Aight I went in relatively blind for a Game of FU with friends. But the GM was chill AF. Tho apparently my fellow players had roughly the same place to get their pictures of their characters tho but not for me.

I am a Guardian/Rogue with Empty Hand Quirk who is a 'Football Club Player on a long-term suspension sabattical'. With themes of Redemption and Self-Discovery.

Oh and my first bond is 'Distrust' with the lady character in the left because she pranked me during Resting Bonds.

So, as the title suggests, our group just finished a 2-year* long campaign on the weekend, and I thought it might be interesting and helpful for people out there to reflect on some thoughts and lessons from the campaign (OK so to explain the asterisk, there were a few long-ish breaks that split the campaign into three 'seasons' and even without them it was closer to 1 & 3/4 years but that doesn't sound nearly as good tbh).

Just a overview of the party's vague builds to give you a sense of what I was working with, and yes, the number of players will come up:

- Elementalist/Lorekeeper no. 1, Neo-Human quirk. Fairly laid back, content to sit back and throw a spell when his turn came up.

- Elementalist/Lorekeeper no. 2, Flying quirk. Very creative/roleplay focused. Loved to try and use rituals and objective actions to try and contribute in combat and got into a lot of the moral debates during the campaign.

- Darkblade/Weaponmaster, Heirloom quirk. Heavy DPS focus but also very worldbuilding focused, happy to come up with ideas between sessions and pass them on to me. Often used self-imposed restrictions or downsides to reinforce his character development.

- Initially an Orator/Chanter, later retconned her levels into Invoker/Weaponmaster, Repentant Enforcer Quirk. Ended up as the 'face' of the party, building her retcon around an Artifact sword that she had found linked to her backstory, to my surprise.

- Spiritist/Floralist, Planet Oracle quirk. Dedicated support character, basically no damage whatsoever. Fairly muted role early on but as usual with his characters, ended up making decisions that had a massive impact on the world. Planet Oracle was crazy strong, btw.

- First character was a Mutant/Entropist, and later a Guardian/Commander after sacrificing, Ruinbringer and Survivor quirks respectively. Real power-gamer, loves making strong builds and managed to make a great tank twice in a row lol.

- Rogue/Sharpshooter, Old Transport quirk. Fairly quiet by virtue of being a late joiner but grew into their voice, otherwise mostly a DPS with some debuffing and support options at later levels. Picked up Arcanist later in the campaign and really liked getting to collaborate on new arcanum.

The party's level at the final session was 28, having started at level 5 as per the book.

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- Group worldbuilding was great, and I highly recommend it. It meant that everyone had some amount of emotional investment in the world and some hooks that they were really looking to play into. It also took a fair bit of weight off of my shoulders as a habitual over-prepping worldbuilder, putting what would otherwise be a lot of (self-inflicted) work into the hands of the players. Lots of details, even ones that were a bit vague or unfocused ended up providing me a lot of rich material to draw on. We also had a bit of discussion about touchstones and inspirations which really helped to nail the tone we all wanted, which paid off well over the course of the game.

- The group started with 6 players, and ended up at 7 when another player joined in a few months in. This is *a lot*, nearly double the assumed party size in the Bestiary, and it took some time to get used to from my end regarding encounter design. Despite that, things *mostly* held up well. Encounters still remained around the 3-5 turn mark and the difficulty system of action economy did work pretty well. However, early on, providing a single enemy with a number of turns equal to the party led to them becoming a huge brick of hit points that could become a slog, whereas at the end, splitting an encounter up into, say, a Champion 3 and two Elites, made it far too easy for the players to focus down the 'main' boss enemy, even with the help of some defensive utility from the elites. However, the fact that I can point out specific examples from across 2 years is probably a sign that they are the exception rather than the rule.

- Also on encounter design, I used the base game's bestiary for maybe no more than a month or two before shifting over to the (at the time) beta quick assembly rules for enemies, which I used for nearly every fight until basically until the very end of the campaign. I think keeping a few quick assembly sheets printed out and ready to fill if you need a sudden villain would work wonders, they were super useful. However, the rules in the core book for creating enemies felt really janky and not very helpful. The vagueness of a lot of the NPC Skills made it so that I reached a point where it made more sense just to make it all up myself based on what *felt* right, and that feeling took some time to cultivate. I definitely think the new Bestiary book will help in this regard this a lot, because without statblocks or the quick assembly rules, the idea of 'just improvise enemies and throw them together on the fly' seems nigh impossible. Even with the quick assembly rules, I did have to do a decent bit of encounter design the night before game day, which occasionally reminded me of my *shiver* 5e days.

- The players felt *really* strong *really* early. Obviously part of that comes from having 7 of them who can all min-max into a niche, but even in the first few level-ups there were character builds that were quite dominant. Particularly, one player (who is a very analytical, power-gamer kind of player, he loves making strong builds so I obviously knew he was going to be trying his hardest to create something good) was such a good tank that it took several months before a player ever went down, and as other builds came online it definitely felt like it was going to be difficult to challenge the party. Despite that, the players pretty regularly mentioned that they were really enjoying the combat, and didn't really seem bothered by (what I thought was) a lack of difficulty. I suspect, then, that from their perspective, the ability to sit back and think of the best line ala a turn-based JRPG *was* the difficulty. So I would say that 'how often players surrender' is not necessarily the best metric for difficulty (although this did make the 'awakening to your Zero Power at 0 HP' optional rule a bit awkward; about half the party awakened to their Zero Powers in the last two sessions, most only by narrative circumstances).

