Lone Wolf Fists: Mommy, where do martial heroes come from?

Time to talk about the birds and the bees, kiddos

You see, when a bird finds a bee scrounging through the smoldering remains of the post apocalytpia, sometimes they see the potential of the bee to transcend their boundaries and be a useful follower of the bird.

(Sometimes the bird's player just likes a bee NPC and wants to keep them around, they can do this too)

If the bee is amiable to the idea (through straight-up roleplaying or some application of the Heart skill) the bee may become the bird's disciple. It's simple to track a bee (follower's) stats: they have a single Effort die, same as any other "normal" human (bee). They have a single Health Box, and when it fills they're toast (with honey).

A bird (master) can have up to ten disciples (bees), because that keeps bookkeeping in a reasonable place and agrees with the span of control theory of personnel management. It also means that the familiar PC/follower relationship from D&D and it's many children is retained, so there's some cross-system familiarity for players of the most popular RPG (and anything I can do to reduce the cognitive overload of new players is a decent idea, in my estimation)

It gets better: a master can train their disciples. Here's where we're starting to see all that work on scene structure design pay dividends: you take a Montage scene, you train your guys. Nice and simple; we already know Montages are significant chunks of time, so we're preserving our timeline's integrity without a bunch of extra paperwork.

Later on I'll really blow you minds by linking the passing of Montage scenes to the movement of elements in the setting (you take a montage training your followers, your enemies get a montage to move their tanks toward your town, for example)

Trained followers can be organized into a Group: this allows you to treat up to ten followers as a single unit with up to Effort and Health 10 (in effect, like one "big" character, rather than many small ones). This expands your potential followers from 10 disorganized, untrained people into up to 100 well-trained units of 10 apiece.

Groups can be taught Novice-level Techniques as Tactics, which they power through Morale, rather than Prana (I'll get to this later once we learn about how groups work: it basically works the same, but it comes from a leader inspiring them rather than them tapping into their respective magical wells of power)

BUT IT GETS BETTER: Every time you train followers in the rudiments of magical Techniques, there's a chance a given bee may learn how to actually use the magic. This transforms them from a bee (follower) into a Minor Hero (small bird)

Minor Heros occupy the same intermediary slot of character power that Lesser Legends occupied in Legends of the Wulin. The big development here is that their status, genesis and relative powers are placed into the middle of the process of going from normal person (bee)>student in magical training >kung-fu superhero (bird)

It gets even better: These Minor Heroes can have their own followers, allowing them to act as administrators or generals on their own (so if you have 10 Minor heroes as your NPC followers, they can each have an army of 100 followers, putting you on the top of an army's power structure)

Furthermore, you can "train up" your Minor Hero all the way to a proper Hero, granting them an Archetype and a Major Dharma so they can get Kharma without you.

And that's where baby PCs come from

....

Followers

What are followers?

Followers are NPCs that follow a character as their leader. They obey and defend the character, in exchange for the protection, prestige and reward of working for them.

Most followers have 1 Effort die, 1 Health box, and no other abilities.

Recruiting followers

Any time you meet an NPC, you can try to recruit them. You can either try to convince them to join up with you purely through speaking and acting in-character, or you can leverage the Heart skill to bowl them over with rhetoric and force of personality.

Followers have a stat called Loyalty which determines how much they stick with you (and follower your orders) when times get tough. For freshly-recruited followers, they begin with between 1-10 Loyalty. This is either chosen by the GM or rolled on a d10.

Tests of Loyalty

Any time a follower must choose between their self-preservation and loyalty to their leader, roll a d10: if it is over their current Loyalty, they choose self-preservation.

They might also test loyalty if they must choose between deeply-held principles, treasured persons/things, or any significant temptation and loyalty. Failing their test results in them betraying their leader’s interest in favor of the triggering principle, treasured thing, or temptation. These triggers are circumstantial; the GM will choose if their loyalty is challenged by these things on a case-by-case basis.

Followers that fail any test of loyalty reduce their loyalty score by 1 as their hearts cloud with doubt. Betrayal by a leader, as judged by the GM, reduces it to 0.

Divided Loyalty

Followers may have loyalty to more than one character. This is fine unless loyalty between their leaders comes into conflict: if they must ever prioritize or choose between leaders, roll an opposing d10 for each leader, adding their loyalty to that character. The highest-rolling dice, in descending order, determines how they prioritize their leaders. Re-rolls ties, unless the GM wishes them to be paralyzed between loyalties and take no action.

Increasing Loyalty

At the end of any scene in which a follower is publicly flattered, rewarded or otherwise treated remarkably well by their leader, increase their Loyalty by 1. Loyalty can never be higher than 10.

The leader to which the follower has the deepest loyalty sets a ceiling for all other loyalties: no other leader may have an equal score. If a follower’s loyalty would become equal, they must choose whether to forfeit their loyalty increase, or demote the current-highest by one (altering the hierarchy of their loyalty)

Truly heroic acts or fantastic rewards from leaders can increase Loyalty by +1d10, rather than by 1, at the GM’s discretion.

Limits on followers

A single leader may have 10 followers before they’re unable to manage any additional ones. They may surrender a current follower for a new one, although this reduces the jilted follower’s Loyalty to 0 (and may test the loyalty of other followers at the GM’s option)

Followers may be trained into Disciples and formed into Groups, however (See Training Followers, below). Each group may have up to 10 members, and each group counts as 1 follower for purposes of determining how many followers a given leader may have.

