One of the PCs that joined my group for RRR is a Mivoni Swordlord of a rather low-ranked house. I took some inspiration from published materials, and heavy inspiration from Redcelt's work on this subject. I threw out most of the published canon on Mivon, specifically the names, as I found them not to really fit the flavor I was going for in my Mivon. Feel free to use this for your own game, and tell me how it went!
For my game, I wanted Mivon to have a strong flavor, very different from Brevoy. My players have spent some time in Brevoy and the Stolen Lands, which in my game are very inspired by the English and Scottish countryside and political landscape. For Mivon, we ended up with a strange blend of Italian and Spanish culture.
The upper echelon's of Mivoni society are heavily infused with Italian. The common people speak Spanish, and this is looked down upon heavily by the elite. I wanted to play up that the Swordpact had strangled Mivon's growth, and the staunch conservatives in the Council are unwilling or unable to see that change is necessary to keep Mivon alive.
I liked Redcelt's idea of breaking the Houses into factions, but I found his work a little to complex for my game. So instead, I've broken the Houses down into three simple factions that I know my players will remember. Credit goes to Redcelt for this idea and for the naming conventions.
For those of you who actually speak Italian, I apologize for my butchery.
Il Sangue (the Blood) are the traditionalists and conservatives among the Swordlords. I started with the base assumption that, in order for Mivon to be in the stagnating stasis the PCs find it in, it needed to be ruled by a group of insular xenophobes. Enter il Sangue. The base assumption is that, unless a Swordlord has a reason not to be a member of this faction, they belong here. They vastly outnumber the rest of the factions, but only because of their lack of uniform ideology.
The Vincitori (Victors) are the warhawks of the Swordlord Council. They are led by Lord Vittorio Nicovante, the second-ranked Swordlord of the nine major houses. For years, Vittorio has been quietly amassing power, allies, and wealth in order to overthrow the traditionalists of il Sangue. He plays himself off as a loyalist to the Comte, but has only been waiting for the right opportunity to challenge the Old Trout for rulership of Mivon. If his plan goes right, this year will be the year...
Il Mercante (Merchants) are those who believe Mivon's future lies in moving away from the Swordpact and making trade allies in the world. Their cause is led by Lord Arturo Scarlatti, leader of the third-ranked Minor House and one of the most charismatic people in Mivon. He shows kindness and respect to the PCs and believes that helping them will help Mivon in the long run.
That's it for now. Next up in this chapter, my notes on Mivon's biggest annual celebration, the Festival of Blades! Here is where the Swordlords compete in the List of Suitors, anyone from Mivon is able to settle grievances through duels, and the city teems with tourists who fill the city's coffers and pump new blood into the economy!
I've made, and am planning to make, enough changes to this AP that I think it's necessary to get them down in writing and out of the vacuum of my own mind. Any and all feedback is welcome to help flesh out what I've got going on, so please feel free to chime in!
My Kingmakers:
Amarand Fen (elf slayer): Amarand is a proud elf of Kyonin, trained in the ways of survival and the hunt. If Geralt of Rivia was an elf, he'd be Amarand. This player took the Elven Arrogance alternate racial trait, and has been roleplaying that up quite heavily. The player tends to enjoy the gritty survivalism of this campaign, and doesn't exactly have a set trajectory he would like to take his character on. He enjoys the slog, doesn't mind if his character ends up dead, and is willing to take extra risks because of this. Recently, he was infected with lycanthropy, and while he has managed to hold on to his personality and use it to his advantage, I am going to make sure that the extra buffs he gets from the Lycanthrope template come at a price.
Ari Orlovsky (sylph rogue): Ari is a member of House Orlovsky and a scion of an ancient connection the House has with a certain djinni who will become important later. This player is what I consider an "audience member." She has fun and shows up to every session, but largely stays out of the spotlight. I have no problem with this. Her character is going to prove vital to establishing the legitimacy of this new kingdom, and her selection of House Orlovsky has inspired to small amount of political turmoil in the background. All of this I will get into later, of course.
Cal Longheart (half-elf arcanist): Cal is curious, naive, and a fresh-faced magic boy in the harsh world. He is learning quickly that most things want to kill him or be left alone. Magical tattoos kept alight by bi-hourly prestidigitation makes for an interesting physical display. He also recently multiclassed using the variant multiclassing rules into Oracle. This player is my largest roleplayer, constantly pushing for in-character interactions and scenes, keeping both his own and others' meta-knowledge at bay, and striving to make mechanical choices informed by his character, rather than the other way around. Overall, a fun guy to game with.
