WoTR: Demon's Heresy: Part A (Rebuilding Drezen)

For those following the tales of Pathfinder's Golarion setting, Drezen was overwhelmed in 4638 AR due to a wave of raw chaos washing over the city had turned most of its citizens into hideous Warped Ones (or so I'm declaring) who turned on each other in a wave of cannibalistic fury. Since then the area was taken over by a terrible marilith known as Aponavicius who ruled a city of demons and tiefling / human cultists who survived by raiding farmlands on the other side of the West Sellen River.

Fast forward to the current point in the campaign and the city has been liberated by one tiefling monk called Alfy and his companions (Lex the Young Umbral Dragon, Eliska Zaitherin the Oracle and worshipper of Dou-bral and your friendly neighbourhood barbarian Jestak who had joined them when they took Castle Drezen). 

It is the current residence of a few good outsiders - a Planetar called Hollistar (summoned by the Sword of Valor and convinced to remain) who must keep her head down lest she draw the ire of too many local demons; a Vulpinal called Harri (arrived to offer his services) who does what he can to keep morale high; and two Silvanshee called Ellis and Manae (sent by Shelyn when her temple was cleared of the Ivory Labyrinth in Sword of Drezen).

While Demon's Heresy allows a little bit of rebuilding, I decided to expand on it greatly by taking the hex grid map and making a real Kingmaker game out of it.  Over the past fourteen weeks of in-game time while Alfy explored hexes, freed the Weapon in the Rift (PFS scenario) and conducted some fundraising in Absalom, the city has grown and slowly absorbed a lot of the extra wealth gain from earlier adventures.

The city began play with Ahari Bridge and Paradise Bridge but all else needed repair.  Since Queen Galfrey sent builders with the armies (five 100 person paladin armies, two 200 person mercenary armies initially) and since people weren't looking to make much of a profit for themselves, I halved the wealth requirement for a Build Point and reduced the time to repair a building to one week.  Alfy still has his original "Heirs of the Wardstone" paladin army and "Rosethorn" tiefling / mongrelfolk / dhampyr" 25 person army.

Queen Galfrey also sent a few high level druidic allies to smooth the earth of the hard-baked valley to allow the West Sellen River to flow down the Ahari Riverbed which allows transportation of enough food and drink to keep everyone safe.  These druids have since left the location.

Alfy must also defend settlements on the other side of the West Sellen River including Bedis, Fort Pormanteau, Valas' Gift, Vilareth Ford which fords the West Sellen River, Keeper's Canyon, and Singing Stones Temple.  You can find more details about these locations over here.

During the fourteen weeks so far passed during the campaign, kingdom events were randomly rolled on the events table in Ultimate Campaigns.  The results were then worked into the resulting storyline.

Old Character Body Language Notes

Ooh, look what I just found in my drawer ... some handy dandy roleplaying notes disconnected from any characters who were randomly rolled.

Nameless #01 NPC
Body Language: Look bored, pay little attention to the person you're talking to.
Description: Cheap, rundown, even tattered clothing on a rail thin person.
Vocal Tone: Swears a lot.
Archetype - Architect: Wish to be immortalised through a legacy that will remain long after she passes away.

Nameless #02 NPC
Body Language: Stand tall and look down your nose at people.
Description: You're a rail-thin person in need of a good sleep.
Vocal Tone: Hot & Breathy.
Archetype - Survivor: Your utter refusal to accept defeat often makes the difference between success and failure.

Nameless #03 NPC
Body Language: Be snobby, lean back, sneer a little.
Description: A cocky curve to the lips and a short buzz cut of reddish orange hair.
Vocal Tone: Speak through a smile, frequently laugh.
Archetype - Fanatic: A higher goal and a sense of duty that requires you to follow it to the utmost.

Nameless #04 NPC
Body Language: Quiet and still.
Description: Bitter brown eyes and thin lips.
Vocal Tone: Soft.
Archetype - Autocrat: You crave complete control over a situation as you believe your leadership is always in the group's best interests.

Nameless #05 NPC
Body Language: Stand too close!  Invade their space.
Description: Carries too much fat around the midsection, too much facial hair, balding under the hat.
Vocal Tone: Forever amused.
Archetype - Gambler: Life is a toss of the dice and there is nothing, no greater thrill, than beating the odds.

Nameless #06 NPC
Body Language: Lean forward and widen your eyes a little.
Description: Wild, unkempt hair and too much make up.
Vocal Tone: Clear and formal.
Archetype - Bon Vivant: You know your time on Earth is limited so enjoy it while you can.

Nameless #07 NPC
Body Language: All winks and bluster!
Description: Plenty of piercings and a few tattoos.
Vocal Tone: A throaty voice.
Archetype - Traditionalist: You are wary of the risks that untested methods present.

