Not long ago, one of my players said she wanted to have a break from playing heroes all the time and do something completely different. She wanted to have a go at playing an 'ordinary person' for a while. Her suggestion chimed with a corner of my contrary streak that has wanted to prove that commoners really can survive in D&D land (and you can even have fun with them). So we started, and before masses of time had passed, her character was becoming a power in his own town. Here's how it happened:
Posted on 2006/12/29
Having been thrown off the farm when his father died, 16 year old Joe Wood heads to nearby Freetown to earn his living. Apart from the peasant's outfit he stands up in, he has only an all-purpose belt knife (dagger), a sack containing the few things he actually owns (Clay jug & mug, cooking pot, flint & steel, a bedroll and a bit of food) and a battered old belt pouch containing more coins than he's ever seen before (1 sp and 13 cp). He feels rich and ready for anything.
Freetown comes as rather a shock to Joe. So many people! So much noise! And the prices! The inn wants more money than he owns, just for one night's food and shelter!
After some searching and some asking, Joe finds the labour corner of the market. Here he can turn up any morning and wait to be hired. Unfortunately, today he is too late. All the hirers have been and gone, and the corner is empty. He sits there hopefully for several hours, eating pieces of his own bread when the smell of good food gets too much for his hunger.
Eventually, he makes his way back out of the gates, buying a pound of flour, 6 eggs and some firewood as he leaves. Outside, he sets up camp on a bit of rough ground and, with the help of a flat stone, manages to turn the flour into reasonable unleavened bread. He hardboils the eggs in his cooking pot and eats one of them with the remains of the loaf he brought from home and a small slice of cheese. He stores the rest of his food in his sack for tomorrow, puts out the fire and settles down in his bedroll with his sack beside him.
In the middle of the night, he starts out of sleep to find he has rolled slightly away from his sack and a fox is trying to get into it…
Posted on 2006/12/30
All his life, Joe has both scared wild animals away from the crops and cared for his father's animals (and their gear). He knows the best thing to do is to look threatening and powerful, but that isn't easy when you're wrapped up in bedding.
The fox isn't fooled and snaps the air in warning. Joe yells at it, all the while scrabbling for his knife, and the fox backs a wary pace out of reach.
Sitting up with his knife now firmly in his grip, Joe eyes up the distance, takes a deep breath, and hurls the knife. To his relief, it hits a weak spot between the eyes and sinks in almost to the hilt. The fox promptly collapses in a heap.
When Joe finally scrambles out of his bedroll and checks everything over he finds that he was in time to prevent the fox from doing more than tearing the mouth of the sack slightly.
The fox itself is quite dead and Joe retrieves and cleans his knife. Remembering that some places offer a bounty on pests like foxes, rats and weasel and unable to get back to sleep, he carefully skins the fox and puts the skin beside his sack.
By the time the sun comes up, Joe is already waiting at the town gates so that he can quickly get to the labour market and earn some money. He has managed to tie the fox pelt to the side of his sack. He easily finds a day's work loading and unloading a merchant's wagons.
During their midday break, one of the three other workers, Den, asks if Joe is thinking of selling the pelt anywhere in particular. Joe shrugs and the worker offers him 5sp for it, saying “You won't get a price like that anywhere else,” while the other two workers snicker into their bread.
Joe thinks it sounds like a fortune and eagerly accepts. It's a whole week's wages for something he was just lucky in! That evening though, when the workers return to the market, he spots Den carrying the pelt into one of the more expensive looking shops. A short while later, Den comes out without the pelt and slips what looks very much like gold coins into his purse…
Posted on 2007/01/01
Joe realises that it will be no use trying to get the truth out of and vows never to be as stupid again. Next time he acquires a pelt, he decides, he will try the shop for himself.
He continues to turn up every morning at the labour market and finds work as either a labourer or a porter about 3 days a week. On the first day he isn't hired, he splashes out on some good cord and sets a few snares where he knows from past experience that several kinds of animal run. A week later, he has caught 2 rabbits and a squirrel. He skins and cleans them, and stews the meat in his pot with onions and turnips. After a monotonous diet of bread and hard-boiled eggs, broken only once by a 'don't ask' pie (the full nickname being 'don't ask what's in it, you won't like the answer', the stew is wonderful and Joe savours every bite.
The next day, he braces himself and goes into the expensive shop. Fur-trimmed clothes sway on every side and bolts of expensive cloth peek out of protective wrappings, and Joe is acutely aware of his own shabbiness. Still, he squares his shoulders and marches up to the counter. “I heard,” he says, “that you sometimes buy pelts?”
The shopkeeper nods without much surprise. “Let's see them.”
Joe spreads the three skins on the counter and the shopkeeper flips them back and forth, fingers them and examines the fur closely. “Reasonable quality. Here's your pay. Take it or leave it.” He pushes 2gp across the counter to Joe who tries not to stare as he fumbles them into his fist. So much money, so easily! It's like a dream! He bites a corner of one to make sure he isn't dreaming, but the dents he leaves, and the metallic taste in his mouth are quite real.
