The misadventures of the black unicorn

The tale of how the “evil” magician and the “good” party almost brought the “democratic” master to the point. But the game still failed, contrary to everything.







At the beginning of this story, there wasn’t any unicorn, and it wasn’t even in sight. And there was an invitation to participate in one of the next role-playing games, where our master wanted to run in a new system for himself (called True20). It was 2014 then, and by that time our party had accumulated several years of experience playing D&D (mainly 3.5) and other systems (for example, the episodic World of Darkness).



So, based on the realities of the proposed setting, I came up with a rat-human hero for myself, so as not to be a simple boring human. His name was Fry Skaven and, as a result of the game, his fate, of course, turned out to be rather complicated. According to my prehistory, he was a man living in a mining village, where locals mined some luminous stones. It soon became clear that these stones cause mutations, so the local inhabitants became rat-humans. Actually the surname of the hero is a certain reference to the fantasy Warhammer (well, you understand).



Chapter one. Fireflies for carla



At the beginning of the game, the rat-man, among the other participants (who were just people), entered the magic guild “Heart of the World”. Here it should be noted quite an interesting masterful world, with memorable inhabitants, but the annoying D & D-like True20 system, chosen as the basis.



Why do I dislike true20? Yes, a lot of things. In short, these are extra throws. It has always been too much in D&D for me, and here it is also to throw fatigue. Damage must be thrown to durability. Useless crits, a sea of ​​stanloks, perverted “pyramids” instead of hits (I never liked it), and so on.



The concept of fatigue is especially pressing on the psyche. Rather, its implementation. That you are of the first level, that of the 20th, the chance to get tired after the cast is about the same. If you accumulate 4 points of fatigue - you are actually a corpse. Plus, every fatigue gives minuses to dexterity, read the minuses to getting castes. Plus, if the castes go one after another, then a penalty accumulates for a chance not to get tired. Plus, an enemy magician may suddenly “get tired” of you ahead of schedule. Needless to say, the drain vitality spell is an absolute must have for a mage. It sucks the fatigue of another. True touch. With a throw on the hit and a throw on the measure of will. Which turns the battle with the magician into a transfusion from empty to empty, and the battle with some warrior into catching the camp, followed by dropping the hooves.



Not everything is of course so terrible. No, God, what I write - there is sheer horror! There are convictions for the waste of which you can leave the camp and do other amenities. But in fact they do not change anything in the picture of the world. For steep enemies, they are also present. There is a good way to deal with anyone (almost) - sucking out fatigue with the support of the team (though in my case when the rest of the team is NOT magicians - it's not so simple). But, honestly, if our master didn’t cancel some rules and didn’t provide us with some cheating overpowers, then this game would simply not exist.

Then we, as new members of the guild, had to pass a certain test. Our curator, such a vile Carla sent Paria to catch a whole bunch of fireflies in a local forest. A cart with cans for fireflies came with the task. Along the way, a lizard smoked a hookah as a master character. Our bard slipped in to try this hookah and earned a powerful curse, which we then tortured to remove from it (and so we didn’t seem to remove it to the end).



At first, everything turned out badly with fireflies, especially since some scary mushrooms were found on that meadow: the fireflies were numb or completely dead from spores. Fortunately for us, these disputes seemed to be harmless to the heroes themselves, so using them we were still able to collect the required number of fireflies. However, on the way back we were attacked by robbers. And they began to beat us pretty hard. My rat-people had already realized that his elemental strike was neither cold nor hot for his enemies, so he eagerly sucked out the fatigue. In our group, we called the use of this truly ugly spell "a session of black magic." I can’t say that I somehow helped a lot in the battle, but I made some contribution.



Surprisingly, we still fought back. Oh, you would see our bard torturing a surviving captive. This is basically a special feature for him: such “neutral” always runs “neutral”, but at such moments it magically becomes a “pure evil”. He tortured the captive to death ... and, most terribly, not at all with songs.



I don’t remember exactly how it all ended with the robbers, like they all buried in the end. But I remember that our group was going to take the formed bodies to the city, although I said that this is really a BAD idea.



Chapter Two Elven apples of contention



How long, briefly, we brought fireflies and learned from dumbfounded Karla that this is actually a normal mocking test for beginners who fail all normal neophytes. Poor thing, if he knew about what we did with the robbers ...



