Monday Motivations #8

Article #8 in a regular series where I offer up some ideas for character backgrounds by class.  I aim to collect these ideas together for a future pdf publication.

What made your character decide to become a wizard? Why did they leave their home town? Did they leave family behind or are they looking for something? These are all questions players face when generating their characters, with the best will in the world it's tempting to rely on cliché.

BARD

4.  The Collector's Curse - As a child, whenever you went missing you were always found in the inn at the feet of whoever was telling tales of Legend, Lore, Myth and Mystery.  And so it went on until the boy became a man.  Until on stormy winter's night a strange, sick old man came in from the rain and took up the place at the hearth.  He coughed and spluttered his way through many tales and even when most of the villagers had long since left for their beds you begged another.  The old man began to tell his own tale, when on a night much like this one a wizard cursed him to roam the lands gathering up tales for all to hear, and with one last wracking cough the old man died passing his curse onto you...

5.  The Greatest Song - As a child you heard many wandering minstrel's pass through the village but none were as strange as one particular elf who passed through.  He captivated everyone that day and a lot of coin was thrown into his hat.  Of all the songs you heard before and since non were as sweet and enchanting as the one he played that day.  As a budding amateur player you decided that you would hone your skills and track the elf down and get him to teach you the greatest song in the world...

BARBARIAN

Dwarven Barbarian by Gold-Seven

2. Dreamquest - The Gods visited you in your dreams last night and led you on a journey to find a desolate volcanic island.  As you followed through many different lands you faced many challenges, some tests of strength, some tests of endurance and some tests of the heart, you gathered around you seven heroes each with a special talent destined to help you in your final challenge.  After many years of travelling you search for the Isle was over and you confronted the great beast who spoke your name and challenged you to mortal combat.  The battle was fierce and long and one by one your comrades fell to the beast, your bravery undiminished you finally spotted a weakness in the beast's defences and struck. It was at this moment that you awoke, sweating.  After several nights of dreaming the same dream and waking at the same crucial moment you consulted the village wise woman who told you that the dream was a sign from the gods that you would not have peace until you could slay the beast and fulfill your destiny...

DRUID

3.  New Official Religion - You take little notice of the political affairs of man, the rolling plains of your homeland bear the scars of countless Kings buried under their soil mounds and yet the forests encroach inexorably over them.  However, this new King has brought a religion with him from across the seas, he has proclaimed it to be the official religion and will not tolerate the old ways.  There's no alternative for you but to move on to a new home where you are free to dance naked in moonlight and talk to whatever animals you like be they chickens or men...

CLERIC

Field Marschall Kruger

4. Holy Child - Although your memory of the event is hazy, your parents began treating you differently when you healed your brother's broken arm when you accidentally pushed him out of a tree.  You said you were sorry and that you didn't mean it and like magic your brother's arm was mended.  Word got out that you had this gift and suddenly people you didn't know started turning up at the family farm wanting you to make them better.  Blind people, those with deformed limbs, even the occasional leper and they often gave your parents food or sometimes money.  You didn't mind helping, you would probably have done it anyway, but your parents made sure that any chores you might have had to do were done by your brothers and sisters.  Of course this didn't go down well with your brothers and sisters who hated you for being special and teased you mercilessly, but you never wished ill of them and always included them in your prayers each and every night.  A few years later a priest visited the farm and he had a retinue of soldiers with him.  You were examined by the priest and he watched as your father slashed his own wrist and you healed it closed.  They talked in private for what seemed like hours and when they emerged your parents fighting back tears told you that you had to go with this priest and he would take care of you...

KNIGHT

1. Penniless Prince - Being a Knight isn't cheap these days, there's the cost of feeding your horse and serf, armour repaired and polished, weapons sharpened, the list goes on.  When the Prince asked you and your fellow Knights to bear with him during his latest cashflow crisis you made cut-backs and economies out of loyalty but after 3 months without pay you'd had enough and you paid off your serf and headed out on the road to find a new employer who would understand that your honourable profession requires respect of the silver and gold variety...

BONUS BACKGROUNDS


Because I screwed up in Article #4 and both duplicated a background and only posted 4 instead of the usual 5, here are 2 extra ones to make up:

KNIGHT

2.  Tourney Pro - You abhor the idea of charging into a battle in your shiny armour to get it all scratched up not to mention the fact that you might die.  Which is why you've spent the last few years travelling from one tournament to another to earn a living.  You love the roar of the crowds the smell of the armour polish, the favours of a comely barons daughter or a serving wench when you're down on your luck.  When times are tough you might even partake in a spot of goblin hunting, but never when the odds are against you...

MONK

1.  National Service - Where you come from it is law that every first-born son enters the monastery and learns the fighting techniques that have been perfected by the countless generations that have gone before.  The Empire needs people to defend it's borders from marauders and people to ensure that the public remain compliant and law abiding.  Some do not survive the training to reach maturity, others do not master their chosen style, but you, and a handful of your class, have achieved mastery and will fulfill your destiny as servants of the empire wherever that may take you...

Papercraft: Ruined Columns

My regular Friday group began another chapter in their on-going campaign which called for them to explore an ancient ruined temple.  The scenario I'm DMing is lifted straight out of an issue of Dungeon Magazine and the map of the temple is dominated by a huge room with lots of toppled columns, some of which have crashed through walls exposing new routes and blocking off others.  I drew out the main room and was particularly unhappy with the result, it was hard to replicate the adhoc passageways and the columns just looked like giant frankfurters, so I decided to make some ruined columns of my own.

