City of 10,000 Magicians: Heroquest Relationship Mapping

[doubtofbuddha]

Well, I think I have enough information from my players to begin develloping a relationship map for my new HeroQuest campaign.

So far I have six players, four of which have presented me with character concepts. All of them have quite a bit of dramatic potential, and I will summarize them below.

This is the information I gave them:

"City of 10,000 Magicians (small) 4,000
This ancient city was built during the height of EWF power in the region as a centre of magical research, facilitated by its location on the head of a deeply buried true dragon and the magical energies from its slumbering mind give any magics performed in the city both a boost in power as well as a potentially curved result that can lead to breakthroughs and interesting research options.

However, the Dragon is only slumbering, and the magicians in the city long ago determined that the dragon would surface to "snack" should a large enough magical concentration arouse its hunger, something that is closely monitored. Through extensive research they determined that the magical energy of 10000 ordinary magicians (ie around 5w in power) when focussed in the city would be enough to cause the dragon to rise and eat the city. Unfortunately many of the magicians in the city are significantly stronger than 5w and this has to be taken into account, as has the magical energy of any bound spirits, daimons, magical items etc when determining the number of magicians in the city. Therefore the only way into the city, is to either have no magic or to replace an existing occupant. In addition the would be entrant can only replace a person who dies who is of a comparable energy level to them. Those with sufficient wealth can literally buy their way in because there are always magicians in the city who would leave given sufficient enducement. There are always those who have finished their studies for the most part and would move on. Others get thrown out due to running short of funds - everything in the city is extremely expensive, rent, food and entertainment - or scholarly indiscretions.

Within an old hillfort outside but within sight of the towering city walls there is a town built to house the many scholars, often from distant lands, who patiently wait their turn to enter the city. The town is called Veyerm in Old Wyrmish, meaning "Expectation".

The city council, known as the Keepers of the Muse supports the city through the revenues gained from the scholars who come to the city. Food and other sundries enter the city thanks to a special caste of locals called the Nulled, men and women with no magical power who wear a collar that both donates their status and stops them learning any magic while wearing it.

The Lunar College of Magic has a strong presence in the city that increases every year, meaning less and less spaces for other expectant scholars. This has caused some scuffles in Veyerm due to the very strong passions among those awaiting entry who see their places filled by Lunar potentates.

The city is heavily defended with potent magics, Wyvern riders, who form the elite Muse Guard 200 strong, and walls built at the height of EWF power and knowledge."

I also told them I needed three things from them in their characters.
1. They had to have some sort of past life which was having a definite affect on their modern day life.
2. They had to have some reason for wanting to get into the City of 10,000 Magicians
3. They have to have some sort of relationship with at least one of the other characters in the group.


Of those three things, #1 is the least important one, and I already have two characters who probably will not have it.

So far I have recieved four character concepts:
Scott (who played the Esrolian Scholar in my winter campaign) is playing a Lunar Wizard (member of the Cerise Church). He came up with the idea that he would have been so heavily Lunarized that he isn't really a member of any of the Empire's component cultures. He grew up in Glamour, etc. so we will be coming up with a City of Glamour keyword to represent this.
His character's goal is centered around the conflict between the Lunars and the Orlanthi. He wants to prove that Orlanth, which is the only entity thus far that has failed to achieve this distinction, is part of the Lunar Way. He is seeking to gain entrance into the City of 10,000 Magicians as a means to work towards the first part of this goal. He believes that by entering the city he will be able to gain access to the city's collected knowledge including some sort of HeroQuest which will allow him to accomplish what he wishes.
Potential conflicts regarding this goal arise from the fact that the Lunar Empire, for the most part, doesn't want for this to happen. They would much rather have it so Orlanth is cast down, bound, or destroyed. So he will have to resolve conflicts between the traditonal view of the Lunar Way and Orlanth, and how to deal with the Orlanthi, and his own views of how to handle the situation.

