Despite being outnumbered, Chrono Bolt team are holding their own against the pirates when a massive creature – designed sea monster by Keros – bursts from the water and rends a hole in their vessel. The pirates begin to retreat at the sight of the fearsome beast.
The group continues to battles the scurvy pirates with some shocking results.
The team continues to battle the pirates intent on stealing Schala’s amulet. Meanwhile a mystery form swells beneath the waters nearby.
The Chrono Bolt team heroically open fire first at the pirates!
The Chrono Bolt team salvages a ship and makes their way deeper into El Nido but then finds themselves under attack by a larger vessel!
It became very clear during the first chapter of Chrono Bolt that I named certain mechanics poorly. I was trying to follow the naming conventions in Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross, but the level of adherence was a mistake.
The mechanics in video games are one step removed so some confusing terminology isn’t a big problem. In a roleplaying system confusion over [Physical damage type] vs [physical damage] or [Attack action] vs [attack] starts to cause some real issues. As a Game Master, I really want players to be confident in their understanding of the system and able to clearly understand what they can do.
This is why Pathfinder Second Edition did away with Attack as a name for a mechanic. It gets confusing. I tried to stay a bit too true to the Chrono naming conventions and that was a mistake, so I’m changing the following.
I’m attaching the first thread of the Chrono Bolt campaign in PDF format.
It’s being run over at Shining Force Central for anyone interested in following it in progress.
I promised my players in Chrono Bolt that there would be two major twists from Chrono series canon. The first was just revealed.
That girl merged with the Time Devourer? It’s not Schala.
“Janus. Lucca. Many people came to believe that this girl was you – Schala. That you had merged with Lavos and become this entity that would destroy existence. This girl is probably who encouraged Janus to erase his memory. She would have wanted distance from anyone who knew her.” Gaspar explains slowly, sitting the tea biscuits down on the table forgotten, “Belthasar used FATE to keep Melchior and I from getting involved.”
“That ignores the most obvious explanation of the girl’s identity. There was another Zeal royal who had in fact merged with Lavos before its defeat and who was cast with it into the Darkness beyond Time.” Gaspar continues, “I’m also old enough to recall that your mother’s natural hair color was blond before she dyed it blue to match your father’s.”
“Belthasar shunted Chronopolis from 2,400AD to 12,000BC. Melchior and I believe that his goal was to rescue Queen Zeal from within the Time Devourer and save Zeal from it’s demise. Why else would he select those time coordinates?” The old man continues, “There’s much, much more. Belthasar’s plan is very complex but you should know that core to it is a young woman named Kid and a young man named Serge. Kid is a time clone of the girl in the Time Devourer and Serge…a time clone of your father, the late King Zeal.”
Gaspar, Chrono Bolt Chapter 2: Since BELTHASAR crashed time!
Even though this is a twist from canon I think that it could actually work as canon. It doesn’t actually make a lot of sense that Schala was merged with Lavos and Queen Zeal does just disappear after battle – perhaps being thrown to the Darkness Beyond Time? Chrono Cross also never really explains why Serge as a baby is so important to Schala that, despite being merged with Lavos, she helps him reach Chronopolis from across space and time.
This departure from canon certainly puts a new spin on the Chrono Cross ending where Kid plots to conquer the world!
The Chrono Bolt group continue to battle the Temporal Predator. The arachnid advances to get a bite of Kair but fails. Then it unleashes another barrage of elemental attacks from across time.
The Chrono Bolt attempt to turn the tables and go from prey to hunters. They unleash a significant assault on the temporal predator who responds by rewinding some of it’s injuries and unleashes a magical attack that unleashes damage from across time on the group.
