200 years after the Lord Ruler's Ascension

[valkynphyre]

I picked up the Mistborn adventure game, and have decided to run a campaign 200 years after the Lord Ruler's Ascension, before The world is completely under the Lord Ruler's control, before the religions (most of them) have been subdued, before the Lord Ruler realizes Feruchemy has survived, before The Contract, before Gunpowder has been entirely forgotten, before the Powers of the first mistborn have been diluted.

Any fun ideas for setting?

I've decided to begin the campaign right before a noble has a bright idea to use Slaves, not Allomancers to mine the Pits of Hathsin, so the lord ruler looks about 75 years old or so. (He's been able to gain some extra youth from compounding, but most of his Agelessness comes from Gold Compounding)

I'm starting the campaign with the final fall of Khlennium, and The Lord Ruler will be using our team of Nobles to conquer other Kingdoms.

Here's a few things I came up with:

The Lord Ruler recently banned breeding with Skaa, and proclaimed a 'Cull on Impotence,' which allows the newly formed Canton of Inquisition to hunt down and destroy halfbreeds and their sires. Nobles married to Skaa previous to the Cull's announcement are exempt.

The Balance is well known, and the Skaa are inferior intellectually, but much more prolific.

The Lord Ruler has a Canton of Assertion to enforce the Chain of Command in his Army. And several new Hemalurgic Creations. Steel Assertors, who are spiked only with the Physical Metals and Brass, but double spiked with all of those allomantic abilities, making them exceedingly dangerous.

A Kandra Serial Killer will figure as a villian.

We have to protect the secret of the mistborn in our group: She's actually a feruchemist, too.

I intend to introduce several metals unknown during TFE era, including duralumin, nicrosil, cadmium, electrum, and bendalloy.

Do you guys have any ideas of what would/could/might be different? I'd love to have all sorts of things to throw at the PCs.

Edited May 9, 2012 by valkynphyre

[Windrunner]

Well it kind of depends. Are you going for canonical or fun here?

[valkynphyre]

Well it kind of depends. Are you going for canonical or fun here?

Both. I don't want to break Canon, but there's plenty of things that I can get away with and just say the Lord Ruler covered this up later.

Still, I'm willing to bend in some cases... the Hero of Ages said that Koloss, Kandra, and Inquisitors were the only things the Lord Ruler invented with Hemalurgy, but I've already stretched that with Assertors. Soo.... both.

[Windrunner]

Okay I'll start off with some canon to help you base it, and you can decide which facts you want to use or ignore.

Well one thing to consider is the time period. Unless I'm mistaken by the second century the Lord Ruler has completely conquered the entire Final Empire, there would be no resistance. If you move the time period up earlier then it could work. You could set part of the story in the nation of King Wednegon, the last king to give the Lord Ruler military trouble. It doesn't say when he lived but it was fairly close to the Ascension because his armies starved due to a loss of food to the Deepness, which would have stopped pretty soon after the power was taken from the Well. He lost a serious battle at a place called FellSpire. The Lord Ruler attacked him with koloss. I'd imagine it was somewhere in the outer Dominances, the places that were hardest hit by the Deepness. So that's all I've got there, except that the religions of the world lasted into the 5th century, so there would definitely be religions still resisting the Steel Ministry.

Lets see, I've got a couple fiction suggestions to make it canonical as possible. Brandon hinted that the people before the Ascension might have had some knowledge of the other metals so you probably need a rational for how this knowledge survived. Perhaps in a library of one of the surviving religions? Their knowledge would have eventually been destroyed by the Lord Ruler. If you want to be really realistic, you'll work with limited amounts of the metals since they are extremely difficult to obtain at this time. Are there going to be two separate campaigns? One with the Lord Ruler and one with this rebel Mistborn Feruchemist? If so the secret Mistborn Feruchemist could have a friend who was the last person preserving his religion. He could be trying to save it, or get it to a Keeper. You'll need a rationale for how this girl isn't able to challenge the Lord Ruler. Perhaps some mental problem like a fear of the Lord Ruler, or limited knowledge of how the magic she's using works? The magic still would have been very unknown just after the Ascension. Lets see what else...

