mark of destiny ability: a call for ideas

[Moah]

Hi,

One of my players took an ability named "mark of destiny" (or some such). It's actually a birthmark, and he tells me it would allow people who know of it to recognize him. He's also told me he was adopted by the clan and was originally a child from a lunar caravan that got attacked. His character doesn't know that.
So i'm fishing for ideas of things that would happen, based around that birthmark. I'm kinda thinking that he could a baby from the royal line of sartar who was being stolen by the lunars.
This same player has also just participated to the saving of an Orlanthi temple from the lunars, on his clan's tula. So he should get the clan into trouble soon, and be headed toward crucifixion, unless... unless what exactly?

[Donald]

So he should get the clan into trouble soon, and be headed toward crucifixion, unless... unless what exactly?

Unless his brother recognises him, the slight problem being that his brother is a Lunar. I see far more fun in the idea that he's from a well connected Lunar family than another baby from the line of Sartar. Or if you don't want to be quite that extreme a lunar ally such as the Grazelanders. Opportunity for the party to get the Grazelanders to change sides.

[Moah]

I'm not sure about him being of lunar descent... I want to play the sartar rising campaign, and have the players turn out to be argrath. I'm afraid that having this player actually be lunar will prevent this and slow down the game as the players try to figure out how worthy lunars really are.

I agree that the lunars are not the overall bad guys the Orlanthi make them out to be, but I'd rather not have this slow down the situation before they've started fighting the lunars for good. It's funner to have it happen when they're really mad at them.

[keithn]

How about a Draconic Mark of Destiny. Something that the Dragonewts might get excited about, but dangerous because a lot of people fear dragons.

They are unlikely to want to explain exactly what the destiny is. Linking to the EWF might also bring in Delecti, Half-Beasts, Ducks, and all manner of strange things.

Alternatively, it could be a Praxian brand, a Living Seed of the Aldryami, a Blueprint of the Mostali Master Production Schedule, an heir to the Old Kingdom of Tarsh, or all manner of what are otherwise known as plot devices.

Keith

[NickHollingsworth]

Moah,
given the introduction that Mike Holmes gave you recently you probably know all this already. Hopefully there is a grain of something helpful in it anyway...

Step back for a moment and ask yourself why you want to know what the mark is. Is this because you really need to. Or is it because you are used to the GM deciding all the important bits of a story up front and then feeding them piecewise to the players. If its for the latter reason then this does not necessarily hold for Heroquest.

First lets just check something - Is this mark supposed to be the characters 'Kicker'? Since this is not a HeroQuest term let me paraphrase (or mangle) the Ron Edwards / Sorcerer definition: a Kicker is a player specified description of an immediate problem for the character that the player wants the character's story to centre around and resolve over the next few episodes or so.

I don't think it is, but if it is a Kicker you will need to give it urgent thought because it has to be centre stage from the opening curtain. Kickers belong to the player though so you may need to work out its nature in conversation with the player, perhaps all the players. (Someone better placed to discuss Kickers will have to give any other advice on the matter).

Anyway, from your post I suspect that the mark is not a Kicker but is an Ambiguous Ability. This is a Heroquest concept and IIRC there is a paragraph or two in the HQ rules with some advice on them.

If it is an Ambiguous Ability can I suggest that

* you try not to resolve what the mark is yet, neither in play nor in your head, unless the player takes the story that way.

* you keep in the back of your mind a number of cool ideas of what it might be. (in fact it doesn't even have to be kept in your head, you could share the possibilities with the players depending on how the story making authority is shared out in your game).

* you allow the actual truth of the matter to be discovered as a natural extension of the course of play by you and/or the players. Use the cool ideas as a palette to improvise with when the correct moment comes.

Leaving the nature of the mark alone allows it to be something that fits the story elements actually in play at the point its revealed.

For example, if the nature of the mark is still unestablished by the time the characters are engaged in actively hating the Lunars you can then make the mark mean 'is a lunar child' and cause maximum confusion without the drawbacks that you see happening if you revealed such a meaning now.

Leaving its nature unestablished does not mean it cant be used. God botherers may recognise its portentousness but cant say if its a good or bad thing. The character might call on it for an augment when facing possible death ('I cant die here I am marked for greater things') or when convincing others ('listen to what I say, the gods themselves have marked me for great things as you know'). Etc etc.

By using it in play its ability value could be increased by the player without having established exactly what it is.

Revealing its nature is not necessarily an all or nothing event and can happen a degree at a time. There is no reason why one episode can not establish that it indicates that (say) a great entity has marked the child as its personal property and yet still leave everyone (including the GM) wondering if its a terrible demon anticipating a snack, a the god preordaining the character as a follower, etc.

