Casting Shadows

This is the 19th day of #RPGaDay2026 and in this week of the event I am drawing from Triple Ace Games’ All for One: Regime Diabolique for my responses. The prompt for today is familiar to many people in that it is ‘Desire,’ while the weekly and daily filter for that prompt are Instinct and Woe, respectively. Many of us are familiar with those things, too. When using a palette of supernatural intrigue, blade and bullet violence, and the great and horrible wars of an earlier age, it might seem hard at first to find something positive to say in the spirit of RPGaDAY, or at least – challenging to keep the focus in a positive place. Is there a positive place? Certainly. It is in the hearts and actions of those who stand against the darkness no matter if they are blazing bonfires shifting culture or flickering candles refusing to be snuffed there is beauty and inspiration there. The people are the key, in life and in RPGs. Horror, Suffering, and certainly today Woe are not great on their own, it is the response to them which matters. The actions we take to counter them, the reactions we have to others and urge to help, and the interactions with others to do so.

All for One! One for All!

Historically the group known colloquially as the King’s Musketeers was open to a less select group of individuals than one might expect – but still with an expectation of a certain amount of skill, breeding, and flamboyance. No few among them joined to escape, overcome, or forget some loss or tragedy – some great woe. We need look no further than the famous Three Musketeers, and later their fourth and younger companion (though we could) to see the touch of woe upon the life of a musketeer, its different sources and outlets, and their reaction to it.

If we were to create a character of our own, inspired perhaps by the finished templates in the core rules, what steps would we need to take? In the Ubiquity Roleplaying System, that journey begins with an Archetype and a Motivation. In other words, what concept distills how people see the character, and what drives the character to do that thing? Archetypes might be something like Soldier, Academic, Criminal, or Doctor. So far in our look at AfO this week we have seen a Spy and a Swordsman. Motivations cover the spectrum of human emotion and personal drive. Yesterday, we looked at a character driven by a need for Revenge. On Monday, the Messenger we examined is a creature of Duty. Some others might seek Redemption, others Justice, and more might be motivated by Faith or Greed.

For a character we might play in a dark and ferocious world of wars, disease, and predators in the shadows, where the nation is beset from without by expansionist dreams of foreign powers and from within by power struggles around the thrones of King and Cardinal, what Archetype could we use? How do we, as we step from our world into theirs across the threshold of imagination, want to be introduced? What do we want people to say about us as we don the colors of the King’s Musketeers?

To that end, what will be our primary Motivation? What keeps us in motion despite setback, despite the fear of the cannons or the claws of horrid beasts? When the gargoyle’s grind out their warnings, when the heat of our blood draws shades from the darkness, when the face of friend cackles with the laughter of a possessing demon, what makes us carry on?

Were I to prepare a character shaped by Instinct and Woe, in the context of Desire this opens a lot of doors to the sort of dramatically courageous and self-sacrificing characters which make such heroics so thrilling to read. Not all those touched by woe choose to drown it in wine, silence, and danger like Athos.

I think this time I would go with Hunter as the archetype. Not as an occupation per se. Not a huntsman who has turned to the musketeers for employment, nor a poacher driven to it for other reasons. No, this is the person whose disposition and talents put others in mind of a hunter. Attention to detail. Certitude and quiet in movement and decision-making. A certain finality in solutions and unity of purpose, mind, and body.

What drives them?

People see the sadness, of course, and some may even know what woe befell this hunter in the past. Surely it was a life-changing event. However, it did not change them. It instead shifted their course from whatever happier place it would have gone toward this new direction. Their archetype defines the pattern and range of instinctual responses, and their motivation gives them reason to respond.

For this character, growing in my mind as I type this morning of August 19th, I picture a younger man just old enough to join the Musketeers and see it as a viable course that runs in the direction he wishes to go. I imagine a man driven not by what is behind him in life, though clearly marked by it, nor by what is ahead of him on his chosen path. Instead I see a man driven by what and who he is. He can do nothing less, and wants to do nothing more… but who he is is shaped by desire.

Let’s choose… Truth. The source of much woe in this world and in many imaginary ones as well. A hunter, seeking truth. A young man, now a musketeer in service to the king, defined by his approach and his desire to know why the world is the way it is. Why do people make the choices they make? Why are promises broken and lies told? Why do the words of the priests contradict both themselves and the actions of the church? Why does nation fight nation, why does sewage choke the rivers, and why do people huddle together in dark twisted streets under smokey skies amidst all of that filth?

In observation he is learning to see why animals do what they do, and how the weather makes its way across the land in its different guises, but people? There is some deeper mystery there which must be plumbed. He needs to know. The world as it is makes no sense.

Now with this framework in mind of who the character is as a person, and how that forms the way they are perceived by others, I am also ready to quickly assign the Skills, Talents, and Resources which such a person must have to be that person. Their nature and their drives whisper to me how to balance the division of points to reflect the person they have been and the direction in which they are developing.

In minutes, I will be ready to play.

Tomorrow’s prompt for #RPGaDAY2026 is ‘Promise.’ Do you see that as a noun or a verb?

See you then!