You are a new PC from the Kingdom of Staunton, starting off on your first adventure at first level. You are human and probably a year or two shy of your twentieth birthday.
When you were young, your kingdom was attacked by vicious and evil dwarven invaders from the Whitespire Mountains on the eastern border of your kingdom. Luckily, your good King Bennett was able to repel the invasion. He subsequently counter-attacked into the mountains overthrew the evil empire of dwarves in a series of vicious battles. Many dwarves disappeared into the depths and across the countryside.
To this day, a garrison of King Bennett’s soldiers maintains a strong presence at the site of the dwarven kingdom. There are a small number of dwarves who are now subject to the just laws of King Bennett that still live in their former home. They have seen the light and now work for your kingdom, though the soldiers are still needed as dwarven insurgents and rebels still try to re-take their former home.
Dwarven bandits, some almost feral in nature you hear, are scattered in the various hills and mountains in your kingdom, staging occasional hit & run raids on quiet farming villages and on passing travelers and merchants. Luckily, the raids have become fewer as King Bennett’s men have continuously smoked out their evil.
Also, in the subsequent years, two other evil nations to your kingdom’s North – seeking to take advantage of the war with the dwarves – staged border raids into your kingdom, overrunning small towns and villages and killing all, including women and children.
My question, after this lengthy intro, is how would a PC growing up in this nation think of the dwarves and the two kingdoms to the North if he or she was to encounter a dwarf or a member of one of these two nations?
I ask this question because propaganda is not a new invention. Hitler did not just decide he wanted to conquer the world one morning and then the tanks were rolling that afternoon. First, the Hitler and his minions whipped the populace up into a frenzy over the burning of the Reichstag, the perceived wrongdoings of other nations and peoples and unfairness of the what happened to Germany after World War 1, etc. After this propaganda campaign, much of the populace practically demanded that the tanks should start rolling just to protect Germany from all this evil and wrongdoing.
But, as I said, propaganda is not a new invention. If you go back in history, I am sure you can find arguments made about the evils of the French by the English and vice versa in the 100 Years War, arguments about the evil Christians in the Crusades by those of Islamic persuasion and arguments about the evil Muslims made by Christians. And, so on and so forth.
How would King Bennett and his allies portray the dwarves and the two nations to the North? How would they go about doing this? I would think even Good aligned PCs will still have some xenophobic bias about foreigners, especially if their kingdom has been at war with them. How can you realistically overcome that bias in a role-playing sense? My idea was that the PCs start out by thinking their nation is good and just, but come to realize that their king is actually evil and bent on conquest. But, I do not want this to be like a light switch going turning the PCs perceptions from Dark to Light in one fell swoop.
When you were young, your kingdom was attacked by vicious and evil dwarven invaders from the Whitespire Mountains on the eastern border of your kingdom. Luckily, your good King Bennett was able to repel the invasion. He subsequently counter-attacked into the mountains overthrew the evil empire of dwarves in a series of vicious battles. Many dwarves disappeared into the depths and across the countryside.
To this day, a garrison of King Bennett’s soldiers maintains a strong presence at the site of the dwarven kingdom. There are a small number of dwarves who are now subject to the just laws of King Bennett that still live in their former home. They have seen the light and now work for your kingdom, though the soldiers are still needed as dwarven insurgents and rebels still try to re-take their former home.
Dwarven bandits, some almost feral in nature you hear, are scattered in the various hills and mountains in your kingdom, staging occasional hit & run raids on quiet farming villages and on passing travelers and merchants. Luckily, the raids have become fewer as King Bennett’s men have continuously smoked out their evil.
Also, in the subsequent years, two other evil nations to your kingdom’s North – seeking to take advantage of the war with the dwarves – staged border raids into your kingdom, overrunning small towns and villages and killing all, including women and children.
My question, after this lengthy intro, is how would a PC growing up in this nation think of the dwarves and the two kingdoms to the North if he or she was to encounter a dwarf or a member of one of these two nations?
I ask this question because propaganda is not a new invention. Hitler did not just decide he wanted to conquer the world one morning and then the tanks were rolling that afternoon. First, the Hitler and his minions whipped the populace up into a frenzy over the burning of the Reichstag, the perceived wrongdoings of other nations and peoples and unfairness of the what happened to Germany after World War 1, etc. After this propaganda campaign, much of the populace practically demanded that the tanks should start rolling just to protect Germany from all this evil and wrongdoing.
But, as I said, propaganda is not a new invention. If you go back in history, I am sure you can find arguments made about the evils of the French by the English and vice versa in the 100 Years War, arguments about the evil Christians in the Crusades by those of Islamic persuasion and arguments about the evil Muslims made by Christians. And, so on and so forth.
How would King Bennett and his allies portray the dwarves and the two nations to the North? How would they go about doing this? I would think even Good aligned PCs will still have some xenophobic bias about foreigners, especially if their kingdom has been at war with them. How can you realistically overcome that bias in a role-playing sense? My idea was that the PCs start out by thinking their nation is good and just, but come to realize that their king is actually evil and bent on conquest. But, I do not want this to be like a light switch going turning the PCs perceptions from Dark to Light in one fell swoop.
