CHAPTER 1: The Night’s <strong>Watch</strong>The Mechanics of DesertionThe chase to capture a deserter can be an exciting scene for your players to take part in, especially when the deserter is a member of theircohort and they are trying to recover him before he goes too far and risks execution. A number of specializations can come into play, andjustification can be made for a large number of them, but here are the most common tests during a flight from the Wall.BBBBBBBBBBThe Long Haul: Most deserters travel nonstop once they are away, eschewing sleep and pushing themselves or their mounts to continue.This adheres to the rules for going without sleep found in Chapter 11: The Narrator (under Exploring Westeros) in SIFRP.The temperature rules found in that same section may apply for the deeply chilled nights found in the North even in summer. Finally,a mount is unlikely to have the same motivation as the deserter to continue its flight past reasonable exhaustion, requiring AnimalHandling (Charm or Ride) tests to force it to continue. This starts at a Difficulty of Challenging (9) after the first full day withoutrest, and increases by one step for each 6 hours thereafter.Tracking the Deserter: This is a Survival (Tracking) test, with a Difficulty that ranges between Routine (6) and Challenging(9) depending on the terrain. If the deserter is actively covering up his tracks (an act that reduces his travel speed by half ), the Difficultyis instead the result of the deserter’s Survival (Tracking) test.Chase: Once within sight of his pursuers, most deserters make a last, desperate sprint for freedom. This is a Competition Test usingAnimal Handling (Ride) for horseback chases or Athletics (Run) for foot-chases. Each turn, which reflects about a minute or so ofpursuit, both parties roll. Whoever rolls the highest calculates how many degrees of success they gained above their opponent and addsthis to their tally. The one being chased begins with a number of degrees of success accumulated equal to his Awareness. If at the endof a turn, the deserter’s successes equal the pursuer’s Awareness + Survival + a terrain modifier (2 for areas with greatly limited sight,6 for wide open areas), he loses them. If at the end of any given turn, however, the pursuer’s degrees equal or exceed the deserters, hedraws into close proximity. Marksmanship weapons with Long Range may be used at any point during such a chase; those with ShortRange may only be used if the pursuer is within 5 degrees of success of the deserter.A Second Chance: Should the pursuer manage to draw close enough, an Intrigue to get the deserter to return is always possible.The Last Resort: When all else fails, of course, Combat may be required to return the deserter, dead or alive.to escape allows commanders to be prepared for most cases of flight.In Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, for example, no ship leaves the port until agroup of Sworn Brothers have walked it stem to stern. The search is notthorough, but knowing of it is often enough to keep men from trying toflee by that route. This serves the castle’s commander well, since a manwho fled by sea would force his own execution upon rediscovery.With the sea effectively cut off, men who flee the Wall are restrictedto land. The great majority of these, sick of bitter cold and crushedby the horrors they have seen in the north, head south into the SevenKingdoms and hope to hide among civilized men. While some try tostay far from the roads and inhabited places, the scraggy underbrushand thick trees discourage most and the easy travel of cleared landsproves too tempting to resist long.Men who flee south will find little comfort, even among the smallfolkfrom who he might have come. The Night’s <strong>Watch</strong> offers a rewardfor capturing deserters, and the temptation of money is often enough toturn a man’s former friends against him. A man dressed in the brotherhood’stelltale black draws the eye quickly, especially in the lands of thenorthern lords, where most deserters wind up.As a result of this lack of succor, most deserters are forced quicklyinto criminal acts just to survive. This sometimes starts as close asMole’s Town, and a stolen set of woolens to replace the black. Thieveryis a rough life for a fallen brother, even those who came from criminalbackgrounds; there is no one he can trust, as even other thieves andbrigands would turn him in for the reward.For some, desertion is not about stress or fear at all, but occurs as amatter of filial loyalty. Contrary to perception, this is as likely to happenfor smallfolk who hear of the death of someone looking after their familymembers as it is for highborn nobles unwilling to sit by while theirhouses are at war. For some of these, they will find a welcome whenthey are among their families again. Others, particularly those nobleswhose families still honor service on the Wall, find their welcome lessenthusiastic and often work to help their families from the sidelinesand not reveal their actual involvement. When such aid is provided tosmallfolk, it can present the brothers who retrieve the deserter with adifficult choice: while the oathbreaker must be punished, it often meansremoving the only remaining support for the lowborn family that hascome to depend on his aid.Less acknowledged, and in some cases denied completely, is thefact the some brothers flee into the Far North. These men, oftenrangers who are familiar with the land, are often lured away by theguile of a wildling woman or simply grow tired of the final shredsof civilization that persist on the Wall. They slip through the gatesor leave their patrols and hide among the icy wilds. Most of thesemen hook up with a tribe of wildlings, where their battle skills arecelebrated, and their knowledge of the <strong>Watch</strong> makes them into dangerousopponents. Men who would make this escape often have aparticular grudge against the brotherhood that festers into hate astime passes. They begin to look for ways to avenge themselves onthe <strong>Watch</strong> that once clothed and sheltered them, and lead ambushesagainst rangings that stray too far from the Wall. Most brotherssee this betrayal as far worse than simple flight, and special effort istaken to reclaim the heads of those who would attempt to escape thecivilized world completely.21
