TEXT: so the
  Story Goes
  A WORLD OF 
  ADVENTURE FOR
  Don Bisdorf
  
  This adventure was made awesome thanks to our Patreon patrons at patreon.com/evilhat—thanks folks!
  INSIDERS
  A.D. Hardman
  Alan Bartholet
  Andrew Pomfret
  Andrew Savin
  Andrew Turbott
  Andy Arminio
  Arlo B Evans
  Bartolome Mayol
  Ben Mullen
  Benjamin Patrick 
  Huff
  Brett Abbott
  brian allred
  C. J. Hunter
  C.K. Lee
  Charles Albrecht
  Charlton Wilbur
  Chris Angelini
  Chris Flipse
  Christopher 
  Gunning
  Christopher Hatty
  Christopher Vollick
  Clyde Clark
  D.C. Upton
  David Dorward
  David Fergman
  DB_Explorer 
  Declan Feeney
  Demian Buckle
  Don Arnold
  Doug 
  Dusan Frolkovic
  Dustin Evermore
  Edward MacGregor
  Frank 
  Frédéri POCHARD
  Gavran 
  Giuseppe 
  D'Aristotile
  Graham Owens
  Graham Wills
  Griffin Mitchell
  Howard M 
  Thompson
  J Quincy Sperber
  Jamie Smith
  Jan Heitger
  Jason Cotton
  Jean-François 
  Robillard
  Jeff Chaffee
  Jeff Craig
  Jeremy Tidwell
  Jim Nicholson
  Joakim Andersson
  Joe Trzos
  john burchett
  John Rogers
  John Rudd
  Jon-Pierre Gentil
  Joshua Lutz
  Justin Evans
  K T
  Katie Baker
  Katie Berger 
  Tremaine
  Keith Adams
  Keith Stanley
  Ken Ditto
  LilFluff 
  Linda Larsson
  MAINGUET Francois
  Marc Mundet
  Mark 
  Mark Fentz
  Marty Chodorek
  Matt and Nykki 
  Boersma
  Matt Anderson
  Michael 
  Michael Bowman
  Michael Cambata
  Michael Dean 
  Hannah
  Michael Meriwn
  Michael Pedersen
  Mike Lavery
  Mitchell Evans
  Morgan Ellis
  MVG 
  Nathan Hare
  Nick Daly
  Nick Reale
  Nicola Urbinati
  Osye Pritchett
  Peter Schumacher
  Philip Nicholls
  Philippe Herve
  Polyhedral Crew
  Rachael Hixon
  Randall Wright
  Rhel 
  Rich Spainhour
  Richard Bellingham
  Rick 
  Rick Jakins
  Robert Hanz
  Ryan Singer
  Sarah Vakos
  Sean M. Dunstan
  Sean O'Dell
  Sean Smith
  Selene O'Rourke
  Simon Reichley
  Stephen Rider
  Tara Zuber
  The Roach
  Thom Terrific
  Tim N
  Timothy Carroll
  Tristan Levasseur
  Tristan Smith
  Troy Ray
  Tyler Hunt
  vargr1 
  Will Goring
  William J. White
  William Lee
  William McDuff
  Zach Hunt 
  ADVENTURERS
  A Person
  Adam Buehler
  Adam Gutschenritter
  Adrian Arias-Palomo
  Adrian Chaluppka
  Aharon sharim
  AJ Real
  Al Billings
  Alan Phillips
  Alan Timothy Rogers
  Alan Twigg
  Alex Demille
  Alexander Gräfe
  Alexander R. Corbett
  Alexandre Malette
  Alexandros Tsourakis
  Alfred Garza
  Alistair 
  Allan Samuelson
  Alloyed 
  Amanda Valentine
  Andrew Betts
  Andrew Dacey
  Andrew DeLorenzo
  Andrew Grant
  Andrew Horn
  Angus 
  Anthony Damiani
  Antoine Pempie
  Arlene Medder
  Arthur Lace
  ArthurDent 
  Ask Charly Leetham
  B. Bredthauer
  Barac Wiley
  Bean Lucas
  Becca 
  Ben 
  Benj 
  Benjamin Cush
  Benjamin Wandio
  Benjamin Welke
  Bill 
  Bill Eastman
  Bill Henderson
  Björn Steffen
  Bo Madsen
  Bob Hiestand
  Braden Walker
  Bradley Eng-Kohn
  Brandon Metcalf
  Brandon Wiley
  Brandt Bjornsen
  Brendan Conway
  Brent Ritch
  Brian 
  Brian Colin
  Brian Creswick
  Brian S. Holt
  Bruce 
  Bruce Laing
  Bruno Haack Vilar
  Bryan 
  Bryan Brake
  Bryan Gillispie
  Bryan Wiltgen
  Bryce Perry
  C 
  Carl 
  Carl McLaughlin
  Carlos Martín
  Cedar Skye 
  (lunarsapphire13)
  Cerity 
  Charles Evans
  Chip Dunning
  Chloe Wandler
  Chris Caporaso
  Chris Little
  Chris Newton
  Chris Nolen
  Christian 
  Christian Ebel
  Christoph Thill
  Christophe Fontaine
  Christopher Allen
  Christopher Avery
  Christopher Mangum
  Christopher Mason
  Christopher Stone-Bush
  Christopher W. Dolunt
  Chuck Dee
  Clemens Schmitz
  Colin 
  Colin Matter
  Corey Johnston
  covert-banana 
  Craig Maloney
  Craig Mason
  Craig Wright
  Creative Play and 
  Podcast Network
  Curt Meyer
  Curtis Hay
  Dain 
  Damon Richard
  Daniel Byrne
  Daniel Chapman
  Daniel Ellingsen Lund
  Daniel Kraemer
  Daniel Ley
  Daniel M. Perez
  Daniel Maberry
  Daniel Markwig
  Daniel Taylor
  Daniele Galli
  Darin Henley
  Dave Joria
  David 
  David Bellinger
  David Bowers
  David Bruns
  David Buswell-Wible
  David Goodwin
  David Griffith
  David Hayes
  David Maple
  David Millians
  David Olson
  David S
  David Silberstein
  David Starner
  Davide Orlandi
  Denis Ryan
  Dennis Groome
  Derek Hiemforth
  Didier Bretin
  Dillard 
  Dirk Methner
  Don Bisdorf
  Don Schlaich
  donald murray
  Doug Bolden
  Drew 
  Duane Cathey
  Duncan 
  Dylan Green
  Ebenezer Arvigenius
  Edward Sturges
  Ehedei 
  Eirch Mascariatu
  Elsa S. Henry
  Elsidar Amhransidhe
  EmissaryOfZork 
  Emmanuel 
  Emmanuel Genot
  Enrique Esturillo Cano
  eric 
  Eric Bontz
  Erich Lichnock
  Erik Ingersen
  Ernie Sawyer
  Fabrice Breau
  FelTK 
  Fide 
  Florian Greß
  Francisco Castillo
  François-Xavier Guillois
  Frank 
  Frankie Mundens
  gamedave 
  Garrett 
  Garrett Jones
  Gary Anastasio
  Genevieve 
  GentleFox 
  Geoff 
  Geoffrey Walter
  George Harnish
  Gian Domenico Facchini
  Glenn Mochon
  Glenn Seiler
  Glynn Stewart
  Graham Meinert
  Greg Matyola
  Gregg Workman
  Gregory Fisher
  Gregory Hirsch
  Guillermo Calvo
  Gustavo Campanelli
  Haakon Thunestvedt
  Harry 
  Harry Mills
  Heather 
  Herman Duyker
  Hourousha Mokujin
  Ian Charlton
  Ian Toltz
  Imunar 
  Indi Latrani
  Irene Strauss
  Istrian Gray
  Jack Gulick
  Jackson Hsieh
  James Beal
  James Endicott
  James Hoag
  James Husum
  James O'Neill
  James Odom
  James Pacheco
  James Winfield
  Jamie Wheeler
  Janet Oblinger
  Jared Hunt
  Jarrett 
  Jason Bean
  Jason Best
  Jason Pasch
  Jason Penney
  Jason Tocci
  Jayna Pavlin
  Jeff 
  Jeff Mahood
  Jeff Pitrman
  Jeff Vincent
  Jeffrey Boman
  Jeffrey Collyer
  Jens 
  Jens Alfke
  Jeremiah McCoy
  Jeremy Glick
  Jeremy Hamaker
  JF Paradis
  Joanna 
  Joe Anderson
  Joel Short
  Johannes K. Rasmussen
  Johannes Oppermann
  John 
  John 
  John Arcadian
  John Beynon
  John Bogart
  John Fiala
  John Griogair Bell
  John Halsey
  John Helmuth
  John Lake
  John Lambert
  John Portley
  John S. Fetzik
  John Taber
  John Tobin
  John William McDonald
  Johnathan Wright
  Jon Smejkal
  Jonas Matser
  Jonathan 
  Jonathan Finke
  Jonathan Hobbs
  Jonathan Korman
  Jonathan Young
  Jordan Dennis
  Jose A.
  Joseph 
  Joseph Formoso
  Joseph Gamblin
  Josh Rose
  Josh Salyers
  Joshua 
  Joshua Reubens
  Juan Francisco Gutierrez
  Julianna Backer
  Justin 
  Justin 
  Kaarchin 
  Karl Thiebolt
  Katherine Malloy
  Keith Fannin
  Kent Snyen
  Kevin L. Nault
  Kevin Lindgren
  Kevin McDermott
  Kevin Payne
  Kielo Maja
  Kiyoshi Aman
  Klaas Bock
  Kris Herzog
  Krista 
  Krzysztof Chyla
  Kurt Zdanio
  Kyle 
  Larry Hollis
  Laura 
  Laurie Koudstaal
  Lester Ward
  Lore Graham
  Loren 
  Lowell Francis
  Luca Agosto
  M. Sawi
  m.h. 
  Madelyn Chappell
  Manfred 
  Marc Kevin Hall
  Marcel Lotz
  Marcel Wittram
  Marcus 
  Marinho Tobolla
  Mario Dongu
  Mark 
  Mark A. Schmidt
  Mark Diaz Truman
  Mark Harris
  Mark Widner
  Markus Haberstock
  Markus Sauerbrey
  Markus Wagner
  Martin Åhlenius
  Martin Deppe
  Martin Terrier
  Marty Gentillon
  Matt Houck
  Matt Landis
  Matthew Broome
  Matthew J. Hanson
  Matthew Petruzzelli
  Matthew Price
  Matthew Whalley
  Max 
  Max Kaehn
  Megan McKinney
  Mic 
  Michael 
  Michael 
  Michael Barrett
  Michael Bradford
  Michael Brewer
  Michael D. Blanchard
  Michael D. Ranalli Jr.
  Michael Friese
  Michael Hill
  Michael Hopcroft
  Michael McCully
  Michael Riabov
  Michael S.
  Michael Thompson
  Micheal Elliott
  Mike DeZarn
  Mike Vermont
  Mirko Froehlich
  Mook 
  My Humble Assault
  Nat 
  Nat 
  Natalie Ash
  Nathan Barnes
  Nathan Fritz
  Nathan Reed
  Nessalantha 
  Nichlas Dyhr 
  Hummelsberger
  Nicholas Hopkins
  Nicholas Pilon
  Nick 
  Nick pater
  Nicolas Decomble
  Nikos Lima
  Noel Warford
  Nos Doughty
  Olav Müller
  Olivier Nisole
  paolo castelli
  Paolo Jose Cruz
  Patrice Hédé
  Patrice Mermoud
  Patrick Chapman
  Patrick Ewing
  Patrick Fittkau
  Patrick Mueller-Best
  Paul 
  Paul Arezina
  Paul Olson
  Paul Rivers
  Pavel Zhukov
  Pete Curry
  Peter Gates
  Peter Griffith
  Peter James Burczyk
  Peter Kahle
  Petri Leinonen
  Phil Groff
  Philippe Marichal
  Philippe Saner
  Phillip Webb
  Pocket Meeple
  Porter 
  R Roy
  Radosław Grzanka
  Ralf Wagner
  Randall Orndorff
  Randy M. Roberts
  Raun Sedlock
  Rebecca Harbison
  Red Dice Diaries
  Remy Sanchez
  Renzo Crispieri
  Rich Hewett
  Rich Hilborn
  Richard 
  Richard Greene
  Rick LaRue
  Riggah 
  Rishi 
  Rob Knop
  Rob Meyers
  Rob Voss
  Robb Neumann
  Robert 
  Robert Huss
  Robert Rees
  Robert Rydlo
  Robert Slaughter
  Robinson Taylor
  Rodrigo 
  Roger Carbol
  Ron Müller
  Roy 
  Roy Wilson Jr.
  Ruben Smith-Zempel
  Ryan C. Christiansen
  Ryan Gigliotti
  Ryan Junk
  Samuel Hart
  Sarah Mayfield
  Sarah Williams
  Schubacca 
  Scott Acker
  Scott Dexter
  Scott Greenleaf
  Scott Millward
  Scott Puckett
  Scott Thede
  Sean Mulhern
  Sean Smith
  Sean Walsh
  Sean West Money
  Serf 
  Seth Clayton
  Seth Halbeisen
  Seth Hartley
  Shadowmyre Kalyn
  Shai Laric
  Shervyn von Hoerl
  Shoshana Kessock
  Simon Brunning
  Simon White
  Sion Rodriguez y 
  Gibson
  Sławomir Wrzesień
  Sophie Lagace
  Spencer Williams
  Stefan Feltmann
  Stefano Monachesi
  Stephan 
  Stephen Figgins
  Stephen Fleetwood
  Stephen Waugh
  Steve Discont
  Steve Kunec
  Steve Radabaugh
  Steven Code
  Steven D Warble
  Steven desJardins
  Steven K. Watkins
  Steven Markley
  Stu Adams
  Stuart Dollar
  Sune Donath
  surtr 
  Svend Andersen
  Tatu Sara-aho
  Teppo Pennanen
  Teresa O
  Tevel Drinkwater
  Thomas 
  Thomas 
  Thomas Balls-Thies
  Thomas Elmeblom
  Thomas Maund
  Thomas Off
  Tim Davis
  Tim Popelier
  Timothy Miller
  Todd Estabrook
  Todd Willey
  Tom Lommel
  Tony Ewing
  Torolf de Merriba
  Travis Stodter
  Trevor Crosse
  Tsht 
  Tyler Duckworth
  Tyson Monagle
  Ulises Gomez
  Urs Blumentritt
  Veronica Hamilton
  Victor Allen
  Ville Lavonius
  Viveka Nylund
  Vladimir Filipović
  waelcyrge 
  Wayne Coburn
  Wayne Peacock
  Welsh History Podcast
  Wes Fournier
  William Hutton
  William Johnson
  Wulf 
  Yara Ohrt
  Z. Daniel Esgate
  Zeb Walker
  Zeph Wibby
  
