End-of-Session Procedure & Character Advancement
When the party finishes their expedition and returns to town, run through the following procedure:
Clear all injuries and conditions.
Check to see if anyone meets the requirements to advance to the next Rank.
Go through the House Points checklist and distribute Points. When awarding House Points the Referee should announce the awards in a dramatic voice.
The possibility seems remote, but imagine, Dear Reader, that find yourself playing a game of Night-Haunted Hogwarts. Further imagine that none of the 24 clan options suits your purposes - perhaps you have a favorite character that I failed to include (cutting it down to a d6 roll's worth for each house left many on the table), you don't like my interpretation of one of the existing ones, or you really want to play something off the beaten path like a foreign wizard, goblin, centaur, or elf. What to do?
In this post I'll walk through my process and see if we can distill that into some general principles that we can use as a guide for making your own material in this setting.
As I've discovered, writing tie-in material for an established setting you have to fill in a lot of blanks left by the text. A roleplaying game needs different things than a series of boarding school mystery novels does, for example. At the same time, your work needs to feel like it belongs or you lose the benefits of using the established setting in the first place. Writing tie-in material, therefore, is mostly a process of extrapolation - you're trying to surprise your audience with a sense of familiarity. In practice this mostly consists of looking at specific examples from the text and expanding outward to make a generalized type. These can be direct (Neville Longbottom killed one specific snake one time --> his descendants are famous dragonslayers and serpent-hunters) or indirect (a mirror in the Leaky Cauldron gives Harry sarcastic advice on his appearance --> mundane objects in Harry Potter world can have funny personalities that relate in some way to what they do --> the Crabbe's magical caltrops chortle to themselves whenever they think they're about to stick someone). Sometimes they are made from the thinnest of thin strands (house-elf could be said to imply other kinds of elf: by looking at house-elves what can we interpret as qualities of "elfishness" in Harry Potter and how can we apply them to different contexts).
"always"
Skills: Potions (expert) | Curses (basic) | Herbology (basic) | Stealth (basic)
+1 Courage
The Snapes are a small and rather poor clan, but all know them as bitter enemies of the One Enemy - indeed, their family words "always" are said to be a reference to how long the Snapes intend to oppose Him. Their seat is at Spinner’s End, where they own a watermill built into the brick ruins of an old pre-war muggle mechanical one.
"family, duty, honor"
Skills: Potions (experted) | Transfiguration (advanced) | Courtesy (basic) | Herbology (basic)
A wealthy, well-liked, and well-connected family, the Slughorns are related to most prominent wizarding families by bonds of blood or business. Though the Slughorns fight more wars with quill and ink than with wand or blade, clan Slughorn has always known that there can be no rapprochement with He Who Must Not Be Named.
"constant vigilance"
 |
| expect the unexpected! |
Skills: Curses (expert) | Potions (advanced) | Transfiguration (basic) | Stealth (basic)
The Moodies have long studied the arts of the Enemy in order to better combat them. They have a reputation for hardness, even cruelty, but it is universally acknowledged that their courage and conviction is second to none. The family is small, grim, and strict, with few dependents, but their dim halls are full of the honors and battle-trophies won by generations of Moodies.
"even death may die"
Skills: Devices (expert) | Stealth (advanced) | Curses (basic) | Divination (basic)
+1 Shadow
Though the ruins of Azkaban have long been abandoned to the dementors, the head of Clan Rookwood still holds the title of Warden of the Isle. From their coastal fortress the clan keeps watch against the horrors of that blasted island prison - a dangerous and thankless task, for no Lord Warden has yet died a natural death.
The sullen, salt-stained folk who owe fealty to the Rookwoods claim that Rookwood blood runs to madness, born of gazing too long upon things not meant to be seen, and strange tales tell of madmen and worse things kept chained for long generations in the family dungeons.
"honor to serve"
Skills: Fighting (expert) | Athletics (advanced) | Curses (basic)
+1 to Strength
The Crabbes have a reputation for brutality, having served Clan Malfoy for generations. In their secret ceremonies, however, the Crabbes recall that they once served a power older and greater than the Malfoys, and that they may do so again one day.
