Game Prep Part 2

or What's in a Name?


The next step I took was to decide on the name of the town and it's location. I wanted something that was interesting, and would allow for some freedom of creativity. I looked at a couple apocalyptic name generators to get ideas for the town name, I finally went with one I found at Fantasy Name Generator and named the town Grimburg. I felt this was a good name that the first people to resettle the area could have come up with in this hot, arid, dangerous area. I decided also to set the location on the ruins of Kit Carson Colorado, so I had a good location on the map, and could use actual places for the archaeological sites that the group will encounter.

Once those were out of the way, I looked into how I wanted the town to be run. I decided on a town council with members of the most prominent families, the head of the school, and the sheriff as the one who hear the grievances of the citizens and make decisions for the town as a whole. With this decision, I then needed to make at least a basic outline of the main families, head of the school, and sheriff.

I also took this time to make a few other notable members of the town, and a few NPCs that they might know or be interested in.

For each character, I took to google image search to find just the right look to bring them to life. If I needed a shady businessman, I made sure they didn't look like a rough cyborg hacker, no dirty cowboy look for the owner of the most prosperous store. If I did go against type, I made sure to work in some background to explain the reason they are not what they should look like.

From this list of NPC skeletons, I grew the framework of the towns ruling body, and a few adventure hooks for later into the campaign. Each important person ended up with a name, species, rough age, alignment, personality, goal, image, and at least one secret. This allows for jumping off points and to keep the town from seeming too generic. I then named and gave a brief idea of the main businesses in the town, so the group has an idea of where they go to do what, and if they want to work in town as well.

In my next post, we will discuss NPCs and ways to make them more believable.

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