Chris is playing a Darjiini Warrior with Dragon Magic. He sees his character as being a dragonnewt who got reincarnated into an alternative, "wrong" path resulting in him becoming a human. He now wishes to reunite with his draconic heritage and take a short cut through the traditional Dragonnewt proccess to become a dragon. He wishes to become a dragon in this one lifetime.
I am handling his Dragon Magic by giving him initial access to five of the abilities lister under the Scout and Warrior Dragonnewt and the potential to purchase more just like you purchase abilities from other magic types. In order to get the Dragonnewt Noble abilities he will have to increase his Reincranated Dragonnewt, Dragonnewt Philosophy, and Dragon Magic abilities to 10w. In order to get access to the Dragonnewt Ruler abilities he will have to get those three abilities up to 1w2 and perform an appropriate HeroQuest. I haven't yet decided on how he would become a dragon but I think that its going to involve him willingly performing utumu on himself. I am not sure whether I am going to make him buy up each of these draconic abilities as seperate abilities or make it so he can just increase Dragon Magic. I am thinking of just letting him improve dragon magic, but not let him use dragon magic itself as an improvised ability.
Also at some point I am going to reveal that in order to get access to the higher level abilities he is going to need to start buying down his personality traits (and stop using his magic. ::cackles::). Otherwise he is too deeply ingrained in the world and thus unable to truly understand and use higher level draconic magic.

Conflicts arise between this goals and the ties to his culture. How far is he willing to go in order to become a dragon? Is rejecting his humanity and his people really worth the power that comes from being a dragon?
He wishes to enter the City of 10,000 Magicians in order to gain access to its storehouse of draconic lore. (Maybe this would be a good avenue for him to find out his need to overcome his personality traits AND his use of magic)

Mary (who played the Calandran Devotee of Babeester Gor in the winter campaign) is playing a Lunar Sylilian Scholar Initiate of Zaytenera (the White Moon).

Her character is the reincarnation of an ancient Saird demigod who was herself an incarnation of the Red Woman, an aspect of Vinga and one of the martial protecters of Saird. Her incarnation was around when Saird fell and now the memories of that past life are rising again as well as a rising destiny for her to recreate the old realm. An old divine companion, in the form of a dog (which was sacred to the Sairdites), has even showed up as an active manifestation of this, encouraging her to embrace her destiny. She doesn't want to do this. She wants a normal life and has taken to the worship of Zaytenera and Lunarization in an attempt to refute the hold of destiny on her and eventually be able to transcend it.

Obvious conflicts exist there. :P
She is seeking to gain entrance to the city at the behest of her patron (and sponsor into Lunar citizenship), a Dara Happan noble who knows of her previous incarnation past and wishes to cause the rise of Saird for his own reasons.

Lisa (who played the Puma Person Hunter in the winter campaign) is playing a young Lunar Dara Happan Petty Noble Devotee of Selven Hara. She is very much following the archtype of the unhappy, repressed noble girl who wants to go out and travel and adventure. She is going to have to deal with conflicts relating between her own personal desires and the duties required of her as a Lunar citizen and an adult? Will she grow up in the face of adversity or will she always continue as a petty, air-headed rich little girl?

She knows Mary's character and is in fact the daughter of the same noble that is sponsoring Mary's character. Her reason for being in the City of 10,000 Magicians is that she has fled her home city to follow Mary's character and go on the "big adventure" with her.

As far as the relationship map goes, currently I have one and only one character. The Imperial Lunar College magician who is responsible for determining who is allowed to enter into the City of 10,000 Magicians.

The Noble who is sponsoring Mary's character and has fathered Lisa's character would also be appropriate for this map but I am not sure if he is going to be present or not. The main plausible reason I could have for him being here is that he came in order to use his influence in order to make sure that Mary's character gets into the city. This could also lead to all kinds of fun situations as Lisa interacts with "daddy" and Lisa's character gets caught in the middle...

So maybe I will include him.

I have a few other, less formed ideas, but I will save them for my next post. Any suggestions, comments or ideas based on this?

Does it appear I am heading in the right direction?

Jesse Dean

[Mike Holmes]

Sounds great so far.

How did the two linked characters get linked? Who's idea was that? Just curious because it sounds like group creation. Did you have a session for that, or a mailing list or something?

Mike

[doubtofbuddha]

At the beginning of the last AU session I brought it up and introduced each character's character concept. Lisa suggested that as a link between their two characters, and I saw it as reasonable.

Why? Is that a good or bad thing?

[Mike Holmes]

Good thing. It means that the players are thinking in terms of making for a more interesting story. They understand that by linking the characters that they'll have more character intersection.

The thing is that, waaay back at the beginning of the last thread, you may remember that I lamented that you had them make up their characters in isolation. I will now lament again. If they had made them in a group situation, then there would have been more of this stuff. What happens is that everybody grooves off each other, and the result is a set of characters that everyone can appreciate. One of the problems with your last game, I'd hazard, is that I don't think the players cared much about what happened to the other player's characters. Making it hard to keep their attention and entertain them when their characters weren't active. Hence why they all wanted to be "on screen" all the time.

If you make an ensemble that everyone enjoys, I think it goes a long way to ensuring that this problem doesn't occur as much.

