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| Setting map created with Campaign Cartographer 3 |
Quick Context
My wife and I have had constant interruptions from family emergencies to illness to extreme levels of stress that have prevented us from getting a role-playing campaign off the ground since late August. We were getting to the point where she was feeling frustrated, un-creative, and had no idea what she wanted to play.
In the past when we have had this kind of creative logjam I have simply made up a short scenario and handed her a character for it I thought she'd find compelling. We'd play a one-shot (IRL, usually a three-shot with the meandering way we like to play) and that would be enough to get us grounded in the game, which suddenly got us a better sense of what we actually wanted to do.
A few weeks ago I decided to do both that, but also give her choices and try an experiment in world-building at the same time. I wrote up eight characters, each with a one-page backstory and statistics for Low Fantasy Gaming, one of my favourites for a good swashbuckling, high-action adventure. Each backstory had common elements, bits of history, common contacts, and small samplings of lore to play with. I figured one of them would sing to her, and I could mash up the plots to Torchlight II's act III and Diablo III's acts I & II with a touch of Warhammer: Vermintide II and a copious amount of Legend of the Bones to have a good gothic fantasy.
I made it specifically a point to ensure that each PC had a family member who could be a useful PC, connections to some interesting cultural institution that would need some history, and would find themselves poised to get involved with one faction or another.
I've put the characters behind a spoiler if you don't want to sift through the specific content and want to just get to the conclusions I have come to.
The Characters
Kyva, the Oprhan
Kyva was just a baby when the plague took her parents. She would have died of starvation herself, had not Artis the Vagabond not heard her crying. He buried her family and nursed her back to health. When it was clear that none of the locals would take her, he moved into her home and raised her himself
Artis never talked about his past. He seemed deeply guilty about something, and often sad, but as a father he was kind. He taught her all the skills he had learned on the road, including how to defend herself and what was hers with all manner of tools. He even taught her to read, although he was not much learned.
Between the two of them, and the small farm she inherited, they have managed to scrape by, although working for the watch, collecting posse fees for hunting troublemakers, and doing odd jobs for the beadle of Kaldan Ridge have fed them both better than their meager crops and scrawny animals.
Now Artis is getting old and sickly - he was hardly young when he found her - and he is in need of medicines that are eating away at their savings. If they don't find some way to earn good coin he won't last another Winter. In truth, now that Kyva is old enough to take care of herself, he doesn't seem to be much worried about himself. He would rather she built up a worthy nest egg or perhaps a dowry for herself.
“There’re sins that Kyori’s priests can’t wash away, gel. ‘Specially when they’re awash in sinning themselves. Try not to do things y’ll regret, and make ‘em right when you can. That’s all the faith folks like us c’n afford anywise.”
-Artis
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Layla of the Keys, the Apprentice
“Never feel shame for your bright eyes, Layla, they let you see the world better than most of us ever can. You are no Devil, just a person born with opportunities we do not. And I suspect that the way some react to them means you have an eye for Character they may never have.”
-Melissandra, Keeper of the Archives
of the Nineteen Keys
The Order of the Nineteen Keys is the last of its kind in Atel, an order of magicians dedicated to the occult and the arcane arts. Once three orders of Magi flourished and helped keep Atel safe from the Darklings of the forest, but those days are long gone. The Church of Kyori had the other orders the Arodrahim, and the White Square outlawed, and burned or sealed their laboratories long ago, in the Reign of King Paladin.
Of all the magi of Atel, had allied with the Crusaders in the wake of the Fool King and saved the people from the greatest Darkling invasion Atel had ever seen. And so they were tolerated by the Church even as the other orders were purged.. But even they have been made into soft pariahs… seen as throwbacks to a darker age before the coming of Kyori when Atel was a heathen land plagued by demons. A profession fit only for misfits and the sinful. Every generation they have carefully sealed away more of the labs and lore of the Nineteen Keys as well. Now the order has less than a score of members across the kingdom, and their lore is fading
Layla is one of the Forest-touched. In her bloodline at some point, an ancestor fell to the dreadful lusts of the demons of the Blackwood and escaped alive. Her children bore demonic traits and magical powers that had made them outsiders, uncomfortable, but not completely outcast. In time they managed to find their way back into society as the generations made the marks of their heritage fade. Layla was born an unfortunate throwback, strange and beautiful, with just enough Other about her elfin features to mark her as demon- spawn, even if it were across the generations, and an embarrassment to her two perfectly human-looking sisters and her highly devout mother. At the age of eight, she was sent to serve as an apprentice to the hermit Melissandra, one of the last of the Nineteen keys.
