New order setting

[elijah-sabretooth]

in my group we have been heavingly discussing whether to set our campaign in MS 5000 or later after LW constitutes the New Order...

with the NO that would have been much simpler having the Dessi mage group with the Kai lord, the somlending knight and the brother of the cristal star during a festival at the Kai monaster...
BUT I do not really know how to deal with the darklands and its population.. are there still evil troops raiding the borders villages?
and are border towns still on alert and fortified? and how is the political situation of the Vassagonian country? and what about the Slovia and other south of the maakegorge country status??
and our Kai Lord would not have an expiration date printed on his back :wink:

we could very well need a new book dealing with it...

 

[DuskFox]

I can't speak in specifics, as my memory is a bit fuzzy, and some of my statements may be mistaken or slightly inaccurate--if anyone can rebut them, feel free to do so.

For the Darklands, there are still going to be Drakkarim and Giaks around to cause trouble, with Gourgaz, Kraan, Vordaks, and Helghasts supplementing that. There are still Agarashi in the Maakenmire, and those territories are all still shady and dark. There are probably still Xhagash and Nadziranim struggling for the scraps of power left, and other potent minions of Naar around to cause trouble in the Darklands. I would imagine the border towns are still fortified, but likely more for protective measures than an active defense against constant onslaughts and raids.

For Vassagonia, I was under the impression that the political situation had cooled some, but I can't recall where I read this. For Slovia and all that, I can't recall anything.

 

[KaiLord]

Though the Darklords are gone, their minions are not. In one NO adventure I'm putting together, the reclamation efforts into the eastern darklands are going well. But, there are forces stirring in the southern continent that want to try resurrecting one of the Darklords to lead them again.

The good thing about running a NO campaign is that history doesn't have to fit any moulds. There is no predestiny.

KL, plotting an assassination attempt in his current campaign

 

[DuskFox]

I've never been much of a believer in predestination in campaigns, anyhow. I figure the second your group steps on the scene, the world has diverged from canon, and control has passed to you. If you want to say that your group is the group with the last surviving Kai Lord, and you defeat the Darklords together as a team, go ahead. If you want to say that Lone Wolf started a new Kai Order somewhere in the Book 4 area and trained your character, go for it. If you want to do away with Lone Wolf, or say your character is also a surviving Kai Lord, well... cheers. You should use the canon timeline only as long as it suits your purposes and no further. After all, it's really about playing a good game, isn't it?

 

[KaiLord]

I think the motto of the gamebook more than applies to the RPG as well: "YOU are the hero."

As I told my group over at lwrpol, my job is to make fun, their job is to have fun.

KL

 

[elijah-sabretooth]

all that has been said is very correct.. but the Kai lord in the group is a hard core fan (so fun that I can't even surprise him with a disguised Helgast :S) so he would like to stick as much as possible to the canon...

 

[DuskFox]

Sticking with canon is okay to a point, but eventually the game just stops being about your group and starts being about some completely different NPC you’re not really allowed to associate with. It’s like playing a Star Wars campaign during the Rebellion era--either you have Luke, Han, and Leia, in which case they do all the truly important, galaxy-changing stuff, and you’re stuck playing support crew to an old sci-fi movie, or you diverge from canon and take some of the burden on your own shoulders, at which point… well, you become the heroes of the story, and you can actually do things that surprise your players because they no longer have a definite timeline of events to follow. It actually works really well with the hardcore fan types, because you’ve thrown them a curveball and they can’t rely on their store of book knowledge to anticipate all of your moves.

But hey, man--it’s your campaign. Run it your way, and toss every word of my advice if it doesn’t suit you.

 

[Elephant]

I've set my campaign in MS 4215. That way, there is plenty of room for the party to save Magnamund and frustrate the Darklords without stepping on Lone Wolf's toes

 

[Alasi]

Though the Darklords are gone, their minions are not. In one NO adventure I'm putting together, the reclamation efforts into the eastern darklands are going well. But, there are forces stirring in the southern continent that want to try resurrecting one of the Darklords to lead them again.

The good thing about running a NO campaign is that history doesn't have to fit any moulds. There is no predestiny.

KL, plotting an assassination attempt in his current campaign

I SEE THAT!!!!!