I am considering running a Burning Wheel Campaign, exploring the beliefs and struggles of those who were uprooted from the Lonely Mountain by the arrival of Smaug. The game will begin in the aftermath of Smaug's arrival, as refugees cluster near the top of the Long Lake and begin to flee in different directions to salvage their lives. The game will be player-driven in its direction and goals, take inspiration on the rich lore of Tolkien's Middle Earth, and follow one group's journey to the new life they choose. Dwarves are highly encouraged, but Men of Dale or Elves of the Woodland Realm are possible.
If you're interested, please post here. Feel free to discuss concepts and potential driving beliefs. As part of your concept, I'd like to see the start of answers to three questions:
1) What is your core belief about the life you lived before Smaug?
2) What is your core belief about the current exodus and how you'll survive it?
3) What is your core belief about someone else in the group (either another proposed PC or an NPC you will purchase as a relationship)?
To go a step further, provide an action that each belief will drive you to pursue as game starts.
Once a game forum is created, we can take the brainstorming to there to finalize it, establish game rules, and character sheets.
I expect the game to have a desired one-post-a-day rate, but will fluxuate based on reality.
Some general Tolkien background below, to provide context to the setting.
It is the year 2770 of the Third Age.
Current Events:
This Year - Smaug, a Fire-Drake, descended on the Dwarven Halls, driving out the dwarves and taking the halls and all their treasures as his own. After the attack the dragon would crawl out of the Front Gate of the Mountain by night and carry away people (especially maidens) from Dale to eat. The remaining population soon fled and the deserted city fell into ruins.
Key Personages:
Thror, King Under the Mountain, escaped during Smaug's attack. He had fled the Cold-Drakes 181 years ago, abandoning the Grey Mountains and moving the Kingdom back to the Loney Mountain and now lost the Lonely Mountain to a Fire-Drake. In the Grey Mountains, his father and younger brother were killed by the Cold-Drake, his youngest brother and he split the dwarven host, with his brother deciding to found the dwarf halls in the Iron Hills. As the Dwarven King, he is the bearer of the only Dwarven Ring of Power in this part of the world (two Dwarven Kings destroyed in the north at the end of the First Age, the other four being to the East beyond Middle-Earth).
His son, Thrain II, is 126 years old and Thorin II (later known as Thorin Oakenshield) is a child of 24 years -- they escaped with King Thror from the dragon's wrath by use of secret routes.
Girion, the last Lord of Dale, was slain by Smaug as the city was abandoned. His wife and child escaped dwn the River Running.
Thranduil is the elf king ruling in Northern Mirkwood. He was born in the First Age. Early in the Second Age he became King of the Woodland Realm (following his father's death in the war to destroy Sauron). The Greenwood as-yet untainted by darkness. When the Necromancer (Sauron in disguise) arrived at the southern end of the forest, it began corrupting into Mirkwood. He had to withdraw the elves from Amon Lanc the southern wood, establishing their home on a small mountain range in the middle of the forest from north-to-south (Emyn Duir). He was then forced to pull back further, eventually settling in the far-north forest (north of the Forest River) with a relatively small area under elven control. With the arrival of Smaug, his folk appear to be getting even more reclusive.
Geography:
The River Running was a 600-Númenórean miles long river that poured out of the Front Gate of the Lonely Mountain, descended over two falls and swirled around Dale. It turned west beyond Ravenhill and then east and south to Long Lake and thence through the eastern outskirts of Mirkwood, then south east through apparently uninhabited regions of Rhovanion to its confluence with the Carnen and finally in a long south-eastward loop to the great inland Sea of Rhûn, past the land of Dorwinion.
Recent history:
11 years ago - In the kingdom of Rohan to the south, Saruman settled in Isengard. Fréaláf Hildeson became King following the death of his uncle in battle against the Dunlendings. Taking advantage of the second Long Winter, the Dunlendings and Easterlings invaded with the support of the Corsairs of Umbar and laid siege to Hornburg all winter.
