Designer's Notes: Burgunn

Updated: 2002/04/12; Version 0.1.0

“Good v. Evil is too easy. We need shades of grey.”

We needed a race besides Humans to own the galaxy. That was decided pretty early on. First off, the concept is so over-used in modern literature, television and movies that to repeat it is just silly. I’ve never understood how humans manage to dominate the galaxy of Star Trek, even though the Vulcans and Klingons have had superior technology and experience in space for centuries. Second off, the world becomes less of the real world the second that our preconceived notions go out the door.

So the questions become:

• “How could a race take over the galaxy?”
• “What would make them WANT to?”
• “Once they had it, how would they keep it?”

The second one is pretty obvious. It’s why every movie is about some villain trying to take over the world.

The first and third though, were the questions that helped us develop a race and help us figure out what kind of spin to put on our new race. We got as far as the first question while working on the first drafts of the game, there wasn’t enough time to give the owners of the galaxy a proper background or personality. So, we just figured out what these people OUGHT to have, and we came up with:

• Aggressive, Dominant personalities – this would give them the drive necessary to take over that much space and help them hold it.
• Superior Technology – Let’s face it, this is a sci-fi game. Cool gadgets should be the norm. Also, we knew that the other race to figure prominently in our game, the Rinn, were going to be heavy into the mystic arts and a little reclusive to counterbalance the Burgunn to keep the game flowing. Mystics generally don’t favor technology, so the non-mystic race (Burgunn) should get it.

At this point, I wasn’t very involved with the race creations, I was leading our rules team, so I’d delegated the races out to other people. Tony came up with a background that talked about a civil war expansion phase in their history with not much else (the initial packets were about a page long each) and thus the Burgunn were let out on the unsuspecting gamer populace.

In designing the first Burgunn world, Kassadi IV (the first one designed, not the actual first Burgunn world :) ), I started unintentionally laying down the rules that all the other Burgunn worlds would later be based on. This had the side effect of turning me into the guy who would later develop the whole packet, since I had the most first-hand experience with the race. We’d run some modules in Kassadi, and I’d established that the Burgunn were basically an Imperium with representatives that went to some big multi-world council. There were also some little things, like the torture cells in the downstairs of the consulate building that I wanted to make sure got included because they add some (although grisly) color to the race.

Which came down to my vision of the race. I see the Burgunn as sophisticated warriors that still revert back to their more primal emotions in the heat of the moment, be that combat or otherwise. Fiercely proud. Definitely proud. They’ve done a lot, conquered a galaxy, built some pretty impressive stuff.

Time to re-read the description Tony wrote. Our first rule of Lore writing is that nothing can conflict anything already written. That way we don’t have to make all kinds of tweaks to existing stuff to fit new stuff in, which creates more stuff we may have to fix in other places... etc... So I picked up his packet and gave it a go.

The two things in Tony’s packet that really stand out to me is the conflict with the Rinn and the civil war among themselves. The Rinn thing is pretty much Technology v. Magic that we see all the time, but some concepts are so universal they can be included without becoming “lame”. Burgunn don’t like mystic arts.. there’s a start. The second part is the civil war issue. After fighting a prolonged battle like that (several hundred years) wouldn’t the Burgunn have been so hammered they COULDN’T hold the rest of the galaxy? So... here goes.

The Burgunn need to fight each other on some context, because there needs to still be that sense of rivalry. But they need to be unified against the outside world too, so they can hold things together. Obviously they need to be an exceptional military power as well.

However, a species isn’t created on stats alone.. we’ve got RP to contend with as well. The Burgunn should fight each other in the political arena, with things only resorting to bloodshed in extreme situations. This should also be kept more or less out of the lives of the citizens of the empire, particularly the non-burgunn amongst them. Checking out some other work by more famous writers, two areas came immediately to mind – the scheming Carhenian of Robert Jordan’s “Wheel of Time” series, and the Klingons of “Star Trek”. The Klingon references would be a little too blatant I thought, but I really wanted some of their more martial stuff. Blending them in with the Jordan material really tempered them out, then I started looking for other areas of inspiration to round them out into something more three dimensional. Their whole personalities seemed to be based on conflict now, but the goal was where do they want to be when the conflicts are resolved?

A fellow member of the team said “Some people find it helpful to play along a common stereotype (an Ork Mercenary for a tough, dumb fighter) and add some elements to round it out (enjoys playing the flute). Most television and movie characters are based on this theme. Maybe you want to play a cowardly thief with the occasional streak of bravado.” Hmm... that seems interesting. What would be the polar opposite of an emotional, warlike, agressive, politicking combat character? A Buddhist monk. Balance, order harmony, all those groovy things we think of in eastern culture (okay... we usually think of anime and cheap electronics, but still...). Maybe they’re trying to conquer the galaxy so they can impose order on it. Suddenly large urban sprawls with uniformed guards sprang to mind, each of the streets clean and low crime. Like a military state. Not the place I’d want to live, but I can see the logic in it. Crime was low because of the excessive threat of punishment, and hardworking civilians could develop all kinds of cool stuff if they didn’t have to worry about their own safety. Started to remind me of the stories of China, and cold war Germany by that point. People ought to be rebelling here. Why would they stay? The Burgunn culture should be interested in order, so it won’t let vigilantism pass, and the police need to be sure of things before they do them. Harsh penalties tempered with a strong case of justice rather than just punishing randomly when something goes wrong. And in an environment where justice is rigidly enforced, the streets are clean and the economy stays on top, while the military can defend against pretty much any outside force... makes sense that they own the galaxy.

That sounds good. At that point it was just writing a background to satisfy the personality I wanted to give them that would support it. A few touches on the makeup and costuming requirements (which had been pretty randomly decided at that point) and we were ready to go. The rules team had long since set up the racial rules for them based on Tony’s shorter piece, so consistency checks with those rules plus the shorter description itself were the next step. A few tweaks and adjustments later, we’ve got a full race packet on what I think is a pretty cool race.

I’d like to be able to think of them as the good guys, but I can’t quite do that. On the flip side, they’re not the bad guys either... which puts them in that neat shade of grey that leaves them open for a ton of adventure possibilities, roleplaying experiences and future development. Every character is going to react to them just a little differently, but that’s the way it ought to be – none of the player allowable races SHOULD be able to be clearly defined as good or evil, the players need to make that distinction for themselves.

Jim