Wulfwald - Dramatis Personae
TTRPG allows for an avenue of expression scarcely availed elsewhere. From exploration into heterodox norms and attitudes, to play-acting an entirely different personality from your own, the privacy of the creatively fictive space grants the player a kind of freedom he would not dare in the outside world. So it goes with the players of this Wulfwald campaign.
Composed largely of international students divergent from the local majority in matters of faith, the participants are themselves sandwiched between larger and louder socio-religious cleavages. Religion seems to be a rather core element in a human being's makeup despite what some in the West may believe vis-a-vis the death of religions and the rise of Reason with a capital R, as its dividing role as cultural markers remain a potent segregator, especially in this part of the world. In a way, the players' participation in our make-believe story is a means to be freed from the burdens of reality in search for the ideal - a structured narrative where good defeats evil, where heroes are heroes, and the comforts of a guiding Will in the lives of men can be felt. A semblance of order in the fiction, unfamiliar to us who live in the chaotic real.
The following is a short introduction to the player characters.
Altun
CLASS: Réðealing Bogamann
KINDRED: ethnically Kyrgyz
RELIGION: Tengriism
The Tengriist shortbow-using archer made by the Kyrgyz player. Altun is descended from a Central Asian tribe that has wandered far in search of mercenary work over the last few centuries, eventually ending up in Gaul. Her family was blamed for some crime within the tribe, and had to scatter, with her ending up in the blessed isle of Albion. Betrayed by both kin (the wider tribe) and a stranger in a strange land, Altun is gripped with a fell and aimless mood. There is no long-term plan or goal for this forsaken woman - she kills to satisfy a grim misanthropy that has been imprinted into her psyche by the circumstances of her life. To Thegn Raedwald, Altun is a useful tool - but also a dangerous one, liable to cause unnecessary deaths.
Mildrith
CLASS: Scildmægden
KINDRED: Anglo-Saxon
RELIGION: Resigned Antitheist
A faith-less Saxon made by the Ukrainian player. Mildrith was once a Þræl (thrall, servant, slave) of a thegn whose death was wrongly accused on her due to being unlucky enough to be the first witness to his and his wife's murder. Having fled the scene, she knows that her family is lost to her; they would have been executed for her "crime". Now she serves a new thegn as an outlaw-wolf, hoping that one day she will be able to become a bur (landless peasant) or even a ceorl and start a family of her own in peace. She is somewhat resigned to the past chapter of her life; vengeance isn't what motivates her, but the desire to be able to move on, which will only be possible once she removes her outlaw status.
Mathghamhain
CLASS: Réðealingas Beaduróf
KINDRED: Pict
RELIGION: Celtic paganism
A pike-axe swinging Pictish character, created by the Sudanese player. Mathghamhain (pronounced Mac-go-wan, from what I can tell) is a simple man; all brawns, little brains. Having drifted south over the course of his life, this bearhide-covered battlestrong was rescued from the pyre by overzealous clerics and their mob by Thegn Raedwald, and lives in simple contentment. Though kind-hearted (according to the player, anyway) he has no qualms about shattering skulls and breaking bones. There is a kind of calm acceptance toward the ebb and flow of life in this individual.
Geralt
CLASS: Ælfcynn Wuduheald
KINDRED: Norman-French
RELIGION: Gaulish paganism
A smuggler-spearman, created by the Indonesian player. Geralt was born in a merchant family in the Continent and plied the same trade as his kindred, trafficking wares to hidden cults and covens of those who still believe in the Old Gods in this kingdom of Christians. Unfortunately, he was found out, so he had to flee to backwaters Albion, where he could erase his identity and start life anew. But there is only so much trust an outlander in a medieval society can gain without men and wealth - having lost everything save the ancestral war-spear and an acquired dexterity from years in the smuggler's trade, Geralt now kills for Thegn Raedwald, hoping to earn sufficient trust - and honour - to become a merchant-lord under his ambitious Thegn.
[Name TBD]
CLASS: Réðealing Wicce
KINDRED: ethnically Indian
RELIGION: Syncretic Islam
A familiar-sworn witch made by the Pakistani player. The Empire once connected far-flung nations and goods together in a common security platform to trade and mingle with. So it was with this witch's family, whose ancestors migrated west over generations as they plied their mercantile trade. With the disappearance of Rome from Albion's shores, however, the status of a Roman citizen has eroded over the centuries. Having strange-sounding names and different-coloured skin is now reason enough to consider a family outcasts and prime candidate for looting and killing. Having fled the death of her family, the girl found safety - and further infamy - in the establishment of a contract with a foulspawn familiar. Eventually, she would find herself in the wolfpack of Thegn Raedwald; there is only so much grubs and wild mushrooms one can bear to eat.
There are two more players who may or may not be joining us (one more likely than the other), but they have yet to submit their character concepts.
29 April addendum: a new player joins the wolfpack!
Svetlana (Celtic name Sorcha, pronounced Sor-ka)
CLASS: Réðealing Bogamann
KINDRED: Western Slavic
RELIGION: Slavo-Celtic syncretic paganism
A hunter-archer a long way from home, made by the Turkish player. A shipwreck in the northern seas with her merchant parents caused her to drift to Albion's shores, where she was taken in by Celtic villagers of the hidden forest kingdom of Gwynedd. She grew up seeing the village chief as her new father figure - not surprising, given that he and his household was the only ones that accepted her as one of their own, with the rest of the village believing the outlander girl to be bad luck. This superstition would come to be justified when Svetlana came across a wounded Finnish warrior and brought him back to the village to nurse him back to health. The warrior betrayed his saviour by running away in the night once he was able, returning with a troop of Norsemen eager for easy loot and chattel. She was herself taken to the city of Lundene in Kent with the rest of the enslaved Celts, but managed to free herself from a forced marriage with the Finnish warrior by killing him and running away. Even so, the infamy of her deed has spread, and Celts who have lost friends and relatives in the destruction of the village have a blood-debt to the dead and the enslaved to find and kill Svetlana in as horrifying a manner as possible. She managed to make her way all the way to Westlund Saexe, but was found out there by Celtic emissaries who were visiting King Cyneric's court. Being a person of zero importance, the King had no reason to defend her from the emissaries' demands for her death.
Thegn Raedwald, however, saw a different use for the woman. Visiting her gaol the night before her public hanging, the thegn offered her a place in his wolfpack, having noticed her bow-arm. A good archer is not made out of thin air, he knew. One must be nurtured into the skill from a young age. And having trained among the Celtic bogamann, she could more than hold her own despite being a woman.
A child of two worlds yet neither, Svetlana finds no acceptance among the Celts (her adopted people) nor the Norsemen (among whom are Slavs). Despite being Slavic herself, she remains grateful and guilt-ridden to the chieftain and his family whose deaths she is responsible for, and seeks to absolve her sin by fighting against the Norsemen - on the side of the Anglo-Saxons, if need be.