What is your character's dream?

Share about your character, or get help brainstorming a concept, skill setup, backstory ... all that fun stuff!
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What is your character's dream?

Post by Rias » Thu Sep 02, 2021 11:37 am

We've got the BACKSTORY command, which is great for helping GMs know about the past of all those player characters out there. What we want to know now is: What is your character's dream?

In an effort to help encourage people to find a primary character to focus on, I'm going to currently limit this to one character per player/account. Please keep it as concise as possible: one paragraph should be plenty. I'm hoping that having this knowledge will give us more useful insight into the characters people play, and it may also potentially serve as inspiration for various events that could involve those characters. Plus, it'll give players another reason to think about and come up with more about their character's goals and motivations.

Important disclaimer: Submitting a character's dream or major goal does not mean it will actually come to pass. It -will- help us to know what motivates that character though and possibly give us some ideas for unique little events or interactions that could be of particular interest to that character.

To put on some additional pressure, I'm going put a deadline on this: Please send the information by the end of next Friday (the 10th of September).

Email address to send to: cogg@contrarium.net
Email subject: Character Dream For <character name>

In the body of the email, please provide:
- Account Name
- Character Name
- A concise paragraph about a primary dream, major goal, or pursuit of that character



Account: Thisisntrias
Character: Greg
Dream: Greg's major goal is to become an agent of the Mistveil Dominion and help bring peace, order, and prosperity to the Lost Lands. He hopes to be able to get in contact with the Dominion at some point so he can be put to work in the Central Lost Lands, making any preparation or laying any groundwork they might require while they are focused more on matters up north. He may admittedly have some enjoyment of the idea of authority and power as part of his motivation, but he truly does want to see peace and order established in the chaotic Lost Lands and he feels the Dominion has the right idea of how to accomplish that. He would be willing to become one of the Pales if that is ever an option.


The above would give us some great insight into Greg's motivations and ideas for potential interactions he could have with the world and its NPCs. Does it mean he'll end up an official agent of the Domion or one of the Pales? No - but who knows what might happen given enough time and as events unfold? He might end up as a less official sort of hired contractor or mercenary of the Dominion, or maybe he does somehow forge more serious ties with them eventually. Regardless of what may or may not result from it, having this information will help provide fun potential opportunities for both GMs and the player.

Some other dream examples that have been made extra brief - feel free to be more detailed than the below or even include a brief secondary/tertiary goal at the end, just remember to keep it to a single concise paragraph:

Art the Arcanist hopes to make some new discovery in the workings of Arcana. He is sure that there's something to be found somewhere in the ruins of Aetgard that can help him make a discovery of new glyphs or an advanced diagram pattern, or just help fuel new theories about the hows and whys of Arcana.

Frieda the Physicker wants to study the resen infestation and is hoping to find some way to help infested people resist or recover in some way that hasn't been discovered yet.

Sarah the Sorcerer is seeking a way to utilize the theory behind sorcerous reanimation to perform a true resurrection on a dead (non-Undying) loved one. To this end she is willing to seek contact with and make deals with Malfant, and is also interested in learning more about Jonathon Crowhaven to see if there's anything he knew that would be of use.

Hector the Protector dreams of establishing an organization of fighters dedicated to keeping Lost Landers safe, seeing a particular need for defending travelers along roads between outposts so that greater unity and commerce can be had between the outposts of the Lost Lands. ((You can start that off by founding a Company, Hector!))

Nancy the Nuum is a dancer-bard who dabbles in both artifice and arcana, and is dedicated to Kebyet. She hopes to win Kebyet's attention and favor at some point, and hopes she can also find some similar path to immortality like Kebyet did. At the very least, she hopes to similarly make her way into a position of power via her cunning, dance, and Words of Power.

Pete the Primalist is dedicated to empowering any primal entities he can discover so that they can once again be the masters of the world and knock man off his pedestal. He is no Dunwyr himself and is more concerned with building up primal entities than directly attacking his fellow man, but he would be pleased to interact with and form relations with any Dunwyr he might chance to meet. Of course, Pete is also hoping to empower himself as part of his bond with these primal entities he wishes to build up. Perhaps one day he can transcend the chasm between man and primal that is currently only tenuously bridgeable via druidry.


Some of the above are loftier goals than others and therefore less likely to actually be achieved in-game. They're all valid, though, and they all provide useful information that GMs can use to try and occasionally cater specifically to the motivations and interests of those individual characters.

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