Maelstrom Rules - Allegiance & Loyalty: No Allegiance

Having no allegiance
Despite the best attempts of the legitimate authorities to suppress them, the Known World is full of misfits, malcontents and criminals. Pirates and smugglers operate out of the Free Islands and dangerous radicals plan subversion and revolution in every land.

Independents have many disadvantages, they have no natural allies and often have few friends. The central plots of the Maelstrom campaign are based around the interaction between the player-characters in the colonies,

faiths, trading houses, tribes and hives. Independent groups have no automatic involvement in these plots and are further handicapped by the lack of support from any political power in the Known World.

All this makes playing an independent group a very difficult option. You are much more likely to enjoy the game as part of an allegiance than as an independent character or group. We recommend that you do not pick this option unless you have a strong character concept that requires it.

The only advantage that independents have is that there are no requirements to be a full member. You always count as part of their retinue if you are loyal to another character and you can always purchase advantages if you are independent.

And so it began......

Dawn breaks, war looms, the evil Lord is gathering his armies to wage a campaign of destruction upon the free peoples of the world. It is up to I, Sir Maximilan Pegasus to stop him, with my trusted band of adventurers we must gather the enchanted sword of Tek, the Shield of Way-Lem and the amulet of Subsidence and together we shall slay this abomination! “TIME FREEZE” And bam, the fantasy world fades away, the enchanted sword of Tek in my hand is a rubber sword smothered in coloured ribbons with a laminated card cable tied to the hilt, I look down and I’m wearing plastic armour and unflattering heropants, and the magical world of my imagination washes away to reveal a field in Wigan, but you know what? It’s larp and I’m a larper, it’s what I do.
I started larping when I was 17, I’d never role-played before, I’d never played D&D or Warhammer, never played WoW or any form of online game, I’d never even read Lord of the Rings, I feel somewhat privileged that I hadn’t done any of those things, I think it gave me an untainted attitude towards what larp could be, I had no preconceptions about saving the maiden fair, slaying the dragon or smiting the liche, to me it was just a new thing to try.
It was cold, really cold, 10am on a September morning, the rain was battering down and I’d been given a faux fur tunic, a mouldy old sword and been pointed towards a man and told, “You’re monstering, there’s the ref he’ll tell you what to do.” I obeyed, I played wave after wave of zombies, orcs and various line monsters and to be honest, was cold, bored and hungry. That is, until lunchtime, the teams switched sides, I got into the kit I’d scrounged up, as with most first timers, a black trenchcoat. I took the mouldy old sword, stood with my fellow adventurers and it hit me, I’m a god damn hero!
Pow, there it was, a new larper was born.