Okay one interesting idea could be a freak Misting or Ferring character. Surrounded by full Mistborn and Feruchemists they could feel some serious inadequacy. The kandra would have to be before the First Contract. He could be attempting to take control of human empires with some kind of kandra coup or something. One last question you need to figure out for canon reasons. What happened to the Steel Asserters? Why did the Lord Ruler stop using them? Did their increased number of spikes allow Allomancers to take control of them sometimes if they had the right knowledge, So TLR discontinued them? (or are you planning on making them have the same number but different types of spike?)

Hopefully these facts and ideas help you!

[Aethling]

Also, the idea of the noble/skaa marriage being exempt would be against canon too. He banned that from the very beginning. That is the reason he set them up as two different races. Also, the LR did not fight any pre-well battles. That was another man entirely. Even before the LR arose, that man had largely taken control.

The best setting would be in like the first 50 or so years after the well during the transition. Not much has come out about that period, so it would be hard to "break canon" except for stuff like noble/skaa marriage. It would probably be fun working with the first generation when they were still young and before they grew old and largely out of touch.

[valkynphyre]

Okay I'll start off with some canon to help you base it, and you can decide which facts you want to use or ignore.

Well one thing to consider is the time period. Unless I'm mistaken by the second century the Lord Ruler has completely conquered the entire Final Empire, there would be no resistance. If you move the time period up earlier then it could work. You could set part of the story in the nation of King Wednegon, the last king to give the Lord Ruler military trouble. It doesn't say when he lived but it was fairly close to the Ascension because his armies starved due to a loss of food to the Deepness, which would have stopped pretty soon after the power was taken from the Well. He lost a serious battle at a place called FellSpire. The Lord Ruler attacked him with koloss. I'd imagine it was somewhere in the outer Dominances, the places that were hardest hit by the Deepness. So that's all I've got there, except that the religions of the world lasted into the 5th century, so there would definitely be religions still resisting the Steel Ministry.

Lets see, I've got a couple fiction suggestions to make it canonical as possible. Brandon hinted that the people before the Ascension might have had some knowledge of the other metals so you probably need a rational for how this knowledge survived. Perhaps in a library of one of the surviving religions? Their knowledge would have eventually been destroyed by the Lord Ruler. If you want to be really realistic, you'll work with limited amounts of the metals since they are extremely difficult to obtain at this time. Are there going to be two separate campaigns? One with the Lord Ruler and one with this rebel Mistborn Feruchemist? If so the secret Mistborn Feruchemist could have a friend who was the last person preserving his religion. He could be trying to save it, or get it to a Keeper. You'll need a rationale for how this girl isn't able to challenge the Lord Ruler. Perhaps some mental problem like a fear of the Lord Ruler, or limited knowledge of how the magic she's using works? The magic still would have been very unknown just after the Ascension. Lets see what else...

Okay one interesting idea could be a freak Misting or Ferring character. Surrounded by full Mistborn and Feruchemists they could feel some serious inadequacy. The kandra would have to be before the First Contract. He could be attempting to take control of human empires with some kind of kandra coup or something. One last question you need to figure out for canon reasons. What happened to the Steel Asserters? Why did the Lord Ruler stop using them? Did their increased number of spikes allow Allomancers to take control of them sometimes if they had the right knowledge, So TLR discontinued them? (or are you planning on making them have the same number but different types of spike?)

Hopefully these facts and ideas help you!

I read through the trilogy recently particularly looking for things that happen around this time period. In WoA, it states that the Lord Ruler didn't have complete domination until after the second century, but then again, Wednegon feels he lost because of the deepness. Not quite sure how those two 'facts' coincide, but I've decided that TLR has conquered the inner dominances, they just aren't called dominances yet.

We actually have a metallurgist in our campaign, and throughout the campaign, I intend to have one particular character steal information about all three metallic arts from the Steel Ministry. The first piece, and the largest they will find is the 'Treatise Feruchemical', stolen from the library in Khlennium before it was destroyed. Between the metals mentioned there and future hints, Our metallurgist should be able to track down recipes for at least some of the unknown metals, although we wouldn't know how to use them in allomancy yet.

