[Burning Wheel] The Silver Throne

[Paka]

So we were talking shit after the PTA game ended, 5th game in a 5 episode season and a more than satisfying conclusion. We're a fairly new group to one another, this game our first all together and it was just five opinionated geeks geeking out and getting to know one another.

The conversation was valuable, Storn admitted that he wasn't all that excited about running Mutants & Masterminds as we had planned and we discussed what to play next. Unknown Armies came up but Bob could not be sold or budged on it. I wanted to strangle him with my dice bag; the rest of the group was ready to roll.

And then we started talking Star Wars and protagonist competency in RPG's.

Somehow this led me to saying that I'd like to use BW for a more gritty and down to earth game, more George R.R. Martin influenced than Tolkien. Bob had never read those books but Jeff (not Kryos Jeff but a different Jeff) was into the books and down.

We laid out the vibe for Bob, gritty medieval with desperate, scheming lords and ambitious knights and scrambling for resources and power with magic but probably no Elves, Dwarves or Orcs.

Storn said he'd love to GM a game like that and that is when it dawned on me that I didn't want to GM that game, but I wanted to play it.

"I want to play the bastard son wizard."

I just happened to have my books in my bag. We were off.

Medieval New Orleans vibe, port city, our family's power has waned due to the influence of a powerful emperor but the campaign's kicker is that the emperor has died and our family's time to reclaim the city has come but now there are two other families set up in town with docks and ships to call upon.

Bob's thinking of a knight, Jeff's thinking of a Spymaster but when I ran into him and Bob at the grocery store, that concept had changed to a wily and socially adept widow.

5 LP's. Born + 4.

There are so many damned decisions to make in chargen, heart-wrenching decisions, resource points to alot here or there. Its awesome, so different from burning up PC's for a game you GM, an entirely different animal.

We were excited to play and when we looked up, it was 5 in the morning and we had character concepts, a family outline and a campaign set.

We play in two weeks with a Spirit of the Century game in between while Bob's away.

[Thor Olavsrud]

Hey Judd,

Sounds very cool! You guys might take some inspiration from the Corso Campaign I played in a couple years ago.

We didn't come at it from Martin, but we had a very similar vibe!

[Storn]

Thor, if nothing else, I'll be stealing names like crazy. As it has the kinda vibe I wanted to get across.

Here is an e-mail transcribed of a bunch of randomn thoughts I had about the game, setting and a couple of questions.

"Ambrato" means Amber in italian (albeit as an adj). It is a working title for the river and maybe the city where the 3 families are vying for control. But I'm not strongly married to it. But it is growing on me.

I've got a bunch of thoughts rambling around in my head and a few questions. In no particular order, let me just get stuff down.

Matriarch/Patriarch?
I know this came up, but I don't think we got a consensus. Bob, I think this could affect you the most, but it will affect all the players. Do we have the familial head present? And if so, what makes for best story? I know Bob mentioned NOT wanting to run the family right off the bat.

I mentioned to Judd that maybe dad is dead... and the family is run by a Matriarch.... just for a change of pace. How competent do we make the Matriarch/Patriarch? Do we hamstring the NPC in some way (infirmed, senile, mystically cursed...?), or do we do "Big Valley" and make the head a strong, flawed personae that can offer support and advice and yet make demands? I'm cool with any outcome...

Religion
Since one of the other families is of "the other" religion, we need to come up with two. The old and the new. Here is what I thought of, see if this flies.

Assumption one: The Gods do and have and will walk the planet. It is rare, but no sane person would deny the existence of Gods. I'm not sure if this will ever impact play directly.... but I am interested in exploring how various cultures will respond to that dynamic. I also want to avoid too much patina of Spanish/Italian MUST mean Catholicism.

Folks usually worship the entire pantheon, not just "a" god.

The Old. Or The Two.
Toril, God of the Sun and his wife Tyra, Goddess of the moon. Judd, here is your weather connection in Tyra.. the moon dictates tides and weather, so there ya go.

The New: the Trinity
Keiran, God of Lore and Law, the New Father. Kelkalie, Goddess of Earth, Agriculture The New Mother. Kay, the dutiful Son, God of Strength and Protection.

The "Local" Gods:
In the hinterlands, in uncivilized places, powerful entities sometimes spring up. Cults and such. Their sway is usually defined by a certain geographical area. The Trinity is rumored to have grown from local roots.

