Nobilis: The Conclusion

Yesterday was the final session of our Nobilis game! First, some thoughts (and I want to make clear that my problems with this game aren't problems with +Travis as a GM; he's lovely).

So, anyone who's played it or read it knows that Nobilis is weird (and to be clear, we're talking Great White Book here). It's diceless, but there's still a system and it's actually pretty intricate. Not a single word in that book is wasted, and is so different in structure from most RPGs that it takes a bit to get your brain around.

With all of that said, I was expecting it to be a little more like some of the other narrative games I've played, where players take on a bit more of the heavy lifting as far as guiding the action. And that happened, but it did feel like when push came to shove, the characters, despite being gods, weren't as effective or impressive or awesome (in the literal sense) as I was expecting.

Now, that may have been a function of what we were gods of. It's not like we had storms, war, love, and alcohol going on, here. We were the Powers of Blankets, Cephalopods, Independent Film, and Lavender, so it was always going to be subtle. Even so, I kind of felt like the action was a little understated given the game's premise.

That isn't to say it wasn't fun; especially this last session I enjoyed gaming on a more philosophical level. I'm happy, however, to be running Feng Shui on Monday because I do feel like punching some monkeys might be a nice palate cleanser.

Now then! Last time, having split open a goat and discover that we'd smothered a man and a butterfly with a blanket (this game is so goddamn weird), we split up, searching amidst the World Tree for a clue as to where the missing Shard of Rejuvenation might have gotten to.

Woolaroo went to Hell. No, seriously, she went to the Chancel of Indus, and wound up talking to Benjamin Brisco, Power of...Arms Dealers, I think? He wasn't immediately interested in helping (he made her an offer involving blankets and refugees, but she wasn't interested in killing a lot of people), and he suggested she talk with Radix, the Power of Greed.

She found Radix on the roof of the building. He was an immense gold dragon on a pile of riches. Of course, being Greed he wasn't going to do anything for free, but Woolaroo stretched out and covered him, but then retracted so a bit of him was always cold. He agreed to share information in order to have comfort, and told her that the Shard of Rejuvenation was in Ananda's realm.

Countess, meanwhile, swam into the dark, deep places, where the crawling things that predate humanity dwelled. She found a ship swarming with things eating the dead, and inside talked with Captain Barren, with emptiness for eyes and a lamprey's mouth. He directed her to the Power of Regret, who could tell her exactly where the Shard was, though she'd regret asking. The old lady told her, but Countess immediately felt bad for knowing - knowing it would come to naught.

Tommy figured they needed data, so he rode the information streams up to a sea of information, and spoke with the Power of Honesty. Tommy reflected on whether allowing existence to continue would really be the most satisfying conclusion to all of this, but decided that having everything peter out and become nothing was a little Von Triers for his taste. The Power of Honesty then directed him to Cody McAllister, the Power of Big Data, who knew almost everything. Cody told Tommy that the Shard was in the possession of Quisome, the Deceiver, an Excrucian. "Thought we killed that guy," Tommy mused. Cody told him to follow that doubt, it would lead to the Shard.

Isabel, meanwhile, sought out the most lush regions she could and found Sunflower, the Power of Radical Acceptance. She stayed there for a time, being a goat more than anything, realized that there was something the Quisome hadn't thought of in his plan. She couldn't focus on what that was, though, so she just remembered it, and the Familia met back up in Erewhon.

They first checked the realm where they'd killed the man and the butterfly; Tommy felt that the "note in the goat's liver" thing had been a bit too pat to be true. But the Imperator was, in fact, dead - the Familia realized that they killed the Imperator but not the Excrucian (which made Woolaroo feel a little bad). They knew from Radix that the Shard was in the Cityback, so they traveled there through a dressed room at the Gap in Seattle, made their way past roving hordes of shopping carts and mannequins, until they found Quisome himself, sitting outside a 7-11, sipping a cherry Slushee and holding the Shard of Rejuvenation like it was a basketball.

Tommy asked what the budget was like - was this going to be a Matrix-like final battle or more "talk the bad guy down" kind of thing? The bureaucrats of Cityback informed him that it was very much the latter, so they started talking. Quisome figured that by holding this Shard, he could run out the clock; either Lord Entropy would stick to his nature and refuse to concede, and everything would wind down and not rejuvenate, or Entropy would concede, thus going against his nature, and Quisome could destroy him. The Familia tried to talk him out of this, but his hatred for existence was just as endemic to him as, like, being pretentious was to Tommy.