Next, we took up the head of the guild, talking about some cool and wonderful elven apples that he desperately needed. We had nowhere to go and we went to the elves. And somewhere in the disputed lands, where the elves do not let anyone. When we reached the border village of people and crossed the river, we found ourselves in forbidden elven places.



There was some ancient abandoned forest. By that time, my Fry had learned the sense minds spell, which allows sensible beings to feel. With his help, a rat-man searched the forest, catching only one alien mind somewhere in front.



Having wandered a little, we found a tree with magic fruits, plucked them, but activated a force field and some kind of guard monster. It turned out to deal with the monster, but with the field - no. A little later, an elf appeared (it seems that it was his mind that Fry felt earlier) and offered to let us out in exchange for apples. The team naturally did not want to give the prey, so at first the elf was sent in a certain direction. However, later he reappeared and we decided to separate him: to catch when he passes through the field. And so it happened, the elf poured some kind of bottle on himself and the power barrier became permeable for him, when he went inside he fell for our trick and ... another torture by the bard.



It turned out that the elf was deceiving us, and there wasn’t enough funds for crossing the barrier. With him, however, there were some strange potions in the box. There was nothing special to do, the elf refused to talk about what these potions were doing. My rat-people wanted to check one of them on an elf, bluff and look at the reaction. But he ran into a wall of misunderstanding performed by the main party warrior.



This, of course, is some very special roleplay, inaccessible to my understanding. You say that your character wants to do something, and suddenly the party member rushes at your hero, captures and stuns. What? Is it rat-phobia that evil magicians conjured in childhood? Unclear.



At the same time, he had no ulterior motives, only one clearly unreasonable “I do not want you to do this” other player. So, what is next? Thank you for not finishing? And most importantly, how should my hero now react to the party member in a future game? And he must respond. Must! At least put a pig.

Chapter Three, in which Rats Fight Story Rails



Then the jar of black potion broke and the dark substance was absorbed into the rat-man. When Fry woke up, an elven army appeared from the forest. After the ally’s trick, Fry did not want to have anything to do with this man, so the rat-man pretended to be a victim here and was trying to escape from the warrior. Well, in principle, the way it was.



But the elves, led by the arrogant queen, apparently all without exception telepaths and psychics, because, having struck everyone with sleepy arrows, they threw Fry and the warrior into the same cell. And even there were no questions on this score, we were summoned for questioning with one hundred percent certainty that we were one gang. Fry’s attempt to be a victim was ignored. As a result, we were obliged to fight at the tournament with the elves.



OK. We will include more wagering, in a role-playing game, we or where. Fry began to consistently put pressure on the fact that he would not fight, and did not want to (with such allies). And in general, he is a creature deeply unhappy with the difficult life of a mutant, and so high and noble elves (as they presented themselves in their speeches) should not have fallen for mockery at such helpless creatures (and I did not spread that the hero is a magician) . The reaction of the master is ignore. You will fight and point.

Why do not you need to do this? I still caught on my experience of mastery. Two or three years earlier in my game, I intended to send the characters to the arena, where they had to fight each other using special pets. I thought they would like it, since it was planned to have such pleasant, competitive competitions. However, the players didn’t want to go there very much when they learned about the prospect of entering the arena of battles of the creature who was watching their camera. Well, then I went to meet them, allowing me to escape from the cell before this time. And this was not some kind of divine intervention, just watched what the heroes were trying to do and they managed to free themselves.



Here we were dragged behind the scruff to the only true next scene. Such a freedom of choice. I even understand what this is dictated by - the master wanted us to elegantly paint his plot blanks, but in a similar situation it doesn’t work like that.

Good. Fry promised the Queen of the Elves in a conversation that she would regret it. Elves only burned over him. Then we were again thrown briefly into the cell. Which naturally is all so anti-magical and in all other senses "bulletproof." Fry did not take revenge on the warrior-ally, since now there are slightly different problems, and there is nothing special to do so far.



As a result, they led us into the arena. Here, in the arena (I wonder why?), You can caste - the master told me. The rat-man resisted to the last: he didn’t take up arms and refused to do anything at all, they say you want to kill the defenseless - please. Then a couple of elves fired at me and the warrior.



