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I should really be doing my readings for my group project today, but no! Procrastination sits on my right shoulder, whispering sweet nothings in my ear, so instead of reading of the horrors of slavery, I'm making a character. So be it.
I have here in front of me Green Ronin's Blue Rose game. I own it, though I've never really done much with it. I greatly appreciate its existence, frankly. I like a lot of the literary inspiration for the game, especially the Robin McKinley books The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown (which is how they go chronologically, but were published in reverse order). Those are two of my favorite books of all time, frankly, and a system that would let me run them happily is a system I would hug and love and make mine forever.
The problem I have with the setting of Blue Rose, however, is that it's not really much like those books at all. It's far closer to Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar -- which has its good points, but isn't the inspiration I wanted. It's all a little too... gah. Good, I guess. I like a bit more dark mixed in, a touch more of a central point on the alignment charts. That said, there's nothing actually wrong with it, and as I read through the setting information and grudgingly let go of what I really wanted it to already be, I found that I was all right with what it was.
The Game: Blue Rose: The Roleplaying Game of Romantic Fantasy
The Publisher: Green Ronin
Degree of Familiarity: It's effectively True 20 with a few tweaks, so pretty familiar. Been a while since I played, but nothing I can't pick up again.
Books. I've got the True 20 core around here somewhere, and of course the Blue Rose sourcebook. Although it occurs to me I may need to actually get another core rulebook. Hmm. Ah well, no matter what it works.
1) Concept: Okay, so upon reading the book, I've discovered the following: I don't want to make a sentient animal, I don't want to make an oppressed Slavic-esque villager, and I don't want to make a repressed desert-y dweller. I also don't want to make a sea elf or whatever those are, or a real elf (vata). I just want to make a human. (See my biases coming into play). I don't want someone thoroughly tied into Aldis, though. I think I'll make a Roamer. We'll just play up the full gypsy theme and go from there.
2) Name: I wish, really wish, they'd included sample names for their backgrounds. Since they don't, though, a simple Google search provides me with a list of ostensible Romany female names. I'll choose Nadya, which means "hope." Isn't that nice. Nadya it is. No last name -- she wouldn't need it.
3) Abilities: So, these are the standard six: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma. I get six points to spent between them (each point = +1 bonus). I can subtract points and give myself penalties to get more points elsewhere. All abilities start at 0.
So... really, in looking over what the Roamers are good at, we're looking at Dex, Wis, and Cha as their primary attributes. I'm actually pretty good with that, all told. Her abilities are therefore as follows:
Str 0
Dex +2
Con 0
Wis +2
Cha +2
On the one hand, it'd be nice to customize this a bit more and not feel like I need these stats to make a character who can do X, but honestly... well, that's the nature of x20 systems. I'm not going to let it bug me.
4) Backgrounds: Nadya is a Roamer, which means she's human. This gives her the following:
Size: Medium (though Roamers are a bit shorter and slighter than other Aldins)
Speed: 30 ft.
One bonus skill (any)
One bonus feat (from the background's favored feats)
Now, as a Roamer, their favored skills are Bluff, Perform, and Sneak. Their favored feats are Evasion, Surprise Attack, and Visionary Talent. So there you go. I'm going to hold off in picking my skills and feats until I finish skills and feats respectively, but it's good to know they're there.
5) Roles. For this game there are three basic roles, which is basically choosing your leveling progression. They're Adept, Expert, and Warrior. Adept and Warrior are fairly self explanatory. Expert is everything else, but especially rogues. You can also mix them, but that's not really something I'm going to mess with right now. Doesn't fit my concept (okay, it could, but I don't want to mess with it). I think I'm interested in making her a magic-user in the Roamer traditions (hello, Visionary Talent!) so I'm going to go with Adept.
