War of Dragons: System Building Thread

[Terrabrand]

So, as some of you may already be aware given it's in my signature, I've been running a quest called War of Dragons, in my own original setting. Only, trouble is, my attempts at making my own combat system haven't been working. They've all failed at properly representing the setting, and also at being anything I could make a quest update with in a remotely reasonable period of time.

So I've decided to see about getting the help of the forums as a whole on making a suitable system.

So, in case you haven't read the thread (or have and just need a reminder), here's what's distinctive about the setting as far as combat goes (and therefore needs support in the system)

Spoiler: Dragons and their Quirks

Dragons are largely immortal. Wounds made by anything other than another Dragon can be quickly recovered from without any food or rest, aside from other Dragons they will never be slain no matter how much damage they suffer, and even wounds from other Dragons that fall short of lethal merely require food and perhaps rest to recover from. Dragon names are magical (and to a degree descriptive of their nature), and known on sight by any other Dragon, and Dragons speak and understand all languages besides. While there are generalities, Dragons all have something unique to them, known as a Quirk. A Quirk can be any number of things, of any level of simplicity or complexity, and frequently violate otherwise inviolable rules of the setting. Dragons also come in a dizzying variety of exact shapes and features, although being, well, draconic, is more common than not, and come in three broad sizes, largely skipping intervening size between the three: Small, which is not much larger than a man, Large, the most common, ye staple fantasy Dragon range eg Smaug, and Colossal, which is to say the approximate size of a mountain.

Spoiler: Wyrms and Inheritance

Every Dragon has a Brood of Wyrms, magically created minions loyal to it's will. They may or may not have similar features and abilities to the Dragon, but general come in a consistent design per Dragon, 'Inherit' a lesser version of its' Quirk (exact degree lesser varies), are, themselves, often draconic to some degree or another, and are basically spawned out of the ground in the Dragons' Territory (see next spoiler) at no particular effort, up to a limit defined by how much Territory the Dragon currently holds. Key point here: Dragons fighting always have mooks, and these ones are basically directly psychically linked to them and 100% loyal.

Spoiler: Dragon Territory

Dragons magically claim Territory for themselves, and are unable to physically leave their Territory (indeed, if they try they either expand their Territory in the process or get injured as if they were pushing against a physical wall). No two Dragons can share Territory, and when one Dragon tries to take another Dragons' Territory, they get into a magical contest over that chunk of the world. Who has the advantage depends on natural ability (some Dragons are better than others at this), level of attention each Dragon can give the fight (a Dragon that is only contesting one spot and doing nothing else will do better than a Dragon splitting its' attention), range from the point (closer is better), and level of injuries (being injured impairs a Dragons' ability to contest Territory). There is no limit to how much Territory a single Dragon can hold per se, and indeed the overwhelming majority ofDragons wish to hold the whole world as their own.

Spoiler: Weaving and Influence

Weaving: Dragons can 'Weave' enchantments anywhere within their Territory, which are essentially hard physical effects but anchored in a sort of other layer of reality: you can't actually break an enchantment by just smashing something, but because they are things like "make object heavier or lighter, make object harder or softer, make object blunter or smoother", and not "make object better", you can break the function of an enchantment through sheer trauma. Dragons can also disenchant the same, even from other Dragons, within their Territory. Their is a limited amount of 'space' to enchant any given object, and so a limit to how enchanted something can be. Some Dragons are better or worse at Weaving than others: a more skilled Weaver breaks enchantments more easily, makes harder to break enchantments, and squeezes more practical value out of enchanting the same object. Weaving, like contesting Territory, is dependent conscious focus and effort: a Dragon carefully enchanting one thing with no other demands for its' attention gets better results (both in terms of quality of the item and difficulty disenchanting) than what it makes on the fly in the middle of heated combat.

A Dragons' Wyrms can also Weave, both enchanting and disenchanting, and use of Wyrms is the only way a Dragon can place enchantments outside its' Territory, although an enchanted object removed from a Dragons' Territory remains just as enchanted. In general, one Wyrm is worse than one Dragon, by and large, but a Dragon has more than one Wyrm, so the collective efforts of Wyrms can make up to a point for a lack of individual quality. Both Dragons and Wyrms dynamically modify enchantments upon themselves on a subconscious level, leading to them moving faster, hitting harder, having weird momentum, and all sorts of other little advantages, as they adjust their traits to fit their immediate needs.

Influence: Dragons passively alter the terrain and lifeforms in their territory towards their themes, creating 'unnatural' evolutionary pressures and warping terrain features to match, as well. They can also apply this intentionally and actively to do such things as create fortifications or twist creatures into their tools. The passive component applies throughout the entirety of a Dragons' Territory, and is best thought of as a sentient helper: It improves, for the Dragons' purposes, the terrain and creatures within the Territory, in accordance to the Dragons' current needs and plans, but without its' awareness and in ways that often exceed its' understanding. The active component is much faster but more focused, requires conscious effort from the Dragon, but will still frequently exceed the Dragons' understanding, eg a Dragon that uses its' Influence to 'cross that river' will get a structurally sound bridge even if it has no understanding of architecture or physics.

and something that hasn't cropped up in the thread yet, but would need to be covered by the system and it was gonna show up soon anyways...

Spoiler: Sorcery

Sorcery is a learnable brand of magic that revolves around unseen forces, and is intimately tied to sleep and dreams. Dragons and Wyrms can't do it, barring quirks, in part because they don't sleep. It can do all kinds of things like telekinetic type effects, teleportation, magical farseeing, and a bunch of other things besides.

I wanted to give some descriptions of the kindsa problems I was running into in system design, but I'm a bit wiped laying out the whole thing. Maybe later.

 

[Aabcehmu]

No suggestions from me yet, naturally, but I'll post here to reconfirm that I'm very interested in helping.

e-

Editing in probing questions.

What sort of combat time-scale do you think you can manage simulating? Related, how often would a combat decision be called to a vote?

Generally, combat votes are probably not going to happen more often than mechanical time-chunks, but they can happen less often, too, and the ratio between mechanical granularity and vote frequency has some trade-offs, in terms of how it effects the feel of your quest.

Having a high vote frequency for combat decisions can be good, since it will generally mean that the ratio will be closer to 1, which will lessen your work-load, since you'll only have to make decision for the enemy, but it also has down-sides. If you make votes too frequent in RL time, then it will be harder and harder to keep up, which will usually drive the voter retention rate down, since people who can't make it to every vote will feel more and more like just a reader rather than a voter. If you keep the ordinary RL vote timing, then the game can start to feel bogged down, since an individual moment in combat won't usually be more important to the narrative than a similar moment out of combat, aside from the outset of the battle and major turning point or character scenes. Having a higher vote granularity can be good, if you can manage it, since it will allow combat to keep pace with the rest of the story, without making it feel totally abstract, but it'll also increase your work-load, and can decrease voter sentiment, if the results of combat begin to feel arbitrary (which I'm not entirely certain how to predict, but is also probably influenced by which mechanics are player-facing and which mechanics are behind the screen).

Another question that could be important to answer, is the level of randomness you want from your results. High levels of randomness can lead to interesting outcomes, especially if the thread gets hit a string of high or low rolls, but that can also be just as discouraging, and may be hard to write for. Low randomness prompts the follow-up question what other things would be involved in determining combat? The vote that we technically left off on when the thread went on hiatus was a vote on our wyvern load-out, so I'd suppose that could play a part. There also strict stats, like Might and Weaving, as well as TFO's Quirk, which could be added as quantitative or qualitative modifiers to results of combat, with or without random elements.

A baseline, in the form of what you want combat to be, is also very useful to have, explicitly, when making these sorts of decisions.

 

[Terrabrand]

Alright, let's finally give answering those questions a shot.

What sort of combat time-scale do you think you can manage simulating? Related, how often would a combat decision be called to a vote?

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I'm not entirely sure what you mean by these particular questions, clarification would be appreciated.

Having a high vote frequency for combat decisions can be good, since it will generally mean that the ratio will be closer to 1, which will lessen your work-load, since you'll only have to make decision for the enemy, but it also has down-sides. If you make votes too frequent in RL time, then it will be harder and harder to keep up, which will usually drive the voter retention rate down, since people who can't make it to every vote will feel more and more like just a reader rather than a voter

Click to shrink...

I don't expect to have more than one vote a day, even if that means slowing the quest down, for assorted reasons.

