Charla, the Sphere of the Dragon Kin

So a long time ago, at a high school that is very far away from me, I started getting involved in Role Playing Games. My friends and I started participating in game of Everway at lunch with people who would become part of our core group of friends (every single one of which I still think of as family). I was able to get my hands on a copy of the Everway box set during this time and began reading. My creative spark was inspired and I wanted to start running a game, but didn't know what I was going to do for a story or quest.

I truly had no experience or anything close to an idea of what I was doing. At this time I only had really shitty  writing and random knowledge of Fantasy universes/writing to work with. I wasn't fully "out of the basement" yet and didn't embrace my geek nature and I didn't have much confidence in my ability to tell a story. This was all happening prior to the outbreak of Geek culture into the mainstream and the release of movies and TV series that would make it okay to talk about these things to normal people.

I don't know where I'm trying to go with this particular portion of this rant. Really though I think I'm just trying to get  across the point that I was inexperienced and not ready for the big time, but I had some lofty ideals that I was trying to get across. I started coming up with what I thought was a neat idea and tried to create a world around it.

This world was what I called Charla (Char-lah). It was based off the idea for one of the literally hundreds of character ideas I had been coming up with during those early days. The character (who's name escapes me) was a humanoid character with Dragon wings, immunity to fire, and the ability to control fire (an inborn talent for pyromancy ran in this race). This was his home Sphere (Everway was a crossroads for many different portals to other "spheres" or planets and Spherewalkers always ended up in Everway proper some way or another). I never got to play him, but I liked the idea of his world a lot and started to think about what types of things it would have to deal with.

I created a world where there were two species of sentient beings. One of them were the Charlanites, who all had the dragon wings, fire immunity, and the pyromancy. The other race was the Dak'kon (I think... it's been about 15 years since I created this thing, maybe it was the Drakar... I wish I could remember. Dak'kon may have been a character's name the more I think about it) which were a race of Dragon like humanoids with a breath weapon, an extremely reptilian style body, and no wings. Both races had a strong magical heritage and had been warring for millennia.

The Charlanites were ruled by an Archmage in a magic skills based monarchy. They had no real society other than that. I was inexperienced, shut up. The Dak'kon were led by a war chief, or warlord or something... it wasn't important at the time. Whoever it was happened to be the main villain who was just kinda there with no motivation other than to fight the PCs because Noob GM.

The Charlanites worshiped a god they believed resided in the volcano in their capitol city. They held various ceremonies and combat tournaments in the god's honor because that sounded like a good idea. The Archmage would lead everyone in the ceremonies and used the gathered energy to protect everyone from the eruptions that would regularly take place during the height of the ceremonies.

It was during one of these ceremonies that the PCs were brought in. This being the Everway setting I had to come up with a reason for the PCs to be brought out there to a whole different "Sphere" via the portal network. I of course didn't want to give them an option to potentially ignore my "finely crafted" adventure, so I created an ultra powerful and very awful NPC named The Watcher. So called because he watched over many different spheres to ensure that prophecies were fulfilled. (A concept that is so ridiculous that it might actually make him a great concept for a villain now that I think back on his role in things. Maybe I'll write that down for later.)

Anyways, The Watcher (no I didn't know about the Marvel Comics character of the same name at the time) gathered the PCs together at his tower on a desolate and featureless sphere that may or may not have been a pocket dimension. There he told them of Charla and that they would play a vital role in protecting the future of that sphere. He then opened a portal for them (not really a power that anyone is really allowed to possess other than gods) and shoved them through into the welcoming arms of the Archmage as he completes a ceremony.

The specifics of this adventure become hazy from this point on, I'll do my best to retell it but no promises that it'll be even remotely right.

