The Game

FATE is used with permission.

This page presents a simple, extensible game system that implements the Edge of the Sea background, and tries to give advice on running Edge of the Sea as a functional game. The game engine is called FATE, and it is, itself, a dialect of Fudge. Both FATE and Fudge are much larger, more robust games than the specific implementation of them presented here, and they can be tweaked in a number of different ways. If you're interested in finding out more about either one of them, the author strongly suggests that you visit their respective homepages.

Rankings

The basis of comparative abilities in Edge of the Sea is an ordered set of descriptive rankings ranging from Terrible to Legendary, as follows:

Legendary
Superb
Great
Good
Fair
Average
Mediocre
Poor
Terrible

Every rating in the Edge of the Sea game system works on that scale. So a character might have Good fishing skill, or have Mediocre Fire affinity. In addition, tasks are rated the same way – the GM may decide that rowing your boat non-stop for the entire week is a Legendary task.

In certain cases, the GM may want to go over or under the scale. For example, one of the sea serpents of the Boundless Sea, hundreds of feet long, might be strong far beyond the comprehension of humans. In that case, we go to numbers: that Serpent's strength might be noted as Legendary + 7. That just means that its strength is seven virtual (unnamed) levels beyond Legendary. Similarly, such a large serpent might be clumsy when dealing with small human-scale things – it might have a skill called Fine Manipulation at Terrible - 1.

Dice

When a character is attempting a task, particularly under stressful situations (like combat, or trying to swim in stormy conditions), the GM may call for a die roll based on a trait. (For example, your Melee skill in combat, or your Swim skill in that stormy sea).

You'll need two ordinary (six-sided) dice, that you can distinguish from one another – for example, one white and one black die. Choose one of them to be the positive die, and the other to be the negative die. Roll them both, and then subtract the negative die from the positive (the result can be zero or a negative number). Then, from a base of your appropriate stat, go that many levels up or down the rating scale. Where you end up determines how well you did at your task.

Example: Trying to swim in a stormy sea. The GM determines that it will take a Great result to stay afloat. Your Swim skill is only Fair. You have a black and a white die, and you decide the black is positive. You roll both dice, and come up with a 4 on the black die and a 2 on the white die. Subtracting the white die from the black die, you get +2. So you step two ranks up the scale, from Fair, past Good, to Great. Your task result is Great. That equals the difficulty the GM set, so you stay up where there's air to breathe! Congratulations.

Example: You're trying to hit an opponent with a knife. Your GM says that based on the other person's Melee skill, you need a Fair result to hit. Your own Melee skill is Fair as well. You roll the dice, and the black die is a 5, but the white die is a 6. Subtracting the white die from the black gives you -1, so you step your skill down one rank, to Average. You miss.

Fudge Points

You'll start off with one or more Fudge points, and can gain more during play. Fudge points are used to modify rolls, add or reduce damage, or take control of the game for a few moments.

Modifying Rolls

You may spend one Fudge Point before making any kind of roll to push the final result up by one rank. For example, if you're rolling under a Fair trait, you could spend one Fudge Point, then roll the dice. If you rolled a -1, your result would normally be Average – but, since you spent the Fudge Point, that would be pushed back up to Fair. You must spend the Fudge Point before rolling, and you may only spend one point per roll.

Adding/Reducing Damage

During combat, after the attacker has successfully hit the defender, the attacker may spend any number of Fudge Points. Each Fudge Point so spent increases his effective attack roll by one rank for damage purposes. Then, after that, the defender may spend any number of Fudge Points to reduce the damage. The defender may spend Fudge Points even if the attacker didn't, and may reduce the damage down to a Scratch, but no further. The attacker does not get another opportunity to add more damage after the defender has reduced it.

