This is a follow-up on my last post, Happy Gunpowder Treason Day! for this month's RPG Blog Carnival topic: Haves and Have-Nots: Social Classes in Fantasy Worlds. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to fully flesh it out.
As a starting point, I'm a fan of Chgowz's "Three Hexes" campaign starter format. Here's a sketch of my take on that:
Premise:
The campaign takes place in a magical England analog, Anglia, in the early 1600s. King James is expanding the support of the Church of Anglia in its schism from the Orthodox Church and the High Cardinal's rule over religious matters.
With minor tweaking, this could instead be The Three Musketeers or something in Prussia.
Themes:
- Conflict between crown loyalists and orthodox loyalists:
- The Crown loyalists (or "Loyalists") call the other side disloyal foreigners:
- Trying to crush the everyday people who haven't demonstrated their loyalty to the Crown under their heels.
- And some of them think it's all the masses.
- Rewarding those who follow them with cushy jobs and power over the masses.
- The Orthodox faithful (or "The Faithful") call the other side in terms of boots and diabolic influence:
- Taking shelter in their faith and refusing to make things easy for the Crown.
- Malicious compliance and misunderstood orders.
- Intentional incompetence.
- Guerilla warfare through ambushes and splitting the Crown forces off to be picked off.
- Religious strife:
- Symbols of religion are everywhere.
- The symbol of the Orthodoxy, sometimes defaces from old buildings, other times drawn in chalk or mud to signify shelter for the Faithful or traps for the Loyalists.
- Fresh new symbols of the Church of Anglia in contrast to the old edifices upon which they have been placed, sometimes covered in rotten fruit, night soil, or animal blood.
- State and religion unified in the same body (the monarch)
- The symbol for the Church of Anglia incorporated in the new crest of the royal house.
Hexes:
- The city core:
- The Palace (the Crown's residence), Parliament (where laws are passed), and the Loyalist Barracks beside the Palace, which is also the base of the Crown's personal guard are all within a mile of each other, all along The River Isis.
- Loyalist PCs would be investigators working out of a barracks beside The Palace.
- The Faithful are trying to destroy The Palace, Parliament, or the Loyalist barracks.
- The Docks: has tenement housing, ships going in and out, upriver or to the sea.
- The Midlands: Rural, has farms, small towns, and estates. The biggest town is Swordchester, and the Crown heir, Princess Elizabeth is at Alabaster Abbey when the campaign starts.
Characters:
King James (F3, Crown): Rules from his palace, has extended the schism to end orthodox influence on Anglia.
Princess Elizabeth (T1, Crown): Nine year old daughter of King James. She's mostly helpless, and kind of loves her father, but he's a distant figure in her life, so she could be manipulated. She is third in line, behind her older brothers, Henry and Charles, whom the plot would have killed.
Henry Foster, Sheriff of Swordchester (F4, Fighter): Crown Authority in the Midlands, frequently follows up on leads of Orthodox activity. Specifically looking for the Smith brothers and Bob Catsby
Guy Fox (F4, Orthodox): An advocate or figurehead (which term depends on whom is speaking) of the orthodox rebellion. A hero of foreign wars.
Bob Catsby (M3, Orthodox): Head of the Faithful, connected to sympathetic country nobility, foreign merchants, and Orthodox clergy in hiding. Co-ordinates shipments and information sharing amongst various cells.
Alex Wolf (F3, Orthodox): Faithful soldier, a skilled swordsman.
Tall, pudgy, dirty blonde hair. Brother to John Smith.
John Wolf (F5, Orthodox): Faithful soldier, a skilled swordsman. His home, Sprigmeadow Hall, is in the Midlands, and a location known to be frequented by Orthodox priests. Brother to Alex Smith.
Thom Winter (M3, Orthodox): Priest, scholar, linguist, and capable of minor magic. Had recruited Guy Fox.
Scenarios
When the Crown finds Faithful:
- Send in overwhelming force to capture them.
- Remand them to prison.
- Have a trial within days, with King James present. Nothing they say matters, if they were innocent, there wouldn't be any evidence of their guilt, and the rebels must be dug out.
- Find them guilty.
- Execute them within three days.
When the Crown has tracked an Orthodox priest to a given location, they will: 1. send in a team to secure the building. 2. Have carpenters and masons move in to find "priestholes", hiding places in which a person might be able to hide for hours. 3. Remand any priests found to prison. 4. Have a trail within days. 4. Find them guilty. 5. Execute them within a week.
When the Faithful find Princess Elizabeth.
- Set up a diversion to draw off Crown forces.
- Kidnap the princess, either from Alabaster Abbey, or from her carriage train on the way to the Palace.
- Hide her away.
- Kill her father.
- Bring her out and proclaim her after her father's death.
Rule Addendum: Firearms
Basically, flintlock firearms. If you don't already have rules for them, consider this for general rules:
- Fighters, dwarves*, and thieves get only half their to hit bonus with flintlock guns. Everyone gets their dexterity bonus to hit. Anyone spending a round aiming gets to add half their to hit bonus.
- If the attack roll hits AC 9, but not the character's actual AC, roll half damage, but the damage die does not "explode".
- If the attack roll hits the character, roll the damage die. On a damage result in the top 25%, retain that result and roll again.
- Reloading requires 5 rounds, or 3 rounds by a fighter or thief:
- Load the flint into the cock.
- Set the cock to half-cocked, and load the proper amount of black powder down the muzzle, tamping down. Each gun requires a specific amount.
- Wrap the ball in a patch and drop it in the muzzle.
- Use a ramrod to tamp the powder and ball down into the muzzle.
- Set the required amount of primer in the flash pan. The primer is a finely ground gunpowder. The pan is not usually open until the trigger is pulled, so it won't fall out.
- If the attack roll is a natural one, or if the gun got wet and the attack roll is a 1-4, roll d3:
- The patch misfires, exploding, wrecking the gun, and doing the damage of a normal shot to the wielder.
- The primer went off and did ignite the patch, but it's slow burning for some reason, and will go off in 1d3 rounds.
- The primer went off without igniting the patch. The pan just needs to be re-primed (one action).
- Flintlock pistol: 1d4 damage, range of 20 ft.
- Flintlock rifle: 1d12 damage, range of 300 ft.
* Assuming race as class. If using race and class, dwarves get a +2 bonus, and elves get a -2 penalty.
Rules Addendum: Class and Religion
Orthodox priests have a +1 to reaction rolls with common working men and with free men.
Crown priests have a +1 to reaction rolls with the gentry.
Their teachings are basically the same, with the following exceptions:
- Orthodox teaching is that royalty and nobility must remain married to their spouse until death, whereas Crown priests teach that royalty and nobility may divorce if they are without an heir after three years, "for the security of their line."
- Orthodox priests teach that royalty of the mundane world must still pay homage to their spiritual superiors in the Orthodox church, whereas Crown priests teach that the Monarch is also the head of the Crown church.
- Crown priests teach that Orthodox practice is both a spiritual sin and treason.
Conclusion
Let me know if you find this at all interesting, and if you have any ideas for how to better execute it.
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