Still, good news that they're working these things out anyhow.

Mike

[doubtofbuddha]

Yeah, well we are making basic concepts at this point (so I can get started making the relationship map). I am going to have them do actual character creation on Tuesday before my AU game. Hopefully this will allow them to start establishing relationships with each other's characters.

[Peter Nordstrand]

Hi Jesse,

It seems like a great beginning for a great campaign. I do have a couple of ideas, but it is late, so most will have to wait until tomorrow. One thing though:

You most definitely want to buy the upcoming Masters of Luck and Death.

Servants of the Almighty Dragons is a perfect match for your campaign. It is a hero band (written by *ahem* me), dedicated to everything draconic. They also have a secret goal that youfs seamlessly with the Darjiini Warrior. You will also find a little extra information about Auld Wyrmish (unless it has been cut in the editing process). I also think that many of the other bands in that book may be inspiring.

I know it sounds ridiculous to recomend a product that is not out yet, but I do think you will find it useful.

Cheers,

/Peter N

[doubtofbuddha]

Cool, I was interested in it but I thought all of the hero bands were going to be Dragon Pass-focused.

Anything else you think I might find useful in there? ;)

I look forward to your further ideas. :)


Jesse Dean

[doubtofbuddha]

Well, I met with my players tonight and my final two players made their characters.

Brian is playing a Tarshite Merchant Worshipper of the Provincial Church of the Seven Mothers. He is part of a larger Tarshite organization of gemstone traders and has come to the City of 10,000 Magicians for two reasons. One is to pursue information about the dreams of a woman who is beckoning to him, haunting his sleep and waking thoughts alike. He also wishes to try to extend his family's gemstone trade into the city. Much to my lack of surprise he doesn't have a particularly complex character. He will probably be the most difficult to create bangs for.

Sam is playing a Carmanian (Spolite) Thief (Tomb Robber Specialization) Initiate of Teelo Norri. For those of you who do not feel like looking it up, here is a brief description of her...

"Teelo Norri
Young Life
   
An innocent orphan from the streets of Blessed Torang, she is now the cupbearer to the Red Goddess. Her cult maintains the Fund for the Poor Movement, and performs many charitable works, providing a corn dole to the destitute and running poorhouses and orphanages throughout the Empire."

So you can see tons of potential conflicts right there. He is coming to the City of 10K Magicians because of a curse inflicted upon him in a past (Pelandan) life by Daak after he abandoned Daak and refused to murder and pillage at an orphanage of Teelo Norri. Upon his old incarnations death he escaped the curse but, while robbing a Spolite tomb, he reactivated it, resulting in the old daimon who haunted him to find him again. He is now cursed to become sick if he ever lives in one are for too long (or returns to the Western Reaches).  Another conflict is between the fact that he looks down on Pelandans but was a Pelandan in a past life...
He knows the Lunar Wizard because after he first became cursed he saught him out in order to get the curse removed. The Lunar Wizard didn't know how to remove it but suggested that perhaps the magicians of the City of 10K Magicians might be able to help. So they traveled there together.

So those are the final two characters. We have a pretty interesting cast so far and I can see quite a few interesting conflicts arising from it.

Some trends I have noticed is that this group seems to be built for wandering all over the Empire.
We have one character who follows a travel goddess, one who is cursed so he can't stay in one place, a merchant, and someone who is looking for old draconic lore.

I have also had several players express in an interest in them forging a coherent group. So I need to find some way to help them move in that direction. I am sure that they will find some excuses to do it IC, but I would like to built some NPCs that will help to facilitate this.

I also need to come up with some information on the keyword of Teelo Norri. I have the Scott working out the details of the crunchy bits of his Wizard Order, but Sam isn't nearly as familiar with rules as Scott, so I am hesitant to have him do it.  Maybe affinities for Protection, Innocence, and Youth? Any other suggestions? He is definitely a non-traditional member of the cult.  Interestingly enough, despite being an anti-social thief, he is the person in the group with the most relationships.

[doubtofbuddha]

After some further discussion with Sam, (and me pointing out the fact that Teelo Norri was a goddess for children) Sam switched his veneration to Rufelza. He still has the Teelo Norri connection, but he is no longer a worshipper of her.

[Peter Nordstrand]

Howdy,

I have been informed by the hidden masters that the info about Auld Wyrmish is still in the MoLaD book. The book will be shipping to distributors next week, and available in stores and at www.warehouse23.com by the end of the month.

Cool, I was interested in it but I thought all of the hero bands were going to be Dragon Pass-focused.

