Councils represent social events of extraordinary importance. To qualify as a council, a meeting must be a formal gathering during which the stakes are high and, depending on the outcome, the Company stands to win or lose something valuable.
- To achieve their goal in a council the company must achieve a number of successes matching its Resistance value
- To accomplish this the participating player-heroes have a limited umber of attempts at their disposal (time limit)
A council is set up and resolved applying the following three steps:
- Set Resistance
- Introduction
- Interaction When the council is concluded, a final step is used to assess its consequences
Set Resistance
Before the council begins the players should all agree on what the company hopes to achieve from the meeting, and possibly how to achieve it. The Loremaster then sets a difficulty based on the objective chosen and the company’s relationship with the folk they are encountering
- A reasonable request (resistance 3) is one where the folk lose nothing by helping the player heroes
- A bold request (resistance 6) corresponds to a goal that is profiting the company more than those encountered
- An outrageous request (Resistance 9) happens when the company is asking those encountered to do something dangerous or foolhardy
Introduction
At the beginning of a council, the Company must present themselves. To do so, the Company elects a spokesperson, possibly taking full advantage of their best speaker. To introduce the Company, the spokesperson must make a Skill roll: the roll result determines the time limit of the council — that is, the total number of attempts that the Player-heroes are granted as a group to present their case, before they are finally dismissed.
- If the roll is a failure, the time limit is equal to 3.
- If the roll is a success, the time limit is equal to 4, plus 1 for each success icon rolled.
- Awe, COURTESY, and RIDDLE are particularly useful skills for an introduction
Interaction
This is the main, and most challenging, part of most social gatherings — from a birthday party to an official audience with a Lord or Lady. It is during this stage that the players engage with the Loremaster in playing out the scene, and make Skill rolls to accumulate enough successes to match or exceed the Resistance rating of the council. The players choose their own course of action as they see fit, but their Skill rolls can be modified by the attitude of the people they encounter. To this end, the Loremaster chooses whether the audience of the Player-heroes is Reluctant, Open, or Friendly:
- Reluctant — lose (1d). The encountered group has reasons to be unwilling to help the Company, possibly due to a level of prejudice or other source of concern.
- Open — (no modifier). This is the default attitude for an audience, representing a general inclination to listen to what the Company has to say.
- Friendly — gain (1d). The audience is very interested in hearing what the Player-heroes have to say, and are willing to hear their plea. Maybe the Company was introduced by someone of note, or the spokesperson belongs to the same Culture as the opposing party.
- Enhearten, Insight, Persuade, Riddle, and Song are particularly useful during a tense council interaction
End of a Council
A council can end in 3 different ways
- SUCCESS: The Company reaches the number of successful rolls required by the council’s Resistance — the Player- heroes achieve what was chosen as their objective at the start of the council.
- FAILURE, OR SUCCESS WITH WOE: The Company scores a number of successful rolls, but fails to match or beat the Resistance rating within the time limit — the Player-heroes can now choose to simply fail, and be refused what they asked for, OR, with the approval of the Loremaster, they can opt to achieve their stated goal, but at a price. For example, they gain from the council much less than what they asked for, or they end up acquiring one or more enemies from among their audience. The price doesn’t need to be immediately apparent, and may lead to an unexpected challenge to be faced another day.
- DISASTER: The Player- heroes fail all their available rolls, or score a number of successful rolls but fail to match the Resistance after a botched Introduction — The Company is now seen as a threat by the folk encountered — the Player-heroes may end up being imprisoned, or even attacked.