  SO THE 
  STORY GOES
  A WORLD OF 
  ADVENTURE FOR
  WRITING & ADVENTURE DESIGN
  DON BISDORF
  DEVELOPMENT
  ROB DONOGHUE 
  & ED TURNER
  EDITING
  JOSHUA YEARSLEY
  PROJECT MANAGEMENT
  SEAN NITTNER
  ART DIRECTION
  BRIAN PATTERSON
  LAYOUT
  FRED HICKS
  INTERIOR & COVER  
  ARTWORK
  ANDY HUNT
  MARKETING
  CARRIE HARRIS
  BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
  CHRIS HANRAHAN
  
  An Evil Hat Productions Publication
  www.evilhat.com • feedback@evilhat.com
  @EvilHatOfficial on Twitter
  facebook.com/EvilHatProductions 
  So the Story Goes
  Copyright ©2017 Evil Hat Productions, LLC and Don Bisdorf.
  All rights reserved. 
  First published in 2017 by Evil Hat Productions, LLC.
  10125 Colesville Rd #318, Silver Spring, MD 20901.
  Evil Hat Productions and the Evil Hat and Fate logos are trademarks  
  owned by Evil Hat Productions, LLC. All rights reserved. 
  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, 
  or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, 
  photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the  
  prior express permission of the publisher.  
  That said, if you’re doing it for personal use, knock yourself out.  
  That’s not only allowed, we encourage you to do it. 
  For those working at a copy shop and not at all sure if this means 
  the person standing at your counter can make copies of this thing, they can. 
  This is “express permission.” Carry on. 
  This is a game where people make up stories about wonderful, terrible, 
  impossible, glorious things. All the characters and events portrayed in this 
  work are fictional. Any resemblance to real people, tyrannical warlords, 
  seafaring nomads, bandit drummers, legendary exemplars of virtue, or 
  storytelling social engineers is purely coincidental, but kinda hilarious.
  The finest storytellers of the Northlands provided invaluable 
  assistance during development of this game: Mary Lynn Gregory, 
  Bean Lucas, Ken Newkumet, Lynn Conlon, Etienne Picard, Andrea 
  Faenza, Tom Martin, Pedro Rivero, Roe Portal, Mike Lake, Nathan 
  Hare, Dustin Smith, Derrick Miles, and Kevin L. Nault.
  
  CONTENTS
  The Storyteller’s Warning ............................................................... 2
  A Land Still Healing ......................................................................... 3
  Setting Aspects ........................................................................................... 4
  Creating Characters ......................................................................... 5
  Aspects ............................................................................................................6
  Skills and Stunts ...........................................................................................7
  Using Knowledge .......................................................................................16
  Stress and Consequences .......................................................................16
  Sample Characters .................................................................................... 17
  The Power of Words........................................................................21
  Petitions ......................................................................................................... 21
  Verbal Conflicts ......................................................................................... 23
  Creating and Resisting Aspects ..........................................................24
  Storycrafting ...............................................................................................24
  The Northlands ...............................................................................28
  The Tyrant ....................................................................................................28
  Places ............................................................................................................30
  Names ...........................................................................................................33
  Life in the Northlands ..............................................................................33
  Symbols ........................................................................................................34
  The Supernatural ....................................................................................... 35
  The Fortress of Virtue ....................................................................36
  The Exiles ..................................................................................................... 37
  The Story of Eight Virtues ..................................................................... 37
  Local Traditions .........................................................................................38
  Common and Uncommon Knowledge .............................................39
  Townspeople ...............................................................................................40
  The Starry Sky ............................................................................................40
  Wardens .......................................................................................................42
  The Sanctuary ............................................................................................44
  The Magistrates .........................................................................................46
  Crisis of Beliefs ..........................................................................................50
  Story’s End ..................................................................................................50
  
  THE STORYTELLER’S WARNING
  “Because I am a storyteller, and you’re my apprentice, 
  this is the part where I’m supposed to start teaching you all the tales and legends I 
  have locked up in my head. I’m supposed to give you the wisdom and history that 
  I’ve inherited from a hundred generations of storytellers. I’m supposed to teach 
  you the songs the first miners sang at Ruby Well, and the stories that warn you 
  to never cross the Seakeepers, and the reason why there’s a hundred little statues 
  of children in the forest near Grass Road.
  But I can’t, because the Tyrant killed all of the storytellers in the Northlands. 
  And after your grandparents and their allies finally defeated her—well, maybe 
  not specifically your grandparents, but you never can tell—everyone who survived 
  the war was too busy fighting famine and plague to learn to play a lute. It’s only 
  in the past few years that some of us have had the time and the arrogance to call 
  ourselves storytellers, and we don’t have more than a few rumors and drinking 
  songs to pass around.
  But people still know what a storyteller is supposed to do, and they still know 
  what being a storyteller is supposed to mean. 
  First, it means you have to remember faithfully, and speak truly. When you 
  tell people about what we saw in Standing Stone, it doesn’t matter whether you 
  think the story would be better with more romance, or more action, or with a 
  happy ending. If you change the story at all, and the next storyteller changes it 
  more, and the next one changes it again, pretty soon no one will remember at all 
  why there’s a pile of human bones in the cave outside of Standing Stone, and no 
  one will remember how to make sure that never happens again.
  Second, it means that when you do lie, you do it for a good reason. People like 
  made-up stories. They like stories about magic and monsters and the good orphan 
  who wins or the evil uncle who loses. But you don’t tell those stories just to earn 
  a jug of wine and a warm bed. You teach people something so they don’t keep 
  making the same mistakes over and over. You help them laugh so they don’t mind 
  working another long day, or you give them the courage to face another long night.
  And last, whenever people come to you for help, whenever they ask you for advice, 
  whenever they beg you to share the wisdom you’ve received from the proud lineage 
  of storytellers you belong to, you help them. It doesn’t matter if we’re not the 
  great singers of old—we have to pretend to be them, because our audience needs 
  us to be them. And I don’t want to be the one to tell the spirits of our long-dead 
  predecessors that we’ve spoiled their reputation.
  No, I have no idea whether any angry old spirits are actually going to show 
  up and torment us for singing off-key.
  You’re the storyteller now. You tell me.”
  —Proud Bird, storyteller of the Northlands
  2
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  A LAND STILL HEALING
  The storytellers were the guardians of the oral history of the Northlands. They 
  carried a thousand years of legends and fables, songs and stories, riddles and les-
  sons. They taught farmers to build, taught children to laugh, and taught leaders 
  to rule. They remembered the failures of the past so the Northlands would have 
  a bright future.
  Seventy years ago, when the Tyrant rose to power, the storytellers spoke out 
  against her, warning their audiences that the Tyrant’s hunger for war would bring 
  sorrow and ruin. The Tyrant responded by sending assassins to eliminate the 
  storytellers, so that the Northlands would only hear the truth she had fabricated 
  to support her reign.
  Eventually, the Tyrant’s lies could no longer mask her cruelty, and the Northlands 
  rose against her. A hundred independent armies and militias marched forth to 
  put an end to her bloody reign. Ten years of battle turned farmlands into ash, 
  meadows into mass graves, villages into death-haunted ruins. 
  Now that the wounds of war have healed, a few adventurous souls have picked 
  up lutes and pipes and have left their homes to follow the paths of the storytell-
  ers of old. Whether the Northlands regain their strength and prosperity, or sink 
  back into fear and chaos, may depend on the songs these new storytellers sing.
  WHAT’S MY MOTIVATION?
  In a typical game of So the Story Goes, your characters have chosen to 
  follow the ancient tradition of storytelling so they can change their world 
  for the better. The game is about the triumph of reason over fear and 
  hatred, of truth over propaganda and dogma, of tolerance and coopera-
  tion over prejudice and xenophobia. Your storytellers might each have 
  their own reasons for embarking on this quest, but in the end they are 
  working toward a common altruistic goal.
  Your own game of So the Story Goes might be different. You could tell 
  a more morally gray tale where your characters are seeking fame, wealth, 
  or power. They could be a band of con artists who prey upon the gullible 
  and foolish, or a group of demagogues building an empire around a cult 
  of personality.
  You’re the storytellers now. What kind of world will you build?
  3
  SO THE STORY GOES
  
  Setting Aspects
  The game’s first setting aspect, We Tell the Tales, represents the traditional role 
  of a storyteller in the Northlands. As storytellers, your characters are guardians of 
  knowledge and history. They have a responsibility to remember and share their 
  stories, to offer advice, and to judge fairly.
  The Northlands are a patchwork of city-states, towns, and villages, united by 
  a common language but not a common government. These people have diverse 
  origins: some traveled from faraway lands to settle here, while others have lived 
  here since before even the storytellers can remember. 
  Despite this, the communities of the North have usually existed side by side in 
  peace, thanks in no small part to the efforts of the storytellers. Through their songs, 
  the storytellers showed their audiences the tragic mistakes and joyful triumphs 
  of their ancestors. They reminded rulers of ancient oaths and treaties, and they 
  established understanding and cooperation between rivals.
  The people of the North remember little of the teachings of the old storytell-
  ers, but they do remember that the storytellers were entertainers, teachers, and 
  advisors. They were trustworthy mediators and impartial judges. They carried the 
  history of the land, and they were as valuable and as necessary as clean water or 
  a good harvest. Most people will show a storyteller respect and hospitality, and 
  will hope to receive advice and wisdom in return.
  Before moving on, work as a group to choose a second setting aspect. This 
  aspect describes a long-term issue that will affect the course of your campaign. 
  Here are a few suggestions:
  • The Silencers Return: The Tyrant formed an order of assassins called 
  the Silencers to find and kill the storytellers of the Northlands. Though 
  the Tyrant perished, her Silencers passed their mission down to succeeding 
  generations. They remain hidden but vigilant, and are prepared to silence 
  anyone who contradicts the lies the Tyrant told to justify her reign.
  • The Seakeepers Never Forget: The sailing tribes known as the Seakeepers 
  have obstructed all sea trade with the Northlands due to a generations-
  old dispute. A truce will only be possible if the PCs can inspire the right 
  people on both sides to set aside their grievances. 
  • The Riddle of the Tyrant: The Tyrant may be the best-known and least-
  understood figure in the memory of the North. Few reliable facts survived 
  the firestorm of hatred, violence, and chaos she ignited. But without the 
  truth of the Tyrant’s life and death, any history of the Northlands will 
  never be complete.
  4
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  CREATING CHARACTERS
  In So the Story Goes, your characters are story-
  tellers in a traveling troupe. Storytellers in the 
  Northlands commonly travel in troupes for several 
  reasons:
  • Safety. Crossing the Northlands is a haz-
  ardous task. A traveler must contend with 
  bandits, bad weather, questionable food, 
  corrupt local officials, suspicious villagers, 
  hungry predators, and errors in navigation. 
  A team of companions is more likely to 
  succeed than a lone wanderer.
  • Mastery. Performing as part of a troupe 
  allows each member to develop a different 
  artistic talent. The troupe can therefore 
  offer its audiences a band of performers 
  who are each expert in their chosen craft.
  • Harmony. Though anyone can tell a story 
  alone, a performance is more vibrant if 
  several performers are available to portray 
  different characters or to combine different 
  mediums of performance.
  • Variety. Since storytellers must draw 
  on their own histories for emotion and 
  authenticity, a band of performers with 
  a broad base of experiences can adapt to 
  many different subjects.
  Lone storytellers will look for opportunities 
  to join other storytellers as they travel. Someone 
  who is not a storyteller, but who wishes to become 
  one, may ask to become a storyteller’s apprentice. 
  If pre-war storytellers had maintained any specific 
  apprenticeship procedures or rituals, those have 
  been lost, and the process is now entirely up to 
  the teacher.
  5
  SO THE STORY GOES
  
