Tree's Heart Dynasty

A Shared-Roleplay Experience

1. Shared-Roleplay

Unlike most roleplaying games, Tree's Heart Dynasty (Dynasty for short) does not have a fixed game manager and players. At one time or another, everyone will play, and everyone will 'run' the game for someone else. In essence, Dynasty is about a single family in the 'Sunbound World' RPG universe -- or, more precisely, about a single family line. One player will play the first person in that family to capture a "tree's heart" (more on that later) and become a potent mage thereby. Another player will play that person's heir -- and so on, all the way down the list to the last of the line, where the plot threads from previous generations will come together in (ideally) a nice dramatic conclusion. Each person is expected to build an interesting background and plot to involve their character's child in -- wrapping around at the end, so that the person who plays the last of the line will build the background and plot for the first of the line. These games are run concurrently, with each person in the game alternating between player and game manager (who we will call the Ancestral Spirit, or AS, but which you will probably call the GM.)

Dynasty offers a tangible reward for being a good Ancestral Spirit -- it will help your character cope with the challenges (s)he faces. If you're not very good at managing games, that's okay; good play also makes your character's life easier. If you can't handle either well, then it'll at least help you practice. When everyone decides it's time to switch or rotate AS and player roles, they can also get together to discuss the things that have happened at various points in this family line's history -- so things stay reasonably consistent. (Painting over an apparent contradiction in history during this post-run session can also help your character! Consider it a No-Prize.)

2. Setting

It was the one clean time in all the history of the world. Even the light-eyes, the Seers, said so. Certainly it was true that in both past and future humanity would rise above barbarism for centuries at a time -- yet there was always a terrible price. Extinctions. Pollution. Starvation. Prejudice and even genocide. The human race had always contaminated the Earth. Yet, for one brief period, the streets were clean, men were kind, and if the passenger pigeon and the buffalo had passed on millennia before, there were still new strange creatures being born from the sea.

Jeremiah Stone decided that the new Earth was worth keeping. He was a mage like you find in the storybooks: his will was unbreakable and his powers inhuman. He decided that if there was to be one clean era in all the Earth's days, it would last forever. He stole the hands of Time's own clock, and shattered them into a thousand shards. Since that time, there has only been one time, one way of life. He called his creation the Sunbound World, and two centuries later (if there is ever any later) he hung himself on a tree with an ash spear through his vitals.

Magic is dominant in the Sunbound World, which really only means two things: that the technology in vogue draws more upon the human will than upon sound mechanical and electrical principles, and that there are spirits around, here and there. Life is simple: wooden buildings, pebbled streets, and a healthy economy. Transportation is expensive, and most people use horse and carriage at best -- though decent transportation mages can send messages or drive people places much faster, with the necessary mental exertion. And, of course, there are the dragons --

Ah, yes, the dragons. The horses don't like them much, quite frankly, but the government and the outlaws like them quite a bit. One of the strange beasts the sea cast up before Jeremiah Stone sealed off the world, their backs have room to carry a man, their flight is fast, their breath is fire, and when they have been properly trained, or have not been trained at all, they can be quite vicious. Townsfolk always get a little nervous when someone flies into town on dragonback, with a magegun at their side. The nice ones, at least, land first, and slither their dragon in.

That's the world. It's not primitive, but it's not terribly advanced either. The population is sparse enough, and travel difficult enough, that there are substantial 'untamed' regions -- seething with other seaborn creatures or, perhaps, with men who sneer at the government's law. Towns are most often self-sufficient, although people will travel quite a ways for a good blacksmith or mage. Everyone who wants to be cool has a dragon. Natch?

3. Tree's Heart

Many humans want immortality, for all that they regularly complain about their lives. There have been many attempts, in both scientific and magical eras, to achieve this reliably: scientists struggled with serums and hormones, and magi stole the youth of others or became undead. One flavor of 'immortality' is particularly distinguished, as it gives the new immortal vast magical powers as well; this is the agelessness gained by stealing a tree-spirit's "heart." (Normally, this is done by torturing a tree until it yields its heart voluntarily; nature spirits from all around will try most assiduously to interrupt the process. Sometimes, a dryad will store her tree's heart in some secret place, allowing a lucky mortal to search it out, stumble upon it, or follow her to its hiding place.)

There are two major limitations to this 'immortality.' The first is that wood and trees can still kill a man (or woman) with a tree's heart; in fact, they will even try to do this. Their attacks are subtle and varied, and quite malevolent. The second limitation is that wounds heal instantly -- but the pain associated with those wounds does not. In fact, that pain can last much, much longer for a tree's-heart immortal than the wound itself would have lasted for a mortal man. It can get very, very bad.

A single tree's heart, passed from father or mother to daughter or son, defines each player's character in a game of Tree's Heart Dynasty. The magical strength that comes with this heart allows each 'immortal' of the line to pass it on to their descendant when trees or wood finally catch up to them and they die an ageless death.

4. Rules

Each player's character (PC) is defined by a paragraph or two detailing their strengths and skills, and between 0 and 20 'pain points,' signifying the amount of enduring, unhealing pain that lives within them. They begin with 0 pain points.

