Grey autumn clouds are gathering as the ducal council closes and the two richest duchies declare war, each declaring itself the monarch. Soon your modest tower’s place in between these two dukes will force you to choose your place as the storm of war approaches.
Knight’s Beliefs
- Write a belief about the horrors of war you have seen and/or choosing a side in the coming conflict.
- Write a belief about getting a warhorse.
- Write a belief about what your late spouse taught you before they died and how you would like to live to honor their memory.
Squire’s Beliefs
- Write a belief about helping your knight make a decision about the coming conflict.
- Write a belief about getting a warhorse.
- Write a belief about what you will do to prove to the knight that you are ready to be knighted.
Village Guard’s Beliefs
- Write a belief about serving the knight through a previous war and how what you’ve seen effects what you will do now.
- Write a belief about a skill or a truth about the world that you will teach the squire.
- Write a belief about nobility by blood or by action.
Heraldry
Most Noble of Beasts of which they are five because five is a holy number, the number of spokes on the Burning Wheel.
- Griffon
- Dragon
- Eagle
- Lion
- Unicorn
Upjumped commoners sometimes find their way to noble title and when they do their banners have objects to show their house’s humble roots.
- Keys
- Swords
- Axes
- Chains
- Castles
Sorcerers, wizards and witches are forbidden by law from holding noble title but once this was not so. Here are the heraldric symbols of an arcane origin.
- Lightning
- Crossed staves
- Devil
- Tower
- Book
Holy symbols were once the five ducal sigils but now those houses are long since fallen but their symbols are still found on minor houses who married into the holy houses in ancient times.
- The Burning Wheel, 5 spokes, aflame, fire and change
- The Tidal Wheel, 3 spokes, water and fortune
- The Storm Wheel, 4 spokes, wind and change
- The Buried Wheel, 6 spokes, earth and stability
- None know what the 5th wheel might be. A wheel without spokes? Leave those kinds of arguments for priests and philosophers.
NOTE: Why all this on heraldry? Because making things up from a vacuum is more difficult than making it up with a structure.
Notes
If you’d like the possibility of the knight leading an army, fiddle around with your general skills and get Strategy. It is a rare skill. I might even change the reputation so that it is known you can lead in battle and make war.
For Aaron
They are the last of their kind, still guarding this ancient tower with a young human squire and a village guard looking up to them.
Swordsinger’s Beliefs
- Write a belief about the folly of humans and not choosing a side or what you need to see in a person to help a short-lived human become a monarch.
- Write a belief about what you will teach the squire about their own people.
- Write a belief about your people’s artifacts and what you will do when you find them in the possession of humans.
More Burning Wheel Campaign Ideas at this link.
Photo by philippe collard on Unsplash
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