Back here I commented that John rewrote Duran’s history on me between one week and the next. To explain and clarify:

John’s original history said only that Duran fled after killing the chief’s son in a legal duel – he fled because even though the duel was legal, he knew the chief was vindictive, and would try to get revenge. I wanted a reason to explain why the other members of the tribe would not support Duran against the unreasonable chief. So I decided that among the Middle Redding horse clans, the winner of a fatal duel is required to pay the “weregild” – or man-price – to the dead man’s family. It’s a concept taken from Scandinavian/Viking/Norse culture. I decided Duran had fled immediately after the duel, without paying the weregild. In short, the story about Duran redeeming his honor was about as straight-forward as it could be – Duran’s hot-headedness led to the duel, and led to him running without doing what his society required. And the chief could put a bounty on Duran’s head without me having to come up with an elaborate story about why the other tribe members would support the bounty.

I also told John the expansion I had given his history (without the DM-thinking) shortly before it came time for him to appear at the autumn Conclave. He was simply required to show up, enter the contest, and try to win the Warrior’s Laurels, and all would be fine.

The week that Duran is set to return, John shows up with a lengthy handwritten history. It turns out Duran is the chief’s nephew and Jubal was his cousin. The duel wasn’t, strictly speaking, legal – Duran and Jubal were underage, and the council of tribal chiefs decided to impose a punishment. Duran didn’t flee immediately, he waited around for a while, and fled only when it came time to take his punishment. And the weregild was paid, by Duran’s father.

So now I needed a more elaborate plot: If Duran’s father said he had paid the weregild – and wasn’t lying – then how could the chief get away with claiming it wasn’t paid? Was the chief lying? Or was someone else working on a more elaborate deception? And why were they doing it? For the first week, I just let the issue simmer – I didn’t have time to try to think up something, and start going into too great detail the very week John gave me this revised history. We ran the wrestling/archery/horse-riding contests, and in the week between that session and the next I had to figure out a new scenario.

Fortunately, the back-story I came up with fits quite well into the tag-line for this campaign: What would a parent do for a child? Not just Lares for his dead son Jubal, but also both of his sisters for their sons. In the end, it gives the story of Duran’s redemption a richer plot, but it was a a real lesson to me about how a player can throw a huge monkey-wrench at the DM, at the most inconvenient moments.