Backgrounds of the Borderlands: 1D6 of Fighting Types - First Pass - Troika

 1D6 of Fighting Types

The first of the six dice for the d66 for my Backgrounds of the Borderlands Troika System Backgrounds for my Keep on the Borderlands reimagining. Will probably be improved upon still, but I'm all hyped and excited.

11. Knight Errant (alternative to 44 in original Troika)

A traveling knight, roaming the land in search of adventures to test their chivalric virtues and prove their courtly love. (Talk with your group about how you feel about gender and romantic relations in a faux-medieval game.)

Possessions:
• Plate Armour (treat as Heavily Armoured)
• Either a Lance and a Tired Horse OR Sword and Shield
• The Handkerchief of your Lady Liege.

Advanced Skills:
2 Sword
2 Lance
2 Poetry
2 Horse riding
2 Bravery

12. Sell-sword

A warrior that fights for a living not for a cause. He might refuse jobs on personal principle, or he mightn’t.

Possessions:
• A Weapon of choice
• Comfortable Armour (treat as Moderately Armoured)
• A Pouch with the last coins of your last job. (1d6 silver)

• A Signed Contract (random table or ask DM)

Advanced Skills:

3 Haggling
3 Weapon of choice

2 Stalking
1 Tracking
1 Trapping

13. Monster Hunter
Daring hero who hunts the Big Game and harvests their unique ingredients.

Possessions:
• Chopping Axe
• Reinforced Longbow
• Book of Monster Lore (make up fancy title)
• Big, big net.
• A set of different shaped containers

Advanced Skills:

2. Trapping
2. Tracking
2. Boasting
2. Bow Fighting
2. Hiding

14. Boar Knight

These fearless halfling warriors ride boars into battle and strike fear into their enemies.
(rewrite into a scene where sudden terror strikes an enemy as a line of boar knights emerges out of the brush, shouting fiercely.)

Possessions:

• War-Boar
• Spear
• Club
• Wooden Shield

Advanced Skills:
3 Intimidation
2 Boar riding
2 Spear fighting
2 Club fighting
2 Revelry

15. Mage Knight (Knight of the Star-filled Rosebush or something like that.)

Grown from the magical thorny rose hedge surrounding a castle made of moonlight in the Elven Kingdom on the moon, this fairy knight can fight with both sword and spell.

Possessions:
• Sword
• Stylish Plate Armour (As Heavily Armoured, Encumbrance as Modestly Armoured)

Advanced Skills:
3 Swordfighting

2 Etiquette
2 Elven Spell: Thorns
2 Elven Spell: Entangle
1 Elven Spell: Random

Note: Create Elven Spell List

16. Armsmaster

Legendary crafters, smiths to the gods of old, the dwarves of this realm have a very specific type of magic. They put it in their craft. They keep it secret.

Possession:
• [Strange Weapon] (Make a Strange Weapon Table)
• Chainmail (As Moderately Armoured)
• Dwarf-Enchanted Walking Forge (it follows them)

Advanced Skills:
4 Dwarven Forging (it’s magic)
2 [Strange Weapon] Fighting
2 Dwarven Secrecy
2 Navigation

Backgrounds of the Borderlands: A Troika-esque Brainstorm (Part 1)

 Backgrounds of the Borderlands

Okay, so I’ve been reading Troika again and watching streams about it because of Troikafest.

I’m not participating, because I don’t have the time for it, but it made me think about using the backgrounds system for that Keep of the Borderlands game since I wasn’t really happy with the vanilla classes. The background system in Troika works great in already infusing the world with flavour and wonder and now I wonder if I can pull it off for Keep on the Borderlands. Using the d66 idea I think we could take the classes from basic DnD and use them, though if we include the thief (as the module does) we might have too much classes to expand on.

We have:

The Fighter
The Cleric
The Magic User
The Thief
The Elf
The Dwarf
The Halfling

Making them into a d66 table doesn’t work that well since it should be a d76 table.

On the other hand, the non-humans are supposed to be rare, so maybe we put them with the archetype they fit in and have them as one or two of the possible outcomes in that background.

The Fighter - Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling
The Cleric - Human only. This type of religion is a strictly human affair, elves and dwarves are nature spirit type creatures, halflings follow the old religion. Possibly put some non-human druids in here? Or some reformed non-humans? 

The Magic User - Human, Elf - The magic of Elves should be different from human ones.

The Thief - Human, Dwarf, Halfling.

Then we have 2d6 left for overflow backgrounds. I think that might work. Here goes the first pass of the brainstorm.

Lets start with the Fighter:

1. Knight Errant
2. Mercenary
3. Monster Hunter (Halfling?)
4. Boar Knight (Halfling!)
5. Mage-Knight (Elf)
6. Armsmaster (Dwarf)

Overflow ideas:

Keep Watchman/Soldier/…
Barbarian

Then we have the Cleric:

1. Preacher
2. Witch hunter
3. Exorcist
4. Miracle Worker
5. Holy Avenger
6. Reformed Savage

Overflow ideas:

Hermit Saint, …

The Magic User:

1. Academy Wizard
2. Alchemist
3. Combat Mage
4. Elven Shapeshifter
5. Elven Enchanter (bard?)
6. Illusionist

Overflow ideas: There are a lot of cool magic ideas. This list would be able to go on due to the tradition of Fantasy games focussing on magic. Some ideas though:
Summoner, Diviner, Witch, 

The Thief:

1. The Brigand
2. The Burglar
3. The Treasure Hunter (Dwarf)
4. The Looter (Halfling)
5. The Hidden Assassin
6. The Conman

Electric Bastion Land: Failed Career: Animal Royalty

So this is the thing.

I saw a meme, and I thought about how it might be a good failed career for Electric Bastionland. So I spent some time on and off making it. I had also seen one of the Bastionland Podcasts lately about how to create better stuff by just going over it again and again. I ended up with something that might be good, or bad, but I don't really want to spend more time at it since it's basically just a silly excersice.

Anyway, you can see it here.https://the-bearded-belgian.itch.io/animal-royalty-a-failed-career-for-electric-bastionland

The main thing I think might still need some adjustment is that it comes with too many followers-type creatures at times. But I'll just take that idea for another attempt.