But. Fry did NOT want to fight at all. Even now, when we were left with one single option. Here I must say that my rat-man possessed the magic of illusions. And I decided that it was time to apply them (you could just throw an ice arrow at the main elf, but it was clear in principle that she would clearly have some kind of protective barrier around the throne. Given all sorts of anti-magic cameras and clairvoyance attacks).



So, Fry decided that he had nothing to lose and he had to go all-in. He snapped at the queen of elves (supposedly asked for it) and declared to the whole arena that now all the elves would see who really rules them. On stage, the illusion of a completely naked main elf with ulcers in intimate places arose. Master hangs for a minute!

Later, at another game session (and we played this game for a total of two or three sessions), the master delved into the rules well and said that I couldn’t do that - they say the local illusion only works for one. But it was too late to drink Borjomi, how they played that situation, so they played.

Chapter Four, in which the rails strike back



After the "reboot," the master revealed that the elf (suddenly) has a ring with which she purposefully dispels magic. Actually, right there, with a wave of her hand, the main elf destroyed the illusion. And nobly so enraged. Fry tried to make a force barrier to isolate himself from the attackers, but he seemed to be also dispelled. Runaway enemies began to kill him.

Well, I can understand many points, but such an answer ... IMHO, this is a serious master file. Especially unexpected from a person who wins back quite interestingly, whom everyone praises for his beautiful descriptions, who has an insane amount of games held behind him.

I don’t know, it was necessary to act somehow subtler, and not completely crush creative initiative with such a clumsy piano from the bushes. But what can I do, what way I found - I found one.
Further, the situation was mainly resolved by the master himself: the mentor of our guild granted whom one of our party members contacted (he himself was not captured). The rats turned out to be almost at death, but the black rubbish that he spilled on himself strengthened him. It was some kind of mega curse. Feeling the power, Fry began to fight off the attackers, but he was somehow twisted and thrown into prison.



The guild mentor somehow persuaded the elf to let everyone except the rat-man. And later, while talking with the party, he suggested the following scheme - one of ours sneaks into the chamber to Fry and stabs him with a special needle that sucks out the soul. After that, my hero dies after some time, and the soul enclosed in the needle is reincarnated into a new creature. So they did.



Chapter Five Horseback Riding



I was offered to be reborn in the form of a person or on a random tablet. I chose the second, because initially I did not want to play this person. Dropped out to be a horse (in the year of the horse, no wonder!). True, I slightly tuned up the appearance and turned out to be a black unicorn with yellow eyes (the rat-man had the same eye color). The ability to communicate with his voice was gone, and in addition, rat darkvision was gone. But he got the opportunity for telepathic communication and some goodies from his black blood (which has not gone anywhere), like increased stamina.



Thanks to rebirth, I had a reason to elegantly “reset” the motivation of my character, forgetting about the differences between the former rat and the warrior.



Next, we defended the border village from the punitive attack of the elves. Then I remember a picture of how Fry grabs our bard, throwing himself on his back and rushing to the allies who entered the battle. When we ran up, the bard began to strengthen the team, and my horse climbed up, casting an ice arrow.



The village was set on fire and we had to retreat. Some particularly dangerous berserker elves chased after them. We dealt with them and again it was time for the non-core passion of our bard. Torture and kill.



However, the master remembered this technique of ours and decided to play differently. The prisoner did not feel pain! And he was not afraid of death, he did not care. Some kind of finished suicide bomber who has no meaning in life. You can’t even imagine how the party resolved this issue. They put this elf on drugs!

That was an epic moment. How ironic is to restore the meaning of life to the elf through involvement in drug addiction. Our herbalist strapped some potent remedy and was given to the prisoner until he began breaking. So he became more accommodating, said that he knew and most importantly - he remained alive (which is rare for those who met our bard).

In a word, neither the system’s imperfections nor the participants ’fails can prevent the players from enjoying the game and cool story scenes.

Chapter Six Holidays in the snowy south



Having dealt with this, we arrived back in the guild and took part in a certain guild competition. It was necessary to accompany the wagon with a rare collection of clothes. There were several such carts (it seems, three) and we needed not only to reach our destination, but also to intercept all the competitors in order to bring the entire collection of local couturiers safe and sound. Wait, but what safety, if we must fight for it! That is a great chance to damage something in the process. As a result, we dealt with this by a bit of hitting the sides with competing guilds.



