Usurper: Claim to Power (Building a World)

Despite my attempts to ignore it, I've become fascinated by this indie RPG, "Usurper: Claim to Power".  I've already made a character, an outlaw scribe from a fallen family, seeking revenge, and this tells me a little about the place he's from, but what about the larger world?  Conveniently, Usurper has a "World Builder", which is what I'm going to go through here.

(Sukeribi's character creation, if you missed it.)

The first step is to roll up a few past events.  The dice give me:

• A Golden Age
• Exploration
• Power Struggles

For each of these, I randomly generate a few legendary individuals, and their ultimate fates.

• The Golden Age
• A hero defeated by an ancient evil
• An ancient evil, slain in battle
• Exploration
• A legendary craftsman, who died of natural causes.
• An inventor, killed by another legendary figure (so, I guess the craftsman?)
• Power Struggles
• A villain who still lives
• A hero, who still lives
• Another villain, who still lives

So, this is what I come up with:

The Golden Age was an age of peace and prosperity.  Kings were just, peasants were happy and hard-working, none went hungry, and the dark things were driven into their dark corners to quail before the light.  Or at least, that's what they say.  The Golden Age came to an end, however, with the arrival of Zenish, an ancient evil called up by dark forces to overthrow the daywalkers!  Things were looking bleak, when a blacksmith's son left home and grew into the mighty hero Gilmeshi, who led the armies of light against Zenish and the forces of darkness.  His army drove them back until Gilmeshi sacrificed himself at Zenish's reptilian claws in order to strike a blow that rent the Veridan Stone in twain, ruining Zenish's power such that the remaining armies of light were able to bring the vile dragon down!  The world would recover, but thus ended the Golden Age (though Gilmeshan is still a beloved holiday).

(See, I just made that stuff up based on what was rolled above.)

However, the power of the Veridan Stone, now loosed into the world made possible wonders previously unimagined!  With study and skill, unique artifacts of tremendous power could be created.  But so too, could less powerful and more plentiful clockwork wonders be created by burning the Veridan-infused "greenstone" to power them.  And so with these artifacts, the people traveled and sailed and even flew across the great flat world, discovering places and peoples previously unknown.  An age to rival the Golden Age had begun.

Plays and songs are still written about the tragic lovers, Rumos and Chulia.  He, a powerful crafter of Veridan artifacts.  She, a nearly mad, but brilliant inventor of greenstone devices.  He sought to provide stability to the world through powerful magics.  She longed for the equality that greenstone devices would bring to the common man.  He discovered that burning greenstone not only used up a finite resource, it also diminished the power of Veridan artifacts across the great flat world.  She accused him of wanting to keep the common man bound to powerful lords.  They fought, but eventually, she agreed with him, but she could not stop herself from inventing and sharing her designs, driven by her mad genius.  Eventually, tears in both of their eyes, he had to kill her to stop her.  It was not long after that he died of a broken heart.  Or so the story goes.  As it is, greenstone is still rare, and Veridan artifacts underpowered and unreliable.

(More made up stuff.)

As the clockwork wonders and powerful artifacts that kept the world in order began to fail, the fabric of society also began to unravel.  Kingdoms fell, and wars erupted everywhere.  To this day, warlords and would-be emperors struggle for power, seeking to fill the void left by the previous age.  Some of these power-seekers are:

• The Sun King (Villain)
• From a distant land, whose slowly growing empire is rumored to be coming this way!
• The Lady of Shadow (Hero?)
• Everywhere and nowhere, her network of thieves and assassins is blamed for nearly everything.
• The Gorgon (Villain)
• Not even human, it is said that his gaze can turn men to stone.

(So yeah, I'm just making this stuff up, but it's a lot easier with the prompt that the tables provide.)
Next comes the world map. I'm not going to draw a map here, though I could, and I'm not going to do the whole world.  I'm starting with a handful of regions, each about a week's travel across.  First, I roll for the dominant terrain, and then for any "Adventure Locations" in them:

• Wasteland
• Wasteland (wasteland-ception!)
• Magical area
• Plains
• Village
• Forest
• Lost mine (related to the Exploration event)
• Oh, wait!  Clearly, this is a lost (and valuable and dangerous) greenstone mine!
• Mountains
• Town

Broadly speaking, the wasteland is probably the site of some magical accident.  Maybe it's full of greenstone zombies or living spells.  The forest probably has elves, because forest.  The mountain town is the former home of Sukeribi (our protagonist from this entry), but currently he's in exile in the plains village (which I'll call "Esperu's Hope").  Villages (and cities and towns) have people, and people have factions, so we'll roll up a few, and their conflicts.

• City Government
• Has been forced underground by the opposition.
• Lead by former Headman Chefanu.
• Bandits
• Are allied with outsiders.
• Lead by self-proclaimed Bandit-King Shotelu.
• Also, there's the goblin chief, Ik-To.
• Church
• Suffers from internal corruption.
• Lead by Great-Mother Ina.

So, what does this even mean?  Ok, hear me out.  The bandits, allied with the goblins from the hills, have taken over the town.  The former rulers are still there, but no longer in power, however, they still meet in secret to try to figure out how to recover their village.  The church tries to maintain some semblance of decency, though a few of the clergy are doing their own thing.  Weirdly, despite being ruled by bandits and goblins, things mostly work.  People have tried to send word out to the regional governors for help, but either the messages aren't getting out, the goblins are killing off any adventurers who come looking for trouble, or the governors just don't care. (I guess taxes are still being paid.)

Exciting!

 Now we need some "contacts".  These are NPCs that can offer special services to the player characters.  Roll those dice!

• Social contact
• Terinku, the tavern-keeper.  He can get you in touch with just about anyone.
• Training contact
• Danzu, a quiet martial artist who keeps to himself, but knows many advanced techniques.
• Rare Items contact (Church)
• Great-Brother Ferati, whose trusted position allows him sometimes lend holy relics.
• Contraband contact (Church, Secretly Church)
• Great-Brother Buro, whose darker doctrine allows him to offer tinctures and poisons (for a price, of course).

Next, a quick roll to see what trade goods the town is known for:

• Lamp Oil
• I don't know.  They just have really good lamp oil here.

Religious Activity

• The Ancestors
• Compassionate
• Small temples
• Set life goals

The Temple of the Ancestors is one of the smaller religions in the region, worshiping "The Ancestor" who is an amalgamation of all of the disciple's ancestors, though it seems to have coherent agendas.  Whatever else it's after, it does want the best for its "grandchildren", and so it demands compassion and that disciples set firm life goals.

Whew!  So, that was pretty neat, and I bet I could play quite a few adventures off of just what I've come up with so far.  I might need a couple of extra deities, and a few more NPCs, but this stuff is gold!

So, I don't know what's next.  Maybe I'll try to come up with an adventure!

Another link to the game: Usurper: Claim to Power (Roleplaying Game)

Ĝis la revido!
C;E Jason "Ludanto" Smith