While an ability remains ambiguous its is a wildcard for the player and character alike. A cool and timely revelation of the nature of the ability by the player ought to be treated as a get out of jail card by the GM. For example: the characters need to enter the Thanatari temple but the security has defeated then and they are about to fail miserably?  - then (assuming the player is willing) the Thanatari spirit guardians welcome the marked character eagerly for he bears the magic mark of Thanatar tattooed on his flesh as do all who worship that vile god. This gets them in at the cost to the player of establishing rather a lot and thus sacrificing the wildcard nature of the ability. Note that in the above example its still not fully established exactly what the mark means; Thanatar has marked him but is it because he is a reincarnated important cult member returning as a guardian or because he is the predestined sacrifice that carries hidden in his mind the secret words the gods have forbidden Thanatar to know.

Lastly: the marks can in retrospect be shown to preordain all sorts of things. The character becomes one of the Argraths - hey, that mark must have preordained it, in fact in retrospect its clearly in the shape of the guardian bands runes. The character is suddenly rejected by his true love but whe wont explain why - why look, she has the selfsame mark too, just like all her brothers do, and seemed very upset when she suddenly realised he had the birthmark.

Cheers,

[NickHollingsworth]

Anyway. You asked for ideas:

* Trolls treat the character with unexpected (and unwanted) respect. But then thats not a birthmark. No birthmark changes shape and moves around the body. Its alive, well sort of. Its the characters dark self; his spirit other that marks him out as a shamen. Darkness shamen could wake it and show the character how to attain his destiny.

* Thats not a birthmark. Its a bite mark. Some terrible entity took a bite from the character as he was on his way from the otherworld to his mothers womb. Now it lurks near the boundry of the world. Slavering. Waiting to feed. Sensitive souls can hear it. Perhaps it might be made to serve by a strong will; if the character can bear the price it will demand from him.

* Thats not a birthmark. Its a black tattoo. Whats under it is a birthmark. When the crimson sisters saw the baby born they knew what the mark meant, but they could not bring themselves to murder a baby no matter what the prophesies say. Anyway, you cant just murder a baby of noble lunar blood. Much easier to cover the mark, send the baby to a monastry. No wonder the lunar soldiers fought hard to stop the baby being rescued from the caravan. Now Lunar agents try to track down the hero of the mark, for he must be destroyed and all who have been with him. A noblewoman's loyalest retainers are dispatched too with words of warning and advice. And they too search for signs of the hero. The hero with the secret of the death of the goddess written on his flesh - if only he knew.

Cheers

[Moah]

Nice remark about the kicker vs ambiguous ability.

I wanted to have an answer now because on one side it is something a player has created and seemed to be passionate about (he took me apart to tell me about the lunar story, explained it a couple of times, and has reminded me in game that such and such lunar character had seen it now, and how did he react?), and on the other side the player is going to be in great difficulty soon so it seemed a good idea to use this now.
Also, my players aren't really into building part of the background themselves, which I find a neat idea in HeroQuest. So I wanted to show them how cool it could get, using this player as an example.

But you're right, I should probably keep this ambiguous and mysterious for now, using the story progression to give me hints about what this mark really is, and using it to startle the players occasionally. I'm also going to tie that to his wife's relationship and the fact she still isn't pregnant, while he *really* wants a child.

Keep the ideas coming, though, it'll help me in the future.

For the crucifixion, I think I'll get a mysterious lunar warrior suddenly turn up and say he'll try the suspects by combat at the most difficult time, without specific reason. He'll ask the orlanthi to get bare chested, and will pick (of course) the marked player as his opponent.

[simon_hibbs]

This is a character ability, so I'd look at it from the point of view of what the characeter can achieve with it. If he's captured by the Lunars, perhaps he can sue the mark to help him escape - e.g. make one of the lunars lower his guard in surprise.

One other point is that as the ability is used, you can refine it's name to make it more specific. Let the player decide how to use it, but then use the results to refine the definition of the ability. It's realy a special case of the 'unnamed ability' method of character generation where the player decides what the ability is during play and from then on it's fixed.

Simon Hibbs

[Mike Holmes]

It seems to me that you want to make it something other than what the player wants because you want the characters to be somebody that they don't expect? Hmmm.

I'd do one of two things.

1. Tell the player what you've got in mind, and see if he wants to change to meet your concept.

2. Just drop your idea about who the character is, and go with the player's idea.


Now, before I go on, all of what we've been discussing so far assumes that you want to play like many of us here do, what's called narrativism. What this means is that the player has to be empowered to drive the character where he wants to drive the character. Not as part of a GM plot, but creating plot as he makes decisions for the character.

As such, this might not be something in which you're really interested. If so, let us know, or feel free to ignore suggestions related to it.

But if you want to play this way, then you'll want to stop thinking in terms of having any plans for the PCs. That doesn't mean that you can't use the Sartar campaign info, but you certainly won't be playing the Sartar Campaign per se (other than accidentally by some odd co-incidence).

Am I making any sense so far?

Mike