The Archmage welcomed them and then offered them a chance to prove their worth and abilities in various arena battles. I'm trying to remember what each PC was, because this would prove to eventually be important in a few cases. Let's see, there was the half-demon, a zombie-esque undead creature based off of Rob Zombie (I think he named the species a "Creeper"), a Gargoyle (as in Gargoyles the cartoon) with an amulet that kept her out of stone form in the day, a beserker named Orsen (whose battle cry was "SPOOON!!!"), some type of fighter... I think (it was an early Chris character, I can't remember and feel ashamed by that), and an magic sensitive, graceful dancer whom I think could spin illusions.

So after a bunch of combat the PCs were told that they were to gather the ancient weapons of legend to use to defeat the evil warlord and were given the locations of these four weapons. Oh yeah, and everyone had a chance to get fire lizards bonded to them as pets, as in the ones from Anne McCaffrey because.

[Later edit: You have no idea how difficult this is to write, this storyline is just awful and it HURTS to remind myself of it.]

The weapons were a physical manifestation of the four elements that govern Everway; Air, Fire, Earth, and Water. I thought it was clever and neat. The first weapon they went after was the Sword of Inferno. Inferno being the name of the Charlanites' greatest hero whom used the sword to do something heroic sometime in the past.

That sword was meant to go to the person with the highest score in the Fire element when I initially designed the campaign but I couldn't justify giving the sword to the Creeper who used claw-like weapons. so instead I exercised my first bit of the Golden Rule and gave the Sword to the half-demon because of his connection with the element because it made more narrative sense. The sword was kept inside of some volcanic landscape somewhere and they had to sort of dodge the environments and fight something simple. If I had encountered this in a game now I as a player would expect that we were being set up at this point.

So after grabbing the sword they report back to get the next weapon's location and were then given all three of them. They headed up to the highest mountain peak to retrieve the Lightning Dagger, which was given to the Gargoyle. They wandered a frozen wasteland and retrieved the Bow of Ice which went to the dancer. Finally they descended into a deep canyon to retrieve the Stone Axe (or maybe it was the Axe of Earth) which was at the center of this canyon/ravine thing that it was in the center of which went to Chris' fighter. They reported back to the Archmage and then participated in an "epic battle" between the Dak'kon/Drakkar and the Charlanites which the players participate in and the chosen wielders learn the true power of their legendary weapons. (There may have also been gratuitous use of the word "Swack!" and the destruction of a carriage made of spoons during this time. Shut up, it made sense at the time! Okay it didn't, but shut your face hole anyways!)

The Sword of Inferno basically changed shape to fit with the personal style of the bearer. It was also able to coat the blade in flames and launch fireballs and other fire based attacks at foes. The Lightning Dagger did similar things, but used lightning instead. The Axe of Earth was made of stone and cut things super well while enhancing the strength of the bearer. The Bow of Ice generated its own arrows in its quiver that when they hit their target basically completely froze the target in an effect similar to what you see in movies where things get turned to stone by magic, but with more ice and it adding a couple of inches of ice around the body. They also had the ability to be willed back to their bearers but that was never used.

The characters were charged with chasing the warlord back to his castle and take him down. And so they did and then peace became the norm and the prophecy was fulfilled. At this point the story is very fuzzy and I can't remember it because I was flat out making it up as I went along. No prep, no notes, just winging it at lunch everyday with no thoughts given to it other than a general goal for the players. The PCs were allowed to keep what they had found and/or were given (including the weapons) and were picked up by The Watcher to be brought back to Everway. The two races may or may not have suddenly merged together and become full blooded dragons (I seem to remember that thought, but can't remember if it was just an idea or what actually happened. If it did happen though it raises a whole bunch of other questions that make my head hurt).

And that is basically the end of that story. I think there were gifts and abilities given out as the players so desired, but I can't remember what the rewards were. It was awful (but not the worst!) and there were more holes than plot, but it was my first time in the hot seat and I'm glad that I did it. I learned a lot from that experience.

My second time running a campaign went far, FAR worse. I won't retell that tale, but it is a shame filled thing that nearly stopped me from doing anything again ever. I'm glad I learned from that one. Let's just say that the second game evolved from the idea that aliens from X-Com decided to invade Everway and there was a Predator.

