Force of Will:HTML Edition

Force of Will: HTML Edition

I. Introduction 

Force of Will
A Campagin Setting for A Departure of Sanity

   As I decided to continue in drawing from legitimate works of literature 
(or at least legitimate in my own opinion), I have decided to adapt my 
favorite anime Magic Knights Rayearth (don't laugh) into a campaign setting 
for my game.  While some will wonder about the correlation between Lovecraft
and Rayearth, I am going to focus heavily on the setting and theme.  
   The show takes place in Cefiro, a world that a simple human can change 
with the force of his/her will.  This volitile world is held together by 
the prayers of Princess Esmerude, however, when she is captured, the world 
begins to tear itself apart.  Thus, Esmerude summons there girls, Hikaru, 
Umi, and Fuu, from Tokyo.  They are to restore the Mashin gods and become 
the magic knights, there they can stand ready to battle the true menace.  
   In this game, you can play one of the show's characters, or create your 
own hero.  
   Why is this an A Departure of Sanity setting?  Like in From the Ashes of 
Babylon, I am loosely adapting a work (much like I did in the origonal 
rules), and making it a thoroughly psychological roleplaying game.  These 
settings are meant to extend the horizons of the rules, but they are not 
cop-outs.  However, I really love the concept because Rayearth takes place 
in a world where everyone is a puppet and a puppeteer.  
   While the game does not follow the same structure as a normal Departure 
of Sanity game, where the game acts in a normal life effected by puppeteers,
I keeps the same idea of manipulation by higher powers.  The only difference
is that all characters are puppeteers on a larger or more minor scale.  I 
realize that this is a departure, but ADOS is meant to be a generic RPG, 
and must, thusly encompass new styles and ideas to flourish.  I hope you 
enjoy it.
*   Why did I make a second edition?  It's a great setting that adapts 
really well.  It was also a trial run on a lot of things from the second
edition.  I wanted it to fit the new rules better, have less typos, and
adapt easier to the new rules.  Enjoy.

II. The Characters Note: Certain secrets about the heroes of the show are revealed here, so if you haven't watched the first season, skip to part three. Hikaru-Hikaru is a Magic Knight who is attuned to the element of Fire. She fights out of the pure desire to become a Magic Knight. She is extremely dedicated to the other Magic Knights, and often hurts herself terribly to preserve their safety. She is supposed to be the leader, though she seems to take the head only in times of battle or her long, tedious "We Can Become Magic Knight Speeches." She is the most skilled swordsman (swordsgirl? swordswoman? swordsperson?) among them, though she only commands one spell, the Fire dart/arrow. Her mashin is a big flaming guy with a sword. Umi-Umi is a Magic Knight who is attuned to the element of Water. She has a rather interesting personality, for she cares for all the Magic Knights deeply and is the most loyal, but she also has the capacity to be a major... witch. She also gets involved in those tedious speeches. She is an interesting and fun character, but I cannot describe her adequately, watch the anime. As for her combat ability, she fights with a sword, though I have never actually seen her kill anything with it, for she perfers to fight with her spell, the water dragon. Her mashin is big, blue, and powerful. Fuu-Fuu, oh let me count the ways I love the. If you haven't caught on by now, Fuu is my favorite, so this will be a rather...elongated description. She pretty much has it all, she is the best magic user, a master of the sword and bow, extremely unselfish and caring, and pretty darn hot too. Fuu is an introspective loaner who has spent her life working torwards the will of others. However, she is currently entangled with a love affair with a fellow introspective loaner, Ferrio (He is my second favorite character, though I am still jelous of him). She is the picture of conservative beauty with her curly brown hair, perfect face, and extremely cute glasses (Yes, I should talk to my shrink about this). As for true character data, she is the most accomplished magic user, as she can effective use her wind powers for offense, defense, healing, and flight. She is extremely good with the bow, and not bad with a sword (especially since she hadn't even touched a sword before she was saddled with it). She fights in a giant, angel-like mashin, which, mysterious, bestows her with the power to see without corrective lenses. Mokona-I would pay good money to see someone accurately roleplay Mokona, the guy who does it deserves at least a 2X actualization bonus (Not a rule, just a quip). For those of you don't know, Mokona is a short, fat white bunny thing. He has a red jewel in the middle of his head and can use it to carry almost anything (and he seems to carry anything). Mokona also has the ability to transmit video communications and a map of Cefiro. He seems to myteriously disappear whenever there is a fight. Clef-Clef is the master wizard of Cefiro. He commands a great amount of magic and tutors many students, however, his power is linked to the power of Cefiro. So, if Cefiro is being destroyed his magic power dwindles. He was turned to stone by one of his pupils who had joined Zagato. He can still communicate to the Magic Knights through Mokona. Ferrio-Ferrio is a swordsman with a shattered past. He has exceptional strength, constitution, and skill in the use of a sword. He lives for the present and takes many risks. He is motivated to save Princess Esmerude because, unknowingly, he is her younger brother. However, his memory of her is shattered due to the effects