Hopefully so far, you’re enjoying the start to our Traveller game run by George! We plan to do some GM swapping down the road, and with all the fun I’ve been having on DB…its got me in a crazy MTG lore mood. So here we go, I wanna start this column off with a bit of ‘crazy-person’ work I’ve been doing in preparation for my game.

I’m not sure how many of you are familiar with the DragonAge RPG. Its from Green Ronin, and is based off the popular videogame from Bioware.

I didn’t know much about the game OR the system, but I had a few friends that LOVED the ‘Origins’ game, and I’m a sucker for new shiny games…so I picked up the first set, as well as the GM kit/screen. It uses the “AGE” system as the dice of choice. 3d6 in place of the classic d20, but has a really cool “dragon die” and “stunt” mechanic that I can’t wait to try out!

Ha! This isn’t a game review, I swear! My main point is that I mean to USE the DragonAge RPG as the system for the MTG RPG I plan to run for the Gend20 guys.

The gist of character creation in DragonAge is: 1) Pick a background, get ability focuses from that background. 2) Roll twice on your background list for 2 extra increases and 3) Choose a class.

My plan was to keep the same number of backgrounds as the core rulebook for balance reasons, and add as much Innistrad flavor as possible. I decided on Innistrad because I liked the darker Victorian tone for DragonAge (whose tagline is Dark Fantasy Roleplaying) and the set has some cool quirks that I thought would be refreshing. So heres my background list:

• Kessig Hillsman
• Havengul Seafarer
• Thraben Freeman
• Settler of Estwald
• Stensian Herdsman
• Mage of the Five Colors (Jade, Alabaster, Crimson, Azure, Onyx)
• Renegade Sorcerer

Renegade Sorcerer is something I came up with…basically a caster who chooses NO affiliation, pulling mana from any source. All the other colors despise these casters, and will go to great lengths to see to their deaths. It has even been said that Onyx and Alabaster would take pause to deal with a Sorcerer. For added flavor, my card quote would be something like:

“You say they make NO choice in their allegiances? Oh but they have…they have chosen to be OUR enemy.” – Jace Beleren

I’ll post the first background I’ve completed to let you take a look at it. I made a strong effort to design the charts and layouts to look just like the official ones. Here we go, Kessig Hillsman:

What kinds of pics would be fun to see? I can try and make it happen next time if there is an interest in specific things.

george experiences bullettime

george mocks bob

john poisons everyone

bob cant decide

bob listens "intently"

angrybob rages

Age: 34

Race: Human

Home world: Forine, Spinward Marches – Dragan Belt- District 268 Subsector

Careers: Scavenger Rank 1 – Pirate Rank 3

Career Narrative:

John began his career as a scavenger, roaming the garbage depots for cpu processor scrap around the highly populated Forine system. He joined up with a small salvage crew and enjoyed some early success on the ship before hitting his big break. (GOOD FORTUNE ROLL) Upon delivering a lucrative cargo of data chips and wiring to a shady cartel representative…the deal inevitably went bad. The contact had setup an ambush, and the crew found themselves with half a dozen slug rifles pointed their way. John sprang in to action and kicked over a chem canister that split and reacted violently with the air, causing a bright flash…blinding the goons. John grabbed his boot knife and put it to the contact’s neck…goons laid down their weapons and the crew loaded back up the cargo AND grabbed the credits (just for the trouble). Been called “Aurora Jack” ever since. The ship ransomed the shady contact at the next spaceport and never looked back.

Jack and some of his former crew-mates started up a small smuggling business of their own on a fine ship named “The three-legged goat” (or simply The Goat). As cred payoffs and danger got higher, the crew started getting more ‘aggressive’ in their perusal of trade goods. Jack knew what it was like to have nothing, so he voiced his concerns that the ship should leave the ‘honest’ cargos alone. Stick to robbing other crooks (BETRAYAL ROLL) “Leave the real crime to those damn imperial nobles!”

The crew didn’t like it, and at the order of Capt. Windsor, the next checkpoint Jack was left out to dry…unconscious, and planted with stolen imperial ship manifests. (LIFE EVENT) Jack avoided hard time on a prison colony through the intervention of the Scoundrel “Tenebrae Omega” (called him “Ex0”) and the two became friends. Tenebrae intercepted some correspondence that hinted his capture was inevitable so he sent his protégé, Jack on a month long recon job on Dallimer 5. After the time was up…no ship was there to pick Jack up…just a light-hearted letter from his mentor explaining that he may be “gone a while,” and the combo to a locker with half a dozen ship shares on a data pad and 50K credits.

Major Events:
Good Fortune: Something good happens to the character; he comes into money unexpectedly, has a lifelong dream come true, gets a book published or has some other stroke of good fortune.

