Beginnings (My Greyhawk Campaign)

Now that I have established the map I am going to work with, it is time for me to take my own advice and read through the relevant parts of The World of Greyhawk, note what inspires me,  ignore the rest, and make changes where needed. In other words, if you are a Greyhawk purist, this series of posts is not going to be your cup of tea.

First, lets go over the things I like:

• Three of the four main human peoples can be found on the map. The Oerid are well represented in the Kingdom of Nyrond and in Onwall. The Suel can be found on the Wild Coast and it can be assumed were the people that populated The Pomarj before the humanoid invasions. Finally, it is suggested in the text that the Wildmen found in the southern part of the Albor Alz are Flan.
• It is implied that the current King of Nyrond is a member of the House of Rax and the rightful heir to the thrown of the Great Kingdom. The usuper and demon-infested House of Naelax currently controls the throne of the Great Kingdom.
• The leader of Onwall is called a Szek, which is a Hungarian word for seat or chair — as in Chairman of the Board.
• Onwall is part of an alliance called the Iron League.
• Pomarj was overrun 63 years ago.
• While demi-humans are mentioned in passing, they are portrayed as largely uninterested in human affairs. One possible exception may be the dwarves and gnomes of Onwall. Another is that Nyrond has demi-human troops, but they are explicitly called "scouts" and are only used in times of need.
• There are two lost/hidden cities on the map. One is in the Suss Forest and the other is in the Bright Desert. Both appear to be built by the Suel.
• The Wild Coast is largely ignored because it is resource poor.
• Pirates are major factors in every single major body of water.
• The Caledon Forest is a no-go zone for non-elves.
• The Gnatmarsh is filled with “ghastly” creatures.
• The Drachensgrab Hills are supposedly the home of one or more very powerful creatures that are waiting to be awakened.
• There are several knightly orders throughout the land (though none are directly related to any place on my map).
• Finally, I realize that they aren’t explicitly on the map, but I love the idea of the Scarlet Brotherhood.

Now, to things I will specifically change:

• I realize that this technically isn’t a change, since there really is no real information about religion in the first edition of WoG, but given the history of the campaign setting and the game itself, it still feels like one. St. Cuthbert is the same saint that exists in our history. He was transported to WoG and introduced people to the God of St. Cuthbert. Colloquially, people tend to call Christians followers of St. Cuthbert and leave off “’s God.” As the Point of Light on the map, the Kingdom of Nyrond is the main political entity that champions St. Cuthbert’s God. Given the fact that the Iron League sees the Great Kingdom as their enemy, and that they share a common culture with Nyrond (Oeridian), The Iron League is heavily influenced by St. Cuthbert and his God, if not outright followers. This allows me to add some fuel to the fire of a cultural clash between the Oerid and the Suel and Flan by having the latter be primarily Old Believers.
• Nyrond will simply be referred to as The Kingdom. It is the only kingdom on the map and it serves the polemic purpose of dismissing the claim of the House of Naelax as the leaders of the Great Kingdom.
• I don’t particularly like the name Onwall, but I love the name Iron League. So, Onwall will simply be the Iron League, which rather than a group of nations is a group of City States (with some tacit support of the dwarves and gnomes of the Headlands).
• I want to play up the naval prowess and power of the Iron League. Given that their leader is a “Chair” suggests that their organizing principle is far more interested in economic power than political power. Given the constant pirate problem in the area, it would make sense that the Iron League would take matters into their own hands and protect their business interests. As such, they may be far more influential in the area than the Kingdom, especially at a practical level.
• The name “The Pomarj” doesn’t refer to the geographical area that contains the Drachensgrab Hills. Rather, it is an old Suel word meaning city state. It specifically referred to twelve City States that used to exist on the peninsula. The geographic area is called the Drachensgrab Peninsula or simply Drachensgrab.
• The Pomarj were some of the first Suel to officially adopt Christianity, though many Suel remained Old Believers. The leaders converted (some for political reasons), but not necessarily the people.
• The Scarlet Brotherhood came into existence after the fall of The Pomarj. It was started by Old Believer survivors of the Pomarj who blamed the destruction of their homes on Christianity and the failure of other Christian nations to come to their aid. Thus, they seek revenge and they seek to found a great Suloise Empire that will bring the Christian nations to their knees. To achieve this, they are willing to use any strategy or tactic no matter how vile.
• The great magics that brought about the Invoked Devastation and Rain of Colorless Fire are long forgotten; however, it is rumored that some powerful artifacts from that period were in the possession of the Suel when the Suloise migrations began. Not coincidentally, the Suel are more natural arcane spell casters than either the Oerid or the Flan.
• There are going to be two knightly orders that have a presence on the map: the Order of the White Hart (a play on the Order of the Hart in WoG) and the Order of the Red Rose (a play on one of the later developments in the WoG version of St. Cuthbert). The Order of the White Hart is based off of the hagiography of St. Eustathios (who will go by St. Sylfaen in my version of WoG) who had an encounter with Christ while hunting a deer and St. Gobnait who went on a quest to find nine white deer. The Order of the Red Rose is dedicated to the Mother of God because the rose is often associated with her.
• I plan on re-skinning various humanoids as orcs so that I can use them almost exclusively as my humanoid baddies. I have always wanted to run a campaign where Gygax’s suggested names for orc tribes gets used. As a consequence, all of the various tribes that now occupy Drachensgrab are all orcs: The Death Moon Tribe, The Dripping Blades Tribe, The Grinning Skull Tribe, The Leprous Hand Tribe, and The Long Spears,
• For the purposes of placing the A-series onto the map, the most important orc “tribe” is going to be the Long Spears. They are actually going to be a mercenary company consisting mostly of half-orcs (at least in the leadership) that have been hired by merchants of the Iron League (through the suggestion of agents of the Scarlett Brotherhood) to take control of Highport. They maintain a neutral port that does business with human and orc alike. While they will turn a blind eye to the slave trade if it is out of sight, the Long Spears make sure the city has the appearance of being above board. This justifies why the Slave Pits of A1 are hidden and not out in the open.
• I plan on re-working the heraldry of the area so that it suits my proclivities (that’ll be another post).
• Finally, I plan on incentivizing players to play humans. I want this to be a human-centric campaign where elves, dwarves, etc. are alien cultures that might interact with the human world out of curiosity, but rarely do anything to influence it.

