Rune Knight

Not expecting to be attacked by one of their own, half of the troop of Eyes of Ra soldiers were taken out before they could even get their bearings. One soldier looked up as Impi revealed her true identity, and a venomous "You!" escaped his lips in recognition. Meanwhile, other units went on the move, the drum of boots on the metal floor echoing slightly through the cavernous room in response. The sound of grappling-hook type equipment came to everyone's ears as more Eyes of Ra rappelled down from some platforms on the other side of the room, and the rev of an engine announced the readiness of the cat-masked twins on their shiny black motorcycle. Up above, screens flickered on, broadcasting the silhouette of Queen Heqet herself from her throne on the Bridge. The storm was a little louder where she was, and the raging gray maelstrom outside served as a fitting backdrop to her regal pose. "So you think you've finally done it, do you? Struck a lethal blow, such that I'll never return?" She smiled. Lightning flashed behind her at just that very moment, the thunder rumbling through the lair and vibrating at your feet. "One day, I shall rule from the skies: the sun will never set on my New Egyptian Empire, and our glory will reign for centuries to come!" "...but you won't be there to see it." Over in the elevator where she'd taken cover, Impi heard the unmistakable whisper of mechanical machinations preparing to spring a trap. The words "Override Engaged" flashed on the elevator's personal screen, and her adrenaline spiked as the doors rushed to slam shut at an alarming pace! At the same time, another troop of soldiers moved in to support their comrades surrounding Hannibal and Watcher on the floor. They didn't bring any weapons to bear just yet, though, opting to reach for some kind of tool at their belts. "You know what they say, boys." One soldier hinted, a series of sinister clicks! revealing what seemed to be personal, belt-attached grappling hook tools with wires spooling out of their belt buckles. "The bigger they are..." The soldiers spun the ends around like slings, before throwing them at Hannibal from multiple different angles. They were trying to catch him, hold him in place! What followed was an onslaught of attacks poised to take advantage of that wire trick, the barrels of many guns aiming at Hannibal from afar. "Aim!" The Eyes of Ra that had rappelled down from those platforms up above lined up in a tight, narrow cone formation, the front two kneeling so that those behind them could aim over their heads. "Fire!" On the other side of the room, "MechAnubis" the jackal-shaped exosuit pulled out the minigun that had rested upon his back. The barrels began to spin, and it wouldn't be long before they too were ripping and tearing through the various obstacles and training targets that littered the training room floor. The bike-riding twins drove by, drifting expertly to circle around MechAnubis. While her brother steered the bike, twin sister selected an assault rifle from the veritable armory of weapons strapped to her body. She flipped the gun to semi-automatic, then fired a single well-placed shot aiming right for Hannibal's heart! OOC Queen Heqet activates the elevator (Zone 19) as a lair trap, making it a Hazard with 2 Weapon Rating. Impi must roll to defend against Great (+4) Opposition or suffer damage as if she were attacked. Her defense roll represents using great effort to avoid being dropped out of the sky and falling to her doom; she'll end up in Zone 18 as a result, and Zone 19 will become an Ejected Elevator Cavity. Hannibal will be rolling to defend against the rest of these: Mob B moves to Zone 18 and rolls to Create an Advantage against Hannibal: Grappled. Mob A moves to Zone 12 and attacks Hannibal at range with their Phalanx Arms skill. The Bastet Twins move to Zone 14 and attack Hannibal with Shoot. They then use their Stunt, Chariot (see below) to move an extra Zone, moving up to Zone 11. MechAnubis moves to Zone 14 and attacks Hannibal with Shoot. Chariot The twins' motorcycle allows them to move 1 extra Zone per turn. The first time they take a Consequence, something interesting happens. All rolls are located in the Dice Rolls thread as per usual.

Round 1 and the rest of the enemies take their turns. Colette must roll to defend against a passive Opposition of Great (+4), meanwhile ManicPixieFatGuy must defend against 1 Create an Advantage and 3 Attack rolls.

The Eyes of Ra defend against Impi's attack.

