Okay, so I've have reached the point of doing the background write-ups for the PCs pre-advanture. Their brief was to give me as little or as much as they wanted and I would adapt and fill in the blanks as necessary and basically fit into the world (names, places etc), which is my usual drill for these sorts of things.
Problem. I encouraged one of the newer players to be native to Sandpoint (I wanted at least one character to be a local...!) As and as I came to write up his background, which was going to be a simple transposition/polish from his source material(see end of post) plus a near copy-paste of the Late Unpleasantness from the Sandpoint guide.
And then I finally put it all together and realised that he was a cleric.
Of Desna.
Who has been born and raised in Sandpoint.
And who is 35. In a town only 42 years old.
Crap.
So, not only is he going to be largely "exposition guy" from the perspective of the other PCs, but at that age, also going to be fairly well known in town and is going to have known Nualia personally, as well as all the current and former priests, and Tsuto too, yes? It's kinda going to put him front and centre. While great in some regards - personal connection and all that, it does sort of put me in a position with regard to what to tell the player and how much. (Considering he's the least experienced player, pretty much. If it was one of the more veteran players, I'd just dump the exposition on them and call it a day!)
Oh and just to compound the problem, the player's going to be away for a few months because he's got a course on a few weeks into the session, (but I suppose he really can be DM's Exposition Man then...) So it's also likely he might even miss the Nualia encounter altogether...!
Suggestions on what to do and how to handle this would appreciated. E.g, what you think I should tell him, how much etc etc.
(Also, I noticed he's not got a second name, and one of my other friends noted that he might well be the child of some of the first founders... What can we do with that?)
I'm going to talk to the player about this tonight and see if he's happy with what is going to be a fair chunk of exposition being dumped on his lap and whathave you anyway, but I would really appreciate some help!
(Source provided by player: "Abbondio is a human cleric and he was born in Sandpoint.
Since he was a child he was encouraged by his parents in being a cleric. Their main argument was that being a cleric was a job with good perspective, generally safe and quiet, therefore suitable for a person like Abbondio, who never wanted a life too risky and full of changes.
Abbondio then followed this path and became a functionary of the temple of Desna.
He enjoyed the life in the temple for some years but now he is thinking that maybe he wants to see a bit more of the world.")
Most of that last is actually changing what he's said his character has done (I try to avoid that). It'll be enough, I think for him to be dealing with all of it without making it even more complicated... (Also, with the possibilty he'll not be here for her encounter, I don't want to sow too deep a seed.)
I was working more along the lines of him knowing Nualia because she was at temple a lot, and him being happy in being a subsidiary preist, before the fire. The question really is how much I should load him up with.
(I spoke to him, and he said he was up to the challenge; his girlfriend, who is a more veteran player, nearly did her nut laughing...)
Do we know any of the early founders that weren't one of the four big noble houses?
It also occurred that he's going to be front an centre in the festival, which means he isn't going to be tanking around in chainmail (especially if he's specifically been in the church for a quiet life until now...!) Slightly problematic... Though if anyone can think of a plausible reason why he would be in full armour for the ceremony, I'm all ears! (I ain't very hopeful though...!)
Do we know how old Nualia was? There's another Sandpoint PC who's been away for several years who left when he was a child. He's now 17, so he'll have heard of the Late Unpleasantnes via letters to his entirely happy and not at all tragic or estranged or otherwise family (thank frack there's one or two out fo eight PCs...!), but he'll have been on his apprenticeship during that period and I'm trying to figure out how old Nualia would have been when she left. What's "of age" in Varisia? Sixteen? Seventeen? I dunno... That + 7 months + time in coma(?) +5 years would narrow it down. I guess a ballpark figure would 23-24ish?
Just take the basic history of Sandpoint and provide it to the player. Tell your player that he was aware of these things... and that he can determine how much he interacted with various people. After all, he could have been a bookworm and didn't really talk much to Nualia and her father, or really paid attention to Nualia.
I've actually a player who is running a half-orc native to Sandpoint, and I never bothered filling her in on the town history because I didn't see it as too important. He was himself a bookworm (a barbarian bookworm at that! With the Thassilonian Scholar Trait) and just didn't bother paying attention to some of those details.