Meanwhile, our bard was getting worse and worse. But it was not necessary to smoke all sorts of unfamiliar hookahs. The fact is that he attracted some kind of evil spirit that pursued him at night and sometimes bit him (so much so that in reality there were traces). Under the influence of all this devilry, the bard gradually lost its human appearance - its hair grew, its tail, and so on. Even the head of the guild did not understand how to resolve the situation, but still he was able to arrange for us a collective session of the journey into the unconscious: the whole group went into the sleep of the bard and we helped him deal with the spirit. True, in part. But he felt a little better.



Then a new problem appeared - the daughter of the head of the guild was kidnapped. Also, a healthy black sphere appeared in the city. We were sent through a teleport somewhere far south (so far that it’s not even south at all - in winter) so that we can find an ancient dragon ritual that allows us to cast out darkness. By that time, Fry had learned to fly, and thanks to this we avoided some dangers, since my hero drove the rest.



We met with aggressive giants, from which we eventually ran away and ran into a wolf pack, which was run by one special magic wolf (or it was a snow leopard, I don’t remember exactly). A flock surrounded us during the stay. Fry agreed with the pack leader telepathically that "we will give you food, but you do not touch us."



So we got to the ork settlement and entered into negotiations with them. We were not particularly welcomed, but the leader decided to meet us and make a deal: we bring him a dragon artifact, and he shows us the place that we need. But we ourselves needed this artifact, so we promised to promise, but we didn’t really want to give it away. The leader of the orcs drew an aggressive brother towards us, who first snorted, and then suddenly he secretly invited us to give the artifact to him. What he was counting on is not clear. First, you make it clear that you hate us, and then you climb with some suggestions?



As a result, we were led where needed: some caves, where we dealt with the security golem and were able to crawl into the secret room where there was everything that we needed on assignment. There was also a secret exit. That is, we have all the cards in our hands: if you want - fly away right away, if you want - go back and give the artifact to one of the brothers. We wanted to get everyone to the maximum, because Fry knew how to make an illusion. But here I don’t remember exactly how it was. It seems to be plans, plans, but in the end they spat on it and simply flew away from there, so as not to bother and continue the main storyline.



Chapter Seven, in which Everyone Comes to the Black Sphere



When we returned, we teleported a little to the wrong place: we got to meet the already familiar vile carla, our “as if still” curator. He suggested that we give the scroll with the dragon ritual to him, and he gives us a lot of money. In response, we asked about what the head of the guild would say, and besides, where did Karla suddenly get this “a lot of money” from him. Carla assured that everything will be settled with the head of the guild, and the rest is supposedly not a problem. Our bard was indignant with all this slurredness and in detail asked Karla: what, how and why. Carla was confused in the testimonies, muddied the water, and indeed we were not nice throughout the game (well, he was really vile, the master did a good job playing this guy). They decided that all right, let's come back later to the black sphere, and there we will give. And bring the money.



There is no need to say that nobody was going to give him anything. However, Carla said that we do not know everything about the head of the guild. If he does the ritual on himself, it entails big problems. After conferring, we came to the decision to come to the guildmaster and lay Karl with giblets. No sooner said than done. They decided to keep the scroll, they say we will carry out the ritual, since there is no one to trust. The guildmaster was told that it was no longer possible to conduct a ritual on someone else, but they demanded that we bring the necessary ingredients for this. He was not particularly pleased and seemed to be going to convince us. But the bard insisted that they come to the black sphere. Later. There we will hand over Karl to you. And bring the ingredients.



Then we tried to read the scroll. Rather, Fry tried, after all, the only full-fledged magician in the team. The scroll was opened. Here the team unexpectedly became ill - knowledge poured into my head, the body froze for a few moments, and the dark curse acting on the hero almost ceased (the scroll expels darkness). The master suggested deciding whether Fry accepts the expulsion of darkness or opposes it. I decided that even with darkness, otherwise I would get a completely unplayable character, and I got used to it. As a result, the inner darkness intensified, the unicorn became infernal: leathery wings appeared (plus built-in ability to fly, not through a spell), a dark flame instead of a mane, an onyx horn, eyes lit up red.



Our bard, meanwhile, agreed with two other important members of the guild according to the standard scheme: “come to the black sphere”. One succumbed, the other did not.



