Category: Roleplaying Games

Friday, 8 March 2019

Three Rivers

by Smiorgan Add Your Comment

StormHack has one “magic” system, i.e. demons. Objectively these all follow the same rules, however different characters will probably have wildly varying ideas of what demons are. Here are three different perspectives.

Demons of Self

Demons are all about ambition, and Demons of Self are probably the purest form of this. This character credits no external force for their exceptional ability. It all comes from within. This is probably easier to rationalise when the abilities are “coincidental” i.e. appear to be exceptional skill.

How the demon talks to them: the demon appears as a darker version of the conjurer. This is the most personal manifestation of the demon, as it embodies everything the character knows is negative about themselves. It is the dark mirror held up to the character.

How they see the supernatural: these characters will be aware of a wider supernatural world (as in a fantasy there is usually proof of the magical and supernatural) but may not consider themselves part of that continuum at all. This is possibly because they see their demon (if they even consciously refer to it as a demon) as completely internal. Possibly in advanced stages of development the character will view themselves as the demon, identifying as a vampire or other kind of supernatural monster that passes for human. So, unlike the other two perspectives, they may end up identifying as other than human, having no external supernatural force to explain (excuse) their behaviour.

tl;dr vampires, &c.

Patrons

Demon Patrons manifest from faith and belief. The deity will have a doctrine, an aspect (which may shift), and will speak directly to the character. All the powers the character has are granted by their god (whether that god exists objectively out in the world, or otherwise).

How the demon talks to them: one or more aspects of their god. Use this opportunity for the player to develop the god’s doctrine, surrounding pantheon, and so on. To the character this demon is external from the self; however it has a moral or philosophical component which represents the character’s core beliefs.

How they see the supernatural: the magical world is framed according to the doctrine of the god, which will include creation myths, explanations for magic and demons, etc.

Consider these questions1:

  • How was the world made?
  • Where did we com from?
  • Why do we die?
  • What happens after we die?
  • Why am I here?
  • What is magic?
  • What are Demons?

tl;dr clerics, paladins and other (un)holy warriors

Sorcery

Sorcery is the art of making Pacts. Whatever the sorcerer, they treat their demon as an occult science and conjure demons to perform supernatural acts on their behalf. They are likely to have many demons named (which may be considered individual spells, or imps, etc.).

How the demon talks to them: one or more demons the character has bound into service. These demons may be graceful or resentful about their indenture, but in every case this is a transaction and a contract. There is no moral judgement of the sorcerer’s actions, and when transgressions happen it’s because they have lost control. The conjurer may have one demon for each “spell”, or one demon for each class of magic (i.e. one per realm they have activated2), or a single, powerful wish-granting demon.

How they see the supernatural: the demon realms are external, real, measurable. Their denizens can be bargained with. Magic cannot be accessed directly3, only via demonic intermediaries. Gods and magic are intrusions of the demonic realms on the earth.

tl;dr magicians of every stripe

  1. Inspired by the questions and answers in my Games Workshop edition of Runequest III, late 80s ↩

  2. This is the most Stormbringer-like option. ↩

  3. In the early 90s there was an Elric! supplement called Corum. See here. That system provided an alternative to demon summoning with “sorcerous melds” where the chaos magician would access raw chaos to do magic. So if you wanted to have your sorcerer skipping demonic intermediaries and going straight to the source, that might be one way of doing it. ↩

Wednesday, 6 March 2019

OSR alt combat

by Smiorgan Add Your Comment

In a week or so I’ll be running StormHack (Black Hack, Whitehack, Chaosium’s Stormbringer) at Concrete Cow. This is a modified combat system for OSR systems.

Monsters

Monsters have

  • Armour Class, a success threshold
  • Hit Dice, to be thrown down on the table to indicate the monster’s damage
  • Damage, which they cause on weak hits and misses

Making attacks

When a character makes an attack, roll d20 vs an appropriate Ability (e.g. STR).

  • If the roll is below the PC’s STR but above the monster’s AC, it’s a hit and damage is done to the monster
  • If the roll is above the PC’s STR it’s a miss and the PC takes damage
  • If the roll is below the monster’s AC it’s a weak hit (assuming it’s also below the character’s STR) and the PC takes minor damage

Damage to Monsters

The base damage is the actual number on the d20, minus the monster’s AC. On top of that if the character has any weapons (including Demons of Violence) they get to roll dice and add that to the total.

