Category Archives: Setting

The Sword of Destiny Cuts Both Ways

Saving this classic blog post from Walter Jon Williams because it needs to be preserved. Fantasy GMs and designers, take note.

Chosen Ones

I’ve had it with Chosen Ones. You know, the people we are told by the wise old wizard or some other Explicator of Plot who “are Chosen to save the world/kill the Dark Lord/become king/bring balance to the Force/whatever.”

Who the hell is it who does the Choosing, here? Lazy writers, that’s who.

Listen up, writers. Two things happen when I’m told that a person is Destined to accomplish something.

First, it removes all suspense. Because the character is Destined, you know the character’s going to succeed. Big yawn.

Second, it just makes me want to yell at the character, “Get on with it, won’t you? Don’t futz around for thirteen episodes, go kill the evil usurper and make yourself king. After all, you’re Chosen. It’s your damned job.”

Writers, if you’re going to give your characters a Destiny, at least give them one that isn’t so straightforward. Something like these:

Your character is Destined to fight a long rear-guard action against evil, until she makes a mistake or gets unlucky, and then she dies. (That would be Buffy the Vampire Slayer.)

Your character is Destined to defeat the enemy, but will then be despised forever because of the means necessary to achieve that victory. (Ender’s Game)

Your character is Chosen to defeat the evil monster, but will die in the attempt; and without his leadership, his kingdom will fall. (Beowulf. Heard of the Geats lately?)

Your character is Chosen to wield the most powerful magic in the universe, but is also Destined to use it to destroy the world. PS, no exceptions. (The Wheel of Time)

Writers, what these examples do is add irony, which is a vital component of successful literature. They also open the story to at least the possibility of tragedy, which you really want. If a tragic ending isn’t possible, and demonstrated to be possible (kill Boromir!), the eucatastrophe or happy ending will have no power.

Give me Destiny if you must, but also give me Doom.

Workshop

Plot hook: the PCs are hired by a wizard to capture and deliver an ever-weirder list of wildlife and magical constructs. Over time, they learn what he’s using all of these critters for. They’re parts sources. The wizard is a fleshcrafter, taking contracts from other wizards or eccentric wealthy nobles to create the hybrid pets and guardians of their dreams.

He calls his business Build-an-Owlbear.

(Alternate title for extra horror if the PCs are being asked to abduct goblinoids: Build-a-Bugbear.)

J. Edgar Hoover Is Off His Meds

Campaign pitch for… something. Spycraft, probably.

It is the late 1960s.  Oleg Kalugin, KGB chief of station for Washington, D.C., has somehow managed to convince the State Department and the KGB to allow him to take a vacation in the United States.  He and his wife and daughter will be driving to Florida, discreetly tailed escorted by FBI counter-intelligence agents.

Unfortunately, J. Edgar Hoover has decided this is the perfect opportunity to abduct and interrogate a senior KGB officer.

You are CIA operatives.  Your superiors are aware of Hoover’s intentions and are terrified of the covert war that such an act would assuredly ignite.  Your mission is to protect Kalugin without his knowledge, ensuring that his vacation is uninterrupted and he returns safely to Washington.  Good luck!

OPFOR of the Five Pillars: The Salvage Dragons

I originally posted this to the CGL Battletech forum in November 2024.

The year was 2991 and Hauptmann Reinhard Yamazaki was incandescent with long-suppressed rage.  Despite continuing a family history of unflinchingly loyal service to the Lyran Commonwealth, and demonstrating superior tactical acumen in the cockpit of his family’s salvaged Panther, the New Kyoto native had been subject to the full spectrum of prejudice during his time in the LCAF.  Upon being posted to the 3rd Lyran Regulars, Yamazaki was informed that the unit had no company command slots – but the regiment would graciously allow him to prove himself at the head of a recon lance.

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Shield Wall: Smart Meat Weapon Systems

Originally posted to the CGL Battletech forums in 2018.

SOLARIS CITY, Solaris VII, April 10, 3062 – Even though I know the attack is imminent, it’s a shock when it comes.  I have no warning.  One moment, I’m anonymous in a crowd of revelers on Montenegro’s Amethyst Strip; the next, the crowd is scattering as a wiry man in red leather lunges for me with a knife.  I’m paralyzed by shock, seeing only the glow of neon on the blade as it plunges toward my heart.

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Ur-Shulgi

I was recently reminded of this snippet of material that was cut from the revised edition of Clanbook: Assamite for lack of space. While not canonical World of Darkness setting material, it has a special spot in the cold, shriveled place where my heart should be.

Return-Path: localuser@sb50-a7.black-veil.il
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1998 01:11:34 +0200
From: Anonymous anonymous@black-veil.il
Reply-To: anonymous@black-veil.il
Organization: none
X-Accept-Language: en
To:
Subject: [BROKEN STONE] 308A

I had the right authentication and your PGP keys. Here is where I establish my bona fides as a daughter of Haqim, not as a piece of technology. My name is Sarah Schneier and I hold the Seat of Copper and Lightning in the Council of Scrolls, and yes, this is important enough to require me to expose myself.
Alpha passed the order down for me to get the word out to all cells. You have to know what’s on the Throne.