11-12 years ago - Known as the "Long Winter," storms and snows blanketed the entire northland, creating great hunger and death throughout all who lived in the north. Many populations shrank across the North.
1-180 years ago - Flourishing of Dale. Dale was situated in the valley between the southwestern and southeastern arms of the Lonely Mountain, nestled in a sharp U-shaped bend of the River Running. It was known as a merry town of Men that traded, mainly in food-supplies, for the skills and craft-pieces of the Dwarves. Dale's toy market was the wonder of the North and the town was renowned for its bells.
180 years ago - After the War of Dwarves and Dragons, King Thror leads the dwarves from the Grey Mountains back to the Lonely Mountain, re-establishing it as the capital of Durin's folk. His younger brother Gror led others to the Iron Hills. Most of Durin's folk abandoned the Grey Mountains.
181 years ago - a Cold-Drake killed King Dain I and his son Fror.
200 years ago - Dragons reappear in the far north, coming into conflict with the dwarves.
261 years ago - Gondor sent word to the Eotheod for aid, granting them land to found the Kingdom of Rohan as a reward, moving many Northmen south to that land.
560 years ago - Thorin I abandoned the Lonely Mountain, moving the dwarven kingdom away from Erebor/Dale and to the Grey Mountains to the north.
700 years ago - Scatha the Wyrm, possessed of a great horde stolen from the Dwarves, is slain by Fram son of Frumgar of the Eotheod, a proud race of northern men. They refused the dwarves' request to return the horde, creating grudges to last centuries.
Between the time when Thráin I founded the dwarf-kingdom in the Lonely Mountain (in 1999) and the arrival of Smaug (in 2770) the Northmen living between the River Running (Celduin) and Carnen grew strong and repelled all eastern enemies.
790 years ago - Thrain I leads dwarves to the Lonely Mountain, establishing the halls there.
791 years ago - The Balrog is awoken in Moria and slays King Durin VI and his son Nain I. After the dwarves left it was eventually populated by orcs from the north who began to worship the Balrog as their diety.
1331 years ago - The Great Plague killed more than half of the population of these lands, those remaining driven west of the River Running by the marauding Wainriders to the east.
Moria ("The Black Pit") was once known as Khazad-dûm in dwarvish and was carved by Durin the Deathless in the First Age. In the Second Age, it became possible to pass from East to West through its halls, passing completely under the mountain range.
Burning Wheel is a game I really like, but never got the chance to play... The way it mixes gritty psychologism with traditional fantasy is amazing. It's all about drama. I will ponder some character concepts.
I definitely want to play. Great concept for a game - familiar but totally unmapped.
Never played a dwarf before because I couldn't see how one was different from another, but after the Hobbit movies and reading through myriad rpgs here, I see there are variations available. I will post up ideas later. After helping rebuild the hearing ducts in my house.
Burning Wheel is the best thing for differentiating dwarves. It uses a Life path system which lets you put together a Life, history, and culture intuitively. It doesn't use a class-based system like Torchbearer. In BW, you end up with an interesting individual who you can thrust into extraordinary circumstances.
I really love Burning Wheel. You'll recognize some concepts from Torchbearer, but the characters and character creation are nothing alike. In Torchbearer you are playing a trope--a stereotypical dwarf or thief or wizard. Burning Wheel is massively more nuanced.
If it isn't clear, I'm in. Love dwarves in BW, so I'll likely play one. The two concepts that occur to me first are a craftsman who would periodically leave the Lonely Mountain to trade dwarves goods with the Men of Dale, and a scholarly type specializing in the history of the dwarven kings--but I'm flexible.
Yes, the lifepath system makes it amazing. You can explore with these tools, too.