Effectively, this allows each leader to lead a small army of 100 well-organized followers under their direct command.

Training Followers

A character may train their followers to improve their capabilities. The training character is called the master, and the trained characters the apprentices.

The Master and Apprentices dedicate one Montage scene to train. During this time, they are totally engrossed in training and may perform no other actions. After this scene, they graduate from Followers to Disciples.

Disciples may be formed into a Group (p.XX) with other trained followers of their master’s choosing. They may also be taught Tactics, the beginnings of Techniques (p.XX), and invested with Morale (p.XX).

To teach a Tactic, a Master must choose a Rank-1 Technique that they know and spend a scene training a Group of Disciples in its motions. At the end of the scene, they learn how to use the Technique as a Tactic. They may only use Tactics they have learned while they fight within the group

At the end of every training scene, each apprentice rolls their Effort. If any of the dice results is 10, that Disciple awakens their slumbering potential for greatness and become a Minor Hero (or Villain!)

Minor Heroes

Minor Heroes are promising Disciples with the potential to become True Heroes (as the Player Characters are). Once their potential emerges, they become Degree-1 Minor Heroes. This has the following immediate effects:

•        One of their Chakra goes from Closed to Slumbering,
•     Their Effort and Health Boxes increase to 2 apiece
•     They learn one of the Masteries known by their Master

Such promising students are highly prized, for they immediately learn any Tactics they once knew as Techniques, up to a maximum of 3. If they Awaken their now-accessible Slumbering Chakra, they may utilize these powerful Techniques without relying on a group.

Minor Heroes may no longer form into groups but may lead and direct a group of their own (although they cannot further train them: that requires a True Hero).

Training Minor Heroes

A number of Minor Heroes equal to the Master’s Degree may be trained per Montage scene. The training is intense; it blends punishing physical exertion with a soul-searing spiritual journey. It is only through this agonizing process that heroes may learn to handle the burning cosmic destiny that reduces lesser wills to ash.

Each Minor Hero taught must test their loyalty to complete the training. If they pass, they achieve the next degree. If they fail, they become discouraged and are unable to advance, finishing the scene exhausted and frustrated.

Minor Heroes have only two Degrees: if they achieve the second degree, they gain the following benefits:

• An additional Effort (total 3)
• An additional Health Box (total 3)
• A single Focus Slot
• Their Slumbering Chakra Awakens

Should they succeed at another scene of training, they become True Heroes: they gain the abilities of a Degree-1 Character, selecting from a Hero Chart of their choosing and advancing their capabilities appropriately. True Heroes have 3 Novice Technique and one Expert: if they have insufficient Tactics to convert to new Techniques, they may learn any they lack from their Master’s repertoire.

Some Minor Heroes get discouraged and quit their Master’s brutal training regimen. Such loose cannons make their own rocky way in the world, often being seduced by an unscrupulous master into wickedness (the Mockingbird Emperor is particularly talented at this method of recruitment)

Mismatched Heroism

It sometimes happens that a Strong archetype-character trains a Cunning type, of even an Enlightened hero. Such mismatched master/student relationships make sense if the master in question knows an appropriate Gupt Kala to teach them as their Expert Technique, but what if they don’t?

There are two options a GM has to resolve this hiccup:

1) You can assume that the knowledge of a clan’s Gupt Kala are “encoded” into their other teachings and vice versa: for instance, knowledge of frantic and fiery social graces can be gleaned from the Radioactive Scorpion’s fiery martial kung-fu. In this case, simply have the student select an appropriate Gupt Kala from their clan’s Techniques.

2) If a clan doesn’t have access to such esoteric Techniques (for instance, a minor clan without any Gupt Kala) you can substitute a “waiting slot” for the character. This slot may be filled whenever the character encounters a situation which can teach them the “missing” Gupt Kala, for no Kharma cost.

The second route places starting characters at a disadvantage, so is recommended for NPCs before PCs. It is a great motivator for adventure for a player, if they choose to start this way. You might want to warn them that they’re playing the game in Hard Mode though!

True Heroes as Followers

A True Hero with loyalty to a Leader is still their Follower; at least, while they’re treated well.

True Heroes adopt the Minor Dharma of their Master; however, they also choose their own Major Dharma. Major Dharmas are powerful cosmic destinies; this often draws them into conflict with their loyalties.

In this way, True Heroes have three conflicting loyalties: Loyalty to Clan, Loyalty to Master, and Loyalty to their own Destiny.

In any scene in which a True Hero Follower is present in an active capacity (ie: fighting or doing something noteworthy, not just standing around) they will try to act in a way that accrues Kharma.

True Heroes accrue and spend Kharma just as Player Characters. PCs may teach their follower any Techniques they know so long as they have the Kharma necessary to learn it.

They may also learn Techniques from other Masters, but this will cause them to acquire Loyalty to that Master as though from a tremendous favor.

While they follower a PC, True Hero Followers will not act in such a way that they will acquire Zui unless they fail a test of Loyalty. If they fail such a test, they immediately seek to use a Negative Trigger to gain Kharma and Zui.

Followers of Followers

True Heroes and Minor Heroes may have Followers and Disciples of their own. To simplify bookkeeping, their Follower’s Loyalty isn’t tracked: it is assumed to always be exactly equal to the True Hero’s Loyalty.