On 08 November, we opened the Vault of the Pillars. The records there confirmed our suspicions as to the identity and nature of the new Eldest.

You already know about the Baali Wars, and about the Second City, and the parables of how the Ancestor made the warriors to serve as the world’s first police, and how the sorcerers were made as demon hunters because the Ancestor did not trust Saulot.

The problem, at least before the sorcerers came along, was that the Baali and all their cultist followers were too disorganized for the warriors and the first sorcerers to strike at. It was like trying to fight a swarm of wasps. So the Ancestor gave them something to unify them. He found someone who was born with a soul already destined for corruption — a ten-year-old shepherd — and Embraced that child. Then Haqim took his childe to the pit that Saulot said had spawned the Baali and he threw that shepherd into it. And the blood of the Ancestor and the power of that soul turned that child into the leader that the Baali needed.

When the Baali assaulted the Second City en masse, the Ancestor was off on one of his mysterious disappearances. He made it back just in time to stop his childe and tear the demon out of the body that it rode, and when the battle was over he claimed that he had found the child dying on the battlefield and the Embrace was the only way to save that innocent victim. Then he watched the child to make sure that it was safe to have around.

I guess he did not watch long enough. Some sort of spiritual seed stayed in the child, and that soul was never truly clean anyway, no matter what the Ancestor did. And it woke up last year, and now it is the Eldest. It is not Baali, and it is not possessed, and we do not think it is not working with or for anything infernal, but it is a case where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and it is not one of Haqim’s Children any more, not really. It is something more, and it is something less.

Every scroll and tablet we found in the Vault of the Pillars, every test we can perform without arousing its suspicion, everything we have points to ur-Shulgi as that child. It is close enough to 100% certainty that Alpha ord

Power out, generators are up. It knows already, and it’s moving. File attachments have all data that is in our hands as of tonight, and the mirror sites will contain it for download as long as they stay up. You have all that we have. Use it.

Go with God, and may He be mer^S^Csend^Cquit

Hot Extraction

This one’s for MechWarrior:

It’s December 2766. All of the PCs, for whatever reason and whatever their origins, are on Terra over the traditional holiday season. On the morning of the 27th, they’re all at a diplomatic function (or on duty, or waking up hung over…) in Unity City. That’s when the shooting starts… and they find themselves the only protagonists standing between Stefan Amaris’ coup and Helena Cameron.

This campaign would be heavy on action-espionage and outright military action as the PCs try to get a Cameron heir off world, out of the Sol system, and to something resembling safety. Depending on the mix of PCs, both character-scale and wargame-scale conflict could be feasible.

Clearing the Air: The Skysweepers

Originally posted to the CGL Battletech forums in 2021.

Early in his training, Count Prasad Wickham realized he possessed two qualities that would be most unbecoming in a MechWarrior of the AFFS: total ineptitude for piloting and extreme physical cowardice.  His saving grace, however, was an equally strong aptitude for gunnery, honed by a youth spent winning sport hunting championships across New Ivaarsen.  Providentially, his ancestral ‘Mech was a Rifleman, which suggested a certain path toward safety without the appearance of dishonorable behavior…

Upon earning his spurs and being posted to the 1st New Ivaarsen Chasseurs, then-Sergeant Wickham was to be assigned to a line company’s fire lance.  He leveraged his family connections to  instead attach himself to the regimental command lance as a supernumerary.  The pretext was that this posting would enable him to learn leadership from Marshal Nicholas Stephenson while providing additional anti-air protection to the headquarters.  Stephenson seemingly accepted this at face value – then promptly began using Wickham as an additional aide-de-camp, tripling the young nobleman’s workload as an unspoken message that he’d seen through the subterfuge.

Not willing to risk reassignment to front-line combat, Wickham grimly suffered through his “learning experiences” until Operation Rat.  During the New Hessen offensive, he received his first taste of combat when a Capellan conventional fighter wing broke through the Chasseurs’ aerospace cover for a bombing raid on the regiment’s landing zone.  Wickham accounted for five fighter kills in as many minutes, breaking the Capellan strike before it could incinerate the regiment’s supplies.  Subsequent similar engagements on Alrescha and Yangtze proved that regardless of Wickham’s personal character, he actually was a superb air defense marksman.

On Hamal, Wickham’s luck in avoiding the front lines ran out when a scout company from the planetary militia caught the regimental headquarters in movement between positions.  BattleROMs of Wickham’s Rifleman ponderously attempting to flee from light ‘Mechs a third of its mass quickly made the rounds, forever stifling the man’s chances of further respect, let alone promotion, within the AFFS.  At the campaign’s conclusion, Wickham quietly resigned from the AFFS.  He then encountered a new problem: an obscure clause in his patent of nobility required him to maintain active MechWarrior status to hold his title and ownership of his Mech.  The framers had neglected, however, to require this status to be within the AFFS…

Wickham quickly announced that he was forming a new mercenary command.  Drawing on his demonstrated expertise (and expending no small amount of influence to bury the scandalous BattleROMs), he positioned this unit as an air defense specialist formation.  Not coincidentally, this enabled him – or, rather, his lawyers – to contractually limit the conditions under which the unit could be ordered into combat.

