I've recently become enamored with the implied setting of the Cloak-and-Sword system; I love the emphasis on gentility and social interaction over grotty dungeoncrawling that it brings. It's really fascinating! I've been turning over the role of poetics in games recently. With that in mind, and since there's only one other race-as-class (update! there's a second!) for the system, I wanted to throw my own hat into the ring. Credit where credit is due that this is liberally, liberally inspired by this lovely fairy.
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| Hugo Hoppener |
Fay
As the galloping sylphs, undines, gnomes, and salamanders are to the stuff of matter, you are made of the stuff of the emotions of men. A storm of raw moods, whims, and desires, wrapped in a form of face and feet and hands.
Fleur's Dolls
Choose an emotion, the more specific the better.
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| This is a good start, if you can't think of anything else |
This emotion makes up the very essence of your being, and your appearance always wears your heart on your sleeve. If your body is destroyed, you explode from it in a rush of perfumed winds. While your soul is loose, you must always act in accord with your ruling emotion, you are incorporeal, you cannot lift things greater than 5 lbs, and ALL who see your uncovered face hold Esprit for you whether you like it or not. If you are lovely, they will wish to possess you, and if you are fearful, they will wish to bind you.
Children of Clay
Your body is made of the stuff of nature, drawn together into human form. Pick a region. You may look at the overland map for the region, and are aware of all major landmarks and the comings, locations, and goings of all notable personages within it. You may travel at the speed of the wind through your region, and can camouflage so perfectly as to be invisible as long as you are still. Your body is obviously unfleshly, reflecting the environment as well as your ruling emotion, and is either beautiful or terrible. If your body is destroyed, then your soul may sleep beneath the soil for a month and a day to reconstruct it.
L'intrigue
In order to keep a humanlike temperament and form, to be more than a single raw feeling, you MUST keep etiquette. According to ancient compacts with humankind you have authority equal to a viscount, and must show deference to those above you. You must always announce your arrival to a household. You cannot step on holy ground or touch anyone of the cloth. You must always announce before you do violence to someone. You must always say your pleases and thank yous, and give upright apologies. Each time you defy one of these, you lose 1 max hp.
Who Art in Heaven
The touch of worked iron, and the sound of bells, always deal 1 damage to you per round.
Oakwood Green
You can craft the natural stuff of your region into an object of any material and make, spending one hour per slot of bulk. You can even make an animal the size of a horse or smaller with a week of work, though they are always docile. These objects always crumble back into their stuff a day after they leave the hands of you or someone under your Esprit.
Los Estrallas
A twenty-fifth hour exists for you, the witching hour between midnight and one. Living beings become grey and motionless during it, but you're free to roam around during, speaking with the secret councils of ghosts and elementals which creep out. You are unable to interact with living things, or what they possess, except for anything or anyone who is lost.
Tongues
Once a day, you may control your soul slipping out to make all who gaze at you save vs becoming overcome by your ruling emotion. You regain your use upon the coming of the twenty-fifth hour. You cannot use this during the Lord's Day or holy days, and it counts as laying your hands upon those of the cloth for L'intrigue.
Her Masters Voice
Any who consume food or drink made by Oakwood Green fall under your Esprit, and your glamour. They are ruled by your ruling emotion as you are. They must be exorcised, or kept on holy ground until the twenty-fifth hour passes, to be freed.
Mortuary
Anyone who has been dead for a week or less, who is buried in the ground of your region, can be returned by you as a doppelganger. They have the same appearance and memories, but are NOT the same person; the original body still molders in the ground. They are under your Esprit, and ruled by your ruling emotion; they are also deathly afraid of holy places, and harmed by Who Art in Heaven same as you. If you lose your body, then they die; when they die, they crumble back into the stuff of your region.
The Draw Room
If you may, you may choose to bind yourself to a house or other human structure. You are under the Esprit of whomever owns it, but are no longer required to show deference to anyone else. You may do violence surreptitiously and skulk about unannounced. All benefits and effects of Children of Clay now apply to the indoor map, rather than the outdoor map and its domain which was your former remit. You can never go back. If the building burns, so do you.
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