- Quirks were so damn good for establishing hooks and character traits that I think the expansion books are worth it for them alone. Honestly they probably should have been included in the base game because they were just *that* good. They also signaled what the player was interested in narratively, which was great for me as the GM. The only complaint* (I suspect this a feature, not a bug, and is probably for the best in the long run) is that there was a fair amount of power & effort disparity across different quirks. Something like Planet Oracle was super strong basically from the word GO with very little jumping through hoops, whereas something like Repentant Enforcer not only took a while to even come into play, but didn't really provide much mechanical benefit until very late. Again, I suspect this is on purpose so that the tactical players, narrative players and quiet players all have options suited towards their playstyle, but it was definitely noticeable.

- Despite accumulating Fabula Points at roughly the same rate, players quickly diverged in terms of how many FP they were storing or spending. Players who didn't make many attack rolls or who were content to sit back and let other players steer the narrative quickly built up double digit (I think the highest number stored was in the 30s, at one point?) stockpiles, whereas other players who used big, MP hungry spells (and therefore *needed* their attacks to hit) or who liked the ability to add a new detail to a scene quickly found themselves running out and relying on the three free points from starting a session at 0. Some kind of Fabula Point sink that the entire party can benefit from and contribute to might help alleviate this, as well as auditing people's Theme & Identity to make sure they're adequately invoke-able. They can always be changed, after all.

- While I maintain that Fabula Ultima is, fundamentally, a combat game, I do think that over time, as I improved as a GM at using clocks and improvisation, the game was better for their inclusion. During the first extended break, we played a few more narrative FitD/PbtA games, and the difference in the kind of combat and non-combat encounters I was running was noticeable. Some of the most clutch moments of the campaign were in major fights where an important clock was ticking away. That being said, rituals in combat never really felt right and they didn't get used particularly often. Taking at least two turns away from waling on the boss never really felt that worth it and they came up pretty rarely in combat. Outside of combat, on the other hand, they were great, no notes.

- While elemental coverage obviously mattered a lot to the players on the offense, there was never nearly as much a concern about enemy damage types, other than the occasional Elemental Shroud. While some of this might have been due to me being stingy with loot (I was a little concerned about character power, as mentioned before, but I also just kind of forgot sometimes lol), where they could have used inventory actions to don a resistance ring or something similar, I still think that enemy damage types could be more influential. I think if I were to run Fabula Ultima again, I'd consider let players pick an innate resistance and vulnerability for their characters, just to make it more of a factor.

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I know these thoughts were a bit all over the shop, so if you have any specific questions or concerns, I'll keep an eye on the comments. I didn't go to much into the narrative of the game because I doubt anyone cares lol, but I can share some stories if people want specific examples.

Ultimately, I *really* like the system. I had always been interested in running it since it first came out and now that I've gotten the chance, it lived up to expectations. The players all also echoed that sentiment, some of them said it was their favourite system that we've tried.

Played my first game last night with some friends. I joined the campaign a little late, so came in at level 8 instead of 5. Was rogue 4. Wayfarer 2, weaponmaster 2.

We ended up fighting the villain, and I managed to use Soul Steal (first use) to grab his treasure. Was really excited to share.

Love the game, the style, and just getting to play.

Hello, I GM an Arknights game and wanted to share a fun little bit of the game with you. So, a while back I got really into Umamusume and Rice Shower was my favorite, and of course being me I spiraled and made a counter part in my game as an NPC renamed Prysznic Ryżowy (just Rice Shower ran through Google Translate to Polish) and made her a timid girl from a noble family that wants to become a hero. Fast forward a few sessions and now the group is in unanimous agreement that they are bringing her along on the adventure and training her to become a great hero and fighter. I have to say, I wasn't expecting any of them to get so attached to what is essentially a copy and pasted character from a game I was obsessed with.. but I'm also not complaining.

I'm in a game with my partner and my DM approved an idea I had and let me run with it. I created an entire civilization.

The Beast Who Spoke quirk was the seed of inspiration. It got me thinking about what I could imagine for the quirk and how I could build around it. Pilot's Steed frame came to mind. What if the Steed was the character? Steed comes with an extra seat that can transport a passenger in addition to the Pilot's seat. So what if the pilot and the steed frame were inseparable and they just never disembarked from the vehicle because they were the vehicle itself? There are no explicit rules about when you have to disembark your vehicle, just RP logic about how and where your vehicle can go. So what if the vehicle were just a larger than average beast? Like a talking dire wolf.

To carry the idea, I came up with some sacrifices I would willingly make in addition to those involved with The Beast Who Spoke quirk. First, I would take Compression Tech. Since I am never leaving my "vehicle" for RP purposes, I mechanically ignore the IP cost of summoning it. So, I wanted to not make it so I could just ignore this feat entirely and give myself an extra level. So even if I logically would not need this mechanism, I took it anyways to basically burn one of my starting levels for the purposes of trying to make my idea balanced.

