I ran a convention game a few days ago and I've been requested to post my notes here [cross-posted to Story Games].
My convention program pitch went thus:
Atlantis Under the Seas:Deep under the waves, the lost Kingdom of Atlantis lives on. But the shadow of Leviathan, Emperor of the Abyss, is stretching over all the undersea kingdoms and his dark minions are at Atlantis' fabled walls. Will you be the ones to save the Kingdom? Play a knight of Atlantis, mermaid, siren, triton or nereid, or any suitable fairytale character of your choice is this very streamlined, story-oriented system.
In the interest of staying within the alloted time, I had regretfully decided to make pre-gen characters. Chargen can be really fast but it can also bog down horribly, so I chose what I hoped was the lesser of the two evils. I had six characters:
Barnacle:A stubborn merrow.
Virtues: Head 3 / Heart 3 / Hand 7.
Charms: Cannot be moved from a spot when clinging with both “feet”
Is as strong as a whale
Is loyal unto death
Taboos: Poltroon
Must protect siblings.
Legend:
Barnacle, Ray and Finn are three siblings though they are very different from one another. They are merrows (mermaids/mermen) and live in the undersea kingdom of Lost Atlantis. Barnacle is extremely strong and healthy, and has the uncanny ability to cling immovably to any surface when solidly planting both fluke-feet. Despite this, Barnacle is a rather shy, bashful, retiring young merrow who would prefer to stay away from trouble – but is often bullied into adventure by Ray or even Finn.
Ray:A swashbuckling merrow.
Virtues: Head 3 / Heart 7 / Hand 3.
Charms: Can always tell where his Quarry is
Wields a narwhal rapier
Rides a spirited seahorse
Has a pleasing face
Taboos: Braggart
Meddler
Must protect siblings
Legend:
Ray is brave and full of panache – and never lets anyone forgets it. Ray also believes it’s his duty to help Barnacle “get out of the shell.” Ray can attune to a specific Quarry and always know where it is, no matter how far; for example, if Ray decided to attune to a ring, no one could ever hide it anywhere that Ray would not be able to find. If Ray attuned to a person, that person could be followed to the deepest abyss. In order to attune, Ray must be within sight of the Quarry (+1 to all rolls for the bond if Ray was also in physical contact when attuning). There can only be one Quarry at a time and only one attunement per Quarry; if Ray abandons a Quarry, the bond can never be reestablished.
Finn:A cunning merrow.
Virtues: Head 7 / Heart 3 / Hand 3.
Charms: Can remember everything heard and seen perfectly
Knows a lie when he hears one
Wears a magical cloak
Knows many people
Taboos: Keeps his word
Too smart for his own good
Must protect siblings
Legend:
Finn is smart as a whip and has contacts everywhere. In addition, Finn’s magical cloak of kelp can give the wearer the appearance of someone who “belongs.” For example, while Finn does nothing to attract attention while wearing the cloak (e.g., speak, move suddenly, run), Finn could quietly slip among a squad of the City Guard as one of them. Finn feels it’s his duty to watch over Ray and Barnacle, and get them out of trouble.
Coral:A beautiful nymph.
Virtues: Head 5 / Heart 6 / Hand 2.
Charms: Can turn herself to water current
Plays beautiful tunes on her flute
Always has an Idea
Taboos: Dreams of the surface world
Is generous to a fault
Needs her amulet
Legend:
Coral is beautiful, kind-hearted and resourceful, so she has many friends. She can turn at will into a water current, intangible and practically invisible; this makes her very difficult to trap or imprison. Coral wears a pretty pendant made of, what else, pink coral. Should she lose this precious amulet, she will forever dissolve into sea water at the next sunrise or sunset (whichever is next.)
Squigley:A naive squid.
Virtues: Head 2 / Heart 5 / Hand 6.
Charms: Can undo any knot
Spits black ink
Can multi-task
Taboos: Curiosity that killed the catfish
Naive
Not an octopus! (A bit touchy)
Legend:
Squigley is a happy-go-lucky squid (not an octopus!) who loves to get in the thick of things, meet people, have adventures, and discovers the world. This could rapidly lead to Squigley’s demise, but fortunately has not yet. Squigley is not the brightest glowfish in the school, but a sunshiny personality and the ability to blind the opposition with a jet of ink have served well as defense so far.
