With the begining of a new month a new topic for the RPG Blog Carnival begins as well. It was my pleasure to host last month's carnival, and as host I am still due one post to properly end that topic: The retrospective.
On the blog Carrion Gods aconspiracyofravens describes a neo-fudalist world where biomechs replace knights and coporations join the oldfashioned bloodline nobility and organised pious powers. Goes into detail about campaign ideas, rules for mechs of various sizes, multiple example mech builds with step by step overviews, a whole bunch of additional delta templates, and a pilot GLOG class.
The Boast ability of this pilot class is what ties all of this goodness to the carnival:
"You can get a point of fame by making a boast, each must be more impressive and audacious. On a failed boast, you replace all your fame with infamy. You can use fame to reroll a social check or critical failure. Infamy does the opposite (dm controls). You may only have one pending boast."
The inherent escalation and raising of stakes that come with this ability are design genius and tempt even me, someone who doesn't really like meta-currencies, to gives something like this a try.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nrdman over on the r/glog reddit page gives us another great GLOG class: the Knight of Oaths. Each template revolves around taking an oath as well as the consequences for breaking one and instructions on how to redeem yourself. I especially like Honored // Disgraced as it might function as a reputation mechanic on its own:
Honored: You are well regarded amongst the noble houses. You have a contact in every court of man, who will greet you as an honored guest. Guards, soldiers, and the like will assume you have the best of intentions if they can see your face. Flip to disgraced if you are arrested for a crime.
Disgraced: The high courts have spurned you, but there is a court below, the underworld crime lords. Over the next week, you gain contact with every crime organization. They will greet you as one of their contacts, and an exchange is expected. Guards, soldiers, and the like will assume you have the worst of intentions if they can see your face. Flip to honored if you are subject to the due punishment of all your known and outstanding crimes.
An outstanding rendition of the classic Knight if you ask me.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The titular question is exactly the sort of thing I was thinking of when coming up with last month's topic. Xoasseed on Seed of Worlds not only answers most a lot of the questions I ask in the initial prompt, but ties it all together in an understanding of divinity which matches very well with how dieties act in many stories: They may or may not listen as they are in fact very busy.
Oaths of this kind are easily integrated into local custom, a great way to have your players interact with sacred shrines, divine days and pious pilgrimages.
The 14 minor gods that the post ends with are a great illustration of what oaths could result both while kept and when broken. 'The hum of harmony' being my favourite of the bunch, as it seems like a great way to tie oaths to hirelings and other NPCs.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bjork's Blog gives us another post detailing the customs of oath taking: Oaths are taken before 'Saint's Cap' mushrooms, which grow in places that comemmorate a great deed done by individuals who have become enshrined in stories.
I am really impressed by the marriage of materialism (go to a place where something grows and bring it a gift) and idealism (become a narrative in order to become divine; let people commune with everything). Personally I haven't seen it done like this before, but would love to see more examples of it.
The example shrine to 'Serenata of the Clean Waters' is evocative and really sells me on the premise.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another great question with a bunch of interesting answers is provided by Christian Hendriks on Advantage on Arcana. They break down a bunch of requirements for a satisfying answer and then goes on to provide three potential answers.
This approach is one I am very fond of and will probably try to adopt more in the future. It makes the nature of the problem very clear and allows readers to quickly spot where they might agree and disagree, not only with the answer but with the formulation of the problem itself.
For example, I am not as keen on the stipulation that 'A person who makes an oath can become a paladin unwittingly', though I understand the accompanied explanation. This makes evaluating the answers given in the post really easy, as I can see their merit regardless of whether or not I like the explanation myself (though I genuinely do really like the third one). Great stuff!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Sea of Stars gives us a truth bound Empress, always doing what she says, and the interesting ramifications it has her subjects. I like the offhand remark that the killing of the kin of whomever challenges her rule only became a vow to stop dramatic suicides.
We also get two oaths which survived from before the Empress' reign: oaths upon the Sun and upon the Moon. They are a great way of telling us about lore particular to this world through information that is almost all gameable.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The promises of Joy of Dice
The carnival sparked Joy of Dice from Imagine me this! to write down a setting that revolves entirely around "social bonds, entanglement, and transformation". Four posts brimming with enthusiasm and creativity are explicitly part of the carnival. They are a lot, but I mean that in the best possible way.
A jubilous anouncement post, Join the Carnival, in freefall! , and three inhabitants of that world, the Human, the Fae, and the Demon.
I absolutely love how they have taken the often bland idea of humans being adaptive and turned it up to at least thirteen. From the play-aid:
You are the mutable race.
You do not cast magic. You build it.
You change the world—and let the world change you.
Human magic consists of performing rituals, symbolically crafting things, and making vows, which leave their mark in the form of chimerisms. Beautiful.
This version of Fae is also wonderful. Especially fae courtesy intrigues me: "A forfeit is owed when someone near a fae strays from social or emotional norms." Forfeits can be given when one willingly does this or invoked against their will. This is peak fae-hood, fairy tale logic to the extreme, it is Rumpelstiltskin and Maleficent. Again, gorgeous.
And, as expected at this point, the Demon is pure bliss. A wound in the world given shape as it is understood is by far the coolest version of a demon I have seen. And the bargaining is especially good:
Demons trade not for the gold in the coin, but in metaphysical substance.
They reshape what is offered—turn desire to fire, memory to weapon, soul to contract.
And they need more demons.
I cannot do any of this justice in short summation. If this sounds interesting enough to go read these posts I have done my job, if not then you should still read them as I have done them disservice.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Edit 2: Fuck me, I missed one send directly to me... Sorry Vdonnut
This post in Vdonnut's Valley details what the function of vows is in a faux medieval context, outlining the classic estates, what vows of nobility to a liege and to their subjects might entail, what vows from subjects to the authorities and/ir the community consist of, and how oathbreakers fit in this equation.
The way 'magic' is done in this setting is close to what I dream of for my own setting: You swear an oath to a diety/demon/spirit and for as long as they believe you to uphold it you get magical benefits. Break it in their eyes and, if they notice, they will act accordingly.
Those little caveats are such a brilliant little addition, as they allow for so many interesting situations at the table. From player characters trying to break an oath behind the back of a mystical entity to trying to get such an entity to believe that an enemy of the player characters has broken theirs. So good.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What a wonderful carnival this was. It took some time to write this up as I had postponed digging into some of the longer posts until now, but I am glad I did.
I am sincere when I say that all of the above is better than I had imagined or could have made myself. Despite this, I will end by pointing out my own contributions to this month's topic:
In Oaths and other divine favours I suggest a system to use for interacting with the divine, including swearing oaths upon them.
In Replacing charisma: Standing I suggest a system to use for stracking the party's standing with recurring NPCs and the impact breaking promises has on that standing.
They are perhaps some of the least directly relevant posts of this carnival, but they are what came to mind when trying to engage with the topic so they will have to do.
Thank you any and all who took the time to read any of this. Hopefully I will see you again on any of the future carnivals.
Edit 1: Post launch expansion:
A final post has been made on Leicester's Rambles by Vance A, detailing a class based on the beguines/beghards, people taking religious vows and often forming communities to live mostly independent.
I only revently learned about the existence of beguines on a trip I made to the city of Breda (NL), but hadn't yet considered basing a class on them.
The post goes into some of the details of what beguines/beghards were and makes good on the titular promise with a class for both OSE and Shadowdark. Great stuff!