CHAPTER 1: The NIght’s <strong>Watch</strong>Using Desertionin your SIFRP GamesGared’s execution, the King-beyond-the-Wall Mance Rayder, Jon’sflight south, and his deception to join the wildlings—with its repeatedmention in A Song of Ice & Fire, there is no question that desertion andoathbreaking is an important thematic element both within the <strong>Watch</strong>and to Westeros as a whole. Desertion themes lend a sobering air of lossto a story, and careful use of them can reinforce other storytelling elementswithin your campaign.In addition to the overt themes of loyalty, honor, and trust, desertioncan reflect tales of shattered morale, of inhuman living conditions, of constant,crushing stress and even themes of madness (the desertion of thesenses). With careful use, desertion can become a recurring theme thatadds greater depth to the stories you narrate. This section looks at waysyou can bring these themes to your own campaigns, whether you’ve chosento run a standard game or one centered on the Night’s <strong>Watch</strong>.For a noble House game, desertion becomes an underpinning; it isbest as foreshadowing of a greater level of deceit or oathbreaking, torepresent the tattering fabric of society, or to warn of greater terrors inthe North. For a noble house in Westeros, the deserter is not likely to bea family member returning home but rather the brigand preying uponthe smallfolk the house has sworn to protect. Houses in the North mayhost parties of Sworn Brothers that are pursuing the deserter, or theirsmallfolk may capture the deserter themselves and contact the players’house directly as the representative of the King’s Justice.For a game that centers on the Night’s <strong>Watch</strong>, desertion becomes amuch different theme. Although it is possible to work with a story thathas the players as Sworn Brothers sent to retrieve an unknown oathbreakersouth of the Wall, there are opportunities to make the themes moreurgent and more immediate to the players. One way to do this is to havethe deserter be a member of the players’ cohort. It is possible to even playout the “race” between the players and their fellow as they try to intercepthim before he goes too far and is formally declared a deserter. Such a storymakes a good opening adventure for a Night’s <strong>Watch</strong> game, as it allowsfor flashbacks to training, and defines each character’s relationship bothwith each other and with the would-be deserter.Another way to approach desertion in a Night’s <strong>Watch</strong> game is to havethe players build desertion into each of their characters. By defining eachcharacter’s “breaking point” where they would rather desert than remainat the Wall, it helps the Narrator define the themes for his or her game,and provides an insight into what each character holds important. It isimportant, as a Narrator in that situation, that you challenge the playerswithout feeling like your only goal is to drive them to desertion. Rather,the player’s chosen desertion point should be used as a recurrent themein your stories. If the player holds freedom important, and chafes at theabuses of the Wall, then require them to imprison another brother. If thecharacter’s family is important, then present them with stories where theysee family undoing another member of the <strong>Watch</strong>.While not discussed in the book in more than a few brief sentences,there is also the possibility of a commander and his entire castle becomingdeserters of a sort: the Nightfort once went to war against Snowgate(now Queensgate), for example. While more of an oathbreaking thantrue desertion, the two themes parallel each other nicely. A situation onthe scale of the example would obviously involve more than the playercharacters, though a similar idea might see the players as part of a groupsent to hunt down a renegade ranger who took a band of his followersand turned against the <strong>Watch</strong>.On a similar topic, the characters can be used to recover knowledge,rather than a specific person—a far more delicate task, as it requiresconvincing the deserter to help the players, who must make their ownpromises in return.The History ofthe Night’s <strong>Watch</strong>“T he holdfast has a golden crown, see? Queen Alysanne sleptthere, so they painted the merlons gold in her honor.”—Bran Stark, A Storm of SwordsThe black brotherhood is defined by its traditions and shaped by its history.New recruits to the <strong>Watch</strong> learn its past alongside their swordworkand marksmanship, but some events—like Mad Axe slaughtering hisSworn Brothers, or the gruesome story of the Rat Cook—are heard byevery child north of the Trident as morality tales to keep them on theirbest behavior.The history of the Night’s <strong>Watch</strong> permeates every rock and stone ofthe Wall and the forts along its length, all the way back to its founding.The black brotherhood swore their first oaths at the end of the LongNight, when the Others invaded Westeros. When the White Walkerswere finally defeated and driven back into the Far North, Bran theBuilder—the first King of the North—built the Wall, and created theSworn Brotherhood to man it and keep the rest of Westeros safe.The first and largest of the castles along the Wall, the doomed Nightfortwas built at the same time as the Wall itself, and housed the firstbrothers. To allow sorties into the Far North, an ancient weirwood wasplaced in the Wall during the Nightfort’s construction. Known as theBlack Gate, the enchanted wood only opened when a Sworn Brotherrecited the oath in front of it.To help sustain and support the <strong>Watch</strong>, King Brandon (traditionallyBran the Builder, though possibly one of the later Kings in the North)granted the twenty-five leagues south of the Wall to the brotherhood.Known at The Gift, this land became a network of farmland and watchtowersthat slowly fell into disuse as fewer and fewer brothers wereavailable to maintain it.According to legend, it was the 13th Lord Commander of the Night’s<strong>Watch</strong> who fell to temptation and became Night’s King. With the aidof a wildling woman and dark sorceries, he took control of the mindsof the Sworn Brothers and turned the Night’s <strong>Watch</strong> into his own personalarmy. In the first great alliance with the wildlings, the King inthe North joined forces with Joramun, the King-beyond-the-Wall, todefeat their mutual foe and restore honor to the black brotherhood.When he was finally destroyed, and his chambers searched, it wasfound that he had been in league with the Others and making sacrificesto them. For this first and greatest sin, his name has been struck fromall the records and he is known only by the appellation given him in thelands south of the Wall.22
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