Ikselam/GameProposal

Butlers of Divinity or My God-Blood Game Idea

This is an initial proposal for a GodBlooded game I may or may not actually run. It would be on IRC, Friday evenings (around 7pm, EST); it would also probably be a limited-run affair, lasting no more than six weeks at absolute maximum. If you'd be interested, contact me. I'd prefer you do it by leaving comments here; also feel free to offer ideas.

I would be looking for a relatively small group; three or four players would be ideal. The ability to consistently attend, and stay for the entire session, would be important.

The setup

The characters are all Celestial God-Blooded, the descendents of various deities who sympathize with (or owe favors to) the Gold Faction. A Gold Faction Sidereal has gotten hold of a freshly-Exalted Solar, and is grooming him to be a glorious god-king. As part of helping him "reclaim his rightful inheritance," they're going to set him up with a powerful Manse in the remote Southeast. The only problem is, they're working on a tight schedule, and the Manse has been uninhabited for the last thousand years or so; it was only recently discovered to be still intact.

Our Heroes' job will be to go to the Manse and restore it in time for the Solar's grand entrance. This means repairing any damage it may have sustained, cleaning it up, and evicting any squatters. After that's done, they'll be in charge of keeping it maintained, and serving the needs of its new master (which may include fending off ninja saboteurs while he's off saving the world).

General themes and stuff

This would definitely not be a game about saving the world or being cock-o'-the-walk. The characters are servants, albeit ones whose nominal master is not around all that often; they aren't going to be staging glorious workers' uprisings or anything. The focus would be on the way they interact with each other and their bosses, and how they cooperate to overcome the various challenges which arise. They are heroes of the unsung, blue-collar sort, who sweat the small stuff so that the big-shot Exalted don't have to.

The numbers

• Player characters would be Inheritance 3 celestial God-Blooded, created according to the rules in the Player's Guide. Elemental god-bloods might be permitted, but not half-castes, demon- or ghost-blooded.
  • Every PC would be required to take Patron 3, or Patron 2 and the Flaw, Sire's Enmity, to reflect the fact that their parent has enough trust in / hold over them to stick them with this job. Patron dots would be paid for out of starting Background allotment.
  • The Magical Attunement Merit may be useful, since it will allow characters to attune to the Manse.
  • No Background is disallowed, but I'd rather that no character have any single artifact or hearthstone ranked above three dots. Backgrounds like Allies, Contacts, and Henchmen would be things I'd work out with you, to accomodate the fact that I'd rather not have characters bringing retinues with them from Heaven.
• Having a single highly-ranked skill, or a useful Charm, will be more rewarding than being good at lots of things, because it will make it easier for me to think of ways to make the character's unique power useful.
  • These characters' primary job will be that of domestic servants. Powerful fighters will probably find themselves not particularly useful.
• You'd most likely be earning 4 or 5 xp per session. There would probably be some downtime near the middle of the story in which new skills could be learnt, but don't expect to be buying lots of cool powers every other session.

Stuff you should know about me

I am a big softie who hates killing off characters, and usually gives breaks to players. In return, I expect players to give breaks to me. This basically means choosing your actions with an eye toward making the game more enjoyable for everyone, and working with me to keep the plot moving along. This latter is especially important in a short-run game, where there's less room for me to draw disparate subplots together.

I like doing postgame analyses. If a player has problems with how I'm running things, I want to hear about it so that I can address the issue... after the current session ends. If you disagree with a particular call, you can appeal it on the spot, but my response to the appeal is final.

I'd want to have a "pregame" session in which people made up their characters together, so that the group could be a coherent whole from the beginning, instead of a bunch of disparate individuals who need to find their niches over the course of play. (This could even happen here, on the wiki, if people post character ideas and offer feedback on them.)

Comments, ideas, suggestions, etc.

I would be interested! -- CrownedSun

Post a brief idea for a character, or a situation you'd like to see, then. On this page; if I get enough interest, this will become a top-level page, but for now, it's staying a subpage while I gauge said interest. _Ikselam

I thought you said we'd have a shared session where we all made characters? But that's okay!:) A nifty character idea I had was the child of Burning Feather (the Lady of Intoxicants, from GoD). I see him as a fairly normal individual, trying to "overcome" his ancestry even as he serves his mother's wishes and benefits from that same pedigree. -- CS

I would also be interested, thought I could only play for a couple months due to deployment. -- Mnemosynis

That would be fine, since the game wouldn't be supposed to last for more than about four or five sessions anyway. Post your character idea! _Ikselam

I'm thinking the child of some god or goddess of song. Someone very charismatic and fun to be around but not very responsible. Probably sent to the manse not for any one big failure but for many little discrepancies, and also under threat that failing at this would mean his allowance to enter Yu-Shan would be revoked. Would have an excellent singing voice, probably a couple charms based off of that, like Words of Power for defense and that one that does stuff to emotions. I'm thinking he could function in kind of a concierge-esque capacity for the Exalted and their guests. Makes sure that they don't have to worry about day-to-day stuff, make sure there's entertainment and ways to relax, that kind of thing. Sees that everything's taken care of. Still working on solidifying the idea. A very social type character though. I do have a question though, are you allowing the regular Merits and Flaws in addition to the God Blooded ones? -- Mnemosynis

Yes, subject to approval. The regular GB MeritsAndFlaws don't need to be approved. _Ikselam

The two I was looking at specifically were Enchanting Feature(for a beautifully clear singing voice) and an Alternative Divination of song, meaning that when other people sang it'd open them up enough for me to use Astrology on them, either through high occult or the thaumaturgical Art of Astrology, if that's allowed as well. That's all I really had in mind. -- Mnemosynis

Sure, Enchanting Feature is fine. You can also take Thaum, but I'd prefer to stay away from it. For one thing, I don't have a really thorough understanding of how it works, and for two, I am not sure it would actually be highly useful for the type of story I have in mind. If you take it, I'll try to come up with a way to make it useful, but I can't make ironclad guarantees. _Ikselam

Both character ideas seem pretty good; they also seem like they could easily be tied together. _Ikselam

My initial flurry-of-rambling for a character idea is up at OrigamiFox/Hasan should you care to peruse it, good sir Ikselam. - OrigamiFox