Heranyt Playtest and The Dragon's Fire - Passouan 4 , 5 and 6

I like reading setting books. I like having a coherent set of vibes that I can just lean into on evenings where I don't feel like reading something more "substantial". Just soak in the vibes.

I hate using setting books while running games. I hate it because there's either too much lore or not enough, and it's impossible to just use the lore immediately. I don't know anyone who personally used a setting book as it was "intended", and the only people I know of who sorta did were using 4e DnD books, which have a lot of crunch in them: using the setting book changed the game itself, so they used the book.

So I decided I wanted to actually make a setting book that could be used, as-is, in a game of Crescendo... which meant that Crescendo needed to be done. And it is. We're getting the text firmed up, which is why it's in Ashcan, but the game's mechanics are done.

So I decided I wanted to make a setting book. Which meant actually making something I would use at the table. This time I decided to try and document what I'm doing in a somewhat public fashion. For funsies.

What I Look for in Designing a Game

The simplest measurement I have for when I design a game or game supplement is that it gives back much more than you put into it. My time is valuable. If the process for playing a game doesn't yield something that's obviously going to be worth my time, I don't want to design it. Or play it.

Now Hold Up

That doesn't mean that the game doesn't take skill or time to master. Or even that the game is easy. I make hard games. Crescendo is a very difficult game to master. The initial entry is quiet low, but once you realize what the game is doing... it takes a long time to produce truly epic results. But the process is extremely rewarding while you do it. It's a process that's fun and challenging.

The Heranyt Setting

So, why my homegrown setting? Simply put, I know it. I have played in it for a long time, and feel comfortable with how much lore should be put in, and what I use. Also, this may come as a surprise to some, but I make my games and stuff so I can use them. For my own amusement. So if I am going to make a setting, it's a setting I am going to use. For me. And that means Heranyt, if I'm going science-fantasy.

Playtesting

Now, the big thing that I insist upon is that setting books fundamentally change how the game is played. It's not merely a skin, it's a different way to play that system. I have absolutely no want or need to make a setting that doens't fundamentally change things.. but I couldn't think of anything. I knew things were missing from the Crescendo experience, but then suddenly-

1:1 Time (It's John McGowan's Fault)

 

- I freaking read "The Living Campaign", by John McGowan, a nice guy who decided to write about how 1:1 time could be useful. For those of you who don't know, 1:1 is an older concept in Dungeons and Dragons, which says that game time is tied to real-world time. Sessions of play are more or less when you check back in with your characters and do something dramatic. 

Something about this setup clicked with me. Wolfe stories weren't quite this formula, but the idea behind all Wolfe stories are that there's something huge going on the background, and it is "the plot". The story is about what happens to the characters when the plot hits them... and then leaves. 

So 1:1 time wouldn't look like in Crescendo what it would in DnD, and that's fine.

The Procedure

Heranyt has some light gameplay astrology to it: the seven planets hang in the sky, and they affect things. 

How Does the Situation Progress?

I would roll a d20 for the scale of the event that day:

1: The situation is totally screwed. Downfall.

2-8: The situation gets worse.

9-14: The situation doesn't get worse.

15-19: The situation slightly improves.

20: The situation improves dramatically.

The Initial Situation

I made a calendar that told me when the principle planet was ascendant (doing good stuff) or descendent (doing bad stuff). For weather, I know that the general location we're at is actually decently similar to my own, so I just check the weather for the day at my house.

How Does the Situation Progress?

I would then check to see if Eous the Evil Moon was ascendant (screwing up the initial bad situation) or descendent (making the situation better). 

The Resolution

I would reference a random line from my journal, to see how it all ended up.

How This Looks So Far

So, here's what we got so far. I s tarted on January 4th, which on my calendar is the 4th of Passouan. It's technically winter, but the locale's in the more southerly climes, relatively close to a gulf. So it's actually decently warm. Here's how the plot's progressed at Sota City, where an uneasy alliance of men and elves keep back the eternal tides of undead attack.

4th of Passouan

Two days from now is The Drowning of Telos, when he was said to have met Elpida, the Flame Eternal. 

Unfortunately,  on this warm and temperate day  General Juhani, a popular elven leader, dies protecting his elven guard from a surprise attack led by the dragon and The Bride. Morale is very low amongst the elves. There wasn't even a body left.

Kuri

So, Kuri responded with two accounts: a historical account and one from the standpoint of her character, Raphael. I didn't anticipate this. I was overjoyed. Both were okayed, given that Raphael's survived run-ins with actual gods before.

Account of the Witness 

On that same day, the one who would later be named in the Wars to Come stood among the elven host, sworn neither to command nor retreat. They felt the turning of fate before the dragon was seen, and raised warning even as shadow fell upon the terraces.

When the attack came, they fought to hold the line beside Juhani’s guard, drawing steel and spell alike. They survived the firestorm only by chance—or by design unknown—cast to the stone as the General made his final stand.

When silence returned, it was they who first rose, and it was their voice that called the living together amid the ruin.

For this reason, the chronicles name them not as a savior, but as the Last Witness of Juhani, from whom the true account of the Fourth of Passouan is known. This what I have written or in historical addendum brain today I can change it up if need be.

Raphael

I stood among the guard when the air turned wrong, warm as a forge without flame. Two days remained before the Drowning of Telos.

