EPSILON GAMING FOR GEEKS
CREATING YOUR DUCKVENTURER
Creating your Duckventurer is easy, just make up a ducky fantasy name, and choose a Class! A Class is what your talent is, so if my character liked shooting spells, then he would be a Wizard. All the facts about each Duckventurer is captured on their Duckventurer Scroll, so consult them and choose carefully!
the duckventurer scroll
This is an example, filled-out Duckventurer Scroll, for the aspiring Ducknight Plumpy Ducksword. He has chosen the School of the Ducknight.
There are six (!) basic Schools of Duckology that all Duckventurers aspire to join -
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The Circular Ottoman of the Ducknights - mighty ducks in armour, from the most prestigious families of the Duckingdom. They come with their own coats of arms, and specialize in Emu Jousts, sword combat and living lives with honor. Some Ducknights are so righteous they can even cast holy healing spells.
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The Pit Arena of the Slaughterducks - the tribal ducks, the foot soldiers of the continuous Duckwars, the not-so-bright but brawny.
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The Slightly-Ivory Tower of the Duckwizes - a constantly charred and smoking citadel in the northern Duckingdom, due to unfortunate zappical ... mishaps (okay, so maybe some of the students blew up the Astronomical Observatorium). They are sort of like healers, but prefer to sling a fireball at a Crazy Raptor Boar. Which is also a doubly-win, because they will have a bonus of having a delicious roast boar for dinner. It's sort of like Ducky Hogwarts, but the school prefect, Harry Pecker, has mysteriously disappeared. He was last seen looking down the door of an eerily dark dungeon, and then suddenly there was just a pair of round, black glasses on the grass. Oh, and don't forget that eerie crunching and burping noise that came from the dungeon ...
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The Woodland Academy of the Drakagorns - all the ducks who prefer the spreading wilderness to the bustling duck-cities or tribal areas are first trained at the Woodland Academy. They learn to use featherbows and arrows, set traps, avoid snares, play with explosives, and generally how to survive against the myriad Beasties in the wilds of the Duckingdom. They are flexible and useful to have in any adventuring party. The Academy is named after Drakagorn, son of Drakathorn, first of the great rangers and hunters of the Duckingdom, who eventually became King. The current head of the Woodland Academy is Madam Beech, who is a seriously evil human who tried to summon a giant crocodile god of thunder, Balorcroc. Luckily that was 100 years ago, and ducks have very short memories.
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The Royal College of Quacks - some ducks here the Calling, where they feel the need to help and heal their fellows. These ducks are weird, and are shipped off to become Quacks. These doctor-ducks sometimes use actual real medical skills, and sometimes use zappical spells, dependent on their college. They are tolerated by other ducks because they do fulfill a purpose - keeping the fighty ducks alive - but no one really likes them.
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The Grey - a very mysterious school with no actual hall or grounds. Sometimes a duck just vanishes - POP - to arrive back many years later fully trained int he silent arts of thievery, assassination and cunning. Beware the Grey, for they are many, they are among you, and they will always complete their mission.
Then there are the STATS, Fatty, Quack and Peanut Brain, which we have covered repeatedly. If you need a refresher, check here again. There will be a quiz!
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The STAT space is for in-game tracking of current movement of STATS, especially Fatty.
RANKS
"HOW DO YOU LEVEL?" I hear the cry go up from the cheering, raving, dribbling masses reading these hallowed vellum ... digits. "We want to get more powerful, KILL THEM ALL!" they slaver.
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'Levels,' that oft-scorned, hackneyed term, in this game are called RANKS. Because Knights and Wizards gain Ranks, parking garages have levels. So much more magisterial. If you have a look at Plumpy Ducksword again, you will see that he has a bunch of Funkard slots, because the most important part of every game is to Collect Stuff.
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What about vanquishing the dread Duckthulhu? SHHHHHHHHH!
