Make some NPC tribes for me

[Chamomile]

Urgh. This marks the fourth time I've written up this spiel, so it may end up a bit clipped. I need six more NPC tribes before Friday night to make a game work. The game isn't a standard TTRPG, it's basically a variation on the Peace War game, so the stats involved are actually really easy, because they barely even exist. I can work those out on my own. What I need is fluff. Which isn't exactly the Gaming Den's forte, but whatever.

So, it is the dawn of time. A man named Tobias, one of the first humans on Earth, has thirteen sons by way of a demoness because no mortal woman will have him. As soon as the thirteenth is delivered, he cuts of the demoness' head with his absurdly magical sword Kepheth because she'd threatened to eat his children on the eve of their respective fourteenth birthdays, and the eldest son's was coming up. Kepheth shatters from the demoness' tainted blood and each of the thirteen sons inherits one piece. Centuries later, Tobias finally dies, since people lived forever back then because magic.

With Tobias dead, the thirteen sons and their respective tribes, each fairly respectable in size after four hundred years of furious breeding, are on the verge of war, each seeking to seize the other twelve shards of Kepheth to reforge the thing, and endeavour which is doomed to failure except in the event that everything I know about game theory is wrong, in which case there goes my setting.

Regardless, I need six more NPC tribes generated. If anyone would like to write one up for me, I'd appreciate it. Note that I may end up trying to sell something to do with this setting, so by posting in this thread you agree to let me use whatever is posted in it to try and sell stuff.

To make a tribe, I'll need:

-The name of the tribe's progenitor, one of the thirteen sons of Tobias.

-The name of the progenitor's wife and three foremost children. Not necessarily the eldest or male, but usually the three oldest sons. This one is actually not necessary for a minor NPC tribe.

-The signature weapon of the tribe's progenitor. This cannot be a longsword, because that is the signature weapon of Tobias himself. It may, however, be another variety of sword.

-The name of the tribe itself. Typically a variation on the name of the progenitor (i.e. Edenite, Tobiate).

-A single adjective that describes the tribe, i.e. wild, militant, mystical, treacherous, mercantile, amazon etc. etc.

-The spell woven into the shard of Kepheth held by the tribe. The shards of Kepheth are more important as adventuring MacGuffins later on than they are as actual weapons right now, so I'd prefer that these be more along the lines of things that would be awesome to be seen used by the actual wielder than tribe-wide buff spells that seem to be cropping up a lot from my other sources.

-Any additional notes on the tribe. This can be left blank if you'd like, but it's a place to wax poetic about the tribe you've created if you're got a bunch of details on hand. I certainly won't turn you down if you want to do more of my work for me.

EDIT: And oh, yeah, if you'd like to play your tribe in the game itself instead of having it run off of an NPC script and almost certainly destroyed, you can play here so long as you've got or are willing to create a Reddit account.

[Username17]

OK.

Yomis, 8th son of Tobias. He married the farmer woman Ekaterin. They moved to the Boarmoors and raised pigs and grew beans. They had two daughters (Sasha and Sylvie) and one son (Micah). Yomis fought with a boar spear (a spear with a hooked crossguard at mid-shaft), and was accomplished in blood magic. His personal boar spear contained a shard of the Kepheth that allowed him to make the Earth itself bleed. He used this to make the hard and nitrogen poor soil of the Boarmoors rich and fertile, but it also brought with it strange plagues.

The Yomites are Agricultural and they eat a high protein diet rich in pork and beans. Their magic is largely based on the principles of substitution, where they convert the blood of legume nodules and the blood of swine into the blood of humans. They have to do that fairly frequently, because their lands are infested with blood flies. In war they are optimized to fight against cavalry, since every child (male and female) trains with the spear and they can use the tribe's magic to turn any battlefield into a blood-soaked mire.

---

Like that?

-Username17

[angelfromanotherpin]

Mordecai, married to Morwenna, father of Benesek (m), Cleseg (m), and Beryan (f). His signature weapon is a pair of fighting sticks named Haavahaara (wound-branch) and Vahinkoksa (damage-twig). His tribe is called the Moré, known for being Nocturnal, and are particularly infamous for painting themselves black and raiding at night. Their Kepheth-shard bears a spell they use each Spring to thaw the frozen sea they live by; without it, it would remain frozen year-round and deny them the night-fishing which is their main source of food.

[Chamomile]

Ah, wonderful. Got more interesting setting fodder in these two posts than the rest of the tribes combined, I think.