"Soldiers, form up! Protect the priestess!" A group of falcon-masked followers of Queen Heqet rushed forward, shields raised, moving quickly to surround Watcher and Hannibal. One of them looked back at Impi in her disguise. "Head for the Queen's Chambers, ma'am! The antechamber should be safe enough, or perhaps Queen Heqet will let you into an adjoining room with her command of this vessel!" Meanwhile, Watcher and Hannibal did their best to break the circle that the Eyes of Ra were forming around them, but to no avail. Despite Hannibal's incredible strength, the soldiers were too well-trained, working together and bracing against his attempts to throw them to the side. Watcher did his best to take advantage of their concentrated effort, but they always left a few others to cover their flanks. Before they knew it, the Eyes of Ra had Watcher and Hannibal well and truly surrounded. Recalling the layout of this place that they had managed to learn during their investigations of Queen Heqet, Watcher, Hannibal and Impi all realized how difficult it might be to reach Queen Heqet herself. They knew that at the other end of this room was a passage leading to the Bridge, where Queen Heqet was sure to be overseeing everything. Would they continue to face these minions and whittle them down until they could get to Queen Heqet? Or would they try and reach her first, in order to cut the head off the snake? They weighed their options carefully... OOC Mob C moved into Zone 18 and rolled to Create an Advantage against Watcher and Hannibal; they succeeded with style, placing the Surrounded Aspect on them with 2 free invocations. , it is now Impi's turn.

The Eyes of Ra (Mob C) roll to Create an Advantage against Watcher and Hannibal. Either of them can choose to provide active opposition, or the difficulty of this roll will be a passive Fair (+2) difficulty check for the Mob.

Queen Heqet rolls initiative for the enemy team. She does so using the following Stunt: Ear to the Ground Whenever someone initiates a Conflict against you in an area where you’ve built a network of contacts, you use Contacts instead of Notice to determine turn order, because you got tipped off in time.

In a room dimly lit by a golden glow, a figure sat upon a tall, imperious throne; subdued chaos swirled around her as communications officers read from their command terminals, just trying to understand what was going on. She was the eye of the storm, silently watching an array of pseudo-holographic screens trapped in a vast glass prism on the war table before her. Seemingly overnight, everything had begun to fall apart. Her eyes flickered between images and videos: an entire album of leaked evidence revealing her secret plan. Recruiting soldiers and training them to fight. Hiring spies and assassins to make moves on key political figures... Even killing, if she had to do it herself. She saw the reaction from the public unfolding before her very eyes: conspiracy forums feeling validated that their theories about her seemingly innocuous tech company "Pharo" were finally proven true, murmurings in the underworld that working with a known terrorist group might not be in their best interests - even the government was responding, talk of investigations and possible arrests reaching her metaphorical ears through her network. A network she had spent decades cultivating. How long ago had it been when she had awakened to this strange new world? Her sorcerers had promised her that she would awaken to rule an Egypt at the peak of it's power - but instead all she had found was sand and desolation. And now, desolation came once again, this time for her New Egyptian Empire. "Initiate Project Sand Spider." She announced to the room, her exotic, alien accent unlike any other in the world. All at once, the chaos went still. Her officers looked at each other for a moment, then began to move with purpose. Standing up from her throne and moving around behind it, Queen Heqet stood with her hands resting behind her back. The entire lair began to rumble, and a sliver of light cracked itself open further and further to reveal the truth at the top of the pyramid-shaped glass building which was Pharo's headquarters. The tip of the pyramid split down all three sides, opening like hangar doors. All this time, they had been hiding a mechanical bird as large as the largest aeroplane the world had ever known - an effigy in the form of Ra, glistening black and elegant gold reflecting in the rain and the gray stormy daylight. "Queen Heqet, it won't be safe to fly in this weather!" A pilot warned. Just then, an alarm began to ding on the war table behind them; glancing back, Queen Heqet saw… that the elevator doors were opening. "We have no choice." Just moments ago, our team of intrepid "heroes" stood riding that very elevator the final few floors up to Queen Heqet's lair, checking their equipment as elevator music danced pleasantly in the background. So what if they were wanted criminals just like she was? There was a distinct difference between what they did, and Queen Heqet's desire to rule the world. And now it had all led to this. The reveal of Queen Heqet's mobile lair might have been a surprise to another crew, but professionals like you had found out about it beforehand and equipped yourself appropriately in weatherproof outfits and other gear. "Attention personnel:" a voice announced over the intercom, "prepare for takeoff." Ding! The elevator opened into a massive lobby, part of which was covered by a tower in the center of the room that rose up to the ceiling. Not far off, soldiers in sleek black-and-yellow uniforms with vaguely bird-like masks had been sparring and practicing their shooting at targets on the wall. They turned at the sound of the elevator, brandishing Khopesh swords or simple handguns, a round ballistic shield in their off-hands. At the center of the training-room half of the lobby, a man in a padded black suit much like a Formula 1 driver's suit had been sitting on the shoulder of what at first seemed like a tall obsidian statue, but which soon revealed itself for what it was: a black-and-green exosuit that shut closed like a Venus flytrap as soon as the pilot jumped inside. The exosuit struck the figure of a jackal-headed man, a massive kite-shaped tower shield in one hand and a minigun strapped to it's back ready to pull at a moment's notice. The lair lurched; lightning struck outside with a thunderous kra-KOOM!, the muffled sound of rain pounding outside as the lair began to move. OOC And the battle begins! Each of you may start combat on Zone 19 or Zone 18; alternatively, you can choose to start outside on Zone 33. I tried to keep the initial post as short as possible, so if there's any crucial information that's missing that you need in order to take your first few actions then don't be afraid to ask. If you would all copy your character sheets and post them into the Character Sheets thread, I would greatly appreciate it. , this would be a good opportunity for you to finalize your Stunts. , I assume that you are the initiative leader for your team; roll initiative, please. And last but not least, I realized where in the timeline of a hypothetical campaign this Scenario would be, and that you each would have gained about 4 extra Skill Points by now. I'm sure you'll all find somewhere to put those points. ;)

