Fabula Ultima 2 - The Growthspawn

We are heeeeere.

First session in the books. Seemed to go well, though we’re still getting used to the system and how it’s used in Foundry. I had set up some macros to give the party a popup menu to select their actions. Made it a bit easier for them. Also set up some journal entries of common rules and things like the Opportunities table for convenience sake.

Right out the gate, I am way too conservative with my descriptions. I try to leave space for the players to imagine things but I feel like my group of players likes more concrete descriptions of the possibilities in the space. I need to get better at this and hopefully spark some new things.

Anyways, onto the game and a fuller recap of the group.

Max - Future Famous Inventor

Classes: Guardian 3/Fury 1/Tinkerer 1 Abilities: Defensive Mastery (Reduce damage by 1), Dual Shieldbearer (Can equip two shields for defensive bonus + Twin Shields attack), Protect (Intercept an attack meant for ally), Frenzy (Crit on every doubles but double 1), Gadgets (make infusions that deal elemental damge). From the trading city of Yuventus, Max was ostracized as he had no magical talent. Yuventus, being built on/near the place where dragons go to die, is full of magical power, making magic incredibly common here. Those without it are seen as defective and often live in poverty. Max decided to leave to try to prove people wrong and carve out his own path in life.

Quintus - Recently Graduated Blue Mage.

Classes: Chimerist 3/Symbolist 2 Abilities: Feral Speech (Talk to Beast/monster/plant creatures), Spell Mimic (Learn magic from seeing Beasts/Monsters/Plants use it, up to 4 spells can be retained), Magic Symbols (Ally can cast a spell you know if they have a symbol on them), Symbolism (Learn two symbols that act like buffs/debuffs that you stick to allies or enemies.) Quintus hails from the mimic city of Metizzare, where mimics comprise the buildings and objects within the city. Having grown up with a symbiotic relationship with the mimics, Quintus graduated from the Blue Mage Academy, and was sent off to experience the world by the elder mimic of the city.

Morgan - The Honorable Rogue

Classes: Floralist 2/Rogue 2/Weaponmaster 1 Abilities: Chloromancy (plant seeds for various effects based on how long they’re planted), Battle Gardening (Take a free attack when you plant a seed), Dodge (gain bonus Defense for not having a shield or martial armor), Cheap Shot (deal extra damage for each debuff on an enemy), Bone Crusher (Instead of dealing damage, an attack can inflict a debuff). Hailing from the fight capital of the world, Bastion, Morgan was hired as a part of a mercenary band to escort someone to the Statue of First Flight, a statue commemorating the first airship. The party was attacked, and Morgan was the sole survivor, who now looks to complete the trek and report home.

Rei Levinstrike - Exiled Scion

Classes: Elementalist 2/Sharpshooter 2/Entropist 1 Abilities: Elemental Magic, Lucky Seven (You have a lucky number, and you can swap it out for other numbers, even assigning them to enemies), Barrage (Make an attack multitarget), Hawkeye (When you guard, take either a free shot, OR the next shot you make will deal additional damage). Born in Waystone, a city on a leylines of Earth and Fire, into a caste system where your position is determined by what element manifests in your first spell. Rei was unlucky to manifest Bolt, the weakest of the tribes. Betrayed by one of the only other members of his clan, Rei is out to find them, to seek revenge.

The party all coalesced around the Statue of First Flight, by simple happenstance, only be be all struck by a weird pulse from the nearby anomaly, the Growth. This is where I l’cie’d some bitches.

Final Fantasy 13’s premise is that there are these giant almost like, semi-sentient gods that look like objects. They were called fal’cie. When they “chose” someone to do their work, they were marked with a brand that was specific to them. This would grant you access to magic and other things, but it would also give you a purpose and often a vision of what you need to do. Normally this is fine and an honor or whatever, but if you were chosen by fal’cie from Pulse, the planet that was below the giant near-planetoid-like satillite called Cocoon, where you’re from, it was like a plague, and you’ve been cursed. You’d be arrested, quarantined, and probably killed. Hell we open the game with a train of people who were just near an alleged fal’cie, and were going to be “quarantined” read “executed”. This had a chilling effect on l’cie in general and makes them enemies of the state, and treated like these huge threats, even though most times they’re not a super big threat in reality, and the ones that were deemed “good” could be just as powerhungry. So naturally, the party in the game gets turned into l’cie by mistake, and end up on the run, subject to the hate from the populace and the government, due to the forever-long propaganda campaign to justify the executions and paint them as “others”.

So my game is taking the that premise but putting it at the beginning. What happened when people were first marked?

To cement the change this provides, I granted them access to the Zero Powers they made during character creation as an “unlocked” power.

And now I’m realizing, I have other huge and powerful objects in the map… all…associated with leylines…

Sometimes you have realizations as you’re writing up a recap and you have a whole-ass new angle to take this.

I have…

• The growth, a weird floating sky tumor, where the party got Marked.
• A volcano that is thousands of feet high that breaks through the clouds and erupts in lightning and rock.
• A city of built on a fire/earth leyline.
• A giant moth with stained glass wings that carries the Air leyline with it.
• A swamp with a weird obelisk in the middle, on the poison and dark leylines.

I can run with this and work in the bad publicity that can happen when say… random people get it and do wild shit or if this does have a corrupting aspect to it that the party is able to overcome. I was going to have the weird tiger dog thing that was summoned out of the Growth spread some chaos and shit, but I think I might have to pair that with new beasts being made.

Beyond that, there was a dude who I face cast as Val Kilmer-as-Bruce Wayne who looked to be involved somehow. I had insinuated that an old man he was with was going to be the first test subject, but the growth targeted the party. The party was then attacked by waves of 3 blobs from the Growth, of differing elements, but they had no real synergy and couldn’t really inflict any statuses.

The party’s combat combos though are GNARLY. Morgan goes first, plants their Serrated Rose and because of Battle Gardening, takes a free attack and if it hits, eschews the damage (because High Roll is 0), to use Bone Crusher to inflict Weak, dropping the size of the Might Die of the target by 1. Then because their plant grows, they can give Slow to any target, lowering it’s Dexterity by one size, which weakens their defense.

One turn, and one target has two debuffs. Then it just becomes Dogpile the Enemy While The Guardian Soaks All The Damage With Protect, able to intercept attacks.

So what I need to do:

• Armored enemies, for flat defense.
• More Insight/Willpower rolls
• Debuff the party/enemies have buffs.

And with that, I need to go make some sigils to show how these things look at various stages. I wonder if I can make this an additional consequence of Surrendering to advance it, and changing benefits as it goes. Something to consider…