Well, I'm a dork, too, as well as manic.
So, this blog will be an account of the events transpiring across an RPG campaign that I'm playing all by myself. To make this work, I've set a few rules for myself going forward:
- No retconning. The results of the dice are never fudged, and I live with my choices. If my characters die, they die. Story is what happens, not what's planned.
- I will only prep scenarios: situations, locations, and NPCs. Nothing will be scripted beforehand. The scenarios are static systems, the characters a volatile reagent introduced through gameplay. (I'll also make a lot of shit up on the spot because that's inevitable.)
- All the choices I make must be true to the characters (PCs and NPCs), even if, or especially if, they're detrimental to the "story."
- I will write (in prose narration) the events of the campaign as they unfold. The only edits I will make will be for the purpose of clarity, word-choice, and style. No revisions to the events.
- I will not narrate the play-by-play of the rules, refer to skill or ability checks, etc. Everything will be narrated as it would appear to be happening in the world of the game setting. I will, however, note in parentheses the skill or ability checks that resulted in a particular turn of events or results, like this: As the greenskin flung itself off the cliff to drop on Snorri, teeth gnashing, slobbering in anger, it slipped upon a loose stone (Athletics: 88) and barreled down the rock face, bones breaking and snapping (wounds taken: 14), until it lay moaning and died in the dirt (body critical wounds: 5, internal bleeding) before Snorri's boots, which were now ruined by the beast's putrid, green blood.
- I'm not writing literature here. This is just for fun.
The game I've chosen to play is the fourth edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. (If you're not familiar with the setting, or the game, you should be; it's awesome.) The campaign will follow (until they die) two Sigmarite friars named Brother Albert Schimmelpfennig and Brother Hans Kohlfurz.
I've created backgrounds for both characters (the original sin of RPGs, if you ask me) using the Ten Questions method from the WFRP 4th ed. rulebook. So, for today's Session Zero, I've included both characters' backgrounds , their character sheets, and a pic of the miniatures I'd use to represent them if this wasn't a sadsack solo campaign:
Brother Albert Schimmelpfennig
[photo of mini goes here]
Where are you from?
Hailing from Grissenwald, Brother Albert speaks with a trace of an Averland accent. His family originated in Loningbruck, where his father worked in the slaughterhouses until he was killed, while hungover, when he turned his back on an ornery steer who gored him. Afterwards, Albert's mother moved her children to Reikland to, supposedly, rescue them from a life in the slaughterhouses, but in truth, she had been courted, while her husband still lived, by a merchant named Oslo Schimmelpfennig who lived in Grissenwald .
What is your family like?
His family, mother, brothers, and stepfather, were loving and doted upon Albert, as he was the youngest and generally considered a "delicate" child. Albert and his brothers were taken in by Oslo, who treated them as his own children and graced them with his own surname.
What was your childhood like?
Life in Grissenwald under the roof of his stepfather's house was pleasant for Albert. The servants let him eat more than his portion straight from the kitchen. His tutors, which were hired at his mother's insistence, were one after another senile, retired or disgraced adjuncts of the University of Nuln and prone to stealing naps halfway through his lessons, which gave Albert ample opportunity to roam the Middenplatz and docks of Nordhafen, where he slummed with gangs of riverfolk's urchins. Once, his stepfather discovered him at the docks while seeing to a shipment. His punishment was severe, to work in the kitchen with the servants for two months, but Albert was not forbidden from continuing his second life on the streets. In fact, his stepfather encouraged it, saying such experiences would prepare him for a successful career as a burgher of Grissenwald, when he would have to deal with the river rats on their own terms. However, when his gang found out he was of the bourgeoisie, they attempted to drown him in the Reik.
Why did you leave home?
Albert grew bored in Grissenwald and much to his mother, brothers, and stepfather's horror, he joined the Reikland State Troops at the age of sixteen. After a brief, half-hearted period of training, Albert was stationed with the Grissenwald 12th Infantry Auxiliary at a remote frontier outpost in the Grey Mountains, ostensibly to protect the Reikland from Bretonnian errantry. The fist few months, Albert kept up his training regimen but noticed most of the old salt in the outpost spent their days sleeping and their nights drunk, and in time, he learned that the outpost hadn't seen plume nor palfrey of a Bretonnian in over a decade.