Under the care of Melissandra, Layal throve. She was free to wander about the compound of the crumbling Tower of the Sixth Key, and get to know the names of the plants, the way to see wild animals, and handle trading with the peddlers from the village. She was encouraged to camp in the wild and hear the voices of the benign spirits. She has learned joy after a childhood of shame.
The Keys do not care about some ancient bloodline, only that she has proven clever in the ways of Magic, voracious for knowledge, and possessed of a particular knack for helping them piece together the lost lore of their Order. They hope one day her clever mind, total lack of fear towards the opinion of others, and wild sense of adventure
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Marley, the Alchemist
“My girl Marley is too damned smart for the likes of you or me Harland. Being a miner’s wife scrubbing coal dust off the floor would bore her to tears. And as she is a bit… lacking… in faith and restraint, she’d likely get bored with you and go running about town. No, she’s the type who’s best given some kind of trade that will make her use them brains of hers until Nature takes its course and marriage becomes HER idea. Besides, with the way that girl plays with those reagents, she’d beggar you if she doesn’t burn down the house first, bless her.”Kaldan Ridge is a border town, sitting in the very Northwestern corner of the country, with the Ragged Hills to the North. Aside from improving the mines, much of the technological revolution that King Peregrine brought to Atel has been slow in coming so far from the center of the Kingdom.
Ten years ago, an alchemist by the name of Runnel came to Kaldan Ridge and finally set up a workshop at the edge of town. Runnel is a practical man interested primarily in mixing alloys and chemicals for the mine and the local workshops. Above all else, he plays it safe.
Marley was a blindingly intelligent girl, the daughter of a humble miner named Korl and a rather dull and deeply faithful housewife named Mara. Her active imagination and sense of humor made it hard for Mara to keep up with young Marley, and Korl worried often that her brains would be wasted on a husband like him; he wanted to make sure she learned to use her mind. When Runnel opened up positions for apprentices, Korl used up nearly all of his savings making sure she could get a spot.
Runnel was happy to take Marley on as one of his five apprentices. Clever and a voracious learner, she quickly helped rebuild the family fortunes by helping her mother bring scented soaps, perfumes, and candles to the local market. She mastered practical alchemy quickly, in fact, within a few years, she outstripped Runnel’s tutelage, and began using her earnings to buy books on theoretical alchemy and research methods.
She began her own experiments, some with the by-products of the local mine, and others with concentrated oils. After several minor explosions and at least one incident where she knocked out herself and two of her fellow apprentices, Runnel accelerated her apprenticeship and made her a full member of the guild, then promptly told her to get her own lab before her experiments destroyed something valuable.
Marley has made enough money left over to build a rudimentary portable lab of her own and keep a shack behind a local clockwork-maker’s shop in which to do her experimentation. She makes most of her money making varmint poisons, cures, and minor medicines for local miners. She has also traded some assistance to the clockmaker for some tutelage there as well. Now she hopes to find some opportunity to earn the money to fund (and perhaps inspire) new research so she can take her place at the cutting edge of alchemy.
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Solana, the Acolyte
“Your faith I will never question, sister Solana. You have already proven ready to take up Arms against Sin and Corruption; I only suggest you find a way to harden your resolve further and forget the romances of the Old Ways of the Church. We are at a war against Sin itself, under a Sinner-King. We need more than prayers to save this land.”
-Summoner Larkin
Solana is the seventh child of a poor farming family. Her parents, having fallen on hard times during a famine a few years ago, gave Solana up to the church to raise her. In the Convent at Normond, Solana learned the doctrine and stories of the great holy heroes of the Aten Crusade. She learned about the ideals of Kyori and the Eternal Crusade against the forces of Entropy that the Archangel leads.
She took great comfort in the ideas of the Reformed Church: that embracing valor, virtue, and discipline within and without, both preaching against Sin and standing in defense of their fellows. Tales of redemption especially comforted her, as she struggled with a short temper and anger against her parents.