Here's one other thing to consider: yes, he's a Sandpoint native. But that doesn't mean he was IN Sandpoint all this time. He could have been training in Magnimar at the time of the Unpleasantness... and thus not been there when Nualia's adoptive father died in the fire. Thus while he knows people... he could always just not know that much.
Here's one other thing to consider: yes, he's a Sandpoint native. But that doesn't mean he was IN Sandpoint all this time. He could have been training in Magnimar at the time of the Unpleasantness... and thus not been there when Nualia's adoptive father died in the fire. Thus while he knows people... he could always just not know that much.
Well, his background is being basically a cloistered career acolyte and only now is looking about leaving the town for the first time means that's sort of out of the question (that I can do with the other native, though.)
After all, he could have been a bookworm and didn't really talk much to Nualia and her father, or really paid attention to Nualia.
After some thought, I decided that he knew Nualia reasonably well (since she was often around the chapel), though age gap and personalities prevented them from being much more than acquiantences, with her being, well, really, the child of the boss; somebody you know passingly to say hello to and chat briefly but over a fairly considerably time. I've told him the potted history of what happened to Nualia (foundling, picked on, illegitmate pregancy, coma and death in the fire) - it's covered in as much detail as the Late Unpleasantness, so it's not going to stand out too much, as I fill in other bits and pieces.
Just take the basic history of Sandpoint and provide it to the player. Tell your player that he was aware of these things... and that he can determine how much he interacted with various people.
What are the most salient stuff he should know (a lot of it will be covered when it comes up with the PCs).
So far, I've copy-pasted (and slightly edited) stuff on the Old Light (mentioning the sage's obsession with it), the garrison (since he's looking at leaving, I extrapolated he's been helping the militia), the theatre (because it's a big thing, and it's something I've seeded into the backgrounds of both of the party's bards as A Thing), the glassworks as the first major industry and a couple of other places in passing...
What else do you think ought to go on the list, if anything?
I'm not really sure. I think that really should suffice. Don't forget. He's someone who was basically a cloistered acolyte. He'd know stuff going on in the temple, but outside of it? (Mind you, Nualia may hate his guts for not intervening on her defense. And he may have no idea at all.)
In nomen omen.
If you're Italian, Don Abbondio is a very well known fictional priest, since he's a character that is part of the studies that every Italian student has to read during his career: "The Bethrothed" by Alessandro Manzoni.
In the romance, Don Abbondio is described as a vase of earthenware among vases of iron, in other words a figure that never dared to try, due to his frail nature.
At the beginning of the book, he's ordered by the local boss to not marry Renzo and Lucia; fearing for his life and without showing any kind of bravery, he follows the order, starting a series of events that forego along the romance and create one of the masterpiece of Italian literature.
Said this, your player's character might be exactly the same: someone that knows something since a long time, but never had the courage to say or do anything due to fear of some retaliation from someone powerful in Sandpoint.
Maybe he is in some way in debt with Nualia's family?
Maybe the Scarnetti ordered him not to intervene in the local plots?
Maybe he knows enough but his a fearsome character never allowed him to take action so far?
There could be lot of reasons for him to know and not intervene...
As per the wearing the armor: it's a hot day and he lost a bet, having to suffer for heat during the ceremony?
(not necessarily it has to be a serious motivation :-)
I'd say he has duties to perform for the cathedral and they require robes not chainmail.
Secondly an interesting thing that could be we all know Nualia was kinda picked on perhaps he was one of the bully types who actually had a crush on her or was just perhaps one of her main tormentors. In which case I would tell him just the fluff of her upbringing (i.e. his tormenting her) and her supposed death and leave it at that. It makes it more personal.
He's significantly older than Nualia. So I doubt he picked on her. Hell, I could see him always being nervous around her because she was the boss's adoptive kid. (Unless you want to go the dark path of him being the father of her child... which gets all kinds of creepy to be honest. We're talking about someone in his late 20s to early 30s... who is sort of in a position of power over her (indirectly)... and a teenager.)
Back from holiday (wherein we discovered the house and been burgled...) and trying to wrap the last of the PC backgrounds up...
In nomen omen.
