Thread by @KevinKulp

Thinking about running a brief play-by-poll-on-Twitter adventure for Swords of the Serpentine. And so, let me ask a few questions via poll to figure out who you, the hero, are!

#SerpentineRPG

So you're a hero in a sword & sorcery adventure. What's your primary profession? (4 choices)

So hero, separate from your profession -- what kind of an upbringing did you have?

And finally, are you a big damn hero? Are you someone a little more... dubious? Or are you just loyal to the causes that are important to you?

I'll check results tomorrow, and we'll see if we can't do something fun with this in my off moments. #SerpentineRPG

Got it: a commoner, self-interested, a rogue and sorcerer both? We can do this.

Think #Bookhounds of Eversink: a former Eversink street-rat raised by a dealer in rare and malevolent manuscripts, trained in sorcery to acquire even more - whatever the cost. #SerpentineRPG

Okay, here's our hero! Pallia's in her late teens and has handled manuscript retrieval for The Scroll for the past four years. Abandoned as a child, she was first brought in to clean. Learning sorcery was a horrible mistake.
#Bookhounds #SerpentineRPG

Here we've got a woman who's used to handling problems by herself. I've split her Investigative abilities between thief stuff & being able to rip a hole between worlds to power forbidden magic. She's a solo PC, built w/more points than a standard hero.
#Bookhounds #SerpentineRPG

Okay, let's do this. SotS is played out in scenes, like a movie or a good story might be. It also relies on players for lots of narrative control, making it a good match for Twitter polls. Feel free to weigh in & kibitz or ask questions as you like. #Bookhounds #SerpentineRPG

It's a perfect summer night: you hear temple bells & late-night prayers echoing across the water. Stars blaze above you. From here you can look across the whole of Eversink and out to the bay beyond, because you're balanced on a windowsill 25 meters off the ground. #Bookhounds

You've robbed these nobles many times before. They still haven't noticed. Nine generations ago some ancestor thought it would be trendy to collect rare books, and those books have been locked in this musty tower ever since. Tonight, you'll take one.
#Bookhounds

So you pry open the ancient jeweled window and slither inside, swinging onto the top tier of full bookshelves before dropping down to the wooden floor below. It's dark. The air smells like dust and age and old paper. And... blood?

Yeah, blood.

That's not good.

#Bookhounds

"hElLo, THiEf," gurgles an unnatural voice from the darkness. "i wAs prOmiSEd YOu'D ReTUrN." It sounds ever so pleased.

What do you do?

<In SotS, you can often get INTO places really easily so long as you have the right Investigative abilities and you're following a lead. In this case, your Skullduggery ability ensured that you made it in here without needing any dice rolls.

Getting out may be harder.>

Slithering runes of power coil and squirm in your head. You have better judgment. "I hope I haven't kept you waiting," you say politely.

"TiMe mEaNS NOtHiNg," it gurgles happily. Something clacks together.

You know the rules of demons. "What were you promised?"
#Bookhounds

<Your goal here is to learn about what the hell this thing is. You do that with Investigative abilities. You could use your social abilities, but trying to be charming to it or trying to intimidate seem unlikely. Using your Forgotten Lore may be a better bet.>
#Bookhounds

It doesn't HAVE to tell you, but demons often boast. This noble family must have their own pet sorcerer or enough cash to hire one. Binding a demon isn't exactly easy; you've learned that the hard way. All those years as a bookhound for The Scroll have been eventful. #Bookhounds

"i mAY chOoSE a libRam hERe aS My pRIzE," it gurgles, "iF i LeAvE tHem yoUR sKIn. i KnoW whICh i WAnT." It titters from the shadows, and its voice hardens into a command. "prESenT YOuRsELf tO mE!"

You feel its command settle into your soul. You have a choice. #Bookhounds

<It's using its Sway attack to attack your Morale. In particular, it's using a Maneuver to give you a choice: obey its command, or take a certain amount of Morale damage. You get to choose which.>
#Bookhounds #SerpentineRPG

And what do you do next? It's too late to easily escape. You could attack it with sorcery; you might be able to cleverly disrupt its sorcerous binding with your own forgotten lore; or you could corrupt reality to *really* hurt it (with some awful consequences). #Bookhounds

You stay where you are, crouched in the shadows, and you feel its command scrape seeping wounds across your psyche. <4 pts Morale damage>

It gurgles triumphantly as it expects you to reveal yourself, a lamb to slaughter. The laughter trails off uncertainly.
#Bookhounds

Enough. You have a schedule.