And now the hour is X, we are at the sphere. And I already understand that Fry can go through this darkness without any rituals, because he himself has this thing inside. When the hero comes closer to the sphere, then vibrations appear on it. Yes, he needs to go there. But while I am leaving, I am waiting for a convenient moment. First, the head of the guild appears and says that not all the ingredients were found. The bard asks him to hide for now. The guildmaster goes into invisibility. Next came another member of the guild, and also hid. Then Carla appears and brings a large gem.

The funny thing is that this jewel was needed for the ritual. Carla did not know this, so he stole it from the head of the guild.
The bard gives Karl a scroll, and we have a few moments while he becomes stiff from the information pouring into him from the scroll. He catches disintegration (it seems, from the appeared guildmaster) and we say goodbye to our vile and stupid “as if still” curator. Here many events take place at once: the second member of the guild appears, from somewhere on the side we are shot by people of the Karls. Using this, Fry is washed away in the direction of the black sphere and passes inside.



Meanwhile, the head of the guild receives an arrow, and the assistant tries to save him. But late, the guild leader was also not very nice to our bard, and under the guise of helping, he pushes the arrow deeper. Here is such an insidious bard. Amen.



Fry was in a black sphere. Here he learned that in the center there are attached girls (including the daughter of a guildmaster). One of which is to give birth to the dark messiah. My hero was invited to control this process and become the right hand of this creature, which will lead the dark hordes. The infernal unicorn decided to think for a while.

There were not many options. It will not work to play against the party - these are secret applications and they will immediately understand me. Yes, and there are no special motives - well, they suggested joining. You never know who is offering this. I did not see any special reason to necessarily join the dark messiah. If the rest of the group also wants, then we will think. Or if Fry is forced to take this step by marching against the unicorn: they say, sir, that you are not dressed for the weather, all in the dark, but in the dark?

Chapter Eight Hello, you have an incoming dark message



The Sogildians asked the group not to leave the city until all circumstances of the incident were clarified. Those without losing time held a ritual, and one of our heroes got the opportunity to cast out darkness.



Then the party members suddenly received “dark sms”. It was my Fry who finally emerged from the dark sphere and telepathically contacted the party members, and then he himself flew to the meeting.



Then we came to the sphere and were able to make a passage inside. Fry, of course, did not go into him, but into the dark wall of the sphere. But you never know, the passage is made by the magic of light.



Inside, the picture has not changed much. In addition to the girls, there were also some special buildings with people frozen inside. To get closer to the center of the sphere, it was necessary to free these buildings from dark forces.



First we went to some kind of tent that looked like a circus. Going through the back door failed. After a test of knowledge of magic, the master said that this place is something like a portal somewhere else.



Everything here was subject to some special rules of its own, having bought tickets from the cashier at the entrance, we were able to get inside ... and we got into a cage with tigers. A tamer, casting all sorts of bad things, walked behind this cage of a demonic kind.While our fighters dealt with tigers, I dispatched bad tamer spells a couple of times, then it turned out that you can shoot him through the cage. Toward the end of the battle, Fry threw deintegration onto the wall of the cage and our warrior jumped out and drained the tamer. Unfinished tigers immediately vanished and we returned. Thus we liberated one building.



Next was a building with a large mirror blocking the entrance. It was also impossible to enter there, and if you stood and looked inward, then eyes began to appear in the mirror. Thank God we had the mind to step back and approach the mirror in turn. It made our doubles!

It was also a rather interesting memorable moment. The master redrawn himself our sheets of heroes to use our same abilities and parameters.

At least our clones can be pulled by strings as they please, but they will not criticize for it. Conveniently.

We dealt with the soldiers relatively simply, especially since we later began to take off all sorts of reinforcing clothes from us in advance. Flying twin Fry was more difficult. I decided to play it safe a bit and create a power barrier around in advance so that the twin would not fly away. But my hero lost almost all his spell fatigue. In general, the battle turned out to be something like this - the unicorns tried with varying degrees of success to drink each other’s fatigue, while the soldiers slowly beat one of them. Not yet finished. So we freed the second building.



Chapter Nine. Eat these mirror labyrinths and drink dark blood.



