I created the 5x5 matrix plan for the campaign, but in reality, of course, I also really like to have details related to the characters, and challenges, nemeses, etc. from their past feature. Of course, because this is a plan in search of an actual game, I don't have any characters yet, but what I do have is iconics that are stand-ins! I'll create this epilogue post to talk about what I'd do with the iconics, and use that as an example, I guess, of what I'd do with the actual PCs when I have them. I added the iconics images to the Part 0 post, so I won't repost them here.
First, my lead iconic is Dominic Clevenger, a Humbrian ranger. He's in his mid to upper 20s; still young, but has been around enough to be skilled and experienced. He spent time not only as a Hillman Ranger, but as part of the infamous Shadow Division, which the Ranger Corps does not officially admit exists, and some people don't believe in. As such, his task was specifically to hunt down supernatural threats, as well as support the general Ranger Corps mission of blunting other threats to the people of the Hill Country. The Ranger Corps is an interesting organization, in that it ignores any of the political nonsense that goes on between the two largest rival city-states, Barrowmere and Garenport, as well as between the East Marches section and the West Marches (where Cayminster and Bucknerfeld are the most important city-states respectively, and which have tried to extricate themselves from the politics of Garenport, at least, as much as is reasonably possible.) The commission of the Ranger Corps is to the people of the Hill Country as a whole, and while various politicians and would-be tyrants have sometimes tried to lean on the Rangers for their own purposes, the Rangers have staunchly resisted being coopted as such, and the current crop of leaders of the various locations are loath to try again.
In any case, this post isn't meant to be about background on the Ranger Corps. Dominic is a former Shadow, but now is a freelance supernatural bounty hunter of sorts. He is often supported (and hired) by his old commander (Sir Liamond Wreldane) who appreciates having talented and trusted freelancers that he can work with "off the books." Dominic "retired" early after tussling with a corrupted ranger (Audrey Hardwicke). Hardwicke's corruption was exposed, but he fled from facing justice. He still has lots of supporters in the Ranger Corps (some of whom simply don't know the particulars) as he was a popular figure among them, and well respected before his corruption was outed to the leadership of the group. They decided, for better or for worse, not to make the cause of Hardwicke's fall public. What was Hardwicke involved in? Kidnapping women and children (mostly) for occult sacrifices. Hardwicke was no cultist; just a mercenary who was paid to not only look the other way, but even enable and assist with gathering "resources" for various cults. Now that he's been exposed, he's still doing the same thing, but he has to be more discrete, and he no longer has his wages from his Ranger Corps day job. He's gotten more involved with various crimes to pay the bills and has had to lay considerably lower than he's used to. In fact, he's mostly relocated out of the Hill Country entirely to Simashki. He's also consorted even more intimately with various shady characters, including taking as a lover the kemling witch Merra Kuzulash. (Who is actually another anti-iconic; I have one group of anti-PCs who are all bad guys, and she's in that group normally.)
Since I never came up with an origin for the voodoo dolls from the Tazitta Death Cults section, let's have Audrey and Merra be the source. Rangers, or former rangers, still loyal to Hardwicke keep him informed from time to time on the comings and goings of their organization and the Clevenger brothers specifically. He'll have a few ambushes set up for Dominic and his gang of meddling kids, although they'll just be lackeys, not Hardwicke or Merra themselves. When the campaign gets closer to its endgame, Hardwicke will himself make an appearance in an urban setting—probably Garenport itself—for a cat and mouse hunt at the worst possible time.
It'll be nice for Merra to at least get a nod, although I don't intend to feature her much, or probably even have her make an in-person appearance at all. I intend for whole entire group of "anti-PCs" to be part of a future campaign when I get there. Some foreshadowing through this vector is cool.