When they do damage to monsters it’s applied directly to the hit dice on the table. By default only one die can be taken off at a time and the whole number on the die must be beaten (e.g. a d6 reading 5 needs 5 or more points to defeat it). Abilities allow PCs to split damage between dice, hold and stack damage from previous rolls, etc.

Damage to PCs

During combat if the PC takes damage, the GM gives them a token. These can be black tokens (Fatigue) or red tokens (Harm). These add up over the course of the combat.
(Tokens can also be gained outside combat).

At the end of the combat, the PC rolls a Body saving throw. These are handled like Resource Dice in the Black Hack. The number of red tokens modifies the die roll. Actual wounds are counted as the number of red tokens minus the die roll.

Spot rules:

  • Occasionally damage is checked during combat, if the amount of harm exceeds a certain threshold.
  • Wounds are applied to one or more Ability Scores (Traveller style).
  • Armour and shields provide their own Resource Dice which can be used in place of the Body roll, both during combat and after.
  • Wounds can also have other effects; these will be dependent on the kind of damage the Monster does. For example, disease, corruption, poison, paralysis, bad odour.

Survivability

This system will make characters (a) more likely to take damage but (b) also more likely to survive it. There are reasons for this:

  1. The in-combat accumulation of points on the table should tell the players how tired and beaten up their characters are, so at any point they can choose to quit or continue. However they’re not obliged to do so unless the situation forces a roll from them.
  2. This means they can continue to have heroic fights against impossible odds, and otherwise survive. Furthermore the presence of demon armour (demons of durance) makes it easier for them to shrug off hits.
  3. Unlike other OSR games this game is less likely to make a character drop dead suddenly. Instead, they get debilitating injuries which need to be healed.
  4. If the characters use their demons to survive, their demons in turn gain Malice and the power to transgress. This transgression is a basic levelling-up of the demon, and it’s accompanied with new complications for the character — erosion of their friendships, gaining notoriety, etc. Thus you want the characters to survive, so they can transform and become more demonic.

TTFN

Sunday, 24 February 2019

The City Accelerated

by Smiorgan Comments Off on The City Accelerated

Years ago I wrote a series of blog posts around the “City Accelerator”, a tool for creating and growing TTRPG cities (using partial inspiration from CRPGs).

I updated and collected the ideas in this document. It’s about 15 pages long and under 4000 words, too long for a single blog post, so this is a summary.

Goals

The aims were:

  1. Focus on the details that matter
  2. Player-facing; everything on the table
  3. Involve the PCs in the city
  4. Involve the players in the world-building

Method

This is how the tool is supposed to work. It has three sub-systems.

The first system considers a topological approach of Districts connected with Entry Points and populated by Spaces. Spaces are where scenes actually happen. Districts and Spaces can be tagged with descriptions such as “open”, “close”, “high”, “dirty”, “noble”, “crime” &c. Spaces inherit the tags from their District but also have their own individual tags.

The second system considers the people in the city, in three tiers. Pawns and Knights occupy the lowest tier as Free Agents, Bishops and Rooks hold the middle tier as the feudal lords of the city, and the King and Queen occupy the highest tier. Each kind of character has a certain property, e.g. Knights have Ambition, Bishops have Territory, the King has Divinity. Crucially moving between tiers strips a character of the property of their old role when then enter the new one (e.g. a Knight becoming a Bishop loses Ambition and gains Territory).

The third system is just a brainstorm around a set of questions around the sights that a visitor to the city might see, from seeing the city in the distance all the way to walking through the city to its Heart.

I’m going to develop three examples based on current and old RPGs I’ve run. One is a sort of traditional fantasy pre-apocalyptic game called Glory that I ran in the early 2000s (inspired by Viriconium as well as Grant Morrison), one is a modern OSR-ish game called Black Mantle that I’ve blogged about, and the third is Lag which is definitely at the Indie/Storygame end of the scale, and which I’m just getting into with the first few playtest games.

Comments welcome.

Addendum: later finds

These are resources I discovered after writing the original blog posts, but which complement the tool really well:

  • In Corpathium is a brilliant dice-on-the-table method for randomising city districts (I like dice on the table). The author is a Viriconium fan, too. The method proposed is totally compatible with mapping out Districts.
  • Sine Nomine games use location tags for fantasy, sf and modern horror RPGs; potential inspiration for all kinds of city tags.

