Preface to Infamous

 The Infamous game began long ago in a relatively untraveled plane, a Magic-User of middling level appeared quite suddenly. He had fled to this lesser-known world in order to escape the wrath of some demons whom he had previously angered. Other characters of valor and good soon followed to this land, escaping their own war-torn worlds. With these newfound friends, the Magic-User created an invulnerable stronghold, where he researched powerful magic designed exclusively for defending against the inevitable attacks of the demons, as well as other creatures from the lower planes. When the demons eventually arrived, the Magic-User, with his unique and powerful new magic was able to fend off the invaders. Thus, the demonslayer sect was born, classes of wizard who then took to mastering their newfound magic. Over the next age, the Age of Demonslayers, many civilizations, fortresses, and cities were founded, destroyed, and founded again. This was mostly done by player characters. As more and more of these were built, more and more evil characters infested the new world, living covertly and establishing undergrounds throughout the good cities of the realm. Through their ruthless methods, these evil characters eventually found their ways into places of power and authority. They gained great power and leadership over the nations of the world, expanding their influence across the land. They set out to abolish and stamp out the Demonslayers, replacing them with their own new evil classes. This gave rise to the Anti-Paladins, as well as other classes which have mostly been lost to time.

The game of Infamous is named not for the goal, but for the eventuality that the characters will become "Infamous." If a group of good characters happens to get heavily involved in fighting against the forces of evil, stopping sacrifices to evil gods, freeing slaves, or dispatching villains, the party is likely to attract some unwanted attention. It typically only takes a week or so for the forces of darkness to identify the surviving characters, and it doesn't take long for them to take action against the players. Once the stories of your character's exploits circle around the world long enough for people to know what you're up to, it is at that point when your character is considered "Infamous." While this reputation may on rare occasion prove useful, it is most often considered a bad thing, as many NPC's will be more than willing to turn the characters in, and Assassins will always be on the lookout for an opportunity to take out a character. This could result in lots of !!fun!!

This results in most of the good characters becoming a form of underground resistance. They often take the role of gorilla freedom fighters who mostly perform missions quickly in order to get out before anything goes too far against the plan. They might occasionally take back a piece of land here and there, but most often they seem to have great trouble with securing the forces necessary to hold it for a long period of time. Any character who ever makes it past seventh level is almost assuredly Infamous to some degree, and is usually regarded as some form of legend. The side of good is likely to seek out the character for aid, while evil is just as likely to seek out the character for assassination. Considering the insurmountable odds, a good character is rarely ever seen to make it to seventh level, even as an NPC. In fact, if a party is assigned an adventure or mission, it is rather unlikely that any of the original characters will have survived to see the mission completed. Mostly, those who make it to the end will be random characters who were rolled after one character had perished. Those who do survive are almost guarantied some form of "Infamous" status, and will also likely shoot up to a respectable level. A group of well prepared seventh level characters are often quite the force to be reckoned with. Even when you inevitably die, always remember. Losing is !!fun!!, and there's always another character to rise from the ashes.

The variant of Infamous used in Farvion is an adaptation of the original concepts. This variant was created by:

Arthur Higgsbury

With Special thanks to:

Dave Tucker (For creating Infamous)

Chuck Markin (For introducing me to the game)

Noonish Schrödinger (For helping with Time Wizards)