Article #11 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.
WIZARD
5. Star Child - You do not remember much about your early childhood other than that your foster parents found you in a shallow ditch blasted in a corn field. As you grew older and your powers manifested themselves they warned you to learn to hide that you were different lest others find out and turn against you. When in your teens they succumbed to the ravages of old age there was nothing to stop you forging out into a new and strange world in search of answers...
ILLUSIONIST
3. The Great Thespian - Your early years were an idyl spent playing with your brothers and sisters in the caravans of your parents travelling theatre. Your schooling consisted of mimicking your favourite characters from the tragedies and comedies you saw your parents play night after night as you travelled from town to town. As a teen you learned all the theatrical arts from actor to stage hand and honed your skills at night in supporting roles.
Your parents recognized that somehow your performances, even in the smallest of parts would often bewitch and delight the audience, but they could never understand where this talent came from. Until after a successful night playing in a sleepy village in the middle of nowhere a wizened old man asked to see your parents after the performance. He said that your skill was the work of magic and as an illusionist of the first rank he could not allow your parents to waste your talent on the stage and proposed that he make you his apprentice.
When several weeks later you had journeyed a thousand leagues from your homeland the illusionist disposed of his cunningly crafted disguise and revealed his true identity, he was infact the great thespian himself. You stood awestruck at the deception he had perpetrated on you and your parents and only narrowly avoided being skewered by his sword. As he lunged and you parried, he explained how he could not allow a talent like yours to overshadow his own and had decided to ensure that you would never upstage him. Sadly his talents did not extend to swordplay and his orations were cut short as you jabbed your rapier through his heart...
PALADIN
2. Dishonourable Conduct - Although you were happy being just a regular soldier in the Kings army, you never enjoyed the rough housing or esprit de corps as the officers called it. Sometimes you thought your comrades were as bad as the enemy you were sent to into battle to kill. All this changed for you when after a particularly bloodthirsty engagement you had to defend a young village girl from being sullied by one of your own sergeants. You stood trial by courts martial for acts of insubordination, and were it not for the pleadings of the chaplain your neck would have long since been stretched by the hangman's noose. Your punishment was commuted to life servitude in the order of paladins, a band of desperate men who, forced to give up their fate to the mercy of God, were despatched to the farthest reaches of the kingdom to despatch the Kings enemies no matter how suicidal the mission or overwhelming the odds.
DRUID
4. A Man in a Woman's World - You didn't realise it at the time, but all through your childhood your grandmother taught you the ways of the spirit world. How to bend nature to do your bidding and when to bend to nature's will. The skills and knowledge which have been passed down from mother to daughter since time began are not normally taught to boys but your grandmother insisted that as your parents only child you were to be taught these lessons lest the old ways be lost to future generations. When the time came for her to pass into the spirit realm, the druids from the other nearby villages assembled to appoint her successor. Their shock as you were presented to them was palpable, and even though you demonstrated your extensive knowledge of the rites and incantations your grandmother had so patiently taught you they would not accept you as one of their equals and cast you out as an abomination...
MONK
3. Collectors of Truth - The training was arduous and the mortality rate high, but only the most proficient students of your order are selected to become collectors. Their mission, to be despatched to the four corners of the world to accumulate knowledge in all it's forms and to return it to the monastery for recording and analysis by the multitude of scribes. To survive the dangers of the outside world a collector must be wise beyond his years in order to identify Truth from Untruth, have the mental capacity to store the knowledge and possess the self preservation skills necessary to protect it on it's often perilous journey home...
Monday, 14 March 2011
Saturday, 12 March 2011
UPDATE 2: RPG Google Mapping with MAPLib
I recently blogged my experiences with MAPLib 6 months on, wherein I postulated that if the map had placenames next to it's markers it might reach KILLER APP status. Well, it looks like the guys at MAPLib were listening as lo and behold placenames now feature on my map and I didn't have to lift a finger to add them, awesome work guys.
I've been Dave'd...
For all of you out there following the Citymorph articles I've been posting, Dave Millar has kindly included my morphs in his Dave's Mapper Tool. Admittedly citymorph's need a bit more fineagling than most but the results are very rewarding. 5 minutes spent rotating and swapping the odd tile here and there and hey presto!
