Blood Like Roses: Session Zero

I enjoyed Swords Without Master, even playing it solo. Adding a bit of Miso for a simple oracle is a natural fit, since the oracle relies on two options. Swords Without Master provides two seeds via the Glum and Jovial Tones.

Inspired by a post on G+, I realized that this was basically oracle only game play. Instead of pass/fail, Swords Without Master just sets the Tone for the action’s result. Miso provides a pair of options that the Overplayer will randomly narrate. So I’m going to streamline Swords Without Master by removing Heroic Feats and Tricks, so it’s entirely oracle based; I will still use eidolons and simulacra to represent characters and settings, but I won’t have to choose anything other than a Name. Only Tales will have anything further added to inform the overarching Tone of the adventure.

Swords With No Master. Swords Without Master stripped down to just Tone and assisted by Miso. Blood Like Roses is a blend of my favorite video game, Bloodborne, and the artistic style of RWBY.

Ever since seeing the RWBY Red trailer, I was inspired by the twist of turning blood into rose petals. The above image was a still I came across that really captures the Tone for me. She slaughters a pack of werewolves, but the whole scene is just petals floating through the air. Blood Like Roses will definitely be influenced by wuxia, as well.

Bloodborne is Gothic horror with Trick Weapons, which seems a natural fit for RWBY. Gothic horror wuxia seems like a strange combination, but it may turn out to be interesting.

An image I came across of a character named Kyoya Hibari from Reborn. I don’t recall where I found this, but the title of the manga gave me enough information to make him a Grey whose Trick Weapon are tonfa.

His first Tale, The Court of Gaols, is an image taken from Bloodborne’s Hypogean Gaol. It feels like a ward sized sanitorium filled with horrific monstrosities. Which also changes the Tones from Glum and Jovial to the Hunter’s Dream’s Insightful and Bestial. In Bloodborne, the higher your Insight, the more twisted and mad reality becomes as you see the truth; as someone becomes more Bestial, their bodies twist and become monstrous.

And I think that’s the end of Blood Like Roses session zero.