Alkhemia/Rules

Commitment and Expectations

The game will be play-by-post, but with a time window on Sunday morning/afternoon for some concerted progress, such as major events.

• Sheep: 11 AM to 2 PM (Mexico Time)
• Eire: 11 AM to 2 PM (Mountain Standard Time)
• Vex: 1 PM to 4 PM (Eastern Standard Time)

Players will create appropriate characters for the game, two apiece. The GM will be responsible for all NPCs unless otherwise noted. As suggested by Sheep, we'll start with a group Brought Together by Fate.

• Bonds will be critical. I will be using the optional rule from p.220 in the Core Rulebook to allow PCs to start with a Rank 1 Bond.
  • What emotional or familial connections exist between the characters?
  • Have your characters met in the past? Are there tensions or rivalries?
  • What do you have in common? Beliefs, enemies, past experiences?
• Sheep noted that he wanted a mixture of childhood friends and total strangers.
• Vex suggested orphans raised by the same governess before being adopted out.

Tone and Themes

The tone should be lighthearted with tense moments, akin to a Tales game. Characters should be compatible but do not necessarily need to be friends. Good and evil should be easily told apart, though some grey areas are acceptable. Disagreements and tension between characters are alright as long as they are not outright antagonistic towards each other.

Unanswered questions:

• Are there any themes you strongly wish to explore during play?

Rules and Challenge

We'll check for experience after facing a hardship. For example, if there's a dungeon, experience gains will come after the dungeon. If there's a long session of treating with hostile locals to earn their trust, experience gains will come after that. And so on.

I'm considering the following optional rules:

• Core Rulebook
  • Success at a Cost, p.45
  • Ambushes and Surprise Rounds, p.82
  • Players Outside the Conflict, p.82
  • Starting Bonds, p.220
  • Buying Qualities, p.267 (but see below)
• High Fantasy Atlas
  • High Fantasy Classes, p.136
• Natural Fantasy Atlas
  • Natural Fantasy Classes, p.138

For house rules, I will likely be using:

• Hex Travel rules created by Aaron Jolliffe.
• Some tables from d4 Caltrops for overland travel.
• Elegems. This is basically a repainting of certain core game features:
  • Expendable items such as Elemental Shards are renamed to Lesser Elegems. These break after a single use.
  • More durable items such as Weapon Elegems and Armour Elegems take the place of equipment qualities. For example, you can purchase an Elegem of Swordbreaker for 1000 zenit to add the Swordbreaker property to your weapon. Despite being 'durable', such gems are still destroyed when replaced with a different Elegem.
  • There are also rare items such as Spell Elegems which contain a spell which can be cast by the holder without destroying the gem, and other, more unusual gems may exist out there...

Other notes:

• Sheep noted that while some challenge is accepted, narration and story should come first.
• Vex feels like he might like to max out his character.

Safety

As expected, we're all fairly familiar with each-other's preferences, but we did draw a hard line against sexual abuse or assault, outside of potential backstory elements.

Unanswered questions:

• The depiction of violence. By default, Fabula Ultima expects little elements of gore and blood: much like in classic JRPGs, death is portrayed as a character kneeling or vanishing in a cloud of spiritual particles — but still talk about the kind of scenes and descriptions people are okay with.
• The nature of evil. Story elements such as mind control, the persecution of a minority, or violent imperialism are all common tropes in tabletop games, but for some, they are very real and tangible threats. Strive to make sure the game is a safe space.