The King of the Hill

This is a character from my current Burning Wheel campaign. He’s an urchin, a leader of street kids. We first encountered him when our heroes went looking for an unnamed spirit that had been plaguing the city. He had found a paper note, stuck in the supports of a bridge on the edge of the city. The characters believed that this note had an important clue to unravel a conspiracy against Queen Rowena.

As a GM, playing this character is fun. He's juvenile, so his interests are selfish. He's also seen more than he should for a child of his age. That puts him in tension between the poles of being the one who hurts and the one who is hurt. He's also a great source of street information and gossip for the player characters. He knows a lot about who is moving where, even if he doesn't know why they do what they do. He looks after the kids from his area and they look after him. I imagine him as a young Fagin who hasn't yet lost hope that there's a good future for him and his associates.

My favourite aspect to him is that he holds power over information and that he will part with it for a different price than an adult. In this game, adults have struck bargains to murder in exchange for information. The King of the Hill wants other things that adults overlook. In that first exchange, he swapped the note for a sumptuous meal for him and his friends. They feasted in the king's hall - a small mound of earth underneath a bridge - with all the features you'd otherwise see in the Queen's palace. There was food, dancing, bardic stories, and a little magic.

Who knows when he'll come back into the story?