Hi all!

I'm running a 7th Sea in an entirely homebrewed setting. I'm trying to play off of how my players want to interact with the world, which tends to be talking rather than fighting.

The problem I'm running into is that many smaller encounters, especially involving Brute Squads, don't really lean towards Panache rather than fighting. Are there ways that you have managed to homebrew non-violent encounters with suitable Consequences and Opportunities? Especially with Brute Squads?

Thanks!

I'm still making tweaks to the setting of 1st edition for my game. I started with the Syrneth, and that whole thorny "why are giant evil grasshopper-men in my swashbuckling adventure?" You can read it here if you're interested.

And for my next trick, I want to tackle perhaps the most controversial secret society of 1st edition: Sophia's Daughters!

Once again, I'm trying to keep the parts of SD I find interesting and compelling, amplify what I think works, cut the parts that I think don't fit, and polish the whole thing to unify them with the setting. So, without further ado ...

What We Were Promised:

As I understand it, Sophia's Daughters either did not appear, or were not very fleshed out, in the first printing of the 7th Sea Player's Guide. But in the revisions found in the 7th Sea Compendium, they were described as follows:

• "Sophia’s Daughters: A union of Vodacce women seeking equality and political power by covert means."

They were then added, like everything else in the Compendium, to later printings of the Player's Guide. Here are some quotes from that, the Compendium and the Villain's Kit:

• " ... they test and train young women in matters covert and clandestine, then place them next to men in positions of power — pointing them in the proper direction."
• "Each member of the society is required to keep a detailed journal, sending copies to the nunneries controlled by the Daughters, where they are assimilated and organized into their great library."
• "An abnormally high number of the Daughters are sorcerers; it is even rumored that they have rejuvenating potions to extend their members’ lives."
• "Their leadership apparently has some long-term plan that requires specific women to be around centuries beyond their normal lifespan."
• "They work within the Merchant Guilds (particularly the Jenny’s Guild) to keep women safe and help lower-class women to better themselves. They support Queen Elaine, have powerful allies in Vodacce and placed young Ketheryna in Ussura."

This all brings to mind the Bene Gesserit of "Dune," another all-female group of secretive societal engineers, with preternatural abilities and plans spanning centuries. It's an intriguing set-up with lots of dramatic potential!

What We Got:

The group as described in the Sophia's Daughters sourcebook is, frankly, entirely different than what had been suggested before.

Here, SD are revealed as the oldest secret society in Theah, as well as the most secretive, most knowledgeable and most powerful, apart from maybe NOM. They are also easily the most important group in Theah, charged with nothing less than preventing armageddon.

Key to their origin and entire identity is that they are descended from the Sidhe, and maintain a deep, intrinsic connection with their progenitor, the Lady of the Lake. This was never before hinted at, and it is despite the Sidhe generally viewing humans as "occasionally fascinating playthings." And SD's new, Sidhe-influenced mission is to prevent the return of the Syrneth and the coming of the Fourth Prophet, two separate but linked events, which are both apocalypse scenarios for humanity.

And like I said, they're extremely powerful. Setting aside talk of game mechanics (particularly both version of the Scrying sorcery), just in terms of story: SD have agents everywhere, including Cathay and the Crescent Empire. They can spy on anyone, at any time, including the past and future. They still make frequent use of Bargainer sorcery, despite knowing it empowers their enemies. And they intentionally released the White Plague, killing millions ... but only to stave off the even-worse plan of their occultist nemeses.

Very different that the initial pitch, to say the least.

Why I Think That's Bad (and Even Worse Than You Might Think):

Listen, I genuinely don't like throwing around the term "Mary Sue." Yet that is certainly the vibe I get from Sophia's Daughters as presented in this book.

But the even bigger flaw, IMO, is that all of the above doesn't add to the initial pitch of a proto-feminist group fighting for equality in an inherently sexist 17th century. It completely replaces it.

The members of Sophia's Daughters are mostly women. This is not for any ideological reasons (more on that in a second). It's because the group is largely Sophia's descendants, who are mostly women. And only those women can access the magic of their bloodline. But actually, if an all-female group bothers you, the Sons of Lugh have their own, male-only bloodline with male-only magic.