  Aspects
  Your character will start the game with a high concept, a trouble, two story 
  aspects, and a relationship. These aspects represent the experiences your character 
  will draw on to add strength to your performances, so it’s important to choose 
  aspects that provide emotion and drama.
  High Concept
  Your high concept must include the type of performance you are best at. For 
  instance, you might be a Perfection-Driven Lutist or a Morbid Puppeteer.
  The storytellers of the Northlands traditionally use these instruments and 
  methods of performance:
  • Acting: An adept storyteller can single-handedly perform an argument 
  between a vengeful grandfather, a naïve youth, and a scorned lover as 
  convincingly as if there had been three performers instead of one.
  • Song: Telling stories through songs helps storytellers and audiences to 
  remember these tales word for word. Also, music can carry emotion, and the 
  people of the North consider storytelling without song to be dry and dull.
  • Lute: Northland lutes have long necks, narrow bodies, and three strings, 
  similar to the sintir or guembri of our world.
  • Claves: These are hollow wooden rods, about the length of a hand and 
  slightly thicker than a thumb. A clave player strikes two of them together 
  to mark time or to construct rhythms.
  • Drums: A performer might carry one or two small drums to provide bass 
  notes, contrasting with the bright tones of the claves.
  • Pipes: A set of wooden pipes is durable and lightweight, and is therefore 
  an excellent traveler’s instrument.
  • Dance: Dancers illustrate stories by representing the characters or emo-
  tions within a performance.
  • Puppetry: The puppets used in the Northlands are two-dimensional 
  silhouettes suspended from strings, stylized to emphasize the personality, 
  virtues, or villainy of their characters.
  Other methods of performance are less common, but not unheard of. You may 
  choose a different method if your group agrees that it’s appropriate for the game, 
  and if it’s suitable for a traveling performer in a low-tech society. You could be a 
  juggler, or you could play an ocarina, but constructing and traveling with a pipe 
  organ would be beyond your capabilities.
  6
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  Trouble
  Your trouble represents a serious problem that your character is trying to work 
  through. During play, the story should force your characters to confront their 
  problems and eventually resolve them, for good or for ill.
  Story
  Your two story aspects describe significant experiences you’ve had or lessons 
  you’ve learned. You might have grown up as a Fortune-Teller’s Daughter, or 
  you might have been Justly Imprisoned. As a storyteller, you draw upon these 
  memories to add depth to your performance.
  Relationship
  Your last aspect describes the relationship between your character and one of 
  the other PCs. This relationship should lead you to confront difficult decisions 
  during play.
  If another PC has a relationship that describes a connection to you, you don’t 
  have to choose a reciprocal aspect. For example, if Raincloud took the relationship 
  My Daughter Moonlight Is a Disappointment, Moonlight doesn’t necessarily 
  have to have a relationship indicating that Raincloud is her mother. She could 
  choose Why Doesn’t Arrow Respect Me? instead if she’s more interested in 
  exploring her relationship with Arrow.
  Skills and Stunts
  As master storytellers, your characters will solve most of their problems through 
  communication and performance. Through your words and songs, you might 
  persuade a father to forgive his contrite children, or you might convince a village 
  of warriors to stop preying on its weaker neighbors.
  All storytellers have their own strengths and talents, and each might approach 
  the same problem in a different way. The list of skills for So the Story Goes provides 
  the possible avenues your character will use to accomplish their goals:
  Appeal
  Confront
  Listen
  Notice
  Rhetoric
  Risk
  Trick
  Will
  When creating a new PC, choose one Good (+3) skill, two Fair (+2) skills, and 
  three Average (+1) skills.
  Most action in So the Story Goes involves talking to people and finding the 
  right words to influence them. For example, when the storytellers need to learn a 
  warlord’s plans, they might discover that his strategy map is in his tent, and that a 
  single guard stands watch outside the tent at all times. His commander has ordered 
  him to defend the tent, and because he has the aspect Pride in My Duty, he’ll 
  guard it with his life. Just asking politely won’t get the storytellers into the tent.
  The following skill descriptions show how four different storytellers might use 
  their skills to get past the guard: Proud Bird, the charming singer; Branch, the 
  wise traveler; Creek, the clever pickpocket; and Winter, the former bandit.
  7
  SO THE STORY GOES
  
  Appeal
  Use Appeal when you use emotional influences such as friendship, desire, pity, 
  greed, and guilt to lead someone to agree with you or to accept your suggestions. 
  To do so, you must find an influence your subject is susceptible to.
  If Proud Bird just approaches the guard and asks to see the warlord, 
  the guard will turn her away. But if Proud Bird knew that the guard is 
  an Enthusiastic GamblEr and she invites him to a game, the GM might 
  allow her to overcome with Appeal. Similarly, if she had spent time 
  telling the guard a tale of woe, making him sympathEtic, he might step 
  away from his post briefly to help her.
  O
  Overcome: Beg, tempt, cajole, or bribe someone to do what you want. 
  C
  Create an Advantage: A well-handled bribe could make someone Loyal 
  Until Your Money Runs Out, while a few kind words could create a 
  Good First Impression.
  A
  Attack: In a social conflict, you use Appeal to wear down your opponent’s 
  resistance with tempting or emotional gambits.
  D
  Defend: You don’t defend with Appeal.  
  STUNTS
  Love Is in the Air: Gain +2 to bestow aspects such as Infatuated or Blinded 
  by Passion on characters who might be romantically attracted to you.
  Sycophant: Gain +2 to create aspects that reinforce someone’s sense of superior-
  ity, such as Drunk with Flattery or These Fools Are No Threat to Me.
  Lingering Whisper: Even the memory of your words can be persuasive. If you 
  fail an overcome action to petition an NPC with Appeal, you may attempt 
  the same action once more in a future scene when you aren’t near that NPC. 
  For an explanation of petitions, read “Petitions” (page 21).
  8
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  Confront
  Use Confront when you are using dominance, assertiveness, or verbal abuse to 
  command, intimidate, humiliate, or anger someone.
  The guard won’t leave his post just because Winter threatens him with 
  violence. He’ll gladly hoist his spear to protect himself and his warlord. 
  But if the guard always DEfEnDs his honor, and Winter aims a griev-
  ous insult at him, the guard might pursue Winter away from his post.
  Alternately, if Winter had succeeded at a Risk action to quickly seize 
  the guard and hold a knife to his throat, she could use Confront to order 
  him to remain silent. With certain death just an inch from his skin, the 
  guard might agree not to resist.
  O
  Overcome: Threaten or insult someone to influence their behavior. 
  C
  Create an Advantage: Bestow aspects such as Blind with Rage or Utterly 
  Humiliated.
  A
  Attack: You attack with Confront when you’re trying to inflict emotional 
  pain.
  D
  Defend: You don’t defend with Confront. 
  STUNTS
  I’m In Charge Here: When you respond to intimidation with a stronger 
  threat of your own, you can use Confront to defend against someone using 
  Confront to attack you.
  If Looks Could Kill: When you glare at someone who can see your face clearly, 
  regardless of distance, you can attempt to give them an aspect such as Afraid 
  or Cowed and Cooperative.
  Primal Rage: When you release your fury, nothing can stand in your way. 
  Once per session, you can use Confront instead of Risk to overcome a 
  physical obstacle.
  9
  SO THE STORY GOES
  
  Listen
  Use Listen when you are gathering information through careful observation and 
  communication.
  Creek decides to spend some time chatting with the warlord’s soldiers 
  to see if he can pick up any useful information. Only one or two trusted 
  lieutenants have seen the map, and they won’t discuss it openly. But 
  many rank-and-file soldiers will be willing to trade stories about their 
  comrades, and if Creek asks around about the guard in front of the 
  warlord’s tent, he might learn that the guard is afraiD of snakEs. 
  Getting the guard away from the tent might be as easy as dropping 
  a snake in the right place.
  O
  Overcome: Conduct an interview, collect gossip while mingling, or discern 
  the difference between someone’s words and their intentions.
  C
  Create an Advantage: Discover an audience’s aspects. You might find that 
  a merchant is Hiding Something from the Authorities or that the 
  guests at a drinking house Hate the New Governor.
  A
  Attack: You don’t attack with Listen. 
  D
  Defend: Identify the truth when someone lies to you, or locate the holes 
  in your opponent’s logic. Use Listen to defend against attacks or aspects 
  inflicted with Trick or Rhetoric. 
  STUNTS
  Subtle Questioning: You have a knack for sneaking important questions into 
  an innocuous conversation. Once per session, when you use Listen to col-
  lect information, you can declare that the people providing you with the 
  information won’t remember giving it to you.
  You’re My Inspiration: You’ve listened closely to the histories of your friends, 
  and you’ve learned from them. During storycrafting, you may use one aspect 
  belonging to another PC when choosing helpful aspects to support your 
  story element. This cannot be an aspect representing a secret the other PC 
  has not shared with you.
  That Reminds Me: Once per session, you may declare that you overheard 
  something previously in the scenario that would help you in your present 
  circumstance. You must overcome using Listen to determine the accuracy 
  and usefulness of this information.
  10
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  Notice
  Use Notice when you are gathering information through observation, not 
  communication.
  Succeeding at a Notice action allows you to detect a hidden or obscure detail, 
  but doesn’t help you interpret that detail. If you catch sight of two people whisper-
  ing, for example, you might need to overcome using Notice to hear their words 
  clearly, but you would need to overcome using Listen to determine that one of 
  the two is lying.
  While chatting with the guard, Proud Bird glances over his shoulder, 
  and then tells him that she thought she heard someone moving in the 
  warlord’s tent. The guard thought the tent was empty, but Proud Bird 
  succeeded in using Trick, so the guard opens the tent flap and peers 
  inside. Proud Bird has just a moment while the tent flap is open to study 
  the map, and the GM allows her to roll Notice to learn something useful.
  O
  Overcome: Follow a trail in the wilderness, spot the knife hidden up 
  someone’s sleeve, or catch sight of the bandits about to ambush you.
  C
  Create an Advantage: You might notice that an opponent has a Weak 
  Left Leg or that the ice on a lake is Dangerously Thin.
  A
  Attack: You don’t attack with Notice. 
  D
  Defend: You don’t defend with Notice. 
  STUNTS
  Sharp Eyes: If you have an unobstructed line of sight, you can see something 
  a mile away as clearly as if you were standing next to it.
  An Obvious Move: You can use Notice instead of Risk to defend against a 
  physical attack, as long as you can see your attacker.
  Simple Deduction: Simply by observing someone for a few moments, you 
  can use Notice to learn one of their aspects, even if the aspect would not 
  produce a visible sign anyone else could detect. You cannot use this stunt to 
  learn more than one aspect from any single character.
  11
  SO THE STORY GOES
  
  Rhetoric
  Use Rhetoric when you use facts and logic to convince someone to accept an 
  assertion as valid. This must be an assertion you believe to be correct. If you’re 
  deliberately leading someone to a false conclusion, use Trick instead.
  Though the guard knows that his warlord finds these new storytellers 
  entertaining, the guard has received orders to allow no one into the 
  warlord’s tent, and he has no reason to make an exception for Branch. 
  However, Branch might be able to use his Rhetoric and his military 
  acumen to convince the guard that the camp has several strategic 
  vulnerabilities. If he also convinces the guard to immediately alert his 
  commander of these weaknesses, the guard may temporarily leave his 
  post, giving the storytellers access to the tent.
  O
  Overcome: Demonstrate why your viewpoint is rational and objective. 
  Present a compelling argument. Find the flaws in someone else’s proposal.
  C
  Create an Advantage: After a conversation with you, someone might be 
  Vindicated by the Truth or might have their Principles Cast Into 
  Doubt.
  A
  Attack: In a social conflict, you can use Rhetoric to assail your opponent’s 
  position with assertions and rebuttals.
  D
  Defend: You don’t defend with Rhetoric. 
  STUNTS
  Haggle: Gain +2 to Rhetoric when you are negotiating a trade of material goods.
  I Bow to Your Wisdom: By asking the right questions, you can lead someone 
  to make a decision that you control. Once per session, when you use Rhetoric 
  to convince someone to grant your petition, you can declare that they believe 
  it was their idea instead of yours.
  Remember These Words: Once per session, you can give someone an argument 
  that they can use to get someone else to grant a specific petition. When your 
  subject uses your argument, they use your Rhetoric rank instead of their own.
  12
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  Risk
  Use Risk when you’re performing a dangerous or difficult physical activity.
  While Proud Bird engages the guard in conversation, Creek sneaks 
  up from the opposite direction and tries to slip into the tent quietly. 
  The GM allows Creek to overcome using Risk, and the guard opposes 
  this using Notice.
  O
  Overcome: Swim a turbulent river, sneak past a watchful sentry, or pick 
  the pockets of a jailer.
  C
  Create an Advantage: You might blow dust in someone’s eyes to leave them 
  Blinded or kick over a tent pole so that everyone inside gets Tangled 
  and Confused.
  A
  Attack: You can inflict a physical attack with Risk. 
  D
  Defend: You defend against physical attacks with Risk. 
  STUNTS
  Tools of War: You have experience handling weapons in combat. When you 
  successfully attack with a handcrafted weapon, your attack inflicts one extra 
  shift of harm.
  Like the Wind: If you’re traveling by foot, you arrive at your destination in 
  half the time it would take anyone else. This benefit doesn’t extend to your 
  companions.
  Master of Shadows: In darkness, you gain +2 to Risk to move or hide without 
  someone seeing you.
  13
  SO THE STORY GOES
  
  Trick
  Use Trick when you are persuading someone to accept falsehoods as truth.
  If Creek lies to the guard, telling him that the warlord needs to see the 
  guard on the other side of camp, the guard might not have any reason 
  to believe this. But if Creek stands off at a distance in the shadows and 
  mimics the warlord’s voice, ordering the guard to approach him, the 
  guard might step away long enough for Winter to slip into the tent 
  and study the map.
  O
  Overcome: Tell a lie. Twist your opponent’s words. Disguise yourself or 
  impersonate someone.
  C
  Create an Advantage: You might spread lies among the bandits to create 
  Mistrust and Suspicion or use mimicry and disguise so that people 
  believe you’re The Ghost of the Murdered Oracle.
  A
  Attack: You can use Trick to attack in a social conflict as you weave a web 
  of lies around your opponent.
  D
  Defend: You don’t defend with Trick. 
  STUNTS
  A Thousand Faces: You can improvise an effective disguise in less than a minute, 
  using whatever materials you might have on hand. Neither lack of time nor 
  lack of proper costumes and makeup will increase your opposition.
  Tales of Terror: Gain +2 to create aspects such as Afraid of the Dark or Jumpy 
  and Jittery when you tell a story about a supernatural threat. This bonus 
  doesn’t apply to storycrafting (page 24), only to stories you tell on your own.
  More Truthful Than Truth: Your audiences want your lies to be the truth, and 
  will be reluctant to accept any facts that contradict you. When you use Trick 
  to place an aspect representing a false belief on someone, you may oppose any 
  attempt to remove that aspect, even if you’re not present, with a +2 bonus.
  14
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  Will 
  Use Will to resist distractions or emotional influences and to hold true to your 
  convictions.
  When the guard becomes suspicious of Proud Bird, he threatens her, 
  trying to drive her away. He uses Confront to verbally attack her, but 
  she holds her ground, using Will to defend.
  O
  Overcome: Focus, concentrate, and endure. 
  C
  Create an Advantage: After a night of intensive study, you might be Well 
  Rehearsed for a performance the next day. Or you might take time before 
  a battle to set aside your fears so that you’re Prepared for the Worst.
  A
  Attack: You don’t attack with Will. 
  D
  Defend: Use Will to defend against emotional attacks or aspects inflicted 
  with Appeal or Confront.
  STUNTS
  Steely Gaze: The look in your eyes tells people that you aren’t an easy target. You 
  can use Will instead of Risk to defend against a physical attack at close range.
  Spirit of the Wild: You can use Will to convince animals to perform simple 
  actions such as “follow me” or “carry this” or “leave us alone.”
  Survivor: You still need to eat and drink, but hunger and thirst never give you 
  aspects or increase your opposition.
  15
  SO THE STORY GOES
  
