The Gemini Event
A Fabula Ultima Solo Gameplay Record
Content Warning:
War, Regicide, Failure of Duty, Treason, Death and Rebirth, Monster Hunting, Biases, Situations involving Refugees, Climate Change.
The Gemini Event follows the madcap quests of Asher and Locke, two refugees in life and station seeking to put right the wrongs of the past.
Fabula Ultima is a decidedly social game, not just in terms of its advice and attitude but also sometimes in terms of its actual design. It seems meant to be played with a group of friends. And that’s great. I support that. But I’m going to try it solo anyway. Partly because I think it might work solo regardless and partly because concerted solo gameplay effort is still kinda new to me and I wonder where the line is for me personally in terms of solo viability in mechanical complexity.
The game includes a little in the way of Oracles (which makes me like it more, even if I wasn’t playing it solo here), so I am, of course, gonna lean into that. To the extent that I’ll generate the worlds and even much of the characters that way. Not all RNG, but rather in a prompt and response style. I’m definitely going to end up using oracles from other games or gm emulators (probably Ironsworn/Starforged, Mythic, and fantasynamegenerators.com primarily). The game probably does better in terms of balance with more characters, but I’m not trying to kill myself, so I’ll make two.
World Creation
Shape of the World
I might dip into the High Fantasy supplement for this (this whole game gives me the oooh, shinies) but I’m not yet certain if I want to fully embrace all the High Fantasy Pillars. But a solid Fantasy will do fine. With Airships. Because, you know, it’s me.
I’d really like to do something interesting with Souls but I’m not sure what. Currently, I imagine the default kind of like the model of an atom with souls as electrons whizzing around the planet as the nucleus. Rushing rivers of spiritual energy encircling the globe. I don’t imagine the individual souls as being conscious in this scenario, not retaining any imprint of a spirit’s former life’s data. Tabula Rasa, after the fact. I suppose the folks who were aware of these great spiritual rivers might see them as a natural cycle of life. Spirits are born into flesh, grow and shape the world through that growth, and then are returned to the river as pure energy unburdened by identity. The person they were lives on in the shape of the world they walked through but the energy that animated them eventually leaves them there, returns to the river, and one day returns to animate someone else entirely.
So I suppose that decides the world’s Shape then. I’m not opposed to expanding it in the future to multiple planets but for now, we’ll just stick with the one globe.
Magic and Technology
I prefer to treat both Magic and Technology as tools in the hands of people. Undoubtedly, some wild, natural magic occurs however. And I think some technologies might take on a life of their own over time. But for the most part, tools. They aren’t mutually exclusive but they aren’t always symbiotic, either. Just different tools for different jobs.
Let’s see what I roll on the oracle: 11. Magic comes from another dimension.
Can I get some clarification? I rolled Moving Viewpoint and, when I flipped the result Unnatural Refuge.
So I think there’s a twin world to this one. They are mostly-exact copies of one another but exist coextensively, separated by dimensional tuning. They actually share the Soul Rivers between them as their only point of connection. Because the River’s natural cycle isn’t perfect, sometimes a Soul won’t be wiped of its life encoded data when reentering it upon death. The twin world acts as a filter for these souls, rebirthing them from the river into that world. Since this is a rare occurrence (and doesn’t include normal circumventions like Undead), that world has developed slightly differently to this one. As such, magic flourishes there but actually doesn’t natively exist in this world. I think there’s a kind of additional leak connecting the two worlds that allows magic to flow through, sort of dyeing whatever it touches on this side with its quality. So I think magic can be found pretty consistently most everywhere in this world but that its power waxes and wanes inconsistently in people and places depending on how much the leak let through in a given area or at a given time.
Techwise, I’ll fly in the face of anything resembling historical accuracy and go for romantic age of sail with airships and more minor mystic tech vibes. At some point, at any point really, my strong bias for pseudo-science fantasy might just fully take over. I’ll make a small attempt to keep it more fantasy than anything but I ain’t making any promises or apologies.
Kingdoms and Nations
This is kind of a big step I think would do better if it were broken down into smaller parts but we’ll give it a swing. It’s just me on this one, so I’ll set out to create three (the rulebook suggests each player makes one).
Oracle says: 4, 7, 5. City-State, Tribes, and Union.