Good tool which provides the descriptions for the lifepaths, skills, and traits for exploring options: http://janklabs.com/bwlp/
(Uses the original rule books, not revised)
Good generator to make actual sheets (enforcing points and spends) and produce them with bb code: http://bwgoldburner.appspot.com/
(Uses the new Burning Wheel Gold rules)
My immediate notion was to play a trader or merchant of Erebor. The answers to Question #2 would not be that different, but my notion of a trader is a dwarf that would have been out of Erebor, transporting goods, enough to be quite comfortable in the wilds. I think of a merchant as the guy accepting goods that arrived to Erebor, so he would have left the mountain less frequently and therefore have spent less time in the wilds.
2) What is your core belief about the current exodus and how you'll survive it? I must be careful to avoid incurring too much debt as I reconnect with my trading partners during this time of transition.
My other notion is to play a soldier, who would be used to a life of discipline, but would be less worldly because he has only ever associated with other dwarfs. Maybe a quartermaster or some-such that was in charge of foodstuffs or pack animals... Did Tolkien's dwarfs use pack animals?
2) What is your core belief about the current exodus and how you'll survive it? We must pick up the pieces of our lives and carry them to another dwarven stronghold.
Those beliefs will need to be tailored a bit to acknowledge the trauma that would have occurred, of course.
Thank you for posting that link! It is an EXCELLENT blog post. I encourage everyone playing a dwarf to read it. I've been involved in a lot of discussions about that blog post over the years and agree with most of it whole-heartedly - I intend to use it for "what is the norm" for Tolkien dwarves. That said, there is a lot of room in a society and I think there's room for variation in making concepts here - if you want to play a rude, uncouth dwarf it could work, with the understanding that "normal dwarves" act with courtesy as the article describes, and that behavior is thus not the norm for them.
This is a good place to explain Burning Wheel lifepaths - I'll provide more-than-usual detail here for those still getting books/learning the system. A character doesn't pick skills free-form as in other systems. A character is composed of a series of lifepaths which grant access both to skills and also to certain traits. The skills, traits, and descriptive paths help to define the character background in more depth. Some lifepaths require other paths pre-reqs, and different lifepaths allow changes in setting (for example, moving from the peasantry to the military). I find that the process of exploring pathways goes a long way to helping develop my concepts and ideas for the character.
I am considering allowing all players to have four lifepaths per character, which make any of the options below possible. I'm flexible on this, but would like the group to decide what type of game they want collectively, then each have the same number of lifepaths (LPs). 2 LPs makes you all young, inexperienced, and fresh to life - essentially teenagerish. 3 LPs makes you all starting out as young adults, while 4 LPs allows you to be established adults with broad access to life options. At 5 LPs, you'd be getting into mature leaders in the community.
Dwarven Trader: There is actually a Trader lifepath; it is a very good one, and gives access to some key (and unique) abilities. Stentorious Debate, Shrewd Appraisal, Haggle, and Persuasion are all skills that come with Trader, making him accomplished in social skills in ways that few other dwarves would achieve. It isn't a bad choice. It requires one of four pre-requisite lifepaths, which help show how you'd have come to this station in life. Hawker - Being a Hawker than a Trader requires you know how to be Inconspicuous, as well as Conspicuous, when need be. It also helps you learn to Haggle and gives the option of being Man-Wise as you walked the streets of Dale. It has no other pre-reqs, but focuses a major portion of your life on directly buying and selling directly -- It allows most any other lifepath for your fourth choice, so is flexible, too. Journeyman - You can become to be a Trader by first being a craftsman. This also requires the Apprentice lifepath. Between them, you can choose Carving, Tanner, Carpentry, Haggling, Cartwright, Mending, Black-Metal Artifice (i.e. blacksmithing, but not weapon or armorsmithing). Adventurer - An adventurer is an outcast in dwarven society. He can return to good standing by becoming a Trader, it seems, but you'll have to have some curious lifepath choices to have first sent him adventuring beyond the Dwarven Halls. The adventurer lifepath gives access to a wide array of more typical D&D style skills that other dwarves never learn. Husband/Wife - You can arrive at being a trader by first having been a focused and dedicated family-dwarf (which obviously defines much about you and what you care about). They gain access to the Clan-wise, Family-wise, Haggling, and Soothing Platitudes skills. They are required to take the Dispute-Settler trait. They must have another lifepath before Husband/Wife - some options being Tender (i.e. farmer), Herdsman, Miller, Tinkerer, Delver, Wordbearer, Hauler, Carter, or Hawker.
