[Charnel Gods] End of an Epoch and NPC Harbingers...

[Harmast]

I love CG, enough that after buying it I picked up Sorcerer and have ordered Sorcerer & Sword, however I have two questions:

1. What does the end of an Epoch look like?  Is it like the Fall of Atlantis or The Fall of Númenor (technically Tolkien's take on Atlantis but much more Earth changing than say Howard's transition from Atlantis to Hyborean Age) or The Fall of Rome or the destruction of the Mycenaean Greece or something in between?  Could it easily be along this entire spectrum as determined by the Harbinger?

2. On the point of the Harbinger, does that have to be a PC?  While certainly story opprotunities would seem to be lost if it was I can see how this would be a great way to encourage some interesting stories, ESPECIALLY if one or more of the PCs take the "no apocolypse for me, thank you" tact discussed in the book.

The two combined when I first read it and thought of my idea for my first epoch in a game, a notebook full of stuff for a long forgotten D&D game I tried to start that was a strange amalgam of Gemmell's Against the Horde, Gods of Harn, and Rohan's Winter of the World.  The D&D campaign would have featured evil NPC's trying to bring permenant Ice Age to the world.  The whole setting was easily boiled down to a page of notes for an epoch with one major NPC sorcerer known trying to bring the final storm and I thought, "what if he won"?

[sirogit]

1. Its a very individual play-group thing, if you mentioned those possibilities because you liked them, than in your grame it'd look a bit like all of them. Personally I like to involve blood, bad omens and natural diasters.

2. I think its very important charnel gods that you're the evil sorcerers turning the world into a permanant ice age, not the NPCs.

[hardcoremoose]

Hey Harmast,

Thanks for the kind words!  And thanks for mentioning that it was Charnel Gods that brought you to Sorcerer (and S&S)...this is the kind of stuff Ron must be made aware of!

To answer your questions:

1.  The end of an Epoch can look like anything, subject to the Harbinger's will.  I mean, you can't really vaporize the planet if you expect to play another Epoch, but just about anything else would be fine.  Plagues, floods, shattered continents, million-year ice ages...it's all good.

2.  By the rules, only a PC can be a Harbinger.  That's the company line and I'm obligated to stick to it.  But you know, I can't really control what you do in your living room.  I wish I could, but I just don't have that technology yet.

So are you going to be playing this any time soon?  I've been lucky in that Charnel Gods has received some nice actual play, but more is always better.  I'm greedy, what can I say?  Plus, there's http://charnel.innocence.com/">this cool fansite that could use more material (of which I've been incredibly bad about providing...sorry Bryant).

Best,
Scott

edited...crossposted with sirogit.  Apparently we both dig the ice age thing, although his answer to #2 too was much more forceful than mine.  I like his better.

[Old_Scratch]

There were a number of questions about Harbingers in this thread, so it might be worth looking at, as I ask at least one of those questions in that thread:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=11537

That said, I've only ran one story arc so far and we went for a very dramatic end of an epoch:

Two or three players were in the world as reality came crumbling apart while one player was in the Carrion Fields. Now, I hadn't told the players about the nature of the world or Humanity Zero or the Harbinger, until one of them bottomed out...

But anyway, I played the end of an Epoch this way: The Nameless Ones break through just as the Epoch is ending. The events in Praag or whatever the main city is named are racing madly to conclusion: war has broken out, buildings are being destroyed, witch hunters running amok in the streets, assassins are chasing the Prince of Praag through the streets, alchemical homonculi are battling in the street when a giant worm like creature bursts out from the Carrion Fields, arches into the heavens, and bursts through the castle at the heart of the city. The players in the Carrion Fields rush to battle it, and the Harbinger uses his power to destroy and weaken the fabric of reality, and all of reality starts to crumble and fall, and the player witness millions falling and tumbling down into the Carrion Fields below, burying the Nameless One (and all the players), and forming the new basis for the next Epoch.

Sure, it was sort of a Hollywood ending, but I think that the players wanted to go out with a bang. I know that every time I ran the game, I'd try to fit an ending suitable to that setting of that Epoch. An Asian campaign: a sort of Divine Wind that destroys the Epoch, etc...

I think though that the players must have a say in the Epoch's ending, and this is best articulated through the omens that the Harbinger evokes.

As for non-PCs as Harbingers: I don't think I would recommend it.

Remember, if the world is to survive, someone has to pull the trigger. Having an NPC do it is the surest way of sidelining your characters. Its like playing Sorcerer with someone who doesn't want to take the risk of playing a person who wants something so badly they're willing to risk their humanity.

--Garett

[Danny_K]

I must have missed that when I read CG.  I wonder how to justify that in in-game terms, when some of the Epochs feature dozens of sorcerers, not just the PC's.

[Valamir]

The justification for it is easy...Sorcerers who don't have a shot at heralding the end of an age aren't worth playing as player characters.  Those that are played as player characters are thus by definition those that have a shot at ending the age.  However many players there are is however many sorcerers there are with the potential to be the next harbinger because that's the definition of being a PC in Charnel Gods.

Everyone else...is just a wanna be...no matter how super cool they think they are.

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

Ralph, that point is valid from one point of view. Here's another, though.

Sometimes NPCs' Humanity is a big deal in Sorcerer games. Basically, they almost become shared PCs among all members of the group, with the GM having "buck stops" over their actions. Their Humanity gets tracked and treated like the player-characters' does.

When that's the case, and if everyone's grooving on this NPC as well as all the PCs, and if no railroading or spotlight-hogging is going on (i.e. GM doesn't frame to his NPC all the live-long day) ...

... then it seems to me to be socially fine to have the cataclysm hit due to the NPC going to 0.

I do recognize that many people's role-playing history will not allow for this possibility to be functional, however.

Best,
Ron

[pete_darby]

I get you: the Harbringer has to be someone about whom the Players give a damn with regards to Humanity.

And I can see where repeated exposure to GM/designer pet-npc's can get people antsy about that kind of thing. Old school white wolf, I'm looking at you.

But as long as we all care about the character, yeah, coolness.

[sirogit]

I'd agree with Ron's assesment, but stress the importance that the NPC is for most all intents and purposes, a PC. The point where you're looking at your prep and saying "Hmm, that won't do, where's Eddie in all of this?"