So, at first blush, I’m thinking a Kingdom of several voluntarily joined territories with maybe a couple annexed ones thrown in. I think there is an independent territory that’s powerful enough and independent enough to hold out and resist becoming a member of the kingdom. Outside of all that, there are wandering nomadic tribes that refuse to claim land.
This isn’t a complaint, but I think world creation probably works better in Solo play when the prompts are much more structured and there’s a basis to work from. Less structured prompts, like what we see here, probably work better for larger groups of players. They can provide a direction while still getting out of the way to allow players to bounce ideas off each other. I’ll leave many of these entries empty, to flesh out later. Not even sure how many of the locations I’ll directly interact with anyway.
Kingdom of Rowan
The Kingdom is composed of five large, coastal territories occupying the northern crest of the landmass. As the waters have risen around their homes, the danger posed by sea monsters has perpetually increased over the past several generations. This forced four of the territories into a defense pact, which would eventually come to be fully united under the leadership of King Rowan of Oak. There were two holdout territories, largely to the south: Noxsturm and Erodonkor. Erodonkor was later annexed and absorbed into the Kingdom because of its famed prowess with Elemental magic.
Relations: Tense standoff with Noxsturm, Casual with Sunsong Tribes
Customs: Varies by territory but there is an emphasis placed on meritocratic aristocracy
Industry: Land development, Defense, Arcane Components
Denizens: The Territories of Tei, Isu, Strastint, Minixetereth, Erodonkor
Creatures: Sea Monsters infest the oceans around the Kingdom while the interior badlands are overrun with behemoth monsters
Tei
Home of Rowan of Oak’s descendents, location of the capitol city.
Isu
To be determined.
Strastint
To be determined.
Minixetereth
To be determined.
Erodonkor
A nation famed for its advancements in magical elementalism.
City-State of Noxsturm
Noxsturm has become a sanctuary city for those who would avoid being used as cannon fodder in Rowan’s endless war with the sea. Its population is largely composed of automatons, elementals, and refugees…all people many nobles would draft into armies for the glory of killing some great sea monster or other. Noxsturm is very wealthy, thanks to its mining and archeological salvage operations, and its military is powerful and tireless. Mostly, they wish to be left alone but the Kingdom of Rowan finds their resources too tempting to just leave be.
Relations: Tense standoff with Rowan, Trade with Sunsong Tribes
Customs: Values strength and endurance but respects cleverness more
Industry: Salvage/Mining, Military
Denizens: People who weren’t born from the Soul River but developed Souls later, such as Automatons and Elementals, as well as Rowan refugees
Creatures: Noxsturm sits near the Interior Badlands
Sunsong Tribes
The Sunsong travel around the perimeter of the Interior Badlands, attempting to discover a way to repair the damage to the region. They have a strong connection to nature magic and maintain a mostly pacifistic demeanor (though, their warrior protectors are some of the most elite warriors on the continent). The other nations see them as performing a service, if one on a long timeline, and not overly worth molesting.
Relations: Casual with Rowan, Trade with Noxsturm
Customs: Values communion with nature, pursuing peace
Industry: Environmentalism, Occultism
Denizens: Extended family units, nomadic, accompanied by a warrior protector caste
Creatures: Mostly deal with Interior Behemoths
Historical Events
The Rise of Rowan
Several hundred years ago, humble forester turned King Rowan of Oak took up the mantle of leadership in Tei in order to fight against an ancient sea monster. The resulting power struggle created a cataclysmic rift between worlds, drawing on the earth magic of the continent to banish the monster. This event created the Badlands. As the worlds began to react to sharing the same space with each other, more rifts opened and the magic of the twin world began to leak into this one. The magic infused this world inconsistently and, because it was not introduced with care and consideration (but rather haphazardly and by accident), began to disrupt this world’s entire ecosystem. The depths of the seas, ironically, got the heaviest doses of leaked magic and caused them to rise. Additionally, many of the sea monsters grew in size and power through magical mutations.
In response to this growing threat, Rowan of Oak united the nations of Isu, Strastint, and Minixetereth under his own banner. Some time later, as the threat refused to slow, Rowan’s grandson would annex the magical realm of Erodonkor in hopes of utilizing their great elemental skill to stop the crisis.
The Sinking of Rowan
At some point, everyone on the continent began to prepare for the coming apocalypse. Gods began to disappear, ostensibly abandoning the mortals to their watery fate. Noxsturm began to develop technologies which would lift them above the rising waters. The Kingdom of Rowan becomes ever more aggressive in its desperation to survive. Monster hunters flourish in the aristocracy.
