when someone acts jealous, he may begin rolling with Selfish. Beyond that, Selfish is sometimes used to make Reflex rolls, especially ones to protect a character’s stuff, as well as Bluff rolls. Both Generous and Selfish see common use with Disable Device, Craft, Knowledge (nobility), and Profession rolls and, depending on what you’re doing, with Sleight of Hand and Stealth rolls, too. Selfish is more often used to make Appraise and Will rolls, but there are situations in which Generous is used instead.

Rogues use Selfish to determine how many skill ranks they receive each level.

HONEST (Ho)/DECEITFUL (De)
Honest people are truthful and never lie under oath. Deceitful people use words as weapons to snare others with tricks.

To be honest is to deal truthfully with others, both in matters of import or triviality, no matter what the consequences. Persons of extreme honesty are said to have integrity and to be trustworthy, scrupulous, and reliable. A deceitful person is generally likely to distort truths, or to fabricate untruths, for their own ends (or perhaps on behalf of others) — or in some cases, simply for the sake of doing so. Chronically deceitful people are called liars, frauds, and false-hearted.

Honest is often used to make Diplomacy rolls, while Deceitful is often used with Escape Artist, Sleight of Hand, Stealth, Sense Motive, Bluff, Disguise, and Use Magic Device rolls. It’s also involved in calculating your character’s Armor Class (AC). Both Honest and Deceitful are often rolled to make Knowledge (all), Linguistics, Will, Profession, and Perform rolls and sometimes Intimidate rolls, too.

Clerics and druids use Honest to determine how many skill ranks they receive each level, to reflect the fervent nature of their faith.

MODEST (Mo)/PROUD (Pro)
Modest people play down their glory and do not ask for praise; Proud people sing their own praises and expect the accolades of others.

To be modest is to be quiet and reserved about one’s gifts and accomplishments, not seeking excessive attention in the recitation of one’s own deeds. A modest character is glad simply to perform deeds, rather than bask in the repeated glory of hearing about them. Very modest people are called humble and reserved, or perhaps even shy. The Proud trait indicates the degree to which one gets pleasure from hearing and/or boasting of their deeds. Many lifeways value Pride in a character. Excessive pride implies arrogance, and likely a boastful nature.

Proud is often used to make Acrobatics, Profession, Bluff, Intimidate, and Perform rolls, and sometimes used to make Climb and Swim rolls. Rolls to perform feats of strength, too. Modest people sometimes make interesting use of both Sleight of Hand and Stealth, so it’s sometimes used for those rolls, as well as for Knowledge (nature), Perception, Survival, and Handle Animal rolls. Meanwhile, both Proud and Modest are sometimes used to make Knowledge (local, nobility) and Diplomacy checks.

Proud governs the spellcasting of bards and also determines how many skill ranks they receive each level. They’re one of two classes which use the same trait for both (the other being wizards).

JUST (Ju)/ARBITRARY (Ar)
Just people adhere to the law. Arbitrary people do whatever they like.

A just character is capable of telling what is right and wrong (within the mores of their upbringing and their personal beliefs), and is desirous of passing due judgment based on that information. A very just person is called fair and impartial. Arbitrary means that the character has no concern for what is right or wrong, and uses other information and bases for his decision making. Very arbitrary people are labeled unjust, unfair, wrongful, and probably biased and partial.

Both Just and Arbitrary are one of the common traits used to make attack rolls and Knowledge (local, nobility) rolls. Arbitrary is sometimes used to make Escape Artist, Sleight of Hand, Stealth, Will, Bluff, Intimidate, Perform, and Use Magic Device rolls. Fly, Ride, and Handle Animal rolls sometimes use Just, as the animal learns more easily what a just rider wants. It’s also often used to make Appraise, Knowledge (history), Perception, Profession, Sense Motive, and Diplomacy rolls.

Just governs the spellcasting of paladins.

