ALTERNATIVE FASTPLAY MANUAL FOR DUNE (d10) RPG

(Version: 1.0)
 INTRODUCTION

Well, this is not my first RPG module modified for a well-known concept, or for my own creations. But certainly the most important one. And it is called “Dune: Legacy of
Landsraad”.

My part was the easiest for all, during the creation of the module (at least this very fist edition, I really do not know what additions will be on for the future times.). To choose a
well-known novel for setting up the concept and to choose a mathematical dice system for playing the campaigns. I did both, and I think I chose the best ones of two different stages.
Story Telling System (of White wolf Productions for sure) and Dune: Chronicles of The Imperium (a RPG setting of Last Unicorn Games).

If you ask “Why these?”, the answer would be simple…

The Story Telling System is easy to learn and to operate. It leaves more area for a Game Master to think about the storyline or players to “feel inside the campaign” than other
types of dice-systems with loads of tables, rules etc. Because Dune RPG surely needs relaxed brains during a game session.

And the issue about Dune ... Well, it is more than a fantasy Sci-Fi novel. To read and understand it requires a strong sense of sociology, genetics and population, history, science
and industry, politics, warfare, heritages, religion and economics. In other words, “all the serious intellectual data of the world”. I don’t think that a routine and ordinary D&D player
would/could find something similar in Dune Campaigns. Since, Dune is more than a child’s story, then Dune: RPG is more than a child’s game. It is surely for mature players not for
that it has naughty content, but it has a sensitive and intellectually strong style of role-playing.

I had dreamt of converting “Dune: Chronicles of The Imperium” into “a ST system campaign setting” very long time ago. Yet, I am too far away from releasing a complete and
perfect version of the game. Since the Last Unicorn edition of the game only overviews the most important parts of the universe in the novels, and the novels would be used as
sourcebooks, I did not write about the content. But I reissued the maths and dynamics of the game, edited the stats & skills and created a special character sheet.

So, what is the game like?

Think about a sea of sand, where you’re lost in and trying to survive, located in a forgotten planet of a huge galaxy. Something happens important far beyond your reach, which
will reshape all the entire tidings of the universe. The plots, wars, alliances and secret treaties overrun the existence of mankind. But a hole appears in the perfect face of the web of
events. Someone, who can claim the throne, is missing; a member of the royal bloodline is away with the key to rule the galaxy.

In this picture, you can be the one, whom the entire entire universe is looking for. You can be the noble member of a secret alliance that consists of searchers for the bounty. You
can be a freelancer, an exile, a scientist or a whore at a dirty pub only open for a certain folk. You can be anything, any part of the plot, the order through the chaos.

As the game expands and improves, you’ll encounter the events, places and people, the excellent creations of Frank Herbert, discover the basics of the universe and plots which are
very similar to our ones. Do not forget, this game is all about your reflexion of your own philosophy and ideology. The rules and dices hold less space, while the feeling of living in
Landsraad has a lot more…

And what is the system like?

It’s just an addition of some rules and supernatural abilities on a combination of ARETE (from MtA) and Blood pool (from VtM) systems of WoD concepts. In “Dune RPG:
Legacy of Landsraad”, there’s a spice-melange pool just like the Blood pool, and an Addiction bar used as ARETE. There are some “mantras”, working same as the spheres and
disciplines. When you use a mantra, you have to roll Addiction check and calculate the required amount of melange from the mantra’s statistics.

In addition to all these, there are factions, which will give the player some advantages and disadvantages, alliance packs, profession bonuses or penalties and boosting or
preventing other background traits.

So, shall we continue with the details about in-game rules?

GAME RULES AND CALCULATIONS

It’s really easy to understand the rules if you’ve played Mage the Ascension or Vampire the Masquerade before. The game mechanics are nearly the same and processing
supernatural effects which caused by the spice-melange usage are familiar with MtA spheres.

MANTRAS: These are the source of your character’s super-human potential. Mantras have two aspects during the process. First, you have to keep in mind that, mantras do
not become available with the birth of your character. They have to be learned through training and it takes time, just like any other profession or skill in the universe. And the second
rule is that a mantra always works by the spice melange. This means that, the more spice addict you become, the better your body absorbs and processes with melange so your
addiction rolls are added to your mantra rolls. I will explain addiction in an expanded view later.

There are three classes of mantras. Mental, Physical and the last third one, unique to a faction, Face dancing. Under the title, mental mantras, we have four of them. Concentration,
Trance, Heightened Senses and Vocalise. The Second main group holds two mantras; Active Body Manipulation and Passive Body Manipulation. The third one, face dancing has no
subgroups. Except Passive Body Manipulation and Face dancing, all these mantras’ effects are temporary (five minutes per success).

If a character uses the proper mantra against an event, the difficulty and amount of success will define “how he/she will handle the situation”. The character may ease the task,
instantly solves it or at least may learn some clue in accordance to solve it. When activated, mantras erase the same amount of failures with the activated mantra’s dots from the dice
pool and replaces them with higher values that comes from the mantra activation check results. In some exceptional situations, mantras add auto-successes (number 10 from dice) to
the dice pool. This can be done in three ways ; sacrificing some experience points (5 experience points per success), by a dramatic role-play or creating a perfect solution to the task,
and the last one: because of the very low difficulty to solve the task.

When activated, some mantras will define the result in spite of normal rolls. For example after a Perception + Alertness failure, player may prefer to activate Heightened Senses
and roll Mantra Dots + Addiction. This is another way for solving tasks or beating situations. When you activate a mantra, you spend equal amount of spice-melange twice that
mantra’s activated dots.