At 1st level, she's got a Conviction of 3 (which are Sheer Awesome! points and can be used to help out your character in any number of ways), +2 Defense, +2 Will, +1 Reputation. Any other saves or attack mods are 0. Yep, she's a magic user. Favored skill have a rank of 4, regular skills a rank of 2. She starts with 4 favored skills + Craft and Knowledge, and
In particular, I'm choosing the Seer path for her. Or rather, fortune teller. :) She starts with Notice and Sense Motive as favored skills, and Arcane Training (Psychic Shield, Second Sight), Arcane Training (Scrying, Visions), Fortune's Favor, and Visionary Talent as favored feats.
So her Favored skills are: Bluff, Perform, Sneak, Notice, Sense Motive, Craft, and Knowledge.
I get to pick 2 plus her her Int score, which is 0, so she gets two to start. I'll go with Perform and Notice. She's just first level, after all. She also gets that bonus skill, so I'll pick Sense Motive.
Her list of Favored Feats is comprised of: Evasion, Surprise Attack, Visionary Talent, Arcane Training (Psychic Shield, Second Sight), Arcane Training (Scrying, Visions), Fortune's Favor, Arcane feats overall, and General feats overall.
She gets four to start, plus one from the list above. Fortune's Favor and Visionary Talent top the list. Now three more. I'll take the two Arcane Training ones listed above and Truth-Reading, just for the fun of it. The Arcane Training gives her access to the arcana listed above in those feats, Visionary Talent gives her the ability to learn Visionary Arcana, Fortune's Favor lets her add her Charisma bonus to all her saving throws, and Truth-Reading lets her know if someone is telling the truth. Bonus. It's a good thing she lives in such a friendly place, elsewise everyone she meets will want to kill her. Hee. :)
6) Details. So this is where the name and whatnot is supposed to come in. Here we go, then.
Her name is Nadya, and her grandmother is her family's seer. Her grandmother Misele has seen the gift in her granddaughter and started teaching her to be her eventual replacement. Nadya is around 18 years old, just really coming of age. She's short, but with good hips and a chest that suits her frame. She has dark hair that curls around her face and large dark eyes. She wears a lot of scarlet and purple and white, and she's often laughing. Her grandmother says she's not serious enough, but how can she be something that is not her nature? She hasn't had a true love yet, though enough flirtation for fun. That'll come when it's time -- the gods will see to that.
According to the fate her grandmother reads for her, her calling is the Death card... creating change. Things get turned upside down around Nadya, but usually for the best in the end. It isn't as though she tries, mind you, although sometimes she does. She simply knows that that which stays still and unmoving dies or is already dead. Only through change and upheaval can we grow and become who we are destined to be. Her alignment is Light, at least for now. Her nature comes up as the Ace of Cups (thank you, random tarot generator), which means that she had a generous nature and lavishes time and attention on those around her, though occasionally she becomes greedy for attention herself
I am not even remotely buying equipment for this character. :)
So there's Nadya. Cute, fun, flirty, just waiting to turn lives upside down. Someone should now run this game for me. Just saying. :)
I have here in front of me Green Ronin's Blue Rose game. I own it, though I've never really done much with it. I greatly appreciate its existence, frankly. I like a lot of the literary inspiration for the game, especially the Robin McKinley books The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown (which is how they go chronologically, but were published in reverse order). Those are two of my favorite books of all time, frankly, and a system that would let me run them happily is a system I would hug and love and make mine forever.
The problem I have with the setting of Blue Rose, however, is that it's not really much like those books at all. It's far closer to Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar -- which has its good points, but isn't the inspiration I wanted. It's all a little too... gah. Good, I guess. I like a bit more dark mixed in, a touch more of a central point on the alignment charts. That said, there's nothing actually wrong with it, and as I read through the setting information and grudgingly let go of what I really wanted it to already be, I found that I was all right with what it was.
The Game: Blue Rose: The Roleplaying Game of Romantic Fantasy
The Publisher: Green Ronin
Degree of Familiarity: It's effectively True 20 with a few tweaks, so pretty familiar. Been a while since I played, but nothing I can't pick up again.
