Ohoy Kadungganan! Let me introduce to you WHERE WE WERE MOST BEAUTIFUL, the first Main Scenario Campaign of Gubat Banwa. 

Where We Were Most Beautiful is a Main Scenario Campaign meant to bring Kadungganan from Rank 1 to Rank 15, in an islands spanning campaign of war drama, forlorn love, and generational evil. Prove your Conviction, for in the isles, only your Conviction will keep you alive. Only your Conviction separates you from monsters.

Main Scenario?

Main Scenario is something inspired by the Main Scenario Quests of FFXIV. The “Main Scenario” of Gubat Banwa is in more familiar terms the Metaplot of the game. It is meant to evolve and grow the setting. The Main Scenario is a playable metaplot wherein you learn about the setting through play.

This lends itself well to two ways: instead of having to pore through lore books, you get them in discreetly playable chunks, as well as helping those that want to run a Gubat Banwa game but don’t have a good grasp on the setting.

Main Scenario Campaigns therefore are a bit more “railroad-y” than other adventures or modules, as traditional TRPG terminology would call it. MSCs are not sandboxes nor are they freeform. They have specific narrative beats that you build to and objectives you must fulfill. The world is bigger than your characters.

Live Document?

The document itself is a Live Document, meaning it is being written even as I post it on here for you to read. This means there will be changes and such, but you can begin a Where We Were Most Beautiful Campaign immediately with the current Live Doc, as it has enough content for at least 3 to 5 sessions.

The Live Document will be regularly updated. I'll make another devlog when all of Chapter 1 is finished, but as it is written there is enough content for you to run a game in!

Themes

Where We Were Beautiful  deals with the themes of Generational Violence, Forced Inheritance, Perpetual War, and Conviction.

Generational Violence because this game will be about the sins of the war torn past, and how it has come to create a modern time that is inherently harmful to those living in it, mired in war and prejudice, in hatred and non-peace. The troubles of the present are exactly the troubles of the past.

Forced Inheritance because the setting forces the characters living within it to inherit what they might not want: noble responsibility, the debts of their fathers, the slave status of their mothers. On a grander scale, the current war torn lands of the Skysea War is something given to them because of the failure of the Empire of Sang Hari-Hari to listen to its people.

Perpetual War because everywhere they go, they will be assaulted with violence. If not physical, then political, in that jockeying war for trade routes and natural resources. If not political, then spiritual, as the diwata and the yawa hamper the daily lives of the mortals who have destroyed and blasphemed the nature that they live within.

Conviction because the player characters will have to come up with a reason why they are still fighting in this war despite it being far easier to just give up. It’s a horrible place, an archipelago that can only be pacified by huge structural reforms and a willingness to listen to all sides and not to be tempted by wealth. This is almost impossible. But we must live and die and know. Throughout the Campaign, they must prove again and again their Conviction, for without a Conviction one will perish in the isles.

Content Warnings

Be sure to give great heed to safety tools before beginning the game! The content warnings for the entire Where We Were Beautiful campaign are: war, explicit violence, slavery, family deaths, gods and devils, castes, class struggle, some offhanded mention of instances of cruelty to animals (nothing explicit).

If you have been waiting to start your Gubat Banwa Campaign, you can use this Campaign to have a good foundational beginning!

You will still need the three main books (Core, Songs for the Mang-aawit, and Kitatak Copperplate Inscription) to properly run the game!