I had this burning idea for a maid-RPG setting. However, as I'm a little busy at the moment (despite it being summer holidays), I may or may not commit myself to it. We can discuss the idea and if there's enough interest I might go ahead and run it. Otherwise, someone else can pick it up and run with it. We'll see. It was fun to think up and write at least. Anyhow, as usual, open to ideas, suggestions for improvements, and such.
Clockwork ? A Maid RPG
Inspired by Shina Dark, Tears to Tiara, and Nobilis.
Genre: Slapstick Comedy/Slice-of-life/Fantasy Sci-fi/Action-Adventure
Mistress: Illumina Sa Eisengardii Vey Vyaryana (AKA Lumina, Mina, or Luna)
Mansion: The Clockwork Castle, Eisengard
Players: 4-6 (quite flexible, can be more if required)
Rules:
Random events not used.
Seduction used.
2 maid types as usual
3 maid attributes
The Mistress has powers but cannot fight as much due to circumstances, especially in the beginning. Battles will mostly be left to the maids.
Usual battle system won't be used as it appears it kills the game. We'll simply RP battles with each player explaining their actions and the GM telling them the effects of said actions. Favour may have to be expended to battle bosses.
You can purchase temporary boosts in attributes for 3 favour per level of attribute. The temporary boost lasts a limited amount of time, about just enough for one battle.
Maid roots are replaced with the following (roll 1D6):
1) Soldier/Priestess of one of the old gods
2) noble
3) Commoner
4) Research Subject
5) slave
6) war orphan
You will also roll 1D6 for roles and ?powers?.
There are 6 essential roles and powers. Just to make this fair, I have randomized the list of roles and assigned a secret number to each. For now you will just report the result of your roll. I will tell you what role you rolled at the beginning of the game. No two players can have the same role so it?s first-come-first-serve. If you roll a number that has already been rolled previously by another player you should re-roll. If there are more players interested than I can add additional roles as necessary.
The following is the list of roles and powers:
Head of Internal Affairs and Finance. You will also serve as the Head-Maid and Lady?s Maid. You were granted the power to manipulate fire. (+1 Affection)
Chief of Security and General of the Armed Forces. You will also serve as the Mistress? personal bodyguard. You were granted the power to manipulate blades. (+1 Athletics)
Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Logistics. You will also serve as the Head Cook. You were granted the power to manipulate nature (animals and plants). (+1 Skill)
Minister of Industry, Education, and Research. You will also serve as the Mistress? Chief Scholar. You were granted the power to manipulate technology. (+1 Luck)
Minister of Transportation and Commerce. You will also serve as the Mistress? personal driver/pilot. You were granted the power to manipulate movement. (+1 Will)
Chief of Foreign Affairs and Information (Espionage). You will also serve as the Mistress? spokesperson, informant, and, secretly, personal spy. You were granted the power to manipulate darkness. (+1 Cunning)
When not attending to your specific duties you will attend to the general maintenance of the household and serve the Mistress.
The powers you are granted give you near-godly control over the domain bestowed upon you. If your power is ?blades? for example, you can create a thousand blades and unleash your own brand of Unlimited Blade Works?.for a price. You must expend favour to use your power on such grand scales. The cost will be determined by the GM. However, they can be used on a small scale for no cost. For example, creating small fireballs.
Setting and story overview:
Fate works in mysterious ways. You are a living proof of that fact. One minute you?re living your everyday life?the next you were swept up to become some Dark Lord?s living sacrifice?the next you?re a wanted runaway and the personal servant of a seemingly powerful, whimsical and spoiled little goddess who has bestowed upon you extensions of her power?
Let?s step back a little. This is your world, a world its people has named ?Vyarya?, the beautiful, a world where technology and magic has grown hand-in-hand. It is a world where technocratic rusting steam-punk metropolises exist alongside gleaming white fortress-cities of magic. It was aptly named a few thousand years ago?but now it is but dying, slowly decaying under the canker of war. A thousand years ago a war raged between those who sought freedom from the tyranny of Vyarya?s gods and the gods themselves, supported by the loyal fanatics of their many grand cathedrals. The ?rebels?, a union of many non-divine races, united into one empire and fought courageously. They emerged victorious, but only barely. The cost both sides bore was great, and only the tyrannical gods escaped unscathed. Vyarya?s gods withdrew and left naught but their curses on the land.