Books. I've got the True 20 core around here somewhere, and of course the Blue Rose sourcebook. Although it occurs to me I may need to actually get another core rulebook. Hmm. Ah well, no matter what it works.
1) Concept: Okay, so upon reading the book, I've discovered the following: I don't want to make a sentient animal, I don't want to make an oppressed Slavic-esque villager, and I don't want to make a repressed desert-y dweller. I also don't want to make a sea elf or whatever those are, or a real elf (vata). I just want to make a human. (See my biases coming into play). I don't want someone thoroughly tied into Aldis, though. I think I'll make a Roamer. We'll just play up the full gypsy theme and go from there.
2) Name: I wish, really wish, they'd included sample names for their backgrounds. Since they don't, though, a simple Google search provides me with a list of ostensible Romany female names. I'll choose Nadya, which means "hope." Isn't that nice. Nadya it is. No last name -- she wouldn't need it.
3) Abilities: So, these are the standard six: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma. I get six points to spent between them (each point = +1 bonus). I can subtract points and give myself penalties to get more points elsewhere. All abilities start at 0.
So... really, in looking over what the Roamers are good at, we're looking at Dex, Wis, and Cha as their primary attributes. I'm actually pretty good with that, all told. Her abilities are therefore as follows:
Str 0
Dex +2
Con 0
Wis +2
Cha +2
On the one hand, it'd be nice to customize this a bit more and not feel like I need these stats to make a character who can do X, but honestly... well, that's the nature of x20 systems. I'm not going to let it bug me.
4) Backgrounds: Nadya is a Roamer, which means she's human. This gives her the following:
Size: Medium (though Roamers are a bit shorter and slighter than other Aldins)
Speed: 30 ft.
One bonus skill (any)
One bonus feat (from the background's favored feats)
Now, as a Roamer, their favored skills are Bluff, Perform, and Sneak. Their favored feats are Evasion, Surprise Attack, and Visionary Talent. So there you go. I'm going to hold off in picking my skills and feats until I finish skills and feats respectively, but it's good to know they're there.
5) Roles. For this game there are three basic roles, which is basically choosing your leveling progression. They're Adept, Expert, and Warrior. Adept and Warrior are fairly self explanatory. Expert is everything else, but especially rogues. You can also mix them, but that's not really something I'm going to mess with right now. Doesn't fit my concept (okay, it could, but I don't want to mess with it). I think I'm interested in making her a magic-user in the Roamer traditions (hello, Visionary Talent!) so I'm going to go with Adept.
At 1st level, she's got a Conviction of 3 (which are Sheer Awesome! points and can be used to help out your character in any number of ways), +2 Defense, +2 Will, +1 Reputation. Any other saves or attack mods are 0. Yep, she's a magic user. Favored skill have a rank of 4, regular skills a rank of 2. She starts with 4 favored skills + Craft and Knowledge, and
In particular, I'm choosing the Seer path for her. Or rather, fortune teller. :) She starts with Notice and Sense Motive as favored skills, and Arcane Training (Psychic Shield, Second Sight), Arcane Training (Scrying, Visions), Fortune's Favor, and Visionary Talent as favored feats.
So her Favored skills are: Bluff, Perform, Sneak, Notice, Sense Motive, Craft, and Knowledge.
I get to pick 2 plus her her Int score, which is 0, so she gets two to start. I'll go with Perform and Notice. She's just first level, after all. She also gets that bonus skill, so I'll pick Sense Motive.
Her list of Favored Feats is comprised of: Evasion, Surprise Attack, Visionary Talent, Arcane Training (Psychic Shield, Second Sight), Arcane Training (Scrying, Visions), Fortune's Favor, Arcane feats overall, and General feats overall.