Betrayal: The character is betrayed in some fashion by a friend. If you have any Contacts or Allies, convert one into a Rival or Enemy. Otherwise, gain a Rival or an Enemy.

Life Event: A crime lord considers you his protégé.

Age: Not as old as Rich Garden

Race: Human

Home World: Litus Aequor, the 2nd moon of Cair Napas

Careers: Navy – Engineer, Line/Crew, Pilot Merchant – Free Trader

Dirth grew up with a love of the sea and the lifestyle he associated with it. Born the son of a mechanic on Litus Aequor, Dirth served wealthy dignitaries and traders from across the galaxy, who came to witness the “breathable oceans” of Cair Napas. Litus Aequor served as a glorified gas station / parking lot for the never-ending swarm of tourists and sightseers. The moon’s low orbit allows space elevators (beanstocks) to transport visitors on and off of the planet. Litus Luxuria, the 1st moon of Cair Napas, is the home of the profiteers (or at least their descendants), who commercialized the planet into a vacation destination. Litus Luxuria’s irregular orbit prohibits the use of beanstocks, so they also use Litus Aequor as a layover on the trip to the planets surface. The inevitable class system created by this situation left Dirth resenting his lot in life and looking for a way out. His experience working with his father gave him the footing he needed to enlist as an Engineer in the Imperial Navy. Dirth excelled as a mechanic and was assigned as the personal mechanic for Admiral Highfalooting’s shuttle craft. The admiral took a liking to Dirth and offered to rubber stamp his way into the officer corps. Having grown up with a dualistic envy and repulsion to privilege, Dirth declined, preferring to pave his path based on his own merits.

Dirth transferred to the line crew of a Navy salvage freighter, where he met Aaron Emerson the third. Aaron’s father owned multiple private cargo ships, but enlisted Aaron in the Navy to learn the ropes before taking over the family business. After working the crew for four years, the pilot of the freighter retired and both Dirth and Aaron applied for the position. Dirth received the transfer and was pilot of the salvage freighter for the next two years. With the continuing pressures of his career mounting, Dirth started to find his release through recreational SPACE drugs. On a particularly disastrous evening, Dirth and two other crew members took a hit of a new experimental drug called “vapor lock.” Whether misprocessed or just too potent for human consumption, both crew members died and Dirth suffered partial paralysis on the right side of his body. Unable to perform the duties assigned and embroiled in the scandal, Dirth was discharged from the Navy. He returned home to heal, but struggled to adapt without the fine motor skills needed to continue work as a mechanic. Serving as the customer service side of his father’s shop, Dirth came to realize the unique opportunity Litus Aequor provided, as the primary entrance and exit to Cair Napas. Dirth began bartering with visitors for products plentiful on their homeworld, but rare in other sectors. It started simply with the products and supplies the visitors brought with them, but Dirth leveraged the contacts into a profitable drop-shipping company, specializing in custom and native products from across the universe. On his way to broker an exclusivity contract with one of his distant suppliers, Dirth made contact with a heretofor unknown alien race known as the Vanta Ki (or VK’s as Dirth calls them). He spent three months on their home world, discovering the intricacies of their culture. The other major discovery on the planet was the chemical composition XNBR, a bonding compound with off-the-chart tensile strength.

The landlords on Litus Luxuria began to take note of the exceptional volume of business Dirth was running through his shop and imposed a variable renter’s agreement entitling them to 60% of the gross revenues from the occupying tenant. Unwilling to yield to the oppressive socialites, Dirth negotiated a deal to pay 10 times the property value for a property on Litus Aequor. No inhabitant of the moon had ever owned their own real estate. In order to raise the money, Dirth took his entire life savings and purchased a massive shipment of XNBR from the VK’s. The aliens didn’t have sufficient cargo space in their fleet of ships for the enormous shipment, so Dirth hired a jumbo cargo tanker to move the shipment, contracting out with Aaron Emerson, who he had originally met in the Navy. Aaron had multiple excuses for delays in the transporting of the shipment, but continued to ensure Dirth that everything was being taken care of. With pressure from the seller to complete the real estate transaction and numerous customers angrily awaiting their pre-ordered XNBR, Aaron cut off communication altogether. Dirth contacted his alien abductor to try to pass along a message to Aaron, only to discover that the shipment had been sent weeks ago…on the originally planned date. With his savings lost and numerous creditors breathing now his neck, Dirth stowed away in a ship headed for (WHEREEVER IS CONVENIENT) to try to track down Aaron Emerson the third.

Oh and next time I’ll make sure to put Nick closer to the mic.  Everyone else shouts as a matter of course.  :D

~George

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