The shopkeeper nods again. “If you have more squirrel pelts, trapper, bring them here and I'll pay you top price.”
Joe can only nod, speechless. He slips quickly out of the shop and shoves the coins into the bottom of his belt pouch.
As he crosses the square, someone shouts “Hey, you!”
Joe looks quickly around, but no-one is near him.
“Yes, you in the brown shirt.”
Joe has to admit that his shirt is indeed brown. He turns quickly as hooves clatter on the cobbles behind him only to find himself facing not only a horse and rider, but also a wolf with a gnome on its back.
The rider grins at him. “My friend here insists that his wolf is faster than my horse. I'm racing him to prove him wrong. Start us off, man.” He holds up a silver coin. “For your trouble.”
Joe catches the coin and raises his arm. “Ready? Then, 3, 2, 1, go!” He sweeps his arm down and the pair charge away towards the temple. They are gone before Joe looks down at the coin they gave him and realises that it isn't silver at all, it's a metal and design that he has never seen before…
Posted on 2007/01/03
Since the strange coin doesn't seem to be spendable, Joe keeps it as a luck piece and carries on much as before. He comes to the labour market in the mornings, sometimes gets hired, sometimes doesn't, checks his snares regularly, and spends what money he earns on flour and eggs and occasionally a few vegetables or a 'don't ask' pie.
Over the next few weeks, he brings in 2 more squirrel pelts and several rabbit skins and gets paid the massive amount of 1gp for each squirrel and 5sp for each rabbit.
Then, late on a free afternoon, as he is bringing in his latest few skins, he spots smoke curling out under the door of the neighbouring building…
Posted on 2007/01/05
Joe knows that nothing is more dangerous in a town than a rampaging fire. He points to the smoke and yells 'Fire!' just as a flame licks under the door beside the smoke. The nearest stall holders and shopkeepers take up the cry as more and more people come running. One look at the flames and smoke and they grab whatever containers they can quickly lay hands on and join the chain stretching down from the central pump. Joe dumps his sack at the foot of an abandoned stall, digs out his cooking pot and runs to join up. Buckets, pots, bowls, jugs and pitchers pass from hand to hand and the water in them hurled frantically at the burning building.
Ten minutes of sweating, choking on smoke and smelling singed hair later, two of the temple priests come hurrying up. They don't join the chain, they just skid to a halt and thrust their hands out towards the fire as if hoping to get warm. Joe doesn't think much of them until water suddenly starts appearing out of thin air above the fire and splashing down onto it.
The fire hesitates and stretches out in a new direction. Joe yells back at it, 'Oh no you don't' and leads a second bucket line to quench it. Under the double (and renewed) assault, the fire trembles and begins to shrink. After more frantic work, it finally collapses into embers.
The bucket lines pause, hanging onto the containers and watch it warily. When they are sure that the fire really is out, they start to retrieve their own containers and drift away. Joe collects his pot, turns to retrieve his sack and sees a boy about to run off with it…
Posted on 2007/01/09
Joe breaks into a run but the boy just thumbs his nose and turns to run himself. With few options left, Joe yells 'Hey, you!“ When the boy momentarily looks back, Joe hurls the cooking pot. He misses and the pot rolls idly past the boy's now racing feet. 'No!” Joe yells desperately. 'Stop! Thief!'
The firefighters are turning to look. The boy looks back and thumbs his nose once more. But he is so busy taunting Joe that he fails to notice the cooking pot rolling around in front of him. Chin still on shoulder, he catches his foot on the pot and goes flying.
Joe increases his speed and manages to reach the boy for he can scramble away again. Sitting triumphantly on the boy's ankles, he prises his sack out of the boy's hands and snatches up the cooking pot.
The boy protests, loudly. 'That's my stuff! You got no right to chase me down like a-' He suddenly gulps to a stop.
'Like?' prompts another voice.
Joe looks up to see the two priests who came to help fight the fire.
'Like as not,' one of them continues, 'you'll be coming out with the same tale as you did when the High Priest caught your hand in the poor-box?'
'Or the time you cut a stall-holder's purse,' adds the other. 'I think we'll skip the chatter this time.' He turns to Joe. 'Thank you for your assistance in catching him. If you'll just let him up so I can pat him down…'
Joe scrambles up and backs off, hastily checking through his things. Nothing seems to be missing. The priests, though, keep producing items and piling them into his arms. They top it off with a lumpy pouch. Joe tries to protest that none of this is his. He doesn't want to be seen as another thief.
'Nonsense,' the priests tell him, 'take it as a reward for catching him. He won't need it anymore.'
