May

The next preview in our series for The Day After Ragnarok covers the four different campaign frameworks provided for playing in the world after Serpentfall.  Wolves Beyond the Border covers the traditional “freelance heroes” sort of campaign structure. Servants of the Crown provides a more mission-oriented style of play. The Phoenix and the Sword framework covers the “rebirth and rebuilding” type of series.  And finally, City of the Emerald Night is a more single-location based campaign framework. Each one is accompanied by a Savage Skeleton, which briefly lays out an example of a sequence of adventures that would make up the campaign type. Here’s a sneak-peek at one of the four frameworks!

Phoenix and the Sword

The “rebirth and rebuilding” campaign differs somewhat from the “Servants of the Crown.” The heroes are still consistently on one side, but it’s the side of recovery. They aren’t romantic barbarians striding past the gleaming battlements of Dayton, or pirates swooping down on a freighter full of looted temple furnishings. They may be U.S. Army Rangers defending Dayton from hordes of bandits, or crusaders avenging the looting of a temple whose gardens fed hungry refugees. Or they may be a pocket of heroes determined to take a stand somewhere that needs them, and take on all comers for it. They may be deputized by the Crown or the President or the Baptist Convention, or mercenaries carving out their own pocket empire on the fringes of a crumbling world. They may be one band of brave rebels throwing off the dead hand of Japan or Russia or Britain, or they may be true only to some personal vision of a better future. Heroes like this can still rove around, doing good and moving on in the morning, finding points of light in a dark world and brightening them. But it’s more likely, and often more satisfying, for the heroes to stay where they know they make a difference, and often call the shots.

This doesn’t have to be a campaign about hope. You can model a “Phoenix and the Sword” campaign on the classic Western—gunfighters building a civilization—and get plenty of pathos out of it as the new peace and safety makes the heroes unnecessary. After all, the greatest “rebuilding” story in the world ends in tragedy and destruction: Arthur brings a new era of peace and unity to Britain…until Camelot collapses in the new Dark Age.

The key to this campaign type is pacing. While the setting is important, so much of it will be built or co-created by the players over time that you can focus on the challenges they face. Some challenges might be internal—political or social opposition from the people they help, rival adventurers with their own goals for the future—but mostly the challenges are external. Keep the problems coming, from all directions, but mix in a sprinkling of reward moments—easy fights against someone who was pretty tough awhile back, connections with the people the heroes help, unexpected allies building their own town up in the next county. By such contrast, bring out the danger and sweat of the next crisis.

• Typical Heroes: Engineers, rebels, merchants, lawmen, scientists, gadgeteers, preachers, soldiers, champions, Mr. Fix-Its, scholars, frontiersmen, doctors, Mounties, bards.
• Well-Suited Locations: The Mayoralties, the Caribbean, Mexico, Canada, France, British Africa, India, Palestine, Pacific islands, the East Indies.
• Likely Settings: Frontier stockades, river crossings and bridges, abandoned university libraries, burned-over city neighborhoods, the new mill, potentially idyllic islands, monster dens inconveniently nearby, meeting halls, caravan routes and caravanseries, rough-hewn saloons, railheads, the wilderness around any of the above.
• Probable Opponents: Bandits, ghouls, the weather, rival mercenaries, troublemaking know-it-alls, Serpent cultists, panicky demagogues, plague, famine, barbarians, the all-too-local monsters, the hated British and other oppressors, shortages, hoarders, failing technology, migrating monsters, river-pirates, interfering officials from elsewhere, extortionists, and did I say bandits?
• Welcome Rewards: Survival, a decent harvest, a successful caravan, twenty dollars in gold, technical progress, a melting look from the schoolmarm, political power, getting to design your own flag, the next generation of humanity, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness.

Next: The Map, and a little art preview.

Atomic Overmind News, Savage Worlds, The Day After Ragnarok