Upon completing her vespers, she was assigned to serve at the temple in Kaldan Ridge. She was excited by this, as Kaldan Ridge had been the home of three of her favorite sainted heroes: Ingun the Wild, Thaban the Crusader, and Moira the Sword-Maiden. She looked forward to helping local children learn of the great battles fought here both against the Darklings and the Barbarians of the north. And how the town had been the site where many of the sages of the Old Faith had been shown the error of their ways.
What she found instead was a Church in turmoil. Its head cleric, Bishop Thaban Erle, was more merchant than priest, living in rich comforts, and tailoring his sermons based on which rich and influential man in town was willing to pay him to sway the locals. Confessions were being recorded as potential dirt to sell, and doctrine being ”re-imagined” to support the guildmasters’ excesses. Eventually, Solana could take no more and reported what she had learned to the Mother Superior back home.
Bishop Erle was visited by Summoner Larkin, a grim man who battered the corrupt bishop with a mace on the steps of the church, then had him banished in disgrace, defrocked. Larkin took the position of bishop temporarily and burned the records that Elre had kept in public. He answered the threats and insinuations of the guildmasters with hellfire preaching and swift, personal violence with the help of a pair of Holy knights.
While at first Solana thought that larkin was an improvement, he brought with him the philosophy of the Steel Brethren, a new sub-set that wants to bring the Crusade to bear on misers, guildsmen, magi, and certain subclasses of sinners that he sees as beyond forgiveness. His sermons are full of venom and vigor and his idea of Crusade is more about punishing mortal man than standing against the forces of Darkness. Solana is trying her best to educate the young in the way of Kyori as Wise Protector in spite of him, wondering where the Church has gone so terribly wrong. Even in her anger, she sees The Brethren’s way as terrifying.
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Amara of the House Hawke, the Noblewoman
“Once nobility meant something, now, coin is what they worship in the saddle and in the vestry. But, though we are poor in coin, we at least hold onto integrity. The Hawke name… it will always mean that we stand fast.”
-Lord Galen Hawke of Kaldan Ridge
House Hawke has guarded Kaldan Ridge for 300 years. Since long before the reign of Paladin, long before the Church, and long before the Fool King left the land in shambles. And they have done so with dedication to the principles of chivalry and a clear understanding that they are servants to their people in every way.
But Time has not been kind to the House. In the days of the Fool King they and their close allies in House Halming were left alone to repel a barbarian invasion; a clash that cost them hundreds of bannermen and left their fief devastated. They were still rebuilding when Amarand II invited the Church of Kyori into the nation, and many of the young Vagabond Knights and second sons who might have flocked to House Hawke’s service instead joined the Church. In fact it was the Patriarch of Hawke at the time Adran, who was rebuked and chastened by the Bishop Ifran, and forced to admit that the Nobles of Atel ruled only at the sufferance of the Church, trading the Divinity of kings for the Divine Right of Kings in the political heart of Atel.
In more peaceful times - if ever there are such on the borderlands - house Hawke has languished economically because they are so far from trade, and the mines have had more pressure upon them from cave imps, darklings, and barbarians than any other part of the land - even the Reformation almost passed them by - they only managed to get a proper alchemist in town in the last decade.
Amara is the second daughter of Count Galen Hawke, the current patriarch of House Hawke. Galen finds himself overwhelmed as of late by the sudden coming of the Reformation with its classes of guild masters, wealthy merchants, money-grubbing priests, and nouveau riche. The house definitely needs money to restore its former glory and to ensure the community is kept safe when the next invasion inevitably comes.
Galen has raised his two sons and three daughters to keep and share the rich history of the family, know the old songs and the old etiquette, and also to fight and lead… even his daughters, as he wants noble knights to mean something in the face of the new realities. To be noble not just in title, but in deed.
For Amara’s part, she would love to be of help to her family and wishes she knew how. She balances both a study in beauty, grace, and musical skill with constant practice with the skills of a knight. She has on occasion led hunting parties of her father’s bannermen to investigate monster sightings just to help build up her family’s reputation in the eyes of the common folk.
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“I would try to deter you from this quest, lass, but I know better. And Love of Kin is a noble cause. Be you warned, though, the Atellians are a strange people with many strange customs, you will be frightful and savage in their eyes, for they no longer know the Way. They may mistake you for a clan that is their enemy.”
