For a theoretical game playing a gang of criminals in the capital of the Grand Duchy of Draad. I realised that the standard set of Scribe, Astrologer, Signatory, Knight and Outcast doesn’t make all that much sense (well, mostly some of the Knights and most of the Signatories, what with the “criminal gang” part).
So, the lineup for this theoretical game consists of: Knight (of Coins!), Scribe, Astrologer, Outcast and Bravo.
I like the idea of adapting classes to a setting - I was greatly pleased when G.R. Michael adapted my Sacred One to his Unfinished World setting, and I’m a big Garamondia fan, and these thoughts got involved in a five-car pileup on the autobahn. The end result is entirely different from Garamondia’s Bravo, but draws a distinct inspiration from it.
You are a member of one of the many street gangs of the Capital (that is, of Dramyth), and at night you wear their colours and feathered plumes. Where others see the city streets, you perceive a swirling pattern of love and hate, honour and disgrace.
You live as much by your reputation and force of personality as by your blades and your pistols.
The Bravo gangs are a recent phenomenon in Dramyth, first appearing in 1555 or so, and only growing bolder over the last two years, as army units depart for the frontlines of the War of Defiance - dodging conscription by stealth, violence and intimidation, the Bravos are a painful embarrassment for the Grand Duke and a terror upon the city.
The people of Dramyth cry out: How do they act with such impunity?
THE BRAVO
+1 to Hit and +1 SNEK per Template
Starting Items: Fancy Clothing (in your Gang’s Style, unarmoured but +1 Reaction), a medium sword such as a dao or jian, 3 Rations (1 slot), two pieces of Bravo Kit, whatever your Gang affiliation gives you.
Starting Skills: Dramyth Navigation, plus one of 1) Etiquette 2) Intimidation 3) Mountebank 4) A Profession
A - Gang, Bravura, Cause Offence
B - Acrobat, +1 Attack per Round
C - Duelist
D - Impunity!
Gang
All of the Bravos are associated with roaming gangs. They seem to be driven to it.
Gang Membership tells you the style of your Bravo outfit, gives you an extra language or knowledge of a Dradian dialect, and gives additional starting items. See the end of the post for info on Dialects.
The Pretties - Membership drawn from the wealthy and idle youth of the capital, kept away from conscription by social pressure, lucre, and prospective Signature. Nasty fuckers, vandals, have the cruel carelessness that only privilege can truly instil.
Style: Old-fashioned solaristic noble fashion, but transgressed and adapted for running street battles and climbing the back wall. Long ruffly dresses with vertical cuts and mud-stained hems. White hats with broad circular brims, gold disc earrings, ruffs and lace cuffs.
You use the received Isian Dialect well, and can communicate like a noble ought.
Extra Starting Items: +100g.
The Boot-Snakes - Crazy idiots, extremely unserious, who imitate the style of the Royal Army and roam around robbing - possibly started as an anti-military and anti-magistrate protest, but has become a sort of rolling snowball of spit curses and bad manners.
Style: Parody of the Royal Army uniform, with wool coats cut like buff coats, big military boots with jangling spurs, frilly cuffs and oversized embroidered shirts. Yellow hat-plumes and comedy grotesque masks (or theatrical Ubria masks).
You use any Dialect of your choice except Isian. You can spit some really blistering invective.
Extra Starting Items: Bottle of Wine (1 Slot), light pistol and 20 shot.
The Right Honourables - Membership is drawn entirely from the well-situated Iridian community within the city. The Right Honourables move with pomp - swagger, don’t run, and you better not come out tonight unless you’re dressed to the nines. Conduct themselves according to a stern code of honour, derived in reference (if not necessarily obedience) to the heroes of the Knightly Matters.
Style: Silk is a must! Broaches, sashes, hatpins and hairpins. Big boots, gold rings on top of your gloves, painted wooden masks here and there. Pink or orange plumes on your hat.
You use the Iridian Dialect well, and can speak it archly and wittily.
Extra Starting Items: Printed book of mnemonic images for classical poetry, and a light cane.
The Black Bats - Membership is drawn from the underground criminal associations of inland Draad. The Black Bats are a mixture of the typical bravo and the old-fashioned subtle thief. They’d choose to die, rather than aid the King’s law.
Style: Black greatcoats, heeled boots, domino or theatrical masks, tricorn hats, darkly coloured sashes, white plumes and feathers.
You use the Valentian or Shaien Dialect well, and are a master of subtle statements and implications.
Extra Starting Items: Bottle of poison (1d6, 3 doses) and a light bow (very quiet).
The Bulls - Membership is drawn from the city’s population of poor Hanchen immigrants. The Bulls are what happens when a drunk and angry bloke at the pub enters a chrysalis and reaches the next step of evolution. The chaos they produce is coordinated and darkly comedic.
