Revelation for RPGs: Interactive History
In past articles I’ve talked about some ways to reveal secrets, including using other characters and geographic clues. In the last article I talked about how the GM and players worked through some transformations together. In this article I’ll talk about using legends, long-lived characters, and open-ended threads to reveal background and future possibilities to your players.
Our small band of heroes — a half-dragon warrior with a mysterious past, a druid with her wolf companion, a whirling dervish of a halfling and his dog, a sorceress with paladin leanings and her owl familiar, and a gnome wizard — have unraveled one of the secrets of the sickening land. The land is a manifestation of the dragon Agondre, who was attacked with the disease-causing dagger Weeping Wounds centuries ago. The illness was kept in check until recently, with the emperor of the land taking some of the sickness onto himself periodically. This ended suddenly when the original attacker, now a vampire, returned, killed the emperor and his guards, took his dagger, and fled. With no emperor to draw off the illness, the dragon and the land have withered.
The wizard proposes a daring plan: we need the dagger Weeping Wounds to resume the healing of Agondre (ok, we also need an emperor, but first things first), so let us kill the vampire Garrett and take it. He proposes to find Garrett by scrying and then teleport to him, wherever he is. Others raise strenuous objections and the GM is clearly surprised by this rather direct approach. Most of us do not believe the party is yet strong enough to take on a vampire. In the end, the wizard persuades the half-dragon and he persuades the rest of us to try.
Had we bothered to do more research in the emperor’s sanctum we would have found another alternative. But we didn’t, and the GM did not push us. It can be hard to sit back and not reveal something to your players if they haven’t yet earned it, but it’s necessary if you don’t want to take over. Let the players steer, even if they’re about to mess up, so long as you think it’s recoverable.
The attack does not go well. One vampire would be hard enough, but it turns out that Garrett has a sidekick named Melisande, a vampiric wizard. This is Not Good. Garrett is a vicious, evil mastermind, taunting the group and all of Agondre during the fight. He is proud of himself — nobody ever killed a dragon before! — and boasts of his deeds during the fight, providing a mix of information, misinformation, and ranting for the group to later sort out. In the midst of all this, nobody stops to wonder why this “great deed” is unknown outside of a couple obscure ancient letters and journals. There are clues mixed with clutter; the revelation is not straightforward.
Garrett is obsessed with his dagger, which he gleefully uses to sicken the half-dragon. The party flees the fight in two groups. The half-dragon and wizard are captured and interrogated; the others escape back to the emperor’s sanctum. One of the ghostly guards, a warrior named Charlos who accompanied the party, is mistakenly left behind.
The group has heard legends and seen some records from the time of the Cataclysm, but Garrett was actually there — he caused it. The GM was able to use dialogue during the fight, both direct taunts and things said between Garrett and Melisande, to reveal more. Every one of these channels of revelation is different, and a GM needs to keep in mind not only what to share but how to share it. Bragging and taunts were completely in-character for Garrett and somewhat informative for the players, so the GM used those tools.
Back in the sanctum, the remaining party members search for more clues. They find the journal of the emperor who reigned during the Cataclysm, and from it learn that he had sent people east to recover the Dragon’s Heart. There is no record of this having happened. The group wonders if this was an intended remedy, a way to heal the damage that was being mitigated by taking on Agondre’s sickness. Because this came from a journal we learned only what was shared at the time; the absence of later entries doesn’t tell us that the mission failed, only that we do not know. A journal, unlike a taunting villain, is not interactive.
The group seeks help from the druids and the priests there and is ultimately able to rescue the captured party members (by magically bringing them to us and dispelling the vampiric control over them). Turok, the half-dragon, had been dominated by Garrett, and so was fairly healthy and had even been allowed to retain Kotara-Nar, his special sword whose name means “dragon’s tooth” in his language. The wizard was in much worse shape.
Over the following days it becomes clear that the group is being magically hunted. Garrett and Melisande are not giving up. The situation is urgent, and the group is in no condition for a rematch. (The wizard does eventually make a quick solo trip to Garrett’s keep, via teleport, to collect his spell books and the ghost. We think the GM was being benevolent.)
Four were present at the start of the Cataclysm: the priest Renard, who perished; Garrett, who set it in motion and succumbed to the magic of an evil weapon; the bard Therion, who went to sleep in the Caverns of Laryn; and the elf Elys’, his love. Elys’, the group has already learned, is alive but trapped in a gem in an unknown place; we have had some conversations with her via scry, but she does not know how to restore the land. That leaves Therion.
Armed with their understanding of the geography of Agondre, the group sets off to find the Caverns of Laryn. I may have more to say about this later, but the group finds the caverns, where all sound is frozen and crystalline, finds a sleeping Therion, wakes him briefly but sees it is harming him, and allows him to return to sleep there. While he is awake the group asks how to heal Agondre; he does not know but suggests we ask him. (Oh right — five were present at the start of the Cataclysm, not four.) He also says Agondre likes music. We take some of the magical crystal from the caverns, thinking that its calming magic might help, and allow Therion to go back to sleep.
The group is now in a bind. They cannot yet defeat Garrett (who, now being aware of them, will be even harder to beat the next time), and so cannot get access to Weeping Wounds. This means that even if there were an emperor — and speculation about candidates has started — there is no way to resume the periodic partial-healing ritual. Therefore, Agondre will continue to sicken.
The group can, and will, pursue information about the Dragon’s Heart, seeing it as another way to heal Agondre. Because we have already established a relationship with Elys’, the GM will be able to use her to feed us rumors about that. Elys’, an elf who never sleeps, will actually have a dream. We’ve seen prophetic dreams once before.
The group, particularly Turok, is also trying to learn more about Turok’s sword, Kotara-Nar, which seems to be tied to the dragon Agondre somehow, even though Turok is from a distant land. Research will lead the group to the Gorge of Fire, where both the sword and the wielder must be tempered for the battles to come.
The party’s next adventures would do more than temper Kotara-Nar; they would temper the whole group and reveal a path forward.
