The Building: Egypt in general, Cairo in particular, various dig sites scattered across the desert, Cyprus, smuggling ships, and the Museums of the World with a focus on the British Museum, the Louvre, and the Museo Egizio of Turin.
Let’s populate the Building.
All kinds of people and events might be in any Building. Some are plot relevant. Some are there to be there, and some are there because they have to be there.
Plot relevant is an obvious descriptor, and I shan’t go into detail about that group. I trust you to work that out for yourself.
What about the ones who are there to be there, and there because they have to be there?
Let’s say this is the opening scene of Casablanca.
In that scene we’re introduced to many people, almost none of whom are plot relevant. One or two of them have function within the narrative. They do things. They have lines. The majority are there to be seen.
These are the ones who are there to be there.
The street juggler, the hawkers, the foreigners being swept up (the usual suspects) the man with the Free France leaflets; they perform a necessary service, just by being seen. They set the stage for what’s to come. The pickpocket has a recurring role, has lines of dialogue, and draws the eye. He introduces the setting and gives the audience a taste of what’s on offer. The young couple seen briefly will appear later at Rick’s and provide what amounts to a side quest.
They exist within the narrative because someone has to. In any given scene, there will be people in the background. If this scene takes place in a bar, there will be other people in that bar. If in a market, then other people will be buying, other people will be selling. Any setting – any society – cannot exist without someone in there participating in the scene.
However, because player characters expect to be able to tinker with the bits and pieces of any scene, you as Keeper need to be able to pluck any of these otherwise faceless personalities out of the toybox and make them do things.
What makes them different from the ones who are there because they have to be there?
Plot function.
The ones who are there to be there have no plot function. They might become plot relevant, through accident rather than design, but there’s nothing about them which makes them plot functional. They exist to be seen, not to do something nor to provide something.
However, there’s a class of character who’s there because they have to be there, and for that example in Casablanca’s opening scene, I point you to the French police.
After all, someone had to round up the usual suspects. Someone had to shoot that Free French fifth columnist with the leaflets. Someone had to provide tension within the narrative. If the police didn’t exist someone would have to invent them, because without their presence there’s nothing keeping the narrative together.
In any game setting there will be a class of characters within the Building who exist because without them the Building could not exist. They serve a vital plot function by making sure the whole shebang makes sense. They might be police, or government officials, or religious authorities, local politicians, street cleaners, bartenders, antique dealers – whatever makes best sense within your Building.
This is a specific Building, don’t forget. It involves smuggling, antiquities, occultism. That means the people who are there because they have to be there are probably smugglers, antique dealers, occultists. Some of them may even become plot relevant, but they don’t have to start that way.
They must exist because, without them, the whole conceit of the narrative falls apart.
How much detail need you lavish on these folks?
Well, probably not much, but you do need something more than a lick and a promise. For example:
- Merchant tall, always bends lower to appear shorter than they are, rapid talker, has four sons to assist them in their work, believes God will provide but, in the meantime, he must provide for himself. No combat skills, but the sons are combatative.
- Merchant A born gossip, this one lives for scandal and is always on the lookout for the latest news. They deal exclusively in expensive small things (eg. coins) and carry their wares with them in a leather bag. The merchant is an experienced knife fighter, for all their apparent helplessness.
- Merchant: A skilled tradesman, perhaps a stonecarver or a jeweler, or even a forger, who only deals with people that he knows. He has no time for riffraff or people who wander in off the street. He is very influential with the local authorities and can bring that influence to bear against people he dislikes.
- Merchant: This one sells supplies to expeditions and always has what an expedition needs to get going. He has been on several adventures himself as a young man and is more than willing to talk about his exciting past. Have you time for a coffee? Good! Now, this happened long ago ...
That’s the people, but why are they there? Partly for background, sure, but the players are going to want to interact with some of them and when that happens the players will want something in return. Clues, possibly. Stuff. Adventure hooks.
