The Royal Party Crashers (Medieval Fantasy) - Interest/World Building

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Royal Party Crashers interest thread!

The Idea I have for this RP is that you're all Nobles and Guards attending a Royal Celebration of the Good King and Queen's 35th year rule. The King and Queen have ruled over a Golden Era and are beloved by the people and lords alike.

Sounds easy and uneventful, right? Well, it would be, if half of the Nobles and Guards (AKA, the ones you will play as) didn't have ulterior motives. Many of the Nobles aren't actually the Nobles they are, but either Assassins, Rebels, Thieves or worse trying to steal from the King, kill their specific targets or take over the Kingdom. Many of the Nobles and Guards are still loyal, and will gladly defend their King and Queen from any attack. Fortunately for you, there will be plenty of opportunities to do your specific jobs. As long as you play your cards right, and bide your time, you'll succeed...

Basically, it's going to be a Mix of Dungeons And Dragons with the Russian parlor game Mafia (Or, if you want a better version, The Werewolves Of Millers Hollow). I have almost all of the basics set up (Specifically, a poorly drawn map). The only thing is I don't have a world set up beyond this Kingdom. So, if you want to play, come talk and give your ideas for what kind of World this shall be set in!

edited 21st Aug '15 10:05:51 AM by DingoWalley1

I certainly would be interested.

I do have some very rough ideas about how the castle could look. Nothing to major but still, as this world needs to be build I would be happy to help (also count me in as a loyal guard)

Awesome! Any ideas will be appreciated.

Although I have the Castle mainly mapped out, what do you have in mind for it?

Announcing my interest.

I imagine the whole thing embedded in a small mountain (the castle being so big that you even could say it IS the mountain) with its wings (do you say castle wings?) encompassing a small town and acting as some kind of walls with a gigantic gate being constructed at the only way to get in. With the throneroom (or whatever room you had in mind for the event to take place) being embedded directly in sight of the town so all people could cheer for the king and queen.

Welcome aboard!

That's certainly more interesting then my idea of a Castle in the middle of a Hilly Wilderness (Although a Certain event that needs to happen will be a little harder to do if it's in a walled off mountain and encompassing a town). I really do like that Idea though. I might use that.

edited 21st Aug '15 11:20:18 AM by DingoWalley1

Also declaring interest. (And yes , we do say castle wings.)

Will dice be involved? Or will this be more free played?

I like the sound of an intrigue-filled medieval RP.

Reminded somewhat of Game of Thrones.

Great!

I'm planning on using dice from the Wizards of the Coast Site. Specifically, 1 20-sided die.

Also, keep in mind; not every player character is going to be a Thief, Assassin, Rebel or Other character. Some of the Guards and Lords will be exactly who they are, and some of them are going to be different. For instance, I just wrote this idea down:

You are: The Queen's Ex-Lover

You and the Queen used to spend loving nights and days with each other, but for some time the Queen has been distancing herself from you. You must win her heart at all cost! You win if you successfully elope with the Queen.

edited 21st Aug '15 12:17:34 PM by DingoWalley1

I'm tentatively interested though if I may ask, what kind of policies does the King enforce? I only ask since that's what will give reason for a rebellion existing/people wanting him dead.

edited 21st Aug '15 12:41:29 PM by guyshane

Now my idea for this is that for most peoples of his Kingdom, he's a fantastic King. However, for one group of people, he and everyone else treats them like Crap; forcing them to work menial jobs for little to no pay, keeping them as slaves, not even recognizing them as people, etc. A group of these people (I'm thinking Goblins, but it could be anything) would openly attack during the party, giving everyone a chance to fulfill their assignments in the Chaos.

Other then that, it'd generally be other races that just want an independent homeland. Like, one of the Lords could actually be an Elf or something in disguise and try to kidnap, say, the King's son or something in exchange for an independent Elf homeland.

Again, this is all for World Building, though, and very little is set in stone.

Role Suggestion: The Grump. Nothing makes you happy. Except perhaps seeing others unhappy. Your goal is to stop everyone else from achieving their goals.

That's an interesting idea. However, only the people with roles will know what their roles are. Instead, how about we have a Detective Role? His job would be to make sure the party doesn't get sabotaged from within, so he'd be able to detect a person's role, and to alert the proper guards on who's what. The only thing I'd need to think of is a way to keep him from going up to everyone and doing his Detective duties, otherwise he'd break the game.

I could think of something else for the Grump character, though.

edited 21st Aug '15 12:59:09 PM by DingoWalley1

Role suggestion: The Jester: Begin somewhat of a joker the jester could have no specific goal other than to screw around with everyone else, like at one time he could guard some person only to try and backstab him moments later, same with other goals, if theres any other specific goals (he wouldn't know who has which goal, he would just try to screw with everyone nontheless)

edited 21st Aug '15 2:45:59 PM by Sergey_Smirnov

THE EXECUTIONER

Sometimes, it goes beyond the courtyard. There is always a crime, and by coin or birth, this man must not escape the ball.

