As expected, I was extremely tried yesterday and I couldn't muster the energy to write a blog post. In my previous post, I said I would talk about how I will design my kingdoms, as well as how I will set up my lore sheets for them. These are quite closely connected, but doing both in one post is a bit much, so I want to discuss how to design a kingdom first, and then post about loresheets later this week.
First things first; let's see what I already have for each kingdom. In my last post I have given each kingdom a territory. In the post before that, I gave each kingdom some traits, their strongest source of income, a combat focus and a weapon focus. That's enough for me to flesh out the ten kingdoms, so I don't need to bring in more raw materials that I can refine.
Some of the kingdoms will see less play than others. The main protagonists and antagonists will see more play than those that remain more neutral. It's also possible that my players completely ignore a kingdom. Even though this may happen, I want the less important kingdoms to have as much detail as the more important kingdoms. This is because I have no idea what my players will choose to do, or what the dice may throw my way and I don't want my players to feel they made a bad choice because I didn't design all kingdoms equally. To design the kingdoms equally, I like to have a checklist. If I can check off every point on the list, the kingdom should be finished.
As I want to focus on the legacy of my players, I think it's necessary for my kingdoms to have a solid history. Each kingdom needs to have a founder, this can be a single person, or it could be a group of people. To give the origin a bit more depth I want to write an origin story of how the kingdom was made, giving a description of its original founder.
I want all my kingdoms to have existed for at least 60 years, so they have a firm foothold in the world and are unlikely to be eradicated easily. To portray the age of the kingdom, I want to write down 3-5 major events that impacted the kingdom greatly. These may overlap with the major events that happed in Shen Zhou timeline that I still need to make.
Another part of the legacy I want to open up to my players is 1 or 2 legendary people, who have accomplished something that makes them memorable for the kingdom and beyond. For example, I have an idea in mind for the Kui (bear) kingdom, to have had a warrior named Mountain Splitter, whose strength was so great that it is said he split a mountain in two to make a river flow next to his village.
Once I have secured the past of a kingdom, I will need to look at it's future. Every kingdom has somewhere it wants to grow, or something it wants to achieve. There is an ambition or a goal that the leaders of the kingdom strive for. I will crystallise this in one long term goal that the kingdom has. I will als write down two short term goals, to give them something that can be more noticeable in play. Long term goals will probably go for the full length of the campaign or longer, and the short term goals should be achieved in 4 or 5 sessions at most. Once completed, I will make a new short term goal.
When I know where a kingdom wants to go, I can start filling in the current state of the kingdom. I will do this with several things. I will give a value between 1 and 5 to the following aspects of the kingdom: army strength, strength of heir, food supply, strategy, cunning, politics, loyalty.
The higher the value, the more of this they have, or the stronger this trait is for this kingdom. I will explain each aspect in a bit more detail below.
Army strength: An indication of the current total strength of the army size, skill level, and power of the elite soldiers in the kingdom (more on elite soldiers later).
Strength of heir: Every kingdom needs an heir, and the health of this heir as well as their capacity to rule the kingdom will influence this score.
Food supply: This is basically a score to tell me how easy this kingdom can keep its people fed without the need of external help.
Strategy: The relative power of the strategical advice that is given by generals/advisors as well as the ability to make strategical decisions by the ruler of the kingdom. A low score does not mean ineptitude, it just means the kingdom is behind other kingdoms in this trait.
Cunning: How good is the kingdom in infiltration, spy missions, assassinations and other covert operations that should not be made public.
Politics: The relative power of the diplomatic advisors, diplomats and the ability to make diplomatic decisions and behave appropriately by the ruler of the kingdom. A low score does not mean ineptitude, it just means the kingdom is behind other kingdoms in this trait.
Loyalty: How well can the kindom be trusted once they make a decision is made to be an ally. Will they burn together, or will the backstab you if needed to save their own skin.
Once I have these traits, I will decide the capital, age, if the kingdom gets their own legendary weapon, if they have their own legendary martial arts style, and what the ability of their elite unit is for the kingdom and what their major secret is. These elite units are stronger than normal soldiers, but weaker than player characters, or leader NPC's. Their ability could be along the lines of: can appear in a scene for the cost of 2 joss, no matter the location (these would fit well for the Bashe kingdom). They will also be harder to replace than normal soldiers.
Once I have the above, I will need to create the people who run the show. In my to do list, I have chosen to make 3-5 important NPC's. Now that I've spent more time thinking about it, I might need to increase this number. The following NPC's need to exist for each kindom:
- Leader
- Strategist/general
- Diplomat/advisor
- Sifu (master of martial arts)
Besides these, I also want to have the family of the ruler, as well as 1 or 2 important heroes that can fight alongside or against the players. This will most likely bring me to 5-7 NPC's per kingdom. As I think I really need these NPC's, I'll have to change this in my to-do list.
Once I have worked out all the above things, I can chart out which kingdoms could be allied, which people might have relationships and how I'm going to fit my players in this world, but there is quite a lot to do before I get there. Next time I will discuss how I will be making my lore sheets and what information will be available in the 3 different levels.
Thank you for reading and I'll end this post with the checklist for creating my kindoms. See you next time!
Checklist:
- Origin story of the kingdom
- Founder(s) of the kingdom, with description
- Timeline with 3-5 major events for the kingdom
- 1 or 2 legendary people from the kingdom
- 1 long term goal for the kingdom
- 2 short term goals for the kingdom
- Assign values to each trait: army strength, strength of heir, food supply, strategy, cunning, politics, loyalty
- Assign capital
- Age of the kingdom
- Legendary weapon y/n (short description if y. I can work out the details later)
- Legendary martiak arts y/n (short description if y. I can work out the details later, unless a player can start with it)
- Elite unit ability
- Major secret
- Create necessary NPC's (leader, strategist, diplomat, sifu)
- Create family of leader
- Create 1 or 2 important heroes
A note on the age of kingdoms: sometimes it can be fun to change things up. A distinctly different set up can make a kingdom seem unique. Some kingdoms can be especially old, or even technically non-existent but still very present (for example, Egypt was conquered by the Persians, Greeks and then Romans, but always remained distinctly Egyptian). China itself is classic for this One of your kingdoms could be technically conquered and ruled by another, but still very culturally present.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenAnother play on age would be a very NEW kingdom: a people who are relatively unified but never really organized themselves into a full kingdom until some great leader suddenly rose up and crystallized their nationality around him. A great example is Genghis Khan, or the sudden "out of nowhere" spread of Islam in the 7th century. A nation might be especially young (even if its culture is older) and the founder could still be alive. One of the players themselves could be the founder! And when a new nation suddenly rises up like that, it's usually viewed as a threat by the traditional nations
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