Running a 1st edition game, and one of my players can't make the next few sessions. So I've offered to let her character have a mini solo adventure at a later date, which actually fits very well with the story we've been crafting. But I could use some advice on how exactly to get the ball rolling.

The character is an Ussuran peasant named Dreay, whose father was killed by a doppelganger who took his form, and then tried to kill her when she became suspicious. She survived, came to Montaigne to find out more about sorcery and monsters, and found an expert to talk to - who was also a doppelganger, and tried to kill her once he realized she knew too much. She managed to kill him first.

These doppelgangers are going to be my version of the Thalusai, but leaning harder into the demonic/Legion/sorcery/Bargain elements and away from the sci-fi/alien/bug monster elements. They now really want to kill this woman, but now she's made some formidable friends in the other PCs.

There's another wrinkle: a local surgeon, who is a pioneer in reconstructive surgery and practicing on cadavers, came across the corpse of this doppelganger. To his shock, he found that there was subtle, yet undeniable, evidence of post-mortem scarring, as if the body had been cut open and sewn back together, by experts the likes of which Theah had never seen. But before he could do much with this startling discovery, the body disappeared.

This surgeon then sought out Dreay, who immediately clammed up - she doesn't trust anyone at this point. And she's right to be suspicious, because now agents of Die Kreutzritter have heard about the incident, and they're monitoring them both.

This is all happening while Dreay is embroiled in more standard courtly intrigue with the rest of the PCs, who are all trying to help a young noblewoman NPC avoid execution for treason she didn't commit. A potential ally in the court is Cardinal Durkheim. So the Cardinal is going to interview Dreay, ostensibly to help this NPC, but mostly to learn what she knows about the Thalusai she managed to kill.

Here's where I want this mini-adventure to start. Die Kreutzritter want to know what she and the surgeon know, and the Thalusai want them both dead. The Thalusai and DK both believe the surgeon is the far bigger threat to their secrecy, but DK is willing to consider both him and Dreay an asset if they prove themselves. I want to put her with the surgeon in some kind of dire situation - force her to rescue him, or team up with him to survive something. Emphasis on action, stealth, horror, and mystery. So I think I want her to be sent somewhere, wind up with him as an unlikely/unwanted ally, and then let them try to survive something together.

Any thoughts?

I know a villain has to spend a danger point to execute a killing blows but I can't find anywhere for the rules of a player performing a killing blow. When a villain falls helpless what would a player have to do to kill that villain? I understand that this would end with corruption (most likely) but we have a crescent assassin that is going for a redemption arc.

How much does the average person in Theah know about the origins of sorcery?

To the best of my recollection, it was a matter of historical record that the senators of Numa made some kind of capital-B Bargain to get sorcery. The First Prophet came, said sorcery was bad, the Numan empire eventually collapsed and the descendants of the senators fled, consolidating their own power into what became the modern kingdoms of Theah. They eventually had to keep their powers a secret when the Church of the Prophets expanded and gained power, and particularly after the Third Prophet moved the center of the Church's power to Castille and led the near-extermination of El Fuego sorcerers.

There are lots of other details that only certain secret societies know (particularly details of The Bargain, who the Bargainers were, and some other juicy tidbits), but all of the above is widely understood to be the case, right? As well as a general theory that the Syrne were perhaps somehow connected to the Bargain and sorcery in general?

I'm running a 1st edition game and my players are deep in the intrigues of the Montaigne court: their friend and patron (an NPC) is being held "for his protection" by the Empereur after servants in his household staff were revealed to be members of the Inquisition. To free him, they need convince several high ranking members of a court to speak to the Empereur on his behalf - a series of 3 point favors from multiple courtiers, using the Courtly Intrigue rules.

Gaining Likes and Dislikes seems very straightforward, and I have a few mini-adventures so they can earn more (saving the Duchesse's lost dog before it's eaten by wolves, tracking down gossip on the right people, etc). The only thing I'm having trouble with is how the Usefulness mechanic works. So far, the only thing I'm seeing in the book is blackmail. Leon is specifically mentioned as always having a Usefulness of 9 while in court, which makes sense ... except that I don't know what that does mechanically.

Am I missing mechanics somewhere? Are GMs supposed to just intuit how to make characters Usefulness scores and how they affect one another? I can think of a few things (one player is a Lightning Guard, making her Useful to Remy du Montaigne automatically, and another is part of a diplomatic envoy from Avalon, making her Useful to the earl she's working for) but some specific mentions or examples in the book, or in other people's games, would be helpful.

Hi all. Is there any official source detailing the deal with the Signore Islands in Vodacce? I've been pouring through both editions to no avail.

Hi everyone,

I’ll be hosting a short adventure for new players in the near future. Any advice on a module or adventure to use for this purpose and showcase the game?

Somone can suggest me some traits or abilities and advantages for a ronin background in 7th sea?

Hello!

So in the back of the original invisible college book for first edition they had a bunch of optional rules that could give Inquisitors some pseudo-mystical abilities, such as increased strength, persuasive voices, and the ability to vanish when no-one is looking at them. No real attempt was made to explain HOW such a group would end up with magic; the closest they got was suggesting that it might have something to do with another Bargain, which... well it doesn't make sense since the powers they get are nowhere near as powerful as the kind of stuff Bargainer Sorcery is capable of, nor could I imagine even the inquisition being hypocritical enough to knowingly employ sorcery. Likewise, I find it very hard to believe that Theus would grant this kind of power to the inquisitors if he does exist; their ideology seems to be ironically diametrically opposed to his (especially if you subscribe to the Rahzdost theory proposed in the Church of the Prophets book).

Have any GMs here used these rules (or their corresponding rules in the D20 system adaptation)? If so, did you have any justification for how they got these powers?

PC in my game is about to master the Bogatyr school and get a fear rating of 2. How can he raise it even further? Thanks in advance.

So I managed to get the 2nd edition corebook to where I live (it's pretty much sold out where I live, so I had to have it delivered from another country). I was so hyped to get it, after having such an amazing adventures in 1st edition! I started to read it, and page after page, it was getting harder. Usually, I'm the kind of GM that can get character and session ideas from a single spark, one sentence, no problem there. But here? The more I was reading it, the more I was disappointed. No ideas were coming. No reason for the party to be from different countries (I found that limiting), no reason to even leave your own region. No juice to draw from. I was especially sad about Sarmatian Commonwealth, for which I had highest hopes. Pages of pages of text and nothing that would spark this "Aha! That's an idea for adventure!". The only thing that poked the rusting cogs were pirates, who were given very little space in the book. I started to think that this edition is not even remotely as good as the previous one and I will not be able to have any sessions in this system. Help me out, I am missing something? Am I wrong? I really wanted to play it, but it leaves me with very "meh" feeling :(