Basically, a vigilante.

HASSHASHIN

You are the shadows of the east. While far from the sands of your homeland your duty is always the same. Free a fool from the weight of life, but do not waste an innocent life.

TRAGEDIAN

You are a wandering player, capable of giving your audience daring romances, bloody vengeances, rapiers, rapes, or both. Now a kings ball must holds few whispers, correct? Whispers that shall fetch a coin?

It should be a masquerade ball, ya know? Everyone wears a mask.

I don't know if a Joker Character like that would do any good in this game. I originally had an idea that the King and Queen would have a Joker; they'd have him locked in a Closet and he'd be this big freak/monster thing (And he'd be funny). But now that I think about it, an actual Joker character would be better.

Technically, anyone can kill anyone, so there's no need for an executioner. Nor is there a need for Hashashins as there will be at least 3 mercenaries chosen for the game. The Tragedian I'm not sure if one is needed, but you gave me the Idea for a Pauper.

And I absolutely love the idea of a Masquerade Ball. That's definitely going to be a part of this game.

Alright, I don't think we need many more Roles for this game (Remember, it's set in a Castle for 1 night, there's only so much we can do). Instead, let's try to come up with Races and Classes for this game. What is the Kingdom's main race, for example? Humans? Dwarves? I think this part is important.

Main race I'd say would be humans, I think some Elves in the forest couldn't hurt, (maybe they're the rebels because for a kingdom to prosper you need raw materials ie. stone and wood so maybe one could argue that they would make for great rebels (that and I just like to get deep in descriptions of a Kingdoms economy, yeah yeah, you got me there XD), beyond those a few beastmen wouldn't hurt me (especially since I've got a character sheet for one). They could be somewhat of minor race the King + Queen freed from slavery (in favor of the Goblins who now have the 'honor' of being those) hence they could be a fiercly loyal race to the King + Queen.

edited 21st Aug '15 5:08:01 PM by Sergey_Smirnov

Hmmm, maybe. I thought we were in the Mountains now, though? Perhaps it could be Dwarven rebels instead of Elven ones? Or Golems?

Dwarven Rebels for stone go exactly the same as Elves for woods I guess.

Though regarding your mountain point, I don't think we're a whole mountain Kingdom. I do belive that a golden era like the current central government has would be quite hard to achieve if one of the two raw materials you need most (wood) could only be aquired by importing it. I think in the history of the world nearly no nation dependent on imports has had a golden era (sorry if I'm going to realistic to all this, its a tick of mine), I thought it more like that the woods were at the borders of our Kingdom, this way also less people would see what the constant deforestation would do to the Elves, and hence less would care about them, giving them somewhat of a morally high ground and ascending them from the typical 'UGH WE ARE THE BAD GUYS'-feeling cause you actually could belive in their cause: Their home is run down by a human central government far away in the mountains, nobody really gets their fate and nobody cares for them anyway. But as I said Dwarfs are as good, they would be more centralised then. Though the typical Dwarf from fantasy that I know wouldn't be to mad if somebody helped and encouraged them to mine the hell out of a mountain, contrary I do belive they would be delighted to do so. Giving them less of reason to become rebellious.

Golems on the other hand would also be an interesting choice, it could be somewhat of a 'How valuable is artificial life' debate. (Yes I like to get deep with such XD)

edited 21st Aug '15 5:56:42 PM by Sergey_Smirnov

I like to get deep too, you're not the only one.

And your post does make sense as to why Elves would be the "hated" race. But I think I'll still be searching for the "hated" race; Elves are cliche and while Golems are an interesting choice, I can't imagine being able to use them as slaves immediately.

Maybe, Harpies?

Aww, I do like harpies, though why would they rebel? And their anatomy makes slavery with them more of a fault than anything else. They are physically weak, and because of their wings would have hands that they couldn't really use if they wanted to fly, so I would see no point in enslaving them, though they indeed are a really interesting coice and its your RP, so you can make it any race you want.

I mean, no race has to be exactly as they have been portrayed forever. Who's to say these Harpies are weak?

Well indeed now while thinking about it, their arm muscles would have to be better developed than that of an average human since they would need to propel themselves with them, and the inability to fly could be used to break them in spirit.

Also I got to think, who said that it could only be 1 hated reace, we could do both harpies AND elves, and the latter ones could either make a Heel–Face Turn or fight in a Battle Royale both would be interesting backgrounds for the Kingdom.

edited 21st Aug '15 6:15:11 PM by Sergey_Smirnov

Yeah, not a bad Idea. I'm leaning on Harpies, although I'd like other people to chime in on all of this.

How about Magic? How important should magic be in this land?

Can't see anything wrong with it, if you have some events we could tie to it like a discussion (followed by a duel of course) if magic should be made available for commoners or something like that would make magic definetively an interesting choice, though if you have rasons against it I also won't mind.

Also glad to seem I'm not the only one wanting to get deeply involved XD

edited 21st Aug '15 6:21:56 PM by Sergey_Smirnov