As for the first campaign though. I keep thinking I should try to rebuild it as a D20 module with a proper storyline and everything but every time I try to I run into the same problem I always do. D20 systems just seem to be too restrictive for it to work the way I want it to. Although it is very easy to transplant the legendary elemental weapons into any other system out there. I may use them again, but the base idea of this campaign may not ever see the light of day again.

I'm not sure I'm okay with that though. I want to go back and tweak and/or fix it.

BAM-Con Panel Ideas

So some of you have heard about BAM-Con (Berkshire Anime and Manga Convention) that the wife and I have been a part of for the past two years. Some of the talks we've had about it are about expanding it beyond just the themes of Anime, Manga and Japanese culture. Mostly adding in more mainstream Sci-Fi/Fantasy and Geekculture themes.

Our convention is going to continue to be in early May. It's just a good time period to run one. It puts us between a couple of the big ones in the area and is early in the season so people aren't already burned out by other conventions. I can't talk about some of the things the organizers have been talking about yet, but the early May timing means that the convention happens around some important dates in Star Wars fandom. Which is of course one of my favorite subjects.

So I'm being told that I should be designing some type of Star Wars panel/panels for next year's convention. I'm not sure if I am going to do it, but before I figure out if I want to do it or not I need to figure out what types of panels I could do well at and what type of unique talk I could bring to the convention.

I'm not sure what I can do based upon my own interests and knowledge that can be turned into a half hour to an hour long panel though. I'm open to suggestions if anyone wants to post some ideas. I'll be trying to figure out some ideas myself. Hopefully I will find something that will stick.

Geinrich, the city of merchants, Fate RPG

So for the past few months I've been working on putting together a Fate RPG setting. Life has been getting in the way of my normal nerd related pursuits so this has taken me a lot longer than I expected it to, but I’m pretty happy with how well it has turned out so far. I’m basically doing this to get myself back into the swing of things because it has been a long time since I've run anything, especially anything worthwhile. With Fate so much closer to what I learned to GM with (Everway) I think it will give me the practice I need before I finally run the Eternal Seas campaign setting I've been cooking up.

So, as previously mentioned, the system being used is Fate RPG. This is a system based off of the Fudge System and uses Fudge dice to determine the outcomes of actions. See my previous posts for the explanations of that type of thing. Since I’m rusty and suddenly got excited by the fact that there were people who were willing to play this system I decided to go with a smaller, more “intimate” style setting and build a large city for the players to be based out of. I wanted the setting to be to my taste so I decided that the setting will be the equivalent to a “low” magic DnD setting, which basically means that it has the equivalent magic level of Everway. (No level 8 clerics with all the powers of Jesus. Magic might be common depending upon the area, but it isn't world shattering stuff most of the time.) I also want the players to be able to do cool things so I’m thinking of starting the PCs off at a Refresh level of 4 or 5, maybe 6 depending upon people’s preferences.

As is my style, I started calling this setting “Generic Fantasy World #12” as a placeholder for a name because I’m so creative like that. This setting being based out of a large city meant that I needed to figure out why this city would exist, and what types of conflicts could be found in it. I got to thinking about it and went with a centrally located Trading Hub style city with a river running through it because that gives you quite a lot of options to work with. You have the ability to have characters with very diverse backgrounds show up, a constant stream of new people, goods, etc flowing through, and plenty of employment opportunities for PCs seeking adventure. The river gives you access to the ocean and implies a mountain range or other source for the river coming from upstream somewhere. The river also gives me the ability to split the city and make a section that is the “ghetto” side of town which has all of its own implications.

Okay, off to a good start. So now some more specific things were needed. I eventually settled on Geinrich (Gyn-Rick, like gynecologist and the name Rick) because it sounds faux German and is totally isn't based off of the fact I might have been watching a Bobby’s World episode and was reminded of his last name.  I needed to come up with some distinct landmarks and areas/districts for the city, and some NPC organizations, a government, and a little bit of information on the surrounding areas to help as a kickstart for not only myself, but the players for when we sit down for the planning session.

