04 Night's Watch.pdf - Chaos Bleeds

CHAPTER 1: The NIght’s WatchNight’s WatchCharacter CreationDonal Noye. Alliser Thorne. Cotter Pyke. The Old Bear. The men of theNight’s Watch are memorable figures who defend the Wall at all costs.More important, they are also human—with all the flaws and foiblesthat implies. To be a man of the Watch is to burn away all the connectionsone had before taking the Black. A man’s flaws are laid bare on theWall, and scoured clean by the ice and wind.Before you can begin your stories of the encroaching dark, however,you will need to create a character to don the black and swear his oath inthe light of the setting sun. While the main rules for character creationare contained in chapter 3 of the SIFRP core rules, there are enoughdifferences between standard characters and the men of the Watch towarrant some changes to the normal process.What’s Different AboutNight’s Watch CharactersNight’s Watch characters are not the same as those characters youmight find in the default version of SIFRP. They have no house, nofamily, and no friends save their fellow brothers. At first glance thiscuts against the concepts of lineage and blood that fill a normal SIFRPcampaign, until you replace the idea of a literal lineage with that of thelong line of men who have worn the Black, stretching back to the timeof Bran the Builder. The Watch serves as both house and bloodline forthe character, and the character’s actions, both good and ill, reflect backon the Watch and how Westeros perceives them. More importantly, thegoals of the Watch—to hold back the dark, and keep those forces thatwould destroy the Seven Kingdoms safely north of the Wall—are thecharacter’s most overt goals.This doesn’t mean that every character, or even any character, is amodel citizen of the Wall—even the Old Bear has his flaws. Every manof the Watch is shaped by his life before he took the Black and yourcharacter should be no exception. Is he an avowed criminal, sent to theWall to serve some purpose beyond buying the headsman a new pair ofboots? Is he a naïve and idealistic noble, a lesser son of a large familycome to the Wall only to find that the reality of the Night’s Watch bearslittle resemblance to the heroic tales from his childhood? Is he an oldveteran, bearing the scars of years of battle, but determined to wring alittle more purpose before the Stranger claims him?Alternately, your Narrator may decide to delve into the history ofWesteros to find stories. Tales of the glory days of the Watch, in thewake of Good Queen Alysanne, where there is no shortage of men eagerto join the call and take the Black. Or in the wake of the BlackfyreRebellion, when the Great Bastard Brynden Rivers commanded theWatch, with his Valyrian blade in one hand and his great weirwood bowin the other. If your Narrator has a flair for horror, then perhaps he orshe is considering running during the reign of Night’s King, when theNightfort gained its sinister reputation and the horrors beyond the Wallalmost undid the brotherhood completely.Archetypes ofthe Night’s WatchThe following are some archetypes to use for players who prefer not tobuild characters from scratch, or for the Narrator’s use in describing theother men of the Night’s Watch.24