u/Substantial-View3362

Life doesn't make sense sometimes.

One day, you could be waking up in your studio apartment, wondering when your next check was going to clear.

The next, you found yourself in some bizarre metaphysical realm where gravity was optional, preparing to venture inside the concept of Time because an entity from beyond Creation was attempting to erase Sunday. And sometime last week? You became the Power of Fireworks.

You don't just control fireworks. That's far too simple.

You are the Noble of Fireworks**.** Fireworks explode because you say they explode. Fireworks illuminate the darkness because that is what Fireworks are. Fireworks inspire joy. They proclaim celebration. They turn danger into excitement. And with sufficient understanding of your Estate, those truths can become weapons capable of changing the world.

You're currently employed, if that's even the right word, by a being older than civilizations and considerably more complicated than sanity.

Your new Familia consists of the Powers of Street Signs, Magma, Books, and Fireworks. Together, you have been entrusted with pieces of Creation itself. Unfortunately, your boss is currently fighting a war beyond reality. Which leaves the four of you responsible for making sure nothing happens to your Estates while they're gone.

And something has started happening to Sunday**.**

So buckle up, Noble; it's about to get weird.

...

Nobilis is definitely one of the WEIRDER TTRPGs out there.

You play as a Noble, a human who was bestowed power by an Imperator, a being grander and more powerful than any god, to harness one of the Estates that Imperator holds within itself while it goes off to fight an ancient war that no human could even comprehend.

Your job as a Noble is to keep reality from being eaten away by Excrucians, beings from beyond Creation that are capable of attacking concepts and fundamentally changing reality, with the ultimate intent of erasing it.

And when I say they can attack concepts, I mean that pretty literally.

Say you're the Noble of Fireworks. An Excrucian doesn't have to come over and smash all the fireworks. Maybe suddenly fireworks stop exploding. Maybe people look at fireworks and don't feel any joy Maybe a firework goes off in the sky and produces absolutely no light. It's still a Firework. Everyone KNOWS it's a Firework. But it doesn't do any of the things that make Fireworks what they are. And reality starts accepting that.

That's your fucking problem now.

You're something far greater than any normal human. You're a Noble, and you have been given authority over an Estate of Creation.

But what the hell does that actually mean?

Well, what does it mean to be the Noble of Street Signs?

That's up to YOU to decide.

Do you believe Street Signs impose laws? Do you believe them to be firm understandings about the world that have to be obeyed? Maybe you summon a STOP sign and suddenly that alien monstrosity charging toward you comes dead in its tracks. Maybe a ONE WAY sign forces it to move in a single direction and sends it straight into a concrete wall. Maybe a DO NOT ENTER sign makes it suddenly VERY difficult for something to enter a place.

And then you start getting metaphysical about it.

What exactly does it mean to STOP? What counts as a direction? Can someone's life be going the WRONG WAY? Can you put a DEAD END sign at the end of someone's destiny?

THAT'S the kind of weird shit Nobilis lets you start playing around with.

And the other really strange thing about Nobilis?

The game doesn't use dice. At all.

If your character is capable of doing something, you just fucking do it.

If your Noble is supernaturally strong enough to punch through a brick wall, you don't roll a Strength check and pray you don't get a 2.

There are still rules. You have Attributes, resources, limitations, supernatural defenses, wounds, things you care about, and enemies that can absolutely tell your miracle to go fuck itself.

The game just isn't really asking "Did you roll high enough to do the cool thing?"

It's more interested in:

"Okay. You CAN do the cool thing. Should you? What are you willing to spend to do it? What's stopping you? And what the FUCK happens now that you've done it?"

You're not starting as some Level 1 adventurer who's hoping that one day they'll become powerful.

You start powerful. REALLY fucking powerful.

The fun is figuring out exactly what that power means, what you can do with it, and how completely insane your Estate can become once you start thinking outside the box.

Pick an Estate. Almost ANY Estate. Figure out what it means. And congratulations.

You're now something frighteningly close to a reality-warping GOD.

So I hope to see some creativity in the Estates chosen! Let's tell a big, intense story!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScamuS_a2YVlm6hH-C36YV9jQrTjvkTkcuGwemLOIdxMO4tIw/viewform