Who are your best friends?
What is your greatest desire?
What are your best and worst memories?
What are your religious beliefs?
To whom, or what, are you loyal?
Why are you adventuring?
Where are you from?
Grissenwald, but he has traces of an Averland accent. Brother Albert's grandfather was from Loningbruck, where he worked in the slaughterhouses. He was killed, while hungover, when he turned his back on a ornery cow who kicked him in the spine.
What is your family like?
When Brother Albert's grandmother left Averland with her children, she was pursued by her late-husband's brother, a man named Gerhart Schimmelpfennig, who desired her for himself. For decades afterwards, even though she remarried a wealthy logger, the brother stalked her. Years later, in the time of Galloping Scumpox, after her second husband had passed and she lived with her son (Brother Albert's father), the man stole into their house while Albert's father was away and pleaded with and threatened her until she left with him for fear he would harm her daughter-in-law and grandchildren. It was the last Brother Albert saw of his grandmother and great-uncle, who he remembers, oddly, seemed twenty years younger than he could've been and appeared to writhe beneath his voluminous cloak--although Brother Albert now disregards this memory as a childhood terror.
What is (was) your social class?
Brother Albert loathes the excesses of love, whether it be the sinful rites of chaos worshipers or the strict formalization of the churches. He believes that human society suffers greatly from the whims and vagaries of base emotions such as love and lust, which to him are interchangeable. He has seen what such madness can drive men to. (He does not, however, extend this loathing to obsessions over things other than flesh, such as good drink or food.)
What did you do before you became an adventurer (traveling friar)?
As a child, Albert was a terrible student, exhausting several tutors before his father grew tired of paying them. Albert, to his shame, never quite learned how to read. Around 16 years, Albert joined the Reikland State Troops and was stationed at a frontier outpost in the Grey Mountains where he saw hide nor hair nor horn of any greenskins or abominations.
Why did you become an adventurer (traveling friar)?
Growing mortally bored in the State Troops, Albert deserted is posting, taking to the remote hills and hinterlands of the Vorbergland where he spent months on the verge of starvation, stealing and begging what food he could from shepherds and farmers until he was found by a band of friars who carried him with them upon their travels in Reikland. Nothing else for him, and fearful of being branded or hung as a deserter, Albert took his vows with the Order of St. Jürgen, where he met Brother Hans Kohlfurz.
How religious are you?
The Order of St. Jürgen, while composed of fervent followers of the Sigmar, practices a dogma that skirts the border between orthodox and radical. Unlike the authoritarian evangelicals of the mainline cult, whose most extreme practitioners include the state-issued Templars (witch hunters), the friars of St. Jürgen travel the countryside not in an attempt to punish or purge witches, sorcerers, or servants of chaos, but to liberate them from what they view as enslavement by the dark gods. Brother Albert believes in this mission with all his heart.
Who are your best friends and worst enemies?
Since becoming initiates in the Order of St. Jürgen, Brothers Albert and Hans have been inseparable, traveling together through the Reikwald, although onlookers, passersby, and those to whom they minister fear the two many murder one another any day.
What are your prized possessions?
As of late, Brother Albert has taken to traveling with a cow he claims provides a wonderful healing milk. He gives the milk to those in need; in actuality, the cow does not produce milk. Instead, Brother Albert buys it and makes these claims to those in need of a miracle.
Who are you loyal to?
Brother Albert's trust in others has been shaken since his brother broke a promise to him when he was 15, before he joined the State Troops. The promise involved the splitting of a take from a small burglary of a wine merchant in Grissenwald. His brother, Stefan, took the money for himself, believing his brother would not make anything of it since it was stolen.
Who do you love/hate?
A love of kidney pie has led to Brother Albert to intermittent suffering of gout.
Brother Hans Kohlfurz
[insert pic of mini here]
Where are you from?
What is your family like?
What was your childhood like?
Why did you leave home?
Who are your best friends?
What is your greatest desire?
What are your best and worst memories?
What are your religious beliefs?
To whom, or what, are you loyal?
Why are you adventuring?
Next Post: Session 1 - Siege of the Inn of the Twice-tupped Goat
