The Game-

 

  The basic concept is for an Indiana Jones-style McGuffin hunt. The PC occult expert is going to be a member of a Cabal-ish group called the Order of the Compass. This will be a White Lodge focussed on the four Archangels (Raphael, Michael, Gabriel and Uriel).

 

  They have been locked in mystic battle for a long time with the Order of the Horsemen (as in "Four of the Apocalypse").

 

  When the Final Battle comes these mightly forces will battle directly and until then they engage in proxy battles to shape the lesser Realms. So at irregular intervals, omens appear that tell the True Cognoscenti that another round is beginning.

 

  When this happens there will appear on Earth in hidden (but mystically significant) locations Talismans for each of the opposing pairs. Mortals can gain these Talismans and use them to influence chance and destiny in the areas those Talismans are related to. Afterward, great events related to the relevant powers tend to occur on Earth.

 

  For example, the good guys blew the healing/plague battle before WWI and the Spanish Influenza may have been the result.

 

  Sometimes one of the Talisman's will even fall into the hands of a mundane. The one for War is the most popular for this. It's probably appeared as a lance multiple times and been used by various empire builders. The phsyical form of each Talisman will be suggestive of its' area, but will usually vary each time a new one appears.

 

  If you can score all four of the Talismans you can perform a great ritual caled the Seal of Destiny and cause some particularly enduring thing to happen. The last time this happened was 1775. Otherwise, Talisman effects may be fairly limited in duration, less than a generation anyway. It's likely that Napoleon had only the Talisman of War.

 

  Now it is October, 1936. Franco has become dictator in Spain, the Olympics have ended in Berlin, and half the world expects Germany to go to war, the other half is preparing in case he does...

 

Damara Tansy Barrons

Graf von Reichenau

 

Started:

1936-October-England

1936-October-Turkey

1936-October-Greece

1936-October-Egypt

 

Character building:

Four stats:

Strength (Covers lifting and resistance to damage)

Agility (Covers moving and getting out of the way of things)

Mind (Covers reasoning and memory)

Soul (Covers Will and Magic)

 

These four are generic, if you want to increase 'part' of the stat, say Reasoning, you trade it up one rank for lowering the rest down one. So starting at Fair, your could have someone with Good Reasoning, but Mediocre Mind otherwise. You get two stats at Fair, two at Goog, to begin and can adjust/trade to customize. So an Academic might trade his levels into Mind, even lowering Strength and Agility for Mind, while the Pilot would need Good or Better Agility. Please note that there are four stats for a reason, each maps to one of the four iconics!

Stat	Compass	Aspect	Horseman
Strength	North	Earth	Death
Agility	East	Air	Plague
Mind	West	Water	Famine
Soul	South	Fire	War

 

Each Talisman alters the scale of the holder, such that they are much more than human, in that aspect of themselves. A memeber of the Horsemen had hold of the Talisman of Water in 1456 and Vlad Tepes, Dracula, was born...

 

Skills:

Broad skills are preferred. Archeology, Pilot, Guns, Swords. You can specialize just as the stats are modified. A Good Pilot, can be a fair overall Pilot but Great with single engine planes! An Great Archeologist can become Good overall, but Superb in Egyptology.

Characters start with 1 skill at Good, 4 skills at Fair, and 4 skills at Mediocre. They can be traded back and forth before play starts, but no base skill can start above Great. A concentration (like Egyptology above) can be with approval.

Developing a skill costs FUDGE Points. The table below shows how many points need to be spent to raise a skill to that level. So if your Skill is already Fair, you need to spend 4 FUDGE Points to raise it to Good. Undeveloped skills that you are familiar with default to Poor.

Mediocre	1
Fair	2
Good	4
Great	8
Superb	16

Gifts:

Characters start with two (2) Gifts. More Gifts can be taken, but must be balanced with Faults, 1 for 1.

 

Faults:

Characters start with two (2) Faults. To take less, players must take take fewer Gifts.

 

Magic:

Magic is developed as four skills. Earth, Air, Fire, Water. Each covers an aspect of the world and those in it. Similar effects can be performed using different skills and aspects, but the results won't necessarily be the same! Putting out a fire with Earth, Air, and Water are all much different than using Fire itself!

 

Spell Parameters:

These define the extent of the magic you are going to perform.

	Range	Duration	Damage	Target
Terrible	Personal	Momentary	1 Scratch	Small
Poor	Touch/Eye	Concentration/Diameter	2 Scratches	Individual
Mediocre	Reach	Sun	3 Scratches	Group/Room
Fair	Near	Ring/Moon	1 Hurt	Circle
Good	Far	Season	2 Hurt	Structure
Great	Sight	Year	1 Very Hurt	Boundary
Superb	Arcane Connection	Decade	Incapacitated	Sight

 

 

To determine difficulty of an effect:

Start with the HIGHEST Parameter, and apply a 2 to 1 exchange, rolling UP on all lower modifiers.

2 Terrible=1 Poor, 2 Poor=1 Mediocre, etc.

 

Spells that directly affect something get a resistance roll. In case of damage spells, this is normally handled as a dodge. A mental attack would be resisted by Willpower. Spells that attempt to gain information on someone or thing require some link to that target, be it a name, sample, or representation. So to divine information about a person, or attack them remotely, having some representation is a requirement. To attack them locally, or divine information in their presence would not.

Remote attacks use the distance parameter of Arcane Connection, but divination distance is directed inwards, toward the caster and so would not.

 

Casting Parameters

Time to perform a Ritual depends on your skill in the magic involved. Use the lowest applicable skill against the table below. Taking less time adds to difficulty. Taking more time subtracts. So if you need to take 5 minutes, and instead you take 30, then you get to add 2 to your skill. If you need 5 minutes and take 1, you subtract 2.

Skill:	Time
Terrible	1 Hour
Poor	30 minutes
Mediocre	10 minutes
Fair	5 minutes
Good	2 minutes
Great	1 minute
Superb	1 second

 

So consider a Divination. The characters best skill is in Air, so they need to use that aspect, so they look for omens in the sky. Their Skill is only Fair though, so they have to spend a minimum of 5 minutes staring into the sky, hunting for clues. The Range is Personal, Duration is Momentary, No Damage, the Target is an Individual. Difficulty is Poor, Terrible, Terrible=>Poor, Poor=> Mediocre. The player needs to Roll better than a -2 on the Fudge dice to get a flash of insight.

 

 

 

Questions and requests can be emailed to: rick.gerdes@dominionenterprises.com

 

 

 

Game Mechanic specifics:

Fudge is the primary system.

For those unfamiliar or unable to research the pdf of the core Fudge rules located here, here are some basics:

 

The Fudge scale is descriptively based and has seven ranks running lowest to highest; Terrible, Poor, Mediocre, Fair, Good, Great, Superb.

 

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