Eyes of the Stone Thief - Campaign planning, 13th Age PC Creation Resources & PC Introduction

Got my Sunday group together last Sunday for a rare 5th Sunday Session (we usually play only on the 1st and 3rd Sundays) and did character creation for my 13th Age Eyes of the Stone Thief campaign. Since I intend to run this from 1st level all the way up through 8th level, I plan on writing about this campaign quite a bit. While we did the first part of an intro adventure, the Strangling Sea, after character creation, I'm going to wait to write that up until after we've finished it. But this seems like a good time to go over the bit of campaign planning and introduce the PCs (though I will update this if/when additional PCs are created).



As I've said before, I've been dreaming of running Eyes of the Stone Thief for months, which has certainly helped make doing the campaign planning easier. Still, in the two weeks before the first character creation session I went back and...

• Found some published modules to use to help flesh the non-Stone Thief sections. This is pretty easy because a few of the modules Pelgrane has put out for 13th Age are explicitly tied to the Stone Thief (like Make Your Own Luck, which I plan on using), while others are just easy to find a way to hook in, like by saying the macguffin NPC from the Strangling Sea has information about the Stone Thief.
• Read back through the campaign book with a notebook to jot down ideas. I ended up making a wishlist of things that I wanted to make sure I included (not to spoil things, but one thing I wrote down rhymes with "Smettercaps", which I'm sure will delight my wife). I did the same with the monster section of the core book and the incredible excellent 13th Age Bestiary. 
• Came up with a list of optional rules I'd be using, so my players wouldn't be blindsided when I pulled out permanent injuries or having every Icon roll count.
• Since I had my own wishlist, I came up with a few questions I wanted to ask the players, like...
• What classic fantasy RPG monster(s) might you want to see in the campaign?
• Would you be okay with another entity permanently or temporarily taking over your PC during the campaign and switching to portray that entity for a time or the remainder of the campaign?
• What seven Icons would you like the campaign to focus on?
• This way it would be more likely that more than one PC would be tied to each icon in play, instead of each PC being tied to a different set among the 13 icons.

a rhymes with "Smettercap" from my GM wishlist...

I also assembled a few hints to help the players think about creating things like Backgrounds and One Unique Things, some of which I took from the Eyes of the Stone Thief and the 13th Age Resource book, but a few of which I can share...

• 3 Things To Keep In Mind When Building Your 13th Age (Or Any) Character
• 13th Age Musings: Of Templates, Uniqueness and Adventure Hooks
• 13th Age: System Guide for New Players

As I guided the players through character creation the seven icons they chose to focus one ended up being (in order of choosing)...

1. The High Druid
2. The Orc Lord
3. The Lich King
4. The Priestess
5. The Emperor
6. The Elf Queen
7. The Prince of Shadows

Anyway, without further ado here are the PCs in my Eyes of the Stone Thief campaign (so far), in the order that I typed them up...

Grawl - Half-Orc Barbarian

• Talents
• Building Frenzy
• Slayer
• Barbaric Cleave
• One Unique Thing
• Believes himself to have been created by the High Druid to protect Carlyle because he was the first Half-Orc born in Greenwell, a village of High Druid followers.
• Backgrounds
• Grew up in Wildwood with High Druid Worshippers
• Trained with Rog, Orc Barbarian who had retired to Greenwell.
• Jane Goodall of the Owl Bears
• Gatherer in the Wild Woods
• Icon Relationships
• High Druid +1
• Orc Lord ± 1
• Prince of Shadows -1

Carlyle Urso - Human Druid

• Talents
• Shifter Adept
• Warrior Druid Initiate
• One Unique Thing
• Has sworn to take revenge on the Emperor for beheading his wife many moons ago because she was thought to be part of a plot to assassinate the Emperor with poison.
• Backgrounds
• Murderous scout for the High Druid in Bitterwood
• Craftsman of natural items, wood tables, flutes, et cetra for the Village of Greenwell.
• Icon Relationships
• High Druid +2
• Emperor -1

Finnegan - Half-Elf Bard

• Talents
• Songmaster
• Spellsinger
• Jack of Spells
• One Unique Thing
• Is a sin-eater. He takes on the sins of creatures who die near him. The Priestess wants him to eat the sins of the Stone Thief.
• Backgrounds
• Wandering storyteller/gatherer.
• Battle Skald
• Thief of Mystical Knolwedge
• Icon Relationships
• Emperor +1
• Priestess ± 1
• Elf Queen -1

Euphemia - Dark Elf Necromancer

• Talents
• Deathpriest
• Deathknell
• Sorta Dead
• One Unique Thing
• Is the resulting spawn of an ancient secret tryst between the Lich King and the Elf Queen. She awoke on the Isle of Omen twelve years ago.
• Backgrounds
• Tutored in Necromancy by the Lich King himself
• Elven Aristocrat
• Escaped the Isle of Omen
• Icon Relationships
• Elf Queen +2
• Lich King ± 1