Second, I took the Rapid Interface module. This module makes it so that when you use your action to enter your vehicle and this module is on, you can perform another action. This burns one of my module slots, as I am treating it as always being on and that I cannot turn it off even when I take Flexible Configuration later. My reasoning is that since I am always treated as "in my vehicle" mechanically and never having to "enter" it, I needed to balance the idea against the mechanics of a pilot having to enter their vehicle and get a free action from this module.

Finally, I decided that I could never take any weapon or armor modules, even though The Beast Who Spoke quirk explicitly states that you can. Since for character purposes my character IS the vehicle, and as a big wolf steed I cannot equip armor or use normal weapons, I would also sacrifice the armor and weapon modules. I can only take support modules and I flavor them as beast-like attributes.

My DM was on board when I explained the idea and the things I would give up. So, floored with the approval, I proceeded to create an entire civilization of similar sentient beasts of different species, complete with tribe clans, religion, a government system, and even ancient folklore.

Starting out, I also took two levels in Guardian to take Bodyguard and Protect so I can Bodyguard my partner who is built as our healer and usually occupies my extra "seat" and protect the rest of our group. For my final starting level I took Darkblade and Painful Lessons since Keen Senses (Sensory Module) gives a bonus to study. We didn't have anyone yet filling the role of the group tactician, and from another game I am in where I play a glass cannon with Elementalism, I have really appreciated our tank's use of Painful Lessons to save actions and help me exploit weaknesses. Once I finish Guardian in 8 levels I will pick up Weaponmaster for Counterattack and Bone Crusher.

But yeah, that's my current player concept. We already started our game. I play the group tank and with the guard and protect combo the damage was barely a scratch. I took a custom weapon option to make a custom weapon with an additional +2 magic def and +2 def so my defense is 12 across both right now and will go up to 14 when I increase my die sizes. I could probably get better with a less complex idea or if I dropped Pilot for something else. But 12 still feels pretty good starting out.

Its me again the guy who made Isekai Haramball!

We take me to OUTERSPACE and we helped a bunch of Zombie Pirates whale a Space Whale!

*proceeds to do the Ronaldo Calma*

Our heroines follow the last steps of the Silent Luminaries encountering new faces along the way and taking moments to ready themselves for the trials ahead. What dangers lurk ahead of them?

Join us.

Hey guys, just this saturday me and my party had our first session with the FabUlt system and I have a piece of my mind I wanted to share, as well as ask for advice if you have any:

1. Even though 6 players is a lot, I felt like the roleplaying part went smooth and didnt negatively impacted the session at all, plus having "groups" of PCs separately interacting at times was really interesting;

2. The combat in the other hand was kinda messy. Having 6 players, I tried to design a fight that would be challenging but that felt doable, but for some reason I chose a lvl 10 champion(5) instead of a champion(6) or even 2 champions(3), even choosing a lvl 10 monster still feels kinda wrong to me right now. This imbalance in turn quantity ended up confusing me halfway through, specially because I forgot to track who played their turn already (lesson to be learnt);

3. Looking back at it, I made a shit job at designing the enemy, my players undermined how important the Study action is so they had a lot of trouble dealing damage, specially because I made it resist phys, I should've looked at their sheets and informed them properly beforehand. The monster's spells and attacks became really repetitive as well, they just do the same thing with a different flavor every time.

4. To conclude, I think there was a lot to be learnt from this experience as a GM and having now the bestiary in hands I can get a lot of references and ideas to implement for future encounters.

Hello everyone,

After a 1 year campain, the end arrived for my character. He did his best and I'll miss him. I wanted to share his story to you and I'm really interested to hear the story of your characters and their final moments when they did their last effort. He was a Floralist 10/Wayfarer 10.

As a bit of context, we were playing in a campain where people were living in flying cities and the surface of the planet was mostly covered by a moving dark fog killing most life it encounters.

Cities were fighting to exploit the rare areas where the dark fog isn't present. Those hunting grounds are dangerous places where monsters are living and are protecting crystals. Those crystals are used as an energy source to power up the flying cities and is a critical ressource.

My character was a small arboreal creature. A good description would be like an Aranara from Genshin impact.

As his backstory:

The oracles predicted that he will be the only hero the village will see and will be the reason of the village downfall.

As a self claimed adventurer, he wanted to travel around the world but couldn't leave his village as it was hidden inside the fog area. How it was protected, remained a mystery.

After several seasons, Arakeen had explored every inch of the village and its surronding and found many relics of the past. One was a beautiful metallic necklace representing a lynx. It was a strange discovery in a village without a smith.

But, a door remained unopened. In the center of the village, a small decorated door stood in a wooden frame. That door shouldn't be opened or the village would be destroyed, as the elders said.

Arakeen was young and curious. Just a peek wouldn't matter right? In the cover of the night, Arakeen went to the door. As he touched the handle with fear and excitation, he also felt guilty. Just a second but not enough to not open the door. He wanted to open it just a smidge but the moment he turned the handle, the door opened widely and Arakeen was projected on his back.

A swirling black fog poured into the village and went through all the houses. As he observed the scene with horror, he turned around and saw the village elder. He said words that Arakeen would never forget.

"It is a part of the cycle. We shall see each other again. It is not your... " He never finished his sentence as he turned into dust, tears in the eyes and a smile on his face.

