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.

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.

How I Run the First Session of a Sandbox

Continuing with the theme of my last couple of posts, here is my process on running the first session of a sandbox campaign:

Character Creation

I am not a stickler for a particular method of rolling up characters, as long as everybody at the table agrees on what that method is. Personally, I like seeing where the dice rolls take me, but I appreciate the fact that my particular proclivities are far from universal.

Once everybody agrees and people start rolling dice, I begin to illicit information about each character at the table, with two critical goals:

1. Figure out how the various characters know each other prior to game play. I hate wasting time on role-playing this. It always makes more sense to hash out these details at character creation because some characters are just never realistically going to meet at a tavern to go adventuring together. Plus, the given stories about these relationships can have a much deeper effect on the campaign than the whole tavern scenario. Finally, it allows the campaign to hit the ground running. Instead of wasting time trying to justify adventuring together, the players just go on an adventure together.

This can be done in a number of ways. The simplest is just ask the players how their characters know each other and suggest some possibilities if they seem stumped. In my most recent campaign, I created a random table which players can roll on to see how their character knows one other character in the party. Everybody has to choose someone different so that all these relationships intertwine.

2. Figure out what relationships the characters have to various NPCs in the campaign world. For example, clerics can be at the beck and call of a bishop and magic-users can belong to the Mage Guild. This accomplishes a couple of things for me: it grounds each character within the world and it provides a source of information to the players about the world itself with the benefit of possible patronage. The cleric from above could have a specific task that they need to accomplish for the bishop and the magic-user could be delivering a scroll to the local representative of the Guild.

The First Adventure

Once these two things have been established for each character, I provide rumors and possible missions to each player through the various relationships that their characters have. I then allow the players to decide what rumors they want to investigate or what missions they want to undertake.

Note: it is very important that these rumors all tie in to adventure locations I am prepared to run. Usually, it is pretty easy to weight the choices in favor of the adventure location I am most interested in, but I never dissuade players who deviate from that particular plan. If I am not prepared to follow up on a rumor or mission, I don’t offer that choice.

What all of this does is place agency squarely in the hands of the players. If the whole character creation process has gone according to plan, every player has a character that has a background tying them to both the other characters at the table and to people and organizations that exist in the campaign world. Then these relationships inform the choices the players make as to which adventure they want to go on in their first session together.

In the end, all of these things invest the player in the campaign world. They have goals, not just for themselves, but for the various people and organization around them. The game becomes more than just the characters, it becomes a world that they have the power to shape through their own choices and actions.

Resources for Making a Sandbox from Scratch

So, with school officially ending and with no summer programs in sight, I decided to challenge my middle child with the task of creating a sandbox campaign. Although well-versed in the video gaming scene, he has only played in a few D&D campaigns, all run by yours truly. As a consequence, he really had no idea where to start. This got me to deal with the practical reality of how to make a sandbox campaign from scratch: what resources did I actually recommend and what actually worked?

1. An Atlas

Rather than trying to explain the realities of geography, weather, etc in order to make a plausible world, I just turned an atlas upside down and said, pick a page that looks cool. Not only did this make the mapmaking step of the process easy, it follows in the footsteps of giants:

The basic campaign area reproduced on a large mapsheet outside this book, was originally drawn from some old Dutch maps. — Dave Arneson, "The First Fantasy Campaign" (1977).

2. Kilgore’s Sub-Hex Quad and Master Sheet for Hex Quads Maps

Having chosen the upside-down Aegean Sea as a starting point, I had him transfer the map as best he could to Kilgor’s Master Sheet for Hex Quads. Having done that, I asked him where Civilization was and where the Wilderness was. Once that was determined, I had him pick one Quad in the Wilderness to focus on for the campaign. This was then transferred to one of Kilgor’s Sub Hex Quad sheets.

3. The Wilderness Encounter Tables in Swords & Wizardry

These are simple, organized by terrain type and produce some pretty bog-standard results that won’t challenge a new Referee too much. I had him roll a d10 for every hex on his map. Every ‘1’ resulted in a creature from the encounter table living there. Frost Giants, Lycanthropes and Berserkers dominated the landscape. Oh, and a Purple Worm right next to some old ruins.

