TLoS: The Fighter

One of my goals in this little experiment is to demonstrate that at its core, 5e is just a bunch of mechanics. The reason this is important to me is that once seen as simply mechanics, there is a tremendous amount of freedom that we have as players of the game to describe those mechanics any way we want to.

At a fundamental level, this is why I prefer older versions of the game and the retro-clones that emulate them — they deal mainly with mechanics rather than the special effects those mechanics represent. It frees those of us who play the game to interpret those mechanics to look the way we want them to without all the effort that I am putting into this little project.

For someone like me, the level of detail that 5e goes to when it describes what their mechanics look like is an unending irritation. For example, one of the 1st level spells available to the TLoS fighter is Hail of Thorns. We are told that:

 the spell creates a rain of thorns that sprout from your ranged weapon or ammunition

What if I want it to be a troop of fey that appear and fire their weapons with my character? Or what if I want the plants of the area to throw parts of their leaves and bark at the creature my character is firing at? Why can't the arrow hit the ground in front of the target and then explode into hundreds of little thorns into the face of the creature? There are all kinds of ways the mechanics of this spell can be described and rather than allowing imagination to run wild with the rules as written, I am forced to ignore hundreds of pages of fluff.

Enough whinging...here are a pair of .PNG files that redefine the 5e mechanics for the Ranger and turns them into an evocative version of the fighter, in the spirit of BX:

 

 

5e & 4+3 Campaign Notes: The Land of Songs

 My eldest requested that I do a write-up of one of the worlds suggested by my last post. I'll cover some of the foundational stuff in this post, and then follow up with the seven classes re-skinned so as to make sense in the world that emerges from this little thought experiment. Thus, I bring you The Land of Songs:

Known by the humans as Leóthland and the dragon kin as Eordracân, The Land of Songs is what most of the world calls the largest island in the world, at the center of the map above. The people of that island, however, know the entire world as The Land of Songs. This is due to their songs of how the world came to be.

The humans and dragon kin of The Land of Songs worship the Song of the Land, who is known in three particularities: Wóthbora the Singer, Leód the Song, and C'hor the Dancing. The Land was once one, sung into existence by Wóthbora through His Song while C'hor was dancing over the abyss. 

Wóthbora gave language to the dragons so as to help teach humanity, to whom he gave the ability to sing — to be co-creators with Him. Rather than use their gifts to sing in harmony with Leód, humanity and dragon kind built an earthly empire that sought the heavens by their own power. So, Wóthbora stripped humanity of the Song, and the dragon kin of either their wings or their intelligence and ability to speak. He then broke the Land into islands separated by the sea. 

Humanity and the dragon kin fell into silence and darkness; however, Wóthbora preserved one peoples and gave the Song back to them. These are the people of the Land of the Song, who strive to heal the wounds of the Land by teaching the world to Dance with the Song.

This is no easy task. It takes brave adventurers to cross the sea into unknown territories filled with ancient ruins from the fallen empire of humans and dragons. Shadows and monsters lurk within. The people of the Land, however, know that each island has its own melody that can add to the Song. Should the island be cleansed and  that melody be found, the island will return to its place as part of The Land of Songs.