Home brewing a "High-Level" "Dungeon"

So, one of the comments on my post on How I Homebrew a Dungeon, I was asked If I could do the same for a dungeon for characters 6-9th level. My short answer to the question is: No.

I have never been a fan of high-level play and neither were most of my friends. We loved those low-level campaigns and usually accomplished something earth shattering by 6th or 7th level. Indeed, I have only ever gotten one character from 1st to 9th level in my entire career as a player and have only ever seen one character survive to 9th level from 1st as a Referee. Both characters are retired.

In other words, by the time my players have advanced to 4-6th level, they have accumulated enough power and influence that the focus of the campaign shifts from that of dungeon exploration to politics, clearing out wilderness areas, and spending a bunch of money on building stuff (this is nicely encouraged by the Arneson rule where 1 xp = 1 gp spent).

So, I have never really had to homebrew a 6-9th level dungeon. As predicted by Cook’s Expert edition of D&D, by the time my players’ characters get to 4th level, I am usually designing wilderness areas, encounters, and lairs — not dungeons.

That doesn’t mean I can’t or I won’t, especially since folks seemed to find my last outing useful. This endeavor, however, does come with a major caveat. What I have in mind doesn’t really qualify as a dungeon…it is more of an elaborate lair. For me, the word “dungeon” is indicative of the Mystic Underground where no matter how deep you go, there is always something else deeper and more dangerous and the place itself is trying to kill you, not just the monsters.

There are two main reason I am choosing this particular path. First, without the previous 5 levels of a megadungeon and a campaign to riff off, doing the 6th level of such a place is both too daunting and too boring. Secondly, I’ll probably never see a day when I’d actually use it in play. By going the route I am, this will go into my folder of stuff I can pull out on a moments notice to fill a need in an ongoing campaign.

Since this is to be a type of lair, I need to figure out what monster lives there before I go to making or finding a map. So, I pulled out The Tome of Adventure Design and rolled up a person associated with the place, the last significant event that happened there, and the original purpose of the place.

As an aside, when I use random tables (especially one where a d100 is concerned), I freely read the dice in as many ways as I am allowed in order to give me more than one option when it comes to results. This allows me a bit a wiggle room and the ability to be inspired.

For example, I wanted to keep my options open on this one to see what kind of stories might emerge from the random rolls. The person in question was either going to be an Assassin or a Cleric and the place in question was either a place of guilt or a place of burial. Music was involved and it created something that would be dangerous to intruders about 10 years ago.

I then rolled an original purpose and who built it: that was when things began to crystalize. I rolled up a Scriptorium that was built by a unique type of Giant.

The Cleric no longer made much sense, so I went with the Assassin and I ended up using both a place of burial and a place of guilt.

This place was built by a blind giant who was a scribe and a scholar. He needed a way to record the research he had done and so came up with a writing method akin to Braile (note to self, Read Magic is necessary to interpret his writings). For this purpose, he needed someone to dictate various texts to him so that he could study and record his findings.

This role is taken up by an Annis Hag and the two end up falling in love with each other. Whether or not the Giant’s love was voluntary at first or not, the important part here is that the Annis Hag ended up in love with the Giant because he saw past the ugly exterior.

This love story, however, has an ugly underside because the Annis Hag still had an appetite for human flesh. When she made the mistake of lunching on a local prince, an assassin was hired to take her out. The killing blow, however, fell upon the Giant who sacrificed himself for his love.

Among the things and knowledge collected by the Giant was the True Name of a demon and a magical harp that would summon it. In a fit of anguished rage, the Annis Hag used the harp to summon the demon and commanded it to torture the assassin as long as she was alive. Unfortunately for her, summoning the demon destroyed the harp. Caught in the magical explosion, she suffered grievous wounds which have never fully recovered. In order to make sure the assassin suffers as long as possible and to guard her own life, she has since drawn a protective circle around the demon and its prey. At this point the demon is kept at bay virtually by will alone.

In the meantime, a group of hobgoblins have taken up residence. According to my own calculations, hobgoblins are eugenicists who love to experiment with breeding techniques.

Thus, they see value in the knowledge found in the Giant’s lair, the demon trapped there, and the hag that keeps it at bay. They have turned the lair into a house of horrors and feed the rejects of their experimentation to the hag to help keep her alive. For her part, she is grateful for every day the assassin is tortured.

So here is the challenge for the players: this is the location of a McGuffin. Whether a magic item in possession of the assassin, a particular piece of information on one of the Giant’s “scrolls,” or something else, it is inside the protective circle keeping the demon at bay.