Style: Stolen brocades, spouses’ embroidery, thick dark jackets, leather hoods (like executioners), lit pipe, red capes, extravagant facial hair if possible.
You use the Hanchen Dialect well, and can transmit passions and promises in a fiery way.
Extra Starting Items: Fireworks (3, fit in a slot) and a light hand-axe.
The Rottens - An Idami youth gang from the slums of Queen’s Thigh, who engage in daredevil acts, chaotic robbery and violence, with a distinct undercurrent of Defiant and anti-aristocratic sentiment. Sloshed philosophers smoking and debating with knives concealed in their sashes and sleeves.
Style: Old-fashioned Idami robes, densely patterned and adapted for mobility. Defiant greens. Brocades, hairpins, long, wild hair. Voluminous hoods, voluminous sleeves and close-fitting trousers in brightly dyed colours.
You speak Idami, a non-Dradian language, and were taught many forbidden prayers and litanies.
Extra Starting Items: Bottle of poison (1d6, 3 doses) and a little soapstone icon of your people’s goddess, Hi-na.
Bravura
You have a pool of [templates + 1] points of Bravura. If you are below maximum Bravura upon witnessing the Sunrise, you return to your maximum. If you acquire excess Bravura by some means, it’s not lost until you spend it, but it doesn’t increase your maximum Bravura. Armour and Bravura are incompatible.
You restore missing Bravura when you score a critical hit, defeat a foe, or when an enemy fumbles when attacking you.
You can spend a point of Bravura to immediately draw the attention of a creature you can see, to automatically dodge a melee attack that would hit you, or to magnify your voice greatly for the next [templates] words.
This bravura feels excellent, exhilarating, almost addictive - some Signatories assigned to study it class it as a kind of madness. You have a circular red blotch under your tongue.
Cause Offence
You can spend Bravura to mark people that you touch with your non-dominant hand.
When someone is marked a circular red blotch appears on their skin, or on their clothing. They can notice this, but won’t necessarily know what it means. If they try to wash or cut it off, or remove the marked clothing, it simply reappears somewhere else. You can dismiss a mark at will.
When an ally of yours attacks a marked target, they deal +1d6 fire damage, and burn the mark, which vanishes in a crackling plume of smoke.
When you attack a marked target, you keep the mark, and your attack has an inbuilt manoeuvre (like cutting someone’s belt, tangling their cloak, knocking their hat in front of their eyes, &c). If you miss your attack (or just want to fish for a crit), you can burn the mark to re-roll your attack roll.
When someone accepts a boastful challenge you offer, or takes a bet with you, they are marked immediately, without a touch or expending Bravura.
Acrobat
As long as you’re not wearing heavy armour, you can jump thrice as high or far as a normal person, and ignore the first dice of falling damage. You receive +1 MOVE.
Duelist
You have +1 Critical Range, and may parry once per round, reducing incoming damage from a melee attack by 1d6+[To-Hit]. If you reduce the damage to zero, you may riposte, attacking immediately for free. If the parry doesn’t reduce the damage to your satisfaction, you can still spend a Bravura to dodge the attack, but this doesn’t give you a riposte.
Against marked targets, your damage dice explode, and you have [templates] DR.
Impunity!
When you deal damage to anything, you mark it.
You can expend Bravura for additional parries in a round, and have a further +1 Critical Range.
Members of a given Gang gain (at first), one of the following spell-like powers, which are activated by spending points of Bravura:
The Pretties - Unblemished - For the next 4 hours, non-Bravo creatures must save when they try to attack you, or find themselves unable to do so. You ought to be smug about it.
The Boot-Snakes - Unexpected - With ten minutes of preparation, vanish into thin air, leaving behind a curling pillar of smoke. You enter and wait within an incense-scented hazy limbo, with an old parquet floor and the distant shadow of burning wooden walls. Your presence in the limbo is allowed for 10 minutes per spent Bravura, then you’re kicked out where you went into it. While you are still in the limbo, if the referee describes someone opening a door you could reasonably be behind, opening a container you could reasonably be in, wading through water you could reasonably be under, or similar, you suddenly appear out of it in a plume of smoke, ready for action.
The Right-Honourables – Unbewitch - If you, an ally of yours, or something you own, is affected by supernatural powers, you may expend Bravura to attempt to counteract this. Roll 1d6 per Bravura spent, and use their total as “[sum]” - if your [sum] is higher than that damn’d witch’s, then their Scripture turns to smoking scribbles, their Astrological allies leap back as if touching a hot stove, or their Heraldic deed fades right back into memory with the smell of burning. Annoyingly, you cannot counteract the powers of Signatories.
