A bit of story.
Posted by nefchast on May 11, 2009
Enjoy the weekend? I hope so. Didn’t get as much gaming in as I’d hoped so today I’ll just talk a little bit about the back story to the practice module I’m creating to test my pen and paper gaming system. Tomorrow I’ll have housing in Wizard101 that was added pretty recently (castles!) and on Wednesday I’ll touch on the Lord of the Rings Online’s housing. (only the standard house, my characters aren’t rich…)
When choosing a genre I immediatly thought fantasy. It’s a pretty easy genre to work with I think. Next I refined the idea to include only one large city. The city is still unnamed; I’ll come up with it once I have the details finished. Within the city are 15 districts, with walls and gates between each — very important.
The actual back story begins with two children, a boy and a girl — fraternal twins. South of the city, within a forest, lies a clearing that everyone is forbidden to enter. Within this clearing there lies only a single, large, ancient stump. The twins love to play around the stump, even with the warnings of their elders, and spend a lot of time there. They loved it because they could hear music playing there, soft and sweet, and they would dance and play to this music. One early morning the two snuck off to the clearing — before the sun had even risen — to play. This time they found a soft light coming from a small hole in the ground near the stump. It was covered in grass and dirt and was small enough not to notice when the sun was out. The music was coming from this hole. The two decided to dig and make the hole larger so they could find the source of the music they loved.
A few hours passed by and the sun had risen before the two dug out a hole large enough for them to crawl into. It was dark, but the faint light from morning shined within, illuminating a passageway a few feet in. The boy was first to enter, crawling through the hole before falling down to the floor of the passageway — it was high enough for a grown man to walk easily, and the floor was a few feet from the hole. With a bit of help the girl entered the passageway next. Neither had brought a torch or any other form of light, but none was needed here — though dark the two could see the path ahead and followed the source of light. The light emanated from a small hole in a wall at the end of the corridor. The brickwork here was different from the walls and floor — it looked slightly newer and rushed. The bottom of the wall had crumbled, the small hole was there and the light and music came from it. The two did not even think twice before entering — they were entranced in the music and curiosity. Within they found a fireplace, roaring with flames of unnatural hues — beautiful to watch — a table covered in a feast fit for royalty, a bed with a canopy that looked like the night sky, and at the back, before a large mirror, sat a young and beautiful woman who was singing…
That’s the rough story details so far. What happens next is the two children eat, sing, and play with the mysterious woman before heading back to the city. Before they leave the woman will insist that the children play with their friends the next day, and with other children of the city. They will do this and all the children, including themselves, that they come in contact with will fall ill in a few days. The food the woman gave them to eat had a magical disease within it that would create a plague. Spreading to children first, they would fall terribly ill and succumb to it — after dying the children would come back to life and attack their parents and other family members, spreading the disease or outright killing them. The plague spread alarmingly, within a week whole districts were closed off and travel into and out of the city was forbidden. The king, who also resides within the city, sent out messengers to request aid from the three neighbouring kingdoms. These three kings convened to discuss what should be done; none of them wanted to take in survivors in case they carried the disease and destroying the city was unthinkable. While in discussion a witch appeared to them and told them she could solve the problem. By sealing off the city with her magic she could insure that the plague would not spread and the city would not be destroyed. The kings were still worried about the people within the city, but none of them wanted to handle the problem themselves, so they begged the witch to solve it and do as she wished. Overnight giant thorny vines covered the walls and gates, and whirlpools covered the harbor, ensuring nothing could enter or leave the city. The survivors within were terrified and trapped. Plague victims roamed the streets, feeding on anything living. Soon only 5 of the 15 districts remained plague free. It would only take a few more days before the other survivors in the 10 infected districts would succumb to the plague and plague victims.
And that’s all the basic story I have so far. Not a lot but enough to base a few adventures for practice. What I’m working on next is detailing the different districts, some different enemies, and general parts of the people’s lives.