Since this set-up is kinda mean, I want to reward the characters by providing a lair that could be converted into a stronghold if they so desire. As a consequence, I am looking for a map of a castle with a dungeon. I found that here. As I did with my 1st level dungeon, I proceeded to number each of the rooms:

Between the castle and the dungeon below there are 63 rooms. Using Moldvay’s “Stock the Dungeon Table” we get the following break down:

11 Monsters without Treasure (technically 10.5)
11 Monsters with Treasure (technically 10.5)
6 Traps
4 Trap with Treasure (technically 3.5)
10 Specials (technically 10.5)
18 Empty Rooms
3 Empty Room with Treasure (technically 3.5)

I rounded up on the number of monsters and traps with treasures and rounded down on Empty rooms to make the math work. I erred in the direction of more stuff.

Holmes suggests that it is possible to encounter wandering monsters within a range of two levels up and two levels down. Thus, at 6th level, it would be possible to encounter creatures anywhere from the 4th level through the 8th level. The math would look like this:

2 Level 4 Monsters
5 Level 5 Monsters
8 Level 6 Monsters
5 Level 7 Monsters
2 Level 8 Monsters

I can already sense some confusion because the main monster group I will be using are hobgoblins, which are Level 2 monsters according to Moldvay. This is where S&W becomes really useful. The Wandering Monster Tables found therein are organized according to Challenge Level. Hobgoblins are CL 1; however, Carnivorous Apes (which hobgoblins are known to associate with) are CL 4. The Wandering Monster Tables suggest combinations of different CL monsters and since hobgoblins are interested in genetic and breeding experiments, it opens up a lot of possibilities for higher level monsters:

• Ape-like creatures like Flying Apes (CL 6), Gorilla Bears (CL 4), and Girallons (CL 6)
• Thouls (CL 3)
• Creatures necessary for breeding the above such as Basilisks (CL 8), Cave Bears (CL 7), Ghouls (CL 3), Perytons (CL 6), and Trolls (CL 8) and Cave Trolls (CL 7)
• Experimental failures represented by Gibbering Mouthers (CL 6)

Following the suggestions from S&W we come to the following totals:

1 Annis Hag (1400 xp)
3 Basilisks (2400 xp)
26 Carnivorous Apes (3120 xp)
3 Cave Bears (1800 xp)
8 Cave Trolls (4800 xp)
1 Demon, Erinyes (1400 xp)
2 Flying Apes (800 xp)
28 Ghouls (1680)
7 Gibbering Mouthers (2800xp)
15 Girallons (6000 xp)
14 Gorilla Bears (1680 xp)
112 Hobgoblins (1680 xp)
3 Perytons (1200 xp)
42 Thouls (2520 xp)
4 Trolls (3200 xp)
Total xp = 34,800

In case anyone is wondering where I am going to fit 117 hobgoblins, remember that this place was built by a Giant. Thus, everything is twice the size a map normally would be — giving me plenty of room to stuff all these creatures wherever I want.

The average Treasure Roll is going to be 2.5, so the base treasure is going to be 87,000 gp. Going by math (because I don’t want to roll this many times), the 100 gp Trade Outs will result in 83 Minor Gems and Jewelry and 4 Minor Magic Items. The 1000 gp Trade Outs will result in 8 Medium Gems and Jewelry and 1 Medium Magic Item.The 5000 gp Trade Outs will result in 2 Major Gems and Jewelry and no Major Magic Items.

Thus, there will be 13,500gp in Minor Gems and Jewelry, 5,200 gp in Medium Gems and Jewelry, 6,500 gp in Major Gems and Jewelry, and 67,000 gp in Miscellaneous treasure for a grand total of 92,200 gp.

There are 18 rooms with treasure. If each has 5000 gp I will have 2200 gp left over to place where I deem fit in the moment (probably with the Annis Hag hidden inside the tomb of the Giant).

There is a total of 127,000 xp available, or 31,750 per character in a party of 4. This should be enough for most characters to go from 6th to 7th level easily.

Now to place all of this stuff in the dungeon:

The Annis Hag will be in Room 1.38, an appropriate place for a bedroom turned tomb.
The Erinyes will be trapped in Room 2.21, being the lowest part of the entire structure.

As for the rest of the monsters, they can be categorized into three types:

1. Hobgoblins and their allies
2. Prisoners used to do breeding experiments
3. Failures

The failures would be the Gibbering Mouthers, which are locked away in Room 2.20, since that is nice and isolated.

The prisoners could all be stored away in Rooms 2.3-2.10. These include the basilisks, cave bears, cave trolls, ghouls, perytons, and trolls.

To fill out the dungeon level, I would place Thouls in Rooms 2.12 and 2.18 as guards.

The rest of the monster populate the upper floor, with the hobgoblins, carnivorous apes and gorilla bears primarily occupying the towers — Rooms 1.35-1.37 and 1.39-1.43.
girallons and flying apes would occupy Rooms 1.1 and 1.9.

That’s 22 rooms with monsters. Also note: I’ll probably sprinkle hobgoblins, thouls, and carnivorous apes throughout the last 20 rooms to demonstrate the basic theme of its current use.