With this being a centrally located trading hub it made sense to me that there would be a large number of roads leading to the city. Old cities would have to have walls to protect themselves from invasion so I figure that there would be a limited number of roads leading into the actual interior of the city. I settled on 5 roads because it was a nice number that made my poorly drawn map look a little prettier. Each road would have its own gate and all roads would meet in the middle of the city where the Great Market of Geinrich is set up. The roads and the gates are all named in pairs; Beggar’s Road/Gate, Golden Road/Gate, Merchant’s Road/Gate, Council Road/Gate, and Fool’s Road/Gate.

There are two gates on the river as well so that they can control entry. These gates are called South Bend Gate and River Gate. River Gate is upstream, South Bend Gate is downstream. There are 4 Bridges that cross the river. 3 in the city, 1 just down river from the South Bend Gate outside of the walls. Starting upstream you have North Bridge, Market Bridge, Hope's Bridge, and Outwall Bridge. Hope's bridge collapsed about 10 years ago and hasn't been rebuilt, or even really cleared away more than enough to allow river traffic through. (That's not symbolic AT ALL!!!).

I started off with the river through the city going straight through and dividing the city neatly in half, but I didn't like that too much. Just seemed too perfect to me for the city to be divided like that, so I turned the river into an almost C shape through the city. So the river enters the city through the river gate from the North West and exits it from the South through the south bend gate. The Western piece of the city makes up about a third of the city's area.

I decided to break the city up into 7 different districts because of the way that I drew the roads and river made that the easiest way to do it. The west bank of the city contains the city's poor district, also called the West Bank or Westside. Through the middle of West Bank is Beggar's Road and Beggar's Gate which leads directly through the district to Market Bridge. Over the river reside the other six districts. The Smith's Quarter sits on the northern district of the city between the river and [Fool's] Road. It is an industrial district, connected to its primary source of workers by the North Bridge. The district has so many businesses and warehouses in it that it has spilled over to outside of the walls.

Next up in a clockwise direction you have a  Middle class district that is currently unnamed bordered by [Fool's] Road and Merchant's Road that is unnamed at this time. The next district is an upper-middle class area bordered by Merchant's Road and Golden Road. this district is also unnamed at the moment. Next you have The Gilded Quarter, the rich/ruling/upper class area of the city. This district is bordered by Golden Road and Council Road. Finally you have another middle class district. This one is bordered by Council Road and the river (which I really need to name). This middle class district is a little bit lower in the wealth department because this was where the poor from the West Bank tended to go when they were able to rise out of poverty and cross Hope's Bridge before it collapsed.

At the center of the city, where all roads meet you have The Great Market of Geinrich. A place where merchants from all over the continent congregate to sell their wares on their way through. It is a veritable menagerie of goods. Anything is potentially available given enough time and searching. This area is heavily regulated by the Council (more on them later) and also the area that they station the most guards because this is the source of most of the city's tax income.

Since I mentioned them now's as good of a time as any to start talking about some of the major organizations of the city. I only created these as a starting point since the players will be adding their inputs into the world as part of the character/world design session we will have before we start playing (as per Fate's world building rules). So with that in mind, here are 4 of the many organizations active in the city.

First off you have the Guild Council. This is the actual legislating/ruling body of the city. The city's government is basically a Mercantile Republic where each officially recognized guild has a vote in government policy. The number of guilds is always shifting, but there tends to be a few dozen officially recognized guilds at a time. The Council votes to appoint a Lord to ensure the day to day running of the city and to faithfully execute the laws of the city (for those who understand government structure, the lord is the executive branch while the council is the legislative branch). A lord is appointed by a simple majority vote of the Council and is in office until removed by council vote or death. To remove the appointed lord from power the Council requires a two thirds vote. So historically it tends to be easier to remove the lord by assassination rather than by vote.

