Welcome to Notes to System. Let us talk today about how this whole thing started for that I have a few Notes, but I have a Graph I want to share first. You see the best ideas come when you want to sleep and this one kept me up all night.
This is also the reason, why I will proceed to call this "system" Tychalis, till a better new name comes up, but I find it fitting as he was the thing that started it.
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A big Chart of the Tychalis Clan [https://i.imgur.com/GXFmwNy.png]
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This is it. This alone started everything. (I would also advise anyone else making Campaign notes to just remind themselves to start big and get small details later.)
Well ok, maybe not, cause I already had a lot of ideas in my head about what to do with this and my focus for this lay on 2 points of the chart, the Start with Tychalis and the End with Gregor III, as well as a throughline for what happens to them. It can already kind of be spotted by their titles, at least mostly. You see, Tychalis I was the Power behind the throne, he was for his whole rather long life the person to go to.
He fought to free Voraburg, the Kingdom where his story takes place. Voraburg is a Region in the East of New Thymia, which is a gigantic underground cave. I decided early, that there would be no Humans and later decided, that everything takes place underground. The Whole Cave fought an Independence war against the Lich King (no WoW connection). Why do I tell you all this Fluff, because Tychalis is a ghoul, originally a servant of the Lich King.
Meanwhile at the End of the Family Tree is Gregor III, sad and old. He is half as old as the whole Kingdom, but the Ghouls aren´t as influential as they used to be and he is left with a lot of Land, but few favours He also "reigns" the longest of all the Tychalis. Also, just ignore the sub-chart at the bottom, that was a later addition, that I am just not gonna omit. It doesn't make sense without the map for the Vora region, or New Thymia.
Now comes the other Question, why create this whole Family tree, for what can be at most some important NPC characters Well, I originally planned to write that whole story as a book, but decided to use it for my Campaign first. You see I and my Friends are currently making a system to inhabit that world and we will see where we go, but hopefully, we go into the Future with it. It is not even close to done, but I have 3 Weeks left so I decided to write a Meta-story about it, what can go wrong?
Of course that may sound as bleak as it is, but be that as it may, I have got to fill an arbitrary word quota to fill. You see it isn´t easy to get into writing habits needed to write a lot of material. (if you are wondering, I am trying to at least words out for this currently, even if I don´t do it every day).
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So what else is there to write about? My next steps, you see I didn´t just make the Chart, I also talked at first about this setting with some of my friends. They cerent as excited as iIwas. With that started the process of solidifying the work already, it took some days till I finished writing up the Core themes, let me see if I can find them.
Ah here that, as if I had written them yesterday.
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Stability
It all starts with the status quo, the [[Court of the Hunt]] controls vast swathes of [[Neu Thymia]], most importantly the lands around the vora. While it isn't liked, the Court has near absolute control over the region and strengthens its position.
This of course doesn't stay as [[Tychalis]] dislikes this status quo but has been unable to challenge it.
Change
This changes with the Banquet of the [[Oxxac ''Bonereaper'' Turagspawn|Bonereaper]], where Tychalis meets and hunts a most interesting specimen, a Dwarven named [[Venteslav]]. A son of a Dwarven doctor, who walks a path of arrogance. A fighter and a leader, [[Tychalis]] sees in [[Venteslav]] potential and will give in everything to support him with everything for a chance of change.
Family
It is also about they grow to be family, [[Tychalis]] and [[Venteslav]] become brothers, not by blood, but by destiny. They both too become Fathers in their way, spawning important new Characters. They also meet many who join them and They care about but also lose many. Getting punched in the gut by the deaths.
Home
In the end, they are successful, but Tychalis is unsure of the revolution, he now realizes that he didn't need a change in the system, he needed to change himself. He needed a place to rest, a place where he can truly be himself and where he can remember all those he lost.
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You see there are 4 Themes, even if they are worded poorly. It was 2020, so hindsight is everything I guess. I will try to incorporate these themes throughout the Campaign, but I can´t promise anything to my players. Or to you all reading this for that matter.
Anyways, you may wonder about these themes, maybe you are a student and have never heard or read about such things, or an Author would feel a need to write them out. Maybe you are one of those literary students, who searches for these kinds of Themes in any Story, like this one for instance (don´t bother, there are none, only Failure).
Maybe you are a normal working person too preoccupied to care about anything outside of what the Author talks about, like say how friendship is a theme in LOTR.
But now that I am reading them again, after such a long time, I kinda think of them as a bit more cringe. Also get used to the Bulgarian names, as they are gonna be there for a while.
I do hope that you enjoy this insight into my writing, even if it isn´t the best of writing. Till maybe tomorrow or the day after, depending on how well my bicycle tour will go tomorrow.