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Setting:

The game is set in a distinctly Franco-Germanic land called the Everdark. 1,999 years ago, the Great Ancestor Dracul gave up his (un)life to either cause the moon to swallow up the sun, personally swallow the sun himself, or personally shatter the sun himself. (The translation contradicts itself, and maybe in-world history does, too.) Whatever the case, day and night are now defined by the rising and falling of an eternally red moon. The sun's fragments still linger here and there, waiting to scorch creatures of the night to cinders.

Today, Dracul's descendant bloodlines rule. Their society is... somewhat unified, and based in Drac, the capital.

The great bulk of the populace is still regular old humans. Select individuals are inducted into knighthood. Such knights do not hunger, but many still choose to eat: quality over quantity, though. They require no water, but they Thirst for Warmth: positive emotions.

Knights absorb Warmth through kisses: actual, literal kisses, usually upon the wrist. Kisses upon the neck are considered deeply intimate, never to be done in public. Actually sucking blood is a barbaric act reserved for the Fallen, those knights who have succumbed to their Thirst and become monsters. (There is also a vague insinuation that it is possible to nudge a knight towards Falling by tricking them into drinking blood: say, by mixing blood into wine. Personally, I am not a fan of this contrivance of "Oh, they do not actually drink blood," since it defeats some of the appeal of playing vampire knights to begin with.)

Knights are virtually unkillable short of fragments of the sun, but they must manage their Thirst wisely. Otherwise, they Fall. Additionally, chivalry is expected. (Mechanically, knights are rewarded with metacurrency for being chivalrous. This could be viewed as an allegory for how, in the real world, chivalry may have been invented to try to keep knights disciplined, as opposed to riding off on their own to pillage and defile.)

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Knights can work magic. These are called Realizations. (Confusingly, mechanics-wise, not all magical effects are tagged as Realizations. Summoning is not tagged as such, for instance.)

Knights work together to create prosperity in the Everdark. They must protect the land from multifarious threats:

• Rival knights. Some are depraved and destructively unchivalrous. Others are simply rivals born of circumstance and competition.

• The Fallen. Many mutate into monstrous forms: werewolf-like predators, churning masses of flesh, lindwurms, and other terrors.

• The fey. While many are amicable enough, others are more fickle and unpredictable, and some are downright nasty.

• Non-vampiric undead. Over 1,200 years ago, the lands of the Nosferas bloodline were stricken by plague and then a cataclysm. Those lands are now called Hell, and they teem with the shambling dead. Many are surprisingly intelligent, and organize shambling ghouls into dreadful armies.

• Fragments of the sun. Yes, unfortunately, the sun is rather vengeful. Some solar shards empower human cultists. Others manifest as independent monsters, up to and including city-sized birds with wings of flame.

• Myriad miscellaneous creatures of the night. Sometimes, a troublesome wolf-man is "merely" a troublesome wolf-man, who was never a knight to begin with.

• Mightiest of them all, the deadly sinners. These are specimens from one of the previous categories; they have committed evils so egregious that they have manifested additional powers atop everything else they could already do. (A template for superbosses.) This uses a model of six deadly sins, not seven.

• "Trials," as they are known. Sometimes, danger and high stakes come chiefly from an overarching set of circumstances: a lord's mistrust, an atmosphere of paranoia in the court, the anxiety of the common people, a perilous journey, enemies hidden in the shadows or in plain sight, etc. (These are statted out as full-fledged enemies.)

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Character Creation:

Dracurouge has a core rulebook, an accompanying "replay" (i.e. highly extended example of play), and three expansion books. These supplements are beefy; one is significantly longer than the core rulebook, even!

The core rulebook has six knightly bloodlines to choose from: the ever-ruling Drac, the adventurous dreamers of Rosenberg, the wise and knowledgeable Dustheim, the fairy- and nature-bonded Avaloma, the inquisitors and exorcists of Hellsgarde, and the grim survivors of Nosferas. The core rules also give us six knightly paths: lord, guard (i.e. bodyguard), pilgrim (i.e. knight errant), sage, hunter, and nightbeast (i.e. someone who has come close to Falling and now draws edgy power from it). Each bloodline comes with three branches (e.g. Hellsgarde's summoning-specialized Chain branch), and each path likewise comes with three branches (e.g. hunters of the Axe who can chop so hard that they cleave apart Realizations).

While some bloodlines and paths are iconic, like Drac lords, Rosenberg pilgrims, Hellsgarde hunters, and Dustheim sages, there is no real mechanical synergy to stereotypes. Players can mix and match as they please. It is hardly unthinkable for, say, a Dustheim knight to turn their extensive education towards lordship or the hunt.

Supplements offer more bloodlines and more paths. We have generals, priests, star readers (i.e. astrologians), sky riders (i.e. pegasus knights), captains (of naval ships), mediators, engineers, doctors, and more.

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Maybe a player does not want to be a vampire knight. Plain humans are unavailable, but other creatures of the night are fine. We have the lupine Varcolac and Loup Garou, the intelligent zombie Nachzehrer, the feline Grimalkin, the piscean Melusine, the avian Striga, the devilish Faun, the fey Álfr, the draconic Vouivre, the floral Alrûna, the spiderlike Frigga, the artificial Homunculi (consciousnesses built from scratch) and Enamelum (vessels of preserved minds and souls), any of the above given vampiric knighthood, and many more. Sadly, all of these are still burdened with Thirst; that is just how things work around here.

For some reason, these beings are called "heretics." As a general rule, heretics have low social status, but this can vary significantly. For example, the Nachzehrer are particularly feared and hated, due to their resemblance to the undead of the former Nosferas lands. On the other hand, the Homunculi and the Enamelum are somewhat better-off than most heretics, and the Álfr, Vouivre, and Alrûna are seemingly the three most well-respected of all the heretics.

Heretics follow all sorts of weird rules, depending on the specific heretic type. The Álfr are the closest to vampire knights mechanically, while others stray further and further with unusual mechanics. Most heretic types cannot even take conventional knightly paths, and are limited to unique heretical paths, such as spy, witch, and swordsman.