As I've found with my other papercraft projects like the Adventurer's Cart, a 3D element can be a real game changer when it comes to combat, so I quickly knocked up a design for a large 4" column and a short stubby 2" column using Google Sketchup and the Unfold Plug-in (See my Papercrafting article for more info) and then exported them as 2D artwork into Photoshop for resizing to the correct scale.

Once printed and cut out they're very easy to put together as they're simple tubes.  I inserted a large bolt into each column before sealing them up, it's not essential but it acts as a weight to keep them from toppling over when the player's get excited. 

• 2" x 1" Ruined Columns (PDF 1Mb) - makes 6 columns
• 4" x 1" Ruined Columns (PDF 934Kb) - makes 3 columns

Enjoy, and don't be afraid to drop me a comment with other papercraft suggestions.

Citymorphs #005 to #008

The first batch of Citymorphs taught me a few lessons (like making the jpgs 300 pixels square) and that if they are going to be used by a randomizer engine I'll have to incorporate some features like edge tunnels if I want another point of tesselation.  So here are four more...

#005 - Harbour and Canal

Another harbour tile, this time with a river or canal, adding a new middle edge feature, I'm still learning here... 

#006 - Very Little Venice

All towns and cities are going to have a river running throught them in some way, so here's a tile with a river bending through it's middle.  Of course to keep it tesselating I had to add in some bridges and edge tunnels which needed a bit of thought.

#007 - Harbour and factory

Enthused with the transparency experiments on the bridges of #006 Very Little Venice I decided to give the factory in this tile a bit of smoke for it's furnaces and of course some coal barges to keep those fires burning.  I have no idea what the factory makes but its location close to the harbour is ideal for exporting its products and importing its raw materials..

#008 - The Chasm

A few years ago a great chasm opened up in the ground and swallowed some buildings.  The river has greated a lake at the chasm's bottom but it must have found a tunnel to flow out of as it always seems to stay at a constant level.  The locals have recently built a bridge to keep some traffic moving through this area but some of the ruined buildings still rest precariously over the chasm edge.

Monday Motivations #7

Article #7 in a regular series where I offer up some ideas for character backgrounds by class.  I aim to collect these ideas together for a future pdf publication.

What made your character decide to become a wizard? Why did they leave their home town? Did they leave family behind or are they looking for something? These are all questions players face when generating their characters, with the best will in the world it's tempting to rely on cliché.

BARD

Bard by AIBryce

1.  Every Bard Needs a Hero - You've made a respectable living up to now sing in the various inns and taverns of your homeland, but singing the same old songs and telling the same old tales has begun to wear thin.  It is said that a bard is only as good as the hero he follows, you must therefore strike out and find your own hero who you can immortalise in song...

2.  The Great Bard's Instrument - When you needed to repair your instrument after a particulary rowdy evening in a local tavern you stumbled across a dusty tome of the Great Bard's work in the luther's workshop.  The tales and songs were familiar but it was the illustration of the Great Bard himself which captivated you.  You had never seen his image before or the instrument he played, so different from your own.  When you ask the luther if he can make such an instrument he tells you that the instrument was made long ago in a land far away and perhaps they have the skills and knowledge to recreate it.

3.  The Masked Mariachi - The people are a sad and dispirited lot, their backs and spirits have been broken by the work party enforcers sent by their despotic ruler to harvest the crops and mine the ore needed to further his own ends.  The people need to rise up and overthrow him, but to do this they need hope, the kind of hope that can be spread through song.  You know that this won't be easy, you'll need to travel swiftly from village to village, be selective in where you play, and you'll need a disguise but the people need you.  The people need the Masked Mariachi...

DRUID

1.  Blight - A terrible blight has cursed the land and the desperate townsfolk turned to you to save their crops, there was nothing you could do.  Your grove has withered and in order to save it you have uprooted it's heart vine which now sits safely in a pot of earth in your backpack as you try to find a new home far from your blighted birthplace.  Perhaps the townfolk will forgive you for abandoning them if you could only find a cure...

2.  Nature's Balance - You became aware of a shift in the natural order of things several months ago during a peyote ritual.  The visions you had showed a dark tide sweeping across the land and plants and animals alike withered and died in it's wake.  The visions grew stronger each time you performed the ritual and you became convinced that the only way you can stem the tide and regain the essential balance is to journey into the heart of darkness and cut out it's root...

Citymorphs #001 to #004

Inspired by Risus and Dyson, I've started geomorphing, but as I mostly enjoy DMing urban environments I thought I'd try something a bit different.  So here are the first in a series of Citymorphs:

#001 Palace District

Every city has to have a big cheese and they need a nice place to crash, of course the hangers on and other courtly types need somewhere to live close which makes for a similar architecture and style.

#002 Colliseum

The people have bread, so give them a circus.  Print off 2 of this tile and you have a whole colliseum for them to while away the hours watching chariot races.

#003 Harbour

Maybe your city is also a port, if so it'll need somewhere to land those ships and some warehouses to store goods and cargo.  It'll also need some sort of harbour master's buildings to control what comes in and what goes out.

#004 Municipal Buildings

With all this commerce going on there's got to be some sort of tax collection and administration going on.  Civil servants like nice buildings to make them feel important so grand architecture and domes are the order of the day.