Controlling the Game

A player may spend a Fudge Point to control the game world in a minor way – generally to describe a coincidence or lucky circumstance. For example, if you were attacked on a beach, you might spend a Fudge Point to say, "Fortunately, there's a piece of driftwood nearbye that will serve as an effective club," and arm yourself. Or, when meeting a new community, you might say, "The big fellow takes an immediate liking to me." The GM can always overrule the proposed player control (though, if he does, the Fudge Point is not spent), and the player can never control another PC's actions in this way.

Aspects

The FATE system uses Aspects to logically build characters in a step-by-step fashion. An Aspect represents something important about your character, like a major chunk of his life, or some innate, notable feature of him. Sample Aspects might be Citizen of Epokavaa, or Fisherman, or Daydreamer.

Characters in Edge of the Sea are defined by a progression of Aspects in chronological order. For example, if a character was born in Li'i, became a fisher, and then escaped to the Free Islands, where he began to travel as a merchant, he might have the following Aspects: Citizen of Li'i, Fisherman, Merchant.

You don't necessarily have to start with what your character was like in his childhood for his first Aspect. Rather, each Aspect should represent a significant period of time. If your childhood was uneventful, and isn't something you want to draw on, feel free to start your first Aspect at adolesence or later.

You can also have multiple levels of an Aspect. Suppose that you're not just a fisherman, you've been a fisherman for years, and have become very good at it. You might have two or even three Fisherman Aspects.

Characters in Edge of the Sea usually start with five Aspects. Your GM may increase or decrease the amount of Aspects available at the start of character creation to represent the skill level of the characters in his game.

Don't worry if some of your Aspects sound like they're less than complimentary! You'll get an advantage out of your Aspects even if they're something like Coward or Slightly Stupid.

Example: Jeff is creating his character, Bulo. He wants Bulo to be a rough and none-too-pleasant sort, and a Free Islander. Thinking about his Aspects, he decides that Bulo may have become the thug that he is because of a hard childhood, so, for his first Aspect, he chooses Orphan. Jeff figures that Bulo probably was uncomfortable in the community that he grew up in, and left it as soon as he was an adolescent, capable of fending for himself, and started to wander the archipelago on his own. Looking at the Civilization chapter, he sees that there are people called "itinerants" who do exactly that, so he goes with Itinerant, and decides to take that Aspect twice, representing a long and influential stage in Bulo's life. Jeff thinks that after his itinerant stage, Bulo fell in with some truly bad people, pirates and Raiders, and so his next Aspect is Raider. Finally, Jeff decides that Bulo betrayed his erstwhile comrades and set off on his own again, eventually landing with a community that was starting up. Bulo is now a member of the community, but not a very well-liked one – a guy on the fringes. Bulo's final aspect is Deviant. So Bulo's thumbnail description is: Orphan, Itinerant (x2), Raider, and Deviant.

Using Aspects

Aspects can be used as skills or traits, to get rerolls on other skills or traits, or be invoked negatively, to get additional Fudge Points.

Aspects as Skills

Sometimes, you want to do something that isn't obviously covered by your skills, but which is obviously something that anyone who was a fisherman would know how to do – for example, know where in the tide cycle you are. In that case, if you have the Fisher Aspect, you can, with your GM's permission, use it as if it were a skill. If you have one level of the Aspect, you roll at Average. Two? Fair. Three? Good – you get the idea.

The GM is encouraged not to allow people to use their Aspects as substitutes for buying skills. The Fisher Aspect doesn't mean you don't have to buy the Fishing skill. But sometimes, there are little bits of knowledge that would otherwise slip through the cracks, and that's a perfectly good use for an Aspect.

Also, some traits are a little too broad to be done up as skills. For example, you might have the Aspect Bruiser, and use it as a skill for feats of pure strength. Note that you never add Aspects to skills. They aren't attributes. They fill in the gaps around skills.

Aspects to Reroll

The most common use of Aspects will be using them to reroll failed skill tests. If you've just failed a critical skill roll, and you have an Aspect which obviously covers the situation you made the skill roll again, you can "check off" your Aspect and retake your skill roll. The better result carries, even if the latter is worse than the first one.

