Let's show rather than tell (was Re: Preparing for play, how I do it) from Ian Cooper on 2007-10-23 (HeroQuest RPG)

From: Ian Cooper <ian_hammond_cooper_at_...>
Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2007 19:37:49 -0000

OK so it looks like the Rathori have won out.

I'll go away and knock up the setting material I would put together for this. I have a HQ voices, which is a great start: http://www.btinternet.com/~nick_brooke/voices/hqv_rathori.pdf and I'll put together a homeland keyword too. That should be pretty trivial with the HQ Voices entry.

Then I'll sketch out some ideas for conflict and narrator characters and some additional setting notes if needed.

I'll see if I can tempt my players to creating characters and then playing out what we work on so that we can do this 'for real'.

It will take me a over a week to get to this point, I've a wedding to attend etc. I'm hopeful you can hold out that long. This thread will be episodic in that way as I produce new waypoints in the process.

As a teaser in the meantime I'm tempted by the following for a conflict idea:

Winter is Coming

Every winter the Rathori people sleep, hibernating through the lean weeks of cold and snow, to awake in the spring. Only the warriors of the White Bear staye awake, to protect the people from danger. Then came the Great Sleep, when winter lasted for years. When the people awoke, their guardians had gone, as had the White Bear god, imprisoned by his greatest champion Harrek The Berserk. At the Salmon Run, as fall comes, the grandmothers look to answer a question previously unheard: who will protect the people through the coming winter?

How did I get here. Just thinking like this: Rathori->Harrek->White Bear->Spirit of Winter Survival->Warriors who survive the winter-> (Driven mad by the winter - a post by someone on this list I liked-> All dead(maybe ;-))->Harrek killed White Bear->No winter guardians

I then set the time to autumn because this forces action - something must be done now. It also gives us the Salmon Run, which gives us the opportunity for social gathering, npcs etc. which provide for a good vein of sides to the conflict.