NNRPG: Flinterforge Reveal

Originally published at: NNRPG: Flinterforge Reveal - Ackerly Green

If you haven’t, check out the Weatherwatch and Gossmere reveals to share your thoughts and read about how and why we structured guild skills and archetypes the way we have.

Next up, Flinterforge!

Flinterforge was another fun challenge and the reason why we’re working on the idea of a Guild-specific skill. The Craft skill would obviously be one of Flinterforge’s top skills, but I didn’t want to have to choose which of the bearings was the most in tune with the act of creation, it just didn’t make sense.Hence: guild

So the goal for Flinterforge was to come up with different forms of creativity, creation, and crafting. It helped to break them down into 3 groups, one, a more learned and academic approach to creation, two a more improvisational and imaginative approach, and third, well, the idea of being the creation was really fascinating to me. Self-improvement, body modification, physical exertion and development, are also forms of creation … by making an improved you.

On Artificers:

Also, I’m not super happy about the way some other unnamed roleplaying games do the “Artificer” class, namely just leaving it to the player to map an Artificer concept over basic magic-user mechanics and spells, and I wanted to take a stab at improving that.

Again, let me know what you think!

Flinterforge: The Creators

Craft, Academics, Fight, Investigate, Physique, Wit
Guild Skill: Craft

Arcessor – The Techwise Artificer:

Bearing Skills: Investigate/Academics

The Arcessor is Flinterfoge’s sun-bearing Magic class. A natural-born thinker and tinker, Arcessors know, through instinct, keen investigation, and thorough research, how things work, how they can be most efficiently broken, and how to put them back together again, better than before, or transformed into something new. Using the augmented skills Investigate and Academics, Arcessors are not only able to build impossibly useful objects with components they’ve squirreled away and whatever else they find around them, both mundane and magimystically-fueled, but they are also experts at hacking, repairing, breaking down, connecting, and combining almost anything mechanism, technology, or construct they come across. For an Arcessor, no device is ever perfect, no design is ever done, because it’s the act of creation (and recreation) that holds the real magic.

Phantorist – The Concept Conjurer:

Bearing Skills: Wit/Craft

The moon-bearing Phantorist is Flinterforge’s Mystic class. What a Phantorist might lack in mechanical ingenuity and physical craftsmanship, they more than make up for it with the blinding power of their imagination. Why create with their hands, when they can create realities with their mind? Using the augmented skills Wit and Craft, Phantorists are uniquely able to imagine constructed existences where the right object for any given situation exists, whether it be a useful tool, a unique weapon, a means of escape, or even shelter. In the flash of fire between the birth of that reality and its blink back to elemental atoms, the Phantorist is able to snatch temporary phantasmic versions of what they need most from the plane of their own fertile mindscape.

Corrilave – The Living Augment:

Bearing Skills: Fight/Physique

The eclipse-bearing Corrilave is Flinterforge’s Melee class. A living multitool, Corrilaves don’t just conjure creations; they are the creation. Their bodies are uniquely receptive to intense magimechanical augmentation. They can craft implants that grant them new skills, amplified powers, and serious upgrades to their own mortal abilities, all powered by the magimystic. They can opt to be stronger, see farther, jump higher, run faster, fight longer, defy the effects of mortal wounds, and even equip their own bodies with weapons and tools. Using augmented skills Fight and Physique, a Corrilave’s potential is limited only by their one-of-a-kind ability to deny what is considered physically impossible.

Thoughts? Questions? Ideas? Reply below!

Tomorrow, the Champions of Ebenguard!

15 Likes

You know, one thing I think I should emphasize…

These RPG bearing classes only relate to Affinities and abilities within the game and aren’t “canon” in the sense that not all IRL Ardeonauts are extroverted leaders and Phantorists aren’t the only imaginative Flinterforge bearing.

This is simply to give each of the 18 bearings unique places and abilities within the game.

12 Likes

AHHHH this is so cool! I was curious how the three bearings would be differentiated within the game mechanics and I adore how you did it! I feel like the Arcessor skills are what were in the forefront of my mind, but the POSSIBILITIES of the Corrilave skills??? Amazing!!

11 Likes

That makes me so happy to hear! I’m trying to walk that line of open, exciting possibilities with concrete levels so there’s always something tangible to look forward to as you progress. Corrilave is a good example of that.

7 Likes

I’m impressed by how distinct each of the bearings are so far, especially considering you had to come up with 18 unique classes to fit them!

11 Likes

I love these Bearings, and I think they could all be really fun to play. I have already mentally worked up a character to playtest for each one. XD

I’m curious to know how you envision the “magiqal” use of these skills interacting with normal uses, especially since the lines between creation and spellcasting can be practically non-existent in the MAGIQ-verse. Like, let’s say I’m playing a Phantorist character who is caught by a library security officer while breaking into the building after dark, and I start telling a story (using Wit) to explain why I’m there and get myself out of trouble. That skill presumably has a decent bonus due to my Bearing, and although this task isn’t typically something I would intentionally cast a specific spell for, if I were desperate enough, I might push just a little bit of something extra into it that may or may not work as intended. Is that something I clarify as a character, or something a GM could play with and introduce effects/consequences for?

7 Likes

Great question that got me thinking and yes to both! Your mortal and magimystic sides inform each other. Your quick-thinking improvisation in that moment is heightened by your magimystic bond to your guild and bearing. You’ve just helped me articulate in a simple way what an “augmented skill” is in the day to day story of the game: It’s a normal skill you have that’s been heightened by the magimystic bond you have with your guild/bearing.

And I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but the official name of the GM (Game Master) in NNRPG is the Narrator.

10 Likes

The Narrator …

That is too much power, I think.

8 Likes