If you're Italian, Don Abbondio is a very well known fictional priest, since he's a character that is part of the studies that every Italian student has to read during his career: "The Bethrothed" by Alessandro Manzoni.
In the romance, Don Abbondio is described as a vase of earthenware among vases of iron, in other words a figure that never dared to try, due to his frail nature.
At the beginning of the book, he's ordered by the local boss to not marry Renzo and Lucia; fearing for his life and without showing any kind of bravery, he follows the order, starting a series of events that forego along the romance and create one of the masterpiece of Italian literature.
The player in question is Italian, so I doubt it's coincidence!
Said this, your player's character might be exactly the same: someone that knows something since a long time, but never had the courage to say or do anything due to fear of some retaliation from someone powerful in Sandpoint.
Maybe he is in some way in debt with Nualia's family?
Maybe the Scarnetti ordered him not to intervene in the local plots?
Maybe he knows enough but his a fearsome character never allowed him to take action so far?
There could be lot of reasons for him to know and not intervene...
I sort of went with him being a quiet keeps himself to himself sort of unremarkable fellow for the most part. (I try to mainly tell the PCs what events have happened to them, as opposed to what they might have felt or thought unless extrapolated from background events they give me, so that's the best option.)
As per the wearing the armor: it's a hot day and he lost a bet, having to suffer for heat during the ceremony?
(not necessarily it has to be a serious motivation :-)
Right, new question, now dealing with the party's barbarian Dwarf. Long story short, member of a northern barbarian Dwarf tribe (wiped out by mountain trolls - so far we've got a 25% "everyone-but-me wiped out" ccurance in the backstories...!) He basically came south. So, question is, for those as is more knowledgable about Golorian than me, where would be a good "north" for him to have come from? (The names he's given me are very Norse-ish). Doesn't have to be Varisia - I don't have any other maps to hand, though, so I don't know what's up past there... The Lands of the Linnorm Kings looks like it might fit, yes? (I've no idea how far it is up there, though and the Pathfinder wikia only tells me so much!)
Edit: Totally unrelated, but as I browse said PF wikia, Golarion gets ultra-special-mega-bonus-points for being in a Solar system and not some odd do-hickey-ma-gubbins- like most of the D&D worlds. Awesome.
Five Kings Mountains. It's a region where a lot of the dwarves live, and not always harmoniously. ;)
The Lands of the Linnorm Kings do have a very pronounced Scandinavian flavour to them, and Norse names fit the ‘Ulfen’ ethnicity of humanity. Most of the ‘barbarians’ in that part of Avistan tend to be Kellid humans, though - the dwarves up that way range from almost cheery and sociable (Hagreach, in the Lands of the Linnorm Kings) to clannish and near-isolationist (small trading outposts in the portion of the Kodar Mountains bordering Irrisen), but they don’t get particularly uncivilised, AFAIK.
@ Tangent101: aren’t the Five Kings Mountains way the heck off to the south-east of Varisia, between Kyonin and Andoran? ~.^
The Lands of the Linnorm Kings do have a very pronounced Scandinavian flavour to them, and Norse names fit the ‘Ulfen’ ethnicity of humanity. Most of the ‘barbarians’ in that part of Avistan tend to be Kellid humans, though - the dwarves up that way range from almost cheery and sociable (Hagreach, in the Lands of the Linnorm Kings) to clannish and near-isolationist (small trading outposts in the portion of the Kodar Mountains bordering Irrisen), but they don’t get particularly uncivilised, AFAIK.
@ Tangent101: aren’t the Five Kings Mountains way the heck off to the south-east of Varisia, between Kyonin and Andoran? ~.^
The Kodar mountain ones seem like a fairly good fit, as I was just ruminating on havin the trolls (rather than be "mountain trolls" as the palyer wrote, seeing as he just picked that because it sounded good (meaning "trolls that live in the mountains" as opposed to the actual breed) be Ice Trolls probably from Irrisen.
...
Actually, that appears to be where Xin-Shalast is located!
Think I'm sold on that one. Kodar Mountains it is!
So? People travel, especially in magical worlds where one magical trap adn send you a thousand miles away. Heck, for my Reign of Winter game I've a Shoanti, a goblin from Numeria who thinks he's a gnome, a pair of half-elves, and a Mwangi/Vudrani.