You can only use each of your Aspects once per game session to reroll. So, if you have, say, one Aspect in Boatman, and you're fighting to keep your boat afloat during a hurricane, you can check off the Aspect to reroll your Boating skill once. But if you need it again, too bad. However, if you had two Aspects in Boatman, you could reroll twice – either two different rolls, or one roll twice.

As always, the GM has the final say as to whether a given Aspect is appropriate to give a reroll in a given situation.

Negative Aspect Invocations

Remember how we said that seemingly bad Aspects were also useful? Here's how it works. Sometimes, the GM (or the player, with the GM's consent) can negatively invoke the character's Aspects. For example, if you have the Stupid Aspect, your GM might rule that you don't make the connection between the guy who killed your baby brother and the mysterious magic user that you just met. In that case, you get Fudge Points equal to the number of levels you have in that Aspect – that's your payoff for having the flaw come up.

If you want to overcome your flaw, you can, instead of receiving Fudge Points, pay them out instead – the same number that you would have received. If you do so, you can ignore the Aspect.

Neither getting Fudge Points for a negative invocation nor spending Fudge Points to overcome a negative invocation counts as "checking off" your Aspect. Remember that even seemingly positive Aspects can sometimes be invoked negatively. For example, if you had the Aspect Thenzan Priest, then the GM might say, "The locals are deeply suspicious of Thenza. They refuse to trade with you."

Skills and Affinities

If Aspects are the big building blocks of a character's life, Skills are the fine details. Sure, you might know that Bulo was a raider – but is he the raider who points his spear at innocents, the raider who navigates them to the next settlement, or the raider who tries to talk his way past xenophobic Free Islanders? Or all of those things, or none?

Each Aspect that the character has contributes four skill ranks to the character's development. Putting one rank into a skill gives you the skill at Average. Two ranks gives you a Fair, three a Good, and so forth. So, one Aspect might give you four Average skills, or two Averages and one Fair, or one Average and one Good, or one Great.

In addition, you can build a single skill across several different Aspects. For example, Bulo might have learned basic boating when he was a child, in his Orphan Aspect – he might have the skill at Average at that time. Then, during Bulo's Itinerant aspect, he might have become better at boating, giving him a Fair skill.

The Pyramid

When you're building your character, you have to respect a "pyramid" scheme for your skills. You can have any number of skills at Average, but for skills ranked Fair and above, you must always have at least one more skill of the rank lower. So, in order to have a skill at Fair, you must have at least two skills at Average. In order to have a skill at Good, you must have at least two skills at Fair, which, in turn, means you must have at least three skills at Average.

The Pyramid scheme represents the broad base of skills that archipelago-dwellers learn. The islands are not a place of dedicated monomaniac specialists – most people can do a broad range of things. It's also a game balance feature.

You can always have a "broader" pyramid than the minimum – for example, if you have one skill at Good, it's perfectly acceptable to have four skills at Fair and six skills at Average. But you couldn't have four skills at Fair without having at least five skills at Average.

Magic

There are two forms of magic in the archipelago: learned, and innate. Learned magic is the art of communing with spirits, and convincing themm to help you out. Innate magic is direct control over one or more of the six elements.

There is an entire chapter devoted to the discussion of magic. In this section, we will only briefly go over how to purchase magical abilities during character creation.

Learned Magic

In general, most skills have a magical component to them. For example, when you take the Fishing skill, you aren't just learning how to bait your lines for different kinds of fish, or how to throw a net. You're also learning what to chant so that spirits don't tangle your lines and steal your bait, and how to ask local spirits to herd fish your way.