Some of these mantras can be combined in accordance to have extra effects. The combinations of mantras means that, more than one mantras activated at the same time and sum of
their effects create new ones. For example; ●●●●Concentration + ●●●●Heightened Senses = Perfect and Detailed Clairvoyance/Clairaudience or ●●●●Concentration + ●●●●Trance
= Perfect and Detailed Foreseeing the future.

Each mantra can only have max. five dots except face dancing. Face dancing has only one dot –you’d be able to do it or not, there is no level of success at face dancing-. In
addition to this, face dancing is the only mantra that has penalties to its user while it is active. The dots at the mantras section are added to the addiction dots. The sum of these two
sections will define your dice pool at using a mantra. If the result of the roll has equal or more amount of successes with the amount of the dots of mantra used, the mantra will work
properly. Difficulty number for a dice-roll is at GM’s option.

Important notice: What you read here about mantras are not all they offer you. You can create your own effects by using them. What I wrote hereby are only references about the
borders of mantras’ capacities to help you make up your mind and decide on what you’ll choose to execute during your role-play.

MENTAL MANTRAS: These are the group called the Prana Nervature or Mind Conditioning through Landsraad. All of them work for mental tasks, calculation,
foreseeing, sensing, and reaching secret and hideous information. Some of them are common among other factions like mentats or House Moritani. Through using the spice-melange
as a drug, Bene Gesserit sisterhood explored a way to commune with inner-self. This was the first step of increasing mind capacity and qualities of mental properties. Prana Nervature
gave the opportunity to awake the genetic memory of sisterhood’s ancestors. This way, they tripped into the secrets of past and built their mystical teachings fed by the experience of
former generations.
 Concentration: Concentration is the main mantra that opens the way for other mental mantras and this mantra defines “how deep you can think in a certain time”. When
you use it, a strong curtain appears between the outside world and your mind. It would be harder to effect or disturb you during the mind using process. When this mantra is active, it
will be easier to reach your memories or to review your knowledge.

Keyword definition: Supreme Mental Stability

● You can ignore the natural sounds of your environment. Like a wall clock tackling in the night, the birds piercing through your morning dreams, upper neighbour singing in a
Sunday morning, a person chattering nearby, memorize the last week nearly perfect.
●● You can ignore two or more people arguing near you. You don’t feel any touch, or little piercing needles. You don’t hear small size machinery voices like some kitchen
stuff or a hair dryer, memorize last five or seven weeks nearly perfect.
●●● You can ignore sounds of vehicles while walking in a street, somebody yelling at you and pulling/pushing you very hard, breaking glasses, high volume bells, sudden
moves that may easily scare someone, some of natural events, memorize last six-twelve months nearly perfect.
●●●● You can ignore a battle going on, exploding bombs or lightning strikes. Memorize last three-ten years nearly perfect.
●●●●● You can absolutely and totally ignore the remaining parts of the universe. You do not hear, see, even do not realize time. This is the ultimate quiet and peaceful state of
mind, which helps the character nearly remember everything since he/she was born.

Trance: This mantra defines how extensive your character can think and calculate, analyse, speculate. Your character cannot have this mantra without one dot of
“concentration”. When this mantra is active, you can calculate possibilities, guess your foe’s next step, and reach your genetic memory that comes from your ancestors (this last
ability is for only Bene Gesserits so may be understood as for only female characters).

Keyword definition: Supreme Mental Capacity

● You can speculate a nearly perfect defensive move against an opponent, calculate and choose three possibilities through many, reach the memories of your mother in a
Bene-gesserit way.
●● You can speculate a nearly perfect counterattack move against an opponent, calculate and choose the best possibility, reach the memories of your grandmother’s mother.
●●● You can sense/speculate defensive and offensive moves against multi-foes, calculate mass strategies for battles or politics, foresee near future approximately, reach the
memories of former ages’ generations.
●●●● You can easily calculate anything that seems complex, manipulate or analyse your instincts, any definition, concept or information in your mind becomes certain and bright
patterns of sound, colour, shapes and feelings. When you activate this level of trance, your inner sanctum seems like a material place and you can journey through the minds and
instincts of anyone who shares the similar bloodline and genetic combinations with you. You can calculate hyper jumps, create physical equations for wormholes and other
hyperspace laws, and foresee far future approximately.
●●●●● This level of trance can be described only by these words : “Your mind will be free of everything, converting itself into an individual being separated from your body and
it can turn into a collective, supreme over mind which doesn’t need to be fed by a single body, but by everyone who has access into itself by using the genetic memory. In this state of
mind, the activator of this mantra is freed from time concept and see the future just as a moving brick part of a board game. This mantra is unique by being a level of the “ultimate
transcendental” corridor.

Heightened Senses: This mantra contains the ability of manipulating five biological senses. The range, finesse and selectivity of the senses can be boosted by activating
this mantra. Using Heightened Senses requires at least one dot of Concentration. The Hyperspace navigational abilities can only be used by Guild Navigators.

