[Circle of Hands] Scenario Prep: Karlsgard

[Nyhteg]

My current prep. Input welcome.

------------------------

Rolls
Black Die: 1    White Die: 3    Red Die: 5

Setting
All three results are different -> Rolke

Components
1 -> Humanitarian crisis
1+3 = 4 -> Hidden Knowledge
1+3+5 = 9 -> [Ignored]

Two NPCs per component

Component 1
Humanitarian Crisis

I used the 'Four Horsemen' approach to get my ideas going initially: War, Famine, Plague, Death ('Natural Disaster', let's say, so flood, landslide, wildfire, etc). I was wary of 'War' as a theme at first because I was cautious about introducing Local Tensions - which would be leakage into an unrolled component. After mulling some other options, however, I came back to the notion of War because I realised that excluding Local Tensions from the mix suddenly made for a horrible, horrible situation...

Here's the setup:
Ortwin Half-Beard, erstwhile Chieftain of Torbheim , has recently seized power in the neighbouring settlement of Karlsgard. A petition to Karlsgard's chieftain for aid after a bad Winter and a blighted harvest, went badly. Approaches were rebuffed, pride was injured, insults exchanged...and matters escalated within the space of a month into a brief siege-in-force and a bloody aftermath.
Ortwin and his son, Marwin, now rule here in Karlsgard and have migrated their people from the failing Torbheim.
Falk, the old chief of Karlsgard was killed in the battle, his entire family murdered shortly afterwards, and Ortwin's early rule has remained as violent as his takeover.
There are still a good number of survivors from the original town - a majority of elders, women and children, but there menfolk in decent number also (although no gentry survive) - but the integration of the two towns is not seamless by any means. From eviction and forced-billeting to out-and-out bullying, abuse and murder, Ortwin's people hold the whip hand over the Karlsgarders in the most emphatic of terms. By the time the Knights arrive on the scene, there is no conflict occurring here - only weary, brutalised acquiescence - the people of Karlsgard are broken and cowed beyond all resistance. The Pole is in evidence all about. The double-society is on full display.
I'm seeing heads on stakes; I'm seeing starvation rations; I'm seeing forced labour, curfews and segregation. Full-bore, heavy-handed unpleasantness, bascially.

NPCs
Ortwin Half-Beard - New Chieftain of Karlsgard.
Gruff, physically powerful and wily, Ortwin sports a large battle scar across one side of his face and jaw (hence the name).
He lives in misplaced fear of losing control of the town. He does not realise how complete his victory is and strives to keep his boot on the local people's neck. He's certainly wise enough to recognise that he needs the locals to tend the fields, teach his men about the land and help rebuild the town before it goes the way of Torbheim, but he can't seem to take the steps to transition from conqueror to leader. The current situation feels like a peace to him, for now, and certainly feels like tightly gripped victory.

Marwin son of Ortwin
Intense and hungry for power of his own, Marwin commands the core of fighting men in his father's retinue and in most ways is his right hand. He his revelling in this new form of authority.
The father and son differ only in the fact that Marwin is too young and rash to see why any of the locals are being kept alive at all. In his perfectly pragmatic view, it is little more than a foolish waste of precious food and firewood not to slaughter anyone who does not offer a skill they lack. Marwin sees only the chance of rebellion and fuels his father's paranoia in that regard. He is being kept in line at present, satisfying himself with exercising control and punishment, and overseeing reconstruction in accordance with his father's orders.

Location
The fortified hill town of Karlsbad

Tripwire
If Marwin or Ortwin are killed, the town will become the scene of an outright genocide as the occupying forces run amok, overtaken by fear of an uprising.



Component 2
Hidden Knowledge

For as long as anyone can remember, the Chiefs of Karlsgard have owned a token of their rule.
It is a staff - its origins forgotten or never known - which has been used by the chiefs in ceremony and suchlike down the generations. As it happens, the staff itself is unremarkable. Although it is an old and decently carved piece of dark oak, the true treasure is its headpiece, which is a palm-sized, perfectly circular, glass lens set in an ornate iron fitting. It is well known among the elders of Karlsgard that the lens is able focus sunlight and start fire, but its true power lies in its local symbolic weight. Whoever holds the staff, holds the people.

Whenever Karlsgard is under threat, by custom the staff is put in a safe hiding place so as to save it from falling into the hands of an enemy. The staff currently lies far outside town - in a ruin in the middle of a secret lake, deep in the forest. Because of the overwhelming presence of the Torbheimers, even if anyone has wanted to, it has been impossible to get away from town to retrieve the staff.

