[Sorcerer] The Disciples of Christ (prep)

[pedyo]

Hi everyone,

This is my first post here at The Forge although I've been hanging around here trying to understand all this. There's a lot of information and the learning curve's pretty steep for me. But there's light at the end of the tunnel...

I am developing a concept for a Sorcerer campaign. It's still in the very first stages and there are a lot of things I haven't decided on – please tell me if this is too early for anyone to give me meaningful response.

So the idea is that the PC's are disciples of Christ after the crucifixion. What should they do now? They have followed the son of God around, they have left their families for weeks on end, they have seen him perform miracles and they are (perhaps) firm believers that he actually was the son of God. But admitting their beliefs will open them to persecution from both the Roman occupiers and the Jewish majority. The PCs are, in other words, the early Christians trying to find out what to do with their lives after such a major event has happened.

Will they try to build the Church (figuratively speaking) and accept the fact that their belief might very well cost them their lives – and the families, jobs etc. Or will they try to convince themselves that Jesus was only a prophet? Or will they denounce him entirely?

What are they willing to do for their beliefs?

All have been tempted by a demon and have accepted – so they have effectively bound a demon.  They now have access to great power – but power at a terrible price. Demons are excactly that – demons, the workmen of Satan, trying to tempt the disciples to do horrible, evil or just plain wrong deeds. When attacked by Roman soldiers because of their beliefs, will they be tempted to use the demon powers? Even though it will drive them away from the teachings of Christ?

There's a slight twist here: the Players should all know that the demons are Satan's little helpers - no question about it. But they may choose to have their PC believe (or hope to believe) that the demon is actually the Holy Spirit or some other holy, godly power.

Humanity I'm not quite sure of yet. I'm leaning towards Humanity being "love of one's neighbour" but it might also be "the teachings of Christ".

I haven't decided on the nature of the demonic rituals, but I'm very inspired by Satan's tempting of Christ and the miracles of Jesus – so that magic might for instance be symbolic acts –  pouring wine into a cup to restore the life of someone or whatever.

So, any thoughts? Is the general idea playable (I have no experience with playing Sorcerer, so I'd very much like experienced players' opinion on this) – what's the next step for me?  Anything that's "wrong" (I use this term vaguely, since I don't believe in "right" or "wrong" when it comes to RPGs – but is anything broken?)

Thanks for your time.

Best regards

Peter Dyring-Olsen

[Kerstin Schmidt]

Hi Peter,

A question first... What input have your players had in this?



Kerstin

[pedyo]

Very short answer: none

/Peter

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Welcome! Minor problem here - we're not discussing actual play, are we? So ...

Tell you what - let's close this one and head down to the Adept Press forum. Peter, start up a new thread there, working off of Kerstin's extremely important question. I'll help you out on the way - see if you can identify what aspects of your ideas are better left to the players, when you discuss this as a group and as they create their characters.

Best,
Ron