-Jura, Galdr of the Red MammothClan
Beyond the northern ridge of Atel are the Ragged Hills, a landscape of rolling hills and jagged mountains sparsely dotted in rough taiga. The people who live here are the Kath, clans of rough barbarians who live by herding and taming the elk and reindeer of the plains, and hunting the mammoths that still roam in its most frigid parts. They are a people who have warred with giants, and had their own struggles with demonic terrors that spill out of the volcanic fissures in the Northern Hills.
The Kath do not often fall to war or raiding against their neighbors to the South, but when times have been desperate a few clans, such as the Aurochs clan, and the White Wings have been known to do so. And because of their strength and ferocity, they have earned a terrifying reputation with the people of Atel.
Jin is a daughter of the Red Mammoth clan, who come from far beyond the Rift that splits the Kath-lands North and South. She has heard of Atel mostly in stories: a people rich in gold and steel who worship a stifling war-god, and live in constant fear of faeries in the wood. A people with stiff customs and many absurd laws, but great knowledge of magic and alchemy… And that is what Jin’s brother needs.
Rolf has been a good older brother to Jin, loving, kind, quick with presents and fierce in protecting her from unworthy suitors. He was a fine maker of toys when she was little, and a good tutor in archery when her father did not have the time. He was always keen on finding riches in the ruins of the great metal castles made by the Giants and abandoned in the forgotten times, at least in part to ensure she had a good dowry. And despite the warnings of the village galdr, he eventually went with friends and cousins to do just that.
Two of their number died in that place, and while they brought back gold and fine artifacts, they also brought back a terrible curse; Rolf is often confused, unable to speak the Kathi tongue. He babbles and wanders at night attempting to walk in his sleep back to the ruins. He has fevers where he attempts to build disturbing objects out of wire and bone. The Galdr has no means of helping him break whatever terrible curse has befallen him. Most fear that they will have to either put him through the agonies of a gauntlet of purification, or force him into a hermitage in one of the Stone Mounds where madmen are kept until they die.
Jin loves her brother too much to let such a terrible fate befall him, and so she has set out on foot, and crossed the ragged hills and the Rift heading for Atel in hopes that one of the Southern Wizards or their war-god’s priests might be able to help her lift the curse that torments him, carrying his sword for good luck, and a bow made by her father to keep her safe.
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Jlyn, the Wood-maid
Living next to the Dark Forest requires constant vigilance. Many dark and terrible things spawn in the ruins and cursed hollows of that place. And while knights and holy orders are willing to head off raids and keep the villagers safe, they must know that they are coming. And that is a far deadlier work.
Under King Pelgram an institution called the Woodmen was created; men who were permitted to pass in and out of the Dark Forest freely and hunt the game in there to their hearts’ content. But in exchange, they had to keep a watchful eye on places where the Darklings are known to spawn. At first it was a voluntary force, but it has changed many times over the last two centuries.
Today, those convicted of certain crimes are given a chance to earn back their place in Society by keeping the ways of the Woodsmen alive. They are permitted to dress only in black and forest green, and wear facial markings to enumerate their crimes. They are required to answer to a county Woodswarden who keeps track of them, teaches them the routes and dangerous locations, and inducts them into ancient rites of the Old Ways that are meant to keep them safe as they walk in demon-haunted land. When they have served five years, they are free to return to Atel with a pouch of gold and their records purged.
Women who are convicted of the same crimes have traditionally been allowed to marry and keep a home in the Wood-lodge for their husband. The Woodswives were seen as a great enticement for a man to willingly join the Woodsmen, and kept them linger, as they would have to wait for their bride’s sentence to be done as well.
In recent years, however, a few young women have chosen instead to serve in the woods just as the woodsmen do. This is not without precedent: Sura, a legendary hero of Southern Atel did just that during the reign of Amarand II. And so it is now seen as a legitimate way to punish a woman who has committed a crime. These new convict-rangers are called Woods-maids.