4. My own Interpretation of Holmes on Cultures

Based on the monsters that lived in the Wilderness, he decided that the Ancient Culture were the Giants that “dug too deep” and were destroyed by Purple Worms, the Old Culture was a human culture roughly based on Russia that succumbed to madness and Lycanthropy. Then he decided that there were two competing Present Cultures. One is based roughly on the Incan Empire (with virtually no magical tradition) and the other roughly on the Republic of Texas (which is heavily magical). My eldest was thrilled at the idea of playing a magic-wielding cowboy (which eventually morphed into a society where the rite of passage to adulthood involves getting a tattoo that allows the recipient the ability to cast one first level spell a day).

5. Dave’s Mapper

This quickly produced a tent-pole megadungeon sideview and first level that “looked cool” and was thus inspiring. What more can you ask from a map?

6. The Tome of Adventure Design

I have said it before, and I will say it again: this may be the best RPG product I have ever purchased. It is chuck full of inspiration and ideas. I first had him roll up names for each of the level of the megadungeon. Then, it was used to create the various “Traps” and “Specials” that resulted from using the next resource.

7. Moldvay’s Basic D&D “Stock the Dungeon Table”

Found on page B52, this has been my go-to stocking tool for decades. While it doesn’t produce perfect results, it gets you in the ballpark as long as you understand that the results are there to inspire and not be set in stone. As long as you understand why things exist in your dungeon and it makes sense to you, it will make sense to the players.

8. Monstrosities and Swords & Wizardry

Despite voicing a desire to play 1e AD&D, I decided on Monstrosities and Swords & Wizardry for a resource on monsters to stock a dungeon because of the guidelines S&W gives for the Challenge Level of dungeon encounters. I have been quite satisfied with how well this works in game play. As a consequence, it provides a great starting point on understanding how difficult a particular dungeon area/encounter is going to be. Monstrosities also provides an example encounter for every monster in the book. So, it is also instructive about what those encounter and dungeon areas can look like.

Finally, generating treasure using S&W is dead simple and flexible. Whatever gets rolled indicates total value, not a specific coin count. So, a treasure could very well be in barrels of whisky, rolls of silk, or whatever tickles your fancy.

9. The Question “Why?”

Why do think the goblins are there? Why are they on the same level as those spiders? Why are they risking their lives to be there?

Again, if your dungeon makes sense to you, that confidence and knowledge will be communicated to the players and it will make for a better game.

10. Dyson’s Maps

Once the first level of the megadungeon was squared away, I had him choose three maps from Dyson’s collection to represent various lairs in the vicinity of the starting village. I had him repeat the various steps he used to do the first level of the megadungeon.

In the end, I had to cut him short when he told me he had an idea for his various dungeons. “Just write it down” became a mantra. It goes to show, however, how useful all of these resources are: they inspired a newbie to create a world where things make sense to him and enough choices for his players that he won’t be having to improvise that much any time time soon.

In other words, he’s confident he can do this.

Running a Sandbox Campaign: Why a Random Event Isn't Random

By its very nature, a sandbox campaign has a lot of randomness. For me, this is one of its charms. Not only do I get to be surprised as a Referee by what happens in the world, but I am challenged every time I allow a random table to determine what happens next. One of the key principles that I adhere to when running a sandbox campaign is that nothing is random despite my wide and varied use of random tables and events.

This may sound like a contradiction (or a statement of faith) but it actually isn’t. Though the origin of an event or an encounter or a treasure might be a random result, its actual existence in the world must have a rational explanation. In other words, I am always asking the question ‘Why?’ Why are there lizardmen in this part of the jungle? Why is there a dragon here when before there wasn’t? Why are neanderthals exploring a lost temple that never belonged to them?

By continuously asking the question ‘Why?’ I am forcing myself to accept the un-randomness of random events and seeing these things not as something that a die-roll told me, but as part of the larger story and framework of my campaign world.

This is why, in my prepping for a sandbox campaign, I use broad strokes and various nebulous factions and background noise: they all give me a framework in which to fill in details with my questions of ‘Why?’

For example: as I mentioned in my last post, a die roll led to the adventure seed of a portal suddenly showing up in Akhmed’s house when he rolled a ‘6’ on a d6. After such a long time, why wasn’t his house done? Something catastrophic must have happened. What event in the campaign world could have caused this? The players had just recently travelled to a major Illithid city where they managed to wreck havoc and shatter a giant machine which let them dial in various portals to various worlds. This, then, could result in various rips in time and space around my Lost Colonies map. Why not in Akhmed’s house?

This places what was a silly random event into a much larger story arc that affects the entire campaign world. Should players start exploring this rip in time and space, various hints and clues could then allow them to figure out that the origin of this rip was, in fact, there own doing. Unfortunately, that never happened with the players in question, but I do have a solid background for why this portal exists in the first place.

