In the Veil

Raw Podcast:

Willpower – An additional skill added to the game. Uses any 3 of the following stats (Constitution, Wisdom, Charisma, Intelligence)+ Half level (like normal skills). Players can also choose to take skill training in Willpower for an additional +5 just like any other skill.  This skill is used for a few different things, but mostly it is used whenever you want to impose your will on something else.  Characters wanting to do things in the Veil that are complicated use Willpower to do so.  There is a heavy element of "mind control as foreign" in the campaign setting and powers that cause characters to become mentally afflicted require an "escape check" much like a player would escape from a grab with Athletics or Acrobatics.

Willpower checks can always be made against things that Willpower can effect once per turn as a No Action regardless of the condition of the player unless otherwise stated.  If a player is unconscious, stunned, dominated, dazed, dead, turned into a turtle and being ravaged by Harpies and one of those conditions can be ended by a Willpower check they may make that check any time during their turn.

Pre-rolled Initiative - When the session is called to start each of the players takes an initiative flag, rolls initiative and then places it on the table.  Sometimes we don't use them at all (Session One never goes into initiative order) sometimes we use them as soon as the session begins.  The goal is to have as seemless of a transition into combat as possible.  All I need to do, as DM, is add my monster's flags to the initiative order and put the characters on the map.

I'm an emotive DM – I use a lot of gestures. I'll work on that for future podcasts.  I'll try to say "you" less and give a descriptor for the person more often.

Crying to Create the Shining City - The players have learned previously from other characters that the methods of building the Shining City have been lost since time imemmorial.  They have seen several children who, when put under extreme pressure, start to recreate parts of the lost city around them.  One of which being the character in the party Iris.  Iris is a 13 year old human female.

Terms:

“Godsoul” - Souls which have extreme control over a small area of the Wastes.  They can mutate the world around them to such a degree that many of them develop a strong "god complex".  Most of the creatures native to the Viel prey on these lost souls as they are immune from the Godsouls transformative powers.

“Write everything Down” - During the session the Reran Turmur talks about how inefficient writing things with a pen can be.  A running gag with Vynn and Iris is that Vynn is constantly telling Iris to WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN in a journal that she keeps of the player's adventures.

Discussion about Dissection – The group is alive and people from the Shining City are spirits. They are either already dead, or native to the spirit world.  For creatures in the Veil it is not a problem to be pulled apart carefully, or to use pieces of their soul to perform certain tasks.  The players assume during the session that this process would kill them since they are still mortal.