The Markus Project, pt. 4: Daggerheart

Welcome to the 4th post in my Markus Project, a blog series building the same character archetype in a bunch of TTRPG systems for educational and amusement purposes. Our 4th system is Daggerheart, a Darrington Press TTRPG of heroic fantasy featuring moves, duality dice, and the constant battle between hope and fear.

To briefly summarize the project for those who might want a tl;dr of the opening post: I'm taking a common archetype I like to play and building him as a character in a bunch of TTRPGs, and in the process learning more about how each of these games works - and how their mechanics and flavour intertwine with their approach to 'character'. His name is Markus.

Past Markuses include:

• Markus Vulneras [D&D 5th edition, '14 version]
• Markus "Silver" Svoloch [Blades in the Dark]
• Marcus "Flinch" Evans [Monsterhearts 2]

Meet Markus, our archetype. Markus' key traits are:

• Gay or bi/pan male
• An outsider with no desire to belong, except maybe to a tight crew or family
• Beefy and charismatic bruiser with a chip on his shoulder
• Expects the world to be hard and is determined to be harder
• Likes to talk himself into problems and fight his way out of them
• Not keen on making friends, but intensely protective of the ones who get past his guard
• Has a predilection for solving his problems up close, often with fists or melee weapons

I'm not necessarily trying to build the same guy over and over again. After all, even the three linked above are very different. But I'm coming into the character creation as I often do when planning for a new game: I have a seed of a character I'm interested in playing, and the types of situations I'd like him to run into, and I see how that interacts with the character creation process to create something unique to the game I'm diving into.

In Daggerheart, the players are members of an adventuring party, alternating between combat and narrative storytelling. Player characters are a combination of class, heritage, traits and experiences, all of which come together to determine the character's unique strengths. The game is focused on characterful, collaborative freeform play, where the spotlight fluidly moves between the PCs and the antagonists as they undertake their grand adventures, torn between the competing influences of hope and fear.

Actions, or moves as they are known in Daggerheart, require the player to roll two d12s, their Duality Dice: a Hope dice and a Fear dice. Succeeding with Hope grants the player a spendable resource, Hope; succeeding with Fear comes with consequences, and grants the DM a spendable resource, Fear. Taking most actions involves rolling your Duality Dice and adding a Trait to the total to beat a target Difficulty. Play is freeform even during combat, with players taking action when it makes sense, rather than determined by turn order; combat flows intentionally similar to non-combat, to ensure non-violent pathways are just as viable mechanically.

And so, to our latest Markus.

Our first move is to choose a class and subclass. This is central to combat, but also tells a lot about the character: how they approach conflict, whether they rush in or hang back, and the tools at their disposal to deal with danger. For Markus, oftentimes the key beats to hit here are: Beefy and charismatic bruiser with a chip on his shoulder, likes to talk himself into problems and fight his way out of them, intensely protective of those who get past his emotional guard and has a predilection for solving his problems up close, often with fists or melee weapons.

The available classes are Bard, Druid, Guardian, Ranger, Rogue, Seraph, Sorcerer, Warrior and Wizard. Each of these comes with two subclass options to choose from as well, and a series of background questions that contextualize the tone of the class.

Looking through the base classes: the Bard, a charismatic performer, doesn't quite feel like the bruiser our Markus is; the Druid plays well to a solitary, scowling Markus, particularly the Warden of the Elements subclass; the Guardian fits to the intensely protective, community-oriented side of the archetype, mechanically fitting well with expects the world to be hard and is determined to be harder; the Ranger feels a bit too driven and goal-oriented; the Rogue aligns well with the charming criminal version of Markus I've built many times before, particularly the well-connected Syndicate subclass; the Seraph feels too noble and divine-driven; the Sorcerer feels nicely primal and wild for an edgy outsider Markus; the Warrior feels perhaps too disciplined for the wilder, stubborn Markus; and the Wizard feels too intellectual for the swaggering, charming bruiser.

(A note – possibly the best fit for Markus' archetype would actually be a class currently in playtesting, The Brawler – with the ability to use fists as a weapon and Presence as the weapon trait, this supports our charismatic brawler with a predilection for solving problems with his fists beautifully. But as that class is not official yet, I'll keep to the core classes... but I might revisit this post if the Brawler is officially released.)