Keyword definition: Omni perception

● You can blind fight, guess the approximate place of someone behind a door/wall, if any creature is near you, you can hear their heartbeats, see easier in darkness.
●● You can sense behind walls/doors/floors and calculate coordinates and numbers of living creatures or vectoral objects (movement/sound/vibration sources). If the living target
is near, you can sense his/her health condition. You can smell the air or listen to the sounds in the winds to navigate your way, hear a sandworm when it approaches, smell water
around yourself, see traps when you get close (enough to roll a reflex save).
●●● You can sense motives of nearby creatures/humans, smell for a distant prey, hear through many noise, see through sandstorms, perfectly see at night. You can find the
sniper by the sound of the rifle or the axis of the lens. You can hear medium distant sandworms approaching, smell waters of medium distance. You can notice traps from a moderate
distance. You can sense/guess approximate coordination of planets or solar stars. Starting from this level of Heightened Senses, character can also establish a poison and define its
properties with a changing difficulty.
●●●● You can understand a man’s mood by reading the body reactions. You can know their illnesses, what they’re exactly carrying beneath their clothes. You can smell water
from miles away or smell underground wells nearby, hear a sandworm’s coming from miles away and guess it’s size, hear sandstorms long before they arrive, locate a thumper from
miles and miles away. You can sense wormholes, sense exact coordinate of planets and solar systems.
●●●●● This is the hyper perception state of your senses. Both physically and instinctively. When this level of Heightened Senses is active, the character seems fainted. In fact, it
is a meditation of uber-conscienceness. The perception of the material dimension melts away and leaves it’s place to a vision of a labyrinth containing spots with different size and
colours. Each spot represents the final destination of the mantra user and when he/she chooses destination, the pathway appears through the labyrinth. This state of mind and heavily
finessed senses even may cause the mantra user to see through walls, to see auras of living things including sign of illnesses or feelings.

Vocalise: This mantra can be explained easily. Mind Possessing. Through using the sound waves encoded in an instinctual and irresistible way, it turns a person’s language
and tongue into a deathly weapon, or a backdoor to escape. Vocalise can only be used by a Bene Gesserit character (and it is their most characteristic method) so, at the same time, the
character must be female. When activated against someone, vocalise mantra gives the foe the opportunity to resist even with a small chance. It is calculated by a simple equation. To
charm someone, the number of mantra success must be greater than the amount of target’s self control dots. Difficulty is equal to the amount of sum of target’s intelligence and
conscience dots.
Keyword definition: Hypnotise
System: When you roll Addiction + Vocalise against a player character or an NPC, your difficulty is the sum of his/her (perception + intelligence + self-control + conscience) ÷ 2.
And the numbers of successes are defined by the sum of self-control & conscience.

The properties of this mantra will be explained by an example (that will be the easiest way).
Our Bene Gesserit character is trapped in a cell with a guard (or guards) who has the keys to the door. She tries to convince him to release herself. All the dialogue possibilities will
differ based on the level of vocalise mantra.

● -BG: I think you better set me free, you don’t know whom you’ve captured mistakenly. Time will prove that you’re wrong. If you release me you’ll get promoted that
you’ve been the first to restore this false verdict.
-Guard: Why shall I do such a thing? Orders are orders and I am not wrong, if there is somebody wrong, it is who told me to keep you here. So probably I will not be
punished, unlike my superior who told me to lock you down here.
-BG: Perhaps you can lead me to one of your superiors who ordered you to keep me here, or call some of them here to talk about this situation. They will understand what I
mean. But they will also blame you for this, because I told you what must be done and you opposed me. I am the truthsayer of one of the nobles in your house’s council. (Here she
vocalised her means)*Even your superiors would not blame and punish you, council members will. Because, when I get out of here, I will tell councillors about your abuse of your
position and your rude behaviour on me. You cause all the important negotiations to delay. If you do what I say, you can get through this without any punishment. In fact you can also
get promoted.*
-Guard: (After thinking deeply, in total silence for some time) then it can be a proper decision to set you free. But on condition that you tell them that this is my decision
and I disobey my superiors for the sake of importance of your mission.
-BG: Sure. So, lead the way out of the prison…
(The guard still believes in his own cause and he is loyal to orders, but for a short period, he agreed with the player after a time of examination of the situation. Even then, he did
what he did for the sake of his cause.)
●● -BG: I am going to faint, so sick of here, please let me out. I am a truthsayer of one of your councillors. To keep me here will do no good. You delay an important meeting
by keeping me in here, sick.
-Guard: I got no other choice, orders are orders and I would be punished if I let you go.
-BG: *Like I said, I am a member of the council and I can arrange something about you, just set me free, I will die here if you don’t and this would be no good.*
-Guard: Goddamn! Ok, I’ll let you out but do not tell them that I am concerned. If they get you, you’re on your own, alone…
(The guard still believes in his cause but not obeys the orders so he agreed with player. Since he is still afraid of results and punishments, he naturally cares only about himself.)
●●● -BG: *Let me out of here, I am not involved in any of all these nonsense. I must depart for a secret mission for this house’s council. You just delay a vital arrangement by
keeping me locked down here.*
-Some Guards: This is to disobey orders but we will set you free milady.
 (Guards preferred what player said rather than the orders. They abandoned their cause.)
●●●● -BG: *Unlock the cell doors and my handcuffs. Then keep escorting me to your house library pretending like you’re keeping me under arrest and having me moved to
somewhere designated earlier. Then you’ll lead me the way to the exit of this scum hole. Your fates will be decided there.*
-The leader of a pack of Guards: As you order…
(Guards will -even to do their bidding- is broken. Now they are under command of the player as long as she is present with them.)
●●●●● -BG: *Release me and go to the armoury. Get the best weapons, explosives and armours you can get. Then we will meet you at the great entrance hall. There, you will
attack the personal troops of your lordship. You have to fight without stop even all of you fall but a last man and try to bring an end to what goes on here. That should keep the
soldiers here busy, confusing their minds. I will be heading away for the remaining part of my quest.*
-Squadron Captain: Your will be done. (Turns behind to his comrades) To battle!
-Squadron Members: To battle!
(Guards left their former cause behind and chose to follow a new one. They will die for player’s will even she is not present with them, ordering what to do. This is a complete
instant brainwash.)

