Diplomacy amongst the savages

I'm planning to start a Birthright campaign soon, and I'm looking for ideas for the first adventure. Partially just thinking out loud here, so bare with me.

The principle PC is the younger sibling of Ludwig von Schaeffen of Berhagen, and has yet to discover that his brother the baron has passed away. At beginning of the campaign, he's up in the ice-bound northern continent of Thaele, setting up and governing a number of small, frosty colonies at the behest of Muden. The first adventure should be feeling out the PC, the crew of his ship who serve as principle co-adventurers. At least until a messengerarrives from Berhagen to tell him he's needed at home.

The PC is both a diplomat and a swashbuckler, a merchant and a rogue, as befits a Brecht adventurer (though it'll make him stick out like a sore thumb in Berhagen). Thaele, being icy wilderness, isn't big on social events. The colonies are tiny and new, and probably compare unfavourably to the most miserable, ice-bound harbours of Alaska, Canada and Russia. The main populations of Thaele, aside from colonists, are polar bears, carribou, ice giants and barbaric orogs (orogs are usually LE and militaristic; arctic ones tend to CE and savagery, much more like regular orcs).

So. I'm looking for some inspiration for what the PC can be doing to start off with. I was thinking something with negotation... but there really isn't anyone to negotiate with. Maybe another colony, or visitors from the nearby Rjurik cultures on the mainland. Anyone have any ideas how you could run a diplomatic encounter with bloodthristy, spiteful giants that emanate cold? Or barbaric orogs?

Hmm. Perhaps the orog have just suffered a major military defeat, so have been forced into a position of needing to negotiate. Hrm. I also think there should be a traitor in the colony, but I'm not sure how to incorporate that.

So, any thoughts?

This isn't a bump...

Umm, it's a... pre-emptive attention-gaining microupdate!

I ran a Birthright campaign some years ago. The game was pretty rife with possibilities for diplomacy. Need to borrow funds from a neighbor? Need to borrow troops from a foreign land or station troops just over the border? Need to check out a potential mate without letting on that you might be interested? Need to straighten out relations between two bitterly feuding trading costers? It's in there!

You might glance at my Birthright campaign log for some ideas:

http://webpages.charter.net/ericnoah/noahrpg/birthrt.htm

Dirigible said:

So. I'm looking for some inspiration for what the PC can be doing to start off with. I was thinking something with negotation... but there really isn't anyone to negotiate with. Maybe another colony, or visitors from the nearby Rjurik cultures on the mainland. Anyone have any ideas how you could run a diplomatic encounter with bloodthristy, spiteful giants that emanate cold? Or barbaric orogs?

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A hostile no mans land sounds like a perfect place for clandestine high level diplomacy, Make it a nice, neutral spot for two sides to emet to hash out some minor detail, as a prelude to greater talks. Who would interfere up there?

Use the harshness of the environment as his reason to be there.

Dirigible said:

So. I'm looking for some inspiration for what the PC can be doing to start off with. I was thinking something with negotation... but there really isn't anyone to negotiate with. Maybe another colony, or visitors from the nearby Rjurik cultures on the mainland. Anyone have any ideas how you could run a diplomatic encounter with bloodthristy, spiteful giants that emanate cold? Or barbaric orogs?

Click to expand...

Do yourself a favor and hie thee to the library for a history of Canada.

Effectively, AFAICT, the Thaele colonies are there for furring and hunting and such. There're probably complex and delicate negotiations that go on with the voyageuers (sp?) who bring you the beaver and seal pelts to sell. Heck, perhaps you're buying pelts from the orogs, and have to keep reminding them that sacking the trading post is a BAD idea.

Alternately, you can be talking with the skraelings (what the Vikings called the Native Americans), though that'd be more thematically appropriate if the PCs were Rjurik, rather than Brecht.

Brad

A hostile no mans land sounds like a perfect place for clandestine high level diplomacy...

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Zugwaah? Yes, because it makes perfect sense to conduct sensitive negotiations in an icy hell where the fragile, puny diplomats on both sides are likely to freeze to death and be eaten by ravenous penguins!

Hmm. It could work if the negotiations were with, perhaps, the Rjurik sailors who thought they were more entitled tot he colonies than the Brecht settlers... there's an idea.

A relationship between the settlers and orogs... I hadn't considered that. It could work. Even the hairiest and most cannibalistic of humanoids may be swayed by shiny, shiny beads!

Aaaaaand thank to EricNoah for pimping some tengentially related, though tender and juicy material

Dirigible said:

Zugwaah? Yes, because it makes perfect sense to conduct sensitive negotiations in an icy hell where the fragile, puny diplomats on both sides are likely to freeze to death and be eaten by ravenous penguins!

Hmm. It could work if the negotiations were with, perhaps, the Rjurik sailors who thought they were more entitled tot he colonies than the Brecht settlers... there's an idea.

A relationship between the settlers and orogs... I hadn't considered that. It could work. Even the hairiest and most cannibalistic of humanoids may be swayed by shiny, shiny beads!

Aaaaaand thank to EricNoah for pimping some tengentially related, though tender and juicy material

Click to expand...

Be as rude as you want after asking for help, but meeting in a harsh environment worked for the US and Russia at Reykjavik. History backs my idea over and over.

Be as rude as you want after asking for help, but meeting in a harsh environment worked for the US and Russia at Reykjavik. History backs my idea over and over.

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I wasn't trying to be rude. It was sarcasm. Possibly the penguins might have tipped you off?* Once again, the limitations of this accursed medium foil me.



* = Isn't that the coolest sentence ever?