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| Audley Hardwicke |
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| Merra Kuzulash |
Second, Dominic's best friend and blood-brother is Kimnor "Kim" Rugova, an expatriate shadow sword from Lomar. As described in the background on Lomar and the racial description of the grislings, his people are cursed so that a small percentage of them fall victim to a cannibalism curse where they must eat the flesh of a human or demihuman or slowly turn in to a ghoul (damned if they do and damned if they don't, when the curse manifests.) A younger and more idealistic Kimnor was engaged to a pretty girl from his neighborhood, who later contracted this curse by pure blasted bad luck. Vowing to find a way to beat it, Kinnor tried to hide her in a Nyxian neighborhood. She was captured and lynched by a mob, and Kimnor fled in grief, disavowing his entire people and race and homeland in his despair. However... his fiancé (Bethan Arghavad) was actually not lynched, or at least not terminally, and was taken by a Nyxian cult and protected from the law which mandated her death. She was prevented from devolving into a ghoul by being transformed into a dhampir—but she now gleefully hunts, kills, and eats her own people as per her curse, but does so with enhanced physical abilities and lucidity. Kim is going to have to discover and face this when circumstances bring him back to Lomar over the course of the game.
In the meantime, Kim has been hiding from both the terror of facing the supernatural, and his grief over Bethan (as well as his fear that it could come to him too) by being loud, boisterous, boastful—a hard partier, basically. But he also has a small pseudodragon as a pet. Kim's arc is rife with potential for really good character development as he faces his past and shows himself to be a much more serious person than he pretends to be.
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| Bethan Arghavad |
I actually decided to turn the next two iconics into contacts, rather than continue to use them as iconics. But, since I already wrote this, I'll just repeat it here. I actually need to write the corresponding stuff about Ragnar and Cailin Clevenger, so I'll do that as part of the next campaign supercut, maybe.
Thirdly, Shule is an itinerant goblin thief. One of the main reasons Shule is wandering around the Three Realms with Dominic and Kim is because he's looking for his brother, who disappeared mysteriously. He occasionally runs into an old orcling pal who claims to have seen him, but the clues are always vague, often second-hand, and they've pointed to little other than the fact that he's still alive somewhere. As the party gets closer and closer to Garenport, the sightings and rumors increase. Turns out, his brother (Kemish) was press-ganged by orcling pirates on the Darkling Sea, but has done well with them and embraced their lifestyle. He's now first mate to an orc pirate (Charakaz Rees) who runs a sloop associated with Captain Taurak (of earlier campaign infamy). I'm not a huge fan of contrived moral dilemmas, but even I'm curious what happens when Shule's brother doesn't want or need to be "rescued." Or, at least he doesn't think that he does.
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| Shule |
Fourthly, we have Oisin Dughall, a woodwose outdoorsman. He spent some time in his youth running with a bad crowd, and was an enforcer for a Chersky Mafia-type in Simashki (the true wretched hive of scum and villainy in the Three Realms, if you haven't gathered that already.) Because Oisin was fundamentally too principled to be successful as a mafia tough guy, he bailed on an operation that was a bridge too far. The operation proceeded anyway, but was a total mess because Oisin wasn't there doing his part. The boss's (Vaspar Oksandros) brother was killed and others of his organization were snatched by the Watch, necessitating expensive bribes to free the most important ones. Assuming Oisin had betrayed him on behalf of one of his rivals, Vaspar put a death mark on his head. Vaspar's rivals would also like to get their hands on him to find out what he knows. Oisin fled to the Hill Country, hoping that beyond the Sabertooth Mountains he'd be free to the gangster turf wars of Simashki. For a few years, this was true, especially as Oisin stayed in the rural areas. Vaspar himself has fled east as Simashki started to get too hot for him, and now operates a "startup" in Lomar, although he's got agents and spies throughout the Humberland Hill Country looking for opportunities. Oisin's ability to hide from his past is likely to take a turn for the worst, since Vaspar still blames him for not only his brother's death, but now even his entire fall from his perch in Simashki.
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| Oisin Dughall |
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| Vaspar Oksandros |
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