A Bit of History
The Souls
Three souls serve as the primary PCs, with a handful of others reincarnating alongside, but playing a lesser role in the overarching story. The Warrior is solid, upright, and honorable, he is the protector and defender of his companions, the one they can turn to in time of need, and the rock the party is built around. He is not always a fighter, sometimes a firm word or just the willingness to stand against injustice and brutality are all that is needed. In contrast, the Rake is the glue that holds the souls together as a group; he is friendly, gregarious, and charismatic, but driven to wild passions. The Rake likes fast conveyances, wine, song, and women, and without the guidance of the other two, is prone to forget his duties and indulge his desires. Finally, we have the Scholar, the man who knows too much, the man who is thoughtful but prone to hubris, the man who can find the truth, but might not make the best use of it. The Thinker is often an outcast amongst friends, forever on the edge of the party, but separated from it by the things he knows and the selfish risks he is willing to take to know more.Alongside these three core souls are a variable host of associated souls that may or may not appear in each incarnation. The Caregiver is just that, the soul that takes care of the heroes, tending their wounds, providing a buffer against the madness of the world, and lending a helping hand when things are at their worse. Often associated with the Thinker, the Follower is willing to serve, to play second fiddle, and to support his heroes in some small way. Often the party is betrayed by the Shadow, a soul who in the end works to defeat or hamper the heroes. The Mentor gives advice to the party, but also tries to direct their actions towards its own goals.
The fourth major player in this drama is the Demon, an immortal creature of supernatural origins who pursues and is pursued by the party throughout history. His form and powers may change, but certain aspects remain the same throughout the campaign, and become clues as to his whereabouts and plans. First, the Demon has a true name, and discovering this over the course of several incarnations is the key to defeating him in the final battle. Second, the demon draws power through the sacrifices of his cult; in eras where his cult is largest he is the most powerful. Third, the demon cannot be destroyed unless his true name is evoked, at the most the heroes can banish him form reality for a number of centuries.
The End
The story ends and begins with three men drawn together by happenstance to fight off pirates in the year 30,000. The passenger ship they are on is attacked, and they must escape, evade, and hopefully turn the tables on the pirates. During the running, hiding, and investigating, they come across pirate bodies that have been horribly mutilated, wrecked corpses that appear to have been attacked by a wild animal, and even some that have been struck down by their own fellows.
Blindsided by an ambush, the PCs try to kill the pirate's leader, only to find that although their weapons have a telling effect on his body, they do nothing to slow him down. In fact, each blow merely opens a hole through which purplish tentacles writhe out. Eventually they are overcome and rendered unconscious.
The Party regains consciousness suspended upside down over the cargo hold, held fast by their ankles to thick chains that glow with twisting red runes. As they swing back and forth, the pirate leader, his mortal features barely recognizable under the demonic shell that has taken him, walks out of the shadows and begins to gloat, launching into a trite speech about how his victory has come at last and the PCs cannot defeat him this time, cue the first incarnation.
Late Pleistocene
This incarnation is a heroic sword and sorcery style game where the PCs must rescue their tribemates from slavery and discover the demon's first great manifestation, hopefully defeating its earthly designs in the process. The genre is heroic fantasy, with the themes of man against man, man against nature, freedom against slavery, and the question of what is human hanging in the air. The general mood is one of epic heroism, but allowing for the gritty survival issues of the prehistoric era.
The Warrior incarnates as Kar Son of Drago, a great hunter and heroic fighter of his people, capable of tracking prey across the frozen tundra or smashing foes with his mighty stone axe. The dashing young son of the chieftain is Jan, the Rake, a man who can run fast, talk, fast, and act fast in any situation. The tribe's shaman, Wai-tu, is the incarnation of the Scholar, a man driven by a personal quest for power over the spirit world and the souls of his tribe's foes. Accompanying them on their quest is Kala, the incarnation of the Caregiver, a woman they rescue from the Neanderthals and our heroes fall in love with. The Mentor and the Shadow do not appear, but the Servant takes the form of the shaman's familiar, a capricious weasel.
The story begins as the heroes travel from their home valley to that of a neighboring tribe in order to arrange a marriage for Jan. They find their allies slaughtered, and signs that a group of Neanderthals have attacked and carried off captives. Pursuing the Neanderthals across the wilds and over a glacier, the party eventually battles them, retaking at least one of the hostages (actually it should be engineered to be just one female in order to set up the love, um, square?). Clues point to several attacks by Neanderthal as well as Sapiens on the surrounding tribes (not all the tribes attacked are allied, some are rivals). Pursuing this mystery will lead our little band across a land gripped in the last vestiges of an ice age. They will battle the elements, animals (mammoths are a must), and the harsh terrain. Along the way the encounter ever-greater signs of a large force attacking and carrying off both Sapiens and Neanderthals.
