May 26, 2016
A good friend was running a Mage: the Awakening LARP and asked me to help with creating some rules for a mystic artefact he called Fennec’s Dice 1. I was given some requirements:
- The dice are a ‘gift’ from Pandemonium and should feel like something out of some version of Hell.
- Nobody trusts anything infernal, so they shouldn’t be feel like a trap to use, but there should be some risk
- The players were going to roll two six-sided dice to get results, so whatever we came up with had to work with that
- Aim for most of the results being positive for the user
I wanted to have something evocative, and particularly wanted to avoid that RPG scenario where some player encounters a monster, rattles off all the stats from the book and all mystery and wonder is lost.
The names of the glyphs are chosen to be something that you’d see on a moody teenager’s black band-merch t-shirt. Like, if the Major Arcana were just trying harder to be edgy. I’d have loved to sketch them out – each one the pairing of two infernal letters – but nobody was going to see it.
A Gift from the Pit
The gift takes the form of two rough crystal cubes, perhaps not quite even but pleasing to the touch. Warm but not hot. Within, whiskey-coloured etchings like floaters in your eyes twist a little. When the dice are rolled, the markings circle and twine like eels and form a letter in the language of Pandemonium. After a heartbeat (the gambler’s heartbeat, actually, which skips as the dice borrow it) the two letters somehow combine and each dice now shows the same, single glyph.
The dice don’t have a will of their own per se, but they do have some preferences. At heart, they’re a tool for provoking action. There’s zero judgement or consideration for what those actions might be; that’s on you to the extent that you care. The dice hate all the rationales we have for not doing things, for playing it safe, for sitting on the couch rather than talking to that cool cat in the centre of the crowd. They’re not here to trick you, or punish you, or seduce you, or steal your soul. If you’d secretly love to be tricked, or punished, or seduced, or soulless, then that’s a different story. Basically, someone with unused potential is anathema – they just think you’d be happier doing something. Anything. Killing drifters or curing cancer, no judgement.
The dice like you for who you are. But they can see what you could be if you stretched yourself and then? You’d be beautiful.
| Roll on 2d6 | Probability | Glyph | Outcome | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 2.78% | Eyes in the Dark | Negative | The gambler loses a year of their lifespan. Not a theoretical, ‘statistically you’d normally live to 79’ sort of thing but something more concrete. There was a year you would have lived, and now you won’t. We assume the year you lose is the last one, snipped off the end of the rope. But this is magic, baby, so who knows, you might lose one of the middle ones. |
| 3 | 5.56% | Multiplication of Tears | Positive | Someone the gambler dislikes immediately suffers a painful, supernatural disaster. They do not need to be present, it just happens wherever they are. A sudden scalding rain, a favourite body part turns to stone, a treasured possession is now possessed and hostile… The gambler doesn’t get to choose which disfavoured person is targeted, that’s for the dice. Note also that it’s from the gut, not the head. Head of a rival faction? Not so much. Noisy upstairs neighbour? Oh yes. |
| 4 | 8.33% | The Heart | Negative | The dice take something from the gambler. A memory, a possession, an inhibition… You didn’t need it. It was holding you back, keeping you down. Now it’s gone. If you disagree, then the dice applaud your confidence. Maybe one day you’ll roll The Heart again, and the dice will take away the absence of the thing you lost. |
| 5 | 11.11% | Constellation of Scars | Positive | The scales fall from the gambler’s mind, who is now aware of something of significance that they did not previously know. Maybe a burning question, maybe something unexpected from a clear blue sky. Whatever they learn is reliable – no trickery, no deception, no subjectivity. Maybe it’s not the full story, but there aren’t any ‘from a certain point of view’ games here. Whatever the news is, it’s something is or will be important to the gambler, something that’ll get a visceral reaction. This is something they needed or wanted to know, whether or not they were aware (or would agree). |
| 6 | 13.89% | The Open Door | Situational | The gambler acts on a desire that they’ve been resisting, immediately and without hesitation or qualm. It doesn’t need to be out of proportion – they’re more likely to tell the jerk at the next table to pipe down rather than shooting them dead, unless their suppressed desire is actually pointless murder. It doesn’t need to be the most front-of-mind urge – “I should call my ex” probably wins over “Another biscuit wouldn’t ruin my diet”. |
| 7 | 16.67% | Mask of Smoke | Situational | As [6] but someone else present in the scene is the one affected, not the gambler. The gambler is aware that the person is affected by the dice, though probably not exactly how. |
| 8 | 13.89% | Rim of the Pit | Positive | The gambler becomes aware of what one other individual present in the scene most desires at the current moment. |
| 9 | 11.11% | Silver Violation | Positive | The gambler will receive a completely unearned windfall very soon. Like, just enough time for the thinnest veneer of plausibility. Expect an email or a knock at the door as soon as the dice stop rolling. Or for a truck to reverse through the wall. Subtlety can be overrated. What arrives might be an inheritance, or a freezer full of steaks, or a temporarily forgotten firearm – anything is possible. The key thing is that it’s not conjured from the ether. For you to gain, someone must lose. |
| 10 | 8.33% | Gentle Scourging | Positive | The gambler is granted a brief moment of righteous authority over the minds of those around them. Today, some poor soul’s delusion will be corrected. The gambler can heal them. They have a heartbeat to pick who will be affected, and another heartbeat to choose a single opinion for that person. Make someone approve of pineapple on pizza. Give them a five-star opinion of you. The gambler doesn’t get to read minds or anything – there’s no checking what their current opinions are. And hey, people are capable of change sometimes, so a radical position (like oxygen is for losers) may not last forever. Strike while the iron is hot. Actually, that’s a good point. If the gambler hasn’t made their choices within two heartbeats, the dice will make them as it sees best. |
| 11 | 5.56% | Awakening | Negative | That niggling worry in the back of your head? The dread you’ve been carrying all this time? That guilty secret that must never come to light? Good news – you can stop worrying about it. That’s because it just became a reality. Something the gambler currently fears instantly becomes true. Maybe reality has to be rewritten a little, but that’s something the dice are willing to do. Cheating spouse, positive test results, peer group confirmed to think you’re stupid – time to stop worrying about it and start dealing with it. |
| 12 | 2.78% | Burning Ladder | Positive | Every dog has it’s day, and a Merry goddam Dogmas to you. For the rest of the current scene, anyone resisting your express will must spend a point of Willpower for each instance of defiance. So, express your will. Maybe start with ‘nobody leaves until I’m satisfied’. The dice aren’t going to change anyone’s opinions (at least, not without another roll), so after the scene is done there might be some unhappiness, but that’s why you get them to sign the contract (or swear allegiance, or surrender their weapons, or kill the snitch) now. |
So, What Happened to the Dice?
Historically nothing because the players were risk-averse plot-avoidant cowards. Put in a box somewhere and forbidden to be used. Shameful.
Still, they’re a creation of will and the terrifying, exhilarating potential of overcoming limitation and opposition – from yourself, from others, from society, from morality – and making change. They’re probably not still in some wimp’s shoe closet. I like to think they’re out there somewhere looking for someone ready to accept that achievement and risk are two letters waiting to form a glyph.
- I have a vague memory that Fennec was a demonic sort, but he was just a delivery device for the dice[↩]