  Using Knowledge
  There’s no knowledge-related skill—such as Lore—for the same reason that there 
  are no dramatic performance skills. So the Story Goes assumes that your characters 
  are knowledgeable, talented storytellers, so there’s no need to choose skills to 
  represent this.
  If you want to determine whether a character knows any useful information 
  about a given subject, look at the character’s aspects and background. A wood-
  cutter might know a great deal about trees and woodlands. She might also know 
  how to find her way through the forest where she grew up, and how to find the 
  reclusive hermit who lives in a hut deep in the woods.
  If a given fact or rumor seems particularly obscure, the GM may ask the player 
  to pay a fate point and invoke an aspect to produce that knowledge, as you would 
  do to declare a story detail according to Fate Core (page 13). 
  Alternately, if a character knowing a certain fact would advance the plot or 
  create an interesting situation, the GM can grant that knowledge regardless of 
  aspects or invocations. 
  Stress and Consequences
  Wielded properly, a sharp word can cripple as well as a sharp knife. In So the 
  Story Goes, characters have only one stress track with three boxes to track both 
  physical and mental harm. 
  Because the PCs collect knowledge and folklore, they are familiar with simple 
  remedies, and they roll to recover consequences at a Fair (+2) skill rank. If the 
  PC performing treatment has an aspect that indicates training appropriate to the 
  consequence being treated—for example, medical or martial training for a physical 
  injury, or shamanic training for mental trauma—they instead roll at Great (+4). 
  NPCs normally have a Mediocre (+0) skill rank for this purpose, or Fair (+2) if 
  they have some general education, or Great (+4) if they have specific training in 
  the form of treatment required.
  TEAMWORK
  Fate Core suggests two methods for multiple characters to contribute 
  to a single action—combining skills (page 174) and stacking advantages 
  (page 175). For So the Story Goes we recommend allowing characters to 
  stack advantages instead of combining skills.
  Combining skills can lead to one character frequently taking the ini-
  tiative and rolling the dice, while other characters simply tag along to 
  provide +1 bonuses. Asking players to stack advantages gives everyone 
  the opportunity to roll dice, take risks, and apply their own creativity to 
  the situation.
  Similarly, we recommend representing a group of nameless NPCs as 
  a single character rather than as a group of individual characters com-
  bining their skills. If a pack of thieves turns up, you can give the group 
  the skills and stress they would have when acting together, instead of 
  choosing statistics for a single thief and then allowing six of them to 
  combine their skills.
  16
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  Sample Characters
  You can use the following example characters as PCs or NPCs in your game, or just 
  as inspiration when creating your characters. If you put these example characters 
  into a troupe with newly created characters, adjust their relationship aspects to 
  connect them to their new companions.
  Proud Bird
  Your family is wealthy and powerful, and would have given you anything you 
  wanted—except the freedom to sing, which they found frivolous and undignified. 
  Even the first and greatest love of your life urged you to choose a different voca-
  tion. In your final argument with your parents, they called you a proud bird, too 
  enamored with your own voice to accept food or shelter. You fled your home and 
  your lover, taking a new name from the words your parents intended as contempt.
  Proud Bird
  ASPECTS
  High Concept: Fascinating Singer
  Trouble: Impossible? I’ll Do It Anyway
  History: Memories of Wealth and 
  Privilege; Love Always Turns Sour
  Relationship: I Want Branch’s Secrets
  SKILLS
  Good (+3): Appeal
  Fair (+2): Listen, Trick
  Average (+1): Confront, Rhetoric, Will
  STUNTS
  I’m Better than That: Gain +2 to Will 
  to oppose someone trying to place an 
  aspect on you that would make you 
  feel inferior, such as Pangs of Guilt 
  or Intimidated. 
  Guilt Trip: If you’ve already made a 
  favorable impression on someone, in 
  the form of an aspect like Enamored 
  or Impressed, you gain +3 instead 
  of +2 if you invoke that aspect to 
  influence that person by expressing 
  disappointment with their behavior.
  Starstruck: Once per session, you can 
  spend a fate point to gain the complete 
  trust and willing service of one name-
  less NPC who has heard you sing.
  STRESS [1][2][3]
  17
  SO THE STORY GOES
  
  Branch
  Under your leadership, the fighting men and women of Still Water became a potent 
  military force. Once you had eradicated the local bandit gangs, you turned your 
  attentions to the nearby town of Hearth. You invented evidence to convince your 
  people that Hearth was a threat to Still Water’s existence, and then you went to 
  war. Your arrogance and recklessness led to the annihilation of your army. Hearth 
  didn’t destroy Still Water in retaliation, but demanded that Still Water pay a steep, 
  regular tribute as the cost of Hearth’s mercy. Your former peers exiled you, and in 
  disgrace you changed your name and picked up the trade of the storyteller, letting 
  the roads of the Northlands carry you far away from your failure.
  Branch
  ASPECTS
  High Concept: Travel-Worn Lutist
  Trouble: Haunted by Those I Killed
  History: They Called Me Brave 
  Banner; Disgraced in Still Water
  Relationship: I’ll Keep Creek Out 
  of Trouble
  SKILLS
  Good (+3): Rhetoric
  Fair (+2): Notice, Listen
  Average (+1): Confront, Risk, Will
  STUNTS
  Comrade in Arms: Gain +2 to Risk to 
  defend someone within arm’s reach 
  from a physical attack.
  I’ve Seen That Trick: Gain +2 to 
  Listen to oppose someone using 
  Trick against you, if you can tell a 
  brief anecdote about a similar form 
  of deception.
  Commanding Presence: Use Will to 
  create an advantage by issuing rapid 
  orders and reassurances during an 
  immediate crisis.
  STRESS [1][2][3]
  18
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  Creek
  You and your mother enjoyed a good life in Cerulean until the day of the storm, 
  when she didn’t return from her job at the docks. After that, you turned to pick-
  pocketing, which you were good at—but not as good as you thought. A critical 
  mistake landed you in serious trouble, and it’s fortunate your uncle Branch turned 
  up to get you out of the city. He’s been teaching you the storyteller’s trade, and 
  it’s fun, but sometimes you miss being on your own, with no one to tell you what 
  to do and how to behave.
  Creek
  ASPECTS
  High Concept:  
  Adventure-Seeking Piper
  Trouble: In Over My Head
  History: Pickpocket of Cerulean; 
  A Storm Took My Mother
  Relationship: Secretly in Love 
  with Winter
  SKILLS
  Good (+3): Trick
  Fair (+2): Appeal, Risk
  Average (+1): Confront, Listen, Notice
  STUNTS
  I Didn’t Do It: Gain +2 to Trick 
  whenever asserting your innocence 
  of something you actually did.
  Exit, Stage Left: Once per session, you 
  can disappear immediately from a 
  location from which you could phys-
  ically leave, if no one is watching you 
  at the moment.
  Quicker than the Eye: Gain +2 to Risk 
  to steal or manipulate items smaller 
  than your hand.
  STRESS [1][2][3]
  19
  SO THE STORY GOES
  
  Winter
  You and your former bandit crew told yourselves that you would become a con-
  quering army, that the lands of the North would be yours to plunder. Your dreams 
  of glory only lasted a year before your friends turned on each other, and after 
  a night of betrayal and sharp knives, you were the last survivor. You wandered 
  half-mad through the wilderness, starved and feverish, and eventually woke up 
  to find that a few traveling storytellers were nursing you back to health. You were 
  just as surprised as they were to find that you had a knack for remembering and 
  telling stories, and so they adopted you. Since then, you’ve been trying to repay 
  their kindness by making sure that no one—no one—hurts your new friends.
  Winter
  ASPECTS
  High Concept: Blunt and 
  Belligerent Drummer
  Trouble: Savage Instincts
  History: We Were Bandits; 
  Visions and Apparitions 
  in the Wilderness
  Relationship: I Owe My Life to 
  Proud Bird
  SKILLS
  Good (+3): Confront
  Fair (+2): Risk, Will
  Average (+1): Listen, Notice, Trick
  STUNTS
  Shrug It Off: You may take two mild 
  consequences instead of one.
  Verbal Ambush: If you initiate a con-
  flict with an emotional attack in the 
  form of a violent threat, you gain +2 
  to Confront for this attack.
  I Won’t Be Held: Gain +2 to Risk to 
  break through a physical barrier, such 
  as a locked door, a tree across a road, 
  or binding ropes.
  STRESS [1][2][3]
  20
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  THE POWER OF WORDS
  As storytellers, you have two methods for influencing the people you meet: your 
  social skills and your performances.
  The setting aspect We Tell the Tales establishes that your characters are 
  talented storytellers. There is never a need to roll dice to determine whether you 
  know how to play a lute or sing a melody. Under normal circumstances you can 
  perform at a moment’s notice, and your audience will be appreciative.
  Petitions
  When your character uses verbal or emotional methods to cause an NPC to provide 
  assistance, share information, or agree with an assertion, this is called a petition. 
  If the petition is something the NPC would willingly provide without hesitation, 
  there’s no need to pick up the dice. If the NPC is unwilling, you must perform 
  an overcome action. You must first describe how your character is influencing the 
  NPC. Then, based on your tactics, you and the GM determine which skill you use.
  The GM also chooses which skill the NPC uses as opposition:
  • Use Appeal if the NPC tries to avoid granting the petition by pleading 
  for mercy, asking for forgiveness or understanding, or leveraging bonds 
  of friendship or infatuation.
  • Use Confront if the NPC responds with aggression, insults, or authorita-
  tive commands.
  • Use Listen if the NPC analyzes the PC’s words to find an error or 
  misunderstanding.
  • Use Rhetoric if the NPC tries to present a rational reason to refuse the 
  petition.
  • Use Trick if the NPC uses deception or confusion to cause the PC to 
  drop the petition.
  • Use Will if the NPC is simply ignoring the PC or refusing without 
  explanation.
  If a PC is trying to petition a group of NPCs, find the skill that the NPCs 
  are using to provide opposition, and then find which NPC in the group has the 
  highest rank in this skill. Use this NPC’s skill rank to set the level of opposition.
  An important distinction is that if you’re trying to convince an NPC to do 
  something, that’s a petition, but if you’re convincing an NPC to believe something, 
  you’re creating an advantage.
  21
  SO THE STORY GOES
  
  Impossible Petitions
  GMs, you may declare that an NPC will not grant a certain petition under any 
  circumstances. An NPC might never agree to burn down her farm or expose 
  her child to danger. Use common sense and the NPC’s aspects to identify these 
  situations.
  The PCs might be able to convert an impossible petition into a possible petition 
  if they can provide justification. For example, if they had convinced their audi-
  ence that wicked spirits were plaguing their village, and if the PCs had somehow 
  demonstrated that fire could drive off the spirits, they might then be able to 
  persuade one of the villagers to burn down her own farm. Several examples in 
  “Skills and Stunts” (page 7) demonstrate how storytellers can convert impossible 
  petitions into possible petitions.
  NPCs can’t use their skills to force PCs to grant their petitions. The GM can 
  describe how an NPC is attempting to petition a PC, and the player decides 
  whether or not to grant the petition.
  22
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  Verbal Conflicts
  You may wish to run lengthy, significant arguments as conflicts to help track the 
  impact of every assertion and accusation. In a verbal conflict, opponents take 
  turns using Appeal, Confront, Rhetoric, and Trick to attack, and use Listen and 
  Will to defend. Determine turn order using Will.
  Before starting the conflict, set the stakes. Decide what each side is trying to 
  achieve or prevent. Players, your attacks should either reinforce your goals or 
  undermine your opponent’s. GMs, remember that NPCs cannot force PCs to 
  take specific actions. “I want you to go away” is not a goal an NPC could achieve 
  in a conflict with a PC, but “I refuse to admit you’re right” or “I’ll make you look 
  foolish in front of your allies” would be achievable.
  When you take consequences, make them reflect the short-term or long-term 
  effects of a hard-fought disagreement. You might feel Guilty or Offended as 
  a result of an accusation that struck home, or you might become Exhausted 
  from emotional strain.
  When a matriarch named Whistle stands up to give a speech at the 
  harvest feast, Branch knows that she is about to accuse her daughter’s 
  husband, Oxtail, of sorcery. She does not approve of her daughter’s 
  marriage, and wants to drive Oxtail out of town. Branch interrupts the 
  speech to question Whistle’s honesty. 
  Her goal in this conflict is to turn the townsfolk against Oxtail, while 
  Branch’s goal is to demonstrate that her motives are misleading and 
  selfish. He attacks with Rhetoric to show that Whistle’s accusations are 
  false, while she attacks with Confront to intimidate the storyteller. In 
  the end, she concedes, and though Oxtail maintains his good reputa-
  tion, a few of Whistle’s closest friends remain faithful to her and help 
  her plan her next move in secret.
  Verbal conflicts can become physical conflicts, and physical conflicts can involve 
  verbal conflicts. A violent argument might explode into a fistfight, or you might try 
  to persuade two rival warriors to set down their spears. When mixing these flavors 
  of conflict, characters making physical attacks determine their turn order using 
  Notice, while characters making verbal attacks determine turn order using Will.
  23
  SO THE STORY GOES
  