Nameless #08 NPC
Body Language: Be jumpy, nervy, glances at shadows.
Description: A flash of white teeth in a trademark grin.
Vocal Tone: Dominant; challenging others to disagree.
Archetype - Gallant: A gallant wants nothing more than the admiration of others.  You're a show off and a performer.

Nameless #09 NPC
Body Language: Play with your hair.
Description: Deep shadows under normally vivid blue eyes, rosy cheeks dulled from the strain.
Vocal Tone: Gruff.
Archetype - Caregiver: Take pride in being a crutch for others to lean on in times of trouble.

Nameless #10 NPC
Body Language: Lean forward, shake hands and be super-enthusiastic.
Description: Scraped knees and tiny cuts on the fact from a recent car accident.
Vocal Tone: Chirpy and rushed.
Archetype - Bravo: Take pleasure in the strong arm approach - in displaying your power first hand to people you don't respect.

Well, that's the first ten of around twenty or so but I didn't want to bore you all with a huge long list.  Just thought I'd share these ones.  They can be useful for both players and GMs in terms of how to portray the characters a little differently.

Reasons why chauvinistic fantasy worlds *can* suck for female players

Now this is an area of some contention.  Some people love highly realistic medieval worlds - with or without realistically treated magic.  Now I'm not talking about those kinds of contexts.  In a world where my character can be slain by gangrene caused by untreated wounds and STDs are rife, I'm going to be way more chilled about dealing with chauvinistic settings. 

Though, of course, the GM would have to be comfortable with playing said chauvinistic settings realistically and not with the ham-fisted style of a 1950s "Girls can't be tough" and "Stay in the kitchen, girl" that seems to be more the product of a backlash against changing expectations and a need to reinforce gender norms.  In most societies where certain gender norms are just expected, people just do what they do and say what they say.  They don't need to say "You're a girl so we're not listening to you", they just don't listen.

But that aside....

The reasons why I'm not a fan of the average chauvinistic fantasy world is for a couple reasons.  These include:

1. The male protagonists get it easy.  Unless they're playing homosexuals or disdained racial minorities, I'll have to struggle to do what my co-players get for free just because I chose to align my PC's gender to my own.
2. Realism is normally judiciously applied to only certain scenarios.  We don't need to worry about STDs or gangrene, but we do need to worry about men looking down to us.
3. What may look like empowerment by letting us undermine and exceed chauvinistic expectations can actually be humiliating.  It reminds us how easy it is for men to look down on us and how if we were not in a post-industrial society, the very men at this table would feel the same way about us.
4. It also suggests that silencing women's voices (as sexist characters shouldn't be willing to listen to a woman's advice) and ignoring of individual women's strengths (when sexist commoners laugh at their years of training even though any trained fighter is bound to trounce them) is natural to the human species.  After all, this isn't a true medieval world.  Social structures would change to reflect that.
5. Sometimes it's not even realistic.  Sorcery and alchemy on the scale often found in most fantasy worlds should have as much of a social impact as technology.  If my willpower can beat your sword arm, than why would society assume you could overwhelm me?  Also a world with alchemy and relics could conceivably have a herbal form of birth control and family planning is a real door opener for women in a society. 
6. If there is no form of birth control, why aren't male character's alignments changed from Good to Neutral if they have sex with random women as they are conceivably damning dozens of women and babies to an unsupported and shameful existence for a quick roll in the hay?  At the very least, it shouldn't be Lawful.
7. It removes female role models as the average GM naturally (due to media influences) includes more male characters anyway and when you add to that chauvinistic biases, you're going to have an almost all-male cast.  This is an isolating experience for many women which sends an unintended message that these sorts of adventures "aren't for them" and that they are somehow strange or different for wanting to be a part of them.
8. It can also give chauvinistic players and GMs the chance to express their negative beliefs toward the very women at the table.
9. Even if the players and GMs don't hold those beliefs, it can still leave the female player feeling targeted because she's having to hear these comments occurring around her a lot.
10. Real world chauvinism is insidious.  Smacking down a single commoner for giving you lip would normally lead to retaliation for violating social norms.  If the social norm sides against the commoner, they shouldn't have given lip in the first place.  Just look at Brienne from Game of Thrones.  Random commoners don't mention what she should or shouldn't be doing because the class differences are way more important than gender norms and they have no right to counter her desires.

Now this isn't to say that it can't be done, can't be done well, and that some female players don't actually prefer these kinds of medieval worlds and struggles.  There's bound to be a contrary list out there where a particular female player outlines all the reasons why it's awesome to do.  I'm not denying that those reasons *also* exist only that this list can shed light for those GMs who struggle to retain female players or whose female players request an absence of sexism in their game.

