A little help hitting my group's Beliefs

[Blackberry]

I've got lots of ideas for adventure seeds, but I'm having trouble tying them into all of my group's Beliefs.

The world is Sevrea, my own world, a fairly standard fantasy world, with a little alchemical technology. There are no gods, only sorcery, alchemy, and shamanism.

The characters:

Calenmiriel - young elf princess off on a Walkabout for a hundred years.
Beliefs: 1) There is more to life than what I know; I must find the meaning and prove it and myself. 2) If one is willing and able to kill, one must be willing and able to heal; I must find this balance within myself. 3) Sevrea will be stronger and wiser the closer its people become; I must find a way to unity.

Cor - dwarven trader of arms and armor, mercenary in his spare time.
Beliefs: 1) Differences lead to profits; exploit them. 2) A band of adventurers will lead to legendary acts and legendary rewards; I want in on that. 3) Relationships lead to suffering; the closer the relationship, the greater the suffering.

Ezra - first son of a noble house from another land, wizard in training, his family disgraced, and himself cast off by his former mentor.
Beliefs: 1) I shall prove that I wasn't my cousin's killer. 2) I will improve the status of my house and restore it to respectability. 3) I will prove my mentor was responsible for the downfall of my house.

Keller - young alchemist and burgeoning scholar, specialist in firebombs.
Beliefs: 1) I shall find out what the Philosopher's Stone truly is and recover it to be used for good. 2) Magic is dangerous; prove that alchemy does it better.

In the current situation, they have all met, relating to rumors they all had heard which led them to seek one another out. They are all trying to get into an old ruin sealed off by a dense and mind-altering fog. Keller has done some experiments and discovered that an alchemical formula for cold fire may burn off the fog.

I have some ideas for some plot points that relate to the ongoing background story that I want to poke into the happenings, but it's the links between those and the Beliefs that is eluding me.

[artellan]

Hey Blackberry,

Make sure the beliefs mentioned are really about what interests the players in the game. (See another recent thread by Paul B, Beliefs Workshop Document (http://burningwheel.org/forum/showthread.php?t=4900).) For this post I'll assume they are.

Why do they care about the old ruin? Is the Philosopher's Stone there? Something that can improve the status of Ezra's house?

The Dwarf and the Elf seem harder to tie into the situation. You could almost give the Dwarf a Persona for his second belief as soon as he's firmly ensconced in the party, then ask him to rewrite it with a specific "legendary act" goal in mind. Like finding the Philosopher's Stone maybe?

The Elf is harder. Maybe the Ph.Stone is also rumoured to illuminate the meaning of life for Elves, or the secret of Balance and Healing, whatever the best way to target her beliefs. There's a lot of potential in Ezra's beliefs. I suggest his mentor should be in the game pronto, and he should know where the Ph.Stone is, or at least be key to finding it. He can use that as leverage if necessary.

Don't worry about bringing things in "too soon" -- hit their beliefs as bluntly as possible, NOW.

You could post more of your background story that you want the Beliefs to link to, then we can help find those links. It might help to think of things in terms of "Situation" instead of "background" though - i.e. bring all the interesting conflicts to the forefront.

Good luck with it! And sorry if a lot of this is old hat to you, I wasn't sure how experienced with BW you are (probably more than me!).
-Mike

[Blackberry]

Keller believes that the Philosopher's Stone or clues to its current whereabouts (or even if it exists at all) can be found in the ruins. Ezra believes that his mentor is seeking ancient magical texts from here and wants to get there before his mentor does.

I like your ideas about the dwarf and elf.

The players wanted me to create a plot that was going on in the background, one which they would get only glimpses of as they went along their business, until suddenly something started happening which they couldn't ignore, and that is meant to draw them into the major plot being concocted by the Major Bad Guy. So what I'm trying to do is leave a very scant trail of breadcrumbs at this stage (this will only be our second play session), which is a challenge itself especially playing against the Burning Wheel get-into-the-meat-now style.

But I'm hoping that I can just provide lots of thin layers, like the Steak-umms of roleplaying.

[Verrain]

Also, don't be afraid to turn this back on the players. It sounds like they have already agreed in game to explore the ruin, so tell them each to rewrite a belief to explain why they are going in. Let them create the connection for you and then you have at least one Belief ready made to hammer at while the others arrise organicly.

[Thor]

Hey Blackberry,

Mike's given some good advice.

Just glancing over things, Ezra has by far the strongest beliefs. They are concrete goals that the player can pursue and achieve in play.

Keller's first belief is also quite strong. Cor's second belief is basically a "get the party together and focused" belief and there's nothing wrong with that.

Calenmiriel and has trickier beliefs, and the rest of Cor's beliefs are tricky too. They're what we would call proto-beliefs in BWHQ parlance. In other words, they contain a certain moral or ethical stance, but are lacking an action to define it.

For instance, look at Calenmiriel's third belief. Once she actually decides what the way to unity is, she can make that part of the belief. Once she does that, the belief kicks ass. It tells her why she feels this way and what she's going to do to make it happen.

Now, it's perfectly ok to start play with a couple of proto-beliefs, as long as the understanding is that those beliefs will get updated to include a specific goal once inspiration strikes in play. At the same time, I recommend that at least one of your three beliefs start off with a concrete goal to act on. That gives you something proactive to do from the get go.