Having a higher vote granularity can be good, if you can manage it, since it will allow combat to keep pace with the rest of the story, without making it feel totally abstract, but it'll also increase your work-load, and can decrease voter sentiment, if the results of combat begin to feel arbitrary (which I'm not entirely certain how to predict, but is also probably influenced by which mechanics are player-facing and which mechanics are behind the screen).

Click to shrink...

To a very large degree, combat is the story, as this is about fighting a war against the other Dragons. There is more to a war than just battle, but one to one is probably good.

Another question that could be important to answer, is the level of randomness you want from your results. High levels of randomness can lead to interesting outcomes, especially if the thread gets hit a string of high or low rolls, but that can also be just as discouraging, and may be hard to write for. Low randomness prompts the follow-up question what other things would be involved in determining combat?

Click to shrink...

This is a somewhat complex question for me to answer, simply because it's not quite as straightforward as that. The thing is, my preference in systems is... Well, I guess I need to define terms first.

As I see it, there are two kinds of randomness (for the purposes of this discussion): quality randomness and nature randomness.

Quality randomness is overall the most common kind you see in games: if you roll a dice and add that to damage dealt, for example, it's quality randomness. Barring esoteric abilities, you'd always want your side rolling the highest number on the dice and the enemy side always rolling the lowest, because a higher roll is an uncontextually indisputably better result.

Nature randomness, meanwhile is about... Hmm. This one is kinda harder to explain. Okay, for example: you loot the boss in an rpg, he always drops an item. Sometimes it's a sword, sometimes an armor, sometimes a bow, sometimes a spellbook. While one may be better or worse than the others, and in particular one may be better or worse for your build, the guy who really needs better armor is more likely to want that, the guy that needs to hit things harder is more likely to want that, and even if you value both it's likely to change how you play from there. Point is, it's about 'a or b' (or c or d etc but not the point), where a is not simply b+ and b is not simply a+.

My preference in most any system is a high degree of nature randomness and a low degree of quality randomness (generally not 0, since having some randomness prevents plans like 'and we will live by one hitpoint having taken a reckless series of actions except it's not actually reckless cause we knew we wouldn't die while accomplishing all our goals'), which holds true in this case as well.

Low randomness prompts the follow-up question what other things would be involved in determining combat?

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The thing that should be critical to combat, ideally, is 'Yomi', (Link to where I'm pulling the term from), short version if you don't want to read the link: Yomi is about predicting the other guy, which layers into predicting predictions potentially ad infinitum.

Point is, ideally you win hard fights by figuring out what things the opponent can do, figuring out how you counter each, and figuring out which you think he's gonna do and then employing the counter to that.

A baseline, in the form of what you want combat to be, is also very useful to have, explicitly, when making these sorts of decisions.

Click to shrink...

I am not aware of any existing systems that closely match my preferences off the top of my head, unfortunately.

Nevertheless, combat in the War of Dragons is supposed to be generally drawn out in the sense that Dragons have several layers of defenses against death, and so a given Dragon dying requires all of those defenses be overcome or bypassed, which pretty much requires clever plans or grinding trench warfare in practice. Minions aren't so protected but are largely expendable.

Combat is also supposed to involve a hefty dose of counter strategies, situational advantages, modifying the battlefield and responses to the enemies battlefield modifications, and probably other things I'm just not thinking of right now.

 

[Aabcehmu]

Alright, having read that, I think that I have the beginnings of an idea for a system that might be satisfying.

The most basic attack is a Push. A Push, on its own, targets an area of another dragon's Territory, and checks whether the attacker's Push Factor (their Territory stat multiplied by their current Health, divided by their distance from the targeted area) is greater than the defender's, plus or minus a random amount at your discretion.

Generally, a Push will encounter a Screen. A Screen is local to a particular area, and prevents that area from being targeted for a Territory Push until is broken. A Screen can made by investing some amount of Influence, Brood, Weaving. A Screen can in turn be broken by the attacker by investing some amount of Might, Brood, or Weaving into a Breach.

Depending on the Quirk, it may act as an effective multiplier for invested Influence, Might, Brood, or Weaving, may require the use of a special Tactics, or (such as in the case of the Tap-Fanged One) be invested itself into a Screen or Breach.

Screens may be layered, in which case only the uppermost Screen (as determined by the creator, excepting intelligence-gathering actions or Quirks) in areas adjacent to the attacker's Territory can be observed by the attacker. When a Breach meets a stack of Screens, the attacker and defender may Reinforce or Withdraw with some amount of Speed, determined by either their Influence, Agility, Brood Agility, or Weaving, depending on what investment they are Reinforcing or Withdrawing. Each dragon makes their choice in secret, and which ever one has the lowest overall Speed reveals their actions first, and while the one with greater overall Speed acts first, including any last minute changes.

Once a Screen has been broken or a Breach turned, the loser Withdraws all invested resources while the winner may either Withdraw or reinvest the resources into another Screen or Breach. Both side suffer some losses, determined by which Tactics were employed by the attacker and defender.

Finally, there are additional intelligence actions, Infiltration and Barring, where dragon's similarly invest resources in gathering information or preventing such, which if the infiltrator succeeds allows them know more about hidden Screens (including Screens not adjacent to the infiltrator's territory), the target dragon's Quirk, and so on.


How does that sound, for a start?

 

[Terrabrand]

Hmm. Don't have the time to give a comprehensive reply until tomorrow at the earliest, but that actual sounds decent assuming I'm understanding the ideas present correctly.

 

[DanielJH2112]

Might I recommend the d6 OGL? OpenD6 - OGC

It's fast, simple, and can handle scaled combat from human v human on up to Death Stars.

 

[Terrabrand]

Might I recommend the d6 OGL? OpenD6 - OGC

It's fast, simple, and can handle scaled combat from human v human on up to Death Stars.

Click to shrink...

Okay, that's interesting. But I'm not sure I fully follow. I'd presumably be adapting the whole number of dice concept to the relavent concepts of Weaving, Might, etc, but I'm not seeing clear answers trying to look it over thus far to things like how it handles differences of scale, how it handles things like teamwork eg two or more creatures working together on a single task. That kinda thing. I'm willing to consider it but it obviously doesn't work to try to use a system I'm not understanding.

I'm having trouble trying to get a clear, complete picture of the system from looking at the pages thus far. Maybe it's just me, but a summary might help me understand.

(EDIT: Even just "which one to read for the basic system" might be enough of an answer for me to figure out, I'm not sure where to start and I've looked through a few at this point and it's confusing me just a little)

At any rate, thinking on how to handle the logistics of how Dragons are supposed to operate, I've concluded that I would divide a Dragons actions in each turn into a few different categories, of which each Dragon would have a certain number of available actions each turn.

Specifically...

1: Physical actions. Things the Dragon is doing with it's own body, eg clawing things or talking to mortals or whatever.

2: Brood actions. Things the Dragon has it's Wyrms doing. Presumably would scale to the quantity of Wyrms.

3: Intentional actions. Things like Weaving require a Dragons focus but can occur independently both an a locational level and on the level of being separate actions from what they do with their body. So a Dragon can build a wall via magic on one side of it's Territory while fighting enemies with it's body on the other. That kinda thing.

4: Influence actions. While technically Influence acts outside the Dragons' conscious control it does what they need. Influence can only do so much. Ergo, both in terms of tracking enemy Dragon actions and in terms of player behavior, Influence can be reasonably considered it's own separate action type in this sense, since a Dragon gets Influence effects without that interfering with acting physically, usng Wyrms, using Weaving, etc.

Any thoughts?

 

[NemiTheNen]

So I'm going to come at this without reading anything but the OP in order to possibly generate new ideas.

 

[NemiTheNen]

Ugh, so disorganized. Notation needs hella work too, I think. Ping me and tell me how this looks compared to other stuff/if there's anything clever in there.

Damage:

There are three levels of Damage: Fine, Gross, and Deep. There are two kinds of damage, Mundane and Potent. Only Potent damage can kill a Dragon.

Fine is essentially surface imperfections. Nicks and scratches. Fine Wound Levels are restricted by Size and Armor. A human sized being has 10 Fine Wound Levels, does not increase this, but rather lowers the chance of being injured. This level of Potent Damage on a Dragon requires food to heal. Mundane Damage heals at the end of the turn.

Gross are larger wounds, life threatening on the average being, but for a Dragon it is merely temporarily crippling. Wounds deep enough to stun for mortals, a limb lopped off for a dragon. For an object this is reducing it's effectiveness, a knife that's been blunted has suffered Gross Damage. Potent Damage requires food to heal.

