From Dry Bones to Breath - Bringing Allies of Majesty to Life
Game features are introduced through 3 stages of discovery, each named in the spirit of Ezekiel chapter 37 to vividly illustrate bringing the Allies of Majesty system to life.
The first stage is Dry Bones, the tutorial. Dry Bones is not meant to be a long-term play mode, but a bridge to understanding game basics. The remaining 2 stages, Flesh (basic) and Breath (complete), can be explored at your own pace to add greater depth to gameplay. If you came to Allies of Majesty for the setting, but find you really want a more rules-light game, there are suggestions for lighter ways to play.
Allies of Majesty is a game system that goes deep if you want depth, but we also recognize that going deep can add up to a complex whole that not all groups will enjoy. My ultimate desire is to enable you in whatever kind of play you prefer. The best version of Allies is the one your group will play!
Discovery Stages
Game Features in each Discovery Stage
Dry Bones
Dry Bones is for helping you become comfortable with these basics:
- 7d12 Roll Process: all rolls in Allies of Majesty follow the same general process
- Action Points, Turns, & Cycles: the basics of player activity and determining who acts when and what all they can accomplish
- Measuring Distances & Ranges: using Action Points to Move and determining Ranges between characters
- Making Strikes: all the details of resolving martial attacks
- Falter: a mechanic that is a catch-all for stagger, stun, hesitation, and leaving characters off-balance
- Martial Maneuvers: the primary ability of Warriors and also usable by Messengers
- Social Interactions: the primary ability of Messengers and also usable by every character
- Perception: Incidental Perception addresses awareness and stealth, Intentional Perception addresses reading details about others
- Spiritual Effects: the primary abilities of Ministering Spirits
- Songs: the primary abilities of Minstrels
- Levels of Effect for Boosting Songs: determining how much benefit characters gain from a Boosting Song
- Check Rolls & Resist Checks: determining results when a character's Attributes are tested or when Resisting Spiritual Effects and Songs
- Gaining Honor & Spouting Seeds: accumulating Honor after gameplay and improving Attributes that have been used by the player
- Increasing in Rank: promoting the character to higher levels of power
As soon as you are comfortable with the concepts in Dry Bones, you should move on to Flesh and Breath which offer a richer, more balanced, more tactical, and yes, more complex gaming experience. Here is an overview of what you can expect as you discover each new stage.
Flesh
Flesh, the basic version of Allies of Majesty, adds meat of the game. Action Points can be used more flexibly. Orders are revealed as even more unique. Martial combat becomes far more interesting. Ministering Spirits and Minstrels are unleashed to do more. Inspiration and Obstruction tip the scales in a character's favor. Disciplines expand character development options.
Many of the descriptions of the new additions reference other additions and so you won’t be able to fully understand them until you have learned about the others as well.
- Order-Related Bonuses: bonuses making Orders more unique from one another
- Attribute Perks: limited-use bonuses determined by a character’s choices of Primary and Secondary Attribute
- Carry Over & Stand Ready: AP can sometimes be carried over to a later Turn; characters can Stand Ready to perform declared actions
- +/-% Damage: effects add to or subtract from damage
- Defensive Stance: a cautious, wary posture improving defense, awareness, and stealth
- Superior Magnitude: If a Melee Striker has greater Magnitude than the Defender, the Strike gains an Adjustment
- Martial Maneuvers: explore the full range of tactical options for Warriors and Messengers
- Spiritual Effects: Ministering Spirits can use up to 12 Spiritual Effects at once and can use Compounding ones on multiple Targets as once
- Layering Songs: Minstrels can sing up to 3 Songs at once, distributing their SPP between the Songs being sung
- Influence & Social Objectives: characters can potentially be overwhelmed by adverse social pressure; improved structure for determining success of Social Interactions having specific aims, especially interactions with humans
- Disciplines: subclasses for Single-Order and Dual-Order characters
- Inspiration: Inspiration Tokens are given to player characters at the beginning of each War and can be used to alter situations in the character’s favor
- Archons & Obstruction: Archons are leaders among enemy forces, which affords them limited protections in the form of Obstruction Tokens which can be used defensively to alter situations in the Archon’s favor
Breath
Breath puts the final touches on depth and balance. Several features are added that simulate meaningful factors such as overwhelming your enemies with greater presence or greater drive, experiencing the ebb and flow of morale, pushing yourself to exhaustion, and coming to terms rather than blows. These all enhance the game, but they also add more steps to pay attention to. Breath truly is the most rich version of Allies of Majesty, but may be more than many players want to take on without the full AoM Ally app doing the heavy lifting of tracking and applying it all.
- Passion Effects: account for the effects of superior drive and zeal during War
- Full Defensive Stance: commit to Defensive Stance for an entire Cycle to gain more Guard
- Melee Presence: Instead of only the Striker and the Defender, the Magnitude of multiple nearby characters are now considered and more than a single Adjustment may be awarded
- Exertion & Poison: as characters push themselves, they will build up Exertion, which is compared to their Stamina. Poison now adds Exertion first before damaging Endurance
- Harmonizing: Minstrels who know versions of the same Song can harmonize together to achieve greater Range and effect
- Parley: a formal negotiation between holy and unholy parties to possibly avoid War or decide Terms of War
- Gaining Inspiration and Inspiration & Obstruction Pools: mirrors the flow of battle and can cause players to gain additional Inspiration or enemies to gain Obstruction
- Inspiration Specializations: characters can choose specific uses of Inspiration to excel in
- Chief Archons: strong Archons that use Obstruction to greater effect