The Black Bats - Uncaught - Snap your fingers, strike a surface with your weapon, or stomp your boot. There’s a bang, a flash, and a huge cloud of smoke fills the surrounding area. The smoke-cloud is 10ft in radius per Bravura you spend. It lasts for an hour, or a minute in high winds. For non-Bravos, it’s blinding and choking. Non-bravos in the smoke require HRTS checks to perform any complex or detailed action, and if they spend a full minute in the smoke without being able to escape it, they become dazed, blind and short-term-amnesic for the next 24 hours.
The Bulls - Unsettle - Roar, shriek, shout or just point at something and swear. From a point of your choice within shouting distance, within a radius of 10ft per point of Bravura spent, a shimmering wave of air rushes out like a shockwave. Once hit by it, cattle stampede, horses buck or kick, dogs start barking or biting, birds fly off, and people are struck with a minute of sourceless fear. This can easily instill mass-panic in a crowd, cause guards to flee, or knock someone off-balance enough for you to run up and gut ‘em. Bravos are immune.
The Rottens- Unarmed - A weapon you own curls with smoke, then becomes invisible for 4 hours. Invisible weapons are never stained or bloody, and deal +1 damage per spent Bravura (max of +4). Unless you are extremely obvious about it, attacks with invisible weapons are often inexplicable, and don’t implicate you. For an example - you bump into a man in the middle of a crowd and jam an invisible jian through the middle of his torso. He dies on the spot, but nobody understands what the hell has happened quick enough to try and catch you.
If you really dislike your Gang’s ability, spend all of your day’s Bravura, get really pissed off about it, then be prepared to argue your case with the woman you will meet in your burning nightmares tonight. She’s not exactly patient, but she might just consent to allowing you a different power.
In fact, while you’re here - if you feel like earning more powers, or new ones, she happens to have a job for you…
Bravo Kit:
Jian - One of Draad’s two classical swords. A medium weapon. Famous blades of all those old heroes of nobility we hear about in stories, like General Guanting and doomed Yuefeng. Has an airy, noble mien.
Dao - The other classically Dradian sword. A medium weapon. Said to have been favoured by Saeraath, the first Knight of Winds. Has a proletarian, down-to-earth mien.
Sapper Mask - Pinkish, apple-cheeked, straw for hair. Used in masked theatre to depict the workshy drunk bumpkin, Sapper (or Saapas, or Gutal, or May). Bravos sometimes wear them as an ironic statement.
Buckler - A shield (which gives higher bonuses to AC depending on how lightly armoured the wielder is). Small, lightweight, and circular. Invariably painted with grimacing faces, flying eagles or city vermin in a rampant pose.
Parrying Dagger - A light dagger with a basket grip, that provides +1AC when held in the offhand, regardless of how armoured you are. Also, as you are dual-wielding, you can re-roll minimum damage results on attacks.
Secret - An iron dome cap that allows a hat to count as light armour when worn atop it. Prioritises fashion over safety, and is thus exceedingly appropriate for a Bravo.
Bullseye Lantern - A lens directs the light of the lantern in a narrow cone. Reduces the chance of detection as you sneak through dark halls, and allows for the dramatic illumination of assailants.
Arquebus, a heavy rifle, which hits AC10. Makes a bloody loud boom when fired. Probably meant for the military from the gun workshops of Xiata, but it was diverted to you. The diversion was likely involuntary.
Bugle - Irritating little nonsense trumpet. Intended for military use, so when you blow it before kicking the shit out of a Ducal secretary it’s especially funny. 1 Slot.
Duelling Pistol. A light flintlock. Usually comes in pairs, but you lost the other one.
Dagger-axe - Only a Bravo would use one of these. A medium weapon from Draad’s very ancient past, famously associated with the mythicalised hero Huachia and her Justice Army. Has an anachronistic and no-nonsense mien.
Mandolin or Zither, both of which the minstrels of the Moon doth play. 1 slot.
Box of Rare Tea. Anyone who appreciates tea will appreciate its rarity.
Really Loud Boots - The heels clack and the stirrups rattle. Ruins stealth, spooks most wild animals, automatically intimidates farmers, shop-owners and anyone who works in an office.
Swordbreaker - A ridiculous -1 light dagger with impractically deep serrations along the blade’s back-side. Only a Bravo would employ such a thing. When held in the offhand, if an enemy attacks you and fumbles, you may break their weapon. Also, as you are dual-wielding, you can re-roll minimum damage results on attacks.
Gun Stand - Gives +1 to hit with medium and heavy guns when set up. Sharp end allows it to be used as a -1 medium weapon in melee, if it comes down to it. 1 Slot.