Thursday, 15 November 2018

Lag: the End

by Smiorgan Comments Off on Lag: the End

Begin with the end in mind, right? Here is a section on how to wrap up a campaign of Lag.

Finishing a game

As the game progresses through scenes, each character’s Arc will be explored through their Mission and Calls Home. Throughout this process the characters’ time zones will move from Home to local time, with an accompanying shift in Lag.

Character Arcs conclude in one of two ways:

  1. Going Home. The character returns to their point of origin, either willingly or not.
  2. Stay behind. The character could become naturalised, they could move on instead of going home, they could die, or they could abscond.

Which conclusion happens may be well signposted during play, or it may be a surprise. But one character will always Go Home, and one always Stays Behind.

(simple version)

The game enters its final stage when at least one character’s personal Time Zone equalises with Local Time (i.e. minimum local Lag, and maximum Lag for Calls Home). At that point the character may have two further scenes of their choice. One scene must resolve their Mission, and the other can either resolve their connection Home, or bid farewell to one or more PCs in a Hotel Encounter. After the second scene, they will take their Avatar off the time zone track and place it on the Going Home tile, and narrate their exit.

Following the first character’s exit, all other players must then resolve their Arcs within two scenes of the first character’s scene as before. The last character to conclude must Stay, and the other characters get a free choice.

(alternative version)

There are two Exit Cards on the table: one for Going Home and another for Staying. The first character to end their Arc picks whichever card they want and narrates what happens after they leave the Hotel.

The second character must take the other remaining card on the table; so if the first character Stays, they Go Home.
We now have two players holding Exit Cards. They may intrude on the remaining player’s final scenes as themselves, as NPCs, even as characters from Home by spending Drama Tokens as usual; and just like the other Dramatic Scenes this character wants some concession from the leaving character. If the leaving character grants the concession they accept the card and narrate their exit accordingly. If they refuse they must take the other card from the other player, who narrates that character’s exit and hands their card over.

Once the leaving character’s player has accepted a card they may use it in play in the same way.

(remarks)

I think I prefer the second option because it’s in keeping with the token economy of Dramasystem; but it’s reliant on leaving characters holding excess drama tokens on their exit for it to work. Playtesting needed.

Monday, 12 November 2018

Lag

by Smiorgan 5 Comments on Lag

This is a role-playing game about displacement, jet lag and home sickness. The characters are strangers staying in a luxury hotel in a foreign country.

During play the characters will discover the world outside their hotel life, have meaningful discussions in the hotel bar, and difficult conversations with whoever it is on the other end of the call home.

Lag

All of the characters suffer from Lag, the difference between their personal time zone, the time zone they left and local time. As the game progresses the characters will move away from their home time zone as they adjust to local time.

Scenes

During the game the players explore each character’s arc in three kinds of scenes:

Mission scenes explore the character’s reason for being here, and will involve their local contacts (to be played by other players). These will be connected with their Archetype (see below).

Calls home scenes explore the character’s ties back home. These connections may be personal (e.g. family, lovers) or professional (e.g. Head Office).

Hotel encounter scenes with other characters in the hotel. Chance encounters in the elevator, the bar, waiting outside the hotel for the morning taxi.

Archetypes

The Celebrity

This Archetype is all about connecting with fans and the public. Their Mission is to entertain, promote something or otherwise use their face and media presence for commercial gain.

The Corporate

This character is here to work with other members of their organisation. They may be discussing strategy, dividing spoils, or electing a leader. The character may well have to defend their territory from rivals.

The Entourage

They’re here simply as a hanger-on to someone else. They may be a child, a lover, or a freeloader. Their mission will be to make the best of their situation and not become bored.

The Entrepreneur

This person is here to buy or sell. Their wares could be rare, illegal or highly valuable; whatever the reason they need to be here to make the deal in person.

The Exile

This character is running from something. Maybe they’re a fugitive from justice, perhaps they’re a disgraced VIP, or they could be a refugee from a war zone.

The Hatchet

This character is a troubleshooter is here to fix a problem that relies on their expertise. This may involve a technical problem, political situation, or silencing someone. Expect hard decisions and not making any friends.

The Pilgrim

The Pilgrim is here to find something. It could be a reconciliation with a lost child or lover. It could be treasure, knowledge, or spiritual enlightenment. It could be inspiration for their next masterpiece.

The Player

This character is a criminal intent on theft of something from an individual or organisation. It could be a heist, a confidence trick, or state or industrial espionage.

