Part II · The Table
Coin and Kit
Money in Zi’Dara is simple: a purse of gold is roughly a month’s wages.
What you can afford
- Nothing worth tracking. A meal, a bed for the night or a round of drinks.
- A purse of gold. It’s one of your utility items, and it covers a bribe to a mid-level official, a good set of tools or a horse.
- Several purses of gold. A quality weapon, real armour or passage on a ship.
- A small fortune. A ship or a house.
Upgrading gear
Money buys plain things, and a plain thing is just what it is. A sword’s a sword: when it fits, it’s a line on your roll, and it lets you do what a sword does. A finer one is still one line, so you can’t pay for a step up. A weapon’s properties come with the weapon, so buying a crossbow gets you Long and Piercing with it.
Armour’s different: each piece of plain armour you wear makes your Armour a size bigger, so Bram’s plate and shield take him from a d2 to a d6. Anything more than that is attunement, and money can buy the material for an attuned thing’s next stage, if somebody’s selling. A Maker can give a thing tags as well, but they only last the scene.
Replacing a broken item, or mending one, takes a downtime slot and usually a purse of gold. Attuned things are magic and can’t break, so it’s always something you carry. Some things can’t be replaced, and shouldn’t be. Your mother’s blade isn’t for sale.
Attuned Things from the Story
Some things come out of the story already grown, like the harpoon they cut out of the thing in the bay, or a skull that won’t stop talking. They’re attuned things like the ones you start with, just further along: a Tempered thing has two permissions of its own and room for two more with a Burden, and a Perfected one has three and room for three more with a Burden and a Catch. The rules for attunement itself are in Attunement. Here’s how materials work, how to write one of these and where they come from, then twenty you can use straight off the page or pull apart for ideas.
Materials
Every new stage needs a material first, found in the story or bought. It should fit the thing and what it’s becoming, like steel from a vault door for a set of picks, or a feather from the bird a flute was carved from. Work out with the GM what it’ll take, then go and get it. Once it’s in, every new permission the stage makes room for takes a downtime slot. The twenty below each say what took them to their stage.
How to write one
You write one the same way as anything you attune, with a few things to watch.
- One plain line for each permission, with a doing word and the how, what or where: stitch a wound closed, find the road, day or night, in any weather. There’s no number on it and no +1. Each one that fits is a line on your roll, the same as a permission on a Title, and the thing doesn’t count again on top. When nothing’s pushing back, you just do it.
- Write permissions for different situations, so the thing does many things rather than one thing very hard. Three permissions that all mean fight with a sword are one permission written three times: every swing gets 3 steps out of it, and it’s no help anywhere else. The Bosun’s Axe fights, and it climbs. In a fight it’s 1 step, the same as a plain hand axe, and halfway up a ship’s side it’s a step no other axe gives you. Now and then two of a thing’s permissions fit the same roll, and that’s fine: both count, like any two permissions that fit.
- A Catch carries one more permission, and a Burden two. A Catch is trouble, and if the GM couldn’t run with it at the table, it’s too soft, so write another. A Burden comes off the list in Boons and Burdens with a name from the story, and it has to cost its owner something they use.
- Weapons keep their properties for free. A Tempered spear is still Reach and Thrown, and you don’t spend a permission, a Catch or a Burden on that.
- Armour and Confidence lines. A line that makes your Armour a size bigger does just that, and a Confidence line starts you every scene a size up. Either one takes a permission’s place on the thing. That’s how attuned armour gives you its Armour.
- Permissions that heal. Only a Healer makes a heal roll, so for a Healer, a permission like stitch a wound closed is a line on it. For anyone else, it’s a quick heal that costs no Aura, once a scene.
For Catches, use the Catch ideas, or write your own in the same shape: a name, and one line for what it means. Here are four more.
| Catch | What it means |
|---|---|
| Talks | It has a voice and opinions of its own, and the GM speaks for it. |
| Honest | Lie while you carry it and it can give you away. |
| Sworn | It comes with a promise, agreed when you get it. Break the promise and none of its permissions count until you’ve put it right. |
| Borrowed | It belongs to someone else, and they can ask for it back. |
Where they come from, and how often
Only from the story. A Tempered or Perfected thing turns up because something happened in play, and it’s usually one of these:
- Taken from a boss, like the harpoon they cut out of the thing in the bay.
- Found at the bottom of a site, in the last room, or on someone who got there first and didn’t make it out.