Your idea of being "out of the Hold" might align with the Carter, and yes, dwarves would make use of draft animals. The Carter gains access to the skills: Animal Husbandry, Driving, Mending. It requires you take the Patient trait and allows the Iron Nose trait (you have smelled the worst of it and are not required to make rolls from nauseating smells). The Hauler lifepath is similar and complimentary to the Carter - the Carter works with the animals and drives, the Hauler learns the Wagon-wise, Cargo-wise, and Road-wise skills and is required to take the Lifting Heavy Things trait (which re-rolls for heavy lifting jobs).
Dwarven Soldier: To be a soldier, your life needs to offer you the ability to shift to the Host setting, which then offers all the military lifestyle options from being in the Dwarven Host. You'd have had opportunity to fight Easterlings encroaching from the east, horrors and evils of the necromancer straying from Mirkwood, or if over 200 years old, fought against the Ice-Dragons in the north before the death of the last King and the abandonment of those Holds. (Why I put together the timeline references in my initial post.) You can branch into the Host setting from the Hauler, Journeyman, Hawker, Wordbearer, Tender, Herdsman, Miller, or Delver paths. Once in the Host setting, you can pick up Foot Soldier (Foraging, Brawling, Hammer, Armor, Shield), Arbalester (Crossbow, Mending, Fletcher, Artillery Hand), Banner Bearer (Conspicuous, Banner-wise, Intimidation; Trait: Resigned to Death), or Horn Caller (Brass Trumpet, Links [think Dwarven Morse Code], Conspicuous). From Banner Bearer, you can get to Axe-Bearer (Foraging, Axe, Conspicuous, Intimidation, Armor, Shield, Formation Fighting, Throwing). The other Leadership positions mostly require 5 or more LPs to reach. One other odd 4LP option is Born Clansmen --> Delver --> Foreman --> (branch to Host) --> Artillerist.
Dwarven Quartermaster: There actually is a Quartermaster lifepath under the Host but at first blush I don't see a way to get there in four lifepaths. (You could almost do Born Guilder --> Hawker --> Trader --> Quartermaster, but there isn't a branch from Trader into the Host setting. I might consider waiving that if the concept is good and convincing.)
I've looked at the Quartermaster LP many times, and IIRC there is no way to do it in 4 LPs. I'd suggest *not* breaking the rules for this--what you can't do is as important as what you can. Negative space is very important to BW. Make becoming a Quartermaster an aspiration--you were training to become a quartermaster when the hold fell. Or pick a different fourth Lifepath, and explain why it was your path turned away from the apprenticeship your parents set up for you.
Quartermaster is not the only awesome dwarven lifepath that takes 5 LPs to get to (the most iconic being Maskbearer, or weaponsmith). The LPs are designed the way they are for a reason, and in my opinion shouldn't be tinkered with lightly. Also, be aware that you will get a small pool of points to pick up or improve skills, and these will allow you access to skills that don't show up on your lifepaths. If you really want to be a weaponsmith, for example, you can pick up War Art, but you don't get some of the neat benefits that come from being an acknowledged Mask Bearer.
One of the cool things about skills in Burning Wheel are wises (listed as Dwarf-wise, Hold-wise, etc.). These are basically your knowledge skills, and they're not limited to the wises shown in the lifepaths--you can have a wise about literally anything (I doubt the GM will allow GM-wise, but something like dragon-wise would probably be acceptable, or Men of Dale-wise for a dwarven trader).