The official options that, at first glance, feel the most appropriate:

• Druid: Warden of the Elements
• Guardian: The Stalwart
• Guardian: The Vengeance
• Rogue: Syndicate
• Sorcerer: Primal Origin
• Warrior: Call of the Slayer

Looking at the available classes & subclasses mechanically, there's a lot of fun here. I'm drawn to essentially a shapeshifting Druid version of Markus, giving a new nuance to has a predilection for solving his problems up close, often with fists or melee weapons, given he'd be able to get himself claws on demand. The Stalwart Guardian is a classic tank, the Vengeance Guardian a natural protector. The Syndicate Rogue taps into Markus' charm, giving him a deep web of NPC contacts to connect with. The Primal Origin Sorcerer seems really fun as a player, fucking with the reality of magic in a way that plays to a chaotic outsider Markus; and the Way of the Slayer Warrior feels like a fun way to tackle a Markus who loves to fight, get blood on his knuckles, and disregard his own safety.

At the heart of it, the two that feel the most apt here are the Stalwart Guardian (expects the world to be hard and is determined to be harder, after all), and the Syndicate Rogue, with its web of criminal contacts to charm and frustrate. While the Guardian's Unstoppable feature feels very Markus, hearkening back to Markus "Silver" Svoloch's Not to Be Trifled With feature from Blades in the Dark... Daggerheart is a narrative-focused game with strong combat, rather than a combat game interspersed with social content, and the Syndicate's ability to essentially summon NPCs with whom they have a complicated relationship feels rife with social roleplay potential. A Markus who has fucked, betrayed, abandoned and spurned his way across the landscape, constantly finding himself asking for favours from those he's let down, feels like an extremely fun character type.

(So fun that, if I do actually get to a Daggerheart table, I think I have to play a Syndicate Rogue. Sorry, other classes.)

I'm pleased that even with just the class and subclass selected, Markus is starting to feel flavorful, with strong roleplay potential built into his mechanics.

Next up comes the choosing the character's Heritage, made up of two components: your Ancestry, and your Community.

There are eighteen Ancestries available in the Daggerheart core book. While any race can presumably have a beefy and charismatic bruiser, Markus' main physical requirement from the archetype, things like size and muscularity do help there. Additionally, to me, a longer lifespan feels a little off with Markus' brash, bloody stubbornness, so I have a predisposition here to ancestries with a roughly human lifespan. This is a man who knows he's here for a fun time, not a long time. And lastly, I'll strike the anthropomorphic races as I personally am not super into playing those types.

So, winnowing down the very generous list of Ancestries to my favourite candidates, that gives me: Giant and Human – though if I soften some of the above parameters, ancestries like Orc, Halfling, Infernis, Goblin and Drakona also intrigue me.

For Markus, the option that stands out to me, despite the lifespan of 350 years, is the Infernis: a descendent of demons feels like a natural candidate for an outsider with no desire to belong, except maybe to a tight crew or family who expects the world to be hard and is determined to be harder. Also, the ancestry features both feel useful for playing Markus – the Infernis' Fearless trait works well for facing a harsh world without being intimidated, and the Dread Visage offers the fun prospect of Markus with a temper he doesn't always have total control over.

The core rulebook offers nine Communities a player character can come from: Highborne, Ridgeborne, Underborne, Loreborne, Seaborne, Wanderborne, Orderborne, Slyborne, and Wildborne.

Of these, four feel like particularly fitting origin points for Markus: Seaborne, Wanderborne, and Slyborne. Slyborne is the natural fit for a criminal Markus, especially given his Syndicate subclass and resulting ability to call on tenuous allies at every port. Wanderborne gives us a roving Markus who's never stayed in one place for very long, which also feels very appropriate to the above. And Seaborne gives us a pirate Markus, used to moving from port to port and possibly ship to ship, which feels like a very fun path.

Ultimately, in this case – especially with the Syndicate subclass – the classic feels right: a Slyborne Markus who's grown up amongst criminals, moving from place to place and leaving every place a little worse than he found it. Maybe, with the right influences, that might change... but for now, he's a bastard of humble origins. This grants Markus the very-appropriately named Community Feature of Scoundrel, giving him advantage on rolls to negotiate with criminals, detect lies, and to find a safe place to hide.

Next up comes Character Traits – or, as they're considered in a lot of TTRPGs, character ability stats. Daggerheart divides this into six categories: Agility, Strength, Finesse, Instinct, Presence and Knowledge – with a modifier distribution of +2, +1, +1, 0, 0, -1. That means being excellent at one thing, good at two, and bad at one. Looking at how Markus is developing – a smooth-talking bruiser who takes criminal jobs, makes friends, and causes himself problems that lead him to leaving town quite abruptly – should guide these choices.