Having done a bit of a read-around (having names suggested means I can have a good sqiz at the wiki!) I decided that the PCs Dwarf tribe was from the Kodars, a small trading outpost for far-distant Janderhoff until Irrisen's secession which cut them off. (Which left them plenty of time to degrade into "barbarianism", given the isolation of their location.) And that fits in with trolls Ice Trolls) and meshes nicely with everything else. Indeed, having someone around when the PCs reach into the Kodar themselves wil doubtless be useful!
(The disadvantage of Golorian having a wiki is that I easily get lost and distracted by all the shiny locales, like the other planets! That said, just skimming the surface here, I have to say that Golorian is definately the best D&D campaign world I've seen and I'm not at all sorry to be running here! (In some of the other AD&D-converted modiles I've run in the past, it has been somewhat... more tedious.) And I'm definately shifting Shackled City to Golarion at the distant point we get to it!)
I recommend picking up the Inner Sea World Guide. You could order it through the Paizo website, and they had (and may still have) "imperfect" ones that may have had the bottom of a book hit by a marker or the like which they sell for a small discount, or order it through your local game store if they don't have a copy.
And yes, Golarion is a fun world. :) I finally broke down and had everyone in my Night Below/Reign of Winter game switch over to a Golarion setting (which means the GMPC Paladin isn't a Paladin of the Goddess of Death and Healing any longer, but hey, no biggie). A lot of creativity went into this world... and it's not this twisted cancerous mess that the old Forgotten Realms (best left forgotten!) had become.
Would that be Night Below as in the AD&D module by any chance...? As it happens, we're about to start the last boss fight in the (converted to 3.Aotrs) module tonight.
(After not being fond of the Realms especially (the history is so claggy; I tried to read some of it that the DM sent me when we were running a campaign there, but it was so tedious) and even less of Greyhawk (when I ran Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth - the 3.5 version out of Dungeon - even I was bored of the world descriptions) I ran that on the imaginitively-titled world of Generica and just replaced the names of gods with those i and/or the players made up and handwaved the rest of the world...
D&D's track record ain't great, though, on campaign worlds. Though to be fair, out of all of them, Ravenloft has a certain panache, Planescape a certain charm and Eberron seemed okay from what little I've osmosed around it.
The less said about that *affront* to starships and space that was Spelljammer, the better, however...!
Yes. I'd run Night Below twice before (the first game ended in the Orc Caverns after a problem player decided to smother the GMPC just for s$&$s and giggles after continually disrupting the game. I walked out on them and refused to let her ever in one of my games again) and was starting a third run (with them slowly heading toward Milborne so it hadn't even officially started yet) when I realized I had absolutely no interest in it, even in translating it to Pathfinder. Then Reign of Winter came along, and I renamed Thurmaster into Helgren, set it 20 years after Night Below, and never looked back. My oldest player had been in my old NB game, so he was happy with the shift.
Though to be honest, my Night Below campaign probably didn't look much like yours - I kept adding Dungeon Magazine modules, included a brief venture into the DemonWeb Pits from the old TSR module, and had an uber-plot where the crew was trying to fulfill prophecy to kill an evil God from being born... while saving the life of the person who was supposed to become that god. It was basically the best campaign I'd ever run, and included my having the Big Bad realize prophecy was going to have him die right after achieving Godhood no matter what he did, going "hey, I'm already immortal and practically a God anyway, why go through all this trouble?" at which point he gave up the artifacts needed for Godhood to the PCs, said "I quit, I'm going to go on vacation, some nice secluded beach on an island you've never heard of. Here's how you destroy the artifacts. Bye!" and left. Best part was the plaintive question "Can he do that?" from one of the PCs. :)
As for D&D's track on campaign worlds... the problem is that when things went to 3rd edition, it called for a massive revamping of the campaign worlds to "explain" things. Then they did it again for 4th. It was like a sloppy version of a DC Comics continuity reboot. I suspect if Paizo ever created a Pathfinder 2, they'd have learned the lessons of how NOT to reboot continuity, and just present new stats for various NPCs rather than do a world-sweeping change to everything that ends up negating half the sourcebooks.