- Inherited from a bond who dies, or from a crewmate who retires and leaves something behind.
- Given by a faction that’s an Ally. An Ally takes risks for the crew, and handing over something it can’t replace is one of them.
- Bought from a faction. If a faction holds the thing as one of its tags and it’ll sell (it’s Neutral or better), the crew can step its own Wealth down one, and the thing changes hands. A material can change hands the same way. See Factions.
- Won in a duel, like Captain Marrow’s rapier, or at cards.
Taking one on. It goes in an attunement slot, so whoever takes it needs a free one, the same as when a friend hands over something they’ve attuned. It comes at the stage it’s at, with its permissions, its Catch and its Burden, and it grows from there like anything else you’ve attuned.
Go easy with them. I’d give each character about one Tempered thing over an arc. Perfected things shouldn’t turn up more than a handful of times in a whole campaign, and only at the moments that matter, like the end of an arc or a boss that nearly broke the crew. Any more than that and they’ll stop feeling rare. Go easy with materials too, because each one’s a whole stage.
Their Catches are some of the best trouble you’ll get. The player took each one for a permission, and letting it bite is up to them. When they do, run with it and make it real: the pilots want their glass back the night before the crew sails, or the skull starts lecturing halfway down the vault stairs. They take 1 Aura for it, or 1 Resolve when it changes the scene or costs them something they wanted (see Catches and Resolve at the table).
Twelve Tempered things
They’re written out in full, with what tempered each one. Use them as written, or swap the names and the story for ones that’ll fit your world.
Old Hobb’s Fiddle
A fiddle that’s played every wake and wedding in the harbour quarter for sixty years. Hobb left it to the first person who could play his last tune back to him.
Tempered play a room into whatever mood I like · be welcome at any wake or wedding
Material Rosin from the tin Hobb carried for sixty years.
The Bosun’s Axe
A short boarding axe with a hook on the back of the head. Its bosun went over the side in a squall, and it didn’t turn up again till a year later, in a fishing net.
Tempered fight with an axe · climb any hull or wall with its hook
Properties Breaker, Thrown
Material A link of anchor chain off the ship that lost him.
Judge Orme’s Seal
A harbour judge’s seal ring. The court kept it as a relic after he’d died, and sold it the year the roof fell in.
Tempered seal a writ that any clerk will take as real · get a hearing with any official in the city
Material Wax from the court’s last candle, the night the roof fell in.
The Courier’s Saddle
A post rider’s saddle, worn smooth by a lifetime on the coast road. The riders gave it to whoever brought their last courier home alive.
Tempered ride any horse as if I’d raised it · find the road, day or night, in any weather
Material A shoe off the horse that brought the last courier home.
Sister Hale’s Thimble
A silver thimble worn thin at the tip. Sister Hale sewed shrouds for forty years, and she left it to the one who sat with her at the end.
Tempered stitch a wound closed · sew something into a hem where no search will find it
Burden Others First: your Hurt Catches only heal with someone else’s downtime slot.
Adds know who last wore a piece of cloth, with room for one more.
Material Silver thread from the last shroud she sewed.
The Ferryman’s Lantern
A river lantern that’s never gone out, found on a ferry that sank at its own landing. The ferryman carried the living by day and the dead by night.
Tempered light the way through fog and dark water · hold the dead back with its light
Burden River Cold: your wound die is a size bigger.
Adds speak with the dead who come to its light, with room for one more.
Material River water from the landing where the ferry went down.
The Night Porter’s Key
A plain brass key off a night porter’s belt. One locksmith made the servants’ doors for every great house in the city, so it’ll open any of them.
Tempered get in by the servants’ door of any great house · pass as staff below stairs
Burden Knows Its Place: you lose every tie, even defending, and can’t pay to win one.
Adds find my way through any house’s back stairs and passages, with room for one more.
Material Filings from the old locksmith’s master key.
The Dancing Master’s Coat
A dove-grey coat cut for the man who taught three generations of the old families to dance. His nephew lost it at cards.
Tempered dance with anyone at any ball, and never put a foot wrong · Confidence starts every scene a size up
Burden Leads the Dance: you say your action before the GM telegraphs, and you’re stuck with it.
Adds slip through any crowd without anyone stopping me, with room for one more.
Material A thread from the curtains of the ballroom where he taught.