Based on the archetype, Markus' +2 should probably be either Strength or Presence. Other versions of him would absolutely be strength-based, but the Syndicate subclass feels like it's leading me to Presence: he makes shallow friendships quickly, he embeds himself with groups easily, and it's his own character flaws that blow those up. That makes Strength one of his +1 traits; going back to expects the world to be hard and is determined to be harder, and the distrust and pessimism tied to that, I'll put in a dash of paranoia and make Instinct his other +1. He's always expecting the other shoe to drop.

For his weakness, despite his charm, I don't think this Markus is particularly subtle or detail-oriented. So, despite his Rogue class (and Finesse being his spellcast trait), I'll mark Finesse as his -1 trait, leaving Agility and Knowledge as his 0 traits.

For easy review, his traits have landed as:

• Presence +2
• Strength +1
• Instinct +1
• Agility 0
• Knowledge 0
• Finesse -1

This Markus is a charmer, a bruiser with his head on a swivel, who can't pick a lock or sneak through the shadows to save his life... probably literally. He loves 'em and leaves 'em, making impulsive calls on jobs that have probably gotten friends and foes killed, and generally is a friend to everyone and to no-one alike. Learning to be an effective part of a team, and to trust others past his walls of fleeting charm, gives us a starting point for a character arc, too.

Per his class, Markus starts with an Evasion of 12, max Hit Points of 6, and max Stress of 6.

For Markus' starting equipment, since I've always seen him as a fists-forward brawler (the phrase blood on his knuckles feels core to Markus for me), and because the Rogue has a spellcasting trait, I'll give him Arcane Gauntlets, the closest thing in the weapon tables to brass knuckles. While this isn't necessarily to optimal pick – the Cutlass would use his Presence, and allow him to pick up a shield in his offhand – it's the truest option to the character. Plus, some of the higher-tier gauntlet options are very cool, and even sometimes use Presence as a core trait.

For armour, there are four options: gambeson armour (which gives the least protection, but buffs evasion), leather armour (which has slightly better protection, but no evasion buff), chainmail armour (provides more protectionbut lowers evasion) and full plate armour (which provides the most protection, but seriously lowers evasion and also lowers Agility). For most interpretations, Markus likes fighting, likes the chaos of a melee battle and kind of likes taking a little damage. Given this, plus his high evasion stat as a rogue, I'll go for gambeson armour: if they can't hit him, they can't hit him, but if they can, they've earned it.

On top of these, he starts with the basic equipment – a torch, 50 feet of rope, basic exploring supplies, a handful of gold, and a choice between a health potion or a stamina potion. Markus will have a stamina potion; he's always had a self-destruction kick, and so he'd pick the thing that lets him push harder rather than the thing that heals him up. From his Rogue class, I can choose either a set of forgery tools or a grappling hook: he's more of a muscles and charm rogue than a finesse and trickery rogue, plus he spends a lot of his time wandering, so the grappling hook feels like a natural choice here.

Next, we create Markus' background, which involves answering any number of the three question prompts on the Rogue character guide:

• What did you get caught doing that got you exiled from your home community?: I imagine Markus - as a Slyborne - growing up in a community of urban criminals, raised by a series of fellow callow young lieutenants serving bosses who received the bulk of the spoils. I'm already starting to envision this Markus as a playful, chaotic type who doesn't like authority, so I imagine he impulsively robbed his own bosses, and got run out of town for it. He's been on the road ever since, and despite some hungry days and cold nights, he likes it better this way.
• You used to have a different life, but you've tried to leave it behind you. Who from your past is still chasing you?: I imagine one of the bosses – Markus doesn't really know which one – keeps sending people after him from afar, even after years of distance. Markus' best guess is that something in one of the papers he swiped has some sensitive secrets hidden on it, if he knew the context of them... but Markus isn't exactly a details guy, so he's stashed them with a friend in some city and hasn't thought about them since. Except whenever someone with his old crew's tattoos pops out of the bushes to try and kidnap him, of course.
• Who from your past were you most sad to say goodbye to?: I think this Markus loves everyone he works alongside, a particularly broad definition of 'the ones who get past his guard'. For him, his crew is his family, and anyone who isn't the crew is fair game to be pilfered, tricked, lied to, etc. It's a bit out of sight, out of mind – once he leaves a place, he doesn't think about the ones he's leaving behind until he sees them again, and then he loves them just the same as he did. That said, the intent of this question feels like – give us a major character we can hook your backstory into. I'd say, Markus probably does sometimes think about his first love, one of the bosses (the only one he liked), who was probably a decade his senior, who showed him the finer points of battle and subterfuge. Even if Markus kiiiinda used their connection to rob the organization blind. Creature of whim, my boy is.

