Fixer’s Orphanarium – wiki link.
I wrote not too long ago about the convention scenario that I’m working on. I had come up with a general adventure concept, and I’d tried to get an in-setting group to ago along with it. The Fixers were the result of that. In light of the revelations that yesterday brought, I decided to re-examine the Fixers, as something about the group wasn’t sitting right with me. Something just didn’t jibe, and if I was planning on sitting down and statting out 12 pre-generated characters, as well as plotting a set of adventure arcs that can shift depending on which characters are chosen, then the ideas surrounding the group to which those PCs belong had better be ideas that excite me. Otherwise, why put in all of that work?
So I took another bit of advice that I got yesterday, and I spent some time today thinking about what inspired Sand & Steam in the first place. Honestly, this isn’t something I’d done before. When I got the idea for Sand & Steam as a setting, sort of just took the ball and began running with it. So, what’d I come up with? Well, one of the big inspirations for Sand & Steam, even if it doesn’t seem like there’s any connection between the two, was the book The Lies of Locke Lamora. Something about the descriptions of the towers in the city gave me my thoughts about the Collegium towers in Kage, and I proceeded from there.
When considering what to do with the Fixers, I remembered how Locke and Jean got their start in their chosen profession: they were adopted into it. That idea has all kinds of legs for me, because it explains how so many different characters from so many different backgrounds would be in the same place. As well, it lets me do interesting things with the adventures. I didn’t want to just make them all thieves, though, because I didn’t want to take Lynch’s idea and use it whole-cloth.
Enter, Fixer’s Orphanarium. Fixer, like Chains in Lies, has an agenda, but he’s playing a much longer game than Chains. The great part is that I don’t even know what that end game is yet, but I’m excited to find out. Having his motivations unknown even to me lets me have things develop organically, as groups playing through adventures with him react in different ways to the challenges I throw at them. Over time, I could let different groups’ playthroughs of this adventure inform the final setting. That’s a neat idea to me.
Also, for now, a group of orphans in Fixer’s care is also a dandy way to have a group start a campaign in the Undercity. It’s a trope that’s been used before (see the very first WotC-published D&D 4e adventure), but it’s one that works for now. Plus, with the setting material that I’ve put out already, an enterprising GM could come up with all kinds of places that Fixers could go, bringing his orphan army along with him.
My next step with the PCs from the Orphanarium is give them motivations. I’ve got all 12 statted and classed (thanks, Hero Lab!), and once I have motivations for them, I’ll begin plotting the adventure and be ready to try out this idea a few days before New Year’s with a group of friends. I’m excited to see where this goes.