The Urchin:A self-centered rascal.
Virtues: Head 3 / Heart 3 / Hand 7.
Charms: Looks cute as a button
Lies like a rug
Swims quicker than lightning
Taboos: Always gets in trouble
Greedy
Loyal to friends
Legend:
“The Urchin” is all anyone ever called him. He’s a cute little fish, Nemo-style, and everyone just wants to pat him and squeeze his cheek. People often underestimate him. However, the Urchin often puts the “fish” in selfish and thinks only of his own fun. On the other fluke, though, he would go to the end of the sea for his friends. The Urchin is a little afraid of Finn, the only person that is never fooled by his lies. He’s made it his goal to successfully lie to Finn, but most of the time he doesn’t even bother to try. He tells himself he’s saving the Big Lie for a Big Occasion. But maybe, just maybe, it’s nice to have one person who he doesn’t lie to...
The one character which was not picked was Ray. Finn was picked next to last, when a player came in late (she had misread the start of the time block in the convention schedule.) One amusing choice was that Coral the nymph was played by Peter, who is a big guy, and Barnacle by his wife Cindy, who is a small lady. That made for funny contrasts. My husband played Squigley with enthusiasm.
The plot was simple: while Leviathan appears close to invading, the Queen of Atlantis has not been seen for weeks. Rumours are flying wildly about the reason for her disappearance, from murder to cowardice to kidnapping to secret plan. Then Leviathan's envoy, Lord Claw, comes to demand the surrender of Atlantis in seven days' time. The Queen is still nowhere to be found; the captain of the guard and the chamberlain disagree on what to do.
The characters are supposed to discover that the Queen has left with six of her best men on a quest to find the secret location where Leviathan has hidden his soul; with this in her power, she believes he can be banished or destroyed. Characters can then go track the Queen, find her captured by Lord Claw and her men dead or prisoners, and put the quest back on track with a daring rescue. If they reached this point very quickly, I would then have them square off against Leviathan.
In my notes I had outlined plenty of different ways for the characters to overcome various difficulties through social, mental, magical or physical means. I wanted the players free to pick the type of approach that made the game most entertaining to them, but I was hoping it would not boil down to pure combat. There are numerous games who cover this approach already, and I feel that the fairytale flavour is more about cleverness and determination than about whupping ass. The players did not disappoint me. As the game progressed, the players found more and more ways to cooperate and use their various charms in interesting combinations. (I'll post the summary in a bit.)
I really enjoyed how they convinced the captain of the guard to make them into a special unit of the guard. They eventually destroyed my poor villain, Lord Claw, whom I had hoped to save for another day. Oh well! They vanquished him fair and square.
We opened with a short description of the sunken city-kingdom of Atlantis and the tense situation involving imminent invasion and the disappearance of Queen Antinea (yeah, I've read too much pulp). Rumours were flying in the city: the Queen had been kidnapped by agents of Leviathan, she had fled in fear for her life, she was dead -- of poisoning, even -- she was working on a great spell to fight back, etc.. Coral immediately formed the idea that the Queen had gone to the Surface Kingdoms to find allies or weapons against Leviathan, and spread additional rumours.
The city was thrown into more turmoil when a small but intimidating force of Leviathan's troops approached the city walls. The City Guard hastily assembled to defend the gate and walls. Squigley, the Urchin and Coral went to see what was going on, while Barnacle tried to convince them not to get in trouble.
A small crab with a trumpet conch announced Lord Claw, envoy of Leviathan. Lord Claw was a large, foreboding creature that seemed to be made of a collection of body parts from a dozen sources; he had of course two gigantic lobster-like claws, a human torso protected by armor, a head whose face was hidden by an ornate helmet and face mask; large crab legs wriggled from his back, and his lower limbs were a multitude of octopus tentacles. His troops were drowned men with pale glowing green eyes, and small scurrying crabs.
Squigley zipped out of the city despite his friends' attempt to restrain him, and inquisitively approached Lord Claw, wanting to know what this was all about. In a booming voice, Lord Claw announced that he was here to demand the surrender of Atlantis in the name of the Great Leviathan, and challenged the Queen to come and speak for her kingdom. Of course, the Queen did not manifest herself and Lord Claw derided her cowardice.