Enigmas and Mysteries
Gods are forsaking the world.
With the threat of the coming flooding apocalypse, Gods have begun to disappear. It is unknown whether they are abandoning the mortals or whether they are enacting some grand plan to save them. Either way, the remaining Gods are silent on the matter and there’s no telling when they’ll suddenly up and disappear.
Magic is changing the DNA of the world.
The manner in which the leaks interact with the world are unpredictable in both form, function, and power. People and places both are transformed forever. Is it possible to seal or control the leaks and restore some semblance of balance to the world before we reach the tipping point?
Threats
The Ocean levels are rising. The World is dying.
The Apocalypse is coming, and fast. Sea Monsters, climate crisis, dying earth, missing gods, merging coterminous worlds mucking up each other’s natural and magical ecosystems.
Map
While I own Campaign Cartographer and there are also a few decent free map generators online, I really don’t feel arsed to make one. Kingdom of Rowan in the north in an arc, Badlands in the middle, and Noxsturm in the southeast, separated from the Kingdom by the eastern side of the Badlands. For now, other parts of the world are cut off by the chaotic seas and skies surrounding our continent.
Group Creation
I think I’ll go with Seekers as my group type. It’s generic enough that I can kind of do whatever I need to with it. I know this step is meant to provide even stronger guidance in giving the players something to do but I think, for the purposes of random solo generation/exploration, I think I want to leave it open for now.
In terms of Bonds, well, this bit isn’t super clear to me. I get them, I understand what they do, I like the idea. But I’m not sure how to work them into character creation or when. It seems pretty clear to me that PCs should have some bonds between them. Surely not a Bond between each character because a character can only have up to 6. So a party of 5 PCs, for example, would use up 4 of each of their Bonds if that were the case. So it’s probably more like, pick a character or two in the party you have a Bond with. Maybe even strategize to see whose abilities might be able to capitalize on them. Though this latter seems unlikely since we’re doing Bonds before character creation, so we don’t actually know what those Bonds would even be necessarily. Also, the rules under resting give characters the opportunity to create Bonds and those Bonds all start at 1. Says nothing about Bonds characters enter the game with. So, based on what I see as the spirit of the rules as I read them, I’m going to say that the Bonds start at 1 during character creation and evolve with RP. I’m also going to say that Players (in this case, Me and Me) can hold their Bonds til last, when everyone knows who everyone else is.
Character Creation: The Failed Bodyguard
Right off the bat, a phrase dropped in one of the idea factory paragraphs jumped out at me. Queenless Knight. I began envisioning a failed bodyguard to a monarch. Looking at the setting, it seems like Erodonkor is going to be the nation with the dead monarch. Seems the current King of Rowan killed her when he seized her territory. In the skirmish, our girl here was assigned to protect her Queen and failed.
We have her Identity and Origin already. Since this is a first go at the system, I’ll choose from the list of Themes something that seems appropriate: Vengeance. Doubt, Guilt, Anger, Justice, any of these might have been good themes. But I think this Knight has some complex feelings on the matter. No doubt she blames herself for her failure. And I imagine, since she does not have the Elementalist class, that she had to work extra hard to achieve her position in what amounts to a war college magocracy. So that stings a little extra. I think she loved her Queen and, until she sees the King Bastard who killed her die for it, she’s going to shove all that guilt and loss down and focus on making it happen.
For her Classes, I’m drawn to the tragedy of the Darkblade. I think we have enough answers for the prompts, so I’ll assign two levels right away. Let’s go with Heart of Darkness and Agony at SL1. I really struggled here, considering Shadow Strike, but I think these fit better given her rageful disposition. They combo together, where Heart generates a Hatred Bond with an enemy on Crisis and Agony recovers HP and MP when beating the snot out of a foe with a Bond on it.
Next, I think we’ll go with Fury. Really lean into that whole vengeance thing. Two levels in this as well: Adrenaline and Provoke both at SL1. Adrenaline pairs well with Heart of Darkness, allowing her to dish out extra damage in Crisis, while Provoke uses what I’m going to make her two best stats to taunt enemies into beating her into Crisis. Little sadomasochism here. Oh, dear, I fear I’m falling somewhat away from the bright optimism this game encourages. Sorry, couldn’t be helped.