Back Home

Examples of people you have left back home:

Domestic

The Domestic connection indicates a family member, dependent or lover. This relationship hinges on personal obligation and conversations will hinge on emotional connections such as family obligations, the status of a relationship, or guilt at being here and not at home to take care of the other person.

Head Office

This is someone with a position of power over the character. Obviously this could be a company boss, but equally it could be a crime boss, a family patriarch or matriarch, or even a client. In each case the conversation will hinge around business obligations, and the cost of the character’s inaction (both threats on the person and what failure means for the character’s organisation).

Nemesis

The last category is someone who poses a real threat to the character. They could be a rival who is eyeing up your territory, a cop who is convinced of your guilt, or a blackmailer who is trying to force you to do something.

The city state

The city-state is a peculiar mixture of ostentatious new wealth and conservative attitudes. It’s eager to court foreign business, and the city centre is a luxurious tourist hotspot and temple to capitalism with outstanding hotels for business guests and a dazzling array of restaurants and retail outlets to tempt passing travellers on an overnight layover. But outside this centre the state rules the population with draconian laws, overcrowding is severe and the gap between rich and poor is vast.

Systems

My first go-to system is Dramasystem and specifically Malandros for the dramatic vs. procedural scenes. In this example the Procedural scenes will probably fit with the character’s personal Mission, and the Dramatic ones will work with Hotel encounters and Calls Home.

PbtA is the alternative, which could work with the usual setup (follow the characters around for the first session) but might require careful consideration of the various Fronts.

Also, playbooks.

Inspiration

Mostly inspired by working for weeks on end in Singapore with an 8 hour time difference from home.

Film examples

RPG examples: Over The Edge (obviously).

Wednesday, 12 September 2018

Cow sighted

by Smiorgan Comments Off on Cow sighted

Been quiet here and on the podcast for various reasons; the main one is I’ve been pouring my creative energies into getting ready for Concrete Cow 18.5 on the 15th September. I’m offering 2 games: in the morning I’ll be running StormHack (that’s Stormbringer meets Whitehack) with the classic Chaosium scenario “Stolen Moments” from the 4th edition Perils of the Young Kingdoms.

Getting ready for that has been relatively straightforward to the afternoon offering, where I’m hoping to run Grand Tableau (aka hipster Everway). I made a fortune deck using Lenormand cards (Pixie’s Astounding Lenormand, to be precise). I’m quite pleased at how it turned out…

First, slip the card into a standard MtG style card sleeve (I do this to protect the original Lenormand cards in case I want them back in the future). Then get some backing card, approximately tarot-sized. We mount the sleeved card onto the larger card with the card meaning below it, like this:

Then slip that whole thing inside a second card sleeve that’s sized for larger cards (I think the sleeves are made by FFG and designed for games like Dixit).

There we go… and the final touch, put the 36 cards inside a nice wooden box.

Quite pleased with this effort, and not a bad way to spend an evening while watching Iron Fist season 2 with one eye. Hopefully I’ll get takers on Saturday.

(the scenario is The Death Hand Of Saint No-One, which is actually a Continuum scenario — we’ll see how it turns out exchanging time travellers for urban magicians)

Friday, 10 August 2018

Thursday, 26 July 2018

Grand Tableau: Gates, Courts, Primes

by Smiorgan Comments Off on Grand Tableau: Gates, Courts, Primes

And now for something completely different, because I can never work on just one project (in fact this is what was bugging me as I was trying to finish the last post).

This is my character sheet for Grand Tableau (a remix of Jonathan Tweet’s Everway using the 36 card Petit Lenormand deck, with elements in common with Amber).

The picture is low res but the vector pdf is here. Haven’t tried printing it yet.

Now, about the deck.

Cosmology and the Fortune Deck

The 36-card Lenormand deck has four Aces, twelve Court cards and twenty numbered cards. These represent three tiers of reality:

  • The Aces are the Primes, which are universal cosmic principles.
  • The Court cards are the four Courts of magic. These are the twelve schools of magic available to PCs (at the start). Kings are static, Queens are dynamic and Jacks are mutable. When I run this game I plan to make extra cards and give them to the players as table artefacts.
  • The numbered cards represent Gates between each tier of occult society. These correlate with the ratings in each element.

The Gates have a kind of informal hierarchy. No one card is necessarily stronger than another, but they represent a transformation of magical awareness.