Wises are very different from knowledge skills in most systems in that they aren't limited to being useful ways for the GM to dump info on us, or for us to say "OK, I'm going to roll this--what do I know?" Wises are powerful tools for shaping the campaign, because we use them to introduce facts into the fiction. For example, if we spot Smaug passing overhead and the GM asks what we do, I might say "hey, dragons hunt their prey based on motion, right? I have Dragon-wise." He'll let me test to see if that's accurate, and if so we'll probably get a big advantage to, say, a Stealth roll to avoid being spotted--or he may simply say "sure, stay still and he won't spot you." And from that point forward, in our campaign dragons have a hard time spotting anything sitting still.
So I am kind of interested in this, but I do have something to pose, less I be criticized while playing.
I've never actually read LoTR or Hobbit, nor have I seen the movies >.<
This is purely because I found the movies to be kind of dull when I did attempt, and I haven't gotten around to the books. I know OF them and I know the popularity and the lore, would this hinder gameplay?
If so then I won't participate, but from what I've seen it sounds like it could be fun, but I wouldn't know most of the lore that's being said probably.
Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you!
The lore from Tolkien is pretty scant and scattered, so it takes a real geek to go dig for it, anyway. I don't expect anyone to have more than I share about it in my posts. If you DO get inspired, googling will turn of several Wikis which provide all you'd want (which is how I compiled the timeline from the original post above). Peter Jackson fabricated massively for the Hobbit movies, and I expect we'll ignore a large portion of what he did.
The majority of the fantasy gaming genre is firmly based in what Tolkien invented, so you likely know more than you think, as well. This portion of the world and history is widely open to our interpretation.
Just go with this... This is what I'll synthesize in general fantasy terms for our starting point.
Proud Dwarves lived in a kingdom within a solitary mountain which they named Erebor, led by an aged Dwarven King who is the patriarch of all dwarves of Middle Earth, and who possesses a Ring of Power to help him rule. They trade with a city of men at the mountain's foot named Dale and by the river to all other lands. A river poured from the mountain called the River Running, which filled the Long Lake, then ran off across the countryside. A massive red dragon named Smaug just flew down from the north, outmatching all the might of the realm. He quickly routed all the dwarves, claimed their halls as his own, destroyed the city of Dale, and stole their maidens for his dinner. These refugees, both dwarves and men, are fleeing and you are among them. Feelings of anger and loss are prevalent and as-yet undealt with.
Where you are, you live in fear of being eaten by the dragon daily. Along all routes eastward are wild, untamed grasslands where hordes of nomadic marauders known as Easterlings will ride you down, enslave you, or kill you. To the west is the Mirkwood - home of the Necromancer and horrible creatures attracted to his evil, but some brave souls still make homes at the dark forest's edges. At the north end of the Mirkwood is the Kingdom of Elves who has retreated steadily under the evil's advance, allowing the forest to sink into its evil state. With the dragon's arrival the elves seem poised to become even more insular, more sealed off from you and the world. The dwarven road that once went through that great forest has fallen into danger and disuse as evil beings began to prey upon it. Beyond the forest along that road are the Misty Mountains -- massive, nigh unpassable, and filled with warring giants -- where the ancient dwarven kingdom of Moria lies beneath lost to an unstoppable demon known among dwarves as Durin's Bane and overrun by the orcs which worship it. To the north are the Grey Mountains, a forbidding and cold place separating this land from the Dragon's Heath where all dragons are born. The dwarves fled from there 200 years ago when White Dragons slew the previous Dwarven King and they lost a ten-year war. Nobody knows what remains there. To the Northeast are the Iron Hills, where the King's youngest brother settled other dwarves after their father got eaten by the snow-dragon.
