This is both the least useful and most potentially divisive of my Navigator mechanic posts (intro, domain economy, island generator, troupe play, full document) - I am fully "recreating Runequest by accident" here. The goal is to specialize PCs enough that choice of player character is relevant, and to support troupe play as the Navigator septs elect new leaders.
1 - Progression via XP
At the end of a turn, this season's Select gain Experience Points equal to the amount of Glory collected by their sept this turn. This counts penalties to Glory (a sept who collected a vital resource at the cost of two deaths gains 5-2-2=1 Glory, and thus the Select gains 1 XP) but unlike Glory XP cannot be lost.
XP can then be spent on benefits for the Select who earned it:
Skill Improvement
New characters begin with one skill from their Background, then [1+WIS bonus] (min. 1) skills of the players' choice. Skills provide a +4 bonus to relevant checks, and also increase the scope of tasks you can complete with no check.
A new skill costs 15 XP.
Combat Skills
"Melee Combat" and "Ranged Combat" are skills a player can choose to improve, providing a +1 to-hit with their associated attacks.
Individual weapon proficiencies ("Navigator throwing darts", etc) can also be bought, providing +1 to-hit with that weapon and unlocking its weird bonus (cleaves, disarms, free throws, whatever).
Both of the above can be bought twice per entry, and stack (so you may have Ranged Combat 2 and Darts 1, for a +3 to-hit).
Sidebar - Standard Navigator Weapons
Throwing Darts - light (1d6), must be thrown - proficiency: after rolling initiative, you may choose to go on Init 0 to treat your initiative roll as an immediate thrown attack roll with a dart (stolen from a Discord post by Grackle Court).
Painted Dueling Knife - light (1d6) - proficiency: you may sacrifice 3 damage on a successful hit to disable a human target's limb for a round with stinging pigment.
Boarding Axe - medium (1d8) - proficiency: gain an extra attack if you just entered melee range with your target.
Spear - medium (1d8) - proficiency: anyone approaching you with a shorter weapon is immediately attacked.
Air Rifle - heavy (1d10), +2 to-hit - proficiency: a maneuver spent aiming grants advantage to-hit and to damage.
Greataxe - massive (2d6) - proficiency: damage dice explode.
HP
PCs begin with [6+CON bonus] HP. You can spend 15 XP to purchase another 2, up to a maximum of +6.
2 - Progression via Background
Later, in part 3.5 because it will be very long and take forever and I was supposed to post this a month and a half ago, an updated list of Navigator backgrounds will come with a single delta template to earn that enhances your background's effect. Some of these are easy (Gunsmith Aspirant, Espatier), some of them will be a bit more troublesome.
3 - Becoming Imperious
At the beginning of Black Season, list three of your upcoming accomplishments - I will put a town of the Spire to the torch, I will bring down a towering machine, I will clear an isle of Machine Space, et cetera. Your assembly will add conditions to these - do it without casualties, do it alone, do it unarmed, and so on.
Complete all three and in the next Blue you will be eligible for election - a simple plurality of septs. In case of tie, the last Imperious chooses.
When you become Imperious, a new Select is chosen for your sept. Play both of them for the Blue Season.
The Imperious PC is expected to live inside their Assembly-Ship, surrounded by finery and courtiers (caught by their authority like a fly in a spider’s web). They are provided the use of a beautifully-decorated ultralight in order to reach sept-vessels.
They have six Lictors - capable combatants (+2 to-hit, heavy weapons) sent from your Assembly to act as bodyguards and police force. They are always available.
Each turn, the Imperious may make a single Decree:
Prepare the Engine Array - 5 points are added to the tally of your Assembly-Ship. Surplus fuel gives each sept of your Assembly gains one slot of a trade good, Pressurized Hydrogen (which can also be expended to run away, pour cryogenic liquid on something, or whatever else you'll do with a tank of liquid hydrogen).
Prepare the Sensor Antennae - 5 points are added to the tally of your Assembly-Ship. A new route is revealed to the septs of your Assembly. Describe one feature of the island, as the antennae sweep over it.
Prepare the Ecosystem - 5 points are added to the tally of your Assembly-Ship. All septs of your assembly gain 3 Surplus.
Self-Aggrandize - floating 0g wine-spheres, lapis lazuli furniture, big murals with your face on them, the whole nine yards. Gain 3 Glory for your sept - other septs may spend Surplus to give you 1 Glory for each 2 Surplus spent. The Select may also arrive at your council to speak to each other and so you can harangue them face-to-face.
Declare Judgment - arrive at a sept and lay down the law. Your lictors are empowered to perform executions, mutilations, exiles, and other tortures as long as you are personally present.
Entrap Advisor - summon and host an NPC of your choice. They are not permitted to refuse.
4 - Diagetic Improvement
Look, I'm not leaving all these electromagnets and volatile chemicals lying around for no reason. You want a higher attack bonus? Homemade railgun.
Maybe there'll be places and things that let you spend XP for new weird feats. That sounds like something I'd write down and then forget to ever put in.
 |
| like this, from Rise Up Comus's Middle-Earth hexcrawl. |
Wounded characters take turns off to be cared for, during which you play another PC. Sure, this is a reason to have a second one lying around, but it's not really much of one.
So, I'm considering one of these:
1. Characters must take a season off in order to spend their experience.
2. When you choose a returning character as Select you lose Glory equal to 1/4th their total experience. Repeat Select are seen as harmful. It is expected for you to do well and get out of the way so someone else can soak in the benefits - taking up the mantle again goes against Navigator leveling mechanisms, and raises both fear ("perhaps they are sliding into tyranny") and pity ("is their sept so bereft that no one else could be found to acclaim?") in your neighbors. This one is true to the setting, but it's also the most blatant use of the rules to make the players play the game a certain way, and I assume there's a theoryposter ready to kick down my door if I use it.
So. I will use... one of them. The 2rd is the most interesting to me, as you can tell from it being 7 times as long as the other, but I can see plenty of reasonable players going "it costs me a FINE? to play MY CHARACTER?" and hitting me with stones.
Postscript
Someone, I think Prismatic Wasteland (on an old newsletter?), would end posts with links to posts on other blogs, for that good ol' cooperation and collaboration thing. I saw this, went "wow, I should do that", and then never remembered to.
This time I finally have because of ALLUVIUM, a Lanthanide Horizon mini-hexcrawl by friend of the blog Primeumaton (whose hexes are always a delight). Maybe I'll remember to again. Or I won't.
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