The dragon came with the Bride. General Juhani placed himself before us and was unmade. No body remained—only scorched stone.

I fell in the fire.

I did not burn.

When the dragon withdrew, I alone rose where I had fallen. The host was broken, and mourning was decreed.

Fifth of Passouan

Kuri- Raphael

The day before the Drowning, on this day, a hundred of the elves sailed to the stars, hearts shattered by the death of Geneal Juhani. Defenses against the horde are worse than ever before. An envoy has been sent to the wolves of Serpent Forest, and prospects look good. 

I keep watch.

While others mourn or flee to the stars, I walk the walls and count what still stands. I test blades dulled by neglect, trace runes that no longer answer as they should. Juhani is gone, and with him the certainty of command—but not my purpose. I listen for the drums of the horde in the distance and for the answer that may come from Serpent Forest. If the Wolves answer the envoy, I will be ready to meet them. If they do not, I will be ready to hold the line. Either way, I do not leave. My survival—and this stand—were never accidents.

I remain not by chance, but by design—set aside to remember what others were meant to forget.

Sixth of Passouan

It’s a warm winter’s day, the Drowning of Telos is today. Heavy rains cancel the festivities for off-duty soldiers. Drunken debauchery amongst the humans follows, elves are disgusted.

Kuri-Raphael

Rain drums the eaves where I stand still.

Below, humans drown in ale and noise,

laughter rotting into shouts.

I do not drink. I watch—

count guards, note shadows, feel the night shift.

An elf turns away in quiet disgust.

I stay, sober with memory,

waiting for the rain to end.

Conclusions So Far

Only one of the four players has provided responses so far. I don't know how that's going to go, come game time and only one of the four players has been tracking things.

But I think this is the best way forward. I may have to figure out what that means, practically, but it's definitely... it feels right. This is amazing. I love it. I just need to figure out how to channel it to others. 

We'll see how this works!

“You Must Be Human First”

The story goes that a man went to Mount Athos to be a monk. Now, on Mount Athos they assign you an elder, who helps you progress in the spiritual life. You obey your elder, he helps you, you progress. So this particular man goes to his elder and asks him what he needs to do. The elder hands the man a copy of Les Misérables, and nothing else. Confused, the man asks the elder what advice he has for him. The elder tells him "First you must be human, and then we can talk about you becoming a god".

In our totalitarian-minded age, this is vital to remember: true people live from their chest, not their heads. What's in your head advises what's in your chest, but it cannot, should not attempt to, control it.

What do I mean by this?

To be truly human is to be driven toward something. Something within you  burns, and you feel it in your chest.  This is not obsession, it is passion directed. It is to be the servant of the Muse who speaks in your ear. Some may reduce that to mere metaphor, but I don't necessarily mean it that way. The idea that humans are microcosmic receptors of the immaterial universe is a deeply human one. And if it human, it is Orthodox. What most people think of as simply mental is actually relational. That relationship can help you to realize that you were always meant to realize that you were always meant to understand and express something profound about the human condition—something that stirs compassion, mercy, and fierce love in the face of suffering.

Think of Jean Valjean in Les Misérables. Before his transformation, he lives entirely in his head: bitter calculations of injustice, cold survival, resentment hardened into ideology. But when Bishop Myriel meets him with radical kindness, not with judgment or control—handing over the silver and lying to save him—something ignites in Valjean's chest. A burning. Not obsession, but directed passion. He goes to another city, and helps those who he can. After failing Fantine by accident, he becomes driven to protect Cosette, to redeem Fantine’s memory, to build a life of quiet, relentless goodness. 

Jean Valjean's head still advises—strategy, caution, planning—but it no longer tyrannizes the heart. The heart leads, and the man becomes truly human. He is bound to those around him by love, and he allows that to become his telos. It is irrational. He knows it. But rationality is for man, not the other way 'round.

This is what the elder from Mount Athos knew. You cannot leap straight to theosis/divinization, to “becoming a god” through ascetic feats or intellectual mastery, if you have not first allowed yourself to feel the full weight and wonder of being human. The totalitarian mind—whether in politics, ideology, and especially guided "spirituality"—demands control from the top down: the head suppressing the chest, reason smothering passion, systems crushing the individual soul. But true freedom, true divinity, begins lower down, in that fire in the chest that refuses to be extinguished.

In our decrepit age, we are taught to fear that fire. We are told it is dangerous, irrational, uncontrolled. We are offered systems—political, therapeutic, and especially spiritual—that promise to manage it, channel it, or put it out altogether. Putting it out is the end goal, just for the record. But the elder on Mount Athos knew better. He did not hand the young man a rulebook or an academic theological work that would leave him cold but giddy, like being atop a lonely mountain. The elder handed the novice a novel full of broken people, impossible mercy, and love that costs everything. Because only when we have wept with Valjean, raged with Javert, and felt the unbearable weight of grace can we begin to know what it means to be human.

Only then can we stand before God not as clever ideologues or disciplined ascetics, but as wounded, burning hearts that have learned to love in spite of everything. Especially our deluded ideas about reality. Those must go. 

So do not rush to silence the fire in your chest. Do not let the totalitarian spirit—inside or outside you—convince you that safety lies in control. Guard that fire. Feed it with beauty, with stories, with acts of mercy that make no sense on paper. Let it lead you, and let the mind follow as servant, not master.

First become fully human.

Only then will the path to becoming a god begin to open.