If poison were used to Create an Advantage, the point of an action like that is to inflict a poison status effect rather than to deal damage, in which case I'd say that would normally be defended against with Physique. An argument could be made for Athletics, but that would depend upon the method of deployment for the poison.

If poison is delivered as part of an Attack, Athletics would be the skill that is used to defend, yes. As for Chi, it's uses in Defense are rather niche; "mental attacks and intangible supernatural attacks", as I mentioned before. As such, the vast majority of defense rolls against attacks will be with Athletics. Oh! I hadn't realized that was you; my bad. Try to use the Discord from now on; you'll get faster responses from me. ;)

It's not often that one defends with Physique, actually: Athletics is for dodging all kinds of attacks, and Fight can be used to defend against melee attacks. Rolling to Defend with Physique would usually be for tests of fortitude, such as resisting poisons; even when breaking out of a grapple Physique isn't the only option, since Athletics could be used to represent slipping out of your aggressor's grasp. Btw, you see the invite link to the Discord, right? I'm just noticing I misspelled ManicPixieFatGuy's name in the "private to" code, so I want to make sure.

The time is upon us, ladies and gentlemen: time to decide who will be moving forward with us into the game. Tbh tho, it's really easy: I'd like to offer all of the applicants an invitation to the game! :) It's not quite as many as I would have liked, but we can still move forward with three. , and , I've included a link to my Discord server in this message. Once you're in, we can discuss a little bit, then it will only be a few short days before I have a post up to start the battle!

Let's see... I'll start with the simpler Stunts, then work my way up to the more complex ones. Boosted effectiveness with Physique v.s. barriers is super easy: I really love this Stunt for things like that Bend Bars, Lift Gates You may spend a Fate Point to automatically overcome a Physique obstacle - even if you’ve already rolled for it - provided you’re trying to accomplish something through brute strength. When it comes to primal senses, I think Take It All In would fit the theme quite well, though it may be difficult to actually make use of it in the scene. If that one doesn't suit your fancy, Keen Senses might have a better chance of being useful in this little game specifically. Take It All In Once per Scene, you may spend a Fate Point (and a few minutes of observation) to make a special Notice roll representing opening your senses to a location. For each shift you make on this roll, you discover or create an Aspect related to direct observation on the scene - though you may only Invoke one of them for free. Keen Senses Choose a physical sense (e.g. sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell). You gain +2 to Defend or Overcome with Notice when that sense is the primary one being used. There aren't any example Stunts for extra movement speed, but what I usually do is come up with a compelling justification for being so fast, describing it briefly in a sentence, then finishing the Stunt with "you may move 1 additional Zone per turn" or something like that. There are a few offensive/defensive success-with-style combat Stunts, so I'll just show you some examples. Flesh Breaks on Iron When you defend against a Fight attack with style, you may inflict a 2-shift hit instead of taking a Boost on your attacker. Tiger Rends the Flesh When you tie on an attack using Fight for defense, you can inflict a 2-shift hit instead of taking a Boost. Serpent Bites the Hand If you gain shifts on a defense, you can sacrifice your action next turn to immediately inflict an attack on your opponent, using the shift value of your defense as your attack result. "Some sort of arcane thing", though... you'll have to be a little more specific, I'm afraid. Generally, the "magic" of this world is in the form of subtle, mystical arts, so if it's too flashy it will have to be limited in how many times it can be used per day. Are you looking for a ranged spell attack? A buff? Some sort of esoteric curse/boon thing? I need a little more to go off of. And finally, a totem summoning Stunt. I think what I'll do is craft a prototype Stunt based on your description, then you can tell me what you do or do not like about it and if there are any changes you would like. Totem Warrior You can carve a spirit totem in preparation for an upcoming hunt. In combat, you can Create an Advantage with Chi to call on aspects of that animal spirit, earning an extra free invocation on successful rolls. Though vulnerable to being broken, stolen or disenchanted via Overcome actions, you can easily fashion and attune to a new totem in any scene after a battle.