Finally, we’ll put the last level into Guardian, to represent her background as, ya know, an actual bodyguard. We’ll take Protect here, to allow her to protect her partner once a turn by taking hits for him. This’ll help get her into Crisis faster while keeping him fresh. In theory. I suspect, at first blush, that these damage values are going to chunk characters into Crisis pretty quickly already…so this may be overkill on my part.
Together, these three Classes (the maximum I’m allowed til I master one of them) give the Knight +15HP and the ability to use martial melee weapons, armor, and shields.
In terms of her Attribute spread, I’m going with Specialized and (as I said) I’m putting d10s in her Might and Willpower. Leaving d6s to her Dexterity and Insight. Derived values-wise, this will give her a crapton of HP and MP but also crap defenses. She’ll receive no bonus to Inventory Points, so those will remain at the base 6.
Spending the 500z on starting Equipment, I think I’ll give her Bronze Plate befitting her Knight status. Even though she was in the Queensguard, I imagine she was on as a new, low ranking knight still under mentorship of one the elder Knights. They might have worn Runic Armor instead. But on that note, I like the idea of her mentor gifting her a custom weapon. Something carried by the order. Let’s say a Runic Greataxe, also called an Erodonkorian Greataxe. I can see a lot of the Queensguard being Spellblades (a la Elementalist), so I imagine the axe is enhanced for magical protection, as if primed for magic to flow into it. Using the High Fantasy Atlas, we can create this as a Heavy weapon with Accurate, Magic Defense, and Powerful customizations. Makes it martial, puts the damage at 12, gives +2 to a Dex+Mig accuracy (this evens out against the normal Mig+Mig roll on average), and gives it a +2 Magic Defense. So we’re trading a little bit of damage potential for some magic protection, essentially. The Plate is 200z and the custom is 300z, so we’re out. Rolling for Initial Savings, I get a 5, so 50z. As instructed, I’ll start with 3 Fabula.
But wait, there’s more. Quirks caught my eye in High Fantasy. Taking a look through them, I immediately saw two that took my fancy. The one perfect for this character is Revenant. This will make our Queenless Knight quasi-undead. Crow-style undead. She’ll gain immunity to Dark, Poison, Poisoned Status and won’t have to breathe, eat, or drink. She’ll still have to rest and she’ll still be healed normally (cause she’s not actually full undead) but she’ll be able to change all her damage to dark and ignore Resistances and Immunities with it. So I think that she was killed in the invasion that also killed her Queen and toppled the Erodonkorian throne. Which makes the complicated feelings surrounding her guilt and her “failure” make more sense. If she literally gave her life in the line of duty, what more could be asked, after all? All that’s left for her now is to return the favor.
Let’s call her…Asher.
Character Creation: The Turncoat Inventor
I’ll start with the quirk that caught my eye: Old Transport. Because Airships. No. YOU come on. It’s me. There’s no way I’m not including an airship on this. I’m going to take some liberties here but nothing that skews the balance of the Quirk. I think it’s not Old but actually very New. As an Airship that only fits 5 passengers comfortably (as opposed to the twenty listed on p125 core), I think this is a wicked fast scout ship, recently deployed. It’s only about a quarter of the size of a regular combat vessel, which accounts for its speed but also explains why it's totally unarmed. A fresh coat of paint can only do so much to hide its extremely distinctive design, however, and I think our man here stole the airship from the King’s Royal Navy, TARDIS style. Once per session, GM can offer 2 Fabula to introduce a complication with it. I’ll call it Vestige, after the idea that the Kingdom of Rowan is lost to him (in more ways than one).
I also decided to roll on some of the character creation oracles to get a sense of our airship thief here and I got “former imperial” and “on the run.” So I think he was an airship engineer who stole the scout ship he was attached to. But why? First thing that comes to mind is that he’s an aristocratic cousin of the Erodonkorian royal family. I can see these various nations, before the beginning of the end of the world, sending their kids to other countries to learn abroad and whatnot. So maybe the engineer here had strong ties and saw his family killed in the annexation. This set him off so he sabotaged a bunch of ships he had helped King Rowan III’s shipwrights to craft, stole the Vestige, and buggered off. This cast him firmly in the role of the Inventor Turncoat and put him in the wanted crosshairs of the crown.