Deep Wounds are deadly without care for mortals, and life threatening for dragons. For Obects Gross Damage is breaking it and destroying part of it's effectiveness beyond simple repair, a blunt knife can still be used, however Deep damage means the knife has gone brittle, or it can no longer be sharpened easily, or it simply broke. Deep Wound Levels also indicates how many Weavings, and points per weaving, can be worked onto an object.

For Dragons these wounds require Sleep, or Food and Sleep to heal, even if Mundane, but thrice as much if Potent.

Deep wounds can effect Spring regeneration, and how many Weavings can be put on an object.

Filling all of a earlier wound level results in each additional attack doing damage to the next.

Knife is scratched, that's Fine Damage
Knife is blunted, that's Gross Damage
Knife is rusted, that's Deep Damage

Theoretically it is possible for mortals to destroy a Dragon through Mundane damage, but this will not kill the dragon.

Magic:

Dragons and all things directly magically connected to dragons, have a Spring which is their personal power, and the Resivior, which they fill from their surroundings.

There are two ways these powers come into use, Tap, which is using up the point for the turn, and Touch, which is essentially a count of how many points of a power can be accessed, Tapping reduces this.

The notation for this is:
Spring: S
Resivior: R
Tap: T
Touch: t

Usually Touch is only used in notation for prequisets, and not used in action to avoid confusion. However, it may be used where large numbers are concerned to keep track of the maximum points.

Spring points are at least twice as potent as Resivior points. Unless otherwise noted Dragons regenerate everything at the begining of a turn. Wyrms generate Spring points every hour.

Weaving:

Weavings cost both points and time.

Small effects on small objects can be done in a single turn, more powerful effects, or effects on larger items, take longer, even if it's the same Weaving. Each Weaving and each required turn requires a skill roll. A Weaving that is vollentarily streched out over turns requires no extra roll, unless the Weaving was paused.

Weavings usually only cost Resivior points, and the price can change acording to the skill of an individual.

Once completed Weavings have tree aspects, Object, Quality, and Strength.

The Object is simply what the Weaving is anchored to.

Quality is how good the Weaving is, and what kind of damage must be done to damage the Weaving.

Strength is usually equal to the number of points put into the Weaving, multiplied by the quality modifer. Putting Spring points in can result in a bonus. Strength is what must be overcome to destroy a Weaving.

Bad quality Weavings on small objects can be undone with a Fine levels of damage, few nicks on the object.

Bad 0.25 (Fine Damage, Gross Damage erradicates the Weaving)
Low 0.5 (Fine or Gross Damage)
Standard 1.0 (Gross Damage, Deep Damage Destroys Weaving)
Good 1.25 (Gross or Deep Damage)
Master 1.50 (Deep Damage)
Artifact -- (Object must be destroyed)

The Object itself plays into how easily Strength is physically worn away.

Disenchantment is Weaving rolls versus the effective level of the enchanter of the object. Each win 'unravels' that many Strength Points.

Reservoirs:

For Dragons, their Reservoir is filled by their Territory. Unless otherwise noted all of a Dragon's points, both Spring and Reservoir, are replenished at the beginning of a turn.

A Wyrm's Reservoir is filled in various ways: there are things, usually praying to their Dragon, that can be done if they are on their own which can result in a Reservoir up to one half of their Touchable Spring, rounded down. Prayers generate one Reservoir Point per turn per Wyrm. Sacrifices and community projects can produce more. Rituals are Weavings as Prayer, and generate one Reservoir point to be applied at the beginning of the next turn. Rituals can only be done if the Weaving is strictly and directly related to the Dragon's last given directive to a Wyrm and/or directly benefits the Dragon in some way.

Flytch is a Wyrm digging an exploratory tunnel in a mountain for his master, trying to find new metals for weapons and armor. Alas, his pickaxe has been damaged enough that the Weavings for Sharpness and Hardness have been undone. The pickaxe is still very usable and has suffered no Deep or Gross Damage, however, Flytch is just really bad at Weaving, though he has nose for metals.

Flych hasn't been injured or used his powers in a while, so he stands full at Three Spring Points and One Reservoir Point [S3R1]. Each Weaving he wants to put on his pickaxe would tap two reservoir points [RT2].

Flytch's total usable points for this is 7, as each of his Spring points counts as two Reservoir. If he was only a little bit stronger he could cast both Weavings from from his Reservoir.

He could cast one Weaving from his Spring this turn, and as this is was a direct order from his Master he can do the next as a Ritual Weaving over two turns.

Flytch isn't in danger so keeping his Reservoir filled doesn't really matter to him. Further, this was a direct order, and so he feels that he should maximize his time working, rather than casting, and his Weavings will last long enough for him to regenerate.

Flytch casts both Weavings from his Spring, converting RT2 to ST1, with each Weaving taking one turn.

Flytch goes back to work at [S1R0] (or S3t1R0), loosing his single reseve point because Reservoirs are rounded down.

Wyrm's true strength is if they are in a group. Wyrms may all share a common Reservoir called a Pool, but can only access it by the number of Wyrms in the group. For bookkeeping purposes the Wyrms loose access to their personal Reservoirs. Pools, theoretically, have no upward limit.

There are five Wyrms in the party, each S4R2. The group's Reservoir becomes a Pool: P5*1, R5. The Pool has one charge of five points, and the Reservoir has the other five points. Should they use up all 5 points of their Reservoir in a turn it will refill the next, if they use it up again it will not refill.

This is to lay a Heating Weaving on the community oven, and will cost them 15 points.

As this is not specifically for their Dragon, and is rather just general Wyrm use, they cannot turn this into a ritual Weaving, which would be a prayer as an action, and thus generate Reservoir Power as they used it.

They could finish this in four turns and leave all of them with Empty Reservoirs by Weaving for two turns, Praying for One, And Weaving for the fourth turn. However, non continuous Weaving increases the flaw chance.

Thus, they will have two Wyrms Weaving, pooling their skills, while the three remaining pray, then the party is generating 3 Reservoir points per turn, and they can continue their weaving for longer.

Turn 0:
P5*2, R5
Weaving: 15 RT0

Turn 1:
P5*2, R5
Weaving: 10 RT5
P5, R0
Prayer: R3
P8, R0

Turn 2:
P3*1 R5
Weaving: 5 RT5
P3*1, R0
Prayer: R3
P6*1, R0

Turn 3:
P1, R5
Weaving: 0 RT5
P1, R0
Prayer: R3
P4, R0

Turn 4:
P9, R4
Everyone goes home, with one Reservoir point, except one Wyrm.


Wyrms can only be produced by a Dragon's Reservoir Points.

Territory:

A Dragon changes the land by influence, the longer they live there the more it changes to benefit them.

Each unit of territory generates one Reservoir Point per turn for a Dragon. However, a Dragon cannot Pool, nor Pray, so they cannot store up energy save in Weavings. They can, however, move the power around. While in the land this power is called Mana.

Claiming Territory requires that the Mana be eroded, refilled with a Dragon's own, and held that way for that many turns. While the Territory is being Contested Mana from both sides can flow into the land cancelling each other out. Contested land does not produce Reservoir points, but it's Mana will do whatever it was last commanded to do.

For instance, a dragon moving past their borders must match the Touchable Mana in the land it is trying to take, and beat it in order to take possession, if they fail they simply cannot move forward.

The safest way is simply by directing the power, which will flow from one land into the next (and so on and so forth if the dragon wishes), like a River. This has the benefit of "up stream" Territories still having access to their Mana, and creates an artificial inflation of defensive power. However, this is slow

Assume five lands all in a row.

1-1-1-1-1

Each has a generated defence of 1.

Now, a flow is caused, we will, for this example we will assume a dragon has been living there for centuries and so the flows will go by day, rather than by months. Once a flow is established it moves per turn, it does not take a whole day to refill.

Day 1:
1->2->1->1->1

Day 2:
1->2->1->1->1

Day 3:
1->2->3->1->1

Day 4:
1->2->3->4->1

Day 5:
1->2->3->4->5

Each has the defence listed, and will continue to do so, as the increase in power is from the prior turn.


