13th Age-Style Icons in the Sandbox, Part 3: Creation, First Pass

I am exploring the creation of icons for a sandbox campaign setting. Icons can be useful in a sandbox for several reasons.

• Icon agendas provide a overarching plots for PCs to interfere with;
• Icon relationships provide many ‘sides’ for PCs to align with, often with conflicting or ambiguous goals;
• Icons can illuminate and personify themes within the campaign.

I’ve drafted a list of twenty elements that could be significant in a Celtic-style setting. I will combine them using the polyhedral process to make twelve sets of campaign elements that might each be the basis of an icon. The elements are in fairly abstract form, because (unlike domains as used in Polyhedral Pantheons) they do not have concrete definitions. Instead, they can have different interpretations based on the other elements of the icons. For instance, one is ‘giant’: one of the icons is set against giants and wants to see them destroyed or chased away, another is a giant, and I don’t know yet about the third. I generally would like to see one icon with a ‘positive association’ with the element, one with a ‘negative association’ with the element, and one with a ‘conflicted association’ with the element… but it is only a preference, not a hard requirement.

1. Giant
2. Nature
3. Fey
4. Church/Organized Religion
5. Prophecy
6. Craft/Artifice
7. Ocean/Lake/River
8. Raiding
9. Quest
10. Mountain
11. Animal
12. Glory
13. Civilization
14. Storm/Wind
15. Forest
16. Death/Spirit
17. Curse
18. Sun (Sun/Moon/Stars probably)
19. Art/Music
20. Wisdom/Knowledge

Now to combine them. I have a few relationships I want to ensure, but the rest can be fairly random and interpreted afterward. I have assigned the twenty elements to the points of a dodecahedron (d12):

Element	Icon	Icon	Icon
Giant	Nature’s Heart	Giant King	Great Stag
Craft/Artifice	Broken King	Star King Undersea	Radiant Queen
Death/Spirit	Nature’s Heart	Haunted Queen	Wild Wind
Civilization	Lost Seeker	Lion Crusader	Radiant Queen
Curse	Giant King	Lost Seeker	Broken King
Raid	Haunted Queen	Lion Crusader	Sea Reaver
Prophecy	Nature’s Heart	Giant King	Queen Underhill
Ocean	Wild Wind	Star King Undersea	Sea Reaver
Church	Great Stag	Haunted Queen	Lion Crusader
Art/Music	Queen Underhill	Wild Wind	Star King Undersea
Animal	Great Stag	Lost Seeker	Lion Crusader
Fey	Queen Underhill	Broken King	Star King Undersea
Mountain	Giant King	Great Stag	Lost Seeker
Glory	Lion Crusader	Sea Reaver	Radiant Queen
King	Giant King	Queen Underhill	Broken King
Storm	Haunted Queen	Wild Wind	Sea Reaver
Nature	Nature’s Heart	Queen Underhill	Wild Wind
Quest	Lost Seeker	Broken King	Radiant Queen
Forest	Nature’s Heart	Great Stag	Haunted Queen
Sun/Moon	Star King Undersea	Sea Reaver	Radiant Queen

This gives me the following icons and their elements. I’ve done some preliminary interpretation of the results.

Icon	Name	Element	Element	Element	Element	Element	Preliminary Notes
1	Nature’s Heart	Giant	Death/Spirit	Prophecy	Nature	Forest	Contends with the Giant King (conflict over prophecy?).
2	Giant King	Giant	Curse	Prophecy	Mountain	King	Rules over the giants… cursed by prophecy?
3	The Great Stag	Giant	Church	Animal	Mountain	Forest	Champion of nature
4	The Queen Underhill	Prophecy	Art/Music	Fey	King	Nature	Ruler of the fey (‘seelie court’?)
5	The Haunted Queen	Death/Spirit	Raid	Church	Storm	Forest	Spirit of the land, rising up against the invaders.
6	The Wild Wind	Death/Spirit	Ocean	Art/Music	Storm	Nature	‘Force of nature’ of some sort; probably spirit and inspiration rather than death
7	The Lost Seeker	Civilization	Curse	Animal	Mountain	Quest	Civilized but outcast, seeking redemption?
8	The Broken King	Craft/Artifice	Curse	Fey	King	Quest	Deposed king of the fey (‘unseelie court’?)
9	The Lion Crusader	Civilization	Raid	Church	Animal	Glory	Seeks to bring civilization to the barbaric savages
10	Star King Undersea	Craft/Artifice	Ocean	Art/Music	Fey	Sun/Moon	Ruler of the fey court under the sea
11	The Sea Reaver	Raid	Ocean	Glory	Storm	Sun/Moon	Vikings?
12	The Radiant Queen	Craft/Artifice	Civilization	Glory	Quest	Sun/Moon	Seeks to bring light to all corners of the world

Some of the pairings surprised me a little (church and raiding?), but I am very pleased with how some of these fit together. Already I have something of a feel for these icons, and it feels like there is the potential for some complex texture to this setting. I see all sorts of possible relationships and links between the different icons. I’ll explore that in the next post in this series.

I mentioned yesterday aiming for thirteen icons, but have shown only twelve. The thirteenth will be much as 13th Age‘s Prince of Shadows, who breaks the rules and doesn’t fit in with the rest of the patterns.