Campaign & Character Creation

Campaign Setup

“Atropos roughly tore the thread of flourishing life.”
— Statius

This phase is almost entirely Storyteller work. Player input is limited to ranking concrete campaign seeds. Character creation comes later.

If you are a player reading ahead: you only need the constraints and the seeds you are asked to rank. Everything else on this page is for the person preparing the table.

Interest Signal

Players receive only a ranked list of campaign seeds and the system constraints. Nothing else written. If someone asks about a specific name, answer in two spoken sentences at most.

Constraints (state once)

No magic. Pre-industrial tools and knowledge only. Ordinary human beings.
The community is the real protagonist. If it is destroyed, the campaign ends.
Death is permanent.

What players do

Rank your top three seeds. Ask at most two spoken sentences about any name. Wait for the Storyteller to frame the community — then create characters.

The seeds below are examples only. Replace them freely. Players rank their top three.

A good seed uses a real or invented place name (not a vague label like “river country”), names a community, a real pressure (war, law, plague, tax, famine, migration), and a decision that cannot wait. It is not a list of horrors. Grim reality is the weather of the age — not the product you are selling.

Campaign seeds

Browse by setting type

Historical: locked place and year. Semi-historical: one clear break from a real situation. Invented: same weight as history, without dressing up misery for effect.

The Debatable Land, 1320s

Who — Related Border households on ground claimed by both English and Scottish lords.
Pressure — Both sides demand service and payment. The old middle-ground bargains are dead. Harvest was thin; winter is close.
Choose — Whom to serve, or refuse, and still be a people in spring.

Iceland, late Commonwealth — after the burnings

Who — Two neighbouring chieftains’ followings sharing a valley of hay and driftwood rights.
Pressure — Last winter halls burned and men died. Killers still in the district; blood-price unpaid. Althing in weeks. Hay must come in first.
Choose — Hold the hay, settle the dead without finishing the kinship, or lose the following to stronger goðar before court.

Worldbuilding Practices

Do these in order. Prep situations — unstable circumstances, people with goals, places under pressure — not a fixed sequence of scenes. The story is what happens when the table acts. You may know more than you show; you do not open with a lore dump.

The worked thread below follows The Vardmark at Kelarn’s Bend. Change the seed; keep the method.

Worldbuilding walkthrough

Nine steps. Enough material for weight and choice. Not a novel the players must recite.

Lock the spectrum — tightly historical, semi-historical, or fully invented — and keep it for the whole campaign.

ExampleFully invented: the Vardmark occupy Kelarn’s Bend after they helped sack Kelarn — conquerors on ground they do not know how to farm. Made-up names are fine; hunger, weather, and armed neighbours still work as in history.

Best practiceWrite the spectrum on the first line of your notes. Historical: real seasons, law, and armies constrain you — use that. Semi-historical: change one hinge, then honour the consequences. Invented: same gravity of hunger, weather, and power. Do not invent away the cost of living, and do not invent cruelty for spectacle.

What the Players Receive

The ranked list of campaign seeds (examples or your own)
The three system constraints stated once

Nothing else.

When seeds are chosen and the community frame exists, proceed to Character Creation.

Related: Introduction (grim reality vs fun), Dice Mechanics, Echoes, Hierarchies.