I'm creating an homebrew setting for 7th sea, and for Braqualia (Italy/Vodacce) I created a new kind of magic, called “Idrovisione” that work with special salt. This is the link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12uv8iSQKS85TEHsuElOqH9AJ1CklBrbpuAETyWr6p7c/edit?usp=drivesdk Tell me what you think about.

I'm going to be starting a new 7th Sea 1st Ed game on Saturday 22nd February starting at 1.00pm GMT. Sessions will be held every 2nd and 4th Saturday each month, and each session is expected to last about 3 hours.

Currently I have 3 players, so could fit another couple in the game if anyone is interested. It will be set just of the coast of the Highland Marches where a new group of islands have just appeared and all characters will be members of the Explorers Guild set to investigate.
While set in the Triple Kingdoms, characters can come from any of the standard nations (not the Crescent and not Cathay).

I will be using Roll20 for character sheets and dice rolls, as well as maps if really needed, and Discord for voice chat in session, and text chat outside of session.

If you are interested please let me know here, or send me a DM on Discord to rinto8567

I’m back with Part 2 of my long-winded ramblings on Sophia’s Daughters!

In Part 1, I outlined my complaints about the SD sourcebook – how it deviates from the initial pitch of the group, at the expense of what was, in my opinion, a more interesting premise. And since I don't want to just throw rocks, now I want to get into ideas for tweaks and changes.

If you’re looking for more alternative takes on this group, here’s a link to user Sweaty_Constant4380’s really impressive full-length sourcebook. He also tried to “keep as much to canon as I could,” which is an admirable goal. I really recommend you give it a read! Link:
http://www.guildofsanmarcos.net/phpbb/download/file.php?id=551

My own plans have some similarities, but I’ve decided to deviate further from canon. In doing so, I'm hoping to harken back to the very first mentions of Sophia in 7th Sea - references that later disappeared! But first:

What I Look For In a Secret Society:

I think Theah's secret societies all function on a very Gnostic principle: esoteric knowledge.

All of the secret societies have a "public" agenda (even if the public doesn't know they exist - it's what the players will know about them). All of them also have a Big Secret or two, which you only find out by joining. And often, that Big Secret is connected to the group's True Mission - one that serves not only to re-contextualize that public-facing agenda, but also to re-emphasize it.

The public agenda is always true, but once you know more, it becomes even more true for you, because you know the Big Secret and/or you know the True Mission. This holds from the most conservative secret society, (die Kreuzritter) to the most radical (the Rilasciare), and the most practical (Los Vagos) to the most philosophical (the Rose & Cross)

• Die Kreuzritter : serve the Church, protect her followers : protect humanity from the Strangers
• The Rilasciare : humiliate the nobility, challenge the status quo : free humanity from Dominion
• Los Vagos : help El Vago protect the innocent : there is no one El Vago, we're ALL El Vago
• Rose & Cross : set a good example through heroism : inspire mankind's spiritual apotheosis

Supporting the public agenda supports the True Mission; following the True Mission leads you to supporting the public agenda - usually via some kind of heroic swashbuckling adventure! - and so on.

The Shift of Sophia's Daughters True Mission:

Based on the initial pitch, Sophia's Daughters looks something like:

• Sophia's Daughters : support women's empowerment : ????

Their True Mission was revealed in the SD sourcebook, but in the process their day-to-day mission changed into something a lot more general. Per the book:

• "... the Daughters have continued to seek the betterment of all mankind - easing suffering, closing rifts between nations, and promoting equality among Theah's citizens."

So now it's more accurately:

• Sophia's Daughters : ease suffering, promote equality : delay the coming of the Fourth Prophet

Credit where it's due: this isn't all bad! Those two do feed into one another, and this change does make SD more versatile, in terms of a GM working them into a story.

But again, I just don't like the loss of a most specific and intriguing public agenda, and how intrinsic the Sidhe became to the group (more on them later). So I'm going to come up with a new Big Secret and True Mission for this group, which ties back to "support women's empowerment" as the public agenda.

To find those things, I'm going back to the very first references to Sophia anywhere in 7th Sea:

The Early Clues:

Like I said in Part 1, I don’t know for certain the specifics of printing details. But my copy of the Game Master's Guide (which I assume is an early printing) doesn't have Sophia's Daughters at all. What appears instead, on page 123, is a section on "Heresies” – something that is not present in later printings.

Two of these heresies are particularly relevant:

• The Hellenites, based on a priest named Helena who was excommunicated and put to death for suggesting that Theus was not male, but was beyond gender. They are mentioned as having an olive branch logo - a logo that is later used by Sophia's Daughters, in the Player's Guide on page 84.
• The Sophists, described as an early cult of the Prophets, whose text, the Book of Sophia, describes a female counterpart to Theus - and was declared apocryphal. It says that "Sophism was a highly popular cult during the early days of the Church, but died out quickly - and mysteriously."

To my knowledge, this is the only time these groups were ever mentioned in any 7th Sea books. I assume they were pulled from the lore to simplify the game setting, and Sophia’s Daughters were intended to be their replacement, or rather an evolution of the same idea.

So Who Was Sophia in 7th Sea?

Aside from the Sohpia's Daughters sourcebook, a woman named Sophia is mentioned in the Church of the Prophets sourcebook, as one of the nine Witnesses to the First Prophet.

• "Finally, there was the woman Sophia from the border of the Empire of the Crescent Moon. Her background remains shrouded in mystery, but she followed the Prophet with unquestionable devotion."

We know AEG loved an unreliable narrator situation, so I take it we're supposed to see Oracle Sophia and Witness Sophia as the same person, despite their stories being mutually incompatible (i.e. if Oracle Sophia died immediately before the arrival of the First Prophet, it's kinda hard for her to then become his follower).

Regardless, it's clear that someone named Sophia was a pivotal figure tied to the First Prophet. And she was clearly either the founder of, or inspiration for, Sophia's Daughters.

Sophia in Real-World Gnosticism:

For added context, let me quickly, badly, summarize the clear allusion being made by everything Sophia-related in 7th Sea:

In Gnosticism, Sophia is a vital female counterpart to the male divine energies, and she is tied to both the spirit of the world and the divine spark within human souls. She is connected to the creation of a flawed physical world, but wants to fix that, and her redemption is tied to humanity’s salvation and enlightenment.

More broadly, the word "sophia" comes from the Greek for "wisdom," and is the counterpart of "gnosis" meaning "knowledge."

That Was A Lot Of Rambling.

Thanks for reading! If you're not sick of this yet, in Part 3, I'll share my pitch for Sophia's Daughter's Big Secret and True Mission, which takes them back to the initial premise, and which feeds directly into "support women's empowerment" and vice versa.

PS: Quick Sidhe Sidebar!

I think there's a pretty strong reading of the SD sourcebook where the Sidhe are just fully lying and manipulating Sophia's Daughters. The part about Bryn Bresail being the true "hope" for humanity doesn't mesh with either the Sidhe's view of humans as playthings, nor the setting's overall humanistic tone and themes.

But while I think that's consistent with the setting as established, I already don't like the canon, benevolent twist of SD. Making SD into dupes, misled by immortal sociopaths, is potentially far worse!

So anyway, in my version, Sophia's Daughters will have no connection to the Sidhe. I think it only weakens both groups. But I thought I'd mention this idea, in case it inspired anyone - maybe there's a great story in helping an ancient order finally realize the truth behind a centuries-long prank!

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!​