  Creating and Resisting Aspects
  The skill descriptions starting on page 8 explain how you can use your skills 
  to create advantages on individual NPCs. If your troupe is delivering a perfor-
  mance to create a situation aspect on an entire audience, though, you’ll find the 
  highest-ranked skill among the members of your troupe, and use that skill when 
  you roll the dice to create an advantage. It doesn’t matter which skill is ranked 
  highest—you’re just using this skill rank to measure the group’s overall expertise.
  Proud Bird and Winter are singing a duet to create a romantically 
  inspirED aspect on their audience. Proud Bird’s best skill rank is Good 
  (+3), as is Winter’s, so they’ll roll with a Good (+3) skill rank to try to 
  create an advantage.
  Whether you use a performance or some other social interaction to create an 
  advantage, the nature of your message determines the skill your audience uses to 
  oppose you. If you’re using reason, logic, or deception to influence the audience, 
  they oppose with Listen. If you’re playing on your audience’s emotions, they 
  oppose with Will.
  If you’re creating an aspect on an entire group, find the member of the group 
  who has the highest rank in the skill they’re using to oppose you, and use this 
  skill rank to provide opposition.
  As always, situation aspects are temporary and last only until their circumstances 
  no longer apply, which might be no longer than a single scene or session. The 
  storycrafting rules in the next section will allow you to permanently change your 
  audience’s aspects.
  Storycrafting
  You can sway an audience with a conversation or a speech, but as the memory 
  of your words fades, so will your influence. If, however, you tell your audience a 
  story—a good story—it will stay with them for a lifetime. They’ll see your scenes 
  in their dreams, and repeat your words to their friends. Wherever they go, your 
  story will be with them, whispering in their ears.
  When you want to create a permanent change in a society’s attitudes or beliefs, 
  your troupe must gather an audience and perform a story. Your audience may be 
  as large as an army or as small as a single child, but the audience must be willing 
  to pay attention for the duration of the performance.
  You begin by deciding what the story will be about, and what message it will 
  convey. Phrase the story’s message as an aspect, like A House Made of Lies 
  Will Soon Fall or Forge Friendships, Not Daggers. If your performance is 
  successful, this story aspect will shape the future of your audience.
  You’ll then use the dice and your aspects to determine how effective your perfor-
  mance is. You’ll start by determining the strength of each storyteller’s performance. 
  When you’re done, the performance with the lowest result will determine how 
  your story aspect affected your audience.
  24
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  Step 1: Individual Performances
  Each storyteller describes an important element they will contribute to the per-
  formance. You might play a sorrowful song, deliver an inspiring monologue, or 
  portray a crucial character. Explain what this element of the performance looks 
  like, and how it contributes to the story. These elements do not describe the entire 
  performance; they are just the highlights of your troupe’s creation.
  Each storyteller must determine the strength of their own performance. To do 
  so, roll an overcome action against Fair (+2) opposition. 
  You won’t add a skill rank to this roll. Instead, look at your character sheet 
  to find aspects that would help you add authenticity and emotion to the story 
  element you chose to portray. You may include your high concept if you use 
  your preferred method of performance. Add the number of helpful aspects as a 
  bonus to your roll. 
  For example, if you found that three of your aspects would help your perfor-
  mance, you would roll the dice and add +3. 
  You may invoke aspects as usual to reroll or add a +2 bonus. These may 
  be your own character’s aspects, or aspects you’ve established ahead of time to 
  prepare for the performance. When you invoke an aspect, describe a new facet 
  of the performance that relates to that aspect.  
  GMs, you may invoke aspects to increase the opposition rank for individual 
  storytellers. For instance, if one storyteller was under a Cloud of Suspicion, 
  you could invoke that aspect once to increase the opposition of that storyteller’s 
  performance action to Great (+4).
  • If you succeed with style, you may give your boost to another storyteller 
  to improve their performance, even if they already rolled their dice and 
  determined their result. When you give another storyteller your boost, you 
  must describe how you’re assisting their performance.
  • If you succeed, remember how many shifts you rolled. 
  • If you tie or fail, you cannot succeed at a cost. You must either invoke 
  aspects or hope that one of your fellow storytellers can roll well enough 
  to lend you a boost.
  WHY NOT SKILLS?
  The storytelling actions and opposition are based on aspects, not skills, 
  because a meaningful performance comes from the soul, and speaks to 
  the soul. The PCs are all talented performers, but they draw their inspira-
  tion from different sources, and their personal passions can transform a 
  simple poem into a heart-rending ballad. The members of your audience, 
  for their part, don’t need iron wills to reject the moral of your story if it 
  clashes with their personal truths and prejudices.
  25
  SO THE STORY GOES
  
  Step 2: Performance Result
  When all storytellers have determined the strength of their performances, find 
  the lowest result rolled by the troupe, and use this to determine how your story 
  affected your audience, as listed below.
  • Success with 4+ shifts: The power of your story will spread through the 
  Northlands. Your story aspect applies to your entire audience, regardless 
  of how many aspects they have that might oppose you or your message. 
  Your story aspect also becomes a new setting aspect that the troupe can 
  invoke for free once per scenario.
  • Success with 3 shifts: Your voices swayed the hardest hearts. The story 
  aspect applies to all audience members.
  • Success with 1–2 shifts: You were convincing, if not exceptional. The 
  story aspect applies to all of the audience members, except those who have 
  an aspect that contradicts your story’s message and an aspect that makes 
  them hostile to you personally.
  • Tie: This wasn’t your best work. The story aspect applies only to members 
  of the audience who have no aspects that would contradict your story’s 
  message or that would make them hostile to you personally.
  • Failure: The performance is a failure. Create a harmful aspect such as 
  These Performers Are Fools or They’ve Insulted Our Honor to 
  show how the audience has turned against you. This aspect lasts until the 
  end of the scenario.
  The story aspect becomes a new character aspect for the affected members of 
  the audience. The PCs do not receive free invokes on this aspect.
  The Story Aspect
  As with any character aspect, the story aspect will affect the behavior of the NPCs 
  it applies to. If the story aspect conflicts with a situation aspect on an NPC, the 
  situation aspect expires. If the story aspect conflicts with one of the NPC’s char-
  acter aspects, the NPC suffers a crisis of beliefs and cannot invoke either aspect. 
  Both aspects will compete for the NPC’s attention, and the NPC may pursue 
  either one, depending on other aspects or surrounding influences. 
  GMs, when the scenario ends, remove the story aspect and its conflicting aspect 
  from any NPC in crisis, and give a new character aspect to the NPC represent-
  ing their new viewpoint. Use the events of the scenario to make this new aspect.
  TOO MANY FATE POINTS?
  If the players have a big stack of unspent fate points, it’ll be easy for them 
  to achieve the best possible result for their performance. As the GM, you 
  can make performances more challenging by encouraging the players to 
  spend their fate points earlier in the session. Try confronting the players 
  with conflicts or with NPCs that have high opposing skill ranks. You can 
  also invoke appropriate aspects, if there are any, to make performance 
  actions more difficult for individual storytellers.
  26
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  Example: A Complicated Wedding
  The PCs were invited to perform at a wedding celebration, but the 
  couple cancelled the celebration after an old feud between their families 
  boiled over. Tensions rise and threats fly, and violence may break out 
  if no one intervenes.
  The PCs stage a performance to demonstrate the value of forgive-
  ness. They call their play “The Fatal Insult,” which will tell the story of 
  two mortal enemies whose struggle destroyed everything they loved. 
  If successful, the performance will create the story aspect nEvEr lEt 
  your past DEstroy your futurE.
  Proud Bird declares that she will sing a song about the pain of a 
  friend’s betrayal. She finds two of her aspects will help her perform 
  this song: fascinatinG sinGEr and lovE always turns sour. Her dice 
  come up +2, so she adds +2 from her helpful aspects to get a Great 
  (+4) result, a success with two shifts. 
  Each other storyteller rolls to create their own performance elements. 
  Branch gets an Epic (+7) result, a success with five shifts, when he acts 
  out the violent death of the brother of one of the rivals. Creek adds 
  a satirical dialogue between two minor characters, and gets a Good 
  (+3) result, a success with one shift. 
  Winter, the final storyteller, explains that she will use her drums to 
  represent the heartbeats of the main characters as they wield their 
  jealousy and fury. She gets a Good (+3) result, but because she suf-
  fered an unsurE of mysElf consequence in an earlier conflict, the GM 
  invokes this to raise her opposition to Great (+4). Since Branch had 
  succeeded with style, he gives his boost to Winter, explaining that he 
  adjusts the rhythm of his dialogue to reinforce Winter’s drums. With 
  this boost, Winter gets a Superb (+5) result, a success with one shift.
  Since the lowest result achieved by the troupe was a success with 
  one shift, the performance affected most of the audience. The mem-
  bers of both families have the character aspect an aGE-olD Enmity, 
  and the new story aspect gives them a crisis of beliefs. They now 
  understand the cost of their feud, but don’t know how to move past it. 
  Later, the storytellers spend time mediating between the family elders 
  and showing them how they can achieve peace. Because of this, the 
  GM will replace their conflicting aspects with a nEw harmony when 
  the scenario ends.
  However, the troupe did not roll well enough to apply the story 
  aspect to the cousin of the bride. In addition to having an aGE-olD 
  Enmity, she is offEnDED anD inDiGnant because Creek had failed at 
  earlier attempts to befriend her. Since she has an aspect opposing the 
  story’s message and an aspect that makes her hostile to Creek, the 
  troupe’s lowest result would need to be a success with at least three 
  shifts to apply the story aspect to her. She continues to plot against 
  the groom, and later in the scenario, the PCs must prevent her from 
  putting a knife in his back.
  27
  SO THE STORY GOES
  
  THE NORTHLANDS
  The Northlands are bounded by the Middle Sea to the south, the Ember Desert 
  to the north, the Dead Hills to the west, and the Many Mothers River to the east. 
  Before the war, no single city or leader had claimed ownership of this wide and 
  bountiful territory. These city-states and humble hamlets were bound together 
  by trade and goodwill, not fealty or dynasty.
  The Tyrant changed all of that.
  The Tyrant
  Travel across the Middle Sea has always been controlled by the Seakeepers, a 
  nomadic people who spend their lives on the water, sailing from shore to shore, 
  stopping only briefly to collect supplies before heading back out toward the blue 
  horizon. No one builds ships as fast and reliable as the Seakeepers do, and no one 
  crosses the Middle Sea without their permission. Those who challenge the power 
  of the Seakeepers soon rest in watery graves.
  Before the civil war, almost all overseas trade in the Northlands went through the 
  port of Cerulean, and through Seakeeper vessels. The Harbor Guild of Cerulean 
  negotiated deals with Seakeeper tribes to keep trade flowing. But when the Guild 
  attempted to play several tribes off each other, they gained nothing but the wrath 
  of the Seakeepers. The nomads declared a blockade, forbidding all overseas trade 
  in or out of the Northlands.
  Regular trade with the Southlands had enriched the guildmasters of Cerulean, 
  the traders of Lapwing Lake, and the gem-cutters of Ruby Well. When overseas 
  trade stopped, the great merchants and caravan masters suffered.
  During this crisis, a warlord named Thorn arrived in Cerulean, leading an army 
  of warriors from the Duskgrass. Thorn had recently demonstrated her military 
  genius and ruthless aggression by defending the Duskgrass from an invasion of 
  tribes to the east. With two hundred of her kinsfolk behind her, she told the Harbor 
  Guild that she would shatter the tyranny of the Seakeepers if the guildmasters 
  made her the absolute ruler of Cerulean.
  The Guild rejected her. Thorn had no naval experience, and even if she did, the 
  price she demanded was impossible.
  In response, Thorn went to Ruby Well, to complain to the mining clans about 
  the short-sighted arrogance of the guildmasters of Cerulean. She took the same 
  complaints to the traders of Lapwing Lake, so that their caravans would carry the 
  story of the fearless Duskgrass general and the cowards of the Harbor Guild. She 
  visited farms and villages, finding the young and strong and promising them the 
  glory of a righteous war against the Seakeepers. She gained allies. Her army grew.
  When she returned to Cerulean, she had two thousand soldiers and the sup-
  port of wealthy parties across the Northlands. She repeated her proposal to the 
  Harbor Guild. The guildmasters, understanding that they no longer had a choice, 
  capitulated.
  28
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  Thorn constructed a navy. Sailors, laborers, supplies, and materials poured into 
  Cerulean. Soldiers marched across the North to collect recruits and resources, by 
  force if necessary. When the storytellers began to question the wisdom of giving 
  such power to a warlord, she quietly assembled a force of assassins she called the 
  Silencers, and sent them to destroy the storytellers. To replace them, she sent out 
  her own heralds to promote fear and hatred of the Seakeepers, and to praise the 
  courage of Thorn and her soldiers.
  After two years of effort, the Northlands had produced the largest navy it would 
  ever see. Thorn boarded her flagship and set off into the Middle Sea to give battle.
  The Seakeepers annihilated Thorn’s navy. Two hundred ships left Cerulean, and 
  only ten returned. One of those surviving ships carried Thorn. Humiliated and 
  furious, she pledged to build a second navy, bigger than the first. But the people 
  of the North had already given Thorn more than they could afford. When her 
  forces marched out again to conscript sailors and seize supplies, they met armed 
  resistance.
  Thorn had failed at sea, but her prowess as a land general was undiminished. 
  Though rebel forces outnumbered her own ten to one, she fought them to a 
  standstill for a decade. She might have outlasted her opponents, but she became 
  paranoid, irrational. Her extreme measures taken to weed out imagined traitors 
  and conspirators prompted the appearance of actual traitors and conspirators. 
  Her forces deserted, her allies turned against her, and she fell in battle in the 
  blood-soaked streets of Cerulean.
  Fifty years have passed since then. The ashes of the dead are scattered, and 
  flowers bloom where armies once fought and died. But though the scars left by 
  the Tyrant’s ambition may fade, the Northlands will never forget her.
  29
  SO THE STORY GOES
  