We do have one PC who follows the Tenets of the Canzi people, a religion that focused on the beauty of the Human body. Which makes Hemalurgy the ultimate taboo for him, and also would incline him to hate the Skaa, but we'll seee where that goes. He is the Legal guardian of our little Mistborn/Feruchemist, an 18 year old just discovering her feruchemical powers. She will know nothing about compounding until she burns one of her metalminds... and I've talked with her Player to make sure that this doesn't happen the first time unless there are absolutely no other options left. In the end, she's either going to die of old age, of fighting the Lord Ruler, or become an inquisitor, or move to the other side of the planet. There aren't many other canonical options. But that doesn't mean she can't do awesome things while she yet lives... (TLR does mention that he was once flayed alive, near the beginning.)

Also, since Feruchemy is believed extinct, there are, as of the beginning of the campaign NO worldbringers. No keepers or Synod yet. Though the Terris people are currently living outside of TLR's sphere of influence, in the Northern mountains... so...

Mistings will actually be rather common, as they existed before TLR's ascension as well as after, but the powers of mistings are quite strong. (7s and 8s to start with instead of 6)

Ferrings, though, that's a nice possibility.

The Steel Assertors are the ultimate shock troops, and once TLR has dominion over the world , he won't need them anymore. Also, because they are so powerful, he will stop creating them because they could kill him with enough surprise on their side. They are exceedingly dangerous tools, and TLR knows it. The number of spikes will vary throughout the campaign, becoming greater in number as feruchemy is rediscovered.

They are controllable, but not easy to break as Koloss are. TLR generally maintains Direct Control.

Thanks for the ideas, they're great, and exactly the kinds of things I was looking for!

Edited May 9, 2012 by valkynphyre

[Thor]

Looks pretty interesting. One point to bring up about Allomancy: depending on the time frame, Allomancers should be MUCH stronger than the original trilogy and all Allomancers should be Mistborn (or incredibly weak Mistings from before the Ascension) and probably as strong as or slightly weaker than Elend, due to Lerasium. (Not sure how the RPG would represent this, as I haven't gotten around to buying it.)

[valkynphyre]

Looks pretty interesting. One point to bring up about Allomancy: depending on the time frame, Allomancers should be MUCH stronger than the original trilogy and all Allomancers should be Mistborn (or incredibly weak Mistings from before the Ascension) and probably as strong as or slightly weaker than Elend, due to Lerasium. (Not sure how the RPG would represent this, as I haven't gotten around to buying it.)

The RP doesn't address this particular Era, I'm afraid. And yes, they would all be fantastically strong, and I could make that work with the rules, but it just doesn't seem feasible to do it that way. rolling ten dice for every misting/mistborn power check kinda defeats the point of the Difficulty system. Everything would just be too easy, so instead, I decided to give them a slight increase in power.

Also, the idea of the noble/skaa marriage being exempt would be against canon too. He banned that from the very beginning. That is the reason he set them up as two different races. Also, the LR did not fight any pre-well battles. That was another man entirely. Even before the LR arose, that man had largely taken control.

The best setting would be in like the first 50 or so years after the well during the transition. Not much has come out about that period, so it would be hard to "break canon" except for stuff like noble/skaa marriage. It would probably be fun working with the first generation when they were still young and before they grew old and largely out of touch.

Yes, TLR did make them distinct races. Allomancers, Terrismen, All others are Skaa. However, There were only 10 original mistborn, most of them likely male. Not the best situation for building an army to take over the world with. Prohibiting interbreeding from the beginning would mean very few allomancers. So... I rewrote the Lord Ruler's History a bit. that way, there is actually a decent amount of allomancers to work with.

So he can have an allomancer army.

Edited May 10, 2012 by valkynphyre

[valkynphyre]

Wow. took a look at Elend's stats in the Game. He's not much more powerful than Vin. Less in most ways... hmmm....

Edited May 10, 2012 by valkynphyre