So that settles his Identity and Origin as well. For his Theme, I considered Ambition but I think that was just his original theme when he first traveled to the capital to show his worth to the King. Duty seems enticing but I think his family is largely dead and Asher is already cornering the market on trying to honor the dead. I would almost do Belonging for the pathetic figure he could cut but that doesn’t seem quite in line with his original motives. Justice might be good, sort of the flipside of Asher’s motivations. But I’m starting to see our guy here as awakening to the bigger picture. He started off very focused on himself, he stole the airship for partially selfish and partially vengeful reasons, and now he’s starting to see the apocalypse unfold in the world beyond gilded windows. So I think I’ll go with Hope. He thinks the King has a shortsighted plan and, invoking his inventor’s mind, believes there must be a better way to prepare.
For his Classes, Tinkerer is the obvious first choice. Three straight levels into that and all into Gadgets (Magitech). That’ll get him all the way up to Superior. Which is to say, he can remote control robots, he can summon a magic rifle, and he has created three magispheres which mimic various spells. I’ll treat the rifle as having something like a grenade launcher attachment on the barrel which spits out the spheres. For the mimicked spells, they can be taken from the Elementalist, Entropist, and Spiritist lists. I think I’ll avoid the Elementalist (ironically, given his heritage) because I can do gun damage. We’ll say that’s the way his magic developed and the tech stylings are what put him just outside the hierarchy at home, eventually leading to him being chosen in an exchange program. I’ll take Acceleration from the Entropist list, which is like a haste spell, and Awaken and Heal from the Spiritist lists (attribute booster and HP restore, respectively). That’ll make him a better support character for Asher.
I’ll take one level in Rogue, as a nod to his thiefly ways, and put SL1 into Soul Steal for no other reason than I love it and it reminds me of Final Fantasy Tactics. That’ll give us some options, though, later down the line in terms of cool equipment.
Finally, I’ll take one level in Sharpshooter to take advantage of his magic gun. We’ll put that into Warning Shot SL1, for added versatility. That allows him to choose between damage or inflicting shaken, slowed, or mind point drain on enemies. Rounds out the support structure, I think.
Together these three Classes give us +4IP, the ability to do Projects, and the ability to use martial ranged weapons and shields.
For Attributes, I’ll go with an average array and put the d10 in Insight and the d6 in Might. That’ll put our HP at 35 (low 17 Crisis) and MP at 45 but our IP will sit pretty at 10. Gives us ok Defense but pretty good Magic Defense.
Now, Equipment. Since he can summon a gun, no need to go there. The game says you can discuss starting the game with an Accessory but they’re all honestly pretty expensive so I’m not sure how that’d balance out. I’ll just put him in a Combat Tunic for some decent all over defense bonuses with no loss to initiative. We’ll keep the 350z left over for Initial Savings, which I rolled a 5 (also) on, for 400z. Makes sense, as an ex-noble. And 3 Fabula, okay.
We’ll call him…Locke.
Bonds
Each of the characters will take Bonds representing Rowan and Erodonkor and then a third one for each other. All of these Bonds will be Strength 1. In Asher’s case, her Rowan bond will be a Bond of Hatred with King Rowan III himself as the executioner of her Queen. Locke’s will be a Bond of Mistrust with the Kingdom of Rowan instead, representing his misgivings about their whole ends justify the means approach. They both have Bonds of Loyalty with their homeland. Asher has a Bond of Admiration for Locke because she greatly admires his courage in standing up to her hated enemy and believes he may have knowledge that will be useful to her in her quest. Locke, though, has a Bond of Loyalty to Asher because he believes that her quest may just be the best bet to give everyone some pause and put people back on the right track (brutal and bloodthirsty though it might be). He’s willing to go all out for that.
…Ah, I’ve just found the Optional Starting Bonds sidebar. Noooooot a great place for them. So, normally you’d get one Strength 1 Bond as a starter. Whatever, what’s done is done. We’ll give each character a couple experience and pretend they’ve had time to develop those Bonds but not to level to 6.
Speaking of Experience, real quick, I think I’m just going to keep it real simple and do a level a session. You’d get about this with one of the variant experience gain rules anyway.
Prologuess
With that, we’re ready to Launch. The Prologue is meant to be an introductory bit that gives you a headstart into the game with a couple of scenes. There are oracle prompts in the book which are based on the Group type you chose earlier. With Seekers, I rolled up “You have managed to secure an audience with a wise and important figure.” and I think we have a pretty good idea what that means. I think we’re going to get right into it.
Comments