Day 5:

Turn 1:
Attack at Third at power 3
1->2->0->4->5

Turn 2:
Contested Third, Attack with power 3
Third: 0
Third: Enemy 3 vs Inflow 2
Third: Contested, Enemy 1

1->2->1->2->5

Turn 3:
Contested Third, Attack with power 3:
Third: Enemy 1
Third: Enemy 3 vs Inflow 2
Third: Contested, Enemy 2

1->2->2->2->4

Turn 4:
Contested Third Attack with power 3:
Third: Enemy 3
Third: Enemy 3 vs Inflow 2
Third: Contested, Enemy 3
1->2->3->2->4


The enemy must maintain their 3 point score in the territory for 3 turns. Once that is done the Map will either look like this:

1->2->3-1->2

Or like this:

1->2->3-1-1

The Simplest way to move Mana is either by the dragon bodily moving themselves, which would shore up the new land's Mana with their own Spring, which counts as the same.

Perhaps the fastest way is to make a bunch of Wyrms and tie them with Mana, send them, and then have them kill themselves in the new land and kill themselves for a fast Mana flood to soften things up.

EDIT:

Did spelling corrections, looked over the thread. Okay wow seem to have the most complete thing here. Nifty. I'm also quite glad that it looks like this could line up with what the OP wants, various options for the player in a War game on both personal, squad, and territorial levels.

If any of this is vaguely interesting to the OP I'll see if I can't create/dig in more. I'm having a few thoughts about the wound level system.

 

[Terrabrand]

Piece by piece response go!

Damage:

There are three levels of Damage: Fine, Gross, and Deep. There are two kinds of damage, Mundane and Potent. Only Potent damage can kill a Dragon.

Fine is essentially surface imperfections. Nicks and scratches. Fine Wound Levels are restricted by Size and Armor. A human sized being has 10 Fine Wound Levels, does not increase this, but rather lowers the chance of being injured. This level of Potent Damage on a Dragon requires food to heal. Mundane Damage heals at the end of the turn.

Gross are larger wounds, life threatening on the average being, but for a Dragon it is merely temporarily crippling. Wounds deep enough to stun for mortals, a limb lopped off for a dragon. For an object this is reducing it's effectiveness, a knife that's been blunted has suffered Gross Damage. Potent Damage requires food to heal.

Deep Wounds are deadly without care for mortals, and life threatening for dragons. For Obects Gross Damage is breaking it and destroying part of it's effectiveness beyond simple repair, a blunt knife can still be used, however Deep damage means the knife has gone brittle, or it can no longer be sharpened easily, or it simply broke. Deep Wound Levels also indicates how many Weavings, and points per weaving, can be worked onto an object.

For Dragons these wounds require Sleep, or Food and Sleep to heal, even if Mundane, but thrice as much if Potent.

Deep wounds can effect Spring regeneration.

Filling all of a earlier wound level results in each additional attack doing damage to the next.

Theoretically it is possible for mortals to destroy a Dragon through Mundane damage, but this will not kill the dragon.

Click to shrink...

I actually like this overall. It potentially covers the basics of Dragon physics as far as durability.

Magic:

Dragons and all things directly magically connected to dragons, have a Spring which is their personal power, and the Resivior, which they fill from their surroundings.

There are two ways these powers come into use, Tap, which is using up the point for the turn, and Touch, which is essentially a count of how many points of a power can be accessed, Tapping reduces this.

The notation for this is:
Spring: S
Resivior: R
Tap: T
Touch: t

Usually Touch is only used in notation for prequisets, and not used in action to avoid confusion. However, it may be used where large numbers are concerned to keep track of the maximum points.

Spring points are at least twice as potent as Resivior points. Unless otherwise noted Dragons regenerate everything at the begining of a turn. Wyrms generate Spring points every hour.

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This is somewhat interesting, but unfortunately doesn't fit to the setting. Dragons do magic as some mix of pure physical exertion and pure mental focus, mostly the later. No magical energy supply involved, Weaving is called that in part because it's a reshaping of an ambient magical force. Objects and creatures are always 'enchanted', but without specific intentional Weaving it tends to be unfocused and unoptimized.

Weaving:

Weavings cost both points and time.

Small effects on small objects can be done in a single turn, more powerful effects, or effects on larger items, take longer, even if it's the same Weaving. Each Weaving and each required turn requires a skill roll. A Weaving that is vollentarily streched out over turns requires no extra roll, unless the Weaving was paused.

Weavings usually only cost Resivior points, and the price can change acording to the skill of an individual.

Once completed Weavings have tree aspects, Object, Quality, and Strength.

The Object is simply what the Weaving is anchored to.

Quality is how good the Weaving is, and what kind of damage must be done to damage the Weaving.

Strength is usually equal to the number of points put into the Weaving, multiplied by the quality modifer. Putting Spring points in can result in a bonus. Strength is what must be overcome to destroy a Weaving.

Bad quality Weavings on small objects can be undone with a Fine levels of damage, few nicks on the object.

Bad 0.25 (Fine Damage, Gross Damage erradicates the Weaving)
Low 0.5 (Fine or Gross Damage)
Standard 1.0 (Gross Damage, Deep Damage Destroys Weaving)
Good 1.25 (Gross or Deep Damage)
Master 1.50 (Deep Damage)
Artifact -- (Object must be destroyed)

The Object itself plays into how easily Strength is physically worn away.

Disenchantment is Weaving rolls versus the effective level of the enchanter of the object. Each win 'unravels' that many Strength Points.

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This actually is fairly appropriate over all other than the aforementioned magical energy point.

Reservoirs:

For Dragons, their Reservoir is filled by their Territory. Unless otherwise noted all of a Dragon's points, both Spring and Reservoir, are replenished at the beginning of a turn.

A Wyrm's Reservoir is filled in various ways: there are things, usually praying to their Dragon, that can be done if they are on their own which can result in a Reservoir up to one half of their Touchable Spring, rounded down. Prayers generate one Reservoir Point per turn per Wyrm. Sacrifices and community projects can produce more. Rituals are Weavings as Prayer, and generate one Reservoir point to be applied at the beginning of the next turn. Rituals can only be done if the Weaving is strictly and directly related to the Dragon's last given directive to a Wyrm and/or directly benefits the Dragon in some way.

Flytch is a Wyrm digging an exploratory tunnel in a mountain for his master, trying to find new metals for weapons and armor. Alas, his pickaxe has been damaged enough that the Weavings for Sharpness and Hardness have been undone. The pickaxe is still very usable and has suffered no Deep or Gross Damage, however, Flytch is just really bad at Weaving, though he has nose for metals.

Flych hasn't been injured or used his powers in a while, so he stands full at Three Spring Points and One Reservoir Point [S3R1]. Each Weaving he wants to put on his pickaxe would tap two reservoir points [RT2].

Flytch's total usable points for this is 7, as each of his Spring points counts as two Reservoir. If he was only a little bit stronger he could cast both Weavings from from his Reservoir.

He could cast one Weaving from his Spring this turn, and as this is was a direct order from his Master he can do the next as a Ritual Weaving over two turns.

Flytch isn't in danger so keeping his Reservoir filled doesn't really matter to him. Further, this was a direct order, and so he feels that he should maximize his time working, rather than casting, and his Weavings will last long enough for him to regenerate.

Flytch casts both Weavings from his Spring, converting RT2 to ST1, with each Weaving taking one turn.

Flytch goes back to work at [S1R0] (or S3t1R0), loosing his single reseve point because Reservoirs are rounded down.

Wyrm's true strength is if they are in a group. Wyrms may all share a common Reservoir called a Pool, but can only access it by the number of Wyrms in the group. For bookkeeping purposes the Wyrms loose access to their personal Reservoirs. Pools, theoretically, have no upward limit.

There are five Wyrms in the party, each S4R2. The group's Reservoir becomes a Pool: P5*1, R5. The Pool has one charge of five points, and the Reservoir has the other five points. Should they use up all 5 points of their Reservoir in a turn it will refill the next, if they use it up again it will not refill.

This is to lay a Heating Weaving on the community oven, and will cost them 15 points.

As this is not specifically for their Dragon, and is rather just general Wyrm use, they cannot turn this into a ritual Weaving, which would be a prayer as an action, and thus generate Reservoir Power as they used it.

They could finish this in four turns and leave all of them with Empty Reservoirs by Weaving for two turns, Praying for One, And Weaving for the fourth turn. However, non continuous Weaving increases the flaw chance.

Thus, they will have two Wyrms Weaving, pooling their skills, while the three remaining pray, then the party is generating 3 Reservoir points per turn, and they can continue their weaving for longer.