Mercer Kingsley (half-orc antipaladin [insinuator]): THIS guy. A half-orc antipaladin with the insinuator archetype. He's played himself off rather successfully as a paladin so far. I don't know how far past the first book he will be able to (or plans to) keep up the charade, but it's certainly been an interesting ride. This is my most experienced player (and the DM for our group most of the time). He has the greatest degree of system proficiency, and is essentially my assistant-GM as far as bookkeeping goes. This player cares most about the story unfolding, and his character's part in it. He has spent hours upon hours fleshing out his character's backstory, keeping an in-character journal over on Giant in the Playground, and planning his future in the campaign world.
Changes to Book One:
First and foremost, the Stag Lord is not a drunken belligerent ne'er-do-well. He is an exiled ranger from a clan that once kept this land safe, before he hunted them down and murdered them. He is brutal, dominating, and not afraid to get his hands dirty to keep what he views as his. He is also, thanks to some creative re-imagining, a burgeoning drug kingpin. I've drawn heavily on Negan from the Walking Dead for inspiration. To keep him in-line mechanically with this, I have rebuilt him as a Ranger 3/Slayer 3 (CR 5) enemy.
The drug that the Stag Lord is building his empire out of is colloquially called Muse, and while it is a magical drug with a convoluted mumbo-jumbo explanation, the TL;DR version is this: it's magical, alchemical, based largely off of Dune's Spice (grants limited prescience, highly expensive, highly addictive), and it's primary ingredient is moon radishes.
My Stag Lord is played by another person. I am feeding this person information about what the Stag Lord knows, and he in turn is telling me the Stag Lord's responses. This is an easy way for me to guarantee a proactive villain.
The Stag Lord's lieutenants play a much larger role in the first book. Kressle was taken down by the party in the first session, and was taken back to Oleg's for rehabilitation. More on her later. Dovan was in charge of "the Farm," a large moon radish growing operation using slave labor and poor morals. The party killed him without mercy. Akiros is stationed at the Temple of the Elk, which I have expanded and made into a sort of refining factory for the Stag Lord's Muse operation. I've completely abandoned the Guardian of the Temple subplot in doing so. Auchs is reworked to be less of a lovable idiot and more of a Gregor Clegane figure. He's huge, angry, strong as an ox, and lacks a single strategic bone in his body. The only thing I've kept about his backstory as written is his illiteracy and his general lack of intelligence.
Changes to Come:
As Orthos suggests in this thread, I am taking a few pages from Jim Butcher as far as reimagining my fey lore. A few important aspects to note for now: Nyrissa is an exiled member of the Summer (Seelie) Court, she's bound in a prison in Thousand Voices, and (as suggested by Nevarre, she has shattered a magical mirror and is using it to spy on the outside world.
More shameless Jim Butcher thieving. Castruccio Irovetti has no ties to Numeria, but is in fact empowered by the Seelie Court as the Summer Knight. He acts in direct opposition to Nyrissa. When he took over rulership of Pitax, it was because Nyrissa was using the chaos there to strengthen her own hold on the area. The Summer Queen intervened and placed Irovetti on the throne as a security measure. As such, his motivations and connection to Nyrissa have to be completely reworked.
I want to expand Candlemere into a bigger deal than it is. The tower itself could be more than just a single encounter, and could, in fact, by a cool cyclopean dungeon crawl that hints at the presence of the Great Old Ones.
I'm not sure I like Vordekai as written. Or the Oculus of Abaddon. I'm thinking of changing that artifact into an "Oculus of Yog-Sothoth" or something like that. I think I want to tie Vordekai in with the Lovecraftian horror going on in Candlemere, and make Varnhold more of a Lovecraftian reference (Innsmouth, I believe it was?).
While perusing the possibilities for rebuilding Tartuk, an idea struck me. So, after considering it for a bit, I've decided to sit down and hash out what this idea would look like. I present to you: Tartuk, the reincarnated druid.
Tartuk's Story:
In my version, Tartuk was not an evil, spite-driven gnome reborn from his people's desire to bring him back. Rather, he was a dwarven druid (reincarnated druid archetype) whose family was murdered by kobolds. He swore vengeance upon the creatures, and came to believe that it was his duty to protect the natural world from the exploitation of all "vicious little beasties." He died while successfully defending a gnome village from a group of marauding goblins. The gnomes gathered to give their protector a proper burial, and were shocked when his body crumbled to a fine dust that blew away on the wind.
Several days later, the druid was reborn in the body of a kobold. He was, at first, completely disgusted with his new form. He looked into his reflection in the pool in which he was reborn and wept—or would have, if kobolds had tear ducts.
But after some contemplation, he realized that this form was not a punishment; rather, it was an opportunity for him to continue his mission. Convinced that, upon his death, he would be reborn in the best form to defeat the evils presented to him.
After some searching, the druid found a tribe of black-scaled kobolds, descended, he was sure, from the wicked black dragon Ithuliak. With his mission first in his mind, he plunged himself into the world of the cruel reptilian devils. In doing so, he uncovered the tool of the wicked creatures' demise: a nearby nest of mites.
