Part IV · The World

Building Your World

You build everything else with the same tools you used to make your character.

Everything’s built the same way: a few plain sentences, something it wants and a secret. Roll on the tables below, or just read down them for ideas. Factions get their own chapter (see Factions).

Regions

Start with three questions:

What holds it together, and what’s pulling it apart?
Who runs it, really?
What does a stranger notice first?

d12	The tension
1	Two powers circle the same prize.
2	Old money and new money despise each other.
3	A wound from a past disaster that never healed.
4	Prosperity built on something unmentioned.
5	The law and the people who keep order aren’t the same.
6	A resource running out.
7	An outside power buying the place up.
8	A truce one move from breaking.
9	Faith and authority pulling apart.
10	The people who built it are being pushed out.
11	A death no one has answered for.
12	It’s a refuge for people the world wants gone.

Places

d12	The complication
1	It belongs to someone who shouldn’t be crossed.
2	Two groups use it, never at the same time.
3	Something valuable is hidden here.
4	It’s watched.
5	It’s falling apart.
6	Getting in is easy, but leaving is the problem.
7	A rule everyone but you already knows.
8	Someone’s living here who shouldn’t be.
9	Built for one thing, used for another.
10	A door not opened in a long time.
11	The last people to come here didn’t come back.
12	The only place in the region where a certain thing is possible.

People

d12	What they want
1	To rise.
2	To protect someone.
3	To be free of a debt.
4	To be seen.
5	To get even.
6	To get out.
7	To possess one specific thing.
8	To atone.
9	To keep what they have.
10	To know the truth.
11	To serve a cause.
12	To get through the day intact.

d12	What they are hiding
1	They’re not who they say they are.
2	They’ve already betrayed someone.
3	They owe a dangerous person.
4	They know who really did it.
5	They’re afraid of someone at this table.
6	They want something they haven’t asked for.
7	They’re working for the other side.
8	They’ve done something they can’t take back.
9	They’re sick, cursed, or running out of time.
10	They love, or hate, someone they shouldn’t.
11	They have the thing everyone’s looking for.
12	They’re far more capable than they look, or far less.

Hooks

d20	The trouble
1	Someone the party knows asks for help, quietly.
2	A job is offered, with better pay than it should carry.
3	Something’s gone missing that should have been impossible to take.
4	A person turns up dead, or doesn’t turn up at all.
5	Two groups the party knows are about to come to blows.
6	A debt is called in at the worst possible time.
7	A stranger arrives with a warning, or a threat.
8	A place the party relied on is suddenly closed, seized, or gone.
9	An old enemy resurfaces, changed.
10	A secret the party is keeping starts to leak.
11	Someone offers to sell them something they shouldn’t have.
12	A festival, trial, or gathering pulls everyone into one place.
13	A rescue that has to happen tonight.
14	A message meant for someone else falls into their hands.
15	A powerful figure wants to meet, and won’t say why.
16	Something the party did in the past comes due.
17	A protection they were counting on fails.
18	A rival beats them to it first.
19	A disaster hits, and everyone wants someone to blame.
20	The thing they were told could never happen, happens.