Now I need 10 Specials:

Room 1.3 is a magical hall of perfumes. The central section of the hall rains down clouds of the stuff from the ceiling when someone passes through. The stuff is so strong it reduces the chances of surprise to 1 in 6 for 24 hours.
Room 1.5 is a magical hot tub that automatically undresses anyone entering and drying and clothing anyone leaving (with a small percentage of some kind of screw-up)
Room 1.6 is a magical gallery; however, the “pictures” are designed for the blind.
Room 1.8 is a magical music room with various levers and buttons that create various sounds. The music is designed to play throughout the castle, alerting everyone of the player’s presence.
Room 1.21 is a magical kitchen and 1.22 is be a magical ice room for storing food.
Room 1.27 is a library with a device that fetches certain books, but only works if the commands are given in the language of giants.
Room 1.33 is the scriptorium, with a special device used to create the “Braile” scrolls created by the Giant.
Rooms 2.11 and 2.13 are incubating and birthing chambers for the breeding experiments.

Now for 4 rooms with treasure guarded by a trap:
Rooms 1.14, 1.16, 1.30, and 2.2 all suggest themselves because they are dead-ends.

The six remaining traps:

Rooms 1.15 and 1.17 are suggestive because of the portcullises indicated on the map.
Rooms 1.2 and 1.31 are good candidates to alert the hobgoblins in the towers.
Room 2.17 has access to the demon.
Room 2.19 keeps the Gibbering Mouthers at bay.

Finally, I need two Empty Rooms with treasure:

I like Rooms 1.25 and 2.16 for this for no real particular reason.

For the rest, I might note some things to indicate this was once the home to a scholar with servants. Servants quarters, storage rooms, guest rooms, supplies necessary for scholarly work, etc.

Done.

Note: I have sprinkled some cool features within this castle that might prove useful should the players ever want to claim this as their own. Consider it an incentive and a reward for putting up with my dark sense of humor.

Also note: The chances of me ever actually using this are not high. But who knows, it may one day prove useful...if not to me than someone out there who wants to take this and run with it.

Running the First Session with Only One Dungeon

Yesterday, I waxed poetic about how I run the first session of a sandbox campaign. In it I posited several site-based adventures in order to facilitate player choice; however, this is not always possible. Sometimes I have only had the opportunity to work on one dungeon, or there is a serious desire to run a particular module. Player choice and the use of rumors seems to be severely limited, but it doesn’t have to be.

If I really only have one adventure that I can/want to use, I will approach player choice from the “why are we going” rather than the “where are we going” perspective. To give this meat, I will map out at least five factions that have interest in what goes on at the adventure site. I plug these factions into the Wu XIng diagram:

Each faction is given a goal and a reason why they like to work with the faction they like and why they are working against the faction that is their enemy. This quick and dirty system easily sets up a complex web of relationships that enrich the campaign.

Once this diagram is set up and understood, I make rumors to connect the players to each of the factions. Since each faction has a specific goal when it comes to the site based adventure and those goals are at odds with other factions, it gives real weight to player choice when it comes to why they are going on the adventure.

So, as an example, let’s pretend that I have to run the first session of a campaign in short order and I won’t have time to create anything elaborate in terms of adventure sites. Let’s also pretend that the one adventure I do have prepared is the one I produced in the post How I Homebrew a Dungeon.

Since I am in a pinch, I will fall back on familiar territory when it comes to my starting village: I’ll pull out my copy of T1:The Village of Hommlet and extrapolate from there. First, I will leaf through and find five significant NPCs that represent larger powers or ideas:

1. Elmo the 4th level ranger is an agent of the Viscount of Verbobonc
2. The Canon Terjon the 6th level cleric is the priest of the Church of St. Cuthbert
3. Jaroo Ashstaff the 7th level druid is an agent of the Druids of Gnarley Wood and a follower of the Old Ways
4. Burne the 8th level magic-user and Rufus the 6th level fighter the semi-retired adventurers
5. Rannos Davi the 10th level thief and his partner Grmag the 7th level assassin are agents of the Temple of Elemental Evil

Now to translate these concepts into my campaign:

• Elmo represents the political aspect of a Christian/pseudo-Christian power that is vying for influence in the area.
• Terjon represents the religious aspect of the same Christian/pseudo-Christian power that is vying for influence in the area.
• Jaroo represents the religious and possibly political aspect of the native population of the area the Christian/pseudo- Christian power is trying to influence
• Burne and Rufus represent the local interests of the village
• Rannos and Grmag represent a secret society that is interested in re-awakening an ancient power

For purposes of keeping things simple I’ll label the five with the following monikers:

The Kingdom
The Church
The Old Way
The Village
The Cult

Now to plug these into a Wu Xing Diagram to see the relationships these factions have with each other:

• The Kingdom likes to work with The Old Way in order to secure political stability, but are opposed to the Cult because it is a destabilizing force.
• The Church likes to work with the Kingdom because they share the same religious values, but opposes the Old Way because their values and religious views clash.
• The Old Way likes to work with the Cult because the enemy of my enemy is a friend, but opposes the stability of the Village because it represents the encroaching power and influence of both the Kingdom and the Church.
• The Cult likes to work with the Village because the desire for safety is easily manipulated to their cause and they oppose the Church because it is the direct antithesis of the Cult.
• The Village likes to work with the Church because of how it cares for the sick and needy (especially in a crisis), but opposes the Kingdom because it challenges the autonomy the Village has earned through years of hard work and sacrifice.

See what I mean about interesting relationships?