"You should," you say, "have asked yourself who they would send to acquire a forgotten book of ancient power. Do you think that someone lives long enough to be good at this if they don't know how the rules work?" You dig in a pouch.
#Bookhounds

<Spending a point of Forgotten Lore lets you establish a new fact about the world. You always can world-build; this lets you do so when it's immediately useful. In this case, you declare that the ash of a burned holy book disrupts a demon for a moment or two!> #Bookhounds

<And you have 8 ranks of Preparedness, the ability that lets you state you happen to have the thing you need at that particular moment. You spend 2 pts, roll a 2 on a d6, and hit the needed target # of 4.> #Bookhounds

Your hand snaps forward. The powdered ashes of _Denari's Codex of Truths and Tax Codes_ waft across the old library, glimmering white in what little starlight comes through the open window. It brushes into the demon's shadow. It howls.
#Bookhounds

"ArrRRrRrRRrgH!" It tries to gurgle something else out, but it's disrupted, its flesh popping like a ripe fruit, fading back into the spirit world for a precious minute or two. It's not defeated, only delayed.

"I know you now," you say. "Stay out of my way." #Bookhounds

You hear it distantly, like a rat in the wall, scrabbling as it tries to reform. You work fast. <One of your Sorcerous Spheres is books, which is incredibly handy at times like this.> You stand in the center of the library, and ancient texts swirl around you.
#Bookhounds

The libram you came for snaps into your upraised hand, dust coming off it. <Burglary test of 6> It tries to bite you as you scramble back up the bookcase towards the window. You're just about to leave, starlight fully illuminating your face, as...
#Bookhounds

<You have Enemies: Ancient Nobility 1. This gives the GM carte blanche once per adventure to screw you over somehow using the ancient nobility faction. In this case, members of this family are going to get a great look at your actual appearance. Whoops!>
#Bookhounds

...as several member of the noble family pour into the room. You're sure you weren't clearly seen. And let them deal with the reforming demon! You're through the window and shimmying down the wall as quickly as you can manage. <Athletics test is a 7>
#Bookhounds

<Regarding that Burglary test: you needed a test, but you can describe stuff however you want, and the game doesn't care whether you look carefully at titles or describe your Sorcery doing it for you. Choose whatever sounds like more fun.> #Bookhounds

You were seen, and with a falling sensation you realize you're probably going to be chased. How to escape? You can take to the rooftops, take to the canals and streets, try to find your way through Eversink's Undercity, or just turn and fight. What's your preference? #Bookhounds

<Picking #Bookhounds up w/ a new scene, in a fast game of Swords of the Serpentine. Robbing a noble's tower went poorly; they bound a demon into their library to stop you. You grabbed the book you needed and are running across the city, chased by who-knows-what...>
#SerpentineRPG

Your feet slip on roof tiles as the stolen, malevolent book tries to bite you from within your leather satchel. Behind you you hear the hue and cry of the nobles' house guard, raising the alarm, dozens of guards running after you both on the ground and the rooftops.
#Bookhounds

Roof-running is a joy. Eversink has been slowly sinking for a millennium, buildings disappearing into the ground by a few centimeters every year. No one knows why; they just build upwards and try to ignore all those basements. It's a tall city, and a deep one.
#Bookhounds

<Chases are handled in a series of Athletics tests. Your Athletics 5 rating is okay; you spent some escaping with the book, but that success also earned you some Refresh tokens. You use these to fully refresh your Athletics, so at least you're ready for any chase.>
#Bookhounds

You use the city to your advantage. A few guards fail to leap across gaps between buildings, others on the street get trapped in canal-bordered dead ends when you cross roofs. You race through a Night Market, scattering debris in your wake to slow them down.
#Bookhounds

Exhausted, you make a wrong turn, and find yourself on the roof of a temple with no retreat. Six equally exhausted and now-battered guards approach, wheezing. "Surren.. surren..." one of them wheezes. Another steps forward. "Surrender," she manages. "You're nicked."
#Bookhounds

If you fight them, how does your Sorcery manifest itself in your attack, using your sorcerous spheres of power?
#Bookhounds

