The Three Pillars of Arete, or Heroic Trinity, are:

Body

Mind

Spirit

These are addressed in Steps 4 through 9, in order, below.

Step 4

The Three Pillars of Arete:

-Body

-Mind

-Spirit

Each is composed of three abilities.

Each player chooses which pillar he would lean on most heavily. Whichever of the Heroic Trinity he chooses, that die rolling process will grant him the latitude of reassigning a die roll, let’s say for strength, to stamina, of from agility to stamina, giving him three choices, to include shifting one to another and moving the second back to the ability slot the first one was moved from. This choice is made before adjustments due to age or youth.

Steps 5, 6 and 7 are rolled in order

Step 5

Body = 3-18

Each of the 3 Body Abilities are 1d6

Strength 1-6

0 = scribe/woman

1 = boy

2 = youth

3 = man

4 = strongman

5 = very strong man, such as Odysseus

6 = superman, like Ajax, Achilles, Herakles

Beasts strength rages up to 12, with monstrous strength limited to 18. This is covered in Chapter 8.

Stamina 1-6

0 = Slothful Eunuch or Postmodern American Landwhale

1 = Elderly peasant

2 = Woman

3 = Man

4 = Athlete

5 = Driven Athlete

6 = Tireless Paragons like Achilles and Alexander

Agility 1-6

0 = The slothful heard of human cattle

1 = Elderly

2 = Tinker

3 = Youth or Boy

4 = Athlete

5 = Superior Athlete

6 = Uncanny Athlete, such as a circus acrobat, skateboard, pro, etc.

A characters’ body score is used for general task resolution and combat, typically by rolling equal to or less than that 3-18 score on a d20. A 20 is always a disaster and a 1 is always a miracle. So people who fight a lot will have a greater chance at greatness and a surer appointment at Death’s drear Door.

Body points also act as hit points or life points or power levels in other games. Each adventure should begin with the heroes keeping a current life point tally. There are rules for fatigue addressed under play. A character reduced to 0 is at Death’s Door, to be addressed under play. More on this will be discussed in Chapters 4 & 5.

The 1-6 Specific Abilities will be used for specific tasks. Some uses are:

Strength is used for damage and for injury checks.

Stamina is used to determine the number of rounds one can act without fatigue.

Agility is used for damage reduction and other specific tasks.

…

Step 6

Mind: 3-18

Knit: 1-6 The biomechanical recall ability to learn through training, practice or experimentation, a physical intelligence skill key to warrior status.

-0: Modern, suburban man/woman/brain injured elder

-1: Clumsy

-2: Slow wit

-3: Sword food

-4: Apt

-5: Amazing

-6: Peerless

This key element for hand to hand combat will be covered in detail under play.

Kit: Technical ability with mechanical weapons as well as all forms of weapon construction and maintenance.

-0. Look down the barrel while you fumble with the trigger.

-1. Worthless, subhuman.

-2. You might get it.

-3. Eventually you will learn something.

-4. Smart ass.

-5. Arrogant prick!

-6. Wizard of gadgets, get back out of the front line. Better yet, go to the engineer’s tent and invent something these other idiots can use!

Wit:

-0. Yes, Good Citizen, the Government is your friend, the tax collector your servant and the policeman is standing on your neck for your own safety!

-1. Barely smart enough to be tricked.

-2. Mom only dropped you on your head twice? Smart enough to lose it all in dice. Union General officers circa 1862.

-3. The average idiot, you are.

-4. Don’t get any big ideas, Slick.

-5. Mad planning genius, a Napoleon, Caesar, Robert E. Lee.

-6. Odysseus, Tamerlane, Alexander, Nathan Bedford Forest, Genghis Khan, the kind of genius that toys with lesser minds of considerable power.

Mind is the overall quality of your grunt brain. Such concepts as Mind’s Eye and War Fog will be covered under play.

Step 7

Spirit 3-18

Animistic: 1-6

In play, Animistic spirit serves as bravery, and also as empathy with animals, and is the key ability of the mounted warrior. The down side of a high animistic score is its sets you up to be manipulated by men with higher social scores or terrorized or befuddled by bad guys with high esoteric scores, basically the fate of the bugman who has been mesmerized by philosophers. Some resistance checks later in the game will reverse the value of an otherwise beneficial ability, like the high beauty score of a captive slave girl at first increasing warrior status and then being used to seduce him into forgetting Odin’s warning about guest houses.

0 = The postmodern bugman out of touch with nature and afraid of his very shadow.

1 = Modern home owner

2 = Liar, Zombie whisperer

3 = Criminal/Military Leader, Mob Whisperer

4 = Empath, Horse/Dog/Grunt Whisperer

5 = Heroic Leader, Warrior Whisperer

6 = Primal Leader, Wolf Whisperer

Social: 1-6

Social ability is used to convince peers, negotiate with allies, make treaties with enemies, etc.