Turn 0:
P5*2, R5
Weaving: 15 RT0

Turn 1:
P5*2, R5
Weaving: 10 RT5
P5, R0
Prayer: R3
P8, R0

Turn 2:
P3*1 R5
Weaving: 5 RT5
P3*1, R0
Prayer: R3
P6*1, R0

Turn 3:
P1, R5
Weaving: 0 RT5
P1, R0
Prayer: R3
P4, R0

Turn 4:
P9, R4
Everyone goes home, with one Reservoir point, except one Wyrm.


Wyrms can only be produced by a Dragon's Reservoir Points.

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Okay, this is a little more inappropriate. To be perfectly clear: Wyrms are essentially psychically linked purpose built minions that are effectively stamped out in standard forms. Most Dragons are not capable of making more than one design physically, they don't have distinct mental quirks, and they don't get names. They can operate independently if the Dragons' link to them is being jammed, but they're loyal and function more like physically separated body parts than independent beings.

Barring Quirks, a Dragon is always at least subconsciously aware of the current conditions of it's Wyrms, and the Wyrms will in turn ping it's mind for order updates whenever anything unexpected occurs.

Also, while control over Territory influences the quantity of Wyrms a Dragon can field, Wyrm generation does not strongly compete with anything.

Territory:

A Dragon changes the land by influence, the longer they live there the more it changes to benefit them.

Each unit of territory generates one Reservoir Point per turn for a Dragon. However, a Dragon cannot Pool, nor Pray, so they cannot store up energy save in Weavings. They can, however, move the power around. While in the land this power is called Mana.

Claiming Territory requires that the Mana be eroded, refilled with a Dragon's own, and held that way for that many turns. While the Territory is being Contested Mana from both sides can flow into the land cancelling each other out. Contested land does not produce Reservoir points, but it's Mana will do whatever it was last commanded to do.

For instance, a dragon moving past their borders must match the Touchable Mana in the land it is trying to take, and beat it in order to take possession, if they fail they simply cannot move forward.

The safest way is simply by directing the power, which will flow from one land into the next (and so on and so forth if the dragon wishes), like a River. This has the benefit of "up stream" Territories still having access to their Mana, and creates an artificial inflation of defensive power. However, this is slow

Assume five lands all in a row.

1-1-1-1-1

Each has a generated defence of 1.

Now, a flow is caused, we will, for this example we will assume a dragon has been living there for centuries and so the flows will go by day, rather than by months. Once a flow is established it moves per turn, it does not take a whole day to refill.

Day 1:
1->2->1->1->1

Day 2:
1->2->1->1->1

Day 3:
1->2->3->1->1

Day 4:
1->2->3->4->1

Day 5:
1->2->3->4->5

Each has the defence listed, and will continue to do so, as the increase in power is from the prior turn.


Day 5:

Turn 1:
Attack at Third at power 3
1->2->0->4->5

Turn 2:
Contested Third, Attack with power 3
Third: 0
Third: Enemy 3 vs Inflow 2
Third: Contested, Enemy 1

1->2->1->2->5

Turn 3:
Contested Third, Attack with power 3:
Third: Enemy 1
Third: Enemy 3 vs Inflow 2
Third: Contested, Enemy 2

1->2->2->2->4

Turn 4:
Contested Third Attack with power 3:
Third: Enemy 3
Third: Enemy 3 vs Inflow 2
Third: Contested, Enemy 3
1->2->3->2->4


The enemy must maintain their 3 point score in the territory for 3 turns. Once that is done the Map will either look like this:

1->2->3-1->2

Or like this:

1->2->3-1-1

The Simplest way to move Mana is either by the dragon bodily moving themselves, which would shore up the new land's Mana with their own Spring, which counts as the same.

Perhaps the fastest way is to make a bunch of Wyrms and tie them with Mana, send them, and then have them kill themselves in the new land and kill themselves for a fast Mana flood to soften things up.

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I mostly don't have any clear commentary on this model for Territory, save that, barring Quirks, Wyrms don't connect to Territory claiming directly. They can harass an enemy Dragon to make it resist less, but they can't directly do it.

EDIT:

Did spelling corrections, looked over the thread. Okay wow seem to have the most complete thing here. Nifty. I'm also quite glad that it looks like this could line up with what the OP wants, various options for the player in a War game on both personal, squad, and territorial levels.

If any of this is vaguely interesting to the OP I'll see if I can't create/dig in more. I'm having a few thoughts about the wound level system.

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I definitely appreciate the effort, and like some of the specific elements. I might try to write up a lore level presentation of a battle between two Dragons later to show what concepts are supposed to be going on more clearly.

 

[NemiTheNen]

I actually like this overall. It potentially covers the basics of Dragon physics as far as durability.

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Thankyou, I'll wait till your lore presentation before I try to flesh it out

This is somewhat interesting, but unfortunately doesn't fit to the setting. Dragons do magic as some mix of pure physical exertion and pure mental focus, mostly the later. No magical energy supply involved, Weaving is called that in part because it's a reshaping of an ambient magical force. Objects and creatures are always 'enchanted', but without specific intentional Weaving it tends to be unfocused and unoptimized.

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I half suspected that, and given the territory thing I sort of was going the route of being one with the land, almost.

Which is why I made the 'energy point' thing regenerate for dragons so absurdly fast, they essentially have the FF skill equivalent of auto-elixer.

It needs something to be tracked to contextualize the Strength of a Weaving and how many Weavings can be done on a thing, and how many at a time/how many you can do period.

Like, okay, ambient energy that's already there. That's kinda already tied up in the concept of object's Deep Wounds.

Like, a sword. You can make it sharp. Is there only one Weaving of Sharpness? Or are there other Weavings of Sharpness that range from +1 to +5? Should a Weaving of Sharpness +5 take up more 'room' in an object than a +1? Can you cast one +5 or or four or five +1s? Can you spam infinity +1s on it?

(And doing the same thing over and over sure is mentally exhausting, isn't it? You might need time to get the focus back, unless of course the Wyrms are literal robots.)

You could track everything in each it's own category, then do some fancy arithmetic to figure out how much damage needs to be done to break a weaving, or how much needs to be done to unweave it, but that's a lot of tracking.

I need to know this stuff to build something useable.

Okay, this is a little more inappropriate. To be perfectly clear: Wyrms are essentially psychically linked purpose built minions that are effectively stamped out in standard forms. Most Dragons are not capable of making more than one design physically, they don't have distinct mental quirks, and they don't get names. They can operate independently if the Dragons' link to them is being jammed, but they're loyal and function more like physically separated body parts than independent beings.

Barring Quirks, a Dragon is always at least subconsciously aware of the current conditions of it's Wyrms, and the Wyrms will in turn ping it's mind for order updates whenever anything unexpected occurs.

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Okay, that makes a bit more sense. This is an RTS rather than a Dwarf Fortress.

Also, while control over Territory influences the quantity of Wyrms a Dragon can field, Wyrm generation does not strongly compete with anything.

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Did you mean Quantity, and not quality?

And it doesn't in this setup. A Dragon with 100 territory and no Wyrms can produce 100 Wyrms in one turn, and if they all die, can produce 100 more the next. And by turns I mean combat turns.

I mostly don't have any clear commentary on this model for Territory, save that, barring Quirks, Wyrms don't connect to Territory claiming directly. They can harass an enemy Dragon to make it resist less, but they can't directly do it.

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...Not really understanding? I was basically writing Wyrms as suicide bombers to wear down the resistance/mana level of the land so the dragon could move in.

I definitely appreciate the effort, and like some of the specific elements. I might try to write up a lore level presentation of a battle between two Dragons later to show what concepts are supposed to be going on more clearly.

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Very useful. And Thank you again.

 

[Terrabrand]

Some quick responses before I have dinner.

(And doing the same thing over and over sure is mentally exhausting, isn't it? You might need time to get the focus back, unless of course the Wyrms are literal robots.)

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sorta kinda robots. They have an independent 'will' in the sense that the Dragon doesn't have to micro them, but they are basically mini-editions of the Dragon (essentially identical personality and goals) in a smaller separate body that are uplinked to the original mind to keep on track

...Not really understanding? I was basically writing Wyrms as suicide bombers to wear down the resistance/mana level of the land so the dragon could move in.

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Territory control is essentially an act of will. They retain by default, but two Dragons fighting over Territory is basically them both screaming 'mine' and whoever is closer, louder, or more focused as an advantage.

I mean, they aren't literally screaming, but it's a metaphor.

I half suspected that, and given the territory thing I sort of was going the route of being one with the land, almost.

