How to Use an Orphanage and Get Adventures for Days

[GilMan21]

In nearly every setting you have, there are going to be orphans. And an orphanage can be ripe pickings for your adventurers and you as the creator of their stories.

• Maybe a necromancer is picking off orphans and well, let's just say it's not a good situation.
• Can your rogue hire some of them and perhaps dabble in the Fagan part of our beloved classic, Oliver?
• Does your paladin have to donate their earnings to a certain orphanage because their Goddess demands it?
• Oooooh, there is a new dark cult in town and they are looking at that orphanage like a jackal looks at a wounded gazelle.
• One of the children.....well.....can do some wicked, wicked magic. You get to deal with that and get them to a magic academy. But there's paperwork. Enjoy.

I want to hear all of the orphanage subplots/plots.
What else you got? (This is from my weird newsletter burn the tavern down.)

 

[Xenonnonex]

In nearly every setting you have, there are going to be orphans. And an orphanage can be ripe pickings for your adventurers and you as the creator of their stories.

• Maybe a necromancer is picking off orphans and well, let's just say it's not a good situation.
• Can your rogue hire some of them and perhaps dabble in the Fagan part of our beloved classic, Oliver?
• Does your paladin have to donate their earnings to a certain orphanage because their Goddess demands it?
• Oooooh, there is a new dark cult in town and they are looking at that orphanage like a jackal looks at a wounded gazelle.
• One of the children.....well.....can do some wicked, wicked magic. You get to deal with that and get them to a magic academy. But there's paperwork. Enjoy.

I want to hear all of the orphanage subplots/plots.
What else you got? (This is from my weird newsletter burn the tavern down.)

You get an inexhaustible supply of sidekicks.

 

[Derren]

Something I always wondered, were orphanages really a thing in medieveal/rennaissance times?

 

[GilMan21]

Something I always wondered, were orphanages really a thing in medieveal/rennaissance times?

I think so. The church took care of it mostly.

 

[Xenonnonex]

I think so. The church took care of it mostly.

Oh dear

 

[Celebrim]

Something I always wondered, were orphanages really a thing in medieveal/rennaissance times?

Rather late into the Renaissance, yes, certain Catholic lay orders began building schools specifically to house and care for orphans.

Prior to that, the usual practice was that if no suitable family member could be found (relatives had a legal obligation to care for children), to apprentice out orphans to whomever would be willing to take them in, which amounted to foster parentage. In the middle ages, various orders of nuns acted much like social services today - removing endangered children from abusive homes and trying to place them in homes that would care for them. If that couldn't be arranged, they were basically reliant on the rather sparse infrastructure available to the poor in the form of hospitals, almhouses, and so forth.

Of course all of this rarely worked as well in practice as intended, something that was probably only abetted by the fact that so many children even in well-to-do homes died young of contagious diseases that society developed a fairly high indifference to death of children. It was normal.

The Black Death absolutely overwhelmed the limited social services of the Middle Ages. It also created a stigma around those social services that was lasting. For example, prior to the Black Death most large towns ran public bathhouses after the Roman model to ensure cleanliness of the population. The Middle Ages were actually a relatively clean period. But after the Black Death, public places became stigmatized as the source of disease, so they closed the baths and even convinced themselves that bathing was unhealthy. The Early Modern period stank quite literally.

 

[Imaculata]

I mostly use orphanages to feed my monsters.

 

[Xenonnonex]

I mostly use orphanages to feed my monsters.

They are an endless supply of food.

 

[jasper]

You get an inexhaustible supply of sidekicks.

"THE GREAT XENO IS HERE! THE GREAT XENO IS HERE!" Kids start diving under beds, climbing fire escapes, hide in the chamber pot.
Jasper, "No! No! I don't want to be a sidekick, I want to be a merchant. Please no!"
Xeno, " Shut up. I need a sidekick!"
Nun counting the gp, "Hmm that the third sidekick this month. The next one will be a little bit more!"

 

[Celebrim]

As for the original comment, I consider kicking orphans to be like chewing puppies - the sort of cliched things villains do to show they are villainous. Likewise, much as I enjoy using fairy tale tropes in my games, "The Parents are Dead." is such an overused trope, that it hardly feels novel or interesting. As such, I've tried to avoid literal orphanages and endangered children in campaigns for that and other reasons. Child NPCs come up occasionally, but rarely as orphans to exploit.