After picking out [knightly bloodline/heretic type], path, and branches for each, a character starts off with a Renown. These represent noteworthy deeds, and a PC gains a new Renown after each session. Some Renowns are generic good stuff, like rolling more dice. Other Renowns specialize a character's build; Harp improves summoning, Chalice or Spur enables body blocking for allies, and so on.

Some Renowns exist expressly to facilitate "multiclassing" or "multipathing" of sorts. They grant an ability from a bloodline or path other than one's own.

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The core rulebook has 36 knightly Renowns. The supplement that introduces heretics gives us 14 heretical Renowns, as well as a unique bonus Renown for knights or heretics who happen to be over 300 years old. (There is a price to pay for getting this unique bonus Renown, though, namely, more Thirst.)

Knightly Renowns are for knights, while heretical Renowns are for heretics. Again, though, exceptions apply. The elflike Álfr are so knightlike that they can choose only from knightly Renowns, for example.

As far as mechanical character creation goes, that is almost it. [Knightly bloodline/heretic type], path, branches for each, Renown. No other statistics or gear.

There is a bit more. One supplement includes Storia: a mix of character backgrounds, arcs, and destinies. These include "Knight in Service to Two Sovereigns," "Love with the Lord," "Former Believer of the Sun," "Forbidden Knowledge," "Forbidden Book," "Mad Engineer," "Defender of Heretics," "Fairy Possession," and "Seeking the Blood Grail." Each offers a unique action, a unique Renown, or a miscellaneous unique advantage. For instance, if you suffer from the "Curse of Strife," then you gain the unique combat action My Sword Desire Thy Blood. There are 82 Storia, each with their own prerequisites and recommendations for knightly bloodline, heretic type, path, etc.

One reason why gear is purely cosmetic is because, apparently, all characters have one bizarrely specific Realization ability by default: creating items and mounts at will, including clothing, armor, weapons, and horses. It is specifically pointed out that these can be given to other people. It is also explicitly noted that these creations require concentration, so they vanish while the creator sleeps. Therefore, all characters... allegedly... sleep naked? Really? No character has ever heard of pajamas or nightgowns, it seems.

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In any case, based on the broad-strokes overview of character options above, it would be easy to assume that characters have explicitly codified, path-based benefits. Maybe a lord has an estate, a sage is knowledgeable, a general has a small army, a priest has a congregation, a sky rider has a pegasus, a captain has a ship, an engineer has good technical skills, a doctor is an expert on all things medical, and so on. This is not the case, however.

All characters are simply assumed to have whatever in-universe perks fits their path, based on the lore written into the path's description. The captain path's lore describes all captains being knights who can Realize one or more ships (I can only assume they do not go away while sleeping), so that is what a captain PC is assumed to be capable of. This leaves more bare-bones path like guard, pilgrim, hunter, and nightbeast high and dry; they do not get any special perks based on their lore, since their in-universe niche is "Guy who fights good," and all PCs can equally fight good.

Yes, all PCs can equally fight good.

Each PC has 2 basic combat actions and 2 basic social actions; knights and Álfr all share the same basic actions, but heretics have a different array of basics, and certain knightly paths have special rules that modify basic actions. Atop that, everyone's [vampiric bloodline/heretic type] and specific branch gives 2 combat actions and 2 social actions, and everyone's path and specific branch also confers 2 combat actions and 2 social actions. All in all, a PC should have 6 combat actions and 6 social actions. Specific Renown choices and other miscellaneous perks grant extra actions, shifting the 6 and 6 equilibrium, but not by a major amount.

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Confronting Enemies:

PCs are PCs, and enemies are enemies. They do not use the same rules. Not including the starter scenario, the core rulebook has 19 enemy statistics blocks. There are another 19 + 24 + 6 = 49 blocks in the supplements, for a total of 68. Each has 4 unique combat actions and 4 unique social actions (yes, even a Fallen lindwurm or a city-sized bird of solar flame is up for a riveting debate), and potentially a unique Renown as a passive trait. Notably, 6 of these are "Trials," which are neither real people nor monsters, and are instead abstract representations of intangible barriers.

Supplements offer ways to customize enemies: giving them knight basic actions, giving them heretic basic actions, multiple options for mechanics for redeeming a Fallen, and so on. The 6 "deadly sins" create superbosses, giving 2 more combat actions, 2 more social actions, and a unique Renown.

The above count of enemies does not include Stewards, or in other words, minions or mooks. There are 13 generic NPC Stewards to work with. PC actions frequently summon even more types. Stewards are fragile, getting instantly "Wallflowered" (i.e. taken out, whether physically or socially) by even a single point of "damage." The Steward and summon rules are, honestly, a bit of a mess; my GM and I had a very hard time understanding them, and there were many ambiguities.

Now, how do we face these enemies, whether with blades or with well-spoken words?

In this game, all scenes wherein dice are rolled are zone- and turn-based conflicts, whether physical combat or social interaction. If you are rolling dice, then you are in a zone- and turn-based scene, full stop. There is no such thing as a noncombat scene wherein characters are rolling to know things, talk good in a one-and-done interaction, navigate the wilderness, or anything like that; the system simply expects these to be freeformed. All that matters is the meat and potatoes, the actual fights and social gatherings.

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Important Terms:

• Noblesse Oblige: Yet another PC-exclusive resource (again, short of variant rules). It is used to add more dice to your dice pools. PCs gain 1 Noblesse Oblige at the start of each round while in a zone- and turn-based scene. The GM can award a PC with Noblesse Oblige for being exceptionally chivalrous, valorous, and such. Heretics' Noblesse Oblige is renamed and reflavored to Awe instead, as they are less about chivalry and more about being strange, frightening, and yet wondrous creatures. Much as with Warmth, all Noblesse Oblige or Awe is lost at the end of an adventure arc.

• Thirst: A PC-exclusive resource. Gaining Thirst is bad, because every time a PC's Thirst increases to a value of 3 or more, the PC must roll on the Fall table (with a penalty equal to their current Thirst) to see how badly they are corrupted, and whether or not they get NPC-ified into a Fallen. If a PC ends the final zone- and turn-based scene of an adventure arc with Thirst 3+, they must roll yet again. There is a small upside, though, in that Thirst upgrades rolls just a teensy bit.