MERCIFUL (Me)/CRUEL (Cr)
Merciful people accept surrenders and treat prisoners well. Cruel people find it better to kill those who surrender so they can't cause you future trouble, or else to break their will through torture.

Mercy indicates a tendency to extend sympathy, pity, and aid to others. This includes sparing an enemy, giving money to the poor, helping the weak, and any other act that is not expected of one’s rank and station. A very merciful person is called compassionate. Cruel indicates a disregard for the feelings and needs of others, or lack of sympathy. High values in Cruel indicate that the character actually enjoys the discomforts and troubles of others.

Cruel is one of the common traits used to make attack rolls (especially melee attack rolls). Perception and Intimidate checks, too. Another incredibly powerful trait for combat-oriented characters, it also adds to damage rolls. Merciful sometimes finds use with Escape Artist rolls and often with Heal rolls. Depending on how you treat your mount, both Merciful and Cruel are often used to make Fly or Ride checks and sometimes both can be used with Sleight of Hand rolls to set people up or help them avoid the eyes of the law (or in similar situations, obviously).

O holy Virtue! (Design Domingo #3)

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Character Creation Outline (Design Domingo #2)

To make things easier on myself, I'm gonna try to rip elements of other systems from their original context and chassis and weld them to each other as much as possible. The core such things, I think, are Pendragon, Unknown Armies, Legend of the Five Rings, and Exalted (though that last, at least, might better be called an inspiration rather than a direct contributor). Oh, and D&D itself, of course, primarily of the 3.x editions (particularly Pathfinder), as I am of the age wherein I was graduating high school when 3.0 came out, causing me to totally imprint on it as the height of D&D design. Now that we’re two whole editions beyond that point, I think I can safely call myself a grognard now? I also have no idea what this GURPS 4th edition nonsense is, and am wary of Savage Worlds “fixing” the gloriously broken and baroque Deadlands system. But back to Middens & Morals . . .

Interestingly, the famous Monty Python scene actually serves as an almost spot-on inspiration for this Heartbreaker game. We know from our meta-knowledge that King Arthur is, in fact, the glorious sub-Messiah of Britain, paragon (and advocate) of chivalry, chock-full of virtue, second only to Galahad and the foolish Percival in these respects. But different meta-knowledges tell us that the man working in the shit is absolutely 100% right. The system of Heavenly virtue King Arthur represents, while striving for and achieving the best of what humanity can be, is based on “outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic an' social differences in our society!” and on “violence inherent in the system.” Other media inspirations can include A Song of Ice and Fire (though with less rape, thank you), particularly storylines like Sansa’s and the Hounds and Jaime’s, and Paul Verhoeven’s first English-language movie Flesh+Blood from 1985 (when I was three!). There’s only one rape in that last inspiration, but that can easily be too many for many people, so trigger warning. I’ven’t seen Robert Bresson’s 1974 Lancelot du Lac or Aleksei German’s 2013 Hard to Be a God, but they sound like they could help inspire the kind of mood I’m looking for. Bookwise, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales are perhaps the paradigmatic encapsulation of Middens & Morals’s intended blend of things, perhaps especially when read alongside one of my all-time favorite books (and one of two books that I’ve ever intentionally stolen from a library) Excrement in the Late Middle Ages: Sacred Filth and Chaucer’s Fecopoetics, by Susan Signe Morrison. I also rather enjoy, and will likely be baking into this Heartbreaker project, John Boswell’s Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe and Silvia Federici’s Caliban and the Witch. Like Lancelot du Lac and Hard to Be a God, Steve Silberman’s Neurotribes seems like it will also be of use to me once I read it. Finally, I would also like to direct you to what is now a vast literature by pagan/polytheist/occultist anti-capitalists concerning the spell of disenchantment capitalism cast over the world and the resultant activist praxis of re-enchanting it.

I’m having some trouble identifying any sources beyond these, however. Do any of my (possibly imaginary) readers have any ideas?