These shouldn’t be specific to the NPC, whether they’re there to be there or there because they have to be. If you attach a specific clue to a specific character the only thing you achieve is an increased chance that the players will lose track of the plot, because they didn’t speak to X about The Thing.
These are non-plot related, at least conceptually. None of them attach directly to any given scenario or plot seed. But there’s no reason why any of them shouldn’t attach to a scenario or plot seed. Let the players make that choice. If they want to follow up on that peculiar scarab they picked up from dear old so-and-so, then it makes not a scrap of difference whether that scarab was intended to lead to Rome. Now it definitely does.
You probably don’t need too many of these, at least up-front. There are only so many shiny things any player can concentrate on at any one time. But you do need some, like so:
- This character has a 1-point clue that leads to a Dig Site.
- This character has a 1-point clue that leads to the location of a minor relic.
- This character has a 1-point clue that can be developed into an important NPC relationship.
- This character works with the Gorgon Cult and can be persuaded to turn against them.
- This character has a minor relic (scarab, papyrus, mummy) that they’re prepared to sell.
- This character has a fake relic that they’re prepared to sell.
- This character works with a criminal organization and can make an introduction to that organization.
- This character is actually undead and will lead the players into an ambush if given the opportunity.
List of potential minor relics:
- Granite stone inscribed with text.
- Small amulet of a winged lion.
- Small amulet of a cat.
- Badly damaged mummy.
- Incense burners with the head of Horus.
- Bust of an important official, possibly Roman or Greek.
- Papyrus with religious text.
- Lapis Lazuli scarab.
Again, you don’t want a lot of these but you need to have just enough on hand to be able to fling them out, when you need fresh meat for the lions.
Now, remember what I also said about the Building:
When designing a setting, think about how people live and what they have to do in order to live well. Not just the big stuff, like which Camarilla faction holds political sway after dark, or whether ghosts are secretly controlling the police force. I mean the small stuff. What do people do for fun? How do they get their food? Do they have light when night falls, and if so how is that managed? What happens when it's hot? What happens in the rainy season? What happens when it snows? What happens to all the shit - literally, the shit - that your average city produces every day?
With that in mind, some events & locations:
- A funeral procession passes, the emaciated corpse on an open bier, carried by their friends and servants, only covered by a hastily flung shawl. Professional mourners follow behind, howling and bawling. The actual mourners, the spouse and children, are more restrained, but weep real tears.
- A group of people argue over the acts of an efrit that supposedly haunts a nearby building. The efrit, they say, inhabits the bath, because a servant was murdered in that bath. There is much argument over what to do about it.
- A group of locals and merchants discuss the Nile floods, and whether this years’ will be as bountiful as the one before. If it is too high a flood, they say, plague will surely follow.
- The heat today is almost unbearable, making every surface and piece of furniture a furnace. It is almost impossible to move in the streets; even a stroll of a few hundred meters feels like an eternity in a hot griddle.
- The call to prayer sings out from nearby minarets, bidding the faithful to worship. It is such a melody as would gladden the heart, but tonight there is a tinge of melancholy. Why? Who can say?
- The flies today are particularly annoying. You cannot wipe them away fast enough; they return again and again, drinking your sweat.
- A brightly colored lizard perches on a nearby windowsill. Its scales are the most magnificent; a little pharaoh on its throne. It has the most beatific expression, like a bishop welcoming guests into his home.
- A darb, or by-street, about six or eight feet wide, a thoroughfare, with, at each end, a gateway, with a large wooden door, which is always closed at night. This darb is entirely shops, small recesses at the grand floor of a modest house.
- A hárat, or quarter, a district consisting of one or more streets or lanes with private houses, and but one entrance, with a wooden gate, which, like that of a darb, is closed at night.
- A Sook, or market, a short street, or short portions of streets, having shops on either side. These sooks are covered overhead by matting, extended upon rafters.
