Brave New World
I’m abbreviating the following titles: Mongoose’s RuneQuest II Core Rulebook as RQ and Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords as ToB.
Desert Wind, a Spiritual Cult
Here is a cult designed specifically for Kruvil: the Desert Wind cult. More than nine cults to the nine blades may exist; some blades have multiple myths.
Desert Wind (Spiritual)
Marawar was a powerful merchant and shaman who used spirits without remorse to gain profit. He forged the rapier Inferno to protect himself from his enemies, but his fear and greed ultimately destroyed him.
The Desert Wind cult encourages its members to avoid the fate of Marawar by respecting spirits interacted with and acting in a heroic and altruistic manner rather than with fear and greed.
Opposed to the Desert Wind cult is the Inferno cult. The Inferno cult felt Marawar wasn’t ruthless enough and didn’t take his plans far enough to succeed in garnering wealth and keeping himself secure. The Desert Wind cult usually clashes with the Inferno cult when the two meet.
Runes
Heat, Magic
Magic
Common Magic: Cauterise, Dragon’s Breath, Firearrow, Fireblade, Ignite, Mobility, Warmth.
Spirits
Ancestor Spirits, Elemental Spirits (except Undines), Guardian Spirits.
Myths
Journey to the Inferno : Marawar was a powerful merchant who traded the power of elementals among wealthy patrons in the fallen Amperian Empire. He was not careful with the power he traded. Salamanders freed from service pursued him seeking revenge. Marawar traveled to a fiery rent in the floor of a great desert to seek a powerful salamander named Hakura. Unable to control such a large elemental, Marawar instead bargained with Hakura and promised to no longer traffic in elementals. In return, Hakura allowed Marawar to use the elemental’s control of fire to forge Inferno, a rapier, to shield him from the flames of his enemies.
Resonance: 65%.
Behaviours: Be responsible with power. Fulfill your end of a bargain. Be on guard and vigilant
HeroQuest: travel across a scorching a desert, descend into a fiery chasm, and bargain with a salamander.
Heroic Reward: Fire Immunity (immune to normal fire and +20 to resist magic fire).
Striking Rapier : Marawar turned to tricking people into allowing ancestors to take over their bodies to avenge past wrongs. Those people who recovered from this possession began hunting Marawar for revenge. Marawar paid many bodyguards handsomely, but he wanted personal protection as well. He journeyed to a tall mountain and climbed to the highest peak. There, he served as a servant for Neka, an ancient sylph, for a year and a day, reading ancient myths to the elemental. In return, the sylph worked powerful air magic into Inferno. When his time as servant ended, Marawar returned to his trade, confident that if his bodyguards failed to protect him, Inferno would.
Resonance: 80%.
Behaviours: Do not misuse the gifts given by spirits. Reconcile with or defeat enemies before they act. Pursue what matters most to you first before other things. Work hard to gain what matters most to you.
HeroQuest: scale a mountain (at least 7,000 feet), become a servant for a sylph, and have the sylph work magic through your weapon.
Heroic Reward: Duelist.
Myth of Mismanaged Money : Marawar returned to misusing spirits for his own ends. He had been away so long, however, that his profits had disappeared and his contacts deserted him. He could no longer pay his bodyguards or make new contracts. When salamanders and wronged victims came for him, he fought them with Inferno but he was overcome. His body was torn to pieces by the victims and the salamanders captured his spirit and took it away with them. Inferno disappeared in the final struggle.
Resonance: 50%.
Behaviours: A sword is not enough, you must have honor. Manage what you have and do not let fear or greed destroy you.
HeroQuest: avoid Marawar’s final fate. Set aside a quarter of your wealth in the real world. On your HeroQuest, travel to a beggar’s quarter, live on the streets, choose to steal or not steal, come into a large fortune, and decide whether to leave the streets or give all the money away to fellow beggars and remain on the streets.
Heroic Reward: Depends on the choices made during the HeroQuest. If you give in to fear and greed, you gain Poison Immunity to protect you from enemies who can’t strike at you directly. If you stay a beggar prince, you gain Disease Immunity and may go on Beggar Prince, another HeroQuest, to gain Heroic Aura. Talk to the GM about designing this special HeroQuest.
Membership, Officers, and Ranks
Followers: Must have Desert Wind weapon style and four other cult skills.
Spirit Worshipper: Must have Desert Wind weapon style and four other cult skills at 30% and must aid a spirit (normally an ancestor spirit) in fulfilling a quest.
Shaman: Must have Desert Wind weapon style and four other cult skills at 50% and must perform Journey to the Inferno to prove their worth as a shaman and emerge with Fire Immunity (immune to normal fire damage and +10% to resist magic fire).
High Shaman (Blade Shaman): Must have Desert Wind weapon style and four other cult skills at 75% and must perform Striking Rapier to prove their devotion to the blade cult. They must obey honored ancestor spirits to the best of their abilities.
Cult Skills
Acrobatics, Evade, Desert Wind weapon style, Influence, Persistence, Resilience, Spirit Binding, Spirit Walking.
Crisis of Faith Never Actually Existed
My first incarnation of this column covered a wide range of outcomes derived from world building from successful campaigns to disasters and lots of angst and enjoyment in between. Quite a bit of time has passed between ending the column and starting it up again. In that time, I fully embraced my faith of Christianity and have tried to live in all ways as my savior Jesus Christ would have me do.
I have two points here. One, I don’t imagine any of you will get to read one of my crisis of faith columns again (sorry if you enjoyed them). Two, gaming is a hobby in which we can more fully examine our beliefs in the context of story and inside a safe environment.
For example, my belief system led me to a game more in tune with spirituality from a story point of view and that also embraced exploring myth and legend. I wanted something deeper than just good versus evil because real life is more complex than that.
And Nine Swords developed from my desire to explore human concepts and myths rather than go back to the well of divine myth that I’ve used in all my D&D games. I also embrace the Christian idea of sharing my beliefs through action and word. Along with that belief comes not only fervently hoping others come to the faith but also not judging others who decide differently. Conflicting beliefs must still be confronted, however, which leads to action and, in games, more story.
These beliefs also led to the idea that most cults must find ways to get along with each other, even if they follow different swords and myths. And just like in the real world, some cults don’t embrace this idea of withholding judgment and the result will be in game world conflict and strife. At the Adventurer/player level, these decisions and their ramifications play out as well to the enhancement of the story and the enjoyment of all involved.
Finally, beliefs should be dynamic and lead to action. In a game like RuneQuest, the behaviours demanded by cults drive Adventurers and NPCs to act in concert with the beliefs they have chosen to embrace, despite the sometimes great personal cost. This dovetailing of how real life works with game mechanics can lift a mundane game of dice rolling to heights of mythic storytelling.
As long as we’re not rude to each other and respect boundaries, I advocate taking some roleplaying risks and digging deeper into what drives an Adventurer. I also encourage more interaction between in-game cults with different agendas and beliefs in the game worlds we create.
And RuneQuest is a great vehicle to drive exploring those ideas.
Map 3: World of Kruvil
The map this month is an outline of the main continents of the world of Kruvil. Plenty of areas exist to expand into and explore as the campaign grows and develops.
Next Month
New spirits to use in your World of Kruvil. Links to maps you can use to represent the Quyhn River Valley and the village of Tsuro. And the Devoted Spirit cult for followers of the Nine Swords.
Do not go quietly,
Charlie
