04 Night's Watch.pdf - Chaos Bleeds

CHAPTER 1: The NIght’s WatchSisters of the Night’s WatchThroughout this book, the masculine pronoun is used to refer to the men who serve in the Night’s Watch, and according to theiroriginal charter women are not allowed to serve within the Watch or swear the Oath. It is possible that women have taken the black inthe past, and certainly the idea of disguise is well accepted. In the books, the wandering crow Yoren disguises Arya Stark as a boy andhides her among a batch of recruits bound for the Wall. The black brotherhood is sparsely populated, and a woman in disguise might beable to hide her true gender with little difficulty, though she would want to avoid gaining too much authority, and thus draw attentionto herself. Of course, the grim tale of Danny Flint stands as a warning to those women of the fate that may befall them on the Wallshould their deceit be revealed.A schemer, for example, is more likely to have taken the black as a resultof a failed intrigue while a leader may have come to the Wall with morenoble aspirations (even if the character is lowborn). A fighter may havecome to defend the Wall, or in the wake of the destruction of his house,or as a way out of the hangman’s noose.Use the roles presented on page 44 of the SIFRP core rules, anddetermine a role for your character.Determine BackgroundBackground is perhaps the most important part of a character’s conceptin a Night’s Watch game. In addition to defining the importantelements of his life before taking the Black, it also explains how yourcharacter came to join the Watch in the first place. It describes howsome members of the Watch will feel about your character, and shapeshis overall outlook towards his duties on the Wall.A character’s social background—is he highborn, lowborn or a criminal?—isperhaps the most fundamental element of his background. Itis this social background that colors the events of your characters life,and shapes both how he views others at the Wall and how they interactwith him. A Night’s Watch campaign subverts the normal assumptionsof SIFRP in that a majority of the members of the brotherhood are nothighborn. In its current incarnation, as a dumping place for the undesirablesfrom the rest of Westeros, close to half of the population have acriminal background of some variety. Keep this in mind when choosinga social background for your character, or if you prefer, roll a randomsocial background using Table 1-3.The Events of your character’s life, prior to his journey to the Wallalso shape how he approaches the world. As with a normal SIFRP character,you should create at least one formative event that helped moldyour character, though it is recommended that you develop one for eachage category your character has above youth. For highborn characters,Table 3-3: Background Events in the SIFRP core rulebook works wellto randomize these events. Lowborn and criminal characters can usethe tables presented in this book for inspiration or to randomly generatetheir results.What motivated your character to join the Watch? If they weren’tsent as criminals, what made them choose ice and stone over a life southof the Wall? Criminal characters have come to the Wall as part of theirsentencing, but you should think about the crime your character wasfound guilty of, and why the wandering crows pulled him from stocksrather than leave him to his fate.A character’s goals are different on the Wall than they are in the restof the world—leaving the Watch is not an option, but many brothershave personal goals that they can achieve within the black brotherhood.These goals are important for your character as your Narrator will usethem to underscore the stories you tell together, so be certain to selecta goal that you feel challenges your character and one which you as aplayer won’t mind visiting repeatedly.Your character’s motivation for achieving his goal should also beconsidered: why does your character want what he wants? Ideally, youshould try and connect this to the events of your character’s life sothat everything works together to help shape who your character isas a person. If you need ideas, or would prefer to randomize yourcharacter’s motivation, feel free to use Table 3-5: Motivation in theSIFRP core rules.Just as with a more standard SIFRP character, your character hasvirtues and vices that surface when they are at their best (or worst).These flashes of personality are typically also tied back to your characterbackground, as it is those events that helped make your character the30