With a zealous glee that he could kill two birds with a single stone, the druid took for himself the kobold name Tartuk and set about pitting the kobolds and mites against each other. He cleverly used an old statuette to manipulate the kobolds, then convinced the kobolds that the statuette was stolen by their mite enemies. So began the conflict between the Sootscales and the Sycamore mites.
I wanted a far more morally grey landscape for my Sootscale kobolds. My players have themselves convinced that these kobolds are the exception to the "usually Lawful Evil" paradigm kobolds fall under. To rid them of this illusion, I have decided to play up Chief Sootscale's penchant for LE tyranny and cruelty, while showing that Tartuk is a destabilizing force that drives the tribe away from their LE tendencies.
If the PCs ally themselves to Chief Sootscale, they will have the typical kobold allies the books entail. If they ally themselves to Tartuk, however, he will try to convince them to kill Chief Sootscale and the rest of the tribe with him. This, of course, will push all of their alignments toward Evil. Should they manage to convince him to spare the tribe (a Diplomacy check on their part), they will have kobold allies with an alignment geared toward Lawful Neutral, and with Tartuk as the new chief.
Should the PCs slay Tartuk and ally with Chief Sootscale, he will return to life and swear vengeance upon them, leading to difficulties later on in the campaign. If he is slain along with the rest of the tribe (an act of genocide on the PCs' part), then he will die with thanks on his lips and, when reborn, will trouble the PCs no further. They will hear rumors from their spymaster about monster tribes tearing themselves apart in the area, and may have the chance to track down Tartuk.
I always like to have musical inspiration for my campaigns, especially during my own prep work. Does anyone else do the same? Jumping right in, here's some of my (growing) selection, with a brief note as to which song is which.
"The Legend of Ashitaka" from Princess Mononoke — Primary theme of the Stolen Lands.
"Kaer Morhen" from the Witcher 3 soundtrack — Theme for Oleg's Trading Post.
"Hunter's Pursuit" from the Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind — Battle theme for Happs and his bandits, and the subsequent hunt that my players went on to find their main camp at Thorn Ford.
"The Trail" from the Witcher 3 soundtrack — Theme for the Stag Lord as shown to my players. I have an instrumental theme to show my players for this villain and a lyrical song to inspire the character on my end.
"Indestructible" by Disturbed — My inspiration music for the Stag Lord. I've upgraded him to a more hands-on villain and done away with his more passive backstory. This song has inspired a backstory I'll detail in another post and link back here once it's done.
More to come as I write and find inspiration! Still looking for N's ideal music, plus the major villains of all the other books. My group just started the Stolen Lands this week, so there's definitely going to be more to come.
One of my players is a scion of House Orlovsky, a niece of Lord Poul. While thinking of political plotlines to add to this AP (my group is very keen on a heavy political atmosphere), I came across a bit of Scottish history that may just work, if I can get some advice on how to make it work.
Background: Poul Orlovsky has been holding out on swearing allegiance to Noleski Surtova as king of Brevoy, as the Orlovsky line has been loyal to House Rogarvia for centuries. Recently, a House Lebeda daughter married into House Garess under the promise that in exchange for Lebeda's wealth to ease their suffering, House Garess will support House Lebeda in future Land Council meetings (think Landsraad from Dune).
Highly Abridged Scottish History Lesson:
In 1692, Clan MacDonald was one of the loyalists to the now-deposed King James. King William, the new king, gave the highland lords a set deadline to swear their allegiance to their new king.
Lord MacDonald of Glencoe was the last to swear fealty. He first swore in front of a local magistrate, but some time after was told that was insufficient, and that he had to travel to a nearby village to swear in front of a higher ranking official. He attempted to get there before the deadline, but was caught in a snowstorm, and arrived six days after the deadline. He was assured it would be fine, no need to worry.
Some time later, a contingent of redcoats from Fort William showed up at MacDonald’s doorstep. They were offered shelter and food, as per Highland hospitality laws, and slept at Glencoe for two weeks.
On the last night, the redcoats waited until the MacDonalds were all asleep, then proceeded to massacre the entire clan present at Glencoe. They violated every known hospitality rite in Scotland under King William’s orders.
I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this. I'm thinking that a House Garess contingent is forced to act as a patsy for House Lebeda, who are themselves Surtova loyalists. They will massacre House Orlovsky and make an example out of Lord Poul.
I'm thinking that what happens next is that, rather than forcing the rebellious faction of Brevoy into submission, it galvanizes them. They try to recruit my PC Orlovsky as some sort of leader against Noleski Surtova or something like that, and my players need to decide how their alliance lies. If they side against Noleski, Brevoy will be plunged into civil war that spills over into the Stolen Lands. If they side against the rebels, King Surtova will be an ally and newly-made tyrant.