Magic

PCs have a tree's heart. For this reason, they are very accomplished mages. They also often have access to willpower-fueled magical devices, like the mageguns. There is usually a pain point cost that comes with working magic. Also, the PC can fail to use magic at all if their pain is too great for them to concentrate. More specifically, to cast a spell or use a willpower-fueled device, they must roll a total equal to or greater than their pain point total on 4 6-sided dice. Easy spells or devices give a bonus of 2 points to this roll; very hard spells penalize this roll by 2 points. If the spell requires a pain point or pain points to cast, but the roll fails, these pain points will be added to the PC's total only temporarily -- for somewhere between a day and a week.

Any kind of local magic costs 1 pain point to use -- that is, the PC's pain point total goes up by 1. This kind of magic cannot affect trees, wood, or the PC's own pain. Major non-local magics cost 3 pain points; the PC can do almost anything for 5 pain points worth of effort. However, even this last category of magic cannot affect the PC's own pain.

Conflicts

Often, a PC will try to do something that they may not be able to do. For example, they might wish to leap a chasm, draw their magegun before an enemy can, or seduce a fair young lad. This is called a conflict situation. Every conflict is a conflict with a sapient opponent: that is, the opposing force in the examples given is the spirit of the chasm, the enemy gunman, or the moral fiber of the fair young lad. The Ancestral Spirit decides just how much the opposing force 'cares' about this victory, using the chart below:

First, the Ancestral Spirit notifies the player that they cannot perform this action automatically. The player can then 'roleplay' out the situation -- describing their flirtation with the young lad, narrating what is going through their character's mind as they approach the chasm, and so forth. Sometimes, because of their approach, this just doesn't help, but it should help more often than it hurts. Good roleplay, at best, pushes the situation one level up the chart; great roleplay pushes it up two levels, and has another benefit that will be described later.

Most tasks will become harder (just like magic does) as the PC's pain increases. In particular, the Ancestral Spirit should secretly roll 4 6-sided dice whenever the PC is opposed in some substantial way; if the total of these dice is less than the PC's pain point total, the situation will go down one level on the chart.

If the PC is still opposed, they can officially try to perform this action.

If the 'enemy' does not struggle with them, the Ancestral Spirit can describe the PC's success.

If the enemy wishes to oppose them, the enemy counters.

This sometimes means that it is harder than the PC thinks to perform the deed, e.g. "As you get close, you notice it's a very wide chasm." Other times, it means that something goes wrong, e.g. "A brisk opposing wind starts up as you approach the cliff."

The PC can then decide whether to give up the attempt, or to trump the enemy's counter. This is an Out of Character decision, but it should correspond to some action or resolution In Character if at all possible.

If the PC gives up at this point, there is no loss. If they trump, then they are committed: either they will succeed, or something bad will happen.

If the enemy still wishes to oppose them, the enemy counters again.

If the PC gives up at this point -- that is, if they do not trump again, then the 'something bad' mentioned above will happen to them. This can be a partial success, e.g. "The chasm is wider than it looks; your hands barely catch the opposite edge, the rough rock digging cruelly into your hands." or it can be something nasty, e.g. "As you run towards the chasm, your foot hits a rock and your ankle turns, skidding you across the ground towards the chasm's lip. The ankle heals immediately, of course, but the light throbbing will probably be with you for a few days."

If the PC trumps the enemy's counter again, then they may still succeed; if they do not, though, the consequences will be ugly. At this point, the enemy has only two options: mutual extremity, or allowing the PC to succeed.

Mutual extremity is simple: something very bad happens to both the PC and their opponent. The Ancestral Spirit decides what this is. The young lad, for example, might have been so resistant to the seduction because his only sexual experience had been with a diseased prostitute (which he will not admit, even though he passes on the disease.) The cliff might crumble under the PC's hands, starting an avalanche. The PC will incur a pain point at least some of the times a challenge reaches mutual extremity; on very, very rare occasions, they will incur two.

5. Lowering Pain Points

Naturally, it is in the PC's best interest to have as few pain points as possible; in fact, at around 18-20 pain points, suicide starts to appeal to them. There are three ways to lower pain points:

1. Player Coolness--Every so often, when the player describes something really well, does something neat and unexpected, or is clearly very deeply into their role, their Ancestral Spirit can lower their pain point total by 1. If the player is not yet particularly cool or fun to game with, but is clearly learning, then they may earn this benefit as well. (It may be prudent not to identify which of these two cases applies.)
2. AS Coolness--Similarly, whenever the Ancestral Spirit throws a really interesting plot twist at their player, or in general does anything that captures their player's interest utterly, their player can award their AS's PC a 1 point reduction in their pain point total. As with player coolness, if an AS is not yet all that fun but is clearly learning, they can earn this benefit as well.
3. Continuity Help--When the group gets together to talk about the game as a whole, and someone comes up with a clever way to reconcile continuity and tie the plots at each point in the Dynasty together, their PC should lose a pain point.

6. Afterword

Tree's Heart Dynasty is not intended to be a long-term game; a PC will probably become useless and suicidal due to their pain after one or two complicated plots or challenges. The author hopes, however, that you will find it an interesting diversion from your usual games.

R. Sean Borgstrom