Stuck for ideas, Tommy went into the 7-11 to get a Slushee and wound up talking to Martwon, the young filmmaker he'd met on Erewhon back when all this started. They talked about Ghost Dog and how Forrest Whitaker had gone from taking easy roles as thugs and cops to the much more challenging and nuanced role in Ghost Dog, and talked about how it was sometimes hard to the see the big picture.

Tommy went back out and pursued this line of thought a bit, and then Isabel figured it - and stopped thinking. She went full-on goat. Quisome become disturbed; without thought there was no doubt. Isabel, meanwhile, ate the Shard, and Quisome realized it and hurled his Slushee.

Tommy got in the way and the Slushee started to freeze him, but Woolaroo wrapped herself around him and warmed him up again. Countess grabbed Isabel up in her tentacles and started heading back to Erewhon, and Quisome stomped off into Cityback, confused and annoyed.

The Powers took the Shard into Zhuangzi's Realm and rejuvenated him (and his butterfly), and his Familia headed home, which is just as well, as Hugh tends to attract bears. They returned the Shard to Indra, and she retook her position as the Power of Rejuvenation.

So creation is saved! You're welcome.

Nobilis: Haruspexy

Yesterday was Nobilis! Violence was done to an unblemished goat.

Last time, we ended with the Familia jumping through a portal into a new Chancel. This time, we begin with them hanging off the edge of the world. This Chancel was flat, thin, and round with a hole in the center. Out in the middle of the void was a couch, on which an Asian man was sleeping, a butterfly flitting around his head.

The Nobles found themselves in a deep, dark, wood, and quickly discovered a grizzled man with a huge, fuck-off beard gnawing on a raw salmon. After some initial speculation that he might be the Power of Bears, we learned that his name was Hugh, and he was the Power of Self-Reliance. He wasn't so much interested in helping us save the world ("World that can't save itself ain't worth saving," he grumbled beardily), but was able to point us toward someone who could help us - Tim, the Power of Kites.

(Tommy recognized Hugh as Hugh Glass, but only because he's seen The Revenant.)

Realizing that they needed to get out to a particular star (which was actually a kite), Woolaroo floated up, kite-like, and then extended string that the others could all cling to. She deposited them on a beach, with hundreds of people flying kites. A surfer dude directed them to the end of the beach, where Tim, a young boy, was flying a blue diamond kite.

Tim was much more receptive to the idea of saving the world (the fact that there would be no more kites just wrecked him), and he agreed to turn his impressive reconnaissance ability to the task. He looked through all the kites, and said that the Shard of Rejuvenation had gone through the next domain over, that of Lu Bon. The Familia thanked him and charged ahead, emerging in a land of stone houses and people doing crafts - making wheels, pottery, and so forth.

Asking around, the Familia found Lu Bon, the Power of Obsolete Crafts. He said that the silk yield had been abnormally high, and the Familia tracked the Shard of Rejuvenation that way - the Excrucian carrying it had moved through the forest toward a land dotted with altars, the domain of Corban, the Power of Sacrifice. This, in a bit of foreshadowing, made Isabel very nervous. People sacrifice goats, after all.

The Familia trudged there, sacrificing time and energy to arrive, and saw Corban slicing the throats of a host of folks and shoving them down a cliff. The Powers spoke with him, and while he was disturbed by the idea of the Shard of Rejuvenation being removed, he wasn't interested (or able?) to help without a sacrifice.

Each of the Familia gave something up: the Countess gave up the White Whale, the great beast she'd been keeping alive because she hated it so. It died, and sank to the bottom of the ocean, happy to be free. Tommy gave up Carlos Gallardo, an actor that he'd Anchored to (Gallardo was the star of El Mariachi, if you're interested). Gallardo died on the set of a new movie, falling out a window doing a stunt, and never got his big break or comeback. Woolaroo gave up Mary Margaret, an old woman she'd Anchored herself to, and Mary Margaret died of a stroke, a blanket falling over her face. Isabel, after some complaining (she wasn't cool with sacrificing something with will and a soul, since she felt it wasn't her place to do), gave up her Bond to Provence. The bees that pollinate the lavender died off, and she ceded the land to the Power of Pesticides.