It also opens up a framework from which I can start explaining the un-randmoness of other random events in my campaign. Various factions in my Lost Colonies campaign are aware of these rips in time and space. Each has had a different reaction to them. As a consequence, I can start explaining the existence of certain random encounters as consequences of these factions interacting with portals. Again, this ties everything together and leads players to gain more information about this major event in the campaign world and all of its consequences.

Thus, random events actually make my sandbox campaigns better, because I am forced to ask a series of questions which seek to understand exactly why a random event isn’t random.

Running a Sandbox Campaign: Player Expectation

A couple of years ago, I wrote a series of posts about Prepping a Sandbox Campaign. I have also mentioned that I am currently running a 5e campaign ostensibly set in my Lost Colonies campaign world; however, due to the various choices by the players, the bulk of the campaign is actually taking place on a brand new map that I have never run before. The experience has reminded me of some of the fundamental assumptions that I make when running a sandbox campaign and I thought I’d write some of these down and share them.

Player Expectation

As you may have noted in my series on Prepping a Sandbox Campaign, I don’t do a whole lot of detail. Most of the things I prepare are broad brush strokes so that I have enough information that I can wing it if necessary, but not so much that I have wasted a whole bunch of time on something my players have no interest in. This gives me a lot of freedom to shape the campaign to fit my players.

This reality and point of view became very important when I started my most recent campaign. My players are all young and have little or no experience with pencil & paper RPGs. If I imposed a bunch of my own expectations for how this campaign was going to be, I wasn’t likely to succeed in showing my players just how cool RPGs can be.

Therefore, I carefully listened to them when we created characters. I made sure I had an idea of what each person expected their characters to able to do. Some of these are far-off goals for when their characters are much higher level. As a consequence, I knew that some of these expectations were not going to be fulfilled in the short-term; however, I could tease them so that they knew that what they wanted was possible in the long run. Listening to my players and their expectations don’t stop at character creation, though.

One of the adventure locations that I had in place for my new campaign was Akhmed’s old house. For those who don’t know, Akhmed was a long-time PC in my last Lost Colonies campaign who played a central role in developing several key characteristics of the world: Bane Weapons, Lithic Elves and the fact that dwarves are neither male nor female.

At one point during the campaign, Akhmed had hired some Bronze Dwarves to build him an underground home in Headwaters. It was my standard practice to have long-term projects like this take one or more sessions. When a players asked, I would have them roll a d6. On a ‘1’ the project was finished. Each time a player rolled (each session that went by) I would subtract one or more from the roll (depending on the scale of the project). Akhmed had been rolling for several weeks on his project, but never seeing the end. When it was time for the project to be finished, I had him roll and it came out a ‘6.’ On a whim, I informed him that the dwarves had found something that scared them and they boarded up the house and refused to work anymore. It was an adventure seed, because it gave me the ability to place a rip it time and space in his almost completed home that could potentially be something the party explored. For a variety of reasons, that seed never played out in my last campaign. In this campaign, however, it has been the center of my player’s attention.

When I first conceived of the idea of a portal, I had in mind the Portals of Torsh by Rudy Kraft and published by Judges Guild. I had taken part of the provided map, and hashed out some of the broader ideas in much the same way I did in my series on Prepping a Sandbox Campaign. It didn’t go much farther than that, even when my players started poking around (literally).

When my players discovered the portal, I described that it looked like the Aurora Borealis. I also described that it changed color, doing so to let my players know that times was passing as they argued with each other about what to do next. The color change, however, caught their imaginations. They started poking the phenomena. So, I went with it and had the thing change color any time it was poked.

As the campaign progressed, the players started hypothesizing that each color represented a different destination. Since I wasn’t married to the idea that the portal led only to one place, I decided to go with it and began making up different end-points for each color. The players then decided to see if they could get more colors by poking more at the thing. I indulged the idea, and began rolling dice to see if they would get any other result. The dice said yes, and the number of colors and destinations went from one to three to five. Subsequently, this portal to many places has become a key factor in aiding the party on the quest they have all decided to undertake. In other words, I allowed their expectations for my campaign world to shape the world and the campaign itself.