[fectin]

Not sure if this fits the kind of game you want:

Mellicu, father of the Mellichites. Sired six sons, five of them poisoned by his oldest child, the woman Meribah. His eldest son Jaakobah survived and inherited his father's position. What arrangement with Meribah allowed this is not clear.
The Mellichites are known for their lies and Treachery. However, they are also known for their political acumen and strategy. The other tribes despise them, but every would-be invader suddenly finds themselves involved in border skirmishes with another tribe. As nearly everyone who follows their advice prospers by it, individual Mellichites are often tolerated by the other tribes.
Mellichites profess to disdain combat, but are talented with stilettos (frequently poisoned). They claim alternately that their Kepheth-shard was lost, was seized by one of the other tribes, was never received, or whatever else is advantageous at the time. However, some observers have noticed that the dagger Obelus (an uncharacteristically plain blade) is the only artifact passed down with leadership of the tribe.
Their magic is subtle, and reads the flows of Fortune. Most Mellichites can predict a coin flip more often than not, and their leaders' prophecies seem to always come true, though rarely as expected.
Edit: added magic

[Chamomile]

The Mellichites don't have a spell.

[Stubbazubba]

Dimrathi

Dimirath was the fourth son of Tobias. He was an excellent strategist and renowned for his composure, patience, and foresight. He married Jakari, the princess of a tribe of mystics who lived at the foot of the mountains. He eventually located his capitol among those people, who became the Dimrathi. He raised two sons, Rafir and Jaram, and one daughter, Karida. Karida inherited her father's genius for strategy, and thus the rulership of the Dimrathi. His weapon of choice, Rafir, a ranseur whose blade was made from his Shard of Kepheth, gave him a kind of prescience which allowed him to see and react to his enemy's attacks before they happened. When engaged in melee, he would always be aware of what was coming several seconds in advance. With time to concentrate, he could see specific events hours ahead. Occasionally, Rafir saw extended, but often cryptic, visions, the meaning or interpretations of which are still debated amongst many scholars and priests to this day. In any event, the Ranseur became a mainstay among Dimrathi armies, as well as a variety of side-arms.

Preferring to remain aloof in the mountains, Dimirath designed great fortifications, tunnels that linked all the mountain settlements together, defensive walls between the lowest peaks, and warning beacons across all of his dominion. The Dimrathi are analytical, lovers of puzzles and abstract thought. They are excellent architects, astrologists, and engineers. They are also inventive, they invent and create things, large-scale, small-scale, whatever it may be. They believe that preparation and technology will win any contest. When the Dimrathi do venture out on the warpath, which is rare, they typically lay elaborate sieges, using siege engines and tactics similar to the Mongols during the Great Khanate's expansions.

[Grek]

The tribe of the Zulkars trace their line back to Amosa(f), Tamit(m) and Rilini(f), the three eldest children of Zulka, the youngest son of Tobias, and his wife, Yami. Due to an ancient curse, the Zulkars are Nomadic, never stopping long enough to be caught by the storms that follow in their wake. Nolth, the mace-shaped shard of Kepheth held by the Zulkars, is cursed to be forever pursued by storms and ill weather that will smite the children of Tobias with lightning and drown their crops should the shard linger in once place overlong. While the Zulkars are rarely welcome in the lands of others, few are foolish enough to try to prevent the cursed tribe's passage.

[PhoneLobster]

The Nameless Tribe

Progenitor : The Runt
The Runt had no name as he was shunned by his family and father for his deformity. He was the youngest and last son born at the very same moment of his mother's murder. Stunted, shrunken and deformed, perhaps because of his violent possibly premature birth, or perhaps simple because, let's face it, that's a LOT of children, he reportedly resented and distrusted his father and elder brothers.

Wife and Offspring - The Runt never married but did travel the lands producing any number of (somewhat anonymous) offspring, and it is rumored that at least three of the children attributed as the eldest offspring of his 12 brothers are ACTUALLY the results of the Runt's adultery with their own wives, but which three has never been confirmed, or openly admitted. Beyond that it is a known and confirmed fact that the Runt dallied with the daughters and granddaughters of ALL twelve of his brothers and produced a number of offspring with them. As a result while the Runt was ultimately the shortest lived of the original 13 brothers he is rumored to have produced the most, and most widely spread, offspring. Many rumours surround the Runt's death, some say he was eventually caught and executed for his adultery, other's say his physical weakness worsened and overcame him, others say it was a combination of the two.

