Familiars of Terra – Home Play #1
In anticipation of the ashcan version of Familiars of Terra being released at Spiel, we at Angry Hamster Publishing HQ decided to start up a new home game!
Last Tuesday we spent the session creating characters, developing backstories, eating junk food, and going over Terra’s History.
Andries is playing Jaan. A farm boy from Sou Fendair. Jaan is a bulk of a man, straight forward and ready for adventure. His familiar is a mammoth elephant named Boris. Boris is an excellent mount and Andries has been threatening to give Boris wings next time he advances (much to the chagrin of his terrified compatriots).
Floor is playing Ssima, a woman from Inther. She’s spent her entire life in the desolate wastelands of her country, scrounging through trash and rubble for enough to live on. Now, she is in search of a better life and traveling. Ssima’s familiar is Silk, a butterfly she has raised from a caterpillar.
Renee is playing Sasha, a businesswoman from Amirland. She was shunned by her family for making a profit and not sharing it with the community, now she is searching for a way to redeem herself. Her familiar is Smoulder, a phoenix, one of the legendary creatures the Amirese breed to fit tales of old.
Erik is playing Adhay, he a shaman from Endril who cares for Grandmother, one of the Ancestors of the Drill people. His familiar is Bison… a bison (okay I can’t make too much fun of Erik for this, Adhay believes familiars don’t need names, because animals don’t have names for one another in the wild). Adhay is a spiritual care taker for his people and their familiars.
A preview of our Endrill gazelle from the core book!
Each of the characters arrived in Rocking Chair, the capital city of Endrill, except Adhay who already lived there. They were answering a call for assistance by the Council of Rocking Chair who are having problems with creatures coming out of the Badlands. Rocking Chair is built on the side of Grandmother, a giant Elephantkin Ancestor who fell to the ground during the Vast War when her mate was killed.
During the meeting a Council woman explained that rumors have been spreading through the city about creatures from the Badlands invading the city. She was pretty sure they were unfounded, but with the police department busy, she needed people to help patrol and take pictures of the creatures so the Council could see what they were dealing with. Jaan, Ssima, Sasha, and Adhay were randomly *coughs* put into a group with one another and the evening ended in Sasha buying everyone dinner so they could talk.
The next day they patrolled the streets of Rocking Chair, but it was rather uneventful. That is, until they came to enclosed square where they saw an old woman feeding what she thought was birds from her balcony. Below the woman’s first story balcony, the group spied five horribly twisted frog creatures, metallic spikes jutted out of their backs and boils covered their skin. It was obvious the frog creatures were jumping at the nearly blind woman and not the bread crumbs, so the group sprung into action to save her… after drawing the attention of the frog creatures by using the flash on their cameras.
In the end the group was victorious, Smoulder swooping down and with one fiery blast, destroying the last of the frog creatures!
So ended our first session.
– – –
Liz’s Thoughts
The first session went really well. We only had two hours to play and character creation went pretty fast despite no one knowing the mechanics. I am super pleased with the Combat Abilities I’ve developed for the game. Each starting character gets two of them and learns more when they Advance. There are 25 Abilities and each can be customized to the type of familiar a person is playing (familiars fight in Terra, not people!).
Drill clothing detail
For example, the frog creatures had a Ability called Burn, it allows me to randomly discard a card from my opponent’s hand. I described it as one of their puss sacs exploding over Silk disorientating her. Floor was very grossed out, but hey it got the point across :P. Little did I know, she also had Burn, and used it on me a few rounds later. When Silk used Burn, the beautiful colours of her wings distracted and disorientated the frogs. Same move, different outcome – nice!
As a group we agreed the characters would Advance faster than normal, because I want to make sure the high level familiars and characters were balanced. There were no complaints from the group – I mean let’s face it, who is gonna complain about getting real powerful real fast?
I had a great time playing. It’s a lot of fun to play with cards rather than dice. It adds a different feel to the game, especially in combat where you go head to head with your opponent, both placing cards down and flipping them over at the same time. I almost get a Pokemon dueling feeling and that is so cool.
Till next time!
xx
Liz