For the most part, this kind of learned magic is just subsumed into the skill effects. Don't worry about how it works. In the case of extreme results (very low or very high), the GM might decide to make the success or failure be somehow related to a spirit, with possibly lasting consequences (you might have incurred the wrath of a local spirit by botching up your praises of it, for example). Also, a mythic level of success is possible (if very uncommon) in the archipelago: A truly talented fisherman might literally get every fish within a mile, if he asked the right spirits.

Some people, called "sorcerers," "witches," or "magic users," study a more rareified form of learned magic, in which the magic doesn't supplement a normal skill, but instead is the skill in and of itself. The magic chapter discusses these skills in detail. You purchase them just like a normal, mundane skill – obey all the rules about following the pyramid, for example.

Innate Magic

Everyone in the archipelago has some degree of affinity for each of the six elements, though it might be so small as to be unnoticeable. In general, affinities make tasks that involve the element to a large degree easier – a Water affinity makes it easier to handle a boat, swim, and hold your breath, for example. More rarely, you'll roll the Affinity as if it were a skill to perform some kind of overtly magical result.

Affinities are bought using skill ranks. But keep track of them a little differently. In general, you just keep track of the number of ranks that you have in your Affinity – so, if you bought a Water Affinity at 1, you'd note that down, and sometimes your GM would allow you to add the value of your Affinity (or 1/2 or 1/4 of the value of your Affinity) to the result of a task.

In other cases, you'll directly roll your Affinity as though it were a skill. However, while one rank in a skill gives you an Average rating, one rank in an Affinity gives you a Poor rating. They go up from there just like usual. So, if you had Water 1, and you rolled it directly, you'd roll based off rank Poor. If you had Fire 2, and you rolled it directly, you'd roll based off rank Mediocre.

Affinities are "outside" the pyramid – that is, you don't need to balance them against your skills, and any given Affinity can be as high as you have the ranks for without there having to be other, lower Affinities.

In general, your Affinities are an intrinsic part of you, not a learned skill. Thus, most people will buy their Affinities with their first Aspect, and never be able to raise them. However, you and your GM can discuss whether or not that makes sense for your particular character – it is possible that someone has an Affinity which they have not learned to fully control, and so their effective Affinity-level grows over time. Other, more esoteric possibilities could affect your Affinity levels as well.

Negative Affinities

It is rare, but some people have such a poor affinity for a given element that they are actively incompetent with it. It is possible to take a "Negative Affinity," which gives you a penalty on rolls that relate to that element.

In general, negative affinities should be taken for roleplaying reasons, not for the purposes of min-maxing a character. Thus, while there is certainly no cost for taking a negative Affinity, there is also no benefit for doing so. Some GM's may wish to allow you more positive affinities if you take a negative Affinity.

Broadly speaking, native Islanders never have negative Water affinities (though, as always, PC's may be special cases). Also broadly speaking, negative Affinities never go more than one level (a one rank penalty to the appropriate skills).

Example Skills

There is no "skill list" in Edge of the Sea: if you can think of a skill that seems appropriate to your character, and the GM agrees on it, then you should go ahead and write it down. But some skills are so common that most of the people in any group will have them, and they deserve some special discussion.

The descriptions below mention the "magical components" of skills. This should be understood to mean a learned magic. For example, swimming is a skill that does not involve communing with spirits at all, but it is still helped by a Water affinity.

Melee

Edge of the Sea uses a single melee combat skill for everything from fistfighting to spear fighting. The Melee skill is used for both offense and defense as well. There are a large number of modifiers on your melee skill which are examined in the combat section of this page.

The melee skill does not have a magical component.

Throwing

Throwing is the counterpart skill to "Melee." It covers throwing spears, knives, hatchets, rocks, and anything else, for both accuracy and power. It does not cover archery or other kinds of "launched" missiles, though there is no tradition of bowmanship in the archipelago.

The throwing skill does not have a magical component.

Boating

The Boating skill covers all the common kinds of small boats used in the archipelago. It handles both paddling and sailing for boats that can be crewed by three people or fewer. Larger ships, like the mainland galleys and the few big ships that Epokavaa, Bukomo, and Li'i use, are handled by a different skill, which is very rare for islanders.

