First Time RPG'r needs help fleshing out a back story
3Game: Blades In The Dark
Setting: Duskwall - A distopian, Victorian-ish land where it is eternally dusk, and ghosts do bad things to the living. Ghosts rise from their mortal coils three days after death and gradually change from themselves to whatever bad thing suits the DM whenever necessary.
The Party: We are a band of petty criminals. Criminal gangs are common/numerous. We are but one. Gangs vary in strength, size, and with whom they are affiliated. We recently ran into an old "frenemy" of mine, Lord Scurlock. Scurlock and I were equals/peers at one point, but his power/clout has grown rapidly and tremendously. This encounter won't be our last.
My Character: Wellesley Grambingston - A "whisperer" (i.e., wizard) who escaped a military academy for "orphans" after being kidnapped at a young age. His personal drive is to be reunited with his forgotten family and exact revenge on those that are responsible for his abduction and training/torture.
Here's the part of the back story I need help with...
I escaped the academy with a small group of other coming-of-age "orphans." The circumstances of our imprisonment and common goal of escape led us to be friends. Scurlock was among them. Sometime during or after the escape, two of these friends died - Nyrryx and Scurlock.
Oh, and for some reason, I am the one who killed Scurlock.
Nyrryx lived on by possessing a prostitute.
Scurlock went on to be vampire, taking the name Lord Scurlock, and is a pretty big deal in this crime-ridden town.
How did they die? Why is Nyrryx still my friend, but Scurlock my bitter rival?
Knock yourselves out... I'm just looking for ideas to literally bring to the table.
- 14 comments, 12 replies
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TL;DR: Why are two of my formerly live buddies now undead? Why does one hate me and one not?
Nyrryx got shanked in a brothel after beating the wrong folks with loaded dice. Was the prostitute in on it? idk but after being possessed said prostitute is definitely in on the story now.
@Lotsofgoats It could be a scheme/con that Wellesley(OP), Nyrryx, and Scurlock had together. Cheating a group of wealthy dangerous types in the brothel.
Con gone wrong, dudes find out they were cheating, Scurlock throws both under the bus and Nyrrux gets killed in the scuffle. Wellesley stabs Scurlock, but he ends up escaping, still wounded.
Nyrrux ends up possessing a prostitute, details on how they know how to do this to be worked out, should tie into their back story.
Wellesley assumes Scurlock is dead, but years later finds out he is still alive. Turns out there were a couple vampires hanging outside the brothel, looking to snatch up some low-life staggering out, someone nobody will miss.
Scurlock bursts out the door and runs straight into this group. With his pile of fresh winnings, he convinces them to convert him over. Since they weren't desperate and didn't dine on "road kill", they went on with it.
Scurlock sticks with this group and quickly gains power, eventually obtaining the lordship.
(rough draft / outlineish idea) the guards / Wardens ect tracked your escape. They manage to corner you Cave sounds good for that, a place that has been used for magic or maybe a sacred place, which ever works better for the world. you're injured getting there. Nyrryx and Scurlock get you to the back of the cave and then turn to defend them selves. they fight, Nyrryx is mortally injured and left for dead. Scurlock is injured and they try to take him back (insert method of becoming vampire here, maybe clan of adult vampires saw the whole thing and decide that their group would be easy pickings). Back in the cave you get to Nyrryx and basically he dies in your arms continuing your friendship and Scurlock blames you (stupidly of course) for his capture and eventually being turned into a vampire.
I hope you liked.
Let me make your involvement in Scurlock death a little more direct. you leave the cave taking any weapon you can find. you found the mess made by the vampire hunting party but don't realize what it is at the time, everyone id dead but Scurlock he know what happened but can't speak cause he's dying anyway and his throat is ripped up. you can see he begging you with his eye to end it, he doesn't want to be a vampire. but instead of cutting off his head which would have guaranteed his true death you drove a sword into his chest leaving him to awaken as a vampire
Scurlock... you didn't really kill him, you just left him for dead after a heist on rival territory gone wrong. That was mostly his fault anyway -- there's no place for a showboating thief. Following his capture, you just followed the code.