This Markus is significantly less jaded than every previous Markus. There's something about the Syndicate Rogue, of having someone in every place you've wandered through, that the thought of playing Markus as a bit more of a criminal himbo is just so fun. I like the idea of a character who 'expects the world to be hard and is determined to be harder' and is 'an outsider with no desire to belong' with 'a chip on his shoulder'... and takes it utterly in stride, who has no angst about it. He's hard as in unbreakable, not surly; like a particularly thick skull. He thinks the world sucks, he's happy to put a middle finger up at it, he loves his friends and hates the powerful, and it's as simple as that. He's not good - he's petty, he's selfish, he can be vicious, he likes to provoke people into starting shit, and his playful side probably has had plenty of casualties - but he's not bitter. It's refreshing.

Next up, he starts with two experiences – single words that encapsulate elements of him not captured by the rest of this process, that the player can call on by spending a Hope to add to rolls that relate to it. To help him out with his low finesse, based on his above backstory, I'll pick thief for one of the experiences; even if he's not a finesse-oriented guy in general, he has some training in thievery. And to tie into his tendency to talk his way into problems and the whimsy that seems to be the spine of this particular Markus, I'll also give him trickster. He's a joyful agent of chaos, revelling in the misfortune of those he dislikes and unafraid of the consequences of his actions.

At this point, I have gotten enough of Markus' personality and story down to nail down a name. Our Daggerheart Markus will be Markas Fay – playing off of 'fey', a name befitting a chaotic, fun-loving, vengeful creature of whimsy.

The last stage of character creation I'll able to do solo is picking Markas Fay's domain cards. Thanks to his Rogue class, his domains are Grace and Midnight: the domain of charisma and the domain of sneaking. There are six options, of which Markus will get two. These are Deft Deceiver, Enrapture, Inspirational Words, Pick and Pull, Rain of Blades and Uncanny Disguise. While all of these are useful (though those with a Spellcasting roll, maybe less so for a guy with a -1 in his spellcasting stat), there are three that feel appropriate for Fay: Pick and Pull, giving him advantage on a number of thievery-related actions; Deft Deceiver, letting him spend Hope to get advantage on lying; and Inspirational Words, which allows him to buff allies based on his Presence. While Pick and Pull would be really useful (and support his thieving backstory), Fay's real focus is on people – and Deft Deceiver enables his trickster side nicely, while Inspirational Words helps us understand why so many people get caught in his riptide.

After this, typically I'd work with my party to build Markas' connections to other members of the party... but, given I'm doing this on my own, I'll have to skip that. Which means: we have our newest Markus!

But there's one last Daggerheart-y step I can use to build him out a little further in the absence of a GM and a party: the Campaign Frame.

But what is a campaign frame? Daggerheart's core book has these amazing campaign-shaping story profiles that can be used to launch a party, sketching out enough of a world and its conflicts to launch a campaign-sized story with a consistent-yet-malleable tone. One frame might call out genre inspirations like Princess Mononoke and The Legend of Zelda, while another might call out Dark Souls and Berserk. They give a GM enough of a world to launch a campaign in, with core tensions and questions, while leaving room to build something bespoke for the party within it. They're one of my favourite things I've encountered in a TTRPG core book.

As a way to flesh out Fay's place in his world (and lay out his relationship to it), I figure I'll pick a campaign frame to contextualize him within as well. I've reviewed the options in the Daggerheart core book, and the one that feels the most interesting for Fay is Five Banners Burning, a 'tension of nations' frame inspired by touchstones like A Song of Ice and Fire, Avatar: The Last Airbender and Dragon Age: Inquisition. It's a setup of five nations – traditional kingdom Voldaen, wealthy old-guard theocracy Hilltop, progress-focused mageocracy Polaris, rowdy pirates-turned-merchants nation Armada, and newly-independent republic Jesthaen – with a ton of tensions and conflicts between them, just coming out of one war and on the verge of another. It plays with themes like divided loyalties, the price of ambition, the nature of power and tradition vs. innovation.