PHYSICAL MANTRAS: These are the mantra type called “Prana Bindu” or Body Conditioning. The art of manipulating a person’s body properties through a deep
understanding of circular human metabolism. Surely these mantras’ roots are fed from concentration or trance because, Prana Bindu is also a Bene Gesserit invention. The same rule
about spice melange is also involved here. Using the spice, opens a new path of consciousness; the ultimate awareness of body circulation, and the key to manipulate the mechanism
of it’s basic work line. From having the ability to use even the smallest muscle strap, to changing the self hereditary data, is possible by this discipline. A Prana Bindu user may
reorganize the muscles’ principle to be more agile, remove the biological effects of a certain feeling, prevent pain by disrupting the neurotransmitation, neutralize poison, prevent
water loss, expand lifespan and even hibernate. Note that, after certain levels of Prana Bindu, the user of this mantra can apply it to other people. By using stimulant points on human
body, they can make any one feel pleasure, pain. Using paralytic blows, a Prana Bindu user may even cause heart failure and kill someone in a hand to hand combat.

Active Body Manipulation: This is the method to benefit instantly from manipulating the body schedule. Interfering the muscles, blood circulation, heart period, and
neurotransmitation can be good examples about active body manipulation. The Sword master School of Ginaz and Bene Gesserit Sisterhood are known to teach how to use this
mantra. Some Fremen and Moritani (descendants of Bhotani Tradition) may have this ability, too. Note that, even this mantra cannot reduce or stop the effects of spice addiction
caused of melange deprivation or direct effects of melange use.

Keyword definition: Instant Constitutional Overstep

● You can over clock your heart so the movement gain a little amount of speed (but character becomes more exhausted afterwards), slow the moisture loss or blood flow
(this reduces the poison length), effect basic endocrinal secretion (this enables the ability of not feeling shock, panic, fear or excitement).
●● When activated, character can stop a small amount bleeding, prevent a small amount of poison diffusion, gains a moderate amount of speed and a little amount of
strength, reduce pain, aches and fainting, hold breath for a moderate time.
●●● When activated, character can cause moderate pain has a moderate chance to cripple a foe by a single blow or make the target feel pleasure or faint by a single touch, stop
bleeding, neutralize poison, reduce a certain amount of water loss and neurotransmitation, gains serious speed and moderate strength, ignore pain, aches, resist warmth or cold, hold
breath for a serious time.
●●●● With this mantra activated, a character gains the ability to instantly paralyse a foe, ignore warmth or cold. When activated, character gains incredible action speed (if not
changing place, while running, speed reduces a certain amount. This means that you cannot use this mantra as “celerity discipline” from VtM) and serious strength. He/she can reduce
poison length and delay poison effects in someone’s body by stimulating nerve system and gains the chance to instantly kill a foe by a heart failure. At this mantra level character is
immune to illnesses and soaks a little amount of piercing/crushing/slashing damage (max three levels) and resists against paralysation and certain amount of physical pressure.
●●●●● While active, this level of Active Body Manipulation grants the character the abilities of being immune to poison, paralyse, pain, aches, warmth, cold, physical pressure
(for a certain time) and permanently crippling blows, soaking a certain amount of piercing/crushing/slashing damage, gaining incredible speed (both for movement and non-replacing
actions) and incredible strength without exhaustion, killing multiple foes by single blows per foe. During a fight, character becomes unbeatable because of resisting against heart
failure triggering blows. This is the state of being “nearly invulnerable”.

Passive Body Manipulation: This is the method to benefit from body schedule over time. Faster healing, expanding the lifespan, changing the outlook (over a very long
time), enforcing the skeleton system, resisting or ignoring hunger and sleep, delaying the spice deprivation effects, hibernation, slow down aging, manipulate self hereditary data,
interfere blood type, define the gender of the child (if pregnant), gain height/weight (over time), gain permanent strength/agility/stamina (over a very long time). This mantra has only
one exception, still remaining out of this mantra’s borders; Melange Addiction can not be prevented or cured by activating Passive Body Manipulation.

Keyword definition: Permanent Body Interference

● Using this level gives the ability of resisting hunger and sleep (for an extra day) and faster healing rate during mantra’s activation time. In addition to these, character may
expand his/her lifespan, resist diseases, slow down aging and reorganize the energy flow of the body to a lesser degree.
●● At this level, character is capable of healing extra one point per two days and decreasing the energy flow of the body to it’s half. He/she can resist physical needs for an
extra half of a week, be immune to certain diseases and have a little chance to survive “the elixir - ab-ı hayat”.
●●● When activated, this level of Passive Body Manipulation allows the character to recover the burn injuries, hibernate for three months, minimize and ignore physical needs
in the same period of hibernation, interfere blood type, enforce the skeleton system over a long time, delay the spice deprivation effects (but they will return more severe), be immune
to all diseases, heal two extra points and erase effects of radiation in a day.
●●●● By the activation of the fourth level of this mantra, character can define the gender and phenotype of the stillborn, gain permanent stats (over long time and only physical
stats), heal three extra points a day, stop energy flow of the body minimizing all the physical needs nearly to none and hibernating this way for a desired time period between an hour
and a year, manipulate self heredity and outlook (over a long time). Character survives “ab-ı hayat” without any harm.
●●●●● At this level a character can ultimately stop aging, hibernate to wake up at an unknown date, synthesis “elixir”, absorb and analyze “elixir” decomposing it to water and
any other basic organic materials, completely heal in a day, expand lifespan to an unknown age, stop the energy flow, ignore physical needs completely. Character becomes
“immortal” to the view of most people.

