Necessary Villains

RPG system: Amber
Participants: 4-6 players

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Description

After the GodsWar, also called PatternFall, ended with the destruction of the Golden City, and the Mad god of magic Warkin who cast the City of Demons down into the Abyss in retaliation, we now live in the age of Decay. The sages claim in times past to cross into a differing shadow merely involved walking down the correct road, or travel on the right ship. Now to do so is death. Only a void ship, or a rare type of mage allows travel between shadows

Many centuries or millennia ago the GodsWar lead to the disintegration of 99% of all shadow. All that is left is a few shadows drifting about in the Abyss and even that (the Abyss) is showing signs of decay. Entering the Abyss will kill you instantly unless you are a shapeshifter, which would allow you to survive, depending on your skill, for as long as 5 mins. There are no paths between shadow because there are no shadows adjacent to each other. No trumps except those powered by magic which will transport you about or communicate within a shadow and if you are really lucky in your choice of location maybe you are close enough to reach 2 or maybe 3 close shadows. Shapeshift still works but on the majority of shadows demonstrating that you have it will get you hunted down and killed for people still recall the tales of the atrocities committed by the Demon army.

Travel between shadows is accomplished by Voidcraft, they are basically shadows themselves but with size limitations, the smallest being the size of Bill & Ted’s Phone Box to the upper limit of the Death Star

Characters:

Characters are old, at least a century or two and are still not old enough to have seen the GodsWar.

PC’s have 100 points to play with. Stats are the usual 4 plus stuff. Limits for stuff are -5 to, well, there isn’t a top limit as it will get used to acquire things/abilities/items during the game. However whatever you spend on stats at the start stays fixed.

Powers, there is no Pattern any more or Logrus either. Magic (not sorcery) is 10 points but doesn’t work at all in about half of shadows, Trump is also 10 points but only works where Magic does. (My usual take on trump is it is a skill not a power and needs the Artist to have access to a power to create/power trump so you cannot buy it on it’s own.). Shapeshift works but then so does burning at the stake. (Standard book cost.) Power Words are just a flavour of Magic with the same limitations so let’s just combine them. Conjuration does not currently and never has existed. (No Shadow Knight abilities either.) No pointed items, at least initially.

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