Welcome to Baroque and Bullets Living Design Document !
Baroque and Bullets is my entry for the Songs and Sagas Game Jam organized by Fari RPG and will be using the Songs and Sagas SRD to craft a game Carried in Songs and Sagas.
Everything in this space will be constantly changing as we are getting closer to the end of the Game Jam, and nothing is really ever fully done until the end, but that’s the beauty of a Jam! (and creation as well, probably)
In addition of this document you will also find a Devlog where I’m recording my thought process, it is by no mean a guide or enlightned method on how to design a masterpiece TRPG, but rather just me sharing my work.
I hope you’ll enjoy reading as much as I did writing!
So, once more, welcome to Baroque and Bullets, A Grotesque adventure of Greed and Gods in a Broken Land
*Dragon Gods came from beyond the star, with them, they brought the power to shape reality, as well as their servant, the First Humanity.
But the Divine Beast-Lords did not kneel to those who came to claimed their Land, Sky and Sea. Thus, a most terrible war began, for it was the Age of Agony. Both Gods and Lords perished, and with them the world was scarred forever, the ground broken beyond repair, its soil corrupted by the clash of the miracles of the Dragons and the sorcery of the Beasts,
But, against all odds, Humanity survived. From the Blood Ashes that covered the world, they harvested the power of their gods, and claimed their miracles for themselves. In the millenia thereafter, they built citadels and cathedral, grew numerous and evermore ravenous for the Blood Ashes, the source of their power.
So they went to the Broken Land, for this is where the Divine War raged with the most ferocity, and here the corruption twisted everything, for the unreality of the impossible was made possible.
Fleshcrafters, Necronomes, Steelborn, Thorn-gears, they bore many names, but all are grotesque corruption of both Dragons and Beasts, made of blightened steel and dead-flesh made alive by the blasphemy of the Blood Ashes.
But such horrible guardian is not enough to quell the Greed of Humanity. The Guild of the Last Republic sent more and more Ashen-bearers to venture far into the Broken Land and seek within, God-Artefacts and Blood Ashes to bring home.*
B&B - System Principles and Goals
It is the measure of the purity of nature of a character and resistance against the influence of the Burning. If reduced to 0, make a Trial roll.
SUCCESS : You hold on to a sliver of your humanity, set your Soul at 1. SETBACK: You lose yourself giving up all control for a moment, then fall in an unresponsive state. If your soul is appeased, you regain 1 Soul but gain a Condition.
Every character entering the Broken Land is in risk of having their soul burned by the corrupting influence of the Blood Ashes, and this fire within does not stop growing fiercer and fiercer the deeper they travel into the Land.
This Burning is represented by a step die starting at D4 and being stepped up whenever entering a new location and under certain circumstance.
When arriving in a new location, you need to test your Soul, do a trial roll, on a fail, roll your Burning Die and take as much soul damage, then increase its level.
SUCCESS : You endure the flame, not allowing to let it burn fiercer. On a 20, you quench the flame, if only for a moment, reduce the Burning Die by 1. SETBACK: The Flame grows stronger, your Burning Die level increase by 1