Additional notes The adulterous inbreeding of the Runt has resulted in the Nameless Tribe, the secret children and descendants of the Runt, many not even themselves aware of their heritage, others known and ostracized by tribes that by all rights should accept them as their own. Descendants of the Runt can appear the same as any other tribe, but they have a significantly increased likely-hood of being born small and shrunken in size like their progenitor. A child born with a runt like nature is not only themselves marked forever as a member of the Nameless Tribe but also marks at least one of their parents and their ancestors as descendants of the Runt. As such many such children are killed, abandoned, or secretly given over to known Nameless Tribe members.

Their Adjective is "Outcast"The Nameless Tribe has no territory, no lands, no inheritance, what little they have of tradition is a mimicking of their progenitors paranoid and adulterous life style, many of them forming groups organized and paranoid groups of bandits, thieves and prostitutes operating in and dominating what amounts to the criminal underground of other tribal cultures. The Nameless tribe accepts not only actual descendants of the Runt but also any outcasts, criminals from the other tribes.

Signature weapon of the tribe's progenitor.
The Runt never received a weapon. Nor any other gifts or notable signs of wealth. Some would say his signature weapon was ruthlessness, cunning and intellect. But others would point out that when cornered he revealed very very sharp teeth and nails and would literally rip into his opponents tooth and claw like a small wild animal. This has led to a fighting style among his smaller descendants known widely in criminal circles as "The Dangerous Grin"

Spell woven into the shard of Kepheth held by the tribe
The Runt was never given a shard of Kepheth, not on purpose anyway. But by chance a piece of the weapon flying from the same blow that killed his mother embedded itself directly into his body at birth, (further scarring and deforming him). Legend has it the shard enabled him to sense and manipulate emotions, even overwhelming victims to the point of controlling them, or even outright killing them, with raw fear, anger, or lust (explains all the adultery). When the Runt was killed the shard was not found on his body. It is rumored the shard is passed to the secretive "Nameless Prince" or sometimes princess. (The Nameless Tribe shuns rules, and rather likes to be pointedly non-patriarchal from time to time just to spit in the face of the other tribes and all their ludicrous "Man-cestors"). However it could simply be the shard is lost, or was the first shard to fall and has always been in the hands of whichever tribe originally killed the Runt. The Runt's Shard is rumored to only work if physically implanted into the body, and may have detrimental effects on it's users health or sanity or both.

[Chamomile]

The tribe of the Zulkars trace their line back to Amosa(f), Tamit(m) and Rilini(f), the three eldest children of Zulka, the youngest son of Tobias, and his wife, Yami. Due to an ancient curse, the Zulkars are Nomadic, never stopping long enough to be caught by the storms that follow in their wake. Nolth, the mace-shaped shard of Kepheth held by the Zulkars, is cursed to be forever pursued by storms and ill weather that will smite the children of Tobias with lightning and drown their crops should the shard linger in once place overlong. While the Zulkars are rarely welcome in the lands of others, few are foolish enough to try to prevent the cursed tribe's passage.

Adom: Brothers! I have forged the amulet Idellia, with the power to rule nations!
Eden: I have forged seven rings to be passed down through my descendants, each imbued with its own great magical power!
Tobias: I have forged the sword Kepheth, which has bound to it twelve magical spells of incredible power and one curse that dooms the wielder the roam the earth forever!
Adom: ...
Eden: ...
Tobias: What? Why are you looking at me like that?

[Username17]

The tribe of the Zulkars trace their line back to Amosa(f), Tamit(m) and Rilini(f), the three eldest children of Zulka, the youngest son of Tobias, and his wife, Yami. Due to an ancient curse, the Zulkars are Nomadic, never stopping long enough to be caught by the storms that follow in their wake. Nolth, the mace-shaped shard of Kepheth held by the Zulkars, is cursed to be forever pursued by storms and ill weather that will smite the children of Tobias with lightning and drown their crops should the shard linger in once place overlong. While the Zulkars are rarely welcome in the lands of others, few are foolish enough to try to prevent the cursed tribe's passage.

Adom: Brothers! I have forged the amulet Idellia, with the power to rule nations!
Eden: I have forged seven rings to be passed down through my descendants, each imbued with its own great magical power!
Tobias: I have forged the sword Kepheth, which has bound to it twelve magical spells of incredible power and one curse that dooms the wielder the roam the earth forever!
Adom: ...
Eden: ...
Tobias: What? Why are you looking at me like that?