A hand closes on Joe's shoulder, but his arms are too full for him to turn quickly. 'You fought the fire too, didn't you?' says a faintly familiar voice. Joe nods, and finally manges to turn around. It's the shopkeeper who has been buying the pelts fron him. 'I'll just add my own thank you then,' the man says and dumps a second lumpy bag into Joe's arms with a clink that sounds like gold….
Posted on 2007/01/15
When Joe finally finds a quiet corner to investigate everything he has been given, he is almost overwhelmed. He has a pouch containing a score or more of gold coins, another half full of silver, a warm padded coat, an entire bandolier of knives, a roll of tools that he doesn't recognise and isn't sure he wants to, a small handful of firesticks (tindertwigs) and a bottle of something that smells suspiciously of healing herbs.
Squeezing everything into his sack, Joe eyes the gathering clouds and decides to spend a little of his new-given wealth on a meal and a night in an inn rather than out in the open rough land. When he hears the rain hammering down outside, he lingers over his stew and sips cautiously at his watered ale.
In the far corner, a small group starts arguing about whether to have another round of drinks while they're waiting for the weather to clear. Joe glances over just long enough to register that at least some of them move as if they know how to fight and decides to keep clear. It's nothing to do with him, anyway.
Their voices are rising though. 'We need you to have a clear head tomorrow and you know you get your spells mixed up when you have too many drinks!'
'Do not!'
'Do!“
The other customers are carefully backing away, leaving a clear space around the group. Joe eases back against the wall as one of the group lurches to his feet.
There is a flash of pink light and a puff of lavender scented smoke. When it clears, nothing seems to have happened. Everybody is looking cautiously around. Joe puts his mug down for a moment and cranes his neck, trying to see better. There are too many people in the way though, so he sits back down and reaches for his mug. Only the mug isn't there.
A moment later, he spots it spinning around on its handle and heading further down the table. Joe tries to grab it back and nearly succeeds. Except that the mug twists its handle away from him, sprouts tiny feet and jumps off the table along with a cluster of other mugs….
Posted on 2007/01/23
The animated mugs race across the room, wind their way through the crowd trying to grab them back, and begin bashing one of the fighters on the ankles. He looks down with a wry smile, sticks a knife point down in the table and begins catching the mugs one by one and tying them to the knife hilt while the rest of his group hustle the caster outside. Joe watches, fascinated, as the mugs try to scrabble free again, lunging at the fighter's hands every time he ties up another mug.
Three-quarters of the mugs are tied up when they suddenly all stop moving. The fighter prods them a couple of times and then retrieves his knife. 'All right, folks, sorry about you lost drinks. Refills are on us.' He slides some money across the bar and follows the rest of the group out.
The innkeeper cautiously sniffs the beer and says, 'Well, at least this time he hasn't made all the drinks taste of garlic.'
There is a general chuckle and conversation picks up again. Joe accepts a mug of much better quality ale and drinks it slowly, waiting for it to be time to unroll his bedding and get some sleep.
He is still tired next day and decides, as exciting as eating in an inn appears to be, that he much prefers his usual place where he doesn't have to worry what time it is or how much noise other people make.
He returns to the labour market each morning and gets hired about half the time, occasionally working with animals but more often as a labourer. On his way back after a day's work, he is musing over what food to buy today when he hears hooves pounding over the cobbles and turns to see a driverless pony cart charging straight at him…
Posted on 2007/01/31
Joe just manages to throw himself out of the way in time. As the cart crashes past, he makes a frantic snatch at the loose reins. His first attempt misses and he has to scramble up and race along beside the cart for another try. He finally manages to catch the reins at the third attempt and hauls the pony around until it is moving parallel to the market stalls rather than at them. He then starts trying to calm it down before it rips the reins out of his hand and runs over his feet.
'Easy, easy,' he murmurs, patting the pony's neck. The animal turns its head to look at him and begins to relax.
The cart owner comes panting up and stares with delight, saying, 'I have never seen that pony look so calm! I could do with someone like you in my stables!'
Joe just shrugs and says, 'I used to handle all the animals on my dad's farm.'
'Are you looking for work?'
'I'm always looking for work.' Joe shrugs and pats the pony. The look of the cart owner's face suggests that the man wants to hire him so badly that he can hold out for really good pay and conditions. 'You got something for me? Bit late for starting anything today, but I could come over tomorrow maybe…'
'How about a permanent job? Full time?'
'Oh, I don't know. I'd lose my camp spot if I came late to it too often…'
'Bed and half board included?'
'All right,' Joe says. 'It's a deal.' He hands over the pony's reins. 'Tomorrow, then.'
'Tomorrow,' the cart owner says, climbing up onto the driver's seat and giving directions.
Joe nods, and turns back to contemplating the food on offer (and levels up at last). Finally deciding to buy both cheese and a 'don't ask' pie, he heads out of town, wondering what on earth he has let himself in for…
This game is DMed by Heros_Backpack from the wizards.com boards. He holds the copyright to all content.
Here's the original thread, complete with comments from other posters.