So, why a tense network of violent loyalties for a wandering himbo whose own loyalties change with the wind? Because it puts Fay at conflict with his setting in a way I think would be really fruitful: his fickle wandering heart and his loyalties-in-the-moment mindset would, rather than being a charming affectation, be a character flaw with serious consequences in a world that demands he choose a side. His commitment to those he's designated as my crew, even though they would be a patchwork of folks from different nations and potentially-conflicting ideologies, would force difficult choices. His wanderer's nature would draw the eye of authority in every port he lodges in. His petty trickster side in a world of complex and dangerous dynamics would ensure consequences flowing from his ill-advised actions, and his disregard for tradition would especially set him at odds with places like Voldaen and Hilltop. Simply put, I love my himbo, but this world would kick his ass and force him to grow, while his chaotic nature would also upset this world's apple cart on a semi-regular basis. The Markas Fay who sets out on this adventure would be a different man than the one at the end of it, and I love that.

THE CHARACTER

Markas Fay grew up Holthas, in a border city of the venerable, traditional kingdom of Valdaen, whose emphasis on tradition and respect for one's betters grated on him from childhood. An urchin adopted by the Kestrels, a criminal gang interwoven into the underbelly of the city, he felt inoculated (to a degree) from Valdaen's choking normalcy, a chaotic bubble that felt safe from the monarchy's tight grip. Fay was happy in his little world of crime and chaos.

And then, fifteen years ago, Jesthaen seceded from Valdaen, and everything went to shit.

With a war on, Valdaen's grip tightened – especially on any border regions that might have sympathies for Jesthaen's cause. Holthas was essentially put under martial law, with any able-bodied adult of unknown origin pressed into joining the monarch's armies. Knowing the criminal powers in Holthas would be an easy alliance for their enemies, and wishing to use their own structures against them to take control, Jesthaen offered Fay's bosses a deal: they could keep their command structure, their relationships, their lifestyle, after the war with full immunity from prosecution – in exchange for their loyalty during the war. And they'd be handsomely rewarded for it, too. Compelled by Valdaen's offer, the criminal bosses of Holthas went legit, using their criminal networks to disrupt and weaken the fledgling Jesthaen's supply lines and costing it dearly. For the first time, Fay realized he had a moral instinct about something outside his immediate circle: he didn't like being set against the scrappy revolutionaries of Jesthaen, especially to benefit the strangling tradition of Valdaen, and he felt a growing contempt for his bosses for throwing in with power over freedom. He put his head down and did the work as he was told out of loyalty, but with this internal conflict, the chaotic criminal homebody started to feel the first whispers of wanderlust.

After the war, with Jesthaen securing their independence, the deal the bosses in Holthas made became a monkey's paw of a deal: they got the riches and respect they wanted, but also, the eye of the monarchy fixed firmly on them. Knowing Holthas was a border city with enough power to consider seceding, Valthaen used both the carrot and the stick to ensure the city remained dependent on them: plying its new leaders with riches and gifts and overlooking their sins while crippling the city's supply routes and starving their people into compliance. The monarchy would not let another Jesthaen happen... or hand them an easy ally in what was starting to look like a burgeoning second war.

With his home stultifying and his bosses earning his contempt, Fay stole a piece of leverage one of his bosses was using to negotiate his position with the monarchy and left, preferring a life on the road. But a wanderer in a world as tense as this one, claiming loyalties to no nation, is an incredibly suspect figure in all of them, and Fay has had to get used to passing through new places as quickly as possible. To prevent being accused of espionage, or worse, pressed into service against his will. And that has been his life for the last five years: wandering from place to place, picking up and shedding identities like a game, making friends and forging loyalties of the moment that might tighten into a noose when push comes to shove. After all, in a world with five banners burning, eventually you will have to choose a side... or suffer for your indecision.

THE SYSTEM

This is a spot for me to discuss what this process has taught me about the system of the game, including the assumptions it makes that shape the character, and the opportunities for building out the character inherent in the process. Plus, how it felt to build a character in it, and whether I enjoyed myself: whether it got me daydreaming about the system or left me a little cold.

The overall setup for Daggerheart is fairly simple yet flexible, focusing more on what a character is great at than the more encompassing skill system in D&D 5e that allows them to be great, good, middling and poor at a variety of distinct skills. I do miss the tapestry that the latter weaves; while that level of granularity definitely demands more focus, and in-play is perhaps not the most interesting with its smattering of flat modifiers, it was nice that characters felt like they had detailed and rich skills beyond the modifiers of their basic traits. On the other hand, the Experiences system is so flexible, allowing a character to be great at a skill, tap into a personal history, or even be powered by a character trait or sentiment. You can really lean into the things that make them them, in a way that a fixed skill list doesn't always easily do.