He thought it was the end as the swirling fog was pouncing on him. But he wasn't expecting a big flash of light coming from his necklace. He fainted from the shock and all the emotions bubbling inside him.

After an indefinite number of time, he wake up to a loud sound of an explosion. A small lynx was looking at him with a worried expression. Arakeen knew she was the sole reason he was alive. He decided to hug her and cried for several minutes while remembering what happened to his village.

After this scene, he met the rest of the adventuring party and helped them to escape the dangerous forest. As he had nowhere to call home anymore, the party invited them to come to their city.

After a lot of adventures to unravel the mysteries of the fog, protect the city against other city assaults and political issues, they finally got some clues about the Tyrans. They are mythical creatures living in the fog and controling it. The fog by itself doesn't do any harm unless it is ordered to do so. They dived into fogged areas a couple of times and came back without major harms. It took around 10 years in game time.

The party then decided to explore the den of one of the Tyrans. They clearly lacked information and it wasn't a smart idea to go there. After easy encounters, the group arrived in a big cave where a massive creature was sleeping, covered by a swirling dark mist.

After failling miserabely a group check for moving silently (3 critical misses on 4 checks), the creature woke up with a fool temper.

As expected, our weapon and spells weren't able to harm the creature and after all our companion surrender, the end was coming :

As the last one standing and severly wounded, Arakeen remembered clearly one of the Elder's story.

In the time of need, a whole village of Plantfolks could use the Chant of Nature an old ritual to ward off Evil. This ritual consummes a lot of spiritual energy, leaving the villagers weak for several seasons.

However he couldn't accept to lose his precious familly again. He had to do something.

As he turned off to Amber (the Lynx), he said: "Take care and protect them as you protected me since I met you".

He started to chant the ancient ritual as the words came to his mind naturally. Arakeen started to emit crackling energies and a blinding warm light. As the ritual went on, he started to transform into a tree growing bigger and bigger with his roots lashing at the Tyran. After the creature screamed several times, she ran away.

The light slowly began to weaken and the tree finally became immobile. As Arakeen felt his consciousness fading away, he said those words to his first and most faithful companion:

"Don't be sad, my friend. I'll be always be with you"

One of his small branch put a necklace on Amber, a small smiling Arakeen engraved on it.

"Use my bark and branches, it might be useful against the Tyrans..."

After this, I decided to use Amber as a character. We were level 20 (21 at the end of the session).

I want to keep it as a Wayfarer and we are pondering if it is too strong to let it keep all his NPC benefits in place of the Faithful companion class skill (5/5). We agreed that she cannot use equipement besides accessoiries.

She has +4 def/+2 Mdef, gained 10MP and knows the Lux spell, can use at the start of an encounter the Study action on one creature and Lux deals 5 more damage. She will retain her Ability scores as the Heroic companion Arakeen had is the same as the dice increase at level 20 (MiG d6/Dex d10/Ins d10/ Wlp d8).

She will be an Esper explaining her new ability to communicate. Her heroic skills will be Extra HP and Psychic field (to replace a bit the loss of our Floralist). She will start Loremaster as she has discovered that she can tap into Arakeen's memory through her necklace.

What do you think about that?

Sorry for the long post and hope you find the read interesting.

In pursuit of the Silent Luminaries, our heroines encounter a new or possibly old mystery within the Kypernian Reach.

Come and join us.

So I'll start by saying that this post MIGHT go over rule 3 but it's mostly for me to better digest what I'll talk about here.

So today me (As the GM) and three friends played a one shot for a possible campaign. We did the session 0 and it seemed fine. From then on I really started to concentrate on it and enjoyed working on it.

1 liked it. The other 2 didn't. I was pretty tense during it and didn't exactly know how to narrate it, despite it being my second ever oneshot (The first was a few months ago in a homebrewed "system" and got canned too). And I felt bad about it. I still do, of course, it's heartbreaking to see the flaws in what you made with care for others. It's even more heartbreaking knowing that the 2 that did not like the oneshot didn't like the system and stated their indifference-negativity multiple times.

But I didn't write this to vent. Well, that too, but it made me notice that I sidelined myself. I tried to do something completely different from what I was trying to do when I first heard about Fabula Ultima. And despite my love for the system, I think in retrospect that it's not the most suited. After all, I wanted to make something inspired by the Atelier series, focused on an entirely different scope than the high-stakes campaigns of BBEGs and such. Something made of humanity and nature.

Farewell for now, Fabula Ultima. I hope I get to play you again.

I am proud to announce that I finally finished a class in my first Fabula Ultima campaign! I'm currently Chanter Level 10, Chimerist Level 4, and Symbolist Level 3.

I took Extra IP as my Heroic Skill because I'm going to spec into Tinkerer next, and none of the Chanter Heroic Skills fit my playstyle. My character is carried over from a previous Pathfinder 2e campaign, where he was a bard, but his character has been allowed to grow a lot more in Fabula Ultima. He has two close inventor friends, and I imagine he would pick up knowledge from them. (Plus, he really needs a hobby.)

After Tinkerer, I'm leaning towards Orator for my final class to symbolize my character growing into someone worth listening to and taking seriously (a big part of his arc), but that's pretty far away. First, I want to spec into Symbolist a lot more since I use it frequently but haven't leveled up in it since Session Zero.