of a spell he chose to have put on him. He cares for Fuu deeply and has managed to save her life many times, and she his. He fights with a powerful curved sword. Princess Esmerude-She is the Pilliar of Cefiro. Her prayers keep the world working well and the powerful wills of the common man under control. However, she is emotionally shattered by this life, for she cannot act for herself, she can only serve others. She falls in love with Zagato, and wanting to love him, gives up her prayers. This causes the people's will to go out of control and the destruction of Cefiro to begin. She calls the Magic Knights from another world to kill her, for that is the one act of a will a resident of Cefiro cannot accomplish. The Magic Knights go on, thinking they are there to fight Zagato, but, when Zagato dies, she goes mad and attacks the Knights. The Knights kill her, another pilliar comes, and Cefiro is restored to normal. High Priest Zagato-He loves Esmerude deeply and does not want to see her die, so he sends his henchmen out to kill the Magic Knights. He realizes that he could destroy Cefiro if she doesn't die, but his love is too profound to care. After his henchmen fail, he attempts to destroy the Knights in his own Mashin, but the Knights are simply too powerful. With his death Cefiro is saved. Alcyone-She is a witch and former pupil of Clef. She believes that Zagato loves her, and thus, she fights for him. Despite her power and rage, she is inept and easily defeated. This causes her to become even more broken. Ascott-He is a young (effiminite-looking and acting) boy whose only friends are monsters. These monsters are spirits that have existed before the reign of Zagato (they are not created from the fears of people). He once summoned these monsters to aid Zagato, because Zagato promised that he would protect his monsters if the Magic Knights were destroyed. Ascott, however, befrinded the Magic Knights and stopped working for Zagato. Caldina-She is a dancer who has the powers of hypnotism, dance magic, and making her breasts twich (watch the anime, you'll understand). She is amazingly greedy, and at one point, was willing to hurt others to satiate her greed. However, when Fuu standed up to her, she realized the error of her ways and realized that her greed was really formed out of the desire to improve her and Ascott's lives. Lafarga-He was once the leader of Esmerude's guard, but Zagato put him under a spell. This caused him to fight for Zagato, but the curse was lifted, and he fought alongside the Magic Knights. He feels little pain and is a master of a sword. He gains bursts of energy, and can often bounce back, even when seemingly defeated. He also posesses the amazing ability to apparently die and reappear. III. Creating a Character Here are the steps to creating your own character or one of the above characters in the world of Cefiro: I. Decide if you want to use one of the characters above or create your own character. II. Decide if you want to set your campagin before or after Esmerude's capture (No Magic Knights if before). III. Give your character job, hobby, demeanor, and exceptional talents. Cefiro is a fairly high-tech world, but the technology is magical, and thus, the actual technology level is that of the middle ages, think about that when assigning talents. Also, if the character is a Magic Knight, give them the talent, Magic for free. IV. Give your character pay according to their position. In a community like this, there is no real advancement. A character also recives 1/4 of the normal pay (as always, with living expenses are previously deducted), though it is a utopian community, and money holds little value. During Zagato's regin, the characters recieve literally no money, due to theft by henchman and monster attacks. V. Give them their disadvantage. Remember that monsters are materializing out of people's worst fears, for the people, no longer surviving off the power of another's will, must survive off their own will. So, it is very likely that they will have to meet their fears, fact-to-face. VI. Assign a character a will score. This is new. A will score is pretty much the strength of a character's spirit. A chart below tells a character's will score. Someone with exceptional constitution gets 2 addtional points and exceptional intelligence gets 1 more. Someone during Zagato's reign gets twice the amount of will points. Classification Points A Below-Average Guy 1 Normal Guy 2 Smart Guy 3 Hero 4 Magic Knight 5 Apprentice Wizard 6 Wizard/Major Character 8 Priest 9 High Priest 10 Esmerude/Mokona inf VII. Give a character a sphere of magic. He must have this chosen before he decides to use magic. If a character is trained in magic by Clef (or any other wizard), he may use it to his advantage. A sphere of magic deals with the elements it draws from. Characters drawing from elements that are attuned to destruction (i.e. fire) will gain destructive spells, while more passive forces will gain healing and defensive spells. Here a some example spheres, and some spells one could possibly learn (many of these are made up), feel free to make your own: Water: Water dragon, protective bubble, breathe water, cause whirlpool, create rain. Fire: Flame dart, fire arrow, protection from fire, spontaneous combustion, supernova. Wind: Green gale, healing wind, protective wind, fly, tornado. Earth: Earthquake, animate rock, rock shard, rock shield. Prayer: Stability, heal, strength, protect, smite, and pilliar. Wizardry: Communicate, lightning strike, heal, turn to stone, bestow equipment, bestow magic. Hypnotize: Control creature. Summon: Summon creature. Weaponsmith: Make weapons. Sword: Disable, Stun, Strengthen, Summon beast. VIII. Give a character his emphasis-A character that can cast spells must choose to emphasize spells or conventional combat. This factors into advancement. IX. Give a character his Chi score-Season two speaks about the chi in detail (though this is the last I will mention the second season). Due to conversation, we can tell that chi is an active force. Give a character a chi score equal to 1/2 of their will, rounded up. Follow normal chi rules (See game appendexes). X. Actualize-This, obviously, will not happen 'till later, but I have a new advancement system. First, your character gains actualization points in this manner: 1 point-Surviving a adventure. 