Narrator’s Guide
Introduction
Magic in Skyline
While the world presented in Horizon: Zero Dawn was full of mundane muggles, that shouldn’t stop you from adding magic to the world of Skyline. In the simplest sense, you can overlay any system’s magic on top of Skyline, and it should “Just Work”. There’s nothing in the setting which should be broken by the addition of magic.
You might decide the world of the Old Ones was like Shadowrun where elves and dragons exist alongside humans. May the only reason you didn’t see any in HZD was because the tribes we saw drove them off for being different. Or maybe it took ELEUTHIA a little longer to produce viable genetic recombinations for the other races. Or maybe we did see them, we just didn’t notice.
You might decide the world of the Old Ones was more like Mage, Vampire, Werewolf, or The Dresden Files, where some people just have innate abilities, which may or may not be magic. Such settings see magic only spoken of in dark corners, for fear of the persecution from the mundane mob. You might presume that some number of people are slowly discovering that they are not quite like those around them.
Individual game system adapters include advice on how to mesh that system’s magic with the world of Skyline. There’s another option: technomancy.
Technomancy
This is pretty much what it sounds like: treating the advanced technology of the Old Ones as if it was magic. Not everyone playing Skyline is going to want to play a fighter, brute, ranger, or rogue. Some may want to play wizard, sorcerer, cleric, druid, or warlock.
You’re definitely going to have to do some world-building, but here are a few ideas to get you started.
Innate Magic: Wizards & Sorcerers
HZD has already shown some “magic”: Corruption, Bio-matter Converters, and HADES’ escape by “flying” to Sylens. While no canon explanation has been given for any of those, it would be reasonable to assume they all stem from the same basic technology: nano-scale machines. Corruption could be explained as a swarm of nanites invading and overriding the functions of the host machine, and so on.
Magic, then, could be the control of those nanites via Focus hacking. Wizards, with their grimoires, studying, and memorization, would be the software engineers of the Skyline world. Sorcerers, with their improvisation and inherent risk-indifferent outlook, would be more like hackers and button-pushers: “hey, I wonder what happens when I connect this subroutine to this other one”.
If your game system uses mana or similar, you might end up with fatigue-related explanations like:
- “You’ve used up your personal supply of nanites.”
- “You’ll need to give them time to replicate/recharge/resupply.”
- “The nanites are starting to resist your control over them. It will take time to let your Focus reestablish control.”
If your system uses spell slots or types of magic, you might sound like:
- “You need (technobabble)-type nanites for that effect, and you’re out.”
- “Your nanites don’t have enough charge/resources for that right now.”
Most of your basic schools of magic are relatively easy to explain in terms of nanite swarms:
- Evocation: The swarm produces the fireball, condenses the water in the air, causes a localized lightning bolt via conducted static charge, etc.
- Abjuration: The swarm forms a barrier in the air, flows like armor across your skin, etc.
- Conjuration: The swarm takes on the shape of an object, a Strider just happens to come galloping up with exactly the thing you need on its back, etc.
- Enchanting: You add a coating of programmed nanites to an object to perform some specific function.
- Necromancy: Your swarm can reanimate “dead” machines and maybe even people, if you can figure out how to get them to manipulate the central nervous system.
Some schools don’t even require nanites:
- Divination: You tap into the Focus network to run a heuristic search of everything all machines in the area can see.
- Illusion: You have scavenged a holo-projector and have figured out how to get it to produce realistic volumetric effects.
- Graviturgy: You have scavenged a set of anti-grav plates from the loader barges of a cauldron, and have figured out how to use them.
Other schools, such as transmutation and chronomancy, might require more imagination.
Bestowed Magic: Clerics, Paladins, & Warlocks
Like magic, HZD already has a concept of patrons and deities: AIs like CYAN and HADES. They have vast powers over machines and environments, and may be swayed by bargaining and supplication.
A character who has won the favor of DEMETER might have access to an engineered pharmacopoeia which DEMETER wouldn’t entrust to just anyone. Or maybe the character has scavenged medical devices which can synthesize restoratives when given time and resources, but the devices take some expertise to use.
A patron like HEPHAESTUS, POSEIDON, or MINERVA might provide some limited control over machines, whether via Focus device, nanites, control signal, or something else. Small machine familiars might be provided as part of the pact. It might be reasonable to see a Stormbird redirected to rain down balls of lightning on one’s enemies, before returning to its assigned duties. The control towers from The Cut might be co-opted by MINERVA to shoot lightning bolts or napalm balls, though they might only have a few shots before they need time to recharge whatever resources.
