Most people who design games probably start with the mechanics, having an idea of how they want the mechanics to shape the game and how it is played. When I decided to start making my own rule system, it didn’t start with game mechanics, instead it was something way more fundamental that I felt I needed to start with, physics. How the game world works (in my case Greyhawk of course), at a fundamental level, and let that guide the mechanics. This is going to be an introduction to fantasy physics, and how it is shaping the Hawk Tales rules and gameplay.
None of this is needed to play and have fun using the Hawk Tales rules, you can swing a sword, cast spells and pretty much everything else a fantasy hero does without paying much attention to any of this, just like other fantasy TTRPG’s. For those of you who want to understand and master the use of magic, holy smiting, planar travel or how to go about killing a god using the Hawk Tale rules this is what you need to dig into.
Fundamentally everything exists in three different ways, physically, mentally or metaphysically. The first two are the easy ones, reality around a character living its life on Oerth is Physical, meaning it exists and can be touched, interacted with. This physical world is made up of the elements (earth, air, water and fire) and the Ethereal provides the “scaffolding” that provides structure and depth to this physical world. Behind the Elements and the Ethereal lurks Positive and Negative Energy setting the trajectory, pace of the world. The world started with the Energy Planes interacting, and if the balance between them tilts too much, the world might end with the Energy Planes reigning supreme once again.
When the world had evolved sufficiently to create life that in turn started to develop, thoughts, will, fear and urges, which led to a whole new realm of existence evolving – the minds of creatures harbored worlds in their own right. This new realm of existence expanded in all sorts of ways, and grew stronger, and eventually reached the level where it took on a life of its own, it became Metaphysical. The oldest of the Metaphysical realms are the Feywild created long before advance and intelligent creatures roamed the prime. As life became more advanced, its mental capabilities expanded both the mental and the metaphysical. The metaphysical is partly real and can therefore develop and even come back into the physical again, this how we got the great wheel cosmology, with the Astral, gods, elves, dragons and much more. Again, behind the metaphysical lurks the two energy planes, influencing everything.
These three dimensions of existence are reflected in all creatures, their abilities, essence and what they can do. Let’s have look at the Abilities first. Standard D&D (and its derivatives) have 6 abilities Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis and Cha. The first three (Str, Dex, Con) are physical and determine home good a character are at manipulating the world around it. The next three (Int, Wis, Cha) are mental abilities, determining how well a creature can understand, predict and interact with other creatures. Hawk Tales FRP adds another three metaphysical abilities to this, Comeliness, Presence and Taint.
Comeliness
This is how most creatures experience Comeliness, but there are more to Comeliness than meets the eye. It Covers a creatures metaphysical standing, is it rising towards the higher planes or falling down toward the lower ones. It can range from both high positives to deep negatives. Comeliness can often be perceived as beauty and mixed up with Charisma and can in some ways be used to boost Charisma, but it goes much deeper than that. It is a resource that can be leverage for good and bad, to hide your ill deeds, or sacrifice to struggle on a bit longer. The function of Comeliness is tied to a creature's Essence.
Presence
Measures a creature’s metaphysical strength, how strong its life force is. It dictates a creature's ability to escape death, stand up to certain forms of damage, and planar travel. It only goes in positive direction and can go really high in some cases. A creature’s Essence dictates how a creature can use its Presence, or if it needs it at all, some do better without…
Taint
Is a record of a creature’s entanglement with the lowers side of the multiverse, near death experiences, evil magic, gods and such. As it increases a creature will have a harder time escaping death, but it is also a resource that can serve a creature well if it decides to dabble in the dark arts like Necromancy or join an evil cult.
Is the how a creature functions on a fundamental level, both in the world like does it need to eat, sleep, and does it age for example. Its Essence also dictates this in game mechanics terms as well, how its abilities functions, takes damage, dies and recovers. Humans (and most other characters) will have a Soul as its Essence, which means they are given Presence that increases as they level up, but lost when failing a Death Save or take special forms of damage. Soul based creatures age and have a limited lifespan; they are resistant to summons but not enchantments for example.
Liches have a Dark Soul powered by negative energy, which means they don’t age, can’t die, and literary use the Taint gained from evil deeds to replenish its powers. Both Souls and Dark Souls are Physical Essences, and two examples out a totally of 15 in the game at this state covering all forms of existence, like Spirits, Thralls, Spawns, Mindless, Unminded, Umbral, to the outright weird and scary ones like Phrenic, Residuum and of course Simulacra. Yes, creatures that are created using magic can function very differently than their naturally born siblings.
Essence is a base to build creatures from that makes sure that creatures can (and will) function very differently, both thematically, but also in terms of game mechanics during encounters.
Here again it ties back into physics with currently 21 different types of damage in the game, from the Kinetic (Bludgeoning, Slashing and Piercing), Elemental (Acid, Cold, Fire, Lightning, Poison and Thunder). Together with the two Ethereal Damage types (Force and Vorpal), they make up the physical forms of damage in Hawk Tales. The mental side have only one at the moment, Psychic, that inflicts Hit Point Damage like all the physical damage types, but I’m toying with the idea of others that strike at a creature’s senses or ability to orient itself. Not sure how to do this mechanically yet.
Metaphysical Damage comes in two groups Celestial and Fiendish, with Radiant and Necrotic being the staples. The Fiendish side have more variety (of course!), with Ability Drain, Despair Damage, Energy and Life Drain and Vile Damage. The good side has Disruption and Void Drain to take on the real nasties, all of these damage types use different mechanics, that affect different abilities and aspects of creatures, like their age, Exertion and so on. Some are only effective against creatures based on certain Essences, like Void Drain, which doesn’t do much if anything against humans and similar creatures, but can-do wonders against ghosts and some other forms of undead…
Also bound by the laws of fantasy physics, and this falls under the Strain the spell or other effect is using. There are 11 magic Strains in the current version of Hawk Tales, physical ones like Elemental and Ethereal, mental in the form of Cerebral, and a plethora of metaphysical ones, from Celestial, Concordant, Fey and Shadow, to Necrotic and Fiendish. Strains tell where an effect draws its power from, like Necrotic from the Negative Energy Plane, and fiendish from the Lower Planes, and Fey from the Feywild and so on.
The reliance on a particular Strain means that access to that source is needed to gain the use of that effect, not to cast a spell necessarily but to memorize it. This can be tricky when you descend into the lower planes and rely on magic provided by Celestial lords or access to the elements. The Prime Material Plane is special in that it has connections to almost all other parts of the multiverse, at least indirectly, providing access to all sorts of magic.
Magic is also a way to provide access to other planes and bring aspects of other parts of the multiverse to the Prime. This can be a short instant summoning, or message spell, to the consecration of a temple complex that alters its planar aspects in lots of permanent ways.
Physics also determines how the world can be perceived, what can detect you, under what circumstances, and how to go about trying to stay hidden. Ethereal sensing is used for Darkvision, to detect illusions, see footsteps and even openings to other dimensions. Alignment can be sensed using metaphysics, and so on. The Prime Material Plane is special in the way that it is both physical, harbors a lot of creatures with mental abilities and the base from which the metaphysical planes are created, which means it is diverse and most sense works well here. But more beyond its borders and things can be very different.
This was a brief overview of the underpinnings of the Hawk Tales rules. Complicated, yes compared to other game systems this adds a layer of complexity to the rules. A different kind of complexity, one that doesn’t require more dice rolls in combat, but provides more options for everything from combat to how to sell your soul.
