As a scryer, Kelley would convey the conversation with the angels, while Dee would write it all down. Often, Kelley would be writing things down and Dee needed to translate; frequently, Kelley would write things down wrong and angels would chastise him for his lack of study or focus. All good fun; Kelley would often run off in a huff, declaring he was done with it.

When they were apart, both Dee and Kelley would engage in off schedule conversations of their own with otherworldly entities using base grimoire magick, which the angels would warn them against on many occasions. The angels indicated that such incantations were all too easily debased by the work of Satan and his demons, allowing evil spirits and bugs to access their hearts and minds with untruths.

This more operative magick – as opposed to the higher magick that focused on research and gradual understanding, built up over time. The message of the higher magick leads to more effort, more work, more research, more investment; these are the messages that will drive the Agents of the Dee Sanction on their investigations and quests.

These messages are never straightforward and often they require the Agents to gather hints, clues and greater understanding simply to grasp the wider possibilities and principles of the events that surround them. Sometimes, investigations will provide nothing more than greater insight; like uncovering the cypher that will allow you to translate the message. Or at least peal of another layer of the onion skin and step one pace closer to the heart of the mystery.

Every day during August, I’ll be writing something new on The Dee Sanction and aim to connect the word prompt of the day with the development of the game. Check out the concept, the list and the graphics over at AUTOCRATIK.

Cecil and Walsingham — two sides of the intelligence network seeking to defend the Queen. Cecil always seemed to be the favourite of the two, but then again it’s possible that the better secret agent would want it to seem that way!

Doctor Dee and Edward Kelley — the dynamic scrying duo, seeking to make sense of the angels, but always with an eye out for the cut-price alternative. In their diaries and varied communications, it would seem they spent as much time hating each other or disagreeing about appropriate compensations for their time and efforts. Who abused whom the most is open to question and interpretation.

Queen Elizabeth and Her Suitors — essential pawns in the Queen’s schemes to bolster her power base without commitment. Each and every one of them saw her as the key to her kingdom, but she had her eyes on a different prize and they constantly underestimated her.

The Pope and the King of Spain — another dynamic where one seems to have assumed superiority over the other, though the game certainly assumes that King Philip II definitely had the upper hand.

There are more. Maybe I come back later and append additional commentary to the (already very late) post.

Every day during August, I’ll be writing something new on The Dee Sanction and aim to connect the word prompt of the day with the development of the game. Check out the concept, the list and the graphics over at AUTOCRATIK.

I’m happy with the character generation process. I like it; players like it. In all the sessions of the game I ran, I got positive feedback about the ease of the process in choosing three cards and then working from there. The three cards can, as easily, be replaced with three tables in the rules, so I won’t be tying the GM down to possession of a special deck or anything. However, that would be an obvious and nice thing to offer.

I like the idea of the original success mechanic, so I’ll be sticking to the seven for success. Roll dice, get a seven – succeed. Otherwise, fail. Most of the time. Or, at best, succeed with unpleasant (or dire) consequences. The base mechanic means that characters are decidedly average at most things they do. However, they do have an edge when it comes to anything mentioned on the card.

Instead of adjusting the range to achieve success – I propose that if the player can leverage something from the character’s cards that they get an extra die to roll to get the seven. If they then throw three dice, a seven can come from any combination of two. If they score seven on three dice, they score a special success; they’ve used their raw ability backed up by expertise and excelled at meeting the challenge.

The alternative? Well, this is Elizabethan Europe in the time of King Rudolph and Doctor Dee, so esoteric and angelic support just happen, right?

The players, as a group, have a deck of cards with letters on them. They draw seven cards and have them all at their disposal. If they attempt to do something and they can spell a short word with the available letters that helps them, they can roll an extra die.

Master Gyles Hepton faces off against a burglar attempting to get away with his satchel and all the worldly possessions therein. He isn’t especially tough nor has he mixed with types known for their melted skills, but he can spell RAGE from the letters in the pool. The threat of loss sends him into a fizzing fury and the GM agrees that he can roll an extra die.

If they find themselves in a situation where they could do with a bit of help, but the cards don’t spell anything useful, they might try calling on the Angels. If they can discard three identical consonants and a vowel, two identical vowels and two consonants, or anything combination of five different consonants, they call on angelic assistance and automatically succeed at the action they attempted. Those cards, however, are lost for the remainder of the session – discarded cards leave the game.

Anyone familiar with Enochian Magic and the Great Table of the Earth will broadly know where this angle on the mechanics comes from. It seemed thematically interesting to allow the players to spell out a nonsense word to clear their hand and get more letters to work with for later skill rolls.

Anyway, I’m going to see how it works out in play testing and start to get some stuff down in writing. We’ll see how it pans out.