Which is why I made the 'energy point' thing regenerate for dragons so absurdly fast, they essentially have the FF skill equivalent of auto-elixer.

It needs something to be tracked to contextualize the Strength of a Weaving and how many Weavings can be done on a thing, and how many at a time/how many you can do period.

Like, okay, ambient energy that's already there. That's kinda already tied up in the concept of object's Deep Wounds.

Like, a sword. You can make it sharp. Is there only one Weaving of Sharpness? Or are there other Weavings of Sharpness that range from +1 to +5? Should a Weaving of Sharpness +5 take up more 'room' in an object than a +1? Can you cast one +5 or or four or five +1s? Can you spam infinity +1s on it?

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Eh, I can't give a quick response to this but fair enough on the tracking point.

 

[NemiTheNen]

sorta kinda robots. They have an independent 'will' in the sense that the Dragon doesn't have to micro them, but they are basically mini-editions of the Dragon (essentially identical personality and goals) in a smaller separate body that are uplinked to the original mind to keep on track

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Okay, this is interesting and will require some thought on how to manage it. Since they are basically identical, but lesser... Yet a dragon is better at weaving than a wyrm. Yeah, going to need to combuluate that a bit when I'm better rested.

They're essentially Kage Bushin who's gain in skills aren't actually transferable to the main body since it's so different?

Are they upgradeable, though? Dragons pretty much get one design, but can that design be altered? If not the means of bettering your use of wyrms would be knowledge (Better Weaving. Seige warfare! Bomb the land to undo a dragon's Influence on it so it is less resistant to your dragon's screaming!) and material possessions.

Territory control is essentially an act of will. They retain by default, but two Dragons fighting over Territory is basically them both screaming 'mine' and whoever is closer, louder, or more focused as an advantage.

I mean, they aren't literally screaming, but it's a metaphor.

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It's a fucking hilarious metaphor

 

[Terrabrand]

They're essentially Kage Bushin who's gain in skills aren't actually transferable to the main body since it's so different?

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Close, not quite, but probably a fair way to think of it in general.

Did you mean Quantity, and not quality?

And it doesn't in this setup. A Dragon with 100 territory and no Wyrms can produce 100 Wyrms in one turn, and if they all die, can produce 100 more the next. And by turns I mean combat turns.

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I may have misread then, don't feel like checking to be sure. And what I mean by Quantity running off Territory is that, for example, a Dragon that can have 10 Wyrms while holding 1 Square Mile can have 20 Wyrms if he moves up to 2 Square Miles. (well, actually, I've considered a degree of 'phantom territory' for this purpose, where Dragons can have x wyrms plus y per amount of Territory held so it wouldn't actually double like that but you get the idea I hope)

Are they upgradeable, though? Dragons pretty much get one design, but can that design be altered? If not the means of bettering your use of wyrms would be knowledge (Better Weaving. Seige warfare! Bomb the land to undo a dragon's Influence on it so it is less resistant to your dragon's screaming!) and material possessions.

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Yes and no. Standard Dragons have no ability to alter the design over time except via gearing up with creations, however a Dragon that slays another absorbs a portion of it's power. This improves the Dragon and it's Wyrms, and at the time of the slaying their is a degree of control over precise manifestation.

In fact, I've sorted wanted to not mention this but it's important to system building: A Dragon that kills another gets an... Interpretation, shall we say, of the slain Dragons' Quirk. It's not exactly the same as the Quirk of the Dragon killed, it's altered through the lens of the base Quirk of the slaying Dragon, and furthermore a given Dragon has more than one way to interpret a given other Dragons' Quirk. They have to lock in one at the time of the kill, but they make a choice at the time.

So, for example, Terrabrand the Ordainer (Yes, I named my account after him) is the canonical winner of the War of Dragons, within the narrative of my pre-existing setting stuff. Terrabrand's Quirk can be summarized as an absolute, conscious control over and understanding of his Influence. This is a double edged sword, as it does nothing without his attention (normally a Dragons' Influence functions passively and also with active attention. Terrabrand has no passive impact on his Territory, but he gets precise, powerful results from his attention and intentional Influence actions task his focus less than other Dragons for the same action type. He also saves mental focus by a complete loss of an ability to generate Wyrms, actually, which he makes up by engineering super soldiers via direct Influence). However, it never does anything he doesn't intend, and he intimately understands what he's done with it. He osmoses knowledge from nothing as to what he can do with his Influence, so where a normal Dragon can make a bridge with it's Influence without understanding bridge architecture, Terrabrand can't. Conversely, because he can build a bridge via Influence, like any Dragon, he develops a proper understanding of bridge architecture to support doing that.

Accordingly to this Quirk, if he, for example, kills a Dragon with a simple Quirk of being Super Strong, that would be expressed as new tools within his toolkit of 'things I can do with Influence'. The exact details would depend on what he elected to do with the power as he absorbed it, Quirks are actually more deeply complex than they look as a rule, and so even a simple looking Quirk like Super Strength has more facets than that.

Meanwhile, a Dragon that really clearly demonstrates the principal is It-That-Conquers, who's quirk is that it and its' Wyrms are modularly equipped war robots. If it killed this same proposed Super Strong Dragon, it'd gain Super Strength modules to insert into itself and its' Wyrms when it wanted sheer physical strength.

Wyrms get updated, in part to match the new Quirk stuff and in part because a portion of a Dragons' power governs the abilities of their Wyrms so part of what they are stealing is 'my Wyrms are x strong, z fast, q tough, etc', and adding it to their own.

I'll start writing that example fight now, just thought I'd answer a few questions first.

 

[NemiTheNen]

I may have misread then, don't feel like checking to be sure. And what I mean by Quantity running off Territory is that, for example, a Dragon that can have 10 Wyrms while holding 1 Square Mile can have 20 Wyrms if he moves up to 2 Square Miles. (well, actually, I've considered a degree of 'phantom territory' for this purpose, where Dragons can have x wyrms plus y per amount of Territory held so it wouldn't actually double like that but you get the idea I hope)

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Yeah, makes sense.

Yes and no. Standard Dragons have no ability to alter the design over time except via gearing up with creations, however a Dragon that slays another absorbs a portion of it's power. This improves the Dragon and it's Wyrms, and at the time of the slaying their is a degree of control over precise manifestation.

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So milestone leveling, but skill points can be earned. I assume that there is information loss if all the Wyrms are wiped out, and they'd have to relearn some skills. IE: Your wyrms have skill level 30 in making crossbows, but you all got shanked. The Dragon regenerates the wyrms and they have 20 in crossbow making. Getting back to 30 is at costs flat 'exp'. Meanwhile if he saved one with crossbow making 30 they could raise the wyrm army standard to 30 at reduced rate because of instruction.

Meanwhile, if a dragon had a Terraband like quirk applied to their Wyrms, there would be no information loss.

Basically it's overcrowded AI vs AI, with remote Drones that have fractional runtimes of the AI. Terrabrand can't fork himself though.

Yeah, this works. Convert Spring/Reservoir from Magic Points to Mental Points, pools are basically cloud computing, and it works.

Standard Dragons

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Veeerrrry interesting.

He also saves mental focus by a complete loss of an ability to generate Wyrms, actually, which he makes up by engineering super soldiers via direct Influence)

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Going to need clarification on the super soldiers. How are they made? How are they different from Wyrms?

 

[Terrabrand]

So. For this example fight, our two Dragons are It-That-Consumes (a preexisting Dragon from the setting) and a Dragon we'll call the Sovereign of Deep Fog. It-That-Consumes is a Fire Plane Dragon, and so the Sovereign is as well, since Dragons are normally separated into their planes.

It-That-Consumes Quirk's principal effect is that it can eat things to gain mass. Most Dragons' exist at a fairly fixed size, but while It-That-Consumes is a Small category at baseline, it can completely transcend the size rules, growing larger than even the largest Colossals as part of it's quirk. Mass above it's baseline is relatively easily lost to even mundane damage, but it's still a Dragon that can reach absurd sizes (if it is 'well-fed' it soft caps at filling a quarter it's current Territory. It can keep growing by continuing to eat, but it becomes radically inefficient), and it's Wyrms possess the same capability, albeit hitting a 'soft-cap' at around a tenth the size as It-That-Consumes itself.