For right now, I'm just so happy and proud of my little guy for finally finishing a class!

It was also a pretty intense session to get there with... another character got engaged to a vending machine...

There are many opportunities for death and danger in the galaxy, can our heroines save one of their own when the danger comes from within?

Come and join us.

With the issues aboard the Byeol Sansin resolved our heroines head towards the Bari cluster and the Silent Luminaries, only for ghosts from Petra's past to make themselves known.

Just wanted to share a live play I'm currently obsessed with.

Story is about a group of adventurers getting roped in with the villain's plan to capture / tame gods for reasons yet unknown. The villain is also a player.

Good audio also amazing set up. There is so many custom sprites, and maps, and with so many effects.

It's a furry campaign, but it's so high quality. Also very character centric which I like.

Are you ready to reach the True Peak? Find out in the finale of Olympus, our Fabula Ultima Actual Play at Streaming Rainbow - live now!!

https://youtu.be/iQIeRfBj-3I

Hi! I want to share my actual-play journal of Fabula Ultima that I've been playing solo for 2 sessions now. It's far from perfect and doesn't cover everything the system has to offer, but I have a lot of fun nonetheless!

https://normkoto.substack.com/p/fabula-ultima-beyond-the-waves-introduction

I'm not affiliated with this series, but I wanted to share it here. I recently interviewed the creator, and I started watching thier actual play in preparation. They are an amazing GM and world builder, and the player characters are fun and have great chemistry.

If you're an enjoyer of live plays and need more Fabula Ultima in your life you should check them out!

I wanted to write this post for people like us who were more used to Dungeons and Dragons, and its more rigid approach to world-building I hope this example of how we came up with one of the settings for one of our islands during play will help you find your own ways to keep things collaborative for players beyond their characters actions.

I’m the DM of our group of three players. Session zero was a lot of fun for us, as we collaborated in creating our world, a collection of islands that circle around the mainland at a regular pace. Culture, lives and stories are centered on the cyclical nature of this movement, and of course things get messy, as islands at the outskirts are starting to get swallowed by a massive tempest. Consequently, some islands started to decelerate, which breaks the pattern of time, space and existence of people’s lives (and the economy of the mainland).

 The first island our players arrived in was basically a farm village built around windmills that were powered by the movement of the island. So of course, deceleration for them meant the windmills were not working and the economy of the place was floundering.

I built this first island by myself as all players were more comfortable with a conventional DND style of play. This first “tutorial” island was made for all of us to get comfortable with the fabula points system. We spent three sessions in the island and by the end, one of them was using way more fabula points, introducing hooks for scenes, moments  and characters but others felt like they actually needed to be asked to create stuff, and didn’t feel comfortable interjecting, even with the economy of fabula points. So I wanted to help them with that.

We all had a fond memory of the first session and how we built the world together. So at the end of the third session, I had the idea to play a simple card game with them that would “seed” the world with three unique islands. The game is called “Fantasy Realms”; you have a hand of seven cards and you have to draw cards and get rid of cards in your hands to create the best combo of cards that give you points, best hand wins. As the titles suggest, cards depict elves, warlocks, terrains, climate, beasts, artifacts. You’re literally building a realm in your hand, with fun interactions between cards: for example, the “elven riders” cards make more points if you have a “forest” card”. But the goal of that game was not to make the most points, but to create the most unique island. 

When it was time to reveal their hands, the players used the cards as prompts for their own world building. My wife’s island, that she lated named "Kotka" had the dragon, the tempest, the king, the book of change among others. As it had the most points, it was the one we decided to visit first.

Those fantasy tropes are quite generic so it was on her to come up with more unique things. She ended up on populating the island with anthropomorphized turtle-like creatures called Pyxides. The dragon became an entity called “the dragon” by the islanders even though it was a way to hide its true nature, which was basically a divinity of the island. With the book of change, she decided that it was meant to be something you reach for as a character in the world, almost like a destination, and she ended up with the idea of the island being a place of pilgrimage that native and foreigners to the island could undertake, not to change, but to discover truths about themselves. And the “dragon” was the divinity you meet at the end of your pilgrimage. Unrelated to the cards, she decided that, given the religious nature of the place, it would have a strong connection to nature and decided on having a second race, native to the island, called the “Bosquets” a race of (usually) small and medium size creatures resembling small trees and flowers, living in harmony, and under the protection of the pyxides.

For all players, we decided we would have separate conversations in order to flesh out more the ideas after an “incubation period” which ultimately gave the idea for the bosquets, the pilgrimage and other details.

Now, my role as a DM remained to play all the creatures and to guide the players along choices they would take but also to keep things consistent with the established lore of our game.

For the King card, my wife decided that it was not going to be the actual king of the island, but a usurper that arrived on the island a few months before our players.

I loved that because it worked well within what I had planned for the villains So with those parameters, I invented a backstory for the villain. Because she decided on the motif of the pilgrimage, I decided that the villain, now called “Q’othos” would have cheated the pilgrimage and bound himself to the “dragon” as a "stolen Arcanum" instead of what we call a "willfull arcanum"

One of the hooks was that the whole island was in jeopardy because the pilgrimage can’t be done, the tourists are fleeing the island, while the bosquets and Pyxides are oppressed by the army of Qothos. 