<You know how in fantasy movies, the heroes always battle all the minions before turning to the real bad guy?
In #SerpentineRPG, your enemies either have names (and are appropriately tough), or they're mooks with no name and only 1 Health and 1 Morale.>
#Bookhounds

<Mooks are a little bit like glass cannons: they can hit hard but are easily defeated. It's almost always in your best interest to defeat some or all of the mooks before you tackle anyone else. The question, of course, is can you do so efficiently?>
#Bookhounds

Luckily, all 3 combat abilities (Sorcery, Sway, & Warfare) gives you a way to attack more than 1 person at a time if you have 8 or more ranks. Looking back at your character sheet, you have 8 ranks of Sorcery, enough to blast when you have a high roll.>
#Bookhounds

And hey, defeating foes gives you Refresh tokens you can use to refresh your General abilities. As a result, you can dump all of your Sorcery points into a single attack, guaranteeing that you'll hit, and you know you'll get at least SOME of those points back!>
#Bookhounds

<The design goal was to let Conan stride across a battlefield, slashing down foes on either side, maintaining enough Warfare points to stay relevant in the fight. This is quite different from other #GUMSHOE games based on horror, but it's fun for an action game.>
#Bookhounds

Most of the guards have crossbows, so charging them is suicide. The sigils in your head *demand* to be cast. “Not yet,” you whisper. Instead you reach out with your magic, keeping eye contact with the chief guard...
...and rip away their shadows.
#Bookhounds

<You spend all 8 of your Sorcery points, and you couldn’t roll better. You tap one of your Drives, “curling up with an old book,” and your total result is a whopping 15.>
#Bookhounds

<Due to your Blast talent on Sorcery, you hit one mook on a 3, a second on a 6, etc. With a 15 result, you're going to drop all 5! That gets you 5 Refresh tokens. You refresh 4 in sorcery and 1 in your spent Athletics.>
#Bookhounds

You're staring at the guard as her 5 companions collapse bonelessly around her. They're defeated; you get to decide their fate.
"I've stolen their shadows," you declare. The shadows flit into your satchel. "If they publicly apologize to me, I'll even give them back."
#Bookhounds

The last guard rushes you, and she's *good*. She feints and then jams her sword right through your chest. It's a brutal hit, and for a second you feel blood bubbling up, a scream on your lips --
#Bookhounds

<She rolled high enough to crit, and did 10 damage. Even with your armor that’s enough to take you from your normal 8 Health to -1.>
#Bookhounds

And then you realize that no, that was the dream you had last night! The one where you woke up, sweating, heart racing. The dream that made you sew a small extra plate of armor into your clothing, right where you foresaw her blade landing.
#Bookhounds

<Dropping below 0 with no healing is a dangerous proposition. So you use your Prophecy ability & your Flashback talent to declare "thank goodness I saw this coming last night!" You roll a Preparedness test, spend the point of Prophecy, and reduce this blow's damage.>
#Bookhounds

She stabs you again. That *hurt*, but your armor takes most of it. She backs off a few paces, eyes wide, sword up - like that’ll help.

<You’re down to 0 Health, but on your feet, and it’s your attack.>
#Bookhounds

Now it's just you and her. In the starlight you can see sweat on her forehead. Do you spend Corruption to try to end this quickly? Try to send her away by changing her memory? Or take her shadow too, then send it off to taunt her in future adventures?
#Bookhounds

<Seriously? 3-way tie? Dammit! 😀>

Blood trickles down your chest under your clothes, extra armor or not. Your breath is still rasping in your lungs. And whoever this woman is, she's uninjured and just plain angry. But you came for a book, and she's not actually your enemy. You can keep it that way.
#Bookhounds

"Yessssssss" whisper the runes in your head, squirming in anticipatory pleasure. You're careful; you only invoke one of them. It reaches out and *rips a hole between worlds*, drawing power from whatever inhospitable hellscape lies there.
#Bookhounds

The corruption flows into you with the power, so much power. You could keep it trapped within you, but you're already hurt, and vain enough about your appearance that you don't want it to _change_ you. So you externalize it instead.
#Bookhounds

It ripples outward, burning away the humanity of the world immediately around you. You forgot you were standing on the roof of a temple to Denari; Corruption is her antithesis, and the timbers beneath your feet groan as they begin to give way.
#Bookhounds

