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Wednesday 3 September 2014

Generating your own 'Game of Thrones' style Houses

So as you  can probably tell, I've been thinking about expanding upon the uses of my name generation table, and here's something that came to my attention after reading an article in Wargames Soldiers & Strategy issue 74 on creating figures for Game of Thrones using various plastic historical sets. My brain however is never happy with simply copying, but thinks what if I could use my universe generator currently in development to generate a Game of Thrones style fantasy world with its own Houses? Then all I'd need are some simple rules for combat and I can solo roleplay in that universe too. Which is a concept that's been on my mind a lot lately, that of creating a universe to write stories in and using wargaming to work out the outcome of battles, skirmishes and one on one fights. Which like George R.R. Martin, should kill off characters in a more realistic way.

Anyway, on to generating houses.

Use the table as standard to generate a house name, here's one I generated earlier: House Yzikku (Iz-ee-ku)
Roll 1D% to determine the number of generations the house as existed for: 10
Roll 1D10 for the number of current Lords: 5
Generate the name of each Lord, the ruling lord must have the same surname as the house, however each normal Lord only has that name on a roll of 4+ on 1D6.
Ruling Lord: Slazu (Slay-zoo) Yzikku
Lord 1: Eqo (Ek-oe) Buokyi (Boo-oe-key)
Lord 2: Rik Yzikku
Lord 3: Vira (Vie-rah) Yzo (Ee-zoe)
Lord 4: Falon Yzikku

Then we start drawing up a basic family tree by making rolls to determine the relation of each Lord to the Ruling Lord on the table below:

D10 Roll
If the Lord has the same surname as the Ruling Lord
If the Lord does not
1
Brother
Brother in Law
2
Brother
Son in Law
3
Brother
Father in Law
4
Son
Uncle
5
Son
Life Long Friend
6
Son
Climbed through the Ranks
7
Uncle
Step Son
8
Uncle
Step Brother
9
Uncle
Half Brother
10
Half Brother
Tournament Champion

These rolls should generate gaps, which then require more characters to be generated to fill. This system is a little patriarchal, so if you desire, why not invert it, and have a family of female lords, maybe miniatures wise using Wargames Factory Amazons. The dice rolls on the table above will enable you to work out the rough ages of each Lord, and so generate an age, which in turn will help with modelling later.

After my rolls on the above table I saw a House plot developing, Eqo FiL, Rik Bro, Vira CttR, Falon Half Brother

Slazu's Father and Mother had him and his brother Rik, their mother then passed away, their father re-married and had a third son Falon. Slazu eventually married, and gave his new father in law Eqo the title of Lord in House Yzikku. Vira climbed through the ranks, from a member of a Lord's retinue, to a Lord's bodyguard, to finally a Lord himself. Since it is the custom to execute any bodyguard that sees his Lord die, it can be worked out that Vira was previously (randomly determine) Falon's bodyguard. Slazu's father then died, making Slazu the Ruling Lord of House Yzikku.

We can then determine rough ages, because we can map out generations - Slazu, Rik and Falon are all the same generation, Eqo is the older generation and Vira could be either. First Eqo is 49 years old (D20+40). Slazu, Rik and Falon are (D10+20 assigning Slazu the highest value, Rik the second and Falon the lowest), 29, 27 and 21. I've decided the roll for Vira's age should put him somewhere between 25 and 45, and so am rolling D20+25, which should give him time for all the necessary heroics that gave him Lord status. Vira is 37 years old.

Next I would proceed to generate all the other people necessary to make possible what we have so far, wives, sisters, daughters etc. Then  maybe move on to generate the founding Lord, who no doubt although dead will be revered by all. Then the Lords' bodyguards and finally all the stats necessary for the rules I'll use, whatever they may be.

Here's the basic family tree of House Yzikku centering around the Lords, because you didn't need to see me roll for all this:



Thanks for stopping by!
WGP






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