I'll do the same as I did before for this, as its also quite long. The intial section on rules changes prior to the game is in a separate thread elsewhere.

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Character Creation:
It was my turn creating a character this week and I was a bit unsure what direction to go in; should I try and create/use one of the example characters from the draft game, or go for a new one. In the end, I sort of went for a third option – attempt to recreate a character from a different game that would actually fit into Fallen.

The character in question is Isabelle Montgomery, my Victorian big game hunter from the Company of Crimson LRP. The Fallen version isn’t exactly the same as the Company one; they’re more cousins ;)

So, once again we started with a period and an idea and worked backwards to the Fall. Issy fell because of her fascination with exploration, discovery and adventure. The setting would be Pulp Victorian Africa (late 19th Century, but not specifying too much). She was found in the bush by tribesmen, alone and confused, in her mid-teens. They took her to the local white missionaries (brother and spinster sister), who adopted her and raised her as a foundling. She lived with them for many years, but was always sneaking off to be with the tribe because their life was far more exciting. When her adopted parents died of malaria, the tribe took her in.

In terms of Ties, I decided on Loyalty (to those she regards as friends and family) and Africa. In terms of Talents, we discussed this a bit and came up with a Unique Talent called “Spirit of Africa” (not completely happy with that name, but it will do for now). This gives her a real feel for the land and the creatures in it, quite literally; she knows before the weather changes, when something bad is coming, above and beyond the normal awareness. In terms of normal talents, we went with Lie of the Land (tribal hunting, tracking and survival skills suitable for the bush; importantly no guns) and Accomplished Young Lady (reading, writing, singing, piano, embroidery; a reflection of her tutelage by the missionaries). At the beginning of the game, she’d be in her early twenties.

…

Rich asked for twenty minutes to come up with a few ideas for the game. We’d already discussed that I was going to bring Issy into the game that morning so he had some ideas, but she’d developed into a somewhat different beast to the one from the Company and he wanted time to rethink. He could see two potential pathways the game could take, so he jotted down a few guiding sentences for himself and sketched a few NFCs. This is what he wrote down:

Scenes:
Awakening – Shamanic ritual.
Scene 1 – Visitors. Explorers retracing steps of previous expedition.
Explorer: Victor Talbot, expedition leader. Brass:14, Explorer. Has maps, notes and an article on what was discovered previously (crystal skull, in the British Museum, discovered in the lost city of Kalukima in 1857 by Thomas Leslie; and he wonders why we tease him constantly about an Indiana Jones obsession).
Scene 2a – Return to the past – old missionary house.
Scene 3a – Camp: Explorers off to find city
Scene 4a – Stampede?
Scene 5a – Jungle perils. Dinosaurs in the jungles?
Scene 6a – The city: traps, perils, crystal skull. Can take the skull or just touching will give starlight.
Alternative path:
Scene 2b – Journey to Britain across Africa
Scene 3b – The sea voyage. Pick pockets, pirates
Scene 4b – London
Scene 5b – The museum

…

Awakening:
Rich asked me what I wanted from the Awakening. I mentioned that some sort of coming of age ritual might spark it (yes, we watch too much Bruce Parry). This was narrated from a very traditional viewpoint, with Rich talking me through what was happening and asking for my reactions. This wasn’t exactly how I’d envisioned Awakenings working, but as Rich was in charge, I went with it. It mostly matched what I would have done (comes of nearly eleven years of marriage, I suspect), but it did feel a little passive.

We talked about this afterwards and it became clear this needed clarification in the written game – the GM (if there is one) and the other players are there to ask questions as the focus character describes what happened, to flesh out the background and give everyone a sense of what is important to the player’s view of their game. That concept was in my head, but not on the paper and that’s exactly why games need to be run by other people.

Issy had her coming of age ritual (a rather mundane affair where she ate some roots from the tree that had been there as long as the tribe, completely non-hallucinogenic, but interestingly had a star painted on her forehead by the tribal shaman as her totem). Having brought some shards of mirror from her previous home (the missionaries house, shut up after they died), she had her Awakening when she saw the star on her forehead. She saw her fall and scatter, but couldn’t see where the bits landed. Then everything went black in the mirror and she went back to partying.

Again, we were going to diverge from the game as written as there was only the two of us and go straight from the Awakening to the game proper. However, the initiation ritual would be a good place to move on to someone else.

The Game:
Scene 1: Visitors.
The morning after the ritual, a time when the tribe would normally be sleeping it off, there was a great buzz of excitement as a large party of white men and native bearers were setting up camp on the edge of the jungle where the tribe lived. Being a friendly and curious tribe, not entirely unused to white people, everyone went to have a look. The visitors were somewhat surprised to see a white woman in Victorian clothing in amongst the tribes-people.

Being able to speak both languages, Issy was asked by the Chief to translate for him and Mr Victor Talbot (the expedition leader) invited the Chief and Issy over for a cup of tea. Bless him, he wasn’t very specific in his request because the whole tribe came over, singing hymns as they came because they knew from experience with the missionaries that singing these odd songs made white people happy.

In the course of conversation, Talbot showed Issy and the Chief what they’d been up to – they’d been to the lost city of Kalukima to see what was left of the fabulous treasures described by Thomas Leslie on his 1857 expedition. He even showed Issy a crumpled newspaper article containing a daguerreotype of Mr Leslie standing next to a crystal skull. Issy could see the paper glowing and knew that it contained her essence. This was a bit confusing to her at first, seeing as she could count only six or so years since she was found, but after the initial shock it dawned on her that it didn’t really matter.

She got a good look at the expedition maps and could feel the route to the lost city (Spirit of Africa success, with the help of Brass). Rich did some lovely descriptive work of how the Talent was working, here and throughout the game.

(On the topic of how people were treating Issy, we came to the agreement that the white explorers were treating her oddly, as you would expect, a white woman living native in the jungle. The tribe’s people were also treating her differently, but in a more “you’re all grown up now” sort of way. Solitude hasn’t done much up to this point, so I suggested that the more you have, the more oddly people treat you as your mopiness starts to bleed into your everyday behaviour.)

Issy had a choice now – go to London and the British Museum and try to obtain the skull there, or walk back in time to get it. In terms of character, the thought of London petrified her. It also presented her with a moral problem; she’d been “raised” by missionaries and considered stealing a great sin, so going to the British Museum for the skull could result in theft, especially as she had no idea how to get the starlight out of the skull (again, we were bringing in the Loyalty Tie as a character trait – she was being loyal to the beliefs of the people who took her in). After a chat with the shaman, who obviously knew what she was, she decided to walk her own path back in time and try to get to the lost city before Leslie and his expedition.

*Issy also talked to the expedition’s hunter, Charlie. He was reading a manual on African animals, but more on that later…

Points taken from this: rerolling tied rolls might get tedious; Rich rolled four in a row at one point. Maybe it needs to err on the side of the player – a tie becomes a minor success. It needs thinking about.