Wargames almost always have a complicated backstory that explains why people are fighting. It is something I've always liked, and want to put in Illeria. For a long time I had one idea of a story, but about a year or two ago I got a different one, and I'm debating which idea is better.
What do I want in my story? I want Illeria to work as a campaign game, so that a player could use the same party of characters over multiple games, with them gathering resources for some goal. The backstory should support this. I'd love it if the game had a fantasy cyberpunk feel to it (a dark and grungy world, but magic in place of technology). I want the characters to feel like amateurs, still figuring out magic, able to grow, and uncertain when spells will backfire. And I really want there to be a feeling that the characters are all alone, and trying to complete the quest.
My inspiration for that last idea (and some of the others) was the spire hunters in the game Necromunda. Necromunda is a wargame (and major inspiration for Illeria). It is set in a cyberpunk future, where gangs fight in the underground of huge cities. The spire hunters are rich kids who go down to fight as some kind of initiation. With each group, you start with a goal (such as survive 2 battles per character). But, the characters are basically abandoned down there, forced to fend for themselves, with no reinforcements or resupplies coming. If someone dies, they are gone, and there is no way to replace them or re-fill the role that they filled. I want campaigns in Illeria to produce that feeling of alone-ness, of having one's back against the wall, with the options being complete the quest or die.
Here are the backstories I've been debating between:
1) Illeria was a former prison island and magic research station (inspired by the rocket science done in soviet Gulags). The wizards - who didn't like being locked up - allied with the prisoners to overthrow the guards. But after escaping, chaos broke out. Most people knew they could not live long term on Illeria. So, parties of characters formed, and they battle for resources that they can use to survive and escape back to the mainland.
2) The city-state of Avon is undergoing a magical industrial revolution. This revolution is powered by materials from Illeria. Illeria is a strange outlands area, one that is teeming with magic, and could not be colonized. The magic guilds contract out teams of mercenaries to travel Illeria and gather resources (I'm picturing mountain men of the early American west). They are not allowed to return until they have collected what they were contracted to bring. Parties often battle trying to secure the resources.
Here are what I see as the pros and cons:
-#2 (Illeria the resource-rich outland) gives what feels like an arguably clearer reason for gathering resources, and a better explanation of what the resources are. #1 is okay at this, but it would be harder to explain why they'd need a set number of resources, rather than specific things.
-#1 (Illeria the former prison island) gives a better explanation for why the characters are such amateurs. #2 is okay at this, but it is harder to explain why elite mercenaries don't go back over and over and become super powerful.
-#2 gives a more cyberpunk feel.
-Both backstories give the sense of back-against-the-wall I'm looking for, I'm not sure which one does it better.
-#1 gives a much more narrow and detailed world. This will make it easier for me to write about it, and perhaps give it a more specific feel.
-#2 gives a bigger world. This will make it easier for players to make their own campaigns, and there are possibilities of stories beyond the basic one I am creating. It may also be easier to expand on later.
(That said, for the previous two, I'm not sure if I generally prefer the world representing a specific place and time, or a broad area)
-#2 might be better if I want the real-world land to be a desert (my preference).
Maybe there is more, this is what I have for now.
I'm on the fence about how to decide. I do have some text written for story #1, maybe I need to try to write something for #2 and see if it is as good. That, or maybe I need to poll my playtesters as to what they think.
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