In general, someone with the Boating skill will not need to make a roll to get where he's going under good conditions. Boating skill rolls are for surviving under bad conditions, or doing things like racing.

The boating skill has a minor magical component, mostly designed to appease spirits who might try to impede the boat's progress.

Boatmaking

Boatmaking handles both initial construction of a craft and repairing it from the inevitable wear and tear of nautical life. It is a very common skill in the archipelago, where there are few big ports where you could have someone else repair your boat.

Repairing a boat from minor damage generally requires only a Mediocre task. Constructing a serviceable boat is generally a Good task.

Boatmaking has a relatively strong magical component, getting the blessing of local spirits. Repair is much less of a magical process.

Fishing

An un-glamorous but very useful skill, the fishing skill covers net and line fishing, as well as spear-fishing and even barehanded catching. It also carries with it a knowledge of what kinds of fish are edible, which are delicacies, and the most useful ways to catch particular types of fish.

Broadly speaking, a fishing check should be made for each "shift" of fishing – approximately four hours. A Mediocre result will be enough to minimally feed one person for the day, and each two levels above that will feed one more person (so, Fair would feed two (not very well) and Great would feed three (again, not very well). Average would feed only one, but pretty well). It is most efficient to do a combination of line fishing and net fishing from a boat, and the GM may assess penalties if shore fishing or spear fishing is all the fisher has available. However, when looking for specific types of fish, line and net fishing may be ineffective.

You can use your Fishing skill at two ranks below its normal value to throw spears in combat.

Fishing has a minor magical component, mostly getting spirits to leave your bait and lines alone.

Swimming

Even with default (mediocre) Swimming skill, an Islander can swim reasonably well. However, those islanders who spend all day in and out of the water, or who deal with difficult swimming conditions, may become arbitrarily better at it. Swimming is a skill that does not need to be rolled under good conditions – only in bad conditions or competitive situations is a roll necessary.

Swimming has no magical component.

Fetish Creation

Fetishes are objects which draw the attention of local spirits. They are invaluable tools for those rare dedicated magic users who wish to bargain with powerful, intelligent spirits. However, the fetish itself is a purely mundane object – this skill is not in and of itself magical.

For more on fetishes, go to the magic chapter

Commune with Spirits

There are six variations on this skill, one for each element – you might have "Commune with Earth Spirits" at Fair, but "Commune with Fire Spirits" at Great. This is the primary skill for dedicated magic users, and is explored in more detail in the magic chapter.

Experience

As characters are exposed to stressful, interesting situations, they'll naturally mature in certain areas. Like most RPG's, Edge of the Sea features an experience system.

GM's can, to their taste, make the experience system work one of two ways. Either give out an entire Aspect at once, or give out skill ranks, and, once four skill ranks have been given out, have the player retro-fit an Aspect to those ranks. In both cases, the skill pyramid must be maintained at all times.

If you're giving out skill ranks "bare," one every three or four sessions seems relatively appropriate. If you're giving out Aspects, then, 12 to 16 sessions would seem like a natural way to go. However, tailor your experience to your group, and whether you're pushing a short, high-intensity campaign, or a long-term, "natural"-seeming game. There's no magical formula which will work for every gaming group.

Combat

Combat is a major feature in most roleplaying games, and it's a major feature of Edge of the Sea. While serious, to-the-death fights aren't incredibly common in the archipelago, the player characters are likely to be pretty unusual people in dangerous situations, and sometimes, fighting will be the best way out of it.

The secret to making combat an interesting, organic part of your game, rather than a boring exercise in number crunching, is to integrate it into the mood and setting of the game. To that end, before going on to the rules for combat, we'll discuss the nature of fighting in the archipelago.

Background

There are no martial arts schools in the archipelago: no monastic orders, no fencing schools, no archery tutors. There are no recognizeable "styles" of fighting.

