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Tessa's players stay out please...
I'm currently DMing a game in which two of the characters are related by a backstory thread they didn't previously know about. Due to the prophecy/fate-based nature of the game, I want to see if I can connect all the PCs' backstories. The weird part is, all of them come from different countries. They've known each other for a bit now, and I want to surprise them by revealing connections over the next few sessions.
Here are the basic backstories, and the threads they've left me to connect:
Player 1: abandoned by his human parents and raised by dwarves. has a bat animal companion. extremely religious, and received what he thought was a sign from a god. his dwarven parents were sold out by the tribe and killed for their "heathen ways."
Player 2: a pretty average guy, raised in a country with airships. failed to protect the last guy he bodyguarded, and left the country in shame.
Player 3: female dhampir. raised in an orphanage, with no clue who her parents were and which was a vampire. abandoned by her former employers when they found out who she was (and that she was in an illicit relationship with their daughter).
Player 4: had humble beginnings as a farmer's son, but was granted oracle powers by an unknown force. his parents are still alive and he knows them in-game.
Players 1 and 2 both stated that their characters have blue eyes, so I'm going to say that PC 1 is PC 2's illegitimate abandoned brother. Other than that, I could use suggestions!
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Here's some ideas off the top of my head.
P1 and P2 are half-brothers. Their father, a bit of a scoundrel in his younger days, wooed a young woman and dropped her like a sack of bricks when she told him she was pregnant. The woman he abandoned did not want to let her child go, but she had no choice as she could not support the both of them, so she went to the church of (whatever deity P1 follows) for help. They arranged the foster parents, who were also worshippers of said deity. Perhaps the god they worship isn't common in the dwarves; maybe the area they lived in is particularly religious too, so they were persecuted for that.
Perhaps P1 and P3 were raised in the same orphanage, but P1 was eventually adopted out to the dwarves--but P3 had no chance of being adopted because of her heritage.
P4's oracular source may be the same god that P1 follows. Perhaps they are the "chosen ones".
P3's father (the human) could be the man P2 failed to protect. Or if you're feeling especially dramatic/sadistic, it could be P3's ex-girlfriend. ;)
P3's orphanage may have been in the same town that P4 grew up in (or near, if they were a farmer--the one they always went to market in). This actually links P4 to P3 and P1, if you use the orphanage idea above, so you could have more leeway with whatever sourced P4's powers.
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Just gonna ask, because it is not clearly stated, but other than the damphir, are all of the other characters human? The only one you clearly stated was Player #1.
I'm thinking gypsies would be the best way to have a family that spread out over that many countries. That way they don't have to be directly related, just of the same family bloodline.
Another way would be to have them related to the same grandfather or great grand father who was some legendary adventuror/hero. The more I think about it this might be your best bet. The great grandfather could have done some incredible deed that messed with the fate of the world, and it is now up to his distantly related descendents to either correct it or continue on his legacy where their parents and grand parents either failed or were stopped from doing...
Just another side thought, you could make the great grandfather a hero that turned to evil, became a vampire and sought out a fling with a mortal woman before killing her (ie. Turning her) - easily fitting in the damphir.
Just thought or two...
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Okay,
A super religious human, raised by the dwarves who murdered his abandoning parents and adopted him. And that human is the brother of a bodyguard from a country of airships but he recently left.
....Meanwhile,
A human father -- and brother of the first PC's dad -- the uncle, was seduced by a vampire back when they all lived in the country of the airships. The vampire killed him of course, and the brother (who would later be father of the first two PCs) never told his bodyguard son about his murdered-by-hot-vampire uncle.
. . . . Also never told his bodyguard son about how he and Mom abandoned their first son a few years before bodyguard son was born when they were travelling through some mountains when an airship they were on crash-landed. He was ashamed at having to abandon that toddler the mountains to save his and his wife's lives.
And, obviously, bodyguard son's mom and dad were killed by dwarven religious fanatics a few years ago -- and bodyguard son doesn't know about his older brother who was abandoned in the mountains and rescued by dwarven religulous freaks.
And doesn't know about a cousin, born to a vampire mom, in another land -- because vampire mom left afer seducing & killing the man she let impregnate her. She's a drifter.
Finally, the father & mother of the two men who fathered the first 3 PCs, the PCs' paternal grandparents, adopted their first child because a dumb-ass Cleric said they'd never concieve a child of their own. When Grandma got pregnant with twin boys, no less, grandpa and grandma decided to let their adopted child, then a girl of 7, be raised by another childless couple . . . . That couple raised their new daughter on their farm and she got married about the same time that a vampire chick, a long way away, was seducing someone's twin brother . . . . That lady gave birt to PC #4 -- who was given the Oracle gift & curse because Mom, an adopted girl herself who was raised by two loving families, has whatever Oracle-like link you deem appropriate. Maybe she was put up for adoption because her own mother, an Aasimar, died in a tough childbirth but she was saved -- given to a childless couple for 7 years before they miraculously had kids of their own -- and then to the family she lived on until she married a farmer and had his child, PC #4.
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So, ....
Grandma & Grandpa, supposed to be childless.
1st) They adopt a girl whose mom (maybe an Aasimar) died in childbirth.
2nd) Then, 7 years later, miraculously get pregnant with twin sons.
3rd) Give their adopted daughter to another childless couple to raise. Eventually the girl grows up and marries a farmer, giving birth to PC #4 with the Oracle gift/ curse.
4th) The two twins grow up. One marries and in an airship that emergency-lands in the mountains, has to abandon the toddler, PC1, in the mountains to save his and his wife's life.
5th) The other twin brother is seduced by a female vampire who kills him after getting herself pregnant and then leaves far far away. Her lesbian daughter is raised in an orphanage.
6th) The first twin brother returns home after abandoning his first child, has a second child who grows up to be a bodyguard that sucks at being a bodyguard and leaves in disgrace.
But the twin brother never tells his son, PC 2, that he has an Uncle (murdered by a vampire) -- or an older brother, abandoned in the mountains. And is eventually murdered himself by dwarves. (The ones who adopted the 1st PC)
So both twin brothers are dead, one murderd by dwarves after abandoning his first child and raising a second. And the second twin brother murdered by the hot vampire who seduced him.
Also, the twin brothers never knew that their parents, Grandma & Grandpa, adopted a girl and raised her for 7 years, before they were born.
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Wow, that's some impressive backstory finagling.... there are some great ideas here!
By putting some of your ideas together, I'm thinking of a string of random coincidences: PC 1 is the abandoned half-brother-by-affair of PC 2, whose father had dealings (but not an affair, because that would screw the timeline up as PC 3 is 110 years old) with the hot vampire mom of PC 3, whom he never told his legitimate son about; meanwhile, PC 4 once knew someone that PC 3 lived in the orphanage with (and is a huge rival of), and PC 4's patron deity is the same one PC 1 worships, who is also the one trying to draw these people together. Plus, the sister of the guy PC 2 failed to protect is now a Sister of the Holy Order in the church PC 4 has been living in until he figures out who his real deity is. Does this seem to tie them together closely enough without being too contrived?
Additionally, the vampire mom, the childhood rival, and the (secretly evil) Sister of the Holy Order are all friends of the Big Bad Dragon, and helped him to create the demiplane the PCs will eventually have to destroy.
And Zephyre, yes, they're all human except for the dhampir (who's 110 years old!). The first two PCs are close in age, around 30, and the oracle is 20. That's why it's so difficult to connect PC 3, because there's such an age gap there.