3 points-Surviving an adventure and making a minor discoverey about the plot. 5 points-Surviving an adventure and making a major discoverey about the plot. 7 points-Surviving an adventure and learning a new spell. +2 points-Overpowering a minor foe. +5 points-Overpowering a major foe. You gain the advantages by the same number of points, but since the land is a land of will actualization is easier to attain than in the real world. There is also a new way to build up skills. If you gain a new talents, you may opt add a level to an old talent, instead, (like in Mechwarrior). Thus, the talent poodle shaving would become poodle shaving (2) that option was used. What does it mean. It means that you get as many dice for it as the number suggests. However, you also gain trauma points based on this standard: 1 point-Incurring a minor trauma. 2 points-Surviving an adventure and making a minor traumatic discoverey. 3 points-Surviving an adventure and making a major traumatic discoverey. +2 points-Being overpowered by a major foe. +5 points-Being overpowered by a minor foe (it's worse getting beaten up by a whimp). +3 points-Getting your rear kicked really bad. You lose actualization and gain disadvantages in the same manner. IV. Create Your World Cefiro isn't everybody's world, I don't expect it to be, however, if you want to create a world of will, you must determine certain factors that keep the world realistic. These are listed below: I. Decide the Strength of Will-Will may be an extremely powerful force where any human has the power to mold it to how he sees fit (think Doctar Solar, The Man of the Atom or a TinyMUD) or a weak force. Will may also be used to control a specific group or class (i.e. A group of people is forced to abide by the Will of the privildged). It may not even be a factor until a character reaches a certain level of actualization (like Earth, if you share certain views). This won't raise or lower Will scores, it simply creates the impact of a will score. II. Decide What Keeps the Will in Check-You could make an anarchist society where everyone's Will is running rampart, but it is more reasonable to believe that the world's Will is kept in check by something. This can be a god, a being of immense will, or something different, all that matters is that will is regulated by something or nothing. III. Set Limits to Will-This is important, you have to decide the extent of Will. Magic, Effectiveness, Speed, and Power at its ultimate form are all factors, and there is no real easy answer about how one could gague them. Just remember, a campaign could end quickly if Will could destroy the world (Though it does, inadventently, happen in Rayearth), and if it does, at least give its effectiveness as a time limit. Also, one might want to make it so will only alters things (that way, somebody couldn't go poof and make someone disappear forever). IV. Decide Who is Heard-In your world, not everyone may have their Will come to life. Will may exist in almost every person, may be a force motivated by masses, may be a force motivated by factions, or even a force motivated by a single person (If you're a Lovecraftian, Cthulhu's dreams control our world). V. Decide the Physics-Will should have a set of physical rules to go by, so you can know what can be changed and what cannot be. Remember that some joker will manipulate the game if you give will no physical limits. VI. Decide the Politics of the World-A World of Will would tend to lend itself to either anarchic or autocratic society, though any other society can work, provided you plan it out well. Just remember that a leader (if there is one) probably has some responsibility to keep the Will in check. There also have to be many factors to get a sucessful leader to be chosen by the people in a World of Will. Just remember, you just look stupid saying there is no leader, a vaccum of power always exists (haven't you seen Road Warrior), so there always has to be somebody in charge. VII. Decide the Economics of the World-A World of Will lends itself to socialism or anarchy in terms of economics, though it could go many ways. Just remember, in a world where a person can manipulate anything, it's going to be hard as hell to set up a free maket. VIII. Decide the Morality of the World-A World of Will could work out well in an overly-moral society (but what the hell would be the point of that), but I personally reccommend that there is a balance between moral and immoral factions. IX. Decide How a World is a World of Will-Cefiro apparently evolved from religious elightenment, but every world has to have a reason to be dominated by people's will. This will become an important factor in the plot. X. Decide the Secret Force Acting Against Will-For the pure purpose of plot, there should be a secret group of aberrants who want to eliminate the strength of Will or relocate it in such a manner (i.e. shift the power to a certain class or use as much will as possible to serve their purposes. V. Contests To fit with the Will/anime style of FOW, I have decided to add in a new combat rule, contests. A contest is like a round of combat, but the results are different. In a contest, opponents attempt to overpower