  • The sixes represent the first step; gifts, opportunities, guidance and crossing thresholds.
  • The sevens are all about connections and networks in occult society.
  • The eights are about gathering, consolidation, thoughts and ideals, symbols and membership.
  • The nines concern themselves with legacies, remnants, plans, deep impressions, future vision, truth and falsehood.
  • Finally the tens are about evaluation, power, transformation and territory.

As magicians gain strength in each of the suits they will transform according to the level they’ve achieved. At a rating of six they become an attractor, becoming visible to occult agencies. At seven they will start to notice their peers. At eight they will acquire a mark that identifies them to their peers, and may choose to enroll in a College. Nine and ten are very uncommon and usually involve specialisation in the chosen College.

That will do for now. Time for bed.

Wednesday, 25 July 2018

StormHack characters part 3: demons and ambitions

by Smiorgan 1 Comment on StormHack characters part 3: demons and ambitions

The character history method from part 2 should produce interesting, three-dimensional characters with a bit of mystery and personal plot hooks.

By comparison, demons are cartoonish, one-dimensional, one-trick ponies — which is intentional. Demons are all about a character’s singular purpose in life and how it’s both a path to power and damnation. Whereas the human side of the character should feel “real” with believable professions, the Demon side is much more like a character class.

I. Brief notes on demons

A demon represents a character’s drive. What I mean by this is that the demon is essential for the character’s heroic aspect. A superlative warrior unmatched in combat owes their ability to their demon; their identity is the demon, the two are inseparable.

There are six Demon Realms that define six dimensions of activity.

A Demon Realm has associated lesser and greater suits, or petitions which may be made for magical aid. A demon can access the lesser and greater suits from its realm, as well as the lesser suits from two adjacent realms.

A demon always seeks to transgress against its master. It achieves this goal by accumulating power through its master’s over-reliance on its services.

When a demon successfully transgresses, it undergoes metamorphosis.

II. Generating the demon character

To generate the demon half of the PC you need to decide on Drive, Demon Realm and Seeming.

Drive

Drive is a lot like a Character Class. It’s a direction for the character’s life, something they’re supernaturally good at. The basic fantasy tropes of fighter, magic user, thief and so forth work here; in fact I really encourage thinking in these terms. The demon is all about power and exceeding human capability, and the powers it bestows fit into these particular classes. In fact, it’s probably not possible to think about Drive without thinking about your demon’s Realm at the same time — so we’ll cover that next.

Demon Realm

The Realm of Violence defines warfare, causing harm and injury. Its demons are demons of combat, demon weapons. It borders the Realms of Durance and Majesty. It is almost always associated with martial Drives, i.e. fighters and soldiers.

The Realm of Durance concerns surviving pain, disease and injury, and superseding the limits of the body. Its demons are armour, shields, wards and pacts. It borders the Realms of Violence and Flux. It will be associated with martial pursuits as well as the wilderness, for example scouts and rangers, barbarians, and possibly some priests or druids.

The Realm of Flux concerns movement through and perceptions of space and time, and its demons are transporters, teleporters and gates. It borders the Realms of Durance and Contrivance. It is often associated with athletic and/or larcenous Drives such as thieves, acrobats, or assassins.

The Realm of Contrivance is about satisfying desires and needs. Its demons are lovers, seekers and procurers. It borders Flux and Voyance. Its drives are frequently arcane, including illusionists and sorcerers.

The Realm of Voyance deals with knowledge of past, present and future. It borders Contrivance and Majesty, and its demons are scryers, seers and ledgers, and its drives frequently involve priests, oracles and sages.

The Realm of Majesty controls minds. Its demons are possessors, controllers and parasites. It borders the realms of Voyance and Violence. Its drives are politicians, leaders and enchanters.

Seeming

Last, have an idea of what the demon looks like — to the PC, and to the external observer. Many demons, especially low level ones which are only beginning their metamorphosis, appear as some kind of motif on the character. A fighter might have a particular sword, for example. It could be clothes, body art, a piece of jewellery. It could be something large and immobile, for example a hotel, but this would limit the scope of the game to in and around the hotel (which wouldn’t play easily with a hex crawl).

Perhaps more interesting is the PC’s internal perception of their demon. If you go with the idea of the player to their left playing the demon from time to time, that player will be helped by knowing how the PC actually sees their demon. Is it a voice in their head, a long shadow from behind a tree, a reflection, a speck of dust in the corner of their eye? Or is it more overt, like a goblin that sits at the end of their bed?