You channel this power. Silky filaments of sorcery carry your words to the guard's ear.
"You remember what REALLY happened. I was a demon conjured by your employer, running amok because they botched my binding. You banished me. Remember?"
The Corruption does its work.
#Bookhounds

The guard blinks, shakes her head, stares in your general direction without seeing you, and spits out, "and good riddance! Ugh. Demons." She then drags her fellow guards backwards to safety as the temple roof begins to give way. You've had subtler thefts.
#Bookhounds

<You spent your remaining Sorcery points along with a point of Corruption; that pollutes either your own body or the area around you. You picked the latter, a horrible offense in Eversink, but who's going to remember you were there? The nobles didn't see you. *koff*>
#Bookhounds

You clamber down off the temple roof and disappear into shadows. The malevolent book is yours, you didn't kill anyone, and Denari can afford to get her temples repaired. It could be worse! Back to the bookshop, find a leecher to heal you, or to a tavern to celebrate?
#Bookhounds

<Brief segue: when someone hears that there's a GUMSHOE fantasy game coming, they tend to look at me askance. GUMSHOE wasn't originally designed for cinematic combat, and I think they mistake "following leads towards adventure" for "solving a murder?">
#Bookhounds

<Investigative abilities having immediate, important effects may be the key difference in #SerpentineRPG. You can (and should!) even spend them to do extra damage on a successful attack. That makes cinematic combat fun for me, especially when combined with Maneuvers.>
#Bookhounds

<Anyways, one more scene to go later tonight. Please mute #Bookhounds if I'm cluttering your feed!>

<Your _Swords of the Serpentine_ demo game final scene!>

You're a #bookhound, a thief and sorcerer who retrieves rare and dangerous manuscripts across the city of Eversink. You work for The Scroll, an antiquarian bookshop (and not the meeting site for a sorcerous cabal, nope!)

When we last left you you'd stolen a malevolent book, outwitted a demon, raced across rooftops, stolen shadows from 5 guards, and whispered false memories to the house guard who almost killed you. We open the scene at a leecher stitching you up...
#Bookhounds

He looks at you askance, single eye bulging, and shakes his balding head. "You fell into your own sword?"

"Twice." You flip him another coin.

He grunts and snaps it out of the air. "As y' say, child. Here, let me get those leeches off before we use the poulTicE."
#Bookhounds

Hey, did that pronunciation of 'poultice' remind you of anything?
#Bookhounds

You look up as the old man draws a rusty scalpel across his own throat. He giggles wetly, burbling. "sO EAsY tO foLLOw," it croons to you softly. "wE wERe noT dOne. i aM StiLL oWEdddd yOUr sKiNNnn."

Ugh, possession.

Do you bolt for a space where you can maneuver?
#Bookhounds

You kick over the table, grabbing your payment to him in the process - I mean, it isn't like he's going to need it at this point. At least the demon hadn't slid into him before he had a chance to help you. And then you're outside in the pre-dawn gloom.
#Bookhounds

Your hand flicks forward, flipping the last dust from the charred holy book at it. It giggles. "NoT thIS TimE." Ooookay, apparently that's not a sovereign remedy? Good to know. You keep backing up.
#Bookhounds

<Adversaries have a variety of their own special abilities, including a few that are flexible. Countering the disruption - especially if it's more exciting to do so - is a good use of those GM Malus points. >
#Bookhounds

It shambles delightedly after you through the ash. "sO muCH FUn!" it burbles, marveling at its newly possessed flesh. You can do something important before it clears the door. Hide and sneak-attack it, draw on ancient sorcerous knowledge, or a powerful spell?
#Bookhounds

<Using your Skullduggery in a sneak attack will attack its Health, not exactly your strong point; drawing on ancient knowledge, or using Sorcery, attacks its Morale. Your choice. Had you friends here, you could use Teamwork attacks to just focus on one.>
#Bookhounds

You need to time this correctly, not getting disemboweled before you can finish your plan. You remember what it was like when were a scared and starving child, cold and powerless. You shrink into yourself as the demon advances, and you reach for a book.
#Bookhounds

<Your goal here is to get it to underestimate you and attack first, but not such a powerful attack that it defeats you. You don't really know its capabilities. So you spend a point of Servility, trying to appear weaker than you are.>
#Bookhounds