The empire reigned on for a few centuries. However, without a foe to unite against and the heterogeneity in races, the empire soon collapsed. A thousand years passed and now the world is divided into many small kingdoms and a few larger empires, all constantly bickering and warring between themselves. Some have even resumed worship of the old gods of Vyarya. Some speculate that this is yet another ruse by the old gods to keep the people of Vyarya separated and controllable.
On the central continent lies two powerful nations that have rapidly expanded by conquering the many small kingdoms that once lie between them. One is a magitech superpower, the Holy Empire of Lune. The other is a purely technological powerhouse, the Graydun Republic, whose technology borders on pure godly magic. Now their borders have met and an all-out war between the two superpowers has begun. The new war between these two colossal giants has left many settlements lying along the new border in burning shambles, their homes grounded into the barren earth, their people captured as slaves and prisoners of war.
With the war reaching new heights of intensity, the Graydun republic became desperate. The senate even went as far as allowing a religious faction within the government to take a drastic step ? to take over an ancient-technology research facility built over some ancient ruins in hopes of unleashing the ruin?s true potential for use as a weapon against the Lune Empire.
The religious faction was led by a man named Tiovo?and his intentions were far from patriotic?.
In fact, he intends to make use of an age-old legend, the legend of the Lord of Darkness, the Apostle of the Apocalypse, the Bringer of Calamity, the one true Lord of Hell, blablabla, etc, the one prophesized to usher in a new reign of chaos before bringing an end to all existence. That very Lord lies asleep in that very ruin underneath the laboratory after having been sealed away 1000 years ago during the divine war. But the prophesized time of resurrection has arrived along with the alignment of the planets and the eclipse of the sun and other nonsensical mumbo jumbo.
The rest of the world too knows this and is holding its breath in apprehension. In answer to the threat the other kingdoms and empires have sent their own little tributes and sacrifices to attempt to appease (and gain the favour of) the Lord of Darkness. The sacrifices were in the form of young females that, together, numbered up to 100.000, made up of anyone from prisoners of war, slaves, to commoners, to nobles and princesses.
You are one of them. You can be anyone of the following: A prisoner of war. A citizen, rich or poor, chosen through a communal lottery or simply taken at random. A slave, a war-orphan that nobody would miss. Maybe even a noble or a princess of the highest breeding, chosen as the highest-quality sacrifice.
Now you find yourself held captive in a mysterious place, most likely far away from your home. All you know that is you are now at the mercy of these strangers who seem to know nothing of mercy.
Tiovo gathered the 100.000 female sacrifices, including you, as living sacrifices to achieve his own ends - to offer as a personal sacrifice for the Dark Lord?s resurrection in the hopes of striking a deal with the Lord. His request ? to make himself the emperor of the apocalyptic empire?
Furthermore, you?ve been chosen as one of the few to be taken into the resurrection chamber to be offered to him first to represent the 100.000 others. So this was to be your fate?to die as a living sacrifice to resurrect the Dark One, the one who will destroy your world after devouring your soul?
However, again, fate works in strange ways. It appears Tiovo and the legends were a little?mistaken?.
The prophesized ?Lord of Destruction? turns out to be a little girl named Illumina. Even worse, she was seriously pissed off over being woken up so rudely by this ?noisy bunch of gibbering idiots with no sense of fashion?. And even stranger, she seemed rather puzzled (and irritated) about the prophecy and legend. And it seemed the 100.000 female living sacrifices was the last straw?to cut a long story short, she snapped and kicked Tiovo?s butt along with the rest of his priests.
To cut an even longer story shorter, Illumina reveals to you that as her resurrection was incomplete, she is greatly weakened. In order to free all the sacrifices from these twisted priests she needed new instruments of power to fight in her stead, you. You were chosen by Illumina to become her personal maids and to wield her powers in her name. With your new powers you mow through the remnants of the religious order and Graydun?s soldiers and release the other sacrifices. Then, in an almighty demonstration of power, she lifts the entire ancient ruins up from the ground along with the surrounding lands and reveals it to be a floating island with the ruins of what was once a very ordered steampunk-style metropolis with a grand citadel, the Clockwork Castle, Eisengard.
You are now on the run, an enemy of the world, a servant of the Maiden of Calamity(?) herself. Will you attempt to stab the Mistress in the back to save the world? Repay her for saving you with your unflinching loyalty? Learn more about her and the truth behind the legends, prophecy, the world of Vyaryana, and its gods? Or simply attempt to survive? The choice, and Vyaryana?s fate, is up to you?
(Note: A prologue with more details is coming up soon).
