The Pitch
A world in ruins, a great darkness that has washed across the land, the elder races gone - this is the legacy of mankind. Their only hope is the Light, a divine figure who will help them fight the darkness (called the Dread, the Living Darkness, the Great Enemy) by empowering individuals who act in just and right ways. The game is about a group of church-members as they set out to assist a priest in the town of Drake’s Dell and its outlying hamlets. The town lies deep in the Great Northern Forest - a seemingly endless sea of pine trees covering ten million square miles. The world is dark, gritty, and seemingly hopeless - except for the beacons of light, the church members can be that hope!
And Drake’s Dell needs all the hope it can get…
The Deciets of this world
- The Elves, Dwarves and Halflings of standard fantasy fare have gone, changed or died out. Vestiges remain, but in debased, inhuman forms.
- The Elves had a civil war that broke reality, unleashing a force called The Dread. This entity, this sheer darkness and force of will has begun a campaign to destroy humanity, and blot out the world by empowering monsters and destroying all that is good and just.
- The Light, or Lightbringer, is the holy messenger come down from the heavens to empower mortals to fight against the Living Darkness, this force called 'The Dread'. He ordained certain mortals to use his divine grace to help them in their task.
- The region is based on the remotest parts of the Anglo-Norman world, but without Serfs, knights and the like. Here, humanity clings on to existence against an environment doing its best to kill them off.
- There are different orders of followers of the Light, all with different purposes but one shared cause. The Sisters Militant are an order of warrior nuns who seek to protect the common people; the Bright Paladins are avengers of the Light, individuals who take an oath and seek to slay the darkest terrors of the Dread (think Trollslayers from Warhammer mixed with Paladins from D&D); Priests serve the people as moral compasses and sources of guidance; Clerics are like crusaders, bringing the light to where the darkness is the thickest.
Mood & Theme
With oppressively close woodland, perpetually enshadowed paths, and thin sunlight in the Autumn and Winter, the Great Northern Forest is a dark, gritty game, where the only hope is the hope the characters themselves forge. The setting is grimdark, but the heroes themselves are more Noblebright in mood.
The overall tone of the game harkens to a more heroic version of older Fantasy Roleplaying. Though the mechanics allow for a less cautious, more heroic approach, the combat is still deadly enough that meaningful fights will be tense.
Initial Hook
The heroes, for heroes they are, have been sent by the Bishop to strengthen one of the remote settlements as winter approaches. The settlement is Drake’s Dell, a large village/ small town nestled in the depths of the forest. For some reason, no reports from the settlement have reached the Bishop’s hands for the season of summer.
Who are the heroes?
The heroes are members of the church, or associates or employees of it. There are several traditions or organisations that have arisen in the two centuries since, each with their own scriptural connections to the Lightbringer.
The Sisters Militant
Men are not the only warriors that serve the Light against the Dread - and many women join the orders of the Sisters Militant. In these Convent Orders, women make oaths of service, duty, chastity, and poverty and in return are trained to become the holiest warriors of the Light.
There are many famous saints who have emerged from the Orders of the Sisters Militant, from the Saintly Beuatrix of Torham, who slew the Lich of the Empty Castle and saved the town from the wasting disease that the Lich had unleashed. St Marion can be considered to be the first of the order, protecting the Lightbringer after His Descent against the forces of Dread, and who gave her life more than once to save him (The Light gifted her the gift of resurrection while He was on the World). Even after the Light’s return to the Heavens, St Marion worked tirelessly until her death in her sleep at the age of 117.
Modern Sisters Militant are trained in their formative years. Most are fourth or fifth daughters of the middle classes, or else the troublesome children of nobility. The Order is used to ensure the virginity of teenage daughters more often than they might care to consider. After many years of theological tutoring and martial training, the Sisters Militant are sent to Convent Houses to serve communities as guardians against the Dread, or else as bodyguards to prominent women of important families, serving as Confessor as well as Protector.
The 'Bright Paladin' Tradition
The Dread, the Living Darkness, the Shadow; all names for evil. There are few who are willing to lay down their lives to halt such evil and live a life of purity. One small band of such men are the Bright Paladins, warriors who give their lives to be living witnesses of the Light for others. There are no formal orders for the Paladins. They have no rank, no military order, no common recruitment program. Instead, an individual needs only to find a Priest and swear the oath before them. If the Priest believes the oath, they induct the individual into the Illuminated through the Sacrament of Light-Giving, charge them with their own oath, and send them on their way.
Why would men make such an oath? Most have lost family, friends and loved ones to the Darkness, or else have committed terrible works and seek redemption in the service of Goodness. Tradition says that their lives before their oaths are erased and that they are simply blades to fight the darkness. Some, however, struggle to leave their old lives (and old habits) behind. Because of these few dubious individuals, other members of the Illuminated are wary of Paladins. The Sisters Militant consider the tradition of their induction something of a backward step, seeing themselves as the true warriors of the Light. The Priests of the Light might agree, were it not for the true heroism that many of the Paladins display.
The Priesthood of the Light
The followers of the Lightbringer were ordained just before His Ascension to the Heavens. Giving the followers of Light the protection of Faith, the Lightbringer also granted those Ordained in the correct way the ability to enact Sacraments in its name. These sacraments, sometimes thought of as Divine Spells, are one of their real strengths. Priests serve communities by performing sacraments that keep them in the Light. Baptism, Repentance, Marriage, Funeral Rites… the Priest oversees them all. Where others bring weapons to the service of the People of Light, the Priest instead brings the powers ordained to them by the Light itself - their spell-casting ability.
Priests are sworn to the service and mission of a regional Bishop who oversees the Faith in a region. There is not always agreement between bishops. The Bishops are drawn from the ranks of priests when the need arises, selected by the Light through potent dreams which Bishops who have remained true to their faith share.
The Appendix N
- The Early Christian Church and Catholic dogma are inspirations only for the flavour of the Lightbringer's church - This isn't an RPG about Christianity, its good or bad points, or anything like that. And more significantly, parts of the Bible have inspired ideas in the campaign, such as John 1:5 ("The light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it.") To reiterate, this isn't some form of RPG Christian propaganda - V:TM used the Bible as its inspiration for Vampiric myths, for example, and escaped such criticism.
- The works of Michael Moorrcock, especially the narrative tone of the Corum and Count Brass series (though who could discount Elric?) were formative in the game. THe setting is partly inspired by these works.
- The Games Workshop board game, Mordenheim, in tone, art and story, mesh well with the dark, gritty world in which the heroes are the only points of light.
- The BBC's first and second series of Robin of Sherwood, from way back in the 80s
- The Rules Cycolpedia and the entirety of the D&D B/X catalog - I orginally thought to run the game using the old Metzner version of D&D but instead opted for Tiny Dungeon 2e. The material in the book is still inspirational.
