The Start of a New World
Fledgling Worlds
What?
FW is going to be a repository of worlds, ideas, prompts, and dreams. A place where every little interesting nugget of thought I want to save, or broadcast, can go to rest or be resurrected. It may also be a place where I can show off the handcrafted worlds for TTRPG's created during play with my friends. A place where Fledgling Worlds can be grown and take flight on their own.
Why?
I often have very vivid dreams, ones I may remember portions of, or only want to remember certain bits of, and sometimes I go back in my waking hours to flesh these thoughts out. I know I could start a dream journal, again, but that wouldn't quite fulfill all of this blogs' purpose. I want it all in one neatly wrapped catalog that may very well inspire someone else to record their next uncanny dream and expound upon it.
I also play a few TTRPG's a week, one of which is a collaborative worldbuilding game. In this, my players will come up with some pretty specific ideas to incorporate into the world, and it is my job to build on that foundation and bring it all together.
So, with all that said, let's jump into it.
This is a grim dark world, we didn't set out for it to be that way, but some of my players are twisted and edgy. Trigger Warning: Mutilation, Assault, and Drug Use. All in minimal detail.
Peaks of Craft
When my players started playing in this realm, it didn't have a name. It does now, but let's take it back to session zero. For context, we are playing Dungeon World (Yes, I know about all the controversy with one of the creators, but I purchased long before that) and using Class Warfare for classes. If you don't play TTRPG's and don't know what any of that means, that's fine. All this is to say we had a LOT of choices to make at character creation, and this is right where I wanted my players to start making decisions about the world.
In this system, the idea is that your players are very unique in the realm, and there are no others with talents like them.
Our first hero is Shiggle Lightfoot, a Dwarf Disciple (a religious class) who can see the dead, sacrifice their own health to heal others, and is a Landed Gentry. Shiggle is the religous leader of a small area, and their land is primarily focused around his Sanctum of depravity. Oh, Shiggle is also evil. Right away, I knew I would have some decisions to make about the divine influences in the realm. I knew I didn't want a singular God or a host of Gods and Goddesses, I wanted a more gender neutral language and the choice of where you put your worship to say something about you. I asked some questions about the purposes of this Sanctum (the word we decided to use instead of church or temple), to revel, and escape is what it really seems to come down to. Drink, be merry, fuck and fight but only if you are into that, get medical care you maybe can't get elsewhere. Escape reality when it becomes to much of a burden or just because you can. It doesn't sound good or evil, but you could easily take it either way.
We decided this would be tagged with Poor, Taxation, Personage (Shiggle), and Unrest. I had to pick a negative tag as part of the game but thought unrest fit very nicely with the idea behind the Sanctum's purpose, of course people would be upset when those they know head into the woods at night to get sloshed on wine and take deadly nightshade for pain, or after a particularly bad decision (or lack thereof) for medical attention.
With these little tidbits I formed the divine entities of this realm. Saints, 5 of them, one for each finger on your right hand of worship.
Thumb is for Hapnir, of Labor, Health, and Home. Named by my players in a hangout session after deciding this is the Patron Saint the Dwarfs typically take oath to.
Index is for an unnamed saint of Life, Nature, and Animals.
Middle is for an unnamed saint of Sky, Storms, and War.
Ring is for Plegias, of Death, Commitment, and Pleasure. Named by Shiggle's Player as this is the Patron Saint they took their oaths to.
Pinky is for Lyria, of Prophecy, Luck, and Trickery. Named by me upon making halfling lore.
Next up is Crane, a human golemist with the power of foresight. I decided to really let this play out in play, not seeing much that needed immediate attention. Crane uses knucklebones to read fortunes and a pouch of sand to form a large humanoid golem who can take hits and dish them out in turn. He decided that even though he could technically have the golem out full-time he wouldn't do that and would only summon him when needed. I am still waiting on him to use his foresight to see how that particular talent plays out.
Mild spoilers below for my players, please start reading again after the 2nd line break if you think spoilers would affect play.
Crane's talent is HIGHLY sought after, if anyone see's him using these abilities, they will covet them. His talent plays very heavily into the fronts of this campaign. Fronts are the overarcing Bad Stuff that is happening in the background. Multiple factions would love to cage him and use him like a magic eight ball.
After that, we have Godred, a human armiger with the power to step from one shadow to another. He utilized this as a phenomenal way in session 1 to Uno-Reverse a nighttime ambush on the enemy. Again, though, I felt a lot of this can come out in play. We decided he does have to go from one shadow to another, not just all over at nighttime. He also aborbs light in the vicinity. Why does he have these powers or feel the need to be so armored at all times we will have to play more to find out.
Godred also has some tie in's to fronts due to his need to protect, but the players haven't gotten there yet so I haven't built much yet.
And finally, Dodger Ashenhour, an elf sharpshooter with an arsenal in the shape of a long hooded coat. This is where my players went completely off the rails. This is where they said screw the standard let's mess some stuff up. Elfs are alien and weird, they're 7 feet tall, all have pure white hair, and pointy ears all the better to hear you with. They are semi-tribal in their culture, and when defeated in battle by another Elf, get their ear tips clipped off, thus losing their "elf ear hearing." Think George R. R. Martin's Dothraki and their hair, when shamed in battle, you lose a part of yourself, your pride. Elfs who have been clipped are exiled from their tribe.
However the world has gone to shit and now it's not just Elfs who are clipping ears of other Elfs, its anyone who defeats an Elf in battle, anyone who doesn't like Elfs, anyone who just wants to hurt people. Dodger was unfairly clipped, and because of the perception Elfs have of this, shunned and exiled. Now he wanders with his hood up covering his shame and hiding his face and hair, stooping to blend in.
None of my players chose to make a halfling and I really wanted to include them in the realm so I took on the custodian role for that race, deciding that halflings began as humans who were so greedy for luck they beseeched Lyria for more. She took their bodies in exchange. "All the weight you can spare for it's worth in luck." Now halflings are born, though very rarely, and live a long time. They are obsessed with running out of their luck and the thought they will perish if they do so. They have no homeland and live nomadic lifestyles following career paths that they see as very stable and predictable, scholarly pursuits, mercantilism, and healing.
So, this leads us to Session 1. I had very minimal notes, I named a dangerous forest Witch's Spindle, a fancy road the Mountain Road, and their final destination Thimblethrush. I gave the players a very simple escort mission so they could get comfortable with the rules. Escort a halfling botanist named Thistle Wormwatch, their pony Timber, and their wagon to Thimblethrush to stop the spread of a blight on the crops.
I started them breaking camp halfway through the trip and they were faced with a decision, go the safe but long way down the Mountain Road, or take a trip through the Witch's Spindle for expediancy. I decided on the fly that the Spindle was rumored to be full of just as many dangerous creatures as it was rare plants and materials. Thistle paid them more coins, and they went through the Spindle. It was an uneventful trip, one short skirmish with some very dumb bandits later (the aforementioned Uno-Reverse, Godred shadowstepped right into them and scared them witless) they arrived at the Thimblethrush.
Here, we have a blight affecting the crops, so devasting people have not even attempted to stop it. I prepped by using a generator for creating nasty disease names, hated them all, but one had a word that sounded like peel, so I noted that's what the blight does, its peels. When my players were faced with the devastation, I asked them what it would look like if a crop were to "peel." They showed me with their hands more than their words, but the effect was the same. From the top down, it would split apart. Splitting again and again until it was nothing but dust. It's pretty horrifying, really.
They rested at the Inn, and we were off to the next session! Quite a bit more building happened in that session, so I will save that for another blog.
Take the time to nurture your Fledgling Worlds when you can!