0 = Modern Voter/Sports Fan

1 = Church Lady, “There Should Be A Law!”

2 = Functionary, lower management

3 = Manager, Sergeant

4 = Politician, Captain

5 = Cunning Politician, Commander

6 = Master Politician, General

Esoteric: 1-6

0 = Atheist with Promethean aspirations to becoming a node of the collective Eater God.

1 = Secular Humanist, denying Eternity

2 = Agnostic, vaguely aware that greater powers than man menaces his steps.

3 = Deist.

4 = Poet, keenly aware of the Other Side, able to conduct rites of sacrifice and oath binding from an honest heart.

5 = Seers, Yogi’s, Oracles, soothsayers, etc.

6 = Prophet, Messiah, and other such folk destined to rise to the attention of Kings.

Warrior concepts like mania [Discord, Fear and Rout [panic], madness, mind’s eye, war fog, faith, guilt, greed, melancholy, doubt, rage, are developed latter in this process and not satisfactorily addressed until Chapter 8. I’m just the designer, you the developer, so any gaps or contradictions you will hopefully men.

Step 8

Arete

Warrior excellence in the grips of War and under the wiles of less simple-minded powers, is in part, the possession of certain skills and arts. All warriors are regarded as skilled in the use of weapons, including the body. Expertise, or mastery, is an indication that one of these skills has been the obsessive focus of the warrior, and grants him advantage when in a situation where that skill is applicable. When “skill” is used in play, we here refer to expertise or mastery.

These Basic Martial Skills are governed by Knit and include:

-Marching

-Running

-Jumping

-Riding

-Climbing

-Hiding

-Throwing

-Hurling

-Slinging

-Archery

-Battling

-Dueling

Operational Skills Are governed by Kit and include:

-Shooting firearms

-Using Chemical weapons, including fire

-Field artillery, of ancient mechanical or modern type

-Reading Terrain, to gain combat advantage, access to or egress from the enemy

-Quartermaster management of quarters, transport and supplies

-Armorer, making and maintaining weapons

-Engineering, siege craft and constructing defensive works [every Roman soldier had this Art]

-Seamanship

-Nautical carpentry, the carpenter being a very important crew member

-Navigation

…

Higher Martial Skills are governed by Wit and include:

-Task to Order: [Private] the ability to take an order without hesitation and at the same time put it into sensible execution, this is the battle initiative quality of a soldier. “Up the ladder, sir!”

-Give Orders, [Sergeant] to a small unit without screwing it up. “Up the ladder, men!”

-Tactics, [Captain] for the execution of the commander’s stratagem. “If I send those poor bastards up that ladder, we can lay up two more.”

-Stratagem, [Commander/Brigadier] coming up with the plan for a battle zone. “The king wants men on that section of wall. Send some front liners up and we’ll have the Thracians through up flanking ladders and the Cretans feather the defenders.”

So, for an episode of Grunt, we could have the 4 players all go up on the decoy ladder, or have 1 player as the captain, and the other 3 players one to each ladder, the first men up, in contest with each other on the side ladders and the sergeant herding a file of grunts to their doom up the center ladder.

Success in actions like this gained many wounded soldiers easy garrison posts and prizes, widows and orphans tax and service exemption, and the most heroic soldiers a promotion and another chance to look DEATH in the face.

Grunt is intended for the lowest level of combat, actions in passes, siege breaches & sorties, ship-to-ship battles, rearguard & vanguard actions, last stands of depleted units, etc.

Additional skills that fall outside of military operations and combat are not satisfactorily covered in Grunt. I mean, read the 5 letter title…

Step 9

Pathos

Now that you have created this war bastard destined to be sacrificed to WAR, we need to determine what has happened in his life, quickly—for WAR is thirsty! A warrior, by traditional definition has killed a man or has at least struck a man in combat and survived to tell of it.

About the only thing your character is going to get any better at is killing. Let’s see how many scalps he has taken, if he is a Scythian, or merits he has earned after battles. In organized armies, doing something other than killing, like mending and hoisting a ladder during a siege while defenders try and brain you with bricks, is even more important than taking a single life with your own bloody hands. For you have facilitated the death of many! Such deeds may be imagined by the GM during pathos determination and can easily be the focus of future adventures.

Roll 1d6 for each age grade, taking half that total as his number of battles, skirmishes, duels, etc. Then add his animism and endurance scores to his total number of actions and make this the number of foes he has either slain, foiled or captured. The player may decide what kind of warrior he is, here, perhaps never taking captive or preferring to do so. Are you a slave-maker or a man-butcher?

Actions +

Stamina +

Animism =

PATHOS

Pathos is your warrior drive to commit Arete, the excellent actions of the warrior.

Effects of Pathos will be played out as an extension of warrior creation, under Discord, Fear and Rout.