So what could these five factions want from the dungeon? The dungeon offers three basic motivators:

1. The Kobolds
2. The Medusa
3. Treasure

Plugging these into the five factions could look like this:

• The Kingdom wants to investigate any rumors of ancient political powers in order to destroy them (Medusa)
• The Church has been taking in a number of refugees from various raids by the kobolds. They need supplies to help them and seek an end to the trouble (Kobolds/Treasure)
• The Old Way knows the story of the Medusa because it is part of their mythology. They want to find her but are reluctant to free her. Thus, they would want to find the keys to the prison, just in case (Medusa/Treasure)
• The Cult wants to investigate the rumors of ancient political powers to see if they can awaken them (Medusa)
• The Village wants the kobolds taken care of because they have been raiding in the area (Kobolds)

All of these goals point in exactly the same direction (the dungeon), but have varying reasons why the players would choose to go adventuring there. I would introduce each of the five factions through the NPCs found in T1:Village of Hommlet and reveal everyone's goal in terms of the dungeon. It would then be up to the players to determine the “why.” Which faction(s) will they support?

Of course, this choice is consequential due to the fact that various factions will now see the PCs as allies or enemies. Due to the larger goals of each faction, this will feed into further adventures.

As a final thought, this whole exercise in creating factions is certainly not limited to sessions that only have one adventure site. I tend to use them in most, if not all, of my campaigns; however, when it comes to empowering players when I only have one adventure site on offer, the Wu Xing diagram is one of my favorite tools.

Prepping an Adventure vs. Writing an Adventure

Recently, I have gotten a couple of compliments for stuff I’ve done in the hobby. Firstly, one of my friends sent me an email thanking me for getting him back to the gaming table and for doing all the prep work necessary for running a game. Secondly, Ifryt, who writes Miasto ze Spizu, a Polish-language RPG blog, recently ran my adventure The Hermit Caves and wrote up a nice little review. I had to run it through Google Translate, but he liked the module for all the reasons I wrote it, which thrills me to no end.

While I am tooting my own horn here a little bit, I find the juxtaposition of these two comments actually really interesting because of the rather large difference between how I write an adventure to publish and how I prep to run an adventure. While my writing and layout style is quite different from the traditional module, I am nonetheless heavily influenced by the way modules have traditionally been presented. Part of me wonders if Referees, when prepping their own adventures, feel obligated to (at least in part) duplicate what has been published throughout the years.

Since I run a sandbox-style game and my schedule is filled with family, job, church, etc. I long ago realized that I cannot prep my adventures like a regular module. I don’t have time and my players may never actually go where I do all that hard work. Therefore, I have developed a shorthand of adventure prep and have a copious collection of random tables.

Here is an example of how I would come into a gaming session with Dyson Logos’ map The Liar’s Cave:

Note: I typed this out so you could read it (my handwriting is awful).

To explain: I take the back story presented by Dyson, added six monsters (stats on the side) and then rolled for each room using Moldvay’s table from his edition of Basic D&D:

• E= Empty
• ET = Empty with Treasure
• T = Trap
• TT = Trap with Treasure
• S = Special
• M = Monster
• MT = Monster with Treasure

One thing that I believe gets overlooked in Moldvay’s Basic is that he provides an average value to Treasure Types A-M. This gives me the freedom to arbitrarily assign treasure based on average value rather than rolling on the treasure table. It also allows me to use resources like The Mother of All Treasure Tables (MoaTT), originally published by Necromancer Games, which provides various treasure troves valued at 10 gp all the way to 50,000gp.

Thus, I have noted at each room with treasure a roll on the tables in MoaTT.

Now all I have to do is ask various questions on the day:

• Why are the monsters in this room?
• Why is the treasure in this room?
• What do they think of the party?
• Why a trap here? What trap is appropriate?
• What weird thing am I in the mood to have be a Special?
• Etc...

This is really all the information I need to run a successful dungeon delve that brings with it surprises for both my players and myself. In a way, I am exploring the dungeon with my players since much of the information that might have appeared in a grey box in a module of old, I am making up on the spot by answering questions either my players ask or I ask of myself.

In other words, the amount of work I put into prepping an adventure into The Liar’s Cave pales in comparison to the work I put into The Hermit Caves, yet both can (and have) produce(d) great gaming sessions.

So, to all those yet-to-be Referees (and maybe to those who already are): you don’t need to go to the lengths of a written module to produce great adventures of your own. You don’t need to feel intimidated by all that flavor text and all that background information and all the crunch. If you are willing to be creative, accept the surprises and seemingly nonsensical results that random tables can provide and be comfortable with the reality that if it makes sense to you in the moment, it will most likely make sense to your players, you can jump into the world of Refereeing with as little as a piece of paper with a rough map, a few monster stats and some random tables and still be just as effective as if you’d written everything from scratch.

Prepping a Sandbox Campaign: Part 8

Step 8: Villains

I have to be honest, I don’t normally do villains when I prepare any kind of campaign, especially a sandbox. The best villains are those that players love to hate and I am almost always surprised by what players end up hating. In my experience, it almost never is the person I want them to. Therefore, my job isn’t to provide them with my villain, but rather offer enough opportunities for the players to find out who they really want to have as their villain.

The first time I learned this lesson was a Champions campaign back when I was in high school. The initial sessions took place in a prison for supers where all the PCs were interred. They didn’t remember how they got there or why. Eventually, the prison was attacked by aliens, which offered the PCs an opportunity to escape. The big reveal was that the prison was actually in orbit and was just an initial phase of the alien invasion.

