I'm going to need a lot of lore sheets, and when I say a lot, I mean a freaking truckload of lore sheets. Luckily, I don't need to write them all up in the same amount of detail. Just to give you an indication of how many lore sheets I need to make; I need 30 lore sheets for all the kingdoms, I need at least a lore sheet for all the capitals (10), I need a lore sheet for all the legendary warriors for single tag weapons (9/10), I need a lore sheet for non-kingdom factions that might turn up (3/4), I need a lore sheet for the interesting places (10) and I need a lore sheet for the history of Shen Zhou (1/2). So yes, I'm looking at 63-66 lore sheets I need to make and these are only the ones that I can anticipate. If my players come up with awesome places in my world, I see no reason why they could not exist and have a lore sheet. Luckily, I can get them to write those lore sheets themselves with a bit of my help.
To structure the lore sheets, as well as make sure they all have the information I want in there, I will use a template. In the book, all the lore sheets have a template as well, which help divide between fluff and actual game stats.
I will be making templates for all the lore sheets when I need them, but for now I want to focus on creating the lore sheets for the kingdoms. Hence the template I will be creating in this post will be for the kingdom lore sheets. With some minor tweaks it can then be used for one of the other lore sheets I named above.
Before I can create a template, I will need to know what I want to have in the lore sheets. I'll start by making a list of everything that needs to be in a lore sheet, and then I will split those up in the three levels: common knowledge, classified and top secret.
The list of things I want in my lore sheets:
- Brief history of the kingdom
- Current ruler and advisers
- Special unit
- Kung fu styles taught in the kingdom
- Preferred weapon
- Legendary people
- Combat stats (traits from my previous post)
- Legendary martial arts
- Legendary weapon
- Goals
- Brief description of type of people in the kingdom
- Major secret
If you've paid attention, you will notice a lot of overlap with the checklist I made in my previous post. Things like the capital of the kingdom don't need to be mentioned in the lore sheet, as they deserve an entire separate lore sheet. I have placed the ruler and advisers there, as you may have some entanglement with them. Next I will give a colour code to each item in the list. Common knowledge will be yellow, classified will be red and top secret will be blue.
- Brief history of the kingdom
- Current ruler and advisers
- Special unit
- Kung fu styles taught in the kingdom
- Preferred weapon
- Legendary people
- Combat stats (traits from my previous post)
- Legendary martial arts
- Legendary weapon
- Goals
- Brief description of type of people in the kingdom
- Major secret
As you can see, not a lot of things are top secret or classified. The things you do learn if you unlock these tiers are very powerful though, especially if you are the enemy. If I'm going to use spies as an option, I could give access to one of the pieces of information in a classified or top secret lore sheet as a reward.
Next I need to decide on the desitny (experience) cost of these lore sheets. I have decided that I will stick with 3 destiny for a common knowledge lore sheet, 3 destiny for classified and 5 destiny for top secret. This way it is possible to access these sheets as well as get some of the bonuses in the sheets (costs are separate per sheet, so to get top secret you will spend 11 destiny). The common knowledge part will be 0 destiny if you are born and raised in that kingdom.
Now that I have all the rough information, here's what the template will look like for the common knowlegde lore sheet:
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Kingdom Name
common knowledge
Destiny cost: 3 (0 if born and raised in kingdom)
Brief description of kingdom
Brief description of people in kingdom
The people
Ruler
- bonus/fortune/etc.
Advisers
- bonus/fortune/etc.
Legendary people
- bonus/fortune/etc.
The kung fu
Kung fu styles taught in the kingdom
- bonus/fortune/etc.
Preferred weapon
- bonus/fortune/etc.
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
The parts in italics are from the list, the rest will be filled in depending on the kingdom. When you look at it, it doesn't seem like all that much, but it will be a lot of work filling in all the different parts.
In a similar fashion, I will also post the templates for the classified and top secret lore sheets below.
Kingdom Name
classified
Destiny cost: 3
The kingdom scrolls
(the kingdom traits)
Army strength: x
Strength of heir: x
Food supply: x
Strategy: x
Cunning: x
Politics: x
Loyalty: x
The specialists
Special unit and its options
- bonus/fortune/etc.
The secret scrolls
Goals
Any minor secret I want to grant access to
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
Kingdom Name
top secret
Destiny cost: 5
The hidden scrolls
Legendary kung fu
- bonus/fortune/etc.
The sword in the stone
Legendary weapon
- bonus/fortune/etc.
If I told you, I'd have to kill you
Major secret
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
Everywhere I have '- bonus/fortune/etc.' there will be a list with options that will cost destiny to purchase. Once purchased a character will have access to either a bonus, something that will grant you access to a person or some information or something else that I have defined in the lore sheet. If you are not familiar with the system, this will sound a bit vague perhaps, but it will be clearer once I finish an actual lore sheet and show you what it looks like.
With these templates done, I have finished all the preparations I wanted to make before I actually start writing stuff. I have a lot of handles, thought about what I want to create and I have created the tools I need to get started.
So what will be next for my blog you wonder? Well, my next post won't be until next week sunday for several reasons. First of all I'm playing 2 campaigns this week, secondly I have a workshop on how to make players follow your story to prepare and give, thirdly I need to actually create a lot of content for my next post and lastly, I have at least one party I want to go to next week. You do however have something to look forward to, as I want to post the lore sheet(s) of my first kingdom next week, as well as a list of NPC's I have already thought of. The weeks following that, I will post the same material for the other kingdoms (I might do more than one in a week/post if I have the time/inspiration). If you are really interested to see the results of one of the kingdoms, be sure to leave a message and I will try and get that kingdom done sooner rather than later.
So thanks for reading, and see you next week!
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