A medieval urban sprawl is born...
A medieval urban sprawl is born...
Wednesday, 9 March 2011
Citymorphs #017 to #020
4 more Citymorphs for you this week, have you spotted the secret theme yet...
#017 - The Docks
The Bigger vessels need somewhere sheltered to do their running repairs out of mainstream river traffic.
A recent addition to the docks are the three large cranes which are singularly responsible for halving the stevedore labour force which would have been loading and loading the ships that berth here. Needless to say the Stevedores Guild is mobilizing as we speak and there is likely to be an all out strike.
#018 - The Keep
If the city walls should be breached the Morphian Lord has somewhere heavily fortified to retreat to. However, in times of peace it has become little more than a museum in which to house many of the cities archives and is popular among the scholars of the university district. Several enterprising market traders have therefore set up their stalls within its shadow to catch the passing students who are alway in need of parchment, writing instruments and ink.
#019 - The Bath House District
Morphians like to keep clean so the municipal council invested heabily in it's public waterworks schemes. The Great Bath House in the centre is fed continually with clean water and it disgorges it's waste into the river. Only the richest can afford the luxuries of private bathing in these sumptuous surroundings. Downstream are the ever popular public bathing steps where even the common man can bathe in full view of his peers.
#020 - The Bastille
Morphians who fall foul of the law are incarcerated in this prison which rests on a pillar of bassalt giving its inmates commanding views over the city. The Barracks block at the foot of the hill ensures that there is a ready supply of soldiers to keep any unrest among the prison population to an absolute minimum.
The Bigger vessels need somewhere sheltered to do their running repairs out of mainstream river traffic.
A recent addition to the docks are the three large cranes which are singularly responsible for halving the stevedore labour force which would have been loading and loading the ships that berth here. Needless to say the Stevedores Guild is mobilizing as we speak and there is likely to be an all out strike.
If the city walls should be breached the Morphian Lord has somewhere heavily fortified to retreat to. However, in times of peace it has become little more than a museum in which to house many of the cities archives and is popular among the scholars of the university district. Several enterprising market traders have therefore set up their stalls within its shadow to catch the passing students who are alway in need of parchment, writing instruments and ink.
Morphians like to keep clean so the municipal council invested heabily in it's public waterworks schemes. The Great Bath House in the centre is fed continually with clean water and it disgorges it's waste into the river. Only the richest can afford the luxuries of private bathing in these sumptuous surroundings. Downstream are the ever popular public bathing steps where even the common man can bathe in full view of his peers.
Morphians who fall foul of the law are incarcerated in this prison which rests on a pillar of bassalt giving its inmates commanding views over the city. The Barracks block at the foot of the hill ensures that there is a ready supply of soldiers to keep any unrest among the prison population to an absolute minimum.
Monday, 7 March 2011
Monday Motivations #10
Article #10 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.
BARBARIAN
5. Left Behind - Last year your tribe set out on a raiding voyage and all was right with the world. You pillaged a handful of villages along the coast, and then took the river inland like you had done many times. However, when you rounded the bend near a particularly fertile spot of the countryside, to your horror the townsfolk were lining the banks of the river. They'd never done this before, usually they were compliant and played by the rules, you raided their villages for crops, livestock and the odd wife and afterwards they went about whatever it was that they had to do to make ready for your visit next year. When they started firing wave after wave if flaming arrows at the boat, the chief had had enough and ordered you to turn the boat around. The oarsmen stroked the water with a new sense of urgency but it was not enough to put you out of range of the villagers bows. When an arrow stuck you in the back you staggered to the side of the boat, slipped on the blood of your childhood friend Boggart and tumbled overboard, banging your head on the side of the boat. You came too some minutes later as you drifted downstream, luckily you hadn't drowned, but there was no sign of the boat and you were a long way from home in a strange land full of people who wanted to kill you...
CLERIC
5. Roll the bones - your god demands blood sacrifice every solstice to give thanks for the bounteous crop which will sustain it through the winter. This year however when you performed the choosing ritual and cast the bones to select a goat to sacrifice you were horrified. Instead of pointing to one of the assembled animals it indicated that this years sacrifice would be human and would be the chieftains daughter. You hastily performed the ritual three more times and each time the bones indicated that the god wanted the chieftains daughter in payment for his favours...