Corporal Tench’s Brigandine
A soldier’s brigandine, patched by a dozen hands over thirty years. Tench’s old company hands it on to the one who’s earned it.
Tempered Armour a size bigger · talk soldiers round like one of their own
Burden Weighs a Ton: your stride’s 2 shorter.
Adds Armour a size bigger again · hold my ground, whatever tries to move me
Material A patch of the company’s colours, sewn in under the collar.
Captain Marrow’s Rapier
The rapier of a duellist who’d never lost, until the day she did. She handed it over hilt first.
Tempered fight with a rapier · hold a room’s eye whenever I draw it
Properties Piercing
Burden Never Gives Ground: you can’t Defend.
Adds call anyone out under the old duelling code · read a fighter’s training from the way they stand
Material A drop of Marrow’s blood, from the only duel she ever lost.
The Abbot’s Ledger
Every debt the old abbey was ever owed, in a hand nobody but its keeper can read. It came up out of the abbey’s flooded undercroft.
Tempered know who owed the old abbey, and how much · read any cipher or code
Burden The Keeper’s Weight: your Confidence starts every scene a size down.
Adds call in a debt that’s written in it · know a forgery on sight
Material The abbot’s own seal, dug out of the undercroft mud.
Mother Gall’s Spindle
A blackthorn spindle, still wound with a hedge-witch’s grey thread. She was buried with it, and it didn’t stay buried.
Tempered curse someone with a thread tied round something of theirs · spin a fever or a poison out of someone
Burden Spun Thin: you’ve got one fewer Hurt bar.
Adds untie any curse, if I can find the knot · spin a rope out of anything, strong enough to hold a man
Material Earth from her empty grave, spun into the thread.
Eight Perfected things
The Weatherwife’s Flute
A bone flute carved from the wing of a bird nobody’s seen in living memory. The old weatherwife played the boats home with it, and she left it to whoever would keep doing it.
Perfected call up a wind or a fog · call any bird to me · play a tune nobody who hears it can walk away from
Material Salt from the sea wall where she played the boats home.
The Surgeon’s Casebook
Thirty years of an army surgeon’s cases, every wound and what worked, in her own cramped hand. She left it to the last student she trusted.
Perfected treat any wound or fever, given an hour · know how anyone died from what’s left of them · find the weak point in anything that bleeds
Material The last page she wrote, sewn back in.
The Gatekeeper’s Plate
Plate that held a city’s north gate for nine days against a siege. When the siege lifted it was still standing in the gateway, empty, and it stayed in the gatehouse a hundred years until somebody took it down.
Perfected Armour a size bigger · hold a gate or a stair against anyone · feel it when anything bound by magic is near
Burden Iron Weight: difficult ground costs you 3 a square.
Catch Wanted: the city wants it back in the gatehouse, and it knows who took it.
Adds Armour a size bigger again, with room for two more.
Material A stone from the gatehouse it stood in.
The Harpooner’s Iron
A whaler’s harpoon, gone black with age. It’s the one that finally killed the thing in the bay, and they cut it out of its side when it washed up.
Perfected fight with a harpoon · haul in anything I’ve hooked, however big · know which way anything I’ve drawn blood from has gone
Properties Reach, Thrown
Burden Eight Feet of Iron: you carry one fewer item.
Catch Conspicuous: there’s no hiding it.
Adds get passage on any ship in any harbour, with room for two more.
Material One of the thing’s teeth, bound to the shaft.
Lady Quell’s Ring
The ring of the last Lady Quell, who’d outlived her whole house and left everything she had to the one stranger who kept visiting.
Perfected be received by the old families as one of their own · know any old family’s history and feuds · seal a letter so only the one it’s for can open it
Burden The Last of the Quells: your Resolve maximum is 1 less.
Catch Honest: lie while you wear it and it can give you away.
Adds tell when someone’s lying to me · Confidence starts every scene a size up, with room for one more.
Material The Quell family seal, melted into the band.
The Lookout’s Glass
A brass spyglass from the masthead of a ship that never ran aground in fifty years at sea. The harbour pilots lend it to whoever brings home a ship that should’ve sunk.
Perfected see to the horizon as clearly as across a room · find my bearings from the stars or the shore · see through any disguise or illusion
Burden Eye to the Glass: you’ve got one fewer split.
Catch Borrowed: it belongs to the pilots, and they can ask for it back.