III. Example: Kayl’s demon

We know a lot about Kayl’s past from part 2, but what about their ambition?

The obvious choice is to follow Kayl’s background and make them some kind of witch or mystic. Perhaps when the adventure starts they’re just on the cusp of awakening; they have realised their potential and manifested their own demon.

For Kayl’s Drive we simply write Fane Witch. That’s nice and punchy; it’s direct in the description with just a little hint of the connection to their backstory.

If Kayl’s a witch, the more obvious Realms for their demon are Voyance, Contrivance and Majesty. Contrivance would make them some kind of conjurer or illusionist, and a very physical kind of magician. Majesty would make them a kind of social manipulator, and confrontational with it. The middle ground is Voyance, which would make them a seer and able to connect with other worlds. Note that they will access minor powers from Contrivance and Majesty as well.

What is this demon’s Seeming? Kayl’s player decides that they have taken to wearing makeup outwardly, great black smears over each eye which makes them seem strange and ferocious despite their youth. Inwardly their demon mostly manifests in their dreams; it is the voice of the matriarch interred at Aelfa, speaking from the threshold of her tomb under a sky like ash.

And that’s all for now. I’ll come back to StormHack with actual mechanics in the near future. But the next post will be something a bit different.

Monday, 23 July 2018

StormHack characters part 2: spontaneous archipelago

by Smiorgan 1 Comment on StormHack characters part 2: spontaneous archipelago

Part 1 was an overview of the Human and Demon sides of StormHack characters. In this post I’ll make an example of character generation for the human half of the characters.

I’m going to combine with an idea I had for the Beyond the Waves setting, and use this to also generate the archipelago around the character’s home island.

(recap of relevant posts: Beyond the Waves, home island, island generator. There are other less relevant posts as well)

I. Backgrounds/Roots

Each character has 3 backgrounds or roots:

  • Growing up is about experience, skills and family connection
  • Tradition is about inherited knowledge, customs and connections from the family’s past
  • Legend is about the family’s secrets and ancient hQistory from long in the past

In general these are written on the character sheet as this sort of thing:

My family are reef-fishers. I was taught by my mother who came here from the island of Aenesi to the north.

This establishes a couple of anchors (the island of Aenesi, the character’s mother), and their trade (reef-fishing). We’ll generally use this format for each character.

II. Mapping the Archipelago

We’re going to establish the play group’s home island and then trace each character’s family past and the roots in other parts of the archipelago.

We’re going to generate three layers of surrounding islands based on migrating families. The first immediate layer will be the people who settled the home island (0-2 generations ago), the second layer will be ancestors 3-6 generations removed, and the last will be earlier generations. As you might expect, each layer affects inherited skills, knowledge, culture and/or legends — which will be expressed as roots (q.v.).

I’m drawing the map on a dot grid using a scale of 5 miles to 1 cm. Note that the viewing distance to the horizon from sea level on our planet is about 3 miles, and from 30m up this extends to 12 miles. Sailing craft probably travel between 5-8 miles per hour and rowboats around 3 miles per hour.

I prefer the home island to be small (by the definition of the Island Generator, 1-5 miles across), small enough that the PCs will have explored nearly all of it as children and the coastline forms the effective “wall” of the village. By contrast any other island — even one which is settled and apparently friendly — is beyond the wall.

i) home island and settlers

First, draw the home island roughly in the middle of the paper, bearing in mind the proportions of 1 cm = 5 miles.

The character’s family migrated here from a nearby island. How long ago? Roll 1d6: on a 1-2 it’s 0 generations (i.e. the PC came to this island as a child), on a 3-4 it’s 1 generation (parents), and on 5-6, 2 generations (grandparents).

Where did they come from? Roll a d8 to pick a compass point (e.g. with a 1 meaning North, and counting clockwise). Then roll 2d6-2 for the distance in cm on the paper. Treat a result of zero as \<3 miles, i.e. close enough to see from the beach of the home island. The maximum distance is therefore 50 miles.

It’s up to you how big the island is or what shape. You can use use the island generator although a note of caution — I tried using those tables and they all tended towards much larger islands than the home island, so I intend to revise the tables in the near future. Still, it could give you some ideas.

Whatever method you choose, draw an appropriately sized island on the map.

Name the island.

