Medieval Europe PbP campaign (Inactive)

Game Master Michael Johnson 66

Set in a version of 15th century Europe where magic, monsters, myths and legends are real....


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All religions will be depicted in this game as fantasy versions, and treated as more or less valid. I will try not to be offensive to anyone, Christian or Muslim, with my story.... But please remember that we are playing a fantasy adventure game, and try not to be too offended if the GM interprets these real-world religions as he sees them.... Being agnostic myself, I regard all of it as mythology, frankly, and have no discomfort from playing with entities from my own Judeo-Christian upbringing, any more than I would with Zeus or Odin.


Oh no doubt. I've got not no problems with playing in a setting inspired very closely by real world history. Just wanted to mention that there are some very different perspectives on history at play (not so much religion)


As long as we are all having fun, and no one is feeling uncomfortable.... On with our tale! :)


I'm still working on William but here he is.


William Striker wrote:
I'm still working on William but here he is.

Looks like an English knight.... Good choice!

Instead of Common, he would speak English....


I really cannot decide between these two concepts. See if you can discern which would work better for flavor. And by you, I mean GM and players!

A:
This captain of the guard in Riga was well-respected until upholding the law too closely to the letter. Nobility doesn't like it when their underhanded dealings can't be bought out with a few coin (though if it had been a few coins more, maybe...). The merchant-lords spoke to the priests, and the priests spoke to the bishops. Without much a mark on the captain's record though, dismissal from the city-state was as much as could be done. After making due on ships throughout the Baltic and English Channel, the recently-unemployed enforcer was looking for a new job that would put the experience to use...

Swedish in origin, the character has an appreciation for the progress religion seems to sanction in society without getting wrapped-up in the philosophy of it. In fact, the obedience to betters in holy subjects necessitated non-objection to the imposed exile.

B:
Born in the foothills of Ethiopia, a bastard boy was exempted from his partially noble birthright by muddled blood; while his father, Dawit I was king, his nameless consort whelped a child when two legitimate male heirs already lived. Kind to him though, Dawit raised the child in his palace when he could - and by proxy through the church when he couldn't, tensions growing between the boy and his half-brothers as they aged. When his father died to a horse's hoof, it was only a few years before Yeshaq I, his father's son-now-king, imposed exile upon him. Eventually, as religious strife against the isolated Eastern Orthodoxy on the continent grew, the devout man moved North, finding some refuge in the Church of Alexandria. As that group was still seen as heathen though, he took a boat to a place where he could hopefully spread the word of God without fear of death: Europe.

I find the Christian-but-not to the rest of Europe an angle with a lot of possibility; though they will want to treat him as dirt due his skin, he would actually be quite knowledgeable in scripture and manners of royalty.


Galoria Ginodesa wrote:

I really cannot decide between these two concepts. See if you can discern which would work better for flavor. And by you, I mean GM and players!

** spoiler omitted **

** spoiler omitted **...

Both cool, I'd say A would be easier to work in at this particular moment, as the PCs have just come to Calais to cross the English Channel to England....


I am imagining him as a former knight who set off on his own to seek a name for himself. At the moment he will have just recently set off. As the game progresses I plan on him getting less uptight, friendlier, and more wild. At the moment he already uses a longhammer instead of a standard great sword. When it is available to him he will replace his warhorse with something more exotic, probably a bear... If it's possible I would like him to ride a lion but I don't know where he would find one.

Dark Archive

Hisao, I'm Eastern Orthodox. Historically, Order of the Dragon was opposed to the Schismatics (that's us) perhaps slightly less than to the Turks. After all, the Fourth Crusade sacked the Constantinopole. Also, Ottoman Empire was not kind to Arab Muslims in the Mesopotamia region. Anyway, I'll probably play a Russian worshiper of the old gods, so I think that the official Catholic Church would consider me greater threat than the average Muslim or a Jew.


The history of the region is... complicated.. to say the least :)


Nightflier, I had always thought the Catholic church to be more of the divergers than the orthodox church (hence the name); in other words, they were more of the branch while the Eastern/Western Orthodox was the trunk. Granted they would be a big branch, but is that an inaccurate representation?


it doesn't natter to Paddy...he's a godless heathen....


