Yoon-Suin: Lamentations of the Purple Princess

Because I apparently cannot keep myself confined to a single idea, I'm going to be running a casual game for some friends in the tea-soaked, opium-hazed lands of Yoon-Suin. I've owned Yoon-Suin for a while now, and it's one of the few settings that always manages to crawl into the back of my mind when I think about running a game. Something about the ephemeral, nihilistic, amoral decadence of its haunted jungles and flesh-crammed cities sticks in my soul, and now I've got some players who are fully on board with plumbing the depths of this ancient, depraved land.

I've decided to use Lamentations of the Flame Princess to run the game, as it shouldn't require too much conversion from the source book and it's probably the system I'm most familiar with. However that's not to say that the rules will be unedited; the game is going to be run in a casual fashion - the group will only be able to play once every 1-2 months but they should be all-day affairs. As such I want to make sure that characters can be created (and killed off) quickly and easily, that the gameplay supports a mechanism for ending a dungeon delve halfway through due to time constraints, and that the players have downtime options for their characters to keep things ticking over in the time between sessions.

This post is going to act as a hybrid guide/archive of links to other things I'll be writing up for the game. It will be edited and updated as I add to it. Sources will, of course, be credited.

Florian Neven

Character Creation & Basics

1. Roll stats: 3d6 in order. Swap two if desired.
2. Pick a class (warrior, thief, magician, holy man, slug man, crab man, dwarf) and determine starting spells/prayers (if applicable). This also determines your alignment.
3. Roll your background (which gives you some starting gear, some skills and your social position) and determine social standing.
4. Roll your complication (what got you into the adventuring life, something like addictions, debts, enemies etc.).
5. Roll starting cash and determine starting gear.
6. Choose a name and appearance!

Ability Scores
Charisma (CHA)
Gravitas, leadership and magnetism. Used to inspire loyalty in underlings and comrades. 

Constitution (CON)
Hardiness and overall health. Affects your HP total, positively or negatively. 

Dexterity (DEX)
Co-ordination and speed. Affects your AC total, ranged attack modifier.
  
Intelligence (INT)
In-world knowledge and mental fortitude. Affects your Languages skill and saves vs Magic.

Strength (STR)
Brawn and muscle. Affects your melee attack modifier and your d6 target to break open doors etc. 

Wisdom (WIS)
Divine favour and luck. Affects all other saves. 


Class
Next, choose your class and rolls your starting HP. Below are some brief details on each one, but I'll be writing a more in-depth post soon. Each class is designed to have a specific focus:

• Warrior: you're good at killing things, you can choose weapon specialisations to improve your kill-iness.
• Thief: you know a lot, you're the only class that gets reliable skill bonuses, allowing you to interact with lots of different things.
• Magician: you have breached the veils of the arcane and can cast arcane spells, you can also create magic items with enough resources.
• Holy Man: the gods favour you strongly, you can cast divine prayers and can also create divine items with enough resources.
• Dwarf: your masked people are a remnant of their former glory, but you are skilled in battle and you know the underworld well.
• Slug-Man: you sit at the top of the Yellow City's decadent hierarchy, and you know a spell or two.
• Crab-Man: you are a slave, but you are mighty and your shell is as strong as steel.

Saves
Saves relabelled as follows (with thanks to James Young):

• Paralyse to Stun - movement-based effects.
• Poison to Doom - effects that bypass HP damage, like poison.
• Breath to Blast - Area of Effect attacks.
• Magic - remains as-is, used for saving against... Well, magic. Includes magic items, divine and supernatural powers.
• Magical Device to Luck - when none of the above apply.

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Skills

LotFP stock skills reorganised into the following:

1. Animal Handling (used to train, command, and ride animals)
2. Arcana (used to identify magical items and spells)
3. Appraise (used to assess an item's value before selling it)
4. Backstab (used when attacking flanked or surprised enemies)
5. Bushcraft (used to find food and shelter in the wild, and for hunting/tracking)
6. Climbing (used when climbing things in difficult circumstances)
7. Languages (used when first encountering a new language to see if it is known)
8. Medicine (used in first aid, long-term care and identifying diseases)
9. Sailing (used when piloting watercraft in difficult circumstances)
10. Sleight of Hand (used when picking pockets, fast reloading etc.)
11. Stealth (used to stay hidden and silent)
12. Tinkering (used when interacting with machinery and mechanisms)

Thieves are skill-specialists and receive skill points when levelling up, but each character gets a few skill points from their background.

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Combat

Time
Each Round represents about 1 minute of time passing. Each Turn is 10 Rounds, or 10 minutes. 


Initiative
Decided on party basis - each side rolls 1d6 and the winner goes first. Re-rolled in subsequent Rounds. 


Actions
You can move (up to your distance rating) and make an action (an attack, using an item, casting a spell etc.) in a single Round. Alternatively, you can move twice.