Thus, I had two big villains that I was planning to use: the guys who funded the prison and the leader of the aliens. Who did the players end up hating? Some throw-away fellow inmate who successfully fought off the PCs in order to get to a life boat, which the PCs were trying to hold onto for themselves. I realized that I had to make a major concession to the players by making this throw away NPC into a major villain when I heard my friends making plans on how they were going to track this guy down. Alien invasions and a group imprisoning supers in space had to wait. The campaign turned out to be a blast because they had a villain they chose.

Even if players do end up loving to hate one of the villains I want them to, they usually end up finding a way to legitimately get rid of them long before I want them to.

Having said that, I do have an idea brewing about the Old One that has too much goodness not to include in my Blackmarsh campaign thought experiment.

I was leafing through Matt Finch’s Tome of Adventure Design when I came upon an entry in his section for inspiring Undead monsters. One of the ways he suggests an intelligent undead creature became undead was by placing living body parts into a corpse to keep it “alive.” Couple this with the idea that said undead creature had a contagious form of undeath and my creative juices starting mulling over a way to have the Old One an active villain in the campaign.

The form of undeath the Old One concocted for himself involved a further refinement of the magic found in the Subterranean Lake of Watery Simulacrums. His goal was to create multiples of himself, all while sharing a kind of hive mind. He found a way to infect his own flesh so that if he injects a corpse with his blood (or any other part of his flesh) that corpse will animate as an extention of his awareness and mind.

These magics did not work entirely as planned, however. The more corpses the Old One occupies, the less powerful each possessed corpse is. At the moment, I am thinking that each additional corpse would approximately half his HD and spell casting abilities. Thus, if the Old One were understood to be a 14HD monster, for example, he could have two corpses in his hive mind at 7HD each or up to twenty-eight corpses at 1/2 HD.

This would make him a villain that not only would be really difficult to kill off, but one that could engage the party at several different power levels. To boot, he will probably know a lot more about the PCs than they ever expect him to. The thing that I find really attractive about this particular set-up, though, is that I have the option of making whoever it is that the players end up making their villain one of the corpses the Old One has added to his hive mind.

Prepping a Sandbox Campaign: Part 7

Step 7: Background Noise

One thing to keep in mind about sandbox campaigns is that the world does not remain static. It must react to the actions (or inaction) of the PCs. This is where the Centerpiece Dungeon really becomes useful. As information about its contents spreads far and wide, the various factions of the campaign world will take interest and begin to act. Your job is to figure out who, when and what you’ll have the most fun with.

Note: I like to call this stuff Background Noise, because it may be as simple as letting the players know that there seems to be a larger population of Dwarves at Blackoak Castle, or that the elves seem to be a bit less friendly or that there is a strangely dressed man at the tavern these days. The world is moving, but the players need not act on any of it. Its just background noise until they decide that they need to find out more about the dwarves, the elves or the guy in the tavern. All of this leads to more information and more choices.

Remember, every choice the players make has a consequence. If they ignore the Centerpiece Dungeon long enough, factions are going to be able to mount successful expeditions and bring out artifacts that will then be used to further their agenda.

In Fedor’s Pass, there are three Jade Images that have been broken. Each is missing one or more pieces that may or may not be found within Fedor’s Pass. These pieces must be restored in order to get one of three keys that will open doors to the lowest level of Fedor’s Pass, The Tomb of the Old One which is going to have a Tomb of Horrors kinda feel to it.

Thus, part of the background noise is going to be these jade pieces. Where are they and who has them? Another is going to be the actions of Scytheback. He can polymorph into a human with one eye. Given his powers as an ancient dragon this will allow him to pose as an Odin-type figure and influence both the Osrobards and the Vasan Vikings (and through them, possibly the PCs). His interest will be making sure the Old One is dead and gone so that he no longer has to operate in secret.

Prepping a Sandbox Campaign: Part 6

Step 6: Rumors

This is probably the most important aspect of a good sandbox campaign, because a sandbox only really works when players can make informed decisions about what they want their characters to do. Thus, I tend to disagree with the way rumor tables are traditionally done — with both true and false rumors. I don’t mind partially true entries, but false rumors have no real pay-off in terms of player choice and the consequences of those choices. Whereas a partially true rumor can be discovered to be inaccurate, a false rumor usually just gets forgotten.

Blackoak Castle, therefore, serves as an excellent home base for an adventuring party. Not only is it in close proximity to Fedor’s Pass, but it is also a font of information as rangers come in from all over Blackmarsh with stories (mostly accurate) of new threats to peace. In addition, the PCs can become members of the Blackoak Rangers which will avail them of even more accurate information. Thus, players will never be short of choice when it comes to what their characters do next.

To begin the campaign, the characters will know rumors about three locals:

• Fedor’s Pass
• The Wizard’s Tower
• The Ruins of Daur Anthar

Note: I am not adverse to using published adventures for locals outside of the Centerpiece Dungeon. Thus, if your library has good stand-ins for Daur Anthar and a wizard’s tower, I’d happily use them with one caveat: drop clues about the Old One in these published adventures. It can be as simple as a treasure map or a book of ancient history. This will keep feeding the players information about the Centerpiece Dungeon (Fedor’s Pass), helping them make informed decisions about how to react to the things the campaign world is doing in context of the Centerpiece Dungeon.

Prepping a Sandbox Campaign: Part 5

Step 5: Dungeon Background

It is now time to use the level names and landmarks of the dungeon to inspire several different eras of occupation. I normally use three, because that gives me enough detail to keep things interesting while being simple enough to make the design work easier. I tend to label these eras Ancient, Old and Present.