• Warmth: Another PC-exclusive resource (short of variant rules). Gaining Warmth is good. For the most part, Warmth is used to cancel Thirst on a one-for-one basis, though a few niche mechanics and actions cost Warmth. All Warmth at the end of an adventure arc is lost.

• Presence: An NPC-exclusive resource, essentially their HP in zone- and turn-based scenes. An NPC dropping to 0 Presence is "Wallflowered," or in other words, taken out. This can mean death (but probably not, seeing how many supernatural creatures are unkillable and can only be sealed away in Hell), but it could also mean incapacitation, being shamed or cowed into compliance, being so awed or rationally persuaded as to turn around to the PCs' side, and so on and so forth.
• Every time a non-Steward NPC gets Wallflowered, all PCs gain 1 Warmth.

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• Noir: Negative emotions and physical aggression. NPCs take Noir as direct damage to their Presence, while a PC takes Noir as a Noir bond towards the inflicting character (or towards a Steward's controlling character). If a Noir bond reaches 5 points, it vanishes; the PC gains 1 Thirst, and any overflow Noir beyond 5 spills over into a new Noir bond towards the same inflicting character.
• In other words, while PCs find it effective to gang up on a single NPC to chip away at Presence, multiple NPCs ganging up on a single PC generate separate Noir bonds. Thus, PCs are resistant to being focused down by multiple NPCs.
• PCs are also resistant to taking friendly fire damage from AoE, because the inflicting character is a friendly PC. It takes a while for Noir from friendly fire to spill over into Thirst.
• A PC can reroll a check by taking 1 Noir towards themselves, and can keep doing so, until the Noir bond finally becomes a point of Thirst.
• Noir is a broken mechanic if run RAW. My GM and I looked this over and came to this conclusion. RAW, incoming Noir can be split into multiple different flavors of negative emotions, and only once one of these flavors reaches 5 does it become Thirst. This makes it virtually impossible for PCs to actually acquire thirst. In our game, we had to manually house-rule that it was impossible to split up Noir into different flavors of negative emotions.

• Rouge: Positive emotions. NPCs take Rouge as direct damage to their Presence, so NPCs want to avoid taking Rouge... but crucially, Rouge is generally a good thing for PCs! A PC takes Rouge as a Rouge bond towards the inflicting character (or towards a Steward's controlling character). If a Rouge bond reaches 5 points, it vanishes; the PC gains 1 Warmth, and any overflow Rouge beyond 5 spills over into a new Rouge bond towards the same inflicting character.
• PCs want to inflict Rouge as much as possible: on NPCs to damage Presence, and on fellow PCs to generate Warmth.

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Scenes:

All turn- and zone-based scenes are either combat scenes, social scenes, or final scenes (of an adventure arc, anyway). Combat actions can be used only during combat scenes, social actions can be used only during social scenes, and both combat actions and social actions can be used during a final scene.

All turn- and zone-based scenes take place on a map consisting of three zones arranged in a straight line: the Throne at the top, the Court in the middle, and the Garden at the bottom. Occasionally, these are literal, but for the most part, they are metaphorical. The GM can deploy enemies anywhere, while PCs can choose to start in the either the Court or the Garden.

PCs act in an order based on their paths; for example, a nightbeast will almost always go first among PCs, while a sage will usually go last among PCs. Then, NPCs act. Stewards do not have independent turns.

When a PC starts their turn, they roll 4d6. The default way of expanding this dice pool is to spend Noblesse Oblige, but specific actions and Renowns can modify this as well. From there, the PC looks at the dice and spends it on actions.

• Let us say a certain action costs 5. A die with an outcome of 5 can pay for that, no problem. A die with an outcome of 6 can pay for that, too, but the excess is lost.
• Dice can be combined to pay for actions. If an action costs 9, then a player could pay that with a die of 5 and a die of 6: but again, the excess is lost.
• For each pair of 1s rolled, and for each pair of 6s rolled, a virtual die with a value of 10 is generated. This rule is called the "Pips of Glory."
• Individual actions, Renowns, and other effects can modify what dice results "read" as.
• PC actions cannot fail, full stop. They will always "hit." They will always do what they are supposed to do. PCs do not "miss."

In addition to a zone of movement, a PC can take as many actions as they want during their turn, so long as they have the dice results to pay for those actions.

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The PCs' objective during a turn- and zone-based scene is, generally, to Wallflower the enemy side by inflicting enough Noir and Rouge. Remember: all PCs gain 1 Warmth whenever a non-Steward enemy is Wallflowered.

Of course, enemies fight back. Enemies do not roll dice. Instead, the GM simply has a pool of points with which to activate actions. Yes, this means that NPC turns are much more deterministic.

Unlike PC actions, enemy actions can, in fact, fail or "miss." Each PCs has a pool of 2 Resistance dice each round, with which a PC can defend themselves or others from NPCs' actions. This is not guaranteed; a PC has to roll well enough to successfully negate an NPC action. Multiple PCs can pool together Resistance dice if they really want an NPC action to fail. Again, individual actions, Renowns, and other effects can manipulate these dice.

At the end of each round, it is common for all PCs to be instantly hit with 1 Noir (or in certain cases, 1 Rouge) towards a relevant NPC. From a mechanical perspective, this is a token concession to try to discourage turtling; in theory, PCs cannot just stay on the defensive forever, or else they will keep on incurring Noir.

Furthermore, there are round limits. Any turn- and zone-based scene that is not the final scene of an adventure arc is limited to 2 rounds, full stop. Thus, if the PCs have not completed their objective by the end of the second round, the PCs are simply out of luck.

So that is how turn- and zone-based scenes work, essentially. Roll dice, spend those dice on actions. Try to Wallflower the enemy side by overloading them with Noir and Rouge, try to avoid incurring Noir from enemy actions, maybe fill up other PCs with Warmth by overloading them with Rouge as well.

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Example Builds:

How does all of this tie together into PC builds, then? Some effective core-rulebook-only builds include...