If you had another tribe whose power drained the swamp they lived in, you could swing it that the original allowed you to decide when the rains came and when they did not. The thing where one shard makes it rain all the time and another makes it never rain is an unfortunate side effect.

The Gaming Den: we will optimize your fluff.

-Username17

[Stubbazubba]

I considered controlling the weather, too, that might actually be an interesting twist, having them be two shards counterbalancing each other, but problematic otherwise.

[Chamomile]

Some of these powers will be shuffled around a bit in the finished product. If nothing else, there are currently three different variations on predicting/foreseeing outcomes that need to be collapsed together.

[fectin]

Some of these powers will be shuffled around a bit in the finished product. If nothing else, there are currently three different variations on predicting/foreseeing outcomes that need to be collapsed together.

The one I wrote could be easily reworked into being sneaky instead. I had that written up first, but realized I had nearly recreated L5R's Scorpion Clan.
Or it could be something completely counter-intuitive, like joining two hearts together, or swearing unbreakable oaths.

[Chamomile]

So now I've run into the problem of liking the tribes made here a lot more than the ones being played by my actual players. If I ran the later stages of the game here, would you guys actually play? It's not nearly as involved as a TTRPG, would only require about ten minutes a day and it wouldn't have to be all at the same time, but it would also require at least four or five players to work.

[erik]

What I need is fluff. Which isn't exactly the Gaming Den's forte, but whatever.

A bit belated but still obligatory...

Oh, hi. You must be new here.


While there's plenty of mechanics-heavy discussions and arguments, I find time and again that the stuff that I really like is often fluff that people write up for whatever. Hell, my favorite part of the Tomes material is not the mechanics and 3e revisions, it's the fluff and setting discussions. I reckon you're discovering this wealth of fluff-fu now.

[Chamomile]

Oh, hi. You must be new here.

03 May 2011

Fairly, yes.

And I have indeed been pleasantly surprised by the capability of the Gamding Den in general (and not just a few select members) to generate some really awesome fluff. Which is why I'm now trying to see if I can get all phases of my setting creation game past Bloodlines running from here, since the only stuff I've gotten that makes me feel like it would actually be up to par with stuff I might make on my own has been from here (I've been rather disappointed with fluff generated by other sources).

[CapnTthePirateG]

Here's a shard, I hope someone can do something with this.

The shard inherited by Zepeth possesses power over untruths. Not to enable lying, as any fool can lie, nor to see the truth, but that is harder. It possesses the power to bring deliberate lies into reality, but in the way which is malicious to the speaker (i.e. a wish to be wealthy kills your relatives and gives you their stuff, etc). Only a deliberate lie is made true in this manner.

Hope this helps.

[fectin]

Here's a shard, I hope someone can do something with this.

The shard inherited by Zepeth possesses power over untruths. Not to enable lying, as any fool can lie, nor to see the truth, but that is harder. It possesses the power to bring deliberate lies into reality, but in the way which is malicious to the speaker (i.e. a wish to be wealthy kills your relatives and gives you their stuff, etc). Only a deliberate lie is made true in this manner.

Hope this helps.

Something like this?

Zepheth, Revered Patriarch of Azephet. Husband to Relaiah, and father of Bartimeus(m), Zacchaeus(m), Rahab(m, deceased), and Zair(f).
Hameth, the shard of Kepheth inherited by Zepeth possesses power over untruths. Not to enable lying (as any fool can lie), nor to see the truth (though that is harder). It possesses the power to bring deliberate lies into reality, but always in a way which is anathema to the speaker. Only a deliberate lie is always made true in this manner. Zepheth was an honest and upright man, and for many years believed that he alone had escaped the mixed blessings which Kepheth had visited on his brothers. Of his children, only Rahab did not take after his father, and was shiftless and dishonest all the days of his life. As a young man he stole Hameth, and ran bragging to his friends. His lies that day nearly wiped out the Azephet, and eventually caused his own death ("With this, I could fight a bear!").
Rahab's example cemented the tribe's philosophies. They are Humble, plain spoken, and will not speak ill of others. They make up for these handicaps by hard work, primarily growing apples and oats. One of the more fertile tribes, their territory vast and bountiful.
Zepeth grieves for every death, no matter how justified. He could safely lie to Hameth to slay his enemies, but has not yet been willing to do so. In the meantime, Hameth is mounted on a massive, iron-shod quarterstaff (also referred to as Hameth).

[CapnTthePirateG]

Yeah. Thanks fectin.