Read on Twitter
Hi friends! Today I want to talk about the Brightspear City Guide, the second booklet in the Soulbound Starter set. How its structured, what it cares about, who its for. Also one remarkably good idea people should consider stea… er… using in their city settings. Lets dig in!
For those interested part 1, which looks at the included teaching adventure, is below. https://twitter.com/pandatheist/status/1341759798543605760?s=21
And should you be interested in the starter set itself, you can check it out here.
https://www.cubicle7games.com/product/warhammer-age-of-sigmar-soulbound-starter-set/
https://www.cubicle7games.com/product/warhammer-age-of-sigmar-soulbound-starter-set/
Who is Brightspear for?
The Brightspear guide is, probably, the first introduction to the setting for most people. It has to teach the GM about the world, set the tone, deal with the most important themes, while maintaining a sense of possibility and openness. Its the prologue.
The Brightspear guide is, probably, the first introduction to the setting for most people. It has to teach the GM about the world, set the tone, deal with the most important themes, while maintaining a sense of possibility and openness. Its the prologue.
Brightspear is, with one VERY notable exception I’ll get to shortly, designed more to be read than referenced at the table. Its teaching setting more than providing interaction hooks. Lets look at an example.
Early on in the booklet there is a section on my favorite thing for city books: factions. Factions with differing goals are THE best way to make cities feel alive. It builds in tension, stakes, allies, enemies. It provides jobs and opportunities. It guarantees threats.
Moreover, factions can be political enemies, meaning you can’t just swing a sword at them or blast them with magic easily. You have to outthink them, outmaneuver them. Get creative. So how does Brightspear present factions?
Below is the Freeguild. The description focuses on function and political standing. Which is all informative but…
You get mention of a single member by name, 3 subfaction names without description, and an important location.
You get mention of a single member by name, 3 subfaction names without description, and an important location.
The description tells you the organization is important and where you’re likely to see them, but it isnt interested in framing them via a player centric view. Who is an interesting NPC they’re likey to meet? What jobs might they have? What internal conflicts could spill over?
And, per the table of contents page, that is how most of the book is framed. There’s lots of cool ideas at work but how those ideas can be turned i to adventure is largely left to the(ostensibly new) GM. Its there to provide context and inspiration instead of tools and direction.
This is a choice, and while its not one that matches my preferences these days its understandable. It does what it wants to do well. I just wish it had taken a page out of Pound of Flesh or similar and gone all in on player facing framing.
NOW. All that said. I mentioned an exception and its so goddamned good. Lets tak about the Threats section.
Threats is a set of one page adventures structured in phases meant to generate an ongoing campaign. Each threat has:
A rumor: the occasional whisper in the street.
A fear: people are starting to tell personal stories.
Threat: bad thing is happening.
A rumor: the occasional whisper in the street.
A fear: people are starting to tell personal stories.
Threat: bad thing is happening.
To build a campaign you take a set of 6 for rumors, one to be a fear, and one to be an active threat. While players are taking Endeavor actions(downtime) increase 2 fears to rumors and one fear to an active threat.
I LOVE this. It doesn’t explicitly mention it, but you could continue to add rumors as you go and generate adventures basically forever, keeping the city alive and dangerous without much work. So wonderful.
Add in some faction rivalries and some more long term enemies and you have an easy to run forever campaign. Seriously. This is fantastic tech. Would love to see it elsewhere in the future.
Below is an example of one of the included threats
Below is an example of one of the included threats
There is one criticism I have of the threats as presented. The other booklet, Faltering Light, is a very smartly structured teaching adventure. But its a dungeon.
Some of the threats also end up being dungeon adventures, but there isn’t really much in the way of guidance for mysteries or social adventures. Pacing and framing expectations can be very different from dungeon crawls. This could be particularly challenging for new GMs.
Still. All that said, Threats are excellent, and maybe even worth the price of admission. Faltering Light also does generative adventuring, and if this ends up being a continued focus for Soulbound in the future I will be a very happy camper.
All told Soulbound continues to be the trad game most exciting me these days. The rules are elegant, the writing is solid, and its managing to surprise me each time with some clever new innovation. I’m very excited to see what the team has in store for the future.
As always, please feel free to hit me up with questions or comments, and Id love to hear your experiences with it. Thanks for reading everyone!