During his subsequent imprisonment, he was "fortunate" enough to contract vampirism. Rats are nice like that (and tasty, afterwards). When death is the only thing that will get you out of your cell, undeath provides a pretty nice element of surprise when you're being dragged off to the gutter.
During the escape, Nyrryx was possessed by another ghost that was overwhelmed with the feeling of life again, so it held its breath until it died. Now Nyryyxx is actually a ghost possessed by another ghost, who is possessing a human. But which is the real Nyryxyry?!?!
You don't like Scurlock because you're a wizard and wizards are racist.
Nyryx is actually Near.exe, and Scurlock is really Scurl.doc, and you are Wellesley Grambings.txt and you just escaped from C:\Users\Adolf Hitler\MilitaryAcademy\CorruptedDataDONOTOPEN. Near.exe got corrupted during the file transfer but he/she had some files in %AppData% that linger on. You tricked Scurl.doc into closing without saving, but MS Word had saved a recovery file, and now he returns as Scurl.docx.
You hate him because you're an installation wizard and you're cyber racist.
@Moose zip it
@Moose
Can't tell which cause stranger looks from people around me, this idea of yours, or the one where you kept on changing the spelling of Nyrryx...
Paging: @Starblind & @HELLOALICE
@Thumperchick HELLO WHO'S THERE HOW DO I USE THIS IT'S BEEPING
@HELLOALICE OHHAI! This thread seemed up your alley.
My comments aren't posting!!!
@HELLOALICE My comment posted!
OK @JerseyFrank what I need to know is: did you kill Scurlock by accident or on purpose? I'll come up with why, I just need to know that one thing.
@HELLOALICE That's part of the back story I'm trying to flesh out. I don't know if it's an accident or on purpose. Regardless, Scurlock holds me responsible. He's not friendly towards us, but he also didn't personally destroy us when he easily could have on our last adventure. Instead, he sent a goon that we summarily defeated. He retrieved the ghost of that dead goon and let us be.
There was a skirmish of some sort. You hit your head and remember nothing of what happened. You were left for dead, but rescued by a band of female thieves (does your world have more than one species) who stole boys to do their bidding.
Scurlock says you killed him, Nyryx says you didn't. The other guys did. But you don't remember. Nyryx helped you escape from your captors and remains your friend. Scurlock wants you dead.
Nyrryx died from an overdose from street heroin.
Scurlock sold it to him.
Nyrryx was trying to find inspiration to write his own songs and get his grunge/jazz-fusion Beatles tribute band to the top.
Scurlock swears he didn't know how strong the stuff was. You probably killed him because you were also Nyrryx, kind of like Fight Club.
The prostitute was a natural choice for possession since s/he was used to having dudes inside of her.
I appreciate almost all of the replies so far. @Moose, I've always approached RPGs with the same cynicism. I'm not convinced that I'm wrong, but I decided to give this one a fair play before I relegate them to one of the corners of nerdom that I don't visit.
@JerseyFrank I really wanna see where you take it, which is why I was pretty brief with my ledes
@Lotsofgoats Same here I tried to leave room for @JerseyFrank to make it his own so to speak. It was fun too
@JerseyFrank I'll keep y'all in the loop. Somewhat unique in this game is that your timeline is a little fluid. You start your mission without declaring any equipment... you just claim to have it with you. It's ok as long as it's plausible. If it's not plausible, you briefly tell a flashback story that justifies why your action/gear/etc., makes sense. It's in these moments where I'll be using these story beats to help with whatever problem comes up.
So there are a few more given facts I should/can share:
There are 4 escapees - Me, Nyrryx, Scurlock, and Flint.
Flint is now a spirit trafficker.
I've got another friend from outside this escapee group, Setarra, who is a demon.
I suck at hand weapons, fighting, etc.
The general story beats I'm keeping in my pocket for now:
@JerseyFrank Correction: There are 5 escapees. Quellyn is a witch and part of the crew. That makes it a 4v1 fight. You can riff on whatever you like with that.
for some reason, this whole thread reminded me of those logic matrix things we had to do in school. Scurlock was born in march, doesn't like fudge and only like A+ blood.
are you sure there's no Tara character?