The Game: Inverse World
The Publisher: Liberi Gothica Games
Degree of Familiarity: Very little
Books Required: I think just Inverse World, but I might need to reference Dungeon World
The Publisher: Liberi Gothica Games
Degree of Familiarity: Very little
Books Required: I think just Inverse World, but I might need to reference Dungeon World
As with Scofflaws a few months ago, I opened up my PDF folder for this game and discovered that there are actually two editions and they're sold separately and use different rules sets, meaning that under my self-imposed strictures for this project, I have to do two characters. The other edition uses Fate Accelerated, so at least it's a rules set I enjoy. On we go!
Inverse World is, as the cover up there says, a supplement and setting for Dungeon World (which is itself the PbtA take on D&D). It's a pretty cool setting, though; a world where everything revolves around an imprisoned god and gravity always points towards that being, so which way is "up" and which way is "down" depends very much on your perspective. And as with a lot of PbtA and adjacent games, there's a lot that's left to the table, but there's enough interesting stuff that it holds on its own as a setting (I mean, it's by no means groundbreaking, mind, but it's playable). I've had this game on my shelf for freaking ever and just never bothered with it, but I'm not sure why, I don't dislike Dungeon World. Well, whatever, we're here now. Let's do this thang.
Characters are all technically the same "race," but they vary depending on where they were born in terms of topography - if you're born in the Cloud Sea, you're a merfolk type of thing, if you're born on the Worldcrust you're a stony-ass goblin, and anywhere else you're more or less "human." I don't have a particular opinion on the matter. Actually there's a cool little random island generator, so how about I use that and see where my character is from?
Right, so first we roll for size and shape. We get...tiny, only able to hold a house or two, and it's a pretty standard island shape. So that says to me that my guy's family are loners or outcasts or something, and/or they really consider the "sea" around their island part of their home, which therefore implies my race is Cloud-blessed. Cool, moving on.
We roll to see what the surface is like, and we get "completely urbanized," which is funny for such a small place. But I think that just means that the family home takes up every available inch of space. For fun I'll roll for what's on the underside of the island (which is the part the sun actually touches, because remember the god-cage is below us), and we find it's covered in vines with strange seed pods. Neat! Ooh, maybe we can use them to make chocolate.
I'm gonna skip the Quirks tables, because I feel like there's just not enough room for any of them to make a lot of sense. But I will roll on the island goods table...cloth/silk. Oh, OK, so not chocolate, then. Let's say the seed pods are full of a fluff, kind of like milkweed, that we can spin into fabric.
I'll skip the culture tables, because again, it's just our family. We'll assume that we trade cloth with other, more bigger islands for any necessities that we can't find or grow. But I'll roll on social quirks, though. Rolling a 3 means we have a secret quirk, and rolling a 2 on that table means that the ruling class is happy with the status quo and doesn't like it when people rock the boat. Not really applicable here? Or maybe we'll assume that my character's family is the ruling class by dint of just being the only ones around here, and they've resisted attempts to take seeds and make these plants grow elsewhere, even though they could potentially become very wealthy off of it.
Cool, that's a pretty good jumping off point. Let's move to actual chargen and pick a playbook. Assuming that my character is a scion of this weird little cloth-farming family, I guess his playbook is probably going to be influenced at least in part by his relationship to said family. I think I'll go with Rainlord, that looks pretty cool.
You know, one thing that some PbtA games do that others (like this one) don't, but I wish they all did, is have a little section for each playbook that says "play this if you want to [whatever]." The playbooks in Inverse World are pretty evocative, at least at first blush, but I'm not 100% on what the arc is for all of them. I mean, Captain is pretty obvious, but Rainlord isn't, and a little more guidance would be nice.
Well, anyway, rain in this setting contains messages from the divine (you know, the imprisoned god), and the idea is that a Rainlord is what you get when enough of those messages collects in one place. We'll say that there's a lagoon of "uprain" on the underside of the island. Well, "lagoon" is generous, "pond" might be closer to the truth. Anyway, the youngest child of the family, Mint (it's one of the names given on the playbook and I like it), used to sneak down there and bathe, and over time, he started hearing the rain.
Cool, OK. Let's do look. We'll say Mint has blank eyes, a lithe body, elastic skin, and wears a simple tunic.
Right, stats. (Turns out I do need the Dungeon World book.) This is pretty D&D like. I assign the array (16, 15, 13, 12, 9, 8) and their attendant modifiers to the six standard stats. Guess I better look ahead to my moves real quick and see what I should be good at.
Oh, OK. My body is made of liquid, so the divine rain really did change me. I get to pick the nature of that liquid, which assigns a "Ward" stat, which is what a lot of my playbook moves use. OK, then. Let's say my liquid is...light. I would say shadow, since my pond was hidden beneath the island, but like, that's where the light is. That sets CHA as my Ward stat, which means that's where my 16 should go (I like playing high-Charisma characters anyway). Let's put 15 into Dexterity, 13 into Wisdom, 12 into Constitution, 9 into Intelligence, and 8 into Strength. My base HP is 4, and I get nothing from my CON, so I have 4 HP.
Starting moves...do I have any choices to make here? Nope, they're all based around being all liquidy, cool. The book mentions Aspect moves, but there's nothing on the sheet...oh, wait, that's Liquidity, I did that already. Drive! This replaces Alignment. I think given how bent out of shape my family gets about no one else having access to our plants and their fibers, it's gotta be Blasphemy. I want to spread the plants, because the plants help the rain collect. My god's message will be heard.
Gear and Bonds are the only two things left, but I ain't doing Bonds because I ain't got other players, so Gear it is!
I start with monster feed (but I can eat it so WHAT DOES THAT MAKE MEEEEE SOB anyway). I can have one of three weapons, and frankly I don't love any of them. I think I'll take the collection of knives and say that they're not "knives" per se, but tailoring implements that are sharp and throwable.
And then I get to pick two off a list. I shall take a rain bottle and lightweave armor, worn under my skin (ew).
And that's Mint! Mint is smol and liquidy and lithe. He has various tailor tools stuck into a belt, but really the belt is held in place just under his skin. He wears a tunic not made of his family's cloth, but the armr under it definitely is. He's full of liquid light, which means he faintly glows a lot of the time. I think the brightness is less about emotion (as that seems too obvious), and more about information - when he's learned something interesting, he glows brighter (and with a 9 INT, that'll happen a lot).
That'll do it!