NPCs
Friederieke the Priestess
An older lady, and de-facto leader of the local faithful, Friederieke does not know exactly where the staff is hidden - although she is the only one who knows that Hartmut hid it. If she is able to get to it, however, Friederieke wants to take the staff to Falk's half-brother, Hagan who rules a township a good ten days' journey away in Famberge. She believes that with the staff proving his right to chieftaincy, Hagan will ride out to avenge Falk's murder and reclaim Karlsgard from Ortwin.

Hartmut the Farmer
In his thirties, single, Hartmut's greatest strength is his sense of self-preservation. Back when news of Ortwin's impending attack first reached the town, it was he who volunteered to carry the staff (and thus himself) to safety. As it happens he is now the only person left alive who knows where it is. One of the first to swear loyalty to Ortwin (not that it's made life particularly easy for him in any discernable way, beyond not being dead on a pole), he nonetheless desperately wants to keep the location secret.
He has made a crude map (which is little to no use to anyone who doesn't know the woods as well as he does) to record its location just in case, but beyond that he has told no-one. He believes that if the staff gets into the hands of Ortwin, the new chief's rule will be sealed. He hasn't decided whether this would be a good thing (ie: to his own advantage) yet or not. He does not yet realise that Friederieke knows that he was the one who hid the staff.

Location
The island where the staff is hidden.

Tripwire
If the Knights are discovered trying to take the staff (or the headpiece) away from Karlsgard without overt permission, the whole town (for different reasons) will turn violently against them.


-------------------


So there we go. Seems about ready to roll to me. Need to find some maps or pictures. Need to assign numbers for stats and so forth. I'm thinking Marwin is probably going to be made the toughest character in the mix, stats-wise.

I've tried not to tie the two components together and I think I've just about managed it...but it's close.
At the outset, I think the issues with the lens/staff are focused solely between Friederieke and Hartmut. The wider effect of who has it or ends up with it, of its continued secrecy or otherwise, is not the crux of that situation at all.

Thoughts..? Anything I'm missing?

I am wondering about the second Tripwire, actually.
Is discovery a necessary factor? Would it be better for the mere act of trying to remove the lens from Karlsgard without permission be enough to spring the Tripwire?

G

[John W]

I like it!  Very nasty.

I think the first component is great.

Second component could be stronger.  Some suggestions:

- Hartmut is actively seeking to use the staff to create some kind of advantage for himself.  Perhaps this is what you intended.  I'm just stating it strongly for myself.  He has no interest in doing the right thing for the village, only for himself.

Tripwire: If Ortwin or Marwin hears of the staff, and it is not very nearly in their possession, then they will employ every means at their disposal to get it -- and most of their means are violent and cruel.
(Maybe you thought of this but felt that it ties the components together too tightly.  Hmmm.)
Alright, what about: If Hartmut feels threatened, he will flee the village and its lands; with the map, and with staff if at all possible.

-J

[Nyhteg]

Hi John, thanks for your comments.

The way I'm thinking, the second component is actually for more explosive than it might look.
I have literally no idea what those two NPCs could do - only that they are both capable of anything, including murder, lies, betrayal and the  'nuclear option' of revealing the presence of the staff to Ortwin or Marwin.

I'm just going to trust that which way they jump will be obvious and totally dependent on what the PCs do and say.

I don't see Hartmut as particularly venal and unpleasant, BTW. He's a farmer. He's resilient. He's patient. He knows all about bad weather and hard seasons. From his point of view, the best thing for the people of the town to do is what he does - keep their heads down and stay alive until the hardships pass. The goose with the longest neck, and all that...

Friederieke is actually the more volatile character, I think, because she is imagining a way out. She is by far the more desperate of the two.

Regarding the first component, it just occurred to me that by making both NPCs the oppressors, the PCs will have to actively ascend the locals to named status before they again any kind of individual identity beyond 'a brutalised mass'. Accidental, but kind of cool, I think.

I'm going to need to give the Tripwire a bit of a mull. Hartmut making off with it doesn't feel...catastrophic enough to me - it sort of just feels like a  conclusion of the component. I think the worst thing that could happen for the PCs is probably for everyone to find out about the staff at once.

G

[Ron Edwards]

Tripwires. OK, so you know, I am dealing with kids left & right as I type right now, so what follows will be very terse - more like the outline of what'd I write if I had some time and thinking-space.

