Shadow of the Eagles – Mechanical Outline
Stats:
-Health
-Spirits
These two stats represent the player character’s basic physical and mental health. They both top out at 5, which represents the peak of physical or mental health. These stats can be reduced by events on and off the battlefield, usually as a result of failed skill checks. They can also be gained as a result of random events, or conscious decisions made off the battlefield. At 0 Health, the player character must succeed a skill check or die. At 0 Spirits, the player character must succeed a skill check or desert. In either case, hitting 0 is a very bad thing and the player should try to avoid it at all costs.
-Rank
Rank determines not just the amount of pay the player character receives, but also the branches of the story they’ll be able to proceed down, and the battle events they’ll get. That means a Sous-Lieutenant will get random battle events centred around small-unit command, a Chef de Bataillon will get random battle events based on battalion command, and a Marshal of the Empire will not get random events at all – but bespoke events for each battle, to put the player character in the shoes that were historically filled by Lannes, Ney, Murat, or any other number of Napoleon’s Marshals.
-Branch
At the beginning of the game, the player will be able to choose whether to join the Infantry or the Cavalry. This will also determine the types of random events – as well as occasionally the branch of the story – which they’ll have access to, at least until they are appointed to the Marshalate, at which point they’ll begin commanding combined arms formations.
-Money
This one’s obvious. Player characters can gain money through their officer’s pay, from other incomes, random events, or by plunder on the battlefield (at least, if they win). It can also be lost in events, and spent at particular points to raise player skills.
-Glory
This represents how well-known the player character is within the society around them. They will be able to acquire Glory primarily through events on the battlefield, but can also gain it through random events. There are also ways to lose Glory, either through failed skill checks, or conscious decisions to gain some other stat in return (like Money or Reputation).
-Reputation
The player must keep track of two Reputation stats at all times. However these two stats will not remain the same throughout the course of the story. To represent the shifting and often dangerous political environment of the time period, the two Reputations currently in play will change repeatedly – as will the benefits and disadvantages of having high or low values in a certain Reputation. For example, accruing a high Jacobin Reputation in Act I might be very useful when they are in power (it will, for example, make it easier to secure promotion), but the player might also want to cultivate a high Reactionary Reputation – because at the end of Act I, the Thermidorian Reaction will suddenly make the Jacobins irrelevant, while elevating the Reactionaries to government as the Directory.
Of course, once Napoleon comes to power at the end of Act III, these shifts are no longer quite so rapid or dangerous. For all of his faults, Napoleon brought a much-sought stability to France, and I want to represent that as well.
-Attributes and Skills
A player character in Shadow of the Eagles will have three Attributes: Head, Heart, and Guts. Each of these three attributes has three skills associated with them.
Head has Discretion, Strategy, and Aim.
Heart has Valour, Leadership, and Charm.
Guts has Discipline, Fighting, and Endurance.
The player character’s starting Attributes are determined by the background they begin with. It can also be increased through certain events, albeit very slowly. In addition, a player character can get up to three levels of training in a specific Skill by paying increasingly expensive experts to give them instruction in a certain skill.
Camp Events:
In between battles, the player will be able to use their time wisely by recovering from wounds, standing for promotion, seeking out extra duties, or carousing. The latter two of these options will lead to random events which keep things interesting. These will sometimes offer minor moral and political dilemmas with associated and similarly minor rewards or penalties, as well as a bit of flavour to a player’s downtime.
Battle Events:
When the player character goes into battle, they are usually given a random event from a selection of random events determined by the player character’s rank, branch, and whether that battle was historically a victory or a defeat. This event will give the player a situation which will require them to make a decision that may win them glory or loot – or cost them dearly.
When the player character is promoted to General de Brigade, they will no longer receive random events. Instead, they will be given bespoke events for each battle, which puts them in the shoes of one of the commanders who was actually there on that day – and gives them a choice which that historical commander also had to face.
Skill Checks:
These will be the primary form of event resolution in Shadow of the Eagles, and these skill checks are fundamentally dice rolls. Mechanically, these rolls work as follows:
Every skill check is based on a certain skill.
The game rolls a D100, this is the basic dice roll.
To that result is added the value of the attribute associated with that skill, and any training bonuses which the player character has for that skill (each level of training adds +20).
That sum is compared to the target number, which is 100 for normal skill checks, 125 for hard skill checks, and 150 for heroic skill checks.
If the sum matches or is higher than the target number, the player character succeeds, if it doesn’t, they fail.
Shadow of the Eagles – Narrative Outline:
Prologue: Aux Armes, Citoyens!
The Battle of Marquain, 1792.
Character creation, select a background and a service branch. Meet the unfortunate General Theobald Dillon and witness his sticky end at the disastrous Battle of Marquain at the beginning of the War of the First Coalition.