MONK
2. World Harmony - Your order shoulders the heavy burden of maintaining a ritual without which the world would eventually stop. Your brothers chant perpetually all day every day, this constant background tone vibrates through everything on the planet and keeps the world in a constant state of movement. People of a good nature will vibrate in harmony those of an evil disposition will vibrate dissonantly. Your job is to journey out into the unknown and detect these dissonants and either train them to resonate harmoniously or to despatch them...
ILLUSIONIST
1. Inquisitor - The king and his descendants have used your kind for hundreds of years to keep the kingdom free of dissent. Your job is to travel from town to village to sniff out signs of rebellion using your powers of persuasion and mind reading. "What happens after you write your report is not your concern" were the words of your old teacher, but you know that the people you report on are never seen or heard from again. When you returned home some months ago, your father's mind was full of rebellious thoughts about the kingdom, you planted a masking which might last a year, but if another inquisitor were to read his mind he'd be able to tell that it was your spell...
2. The Puppeteer - You can't remember when your powers awoke, you've always been able to suggest things to people and they've done what you asked. As you got older the tasks you asked people to perform for you were a means to enrich yourself and ultimately brought you to the attentions of the local sheriff and his mind was not as easy to control as the others especially when he had his mage with him. You read the guards intentions from some distance away, the night they came to arrest you and you've been on the run ever since...
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.
BARBARIAN
5. Left Behind - Last year your tribe set out on a raiding voyage and all was right with the world. You pillaged a handful of villages along the coast, and then took the river inland like you had done many times. However, when you rounded the bend near a particularly fertile spot of the countryside, to your horror the townsfolk were lining the banks of the river. They'd never done this before, usually they were compliant and played by the rules, you raided their villages for crops, livestock and the odd wife and afterwards they went about whatever it was that they had to do to make ready for your visit next year. When they started firing wave after wave if flaming arrows at the boat, the chief had had enough and ordered you to turn the boat around. The oarsmen stroked the water with a new sense of urgency but it was not enough to put you out of range of the villagers bows. When an arrow stuck you in the back you staggered to the side of the boat, slipped on the blood of your childhood friend Boggart and tumbled overboard, banging your head on the side of the boat. You came too some minutes later as you drifted downstream, luckily you hadn't drowned, but there was no sign of the boat and you were a long way from home in a strange land full of people who wanted to kill you...
CLERIC
5. Roll the bones - your god demands blood sacrifice every solstice to give thanks for the bounteous crop which will sustain it through the winter. This year however when you performed the choosing ritual and cast the bones to select a goat to sacrifice you were horrified. Instead of pointing to one of the assembled animals it indicated that this years sacrifice would be human and would be the chieftains daughter. You hastily performed the ritual three more times and each time the bones indicated that the god wanted the chieftains daughter in payment for his favours...
MONK
2. World Harmony - Your order shoulders the heavy burden of maintaining a ritual without which the world would eventually stop. Your brothers chant perpetually all day every day, this constant background tone vibrates through everything on the planet and keeps the world in a constant state of movement. People of a good nature will vibrate in harmony those of an evil disposition will vibrate dissonantly. Your job is to journey out into the unknown and detect these dissonants and either train them to resonate harmoniously or to despatch them...
ILLUSIONIST
1. Inquisitor - The king and his descendants have used your kind for hundreds of years to keep the kingdom free of dissent. Your job is to travel from town to village to sniff out signs of rebellion using your powers of persuasion and mind reading. "What happens after you write your report is not your concern" were the words of your old teacher, but you know that the people you report on are never seen or heard from again. When you returned home some months ago, your father's mind was full of rebellious thoughts about the kingdom, you planted a masking which might last a year, but if another inquisitor were to read his mind he'd be able to tell that it was your spell...
2. The Puppeteer - You can't remember when your powers awoke, you've always been able to suggest things to people and they've done what you asked. As you got older the tasks you asked people to perform for you were a means to enrich yourself and ultimately brought you to the attentions of the local sheriff and his mind was not as easy to control as the others especially when he had his mage with him. You read the guards intentions from some distance away, the night they came to arrest you and you've been on the run ever since...
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