Hey Starsign! ;) Glad to see you made it. Everything looks good so far, except Unfinished Business with the Merc. Did you mean to use that description for it? It doesn't seem to match the name of the Aspect. Also, your rank in Physique grants you 1 extra Stress Box.

Looks great! :) I would consider your application complete.

When it comes to creating Stunts, it's important to give a Stunt limitations that keep it from being used to often. If you can use a Stunt every time you make a certain skill roll or take a certain action, it's too broadly applicable. Bull Charge is a fine Stunt because it requires certain conditions; it just so happens that those conditions are very similar to The Tiger Moves with Purpose - the two Stunts are synergistic with each other. A Stunt that grants a bonus to Athletics against all attempts to Create an Advantage on you, however, is a little too broad. Think about all of the other Stunts you've seen: they aren't merely mechanical, they have a theme, they have a vibe, they fit an aesthetic. Essentially, there's got to be something fun and interesting about a Stunt.

It sounds like Hannibal is your favorite, so why don't we go with that? :) Avatar of the Predator King could be changed to Avatar of the Alpha King or Spirit of the Über Khan, and in my opinion, something like Predator Instinct would make more sense than Insatiable Prey Drive.

Bull Charge looks like your best bet when it comes to extra power on those Athletics attacks. You might rename it to sound more kung-fu, such as Raijin Tiger Strike. Alternatively, this one incorporates the environment around you as a method of striking harder: Leaves Like Razors When Invoking a situation Aspect or environment-based Advantage on an attack, you add +2 Weapon Rating to that attack. I can't find anything for a bonus to overcome obstacles like you've described, but it would be pretty simply to create one: something like Lightning Crosses the Sky, where you have +2 to Overcome with Athletics when you describe how you use parkour to defy danger and close the gap. No need to take all of these, of course. Make sure to keep in mind your Stunt/Refresh ratio, as always.

This character fits much better, tonally speaking. :) What role would you say she generally falls into on the team? The As Forceful As A Bear's Claws Stunt is a little OP, though. Might I suggest this Stunt instead? The Tiger Moves With Purpose Move at least 1 Zone and make an attack using Athletics or make an Athletics attack on a target that just moved into your Zone on their last action. Add 2 shifts to any Stress you deal with this attack. With this, you could discard both As Forceful As A Bear's Claws and Augmentation of the Feral Flower, then rename The Tiger Moves with Purpose to whatever you like. It has a fun movement-based limitation, and a bonus to damage as long as you can pull off the Stunt. And if you like that, then I can suggest another martial-arts-style Stunt. ;) Just let me know what kind of technique you're looking for.

Just a couple of quick notes in general: The Will skill doesn't exist in this game; if you're worried about mental assaults, don't be If you happened to read the Game Expectations, it mentions that I have an issue with mind control, which I would classify mesmerism as a category of We definitely can't do the brain in the jar thing, I'm afraid: as part of the heist aesthetic, it's important that your character is relatively inconspicuous and able to blend in among other humans. I do like Jack Spade and Hannibal Van Zant, though. If you go with Jack Spade, I'd like to see a little more character development, which you can probably achieve by answering the two special application questions in the Character Creation thread. If you go with Hannibal, I would prefer to come up with a different name for this spirit than "Predator King" - it doesn't sound quite right to me. "Alpha King", perhaps? "Alpha Prime"? "Über Khan"? I'm just spitballing here. Also, I don't understand what Insatiable Prey Drive means, so I'd like an explanation of that. Love your creativity, by the way. :)

This specific game - the one you are applying for - is a playtest which includes just a single combat situation. When I was referring to spirits, I was referring to them in the hypothetical sense, as in "this is how the skill would work if we were playing in a full campaign". Adding a spirit to this combat would probably overcomplicate things too much: the objective of this game is to playtest a mechanic, so the less complex the battle itself is, the better.

