Wraith Sea
I recently ran a three-year long tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) set in the same world as my unpublished novel (A Dirge for Windrose). The campaign was called Wraith Sea, set smack dab in the middle of the Five Empires. The system I used was Pathfinder Second Edition by Paizo Inc., and my players started at level 1 and went all the way to level 20.
The concept was that a large island in Wraith Sea vanished during a cataclysmic event called The Reckoning. After 1,600 some years, the island has reappeared. The governing bodies of the Independent Isles didn’t wish for civil war to break out over land grabs, so they created a contest where representatives of each island would send explorers to investigate. My player characters (PCs) became pathfinders for the isle of Requiem, and they sailed to this re-emerging isle of Dirge to take part in the contest.
The main characters consisted of a human salvage plunderer and inventor named Arlo, a clever goblin rogue named Grep, a dwarven battle bard named Punchdrunk, a human field medic warrior named Dudley, a construct made of forest parts who disappeared 1600 years ago with the isle named Nero, and a kitsune pirate princess named Minori. The ancestries didn’t completely match the ancestries of my world, but it was not hard making minor adjustments to fit.
Years of building up relationships, the PCs grew and evolved to become well-respected community builders. They developed a village called Magnum Opus, and they built it up by providing a safe haven for misplaced citizens found on the island. The went head-to-head against a tyrant searching for an island in the aethereal vale where he could consume the energy of a dead aetheri (the name for the deities). They thwarted the tyrant as Nero decided to claim the power for themselves in order to protect the world from other tyrants who might seek the same thing. Nero become a new aetheri named The Reckoning, which led to the changing of the village’s name to Opus Dei.
Throughout the process, we introduced Minori’s absentee mother which led to a reconciliation. Dudley’s daughter Alva became a wise rogue. A son Dudley didn’t know existed showed up named Liam. A gnome druid, Geva, broke free from her overprotective father to explore the wilds. Dudley and Minori married each other. Grep developed an entire community built co-op. Arlo became a famous inventor. A child of aetheri, tormented by the cataclysm and begging for help was rescued and resurrected as a normal human girl raised by Minori and Dudley.
The impact of running a TTRPG in the world of my novel was made easier by vast knowledge of the setting. It benefited from my players’ input. Their ability to create and play in this space rewarded me by providing deeper context to worldbuilding. Their backstories merging with my world allowed for emotional emergent storytelling. It meant the world to me to have my closest friends treating my homebrew islands with respect and dignity, and they forever added to the world’s lore and vibe.
Years of weekly games. 123 sessions. 20 levels. Thousands of laughs and memories. Three years well-spent.