Jyln is one such woman. She was married for only a year when her husband was killed in a mine cave-in. While she had suitors after her year of mourning was over, she needed the church’s blessing to make herself available again. And she was desperate to do so, as her family could hardly afford to feed her, and the washing and sewing she was doing could not make ends meet. So she sought out the old bishop, Thaban Erle, and asked for dispensation to end her mourning… and what he demanded of her in return for the dispensation was so offensive that she lost her temper and attacked him. No one at the time believed that the Holy Man could have said such a thing (he was later proven to be deeply corrupt), and it was her word against his. Still with no right to be married, she was forced to become a Woods-maid.
At first she (and the bishop) was certain it would be the death of her… but she had a good tutor in Woodswarden Hale, and a natural talent for archery. Now, in her third year of penance she has found that this life has started to suit her, and she is just over two years away from getting a purse of gold and the freedom to start a new life for herself.
Shay, the Assassin
Atel is beginning to become a far more sophisticated society, and with that sophistication comes new forms of crime. Guild masters, wealthy merchants, influence-peddling priests, and noblemen keen to play the game have all developed a need for spies, saboteurs, and bravos to help them outmaneuver their rivals in the new political game that has come in with Peregrine’s Reformation.
Shay is a product of that new political reality. In Blackwall, the only large city in Atel she was nothing more than a common guttersnipe; a girl whose mother was too busy to take notice unless it was to put her to work in the sweatshops or brothels emerging in the city. And so she decided she would rather pick a few pockets, run some errands for dishonest men, and gamble to have enough coin to stay out in the streets until her mother had drank herself to sleep every night.
Then came the day she turned down the wrong alley and ran into a pair of drunken bravos. Fresh off the thrill of a fight and full of cheap wine, they saw having a cornered teenage girl that no one would care a damn about as a golden opportunity for some fun. They got much more than they bargained for when Shay produced a dagger and fought with some of the cruelest, dirtiest moves she could muster and savage ferocity. One was dead, and the other blinded and near-castrated when she was done with them.
The guildmaster they worked for, Radjetz, a man in charge of one of the country’s largest makers of mining gear and tools was deeply impressed with her work. Rather than punish her, he took her in. A girl so easy to underestimate, so smart in the way of the streets, and so deft with a blade was too good to pass up. Especially when she turned out to be well-spoken, too!
Radjetz had Shay take lessons in acting, and had her spend time among harlots and thieves learning how to read a man and tempt him into indiscretions, and how to collect blackmail material. She learned how to play a high society lady, a noblewoman, a country housewife, and everything in between.
Once she had been thus educated he put her to work. She snuck up on paranoid rivals and harmed them when no man could get close. She pretended to be mistresses of his top men to insinuate herself into gossip circles. She built a small network of urchins to spy on others. She built up blackmail networks, and stole valuable documents from the bedroom of men she seduced… and in the process lived a life of luxury,
That was until she had slept with one too many husbands and rolled one too many drunken bravos, and the count of Blackwall started looking to put a name to the spy that had embarrassed one too many of his allies, and she needed to disappear. Radjetz sent her to go work for one of his allies, a merchant in Kaldan Ridge. Unfortunately the man was arrested before she got there in a purge of the old Bishop’s allies. And so she finds herself in Kaldan Ridge with no allies set to make her own way in the world again.
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Sadly, Life Got in the Way Again, and sadly we only managed to get one night in with this campaign in a two month stretch, and by the time we had an opportunity to sit down again, it was just not happening, and I am back to the drawing-board, as we don;t feeling like picking it up after a false start.
As a World-Building Tool
This was an interesting experiment as a world-building tool. By tying each PC into at least one institution, and to one community I was forced to create some history, some setting information, and even a couple of villains and factions. I can see using this for solo play as a way to build a quick and dirty world.
Or if you encouraged each player to work towards creatign a PC with the particular kind of history, you could take bits out of each and intertwine them into a history and current context. in fact that is exactly how some games like Fabula Ultima and Fate Core are structured: you build a world by making the PCs first and having their backgrounds shape the character of the world. Although I do find that the actually process, especially in Fate Core doesn't quite create the level of mystique and surprise that you get when a GM unveils a world of their own creation.
That is, of course, a personal preference.
One could also do the same to create a starting area by creating just NPCs in this vein: a collection of contacts, potential henchmen, and faction leaders each with a page of story tat is full of information about the institutions, social class, and upbringing of that character to draw a wider picture.
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