Act I: L’Étendard Sanglant
The War of the First Coalition, 1792-1794.
Help save the nation at Valmy. Fight through the Netherlands Campaign. Survive the defeat at Neerwinden and General Dumouriez’s defection. Avoid the eye of the Committee of Public Safety, or get noticed as a kindred spirit by Louis Saint-Just, The young Archangel of the Terror. Help repress the Federalist Revolt in Toulon under the command of some obscure Corsican artillery officer named Nabuleone Buona Parte (or something like that), take Mont Cenis with General Dumas and the Army of the Alps. Stay friendly enough with the Jacobins to remain beneath suspicion – but not so friendly that you become collateral damage during the Thermidorian Reaction.
Interlude: 13. Vendemiaire
A Royalist army besieges the National Convention in Paris. As an infantry officer, hold the line under now-General Buonaparte – or seize for him the vital cannon on the Plain of Sablons alongside Chef d’Escadron Murat as a cavalry officer.
Act II: Le Son du Canon
The First Italian Campaign, 1796-1797
Join General Buonaparte and the Army of Italy as it fights and defeats multiple Austrian armies in succession. Lodi, Castiglione, Rivoli. Plunder Milan and Mantua. As an infantry officer, storm the bridge at Arcole. As a cavalry officer, follow General Dumas as he cements his reputation as the “Black Devil” and “Horatius of the Tyrol”. Witness the end of the War of the First Coalition at Campo Formio.
Act III: Partant Pour la Syrie
The Egyptian Campaign, 1798-1799
Follow the Army of the Orient under General Bonaparte. Fight the Mamluks at the Battle of the Pyramids, take Alexandria and repress the revolt in Cairo. Watch Nelson annihilate the French fleet at Aboukir Bay. Survive the disastrous Syrian campaign, and win enough favour to be evacuated with Napoleon, find another way home like Dumas, or be stranded in a foreign and hostile land with Kleber.
Interlude: 18. Brumaire
General Bonaparte returns to France, and co-opts the conspiracy of Emmanuel Sieyes to overthrow the Directory. Be the mailed fist behind Bonaparte’s words as he deposes the Council of Five Hundred at the Chateau de Saint-Cloud, and elevate him to First Consul of the Republic.
First Cutoff Point
If the player character meets (or rather fails) certain criteria, they are sent off with Leclerc’s expedition to Saint-Domingue. This is a game over and a definite bad end.
Act IV: La Victoire est à Nous
The Wars of the Third and Fourth Coalitions, 1805-1807
Europe unites against the newly-crowned Emperor Napoleon. Fight for the Emperor at the apex of his career: Ulm, Austerlitz, Jena-Auerstedt, Eylau, Friedland. Take part in the famous Peace of Tilsit. Smash the armies of Austria, Prussia, and Russia. Amass wealth, rank, and honours – and maybe save General Dumas from his untimely end.
The player character’s reputation with Napoleon and accumulated glory determine whether they are assigned to Spain (Act Va) or Russia (Act Vb).
Act Va: Over the Hills and Far Away
The Peninsular War: 1812-1814
Get sent to shore up the crumbling French occupation of Spain. Face down a hostile population, guerillas, uncooperative allies, and the allied armies of Wellington and Beresford. Survive Salamanca and Vittoria – and the fighting retreat across the Pyrenees to the final battle at Toulouse.
Act Vb: Священная война
The Russian Campaign and the War of the Sixth Coalition, 1812-1814
Survive the retreat from Moscow, and help rebuild the Grand Armee in the aftermath. Fight in the Battle of Nations at Leipzig and defend France itself from the massed forces of the Coalition in the final, desperate campaign of 1814.
Interlude: Restoration
Try to keep your career and your head as Louis XVIII returns from exile and the returning emigres exact their revenge – or attach yourself to the Bourbons in the hopes of further promotion and security – or go into exile with the Emperor, as he plots his inevitable return.
Second Cutoff Point
If the player character decides to retire here, or flee with the Bourbons to exile upon Napoleon’s return, they get a premature ending.
Act VI: Le Rêve Passe
The Waterloo Campaign, 1815
The final clash between Napoleon and the last of the Coalitions. Join up with the last remnants of the Grand Armee and fight at Ligny or Quatre-Bras, before proceeding to the final showdown at Waterloo. Salvage what you can as the Prussians loom on the flank and defeat becomes inevitable – or, with the right choices, change history.
Epilogue: The Shadow of the Eagles
The final tally. Ending assigned based on rank, glory, accumulated money, reputation, and certain choices made during the whole campaign – but especially in the final act. Outcomes could range from prison, obscurity, rehabilitation under the Bourbons and a peerage, and beyond.
Paul Wang 