While the dwarves are all unified, descended in this land from their Patriarch Durin as the Longbeard Clan, the races of men are widely varied. Throughout this land are the Northmen: blond, strong, and fiercely independent, they take pride since the dawn of time for never having bowed to elves, dwarves, or other races. Their greatest hero, Fram, slew the dragon Scatha hundreds of years ago single-handed and used it to insult the dwarves - a slight they remain slow to forgive. Northmen live in small hamlets or individual family dwellings, making their own lives in farms, fields, and as horsemen. There are only two notable cities of Men in this region - Dale and Framsburg. Dale was a center of trade on the River Running, the only democratic society in the entire world, with an elected leader risen from among the influential merchants. It just got eaten by the dragon. Framsburg lies northwest, beyond the elves of the forest and at the foothills of the Grey Mountains. It was built several centuries ago using the wealth recovered from the dragon Scatha's hoard (to the anger of dwarves, who's treasure it was before the dragon took it). The unsettled folk of the land really just don't like to organize or bind themselves into great societies, cities, or feudal constructs. Combine that with the Long Winters of 12 and 13 years ago, and much of the region is broad, unpopulated, and inhabited by the unknown.
To the south is a lot of wild dangerous "brown lands," then the kingdom of Rohan, and beyond it, the kingdom of Gondor. It is there that you find great cities, feudal kingdoms, and ancient lore and knowledge. It is perhaps four or five times further to reach Rohan than going north to the Grey Mountains. It also bears telling a little of the story of the Race of Men. At the beginning of man's tale of this world, a race of dark-haired, grey-eyed men sought the wisdom of the elves, desiring the wisdom of the previous ages - these men became known as the Dunedain. One of their line married an elf and had two children, who who chose to be an elf and became Elrond (a powerful leader of the elven realms) and the other chose to be mortal man and founded the Line of Kings. These kings, wise and living longer than other men (~100-200 years) created great feudal kingdoms of Gondor (to the south) and Arnor (on the other side of the Misty Mountains) that lasted thousands of years. The northmen, who valued independence over all else and rejected the elves offer to trade knowledge for subservience, call the Dunedain "kneelers." Almost two thousand years ago (when the great evil Sauron was destroyed and the Second Age became the Third Age), Arnor fell, but Gondor still exists. In the time since, with no great evil to fight, wars got a bit more petty. The King of Gondor married beautiful blond woman from the northmen, and people got racist, saying he diluted the bloodline. Gondor had a big civil war that weakened it and which the losing side (the racist ones) never got over. A few generations later they struck again, bringing their allies. Gondor called to the Northmen for aid, and the call was answered, again winning the day. Gondor gave the northern part of their kingdom (which they didn't have enough population to fill anymore anyway) and gave it to the Northmen, naming it Rohan and naming their leader to be a King. Many northern families moved south and stayed to populate Rohan (at least, those that didn't mind kneeling to a King as long as he was a blond northman like them), where they still got to fight Easterlings to their hearts content and be great horsemen, but where they didn't have to fight as many dragons or the growing darkness of Mirkwood.
The era of time we are in is a footnote, meant to provide the backdrop for the story of the Hobbit, when the dwarves come back and successfully face Smaug to reclaim the mountain halls in roughly 170 years. In between, the dwarves try to reclaim Moria, but that won't happen for another 30 years. It stands to reason that the refugees did many things in the years of Smaug's coming... just that they weren't grand tales, were lost, or failed. We are free to populate this time period however we wish to, as we'll never live long enough to encounter the things Tolkien actually DID write about.
Last edited by Marullus on Mon Sep 14, 2015 6:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
They have free PDFS - these help give an intro to the game.
- Burning Wheel Gold: Hub and Spokes
- Burning Wheel Gold Play Sheet PDFs
- Adventure Burner Sample Chapter: Beliefs Commentary
For the lifepaths and other stuff, you can click over to the main store and buy the hardcover book for $25 plus shipping. For other help, please PM me.
My character idea: Farvick, the Half-a-dwarf, a noble who was cast out for his decadent undwarfly behavior. He is a superstitious, fatalist person. After many years of travels, he decided to return to the Halls of his ancestors, only to find it devastated by Smaug. To him, Smaug is the hand of fate.
