Chapter Five: Wealth and Lifestyle (the abstracted wealth system and how lifestyle affects interactions) Gear: rich robes that seem out of place, disdainfully-worn crown, look of boredom, the hatred of treasonous nobles, nostalgia for the battlefield.

Chapter Ten: The World (the nations that surround Eversink and how Eversink interacts with these nations, especially economically) However, that’s not the extent of the split. Allegiances are another kind of investigative ability, representing relationships and social connections. They work like investigative abilities — you can get information from a friend, after all — and you can spend pool to call in favors. This is the sixth in our series on non-human heroes which has so far covered the spider-like Arakene, the Considerata (humans whose souls are contractually linked to gods), Constructs, Intelligent Animals, and Unsleeping Advisors (secret undead). This month’s Ancestry is inspired by the cordyceps fungus, The Last of Us, and terrifying hiveminds. Be sure to read the previously published rules on Non-Human Heroes if you haven’t already.. The Drowned You only know how to physically reach Colony if it specifically summons you, and that’s rare. When Colony nudges you with a request, you may refuse at the cost of 1 Morale damage. If Colony insists or attempts to possess you fully, you may resist at the cost of 6 Morale damage. If this defeats you, special circumstances occur (SotS p. 87).I mentioned the carnivorous birds and the funerary statues. Birds have a lot of cache in the city, in part because Denari was originally a swan spirit who changed with the times and what her worshippers needed. The people in Eversink are more likely to have watch geese than watch dogs. I love the scenarios that spring to mind from that setting detail. The other three elements are more conceptual — they’re related ideas which together form the main engines that drive interactions throughout the city. They are a foundation of commerce, the expectation of law, and the presence of divinity. At fledgling power, we have is a Conan who is more thief than warrior. He’s adept at breaking and entering, good in a fight (especially if he fights unconventionally) but without tactical mastery. He’s young, and only knows how to relate to others through posturing and insults.

There’s a lot of good guidance on things like War and Trade as things that drive play more than things you play directly. Very practical approach. Lots of guidance on clues, which is good but also kind of what I expect from a Gumshoe game. Nice bit on Plot Maps as Dungeons (one of those idea that is always fun, but also works better on paper than in practice) which I’m very curious to see in final layout. You have Health and Morale, and once these reach zero, you have difficulty functioning, with more difficulties the further into negative numbers you go Social Combat in Swords of the Serpentine When words cut as sharply as a knife, you don’t actually need to carry a knife.There’s a section on the rest of the world, and it’s fine. Nothing wrong with that, but to my mind its primary job is to provide a list of exciting sounding names of far off places to refer to while in Eversink. It accomplishes this admirably. I love this mechanic. It’s used a little bit here and there in the game, but not nearly as much as I feel like it deserves. ↩ See the disease description (SotS p. 87) for more information about the Drowned, including their most common method of death.

That probably seems like a weird thing to focus on when there are other bullets about dark sorceries, mighty thewed warriors and so on. But as a reader of settings, it’s gold to me for a couple of reasons: Swords of the Serpentine, by Emily Dresner and Kevin Kulp, is Fantasy GUMSHOE as seen through a lens of classic swords and sorcery. That means different things to different people, though, so we wanted to share with you the set of collected guidelines we’ve used when writing the game. Going into SotS, it had a few elements going in its favor and a few strikes against it. Against it was the Gumshoe system, which I’d never quite synced with. I genuinely love how it handles investigation and clues, but for more mundane actions it uses a pool system combined with hidden difficulties, which is a combination I don’t enjoy. However, Gumshoe has also gone through numerous iterations since the last time I looked at it, so I had hope. The Drowned are surprisingly strong, mostly because the fungus that controls them has little concern about ripping apart an infected’s muscles after they’ve revealed themselves. Sample Allegiances For comparison, a sovereign Hero has about 16 adventures worth of experience over a standard Hero, and a standard Hero has about 17 adventures more experience than a fledgling Hero. That’s enough of a power and capability difference to feel like you’re at very different stages of the Hero’s career. A fun scenario might be to run three adventures: one at standard level to showcase a threat or problem, then one at fledgling level to show how the threat or problem originated, and finally one at sovereign level to let your Heroes crush the threat once and for all.If you have an investigative ability with any ranks, you gain a clue whenever you are in the right place at the right time, without rolling or spending anything