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yubishines) wrote2016-04-28 05:42 pm
yubishines) wrote2016-04-28 05:42 pm
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Over the Garden Wall-themed Beyond the Wall game, notes/brainstorming
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Beyond the Garden Wall
- Overall emotional tone for a BTW game: YA adventure novel. The world might be scary and mysterious and frightening and fey, but the people in it are generally decent, albeit sometimes working at cross-purposes. Kindly, not twee. "nobledark." Think Undertale.
- General BTW notes: Ditch exp. Level the whole party up at "chapter breaks" -- at the end of a major arc, after a longish dungeon, after 2-3 sessions, whatever.
- Setup: The party is lost. They don't remember how they ended up here. Like in a dream, the gaps in memory and logic don't feel important; the only vital thing is that they're looking for a way home.
- Backstories and the friction between characters will inform how they got lost.
- The Unknown is not necessarily Limbo. The Unknown is where lost things go. The dead might end up there, but not everyone there is a ghost or near-death. It's a place for wandering souls, the forgotten, stories never told, etc. Keep your options open.
- That said, the party's chosen Threats will shape the kind of Unknown that they encounter. Possibilities:
-- The Grey Prince:
The Prince's realm is in the borderland between the land of dreams and the land of the dead. The party escaped the Prince's clutches once as children, and they've unwittingly fallen into his trap once more. Can they keep their faith in each other, and wake up from this nightmare?
-- Imperial City:
The Unknown is made up of echoes from the City's past: The architecture feels ancient yet newly-constructed, everything is full of odd anachronisms. The party digs up secrets about the royal family that were hidden or forgotten, discovers how the city was founded, encounters long-dead heroes/ancestors, and perhaps has the chance to touch the past and (subtly) change the present day.
-- The Vengeful Wyrm:
Dragons keep hoards. The older and more powerful the dragon, the bigger and stranger and more valuable the hoard. The oldest dragon of all collected legends; that is, places and people who have passed into myth in the present day after they vanished. The party is the newest addition to this collection.
(Possible variation/twist: This mythical collection resides within the mind of the ancient dragon. Legend has it that the true way to kill a dragon permanently is to seize the draconce or dragonstone from its head. The party may escape and slay the wyrm by locating the stone.)
-- The Blighted Land:
The Blighted One was not the first to wield this forbidden magic. Once upon a time, another person was driven down the same path, and another set of heroes rose to the occasion to deal with this threat.
One of the latter was dedicated to curing the afflicted, which was a more difficult problem than one might expect: He found that while a powerful mage might heal one of the victims, if said victim had been left untreated for too long, the Blight would have corrupted more than their physical body -- eaten away at their very memories. Could you really say that the "cured" person was the same individual as before? He thought not.
The Unknown is inhabited by the results of this mage's work. Whenever a person falls to the Blight, their shadow finds their way into this realm. Not quite alive in their own right (yet not dead either), the shadow is a copy of the person's memory and personality, giving them a chance to be truly resurrected... someday.
But some of these shadows have been here for a very long time. Do they realize what has happened to them in the living world? And if they do, will they even want to leave?
-- The Risen Dead:
The closest to the main OTGW story. The party is undergoing a near-death experience. Their souls are exploring the Unknown while their physical bodies are teetering between life and death. Perhaps they ran afoul of some necromantic sorcery; perhaps it was something more mundane, a storm sinking the sailing vessel they were on. Or perhaps the conflict came from within -- a disagreement within the party led to a (near-)fatal mistake.
While they will be tempted to stay, they must keep searching for a way home or risk being trapped in limbo. This is complicated by the fact that the party does not consciously remember why they are here.
-
Beyond the Garden Wall
- Overall emotional tone for a BTW game: YA adventure novel. The world might be scary and mysterious and frightening and fey, but the people in it are generally decent, albeit sometimes working at cross-purposes. Kindly, not twee. "nobledark." Think Undertale.
- General BTW notes: Ditch exp. Level the whole party up at "chapter breaks" -- at the end of a major arc, after a longish dungeon, after 2-3 sessions, whatever.
- Setup: The party is lost. They don't remember how they ended up here. Like in a dream, the gaps in memory and logic don't feel important; the only vital thing is that they're looking for a way home.
- Backstories and the friction between characters will inform how they got lost.
- The Unknown is not necessarily Limbo. The Unknown is where lost things go. The dead might end up there, but not everyone there is a ghost or near-death. It's a place for wandering souls, the forgotten, stories never told, etc. Keep your options open.
- That said, the party's chosen Threats will shape the kind of Unknown that they encounter. Possibilities:
-- The Grey Prince:
The Prince's realm is in the borderland between the land of dreams and the land of the dead. The party escaped the Prince's clutches once as children, and they've unwittingly fallen into his trap once more. Can they keep their faith in each other, and wake up from this nightmare?
-- Imperial City:
The Unknown is made up of echoes from the City's past: The architecture feels ancient yet newly-constructed, everything is full of odd anachronisms. The party digs up secrets about the royal family that were hidden or forgotten, discovers how the city was founded, encounters long-dead heroes/ancestors, and perhaps has the chance to touch the past and (subtly) change the present day.
-- The Vengeful Wyrm:
Dragons keep hoards. The older and more powerful the dragon, the bigger and stranger and more valuable the hoard. The oldest dragon of all collected legends; that is, places and people who have passed into myth in the present day after they vanished. The party is the newest addition to this collection.
(Possible variation/twist: This mythical collection resides within the mind of the ancient dragon. Legend has it that the true way to kill a dragon permanently is to seize the draconce or dragonstone from its head. The party may escape and slay the wyrm by locating the stone.)
-- The Blighted Land:
The Blighted One was not the first to wield this forbidden magic. Once upon a time, another person was driven down the same path, and another set of heroes rose to the occasion to deal with this threat.
One of the latter was dedicated to curing the afflicted, which was a more difficult problem than one might expect: He found that while a powerful mage might heal one of the victims, if said victim had been left untreated for too long, the Blight would have corrupted more than their physical body -- eaten away at their very memories. Could you really say that the "cured" person was the same individual as before? He thought not.
The Unknown is inhabited by the results of this mage's work. Whenever a person falls to the Blight, their shadow finds their way into this realm. Not quite alive in their own right (yet not dead either), the shadow is a copy of the person's memory and personality, giving them a chance to be truly resurrected... someday.
But some of these shadows have been here for a very long time. Do they realize what has happened to them in the living world? And if they do, will they even want to leave?
-- The Risen Dead:
The closest to the main OTGW story. The party is undergoing a near-death experience. Their souls are exploring the Unknown while their physical bodies are teetering between life and death. Perhaps they ran afoul of some necromantic sorcery; perhaps it was something more mundane, a storm sinking the sailing vessel they were on. Or perhaps the conflict came from within -- a disagreement within the party led to a (near-)fatal mistake.
While they will be tempted to stay, they must keep searching for a way home or risk being trapped in limbo. This is complicated by the fact that the party does not consciously remember why they are here.