That's not to say that there aren't people who are quite good at using force when the situation demands it, but they learned by doing it, by surviving their early fights and learning their lessons through direct experience, or through less-than-lethal brawls. The best warriors in the archipelago, then, don't epitomize a deadly grace – they fight dirty.

Except for the small, generally part-time militaries of the big nations of the archipelago, there are also no people whose profession is fighting. In general, if someone has learned to fight, they probably learned in order to "defend themselves" (remember that the majority of the archipelago is basically lawless). While that's not a big deal in terms of their capability to fight, it's an important viewpoint. The archetypical archipelago dweller may be very capable in combat, but he doesn't view himself as a warrior – he views himself as trying to survive.

Playing Out Combats

Practically speaking, all of the above means that combats in the game should never be portrayed as sterile, mechanical exchanges. Few islanders have the mindset to regard a fight dispassionately and tactically – rather, it's chaotic, frightening and fast-paced.

You should always consider the environment when a fight breaks out. The archipelago offers very few simple, open fields – more commonly, you'll be fighting on a beach, in a jungle, dodging among huts in a village, or even on a boat or while swimming! In any of these locations, your movement is restricted, and you could well trip the moment you stop concentrating on where your feet are. You may have to put a hand down to steady yourself, or scramble over an obstacle. Of course, you can also turn the environement to your advantage, using it to help you defend against a superior opponent, or back a defender into a wall.

The default combat system for Edge of the Sea does not attempt to model every stab of the spear or swing of the axe – rather, the basic unit of combat is a somewhat abstract "exchange," which could be thought of as five to thirty second back-and-forth moment over a transitory goal. Use that to your advantage – if Bulo and Ilam are fighting on an outrigger canoe, and the dice indicate that Bulo gets a momentary advantage, say something like, "Bulo's swings his axe at Ilam, who parries with the oar he's holding, but gets knocked off balance in doing so. Bulo follows up with a shoulder charge that knocks Ilam backward. He trips and falls down into the floor of the canoe." If the next roll indicates that Ilam hurts Bulo, it should be something like, "Bulo raises his axe to bring it down on Ilam, but Ilam swings his oar up and strikes Bulo in the ribs with it. Bulo doubles over and falls out of the canoe into the water." In other words, don't let people get away with just the basic effects of the fight – make it dynamic, make it awkward and surprising.

Don't let people turn it into a long, slow tactical exercise, either. If you're the type who uses maps (or other kinds of representational notations), that's fine, but don't let the players linger over them, trying to find the best move. It's probably best not to try the heavy-handed approach of making people lose actions if they don't decide quickly, but try your best to impress on them that their characters don't have the time or mindset to carefully consider their options, and the players shouldn't either.

Rules

These are Fudge rules for combat in Edge of the Sea. Even if you elect to use a different game system, you may wish to read through this section for ideas as to how to stage your combats.

Exchanges

Rather than breaking combat into relatively equally-lengthed rounds, Edge of the Sea uses the concept of an "exchange." An exchange is the sort of thing that might happen in a single take in a fight scene in a movie – an exchange of several blows, or a slightly longer stunt. It's generally something between 5 and 30 seconds, and it usually comprises multiple actual attacks. Really, an exchange is, "until the situation changes slightly." So, if you're attacking from surprise, a single blow will be the entire exchange (as your opponent now knows somebody is attacking him). If you're going back and forth with your sparring partner on the beach, however, an exchange might last twenty seconds, until one of you lands a kick that sends the other one scrambling backwards several yards to try to recover his balance.

Attack and Defense

Edge of the Sea generally uses a single melee combat skill to represent all armed and unarmed melee combat. There is a seperate throwing skill which generally works the same as the melee combat skill, and your particular game might offer slightly more resolution than that.