Guilds can gain official recognition by the Council and obtain a vote by following an application process and a simple majority vote. In order to revoke their official status it is also a majority vote. It is an accepted, if rather looked down upon, practice to use this revocation to shut down political opponents. Which is why the numbers of Guilds are always fluctuating.

The rest of the government is a bureaucratic nightmare of appointed officials "selected" by the lord (or one of his representatives) and appointed by the Council. These officials tend to be issuers of licenses/permits and tax collectors for a particular area. When officials have to do these things over in West Bank they tend to have to have an armed escort because of the rampant crime and general hatred of the residents.

The second organization I created is the City Guard. This is an organization that tries to do its best, but is significantly undermanned for the amount of things they have to do. The Council won't let them hire more full time guards for political/fiscal reasons but keeps telling them to do more and more. The captain of the city guard, Captain Michael Greggorson, has resorted to using some of his budget to hire whomever is willing to help as well as post bounties so that he doesn't have to waste his men on such things.

I decided immediately to give the organization the Aspect "Too many things, not enough bodies" because that perfectly fits their situation. Without manning at the levels they need, organized crime has been flourishing within the city and West Bank has been basically abandoned by the City Guard, outside of guarding the gates and bridges that lead to it.

I mentioned organized crime so let's get to that. I'm pretty tired of the semi-friendly and noble thieves guild style organized crime you normally see in fantasy settings. That's not how criminal enterprises operate. I don't like that interpretation of it at all, so after watching some Guy Ritchie movies I figured out a perfect way to represent the organized crime in Geinrich.

The first criminal organization is a Mafia-like group (probably going with "the Syndicate" as a name) that basically controls all criminal enterprises on the East Bank (the "civilized" side of the river). They are led by a mysterious boss known only as "the Baron." very few people know whom he actually is, but his influence is felt over most of the city. This group has a full command structure and initiation practices. Once you get to the point of being a "made man" you gain various benefits of their organization. They take care of you.

They are typically involved in prostitution, smuggling, "high-class/high stakes" gambling (including rigging high profile sports and tournaments), bribery, some extortion/protection, and drug running/dealing. They also are the exclusive importers of Opium (a highly illegal substance) into the the city and violently hold a monopoly on it. Anyone who gets caught dealing in it without their permission is dealt with in a very public way that shows their death was not quick.

The other "organization" out there are the various small groups, gangs, and criminal rings of West Bank. Think of these guys as the petty criminal groups you'd see in Guy Ritchie's movies. Some of them are pretty brutal characters with small organizations, while others are just underground pit fight promoters looking for a new wagon. The groups are diverse and sometimes work together with or against each other.

One of the most infamous groups right now are the Bonny Lads, lead by a man called The Laughing Man. (So named for the large "smiles" he leaves in people's throats.) They are primarily into extortion, robbery, and gambling (mostly pit fighting based). They are an extremely brutal and nasty gang to cross. Anyone who is in their way or that causes them trouble will be hurt or killed in a particularly brutal fashion. Those who survive are typically crippled for the rest of their short lives and are a nightmare to look upon.

I'm trying to think if there's anything else in particular to go over at the moment. I've got some NPCs built, I've got some history thrown together, and I have some initial adventure hooks planned. This setting is basically ready to go following some minor details, which can be filled in with the help of the players.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I decided to place this city on the continent of Wasslund from my Eternal Seas campaign setting. I just didn't feel like creating a new continent from scratch. This is going to take place prior to the Cataclysm that screws magic up globally and is also taking place prior to the Sacred Empire taking over the entire continent. Geinrich is an independent city-state located in a central part of  the continent. I haven't put it on the map yet, but it's in a generalized spot in case the players want to head somewhere else. I've got a bunch of notes on the current state of the continent somewhere, but can't find them at the moment so maybe I'll just write a different post about it when I do find it.