"yOu *shOuLd* BE sCarEd," it whispers. The leecher's teeth are longer now, and bleeding. It lifts you off the ground with one hand, holding you by the throat as your feet kick in the air. The pre-dawn alley is silent around you.
#Bookhounds

<Looking pathetic goaded it into toying with you for a bit, as you told the GM you wanted. It used a Maneuver against Health to pick you up: you'd have taken damage if you'd resisted. But you're exactly where you want to be.>
#Bookhounds

"Thanks for.. lifting," you choke out from around its clenched hand. "Better.. angle. More.. light.. to read." You hold up a slim pamphlet and give thanks that you were Prepared. The cover reads "Folletto and the Hound of Hell: an illustrated fable". You open it.
#Bookhounds

You draw on Corruption as you do. The runes within you snake into the ether and into you and into this book, and glowing words spiral out of it as corrupt power floods in. The words spiral around the two of you as the demon drops you. You snap your fingers.
#Bookhounds

<You've spent your last 2 points of Corruption, so make this spell count. You're going to bury that Corruption in your body; later you'll see how you've changed. Now, though, you can attack him, and you get to describe how it appears within your Sorcerous Spheres.>
#Bookhounds

The two of you are in a pavilion, heavy silks and rich carpets and oil lanterns. You ripple with power. The demon is in rags and kneeling.

"WHaT?" it asks in confusion.

"We're INSIDE the book," you explain. "Folletto was a legendary demon hunter. And now I'm him."
#Bookhounds

"And just like Folletto bound the demon..." You gesture and the demon screams.

<Mechanically you're using your Book sphere. You made a Sorcery attack using your last 3 pts, got a 7, spent 2 Corruption for Exceptional damage, and rolled a crushing 19 Morale dmg.>

#Bookhounds

Just the the Hound of Hell in the original story, the demon is briefly chained by smoking chains of light. You gesture with a hand that looks like Folletto's from your pamphlet's illustrations. It's not dead, but you've had enough.
#Bookhounds

(Outside on the street, two grubby urchins up stare at each other and where you were standing. "Where'd they go?" one asks. The other picks up your copy of Folletto and the Hound of Hell, which had fallen onto the cobblestones, and watches as you rewrite the story.)
#Bookhounds

Time to draw on your esoteric elder knowledge. This was your favorite fable growing up; you know by heart the chants that Folletto uses to bind his demon. Normally they're just nonsense, but here? Here they have power. "By these words," you growl, "I bind you."
#Bookhounds

<You're out of Sorcery points! But you want to make a Morale attack, and you still have 2 points of Sway left, so you'll use that. Makes sense; really, you're just tricking the demon into falling under your control.>
#Bookhounds

<You spend both points of Sway but roll a 1 - miss! Luckily, one of your "3 best things in life" is "Humiliating a bully." This counts, raising the miss of 3 to a hit of 4. You'll spend both remaining points of Forgotten Lore to boost your damage against its Morale.>
#Bookhounds

<13 more points of Morale damage as it falls for the lie you’ve spun, in the book that taught you how to read.>
#Bookhounds

You've done enough Morale damage to the demon to defeat it. You get to describe the result. Imprison it in this book until the book is burned, turn it into a harmless living memory that haunts' childrens' dreams, banish it, or reduce it to a harmless shadow?
#Bookhounds

The urchins drop your book and back away as you reappear beside them. "Don't run," you tell them. "Books can be your friend. Jusssst not this one." You show them the brand new illustration of the demon captured by Folletto, then snap the pamphlet shut. One points...
#Bookhounds

...at your face: words inscribed in black flowing ink are crawling briefly across your skin, written onto your body by your recent dalliance with Corruption. Then they crawl down to the small of your back to hide. Worth the sacrifice.

The urchins run away anyways.
#Bookhounds

You limp back to The Scroll as the sun rises, bruised and battered and exhausted, with new enemies and two - not one! - malevolent books shuddering in your satchel. A good night's work.

- End of #Bookhounds Adventure for Swords of the Serpentine -

<And all in all, that does a pretty good job of capturing the feel of the game: cinematic and imaginative combat with enough tactical complexity to make me happy, and a whole mess of sword & sorcery high adventure. Thanks to @PelgranePress , who'll be publishing it this summer.>

@PelgranePress Also, all credit and thanks to my co-author @multiplexer. If you like the world, that's her.

@threadreaderapp Please unroll this.