Drinking in these sacrifices, Corban tracked down the Shard, and found it...in the butterfly ("I fucking knew it," said Tommy. "First thing you see, you know it's gonna be relevant later in the act"). The man and the butterfly, Corban explained, were the Imperator in this Chancel - the man dreaming he is a butterfly, the butterfly dreaming he's a man.

The Familia talked about potential solutions, but part of the problem was that they weren't sure of the scope of the problem - was the Imperator dead, possessed, sleeping, what? And where was the Shard? Tommy pointed out that his Gift of Cogent Exposition would help, but he wasn't going to just pull out a phone and turned on the radio; that wouldn't make any sense at all. Woolaroo suggested haruspexy (that is, reading the entrails) and Corban zeroed in on Isabel (she was "unblemished", after all). Isabel wasn't really on board with having her entrails read; Tommy offered, but Corban said that he wasn't really a suitable sacrifice (blemished, I guess). Isabel agreed, but grudgingly.

Corban opened her up and pulled out her liver, and inside was a scroll of paper that revealed that the Imperator had, in fact, been destroyed. Isabel pulled herself together (she's a Power, it'll take more than a ripped-out liver to hurt her), while Woolaroo projected herself across the abyss. As she did, the thought occurred - was she the threads, or the space between them? What was truth but a framework of lies? She put all this aside and smothered the man and butterfly, and returned to the Familia.

This, of course, left Corban, Tim, Hugh, and Lu Bon without an Imperator, so the Familia performed the Rite of Rescue, adopting them into their Chancel. They reappeared in Erehwon Island, and Isabel, still hurt that we'd used her for haruspexy, stomped off with her daughter.

We still have to find the Shard, however.

Nobilis!

Saturday was Nobilis, and I really should have done the write-up that day, but I didn't, because I'm not a smart man.

Anydangway, last time we ended having learned that Norton, our lighthouse keeper lunatic buddy, was seemingly responsible for Indra being attacked and her shard being stolen. We tracked the dude down at the lighthouse, and he denied having anything to do with Indra's attack. Tommy used a miracle of Domain to know the truth (kinda like when someone says something in a movie, and someone else says "I believe him" and then that's it, move along, it's established), and confirmed that Norton was telling the truth. But if he hadn't been the one to do, then maybe it had been someone wearing him? Mimicking him?

The Countess recalls that someone had opened the lobster traps, apparently using her Anchor...which she figured was impossible. On that subject, the group got a visit from Zeke Wackum (+Travis if I'm misspelling that, I blame you), the Power of Fisherman, who was very annoyed at the storm that we'd conjured up. He exchanged words with the Countess and then fucked off, and it wasn't until after he'd left that we realized that he might know what the deal was with the Countess' Anchor. She swam after him and negotiated fishing rights to the island (including which species it was OK to fish), and he told her that he'd seen a mimic octopus opening the traps. Countess' Anchor is, indeed, a mimic octopus.

Zeke said that he'd seen the octopus expel ink, and then the ink had taken the shape of the octopus. The Countess zipped back, and we met by the shore, and found something very curious - a turtle shell with burnt flowers.

Now, as you may know, the language of flowers is a big deal in Nobilis. Woolaroo was able to identify this particular Rite as something to do with magic, freedom, and traps. So perhaps something had freed Indra's shard, and then trapped it? But the turtle shell implied that Erehwon Island (resting as it does on the back of a turtle) was involved directly.

The Nobles pooled some points for a rite and started tracing the creator of this turtle-shell thing back. It took us back through the site where Indra was attacked, and then to some rocks. Isabel and Woolaroo followed the trail on, while Tommy and Countess checked the rocks, and found a black-glass dagger with blood (probably Indra's) on it. This, then, was the weapon used to cut out her shard. Ick.

Woolaroo and Isabel followed the trail to the weaver's hut, where folks were making blankets and suchlike. Woolaroo talked to a young man who'd been there making a carpet (weird), and used her power to see threads connecting him...and indeed, he had multiple faces (some of which looked familiar) connected to him. Tommy and Countess arrived as the others were interrogating the guy, and when called out for his involvement, he reached into his coat.

Whereupon, Isabel head-butted him through the wall.

Mortally wounded, the man managed to gasp out "the testa inversa is going to destroy this place" before expiring. The thing he'd been reaching for was a small turtle shell, with more burnt flowers. "Testa inversa" was an inverted turtle - some kind of dark reflection of the our Imperator?