After the destruction of the mirror, the second building was not vacated, as I thought, just the passage to the tent opened. Where our group went. Inside, a mirror maze was discovered. After wandering a little along it, we went out into a round hall, along the perimeter of which there were mirrors. From one came a black lion with eyes shining with violet light, his body as if covered with a small layer of a mirror shell. The battle began.



It turned out that he blocks or refuses direct attacks and magic, but you can attack his own reflections in the mirrors, which we tried to do (for some reason it was impossible to break the mirrors and frames). Fry tried to pump out the lion’s fatigue through reflection, because the disintegration shot from the mirror was reflected, and the damage from it was ridiculous. The lion, meanwhile, hovered in place and became invulnerable, calling on the battlefield various dead people who came out of the mirrors. Our fighter killed them, after which the lion was released. Then the bard was tired of this protracted slaughter and he cast a temporal stasis spell on the lion from the scroll. And the lion froze, as if forever.



Then it turned out that we can not get out. There was nothing to remove the spell either. They tried to cut through the ceiling of the hall, there was darkness swirling. Trying to put his hand in there, the bard burned himself. It seemed that only Fry could infiltrate it painlessly. My character crawled into this darkness and flew up until he felt an obstacle. Abandoned disintegration made a hole and my hero flew out of the tent.



By that time, another of the players who played the warrior came up. This warrior showed up outside the tent and we kind of exchanged a couple of phrases. After that, it occurred to me that the rest could be pulled out if you shed the black blood of my unicorn on them.



The master called me to another room to inform me that the darkness inside the unicorn was delighted with such a thought and that it was necessary to force the others to agree to this. Fry went inside through the usual entrance and buried himself in the glass, behind which the other members of the group were visible. It was impossible to break this glass, so the infernal unicorn had to go out and return through the hole in the tent. There he proposed a variant with black blood, but the party members refused, looking for other options. In the end, I suggested running to the city for a scroll of dispelling magic, and we settled on this option. Fry flew through the hole in the tent again, looked at the warrior who was beating the buck and flew to the border of the black sphere. It turned out that now the sphere does not let the unicorn back.



The master again called me back and said that the darkness tells the unicorn a way to remove the stasis spell: you need to infect at least two more with darkness, then together they can dispel this magic. I said that it was already proposed, but the others clearly refused, so why try to quarrel the party? It has long been obvious to everyone that Fry is a dark horse. And all these private conversations of ours only increasingly set the party against the hero.



In general, we returned and the master again decided to resolve everything himself. Black came down from Fry, leaked into the mirrors and, posing as an infernal unicorn, began to persuade the rest to accept it herself. My hero fell into a slight faint at this time, taking the form of an ordinary horse with a horn.



The party refused the offer. Then a warrior came outside, buried in glass. The darkness turned to him and he decided to accept it, after which he persuaded another member of the party to take this step (rather, he persuaded). Both received some initial dark buns, and then the darkness returned to Fry's body. Then the spell was lifted, and the black lion was killed.



Chapter Ten. Ah, spider you ... daughter



After we headed to the third building, it seems that it was just some kind of arch or portal. Going inside the party was in a city square filled with people. They greeted us as winners. Going further, we found our guildmaster (alive) and his daughter. It became clear that everything around was a fiction (which, in principle, we had already guessed, it was happening under the black dome), and our fighter tried to kill the guildmaster. In response, his daughter turned into a giant spider, and the crowd attacked us.



The battle began, while the party members were killing the crowd, the spider climbed up a barely visible web, thus leaving the radius of close attacks. The bard threw an increase on some allies, but the spider still ended up in an unreachable zone. This monster had two attacks per turn and it began to throw us in a web.

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There is no need to say that Fry’s attacking spells turned out to be useless as always (well, you understand, the non-Munchkins in this game do not even risk getting out of the house for bread) and I thought about other options. It seemed to me that it would be nice to blow the spider down with gusts of wind and applied wind shaping . A stream of wind appeared, but the spider clung to its net, swaying to the sides.



Having plopped into the cobweb once, he earned 2 fatigues and already accumulated 3. In total, the hero trudged down to look for unfinished people in order to drink someone's fatigue. I found only one (although there were crowds, and the party did not kill all. Master, what kind of garbage?) And drank fatigue from him for two moves.



