(No need to read this anymore, I will disseminate the info here into other pages.)
Mood and Content
Along the lines of magical girl anime and tokusatsu shows - big characters, big melodrama, and big, nasty fights. Extremely heroic and dramatic, with room for goofy stuff.
Since the game focuses on war a bit, we should work out Lines and Veils as we go along. Overt romance and sex are on the table, though the latter should stay off-screen. Gratuitous amounts of gore are out.
Game Details
- It takes place in the world of Calliope, which resembles Earth in a lot of ways except magic exists as common knowledge and a known science. The technology level is closer to a near-future Earth - shiny, modern sci-fi - but monarchies still dominate the political landscape thanks to magic. Large-scale democracy exists, though as a relatively new trend. Space stations and moon colonies exist too, possibly with their own nations.
- Magic refers to the shaping of magical energy (mana) into specific forms (spells) to achieve certain effects, as well as the theories and traditions that support it. Many people have the ability to sense mana, though only a few in the distant were able to shape mana to a degree that actually changed history. Those so-called "True Mages" formed bloodlines that make up many of the noble houses of the world.
- The invention of the Jewel changed everything. Twenty years ago, magic only belonged to (a small fraction of) the population. The Jewel, an arcane computing device, amplified a person's magical potential at least tenfold. Even the weakest of these "Jewel Mages" could feed an entire city or raze armies into dust. When it became not only possible, but practical, to train mages as civil servants and soldiers, the world underwent a revolution.
- The revolution, in turn, sparked a war unlike anything ever seen before. The nations of Calliope battled each other with tanks and planes, but also fought with mages who lit the skies and fields with their spells. The War lasted for almost a decade, until a terrible disaster struck the capital of one of Calliope's two warring superpowers. It left such a mark on the world that many powers agreed to a truce, though nothing had been resolved.
- Five years since the truce, the world stands at a precipice. The two superpowers remain locked in armistice, yet proxy wars and intrigue among occupied territories shake the globe. Both sides continue to research new weapons of destruction, ready to unleash them as soon as the truce breaks. Worse yet, ancient monsters known as the Sirens have emerged from the ashes on the fallen capital, terrorizing cities on every corner of the world.
- In response to this, one of the superpowers establish Unit Skald, a team of mages tasked to defeat the Siren menace. Trained in the almost-forgotten tradition of Resonance Magic, these mages sing their deadly songs in the battlefield as well as in the concert stage. The PCs will be members of Skald, whether veterans or newcomers is up to you, but a recent clash with the Sirens have forced Command to assemble a new strike team with you in it.
Factions
Ophean Entente (Northern Superpower)
Domain of Welhaz
A small but strategically important nation that for centuries was the gateway between the north and the south. The Domain was originally a province of a great empire, and ended up being the last direct successor state to survive. As a result, Welhaz has a reputation for having a military that could punch above its weight class. That didn't prevent them from being conquered during the War. The armed forces fought on in exile, and managed to retake the large island of Isarnom. Unfortunately the truce left the mainland in the hands of the Hegemony. Welhaz is technically a constitutional monarchy with the Queen as head of state answering to an Assembly. Since to the conquest, Isarnom and the Welhazian colonies have effectively been run by the Supreme War Council (ROK).
Unit Skald
Linasan Hegemony (Southern Superpower)
Knights of Euridice
Calliopean Alliance (Unaligned Nations)
Space Colonies
Story Seeds
- A second moon, blood red in color, orbits around Calliope from the exact opposite side of the original moon, though one won't find it in space nor does it have gravity to affect the tides. The so-called Prophet's Moon is an illusory phenomenon, once only visible to particularly mana-sensitive individuals with gifts of precognition. Ever since the disaster in Linasa, though, the red moon has revealed itself to all. And those farseers who relied on the moon have gone blind.
New Rules
Last two bits lifted directly from this: https://plus.google.com/108038044720614707645/posts/1MMCq8q2dcY
Skills
Use the default skill list, though replace Firearms with Ranged Weapons and Acrobatics with Aerobatics. Since this is the kind of game where you're expected to fly a lot, it sounds a bit more appropriate (let's say it covers maneuvering for both the air and the ground).
Since everyone is a mage anyway, there's no specific magic skill. You'll probably just use the provided skill list to inform your magical specialties.
Powers
Gate powers (Gate Sense, Spontaneous Gating, Skipping) are not available.
Instead of the provided elements, we'll use gemstones as elements. The cores that power Jewel devices come in many forms and colors, though three elements happen to be the most common and the most practiced in the world. Jewel elements usually match a certain personality and power theme, but in practice that's more of a flavor thing than any restriction to power selection. I.e: you can sometimes tell what an enemy's magic is like by what color they express.
Ruby devices tend to match passionate, fiery personalities, and their wielders express powers of raw destruction: explosive fire, solar energy, even entropic radiation. Rename every Fire power with Ruby instead, and rename Blaze/Firestorm to something appropriate if you use it.
Sapphire devices seek out cooler heads, those that fight by thinking ahead of time. Their powers destroy their foes through attrition: freezing cold, crushing gravity, torrents of ocean water are the usual examples. Rename every Ice or Frost power to Sapphire instead, and rename Frost Spikes/Ice Hurricane to something appropriate if you use it.
Topaz users usually turn out as eccentric and unpredictable just as often as they don't - that's just the nature of the element. Blinding, speedy strikes, electricity, and magnetism are the hallmark of Topaz-based magic. Rename every Electricity power to Topaz, and rename Zap/Chain Lightning to something appropriate if you use it.
Other elements exist to those who specialize in specific powers, including Amethyst (Poison and poison attacks), Onyx (Blindness and darkness attacks), and Diamond (Empower and other buffs).
Eidolons
Eidolons are fine as is unless I'm missing something. :)
Combat
- Your Action Pool starts at 6 instead of 10.
- Your skills are all one higher to make up for that (5/4/3 instead of 4/3/2).
- You use 0-2 action dice for a maneuver instead of 1-3.
- You no longer take a wound when you maneuver with an empty action pool.
- You can now also use 0-2 dice from your action pool to boost a strike or an achievement roll you make.
- When you Catch Your Breath, you recover half of your maximum Action Pool. For most characters, that means 3 action dice, but characters with Stamina will recover 1 extra action die per level in that power.
- When you Catch Your Breath, your Defense counts as one higher (maximum 6) until the start of your next action.
Non-Combat Resolution
When you attempt to do something difficult or opposed by another character during a character scene, describe to the GM what you're doing and figure out together which skill that uses. The GM will also inform you what the difficulty of the roll is (a number between 3 for regular and 6 for nearly-impossible attempts), taking into account that your character is an anime badass with abilities far beyond normal humans.
Then roll your skill rating in dice; if you don't have that skill, roll 2 dice instead. Count the number of dice that show the difficulty or higher as successes and compare it to the following table:
- 0 You fail at the attempt and something bad happens.
- 1 You succeed at the attempt and something bad happens.
- 2 You succeed at the attempt and nothing bad happens.
- 3+ You succeed at the attempt and you get something extra out of it.
The GM will figure out, based on your situation, what the bad thing or the extra thing is.