The Sovereign of Deep Fog, meanwhile, can generate deep, sight, sound, smell, and even Dragon/Wyrm connection blocking fog within her Territory. This is so easy for her that she normally simply keeps her Territory overflowing with the stuff. Of course, because Dragon Quirks are unfair, she and her Wyrms see, hear, smell, etc, as if it wasn't there. She's a Large, balanced and largely generic Dragon.

So, they come into contact with each other. For the sake of discussion, their other neighbors are all occupied or non-existent, so they can give each other complete focus. The Sovereign see It-That-Consumes through the fog, but the reverse isn't true, so It-That Consumes doesn't know her name even though she knows its'. (I don't think I've covered this in this thread yet, but Dragons know each others names on sight. Since the name is... roughly... reflective of their Quirk, Dragons will attempt to plan around each others names to a degree)

It-That-Consumes is leery, since the fog is obviously caused by a Dragon for it's sheer aberrance on the Plane of Fire. So it starts feeding in force, building strength. The Sovereign sees this, and makes a probing attack with Wyrms while turning most of her attention to Influencing up poison walls. Just in case. Her passive Influence starts developing poisons in her Territories wildlife in accordance with her concerns about the whole 'Consuming' thing. It-That-Consumes Influence starts pushing for 'sight optional' sorts of animals.

The probing attack shows up, and oh, they enter its' Territory. A sub-point to its' Quirk is it can consume things within its' Territory as a sort of Influence action through sheer focus. So several of the Wyrms start getting sheared apart by invisible jaws, because It-That-Consumes has turned its' attention on them. Seeing that, the Sovereign withdraws the remainder and starts planning a new method of attack. It-That-Consumes, however, isn't going to just sit around eating. Emboldened by the lack of response, it launches its' own probing attack with its' own Wyrms. First they plunge into the fog, but the connection to their master cuts and that alarms both sides. It-That-Consumes is ready to write off those Wyrms, and is considering 'what next', when most of the Wyrms burst back out of the fog and re-connect to its' mind. Some of them were slain while in the fog. So plan B: Eat the fog. The Wyrms try first, in case its' poisonous. It's not, but the eating is slow going and their not making much of a dent.

Seeing this, It-That-Consumes moves to the front, and starts putting most of its' focus into a Territory push while it joins in on that fog-eating. The Sovereign isn't worse at Territory pushes than it, but she's hanging back and its' at the edge pushing aggressively so it has the context advantage of being closer. She's also shifted her focus to making poisonous enchanted gear, particularly bows or some similar form of ranged weapon to harry him from beyond his Territory locked eating powers.

So she starts having Wyrms shoot poison arrows. It's... serviceable against the smaller Wyrms but the 'better fed' ones have built too much mass and It-That-Consumes is waaay too big already for arrows to do much. Ok, new plan: poisoned catapults. She has to cede a lot of ground while preparing that, though, since she's failing to contest him strongly. Meanwhile, her poisonous creatures she's been Influencing up start hitting the front lines and attacking the Wyrms. Initially, It-That-Consumes has Wyrms eat them, but the poison wreaks havoc so plan C it is: Rip them up and let the corpses lie there bleeding.

I might continue this example in a little bit, partly depending on if you want, but you had a question!

Going to need clarification on the super soldiers. How are they made? How are they different from Wyrms?

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Any Dragon Influences life in their Territory. This includes up to the level of sentients, even inventing sentients through forced, directed mutation if that's what the Dragon wants. Terrabrand takes this to it's ultimate extreme: He force mutates up incredible, supernaturally strong species with ingrained loyalty and so forth since he's building them from, essentially, the lowest level.

Once he grew strong enough, he was perfectly able to flash fabricate such creatures from basically thin-air (he favored creating sort of factory structures to do it for him, since it takes focus), but in his early days it was just a slightly exaggerated and fully conscious version of that 'guided, Dragon agenda driven mutation' in effect. For normal Dragons, such things are auxiliary troops as a general rule, because Wyrms are better than they 'should' be for their physical structure. But for Terrabrand, not only does he not have Wyrms, but his superior abilities at Influence put them on near equal footing.

The biggest difference on a practical level to most Dragons is design flexibility and the fact that he has no Territory based cap but significantly less expendability, in part because he lacks 'cloud computing' as you put it, so a veteran dying means a loss of his skills, in part because of a need to boot-camp them, and in part because it requires relatively noteworthy focus instead of 'filling up' for essentially free. His troops were significantly more skilled but somewhat less physically powerful than comparable Dragons' Wyrms. They also were not as predictable in tactics, due to being their own 'people' rather than standardized copies of Terrabrand OS so to speak. Additionally, they could not Weave well (They could learn to do it but Wyrms and Dragons have a drastic natural edge at Weaving), but were capable of Sorcery, which Wyrms and Dragons are incapable of unless their Quirk makes them an exception.

 

[NemiTheNen]

Okay, this is interesting, I'll sleep on it and brainstorm it tomorrow or the day after.

I have a few ideas for reworking what I already wrote up to center better around the dragon location and how to do the passive, focused, and active types of actions. And to take into account the mutation and stuff.

Maybe write up a skill system, cribbing a bit from GURPS and FATE. I'll par it down lots because, fuck, a quest.

I got an idea for Quirk integration system, and it's simple enough that I can word vomit it right now.

Let's use the Terrabrand and the Strength Quick example you brought up.

So the Strength Quirk made Armstrong The Antecedent able to pass down a certain increased level of strength proportionate to his own down to everything he influenced. This is the Quirk functioning at 100%

When Terrabrand ate him he got the choice between incorporating that under his own control-awareness umbrella at 75% efficiency--everything he is aware of/consciously controlling gets the benefit of whatever Armstrong's equation was, only as applied to Terrabrand instead, and *.75

However, once he looses contact with anything, they would loose that bonus.

Alternatively, he can tuck it in parallel to his own Quirk at 50%. Meaning that Terrabrand's Quirk doesn't influence it nearly as much. So everything Terrabrand makes himself (is the Antecedent of) gets the bonus *0.5, allowing the bonus to persist once they leave his territory. It's possible another dragon would only gain it for things they consciously have created, or only for Wyrms, to which he IS the antecedent, however, that doesn't apply because of Terrabrand's Quirk, he is aware, and essentially personally created all the beginnings in his land.

If Sovereign ate Armstrong, the 75% efficacy version would be her fog is stronger, and possibly gains the physical strength to smother people. At 50% efficacy she could apply it to her fog, and to her Wyrms, and possibly to her land that she's influenced enough.

50% is a more pure expression of the quirk.

Nice easy checks and balances.

 

[Terrabrand]

Let's use the Terrabrand and the Strength Quick example you brought up.

So the Strength Quirk made Armstrong The Antecedent able to pass down a certain increased level of strength proportionate to his own down to everything he influenced. This is the Quirk functioning at 100%

When Terrabrand ate him he got the choice between incorporating that under his own control-awareness umbrella at 75% efficiency--everything he is aware of/consciously controlling gets the benefit of whatever Armstrong's equation was, only as applied to Terrabrand instead, and *.75

However, once he looses contact with anything, they would loose that bonus.

Alternatively, he can tuck it in parallel to his own Quirk at 50%. Meaning that Terrabrand's Quirk doesn't influence it nearly as much. So everything Terrabrand makes himself (is the Antecedent of) gets the bonus *0.5, allowing the bonus to persist once they leave his territory. It's possible another dragon would only gain it for things they consciously have created, or only for Wyrms, to which he IS the antecedent, however, that doesn't apply because of Terrabrand's Quirk, he is aware, and essentially personally created all the beginnings in his land.

If Sovereign ate Armstrong, the 75% efficacy version would be her fog is stronger, and possibly gains the physical strength to smother people. At 50% efficacy she could apply it to her fog, and to her Wyrms, and possibly to her land that she's influenced enough.

50% is a more pure expression of the quirk.

Nice easy checks and balances.

Click to shrink...

I'm not sure I fully understand the interpretations you are suggesting there.

In general, I'm clear that every Dragon can 'interpret' every other Dragons Quirk in one of 3-4 ways. Note that I don't have the full patterns fully and clearly articulated.

Okay, for example, let's look at Sovereign killing strength Quirk man under the general patterns of how it'd likely work.

The first thing Sovereign could take would be essentially what you are saying of 'stronger fog', with the fog putting out physical resistance, potential for smothering, etc.

The second would be being able to make a version of fog that instills super strength in those breathing it. Perhaps also having a strength sapping version.

The third would likely be something more esoteric. Perhaps now she can solidify Wyrms into existence from the fog itself. Perhaps she has superior strength now, and puts out fog when applying it.