Since our research led us to believe that Indra's Shard hadn't left the island, perhaps it went through the weird portal, the one that we don't know where it goes?

Only one way to find out. Next time.

Nobilis: Head Squids

I took a bunch of notes on my character sheet, but then +Travis collected them, so let's see how far I get on memory alone! Here are the characters, BTW.

Beginning on Erehwon Island: Woolaroo is with the weavers as they make new blankets. Isabel is teaching baby goats parkour. Tommy is at the local coffee shop, chatting with folks about movies. The Countess is out in the water, doing politics. Seems that the squids, which give up ink for squid-ink pasta, are tired of being milked like cattle, and the crabs have been encouraging them. The Countess is looking at a crustacean uprising, here, and that's unlikely to end well. She encourages her Anchor, Bon-bon the Nautilus, to lure the crabs towards traps, seeking to drive a wedge between the cephalopods and the crustaceans (it's always about the sea life with this group).

The characters are interrupted in their dealings by a knock - someone from Epicura, the Chancel next door, as it were, is wanting to come in. The Powers assemble by the door (in an old shed), and find the Power of Rejuvenation, Dr. Indra, asking permission to enter. She's here to make the milk sweeter and the lavender fresher, and the Powers happily allow her in. She goes about her business.

But just then, the lighthouse flicks on. Norton, the one-time Emperor of the United States and now the lighthouse-keeper on Erehwon, was signaling trouble. The Powers zip up to the lighthouse (Tommy complaining that they couldn't just cut away to them all being at the top, but no, they had to take the stairs). Norton indicates that a ship off the coast was laying in crab traps, which was going to screw with the delicate political situation. The Powers decide to drive away the ship, so Woolaroo (as Realm's Heart) calls up a storm, to which the others contribute. The boat flees, but the rain continues, driving down upon the town and stranding folks. The Powers figure that's fine; people will stay at the B&Bs on the island and spend some more money.

Woolaroo takes it upon herself to visit Epicura, and specifically the Power of Complementarity, named Pedro. They visit a bit, she invites him to drop by Erehwon, and she moves to leave.

Tommy, meanwhile, is back in the coffee shop, setting up a movie night. He notices a young man looking at some footage on his laptop, and strikes up a conversation. Turns out the man, LaTwon, is a military vet seeking to assemble footage he's been shooting across the country into a documentary about "real America." Tommy encourages him, and reminds him that perfect is the enemy of done. LaTwon agrees, and mentions that he met a man named Wes Williams out in L.A. who might be able to help him out.

Tommy grits his teeth; Wes Williams is the Power of Indie Film. There's a difference between "indie" and "independent," and the difference is artistic integrity.

Isabel and the Countess, after some time, decide they should check in on Dr. Indra, just to see if she's still on the island. They track down her Spark, but realize it's...gone. They follow the trail of fresh lavender and find her body splayed out in a field, alive, bleeding but un-Enobled. And that's not possible, because the only way to lose one's Power is to die. They rush her to the clinic, and try and contact Woolaroo and Tommy.

Woolaroo, though, has troubles of her own. As she's headed back toward the portal, she finds the ground becoming thorny and moths surrounding her. The Powers of Epicura - The Pack, the Power of Dogs; Louis, the Power of Confection; the Dude, the Power of Neglect; and Pedro surround her. It seems that Indra has vanished, her Spark seemingly gone, and the Powers of Epicura hold Erehwon responsible. "One of yours for one of ours," Louis says Frenchly.

Woolaroo pulls loose and flutters in the wind, not willing to be anyone's prisoner.

Meanwhile, back at the clinic, Isabel and Countess ask about what happened, but Indra doesn't really remember. She just knows she can't feel her Spark anywhere. Tommy arrives with a sprig of lavender, and waves it under her nose to induce a flashback scene (common trope in independent film), but bumps up against magical defense (big long word, begins with an A, can't be fucked to get up and grab my book). Countess asks if he can just turn on the TV and get info that way (Tommy has a Gift that lets him take advantage of the "TV is showing exactly what we need to know" trope), but Tommy refuses; he can't just do that with no reason to turn on the TV, it needs to happen organically. Remember, he has artistic integrity. He heads for the coffee shop.

