We have established that rolling low is good, and high is bad. The rules for play will cover:
Actions
Equipment
Counsel of War
Parlay
Poetry [hurling insults as well]
Dueling [including boxing and other sports]
Shooting, loosing, hurling, throwing
Hunting [including skirmishing and manhunting]
Battle
Running away!
Pursuing broken foes
Rapine
Recruitment
Death’s Door
Sacrifices
Crippled Yore
Divination
and more…
But first, to complete Character Transformation, an historical, rather than mythic prehistoric character. Alexander will be used in one episode provided at the end of the game, designed for 4 players, one being Alexander, the maniacal hero king.
Alexander
Son of Phillip of Macedon
Body = 15
Strength: 4 [Killed 5 warriors at Taxilla in seconds]
Stamina: 6 [The fittest general in history.]
Agility: 5
Discord = 9 at the Granicus [6 plus 3 of 6 battles], at Issus 15, Tyre 16, Arbella 17, Oxus, Hydapsis & Taxilla 18, gave him a point here for every battle that went sideways.
Mind = 16
Knit: 4
Kit: 6 [Innovative siege craft and developed engineering fixes.]
Wit: 6
Fear = 7 [plus 3 thru 11 depending on same experiences above, both representing 20s or potential disasters turned around. The base mania represents him at 16 in Illyria. He will be an 18 at 32 in India.]
Spirit = 18
Animistic: 6 [His taming of Bucephalus and his fearlessness.]
Social: 6 [Perhaps the best customized management of conquered enemies ever.]
Esoteric: 6 [A devoutly religious believer in heaven and blood who was honestly trying to earn a place in Heaven. This obsession, together with his extreme and growing pathos caused him to awe people to the point where it befuddled some of his ambitions and, it seems, got him murdered by the Chaldeans for treating their looting of temples like Jesus would treat the money lenders 300 and some years later.]
Panic = 9 + 1 at 16, +2 at 18, +3 at 21 at Thebes, +4 at 22 The Granicus, +5 at 23 at Issus, +6 at Tyre, +7 at Gaza, +8 at Arbella, and +9 getting him to 18 by 25 at Arbella, where the power of his name had a vast army panicking and running as soon as things went against them, where earlier, up until Gaza, they often fought to the death.
Actions + 1 to 10, depending on the point in his career, by the time of his invasion of India. Actions include forced marches, over 20 sieges, decisions concerning the fate of each conquered people, place, army and captive dignitary, as well as diplomatic negotiations, speeches to the army, visits to the tents of the wounded, etc. Actions are added up, divided by ten, with any fraction retained as a whole number, such 1 action still counting as 1.]
Stamina + 6
Animism + 6
PATHOS = 13 on his ascension to the throne at about 21 years and a score of 22, near his death 12 years later.]
Mania
Discord, Fear and Rout will factor heavily in the play sessions. These are interactive or reflective. A character might use his discord mania in a battle to gain an advantage or even before a battle to panic the enemy into retreating rather than fighting, hesitating until reinforcement come etc. However, in a parlay or counsel of war, the GM might decide that the player needs to make a discord check, just like an ability check, to determine if the jealousy for this hero harbored in other men’s hearts splits the assembled men into factions.
Do note, that in GRUNT, die rolls are never modified, ever. [Determining abilities of some beasts and monsters in Chapter 8 does employ modified die rolls, such as 13-18, or 12+1d6.] These are real results, results that may only be overturned by other results, not modified by some molesting hand. When War makes a judgment, a man’s ability may not twist it. But, Apollo’s jealous arrow might avert War’s spiteful sword stroke.
Checks
All abilities, including manias, are used for checks.
An advantage check is to re-roll an unsuccessful check.
A disadvantage check is to re-roll a successful check.
During this phase of Character Transformation the GM should test each player in his strongest area with an overall ability check [1d20], and one specific ability check [1d6]. Let’s say, Eteus, the Agriane, through practice, and a check of his 13 Body Ability, seeks to begin play with an advantage, a re-roll in his back pocket. The GM might also have Eteus check his esoteric score to determine if he is in disfavor or favor with the god of the mountain he has been assigned to climb by night.
Doing these two checks prior to play, ignites some back story [training, piety—did this guy sight in his rifle or pray?] and also demonstrates two very common play mechanics.
13 abilities are split into overall and simple.
7 Over all, aggregate abilities, being: Body, Mind, Spirit, Pathos, and the three manias, Discord, Fear and Panic, are checked using 1d20, with 1 a great stroke of “luck” or miraculous happening, and a 20 a terrible smite of fate or even an accursed imposition, an actual misfortune.
A godlike hero like Achilles at Troy or Alexander at Taxilla, with a pathos in excess of the normal limit of 18, will still not succeed on a 19, this number always being a simple failure, and will undergo the normal mania process if rolling a 20 on pathos or in action.
An overreaching failure, let’s say rolling a 17 against a 13 ability, might result in 4 disadvantages or the taking of 4 points of damage, depending on the GMs sense of play. Or, that 4 points might be added to the enemy’s overall ability for the very next action, perhaps imbuing a foe with a 14 body with a temporary 18 for his clash with Alexander. The GM and players are encouraged to do something interesting with that overreach, just as successful rolls under an ability are often used in play. These will be discussed later under interactive play.
10 Simple, or specific abilities, which range from 1 to 6 [1] include: Strength, Stamina, Agility, Knit, Kit, Wit, Animistic, Social and Esoteric are checked with a roll of 1d6. A roll equal to or less than that score results in success. A roll in excess is a failure. As with over all ability checks, the difference between the ability and the roll is retained for various uses, as demonstrated below.
The 10th simple ability, is madness, discussed at the bottom of this section.
