This is the last of the Session Zero deep dives, this time about our Would-Be Hero, Anwen. Here’s a recap of the character questions, including the one that is specific to the Would-Be Hero Playbook:
Introduce yourself by name, pronouns, background, origin, and appearance.
Describe your special possessions.
Tell us about your Fear & Anger.
Answer a question about the NPCs in Stonetop.
Pose a question to the other PCs about your character.
Describe your home and place it on the village map.
As with the previous deep dive on Vahid, you can see all the other options we’re not exploring by preordering Stonetop on Kickstarter.
Introduce yourself.
Anwen of Stonetop is tall, red-haired, and wiry. Her mother came to the village with a trader’s caravan from Marshedge. She begged hospitality from the village elders, and Cerys and her family took her in. She would not say much about her life in Marshedge, but when Anwen was growing up, she told her stories of her father, a brave warrior who protected the people of Marshedge against the abominations of the Fen. One day, her mother told her, he left to hunt a terrible creature in the Fen and never returned. Anwen hung upon every word and seemingly took after her father, growing tall and strong. When she was 12, her mother had a falling out with Cery’s household and was compelled to leave Stonetop in the dead of night. She begged Cerys to allow Anwen to stay, and Cerys agreed, continuing to raise the girl in her household as a foster daughter. Anwen still does not know the truth of what happened that night — her mother told her that she had dreamt of her father, still alive, and had gone to seek him out.
Describe your special possessions.
Anwen has a grey woolen cloak, woven by her mother for her father. It’s patched in a few places — according to the stories, it was torn by the claws and fangs of the Fen-beasts. Anwen wears it whenever it’s cold enough to do so.
She also has a loyal hound named Shadow. He was born with black fur and was the runt of the litter. Anwen took him when no one else would, and now he follows along at her heels most places. He’s still a bit of a runt, but he’s got a good nose and he’s as protective of Anwen as she is of him.
We’re going to deliberately not name the NPC who gave Anwen the dog, and establish that later on when we need to forge a connection between her and someone important we’re introducing.
What do you fear most?
Anwen has two fears. The first, she shares with many folk of Stonetop: She fears the monsters of the Great Wood. She was one of the brave few who followed Padrig into the Great Wood to rescue those that the crinwin took. She was the first to spot the crinwin nest -- a giant papery structure in the bough of a towering pine, surrounded by a clearing of dying grey-brown grass. And she was the only one who saw the Broodfather before it took Ifan into the hive -- it was a massive, bloated, white-eyed Crinwin with a huge maw and grasping claws, each the length of a longbow shaft. The creature’s eyes met hers, and she still sees it in her nightmares.
Second, she is afraid of not being taken seriously by the villagers of Stonetop. She wants to be a warrior, like her father, but Owain and his cronies have spent a lot of time beating her down and excluding her from militia drills, and the other villagers whisper rumors about her mother’s sudden departure — witchcraft, adultery, sickness.
What makes you burn with righteous anger?
Raised on tales of her father’s heroism and honor, Anwen burns with anger when she sees the strong oppress the weak, and when she sees selfishness, cowardice and treachery. She loves Stonetop and the people there, and threats to the village fill her with anger.
When did your fear or anger last cause trouble?
This winter Anwen came upon Owain berating and beating a young villager -- the boy was helping deliver supplies from the granary and had dropped a sack of grain, splitting and spilling the precious stores in the mud.
This was the last straw for Anwen -- she had watched Owain lord over weaker villagers for years, and now she decided to strike back. She attacked him from behind, and he struck back, hard. Both of them were bloodied and bruised before others intervened and separated them. No punishments were meted out for the fight, but Cerys told Anwen that she could no longer stay in her household, and gave her until the Spring to find a new place to stay. Anwen moved to the Public House that night.
Last session, Anwen made use of her Fear & Anger during the fight with the crinwin in the ruin. Here’s the text of the relevant move:
Source: Jeremy Strandberg // Stonetop
When Anwen is filled with anger, she is able to hold a resource called “Resolve” that gives her some potentially powerful options. The first one allows her to overcome her fear and act. The fear we picked for Anwen doesn’t have any explicit mechanical effects, but the GM can use it to introduce narrative complications when needed, and this move gives the player a tool to push back on that when their Anger is in play. It creates a nice balance where the Fear can feel real, but the player has a trump card to banish it when needed.
Anwen entered the ruined cellar and saw the crinwin, filling her with fear.
In this situation, we rule that she’d need to Defy Danger to overcome her fear and strike. But we can point to Blodwen’s potential loss as a reason to trigger the Anger is a Gift move, giving us two Resolve to play with.
The first resolve gets spent to overcome her fear and act.
The second resolve was spent to act suddenly, catching the crinwin off-guard. Unfortunately, her attack then missed, putting her in a rough spot.
Answer a question about an NPC in Stonetop.
Anwen chose the question “Who do you intend to prove wrong?”
Owain thinks Anwen is playing at being a warrior because she has no true place in Stonetop -- her mother came and left in the dead of night and her father is a mystery. As far as Owain is concerned, Stonetop would be better off if Anwen left as well. Anwen thinks Owain is an insufferable bully, swollen with pride of his strength and his mother’s status in the village.
Owain has a pack of friends who follow his lead, whether because they too enjoy the conflict or because they just don’t want to be targeted.
Pose a question to the other PCs about your character.
Anwen chose to ask “Which of you has promised to teach me?”
Vahid answers: Anwen has heard Vahid cite heroic tales from the Chronicle of Stonetop, and from the sagas of Lygos and other southern realms, as well as the tales of the Makers. She is fascinated by them and has asked Vahid to teach her to read. He has agreed. He appreciates her enthusiasm, but he values much more highly the closer ties to the people of Stonetop to allow him to continue his research.
Describe your home and place it on the village map.
Anwen is staying at the Public House. In contrast to Vahid’s fastidiousness, she sleeps on the packed earthen floor, her wool cloak draped over her, with no other comforts.
Character Sheet Highlights
Anwen’s Instinct
Source: Jeremy Strandberg // Stonetop
This was a tricky one — I wish we could pick all of them, like an Iron Age Ted Lasso. Defiance works quite well, especially as it pertains to her conflict with Owain. But in the end, her main drive is to prove herself to be a hero, like what she imagines her father to be, so we’re going to choose Earnestness. Maybe we’ll change it mid-game to Defiance, if things take a hard turn, or Sacrifice, if they take a tragic one.
UPDATE: After playing a few sessions, Defiance is feeling like a more fruitful direction for Anwen, so we’re going to change her Instinct. As above, a lot of these Instincts work really well for Anwen, so this doesn’t mean we’re going to make her less earnest, we’re just going to focus more on her defiance of authority. It’s what got her in trouble with Cerys and Owain, and it’s the reason she can’t just knuckle under to Owain’s authority and go along to get along.
We reviewed the Anger is a Gift move above, and here are the other moves Anwen has access to:
Source: Stonetop // Jeremy Strandberg
The pair of moves on the left represent Anwen’s persistence and toughness. I imagine her using these in her fight with Owain this past winter.
Potential for Greatness is the move we discussed in the original Session Zero post — it allows Anwen to grow her potential very quickly. So far, she has triggered it once, which we’ve marked here.
Next Time
Next up we have the conclusion of Session 1. Will Anwen and her friends return with Blodwen, alive and unhurt? We play to find out. Until next time!
"learning to read" is a common Shankar game character connection, and I dig it :)