So unlike every other secret society, members of SD are not really recruited - they're born into a secret magical family, and pressed into a secret magical war. And since their mission is so specific, and yet so vague (save the world and, like, be good), unlike every other secret society, they actually have no ideology, in any meaningful sense. The other secret societies all have clear political aims; Sophia's Daughters, originally one of the most obviously political group, had theirs removed.

The Jenny's Guild is important to them, but not because sex work can be inherently exploitative of women if run by men. It's because prostitutes are good spies. Fate Witches should be rescued, in part because they're glorified slaves in gilded cages, but mostly because their sorcery is really useful. Helping women like Queen Elaine reach and maintain positions of power is good, partly because they're capable or just leaders, but mostly because that gives SD more access to that power. They're all merely a means to an end.

Beyond the quirk of their gender-exclusive hereditary membership, their utility as agents or pawns, and a generic commitment to an "equality is good" moral system? Women actually aren't very important to Sophia's Daughters.

So What Happened?

We know the 7th Sea line went through a few different lead writers, and plans often changed. So I certainly don't think the "magically beautiful descendants of elves who know every secret and have every power" was always the plan.

I think we ended up with what we got, in part, because Sophia's Daughters was the last of the Secret Society books to be released, and the authors succumbed a bit to power creep. You've got to give players a reason to buy your new sourcebook, right?

Moreover, I think the writers ultimately succumbed to the fear that tabletop gamers - often an overwhelmingly male group, especially back then - just wouldn't be interested in a mostly-female secret society that is devoted to feminism.

So, I think they reworked an intrinsically political organization into something far more fantastical, yet anodyne. They leaned really hard into the meta-plot (that was already a strange fit for swashbuckling adventures), and cranked the strength up to make it appealing to even the most cynical power-gamer dudebro.

How Do We Fix It?

In a truly fitting twist for an ancient secret society, I think there are clues in the ancient texts! The earliest 7th Sea books have some hints to ideas, but sadly they have since been obscured and lost to time. So in Part 2, I'll talk about what those are, and use them as a jumping off point for a new pitch!​

I'm planning on starting the Price of Arrogance soon, and just finished reading it. There are a lot of NPCs to take care of at some point (villains or heroes' side) and a lot of ways to organise the campaign.

As the title says, do you use a specific tool or software or webapp to organise your campaigns ? Like the NPCs, the links, the little stories, images etc. ? I plan on mastering on Roll20 but I feel like there would be a lack of coordination for my NPCs.

Any recommandation ?

I'm hardly the first person to say that there are some elements of the Syrneth in 1st edition that don't feel like they fit the genre or themes of 7th Sea. The Thalusai in particuar, as presented in the sourcebooks, are an existential threat to humanity, and it's easy to see them tipping the game into hard sci-fi and cosmic horror.

Meanwhile, I see this game as deeply romantic, adventurous, and above all humanistic. People do matter; even in a world of absolute monarchies, the lowest commoner deserves justice and dignity. How does that mesh with the idea of giant, conquering bug-men from beyond the stars?

So I've made a few tweaks to the Thalusai in my own game, while also trying to emphasize the Gnostic elements and inspirations, with the goal being making them antagonists on more of a philosophical or even spiritual scale. If we're going to keep the Thalusai, then every victory against them is also a symbolic victory of human courage, reason and compassion over superstition, ignorance and nihilism!

So! Here are some of my thoughts:

Framing the Syrneth as the Gnostic Demiurge

Regardless of whether or not Theus exists and is a perfect, benevolent creator being (again, as we're in a humanistic setting, I'm not all that concerned with endorsing specific dogma), the material world was ultimately created not by Theus, but by the godlike Razdhost. Despite their powers, the Razdhost were deeply flawed, and thus their creations - the Syrneth - were also deeply flawed. That means their creations the Syrneth were lacking a divine spark or "soul" like humanity has.

In turn, I see the Thalusai as a sort of edit button created by the Razdhost - taking cues from things like Marvel's Eternals and similar stories, they were designed to erase the Razdhost's mistakes, so that the material world could be improved. Rather than being grasshopper-like humanoids, I see them as being more explicitly like locusts - at their full strength, they're akin to a biblical plague, an all-consuming force.

Eventually, the Thalusai slipped their leash and destroyed all of the other Syrneth, and came close to erasing all of creation. The Razdhost managed to seal them away, at the cost of their own destruction. Despite all of their flaws, the Razdhost were ultimately well-meaning, making them comparable to Gnostic figures like the Aeons (particularly Sophia) but also elements of the Demiurge, as they were the ones who created the imperfect physical world. The Thalusai, then, take on the Demiurge's role as source of corruption, ignorance and stagnation - the fundamental flaw at the core of the material world.