Face dancing: Face dancing is known to be the most dangerous of all the superhuman potent properties. From the experiments of Bene Tleilax, a new race is born. They
can change shape, voice, even their minds to take place of someone on the edge. Although it seems to be a big merit, it brings its own borders with itself. The muscle system of a body
cannot be changed instantly at a high rate. While the mantra is active, the character has many penalties. Since the muscles are in an unusual new order and different places on the
skeleton, to move and fight becomes much harder. It takes serious time for the body to get use to this new shape and until then, every little move may be a source of big pain. Face
dancers can be trained as mentats, suk physicians, sword masters, assassins, strategists and many more. But they cannot learn more than one dot of any other mantra. Just this lack of
quality caused by the Bene Tleilax ways, is their only weakness.

Keyword definition: Biological Disguise Mastery

Face dancing: It requires 7 dots of melange to activate it. The length of the activation time’s calculation is based on the conditions in which this mantra was activated. For
the first two weeks in this shape, character takes -5 to all rolls. After two weeks, these number decreases by one, every week until there’s no penalty left. This means that the
character’s body circulation became completely compatible with this new body. But when he/she shape changes again, all process will be executed from the beginning again.
 SPICE-MELANGE ADDICTION AND its USE

“After the shocking Buttlerian Jihad, Landsraad yielded itself to a period of great regression and oppression. The stagnation of scientific progress caused by the destruction of all
the thinking machines was followed by isolation and desertion of planets and breaking off communication. Thus, mankind attempted to develop a new method to recover unity.
Basically, the path to unity, required transportation of information and goods, between planets and solar systems. And transportation required supreme mental capacity to calculate
laws and factors of hyper drivers. Before the Jihad, this was the job of computers. Their mental capacity and ability over calculation was far beyond human brain’s reach. But after the
Jihad, mankind came across a new key to the salvation. It was spice-melange drug, which boosts the brain processes, manipulates the boundaries of human perception and mental
speculation. A new social class was about to appear: mentats…
Soon all Landsraad realised the importance of men who can think as potent as a computer. They could calculate and generate any statistical data and generate results. The mental
potency was a tree of revolution. And the fruits were Suk Doctors, Bene Gesserit Methodology, Mentat School, and Guild Navigators. By the appearance of Guild Navigators who
changed the universal progress by recovering the communication and transportation, isolation was defeated…
Surely the source of all these changes replaced itself automatically in the centre. It was also melange. All the powerful factions across Landsraad, now waiting for their portion
from the melange stock, were slowly drawn to a new conclusion. The direct result of the conclusion was CHOAM (Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantile) a company to
supervise the share of melange between Great Houses and other factions.
In “Dune: Legacy of Landsraad” spice-melange is the source of all supreme potential abilities of your character. By absorption and combustion of melange through metabolism, a
character may perform lots of tasks from a large variety of difficulties. All mantras are activated by the use of spice. Spice-melange is the focus of everything in Landsraad. However,
it is rare and hard to assure. This is why all factions are trying to handle a good position at CHOAM.
Melange, produced on the planet Arrakis -known as Dune- was now everything. Being the source of melange, sandworms were also everything. It is why the sand folk -Fremens-
names them as Shai Hulud -Old Father Eternity, Grandfather of the Desert-…”

Rules and System

As it’s been mentioned before, your character’s ability on using and activating mantras are proportional on your character’s spice addiction. Of course, this situation affects the
role-play, causing both benefit and penalty. Addiction has deprivation effects. When you’re off spice, your body malfunctions. It simply lowers your character’s perception, wits,
stamina, strength and tasks needing dexterity, intelligence or manipulation become very difficult. Here, our main concern is to learn the system of addiction penalties and benefits.

What Is Addiction For?

Although it seems very useful and expanding the lifespan, melange is still a kind of drug. The level of addiction defines, the minimum amount of melange to be taken a day and
how good your character’s at using mantras. Number of dices same amount of addiction level are added to your mantra checks.

When Your Character Becomes Addict?

At the beginning (if the character’s not been addict already), when a character’s body absorbs and uses a total of 10 points of melange (you can check it from “melange pool”),
he/she gains 1 point of addiction.

How Does He/She Become More Addicts?

The table given below describes the calculation of increasing melange addiction.
Level of Spice-Melange Addiction Total Amount of Spice Required to Reach the Addiction Level
● Addiction (Becoming addict) 10 points of melange
●● Addiction 20 points of melange
●●● Addiction 30 points of melange
●●●● Addiction 40 points of melange
●●●●● Addiction 50 points of melange
●●●●●● Addiction 60 points of melange
●●●●●●● Addiction 70 points of melange
●●●●●●●● Addiction 80 points of melange
●●●●●●●●● Addiction 90 points of melange
●●●●●●●●●● Addiction 100 points of melange

How Do We Calculate The Deprivation Effects’ Duration?

The table given below describes the calculation of deprivation effects. During the melange deprivation character cannot use mantras.
Level of Melange Addiction Time of Pre and Post Deprivation Duration of The Crisis Effects of The Deprivation
● 5 Hours /15 Minutes 1 hour -1 to mental stats
●● 4 Hours / 1 Hours 2 hours -1 to mental & physical stats
●●● 3 Hours / 2 Hours 3 hours -1 to mental, physical, social
●●●● 2 Hours / 3 Hours 5 hours -2 to mental, physical, social
●●●●● 1 Hour / 5 Hours 8 hours -2 to stats and talents
●●●●●● 15 Minutes / 8 Hours 13 hours -2 to stats, talents, knowledge
●●●●●●● Instantly Faint / 13 Hours 21 hours -2 to all attributes and abilities
●●●●●●●● Instantly Faint / 21 Hours 34 hours -3 to all dices
●●●●●●●●● Instantly Faint / 34 Hours 55 hours -4 to all dices
●●●●●●●●●● Instant Trauma / 55 Hours 89 hours Trauma

What Are The Pre-Deprivation and The Post-Deprivation Periods?