In order to ensure that I got my ideas out, I copypasta’d the text from a number of my source RPGs and then blended them together and modified them to fit my vision or Middens & Morals. That’s (mostly) what will follow for several posts. Please don’t hate (or sue) me!

When generating a character, start with your character’s concept. Do you want a character who goes toe-to-toe with terrible monsters, matching sword, shield, and sanity against claws and fangs? Or do you want a mystical seer who draws his powers from the great beyond to further his own ends? Nearly anything is possible. Once you have a general concept worked out, use the following steps to bring your idea to life, recording the resulting information and statistics on your Middens and Morals character sheet (we often like to call it a “midden sheet”), which I will create . . . at some point >.<

Step 1—Determine Traits: We start by ditching the traditional six ability scores of D&D. We're not concerned here with where someone's talents lie or what muscles are best developed in their body. Power in this system comes from madness and virtue. Here I hit the first possible Heartbreaker moment (hey, it keeps me honest about what this is): I'm replacing the faux-simplicity of six attributes with a total of 36 >.< Lemme explain. I’m thinking I’ll rip the Virtue system out of Pendragon, giving us 13 pairs of traits (we'll call them Virtues, no matter what we may think of them). That covers the quest for holiness half of Middens & Morals, so I’ll turn to Unknown Armies for the other 10 traits. In that game, the madness meters are a way of describing how traumatized a character is by the events around them, and they come in two varieties: hardened and failed, measuring five types of trauma (5x2=10, obvi). These thirteen opposed pairs of Virtues and five pairs of Traumas determine your character’s most basic personality and are used to decide a wide variety of details and statistics. Some class selections benefit greatly if you have better than average scores for some of your traits.

Step 2—Pick Your Race: Next, pick your character’s race, noting any effects your choice has on rolling with your traits and any other racial qualities. There are seven basic races in Galatia to choose from, although your GM might have others to add to the list.

Step 3—Pick Your Class: A character’s class represents a profession, such as fighter or wizard. If this is a new character, they start at 1st level in his chosen class. As they gain experience points (XP) for defeating monsters, they go up in level, granting them new powers and abilities.

Step 4—Pick Skills and Select Feats: Determine the number of skill ranks possessed by your character, based on their class, each of which utilizes a different trait to determine that number (and any other bonuses, such as the bonus received by humans). Then spend these ranks on skills, but remember that you cannot have more ranks than your level in any one skill (for a starting character, this is usually one). After skills, determine how many feats your character receives, based on their class and level, and select them.

Step 5—Buy Equipment: Each new character begins the game with an amount of money, based on their class, that can be spent on a wide range of equipment and gear, from chainmail armor to leather backpacks. This gear helps your character survive while adventuring. Generally speaking, you cannot use this starting money to buy magic items without the consent of your GM.

Step 6—Finishing Details: Finally, you need to determine all of a character’s details, including their starting hit points (hp), Armor Class (AC), saving throws, initiative number, and attack values. All of these numbers are determined by the decisions made in previous steps. A level 1 character begins with maximum hit points for their Hit Die roll. Aside from these, you need to decide on your character’s name, physical appearance, chivalric domain (the battlefield, the home, or the heart), and religion. The former two don’t have any game-mechanical effects but can certainly affect the narrative of the game! The latter two, however, identify the goals your character strives for in terms of their traits, and what the benefits in game mechanics of achieving those goals are. It is best to jot down a few qualities of their personality beyond those which have a mechanical effect in the game as well, to help you play the character during the game. Determine where your character grew up and their resulting native tongue. A character knows a number of additional languages equal to five less than one-sixth the sum of their Lustful, Energetic, Deceitful, Worldly, Trusting, and Failed Isolation (if the result of the calculation is negative, that character only speaks their cribtongue). Some characters may want to take otherworldly or magical languages; they may only take one such per point of Hardened Unnatural they possess.