  Places
  The Northlands contain many peoples, many roads, and many secrets, but a few 
  landmarks are well known to all.
  Cerulean
  Aspect: No Ships, No Hope
  Before the war, Cerulean was the greatest port of the Middle Sea. But now, 
  only local fisherfolk use the shelter of the harbor, and even they must take care 
  not to stray far from shore. The Seakeepers will not pass up any opportunity to 
  send a violent message that the Middle Sea remains closed to the Northlands.
  The Harbor Guild has reclaimed control of the city and has pledged that they 
  will redress the crimes of the Tyrant, rebuild Cerulean, and make peace with the 
  Seakeepers. So far they have achieved little success. The Seakeepers have refused 
  all requests to parley, and the Guild has been unable to dislodge the gangs of 
  thieves that have claimed the underpopulated areas of post-war Cerulean. The city 
  needs effective solutions and strong leaders before it can return to its former glory.
  Ruby Well
  Aspect: A Jewel Waiting to Be Stolen
  The city of Ruby Well began as neutral ground between the mining clans of the 
  Dead Hills, who battled fiercely for the gems buried below this dry, rugged territory. 
  Eventually, with storytellers acting as intermediaries, the clans constructed the Ruby 
  Concord, an agreement that dictated the limits of competition and cooperation. 
  The Concord also created a role for a tie-breaker and moderator who would be 
  known as the Last Word. Over time, ambitious holders of this title persuaded the 
  clans to give them more and more power—until today, when the Last Word is a 
  monarch, ruling with complete authority over the enterprises of the city.
  At the beginning of her reign, the Tyrant believed she had the full support of 
  the young, inexperienced Last Word. She discovered her mistake when he used 
  the city’s wealth to fund the largest, best-equipped armies of the rebellion. 
  The same Last Word still rules today, but his years are running out, and he must 
  appoint a successor. Several factions stand ready to assume control of Ruby Well, 
  and the city could plunge into conflict no matter who becomes the next Last Word. 
  30
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  The Duskgrass
  Aspect: Us Against the World
  Only the tribes that dwell here know the secrets of these trackless, golden 
  grasslands, and they jealously guard their knowledge and territory from outsiders. 
  The Tyrant was born here and learned the art of war here. She earned the ever-
  lasting respect of her people after she led a series of successful, brutal reprisals 
  against invading nomads from the east. When she declared her intention to win 
  the wealth and power of Cerulean, the warriors of the Duskgrass eagerly picked 
  up their spears and followed her banner.
  The fall of the Tyrant proved irrevocably to the Duskgrass tribes that no one 
  outside their lands could be trusted. Those who survived the rebellion returned 
  home to nurse their wounds and to pass their grudges on to their descendants. 
  They have adopted the Tyrant’s lies as the true history of the North, and will be 
  even more hostile to strangers than they were before the war.
  Lapwing Lake
  Aspect: Bandit’s Refuge
  The settlement on the shores of Lapwing Lake had been a crucial hub of trade 
  in the Northlands. The lake’s clear waters made it an excellent resupply point for 
  caravans, and the broad Sleeping River leading south to Cerulean was a highway 
  for cargo.
  During the war, armies from both sides raided the town again and again until 
  nothing was left but empty storehouses and the bones of those who had refused 
  to hand over their wealth. Now the town is controlled by several large bandit 
  gangs who ride out on long-range plundering expeditions, returning to the lake 
  to celebrate, drink, and gamble.
  The Ember Desert
  Aspect: Cruel and Mysterious Sands
  Even the storytellers of old believed that nothing human lived in the endless 
  wastes of the Ember Desert. There had always been tales of lost cities, drowned in 
  sand centuries ago, but no explorers fortunate enough to return from the desert 
  had ever found anything but dust and death.
  Now, though, hardy villagers on the fringes of the desert have seen things moving 
  out in the dry haze, as if there are travelers crossing the dunes. A few scouts have 
  reported distant sightings of people in voluminous, brightly colored robes, riding 
  odd long-legged beasts. These might be friends or they might be enemies, or they 
  might be waiting to speak to their first Northlander before deciding which to be.
  31
  SO THE STORY GOES
  
  She Who Watches
  Aspect: Suspicion and Greed
  A tall cliff face on the shore of the Middle Sea bears a hundred-foot-high bas-
  relief carving of a woman shielding her eyes with one hand, peering eternally 
  out to sea. Her other hand curls around a tunnel in the cliff face, at the height 
  of her waist, accessible only by a narrow track leading up from the water’s edge.
  This unusual habitat is the home of a religious order whose disciples look 
  forward to the day when their deity returns from the sea to grant immortality 
  to her followers. Local farmers have traditionally lowered baskets of food to the 
  tunnel entrance in a sign of neighborly good will.
  The survivors of the civil war, however, are less tolerant of the superstitious 
  recluses who live in the cliff. Local gossip is full of rumors about the reprehensible 
  practices of the disciples, and about the precious and valuable relics they hoard. It 
  may only be a matter of time before someone attempts to starve out the disciples 
  or invade their refuge.
  Noble Leaf
  Aspect: Waiting for a Miracle
  Before the war, Northlands legends asserted that the tea picked on a certain 
  day on a certain hill near this village had miraculous properties. But a rebel 
  army, in a misguided show of defiance against the Tyrant, burned the tea bushes 
  and trampled the ashes into the mud. Since then, the tea grown here has been 
  unremarkable, and the farmers of Noble Leaf would pay any price to restore the 
  fabled potency of their crops.
  The Southlands
  Southlander Character Aspect: We’ll Never Forget Our Homeland
  The lands to the south of the Middle Sea are marshes and misty hills, occupied 
  by perpetually warring clans linked by a complex web of grievances, alliances, and 
  blood ties. Trade between the Southlands and Northlands was mutually beneficial, 
  and some Southlanders had crossed the sea to live in the North, either for business 
  reasons or to flee trouble in their native lands.
  Now that the Seakeepers have closed the ports of the Northlands, the 
  Southlanders who live in the North have been out of contact with their home-
  land for seventy years. These displaced people do not always fit in with their 
  Northlander neighbors, and their fierce loyalty to their own traditions can cause 
  misunderstandings and conflict.
  32
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  Names
  The names of people and places in the Northlands are composed of ordinary 
  words. A merchant named Bronze might cross the Wise River to sell cloth to the 
  villagers of Echo. 
  Most people will keep the same names for all their lives. Others may change 
  their names after changing vocations, or moving to a new place, or just on a whim.
  USING WORDS AS NAMES
  This naming system is not an attempt to evoke any particular Earth culture. 
  The goal is to allow players to quickly invent easy-to-remember names, 
  while avoiding familiar names such as Adam or Zoë or awkward imaginary 
  names such as Archelorax or Zr’Kel’Thiss.
  Life in the Northlands
  Before the war, the Northlands used small, cubic beads of precious stone as cur-
  rency. The basic unit of currency was known as a pledge, and one bead might be 
  worth one or more pledges depending on its size and the rarity of the stone it was 
  made of. The use of currency is less common now, and barter is common even 
  in prosperous areas, since useful or edible goods are more immediately valuable 
  than polished rocks.
  Cattle are the most important domesticated animals in the Northlands. Oxen 
  pull carts, move stones, and plow fields. Cow milk is a common drink, and beef 
  is a delicacy for those who can afford to eat their cattle instead of putting them to 
  work. Cattle serve their community even after their death, giving up their bones 
  for spear points and their hides for leather.
  There are no horses or other similar riding animals in the Northlands, which 
  means that overland travel is never faster than a person or a cow can walk. Caravan 
  masters once drove trains of thousands of cargo-bearing oxen across the North, 
  and now that peace and order have returned, the great caravans of old may soon 
  reappear.
  The written form of the Northlands language is composed of complex ideograms, 
  and is used most often to document laws, treaties, and contracts. Northlanders 
  do not create historical documents, as they believe that paper and ink cannot 
  properly communicate the nuance and context of past events. They prefer oral 
  history and the informed perspective of trained storytellers.
  LITERACY
  Literacy is rare in the Northlands, and is not a necessary skill for story-
  tellers. Players may decide whether their characters are literate based 
  on their backgrounds. No special skill, stunt, or aspect is necessary to 
  indicate literacy.
  33
  SO THE STORY GOES
  
  Symbols
  When the myriad settlements of the North learned common myths, it was from 
  the storytellers, who carried stories and songs across the land. Now, the people 
  of the North have a more powerful shared experience—the war.
  Because of the violence that tore the Northlands apart, there are several sym-
  bols that carry powerful meaning for nearly everyone your characters will meet.
  The Tyrant
  The Tyrant herself is the most enduring and powerful legend to emerge from the 
  war. She was superhuman even in life, and her deeds and misdeeds have grown 
  to mythical stature. To her former allies in the Duskgrass, she is a fallen hero who 
  tried to purge the Northlands of corruption. To nearly everyone else, she was a 
  cruel, wrathful, terrifying villain who may have been the offspring of demons, 
  or an eater of human flesh, or an agent of the Seakeepers, or all of these at one.
  Armies and Soldiers
  Wherever soldiers march, tragedies follow. Soldiers burn fields, raze villages, 
  slaughter livestock, steal food, and conscript the unwilling.
  To the right audience, though, a soldier can be a sympathetic, tragic figure. A 
  soldier could be a parent, grandparent, or old family friend, scarred by the war 
  and burdened by the nightmares of violence endured and inflicted.
  Famine
  The violence of the war destroyed farmers and farms alike. Villages had barely 
  enough food to survive during good weather, and winter meant certain death 
  for many. The slow suffering of hunger was an invincible enemy that stalked the 
  Northlands, smothering life and hope. Though crops are bountiful once more, 
  no one takes harvests for granted, and only the young can greet winter without 
  the memory of starvation.
  Dead and Forgotten Places
  The vast landscape of the Northlands is littered with the wreckage of war, and with 
  the signs of history that no one remembers. A traveler might encounter a field 
  of blackened tinder that had been a prosperous town, or a mass grave that had 
  been the better part of an army. Asking a nearby farmer about a certain vacant 
  stone building, or a line of tall cairns, or an enshrined skeleton might produce a 
  baffled shrug or a superstitious shiver.
  The Seakeepers
  There are few people living in the North who have ever seen a Seakeeper in the 
  flesh. The mere sight of a distant sail is enough to drive fisherfolk into fits of terror. 
  Depending on who you speak to, you may hear that the Seakeepers are ravenous 
  demons, or are half-human water-breathing horrors, or are sorcerers who com-
  mand the winds and waves. Along the seacoast, the Seakeepers are scapegoats 
  for all manner of misfortune, from poor fishing to fatal illness to sudden storms.
  34
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  Pre-War Deeds
  The past may appear brighter when the present is difficult and uncertain. Most 
  Northlanders believe that their pre-war ancestors lived in peace and plenty, among 
  great leaders, brave heroes, and peerless artists. The glory of these renowned 
  people and deeds grows with every passing year. Without storytellers to provide 
  an honest record of the past, the history of the Northlands may become nothing 
  but a collection of truthless legends.
  The Supernatural
  Superstition is common in the Northlands. A village in the western mountains 
  might still worship its nomadic ancestors, while a group of farmers in the fertile 
  southern hills might pray to a colossal ancient tree. The storytellers of old collected 
  hundreds of contradictory myths and performed them all with equal enthusiasm. 
  By spreading many different beliefs, the storytellers never encouraged a common 
  faith or religion to develop in the North. 
  Regardless of the source, these myths are just fanciful stories. Gods do not 
  interact with the world, magicians do not command the elements, and spirits 
  do not plague the living. 
  That’s not to say that there is no wonder or mystery in the world. In the remote 
  wilderness, it may be reassuring to believe that the clean, bubbling spring you 
  found in the forest is the repose of a friendly deity. And in the shadows of night, 
  it’s all too easy to believe that the sound you just heard is an undying monstrosity 
  that hungers for your blood.
  And even if it isn’t, what will make for a better story to share at the next 
  caravanserai?
  35
  SO THE STORY GOES
  
  THE FORTRESS OF VIRTUE
  This is a scenario you can use as part of a So the Story Goes campaign, or just as 
  an example of the situations that a group of storytellers might encounter when 
  traveling the Northlands.
  The scenario begins with the PCs approaching a town called Eight Virtues, 
  which sits beside the Flower River, a tributary of the Sleeping River. The PCs 
  have not been to Eight Virtues before, but they have heard from travelers that it 
  is home to some sort of spiritual retreat.
  The terrain is green and hilly, and the river curls back and forth among peaceful 
  farms and forests. The path the PCs are traveling parallels the river, and along the 
  way they have encountered carts and boats carrying food to sell at Eight Virtues. 
  When the PCs first catch sight of Eight Virtues, they will see a dense crowd of 
  wooden buildings, enough to hold a thousand residents. The town is bounded 
  on the north by the river, and on the south by an impressive eight-sided stone 
  fortress. The walls of the fortress are new, but still under construction. They 
  enclose an area about a hundred meters across, and are between ten and fifteen 
  meters high, depending on their state of construction.
  36
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  The Exiles
  The next thing the PCs will notice are four people on the road. Two are carrying 
  spears and dragging the other pair away from town. 
  The spear-carriers have bright yellow sashes around their waists. Eight charac-
  ters in the written language of the Northlands are embroidered in black on the 
  sashes—the symbols for generosity, temperance, humility, harmony, serenity, 
  honesty, obedience, and silence.
  They are dragging a man and woman who appear to be sixty years old, dressed 
  roughly and simply. They are begging and weeping, and they have fresh tattoos 
  on their cheeks that may have been inscribed less than an hour ago. Each tattoo 
  is the symbol for “empty.”
  The spear-carriers will dump the older couple in the dirt, warn them to never 
  return to Eight Virtues, and then start walking back to town. If the PCs ques-
  tion the spear-carriers, they will explain that the old couple violated the town’s 
  traditions and that the magistrates have exiled them.
  The exiles will immediately beg the PCs for help. The man’s name is Pebble, 
  and the woman’s is Raindrop. They are farmers who live half a day’s walk from 
  Eight Virtues. Twenty years ago, their son Hop entered the town’s sanctuary to 
  study virtue. Since then, Hop’s parents have had no contact with him or any 
  word of his welfare. Over the past two decades, they have repeatedly begged 
  the keepers of the sanctuary, who call themselves magistrates, for news of their 
  son. The magistrates have denied every request, and have now exiled Pebble and 
  Raindrop from town to prevent them from pursuing the subject.
  Hop’s parents don’t care that their actions violate the traditions of the sanctuary. 
  They just want to see their son again, and since they can no longer enter Eight 
  Virtues themselves, they’ll ask the PCs to assist them.
  The Story of Eight Virtues
  This is the history that everyone in Eight Virtues knows and believes. 
  Before the war, the town was known as Red Stone, because of the sandstone 
  quarry in the hills to the south. The town’s leaders were sympathetic to the Tyrant, 
  and took swift, harsh action against any of the Tyrant’s opponents. 
  One of these opponents was a woman named Dutiful. She was immune to 
  the Tyrant’s propaganda, and she expressed her distrust of the warlord to anyone 
  who would listen. She was passionate and persuasive, and others in Red Stone 
  soon agreed with her. 
  The town’s leaders knew that the Tyrant was not merciful to those who plotted 
  against her. They imprisoned Dutiful and her comrades, and lowered her into a 
  deep pit without food or water, telling her that they would only free her if she 
  swore to end her troublemaking. 
  Immediately after this, a rebel army approached Red Stone, just as the Tyrant’s 
  forces arrived to defend it. Many townspeople fled to avoid the battle, and soldiers 
  fought over the town for weeks.
  37
  SO THE STORY GOES
  
