The Black Company Jumpchain - Books of the North

The Black Company – The Books of the North
By DADistracted
Version 0.8

Intro Fluff

1000 CP, boys and girls!

Age minimum 15, maximum 55, otherwise unimportant
Gender: Same as previous, or 50cp to change

Locations: Roll 1d8
Opal
Lords
Oar
Elm
Deal
Juniper
Tower at Charm
Lucky you! Pick your favorite location of those listed above

Origins:

Mercenary
Obligatory Fluff

Rebel
Obligatory Fluff

Sorcerer (300cp cost)
Obligatory Fluff



Perks:

Free All:
Excellent combat competence using two weapons of the jumper’s choice

Mercenary (Black Company-inspired)
100 – Expert Dirty Fighter Perk
200 – Unchanged by Trauma & Experiences Perk
400 –
600 – The Captain: (effectively command an army, pick up recruits easily)

Rebel (White Rose-inspired)
100 –
200 – Unbreakable Willpower Perk
400 – Insurrection Inspiration Perk
600 – Another White Rose: (personal-scale toggleable anti-magic field)

Sorcerer
100 – Foundational Magic Skill Perk (Goblin/One-Eye-level)
200 –
400 –
600 – Vastly Magnified Magic Power Perk (Soulcatcher-level)

Undiscounted
100 – Anti-Boredom Perk?
200 – Nameless Perk (No true name in-jump, translates into true name magic immunity in later jumps)
400 – Soldiers Live: (1-Up [setting explanation: sorcerer via magic/rebel via reincarnation/mercenary via contrivances of fate])
500 – Rite of Taking: (Boosts magical power of recipient, enslaves recipient to caster’s will, cannot be undone once completed; inherently cruel & evil process – can be used on Companions, but they won’t thank you for it)



Items:

Free All:
2 well cared for weapons of the Jumper’s preference, 1 well cared for coat of plated mail

Mercenary
100 –
200 –
400 –
600 – Lance of Passion: (mechanics still in need of balancing)

Rebel
100 –
200 –
400 –
600 –

Sorcerer
100 –
200 –
400 –
600 –

Undiscounted
50 – Annals of the Jumper: (self-updating chronicles of the Jumper’s chain)
100 –
200 –
400 –
600 – The Black Castle (drop-in, dread reputation, grows/repairs via feeding corpses, provides single 1-Up every 10 years)


Companions:

Companion Import Option
50cp per Companion, or 300cp for a full 8 Companions
Imported Companions may choose an origin and receive 500cp to spend

Canon Companion Acquisition
Free if you can convince them, or you can pay to guarantee someone's agreement (within outlined restrictions).
100cp for mortal companions, 200cp for magic wielders or The White Rose.
Kina, Goddess of Death, is barred from acquisition, as is The Dominator. Due to the contingencies of the process, The Lady’s Taken are barred unless The Lady is also acquired, and the Dominator’s Taken are barred if he isn’t dead or fully sealed.

OC Companions
Mercenary
Rebel
Sorcerer

Followers
150cp – Forvalaka (Vampiric, organ-devouring were-leopard. Nigh-invulnerable to mundane weapons and immune to insufficiently powerful magic, obedient to the jumper)
???cp – Mercenary Company (Needs balancing)



Drawbacks:

Drawback Limit – None; all the apples are poisoned anyway, you may as well eat your fill
100 –
100 –
200 – Mutilation Drawback (missing arm/leg, or equivalent if many-limbed)
200 – How Deranged: You suffer from a form of insanity, Jumper. What specific madness afflicts you is left to your own devising, but it is incurable for the duration of the jump and it will affect your quality of life.
100 or 300 – Don’t Say My Na-!: Lose [all in-jump perks & magic or all out-of-jump perks, magic & warehouse access] for the duration of the jump
300 – Ripe for the Taking: Pursuit by a powerful enemy with the intention of Taking the Jumper.
300 – Liam Neeson Syndrome: Roll 1d7+1; the result is the number of Companions that have been Taken by an enemy. (Only available if Companions are imported)



You made it to the end! A final choice remains to be made. Where will you go from here?
Choose to Go Home
Choose to Stay
Choose to Continue Your Chain


Notes:

It is possible for the Sorcerer-origin to acquire the Rite of Taking through personal growth and development. However, only 4 people in the setting have ever known or been capable of performing the Rite of Taking, all placing among the top 10 most powerful beings in the setting’s history, none of whom would ever teach it; a sorcerer-origin jumper will have to create this ludicrously difficult and complex magic rite from first-principles over the course of years.
The Rite of Taking is offered as an individual perk in order to make it accessible to non-sorcerers, as well as allowing sorcerers to frontload it for themselves.