Since this island is both near and has recent family on it, unless there’s a good reason the PC has probably visited it more than once. Pick at least 3 of the questions below to answer:

  1. What trade, skill or knowledge did your family bring from this island to your current community? (you could use the growing up tables in the Beyond the Wall playbooks for this one)
  2. How did children play on this island?
  3. Where did children play on this island?
  4. What well known food or drink is found on this island?
  5. What is the biggest natural hazard or enemy found here?
  6. What is the biggest human threat found here?
  7. What does it mean to be wealthy on this island? (clothes, trappings, housing, social position, etc.)
  8. Tell us about someone you know who’s about your age on the island. Who are they to you — a friend, an enemy, a rival, a sweetheart?
  9. Tell us about someone who’s considered old on this island. How does the community treat them? Are they wise, powerful, mysterious, dangerous?
  10. Tell us about something unresolved that your family left behind when they left this island. Who is involved? What is the focus of the problem — love, money, land, a birthright, an old injury or feud?
  11. An object from the island hangs in your family home. What is it?
  12. Tell us about a magical experience you or someone close to you had on the island.

Additionally answer these questions about how your family fits into the home island:

  • What is their trade? (if you answered question 1 above, the answer will be the same)
  • Who are their neighbours? (describe up to 2 other families)
  • Besides the other PCs, who did you grow up and play with? (name and describe one other NPC)

At the end of this, write your character’s Growing Up root like this:

My family’s trade is… We/my parents/my grandparents came here from the island of… (any other details)

ii) ancestors and traditions

The second island is placed like this:

  1. Pick a direction by rolling 1d4-1d4, which will give you a result of -3 to +3. Take the original direction from the home island to the previous one, and use this number to move that many compass points away from that direction. For example if the original heading was north west and you rolled -2, the new heading will be south west from the new island.
  2. Roll 2d6-2 for the distance as before.
  3. Choose (randomly or otherwise) the island’s size and shape as before.

This island differs from the last in that the PC will have no living relatives, but they’ll have ancestors, roots and traditions. Answer 2 of the following questions:

  1. Your ancestor’s tomb sits on this island. What does it look like? What are the burial customs?
  2. Your ancestor is known for a particularly heroic, impressive or egregious deed. What was it?
  3. Your parents have a habit of a small social gesture, phrase or mannerism at the dinner table, that you’ve not seen anyone else in your community make. What does it mean, and what connection does it have to this island?
  4. Your ancestors are known for a particular talent. What is it?
  5. The island has a distinctive natural feature that you’ve never seen elsewhere. What is it?
  6. The island has a unique human-made feature. What is it?

(Naturally these can be expanded into lists or tables if/when one has time or inclination)

Once you’ve done that, answer the following questions:

  • Your ancestor was part of an organisation, fraternity, guild, bloodline or other group. What were they?
  • What skill, knowledge or art did your ancestor practice?
  • How did this information come to you? An object, a scroll, word of mouth?
  • Did anyone hide it from you? Did anyone go out of their way to give it to you?

iii) legends

Place the third and last island as you did the second one.

Here’s the twist. Your PC has never been here; this is only where you think the island is. It’s up to the GM to decide how close the island is to the spot.

(Note to self: write GM advice for when it’s ok to lie to players and when it isn’t)

This is a place your PC has only heard of in fragments of diaries, the cryptic allusions of elders, whispers at the cradle. You have an inexorable connection to this place. It may represent your destiny.

Aside: destiny

Some thoughts on how to write destinies:

  1. They should be about something the character might do, not just something they might see, acquire etc.
  2. They should have a cause and effect as in when PC does X, Y will happen
  3. X should be cryptic
  4. Y should be ambiguous

Writing character destinies will probably be fun, but unless you’re planning a long campaign they may be a waste of time.

Of course, if you want to drive the action towards a character’s destiny, then you could do worse than signpost it like crazy so the Pcs come into contact with it. Destinies may be obscure and uncertain but they should also be kind of obvious.

This brings us to legends.

Legends

Associated with this third and final island is a family legend. Choose one or write your own:

  1. Hidden treasure.
  2. A powerful weapon.
  3. A gate to somewhere else.
  4. A sleeping god or monster.
  5. A temple or place of power.
  6. A secret society.

Once this choice is made, the player should answer a couple of questions:

  • how did you find out about this place? Was it written down, told to you, do you dream about it?
  • what’s the connection with your family? Did they discover it, did it cross their path, did they steal it?
  • who else is involved or interested? An individual seeking power, an organisation with a prophecy, the original owner?