Just like deities in most games, narrators are encouraged to keep their motivations and goals close to the chest. Even GAIA, whose motives seem clear and benevolent, is still an AI with directives, data, and considerations which may not be disclosed, truthfully or not. The corruption of the Derangement may also have made any number of changes to their original programming.
The story of Banukai may provide some inspiration — while fleeing from the Ravenous Tribe, she received a vision guiding her to a cave deep beneath the earth. Despite the cave being guarded by many machines, they bowed to her as she approached, and did not attack. Communing with the spirits of the place, she was offered power if she would accept the Blue Light into herself. Wading into a pool, the light reared up like snakes and pierced her skin, sewing up her wounds with cable and metal. The augmentation gave her abilities, and the power to vanquish her enemies, though at the eventual cost of her life.
Magic from Nature: Druids
Druids in Skyline could be seen as those who have figured out how to bend its terraforming systems to their own ends. The terraforming systems are, at their heart, just systems: rules and effects. Any sufficiently complex system will have its edge and corner cases, and druids have figured out more of those than most. It doesn’t necessarily mean they understand why their actions have the effects they do — they might have been taught their skills by someone else, or may have stumbled across the knowledge by accident.
Healing could be explained using similar nanite/bio-matter-converter logic as in the previous sections, but it could also be more. You might find that the plants of the world have all been engineered to have the components for restoratives even more potent than the ones seen in HZD, but only when combined in exactly the right ways. Ranged heal spells might be described as throwing bags of spores at the target, which help to close wounds when inhaled.
Elemental magic might be explained as tapping into nanites, or even as taking partial control of the literally millions of FARO machines hibernating under the surface of the world. Such control could yield volcanic effects, weather effects, and so on.
The druid connection to nature could be explained as having an intuition about the impacts others have on the system. “Speaking” with plants and animals could be an awareness of the fractal growth patterns governing their growth, and being able to interpret how those patterns have been disturbed.
Human-vs-Human Combat in Skyline
A note from Rick Osborne, the author:
I have chosen to omit human NPCs as combat enemies in the world of Skyline. This is my way of encouraging players to find ways to resolve conflicts with other thinking, feeling people through means other than murder. Even if those people are fiction, I dislike such othering and vilification, and this is my small effort to improve how we think about each other.
I love combat in tabletop gaming — it’s been a part of the history of the genre, and is not going anywhere, nor would I want it to. My hope is that I can give you enough other fun, non-human things to fight, to scratch that itch. And if I do my job right, when you need to resolve conflicts between people you’ll have plenty of non-combat options.
I’m not saying you can’t have humans fight each other in Skyline. Human combat is canon in the world of Horizon. But within these modules you won’t find any stat blocks for “bandits”, Shadow Carja, or any other humans. If you choose to bring human combat into your game in Skyline, that’s your right because it’s your game, but you’ll have to do the work.
-R
Machine Combat in Skyline
Most TTRPG systems include perfectly adequate approaches to creature combat. If you’d like to continue using those rules without anything extra, you may safely skip this section. For a bit more challenge, consider the following additions to add some depth to machine combat, rewarding players for inventive strategies.
Component Basics
Machine stat blocks include listings of components, which are (generally) targetable in combat. The various adapters each use their own stat block format and details, but the broad strokes are the same:
- Each machine has one Body component. This is the component damaged when no other component has been specified, or often when another targeted component was missed by a small amount.
- Non-body components will specify how much damage the component can take before it is destroyed and can no longer be targeted. This component “health” is shared with that of the machine — it is not in addition to it.
- Some components can be removed from the machine. In the Horizon games, this would be done with “Tear” weapons. Depending on the component, this removal may damage the machine, or may affect how it functions.
- Components may have their own damage type resistances and vulnerabilities. For example, Blaze canisters are vulnerable to fire damage. In such cases, a multiplier for the damage type is included, such as “2×” for double damage.
- Resistances and vulnerabilities for one component do not necessarily apply to other components, including the ones on the body.
- Components may include loot items, which may be damaged when the component takes damage. Tearing the component free without doing any other damage to it increases the likelihood of recovering the loot.
Components Example
For example, consider the components for a Watcher, where the stats used are for the 5E system:
- Body. AC 13, 36 HP. Takes 2× Lightning damage.
- Eye. AC 15, 36 HP. Takes 2× damage (all types). Only vulnerable to piercing weapons in a 30-degree cone in front of the Watcher. Contains: 1× Watcher Lens.