Ancient

The most evocative name level of the dungeon seems to me to be The Tomb of the Old One. This is where the McGuffin of the campaign is going to be and where all of the various factions are going to want access to. It is therefore imperative that I know who the Old One really is.

According to the original material, Scytheback was part of the reason the Bright Empire fell; however, remnants of the Empire still hold on. Thus, the dragon had to have been stopped at some point. This is where the Old One enters into the picture.

The Old One was (is?) a powerful magic-user from the days of the Bright Empire. Today, no one remembers his (her?) name. Tasked with stopping the dragon Scytheback, they entered into battle. The dragon nearly lost its life and did lose an eye. Never before had the beast encountered such a powerful adversary. Never before had it experienced fear. It has laid low ever since, using intermediaries to do its will.

Little did the dragon know that the Old One was also crippled in the fight. Unable to survive another onslaught by the dragon, the Old One turned to dark secrets in order to protect the people of the Bright Empire. As an accomplished necromancer, the Old One became corrupt. In the end, the Old One did more to bring down the Empire than did Scytheback.

Today no one knows if the Old One lives or has died, but artifacts occasionally do show up, reminding the people of Blackmarsh that a powerful mage once roamed these lands.

Old

The fortification on the surface of the dungeon was built later without knowledge of the lower sections beneath. The stone giants of the White Mountains suggest a reason why the fortifications became necessary. Off the west side of the map is giant territory. The pass was a means for those giants to raid Blackmarsh. This period was colloquially called the Giants Wars.

Eventually, things escalated when the various types of giants were united by a frost giant named Gymir. Due to the disorganization of the giants, the fortification of Fedor’s Pass proved to be partially effective. Once united, however, Fedor’s Pass quickly fell and the people of Blackmarsh got desperate. Gathering a large amount of viz, a group of mages cast a ritual spell that closed off the mountain pass. The remaining giants were either hunted down and killed or agreed to some form of peace. The stone giants are all that remain of those stranded in Blackmarsh by the Giant Wars.

The fortress at Fedor’s Pass was briefly maintained after the Giant Wars; however, the post was plagued by bad luck, accidents and a few unnatural deaths. Given that it no longer had any real protective purpose the post was eventually abandoned.

Present

It is now time to take elements of the Ancient and Old eras of the dungeon and weave them into who presently occupies the dungeon. Currently, the main fort of Fedor’s Pass is occupied by a force of goblins led by the bugbear Drefec.  They are a part of a coalition of goblin tribes led by the stone giant Lythor. Unlike many of the stone giants currently in the region, he is Chaotic and yearns for the days of old when the giants were terrorizing the land during the Giant Wars. Fueling this desire was a chance discovery of a volume that once belonged to the Old One. Lythor read the book and his already cruel intelligence became dangerously high. Subsequently, he has organized the local goblin tribes into a personal army.

At the beginning of the campaign, Lythor has been sending out scouting parties in search of clues for the resting place of the Old One because there are references in the tome he read of other books, weapons and treasures that could turn his private army into a conquering hoard. The bugbear Drefec has unknowingly found the location of the Tomb of the Old One; however, he has discovered an artifact of the Old One himself and is now only paying lip service to Lythor.

Beneath the Opal Lake is an artifact manufactured by the Old One call the Subterranean Lake of Watery Simulacrums. Drefec now lies within that artifact and is able to send individual duplicates of himself to rule and fight without fear of death, because when one simulacrum is destroyed (turning into water), another one can rise with all the knowledge of the previous Simulacrum.

There is, however, a faction within Drefec’s forces that haven’t forgotten their mission and are secretly trying to find more artifacts to return to Lythos. Ironically, if a party managed to actually kill Drefec, it might actually make the situation worse...

Prepping a Sandbox Campaign: Part 4

Step 4: Fill in Dungeon Details

It is now time to name each level of the centerpiece dungeon and place landmarks throughout. The goal here is to have each area of the dungeon have a specific function and feel that differentiates it from everything else.

The reason to do this is to not only make the dungeon itself better, but to start to knit together a background story that will serve the campaign.

By the way, do yourself a favor and check out Matt Finch’s Tome of Adventure Design. It is filled with random table goodness for coming up with dungeon level landmarks and names. It is one of the single best RPG purchases I have ever made.

Here is my version of Fedor’s Pass with level names and landmarks:

Prepping a Sandbox Campaign: Part 3

Step 3: Place Your Centerpiece Dungeon

This is an important step, even if you never see your players show any desire for entering your megadungeon/dungeon of choice. The reason being, the backstory of the dungeon affects the backstory of the region and the campaign. Often times, there will be something inside the dungeon, whether an object, a person or a piece of information (or all three) that the various factions within the campaign are vying for. Thus, the dungeon will be a source of adventure even if the players themselves never go there.

Personally, I rarely use published dungeons for this purpose, because the backgrounds often don’t jive with what I want to do with the world (unless I start with the dungeon and move out, but that usually involves a lot more work). Since we are doing an exercise for folks who don’t have the time or inclination to draw maps, etc. I would suggest doing a couple of things:

Go to Dave’s Mapper and play. You can make a side-view of a dungeon and then a map for each section of the dungeon in that side view. You can also go look at the plethora of maps Dyson Logos has done over the years. To keep your own efforts to a minimum, you really need only do a sideview to begin. The rest can be done later as needed.