the other. There are three contests: will, strength, personality, constitution, magics, and chi. Let me clarify the nature of the contests: Contest of: Will-Two people in a World of Will (providing that Will is empowered), fight to see whose will is more powerful. They recieve one die for each point of Will they have with double dice for each point they have over their opponent. They roll against each other and the winner mentally overpowers the other. Strength-You see this on Dragonball a lot. It is essentially when one character either tries to intimidate or overpower by show of strength the other. I can't really explain it, but it is combat without combat. No real bonuses. Personality-This is when someone tries to use their personality to overpower the other. If they are nice people, they might try to befriend or seduce the other, but a mean person would try to scare the kuzo out of the other. Constitution-This is an option. A character can choose to use this instead of strength in a contest of strength, but it is an option that can only be taken by the person defending against the agressor in a contest of Strength. It isn't a real contest, but I add it on, nonetheless. Magics-Think Dragonball. Two people throw the same, or similar magic against each other, and they grunt and strain while they try to overpower the other. Chi-This is essentially a combination of all of the above. Two people use their Chi to square off with the other. To make this test, one makes a contest of Will, and then makes a contest of Chi using the same rules. The scores are combined and the greater one wins. Winning a contest is like winning a battle and includes the same advantages (or disadvantages for getting your rear kicked). However, there is an added advantage seen in the next chapter. VI. Advancing in Will In Cefiro, you aren't the only thing that advances, the element, Escado advances as well. Whenever a character makes a major victory, or wins a major contest he may have his armor and weapons advance (watch the show to see how it works). They will become bigger and better, and will gain an additional +1 whenever they are in a situation that puts them in a state of advantage (i.e. a Magic Knight sword +2 does not gain +2 against arrows). Currently, only Pursea can make these weapons, but any Weaponsmith you create can make it. Along with these advances, you gain one Will point. Even if you don't have these weapons, you still gain that point. Also, you gain spells by necessity. For example, if a friend is hurt, you can create a spell to help him (provided your magic is activated, even from afar). However, you suffer drain. Drain is a test of Will verses yourself (designate which one is for you beforehand, I will personally smack you down if you go with the "highest you"). For every point that the other you has over you, you gain one trauma point. However, that spell is yours forever, regardless of situation, and you gain a Will and actualization point. Clarification: This rule was as confusing as hell in the origional, so I'll make it easier. Make a contest of will against the DM. The DM uses your stats against you, if you win, no effect, if you lose you gain a trauma point. If you win, you keep the spell and gain a will and actualization point. As you gain these points, you follow in this manner: 1. Add Will points. 2. Add 1 Chi point for every Will you gain. 3. Add Actualization points and gain all advantages. 4. Add Trauma points and gain all disadvantages. Another Note on Spell Creation: Spell creation can only happen if a party member or NPC is in trouble and you aren't equipped to handle it. This can only happen once per game and should only happen rarely. After your abilities are high enough, you should be able to harness the power of a Mashin. A strong character should go before a Mashin (Once he is found) and a test of human spirit must be taken. Once the test is taken, the characters have some of the Mashin power (they gain 2 times every dice roll they take and advance equipment). Once all your characters have Mashins (that are able to), they become Magic Knights. The same change happens again, and they can now ride in the Mashin. All of their dice rolls are multiplied times 10 within the Mashin. VII. LARPin' Like I mentioned, I realized how lame LARPin' is, but I still keep the rules in place. I think this might actually LARP pretty well, especially since you can emulate psuedo-dramatic anime dialogue. I have seen some really good Big Eyes, Small Mouth campaigns that worked because they were live. VIII. Conclusion I hope you all enjoy this book and the effort I have put into it. It should be helpful anyone's campaign, or should at least get players intersted in this most wonderful Anime. I have more products on the way. So, have fun with this and, as always, keep gaming. VIII. Legal Stuff (a.k.a. please don't sue me) I gain no profeit directly from this product, which contains references to copyrighted materials. I use Rayearth as an example of the world this gaming product can create, it is not of my own creation by any means. As always, I incur no damage to body or property caused. IX. Forthcoming The most likely future prospects are: a secret Lovecraft project (the preview should come out the same day as this), Domo Arigato Mr. Robato (Battletech), East of Sanity (If I ever get some time), River Black (Rock 'n' Roll RPG), and Super Elf Hunter Championship Edition (AD&D Parody). There is always more stuff on the horizon, and if any of you bastards actually did my surveys, I might be able to help you better. By the way, I want ideas for new stuff, so e-mail me at dkeic@dreamtheater.zzn.com, I am open to any fan-produced idea (and I will make 9 out of 10 of them, that's how the new Cthulhu project is coming).