WITCH: Fated Souls – A look at Kuria the Messenger

When we were running our Kickstarter campaign for WITCH: Fated Souls one of the higher tier options was to create a NPC for the games.

One of the coolest things about this tier, for me, was the fact that a very close friend (named Eva) backed us at this tier. Now, every backer is pretty much my favourite person in the world, but I found it so cool because I never expected a close friend to do this. It was also special, because it meant Eva and I had yet another excuse to go out for dinner and geek out about role play stuff.

We met up at one of our favourite sushi places for our brainstorming session and ideas started to fly. Within a few hours Eva’s character, Kuria, had a long and complex backstory. Most of it was mumbled through mouthfuls of sushi and gossip about the other role play campaign we are playing in, but it was there. When I got home there was almost too much inspiration to work off of.

Haven’t read the game yet and wondering who Kuria is? In one sentence – A disgruntled planar messenger who is summoned each time  a member of the Fated messes up in traveling to another plane!

While I would have loved to give each character created for WITCH: Fated Souls five pages of complex backstory, I really only had half a page for each character. This was because of printing restraints and because I am a firm believer that you should not tell readers everything about a character. As a GM I don’t want to know every intimate detail of a character’s backstory, I want to be able to make up my own stories and even better I want to be able to tease out clues hidden in what is written. However, due to words constraints there are some things that didn’t make it into the book that I wish had.

So, here is a list of some interesting factoids about Kuria that didn’t make it into the book. Not all of them story related :).

1. Many of Kuria’s birds are named after one of Eva’s role play characters.
2. Kuria wasn’t always a planar messenger, she only took up the title of Messenger when the last one died and she grabbed their staff.
3. The two snakes on Kuria’s staff is meant to be a caduceus.
4. Kuria’s name is Greek in origin, as is she :D.
5. Eva’s original note about on of Kuria’s birds read “- Mami (female) – can retrieve any item (or person) from Earth for a PC (or NPC). Mind you, she goes by what you want most. So try not to think of your dearest little brother when you’re in that Demon Lair and ran into the Bird Lady…”

What’s your personal take on how much backstory should be shared about cannon NPCs?