My game group got together Saturday night to launch a new 13th Age campaign. I had initially invited 6 players, not expecting everyone to be available. Turns out they all were, plus 1 brought his daughter. So 7 players. A bit more than I would typically go with, but we will make this work.

When I ran 13th Age before, I used the default setting. One of the struggles I encountered was pretty common, I believe. There were relationships with every icon. That was with 5 players. This creates such a scattered and broad scope, that I did not want to run into the same issue. I am familiar with the 7 Icons supplement, but also did not want to go that route. So here is what we did, and where we ended up.

I asked each player to roll a d20, then started going highest to lowest. Pick an Icon, and state Positive or Negative. This set up the Icons that were available for the game, and the default relationship to the icon. A player could take the default relationship type, or conflicted. But if an Icon was Positive, nobody could take a negative relationship with them. A player's character does NOT have to have a relationship with the Icon they chose, this just defined the scope of who is out there for THIS campaign.

We ended up with:
Great Golden Wyrm +
Priestess +
Dwarf King -
Lich King +
Prince of Shadows +
The Three +
The Emperor -

So we are already deviating from the standard setting here, because some of the default villainous icons will be positive relationships, and some of the default heroic will be negative.

Next step was to give 3 things about each icon that are believed to be true. These may be true, they may not be true. This is also what helped define why these relationships are as they are. Some folks decided to riff on a Dune aspect here also, so....

Great Golden Wyrm
- He is the one that lets the spice (magic) flow
- He is losing control of blocking the abyss
- He has been silent for the last 50 years

Priestess
- Searching for a solution to the Great Golden Wyrm's silence
- She is an oracle, divining the future
- She has been bolstering the Great Golden Wyrm's efforts and cleaning the tainted magic (spice) seeping through

Dwarf King
- Allying and making pacts with the under-races. Building an army.
- On a quest to retake all valuable metals and metal-forged items
- Has imprisoned The Three and uses their breath to power his forge (also using their 'forces' to build his alliances - see The Three below)

Lich King
- Rightful ruler slain by the Emperor, his younger brother
- Leading the fight to free The Three
- Helping the Priestess and the Great Golden Wyrm

Prince of Shadows
- Partnered with the Lich King to keep the Dwarf King weakened
- Warped sense of honor and will consider slights harshly
- Seeking something to use to overthrow the other Icons

The Three
- There were originally 4 (yes, I know in the setting there were, but the players didn't when they picked this)
- They are each the embodiment a powerful force (Red = destruction, Blue = sorcery, Black = Death)
- Their capture has limited magic and powers around the Empire, fewer people can access and use magic now

The Emperor
- Protects what the Empire holds and has, is very insular
- Trying to wipe out the last of the mages not dedicated to him (he is the true archmage, who slew his older brother, and imprisoned his identical twin and took over as the Emperor)
- He has an inquisition force of mages, who hunt down non-aligned mages and magic items

Several folks had to leave without having everything determined, but so far, here are the characters and OUTs I know of:

Dragonkin Savage - OUT TBD
Human Ranger - OUT TBD
Human Swordmage - OUT - he is the nephew of the Lich King, and was been blood cursed
Dwarf Monk - OUT TBD
Drow Warlock - OUT - he is the only albino drow
Drow Rogue - OUT - he was rejected as a sacrifice to Llolth
Wood Elf Cleric - OUT - she suffers uncontrolled pyromaniac outbursts sometimes while sleeping (this character may not be kept, the player was going to look at other character classes and get back to me)

All I know is, I am looking forward to seeing how this game develops.

Been a while since I played 13th Age, but it's a wonderful system and I like the way the icons fit with the characters.

Your "three things you think you know" about each is very clever. Love the concept!

I really like the idea of the 3 (once 4). I could see a whole region setting based around this. And yes 13th Age is a great game, hope you have a blast. We didnt find the factions worked all that well tbh. We adapted it somewhat in combination with Paizo Plot Twist cards, which was very fun. Big fan of their general class design, particularly the fighter.