• Drac (Dragon Head), Hunter (Bow and Arrow), Bell Renown: Hear the Dragon's Roar is a 16-cost (15 with Bell) combat action that deals 1 Rouge to everyone in the same zone as you, and makes everyone else take +1 Noir from you for the rest of the combat. Arrow Bearing a Grudge is a 3-cost (2-cost with Bell) combat action that deals 1 Noir to anyone on the map, and, unlike other actions, can be used up to thrice per round. Once Hear the Dragon's Roar is set up, Arrow Bearing a Grudge can be spammed for 2 Noir with each ping.

• Avaloma (Unicorn), Lord (Phoenix Claw), Lion Rampant or Gauntlet Renown: Fairyland, Near and Far is a 14-cost combat action that turns your current zone into an impregnable domain for the rest of the combat. Characters can move into the zone only if you allow it, and at the start of each of your turns, everyone in the same zone as you gains Rouge equal to the current round number. All the Pieces in Place is a 6-cost combat action targeting everyone of your choice in either your zone or one adjacent zone; you Force Move all of the targets. This is a nasty combo (e.g. you can lock out enemies), and Lion Rampant or Gauntlet gives you more dice during combat to finance it.

• Avaloma (Great Tree), Lord (Phoenix Claw), Lion Rampant or Gauntlet Renown: As above, except that instead of Fairyland, we have Harvest of Unreality as a 14-cost combat action. It targets everyone of your choice in either your zone or one adjacent zone; you deal 1 Rouge to all targets and remove 1 Thirst from all targets. In other words, you help and heal allies, damage NPCs, and clear out hostile Stewards all in one fell swoop.

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• Dustheim (Moonlight), high-initiative path, Lion Rampant or Gauntlet Renown: The Moon-Gate of Stars is a 14-cost combat action that lets all characters of your choice, map-wide, for the rest of the combat, use one Realization-tagged action for free on each of their turns. (Realization is a tag for long-lasting magic. It does not include summons, but it does include Hear the Dragon's Roar, Fairyland, and Moon-Gate itself.) This is fantastic for your allies, but you can benefit from it, too, potentially on the same turn in which you use Moon-Gate.

• Hellsgarde (Chain), Lord (Castle Wall), Harp Renown: Chain and Castle Wall have some of the best summons in the game, and Harp increases your number of summons.

For my own PC, I selected Avaloma (Unicorn), Lord (Phoenix Claw), Lion Rampant or Gauntlet Renown. One other player noticed this and took Dustheim (Moonlight) and a high-initiative path. The third player likewise twigged to what we were doing and created a character with strong ranged attacks. The idea was that the Dustheim knight would open up with the Moon-Gate of Stars. Then, I would follow with Fairyland, Near and Far + All the Pieces in Place to create an impregnable zone and shove all enemies out. Then, the three of us would simply pelt the enemies with ranged attacks; dedicated melee enemies would be screwed.

Under our GM, the three of us embarked on the premade starter adventure in the core rulebook: the Beast of Couronne. A werewolf-like creature was prowling the Avaloma-ruled land of Couronne, and it was up to the PCs to stop this beast.

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Starter Adventure and Closing Thoughts:

The PCs did not have to do any actual investigation, because the PCs were instantly attacked by the Beast of Couronne to kick off the very first scene. We got our Moon-Gate + Fairyland going, locked out the Beast and his wolf Stewards, and used ranged attacks to drop the beast to 0 Presence within two rounds. Our strategy seemed to work. If anything, it was unnecessary, because simply bum-rushing the Beast and ganking him with raw Noir/Rouge inflictions would have easily taken him down as well.

The second scene was a turn- and zone-based "conflict" against the ruling lord of Couronne, Katarina Avaloma. This felt incongruous, because in-universe, she and her pet fairy dog were friendly and welcoming. Why were we in a "conflict" against her? One of Katarina's actions would apparently inflict Noir, for some reason, and we would gain Noir at the end of each round. Using our social actions, we filled up Katarina, the fairy dog, and ourselves with Rouge, but we overdid it; we wound up Wallflowering Katarina and the dog before they could take any turns. We avoided any end-of-round Noir, but we accidentally stopped ourselves from Rouge-ing one another up.

Actual investigation was still unnecessary, because Katarina gave the PCs some exposition on the backstory of the Beast of Couronne as a Fallen, only for the Beast to arrive and snatch her away. The adventure assumed that the PCs would quickly catch up to the Beast after a quick jog or something, commencing the final scene.

This time, we were up against a juiced-up Beast of Couronne and even more of his wolf Stewards. We got our Moon-Gate and Fairyland up. Once again did we safely pelt the Beast and the wolves with ranged attacks from afar, and once again did this cheesy strategy prove unnecessary, because it was clear that the PCs would have won simply by bum-rushing the Beast with raw Noir/Rouge inflictions anyway.

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So that was that. The Beast was vanquished, and Katarina was rescued. By the end of the adventure, nobody had accumulated a single point of Thirst (and that was with the house rule specifically cutting off the "just funnel Noir into separate flavors of negative emotions" loophole), and we had over 20 points of Warmth between the three of us. According to one supplement, this was enough to redeem a Fallen.

How did the game feel overall? It was... okay. Character options did not feel particularly well-balanced against one another. It was clear that some strategies would produce far stronger results than others, like Moon-Gate or Fairyland builds (or both, together in the same party). Maybe this would be fine if the system had more narrativist mechanics, but no, all of the game's actual rules are focused squarely on zone- and turn-based scenes.

Maybe it was just the starter adventure being specifically calibrated to provide an easy experience, but it felt like we really steamrolled through everything. Our cheese strategy was unnecessary; we could have crushed the opposition just by rushing at the enemies (even Lady Katarina, whom the social scene treated as just another enemy to be dropped to 0 Presence and Wallflowered) with raw Noir and Rouge inflictions. It felt a little ridiculous to come out of the adventure with 0 Thirst and with 20+ Warmth between the three of us, when the rest of the game made it seem like Thirst is a real danger and Warmth is a precious resource.

The starter adventure felt unsatisfying in other respects. There was no actual investigation, because the Beast came to the PCs (twice!) rather than the other way around. Furthermore, "Here is Lady Katarina; now drop her to 0 Presence and Wallflower her" felt like a gross misapplication of a turn- and zone-based social scene.