To attack someone, you roll your melee skill at a difficulty of your opponent's melee skill. If you roll at least equal to their skill, you've hit them. Both your attack and their defense may be modified by a number of things, including what weapons you're using.

If you elect not to attack at all during a given round, your defense is considered two shifts higher than your melee combat skill, but you may not roll to attack.

If your opponent is unaware of your attack, but is generally mobile, you can attack him as though his melee skill were Terrible. If your opponent is immobile, you may attack him as though his melee skill were Abysmal.

Damage

Compare your melee result to your opponent's defense to determine how hard you hit someone. If you rolled less than your opponent's defense, you missed entirely. Otherwise, compare to this chart.

After determining that they have hit, the attacker may spend any number of Fudge points to increase their result on this chart (treat as though the attacker had hit by one higher rank for each Fudge point so spent). After the attacker has determined how many Fudge points he wishes to spend, the defender may spend any number of Fudge points to reduce the result down the chart in the same manner, to a minimum of "Scratched."

In general, healthy adults have five wound points, though some may have more. (If the GM allows it, you may take an Aspect which can not be used for rerolls or skill use, and instead gives you an extra wound point.)

Weapons

Rather than provide a comprehensive list of weapons, we will be detailing a method of describing weapons via binary traits. In general, you could think of the "default" weapon as not having any traits, so you merely list the ones that do apply. Alternately, you could list every trait, whether it's "default" or not. So, for example, you might list a spear as Long and not mention any such trait for shorter weapons, or you could list clubs, knives, axes, and the like as Short.

Long

(Opposite: Short). A Long weapon can be comfortably be used at opponents who are more than five feet away, but can not be used at opponents who are less than three feet away. If you have a Long weapon, and your opponent has a Short weapon, you attack at +1 until such time as they first succeed in their rolls. After that, they attack at +1 (and you have no bonus), until the next time you succeed in your roles. This represents you fending them off for a while, then them getting in close where your weapon is ineffective, then you pushing them back again. The GM may rule that the bonus/penalty does or does not apply to ther situations.

Clumsy

(Opposite: Martial). A Clumsy weapons is not really meant to be used as a weapon, or is a particularly difficult weapon to master. A clumsy weapon imposes a -1 penalty to attack.

Defensive

(Opposite: Offensive). A Defensive weapon is easy to parry with and/or push the opponent's weapon out of line. Your defense rolls are at +1, or, if you're using a combined attack/defense roll, your roll is considered to be one level higher for the purposes of defense.

Unbalanced

(Opposite: Balanced). An unbalanced weapon has a lot of weight down at the striking end. It's slow and clumsy, but when it hits, it hits big. You take a -1 to attack, but your damage roll is considered to be at +1, instead, if you do hit.

Throwable

(Opposite: Unthrowable). A throwable weapon can be thrown without penalty to attack. A normal weapon takes a -2 penalty to attack if it is thrown.

Controllable

(Opposite: Lethal). A controllable weapon is one that it is relatively easy to use in such a way as to not kill your opponent. You can voluntarily reduce the damage done with a controllable weapon whenever you wish. If you use a lethal weapon, you take a -2 penalty to attack if you want to be able to control the damage.

It is important to note that two weapons which could superficially be described as the same may not have the exact same traits. For example, a small axe might be Throwable, a larger war-axe might be Unbalanced, and an axe intended for chopping wood might be Unbalanced and Clumsy.

In general, some traits are more associated with some weapons, though the GM should make a judgement call in all cases:

• Spears: Often Long and/or Throwable.
• Clubs: Usually Controllable, sometimes Unbalanced and/or Clumsy.
• Knives: Sometimes Throwable or Clumsy.
• Axes: Often Unbalanced, sometimes Throwable or Clumsy.
• Swords: Often Defensive. (Also very rare in the archipelago).
• Rope Weapons: Always Clumsy, often Controllable, Defensive, or Long. Occaisionally Unbalanced.