The inherent magical potency of the mage Followers provided by the Mercenary Company will not grow unless the Jumper provides a means to catalyze such a reaction, likely through interactions with stuff from other jumps. However, even weak casters from this setting can make weapons capable of killing gods if given a long enough period of time to ensorcel them – this is not nearly as big a nerf as it might initially appear to be.

Sorcerers are not squishy in this setting. They will instead layer spell upon spell over themselves to account for any contingencies they can imagine. Consequently, old and powerful mages are often mistaken to be unkillable. Sometimes rightfully so.

A sorcerer in this setting that knows the true name (birth name) of another mage can use it in an invocation to strip the target of all their magic power. Consequently, mages tend to take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that their true name is lost to the knowledge of the rest of the world. This usually involves murdering anyone who knows a sorcerer’s true name, e.g. family, friends, lovers, neighbors, coworkers, home towns, small kingdoms, etc. Thus, most magic wielders of any prominence are likely to be some shade of evil.

Any and all instances of the jumper being Taken count as death for the purposes of 1-Ups and chain-failure. This will translate into death and subsequent resurrection at a random location in the world, provided 1-Ups are available to the jumper; they will not be considered Taken in such cases. If 1-Ups are not available, being Taken will translate into death and subsequent chain-failure, sending the jumper home as per the norm. The jumper will, again, not be considered Taken in such cases.
The drawback Ripe for the Taking alters the resolution mechanics of a jumper being Taken in the following way: 1-Ups will function identically, but a jumper with no more of them who is Taken is not killed, cleansed, and sent home as was previously the norm; instead, they are enslaved to the one who cast the Rite of Taking, in an identical fashion to how it would operate on any other individual. This counts as if the jumper picked the Choosing to Stay jump resolution option.

Companions that are Taken, whether through drawbacks or natural progression of the jump, cannot be freed from this condition for the duration of the jump. At the end of the jump’s duration, Taken Companion(s) will be absolved of this status and returned to the Jumper.
This will occur regardless of whether the Companion(s) are living or dead at the time of the jump’s conclusion, or what jumpchain progression option is chosen.
The resultant empowerment that being Taken provides is also removed from Companions during this process.
A jumper can, of course, elect to prevent the removal of the Rite of Taking’s effects from any Companions they themselves used it on.
(This means you can’t cheese empowering your allies by having other people Take them; if you want the results, you’ll have to inflict that menagerie of soul-scarring atrocities upon them yourself.)

The Lady’s Taken are barred from Companionship without The Lady herself because they die if she loses her powers or dies, and removing them from the universe she resides in is fundamentally similar to removing them from her power. The Dominator’s Taken do not suffer from this contingency, but they will refuse to join you if The Dominator is not indisposed by death or total sealing.



Changelog:
0.1: Started making the jump. Hooray!
0.2: Changed mechanical interactions of being Taken for the jumper, tied ability to take a scenario with having a corresponding 600cp origin perk, reduced price of 1-Up from 600 to 400, reduced price of Rite of Taking from 600 to 500.
0.3: Cut the scenarios, reoriented the jump towards being released in installments, renamed the jump to reflect its status as covering the first arc of the series.
0.4: Added a new note, added a pricetag to the Sorcerer origin.
0.5: Clarified & renamed numerous origin perks, switched rebel origin’s inspiration and willpower perk prices, added a new note regarding sorcerer durability, added start locations, added mercenary 600cp perk, added mercenary 600cp item
0.6: Clarified the Rite of Taking note, removed 400cp 1-Up perk, added 50cp Annals of the Jumper/600cp Black Castle, added Followers subsection to Companion section, added 150cp Forvalaka to follower subsection, added mutilation drawback
0.7: Retooled the free perk entry to provide superior combat skill, retooled the free item entry to better reflect the quality of equipment provided
0.8: Added some clarifications to some notes & canon companion acquisition, removed drawback cp limit, noted mercenary company for further development, changed Black Castle so 1UP is available once every 10 years instead of once a jump
0.9: [N/A]
0.9.1: [N/A]
0.9.2: [N/A]