Adds signal anyone who can see me, by flashing the sun off it · call on any harbour pilot for help, and get it, with room for one more.
Material Sand from the bar it kept that ship off for fifty years.
The Fallen Champion’s Sword
The sword of the best fighter of a generation, who’d fought for the side that lost. They gave it up the day somebody finally sat down and asked them why.
Perfected fight with a sword · read a battlefield at a glance · cut through any chain or binding
Burden It Remembers: Shaken doesn’t fade on you, and stays until someone breaks it with an action.
Catch Sworn: you promised never to draw it on anyone who’s yielded. Break that and none of its permissions count until you’ve put it right.
Adds make old soldiers lower their weapons · know a turncoat when I see one · swear on it and be believed
Material A strip of the losing side’s banner, wound round the grip.
Brother Amis’s Skull
The skull of a scholar-monk who saw no reason to stop teaching just because he’d died. He left the monastery’s bone-house in a sack, complaining the whole way.
Perfected read any language that’s ever been written down · know the history of any old place I’m standing in · keep watch while I sleep, and wake me if anything comes
Burden No Peace: your Aura maximum is 2 less.
Catch Talks: he’s got a voice and opinions of his own, and the GM speaks for him.
Adds out-argue anyone who learned it from a book · know a fake relic or a forged deed on sight · recite any rite or ritual word for word
Material A relic he swore was fake, and was right about.
ExampleDorrie and Lady Quell’s Ring
Say Dorrie’s got a free attunement slot, and Lady Quell’s Ring is in it. The rest of her sheet’s the one she started with, and the ring’s Burden leaves her 1 Resolve. She’s at a wedding at the Vane house, and she wants ten minutes alone in Lord Vane’s private rooms. The steward’s on the stair.
First she wants to know how to play him, so she asks what the Vanes did to the Quells. The ring’s know any old family’s history and feuds covers that, and nothing’s pushing back, so there’s no roll. The GM tells her: when the Quells went under, the Vanes bought the house with the servants still in it, and the steward was one of them.
Now she works on him. Her Talk is her first Title, read a room in a glance and make a lie sound like old news, with the action 4 steps. She isn’t lying to him, so make a lie sound like old news sits this one out, and that’s 3. The ring’s be received by the old families as one of their own fits, because he served the Quells and he knows that ring on sight, but it isn’t on her Talk, so she pays 1 Aura to bring it in. That’s 4 steps, a d8.
The rest of the ring sits this one out. There’s no letter to seal, nobody’s lying to her, and its Confidence line already started her a size up when the scene began. Anything else she wanted would cost another Aura each, so she stops there.
The steward’s Challenge 4, so she rolls his d8 with hers. Hers comes up 6 and his comes up 4. He takes her up the back stair himself.
She gets her ten minutes. On the way down he asks what she was after, and she tells him she wanted to see Lady Quell’s portrait. That’s a lie, and the ring’s Honest. Dorrie spent her only Resolve earlier tonight, so her player lets the Catch bite: the ring goes cold on her finger, and the stone clouds over right under his nose. He knows what that means.
The steward’s off down the stair to find his master, and the GM telegraphs it with his d8: if nobody deals with it, the house knows somebody’s been in those rooms before the toasts. That changes the scene, so it’s a big bite, and Dorrie takes 1 Resolve instead of the Aura. She’s got a new problem with a name and a reason, and the Resolve to deal with it.
Writing your own
Write it in the same order as the sheets above: one line of story, its stage and its own permissions, then any Burden or Catch with what it carries, and the material that took it there. Do it with the player who’s getting it. The GM says what the thing does, because it’s come out of her world. The player decides whether to take a Burden or a Catch for more, up to what its stage allows, and you’ll work out between you what each one carries.
Then read it back the way you’d use it at the table. Every permission should be quick to call (it fits or it doesn’t), every Burden should cost its owner something they use, and every Catch should give the GM something she can run with when its owner lets it bite. If a line could mean two things, fix it now, so it doesn’t come up in the middle of a fight.
What money cannot buy
Money buys things, but it won’t buy you relationships, reputation, favours or trust. It can buy a material, if somebody’s selling, but the work’s still yours: every new permission on an attuned thing takes a downtime slot.
The crew’s own money is different again. Its Wealth is a die on the party sheet for what the crew can bring to bear, like a ship’s passage for twenty or a magistrate’s goodwill, and it’s spent a step at a time. See The Crew.