Eventually the clues lead them to the distant ocean, a sight none of our party has ever seen. Great boats that fly white wings take the captives and pay in metal, wine, and other exotic goods. These ships are from Atlantis, an island nation across the sea that is dominated by the cult of the Demon. There, slaves are used for labor, entertainment, and sacrifices. Atlantis is a paradise in the Ice Age, a warm land where beasts from earlier epochs survive (dinosaurs are a possibility), the level of technology is that of the late Bronze Age, and a decadent urban culture dominates the land. Amongst the slaves are earlier hominids and even australopithecines (an anachronism, but a fun one), and the heroes are taught a lesson in humanity (hopefully) as they fight alongside not just their hated Neanderthal foes, but other even more primitive humans. The heroes must battle the Atlanteans and the Demon Cult in order to save the captives, destroying Atlantis in the process.
To Save the Queen?
Flash forward several millennia, and the PCs are King's Musketeers in 16th Century France. The mood is one of heroic swashbuckling that slowly slides into supernatural horror. Themes include the meaning of duty, love, honor, and loyalty, as well as man vs. man, and man vs. the supernatural.
The Warrior, d'Auberville, is a great monster of a man, nearly seven feet tall and uses his great strength to overcome his opponent's swords. He is the character most dedicated to his job of protecting the King, and furthermore he is closely linked with the Queen's party at court. His motivations are duty, honor, and loyalty not just to the monarchy, but the Monarchy and thus the nation. On the other hand, d'Chien, the Rake, is loyal to his friends, as a man of means and rank he does not need to attach himself to any party at court. In some ways, he is in it for the thrill of the adventure. Finally, we have the Scholar, d'Amiens, a musketeer who longs to leave this indolent world and become a priest or monk, but is kept tied to it by bonds of friendship (as well as a few vices). His education stretches far beyond that of his fellows, and he is well versed in literature, languages, and even canon law. Not all the Ancillary characters show up in every Incarnation, and only two do in this one. The role of the Caregiver is taken my Doña Carlota, one of the Queen's confidants and the Warrior's lover. She provides assistance and information to the party, but dies tragically in the third act. The Follower and the Shadow do not make any appearances. Conforming to the genre conventions of the Dumas novels, all three PCs have a set of lackeys to do their bidding, and no lackey stands out above the rest. There is enough betrayal that one more would tip the scales, and so the Shadow is not needed, and as for the Mentor, read on.
For this Incarnation, the overarching plot is that the PCs are performing deeds in service to their King and Queen, and are opposed mainly by the Cardinal and his men. It is very important to set up the rivalry between the King's Musketeers and the Cardinal's Guards early in the campaign. Have the Cardinal's men obstruct the PCs on their missions, badger and insult them in the streets, and challenge them to duels at every opportunity. By the end of the first act (roughly three to six adventures) the PCs and the players should really hate the Cardinal and his guards.
The first act should be taken up with missions of increasing danger and complexity, and ones that also bring the party to the attention of the Queen and King. Start with a simple kidnapping, one of the Queen's servants has disappeared and the party is informed of it through gossip or even the Caregiver. Make sure there are plenty of wild chases, daring escapes, and lots of furniture to swashbuckle around, under, and above.
In the second act, things begin to change. Now the Queen and King are sending for the PCs to perform very specific tasks, the Queen more so. In fact, the Queen's missions are more dangerous, more specific, and often strange. She sends the party to pick up a book from distant noblemen; the book is to be a birthday gift for the King. Only the nobleman's chateau has been torched, leaving only the book in the ashes, unharmed. A bundle of herbs, because the Queen is feeling ill, need to be fetched from a weird woodsman. The Queen is very superstitious, and asks to have a famed astrologer brought to court. For some reason, the Cardinal's Guards oppose the party even more fiercely on these rather insignificant missions. These things should all add up to something supernatural going on at court, something the PCs likely can only guess at. At the same time, mix in some mundane missions or personal story arcs. End the second act with the Siege of La Rochelle, consulting Dumas for story hooks and ideas.
Finally, it all comes together in the third act, where the truth gets revealed and the souls battle the demon. The Cardinal is not a bad man; in truth he is the best of men in this age of wickedness and debauchery. He alone knows that the Queen has fallen to dark powers and that she hopes to corrupt the King and the whole of France. Early in the third act, the PCs are captured by the Cardinal's men, and given incontrovertible proof that the Queen is guilty. Once they have switched sides, they are trained in how to fight the terrors of the Dark Realm that the Queen has unleashed, and thus make up for being her unwitting accomplices. This should be done as an extended training montage as opposed to a simple handing out of XP or character points. The incarnation ends with the PCs leading a valiant strike against the Queen and her demonic court, interrupting a ritual that would bring the Demon into the world. After the Queen is killed, the whole affair is covered up, and the Cardinal substitutes an imposter in her place, leaving the King none the wiser and both the crown and country safe.
Next month we will look at setting the scene for your historical games with music, food, décor, costumes and visual aids, especially how this could all be done on the cheap and easy.