Would I play Dracurouge again? Maybe. The setting is intriguing, and the mechanics are novel to me. I wish they felt more balanced, though, and social mechanics less awkward.

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Bonus, One-Off Thoughts:

• I am still not a fan of knights not being actual blood-sucking vampires. It seems to defeat some of the appeal.

• It looks to be a deliberate setting choice that a regular, unempowered human can never be more than a mere Steward (i.e. minion or mook).

• The way social actions work encourages simply firing them off based on tactical concerns. This can, at times, be absurd when some of them are flavored as overtly magical actions. For example, Lord (Phoenix Claw) offers This Cup Never Runs Dry, a fairly strong AoE Rouge inflictor that a character probably wants to spam; it is flavored as "It is said that the Holy Grail is a cup filled with mysterious drops of crimson. You realize the Holy Grail and treat everyone with the drops of crimson, filling them with warmth," which means a character has a high chance of continuously conjuring the Holy (Blood) Grail during a social scene. This is what we actually wound up doing.

Gonna check this out tomorrow, always interested in some JRPGs. Is this officially translated?

Thank you for the review anyway anon.

Impregnate every vampire's unholy womb.

>>97472117
>Also due to Japanese tabletop culture, players are supposed to be fine with the GM simply telling them straight-up "This is a combat scene" or "This is a social scene," and to avoid doing anything disruptive, like trying to abruptly turn a social scene into combat.

This is going to sound like I'm being a dick but this is an honest question: do you find this style of play, with hard and fast borders between social and combat, and specific rules for social engagements, easier to deal with with whatever neuro-atypical thing you have going on? I know you've made several threads about problems with this aspect of gaming in the past.

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>>97472530

No, we were simply working off the fan translations.

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>>97472564

I am perfectly fine with a hard division between combat scenes and social scenes. I have no issue with it whatsoever.

What I do have a problem with, however, is when the adventure at hand says, "Alright, place down your characters on this here tactical map. It is time for a social scene!" only for the opponents to be some nice lady and her fairy dog, who has no real issue with the party. This seems like a poor, baffling application of social conflict rules.

> tranime poster wants excuse to dump his folder of shit tranime images
What a faggot

>>97472117
>I have prior experience playing these: Maid and Kamigakari, mostly. Due to the tabletop culture over there, RPGs are generally meant for one-shots or, at the very most, shorter campaigns.

Who said that? Sword World is definitely for long campaigns. And played more than all the games you talked about.

Anyway interesting. Both about the mechanics and about the adventure.

I appreciate the effortpost, even if this is not the sort of system I would ever touch. Unless the one player/GM in our group who loves these kinds of systems found it. Then I would have to play it.

>>97472238
Could it easily be changed? Turning a social into a combat scene for example. Or does that ruin the mechanics?

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>>97472238

Oh, an additional caveat:
• No action can be used more than 1/round, unless otherwise noted. For example, a Hunter (Bow and Arrow)'s Arrow Bearing a Grudge, a combat action, is a ranged Noir inflictor that can be used 3/round.

>>97473217

The game has no guidelines whatsoever for abruptly turning a combat scene into a social scene or vice versa. The only time crossover happens is during the final scene (of an adventure arc, that is), which specifically allows both combat actions and social actions to be used.

>>97472117
This is a genuinely interesting game, but my players would never play this.
It takes a very specific mindset to get into 'the zone', and it's surprising how crunchy the whole thing is.

>>97473145
Sadly in my experience, the only good thing about Japanese RPGs is their settings which you can then use with any other game system. Game mechanics are just not that important to the Japanese RPG scene.

>>97473489
While I've successfully ran Tenra Bansho Zero, I do agree quite a few japanese ttrpgs have a setting that's ultra-specific to the point its hard to convince people to play in them. Though I still want to try to run Double Cross or Ryuutama sometime. Though I did also joke I wanted to try to run Dracurogue instead of VTM once.

>>97472970
Not the first time I hear this, I heard about sword world as well and was surprised, but I can see how the general trend there could be.

>>97472117
Sex with those vampire women
>>97472561
This

>>97473242
Oh, I see. Interesting. Japanese stuff always seems like it has a lot of thought in world building. The mechanics seem a bit janky though.

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>>97475170

>Japanese stuff always seems like it has a lot of thought in world building.

Well, this is a setting wherein vampire knights have not figured out that pajamas and nightgowns exist, and so sleep naked.

>>97475181
True nippon goonerism cannot be contained by mere rules. I respect them in a strange way.

>>97475181
That's not a bug, it's a feature.

>>97475181
Wait, you don't sleep naked?

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>>97472117
Nice job with the writeup, good to get more eyes on this gem.
If you're interested in similar stuff I recommend Princess Wing (it's more tactical combat stuff but really good).

>>97472749
Better than puckee who dumps his folder of slop tier commissions and makes 5+ threads on the catalog without talking about any actual games

>>97473145
buddy also posted this to reddit.

This sounds extremely cool but is completely ruined by everything being little anime girls

>>97472129
what about kisses on the lips

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>>97477947
I know one thing that's not a loli, the Apostles of the Sun that are basically the supremely pissed off fragments of Sol that want revenge on all of vampire kind for what grandpa Dracula did to the original.

>The Apostle of the Sun typically appears sud-
denly in a peaceful village that has briefly been left unsupervised by the knights, where it leads the common people astray and re-establishes the worship of the dreaded Sun. It is an elusive creature, able to sway the will of even the most stout folk and induct them into its vile heresy. If the village is overseen by a lord of sound character, they will doubtless attempt to expose the Apostle of the Sun as the monster it is. But the Apostle of the Sun has the power to corrupt hearts with its cunning words and foul light. The common folk inevitably fall victim to its machinations.

>>97477947
>everything being little anime girls
I remember reading the book for this years ago when it first got translated, I'm pretty sure all the vampire faction leaders are basically all hags who look around 20 and were former consorts to the Dracul/ancestor guy

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>>97478292
>all hags who look around 20
did you forget a 0

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>>97478219
Why are they the bad guys, besides that they're mad at the shithead vampires that conquered the world and brought about an era of endless darkness? I want to praise the sun.