Unarmed Combat

The inhabitants of the archipelago are not master combatants. They don't practice strange and esoteric martial arts. They are not the kind of people who go up against a sword or an axe bare-handed.

Fighting unarmed gives you a -2 to all rolls. Obviously, if both combatants are unarmed, this cancels out and can be ignored. But if you're fighting unarmed against someone with a weapon, you're at a big disadvantage. This gives you the incentive to scramble over and grab a weapon, even if it's improvised.

Attacking unarmed is considered Controllable, on the bright side.

Example of Combat

Bulo's stated action is to kill Ilam. Ilam after a few quick questions to the GM about what's around, decides to scramble backwards for an oar. Since Ilam is unarmed for the first exchange, his melee skill is penalized by two shifts, down to Average. Bulo's weapon is Unbalanced, so his skill is penalized by one shift, down to Average as well. Ilam doesn't roll any dice this round, as his action will automatically succeed (picking up the oar isn't hard). Bulo rolls his dice and gets a +1 total, shifting him to Fair. That's enough to hit Ilam, whose defense is Average. Now, the positive aspect of Bulo's weapon comes into play – instead of looking at a +1 difference between attack and defense, Bulo looks at a +3 difference, and sees that he has wounded Ilam, causing him a -1 to his next action, and making him mark a wound off his sheet.

The first exchange is over. Ilam, now angry, declares his intent to kill Bulo, and Bulo is still after more of Ilam's blood. The GM rules that Ilam's oar, which is not intended to be used as a weapon, is Clumsy, so his skill is penalized from Good to Fair, and the shock of the wound penalizes him again from Fair to Average. Bulo is still penalized from Fair to Average by his Unbalanced weapon. Bulo rolls, and gets a +0 (Average). Ilam rolls and gets a -1 (Mediocre). Ilam misses entirely, and Bulo is going to do a wound (due to the Unbalanced weapon). Bulo's player, wanting to finish this, pays three Fudge points to bring the total up to 5, which will kill Ilam. Ilam, however, pays four Fudge points to bring the total down to 1, a scratch. As Ilam is the defender, he gets the last say in this.

The second exchange is over. Both characters continue their attacks. Ilam is still at -2, to Average, and Bulo is at -1, to Average. They roll. Bulo rolls -2 (Poor), and misses. Ilam rolls and gets +3 (Great). That's a wound, one point of damage to Bulo and a -1 to his next action.

The third exchange is over. The GM informs Bulo that the metal-headed axe is pulling him down, and will give him a -2 to all rolls in the water unless he drops it. Actions are then declared. Ilam decides to drop the oar and grab a knife, then dive into the water. Bulo has a knife of his own, and he drops his axe and prepares to gut Ilam. There are no die rolls needed this exchange, as nobody's taking a difficult action.

The fourth exchange is over. The GM rules both knives, which are more tools than weapons, to be Clumsy. Ilam and Bulo both attack each other. Ilam's Good skill is penalized to Fair from the Clumsy weapon, and Bulo's Fair skill is penalized to Average. They roll. Bulo rolls +1 (Fair), and scratches Ilam. Ilam rolls a 0 (Fair), and wounds Bulo. Bulo and Ilam both take a -1 next exchange, and Bulo marks off another wound.

The fifth exchange is over. Bulo, who's now worried, decides to take a deep breath and dive far beneath the waves. Ilam wants to give Bulo one to remember him by, but elects not to follow, knowing that Bulo's Water affinity allows him to hold his breath for far longer than Ilam. Ilam rolls, and gets a -1 (Mediocre), which is enough to scratch Bulo, but no more. Bulo rolls his Mediocre Water affinity and gets a +1, which cancels out his -1 wound penalty from last exchange – he can hold his breath for five minutes. He swims deep, and Ilam elects not to follow.

The combat is over, for the time being, and the GM stops the exchange sequence.

Continue on to the magic of the archipelago...

Go back to the index page for Edge of the Sea