The Thalusai are Legion: Here's how the Good Guys can fight them, with Gnosticism!

Cue humanity's rise, and with their divine spark (perhaps the Razdhost's parting gift?), their ability to reshape the world with enough willpower/conviction. This is shown in the Rose & Cross vow, shamanism, alchemy, Faith and Miracle Worker advantages, etc. and again speaks to the Gnostic themes of the divine human soul ascending from the prison of a mundane, flawed physical world.

The Thalusai can only destroy and corrupt - they don't have the capacity to create and discover, like humans do, nor are they interested in doing so. So their current plan is to influence and ultimately corrupt humanity - cribbing some ideas from sources like Deadlands: if enough people believe that the world is a scary, unknowable place, it will be. Instead of a world of wonder and discovery, it will be filled with dangers and monsters and suffering. Whether or not this would let the Thalusai literally destroy the universe is, again, not really in the scope of my game. But every step away from a rational, compassionate and just world is a win for them.

This positions the Thalusai/Demiurge as the source of what the Prophets called Legion: the myriad forces that pull people away from the understanding and compassion of Theus, and keeps them clinging to the flawed physical world. Superstition and ignorance are among the Thalusai's chief weapons. So science and reason are, metaphysically, powerful forces of good in this world. Explorers and inventors and philosophers are literally saving humanity, right alongside the dashing Heroes who protect the weak and the downtrodden.

How the Thalusai work

The Thalusai's Bargain with the Senators of Numa was an effort to keep humanity clinging to mysticism and fear. I see sorcery as basically a bunch of cheat codes for reality that the Thalusai stole from the Razdhost. It's not a direct key to breaking any Barrier - I don't like the idea that Heroic sorcerers are unwittingly helping monsters to escape from hell - but it is a powerful tool to keep mankind collectively in the Dark Ages. A powerful elite wielding hereditary, supernatural powers that defy explanation helps enforce a regressive, exploitative social hierarchy. And that serves the Thalusai's purposes.

Similarly, since they couldn't prevent the spread of the Prophets' faith, they shifted to more insidious means. They work to encourage corruption, decadence and dogma over faith and reason. The Third Prophet and the Inquisition were a huge win, and they've exacerbated the schisms between the Orthodox, Vaticine and Objectionists (as well as the al-Din and Yechidi faiths, which I've imported from 2nd edition). Religious fundamentalists serve the Thalusai's purposes better than almost anyone.

On a more granular level: in my game, rather than having a device that gives them the illusion of a human form, my Thalusai can possess a dead body through some infernal combination of surgery and sorcery. (I see it as less about stitching a giant bug-man into a corpse, and more like pouring their spiritual essence into a vessel.) This could also be an origin for creatures like gargoyles, griffins, sirens, Syrneth beasts and any other number of monsters - Thalusai attempts to create and/or corrupt via mad science. This also shifts die Kreuzritter into more Solomon Kane-style monster/witch hunters, a subtle change that I personally really like.

Alchemy and the 7th Sea

Finally, I've framed the mystical 7th Sea itself as being the prima materia referred to in alchemy: the untapped aether of all creation. This was the power wielded by the Razdhost, and envied by the Thalusai; if humans could unlock its power, it could become both the Philosopher's Stone and Elixir of Life. But humanity as a whole is not yet far enough along in the Great Work to do so - the Rose & Cross are only just starting to learn the basics. Brief exposure to the 7th Sea grants visions; prolonged exposure causes madness. Some Syrneth devices tap into this energy (such as the great Syrneth engines in the Erebus Cross adventures), which is what makes them so profoundly dangerous.

The Blood Alchemy of the Invisible College is tapping into this power in a roundabout way - as its powered by sorcery, which were distilled secrets stolen from the Razdhost, there is a tenuous link to this all-powerful fifth element. But as it came from the Thalusai, it is ultimately tainted and won't ever reveal the true secrets of the universe. And much like the waters of the 7th Sea, it ultimately causes madness.

The End!

Whew! That was a lot, but typing it all out helped me organize my own thoughts. I hope anyone else finds something similarly useful or interesting, and I'm all ears for your thoughts!