[ArM5] Inspiration

[Varius]

Now this is a nice topic, that certainly should not be burried. Thanks for
bringing that up.

I'm currently working on a website that will include a few dozen story
hooks/ideas, but it's not open yet and completely in German so it won't help
you.

Here's a little something I wrote inspired by a BerkList discussion a long
time ago (some of this is based on ideas by Timothy Ferguson). I have a
longer worked-out version somewhere, but that's in German, so I can only
give you a rough version here:

1) There this nice village somewhere near the covenant. Probably a place the
covenant gets some of their supplies. As it's in a slightly magical aura you
get slightly strange kids every now and then. Now, one turns out to be
obsessed with fire and once he's old enough (probably during puberty) he
begins to start fires. Small ones to begin with, but still...

2) It'a a place near lots of magic (after all there's a covenant near), so
it has magical animals close. Or at least, it might have... And so it
happens that the first to find out about our little pyromaniac is a little
lizard - a Salamander. That guy likes fire and - consumes it!

3) One day the pyromaniac starts his first real fire. A barn or something
large enough  for the fire to be seen in the covenant. Everybody is out
trying to extinguish the fire, but really they have no chance - but suddenly
the fire dies down and is gone. (And a certain Salamander feels well fed.)

4) If the covenant invstigates, they won't find much evidence of what
happened. The people in the village are quite happy that it went so well so
who cares what really happened. Noone was hurt after all and the damage is
easily rebuilt.

5) Strange thing is, in the time after that, every other week new fires
start. And go out almost immediately after being noticed without harming
anyone. (I guess the "Why?" is obvious.)

6) Now the magi should be curious enough... Finding the pyromaniac is quite
easy, but that's only half the problem... If they find and remove the
pyromaniac they leave a Salamander that will go hungry pretty fast. If
you're nice one household will have serious trouble lighting and maintaining
their fire. If you're evil that Salamander will take revenge and have a bath
in the local well. (Their skin is deadly poisonous!)

7) One the other hand, if the magi find the Salamander first (probably a
Flambeau wants him as a familiar) then the next fire won't go out that
easily... 

It all goes to show that you should solve all of a problem, not just half of
it. :)

Cheers - Varius

PS: If you want to use it, feel free. Any non-commercial use welcome.
I'll do an English version of my website some day and I'd like to include
quite a few story ideas there... Any submissions welcome.


-----Original Message-----
From: ArM5-bounces at davidchart.com [mailto:ArM5-bounces at davidchart.com] On
Behalf Of Jimmy Plamondon
Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 9:28 PM
To: ArM5 at davidchart.com
Subject: [ArM5] Inspiration

Hello there!

I was just wondering if some storyguides out there would like to share some 
of their story idea sources with us.

Thank guys!

____________________________________
Jimmy AKA the holy hand grenade of Antioch



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