Character creation is quick, at least for a fairly in-depth adventuring party game, with a handful of key decisions that make up the bulk of the process. It's not quite as quick as a Blades in the Dark or a Monsterhearts; I'd say it splits the difference between them and a D&D. The flow of character creation moves from Class, to Ancestry, to Background, to Experiences, to Connections. This prioritizes the play experience you're searching for: you're picking the major set of mechanics you'll be using as a player in the game, and then building out the specifics of the character and their background. This is helpful in frontloading the decision that will most impact your play experience, and asks you to think about what your character does before thinking about who they are. You then descend, layer by layer, into the character: from what they do, to what they are, to where they come from and what they've done, deepening what started as a basic archetype. Then, it loops back around to present-day concerns and party-building with the Connections questions, locking in and establishing the bonds between the party.

Coming out of this process, how I feel about Daggerheart itself... it's in an odd spot, for me. It feels simpler than D&D, in a way that feels a degree less immersive; it feels more complex than a Blades in the Dark or a Monsterhearts, but without their tight and specific tone that tells you exactly what you're playing. Intellectually I understand the mechanics – fear and hope, failing forward into consequences, no initiative or set turn order, treating combat and non-combat as the same – though I struggle a little to predict what it will feel like in practice. The pieces here are all great; the classes and ancestries seem fun, the backgrounds system is intriguing, I love the Experiences system, and campaign frames are fucking excellent. It feels a little like a stripped-down D&D, and through that lens it feels rich with promise, especially for those dreaming of a dragon-killer of a game. But I'm also pretty happy with D&D 5e ('14) for now, and I know that game well enough to break and reshape it on the fly as I need to, so I don't know that I'll be rushing Daggerheart to my table quite yet. Though I'd love to get a seat at a Daggerheart table as a player, if only to see all of it in practice and confirm whether it has the spark that I'm hoping it does.

AMONG THE MARKUSES

This section is an indulgence, because I love the idea of parallel universe versions of a person - or a character - coming face to face and dealing with how different they are. While the Markuses developed for this project aren't explicitly multiverse versions of the same man, I feel like the shared archetype makes this a fun little thought experiment.

Markas Fay meets Markus Vulneras (D&D 5e): Oh, I think Vulneras would hate Fay, though not really with much heat. A wandering trickster who doesn't really have any values or angst, whose anchoring relationships have no real object permanence? To a guy like Vulnares, defined by the people he loves and the problems they cause him, by the systems he struggles to commit to but needs anyway, and by his frustrated sense of having no place in the world... he'd despise Fay's whimsy and roll his eyes at his innocence. Meanwhile, Fay would probably find Vulneras an intense, unpleasant asshole worth playing a trick on, before moving on to the next town and forgetting he ever existed.

Markas Fay meets Markus "Silver" Svoloch (Blades in the Dark): Fay would be fascinated by Silver, a cold-hearted charismatic seductor who treats people like coins to hoard or spend, who loves a fight and a fuck and isn't building anything specific beyond always wanting more. I think that's exactly the type of criminal that Fay gets wrapped up in, not liking them so much as enjoying watching them operate, and getting tangled up in their schemes. I think Silver would underestimate Fay as a pretty face who's much much use in a crew, a disposable lockpick to be discarded when trouble hits, and be impressed and a little turned on when Fay turns out to be more skilled – and a little more heartless – than he'd first assumed. I can absolutely imagine Silver being one of Fay's flings, a brief partner in crime he can call on the next time he floats into town on the breeze.

Markas Fay meets Marcus "Flinch" Evans (Monsterhearts 2): I don't think these two would even really get to know one another. Fay would see the intense kid with the supernatural angst rolling off of him, a drama that doesn't feel fun so much as painful, and make sure to be nowhere near him. Meanwhile, Flinch would immediately peg Fay as someone unpredictable and unreliable, even from a glance, and try to stay out of his blast radius. I'm not sure these two would even end up having a conversation; they'd be allergic to one another immediately.

WHAT COMES NEXT

Daggerheart is a beefy book, a game built to compete with D&D (and will probably have great success there). Focusing long enough to get a sense of the game rules and character creation in between my thousand other priorities meant this post took a while longer than intended. So, while I am dying to do a Markus in, say, Cyberpunk RED or Vampire: The Masquerade, which are similarly weighty tomes (and have dedicated mythologies and lore I'd want to wrap my head around, to boot!), I'll probably focus my next Markus or two on smaller systems as a bit of a breather. Which ones? I'm not sure, but I'm dying to find out...