Woolaroo, meanwhile, sends the others a message by rearranging threads on a blanket, which appears on the hospital blanket covering Indra. They explain the situation to the blanket (which Woolaroo relates), and Woolaroo digs into the Realm for information. Meanwhile, Tommy arrives at the coffee shop and talks with LaTwon. He buys the young filmmaker a sandwich and turns his computer away ("you gotta remember to eat, man"), but hits play and watches his footage. And low and behold, there's something useful there.

The footage shows Indra walking in a field. She collapses, and the last thing she sees is...Norton.

Next time, we'll perhaps find out why our emperor buddy has betrayed us.

The Power of Blankets Compels You

So today, we made characters for +Travis's game of Nobilis. We're playing the 2nd Edition - that is, the Great White Book - which made some interesting moments during character creation as we worked to understand the prose.

But we're playing this game for a reason: We've got a table full of people who do the weird stuff, as it were. We didn't actually play today, just did chargen, but here's the characters:

• +Michelle is Woolaroo, the Power of Blankets. She (it?) started life as a blanket, made by a grandmother for a grandchild, and was passed down through the family...but then was used to smother someone and was Ennobled shortly thereafter. 
• +Dirty Heart (Sarah) is Isabel, the Power of Lavender. She was a goat. Yep, a goat. She lived near a little patch of lavender, and liked to eat it, roll in it, nestle in it, etc. That was enough to get her Ennobled. 
• +Megan is The Countess, the Power of Cephalopods. She actually started human, and was doing research and discovered the last of the sentient cephalopods. It died, and she became the new Power.
• I'm playing Tommy Edward Barry, Jr., the Power of Independent Film. He was a movie snob, watching a movie during a film festival at 3AM when he was Ennobled. 

We have our Chancel, it's called Erewhon Island, and it's off the Washington coast. It was once home to a Utopian commune, but that kind of fell apart. The people who live there now do have a kind of commune thing going on; they produce lavender and goat's milk products, and there's a burgeoning independent film movement in Seattle that likes to come out to the island and film (it's not crowded, but it's very picturesque). There's a coral reef off the shore; yes, it's too far north for that, but that's not the weirdest thing.

I don't know who our Imperator is yet (Travis is making that up), but we've got a gateway on the island that leads we know not where, so that'll be interesting. And we've got connections to a few other Powers - Woolaroo has a Bond with the Power of Homelessness, and my character's "brother" is the Power of Indie Film (he's the more successful of the two of us, if you count money as success rather than artistic integrity). 

This'll be a monthly game, so it'll be a while before we pick this up, but I'm excited! 

Character Creation: Nobilis

Big white whale, big white book, whatever. 

The Game: Nobilis
The publisher: Hogshead, then Guardians of Order, now Eos.
Degree of familiarity: None. I just finished reading the Great White Book, and honestly I'm a little intimidated.
Books required: Just the Nobilis book. I'd smoke some weed before doing this if I had any.

HA HA! Another funny joke! Like the bodies one! Please don't shoot me, DEA!

 
Nobilis is a fantastic game. By that I mean, you read it and you have the same reaction as, say, Harry Potter on his first trip down Diagon Alley. OMG. It's so amazingly literate. The sidebar quotes quite literally gave me chills on a lot of occasions, and they're apparently all written for the book, rather than snagged from pop culture the way WW used to do it. And quite apart from playing starting characters that suck ass (D&D, In Nomine, the list goes on), you're playing the metaphysical incarnation of anything you want.

At least, I think you are. And that's the thing - it's a rich game. Rich like the RPG equivalent of Van Gogh's Bad Cafe (awesome book, you should read it, but it's not light reading, IMO). It's high concept stuff, and I honestly have a little trouble imagining how it would play out. And, I'm not too proud to admit that after reading it, I'm still a little fuzzy on exactly what the heck is going on. I suspect that the best way to approach this would be to just play the game as written and not sweat the hidden, symbolic stuff, because on its face, it started to make sense a few times. (Doesn't help that I read the book in spurts over the course of a month.)

With all that in mind, let's get to it. I'm creating a Noble, a human being empowered by an Imperator. Now, normally I'd make a character with the other players, and we'd probably all play characters enNobled by the same being, but, again, it's just me. Fortunately, I've got a concept.