Offended and angry, Squigley squirted ink between Lord Claw and the city to hide him from view and cut him off from his audience, and zipped to the relative safety of the walls. (Actually, he tried to squirt ink at Lord Claw but fell short, so I used a "Yes, but" approach. I'm fond of partial or shared narration, like in InSpectres or octaNe.)
The irate Lord Claw announced that Atlantis had seven days to surrender, or it would be brutally crushed; then he left with his troops.
Coral, Barnacle and the Urchin berated Squigley for endangering the city, pointing out that Lord Claw might have got angry enough to attack Atlantis immediately. Everywhere in the city, people were even more agitated now and rumours flew wildly. The four friends decided to investigate the Queen's disappearance, hoping she could mobilize her people against the enemy.
Coral decided to go investigate the Queen's apartments inside the castle. She transformed into a current and slipped past the guards. She observed in the castle the same kind of tense hesitation that was everywhere in the city; people walked hurriedly, spoke in hushed tomes, and glanced over their shoulder. She found the queen's rooms empty and unused, and heard the chamberlain and the captain of the guard arguing about what they should do; they bemoaned having let the Queen leave on some sort of quest.
Coral went back to let her friends know what she had learned, and they decided to approach the Captain and Chamberlain directly. Of course, Barnacle did not like the idea of risking more trouble and had to be coaxed by an enthusiastic Squigley. The four friends managed to talk to the two dignitaries (I forget how right now, I'll have to ask if anyone remembers). Though the Captain wanted to shoo them away, the Chamberlain threw up his hands and declared that at this point he would be grateful for any help. The friends learned that the queen had left with six of her best soldiers (seven being a magic number, especially in Atlantis) to search for the place where Leviathan had hidden his soul. Without this, it was impossible to kill him, but with it the Queen might be able to defeat and banish or destroy him.
The four declared they had to search the Queen's appartments for clues to her quest's destination. They found a large, imposing and ancient book, and Barnacle said they had to show it to his clever sister Finn [whose player had just arrived]. The captain of the Guard objected, saying it was the Guard's responsibility to rescue the Queen. But Squigley managed to convince the Captain that they should be entrusted with the job (and were expendable), and convinced the Captain to declare them a new unit, the Queen's Irregulars [and people were kind enough not to make fiber jokes] and equip them with weapons and armour.
They took the book to clever Finn, who listened to their story with interest and studied the ancient tome. She eventually deciphered the Queen's notes and declared that they must go to the maze of underwater caves found far beyond the dark Kelp Forests. [I had decided that the underwater kingdoms were built on the "As above, so below" principle, so all seven provinces on Faerie found in Seven Leagues had an undersea counterpart. That made descriptions easy. The Kelp forest corresponded to Gloomwand, and the caves to Underhome.]
Since they now had less than seven days to get there and back, time was of the essence. Finn approached great nurse sharks and convinced them to serve as steeds, taking the group through the kelp forest and to the caves. [Except for atmospheric descriptions, I cut the trip to fairytale-style "and they traveleld for several days" because I wanted to get to a suitable resolution by the end of the alloted time.] As they neared their destination, the five friends met with a unit of spider crabs like the ones that had accompanied Lord Claw. The group spied on the crabs and learned that Lord Claw's forces were nearby. The rescuers of Atlantis took the long way 'round to find the back entrance to the cave complex.
The five heroes sneaked through the cave complex. Finn, who remembered every word of the Queen's magic book, picked his way through the maze of stone. At first, the caverns were dark, empty and threatening, but eventually they saw a faint light, then heard voices. They approached cautiously, avoiding scurrying spider crabs and drowned men troops. In a dimly lit cave, they found the gruesome remnants of a recently dismembered corpse, partly gnawed and eaten by crabs.
Once again, Coral acted as scout. Practically invisible, she explored the caves ahead and listened in on the crabs' conversation. She learned that they had captured a group of Atlanteans; though the crabs themselves did not know why they were posted here and what Lord Claw's mission was, they thought the Atlanteans' presence in the caves confirmed that something was afoot. Most of the prisoners were now dead, having refused to talk under torture, but Lord Claw still had hopes of forcing the Queen to talk!
Upon hearing this, Coral checked the neighbouring caves and found the location where the Queen and one of her guards were imprisoned. The floor was strewn with the limbs of their dead companions. At this point, Lord Claw himself entered the room and addressed Queen Antinea, demanding that she reveal her mission here!