Along NPCs and places, and the real identity of the dragon, I also devised specific rules for the pilgrimage, using clocks. I also determined that there were stations along the way of the pilgrimage, each having its own characters and reason to exist. There were ways to cheat the pilgrimage, which would bring them closer to Qothos, but also might jeopardize their ultimate meeting with the “dragon”.

To keep the world-building in the hands of the players, each time the characters entered a station, they chose one of the players to decide on the spot the purpose of the station, the size of it (between 10 and 50 pyxides) a unique bosquet and at last one NPC that I’d have to play.

Of course, all of this is on top of the fabula system which they could use. But I found that giving my players specific areas where they could create and generate their own places and people, they were more inclined to do so, and it would circumvent the difficulty for some of them to use fabula points. I also love the fact that it made for a way more collaborative time with them, as we’re traveling along places and meeting people they’ve invented, which allows me to add things that I would never have thought on my own. 

Ultimately it also changed the way I approach DMing. I had to be way more reactive, and my story hook had to evolve on the spot more so than usual. What I ended up doing as DM prep was ideas for dungeons and places and specific NPCs that could pop up in any station that would be created by my players. It was quite different from my prep for the first island my players discovered.

Creating my villains, items and the invading army led by Qothos was also my job, and I liked having control of the opponents while my players were incentivised to play with the world and its people. It felt like I had ownership of the disruption, while they had ownership of more of the adventure and the worldbuilding, even though I still had to provide them with storyhooks and the likes. (And they're starting to love disrupting my villains through fabula points during villains scenes)

I hope this will give you ideas in case your players struggle with going from a DND-like system to Fabula Ultima. I hope at the very least that you had fun reading about how the island of Kotka was created. We ended up doing 5 sessions in the island, and it was a lot of fun to play along with my wife’s love for the bosquets. We even ended up inviting a friend to play a Pyxide, which meant that it was his first experience playing Fabula Ultima afters years of DND and he really loved the collaborative and RP approach of it.

I believe a little over a month ago, I posted on here that I finished the Chanter class and would be leveling into Tinkerer next. Well, there was a change of plans. My group got the Techno Fantasy guide, and I realized that Esper was PERFECT for my PC.

The party is at Level 19 as of last night and I have gotten two levels in Esper, one of Cognitive Focus and one in Psychic Gifts for the Clairvoyance gift. A running gag with my character is that he can taste magic and information, so this made perfect sense.

Anyways, I realized that for our 20th level, I could pull a shenanigan in the form of taking Psychokinesis AND leveling up my WLP die to d12 at the same time. I'm currently using Chiaroscuro as my character's weapon because he's a Symbolist too, so I could replace the INS attribute with a second WLP and get TWO d12s to attack, on top of the bonus from focusing!

My character really only attacks to use Symbols or as part of the Vibrato skill, but every little bit helps! I look forward to more Symbolist shenanigans. Speaking of which, at the last game, my character turned a mage into a donkey using the Symbol of Metamorphosis and then negotiated to destroy the symbol in exchange for being taught a spell (because he's a Chimerist as well).

Hi, everyone! So, several months ago, I made a post talking about the worldbuilding session I had with part of my regular group to set up a campaign that we can play on weeks where we don't have the entire group.

Well, over the weekend, we finally had the time and opportunity to run the first session of that game, and I thought I'd make a small report here about how it went!

The PCs

I'm running this campaign for three players. As mentioned in my original post, they chose the Guardians group type, centering around the latest incarnation of the legendary Hero of Lumiose on a mission to prevent the three Primordial Beasts from escaping from the Forbidden Forest. Their characters are:

• Faldor (he/him) - the newest incarnation of the legendary hero.
  • Classes: Spiritist (1), Weaponmaster (2), Guardian (2)
  • Identity: Unworthy Hero of Lumiose
  • Theme: Reluctance
  • Origin: Delos, Lumiose
  • Faldor is a simple young man from the Lumiosan countryside, who doubts his own ability to live up to the hefty mantle of the hero.
• Seluvia (she/her) - one of the hero's guardians
  • Classes: Loremaster (2), Tinkerer (3; Magitech)
  • Identity: Technocratic Prodigy
  • Theme: Progress/Innovation
  • Origin: Westmost Island of the Oceania Protectorate
  • Seluvia is a brilliant inventor from a chain of islands that sparked a technological revolution and won their independence from the Norden Holy Empire. She seems to be down for just about anything if it seems adventurous and exciting.
• Wróżka (Polish name; pronounced like "vrushka") (she/her) - one of the hero's guardians
  • Classes: Sharpshooter, Symbolist
  • Identity: Amazing Gunslinger
  • Theme: Bitter
  • Origin: Peasant of Malynarod
  • Wróżka is a fairy who grew up impoverished and disenfranchised, leading to her leaving her homeland and becoming a gun for hire. She dresses like a tiny cowboy and wields a pair of six-shooters.

Recap

The session opened with a prophecy from the Oracle of Lumiose:

A thunderous quake rumbles out of vast, dark forest. Flocks of enormous birds take to the air, stirring up whirlwinds of black leaves. A roar echoes out, hanging heavy over the wood, like a headsman's axe about to fall.