Honestly, I think a character like this would be a problem, yes. There's just too much tonal dissonance between this character and the setting - they don't mesh. Take your primary opponent for this battle, for example: Queen Heqet. While the tone is generally lighthearted, she is a relatively serious character from an evil empire, one that has done terrible things on it's path of conquest and destruction. When I see Shushu's character image and read about his personality, it doesn't make sense for a character like him to exist in the same world as a character like Queen Heqet, you know? Oh, so that ghost is meant to answer the nemesis question for your application? It is intended for the nemesis to be in this battle, but the intention is for the nemesis to be a single, shared enemy with a reason for each of the PCs to face them. There's a lot that is open for the nemesis character to be molded into, but I think making them a ghost is simply too drastic of change. Sorry. I apologize if this seems overly critical: I'm not coming from a bad place here, honestly. At the end of the day, I want you to end up with a character that you want to play, that fits in this world and as a member of this team. I think there's just a misunderstanding of the tone of the setting, and that's why these issues are popping up. If there's anything I can do to help with that, let me know. I can come up with a list of films and shows that the setting is inspired by, or whatever else you need.

Interesting character. I see you have a great grasp of Fate's mechanics, at least. I also like the dedication to using Asiatic names. Is Shushu... a catboy? Or a foxboy, I suppose. If so, I'm afraid this setting isn't quite anime enough to allow for such a thing. If the image just fit the character best and we're meant to ignore the ears, then that's fine. What's the balance of silly to serious with this character? The setting is lighthearted, of course, but I don't think I'd describe it as "silly", which is a little bit of a vibe I'm getting from the tone of the backstory and the way Shushu "shivers and shakes" all the time. If this were a full campaign, I'd iron out the details of Coin-Sword Conjuration more; +2 to attack a favored enemy is a potent ability, and while spirits are rare enough that I'd allow that, I'm not sure if I'd allow the ability to cover mystics (a.k.a. Chi users) too. For the sake of transparency, though, I don't currently plan to have any spirits in this combat, so the only target that Stunt would apply to is Queen Heqet herself. I'm imagining Shushu duking it out with her, and I'm not really vibing with it, ngl. Evade the Miasma Clouds is a little too ambiguous as well, and I would like to iron this one out. I'm thinking it should grant it's bonus against "spirits and supernatural attacks", specifically. Does that sound fair to you?

Chi can indeed be used to defend against mental attacks and intangible supernatural attacks, but as a GM I'm not very partial to mental attacks at all, so I don't expect it will come up very often - I don't expect it to happen in this little game, for example. As long as you can justify a +2 bonus to Notice for initiative, I'd allow it. Something like enhanced reflexes, incredible calculative prediction, etc. Otherwise, come up with a limitation, such as how Keen Senses adds a +2 bonus to Notice, but only when a certain sense is primarily involved. Using Chi instead of Notice is easier to justify: so long as your character could feasibly have a supernatural power that does that, I'm all on board. Huh, I kinda forgot that Will applies to Mental Stress, and that Stress is kind of a combination of Physical and Mental Stress. Well, it stands to reason that the highest of Physique and Chi determines your Stress - simple, just one or the other. The Stunts on the example characters are lists of example Stunts, not actual Stunts that those hypothetical characters took. Characters have 3 Refresh, and they get 3 free Stunts before it starts costing Refresh.

Quick on the Draw would work just like On Top Of It, except it would be once for free instead of costing a Fate Point per use. Just a question of which one you prefer, really. This is just a really simple setting idea I'm using to facilitate the playtest, so there is no extra setting info. You do have it right, though: modern pulp fiction kind of like the Mummy movies. :)

Your party chooses someone to be the initiative leader, and that person rolls Notice against the initiative leader of the enemy team. If your team wins, you have the initiative. When it's the players' turn, they choose two players to take their turns. On the enemy's turn, the GM chooses one enemy or enemy unit to take it's turn. We go back and forth taking turns until the end of the round, then we roll initiative for the new round. As you can see, initiative isn't static in this game like it is in default Fate, so it's less about having the highest rank in Notice and more about rolling well on initiative. If an initiative leader wanted to guarantee that their team got initiative, they could take a Stunt like On Top Of It, where they can spend a Fate Point to automatically win an initiative roll.