My gender has a long history of being told we're not good enough to be involved in any historic event -- whether political, scientific, religious or military focused.  Those historic events that do revolve around classically female domains have either silence women or been ignored.  Having to grapple with those very expectations in a fantasy world can be really hard as it means we can't even imagine a world where we matter despite our genitalia.

And that *can* really suck.

Naturally, your female players' mileage may vary but it is important to consider.

The Highs and Lows of Being Prince

While many LARPs have a titular leader, my only experience has been with Vampire: the Requiem LARPs so I can only really speak for that format.  Naturally very Player versus Player oriented varieties of that game will be a little different.  Mine involves a fair bit of Player versus Environment in a relatively open sandbox world.

Now prince is known to be a high stress position, especially in Australia where firm hierarchies with strong dictatorial leadership strategies are very frowned upon.  We like to call our bosses by their first name and feel consulted on just about every pertinent decision that affects our job.  We feel that the extra time taken to do so is well worth the feet-on-the-ground perspective that can be tapped by such consultations.

While the primogen council fulfils some of that function, since Australians are also unused to bringing their problems to delegates and instead attempt to either directly contact the official or solve it themselves when the official is within sight, things can get a bit problematic as in a 15 - 30 player LARP there are no physical barriers preventing them from reaching the prince directly other than protocol. 

It's not too difficult to remember to use the appropriate procedures for speaking with the prince, and Australians generally love falling back on "policy said so" as a sword and shield for when we have to put our foot down, but these elements run counter to our egalitarian expectations and so load the subject of prince with greater tension in Australia then perhaps elsewhere.

As an example, I have had a couple LARP groups of 20 players where we maybe got two to three players who actually wanted to play the prince.  Some groups will have had different experiences, naturally, but it has been mine that most players will avoid trying to topple the prince simply because it means they would need to step into the position.  Naturally the ratio would be higher in PvP LARPs as they attract more politically minded players but even there I've found the preferred positions are things like Seneschal where you can blame the leader while potentially still controlling the city yourself.

So other than some cultural baggage that surrounds the issue of prince, there are the real actual play issues.  Some of the tricks and troubles that need to be considered include:

• Accessibility.  Can you, as a player, be reached between games?  Do you attend enough games?  If not, other players must choose between freezing their own roleplay and aspirations until they can next reach you OR proceeding until apprehended and ignoring the position of prince.
• Bottlenecks.  This is why the aforementioned Accessibility situation matters but even when you are present and contactable, you may be busy huddled away in the corner with a few key characters while everyone else sits on their thumbs unable to move forward until they can tap you on the shoulder.  This can breed frustration and boredom in the main room.
• Delegation.  This is a key management skill and not one that everyone has in spades.  If you're unavailable, is there someone else who can confidently act in your stead?  Have you briefed them enough that they can predict your own choices and decisions with some accuracy?  Are those with delegated authority likely to be locked in a back room with you and therefore defeating the purpose of the delegation?
• Consequences.  Your role necessarily balances the need for drama, conflict, consequences and opportunity for other players to actually be able to do things.  Have you left enough wiggle room for players to have fun without necessarily going against your authority?  And what do the consequences mean both in and out of game?  While character death or enslavement is the clearest example of this issue, killing off key NPCs and destroying or taking away favourite assets also count as that shuts down whole arenas of gameplay for other players.
• Opportunity.  Your actions and directions to the court will naturally sculpt the sort of gameplay opportunities that are available to the other players, to a sizable extent.  If every non-vampire supernatural that attends the court is slain or blood bound, they'll stop coming.  If murdering humans leads to death or torpor, than villainous characters are quickly outed and removed.  If neonates are forbidden from interacting with other supernaturals or if all dangerous areas are forbidden without a court-mandated assault by a specialised team, then gameplay is restricted in downtimes, RtRs and in session to one particular mode - unless your point, of course, is to have your orders disregarded but that's not a style of play that suits every player of a prince.  Of course, as with Consequences, treading too lightly in this area kind of negates the point of having a prince, though.

So what do you do if you're playing a prince?

Firstly, be mindful that you have a position that has the potential for the greatest control over the game as a whole and that's one of the main sources of suspicion and contention.  In a PvP LARP, this won't be such a concern because many of the other PCs are, at least in theory, out for your throne and so the consequences are just more plot and the opportunities you restrict are minor inconveniences.  Being the biggest bastard around allows you to be both protagonist and antagonist and give everyone oodles of joy.

In a primarily PvE LARP, you can literally sculpt the gameplay itself to suit your whims and your characters' wishes with any real platform of support and so, just as with a Game Master, it's important to build trust and to consider the ramifications of your characters' actions as a player for the other players if you don't want an insurrection on your hands and aren't eager to gamble your character's unlife in an antagonist role.

