Revelation for RPGs: The Personal Lens
As important as what you reveal and how you reveal it is the specific lens you use. Some secrets are revealed through historical accounts, some through other characters in your world, some through scene-setting details or geography, and some by things that happen to the player-characters directly. In this article I’ll focus on this last category.
“Ok, we also need an emperor [to draw off Agondre’s sickness], but if all else fails I myself will stand in and take the damage until one can be found. I owe it to Agondre to do all I can to heal him, after all.” — Larissa, sorceror turned paladin
The sickening land has been left without an emperor to hold the disease at bay, since the vampire Garrett slew him and reclaimed his diseased dagger. The heroes have made a failed attack on Garrett; they know they will need to return, because the dagger is essential to healing the dragon Agondre and through him the land, but they are not ready yet. In the meantime, they have done what they can without the dagger to ease the dragon’s pain at least a little. It’s not working very well.
Larissa’s transformation from internally-focused sorceror to world-focused paladin has been developing slowly over game-months and real-years. The transformation event was when Agondre bestowed a magic sword on her and she found she knew how to use it. She interpreted this too as a gift from the dragon of the land, a dragon with whom she has a strong bond. As a nominal follower of a different god, but who could not dispute the god-like powers of Agondre, she tried to reconcile the two.
Almost all of that happened outside of the game sessions, in journal entries and letters between her and the priest from back home, in conversations with the GM and quite a bit of player introspection. As a GM you shouldn’t expect much of this to happen at the gaming table, and you might not see much of it at all, but if you’re open to the side conversations you might see results like these. Further, this gives you an opportunity to plant ideas without committing to anything in the game-world; you’re just talking with a player over a beer or commenting on a journal post or writing a letter from an NPC, after all. No commitments.
While the emperor’s death is known only to a few, his ongoing absence has been noticed by many. The battle for succession has begun, but all of the dukes — the logical claimants — have been falling ill. Just as the land and the emperor affect each other, so too does the disease in the land affect the other rulers. The party sees the fighting among the dukes, and also sees that none of them could withstand the secret part of the emperor’s job. They don’t know where an emperor will be found, but they’re starting to pick up…hints…from somewhere.
The group has learned that, to bring out the true power of the magic sword Kotara-Nar (Dragon’s Tooth), they must temper the sword in the Gorge of Fire. Following the dragon-geography pattern, the entrance is flanked by high cliffs with spiky tops, resembling teeth. There is a gap in the spikes where a large tooth should be, just as the dragon Agondre is missing a tooth.
Firestorms and geysers of lava are frequent occurrences in the gorge. Rolling firestorms every couple hours bring magical creatures that attack the group in all manner of ways. When killed the creatures disappear; they seem not to be entirely real, though the damage they deal is real enough. On the first day one of these creatures bows low to Larissa as it expires. Startled, she thinks it is just a fluke, until it happens again the next day. And again.
“Agondre gave me a sword, not a crown.” — Larissa
The magical attacks seem to adapt as the group makes its way through the gorge. One character remarks that it feels as if we’re being watched, and another says watched and tested. When we show an ability that helps in one fight, it becomes ineffective in the next. For three days of journeying through the Gorge of Fire the party must adapt, invent, and experiment. We feel even more challenged, though less doomed, than when we fought the vampire Garrett.
In coming here, group members left supportive companions behind. We knew that the Gorge of Fire would be, well, full of fire and heat needing magical protection, a place of great risk and challenge. Three of the four party members remaining (the wizard had by this time departed) had familiars or companions, all of whom stayed behind. This left us feeling vulnerable and in a sense incomplete — we were already feeling vulnerable even before the first firestorm. This meant that the GM could keep us on edge more easily.
At the end of the gorge the group comes to a “lavafall”, a stream of lava pouring down into a lake. Turok starts to dip Kotara-Nar into the lake, thinking this was what was called for, and gets a sense from the sword that more would be needed — he had to take the sword to the bottom of the lake. He dives in, and the group is attacked by several fire elementals. Turok is nearly killed (and uses the second of our three special healing items), but the group survives and is met by the guardians of the place, four salamanders.
The salamanders welcome the group as honored guests and announce that if the group could beat them in combat tomorrow, they would be allowed to ask the oracle about Kotara-Nar. After three days of being scorched, pelted by ash, and afflicted by magical and elemental forces while alone in the gorge, the group has finally found temporary relief.
The next day the battle takes place in a room that resembles a crucible. The salamanders are fierce, powerful opponents, and despite much preparation and strong magic, one by one the group members are forced to yield. A sense of gloom falls over the group — and over the salamanders, it seems. The group begs for a rematch — “give us a chance to learn from this and come back stronger” — and the salamanders eventually, grudgingly, consent. The meal that night is much less splendid and welcoming, and after the group retires the salamanders are heard arguing — “if they can’t even beat us they’re not fit for what is to come!”, one says, but another answers “our fires grow dim and if it is not these ones, there will be no others”. The urgency comes through loud and clear — we do not have time to waste in setting the land right…if we can do so at all.
It was important for the group to be allowed to fail; the GM didn’t fudge the fight. That failure made the matter all the more urgent and the players all the more invested. It was also important to have a way to recover, because there was a story to tell.
The next day they fight again, and the party is more effective this time. Their confidence is bolstered when the first of the salamanders is forced to yield — but then he attacks through treachery, shouting “they are not worthy!”, and is subdued by the other salamanders. Eventually the group is victorious, but we know the victory is incomplete — we’ve been helped by the rebellious salamander. As they lead us to the chamber of the oracle, that first salamander hisses — “her sacrifice better be worth it”.
The oracle is a woman made of fire in a lake of fire. She speaks in all languages at once, greeting Turok as “bearer of the Dragon’s Tooth, reborn in the Dragon’s Mouth”. The Gorge of Fire, she says, is not just to temper the sword but also to temper the wielders.
The oracle speaks of the history of Agondre and Kotara-Nar and the Dragon’s Heart, and of Weeping Wounds. Weeping Wounds got its power from the oracle too; Garrett had come there with the dagger long ago. Why, the group asks, had she helped in that evil venture? She could not judge, the oracle says; Garrett had reached her, had followed the rules, and had given of himself when he made his request, and so she had to. What was it that he gave up? His fame; he would never gain the glory he sought from slaying Agondre and the emperor. He agreed to the price but did not understand, it appeared to us. The oracle then asks Turok what he will give up for Kotara-Nar, and they have a conversation that none of the others can understand. When they finish, the oracle announces that she had to sacrifice herself to complete this task, and Kotara-Nar glows with a new magic while the oracle’s glow fades.
As the fire of the oracle slowly goes out, all present — heroes and salamanders — feel a great loss.
The oracle told us other things before she died. She told us that we needed both Weeping Wounds, the incarnation of Agondre’s disease, and the Dragon’s Heart, the means to end it. She said that the one who holds Weeping Wounds and heals Agondre is the rightful emperor, and that Weeping Wounds corrupts its bearer.
She told us who held the Dragon’s Heart — and the name was familiar to us from Turok’s tales of his homeland. It was then that we realized how much we did not know about our companion Turok.
Turok, meanwhile, had had a life-changing encounter in the chamber of the oracle. This was apparent to him immediately, and the rest of us would learn it before too much longer.
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