Pre-deprivation period is the time that your character has left before the crisis begins. After your character runs out of spice-melange, he/she can go on without experiencing the
deprivation effects for a certain time. At this stage, no penalties are applied, just some levels of difficulty (depends on the Game master’s decision) can be added to your tasks.
Post-deprivation period is the time that takes to be perfectly recovered from crisis. However, the penalties of spice deprivation do not disappear instantly. They would slowly
decrease over time. Here I’ll give an example to explain how it works:

“Brian is a mentat whose crime of poisoning one of the Great House nobles has been noticed by the Supreme Court. He escaped to the desert to avoid his sentence. But
the desert times are hard times. He ran out of spice-melange that he needed to use his supreme abilities and now; he has to face the spice deprivation crisis. Since he has an
addiction score of 10, he suddenly falls and instantly faints. This situation lasts for 89 hours. After he awakes he still has 55 hours left to completely recover.”

The table below shows the relation between time and penalties.
Level of Addiction Time Left To Full Recovery Penalties Applied From Crisis Total Penalty
●●●●●●●●●● 55 Hours -4 to all dices -8/-4 (virtues)
●●●●●●●●● 34 Hours -3 to all dices -6/-3 (virtues)
●●●●●●●● 21 Hours -3 to all dices (except virtue checks) -6
●●●●●●● 13 Hours -3 to all dices (except virtue checks and skills) -6
●●●●●● 8 Hours -2 to all attributes and talents -4
●●●●● 5 Hours -2 to all attributes -2
●●●● 3 Hours -1 to all attributes -1
●●● 2 Hours -1 to mental & physical attributes -1
●● 1 Hour -1 to mental attributes -1
● 15 Minutes some difficulty at task attempts ---
 What Happens If My Character Assures Melange During The Pre/Post Deprivation or Deprivation Crisis?

If character is in pre-deprivation period, the deprivation effects end before they start.
If character is in deprivation crisis, he/she instantly faints and after the same amount of hours with the level of addiction, awakes. No penalties caused by deprivation are applied.
If character is in post-deprivation state, the time and penalties of post-deprivation is reduced by 1⁄3. Penalties are also reduced. You can calculate the penalties from the matching
time and penalties in the table above.

How Does My Character Recover From Addiction?

Like the deprivation effects getting rougher over time, the same rule goes for recovery from addiction. To recover one dot of addiction, your character needs twice times of time
the Deprivation Effects last. During this time, character should not use any amount of spice melange. After recovering from addiction, the number of dots required “to become addict”
and “to increase addiction” are reduced by half.

CHARACTER STEREOTYPES (Characters’ Historical Materials)

All of the role-playing games concern two main factors. The boundaries of character potentials and the way player act the role-play of these. On these two main columns,
everything including the roof of the game is build. From the relation between these two factors, a player defines his/her part in the storyline, how to react the resting part of the
universe, what would his/her main goal be and how to reflect the “inner self of the character” to other players and characters.

Beginning with the character concepts, now I’ll try to outline character stereotypes. Remember that all the subtitles given here are only samples. You can create your own
Background/Concept. Only the original properties of factions cannot be modified, deleted or created since they’re vital for The Dune Universe. But you still have the chance to
alterate the relationship between factions and concepts/backgrounds.

Sample Character Concepts

Avant Garde: You’re a book. A book, written about lots of different, rare, interesting and strange ideas. Since this is an uncommon situation, there would always be somebody
who cannot understand you. But you even don’t care to be read or not.

Expert: You’re a book. A book, written about what “they” do not know. You consist of the best and most right knowledge. You have the info so you have the key to solve the
concerning matter. If others want to proceed, they need to read you.

Fanatic: You’re a book. A book with all the words and sentences underlined. To solve the matter, they MUST read you and also make others read you. Because you’re about
“THE BOOK” and there’s no other book consisting of better information than you do.

Fledgling: You’re a book. But first, you have to be written. And it would be the best for you to reach the rightest and detailed information to be written about.

Freelancer: You’re sometimes a book and sometimes a notebook. May even be a diary or a newspaper, too. That depends on how you feel for the rest of the day. You can also let
someone to read you or not if that fits for you.

Hedonist: You’re a book. A book with pages made of the best quality paper, the most beautiful and well-detailed cover illustration decorated with heavenly frame patterns. You’re
about –hey, did I mention the best quality paper?

Idealist: You’re a book. What you consist of is what you MUST consist of. You have every important detail explained in a perfect manner but mostly nobody cares about you.
Sometimes this situation makes your style really sharp but isn’t everything about non-compensative?

Judge: You’re a book. A book about “How to read books”. So this seems like a paradox (since “If somebody didn’t know how to read books, how the hell they would be able to
read you?” or “Because they could read you, it meant that they did not need you”). Just like the concept “law”. Rules and laws are never made for who had been already obedient to
them. They are made for who wouldn’t obey them. Yet, their existence never keep the notorious well-behaved. If the loyal people do not need laws and notorious ones do not care
about laws, why the hell laws exist? TO PUNISH! So as a judge, all you do is to punish.

Leader: You’re a book. In fact, you’re “THE BOOK”. You define how to be a book, be a book, and let others try to be a book. When they succeed, you define again, make them
fail, be a book and let them see that you’re always “THE BOOK”.

Loner: You’re a book written about what is all your own concern. You cannot stand the disturbance of hands, turning your pages, trying to acquire what’s inside you. You are the
only book to be the only book.

Nihilist: You’re a book. Just a book. Like all other books, you consist of texts and texts consist of paragraphs. Paragraphs consist of sentences and sentences consist of words. Just
like the sentences consisting of words, words consist of letters which represent sounds and sounds represent something mostly stupid. Unlike all other books, you’re about this entire
struggle.