>>97478440
Well, the premise is that the players are playing creatures to which the sun is antithetical. You could play a nihilist or some kind of radical, I suppose, if your group is down with that, maybe?

It sounds like the game offers a lot of options to players. But I'm not sure how well it would handle someone whose character premise challenges the core game premise. Maybe a different system, or reconsidering the character concept to be one of the provided ones, could be a better experience.

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>>97478219
>>97478440

Apostles of the sun (it is unclear whether they are singular or plural; it could be a translation issue) are a subset of a wider faction.

The fragments of the sun are a diverse enemy group. Some are "merely" human cultists who channel radiant power. Some are independent shards of the sun that take vaguely humanoid form. Some are city-sized birds with wings of flame.

In this game, they are considered an enemy faction simply because they want to burn all vampire knights (and apparently all "heretics," too?) to ash.

If we have a look at the Noblesse Storia supplement, one of the available Storia, Forbidden Knowledge, sheds light (no pun intended) on the true extent of the worldwide chaos that resulted from Dracul's stunt with the sun. There was so much bedlam that:
>At the dawn of the new era, the progenitors carried out a large-scale purge of the people who rebelled against them.

We do not even know what the wider world is like. All the books focus on is the main continent, the Everdark, but there are other lands out there.

didn't even know this got translated. Where did you find it?

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>>97478548

The core rulebook has a number of randomly generated backstory tables. You roll once on a d66 table (i.e. 36 possible results) for your pre-knighthood origin, roll on a second d66 table for the circumstances behind your accolade, and then roll on a third and final d66 table for a notable highlight of your career as a knight.

Some of the results include a connection to the sun, like these two, on the origin table:
>Dreaded Flame: Your home was attacked by a fragment of the Sun. Your family perished, and you alone were saved by a Knight. You shall never forget those accursed flames.
>Dream of the Sun: Since your childhood, you have dreamed of a world illuminated by the sun, full of beautiful life. Your suspicions linger still.

And this, on the accolade table:
>Survivor: A fallen knight or a Fragment of the Sun attacked your liege's servants and slaughtered them all... except for you. As a result, you were knighted.

And this, on the knighthood career table:
>Long Slumber: After doing battle with a Fragment of the Sun, you entered a long slumber due to your grievous wounds. The world had changed quite a bit when you finally awoke...

In addition, out of the 82 Storia (a mix of character backgrounds, arcs, and destinies), a total of 6 are connected to the sun in some way. These include Blade of the Sun and Former Believer of the Sun.

It is not possible to play an out-and-out, full-on loyalist of the sun in this game, but you can get close with a number of backstory elements and the right Storia.

>>97477965
this is a real question Edna fucking answer me

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>>97478604

A Google search.

https://sdfsdfdsfwe52343asdatew6y4363252.fandom.com/wiki/Dracurouge:_Knights_of_the_Everdark

>>97478645
damn i should try that next time before asking

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>>97478644

The only piece of lore I can find that mentions kisses on the lips concerns the Álfr: the elven fey of the seasonal courts who travel from their own world to the Everdark. The Álfr prefer to kiss people on the lips:

>However, as a fairy, Álfr is fundamentally different from a knight in many ways. This is made clear when they kiss.

>They seek the partner's lips1, not the neck.

>They want the soft touch of lips against lips.

>They are not overbearing, they are not greedy. Very natural. They have been showing their respect and affection in this way since before the fall of the everlasting night.

>Unrestrained and passionate, they exchange kisses far more frequently than knights. Even after a heartfelt match, they would lay their lips on each other's without regard to the attention of others.

>The knights of Avaloma would accept it with impunity. However, some knights from other territories may call them indecent.

>In fact, there have been cases where such behavior resulted in duel2.

>In Rosenburg, the city of glory and passion, the theatrical culture3 has been flourishing in recent years, and the Álfr has often appeared in plays.

>The kiss on the lips is also considered an incendiary and extreme thing, and has even become a fashion among the people and knights as a form of extreme affection.

>If you have the good fortune and courage, you may one day have the honor of receiving a kiss from Álfr. Prepare your heart for the kiss on the lips.

>1. Seek the partner's lips – It is not limited to the Álfr, but also many other people who are close to fairies have been kissing in that way. The lady of the lake and Princess Nimian, who became a fairy, are also said to do it like that.

>2. Resulted in duel – Álfr kissed Duke Marguerite in front of the public, who sealed the fallen. The knights of Hellsgard saw this and a duel ensued. Without the prompt intervention of the then Fairie Princess, there could have been even a fairy hunt in Hellsgard.

>>97472117
Good quality posts. Thank you for your hard work. I had come across this previously, but it slipped my mind. I might write a Foundry system for it, since I see it doesn't have one yet. Hmm, but probably not, too many fucking projects on my plate.

Anyway, cool setting.

>>97478636
Hm hm. Yeah, makes sense. JTTRPGs feel like they aren't shy to insist the players play ball. To their credit, they often give them the tools to do it.

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>>97478850

You are welcome. I am not sure how much this game actually needs a Foundry module, but it would be interesting to see.

>>97478865

Yes, this is true. My personal observation is that Japanese tabletop RPGs generally assume less contrarianism from the players, and more, for lack of a better term, obedience towards default assumptions.

>>97473489

I would say it's almost exactly the contrary.

>>97478768
thank you

>>97478594
>"merely" human cultists who channel radiant power
So, like, clerics of Pelor, or the Solar Exalted? They sound much more like a playable faction than the vampires.

>>97479386
A lot of japanese rpgs tend to assume players are going into it to play the central premise, even if they do offer options contrary to that. Dracurogue kind of assumes players are going into the game as wanting to play the brooding ruling vampire knighthood who are looking for self-worth in a system that offers them everything it possibly can to distract them from The Beast, less so the people trying to directly rebel against them. Granted, there's nothing stopping you from taking the premise of a sun-worshipping cult to your own game or try and rework the mechanics for your own since the game presents the apostles' abilities in similar fashion to how it does for the proper player characters.