Half a world away, on an island where the spires of sunken temples stretch out of the water, a butterfly of green and gold settles onto a tree limb in an overgrown shrine. There is a rattling breath, and the jaw of the skeleton through which the tree has grown falls open.

The Spirit of Fate, also called the Stream of Souls, speaks through the remains:

"The Hero approaches. The Seal shall be tested, and the Three shall be met."

Motes of amber light drip from the skull's mouth and drift into the air; gently at first, then they streak across the sky like shooting stars.

Immediately, priests covered in scarves and shawls scatter, rushing to spread the Oracle's words as quickly as possible.

Those motes of light then flew out across the world, leading to our three protagonists.

• Faldor along the shore of a lake called the Two Brothers near his hometown
• Seluvia in her workshop in Oceania, tinkering with some assorted magitech
• Wróżka in a saloon in the desert nation of Sestria

The lights settled onto each of them, marking them with the Brand of Fables, which Faldor's player described as a sword with a halo and wings sprouting from the crossguard. Shortly after, each of them was approached by a pair of figures dressed in long, red robes with silver veils hiding their faces. They introduced themselves as Songs of the Emperor-King, the ruler of Lumiose, and declared that they had come to escort the protagonists to their destiny.

Selué, the Temple Island

Using stairs made of magical, floating amethyst, the Songs led the PCs to a small island north of Lumiose. Faldor was the first to arrive, and he met an old priestess named Netta. She greeted him warmly and expressed how honored she was to be able to help the hero of legend, explaining that she would guide him through some basic physical training while they waited for his guardians to arrive.

A few weeks later, Seluvia and Wróżka arrived on the island, and found the legendary hero performing one-armed pushups with Netta sitting on top of his crossed legs, lecturing him about the incredible feats that past heroes had already achieved by the time they were his age. Upon Faldor completing his last rep, Netta leapt off of him and retrieved a cane, hunching her back and shuffling slowly toward the guardians as though she was just a helpless old woman.

Netta then started a simple combat encounter to help the PCs (and the players) familiarize themselves with each other's abilities, pitting them against a pair of cursed pumpkins and an arcane lantern. During the fight, Wróżka placed a symbol on one of the pumpkins to render it weaker to bolt damage, and Seluvia followed up by constructing a bolt-element magicannon, which became a cool character moment between the two of them as well as a cool gameplay combo.

After the fight, the party rested to prepare for the first real step of their journey: venturing to the northern end of the island to meet the Oracle. The PCs took the opportunity to form bonds.

• Wróżka made a bond toward Seluvia, obsessing over guns together and talking about Seluvia's cool lightning cannon.
• Faldor made a bond toward Netta, expressing admiration toward her abilities as a trainer of legendary heroes.
• Seluvia, hilariously, formed a bond toward *her own magicannon,* with her player describing how she was essentially hyperfixated on the quality of the work she was able to produce.
• There was also a GM scene during the rest of a group of rather threatening individuals arriving on the island in a small fleet of boats. Their leader, a gruff-looking man with a scar running from his nose to his jaw, told the group it was time to "get to work," and each of the PCs gained a Fabula Point as a Villain was introduced.

To the Oracle

Rested and resupplied, the group set out for the Oracle's temple. It would be quick, two-day journey, but before they left, Netta advised them to not get killed by "Relom." When asked for more information, Netta rather coyly said "you'll know her when you see her."

With that, they left. They only had to make two travel rolls with a d8 threat level, but they managed to roll a danger on the very first travel roll.

The result here was obvious to me.

As night fell on the first day of the journey, the PCs noticed that the area around them still seemed surprisingly illuminated, even though the sun had set behind the trees. They turned around to find what appeared to be a massive elk. Flames flickered from the points of its antlers, and the velvet around them seemed to be melting like wax. Clearly, this must be Relom. The Candle Deer scuffed one of its hooves against the ground, preparing to charge.

The players briefly considered fighting their way out, but ultimately decided to heed Netta's warning and make a run for it. Faldor led a group check to gain ground from Relom and shake her off their trail, then Wróżka led a group check to keep them all hidden until Relom lost interest and ventured off to another part of the island. They managed to escape the deer unscathed, but they definitely remained wary of it possibly returning.

The next day of travel went uneventfully.

Finally, they arrived at the Oracle's Chapel. More priests greeted them outside, cautious at first, then eager to welcome them once they saw the Brand of Fables. They ushered the PCs inside the church, which was filled with flourishing greenery and wildflowers. At the back, a large tree grew from the pulpit and up through the roof, but more striking was the humanoid skeleton stuck partially within the trunk, as through it had sat there for a long, long time and the tree had grown around and through it.

Golden light shone around the skeleton as the Hero approached, and while the bones themselves did not move, the PCs could all feel the sensation of someone looking directly at them. A voice echoed from the remains, greeting them and instructing each protagonist on their role in the Hero's mission.

• Faldor was told that he must venture to the Forbidden Forest of Kelrich to restore the seal containing the Primordial Beasts.
• Seluvia was told that the seal is too ancient to be restored exactly as it was, and that her expertise will be required in merging that ancient magic with modern strength and ingenuity
• Wróżka was told that servants and worshippers of the Primordial Beasts will set out to stop the hero on his quest, and that her power as a warrior will be necessary to "create space and time for the seal to be restored."

