Wall Guard? Winter Guard? Anyway…
Greetings, gentlemen. This is incidentally my first post on these forums after a short period of lurking. What I want to do in this thread is to present the work I’ve already done on a ASoIaF hack for Mouse Guard and invite any interested people to help me hammer it out. My intention is to release the final version much like the Realm Guard people did, with Luke’s permission, of course.
There is already a “Song of Mice and Fire” thread (fantastic name by the way), but that ports part of ASoIaF’s plot to the Mouse Guard world, while I’m trying to do a full hack.
So, this started when I offered to run MG for my group and not all of them were keen on playing mice (crazy, I know), so I immediately suggested that we play in Martin’s world - the parallels were obvious to me: The Night’s Watch is a caste set apart, a brotherhood of people sworn to protect the realms of men from whatever is beyond The Wall. So we pretty much played MG as written, but skipped the “mousey” parts and changed them for human ones.
I intend to compile a more thorough conversion, which will touch on all the important bits and help other people play members of the Night’s Watch if they wish to do so.
On to the crunchy bits…the below is a summary of a longer text on my HD.
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first of all, pretty much all instances of ‘Mouse Guard’ are renamed to ‘Night’s Watch’. ‘Guard’ is renamed to ‘Watch’.
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Recruitment
Concept - think about your character
Watch Rank - Builder, Watchman, Ranger, Ranger Patrol Leader, Steward
(builders maintain the wall, Watchmen watch, Rangers go beyond the Wall, Stewards run and command the Watch).
The character’s age and ability are determined same as in MG, based on the above ranks.
Human Nature - At the moment I have Family, Glory and Pride and Safety and Comfort as human nature. I’m open to suggestions. There are a couple of questions to adjust Nature.
Where Were You Born - The North, The Iron Islands, The Riverlands, Vale of Arryn, The Westerlands, The Reach, Stormland, Dorne, The Crownlands
I haven’t assigned Traits and Skills to these yet, but it should be like MG.
Skills and Wises are picked same as in MG. I decided to rename Apiarist to Herdsman (as in RG) and change Insectrist into Animal Handler. I don’t think we need a separate Ride skill, but if you think otherwise, tell me. (Animal Handler also covers the training of Ravens, Dogs, Direwolves etc.).
The Loremouse skill is changed into a Maester skill. They can’t talk to animals but can interpret foreign languages and customs, old legends, coded messages, raven cries…
I don’t have a fresh list of Wises yet, but I’ll be working on it.
There is magic in Westeros, but the Night’s Watch don’t use it, so I don’t think it’s necessary to put it in (for now). Otherwise I’d handle it as a maneuver-like check (your MoS allows you to buy effects).
Circles and Resources
Handled same as in MG, but the questions are a bit different.
Traits
The mousey-sounding traits are renamed (Big Paw becomes Rough Hands, Oldfur becomes Greybeard etc. …like in RG). Sharptooth, Wolf’s Snout and Longtail are thrown out. I suggest new traits like Bastard, Faithful…
Fur Colour
Change to “Appearance”. Unless someone has a better idea.
Cloak Colour
Becomes Heraldry or something of the like. Although family names don’t matter in the Night’s Watch, most members still have some sort connection or another to one of the noble families to the south.
Scale of Might
6. Old dragons
5. Kraken, The Others
4. Young dragons, Mammoths
3. Wights, Direwolves, Giants, Bears, Aurochs…
2. Men, Cave Lions, Shadowcats, Lizard Lions
- Children, Dogs, Ravens, Manticores
(if you’re using obsidian weapons against them, The Others count as being one step lower)
Watch Duties
Maintaining the Wall when it’s melting, going on patrols, fighting off Wildling raiders, gathering wood and other resources, going south to recruit new members, carrying mail…
Seasons
This is my biggest (and possibly only) problem here. Westeros doesn’t have seasons as such. Yes, Winter is coming, so the escalation from warm to cold is there and the shift from a “great spring” to a “great winter” could happen within the period of one earth year, but it doesn’t get warm again after that for a long time. Or maybe there even won’t be a winter…so, I don’t know really. It probably can work as written, but it doesn’t feel right.
Some ideas what seasons can be replaced with…“Wildling Advance” or maybe even “The Others”. I don’t know.
So, anything I’m missing? Any suggestions or ideas, critiques? Anyone willing to help me with this?