The Dolorous Stroke

The brave Knights of CAMELOT Trigger face off against MerGN-A and her army of Emergents. Illustration by Brett Barkley. Used with Evil Hat’s permission.

So, yesterday, I did a post about the Fate Worlds books. One of the settings in Worlds in Shadow is called CAMELOT Trigger ((I got the capitalization wrong throughout the entire post. Also, whenever I referred to it on Twitter or Facebook yesterday. This is the correct capitalization.)), by Rob Wieland, and a couple of folks in my gaming group got really excited about the idea of Arthurian giant robots in space ((Really, who can blame them?)). They’re hinting rather strongly that I should run a game.

Now, I don’t have time in my game schedule right now, but we are moving into the endgame for my Apocalypse World campaign, and are about the enter the last act of my Civil War campaign. That means I’m starting to think about what to replace them with, and so I’ve been considering CAMELOT Trigger.

One of the things I like about CT is that it gives enough detail to give you a good idea about the feel of the setting, and the broad strokes of the current situation. All the elements, moreover, are poised to provide interesting, dynamic conflicts for the characters to resolve, no matter where you want to slot them in. There’s the standard fighty bits one would expect playing giant space knights, but there’s also opportunity for intrigue, diplomacy, mystery, reconstruction, and quests.

What this really means to me is that, to run a game in the CT, you need to decide what the game is going to be. And, because I’ve been talking about it with a couple of my players, I’ve been thinking about that.

First, a caveat: if/when I actually run this game, I’m going to involve the players in designing the campaign, using the campaign creation rules in Fate Core. That just gives you more player investment. What follows is just a thought exercise, me testing to see if I can come up with a decent campaign idea that I like within the framework of the setting ((The answer, for those who haven’t guessed, is, “Yes.”)).

And thus, we have…

The Dolorous Stroke

Some say that the problems arose when Sir Balin, an Edge Knight, struck down one of the Petty Titans, bringing all the careful political balancing that Arthur had done crashing down. But Balin – and his Dai-5H0 armour – has vanished. The disaster brought all the simmering resentments and hidden secrets to the fore. Now, the entire solar system is starting to collapse into warring human states.

After the Betrayal ((Note that I probably want to but a twist on the whole love triangle thing in play, but will be looking to the players to help define that.)), the alliance between the Inner Worlds is in disarray. Queen Valerie has returned to Venus, L4-NC3-L07 has abandoned his rulership of Mars to hunt Emergents in the Wreck. Rumours of a cunning nano-viral attack on Avaluna Base that has incapacitated both the King and MerLN are fed by the fact that John Arthur has sealed himself up in Avaluna Base. And MerLN, once so chatty during transit through the Breach, mutters and laughs to himself, uttering gnomic – and terrifying – prophecies to those Knights he bothers to address.

The Emergents are taking advantage of this collapse to mount new offensives against the humans. News of falling enclaves of humanity arrives weekly, and everyone is pulling back to defend their own borders.

Almost everyone.

A small group of Knights, Arthur’s most trusted warriors, have sworn that the light of Earth shall not be so easily extinguished. Something may be wrong with the King, but something is definitely wrong with MerLN. Fix MerLN, and they will have a powerful tool restored to help them fix the rest of the solar system.

And to fix MerLN, they will need the help of a dead woman. They need Dr. Vyvyan Locke.

So? Whattaya think? I think it’s definitely a gamable little campaign idea.