It's a hard position to be in when you're hoping / expecting to maintain a praxis for a long period of time in a PvE LARP.  A hard position, indeed.

A Range of Neat Links from Tumbler

Five Ways To Move Like A Soldier
A wide range of tips and tricks for moving like a soldier.  I especially like this line " Treat your physrep like a weapon and other people will start to do the same."

Cooking in a Field

Very useful if you go on those big weekend (or even overnight) LARPs and you don't want to pack an Esky.  A good point on going vegetarian so that you don't give people food poisoning.  There's a number of ways to make fake meat these days.

How to Be IC Insulting not OC Insulting

This has some pretty good gender-neutral insults you can use against other characters but what I particularly like are the advice on how to approach someone when their choice of words has upset you as a person. 

HANDY TIP: Generally female players will react badly to words said in anger that include c##t, bitch or anything pointing out unattractive facial features or body weight (even if you, as a person, actually like those features).  Men may be the same.  Also when dealing with Australians, know that our friendly insults are often relationship-specific, i.e. we prove that we're easygoing friends by insulting each other and letting the other get away with it.  Therefore a stranger may not get the same cheery reaction when they try those same insults.  When in doubt, ask.

http://odyssey.profounddecisions.co.uk/Playing_the_Ball

This one is a particular LARP's comments to their own players on using homophobic and sexist language and basically using lazy IC trash talk as an excuse to cover mean and hurtful comments that affect people's real lives and reminds them that in many spheres of life ... they are not wanted.

How to Act like Medieval Nobility

Some pretty cool guidelines here and certainly some I'd never have thought of doing.

Portraying Mental Illness in LARP

I'm conflicted about this myself, especially in terms of NPCs.  I understand that people generally reach for stereotypes and that's just compounding the problem that the media already provides and generally most forms of mental illness are played for laughs.  World of Darkness used the term "derangements" as a punishment for behaving immoral while Call of Cthulhu has some truly random options of "insanity" that spontaneously occur when someone sees the wrong thing. 

On the other hand, if you don't include them in the games you're basically negating an entire sub-set of people.  A kind of "neurotypical-washing" of the environment, particularly if NPCs as well don't have such mental illnesses.  Personally I think it can be done but more because it's a natural expression of a character ... and therefore it doesn't need to be a diagnosable label.  It's far easier to play "an anxious postman" and get it right than a "postman with an anxiety disorder" as the former seems to permit greater range than the latter which would send most players / GMs straight to the DSM to do research and is likely to lead to a stilted stereotype.  Just a thought.

Playing a Second-in-Command

I'll bet a lot of PC military leaders will enjoy passing this link around to their immediate subordinates as should the player incorporate this advice the leader will have a much easier time.  The bit of advice on "imperiously ordering them to fetch you a coffee the second you’re off the field and OC may help" you stop instinctively relying on them for orders is a good idea.  Especially if you've been there 2iC the entire weekend.

Playing a Butler or Servant

It's this kind of thing that would make for a great group ghoul game if I had enough players to do a downstairs ghoul / upstairs vampire thing.  So much good advice here.  Especially with the whole creating a class divide and showing two different sides of yourself in the two different arenas.

How To Fill Slack Time

A fantastic article for all LARP players and really REALLY important!  It's a rare LARP that will have you going non-stop all the time and making your own fun by finding plot can be difficult or even mean and isolating for uninvolved players.  So it's a really good idea to have something that your PC can do when they don't have anything else to do.

Ten Shortcuts to Being a Good Officer and Ten Shortcuts to Being a Bad Officer

Always a useful one to know if you're going to be in charge of a team of people as, let's face it, most of us are not in management positions and those who are generally aren't in dangerous outdoors managerial positions.  I especially like how in the latter article the writer goes into detail that taking some of those traits doesn't make you a terrible officer as most people would have a couple of those traits and still be pretty good.

Small Squad Leadership

The leadership theory here is also valuable to GMs trying to make for a better OC LARP environment.  Giving folks the chance to feel like they have achieved something both IC (character actions) and OC (volunteer / craft efforts) are fantastic ways of building a positive sense of community.

Five Tips for a Medic

It's a good way to add extra realism and fun factor into the game!  Much better than just ringing it in with a simple count off.

Guard Duty

Basically how to take an otherwise boring role and make it far more interesting for the players than just leaving one guy at the door for a day.  Some really good points within.

Dark Before Dawn Season 1, Episode 1: "Prelude In Darkness"

Okay, wow, I just located the following in my Draft Posts.  While I have a more succinct summary in my Dark Before Dawn blog, this one here is here and large and you might be curious about the extended version, so I'm uploading it anyway.  Enjoy!