Paddy wrote:

it doesn't natter to Paddy...he's a godless heathen....

LOL .... A rogue of the same mind as the GM ;)


I think William is all done, anything else you need?


He looks good. We can work him in when the party arrives in England, which should be fairly soon....


I will proceed with the crossbower. Are regional races a thing? Russian gnomes? French elves?


Galoria Ginodesa wrote:
I will proceed with the crossbower. Are regional races a thing? Russian gnomes? French elves?

Elves are generally native to one of the following areas:

The Black Forest (Black Forest Elves)
The forests of Scandinavia (Alfar)
Sherwood Forest (Sherwood Elves)
Scottish Highlands (Highland Sidhe)
The forests of Ireland (Avalon Sidhe)

Dwarves are from one of the following areas:
The Black Forest (Black Forest Dwarves)
The Kingdom Under the Mountain, below the Bavarian Alps (Alpine Dwarves)
The Pyrennees Mountains (Basque Dwarves)
Scottish Highlands (Highlands Dwarf)

Gnomes come from any wilderness area, and halflings are native to all areas inhabited by humans.

Goblins, orcs, gnolls, and kobolds infest every wilderness area.


Michael Johnson 66 wrote:

Alphonse: aasimar ranger

Hisao: human ninja
Paddy: human rogue
Iommi-Tyr: human investigator/alchemist
Nacht: verminous hunter
Kiyu: vishkanya witch

Alphonse is a Paladin. =)


Rynjin wrote:
Michael Johnson 66 wrote:

Alphonse: aasimar ranger

Hisao: human ninja
Paddy: human rogue
Iommi-Tyr: human investigator/alchemist
Nacht: verminous hunter
Kiyu: vishkanya witch
Alphonse is a Paladin. =)

Ah, ok, thought I saw ranger when I checked his sheet, my bad. :)


Alphonse is a recycled alias who was originally a Spirit Ranger in a Serpent's Skull game, but I changed him to a Paladin and gave him a completely different backstory.


and Paddy is a teifling...so half right I reckon....


Paddy wrote:
and Paddy is a teifling...so half right I reckon....

Right! Sorry... Lol


Michael Johnson 66 wrote:
As long as we are all having fun, and no one is feeling uncomfortable.... On with our tale! :)

It appears I am too slow and missed the bus. :(

Looks fun.


This is Stratos. Kyleon here should be polished-up. Let me know if you see anything out of place.

Here's the background for ease:

Background:
Born in the rugged and desolate region of Lappland, Kyleon's parents, Dagmar and Ulf, raised him well. Dagmar's beauty, being of the fairer race, kept his temperamental father tame, though his upsets were only sparked by bad hunts and the like: The living was sparse and simple.

Kyleon was curious about the world though. He took after his Ulf's ability with the hunts, growing in skill from an early age in striking targets at a distance. After a while, his mother had no need to keep his father's temper in check, the pride he took in his son's performance at the seasonal festival competitions and tradesmeets was great.

One day, one of the region's noble's lieutenants came into town, asking for the boy. "Asking" meant taking, though no manacles were involved. Dagmar wept, not because she wouldn't see her son again, but because he was being recruited to join the noble's guard. It would be dangerous work. There would be raiding and combat. Ulf had a different reaction: He toasted to the occasion. Kyleon was scared, though excited, for he got to see more of the world. Yet the experience turned sour for him. Sven, the noble, wanted rigorous training for all his men. Kyleon was accustomed to lining-up a shot from afar, but he got bloody and dirty with axes soon enough.

One raid took them South to Gotland, and during the battle, Kyleon was nearly killed, a large gash on the right side of his chest (leaving a significant scar) incapacitating him. He nearly died. However, a day later, he woke up in the care of a priest after the raiders had left. The priest, though injured nearly as badly as he had been, managed to pull him back to the looted chapel.

"My thanks," was all Kyleon could manage. Why did he save me?

