Day 4 brings us to one of my all time favorite systems, Barbarians of Lemuria, the Legendary Edition. I discovered BoL when the first commercial edition was published and immediately fell in love. I have purchased every edition since, through Mythic. I will get the latest, too. I also have many of the spinoffs such as Barbarians of the Aftermath and Heroes of Hellas. And, of course, Everywhen.
One of the great things about BoL is that the career system practically writes the backstory for the character. It fires the imagination.
I'm
not going to use Lemuria as the setting for the character I'm going to
create. Instead, I am going to use the Hyborian age during the time of
Conan's revolt against King Numedides.
Flavarius was the son of a minor noble, born in southern Aquilonia near the Ophirian border. He was raised to be honorable, good to the peasants and, as the third son, he was being prepared to serve in the military. All of this was cut short when King Numedides accused his father of treason in order to seize his lands. Numedides executed Flavarius' father and brothers and Flavarius barely escaped with his life.
He fled Aquilonia and stayed with distant relatives for a time. Not wanting to overstay his welcome he decided to try his hand at something productive. He took all the coin he managed to escape with and invested it in a merchant venture. And promptly lost everything. He discovered that he really didn't have a head for business. He had not been expected to track the accounts of his family estates and had never truly learned to manage money.
He turned to his only skill, fighting. He sought mercenary work. His skill and training gained him entry into a semi-reputable mercenary company as an officer. Although he had a touch of aristocratic airs, he quickly earned the respect of the men he commanded by making sure they were fed properly, paid promptly, treated respectfully, trained properly and although his discipline was firm, it was fair. He also proved his bravery in combat time and time again. He became know throughout the company as a man that could be trusted. A man of his word.
When the companies parsimonious captain met an untimely and suspicious end several years later, the company unexpectedly elected Flavarius captain. Any slight suspicion that he might have murdered the original captain was removed a month after he took command when an assassination plot against him failed. The assassin that survived the attack revealed under interrogation that they had killed the original captain expecting to take over the company.
Knowing that he did not have the head for business he needed to run a mercenary company, Flavarius tracked down his father's trusted estate manager. He had survived the fall of Flavarius' family by fleeing at the last moment. Flavarius offered him a generous deal to come amd manage his business needs. With that firmly in hand, the company prospered and became well known for its effectiveness and good treatment of its soldiers. It grew in size to almost 1,500 men and was highly sought after.
Then Flavarius heard about the revolt in Aquilonia, led by Conan the Cimmerian. He knew immediately that this was his opportunity to avenge himself on the hated Numedides. He had met Conan, fought in the same armies as him and knew his reputation. So he immediately dispatched messengers to Conan offering his services and began marching north.
The little detail that the order in which the careers appear on the sheet is the sequence of the character's backstory--that's a chef's kiss.
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