For my own purposes, I decided to go with a map Dyson drew several years ago called Fedor’s Pass. The name is evocative, there are a number of levels already mapped and some that are not. This leaves room for me to use either maps of my own creation, those found by playing with Dave’s Mapper or using other maps by Dyson.

The name “Fedor’s Pass” suggests that the surface structure was used to protect a road that wound its way from one side of a mountain range to another. Blackmarsh has several mountain ranges: The White Mountains, The Pendar Mountains, and the Dragonbone Peaks. The latter is the most tempting, due to its massive cave network; however, the only place that might have a pass leads to a forest…with pixies.

The Pendar and White Mountains occupy the western edge of the map. If the whole 010X column of hexes were filled in with mountains and hills, then there would be a need for a pass to go west off the map.

Hex 0107 has a group of bandits out for revenge against Castle Blackoak, something I am not particularly interested in. It would, however, put Fendar’s Pass in close proximity to the castle and make sense as front-line defense position for anything trying to use the path to raid or invade Blackmarsh.

Prepping a Sandbox Campaign: Part 2

Step 2: Ignore or Change Everything Else

Seriously. Your job is not to follow the whims or will of the author. Your job is to create a world that you have fun with. This is one of the reasons I prefer products like Blachmarsh and the Wilderlands. The terseness used by the authors gives me permission to use, ignore or change anything I want. There is no canon I have to break. There is no intricate back story I have to re-craft. The implied effort of the author is only invested in a few sentences at most. Thus, I am not going to hurt any one’s feelings (or be challenged by a canon-nazi).

Indeed, I would imagine that Rob would be thrilled at seeing me take his Blackmarsh setting and run with it in whatever direction I want to take it. He did exactly the same thing with the Wilderlands, after all.

I also know from personal experience that once a campaign begins, I very rarely have to re-read or even look at the published campaign material. Everything that happens is driven by character action (or inaction). I use the stuff I care about and let them react to what PCs are doing. The results are almost always fun for me because the campaign is no longer the published material, it’s mine.

From Blackmarsh, as published, there are two things that I immediately want to change:

• As written, Scytheback is a very old red dragon. I want an ancient black dragon who knows how to polymorph self. (Red dragons bore me, acid breath is terrifying and polymorphing dragons are awesome NPCs).
• I want to change the name of the Blackmarsh Rangers to the Blackoak Rangers. It makes it much clearer that their HQ is Blackoak Castle and it emphasizes that they are an independent organization that is willing to help any Lawful cause that helps bring stability and peace to the region.

Prepping a Sandbox Campaign: Part 1

The other day, I started going through Rob Conley’s Blackmarsh setting (which you can get for free here) to engage in a little creative calisthenics by thinking on how I would run a sandbox campaign using the goodness found therein. While doing this it occurred to me that while Rob has an excellent series on how to create to a sandbox similar to Blackmarsh (a map, encounter areas, major NPC’s etc.), not everyone (especially me at the moment) has the time or inclination to do all that work.

Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to write down my method for prepping a sandbox campaign using a preexistent setting like Blackmarsh, especially since it follows in the footsteps of settings like Judges Guild’s Wilderlands of High Fantasy with what might be called a terse style. I must admit, I am also doing this for the purpose of having a repository for the ideas I have come up with because this is becoming a campaign I wouldn’t mind running someday.

Step 1: The Read Through

One of the reasons I really appreciate the terse style used in Blackmarsh, and settings like it, is that it allows me to quickly get through an entire setting with a simple read through. What I look for during this read through are ideas or encounters that catch my attention, because these are the things I am going use as the basis for a campaign. Here is my list after that quick read through:

• I love the concepts of The Mountain that Fell and Viz. They give magic a source — there is this alien substance brought to the world via an asteroid that crashed into the very region the campaign is to take place. In addition, viz is something that can be found, touched, forged, bought and sold. It gives the entire region a gold-rush kind of feel where greed is going to be a major problem.
• There are a bunch of potential factions competing with each other over resources (like viz) and territory: The Osrobards, Castle Blackmarsh, the Vasan Vikings, the Grand Kingdom, the Blackmarsh Rangers, the House of the Raven, the Greywood Elves and the Bolzak Dwarves of Olden Hold.
• The Osrobards are trying to become civilized, an endeavor the younger generation seems to take more seriously than their parents.
• The men of Castle Blackmarsh are remnants of the long-gone Bright Empire.
• The Vasan Vikings are refugees seeking revenge upon the Grand Kingdom which drove them from their home, but find themselves just trying to survive.
• The Grand Kingdom, though the current champion of Civilization who is trying to take up the mantle once lost by the Bright Empire, is still just an usurper in Blackmarsh.
• The House of the Raven are regular elves, not drow. Their motivation is chauvinism, not evil for the sake of evil. In other words, they are the heroes of their own story — the best kind of villain. As normal elves working for the betterment of elven kind, they can also operate secretly (openly?) within Greywood without raising an eyebrow.
• The Blackmarsh Rangers are recruiting.
• There is a bunch of undiscovered goodness at the bottom of the Smoking Bay.
• The Dragonbone Peaks have an extensive cave system formed as a result of the Mountain that Fell.
• There is an abandoned Dwarven Hold called Daur Anthar guarded by an earth elemental.
• There is an old wizard’s tower where an experiment went awry.
• There are a number of dragons, one who has a great name: Scytheback. This dragon is responsible for the destruction of a settlement which served as a hub for silver mines.
• There is a hydra that the House of the Raven are trying to use to create havoc.
• There are a number of Stone Giants that mostly leave people alone.