For a fourth it'd probably be something almost unrelated sounding, like gaining influence over muscle action of things in the fog. Being able to exert a limited super strength as a result, but more so being able to cause convulsions and similar.

EDIT: Okay, having slept on it, I realize I should note part of what's fundamentally going on.

Each Dragons Quirk could be expressed in more than one base way. In some sense, we are seeing only part of the Quirk. Mostly, this doesn't crop up within the War, because the War was one long stretch of consistent rules. But, for example, It-That-Conquers Quirk is fundamentally about integration and utilization of available assets. In the War this was modular systems.

After the War, Terrabrand separated out all the other Planes Dragons' via dimensional barriers. It-That-Conquers Quirk was now expressed as a knack for most effectively making use of available resources and skills as it's principal feature, rather than the modular system thing. And a lot of other Dragons had shifts of their own.

 

[NemiTheNen]

Okay, for example, let's look at Sovereign killing strength Quirk man under the general patterns of how it'd likely work.

Click to shrink...

So Basically,

First: It Enriches Mine
Second: Mine Enriches Others with It
Esoteric: I am Enriched with It. Mine is Changed by It
Forth: I Gain Power of It With Mine.

Anyways, character sheets, or rather, dragon-wyrm sheets.

Stats	Dragon	Ratios	Modifiers	Wyrms
Size/Wound Levels
Strength
Agility
Dexterity
Intelligence
Synergy

Wyrms are directly dependant upon the Dragon and are essentially smaller copies of them. A human sized dragon would probably be the only type of Dragon that could have a 1:1 ratio on physical stuff with modifiers so they wound be slightly less hardy.

Wound level modifiers would be phrased as #/#/#.

Stats	Dragon	Ratios	Modifiers	Wyrms
Size/Wound Levels	Small: 10/20/30	1:1	0/-10/-25	Small: 10/10/5
Strength
Agility
Dexterity
Intelligence
Synergy

This is a human sized Dragon with human sized Wyrms. They however, they lack the levels of supernatural durability that their mother does. Doesn't look good does it? A human, in this, would probably be Small: 10/5/2.

Ten levels of bumps and bruises. Can break up to 5 major bones/limbs, or solid torso injuries before their vitality is in danger (their life already is). Two Deep Injuries.

Basically, if a human lost an arm that would be a permanent 0/-1/0. Break all a human's limbs and the next hit will put their lives into serious danger. Humans can only take one major injury to an organ before dying.

These Wyrms? MUCH more hardy. This is also representational. Maybe they have back up hearts or something for the deep wounds.

Damage.

I am not sure how to scale it so I'm just going to steal from GURPS since it's solid and plays well with physics, so if you/I decide to go off we know at least where we started on Damage, though the defence is...yeah. And of course, I'm making this up as I go along.

If an attack hits it will always (unless otherwise noted) do at least 1 fine damage.

Strength 10 is human Average. Human Average swings a sword at another human, who raises their arm to block it.

Swing damage is 1d, Bastard Sword gives +1 mod.

But first, we gotta hit. So roll skill however you decide to do it. GURPS is roll under, but that's counter-intuitive for many people. I'm thinking Skill+Dice to hit versus Skill+Dice to avoid. So Sword Skill+3d6 versus Dodge Skill+3d6 to gtfo.

So, 1d+1. It WILL do Fine Damage, it CAN do Gross, and Deep Damage. However, as it's being blocked, unless the arm is destroyed and the attack carries through then it can't do Deep Damage. (You can't do a block like that with fine damage unless you got a quirk)

Roll for damage, let's say 3. That's 3 out of 7. At 10/5/2 it beats the Gross wound score by 2, which means there will be at least 2 damage done. Fine levels are intact, so it soaks 1, and the remainder goes through. It's an unarmed limb and is rendered unusable by this attack, the combat destruction (broken in this case) soaks the rest of the attack

Damage is 1/1/0 Down one limb. Human's health is 9/4/2

If the Human wasn't human and had 10/8/2 as it's health, it would have only been dinged for fine damage.

If the Human had armor you'd first be attacking the armor, a good bracer would probably be something like, eh, 4/3/2? It would have been damaged at 1/1/0, and the human at 1/0/0 (rattled, and a bruise).

With armor, a limb can be combat destroyed, but still functional as a shield. IE: broken but you can still put it between you because the armor is working as a splint.

Other stats that I'm not going into right now:

Strength, duh.

Agility: how good you are at moving your body.
Dex: how good you are at moving your hands

Int: What You Know
Syn: How Fast You Learn, and lowers penalties when combining skills, and increases bonuses to invention. Kinda like Wisdom, or insight.

 

[Terrabrand]

Wyrms are directly dependant upon the Dragon and are essentially smaller copies of them. A human sized dragon would probably be the only type of Dragon that could have a 1:1 ratio on physical stuff with modifiers so they wound be slightly less hardy.

Click to shrink...

To clarify, most Wyrms are smaller than their Dragons (Small size Dragons are generally about human size, most Wyrms scale to about Gorilla size), and their physical design, though fixed, is not specifically derivative of the Dragon. Some are, but it's not a rule, which is part of why skills are not effectively transferable. Wyrms can be relatively better or worse in each area individually than their Dragon.

I might respond more later, gotta go for a bit.

 

[NemiTheNen]

As you wish. I'm going to take what I got here and try to hammer it out into a full system, I have an old post magical apoc setting that this could work out well in.

 

[Ghoul King]

I'd personally recommend trying to get a system that plays well with large groups. The fact that Wyrms are mostly identical copies helps -you can literally say "A has ten copies of its Wyrm and B has twenty copies of its Wyrm" and not worry so much about stat variation or anything- but any system that can't quickly calculate combat involving dozens or hundreds of individuals will become very unwieldy very fast.

I think the biggest thing the system needs is a way to represent the abstraction of tactics and strategy in a more concrete form. Talk less in terms of "Dragon doing x damage via y mechanism against z defense" and more in terms of "This dragon has fortified against direct assault this location to X degree from Y direction, which can be bypassed by a direct assault aimed elsewhere or overcome by subterfuge it was not hardened adequately against". Directly representing the concrete physics of the setting also runs into the problem that Quirks change what the rules are, and not necessarily in a way that can be represented by saying something like "Multiply Strength by 5" -the Sovereign Of Deep Fog's Quirk, for instance, is about denial of information. This is a lot harder to represent with a system focused on physical interactions.

Ideally the system should be set up to categorize different styles of tactic -sneak attack vs blitzkrieg vs grinding the enemy down vs turtling/building up vs probably other strategies I'm not thinking of- and rate the overall effectiveness of a given thing at pulling off or fighting against a given such tactic. (Or maybe more accurately rate their ability to contribute to such?)

For instance, the Sovereign Of Deep Fog's Quirk gives her huge protections against sneak attacks (It's hard to hide from her sentries if you don't know where they are) and a significant advantage at pulling off sneak attacks and blitzkriegs (With no warning, an entire army comes pouring from the fog!), but when it comes to more straightforward assaults in either direction it's less useful -not useless, but less useful- and if the enemy digs in and decides to grind her down via bombardment and/or just slowly pushing for a Territory gain (As in, get up close, grab Territory, consolidate it, repeat until she's wiped off the map) her Quirk is providing almost no advantage at all. Against a foe who excels at the grinding battle, the Sovereign would have to get creative, whether by trying to arrange for another Dragon to get focused on this foe, or by trying to bait out the foe's Dragon and assassinate them, or by pushing through another Dragon's Territory to give her a way to attack from an area where the fortifications aren't an issue.

I'll also comment, as an aside, that Weaving sounds to me like basically the act of bringing out a kind of "innate potential" within an item -that the "cost" of taking a sword and setting it on fire magically isn't mana or whatever, it's that you could instead have shaped it into a sword that bites more deeply, or made it into a sword that is virtually unbreakable, or... whatever. (Also that Weaving itself, takes time to do) In general game design terms, that sounds more like saying a given Weavable thing has so many points of benefits innate to it, and the act of Weaving is just changing how those points are distributed -respeccing, but for gear's parameters/special traits instead of for skill points on a character.

This suggests to me there shouldn't be an actual "cost" (Beyond the investment of time) to Weaving -just a clear upper limit to how far Weaving can go (Influenced by Weaving skill?) with Dragons/Wyrms forced to choose what they want most if they would like multiple effects they can't actually get all at the same time.