Campaign idea!

[Wychcraft]

Re: Campaign idea!

 

Wow! What a cool game concept. I love the use of the Tarot, and the fact that immortals could be killed but would just be reborn.

 

What kind of powers did you give the PCs?

 

Larkin

[Wychcraft]

Re: Campaign idea!

 

I have this idea about a campaign. I'm wondering what you think of the idea. Or if anyone played a campaign like it before It would be nice of you to tell me how it went. Also I've posted it in the champions forum as well since im not sure which genre to play in yet.

Ideas

* Campaign is not solely a "save the world" campaign

* The backround of the campaign is not always the main plot and all adventures need not be coherent at all times.

* The idea is that the characters wake up somewhere with a memory loss (new characters).

* They have no idea who they are nor where they are from.

* The campaign is as much about them finding out their origin as in survival.

* Mysterious friends and enemies from the PC's past shows up sometimes

* PC's will experience various flashbacks, some of which actually help them but also some which does not help them at all

* Some adventures could be played as "flashbacks". How well the characters succeed in the adventures will significant for how much the PC's remember and what clues they recieve. It's often about moral decisions, but it wont reveal who they are and where they are from too quickly.

* The PC's hunt for answers about their past will lead them new adventures and conflicts where they might not know which side to chose.

* During adventuring some very wierd things can happen that the PCs have no idea whats going on, but as they continue the campaign they could find out later on what happened.

* They could be hunted by someone or something. They dont know what or who it is, however it will keep them fleeing (someone very powerful ). The idea is that sometime in the future they will think of a way to beat him, and possibly succeed.

 

Stuff I need to find out before campaign starts:

 

What are the PC's background, and where do they come from?

Who are they?

How did they lose their memory?

 

Are they some sort of gods that has arrived to to this world for some reason? Are they from another world or dimension? Are they the last decendants from a now dead civilisation? Have they themselves agreed to lose memory, ie, is there something they dont want to remember?

I think it shouldnt be TOO hard to figure out these things because it could put the players off.

I realise also that it probably takes active players to pull something like this off, so some players could need more help along they way than others.

So what do you think? Any ideas?

 

/Brutal

Brutal,

 

How are you going to handle the "Mysterious friends and enemies from the PC's past shows up sometimes" angle?

 

With any memory loss scenario, you run into the problem of the PCs grilling the NPC for info about themselves. Even a server who worked at a tavern the group used to visit would be able to tell them their names, how they usually interacted with each other, what they seemed to like or dislike (at least food wise), if they lived locally, when it was they came to the tavern (dates and/or times), etc.

 

The other option is to have frustrating 'near-misses' ... "Oh yes, there was a woman here who said she was looking for you. You just missed her though. She boarded one of the ships off of dock 9. I think she said something about Timbuktu."

 

Larkin

[Markdoc]

Re: Campaign idea!

 

Wow! What a cool game concept. I love the use of the Tarot, and the fact that immortals could be killed but would just be reborn.

 

What kind of powers did you give the PCs?

 

Larkin

 

Ooo. It's a been a while (like about 16 years), and I don't have the sheets in digital format: the originals are on paper somewhere in my capacious archives. Here's what I recall.

 

The origin of the Immortals was the assembling of a group of human heroes to fight the Dark Lords - basically two extradimensional invasions: first of the fay races and then, of the Things that the Fay were fleeing. In an attempt to stop them, a high priest of Thanataya called a conclave of heroes. He didn't have time to be picky, so included plenty of people who would not have associated by choice. Then he - and a big swag of junior priestlings explained the ritual of immortality, and cast it on those heroes who agreed to it. The junior priests paid the XP - essentially powering the spell with their life force - and expired. In return, each of the heroes got immunity to aging and a spell built as "summon identical duplicate" with a trigger "death of current individual" and a side effect that teleported the new duplicate to a random location on the globe. So the only way to exterminate an immortal was to find and kill the new version before it had time to reset its trigger (not very likley).

 

The very first tarot packs were made with one card for each of the heroes, and they were enchanted to serve as communication devices. But for a population under siege by monsters, copies of the cards soon became talismans and eventually the pack came to have a mystic meaning of its own, with each card still loosely associated with the original Hero's powers.

 

In other words the heroes weren't based on the Tarot - the Tarot was based on the heroes!

 

All that was more than 5000 years ago. The dark lords are mostly history and the Fay have adapted to their new world. They mostly keep out of sight. The Immortals are still around, but every time one dies and a new body wakes up, it is a duplicate of the hero who died *5000*years*ago*. They have no clue about the current state of the world. Others are still alive and have been around for a very long time - so are very powerful. The smart ones have set up messianic religions or cults to act as bases for their new forms (just in case they have an "accident") decked out with symbolism that their original form would recognise, with "holy texts" designed to bring their new versions up to speed.

 

The characters in the game that I remember were:

 

Trey of Swords (NPC). Few "magical" powers but a superb swordsman and the ability to use essentially any weapon effectively.

Ten of Swords (NPC). The warrior who never lost a fight and never won a war. Skilled fighter, but his schtick was massive regeneration. He was *extremely* hard to kill (and even if you did kill him, he was still immortal). He was also cursed (unluck)

Trey of Pentacles (PC). A magical gadgeteer. Wands, rings, magical lanterns, you name it.

Death (PC). A variety of powers centrered around death. XD teleportation (only to areas of massive death). Dangersense (only via others) - he could "see" impending death, which had the nice special effect that he would see the death - so if the group was about to be ambushed, he'd suddenly notice one of the NPCs he was chatting with had several arrows in in his back, that sort of thing. He had Deathtouch - an AVLD HKA.

The Tower (NPC). A troublemaker. Crazy as a loon. Shapeshift powers and also transformation powers. Lived to take take pompous people down a notch.

The Fool (PC). Gifted everyman. A huge range of skills, skill modifiers and 10 point levels. Could basically do anything at a high level of competency, but had no clear, obvious "powers". Was a perfect match to the player, who was flighty and impulsive but always managed to muddle through OK anyhow.

The Hanged Man (PC). The power of Change - the character was basically a big squidgy mimic VPP with trigger. He/she also had regeneration on extra time. He could duplicate other people's powers and skills and appearance if he/she "died" ie: went down to negative body. At the end of the changing period (1 day) the character would suddenly start to regenerate and come back to life with new abilities. Heh. Before her comrades found this out, she "died" to steal some of their powers - and they buried her. She almost didn't make it back out of the grave....

The Devil (PC). He had limited shapeshifting and major emotion-controlling powers - very strong if used one on one or weaker but covering a huge area. He couldn't *force* people to do things but he could certainly encourage them in certain directions. Tried to found his own religion

The Magician (NPC). Big *** magical Multipower and occult knowledge.

The Chariot (NPC) Warlord type. Good personal combat skills, but a logistical and strategic genius with some minor precognitive abilities.

 

There were more - especially more minor arcana, but I have forgotten exactly who they were. There were, of course, far more non-immortal NPCs.

 

cheers, Mark