  After the rebels drove off the Tyrant’s forces, they threw open the prison, which 
  had been ignored during the battle. Dutiful’s comrades had died of neglect, but 
  when the rebels lifted the stone that covered the prison’s deep pit, they found 
  that Dutiful was alive and healthy.
  She told them that her perfect isolation had forced her to face her own weaknesses. 
  She had realized that, although she had worked to resist the Tyrant’s oppression, 
  she was always doomed to fail because of the anger, jealousy, and vanity in her 
  own heart. She could not build a virtuous world until she had mastered virtue 
  within herself. She saw clearly the eight virtues that would create perfect harmony 
  in a community—the same eight virtues that the town’s officials now wear as 
  badges of authority. The power of this vision allowed her to cast off her material 
  concerns and survive for weeks without food or water. 
  After telling her story to the astonished rebels, Dutiful ascended to a state of 
  pure joy and then vanished, leaving nothing behind but a beautiful fragrance 
  that was carried off by the wind.
  The rebels, inspired by this miracle, reconstructed the town’s prison as a spiritual 
  retreat where seekers of virtue could follow Dutiful’s path and achieve enlighten-
  ment. The sanctuary’s caretakers chose titles to preserve the memory of Dutiful’s 
  ordeals as a prisoner. The caretakers became magistrates; those who served them 
  directly became wardens; those who entered the sanctuary to learn virtue became 
  penitents. Finally, the magistrates renamed the town Eight Virtues, as a reminder 
  of Dutiful’s message of salvation.
  Local Traditions
  The sanctuary is the focus of the town’s commerce. It employs laborers to cut 
  stone from the nearby quarry and to carry the stones up to the sanctuary’s ever-
  growing walls. Rose quartz from the quarry becomes pledge beads, which the 
  sanctuary uses to buy food and supplies and to hire skilled craftspeople. These 
  small square beads represent service to the sanctuary and serve as both currency 
  and spiritual relics.
  The sanctuary also sells virtue tokens, which are lacquered wooden disks the 
  size of dinner plates, carved with proverbs of the eight virtues. Locals believe these 
  will provide good luck to their households, and will pay high prices to purchase 
  new tokens every year.
  The town maintains a nine-day work week, with eight days of labor followed 
  by a day of rest and reflection. At mid-day on the ninth day, a magistrate delivers 
  a lesson on the pursuit of virtue, outside the north gate of the sanctuary, which 
  anyone may attend.
  Anyone who requests to enter the sanctuary to study virtue might be granted 
  admittance if there is a vacancy and the magistrates approve. Penitents who enter 
  the sanctuary must give up their prior lives to pursue enlightenment, never leaving 
  the sanctuary again. Penitents who faithfully follow Dutiful’s example may hope 
  to transcend to a state of pure joy, just as she did.
  38
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  To ensure that no worldly bonds will hinder the penitents, the magistrates have 
  decreed that those outside the sanctuary should avoid remembering or discussing 
  the penitents as much as possible. The penitents must disappear completely from 
  the memory of the outer world before they can achieve peace.
  When the magistrates fill vacancies among the penitents, they favor those who 
  attend lessons regularly and who demonstrate the eight legendary virtues in their 
  daily lives. Also, the wardens keep careful watch to identify those who demonstrate 
  contempt for the eight virtues. The magistrates have prepared several punishments 
  for those who disturb the town’s peace or violate its traditions:
  • For most offenses, the magistrates will temporarily ban the offender from 
  any interaction, employment, or business with the sanctuary, and may 
  impose fines proportional to the severity of the crime.
  • If the offender is a serious threat to the town’s order, the wardens will 
  tattoo the offender’s cheek with the character for “empty,” to show that 
  the offender is empty of virtue. Anyone with such a mark may not enter 
  the town without risking further punishment.
  • In extreme cases, the wardens will imprison the offender in the sanctu-
  ary, forcing the offender to accept the lifelong burden and seclusion of a 
  penitent. The magistrates might secretly send dangerous prisoners directly 
  to the Well of Joy (page 45).
  Common and Uncommon Knowledge
  The magistrates of the sanctuary conceal many secrets. Some townspeople know 
  part of the truth, due to their official connections or their long experience with 
  the town’s residents and rumors.
  The following sections will describe the beliefs and knowledge of the townspeople, 
  wardens, and specific characters.
  LEARNING THE TRUTH
  This scenario isn’t just about learning the secrets of the sanctuary. It’s 
  also about what the PCs decide to do about the town’s problems. GMs, 
  don’t make it impossible for the PCs to find the truth, or else they won’t 
  get a chance to take action.
  39
  SO THE STORY GOES
  
  Townspeople
  To avoid the displeasure of the wardens, 
  townspeople are quiet and deferential. 
  Streets are silent, and conversations occur 
  in whispered huddles. Public disagreements 
  end quickly with apologies on both sides. 
  There is little laughter, and no song.
  The magistrates control the townspeople 
  through punishment and reward. The mag-
  istrates buy crops, livestock, and crafted 
  goods, supplying a reliable income to those 
  who obey the law. They command the war-
  dens, who keep the territory clear of bandits, and who punish those who defy 
  authority. For the truly virtuous, the magistrates offer the ultimate boon—spiritual 
  ascension to an existence of pure joy. These tactics have convinced the townspeople 
  that Where the Magistrates Lead, We Must Follow.
  What Most Townspeople Believe
  • If we demonstrate a life of virtue, the magistrates may allow us to become 
  penitents and eventually ascend to a state of pure joy, like Dutiful.
  • The penitents have left the world behind, and we must release them from 
  our thoughts, or they’ll never transcend.
  • The magistrates are wise. Without them, the town would collapse into 
  chaos and vice.
  The Starry Sky
  The Starry Sky is a two-story tea house and a common gathering place for townsfolk. 
  Its proprietors, Cookpot and Empty Pockets, are a married couple who brew and 
  sell tea from their own farm and serve dumplings that Cookpot makes himself.
  The subdued atmosphere of the town persists here as well. Guests dine quickly, 
  speak softly, and hurry out to resume their day’s 
  labor.
  Cookpot is heavyset, balding, cheerful, and 
  energetic. He manages the daily affairs of the tea 
  house with the help of his three children from a 
  prior marriage. He seems to know everyone in 
  town, as well as their troubles and gossip.
  Empty Pockets is tall, with square shoulders 
  and a thick brow, giving him a looming appear-
  ance. He manages the farm with the assistance 
  of a few hired hands. He is solemn and reserved, 
  and cherishes Cookpot’s children as if they were 
  his own blood.
  Townspeople
  ASPECTS
  Where the Magistrates Lead, 
  We Must Follow
  SKILLS
  Average (+1): Notice
  NOTES
  No stress or consequences. The 
  first hit takes them out.
  MARRIAGE
  In most places in the Northlands, 
  marriage is a custom that has 
  no connection with law, proper-
  ty, or procreation. It is a sworn 
  bond of everlasting love and 
  companionship between part-
  ners. No ritual, priest, or civil 
  official is necessary to seal a 
  marriage, though a celebration 
  may accompany the promises 
  exchanged by the couple.
  40
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  Cookpot’s first wife, Treetop, willingly and without warning entered the sanctuary 
  as a penitent, leaving their children in Cookpot’s care. He blames the magistrates 
  for beguiling Treetop with tales of virtue and transcendence, though he has always 
  kept this grudge a secret.
  Neither Cookpot nor Empty Pockets are happy with the way the magistrates 
  live in luxury while imposing an impossible standard of behavior on the townsfolk. 
  They both believe that Our Children Are Our Lives and worry about the 
  welfare of their children under the authority of the magistrates. For now, though, 
  the couple hopes they will be safe if they Don’t Offend the Magistrates, since 
  the magistrates have the power to destroy their livelihoods.
  What Cookpot and Empty Pockets Know
  • Penitents spend all their time working or meditating. They get little rest 
  and little to eat. Working until you drop is considered desirable, because 
  the truly ill get admitted to the Hall of Judgment quickly.
  • Few people have access to the Hall of Judgment—only the magistrates, a 
  few penitents, and the head warden. Penitents serve as house staff for a 
  while before they disappear downstairs. The basement is called the Hall 
  of Excess, and penitents who go there never come back.
  • The magistrates live very well. They get the best of everything, and peni-
  tents serve them like slaves. Wide Awake is arrogant and ambitious and no 
  one seems to know where he came from. Moth is harmless. Petal enjoys 
  her privileges as much as possible. Bell is genuinely inspiring, but seems 
  sad as of late.
  Cookpot and Empty Pockets
  ASPECTS
  Our Children Are Our Lives; Don’t Offend the Magistrates
  SKILLS
  Good (+3): Appeal
  Fair (+2): Listen
  Average (+1): Notice
  STUNTS
  I’ve Heard This Before: Cookpot and Empty Pockets can roll Listen to 
  determine if they’ve heard their customers talking about a subject some 
  time in the past.
  STRESS [1][2][3]
  CONSEQUENCES
  Mild (2):
  NOTES
  When both are working together, they gain another mild consequence slot.
  41
  SO THE STORY GOES
  
  Wardens
  The wardens enforce the peace and safety 
  of Eight Virtues. They carry spears and 
  knives, and wear yellow sashes embroi-
  dered with the symbols of Dutiful’s eight 
  virtues. The sashes are badges repre-
  senting their loyalty to the magistrates. 
  Wardens are never reluctant to use their 
  authority or their weapons to compel 
  townsfolk to Obey the Magistrates 
  or Else.
  There are fifty wardens. During the 
  day, ten stand watch over the quarry, ten 
  guard the sanctuary, ten watch over the 
  town, and ten patrol the surrounding 
  territory. At night, four wardens watch the gates of the sanctuary, while another 
  six patrol the outskirts of town.
  What the Wardens Believe
  • Being a warden is a virtuous profession. When the magistrates fill vacancies 
  among the penitents, they’ll choose wardens ahead of other applicants.
  • We don’t discuss the penitents, because it’s improper. But they spend their 
  time meditating and serving the magistrates, and eventually they’re admitted 
  to the Hall of Judgment for their final preparations before they transcend.
  • The magistrates have earned a life of luxury because they have the welfare of 
  Eight Virtues on their shoulders. Wide Awake in particular is trustworthy 
  because he was once one of us.
  Wardens
  ASPECTS
  Obey the Magistrates or Else
  SKILLS
  Average (+1): Notice, Risk
  STRESS [1]
  NOTES
  • No consequences.
  • These are the statistics for a pair 
  of wardens, since they typically 
  work in pairs.
  42
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  Summer
  Summer is the head warden. From a distance, she does not seem physically impres-
  sive, but up close, her scarred face, her severely chopped hair, and her unflinching 
  gaze are as intimidating as an army on the march.
  Fifteen years ago, she served side by side with Wide Awake as ordinary war-
  dens. His insight and quick thinking impressed her, as did his ambition to share 
  the sanctuary’s wisdom with all of the Northlands. When Wide Awake became 
  a magistrate, Summer was one of many to applaud his promotion. She herself 
  benefited from Wide Awake’s authority when he promoted her to head warden.
  Her opinion of the general public is that You’re All Fools and Liars, and 
  that without firm leadership and sharp punishment, most people will fall victim 
  to corruption, lawlessness, and dissipation. Wide Awake approves of her measures, 
  and she in turn is certain that, no matter what happens, Wide Awake Has the 
  Answers.
  What Summer Knows
  • The townspeople are mostly worthless, but the magistrates are compas-
  sionate, and through their charity some lowly townspeople get the chance 
  to transcend.
  • I don’t discuss the penitents because it’s against tradition. I do know what 
  happens in the Hall of Judgment, the Hall of Excess, and the Well of Joy, 
  because it’s my duty to open and close the Well.
  • Wide Awake was once a penitent. No one discusses this because the magis-
  trates broke their rules when they released him from the Hall of Judgment. 
  I disapprove of rule-breaking, but Wide Awake is intelligent and capable, 
  and I support him.
  • I respect Moth, even though he doesn’t seem to do much. Petal is too 
  gregarious for my tastes, but it’s not my place to judge her. Bell is Moth’s 
  daughter and is a fine public speaker, but moody.
  Summer
  ASPECTS
  You’re All Fools and Liars; Wide Awake Has the Answers
  SKILLS
  Great (+4): Risk
  Good (+3): Confront, Notice
  Fair (+2): Listen, Trick, Will
  STUNTS
  The Voice of Law: Once per session, Summer can gain +2 to create an 
  advantage using Confront when she uses her authority to issue commands 
  or threats.
  STRESS [1][2][3]
  CONSEQUENCES
  Mild (2):
  43
  