The battle, meanwhile, did not advance, and the spider crawled out of the wind. And again threw a web. Fry is tired of it. He surrounded himself with a protective mana wall (such a barrier) so as not to fly away from the wind. After that, the wind intensified to a maximum and a tornado began, sending the spider on a fun flight with a beating against the walls. The remaining party members were greatly enlarged and the effect did not seem to lift them into the air. Then my conic failed a saving throw for a dream and the tornado ended. The spider fell down, where it was finally dismantled. At the end of the battle, 3 fatigues hung on each member of the group.



The chapter is final. When leaving, turn off the light, all white



We went back and saw that now you can go to the girls that were going to give birth to a dark messiah. A black portal appeared behind them, from where the chains flew out. They grabbed a woman in labor and dragged inside. Our fighter rushed forward, tearing these girls' bellies (uh, and this is the "brightest" party member, the only one who sent darkness to hell). A few dragged inside and we followed into the portal.

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Inside was a huge black crystal, which pulled in the remaining women in labor and transformed into something like a golem. Here, everyone who was infected with darkness began to make saving throws every turn on whether they are fighting on the side of the golem or not. Naturally, I wanted to make neutral claims when Fry was captured by darkness: for example, to protect the golem by surrounding it with a mana wall. True, the master insisted on aggressive claims against the party members, so they could not cheat. Well, all the more so since you could finally get tired of mana wall. The only acceptable option was exhaustion of fatigue (single or mass). In his turn, Fry flew closer to the others, but was still not close enough.



Then our bard put a dance effect on me and the warrior, we had to lean back from him every move. Meanwhile, the golem was slowly dismantled. Leaning from both effects, Fry decided to fly away from the rest, while he could, so that he did not have to throw fatigue on his allies. Having flown off, he again became an ally for the golem, but then the rest of the party finally dealt with the enemy.



And so it ended. Our party was in the middle of a huge round pit - the place where the black sphere used to be. We were greeted by people and other creatures looking from somewhere above. Next went the download about how we were met and awarded. The end.



At this point, the master collected our sheets of characters and suddenly announced that everything, according to True20, we no longer play. Never.And pointedly tore them up. What a twist. Well, no one in general was against it, although the sheets themselves could be left.



And you, mane, I will ask you to stay



Well, I decided that such a character should not disappear and converted Fry (not Skaven, but just Fry) under his Twisted Terra system . In order not to complicate the backstory of the hero, I modified it somewhat:

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Realizing what was happening, Fry, who turned black, discovered that a section of his beloved forest was lifted into the air by an elven spell. Looks like it's time to leave familiar places. ”

Actually, in my system the prescribed background is optional - the fundamental features of the character’s biography are important for the game. For Fry, I made the following set of traits in my biography: “black unicorn”, “eyes shine with orange light”, “psychic”, “cursed black blood”, “dislikes elves and rats”.



These are all some “seeds” that can sprout in the game, developing into special rules. For example, the line “cursed black blood” I specified in two special rules starting - “black blood magic” and “infernal hurricane”. It is likely that the properties of black blood still conceal some other possibilities that will open up to the hero later, during his adventures.



Remaking the hero, I wanted to roughly preserve the style of play that he had in the True20 system. Thus, the global mechanics of fatique and the drain vitality spell in my system turned into the personal mechanics of “black blood magic” - Fry can drink some of the life force from different creatures, hanging on them the accumulating weakening shadow scars , and he receives shadow charges that can be spent on all sorts of useful tricks with dark blood. Later, on its basis, I made the mechanics of a vampire character, because the principle just fits the concept of vampirism.



A couple of special rules reveal the “psychic” trait. This is “telepathy” (Fry can telepathically communicate with any rational creatures he sees) and “deception of feelings” (2 times a day, Fry can create any illusion for a period of 5 minutes). But this is not the only application of the trait. A psychic can, for example, allow Fry to try to erase someone’s memory, feel the aura of a place, look for a lost item, and so on. It depends on how the game develops and what situations arise.



Later, I adapted the unicorn for my tactical game Monsterboy . There, pre-installed heroes are decorated as folding cards in half with game parameters. So in the end it was all not misadventures, but plus one character in a piggy bank and such a dramatic and instructive story.







Black Unicorn Fry, character sheet



That's all, ingenuity for you in your games and mutual understanding, then any systems will not be scary for you.



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