He's got many names, but for now, call him "Riz." It's short for "risible," which is something that makes you smile, which is appropriate, because the risorius muscle is the one that makes smiling possible. But he's not the Power of Smiles or anything. Riz is the Power of Cognitive Dissonance. That, by the way, is the process by which someone who knows stealing to be wrong can still do it, whether it's downloading a movie off a torrent site or walking out of a store with a DVD in his pocket. That's the method by which a man who loves his family can still cheat on his wife. Or, for that matter, how someone who claims to be a fundamentalist Christian can ignore every part of the Bible that asks her to give up money to the poor when asked (and thus walk right by those bums on the sidewalk). Holding two contradictory views and believing both at the same time. That's the mark of intelligence.

That's Riz's story, and he's sticking to it.

Anyway, let's get started. This is a diceless system, so obviously it's point-buy for the character creation. I have four Attributes: Aspect, Domain, Realm and Spirit. I get 25 points to buy these things up.

I think I want Domain 3. That will allow me to create cognitive dissonance with minimal effort, but more importantly, it allows me to preserve it with no effort. Thus, I can stop people from choosing sides, and keep them acting in opposition to what they know would be the more "moral" thing to do (or, conversely, stop them acting against those morals even when it would be prudent and harmless to do so). That costs me 9 points, and makes Riz the Marquis of Cognitive Dissonance, which is awesome.

Right. Spirit is the other one I want high. In fact, I'll buy it at 4. Yikes. But Riz is definitely strong-willed, and a little vain. That's 12 points, for a total of 21. Yeep.

OK, two left: Realm and Aspect, and only 4 points left. I don't know that I want to try and figure out how to get more points from Hindrances, so I think I'll dump 3 of my points into Aspect. That allows me to do things with no expenditure like computing cube roots, remember my own birth, and catch arrows. That also leaves me with a Realm of 0, but I'm OK with that. I see Riz as a more world-wide kind of Power, anyway.

That leaves me with one more point, but I'll see if I can't find a Gift to buy with it. Let's check. OK, I like Unblemished Guise. I can pretend to be human so well that even I believe it sometimes (though not real strongly, as I can only afford it at one point).

Right, now, Bonds. I get 20 points to divvy up here.

5 points: The Sanctity of Cognitive Dissonance.
3 points: Making sure that humanity doesn't see things in black and white. There must always be variance.
3 points: The Duke of Memory (hi, Stew!). If people couldn't build memory upon memory, they would only be able to react to what was right in front of them, and there's no dissonance there. The Estate of Memory and the Estate of Cognitive Dissonance make each other possible.
2 points: John Givler, pickpocket, shoplifter and generally selfish brat who volunteers at a soup kitchen every week, like clockwork (Anchor)
2 points: Father Tony Giggins, Catholic priest and hardnosed dogmatist. Riz hates him so. (Anchor)
2 points: The Power of Hypocrisy, whoever that might be. Riz doesn't really like her. The whole point of Cognitive Dissonance is to believe both viewpoints, not say one thing and believe another. That's easy.
1 point: His Imperator. He doesn't care enough to admit it, but he cares.
1 point: Mandy Hardman, chronic alcoholic who somehow manages to remain functional (Anchor)
1 point: Will O'Rourke, TV shock jock who loudly champions the need for honesty and impartiality in the media while shilling for his neo-con masters (Anchor)

Hindrances and Affiliations. Well, I have to choose an Affiliation. I could make one up, but really, I like the Code of the Dark. It fits pretty much perfectly with Riz's agenda.

As for Hindrances, I like the Cigarette Bond restriction. Riz has to befriend anyone he sees smoking, but since smokers are often masters at cognitive dissonance (they have to be - it's not like you can not know that cigs will kill you nowadays), he's OK with that. It also means that he can't resist the offer of a smoke. I'll also take Light Touch. That's a bitch - I can't work miracles through my Anchors unless they agree to it - but I'd plan on thoroughly manipulating those guys anyway, to the point that even if they know I'm bad news, they'll let me in, because they also know I'll help them later.

Design. Oy. I'm no artist. For my flowers, I pick Aster, the Flower of Variety, and Amaranth, the Flower of Immutable things. The only immutable thing is variety. The only constant must be constant turmoil. Making a decision in the midst of conflicting fact is the only way a human being can be truly brave, wise, and probably screwed. These two flowers entwine on a spiral background of black and red vines - the colors of the Dark.

Wounds levels. I get 5, which means I get 1 Deadly, 2 Serious and 2 Surface.

And that's pretty much it. I'd note stuff about Chancel and Imperator, but that's group stuff, and I ain't got one.