20 Water Arrows - Only a Bravo would use these. Tiny glass jar of river-water in the place of an arrowhead. White and blue fletching. Fired from a bow, they deal 1 damage and soak whatever they hit. Excellent for extinguishing torches and lanterns from afar, if little else. 20 in 1 slot.
Bullwhip - Only a Bravo would use this in a fight. A light whip which can attack up to 15’ away, but does nothing to targets in heavy armour. Loud and startling as hell. Has a devil-may-care and slightly sexy mien.
Flashbomb - Lit and thrown, produces an immense flash of painful light. Everyone who isn’t you has to save or be blinded for a minute (you will too, if you’re stupid enough to look at it). Has a “fuck i cannot see” mien.
A Curio! Roll 1d6:
Puregold Tincture, a tiny vial containing what looks like shimmering liquid gold. Horrible poison for ordinary people, but if a Signatory drinks it, they gain +3 Energy. Takes up no slots. Why the fuck do you have this?
Burnt Robes - Massive, wide-sleeved, wrap-fronted. They look slightly Magnite. Black, red, yellow and white, in dancing patterns like flowers, flames and branches. Ragged and singed around the edges and in patches on the back. Smells like a house fire, smells like human ash. You found this draped over you like a blanket, when you woke up one night face-down and drunk in the gutter. Provides 3 DR against fire, and increases any instance of Ascension gain by +1.
Puppet Hands - Two hands of blackened (burnt) wood, snapped off at the wrists. They have iron bones. You found them in a refuse heap and they reached out to you. You saved them, and they became your loyal henchhands. Each hand moves like a hand-sized spider, is strong enough to strangle, and loves to be tied to a long pole (it’s fun).
MY VICIOUS HISTORY, a medium espada-ropera of corecopper, with an iron hand-guard and a knurled handle of bare corecopper. As it is made of corecopper, it conducts emotions along the blade - anyone touching it (or being slashed by it) feels your passions and sorrows. When standing perfectly still and focusing intently, the blade’s wielder can poke holes into things it’s pointed at from a great distance, as if the blade’s point were exceedingly long. In combat, treat this as a medium bow that transmits emotions.
Black Lens - A small piece of deep black glass, a scleral lens designed to fit over an eye. Cold, extremely resilient against breakage. When worn over an eye, it effectively blinds it, but allows it to look into the brightest of lights without blinking. When in complete darkness, the Black Lens may also allow you to see sights otherwise unseen.
Crone Mask - Black wood face, white wool hair, painted with distinct patterns in yellow and red. You made it after a confusing nightmare you only half remember, that left you with tingling hands and a loud shout tied up inside you, just begging to be let out. This face was in that nightmare. When you wear the Crone Mask, your voice is a light weapon, which deals slashing damage when you spit invectives and invoke curses.
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ADDITIONAL NOTE: DRADIAN DIALECTS
Dradian has six dialects, all entirely mutually intelligible. Only a Dradian would consider them different languages and discern their separations:
Isian - The most widely spoken dialect by some margin, the dialect of history, governance and the Dradian core. Considered refined, proper and educated. If your PC in a Firmament game spoke “Dradian” and wasn’t from Draad, they learned this dialect.
Hanchen - Spoken along Draad’s coast. Snappy, unusually rhotic, rhythmic. Closest to separation from Dradian, it contains a thick substrate of Old Hanchen, a distinct language. Considered to be rough, unrefined and passionate.
Iridian - Clipped, with a broader range of vowels. Spoken in the valley of the River Iris before it empties into the Sea of Serias. Has a thin substrate of Old Iridian. Considered to be delicate, witty and laconic.
Shaien - Fast, staccato, often shouted. Spoken in Ceremtis and by the Shaien river-nomads. The dialect of silk-merchants and river commerce. Considered to be dense, fast and efficient.
Mesian - Musical, with unusual pronunciations of words. Spoken in the southeast of Draad, in the region of Mesia. Mesia is quite isolated from the rest of Draad, and most consider the local Duke to be amazingly lax. Mesian is a meticulously preserved form of an older Dradian. Considered to be rustic, old-fashioned and pleasing to the ear.
Valentian - Slow and lilting. Spoken in Amdusia, Valenay and around the Royal Demense, in Draad’s western regions. Once the accent of penniless poets, these days it’s the accent of the nouveau-riche. Considered poetic, prolix and romantic.
Knowing a dialect doesn’t make you able to communicate more broadly, but it does make you able to communicate more deeply with someone. Speaking their dialect well allows you to form camaraderie with them, and you can use proverb, metaphor and shared history to say more with fewer words.
Idami is an entirely different language spoken in the northeastern corner of Draad. It’s closer to Magnite than Dradian and is completely unintelligible to most in the city.
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