He had his answer in time. The priest showed him the ways of Christ, reading to him as they and the few others who had fled, been out fishing, or left for dead recovered and rebuilt. They were not afraid of him, for Kyleon was outnumbered and had no way of reuniting with his raiding band. The young man himself didn't even want to: Battle is not my place. Winning him over with his words, the priest imbued Kyleon with a sense of spiritualism, one not well-imparted by his parents, followers of the old gods. They were more tales to Kyleon then, myths now.

After a year or two, his wanderlust set in again, and he took a boat across the small sea to Riga. A metropolis, the religious seat boasted an opening for a guard captain in one of its districts. Keeping the peace was a service Kyleon had provided to the island, and here, they found his speed commendable. However, they laughed at his bow. "Nimmt das!" They pointed to a new device he'd heard of, a crossbow, and trained him with it. It was easy to master, which was apparently necessary for there weren't many skilled bowmen in the town.

During one routine capture of a thief, soon after he'd been jailed, Kyleon discovered (by commotion in the barracks) he was the bishop's grandson. It was a few short weeks before the religious rule came down: The guard's "relaxed" vigilance had led to them persecuting "innocents"; a change in leadership was necessary. Though the ruler's word was law, Kyleon was furious. He tried to forgive the man as he was taught, but he could not do it in his heart. His anger clouding his judgment, he decided to leave, becoming a deckhand.

Trading vessels out of Lübeck went every direction, and he worked on quite a few of them, providing the services he could. He met a rather quirky man in the city though, an inventor of sorts: Karl. Kyleon's skill with the crossbow was just what the innovative gentleman needed to test a new weapon he was developing. Very complicated in construction, the two tweaked it to be deadly efficient: It did not need to be reloaded as frequently as a standard crossbow, yet the lever did not hamper the accuracy of how the bolts were loaded in any way (this was the main problem to be addressed). Eventually, Kyleon had spent enough time with the man he could make his own, though the mechanism Karl had given him always seemed to work better. It was possible the man knew magic, always being buried in books of some sort, or perhaps he hired-out for it, for he had a good bit of coin.

Kyleon kept the prototype with him, occasionally heading back out to sea for more jobs. The most recent vessel took him to England...


Sorry, by Stratos I meant Galoria.


Looks good! Jump in whenever you feel is appropriate....


Let me know when you want me to jump in.


I think we'll have William Striker waiting in an inn in Folkestone, the British port The Mermaid will ferry The Lusty Fools to, hoping to find adventurers to help him uncover a conspiracy against the young boy-King of England, Henry VI....

Rumors that he suffers nightly fevers and wastes away due to the influence of evil witchcraft have reached young William's ears, and he would see young Henry VI rid of such malignancy if he can....

Sovereign Court

Awesome idea, love historical based games. I noticed the new influx of applications, are you running two groups?


No, just one big one

Sovereign Court

darn :(

Dark Archive

Hey, Michael, sorry for disappearing. I'm afraid I'll have to be satisfied with following the game. At least for now. RL sucks. :(

Dark Archive

Galoria Ginodesa wrote:
Nightflier, I had always thought the Catholic church to be more of the divergers than the orthodox church (hence the name); in other words, they were more of the branch while the Eastern/Western Orthodox was the trunk. Granted they would be a big branch, but is that an inaccurate representation?

Well, even now, almost 1000 years after the schism, the doctrinal differences between eastern orthodox and roman catholic church are something like 2% of the sum of their theological learning. True, it was the catholic church that diverged from the basis, but that was always about political influence of the Patriarch of Rome and his supremacy over the rest of the christian patriarchs - those of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. Before the schism the five patriarch were considered to be equal in power, but with the greater prestige given to the patriarch of Rome (because of St. Peter) and slightly lesser prestige given to the patriarch of Constantinople, because it was the seat of the Empire. In fact, the church was then called One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Many of the practices that are now considered typically catholic, in fact, were established well after the Middle Ages have ended. For instance, the Papal infallibility was dogmatically established during the First Vatican council 1869–1870, but we now consider it one of the most typical catholic practices.

I'm rambling. :) Please excuse me all for derailing the thread.


Nice, so the Hundred Year War still happening?

I am interested in probably an Irishman mercenary or a Scottish soldiers fighting for the French in the Hundred Year War.

Just some ideas of getting a frontliner character, will mull over some ideas.

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