You can also take a few minor actions (dropping something, falling prone etc.) on your turn, within reason, and as many free actions as you like (shouting something, looking round etc.).


Dual Wielding
On a hit, roll damage for both weapons and use the higher result.


Parry
You can Parry as a reaction to being attacked, which increases your AC by +4 but takes up your next Round.


Ammunition
50% of spent ammunition can be recovered intact after a battle. 


Magic
Casters must declare they are casting a spell before initiative is rolled. If they suffer damage before unleashing the spell then they must save vs Magic or the spell escapes them and is wasted. They can still act normally if this occurs. A critical failure on the save will result in a Thaumaturgic Revelation or an Arcane Cascade, depending on the type of spell cast. 


Critical Success/Failures
Natural 20s are critical successes, natural 1s are critical failures. Critical successes in combat do maximum damage (with a potentially gory finish) and critical failures damage your equipment. If an enemy gets a critical success against you, it damages your equipment; if an enemy rolls a critical failure in melee you can make an immediate counter-attack.

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Health & Damage

HP
Hit Points are a buffer that prevents real damage. Once you reach 0HP you start accruing Wounds. 


Wounds
Wounds are serious injuries that have lasting effects and a set time to heal. Once you reach a certain point on the Wounds track, you die. Some deaths are lingering and can be avoided with treatment and luck, but some are instant. 


Shock
Some Wounds cause your character to suffer ongoing damage. For each point of Shock you have, your character moves an equivalent number of spaces up the Shock track at the end of the Round and immediately suffers the effects. A successful Medicine check from another character removes Shock and moves you back down the Shock track equal to the margin of success, to a minimum of 1. 


Healing HP
You can heal 1d8+CON HP by having an hour's break for lunch, provided you have a fire, food and water (courtesy of Arnold K.'s GLOG). A night's rest with a meal, campfire and shelter (a bedroll at minimum, a tent if the weather is bad) restores all HP, otherwise it counts the same as lunch. 


Healing Wounds
You need bed rest/light duties to recover from Wounds. Each wound has a duration in days (affected by your CON) that it takes to heal. Once per week, while getting bed rest in comfortable surroundings, you can be treated by another character with the Medicine skill. Success means your recovery is sped up by 1d6 days. Failure means that some element of your Wound becomes permanent due to the physician's incompetence. 


Poison
Some creatures can poison you. Like Shock this builds up over time but is tracked every Turn instead of every Round. The Medicine skill can't help you here, but save vs Doom each Turn - on a success you lose a point of Poison and decrease 1d6+CON spaces on the Poison track.


Disease
Diseases also use a track system. Disease is tracked in days instead of Round and Turns. Make a save vs Doom (affected by your CON) once per day - a successful Medicine check provides a 1d4 bonus - on a success you lose a point of Disease and gain a 1d4 bonus on your next save. As diseases often take longer to develop their tracks are often unique, so each plague brings different hazards.


Ability Damage & XP Drain
Some monsters (and other things) can directly damage your stats, you die if any are reduced to 0. Damaged Ability Scores regenerate at a rate of 1 per day if you are active, or 1d6 per day if you rest.

Really dangerous supernatural creatures can drain your XP (they suck the life and vitality right out of you) and cause you to lose levels if enough is drained. If you lose a level due to XP Drain your character immediately ages 2d10 years, and can take penalties due to advanced age. XP Drain cannot be reversed, save by powerful magic or artefacts, but you continue to gain XP as normal from your new total.


Magical Healing
Both arcane and divine magic can provide healing. HP is restored first, then start knocking off recovery days. Save vs Luck when your Wounds are healed - if you pass then you can be healed again the next day, otherwise you require a week's rest as the magical energies sap your strength. Certain spells can also cure Poison or Disease.

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Magic

Starting Spells
Magicians start play knowing 3 random spells, rolled randomly from the Level-less Spell List. Holy-(wo)men start play knowing 3 random prayers rolled up using Maze Rats' spell generator from aspects of their deity. These are recorded in a spellbook or book of prayer.


Prepared Spells
After a night's rest, a magician or holy-man can prepare a number of spells per day equal to their level. When casting a spell you have prepared, save vs Magic - on a success the spell can be reused, on a failure the spell escapes you and you must prepare it again the next day. This represents the ability of the caster's mind to channel arcane or divine power - as they become more powerful so does their ability to control their abilities.


New Spells
Both magicians and holy-men gain a free random spell/prayer upon levelling up.


Spell Power
Some spells and prayers scale with your level, allowing you to adjust the impact when casting the spell. 


Creating Magic Items
Magicians and holy-men can make magic inscriptions, brew potions and create magic vessels. Any of these activities takes one week of uninterrupted downtime in an appropriate environment (laboratory, library etc.) as well as costing 1d6gp in commonly available reagents.