All the bands have good reasons to be in Dragon Pass, but not all are native or found only there. Anyway, it is your game, so you can put the bands anywhere you like, right? :-)

Anything else you think I might find useful in there? ;)

Ah! I am happy that you ask me to do even more shameless plugging! I'll stick with the short answer, though: Yes.

Cheers,

/Peter N

[doubtofbuddha]

And the non-plugging related items you mentioned? ;)


Jesse

[Donald]

After some further discussion with Sam, (and me pointing out the fact that Teelo Norri was a goddess for children) Sam switched his veneration to Rufelza. He still has the Teelo Norri connection, but he is no longer a worshipper of her.

Teelo Norri isn't just a goddess for children, she's also the the goddess of charity and her worshippers run orphanges, soup kitchens etc.

A thief's relationship with the cult should be very interesting, no doubt it involves generous donations but what's the payback? Is he a Fagin type, recruiting children to steal for him? Or does he feel an obligation because the cult helped him as a child? or something else?

Magic would, I think, relate to helping the poor, extending resources and possibly blagging donations.

[doubtofbuddha]

From what I could gather from the information on the web it seems that Teelo Norri's worshippers of that type are basically nuns. They have to be virgins and swear a vow of chastity, etc.

Besides, he can still have the sort of relationship with the priesthood and orphanages you suggested without being an actual cultist.

Oh and from his description it seems to be more of a protective and helpful role. He was cursed by Daak in a past life because of the fact that he refused to perform vile deeds on the orphans. The curse has extended into this life and is now a principle motivating for his character. He wants to have the curse removed. His connection with the orphans also still affects him, and has led to his embracing the Lunar Way. Apparently its not enough for him to cast off his profession as a thief though.

[doubtofbuddha]

Alright, so I now have my 6 players with their player character concepts (and two with actually completed characters), so I can begin working on the basis of the Relationship Map.

Thus far I have three characters which I will have serve as the basis for the relationship map. From these three I will expand until I have an entire map ready for the first session.

I see Veyerm, the town in which the game is going to be starting as a very transitory place. People are constantly coming, in order to try to get into the City of 10K Magicians or trade with it, and leaving, after having finished their studies or grown tired of waiting to get in.

The relationship map should hilight this. Though the characters present will have the blood, sex, and featly ties discussed in the previous thread, there should be fewer ties connecting the characters. Only a few individuals, who are here because of the town, rather than because of the City of 10K Magicians, will have any sort of extensive network.

The first character is Ordandavesh, a Lunar Dara Happan Wizard of the Makabean Order (and member of the Imperial College of Magicians). He is the individual responsible for determining who gets in and out of the city. Supposedly this is based on the length of time a particular scholar has been waiting and the "importance of the research to the Empire" but in reality it depends alot on how influential a scholar (or his friends) are, or how much the scholar is willing to pay Ordandavesh to get into the city. The PCs will be interacting with him in order to gain access to the city, and will probably meet each other first as they meet with him.

The second character is Yrsa Sevendaughter, a Provincial (Aggarite) Warrior Devotee of Vinga (aspect undetermined yet). She is a rebel, but a smart rebel, in that rather than simply rise up and strike at Lunar military units or raid the steads of Lunar-allied clans, she is going for a much bigger goal. She is aware of the City of 10,000 Magicians secret and figures that by awakening the dragon (and thus destroying the city) she will be able to strike a significant blow against the Lunar Empire. The only problem is getting into the city incognito. She will thus be visiting Ordandavesh in order to achieve this.

The third character is Khorkenus, a Lunar Dara Happan Noble Initiate of Natha. This is Lisa's character's father and Mary's character's patron. His goal is to get Mary's character into the city. Why? Because he wishes for Mary's character to follow through with her destiny and recreate the kingdom of Saird, only as a province of the Empire. I am not sure exactly what exactly he is going to want her to do within the confines of the city, but I am leaning towards having her deliver a correspondence to a scholar friend of his and do some of her own research on what the City's records say about Saird. His presence is complicated by the fact that his adventerous daughter came out to follow her father and her friend. I am thinking that the first scene of the adventure will be her being spotted by them with Khorkenus attempting to convince his daughter that she should go home. This really doesn't seem likely to be a bang though, as there aren't any choices here. If she has her character go home she will be out of the game.

Next up, I will try to expand the relationship map by building a few more major members of the relationship map and beginning to forge connections between them, so it actually seems like a relationship map rather than a set of unrelated characters.

Thoughts?

[Mike Holmes]

Looks good so far. You won't really be able to nail things down until you have a better handle on the PCs (like more followers to include, and issues to exploit).

Mike