Coral rapidly returned to warn her friends. They rapidly formed a plan to free the Atlanteans; Finn wrapped herself in her magical cloak to disguise herself as one of Lord Claw's men, and of course Coral could remain unseen. Squigley and a dismayed Barnacle would distract Lord Claw, with Finn's help, while Coral and the fast-swimming Urchin zipped past and freed the prisoners.
Squigley relished another chance to spit ink at Lord Claw, but the adversary was formidable. Finn, Squigley and Barnacle engaged the monstrous Lord Claw, while the Urchin and Coral fought spider crabs and bloated undead. Barnacle decided he must put an end to Lord Claw to protect his sister and friends, so he grappled the daunting creature and tried to fling him against a wall to smash him. Lord Claw was swung over Barnacle's head but caught a stalactite to stop the effort mid-swing.
With Barnacle firmly planted against the rocky ground and Lord Claw holding with his mighty strength to the overhead pillar, Squigley used his ability to undo any knot and undid the ties fastening the armour protecting Lord Claw's torso, both making him vulnerable and tangling him in the process. Finn used the opening to [if I recall correctly] tickle Lord Claw, causing him to lose his grip. Barnacle then violently flung the monster to impale him on a nearby stalagmite [rolling a spectacular success and truly crushing a villain I had sort of hoped to save for a return. Many garlic butter jokes ensued.]
Meanwhile, Coral and the Urchin had succeeded in freeing the Queen and her last companion. Both were grievously wounded and very weak. The Queen breathlessly urged them to follow her, and ran toward a new portion of the labyrinth -- leaving a trail of blood behind her from a deep gash in her side. They caught up with her when she collapsed in a large cave containing an immense oyster. The oyster's shell was slit open, letting out a supernatural glow. The Queen had fainted from exhaustion and loss of blood.
Barnacle used his great strength to crack the oyster open a little further, and Squigley squirted ink inside to irritate it and cause it to open some more. Still holding on to the edge of the shell, Squigley reached inside the inky blackness with some of his tentacles and grabbed a large round object, pulling it out. Where Squigley brushed the ink off the giant pearl he had extracted, the pearl shone like a star.
With a rapid discussion, the group decided it must be Leviathan's soul and it had to be destroyed. They placed it on the edge of the open oyster shell; as soon as Barnacle let go, the oyster snapped shut, nearly catching Squigley and smashing the pearl to a thousand bright pieces. A moment later, an eerie sound vibration filled the cave, shaking everyone to their bones. The cavern complex started shaking apart.
They ran away, carrying the Queen and her wounded guard, unwilling to be trapped there. Thanks to Finn's memory, they managed to run out in time to escape the collapse. Overhead, the sea was as dark as if a large storm cloud covered the ocean from end to end, and the strange sound was everywhere.
The heroes managed to find the group of bewildered nurse sharks still nearby, and fled with all speed -- leaving behind the death throes of Leviathan. When they reached Atlantis and returned the Queen to her people, they were much celebrated -- and the Queen's Irregulars became a permanent elite unit of the Guard.
(1) It played differently from my semi-regular game because I had set several parameters differently: pre-gen characters, story with a pre-set end point (even if it was flexible), more focus on fairyland non-character motifs. Because they were new at it, people did not use the key words as much though they did a few times. Also, I didn't go into extended bidding of Embellishments because I really wanted to keep things moving, while I take it slower with my longer-running game.
(2) The dice were friendly, we had few natural 1s and never at truly disastrous times; and we did have that natural 12 when Barnacle smashed Lord Claw.
(3) Both in this game and in my mini-series, I find I have trouble giving different narrative modifiers for players' contributions. I tend to give +2 all around because I hate having to say "Player A, that was really good, have a +3; Player B, that was a bit lame, have a +1." Moreover, what for a tongue-tied player is an awesome bit of narration worth a +3 may be completely banal and worth a +1 for a more glib player. So I just even things out, although that may not be the best option.
(4) I loved the way people worked together and tried to combine their different Charms. As a GM, it made me feel good that the game ended up pretty well emulating fairytales and not turning into a standard combat fest.
(5) People definitely seemed to have a good time, I overheard them recommending the game to somebody else later on; and some visitors dropped by to look at my book (and later bought their own copy).
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