You must use materials that are soaked in magical, spiritual or otherwise otherworldly energy when creating something magical. For example - regular parchment can't hold the magic needed to make a magic scroll but the ritually tattooed and tanned skin of a prince, or a spell etched into the scale of a dragon definitely could. Likewise a regular length of wood is entirely unsuited for use as a magic vessel, but the finger of a treant, or the petals of a lily that grows in a magic spring would be perfect for a vessel or potion base, respectively.

Inscriptions are one-use instances of a spell - when they are cast the inscription crumbles to ash and adds an extra level of the appropriate class to the spell effects. Thus, scrolls can be cast by anyone (even non-spellcasters) if they have been identified and are legible.

Potions distil the essence of a spell into liquid form. It takes an action to drink a potion and the effects take place immediately. Like inscriptions, potions provide one appropriate level to the effects. The nature of the spell will usually make the effect of the potion obvious, but if not then consult me.

Vessels are a physical containers for spells, i.e. a magic wands or staves. A vessel has an integrity rating based on how long the base material was exposed to magic - 1d100 years exposed for an organic material, decades for an inorganic one. Imbuing a spell into a vessel decreases its integrity by 2d10 years/decades. When creating the vessel you must confirm how many of your levels you are investing into it. Your powers are then stripped from you for an equivalent number of weeks. The vessel has this many levels that can be used to cast the spell contained within, and you can add your own levels on top of this. When you attempt to use the vessel you must roll under its integrity on a d100, adding 10 to your roll for each of your own levels that you added. A successful Arcana check reduces the result by 10 for each margin of success, to a minimum of 10 (1). Success means that the spell casts as normal, failure means the vessel loses d100 integrity and you suffer a Arcane Cascade or Thaumaturgic Revelation. If a vessel is reduced to 0 integrity it is destroyed in an explosion of barely constrained chaos.

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Equipment & Encumbrance

Armour
LotFP standard armour - ascending, starts at 12. Usual light/medium/heavy armour. Medium armour makes swimming hard (Save vs Stun to keep afloat), heavy armour sinks. It takes one Round to don or remove Light/Medium armour, it takes one Turn to do the same with Heavy armour, and you need help to do it.

Shields give flat +2 AC (seriously, have you ever tried stabbing someone using a shield?). Shields can be sundered to reduce incoming damage by 1 die size.

Bucklers and off hand melee weapons give +1 melee AC. 


Firearms
One type available - the fire lance. Mostly based on LotFP's matchlock rules:

• Requires two people to use - one to hold and one to fire.
• 10 round reload time (Sleight of Hand can be used to halve reload time, as per James Young's house rules).
• Ammunition charge takes up a single inventory slot.
• Fires in a 10ft cone - targets must save vs Blast within close range. Roll to hit with disadvantage on single target outside of close range. Does 2d8 damage.
• 2/10 chance of misfiring, 4/10 chance in humid/damp conditions, 6/10 chance in wet conditions.
• Causes an immediate morale check on any combatants not used to gunpowder weapons.

Encumbrance
Standard LotFP fare. The top 3 items in your inventory are on your belt or in pockets and can be accessed as a minor action, otherwise you need to spend a Round rummaging in your backpack.

100 coins counts as a single item. Rations, torches and most small items can be bundled 5 to a slot. 20 units of ammunition can be carried in a quiver or bullet pouch as a single item, extras can be carried in bundles of 10 in your main bags. If in doubt, ask me.


Item Damage
If an enemy hits you with a critical hit they will damage your armour. Likewise a critical miss with your weapon will damage it. Each point of armour damage reduces its AC bonus by 1 - when it reaches 0 the armour is destroyed. Each point of weapon damage reduces its damage die by one step - if it is damaged on a 1d4 die then it breaks completely (thanks to James Young for this one).

Armoursmiths and weaponsmiths can repair damaged equipment for a fee. Certain spells may be able to do the same.

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Adventuring & Downtime

Wrapping Up
If you get halfway through a dungeon and the session ends, we'll wrap up using a set of rules that I'm writing up. I'll ask you some questions, you'll make some rolls and we'll see what shape you end up in back in town.


Downtime
Your characters will have to do things in-between sessions. I'll be detailing these in a further post and will update them here. Once you're back in town and your lucre has been divided up you'll need to do the following:

1. Set your living standard for the next month. This will affect your healing, social standing and the type of events you'll experience during downtime.
2. Hold funerals for fallen party members, if you were able to bring the bodies back with you.
3. Go shopping.
4. Choose your downtime activity. These could give bonus XP, a chance to earn more money, magic item construction time, etc.. A character can choose one downtime activity.
5. Roll for rumours and choose what you want to do next session.
6. Lay out groundwork for your next expedition - stock up on supplies, recruit hirelings and henchmen, arrange travel services etc.