Rebel: You’re a book and you’re about “who the hell gave “THE BOOK” the right to be “THE BOOK”? ”

Servant: You’re just a copy of “THE BOOK”. What makes you yourself is how detailed and expensive you are…

Stranger: They talk about something called “book” and you’ve just realized that you look like it. But you have to make up your mind, first.

Trickster: You’re a book. In fact, you “perfectly look like” “THE BOOK”. You define how to be a book, be a book, and let others try to be a book. But when they succeed to see
that you’re not “THE BOOK”, you define again, make them fail, look like “THE BOOK” and make them think that you’re always “THE BOOK”.

Sample Character Backgrounds

Like the Story Telling system “Dune RPG: Legacy of Landsraad” has character backgrounds. And their function is simple. To shape the style of role-play and to present the
player different choices of finding solutions. However, choosing and applying character backgrounds are not that easy. First of all, a character history and starting background
package must be fitting. So, while creating a character’s history, player must already have ideas about the background package. If the character starts as a house noble, he/she’d better
have 2-3 dots allies, 2-3 dots retainers, 2 dots status, 2-3 dots resources to fit the character’s history. But surely, these will give him/her a certain advantage over the other players and
the game. So, to avoid imbalanced situations, GM may decide to give this character some flaws (many minor ones or a couple of serious ones).

Backgrounds are also gathered under four main titles. These are Contacts, Reputations, Resources and Vehicles.

Contacts: Contacts are the non-player characters whom your character can reach in a time of need or when seeking counsel. These characters can be nobles, spies, mentors,
mercenaries, scientists, specialists and even villains. All the backgrounds of contact types are levelled by the list given below. It’s because of the “Order of the Faufreluches” caste
system. The number of dots defines the position of your contact in the caste system.

The dots of these backgrounds may represent two things : number of multiple contacts from variable ranks or the rank of a single contact.
● Maulas, members of the slave class of Landsraad.
●● Pyons, members of the common serf citizen class.
●●● Bondsmen, the majority of the close servants of a house fold.
●●●● Na-Familia, Great House members of high status or Minor House nobles.
●●●●● Regis-Familia, the highest caste class of Order of the Faufreluches, including the Padishah and many Emperors whose bloodlines are related with The Battle of Corrin.
 (Like above at the sample character concepts section, I’ll use the concept of “books” here to explain for the two following background titles.)

Allies: These are the books including lots of information that stands parallel to your contents.

Follower: These are the books written by authors who were impressed by the writing style and knowledge of your author. So these books are what made to be from the same genre
and topic with you. They have loads of quotations referring to you. For their aspect, you’re the best candidate to be “THE BOOK”.

Henchmen: These are thin booklets. When they came across you, they discovered that their contents were similar to yours. In addition to this, they were rarely read, so they are
now attached inside your hard cover to be extra chapters of you. At least, they will be considered as parts of a book, not cheap brochures to be ruffled and thrown away, so their
chance to be read is better. They consider that there’s a possibility that you’re “THE BOOK”.

Herd: These are empty pages which were allotted for you to copy your content into them or do whatever you see fit for them. You’re perhaps “THE BOOK” to them.

Mentor: This is the book which your content is based on and your information stands parallel to. It was a great supply of information, when you were nothing but empty pages. He
is “THE BOOK” to you.

Patron: This is the book which has some copyright and compilation issues with you. So you always have to address it and refer to it even your content is not parallel with it
because you simply exist for the cause of its content. For some strange reason he seems like “THE BOOK” to you.

Reputations: Reputations are about how well-known your character is in his/her society. These determine the difficulty of disguising and social tasks, the loyalty and number of
your allies or followers. Your reputation can be whether good or bad. Your position and peoples’ reaction depends on the lifestyle of the society your character’s in. All the
backgrounds of reputation types are levelled by the list given below.

The dots of these backgrounds may represent one thing; how many people know you and how well they now you.
● There are five to ten people, who usually sees you around and know a little about you.
●● A pack of people whom you know not, knows about your deeds.
●●● Local Management knows you. Even outlanders hear about you when they approach a few hundred miles around your town.
●●●● The Government or King knows about your deeds. %99 of people you encounter can describe you.
●●●●● Even the people from outer galaxy may have learned about you and merely describe you.

Fame: You’re a commonly referred book in this section of the library. Other books have some links to you.

Influence: Your content has been a point of inspiration for other books of different contents than yours. They’re mostly from other sections of the library. Some of
them are even in other libraries.

Legacy: Your author was the writer of some best sellers. This means that you may have been a best seller which attracts others to you.

Notoriety: You’re the forbidden book, to be collected and burned on sight.

Outcast: You’re left to rot, in a forgotten shelf of the bookcase at the darkest corner of the library. You were written in a language which they cannot understand or
your content was no business of them. So you’re here.

Status: You’re the Nobel and Pulitzer Literature Awarded masterpiece. Or at least someone hopes you to be. So they treat you like you deserved it or already have
it.

Title: You’re the last volume of mostly desired book series. You have little meaning while you’re alone but the existence of former volumes makes you worthy.
They hope you to complete the missing parts of the line.

Resources: This background type determines the amount and the quality of all the material which your character needs to earn a living or fulfil his/her cause. The
levels of these backgrounds define the number and the quality of any kind of supplement (except companions and transportation vehicles) which you character can
reach at any time. The higher level of background means the richer character.
● You have just a little more than to endure yourself.
●● You can support one extra person by goods, a place to stay, cash or weaponry.
●●● You can support a pack of henchmen or some allies. What you provide will be of the a little higher than medium quality. You can reach some rare
material or any supply that is barely reachable.
●●●● You can reach anything you like for personal purposes an also feed and equip an army. The quality of your offerings depends on your style of leadership.
●●●●● You’re the closest rival of the emperor in the list of “the ten richest people of the universe” This is not only by cash but any kind of wealth you may
have.

