This is quite an exciting post as it marks a big step towards being able to run games of Legends of Alba using the rules and tools I've been working on through this blog!
My aim is to have a ruleset that will allow players and a GM to run games set in The Storm Isles. This is Northernmost Kingdom of Alba, inspired predominantly by the geography and folklore of The Orkney Isles, but with an eye further North to Shetland and South to Caithness as well. If the rules work for The Storm Isles, I'll then look at fleshing out the other Kingdoms of Alba.
The Character Creation preview allows players to create characters from The Storm Isles. The Legends meanwhile are the GM's primary tool for bringing the game to life. Each Legend is centred around a folk tale or mythical creature, and contains a set of encounters (called Augurs) for the players to discover as they explore the Kingdom, which they must resolve in answer to The Covens' Call. I'll be sharing the procedure for this in another post but it's pretty much the same as for encountering Omens of the Myths from Mythic Bastionland.
You can read the first draft of The Legends of The Storm Isles here! Keep reading for some summary notes on the tales that inspired them.
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| A Shetland Fishing Boat in Stormy Weather North of the Orkney Islands, Anton Melbye 1842, public domain from Picryl |
The Fire Fish - inspired by The Marool from Shetland, this was a giant many eyed fish with flaming fins, feared for its hunting of ships during stormy weather. I thought it would be interesting for my take on it to have this sea-monster pitted against an angler, obsessed with landing it, and see what the players make of it.
The Grey Neighbours - The Trow are faerie-folk that feature prominently in Orcadian folklore. They're known for their love of music, and were attributed as sources of inspiration for musicians. I wanted this one to be a less adversarial Legend, but not without teeth. Could there be some unforeseen consequences to The Otherworldly inspiration of The Trow? The sleepless poet in this Legend might think so.
The Master Wyrm - Asipattle and The Stoor Wyrm is one of the most famous Orkney tales. Here I've put the Mester Stoor Wyrm as the first of the Ancient Great Wyrms (the Legends of Alba versions of dragons) and Asipattle is only hinted at as a dimly recalled ancestor of The Cindersift Clan.
The Mound Dweller - A take on the hog-boon by way of the film It Follows. The Mound Dwellers could be kindly spirits, but they were also guardians of the mounds they tended. Little kindness to be found here: Woe betide the witless thief that steals from a cairn protected by Haugbui!
The Seal Hunter - The actual story of The Seal Hunter ends quite amicably after a seal hunter unwittingly wounds the Queen of The Selkies. I wondered what it might look like if she wasn't quite so cool with it. There's also a gang of Orca in here (since Killer Whales are excellent seal hunters!) based on the story of the Law of The Tongue. That story is actually from Australia but it's too good not to include.
The Silver Tower - This started off as my take on the Finfolk. They were Storm Wizards who paddled around the seas in sealskin boats. I got an uncomfortable sense from the tales however that they originated from xenophobia towards the actual Fins and/or the Sami people. So stepping swiftly off that, I took the bare fiction as a jumping off point and now this is a weird Legend about metamorphosis. Enjoy!
The Storm Kelpies - For each of The Kingdoms I want to feature a big overarching Legend that will play out over the top of the others, a "Big Bad" as opposed to a "Monster of The Week". For The Storm Isles this had to be The Nuckelavee, the skinless cyclopean sea centaurs, truly nightmarish creatures! As the players encounter the damage wrought by these horrors from the depths, they'll also encounter a Dark Prince of the Sith on a bizarre quest of his own to try and control the abyssal beasts. The resolution of this Legend will reveal The One Who Dreams of Storms. The one who, it is said, will be able to control the dreaded Nuckelavee...
That's it for now, till next time!