Wickham had intended to form an unhireable mercenary lance which would serve as a legal fiction for maintaining his title.  He was astonished to receive over two dozen applications from across the Suns and the Lyran Commonwealth, mostly fellow Rifleman and JagerMech owners who saw such a unit as a chance to preserve their own vulnerable ‘Mechs and their attendant social status.  This was, if not a chance at redemption, at least an unforeseen opportunity for prestige.  Despite his best efforts, Wickham had actually learned a fair amount about both martial leadership and unit management during his years at Marshal Stephenson’s side.  The unit’s resulting success was as much of a surprise to Wickham as it was to his many detractors within the AFFS. 

Today, the Skysweepers are a battalion-strength combined arms unit.  The full battalion has never taken a contract.  Instead, contracts attach individual companies or even lances to larger commands which need supplemental air defense capability.  Contracts still strictly limit the conditions under which commanders can order Skysweepers detachments into direct ground combat.  Few Skysweepers MechWarriors chafe under these restrictions, as they tend to join the unit because of its specialization.

To emphasize the Skysweepers’ unique role, Wickham styles his top-level formations as batteries rather than companies.  Each is a mixed force, with two BattleMech lances and a third lance of Partisan SPAA.  Over half the unit’s ‘Mechs are Riflemen and JagerMechs.  The unit’s sole assault ‘Mech is a Longbow, with a pair of Orions and an Archer rounding out the heavies.  The remainder, collected in Battery C for contracts requiring better mobility, are Hatchetmen, Blackjacks, and Valkyries.

One other asset not appearing on the Skysweepers’ combat TO&E is Company D.  This is a pool of techs, coolant trucks, and ammunition carriers which Wickham attaches as needed to deployed units.  This provides vastly-increased endurance to ‘Mechs and Partisans operating from fixed positions, allowing near-continuous fire in the face of sustained air attack.  Company D’s most recent addition is a trio of former fighter pilots, all medically retired, who can serve as liaison officers to a host unit’s own aerospace assets, hopefully reducing the chance of friendly fire.

GM Notes

Like my other units posted here, The Skysweepers are more of a niche concept and plot device than a viable unit for actual play.  This entry doesn’t give a specific date for the unit profile but my assumption is the late 3030s.  The Skysweepers will likely be around through the 3040s and vanish in the inferno of the Clan Invasion before they can invest in Ultra and LB-X upgrades.

As indicated in the main text, Skysweepers detachments will typically be encountered in defensive roles.  This isn’t to say they’re assigned only to defensive contracts, though.  As their founder demonstrated in Operation Rat, offensives need AAA cover too.  They typically protect regimental or RCT headquarters units, drop ports, logistics hubs, convoys, and other targets that might attract ASF, atmospheric fighter, or VTOL attacks.  They’re rarely assigned to cover front-line units, a contractual limit that is likely to cause constant friction with those units – especially if they sustain losses from air strikes.

The TO&E isn’t actually that interesting, so I haven’t spelled it out in great detail.  At the GM’s discretion, the Skysweepers may have a cozy relationship with Kallon, Bane of All That Flies.  In this case, they could be early recipients of prototype Rifleman, JagerMech, or Partisan upgrades in the 3040s if it’s appropriate for a scenario or story.

Skysweepers MechWarriors tend to align with Wickham’s skill set: mediocre pilots but excellent gunners.  Particularly in the unit’s founding years, everyone who joined up did so because they enjoyed the social status of being MechWarriors but didn’t want to risk their lives (or Dispossession) in front-line combat.  In some cases, this was cowardice; in others, somewhat-realistic recognition of the limits of Kallon’s designs outside their intended niche.  As production increases throughout the 3030s and 3040s and the social distinction of owning a ride implicitly lessens, these personalities will be increasingly out of touch with the Inner Sphere’s mainstream noble and martial culture.

Binary Crossover

This one’s a campaign concept for VSCA’s Diaspora:

In Diaspora, interstellar travel relies on direct jump routes between stars. Each star system’s zenith and nadir points have slipknots, points of odd physics that link to one or more other star systems via slipstream connections. The catch is that, because of a (presumed) galaxy-wide catastrophe of unknown origin, connected star systems are isolated in archipelagos of four to eight. Travel is only possible within these clusters. (As part of Session Zero, each player gets to design one of those star systems, which is a lovely collaborative setting creation element.)

In the cluster in which the game takes place, one of the star systems is one star of a binary. The highest-tech world in the cluster has just developed a ship capable of crossing the (relatively) short interstellar space to the binary’s partner. What’s there? Does the binary partner have slipknot connections to another cluster?

(Obviously, yes, there is a slipknot whose connections are part of another cluster, and this would be an interstellar exploration/first [re]contact game.)