Arsenal: This background simply defines the arms and armoury at your character’s reach. The level of arsenal determines how many and how qualified
equipment are available. One dot means a pack of simple rifles, pistols and grenades while five dots mean turrets and nuclear warfare components.

Estate: This background is the haven of your character. It varies from a simple hut to a large stronghold by increasing and decreasing levels. The important issue
about estate is that your haven is a known and visible place. It may be found by others and seen on surface scanning devices or maps.

Hideout: This background is same with estate except two conditions, it cannot be huge as an estate and it is a secret place. The level of this background varies
the secrecy and capacity options.

Library: Library is a source and a network of loads of information. What varies by level is the information potential of it. The more level it has, the more
private, forbidden and forgotten information your character can reach.

Melange Supply: Your character has a periodic incoming stock of melange. The amount of melange is not enough to trade, but it is quite suitable for him/her to
use. The source of melange can be either legal or illegal. Your choice will define you role-play about it.

Relic: Your character has an important item or a couple of items which showed up in the legendary historical events or possessed an importance to a large group
of people. It varies from a simple blade to an ancient religious statue.

Wealth: This background defines your character’s weekly income. It does not include other mercantile goods, weapons, herds, estates and melange.

Vehicles: “What kinds of transportation devices are available to your character” is the content of this background. And also, it determines how fast and loaded
your character can travel in a unit time. The fastest travel speed is hyper jump and the highest load is 100000 people with full equipment. Note that this background has
no subgroups. (If you like, you may check the original “Dune RPG Chronicles of the Imperium” pages: 243-253,236-238)

● A simple four people capacity personal carrier suitable for short distance transportation.
●● A simple ten people capacity (medium private load) flying or ground carrier suitable for short distance traders and cargos.
●●● A space traveller which has a capacity of 100 people with full equipment and heavy load of trade goods.
●●●● A hyper driver which can transport factories, armies and huge amounts of mercantile goods.
●●●●● The biggest Spacing Guild Heighliner. It can approximately carry half of a small planet’s dwellers and its mining and agricultural resources.
 Factions and Factional Backgrounds

Dune Universe has its own factions (you can check them from “Dune RPG: Chronicles of the Imperium” pages: 17-22.) I will not add their properties
here for this first edition, but I’ll give character profiles.

Great Houses:
Name Of The Faction Attribute Bonuses Ability Bonuses Other Bonuses
Great House Atreides Any Physical+1 Dodge+1, Melee+1, Law+1, Courage+1
Expression+1, Performance+1
Great House Corrino Any Social+1 Leadership+1, Etiquette+1, Title +1
Politics+1, Intimidation+1,
Firearms+1
Great House Harkonnen Any Social+1 Subterfuge+1, Politics+1, Finance+1 5 pts. of Melange per week
Great House Moritani Any Mental+1 Alertness+1, Streetwise+1, Two extra languages
Subterfuge+1, Stealth+1,
Linguistics+1
Great House Tseida Any Mental+1 Law+1, Politics+1, Finance+1, Any allies +1
Great House Wallach Any Physical+1 Firearms+1, Crafts+1,Navigation+1, Vehicle level
Brawl +1
Great Schools:
Name Of The Faction Attribute Bonuses Ability Bonuses Other Bonuses
Bene Gesserit Any Mental+1 Intimidation+1, Emphaty+1 Any contact+1,
Linguistics+1, Lore+1,
Mysticism+1,
Mentat School Any Mental+1 Lore+2, Finance+1, Politics+1 Library+2
Suk Physician School Any Mental+1 Healing+1, Lore+1, Investigation+1 Self control+1
Sword Master Academy Any Physical+2 Dodge+1, Athletics+1, Meele+1, Arsenal+1
Brawl+1, Survival+1

Other Factions:
Name Of The Faction Attribute Bonuses Ability Bonuses Other Bonuses
Bene Tleiax Any mental+1 Science+1, Healing+1, Lore+1, Library+1, Vehicle+1
Politics+1
CHOAM Any Social+1 Etiquette+1, Finance+1, Melange Supply+1
Politics+2
Spacing Guild Any Mental+1 Lore+1, Science+1, Melange Supply+1, Vehicle +2
Navigation+3
Fremens Any Attribute+1 Meele+1, Stealth+1, Courage+1
Navigation+1, Survival+2

Assigning Points and the Character Sheet

The character sheet of Dune RPG: Legacy of Landsraad is similar to the other White Wolf game sheets. From left to right attribute columns
are called: physical, social, mental. And from left to right, ability columns are called: talents, skills, knowledge’s. Unlike other ST games, Dune
RPG has no freebie to assign to your character. It is considered that, freebie points will make the game too easy, so I just dismissed that part.
That’s all. And also, unlike other White Wolf games, Dune RPG has no willpower section on the character sheet. This is also another part of the
game which makes the official White Wolf campaigns easy. No free successes falling from sky! The points to assign at the start of the game are
given below. Attributes: physical 1, social 1, and mental 1. Abilities: talents 4, skills 4, knowledge 4. Mantras: 4, addiction: 1 (at the start of the
game), virtues: 5. To level these up, you have to spent experience points which have amount of five times the current rating of desired ability,
attribute, mantra etc (addiction is an exception, it increases by in game actions) . The amount of melange in your character’s melange pool is
defined by rolling a ten sided dice. The result is your number. Afterwards, you will add the bonuses which comes from Factional Backgrounds.
Choose one faction for your character to belong, then add the corresponding bonuses to your character sheet. So the character creation phase is
done.