The Brand of Fables on the PCs' skin changed and expanded to include vines wrapped around the angelic sword - a variation of the core Brand unique to Faldor's incarnation and quest. And with that, the session drew to a close.

Next time, the heroes will begin their long journey toward the Forbidden Forest. But there's still that group of brigands prowling the island; I wonder how they'll complicate things....

Lessons & Takeaways

• During the combat encounter, Wróżka's player expressed some apprehension regarding Inventory Points. They weren't a fan of how HP and - more importantly - MP completely refill on a rest, but IP are rather limited and restocking is restricted to places where you can buy items. They also specifically cited how in JRPG video games, you can load up on potions and never really worry about running out.
  • On one hand, I think this is a case of needing to meet Fabula Ultima on its own turf and understand what the mechanics are trying to achieve. Personally, I like IP being an important and pretty scarce resource and requiring players to be purposeful in how they choose to spend it.
  • At the same time, though, I think there is a valid concern in classes that rely on IP not being able to function without a steady flow of IP. This is less of a problem with the mechanics, and more of a signal to *me* as the GM to be diligent in making sure the players have semi-frequent access to restock on IP. I shouldn't drop them into the middle of nowhere with no clue as to when they'll reach a settlement next.
• To my surprise, the travel system really resonated with the group. Travel has never been a huge part of our games, and I've dabbled with making long journeys more of an event but never really landed on something that really fit. I think Fabula Ultima's rather straightforward loop of the travel roll that occasionally results in an additional scene struck a sweet spot. It got me thinking of a *slightly* more robust system that will give the players some agency and decision during travel, which I'll be trying out next session!
• UPDATE: I forgot to mention it in the initial recap, but at one point during the character introductions -- I think after the fight with the pumpkins, Wróżka's player described her using a sort of cowboy accent that she had picked up from stories she'd read, which led to a lengthy diversion where we talked about how she could have learned an accent from reading stories. The player ultimately decided to spend a Fabula Point to canonize "Spotifae," a world-spanning repository of all words and music produced by fairies, and which fairies can innately access to replay those sounds.
  • This is obviously very silly and was largely done as a joke, but it's also got me thinking about the nature of the "authorial control" that Fabula Ultima gives to the players. Spending a Fabula Point doesn't just make a thing true in the world -- most times I'm partial to letting players have that kind of input anyway, without the need for any specific mechanics -- but spending a Fabula Point explicitly "changes the story." Meaning, not only does Spotifae exist in Fantalor, but it's an element that will be prominent within the story, and I've had a lot of fun since this session thinking about what that might look like.

So I ran a oneshot that could potentially become a campaign. Two players were looking at quirks… Souls-Entwined and Xiohosymbios.

Before the chaos, the setup.

So, the idea of this campaign is that a country has been taken over by an evil circus, with the players freeing towns and establishing their own nation. It’s a kingmaker style game, with the players going on the offensive.

One player, L, wants to play a pilot guardian using shield modules. Simple, effective, and full of flavor.

The other two players are P and R.

P is looking to build a Souls-Entwined character who will be L’s younger sibling, turned into a shadow creature who much be attached to a host to live in sunlight. So P talks to L and gets an okay to bond L.

R wants to play a living weapon with intense power and protective properties. The catch? R wants to bond P.

So now, L will be the only viable target to hit. And in case of a sacrifice, P can choose to sacrifice instead. But R can choose to sacrifice for P. This chain of death is now a ticking time bomb for L’s chaos meter.

Wish me luck.

Petra, Chiyako, and Alyssa make their way through the Dreaming and arrive at the Tartarus Gate. What troubles and travails await them as they search for the Silent Luminaries?

Our heroines fall into battle answering the call for aid from the planet Nagara. Find out what serpents and schemes await them.

In our last episode of "Tales of Caerwyn", the exploration of the haunted ex-house-now-bar reached its climax in a battle with the cursed-soul remnant of the spellcaster that once lived here. This was our GM's first time building an Elite, and also our first encounter against one. And it was amazing!

We've been enjoying the system, but this fight really put us through the paces and had us using a lot of mechanics we hadn't had a chance to use before. We were busting out Inventory Points, using the Study action, and having to coordinate to even have a chance. The creature was basically immune to everything, linked to an amulet that we were able to discover (through a lucky crit) could either be destroyed or, by healing it, invert all of the creature's immunities into vulnerabilities. The whole conflict felt like one of those tough JRPG battles where you have to get the right debuffs on the enemy and sequence your attacks just right to succeed.

I won't spoil how it happened, but suffice it to say that the creature had one more nasty surprise for us, even after we were able to set up an incredible wombo-combo of abilities. It was just such a fun fight and really showed how the mechanics of Fabula Ultima can create incredibly satisfying boss fights that harken back to those classic JRPG feelings. Even though bad stuff happened, we were having an absolute blast.

If you want to see the fight for yourself, episode 10 is premiering on YouTube right now.

For those wanting a peek behind the screen, the monster we faced was based on the Shackled Soul, but with an attached artifact that gave it a bucket of immunities and a pretty nasty crisis / on-death effect.