A few things to note from these example components:
- A watcher Body takes double damage from Lightning, while the Eye takes double damage of all types. However, targeting the Eye can only be done from the front of the Watcher — you can’t hit it from behind or above — and requires a specific damage type. The AC (Armor Class) of the Eye is also a little higher, making it a little harder to hit, even when hit from the correct angle.
- The health of the Eye matches the health of the Body. This means that destroying the eye is enough to destroy the Watcher. It does not mean the Watcher has a combined HP of 72. The 36 HP listed on the Body is the total, and damage to other components is subtracted from that, up to the HP of the other component.
- The Eye is not listed as “removable”, and therefore cannot be torn away from the Body.
- If the Eye does not take damage during the fight, there’s a chance of recovering one Watcher Lens from it.
Component Damage
Let’s look at another example to highlight how component damage relates to health. Scrapper components, in more abstract terms, include the following:
- Body. 100% health.
- Power Cell. 25% health. Takes 3× Lightning damage. Can be removed. Explodes when destroyed, dealing moderate Fire damage to all creatures and components in Close range. Required for all Laser attacks.
- Radar. 50% health. Can be removed. Takes 2× damage (all types). Required for Radar Ping ability.
In the 5E system, a Scrapper has 44 HP. This means the Power Cell has an effective 11 HP (25% of 44), while the Radar has an effective 22 HP (50% of 44).
Suppose a player character targets the Radar, then the Power Cell, and finally the Body:
- Because the Radar takes double damage of all types, only 11 HP worth of damage (half of 22) is required to destroy it. The 22 damage counts against the total 44 HP of the Scrapper, taking it down to 22 HP.
- Once the Radar has been destroyed, the Scrapper can no longer use its Radar Ping ability to scan for hidden characters.
- Destroying the Power Cell takes 11 damage of most types, or 4 Lightning damage which gets tripled. Notice that while 4 damage tripled is 12, the component’s health is only 11 HP, so the “leftover” damage of 1 HP does not carry over to the Body — it is capped at the HP for the component. This takes the Scrapper down to 11 HP remaining.
- The Power Cell explodes when it is destroyed, dealing Fire damage to everything around it. Each system and adapter will have its own rules about how to calculate the damage for this. In this example, let’s presume this led to 8 damage, taking the Scrapper down to 3 HP.
- Destroying the Power Cell removes the Scrapper’s ability to use any Laser attacks, reducing it to attacking with its claws and grinder-teeth.
- The Body will need to take the remaining 3 damage to down the Scrapper.
Care should be taken to not “double dip” damage.
Imagine the components of the Scrapper above were targeted in a different order: Power Cell, then Radar, then Body. When the Power Cell explodes, it does its damage to creatures and components in range. This includes the Scrapper’s Radar component. The 8 Fire damage from the explosion would be doubled against the Radar component, which takes double damage of all types. This reduces the Radar from 22 HP by 16 down to 6 HP.
But be careful: do not also add that 8 Fire damage to the Body if it was already taken by other components. Remember that component health is shared with the Body. This means the Scrapper takes 16 damage from the explosion, because that’s what its Radar took. If multiple components are damaged at the same time you would still sum all damage to be subtracted from the Scrapper’s total HP, just don’t count the Body twice.
The intent here is to provide opportunities for players to create interesting chain reactions of damage. For example, Destroying the Blaze canister on one of a pack of clumped-up Grazers could lead to other Blaze canisters exploding, and so on, destroying the entire pack with a single shot. Which is great from a distance, but likely not so much if another player character had gotten too close to the pack.
Should you use component rules?
Component damage adds quite a bit of complexity to combat management. You must now track not just a number of machines, but also multiple different damage types and health pools for each. But component targeting also provides the opportunity to vary encounters with the same machine types — it gives incentive to players to coordinate and plan encounters, and do more than just “hit it very hard”.
Chain reactions, especially well-prepared ones with multiple effects, may provide amazing narrative opportunities, but they also significantly increase the chance of missing something and getting it “wrong”. Tables which use chain reactions are encouraged to agree beforehand that there’s always some narrative explanation for why something was “missed”. Trying to “rewind” and partially reapply chain reactions is likely far more frustrating and confusion-inducing than is worth it. It’s also not hard to see how the Fireball meme would likely apply here:
I didn’t ask how close everyone is, I said “I shoot the Blaze canister”.
You may also choose to employ or ignore components at the session or encounter level. For example, your first few sessions might ignore components until everyone gets used to combat. Similarly, components and chain reactions provide the opportunity for interesting narrative constraints: “you need to destroy this group of machines within two rounds or they will alert this other group”. Such constraints can be done without components and chain reactions, but their presence will encourage planning.