Faery's Tale Deluxe - Etud

— Faery Princesses & Magic Wands —
For Kids
Some younger players may be
satisfied playing faeries that never
change, but most older children and
adults like to see their faeries gain in
experience, talent, and social standing
over the course of the game. The rules
for titles, boons, and charms provide
some milestones by which you can
measure the progress of your faery as
her life story unwinds. These rules also
provide some handy goals to which
your faery can strive, such as earning
the rank of faery princess or finding
the lost faery Sword of Truth.
The faery then spends from 2 to 20 boons
(based on how the Narrator thinks it may
affect the game; a needle of sewing might
cost only 2 boons while a sword of trollslaying
might cost 15 or more) and sacrifices 5
Essence motes, creating the charm.
Most named charms are about as smart as
a dog. They can understand simple spoken
instructions, remember people they’ve met,
and generally try to do the right thing. Almost
all named items can talk.
In addition, anything named in the faery
realms has its own personality. At the very least,
such charms are eager to do their assigned tasks;
Jared Broom of Eversweep is always trying
to get out of the closet to clean, for example.
Unfortunately, what personality
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a charm has isn’t entirely up to its creator or
owner: while some charms may work especially
hard or be loyally resistant to theft, others will
argue with their owners or try to sneak away
from them.
When a named item is created, the
Narrator selects the item’s personality and
secretly decides on an unknown or unintended
feature of it, that can range from a personality
quirk (an always-full plate that refuses to
create sweets until after it sees its owner eat
a balanced meal, or sure-grip gloves that
only stop talking to each other when they’re
holding things), to a side effect (an ever-sharp
sword that turns its owner purple if he ever
tells a lie, or a self-styling hairbrush that glows
brightly when used), to a restriction (a knife of
carving that won’t function at night, or a hat
of many colors that can only change colors a
certain number of times per day), to a special
goal (a self-playing harp that always seeks to
escape its owner, or a suit of armor that does
its best to earn its owner fame at any cost),
to an extra power (such as looking glass that’s
particularly wise, or shoes of speed that are
more potent in moonlight). A very powerful
charm (one costing more than 10 boons to
enchant) may have multiple secret features, in
part designed to prevent it from being used to
solve all the faery’s problems.
The charm’s personality and secret features
are things for the faery to discover over time;
despite being created by a player’s faery, the
Narrator speaks for a talking charm and
effectively runs the charm as one of the other
characters in the story, just like
the animals, monsters, and
people the players’ faeries
meet.