A Stonetop ditty campaign: radical roleplaying
I had enough time to squeeze in a demo for some curious gamers, so we started Session 0 last night and finished character creation relatively quickly. The group is small, and most of them came in with a very precise idea of who their villagers were, so proportionally I think we may have hit the finish line in record time.
We have Brandyn the Blessed by Press the Beast, a 17 year old Initiate who... hates his job? It seems he found himself in this position after a death in the family and considers his responsibilities a drag. Consistent with a 17 year old. He has a herd of goats he loves more than anything in the world and a couple of followers that work almost like tragicomedy masks. This player really leaned into Afon's "devious" tag and interpreted him as more of a frenemy. Olwin, the anointed lover, is played pretty straight as the girlfriend. We established that Brandyn goes to our Fox for relationship advice, and that this advice is so good it overstates how effectively Brandyn can navigate the relationship without it, leaving him in a position that seems... apt! Perfect! We also learned that Brandyn's family enjoys a high status in Stonetop.
Then there's Corwyn the Fox by Gin. There were some conversations a while back about what place a thief really has in Stonetop, long before this demo campaign was put together. Naturally, Gin came out swinging with a crystal clear idea of who this Fox was and how he earned his role in town. He's just in it for the love of the game. Apparently he has no immediate family left in Stonetop and turns to his fellow never-do-wells for trusted community. There's somewhat of a racketeering scheme going on with a network of other thieve-y types in Stonetop. They're almost tricksters for the sake of being tricksters. Something I thought was cool is that Gin extrapolated from the Fox title and named his NPC allies after other animals. This Fox is also known for smoothing over interpersonal problems and keeping the vibes high with a silver tongue. A finger in every pie, a slice for himself.
I think Gin's conclusions make sense: a Fox can be someone who just likes to get away with sneaky stuff and enjoy social mastery even as someone who feels like an outsider in his own village. As it evolved, it happened to be pretty different from what most people think of when they think of Stonetop the village. However, I don't think it entirely went against the text.
Make sure that everyone is on board with the concept of Stonetop: that they’ll play the heroes of a small, isolated village. If someone wants to play a rootless, treasure-hunting mercenary, they’re unlikely to enjoy themselves, and that will drag down the game for everyone.
He's definitely not rootless. Is he a hero? Not sure. We could land there but I feel like there will be shades of grey involved. I'm ultimately jazzed that someone invented a usefully morally gray thief type who is still invested in the town. It just happens to be for different reasons than most.
Then we have Gaelor. If I say that this Heavy is my favorite, it's not out of a lack of love for Brandyn or Corwyn. Truthfully Gourd Dwarf has the least difficult PC for me to work with. This Heavy is played pretty straight and feels like a genuinely tragic person struggling to rise from his own past. And yet his present is mired in past. At a wee 19 years old, he's already been 1) blacklisted from Marshedge (he's a Heavy, you can figure out what happened) 2) briefly exiled from Stonetop 3) more or less treated with fear and distance after returning from a stint in Gordin's Delve. Gaelor is the only boy in his massive family headed by a mother who serves as Stonetop's midwife. It seems his only friends in the world are the two other PCs, to his chagrin. He has a very ill little sister, because of course he does. Something of note was that Gourd Dwarf pointed out a piece of worldbuilding I didn't expect: Gaelor's sister is viewed as a burden on the village.
This was interesting to me because players I've encountered tend to paint a very communal, trusting, happy, loving Stonetop. I love a plucky anarcho-communist Stonetop and frequently paint my home campaign's world that way when I get a chance. But this one is so different. We have a rich family representing a fertility god next to these other people that don't feel taken care of. For one reason or another they either decided they had something to prove or that they must survive on their wits. I think our Fox cares about Stonetop to the extent that a kingpin needs a village to rule, while our Heavy is terrified by how thrilling his most violent night truly was and probably seeks to channel this into something that wins him love and respect instead of fear and hatred.
What do I do with this? If you're one of my players, everything from here on is technically spoiler territory, so scroll to the last paragraph or so if you want to stay blind. I rolled with interpretations of Stonetop that go against "the grain" because I see it as a creative writing challenge and useful opportunity to sharpen my GMing skills. I also think it's really creative. This Stonetop looks bleak and sick from my perspective. Awesome! They're no better than anyone else fighting for survival in this damaged and perilous world. I was thinking for a while that I would present my players with consequences consistent with how I usually perceive Stonetop (a happy place where love and belonging rule all), but I think I would rather see what happens if I present a Stonetop as the place that they think it is. They don't use money, but everything has a price.
This campaign was pitched as something short, so we won't get to see the long term effects of this approach. I am rueful about this reality: in a perfect world I would love to see the long term arcs of all three of these boys. Hearth fantasy antiheroes seems really fun. What would Corwyn do if he met the Ustrina? How does Brandyn feel about sacrificial rites? When Gaelor meets Tor, do they get along?
Do they even survive in the world they created?
Stonetop is written by Jeremy Strandberg and published by Lampblack and Brimstone, 2026.