She gets four to start, plus one from the list above. Fortune's Favor and Visionary Talent top the list. Now three more. I'll take the two Arcane Training ones listed above and Truth-Reading, just for the fun of it. The Arcane Training gives her access to the arcana listed above in those feats, Visionary Talent gives her the ability to learn Visionary Arcana, Fortune's Favor lets her add her Charisma bonus to all her saving throws, and Truth-Reading lets her know if someone is telling the truth. Bonus. It's a good thing she lives in such a friendly place, elsewise everyone she meets will want to kill her. Hee. :)
6) Details. So this is where the name and whatnot is supposed to come in. Here we go, then.
Her name is Nadya, and her grandmother is her family's seer. Her grandmother Misele has seen the gift in her granddaughter and started teaching her to be her eventual replacement. Nadya is around 18 years old, just really coming of age. She's short, but with good hips and a chest that suits her frame. She has dark hair that curls around her face and large dark eyes. She wears a lot of scarlet and purple and white, and she's often laughing. Her grandmother says she's not serious enough, but how can she be something that is not her nature? She hasn't had a true love yet, though enough flirtation for fun. That'll come when it's time -- the gods will see to that.
According to the fate her grandmother reads for her, her calling is the Death card... creating change. Things get turned upside down around Nadya, but usually for the best in the end. It isn't as though she tries, mind you, although sometimes she does. She simply knows that that which stays still and unmoving dies or is already dead. Only through change and upheaval can we grow and become who we are destined to be. Her alignment is Light, at least for now. Her nature comes up as the Ace of Cups (thank you, random tarot generator), which means that she had a generous nature and lavishes time and attention on those around her, though occasionally she becomes greedy for attention herself
I am not even remotely buying equipment for this character. :)
So there's Nadya. Cute, fun, flirty, just waiting to turn lives upside down. Someone should now run this game for me. Just saying. :)
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no subject
Date: 2010-02-13 04:02 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2010-02-13 04:14 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2010-02-14 05:00 pm (UTC)From:But I want to hear about the horrors!
Yes I am at least half serious. I'm a history geek. So are we talking American slavery or somewhere else in the world?
no subject
Date: 2010-02-15 03:56 pm (UTC)From:In particular, this means mothers who kill their babies rather than see them become slaves, mothers who endure torture for their children, rape, forced pregnancy, whipping, soul murder (to borrow a phrase from some of our criticism)... it is not exactly lighthearted.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-15 04:57 pm (UTC)From:One thing that, I think, everyone asked was: did she REALLY write this? This wasn't meant to be derogatory but it is really well written, and slaves weren't known for their superior education. I think we finally settled with she must have had a good editor/she's just a very good writer, much like some people can play piano without any training.
The other thing that bugged a lot of us was that she wasn't rapped by her master. Again, this isn't meant to be mean, but a lot of the book talks about how the master peruses her despite his wife's objections. On this we concluded that maybe he did rape her, and she just didn't write it (which is more than understandable), or his wife really did control his balls and so she was spared.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-15 06:32 pm (UTC)From:I think part of the difference between the history class and the lit class is that one of the things we talked about is that if we doubt that it's her, if we doubt her claims that she was taught to read and write as a child and that her level of literacy was possible in someone from her origins, we're really questioning her humanity, not just her literacy.
Also, the idea that she wasn't raped... there were societal reasons having to do with her grandmother (who was both free and well-respected), as well as the likelihood of retaliation by his wife. It's also possible that, while he was a terrible human being, he wasn't actually a rapist. Assuming that slaveholder automatically=rapist is something of a leap -- it was common, but it wasn't mandatory.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-15 03:42 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2010-02-15 03:49 pm (UTC)From:I do have and have read Deerskin, yes. It is hard, but it's an incredible book. The fact that she can write about that and it is such a gutshot feeling.... that's really pretty amazing.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-23 09:02 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2010-02-16 01:00 pm (UTC)From:Make another one! :)
I need a Tarot-related icon. Can't believe I don't have one yet.