For Clayton,
There was a phrase uttered at the table two weeks ago that has been haunting me. So much so, that I'm going to try and blog it out into something people might want to use in their game.
The "Man" in the Cold Iron Mask
So, there's the phrase...and you can see how it kept niggling at me. Poking my brain with lots of little questions...that you can answer and use in your game.
Let's break it down. You've got some good ingredients here: musketeer-era politics, a mysterious prisoner, and a really kind of striking artifact. Let's tinker with them and try to get something for your home game.
Prisoner #24601 is... (d6)
1. A servant who was imprisoned with his VIP master and now can not leave...
2. A scheming, bisexual, minor noble from court who has embarrassed the King...
3. A non-person who was invented by the prison administrator to make himself seem more important...
4. The king's brother from another, but also French-royal, father...
5. The king's identical twin brother...
6. An assassin hired by a highly-placed government official who failed to kill his target...
but really...let's weird that up now. (d6)
1. who is also Reynard, the trickster fox spirit...
2. who is also Morgan LeFay / Oberon / The Merrovingian Heir / Cernunnos...
3. who is also the were-beast of Gévaudan...
4. who is also a "theological" demon from this list...
5. who is also the actual King, who's been secretly replaced...
6. who is also the dragon who once ruled this land long before the advent of men...
Whats with the mask?
The mask is not as interesting unless it is iconic and invariable. It is a face covering and head piece that has been hammered from a single piece of meteoric iron. The mask simultaneously keeps the prisoner's identity a mystery and prevents the prisoner from expressing a True Nature. To the naked eye at least, the mask should appear to be made of some crudely-shaped and maybe lumpy metal. If the Actual King is in the mask, then the mask should draw on his memories, or life-force, or aura to send power to the villain who is impersonating him.
The next time your players are in the Bastille, or any old, weird dungeon you can have them run into someone like this instead of a regular monster encounter. How long has this person been here? What's been keeping them alive? How hard is it to get the mask off? I don't know, but it could be fun to find out.
>B
I tried to keep the flavor of the above options related to French folklore, but there's no reason beyond that.
So, how would you 'weird it up' if you rolled a 3 and discovered this was a non-person? Oh, wait, I guess "non-person" could mean, "the administrator makes some poor sap wear this Iron Mask for the sake of said administrator's career", but it just so happened that his choice of poor sap was...poor. Good stuff!
ReplyDeleteYes. The idea is to use the strange, not-quite sensible combinations of the six actual theories with the six 'weird' proposals to spur you to an interesting and improbably fun choice as the outcome. The questions that arise from say...2 and 6 combined could lead you to create an interesting encounter for players...or just give you a piece of history that PC's may never know. I would advocate using table #1 as 'the way the prisoner is identified officially' ... on the books, the grasping bisexual minor noble who killed a commoner in a drunken dual after allegedly conducting a black mass with some other fops is "housed" in cell X...but the prisoner in cell X is really someone in an odd metal helmet.
ReplyDeleteIn this case, the PC's could be hired to "spring" someone prison and come out the other side with Terrasque the Terrible...an ancient force who's been the responsibility of the King's jail since the founding of the kingdom. Maybe he's angry, maybe he owes the PC's a favor now...thats for a GM to decide. The odd matches spur creative problem solving which is what you need for 'conspiratorial' thinking.
Also, thanks for commenting...you're an awesome partner. =)
Oh, I see. So the identities in the first list might not even be 'real'...that sounded stupid, because of course given the identities in the second list, the first list is not one of "real" identities.
ReplyDeleteI mean, the first list might be construed as ways the prisoner is officially identified? But wait, I thought the point was that he was not identified in any official capacity? I think I like better the idea that the first list is what the prison administrator (and the person from whom he takes commands) *thinks* he's got under mask and key...
And yes, we're having this conversation while sitting next to each other. =)
I find a little ambiguity in these sorts of endeavors to be more liberating than a giant litany of information. DIY gamers want ideas...lots and lots of ideas. They don't want novels...at least *I* want ideas, and not novels.
ReplyDeleteRight-O, partner - I like it. Let the table decide!
ReplyDelete