  The Sanctuary
  Within its octagonal walls, the buildings of the sanctuary are artfully constructed 
  and harmoniously decorated. Doors and eaves bear ornamental carvings, and 
  stone pathways wind through colorful gardens.
  The two-story building in the center of the enclosed space is the House of 
  Judgment. This is the residence of the magistrates. The remaining buildings of the 
  sanctuary are dormitories for wardens and penitents, a workhouse for penitents 
  carving pledge beads and virtue tokens, and a storehouse for food and supplies.
  The outer wall has two gates. The narrow gate in the north wall is where mag-
  istrates emerge from to deliver lessons, and where penitents enter to begin a life 
  of seclusion. The broader gate in the southwest wall admits wardens and carts 
  of supplies.
  Even the construction work on the wall shares the town’s silence. Laborers use 
  flags instead of shouts to coordinate group efforts, and they endure their grueling 
  work without a word of complaint.
  Penitents
  Presently there are forty penitents in residence. From dawn to dusk, eight days 
  out of every nine, these penitents tidy the sanctuary buildings, cook meals for 
  magistrates and wardens, carve rose quartz from the quarry into pledge beads, 
  copy proverbs onto virtue tokens, and participate in monotonous sessions of 
  meditation and recitation.
  They receive nothing in return for their labor other than meager, bland rations 
  and daily lectures on the meaning of virtue. These lessons may briefly inspire the 
  penitents with hopes of transcending their miserable lives, but for the most part, 
  the penitents are Tired and Hungry.
  44
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  The House of Judgment
  The magistrates live on the upper floor of the House of Judgment. On the main 
  floor is an audience chamber, a kitchen, a dining room, a library, and quarters for 
  a half-dozen penitents who work as house servants. These penitents have lighter 
  duties than their peers elsewhere in the sanctuary, but they may never leave the 
  House of Judgment.
  THE HALL OF EXCESS
  The prison cells that once housed the Tyrant’s enemies are still beneath the House 
  of Judgment, but no longer serve the same purpose. The magistrates call these 
  chambers the Hall of Excess. When the magistrates declare that a penitent has 
  achieved sufficient spiritual purity, they will lead the penitent to these chambers, 
  which are luxurious, with tapestries, cushioned beds, and fine clothes. Magistrates 
  provide these penitents with wine and fine food, encouraging them to eat and 
  drink their fill, and to sleep and sing and revel as much as they like. 
  The purpose of the Hall of Excess is to expose the penitents to all of the pleasures 
  of the physical world, so that a penitent may demonstrate a profound sacrifice 
  later by leaving these pleasures behind. The magistrates will often spend their 
  evenings in the Hall of Excess to demonstrate indulgence by example. There 
  might be three or four penitents here at any one time, Drunk and Disorderly.
  When the magistrates determine that the appropriate time has arrived, they 
  will lead a penitent to a small locked chamber at the end of the Hall of Excess for 
  the final stage of the penitent’s journey. Within this bare round room is the Well 
  of Joy—the pit where Dutiful achieved her spiritual transformation, according 
  to legend. A heavy stone sits on the floor in the middle of the chamber, sealing 
  the pit. Using a rope and pulley, the head warden will move the stone aside, and 
  will then lower the penitent into the pit and move the stone back into place. The 
  penitent, alone, deprived of food and water, is now in the proper condition to 
  emulate Dutiful by ascending to a state of pure joy.
  No one ever achieves Dutiful’s transcendence. For the past fifty years, the 
  magistrates have sent penitents to perish in the Well of Joy, and the pit is full of 
  the bones of spiritual pilgrims.
  Only the head warden, the magistrates, and the house servants know of the 
  existence of the Hall of Excess. House servants know of the locked door at the 
  end of the Hall of Excess, but do not know what lies behind it. Also, since house 
  servants never leave the House of Judgment, they have no opportunity to discuss 
  their experiences with outsiders.
  45
  SO THE STORY GOES
  
  The Magistrates
  The magistrates are the secular and spiritual authorities of Eight Virtues. In 
  public, they wear bright yellow robes embroidered in black with the symbols of 
  the eight virtues. 
  The magistrates are free to promote anyone they like into their ranks. There 
  have never been more than six magistrates at once; presently there are four.
  All magistrates must study the sanctuary’s library of philosophy, to acquaint 
  themselves with the recorded teachings of their predecessors. These documents 
  are an assortment of facile and contradictory ramblings that magistrates pick and 
  choose from to justify their own conclusions.
  Magistrates do not attempt to follow a penitent’s path to enlightenment. The 
  duty of the magistrates is to manage the worldly details of the sanctuary, and 
  they believe that this attention to material concerns prevents them from achieving 
  spiritual purity. They will claim this is a sacrifice they willingly make on behalf 
  of the community.
  Wide Awake
  Wide Awake is the head magistrate. He is tall and broad-shouldered, and forty 
  years old. He wears a veil of gold thread, not as a badge of office, but to conceal 
  the burns that cover the left half of his face. Anyone standing close to him will 
  notice the burns, but the veil is effective at hiding both the burns and his features 
  from a distance.
  Few people know that the head magistrate was once known as Hop, the son 
  of the farmers that the PCs met at the beginning of the scenario. When Hop 
  entered adolescence, his parents allowed him to walk to town on rest days to hear 
  lessons from the magistrates. Hop was captivated by these lessons, and would 
  gladly start out before dawn to make sure he arrived in time for the day’s lecture. 
  The magistrates gave him hope that if he remained virtuous, his life could become 
  something more than digging in the dirt for food. When he was seventeen, without 
  consulting his parents, he asked a magistrate if he could become a penitent. At 
  the time, the sanctuary had enough room, so Hop disappeared from the world. 
  His parents only discovered this later, hearing the news from other townspeople 
  who had seen Hop enter the sanctuary.
  Hop’s admiration for the magistrates made him one of their favorites. They 
  admitted him to the Hall of Excess, and his story might have ended soon after-
  ward, except for an incident that changed his fate. One of the other penitents, 
  drunk and surly, became inexplicably enraged and attacked a magistrate’s daughter 
  named Bell. Hop intervened but was injured when a brazier fell on him, leaving 
  him with permanent burn scars across the left half of his face.
  The magistrates sent the violent penitent to the Well of Joy, removing any risk 
  of further violence. They might have sent the injured Hop to the Well also, but 
  Bell’s father, Moth, chose instead to command the house staff to nurse him back 
  to health.
  46
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  The shock of sudden violence wounded Hop more deeply than the heat of the 
  brazier. He became convinced that life is cruel and chaotic, and that The World 
  Is Wretched. He saw that the attack might have killed him, and that he would 
  have left nothing behind him, as if he had never existed. He concluded that if he 
  could seize power for himself, he could ensure that his name and deeds would 
  not be forgotten.
  When Hop asked to become a warden, Moth was reluctant. The sanctuary’s 
  tradition holds that penitents must disappear permanently from the memory of 
  the outside world. Hop solved this by offering to take a new name—Wide Awake. 
  His burned face also helped him to conceal his identity.
  Moth agreed to this solution, and Wide Awake served as a warden side by 
  side with Summer. Her contempt for the general public reinforced Hop’s own 
  hatred of his former life. With diligent service, he earned Summer’s respect and 
  distinguished himself in the eyes of the magistrates.
  When an elder magistrate passed away, Wide Awake rose to fill the vacancy. 
  He dazzled his new peers with plans to construct a larger sanctuary—a fortress 
  of virtue that would stand as a great wonder of the Northlands. From this for-
  tress, the magistrates would send forth messengers to distant villages and cities, 
  proclaiming the sanctuary’s mission. The sanctuary would attract more followers 
  and more penitents. Eight Virtues would become a metropolis, the focus of a 
  spiritual revolution that would unite the Northlands. And Wide Awake intends to 
  be the hand that controls this new cultural force, because he believes My Power 
  Is My Immortality.
  Bell
  Bell is close to thirty years old. She is slim, with straight black hair and a long, 
  solemn face. She is a natural orator, and she has inherited the task of giving les-
  sons to the townsfolk on rest days. Though her lectures on virtue are heartfelt and 
  compelling, she has begun to doubt the sanctuary’s traditions. 
  She still has nightmares about the drunk, violent penitent who attacked her. 
  Moth has advised her to dismiss such dreams, but as she has grown older, this 
  frightening memory has led her to question all of the sanctuary’s practices. She is 
  no longer confident that mindless labor and senseless debauchery can truly lead 
  the penitents to spiritual purification. She has come to suspect that the purpose 
  of the Hall of Excess is to give the magistrates an excuse to spend their evenings in 
  lusty celebration, and that the purpose of the Well of Joy is to dispose of penitents 
  that the magistrates have grown tired of.
  She has not approached anyone with her concerns yet, because she wants to 
  believe in the sanctuary’s essential mission—to promote virtue and harmony. She 
  understands that she holds a position of power and influence, and she believes 
  there is still a chance that We Can Do Good Here.
  47
  SO THE STORY GOES
  
  Bell
  ASPECTS
  We Can Do Good Here
  SKILLS
  Good (+3): Appeal
  Fair (+2): Listen
  Average (+1): Will
  STRESS [1][2][3]
  CONSEQUENCES
  Mild (2):
  Wide Awake
  ASPECTS
  The Worl d Is Wretched;
  My Power Is My Immortality
  SKILLS
  Great (+4): Rhetoric
  Good (+3): Confront, Will
  Fair (+2): Appeal, Listen, Notice
  STUNTS
  My Wish Is Your Command: Once 
  per scenario, if Wide Awake issues 
  an official proclamation, he can use 
  Rhetoric to bestow an aspect such 
  as The Fugitives Must Be Found 
  or Don’t Trust the Storytellers 
  on all wardens and townspeople of 
  Eight Virtues.
  STRESS [1][2][3]
  CONSEQUENCES
  Mild (2):
  Moderate (4):
  Severe (6):
  48
  
  Moth
  Moth is in his fifties, and is the oldest of the magistrates. He is short and mostly 
  bald, with wild tufts of white hair springing from his temples. He is a devoted 
  servant of the sanctuary, and has never questioned its teachings. He tells himself that 
  This Is Our Tradition, and he is comfortable and confident in this knowledge.
  He has faith in Wide Awake’s grand plans, and congratulates himself for giving 
  Hop a chance to become something more that a permanent resident of the Well 
  of Joy. Moth believes that this decision is his most significant contribution to the 
  sanctuary, and with this accomplishment behind him, he is satisfied to spend the 
  rest of his life meditating on virtue, overseeing the labor of the penitents, and 
  contributing to the sanctuary’s library of philosophical writings.
  Petal
  Petal is a short, stout woman in her forties. She wears her dark hair in complex 
  braids, smiles easily and broadly, and speaks with calm confidence, as if everything 
  she suggests is the obvious and rational course of action.
  She is the magistrate most often seen outside of the sanctuary walls, as she man-
  ages the sanctuary’s business affairs. She buys food and supplies, hires workers, and 
  meets with townspeople to assess the community’s welfare. She believes material 
  comfort is the natural reward for leadership, and she feels no shame in securing 
  privileges for herself and her fellow magistrates—after all, We Deserve the Best.
  She partakes of those privileges by personally overseeing the Hall of Excess, and 
  she spends every evening in the raucous company of the penitents who reside 
  there. She honestly believes that the penitents who enter the Well will transcend 
  to pure joy, though she would not be upset at the suggestion that these penitents 
  merely starve and die. After all, the penitents had willingly given up their lives 
  when they entered the sanctuary, and from that point of view, they had died the 
  moment they knocked on the sanctuary gate.
  Moth
  ASPECTS
  This Is Our Tradition
  SKILLS
  Fair (+2): Rhetoric
  Average (+1): Appeal
  STRESS [1][2][3]
  CONSEQUENCES
  Mild (2):
  Petal
  ASPECTS
  We Deserve the Best
  SKILLS
  Good (+3): Appeal
  Fair (+2): Listen
  Average (+1): Trick
  STRESS [1][2][3]
  CONSEQUENCES
  Mild (2):
  49
  SO THE STORY GOES
  
  Crisis of Beliefs
  If the people in and around Eight Virtues receive conflicting aspects as the result 
  of storytelling, they’ll eventually discard one of the conflicting aspects depending 
  on who remains in power and who remains in control of public opinion. In the 
  short term, if any audiences receive story aspects that might turn them against 
  the magistrates, they will react as follows.
  • Townspeople: A few may be willing to take action against the magistrates, 
  but most will be confused and will prefer to stay out of trouble and return 
  to their homes.
  • Wardens: A few wardens will drop their spears and walk away, but most 
  will follow orders as long as someone like Summer or a magistrate is giving 
  those orders. If the wardens lose their leadership and doubt their mission, 
  they will fall apart.
  • Penitents: Most penitents will flee if they lose faith in the magistrates, 
  though some may be willing to take more constructive action. The occu-
  pants of the Hall of Excess will be too intoxicated or hung over to have 
  coherent opinions.
  • Magistrates: Wide Awake will react with violent anger against anyone who 
  suggests he might be wrong. Bell will hesitate to take action against her 
  fellow magistrates, but will eventually do what’s necessary to reform the 
  sanctuary and the town. Moth will attempt to rationalize any perceived 
  flaws in the traditions of the sanctuary; at the same time, he’ll try to protect 
  his daughter from harm. Petal will cloak any self-doubt in denial, and will 
  flee from town if she believes her position of power has become fragile.
  Story’s End
  If the storytellers disrupt the traditions of Eight Virtues, the townspeople will 
  need to determine what the future of their community will look like. Who should 
  govern Eight Virtues? What power should they have?
  Also, the sanctuary is a source of pride for Eight Virtues, and it serves as a 
  reminder that something wonderful and unique once happened here. If the 
  townspeople discard or alter their traditions, what new meaning will they attach 
  to the sanctuary, and to the story of Dutiful?
  You and your fellow players are the storytellers now. What ending will you 
  choose?
  50
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/FATE (fudge) [multi]/World of Adventure/So_the_Story_Goes_o_A_World_of_Adventure_for_Fate_Core.pdf