>>97479386
The Sun is not supposed to have been exactly good.

This world was not always one of night.

In the terrifying age that came before, for half of the day, it was brutally and mercilessly encroached upon by the Sun. Its foul light sought to burn all life to a crisp. Yet despite its dreadful power, not all saw the Sun as the enemy it so clearly was. The naive common people clung to a heretical teaching, an evil creed that demanded the offering of living sacrifices to the Sun.

Even so, they were not to blame.

They lived in constant fear of being incinerated by the Sun, knowing not the gentle night that protects us now. Their night lasted only half of the day before the Sun crept into the eastern sky to renew its savage assault.

I can already see you asking "but weren't those lies?". Well, the vampires now DO seem to be nice guys and treat mortals pretty well (barring a modicum of some rich people being jerkasses, the usual shit - I supposed we're on the level of the usual "bright" dnd regarding nobles in good-aligned countries), so at least the setting seems to imply the sun's minions to be indeed the bad guys. There is also a Progenitor (a childe of Dracul, or whatever they're called in this game) still alive, and she seems pretty cool; at the same times, the fragments of the sun are unquestionably bringing forth chaos and destruction. I guess you could make the sun's cultists not really evil, but even then, it does seem pretty hard to make vampires bad - at least the vampires living right now.

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>>97479469
>>97479498

I earnestly think that the playable "heretics" throw a metaphorical wrench into the thematics and premise of the game.

Take the Álfr, for example, the elven fey of the seasonal courts who travel from their own world to the Everdark. Alongside the Vouivre and the Alrûna, they are the most well-respected of all "heretics."

Álfr of the summer and spring courts are explicitly playable. They have full-fledged statistics and share no actions in common. It is theoretically possible to have multiple Álfr in the party, each fulfilling a different role.

Why, from an in-universe perspective, do these elves still have to deal with the whole Warmth and Thirst rigmarole? Why are they still beefing with the fragments of the sun, and vice versa? I do not know. The books never go into this subject, despite dwelling on bizarrely specific topics elsewhere.

Even if we can come up with an answer for the Álfr specifically, we would then have to come up with answers for the Vouivre, the Alrûna, the Grimalkin, and every other "heretic."

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>>97478403

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>>97480002

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>>97479760
>Why, from an in-universe perspective, do these elves still have to deal with the whole Warmth and Thirst rigmarole? Why are they still beefing with the fragments of the sun, and vice versa? I do not know. The books never go into this subject, despite dwelling on bizarrely specific topics elsewhere.

Actually, the book, or at least the translation, answers that pretty succinctly in its usual grandiose way; They're all still supernatural creatures of the night like the vampires, they're just not the descendants of the one who killed the sun. Meaning that while the vampires get to play out their nobility fantasies, they're still stuck living in the woods as societal outcasts. All the "heretic" lines seem to deal with the same issues the knights do regarding Warmth and Thirst due to the lack of a sun solving their physical but not emotional needs, but being stuck on the fringes of society by a discriminatory nobility and treated as monsters tends to make them go crazier from isolation and/or cruelty, which is what justifies making them the oddball optional splats to work alongside the knights in a party. There's probably not a lot of love lost between the knights and the creatures of the night who haven't exactly benefited from this whole "Eternal Darkness" thing the way the vamps have, but some existential threats are too great to ignore like the Fallen, Death Knights, and the Fragments of the Sun.

The other bits are the kind of thing you need to chew through the splats to fully understand. For example, the Álfr are friends of the progenitor Princess Nimian, and thusly allies of her descendants in House Avaloma. The playable fairy knights are essentially copying the vampire knights attitudes and mood swings even if they don't quite understand them while acting as agents for their kingdoms, so it kind of speaks for itself why some of them would feel obligated to deal with threats like the fragments of the sun or the Fallen ones.

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>>97480053
>Even if we can come up with an answer for the Álfr specifically, we would then have to come up with answers for the Vouivre, the Alrûna, the Grimalkin, and every other "heretic."

I could probably try that, actually.
>Varcolac: Werewolves. Tend to get the worst of it due to how many resemble lupine Fallen, but some that show self-control will be taken into the service of a knight out of curiosity and pity
>Nachzehrer: Zombies. Also tend to get the worst of it due to their resemblance to the Dark Queen's Army despite being completely uninvolved, but the few that are sheltered and protected by the living will sometimes put their new lives and powers to use protecting those who showed them salvation.
>Karnstein:Vampire ninjas. Claim they're also a knight lineage, even if the nobility doesn't believe them. Still leaves them in a prime position to get hired as spies and assassins by the skeptical knights.
>Grimalkin:Cat people. They're cats. They outright turn back and forth from cats to cat people out of boredom. They can't even be killed. What more do you want?
>Melusine: Snek people. Ancient keepers of knowledge and prophets once revered, now living mainly in isolation save to find successors to allow their souls to pass on.
>Striga: Bird people. Cursed by the eternal darkness brought on by the knights, now trying to find a sense of purpose living as vagrants and bards following the knights for inspiration
>Faun:Actual demons. Basically the same reason as any evil-aligned player character. They're there to fuck with the knights and tempt them into Falling, or deal with something nasty enough that it takes precedence over fucking with the knights to tempt them into Falling.

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>>97480150
>Sanguenarr: Vamp Vamps. There to basically out-vamp the vampires and angst about it.
>Álfr: Fae. They share a friendship with House Avaloma, and sometimes leave their realm to visit the Everdark out of pure curiosity and to give House Avaloma aid when they need it most.
>Vouivre: Dragon girls. One of the few heretics held in esteem by the knights, mostly just puts the knights through mysterious trials and nothing worse than that. So I guess if one just follows a knight around on their journey, it'd be pretty hard to argue they should stay behind.
>Loup Garou: Native American bara wolf men. But not werewolves. Cause they already had those. Honestly, by all accounts they have the most reason to hate the piss out of the knights as a whole considering they did a genocide on them, so, I dunno, maybe a knight promised one of their surviving tribes to build a casino on their homeland or something.
>Alrûna: Plant people. One of the few heretics held in esteem by the knights, serving as oracles and advisors to House Drac and Dustheim.
>Frigga: Spider girls. They're here to make spider babies and chew bubblegum, whether the knights agree to it or not.