1) What is your core belief about the life you lived before Smaug?
I must embrace the dwarven way of life again.
2) What is your core belief about the current exodus and how you'll survive it?
If I can prove myself worthy in times of need, the dwarfs will respect me again.
3) What is your core belief about someone else in the group (either another proposed PC or an NPC you will purchase as a relationship)?
I think this should be about a person who was very important to Farvick before his exile. Any volunteers? I'd prefer a PC to an NPC...
As I see it, the main conflict arises from his egoism. He is sure that he does everything for the community and the greater good, while it is only to fulfill his need to belong once again.
The problem with this write-up so far is that the beliefs are very close to each other... Marullus, can these be considered separate entries? Maybe I should come up with a different one for the first question.
That's a good place to start! Also, a good place to talk about beliefs. I like making beliefs in two parts: a) an overarching credo, and b) what it drives you to do in an actionable sense (near term and achievable in 1-2 game sessions).
For example, I like the belief from your post: "Smaug is the hand of fate."
Depending on how you are thinking of Fate, this could have a few meanings. 1) If fate equates to justice, it would mean you believe that those suffering under Smaug deserve it somehow. 2) If fate is amoral immutability (it isn't good or bad, it just is predetermined), then you'd drive to fatalism in the face of it, perhaps trying to convince others not to oppose that which can't be changed.
You would then add a second part based on what that belief drives him to do. "Smaug is the hand of fate. I will find him and beg his forgiveness." "Smaug is the hand of fate, summoned by my cousin the King's greed. I will resist all evidence of Greed in myself." "Smaug is the hand of fate and our king deserved to be brought low. I will seek the truth of the Grey Mountains Dwarfhold to know why this King has fled from dragons more than once." "Smaug is the hand of fate and is unstoppable. I will convince my companions to travel to X, far from here."
I must embrace the dwarven way of life again.
What does it mean to embrace the "dwarven life"? If combined with a Smaug-belief, do you mean the current ways (which drew a dragon) or some call to "old ways" which are somehow more righteous? (i.e. if this is a return to conservatism, how conservative?) You can make your core belief here a little tighter, then add your action statement. "I must embrace the dwarven way of life again. I will prevent Y from taking the Scrolls of Thrain from me before I've learned them."(Where Y is now an NPC who opposes your decadence.) "I must embrace the dwarven way of life again. I will prove to Y that I have changed by doing ABC." "I must embrace the dwarven way of life again. I will enter Moria to learn the ways of the First Dwarves."
You also see something important in a Belief statement - it can introduce facts into the fiction, too. In the above beliefs, you established that: a) there are Scrolls of Thrain which say something about how dwarves should live, b) You rescued the Scrolls of Thrain and currently possess them, c) There is an NPC Y who desires the scrolls / doesn't think you are worthy of them and who will try to take them from you. This is totally kosher! Burning Wheel is a player-driven game, and you are signalling to the GM what sort of things you expect in the sessions ahead. I then weave a story to help bring these together meaningfully across all the PCs. If there is a Big Bad that needs to appear in your story, then he is either a) bought with a relationship by a PC, or b) appears in someone's beliefs. Otherwise, the Big Bad is unlikely to appear. Smaug might be a background fixture. He may not appear in our story at all, unless someone makes a Belief about him or buys a relationship to signal Smaug's interest.
Why does any of this matter?
The reward system in Burning Wheel is not XP; it is called "Artha." You earn points by working towards your beliefs/goals, achieving your beliefs/goals, or struggling with and changing your beliefs/goals. These points then are used to achieve success in the game, advance your character's skill, etc.
I think this should be about a person who was very important to Farvick before his exile. Any volunteers? I'd prefer a PC to an NPC...
If Enoch is proposing a chronicler/historian, that could dovetail nicely.
