Barston Bakersfield

This series is played with Arion Games Advanced Fighting Fantasy and Tana Pigeon's Mythic. It was originally played as a "one-shot" and then "two-to-three shot" of JoyPeddlar Games' Harper's Quest 2 before it got too big and expansive.

Barston Bakersfield is just one character in his own chronicles. Instead, "his" chronicles are about a series of heroes (and those slightly less heroic) and the island of Phillia. It could probably called "The Phillia Chronicles" but that wouldn't be as much fun for me. 

The Big Barston Bakersfield Recap

Since the campaign went on for so long before the blog, and since it had a lot of information, there is no real likelihood that the old sessions will be fully transcribed. Instead, a 3-part "big recap" was written to sum it all up.

• Part 1 (dealing with original Harper's Quest 2 era and possibility of an even bigger Troika campaign)
• Part 2 (dealing with the transition to AFF, the development of Humb and its environs into a full blow setting, building up the hidden religion, the explosion of characters, and the shifting of the meta-plot).
• Part 3 (dealing with the final few sessions in which the whole campaign changed)

The Lore of Phillia

Covering some various chunks of lore and ideas for the campaign outside of traditional sessions.

• On the Strange Histories of Humb

A Tiny Bit of Background

A year-long campaign (with lots and lots of moving parts) started before this blog came into existence, the first chapter dealt with the last few days of Shellyton Bakersfield (a purposefully silly name). Shellyton sought revenge versus Malakar Brite, the Arch Warlock who destroyed Shellyton's hometown decades before.

After Shellyton's demise, his nephew Barston went a decade or so later to find out what happened to his uncle. Only, when Shellyton's hometown - Humb - was found it was not a burned out wreckage of a small town as Shellyton had described but a growing city. Barston went on several adventures to try and find out the truth of Shellyton, the truth of Malakar Brite, and the truth of Humb. Along the way, he found out strange things like a buried religion at the heart of Humb and that he, himself, was not merely bad at arcane magic but somehow was inherently anti-magical.

When his lover and technically fiancé (they were waiting until they could finally be together to say such things out loud) Astrid died in the final battle versus the Warlocks, Barston went into semi-retirement and became the new priest and leader of the long buried religion of Sennas. His best-friend Deron, once a stables boy and now something of a fighting monk, has joined him as a second-in-command.

The Various POVs

And thus, the "Barston Bakersfield Chronicles" was likewise semi-retired as a series until it finally showed up on this blog after a month's long break. Barston is still there but a lot of the story looks at friends and allies he made along the way. The rough divisions (I mean it when I say it got a bit BIG) are:

• Barston Bakersfield, Wandering Priest. Traveling around the island of Phillia with his best friend and follower, Deron, Barston tries to find the secrets of a long lost religion that is doing something to reality on the island. 
• Alice Hunter Investigates. Alice Hunter, along with Lun (ex-guardsperson), Nadya (wrong imprisoned catwoman), and Chungly (a rhinoman priest who just likes helping people out) form the Duncan Hunter Solution Specialists. In the aftermath of Barston's adventures, the City of Humb grows faster than ever while the city guards are in disarray (still being largely owned by the various guilds). Alice, Lun, and the rest solve crimes and try to make the world a better place until the city can heal. But Barston's shoes are pretty big ones to fill and the world is getting stranger by the day. 
• Haig Raven, Reformed Warlock. Haig realized the Warlock War was getting out of hand and helped Barston to take down one of the factions, Now, he travels around Phillia with various companions - including the world's stranges, fluffiest dog, Gulwin, and seeks out sites of power and other spots of intrigue to explore. 
• Yevony and Nizel, Right Bastards. Yevony the Great is Phillia's Greatest Wizard (tm) and Nizel Torel is the World's Greatest Swordsman (tm)! Both are known around the island (and even beyond!) and stand as a testament of goodness and heroic activity. Both are also lying bastards. Yevony is actually a decent wizard but uses his name to try and steal magical artifacts from others. Nizel is a better storyteller than fighter (much better). The two travel the island carrying out con games and generally getting into and escaping trouble.
• Shellylee and Barlee Youngfry, Rapscallions. A more light-hearted and lower-intensity set of side-stories. Barston's twin nieces (by way of his sister and somewhat fellow adventurer Marylee Bakersfield-Youngfry), this one takes place in the overall more quaint western side of Phillia and has the two twins carry on in their uncle and great-uncle's footsteps (with less tragedy, hopefully). 

== CREDITS == 

This series is played using Arion Games' Advanced Fighting Fantasy and Tana Pigeon's Mythic. 

There are a lot of other sources that get brought into play and have been used in the fairly extensive worldbuilding at this point. It would be hard to carry on without acknowledging the tools that made such a long campaign possible (and are still part of the world and its lore):

• JoyPeddler Games: Harper's Quest 2
• Ben Milton: Knave 2nd Edition and Maze Rats
• Cesar Capacle: Random Realities
• Conjecture Games // Zach Best: Universal NPC Emulator Revised
• Madeline Hale: Table Fables
• Matt & Erin Davids: Several of the Book of Random Tables
• Kevin Crawford: Worlds Without Number, Stars Without Number, and Scarlet Heroes
• Chaos Gen // Duncan Thomson: various lists and tables
• Raging Swan Press: Several titles from the GM Miscellany and 20 Things Lists (Dread Thingonomicon and Dread Laironomicon)
• Third World Games: Into the Wild Omnibus
• Rory's Story Cubes
• A few products by Philip Reed

Others as noted. 

As always, I prefer splash art that gives themes and ideas rather than being designed to be a precise illustration. Other art comes from various human-created public domain and royalty free art packs or is made by me. Maps are made with Hex Kit, Gimp, Canva, and Google Drive tools. 

Special shout out to all the original artists of the Fighting Fantasy and the continued work by folks like John Kapsalis who are big inspirations for my own mental images.