Creative ways to integrate AOW with character backgrounds

[Malachi]

One of the things I always like to do is to integrate character backgrounds into the storyline. It helps to bring the story to life for players. For Age of Worms here are a couple ideas of for how to integrate character backgrounds into the first two adventures:

1) Alistar Land is actually the PCs cousin who went missing many years ago and was never heard from again. This will give the PC even more incentive to return the boy's body to the grave. They will be even more upset when the rest of their relatives bodies have been dug up and they should absolutely reviled when they have to do battle with the corpses of their relatives or during the scene at Filge's dining table.

2) One of the PCs families is in great debt to Balabar Smenk. He meets secretly with this PC and uses cancelling the debt as leverage to get them to do his bidding or persuade the group toward certain courses of action.

3) A local barmaid that one of the characters had dated a couple times supposedly left her employment for bigger things in the Free City. When the characters fight the Hextorites in the Three Faces of Evil, she ends up being one of the cultists.

What creative plot tie-ins do other people out there have?

[Nived]

What originally was a patch to cover to get one of my player's concept involved may turn out to be the crux of the game.

When I proposed this game (using Eberron as the setting) the first player to get back to me wanted to play a Talenta halfling ranger, he really like them and wanted to play one badly. So I worked with him and came up with a reason why his character has been living in Diamond Lake. To accomidate both character backstory and low 1st level gp I came up with this hook he liked and agreed to.

He's a distant member of the House Jorasco, he was asked awhile back to run an errand for the family into Diamond Lake, which he did. While there his mount (a dinosaur, Fastieth, think velocaraptor, traditional mount for talentans for those unfamiliar with the setting) ate one of the Mayor's horses. Sheriff Cubbin and his thugs confiscated the Fastieth and was going to put it down. This is a huge deal for the character, coming from a nomadic tribal background where your mount isn't just an animal, it's seen as a hunting partner, literally a member of your clan, spiritually family. 'Luckily' Zalamandra bought off the athorities and saved his mount... kinda, until he can pay her back his mount is on display at the Emporium, shameful, but it's alive. Ever since he's been working at the House Jorasco hospital in town trying to earn enough money to get his mount back, but keeps getting screwed out of his money just when it seems like he's going to have enough. It's been over a year since ther original incident.

Excellent, we had motivation for him... then... my two other players bring me their characters... a Talenta halfling barbarian, and a Talenta halfling rogue they did this independantly... Well it took them five minutes talking to each other to decide they are all related and that they're in nearly identical situations... in fact it all happened at the same time and it's all Dux (the rogue's) fault.

Now to my point. That gives them all ample reason to go loot the Whispering Caren... but looking ahead to Three Faces I wonder how to get a group of neutral halflings involved taking down evil cults.... well it hit me. Go back to the original hook. After they finish looting and selling (and pick up the other two PCs when they get back from vacation, and I swear if they want to play halflings....). When they go to finally get their mounts back... one wont be there, Zalamandra sold it to one of the cults in Three Faces... giving plenty of justification for Halfling Death (tm) to decend upon the cults.

[The Jade]

Philarete had some neat tie-ins in his recent 'Age of Worms in Olive Branch, MS' thread.

The first of which is a poison dusk lizarman newly freed from his freakshow subjugation. With a quaggoth and a boggle for friends such a character is so interesting going in that I can't imagine a boring minute of play during his scaly career.

[The Jade]

Nived wrote:

Halfling Death tm

Death from below!

"Murthk?"
"Yes, Blogdagg."
"I'm feeling a strange pain in my shins."
"That would be the halfling with the daggers."
"The one crying timber?"
"Quite."

[Mysthack]

This is a tie-in we wrote for one of my players backrounds. She is a halfling rogue. It ties her tightly to Tidwoad, which can be used in many ways, depending on what need arises...

...10 or 15 years ago, Tidwoad was visiting this gnome because Shamil’s father was a friend from a long time ago. The two hatch up a plan to start a gem and other related goods store in the capital of Greyhawk. Shamil’s father takes most of the family's money supply and promises to pay for the rest of his family’s move as soon as he can afford it.

After shop is set up, Shamil’s father sends home letters every several months. This continues well, with the father becoming more optimistic in his letters and Shamil expects to be living in Greyhawk in around a year’s time. Then, the letters stop. Shamil doesn't worry at first, since the last letter said that her father would be increasingly busy. Eventually, after the good part of a year has gone by, Shamil decides something has gone wrong and pleas with her mother to let her go to the Free City, but because of her age, her mother refuses.

After five or so more long years, her mother passes away, and she takes the rest of the family's money, having no siblings and treks to the CoG. On her way to the CoG, she stops in Diamond Lake, where she runs into her father's business partner and learns the truth.

Five years ago, her father and Tidwoad were doing well, the shop had nestled into a niche in the large city and a decent stream of money was flowing into the business. Enough money that a local group of thugs noticed the small store and planned to sack it. Their first attempt was thwarted by the clever gnome Tidwoad. On the second day, he had left the shop for a small time, leaving Shamil’s father in charge. The group attacked then, and her father was unprepared for the thugs despite his father’s short sword+1 he had brought to work after being warned by Tidwoad about the thugs. The thugs had slayed Shamil’s father in the process of looting and almost made it out before Tidwoad returned. He managed to kill one of the intruders but the rest escaped.

After the theft, he tried to recover, but constant harassment by the group forced him to leave. Taking with him all his possessions and a silent vow never to be stolen from again, Tidwoad fled the thugs and the CoG to the nearby town of Diamond Lake. He had heard rumors from clients about the cairns and had decided to check them out. After learning that they were just rumors, he gave up on that idea and again opened a shop. To keep his vow, he hired Festus the shield guardian and then settled down in the gem trade.

Learning of this truth, Shamil appeals to Tidwoad as a family friend and is allowed to stay in one of the rooms above his workshop.

Shamil has been in DL for around a year or so when the adventure begins, and is ready for a change. She doesn't like leeching off Tidwoad, who has been allowing her to stay while she does minor tasks around his shop, and his shop has been suffering lately, as has the town. She decides to act on a rumor she heard from a customer about an unexplored cairn that has multitudes of wealth. Her motivation is to gain enough wealth to travel to the CoG and open up a shop of her own, since she has no close family left to return to. Learning of her plan, Tidwoad presents her with her grandfathers short sword +1 a small sum of money, and the best of luck. He tells her that he will always have a room for her, but they both know that its unlikely she will come back...