So a pretty diverse set of reasons for them to join, although not all of them fit so neatly.

>>97480156
I can fix her

>>97480192
But she's hotter the way she is

>>97472117
Thanks for this writeup op, I've not heard of this one before. Its an interesting concept but I feel the execution, from what you've said, is lacking.

>>97479760
>I earnestly think that the playable "heretics" throw a metaphorical wrench into the thematics and premise of the game.
>Why, from an in-universe perspective, do these elves still have to deal with the whole Warmth and Thirst rigmarole? Why are they still beefing with the fragments of the sun, and vice versa? I do not know. The books never go into this subject, despite dwelling on bizarrely specific topics elsewhere.

the forbidden knowledge bit in noblesse storia implies that some if not all the heretics are also desendent from the true ancestor and the only difference was that their progenitors didn't play along in the secret large-scale
purges of the pre ever dark nations and got sealed for it

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>>97472117
Thanks for this, OP. I love Nechronica to pieces so finding out the guy behind it's done a new one fills me with excitement.
Not gonna bore the thread with my own opinions, but it was a good write-up.

>the sun is a potentially malovelent eldritch entity
>the sun has been shattered and its fragments are pissed about this
UNTHESUNTHESUNTHESUNTHESUNTHESUNTHESUNTHESUNTHESUNTHESUNTHESUNTHESUNTHESUNTHESUNTHESUNTHES
No but really I'd absolutely adapt some of the New Sequence/The Dawn Machine for this game that sounds lit.

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>>97480053

Maybe I am just reading the wrong section of Heretica Noir, but I am not actually seeing the part that talks about "heretics" sharing a need for Warmth, a vulnerability to Thirst and the sun, and so on.

>>97480852

Same here. I am looking at the Forbidden Knowledge section of Noblesse Storia, and the only mention of "heretics" here is a deliberately cut-off line of "And within the heretics..."

Since the line is deliberately cut off, we do not know what it is actually supposed to imply.

Either I am missing something, or this game's lore is heavily muddled due to translation issues towards English.

>>97476757
I was checking the rulebook during lunch break and it did look fun, too bad I'd have to refluff everything for my group.

>>97478878
>obedience towards default assumptions
I'm going to guess this is due to a common agreement about the general expectations when approaching a given genre or setting, instead of the usual shit we have here where everyone tries to redefine or subvert everything to feel clever.

>>97481814
If we're going by the rules, the rules explicitly state that despite some of the name changes, most of their functions are the same as the knights. If we're going by fluff, well,

>They are the inhabitants of the old night, who have been dominating the world since before the everlasting night. They are a lineage that differs in blood from the True Ancestor Dracul and the Six Great progenitors. In other words, they are heretical bloodlines. Their lineages are too numerous to count, and some have already ceased to exist, while others, of which only one member remains, are also known.

>A heretic, as an individual, has the same power as a knight. On the other hand, they also possess unusual abilities and looks. However, heretics do not inherit the blood of the True Ancestor, and
therefore, do not have the prestige of defeating the sun. Thus, the people fear the heretics, and do not laud them. Nevertheless, heretics are still enemies of the sun and abhor the fallen. They may turn against the knights, but they will also sometimes stand with them and face threats together

>Most heretics rarely meet one another, and are not blessed with friends or love. Most of them have no one to call their master, and most would flee as soon as they receive the accolade. The knights regard heretics with contempt, and the people fear them. Therefore, heretics are more prone to falling to depravity than knights. Unable to find a place where they can rest their heart, many heretics fall to depravity and turn into evil monsters.

By all accounts, they would be the same if not for their origins. They have supernatural powers, they rule the night, they warp into really freaky forms if they give into ultimate despair, the lore even makes it clear that heretics can be treated as knights if given the chance and training. So it really is a legitimate matter of discrimination that keeps them as "heretics" to the vampire's own "nobility".

>>97480053

IIRC everyone there uses warmth and thirst.

Watsonian answer: because the sun shattering basically was a cosmical event. As Dracul kinda become the... focus of the planet/continent, every (un)living thing started to work by his rules.

Doylist answer: because monstergirls (and some monster dudes) are cool, but Kamiya didn't want to try his hand at a whole new game just for them.

>>97480002
>>97480008
Impregnate

>>97488593

You mean gently kissing their hand

>>97472117
Thank you for both effortposting and actually playing games. Shall be pilfering some of the worldbuilding

>>97472561
>>97488593
Are dhampirs even possible in this setting?

>>97491034

I'm pretty sure they aren't.

Sure, it's a post from reddit loaded onto 4ch, but 'ey, it's a JTRPG.

>>97472564
The concept seems similar to how WOD has elysiums, except enforced as a "Don't be a dick, Gary" rather than "In-universe rule".

>>97498677

It's more than that.

These vampires are for the most part nobles with superpowers, not inhuman monsters that need to have a social life like in WOD. They're at their core humans. Hell, might even be more ehtical than baseline humans.
Granted the system is still more rigid than most, but it does make sense that you don't simply start beating up others at a soiree.

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>>97472189

>All characters are simply assumed to have whatever in-universe perks fits their path, based on the lore written into the path's description. The captain path's lore describes all captains being knights who can Realize one or more ships (I can only assume they do not go away while sleeping), so that is what a captain PC is assumed to be capable of. This leaves more bare-bones path like guard, pilgrim, hunter, and nightbeast high and dry; they do not get any special perks based on their lore, since their in-universe niche is "Guy who fights good," and all PCs can equally fight good.

Thinking on this a little, while I strongly appreciate siloing of combat and noncombat abilities, this is one of the pitfalls that siloing sometimes fall into.

Okay, it is great that everyone gets the same amount of combat actions and social actions (Renowns aside, anyway). But then lords get to be lords, sages get to be really knowledgeable, captains get one or more ships that they can just conjure up, and so on and so forth. Meanwhile, bodyguards, pilgrims (knights errant), and hunters are just the guys who fight good, so they get... basically nothing, as far as narrative perks are concerned.