Ronin Round Table: Joseph on Night’s Watch

Coming Soon: The Night’s Watch

Happy Friday, folks.

Well, we’ve got one more episode of this season of Game of Thrones, and it’s been a heck of a ride. But don’t despair—with HBO wrapping up the current season, and Mr. Martin working steadily on the next book, we here at Green Ronin will help keep your appetite sated for All Things Westerosi.

We’ve already revealed the cover for our next presentation for the line, Night’s Watch. This sourcebook details the history of the Night’s Watch and the geography of the Wall, along with rules for creating those brothers who’ve taken the Black. It also details the wild lands north of the Wall, with a chapter on wildling tribes, cultures and characters. Finally, it includes an appendix that takes a look at the Lords of the Long Night: the Others. In fact, as a bit of an appetite-whetter, we present the Child-Taker, one of the many terrifying legends the hearthwives and storytellers among the wildlings use to frighten their children into behaving…and to warn one another.

The Child-Taker

Child-Taker. Thief of Sons. Father Frost.
These are just a few of the names for the wildling legend that the free folk use to warn their children to behave. Remain quiet, or the Child-Taker shall come and claim you. Bad children who strike their mothers wake Father Frost, and he’ll come for that wicked boy or girl when next the frost comes. As children grow up, they stop believing and eventually use those same stories with their own young.

But some among the free folk tell other stories. Stories of fires that die down in the night, and parents waking, freezing cold, to find their huts or tents open to the frigid weather. Where their child was sleeping remains only a pile of snow and ice, which rapidly melts with the coming of the dawn. Sometimes, the child’s prints can be seen in the snow within the home.

Outside, despite the freshly fallen snow, there are no footprints.

Sometimes it is only one child that is missing. Other times, a whole settlement’s little ones are gone, and mothers can only wail their anguish to the winter skies. No matter their grief, these mothers pray to never again see their children, for the stories are very clear what happens to those that come back. They are always pale, and their eyes gleam like hungry stars. And when the children return home, the free folk die.

To this day, when the Child-Taker steals away children, many of those settlements flee the very next day. Tribes dissolve, their people going a hundred separate ways, hoping to find shelter with other tribes, hoping to hide from the children they have lost.

Abilities

Agility 7 (Acrobatics 2B, Balance 2B, Dodge 3B, Quickness 3B)
Athletics 4
Awareness 4
Cunning 5
Endurance 4
Fighting 7 (Long Blades 3B)
Stealth 5 (Sneak 2B)

Attributes & Gear

Combat Defense: 15 • Intrigue Defense 11
Health 12 • Composure 6
Unnatural Armor: AR 8, AP –0, Bulk 0; Others gain +1D on Stealth tests made in ice or snow or +2D at night in these areas.
Unnatural Sword 7D+3B; 4 damage; Piercing 4, Shattering 1, Vicious
Aura of Chill Others emit an aura of cold capable of panicking living creatures. All living creatures that start their turns within 10 yards of an Other must succeed on a Challenging (12) Will test or take –1D on all tests. Those who roll a Critical failure must flee each round until they succeed on another Will save. Animals that fail their tests become panicked and flee.
Father of Mists The Child-taker is always surrounded by a strange, suffocating fog. This miasma inflicts a –1D on all Fighting rolls to strike him, and a –2D to all Marksmanship rolls. It also smothers most fires of bonfire size or less within a span of 1d6 turns of the fog enveloping the flame. New fires cannot be lit within the Child-taker’s mists.
Cold-Born Others can exist comfortably in climates of extreme cold.
Sense Life An Other can pinpoint the location of any living creature within 10 yards as a Free Action.
Snow Stride Others ignore treacherous terrain resulting from ice and snow.
Spawn Wight Humans and animals slain by Others rise as wights upon the setting of the sun. Humans slain at night rise 1d6 rounds later.
Sunbane Others cannot abide the presence of the sun and take –1D to all tests when in it is light.
Vulnerability to Dragonglass Weapons carved from dragonglass ignore the Others’ AR and deal Athletics+6 damage.