1. Stop saying "catastrophe." The result of a tripwire might be a catastrophe, it might be sort-of one or limited to a certain group, or it might not be catastrophic at all. I wanted to keep people from having tripwires do nothing or be framed as an attitude shift for someone, but by over-selling the catastrophe-idea, I've created a monster. It merely means a huge change in what's going on, game-changer, deal-breaker, whatever phrase works for you. A different situation. Being more dangerous or more socially disastrous are good features, but if you start with that, then all you get is a disaster you're trying to railroad into play.

2. Stop thinking about how the adventure ends. The tripwire may or may not precipitate an ending. It very likely will, as post-tripwire fights tend to be conclusive about one or another thing, but it doesn't have to, not as such. And for golly's sake, stop thinking about how the tripwire's results are "bad for the knights." Again, my heuristic device turned into something hideous once released into the wild.

Therefore start thinking about tripwires as single events. "If his daughter is killed, the wizard turns into a silver dragon and goes after who did it." "If a merchant disappears or is roughed up or killed, the merchants' hired professionals raze the docks." Never mind thinking about or planning for what happens after this one event.

My apologies for the brevity. The older son is trying to teach the younger son how to play checkers, and the latter is objecting with much force to having his pieces taken away, on principle ("they're mine!").

[Nyhteg]

Thanks, Ron. That's a useful set of clarifications; I can see I had an incorrect sense of what a Tripwire is.
I shall think on and post where I get to.

And no need to apologise for brevity - I'm reading/typing this in the kitchen while making lunch for my own four, so succinct is definitely good. :)

G

[Nyhteg]

OK, so unlike Ron's post, this isn't going to be terse or brief in any way. :)

First I should mention that I've decided I hate the idea about Hartmut making a map.
He has no reason to make one in the first place - he's hardly going to forget where he left the staff, after all - but mainly it's far too symptomatic of pre-plotting ("Oh noooo, what if Hartmut is killed..? How will the PCs find the staaaaff..?")
Hartmut's map is out of the scenario. There is no map.
If the PCs decide they want to find the staff, how they do it is entirely their own problem.

OK, so on to the Tripwires then.

I think the first one is probably good enough as it is. 
If Ortwin or Marwin are killed then the panicking Torbheimers start going house-to-house, exterminating the locals.
This is basically a stepping-up of the existing situation to a whole new level of awfulness.
Feel free to chip in if anyone disagrees.

The second Tripwire, though...
In order to act as a Horrible Example for those who follow, I'll post my thought process for dissection/discussion/correction.

Looking for a rule of thumb, it seems to me that Tripwires arise around something that matters deeply to a key character in some way.
When that thing is harmed, threatened or placed under excessive pressure, then significant consequences result.

In Ron's examples from the rulebook, f'rinstance, its lair is of vital importance to the Wyrm; the white wizard trying to unload materials for his statue actually cares most about his daughter. In the tidy little Tripwire for John W's "Joan of Drikstag" scenario in another thread, Ada values the welfare of her family above all else.

Here in Karlsgard:
- Ortwin and Marwin are fixated on maintaining authority over the town;
- Friederieke is obsessed about getting hold of the staff in order to end Ortwin's rule;
- Hartmut cares most about himself - self-preservation in order to simply outlive the present troubles;
- all the Staff 'wants' is to remain secret until a Karlsgarder in power takes ownership of it.

A Tripwire has a condition and a consequence, so looking at the elements above, what I can see is this sort of thing:

If the staff is placed irretrievably beyond Friederieke's reach, the consequences might be...
...that she decides to take matters into her own hands and attempts to assassinate Ortwin?
...that she starts to urge the locals to resist Ortwin's rule?
...that she sets fire to the chief's longhouse..?
...something else?


If Hartmut starts to feel in direct danger - sustained overt threat, physical harm, etc - the consequences might be...
...that he retrieves the staff and flees town in the night?
...that he simply flees town in the night, leaving the staff where it's hidden but taking the secret of its location with him?
...that he goes to retrieve the staff, with the intention of giving it to Ortwin/Marwin (thereby seeking protection from a stronger power)?
...something else?


If the existence and/or location of the Staff is made public, the consequences might be...
...that Ortwin/Marwin will start doing everything in their power to extract information about it from the locals?
...that an uprising from the locals actually occurs?
...something else?

Well, that's a start at least.
How to choose between them, though? Is there a guiding principle about what makes for a good Tripwire?