The Families of Ambrato

Castillo family: Youse guys.

Tessen family; The northerners (the Germans, although I do want to file the serial numbers off ), who are trying so hard to fit in culturally. Their northern holdings are quite rich, being a controller of 1/3 of Ambrato's docks has made them richer. They are the wealthiest of the three families.

Menare family: Devout Trinity family, has strong connections to the Emperor's court. Most recent political move is eldest son married a King's daughter of the South across the (Mediterranean-like) Sea. Solidifying a very strong trade monopoly with some important southern ports. However the family is large and in-fighting amongst themselves is prevalent.

Travel/ Distance
Geography influences politics. I have a rough map in my mind and will get it down. I did try to find some figures on how fast caravans, river barges moved, but I haven't had much luck this morning. I did uncover this... the Caravanserai. I like the idea of the road that goes along the Ambrato river, up to the capitol city, has the riverside equivalent of the Caravanserai. Check out this wiki link...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravanserai

The Treaty
20 years ago, as Justinian was becoming Emperor, the Castillo family had just come off some disasters in shipping. An entire fleet was lost in a hurricane. The drought of the time, lowered the river so much that river traffic stopped. The coffers were bare, family was bankrupt. At the same time, the Tessen and Menare families threw in a ton of support, money and troops behind Justinian, while the Castillo family could barely contribute 20 men. Justinian was fighting his twin brother, Jacob, for the throne. Jacob was defeated and killed in battle.

After the war was over, Justinian was on the throne, he rewarded the Tessen and Menare families. But at the same time, didn't want to throw the Castillos out, whose family had run Ambrato for 500 years, be waaay too much disruption in one of the most important ports of the Empire. The Castillos, bankrupt, accepted Empire seed money to rebuild, but had to concede to sharing Ambrato with the Tessens and the Menare.

As it stands now, very little of the debt is owed to the Empire, besides the normal taxes. The Castillo coffers are substantial and the business is robust, but considerably smaller than in the Castillo heyday.

The Emperor's family.

Justinian eldest is Raelena, a fiery young woman of 17. She is not betrothed as several such negotiations have totally broken down... more due to politics than her famous temper... but her temper hasn't helped much either.

Justinian's second and heir is Johannis. He is 12. He is a quiet, studious boy and hasn't been seen much in court, sheltered on purpose, studying statecraft at an University from the time he was 8.

Justinian's youngest is Jaenna. She is 4. She is extremely beautiful, but besides that, she hasn't really made any impact, besides her hand would be much sought after.

Warren Mendare is the black sheep of the Mendare family. Much public knowledge of him wanting nothing to do with them. But he was Justinian's child hood friend. And more importantly now, he is Johannis's guardian and teacher.

Antonius is Jacob's son. He is 21. He was spared after the war, but is kept a close eye on. He is handsome, charismatic and captain in the army and is of considerable competency.


The Bang.
I think I want to start the session 2 weeks from now with this bang. A Verdura ("the greens" in italian) rider races into the Castillo manor courtyard. The Verdura are the emperor's messengers, wearing green cloak and beret. It is forbidden to break their seal on a message or to kill one and even detaining one can have serious consequences. Of course, his news is that Emperor Justininan XII has passed suddenly. The Emperor was a hale and hearty 43 years old and this is a shock.

We start the game at that point in the courtyard.

[Storn]

For the record, Bob did respond about the Patriarch of the Castillos was still alive, but somehow weakened.

I responded with:

Okay, father is weak, maybe just onset of old age and ennui, after all, he ushered a rebuilding of the Castillo fortunes.... that was a lot of work.

Bob, I have suggestion, could you work in a "positive" relation with House Menare? Maybe one of their sons is a best friend? Served in knight training, saw combat on the borders together, brothers in arms kinda shit? This doesn't mean everything is wonderful between the two houses, but I don't want to do Menare as complete bad guys. Sure, they are rivals and some of the family will put a fork in your eye as look at you... but not the whole family.

And you should give some thought to who you are married to, what family she is from, what political capitol that brings and if you are not married, why not? Widower is a nice way out if you don't want that kind of entanglement to start the game off with. But you are heir to House Castillo, YOUR father would be pressing hard to get you married, to get a couple of heirs for you.

