Looking for Eudokia inspiration

Lothindil, if you wander on this thread by chance, stay out, okay?


Now that we go that covered...

I'm looking for some inspiration for a faerie realm adventure, which I want to set on the Forking Path as it fits the situation... there are a lot of important life changes occuring at the same time for the character - settling down from being a peregrinator, being initiated in a mystery cult (neo-mercurian), being responsible for the creation and prosperity from a chapter house. Some of those are from the recent past rather than the near future, but I'm going to have some creative liberty with allowing the threshold points anyway, as I expect the adventure to be interesting for the player and a departure from classic stories.

I'm pretty sure how the character will stumble onto the faerie realm, but while I've read the relevant chapter a few times, and I'm hitting a creative block formulating a theme and chaining story elements together with a relevant virtue and flaw. Any suggestions? The game is set in the southern Rhine tribunal.

I would decide on an overall theme or skin for the session first.

This will determine how things in the story will appear.

Since your idea takes place inside the faerie realm I would assume that the player character is unable to perceive things for what they truly are. Instead everything takes on a symbolic appearance.

An example could be roman gods or greek myth, hermetic history, the characters life story or anything that suits your fancy. Whatever you chose make sure that everything in the story fits within the appearance of that theme.

Lets say you pick roman gods/mythology. Then you needs to pick roles for the characters and locations that appear.

It is a bit hard for me to come up with more concrete advice without more detailed knowledge of what you want to do with the plot specifically.

I can give you a parallel example of a plot I set in the magic realm. The plot had 2 stages as the players were trying to find the microcosm of one characters mind in order to kill part of his identity.

The first stage I called "the perpetual hotel". This place was essentially a trap created by the characters subconcious desire to not have part of his identity killed. The name "the perpetual hotel" is just a name I gave it to explain to myself the purpose and nature of the place. the players would get a more misleading name given to them. The way it worked is that the players would meet a guide there who would try to distract them by showing them endless rooms containing scenes depicting ways in which the offending piece of identity had helped them.
The second stage I called the "the high city". That place you could only reach by realizing that the "perpetual hotel" was a trap and in the process overcoming the relevant characters desire to preserve his identity.

Since the character was into norse mythology I decided that it would take on the appearance of valhalla and that the guide character would be Odin. Note that the guide wasnt actually Odin, it merely appeared that way. The way to get on was to simply demand of Odin that he show them the true way and he would do so. (I decided that Odin could not disobey a direct order since he was a representation of the characters mind and could not disobey the character). Since the plot was about the character doubting the value of magic all the scenes that odin would demonstrate related to how great magic is.

In the high city every piece of personality would be either a person there or a house or some other thing you might find in a city. Here the challenge was to find the proper person/structure without fucking around with anything else, since doing so might have unintended consequences. e.g. if they killed a person that represents the characters loyalty the character whose mind they were inside would wake up without a sense of loyalty.

Done right plots like this can be really great because you get to explore a world of symbols where everything makes sense differently.

I hope this helps with inspiration. If you share some more details about your aims for the plot and the character to experience it, I will be happy to help more.

Given the list of changes in his life that you have listed I would suggest a theme of responsibility, where are every plot turn he has to make a choice between upholding responsibilities he has taken on in the quest (or chose whether to take on new responsibilities) or whether to abandon them. Your choice as to which is the "right" choice for this journey.

So, he is a peregrinator looking to settle down, and he has joined a Neo-Mercurian group - they get Road and Road Network as targets, and there is the symbolism of a god of travel and commerce? Therefore, the symbolism which could apply to his life is The Road.
Send him on a road trip - (which colour of brick the road is depends on you). Obstacles can include a blocked road (from gigantic fallen trees) or a suddenly broken bridge, and the choices he makes to overcome these will affect his journey. The example in RoP:F of "The market at the crossroads" will work well, and many of the wandering characters could appear. "The pied stranger" - I believe a piper is traditional for the Rhine tribunal.

As for the virtue and flaw: for low stakes a minor virtue of "beneficial circumstances: on a paved surface" versus the flaw from Grogs of "Craving for travel" - if he chooses well, the road is his friend, but a bad choice means he will regret settling down.

If you want really high stakes, the pairing of Ways of the Road (in City & Gild it's a valid version of Ways of the Land) versus Restriction; on a paved surface, massively reducing his power off the road or out of an urban environment (paving a lab would be easy enough, so he can still research and cast rituals).

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Thanks for taking the time to answer with ideas. I'm debating a theme of responsibility / the suggested road trip. I expect that traveling will remain an important part of that character's story even with the settling down aspect, given the character has Faerie-raised magic, study requirement and independent study... this is not a character that will stay tied to a lab for very long.

If I go with the responsibility idea, I may add Faerie Antipathy as the flaw (the character has selkie blood, so that's a negative trait in Freedom on failure, which fits I think). I'm not quite sure what would be an appropriate virtue if the character makes valid choices, and I'm debating how to identify correct choices that aren't at the expense of traveling per se, because I don't want to setup the character for failure.

Darkwing, the symbolism of the road is interesting, but my question is what do you suggest is the moral choice about here? Are you suggesting the moral choice is to overcome obstacles in order to pursue the traveling, or something else?

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Possibilities are many- a faerie sympathy, puissant leadership (since it is balanced by fairy charms this would make more sense than an affinity), good teacher, or even a regio network.