I have no clear idea about that but, looking these options over:

- Friederieke doing any of those things doesn't seem quite right to me. I think she'd actually be more likely to try to escape and petition the half-brother without the staff, regardless.
- The consequences from the Staff's disclosure actually seem more like Tripwires from the first component rather than this one, so I think they're out.
- Hartmut has no interest whatsoever in possessing the staff; and if he thought he'd be best off leaving town and fending for himself on his own in the wilds, he'd certainly have done it already. He wouldn't even have come back from hiding the staff in the first place, truth be told.

So the option that remains is the one that strikes me as possibly the most interesting and game-changing anyway - Hartmut deciding to hand the staff over to the new management. That sounds like it might be a whole bunch of fun if it cropped up.

Right. So. I'm done brain-dumping.
At this point in time, the Tripwires seem to be:

Component 1
If Ortwin or Marwin are killed, their men will panic and start going house-to-house, murdering the locals - every man, woman and child.

Component 2
If Hartmut feels himself to be in imminent danger - due to overt threats or direct physical harm, for instance - he will try to retrieve the staff in secret and hand it over to Ortwin/Marwin in order to gain their favour and protection.


Thoughts..? Advice..? Better ideas...?

G

[John W]

#2's new tripwire is exactly what I don't want to see happen - which must mean it's the perfect tripwire.  :)

With component #2, how will the PCs even become aware of the staff?  Well I guess all the villagers know about it.  Someone who trusts one of the PCs will mention it.

Nice work,
-J

[Nyhteg]

#2's new tripwire is exactly what I don't want to see happen - which must mean it's the perfect tripwire.  :)

:) I agree, although with my GM head on I'm happy for it to be a perfectly good thing - depending on the context it could actually bring a swift and bloodless peace to the town. I suppose it would make it a lot more complicated if the Knights want to get the lens to Rolke, though.

As for how the Knights will find out about the staff, I realise I've skipped right past an element of prep in this write up which is self-evident to me in my head. Hartmut's sense of self-preservation currently means that "desperately wanting to keep the location secret" extends to "no-way-is-he-going-to-try-and-creep-out-into-the-dangerous-woods-on-his-own-past-homicidal-guards-just-to-get-your-stupid-staff-back-Friederieke-no-thank-you-very-much". He and Friederieke are going to be deadlocked. As an opener, the PCs might witness a heated, whispered exchange between the two of them, perhaps. Depending on what else happens, Friederieke or Hartmut might simply decide to approach the Knights for aid directly. Wits and Charm rolls will dictate, I guess.

G

[Ron Edwards]

The last thing you should concern yourself with is how the player-characters will know or find out anything. Do not frame scenes in your mind containing stuff for them to notice. Merely play the various characters acting upon their various agendas and responding to things in perfectly understandable ways.

Basically, any and every "how to get this done" instruction and assumption you can find in a published adventure module should be junked. Or "how can I make this work at a con with random sign-ups," same thing.

[Nyhteg]

>>Do not frame scenes in your mind containing stuff for them to notice ... Merely play the characters...

I'm not planning any kind of pathway or set of options or pre-packed scenes to run or anything anywhere like that.
I can see how my pulled-out-of-my-ear examples might have set off a warning bell for you in that regard...but really not. I mean who has the time..?
Ortwin and Marwin are enforcing their rule as they see fit. Friederieke and Hartmut are at loggerheads over the staff.
I have no opinion or vested interest about what is best for the staff, for Ortwin and his son, or for the townsfolk as a whole. It can fall out any way it likes.

Until you mentioned it, in fact, I wasn't concerned at all about how the PCs would find stuff out or come to engage with the components.
Ironically, I'm now getting slightly confused about how to approach things...

For example, playing the agendas and responses of Friederieke and Hartmut involves them being deadlocked over the fate of the staff.
This could be entirely in private, though, and the players could go through the whole scenario without even being aware that a staff exists.
So does that mean the setup is broken for that component? If it could effectively become a one-component adventure? I assume that would be a Dumb Thing to have happen.
So some scene has to happen where the PCs are exposed to the issues with the staff, doesn't it?

Or is your advice actually about not being passive as a GM?
NPCs want something and actively do things all the time - so don't piss about with creating a clue hunt or an observation competition, waiting for the PCs to take the hint and latch onto to something, just put the NPCs right in their faces about it and see what happens? Is that what you're driving at?

G

[Ron Edwards]

I am sure you'll do fine. Please don't second-guess yourself. I think I'll help more by saying less.