[Storn]

Here are a couple of maps I worked up. Really rough. Very open to add things, I will bring pencils to the game and if we need a park in Ambrato, bam, just do it on the spot. Or cemetary. Or baker. Or what have you.

But I wanted to get something down to get the ball rolling. Also, in my mind, the politics are very much shaped by the land. The House Tessen holdings in the north means they are making money from both their resources and then being able to ship it cheaper from their own docks to the lands south. Now we know why they are so damn wealthy!

Anyway, without further ado, the main map of the Silver Empire.



And now a close up map of Ambrato City.

[Paka]

Every e-mail you send, Storn, just has me going, yep and nodding my head.

I'm reading A Distant Mirror by Barbara W. Tuchman, a book that I know was very inspirational for BW and most likely for Martin too, I bet he read it but have no definitive verification on that but it sure seems like it. Anyway, this book is rocking my world and inspiring me.

[Waiwode]

For a bunch of stuff you've whipped up since Friday? I'm very impressed. Storn, will you come up here on weekends and be my GM too?

Doug.

[Storn]

Originally Posted by Waiwode

For a bunch of stuff you've whipped up since Friday? I'm very impressed. Storn, will you come up here on weekends and be my GM too?

Doug.

I was inspired. I'm also a big believer in frontloading the work as a GM. With BW and these players, I hope that my episode prep is actually going to be fairly small, just providing a Kicker or two, stat the odd important NPC and that be fairly much it. The maps were pretty quick affairs and leave lots of room to scribble as we go.

Also. I've been thinking of doing a city Thieves Guild campaign for some time. It was to be a Port city and some of the ideas that were rattling vaguely around in my head, were easily transferred to this campaign concept.


IN our e-mail discussions, the gods walking the earth bothered both Jeff and Judd, so I compromised and backed off saying that the "hands" of the gods could be felt. Keeping it intentionally vague.

Actually, I probably will never use a god directly anyway, but I did want to set up Old vs. New pantheon, reflected in House Castillo vs. House Menare as an additional catalyst point.

[jdheffa]

Originally Posted by Paka

Bob's thinking of a knight, Jeff's thinking of a Spymaster but when I ran into him and Bob at the grocery store, that concept had changed to a wily and socially adept widow.

(This is jeff BTW.)

I am actually still playing the spymaster concept, I just found that the skillset for a spymaster very closely matched to that of a court lady. There were a lof of lifepaths that I could have used to make a good spy, but a spymaster is a mostly different skillset.

Ie.

A Spy might have Stealth,Disguise, and Pickpocket.

A Spymaster would have Resources, Circles, and Associations to have control of a person with the above skills.

[ubergeek2012]

Originally Posted by Storn

For the record, Bob did respond about the Patriarch of the Castillos was still alive, but somehow weakened.

I responded with:

Okay, father is weak, maybe just onset of old age and ennui, after all, he ushered a rebuilding of the Castillo fortunes.... that was a lot of work.

Bob, I have suggestion, could you work in a "positive" relation with House Menare? Maybe one of their sons is a best friend? Served in knight training, saw combat on the borders together, brothers in arms kinda shit? This doesn't mean everything is wonderful between the two houses, but I don't want to do Menare as complete bad guys. Sure, they are rivals and some of the family will put a fork in your eye as look at you... but not the whole family.

And you should give some thought to who you are married to, what family she is from, what political capitol that brings and if you are not married, why not? Widower is a nice way out if you don't want that kind of entanglement to start the game off with. But you are heir to House Castillo, YOUR father would be pressing hard to get you married, to get a couple of heirs for you.

I'll see if I can work in a relationship without dropping my resources exponent. I may have a little bit of wiggle room. Right now my only relationship is a squire I paid the 10 points for. I haven't burned him yet, but he's going to be Born Noble->Page->Squire. Or maybe I'll see if I get to Squire through Groom or something. I'll have to look at my character burner when I get home.

My life paths ended up Born Noble->Page->Squire->Knight->Noble Prince. With all that military training, I'm thinking that I'm not the first born son. As I recall, it was traditional in feudal societies for younger sons to go into the military or priesthood while the Eldest was prepared to inherit and rule the estates. Perhaps there was an elder brother that died, now thrusting me into the position. As it is, it looks like Jeff's character will be doing the heavy lifting of running the estate while I'm in charge of the shipping fleet.

Let's go with being currently unmarried, either because he never found one or we could go the widower route. That'll give us something political to play with during the game.