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After the School and Class, the Duckventurer's Rank is listed. Ranks denote the experience of a Duckventurer. They start at Rank 1, and can keep going well over Rank 10. In the Plumpy Ducksword example, the bracketed numbers are how Plumpy's STATS go up each time he goes up a Rank - in the case of a Duckidin, +2 Fatty, +2 Quack and +1 Peanut Brain. Note these are changes to MAX STATS as well as an instant adrenaline kick. Gaining a Rank is about the only way a Duckventurer can improve his MAX STATS. We will get to how to gain experience below.
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Every starting Duckventurer has four Funkard slots based on their Class (below), you can see in the Duckidin case that they get slots for 2 Item Funkards, 1 Zappy Funkard and 1 Feat Funkard. Duckidins automatically get 1 Item and 1 Zappy as starting Funkards, which means they get 2 slots to fill up, until they can progress to second Rank.
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You can also see from the example that there are little opal gemstones 1-9+ across the Funkard slots, which track right to left. These are the Funkard slots for each Rank all the way up past Rank 9.
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You get Ranks by spending your Loot haul. We have already discussed how Duckventurers gain Loot by killing Beasties in the Duckgeon. Loot is piled up in the leather-bound haul section of the Duckventurer Scroll. You can chuck Loot counters in here until it hits 6 (!, when you Rank up, which is mandatory in-game, if you want to have any show of defeating Duckthulhu.
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Every time you hit 6 Loot (remember 6's!!) in your Loot haul, and you are between Rooms, when nothing is attacking you, you may cash the 6 and Rank up. This means you open up the slots for new Funkards and you gain the automatic Class bump to your STATS. If you gain more Loot, you don't cash the lot, for instance if you have 8 Loot, you can cash 6 and keep 2. We are not monsters!
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FOR EXAMPLE: Plumpy Ducksword has 4 Loot in his haul after hacking and slashing his way through two Duckgeon Rooms. After the Duckventurer party destroys the abominational hybrids in the Lab, Plumpy gains an extra 2 Loot, bringing his total to 6. Yay! It's all quiet - there are no strolling Beasties, the party hasn't set off for the next room yet - so Plumpy cashes his Loot, removing it all, and unlocks his Rank 2 Funkard slots (Z/I/I/F/F). He had taken some damage so was on 3F, which bumps IMMEDIATELY to 5, his Q goes to 6 (4+2) and his P goes to 3. His MAX STATS go up 8F/6Q/3P. He feels the power of the Duckforce coursing through his veins, and he is ready to take on the next set of evildoers.
CLASSES
Within each School are a selection of Classes, for Duckventurers to really follow their dreams, and they are detailed ad nauseum below. Plumpy Ducksword has chosen the School of the Ducknight, and within that, he is a most holy and righteous (cue angelic chorus) Duckidin. Once you have selected a School and Class, it is very difficult in the basic game to switch, so choose carefully!
SCHOOL OF DUCKNIGHTS
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DUCKVENTURERS HACK
Above you saw a funky example of a finished Duckventurer Scroll, the mighty Plumpy Ducksword. During the time we are putting together individual Duckventurer Scrolls for each of the Classes, I have opened up the spreadsheet where we crunch the numbers, sharing it with the whole interwebs (read-only). The spreadsheet is the canonical list of Duckventurer Scrolls currently used in the basic edition of Duck Wars, the cards are reproductions with fluff. We are doing exactly the same thing with the Beastie-ary just to get the game out there ASAP.​
You may (hopefully) already sense the tone of Duck Wars, so let your imagination sing ... or send us an email ... if you need clarifications. All of the starter Quest Duckgeon Rooms that we are developing utilise this list alone, and please, feel free to design your own Rooms! As this is live, you might even see me bouncing around inside it, late at night, while I labour away until some beneficent bestows on us production $$$. I have done the same thing with Funkards, Snares and Duckventurers just to get all our stuff OUT THERE!
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