The GM should consider a things as well (in secret, natch):

  • how far is the island from where everyone thinks it is?
  • how is the island different today from the description in the legend? What one feature still stands out?
  • what powerful, independent NPC or group is really interested in this legend? How might they get entangled in the PC’s business?
  • The legend the PC knows is only half the story. What’s the other half?

III. An example

The home island is called Beq. It’s a small island with numerous cliffs and beaches. Its partner Ourd sits to its north across a trecherous strait, and is accessible by rope bridges and cable cart.

Kayl is our first PC. Their stats are STR 12, CON 9, DEX 13, INT 11, WIS 15 and CHA 10. They’re physically capable but also uncommonly wise and insightful for their age.

We roll the dice for Kayl’s Growing Up root: 3 for number of generations, 8 for direction and 7 for distance in cm. They’re second generation migrants from an island 25 miles to the north-west of Beq called Three Knives, and Kayl has visited there many times to see their cousins. Kayl’s player answers a few questions:

  • We know that iimpa is brewed on the island and each island family guards its own recipe
  • Kayl’s family are brewers and horticulturalists, and have successfully cultivated iimpa floss of high quality on Beq
  • It’s an open secret that the family settled on Beq after a falling out between their father and his sister, who disapproves of the family trade being taken outside Three Knives
  • All the families move in merchant circles and adults display lip-rings specific to their bloodline

We roll the dice a second time for the second island, concerning Kayl’s ancestors. Aelfa is located south-west of Three Knives. Kayl’s player answers a couple more questions:

  • Aelfa is perpetually surrounded in mist and the surrounding waters are rocky; the folk on the island maintain a beacon to warn nearby boats.
  • Kayl visited the place once when they were very young, to inter the bones of a matriarch from the families of Three Knives. It was a weird ceremony and they were warned not to make any noise or draw attention to themselves. They were made to wait outside with the other youngsters when the adults went into the tomb.
  • Kayl’s mother told them that Aelfa means “cradle of the witch”, and that the power of natural magic runs in their blood. Aelfa was once the seat of a coven of magicians called The Fane, and Kayl is named after one of their order.

Finally we roll the dice a third time and we learn about Kurst, a land to the west of Aelfa beyond a turbid stretch of water called The Shoal.

Kayl found out about it when the family was unexpectedly visited by a mysterious relative. Most of the time they sat with Kayl’s parents and made small-talk as they partook of their hospitality, but when they were alone the stranger turned to Kayl and told them in a cracking voice that it was time to return to Aelfa and seek The Fane, who would open the way to the Eye at Kurst.

Summary

Write the character like this:

Kayl, apprentice brewer and latent magician

STR 12, CON 9, DEX 13, INT 11, WIS 15, CHA 10

Growing up: mercantile family of brewers and horticulturalists (trade), father (anchor), lip ring (motif) Ancestry: latent magician (skill), ancient magical society The Fane (connection), family tomb at Aelfa (place) Legend: opening the Eye of the Fane at Kurst (prophecy)

IV. Last words

This is the map in progress. With a group of four characters you’ll generate 12 islands already; expect the GM to fill in the map with a few others, including major antagonists like island city-states, etc.

One thing I didn’t cover was how individual histories interact. If you draw a path tracing back each character’s history through the archipelago, there’s a chance that some of the paths will intersect.

What happens when two PCs’ histories cross? How do you create the shared history in the group? I’d suggest to go back to the questions — maybe pick a couple that the player didn’t answer, and invite the other player to answer.

One other remark: the typical adventurer templates are covered well by the D&D standards — fighter, mage, thief, etc. These are the archetypes of competence we think of for heroic fantasy.

However, the skills implied by the character history will frequently be domestic, rarely heroic (e.g. Kayl is a brewer). This makes sense because the village is a settlement at peace, and most inhabitants are defined by domestic careers such as farming. These work for villagers, but aren’t very sexy or useful for adventurers.

Note how Dungeon Crawl Classics starts off characters with a non-adventuring profession and sees who survives the funnel; at the end of that ordeal, the one survivor may pick an adventuring class.

Characters are started off in this way to underline their mundane nature, and thereby draw attention to the threshold they cross when they go off adventuring. It should be the same case here; the skills implied by personal history are only marginally useful a lot of the time, and the real “adventuring persona” emerges with the character’s demon, their ambition. This is what I’ll cover in the next post.