Dragon-blooded game help!

[Born Again Immaculate]

Okay, first off, Dan - if you read this, you are a very, very, dead little man.


That being said, I need help on creating a Dragon-Blooded Campaign that I've had on the back burners for a while. It revolves around a plot hook near the back of the Outcaste book, about the Legion of Saloy Hin and his idea for a "Second Alliance of Tigers." I'm keen to capitolize on this idea, but I've hit a pretty nasty stumbling block in that...well, I've run out of people to be Tigers. I want seven, the same number as the previous alliance, but here's who I have thus far:


1. Saloy Hin, Tiger of the Steel Tower


2. Tepet Ejava, the Roseblack


3. Chumyo Nefvarin Alixa of Lookshy


4. General Tepet Arada (ret.), the Wind Dancer


5. The First Elite Fiend (from the Grass Spiders assassins, see Outcaste)


6. ?????


7. ?????


So, well, yeah.


I'm halfway through creating Grass Spider terrestrial martial arts, and I have a good idea what to do in order to garner Ejava and Arada's favor, but Chumyo Nefvarin's loyalty to the alliance - and filling the slots of the other two Tigers - is giving me hell on many, many levels. I'd like to find other dragon-blooded to use in those openings, but most of the signatures (Cainan, Nagezzer, Avaku) are either too staunchly loyal or too creepy (FOREST WITCHES) to be really fitting in the alliance. Anethema would probably be a bad idea under any circumstances (lots of anger on both sides of the table), and I'm unsure of any major mortal leaders that'd work. Anybody who could help me out with these angles, I'd REALLY appreciate it.


Many thanks!

 

[Haku1]

possibilities...


Why not create your own custom dragonblooded to fill those slots? It WILL throw your players for a loop.


Or if you're really evil and willing to bend the rules...


Put in Eos and Ossissa for a single slot... naval power is important. And everyone loves pirates... except for the ninjas... but they don't count.

 

[Spook]

I agree with the make up your own sentiment, if for no other reason then to add a more personal touch.

 

[Persell]

I third this. If every character is from the setting, it can add a very unoriginal feel to the game no matter how good it is. Your players will already know a great deal about some of your central plot characters, which makes it harder to spring surprises on them. Well crafted original characters can be just as significant as the Roseblack (or my personal favourite, Arada), and your players wont feel that they already know each of the significant players.


That said, if you take the stock characters and play with them for a while you can come up with any number of surprising scenarios. The Roseblack turns out to be a man - a second class citizen in the eyes of many! Is s/he really the Ejava, or is he an impostor? Take the most well know aspects of the major players, and secretly remove or reverse them to keep things interesting.

 

[Born Again Immaculate]

Right...I decided against the pirates a while ago - Eos and Osissa are /way/ too interested in external affairs (destroying the guild, and exploring the Wyld) to work well with an alliance to save/conquer the Realm. My main problem with coming up with my own "Tigers" as it were, is...well, I'm short on ideas for them. My inspiration contractor sucks, I know. Coming up with my own to rival people like Ejava, Arada and the others seemed like a tough bill to settle, too...and I mean, it's not like I could just whip up a bunch of outcaste generals or unfortunately placed Realm dragonlords, it seems like a cookie-cutter character. I'm coming up with people to be recruited (who aren't necessarily military leaders) like Sesus Kenruyo from AB: Fire, who wouldn't be "Tigers" but people that would be needed regardless. If anybody's got good spice I could add to more generic concepts to come up with such characters, that'd help, but...

 

[Haku1]

Well... if you have trouble creating your own characters. There -is- a simple solution.


Take existing NPC characters, their concepts... slip a new name and appearance on them... and give them different backdrop on WHY they're in the '7 Tigers'.


Say Cathak Cainan, give him a new gender (female), a new name to match... make her a general who saw what's coming and wasn't present when the legions got broken up and absorbed by the houses. Her loyalty is to the Realm and to the Empress, not to the regent fob or those greedy bastards in charge of the Great Houses.


As for what happened to him... she simply disappeared with his legion, who who worshiped her like a god, into the far east... and no one knows where she and her legion is.


There you go...

 

[Forn Clakes]

Well... if you have trouble creating your own characters. There -is- a simple solution.
Take existing NPC characters, their concepts... slip a new name and appearance on them... and give them different backdrop on WHY they're in the '7 Tigers'.

I too have found this a neat little trick, especially when i'm suddenly caught out in a story for a character. A 5 minute break, a quick flick through one of the Caste books and a little rearranging on certain things and....hey presto, an antagonist/comrade!


~FC.

 

[Joseph]

Although I understand why you do not want Anathema in the seven, it still might be cool to include one particular Anathema in it: the Mirror Flag, under the GUISE of a Terrestrial. She is just plain cool, and would throw an interesting quirk into the situation.

 

[Persell]

If you have a copy of the water aspect book, you could always pull in Ragara Takar. He might not be a general, but he would be fairly handy as a spy and quartermaster. He is also more loyal to the Realm as a "protector of the world" than anything else, so he might very well go along with the group with some convincing.

 

[The Wyld]

Include one of the Mountain Folk Artisans among your Tigers. Perhaps this Prince of Adamant sees the rise of the Solars as a dire threat to the Jadeborn and seeks to prop up the Scarlet Empire on HIS terms? He would have to be subtle and careful not to trip the Great Geas...but it would make an interesting faction.

 

[MikeOQuinn]

Although I understand why you do not want Anathema in the seven, it still might be cool to include one particular Anathema in it: the Mirror Flag, under the GUISE of a Terrestrial.  She is just plain cool, and would throw an interesting quirk into the situation.

Wow... a mindbender on many levels.


You just rocked my socks so thoroughly that I needs must purchase new socks.


Thank you.

 

[Persell]

Other generals?


Okay,


Here are possibilities:


1 general of Greyfalls who learned of the near-demise of the Realm (while his city itself remains rather unaffected by curent events), and decides that his army can very well help put a stop to all this nonsense (by reconquering the Realm, or whatnot).


The leader of House Peleps, if the House feel the winners are on the outside of the Realm. That could start as realy subtle hints (better be too subtle than insufficiently so), and one day, when the Realm counts on the ships of House Peleps to defend them... The ships turn around. And shoot right at the foundation of the Imperial City. Damn.


A DB pawn of the Gold faction who is used mainly by them to help the Realm fall. He really has his own domain in the Threshold, but the lack of outside support got the better of him.


A DB who, exhausted by the lack of interest the Realm shows to the southern Threshold, succeeds in a revolution in the Lap, and cuts off the feeding systme of the Realm at its source. He's probably not strong enough to really pull this off (a large fleet and garrison is always in the Lap, because it is very important to the Realm), but he can get some allies to do a distraction (an attack doomed to failure) and make sure those barley fields BURN BURN BURN!!!!


Other ideas are possible.


I hope you can get something out of this.


And yeah, the Mirror Flag was a great idea.