The Little Game
Writing up this game is an exercise in minimalism. The players start the game as villagers in an extremely isolated area called the Village of the Vale. They will know almost nothing of the big wide world around them. I will write up very little before the players need it.
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The Little Game
What you know:
The Vale has 4 hamlets and a collection of 20 farmsteads surrounded by a forest. Gingal, Dandan, Kubelo, and Jenkins. Each has 5 to 10 buildings. There are about 500 people in the Vale and you know every single one of them, young and old.
The Vale is surrounded by forest on 3 sides with rolling hills and the beginning of a gorge to the south.
A Village called Belwing is to the south someplace. Some people have been there a few times during their lives. The Village of Blue Rock is to the northeast, farther away. Only a few people have been to it in their lives. The City and castle of Arrow is near Blue Rock and the Duke of Arrow lives there. The City and Castle of Redfoot is far to the south and the Duke of Redfoot lives there. Only the Village elders have been there and not in the last decade.
Traders travel between these villages and the city of Redfoot carry out what amounts to a modest exchanges of staples and a few luxury items. Redfoot has glass workers and the trade is practiced in Gingal as well. While fabric arts are common in village life rare fabrics like silk can sometime be found in Redfoot and is carried by traders.
Minstrals come through the vale on occasion and are met with eagerness and suspicion. They know many song and tales and somewhat about the outside world. But they also create tall tales.
None of the PCs will have left the vale.
Giant Spiders and Giant rats are common foes. The spiders are about the size of a pug. The rats often as large as a Chihuahua and fierce. Growing up Vale kids were encouraged to hunt and kill these pests, as well as regular rats. They are told not to fight wolves, but to tell adults if they see wolves. Legends of Koblolds and Orcs are the stuff of scary campfire tales but elders of the tribe assure the young they exist. Relis from some ancient battle adorn the walls of the Inn at Jenkins.
The Inn at Jenkins sometimes has visitors from Belwing or Blue Rock. It also often serves as a meeting place for the Vale Elders.
The game begins with a hunt for spiders.
Each player will begin with an extremely rural background. Farmer, woodsman, miller, innkeeper. Blacksmith. Hunter. One PC will be a Blacksmith’s son or apprentice. One will be an Innkeeper’s son or ward.
PCs will have been raised in a nature oriented religion with a sufficiently complicated theology they are only barely knowledgeable about. Consider it like knowing the holidays, marriage, death rituals, and little else. A class of nature priest similar to druids or friars travel among the land performing needed ceremonies. A PC might be an apprentice of such a person but would never have left the Vale.
PCs will have a personal knife, mostly an eating utensil, and a small collection of other items such as fire-starting kit. Salt & pepper bag. Ball of twine. There will be a few small bows. A skinning knife. PCs will have rural skills.
Everything else i have written up for this game fits on one side of one page. And one map, sections of which the PCs will get a bit at a time.
--- I am not sure what game system i will use. Probably a mixture Warlock and other mush. I will give players a copy of the "Game Book." I have a copy of Warlock as a doc file to clip from.
Skills: Players will start with some general rural skills and a few ones they were specially trained in depending on background.
Common: things nearly everyone has: fire starting, basic cooking, animal tending, farming, Practiced: trap setting, farm repair, Accomplished: tracking, hunting, animal rendering. Expert:
I will be using the distinctions of magic items, enchanted items, and crafted items
Magic items are extremely, almost impossible, to destroy. Enchanted items have a spell causing the magic and the it maintains its usual strength. Ie; a magic spear can be used to lever a large bolder from the ground easily. An enchanted spear can be broken like a normal spear.
Crafted items are made by experts and master craftsmen. Few crafted items will be better then +3. A common enchanted item, among the hedge wizards spells to cast will be a variety of Continual spells that create useful but very minor enchanted items such as fire stones, ice stones, chill stones, warming blankets, and the like.
There will be less then 1000 magic items on planet. The vast majority of these will be arrows, followed by +1 weapons and shields, then +2 weapons and shields.
Magic users and clerics.. True wizards and clerics will be extremely rare to start. True wizards and clerics rarely are found in humble rural places, but that's just a guideline. At the beginning of the game no wizard or evoking priest has been to the Vale in the lifetime of the oldest native. Most wizards and clerics will be found in cities.
Not all priests will be evoking priests. Certain to be a sore point amongst them.
Hedge wizards will be rare but well known and the Vale will have a couple. These practioners will be sort of a mixture of herbalists, midwife, alchemist, and charelton. At best a 3 level mage making his rural living. Most will have traveled to learn more heir trade but may inlist young children to collect local supplies. They may provide medical help.
Frairs are something akin to a parish priest, druid, and a monk. Well versed in nature lore, knowledgeable in stories and myths, they perform rituals, marriages, funerals, and blessings. The usually have medical skills.