One could quibble with how I allowed player expectation to enter into the game, but I believe it is important for two reasons:

1. It subtly invests the players in the campaign world and can give a sense of accomplishment even in the face of failure. Even if the party is driven away by a superior force of monsters, the object/place is out of reach, there is no treasure or a character dies, the players can still walk away knowing that their hypothesis was at least partially correct. Such success invites the players to make further guesses at how the world works and what is in it. When such guesses start to be at least partially correct more often than not, it encourages further exploration and further guesses. The players begin to talk about the game outside the game and the campaign begins to have a life of its own.
2. It provides a certain amount of surprise for me. One of the things I love most about a sandbox style of campaign is that it provides me with the unexpected. I never know which direction my players are going to go or what puzzle they become determined to solve or how they are going to go about doing just about anything. If I also allow player expectations to color how I respond to such choices, it forces me to be surprised by my own world. For example, I never expected the portal to go anywhere but to a lost temple on another world. I never expected it to be a key locale in a strategy to imprison an ancient dragon. Such are the wonders of allowing player expectation to color a campaign.

I would argue that the sandbox campaign is uniquely able to accomplish fulfilling player expectation because by its very nature it must be flexible and flexibility is key in allowing player expectation to shape a campaign.

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.

Saintly Saturday: The Prophet Amos

Today is the Feast of the Prophet Amos. According to the witness of the Book of Prophecy named after him, he was a shepherd, herdsman and a dresser of fig trees from the village of Thekoue, which was about 12 miles south of Jerusalem. Though an unlearned man, his were the first of the prophecies to be written down. This is likely due to the fact that he was the first to warn Israel that God was going to lift up His protective hand due to their stubborn unrepentance.

The opening lines of the Book of Amos refer to the reigns of Uzziah and Jeroboam, kings of Judah as well as an earthquake. Josephus recorded that there was a great earthquake that took place when Uzziah was king and afflicted with leprosy. The earthquake was so significant that Zechariah wrote about it 200 years later.

All of these historical references place the time when Amos was proclaiming his prophecies from about 795 B.C. to about 754 B.C. It is probable, therefore, that he was a contemporary of Jonah, Elisha, Isaiah and Micah. At the end of his career, he went to Bethel in the Northern Kingdom (Israel split into two kingdoms after the death of King Solomon, with Judah being the Southern Kingdom). There, the priests, led by Amasias, clubbed him to death because they tired of his warnings. Less than thirty years later, the Northern Kingdom was destroyed by the Assyrians.

For those interested in setting up a sandbox campaign, there is a lot of really interesting information that can be mined from the nine chapters found in the Book of Amos:

• Damascus (also referred to as Bikath-Aven, which means Valley of Wickedness) is ruled by the House of Hazael. It is guarded by a great gate. The current ruler is Ben-Hadad who holds some kind of scepter as the sign of his office (is it some kind of powerful magic item or relic?). The palace is referred to as Beth-Eden (which means House of Pleasure). The people are called the Aram who originally are from Kir. They have recently conquered the city of Gilead.
• Philistia has four major cities: Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon and Ekron. There was a fifth, but it was destroyed by the House of Hazael. There is another scepter in Ashkelon. They engage in a slave trade with Edom.
• Tyre also engages in the slave trade, specifically those captured from Judah and the Northern Kingdom. This is a betrayal of an alliance made with Israel in the days of Solomon.
• Edom (also called Teman) is a slavers kingdom. There are a number of palaces in the city of Bozrah (which suggests that there are several families which engage in the trade and have some kind of alliance or agreement on various slaving practices and trade routes).
• Ammon is an ally of Damascus and took part in the sacking of Gilead where Ammonite troops took part in atrocities (it is recorded that they disemboweled pregnant women). They were paid for their part in the battle with more territory. The capital city is called Rabbah.
• Moab is an enemy of Edom. They recently captured the king of Edom and burnt his bones (which, in the belief of the people of the region, would deny him happiness in the afterlife and, thus, is considered an act of extreme desecration). The major city is called Kerioth.
• Israel (also called the Northern Kingdom) has a very wealthy and powerful aristocracy (there is reference to entire walls being carved from ivory). This wealth comes on the back of a desperately poor and oppressed peasantry. The major city is Bethel. They have abandoned the worship of God in favor of Sakkuth (who might be associated with Saturn) and Kaiwan who is associated with stars. This suggests that the priests of Bethel are astrologers. Bersheeba, a renowned shrine used by the patriarchs, can be found in the southern part of the kingdom.
• Judah (also called the Southern Kingdom) is ruled over by the leper king Uzziah. Though more faithful to God than Israel, the worship of idols is widespread.

For the purposes of utilizing all of this for a typical FRPG campaign, one can say that the massive earthquake mentioned in the Books of Amos and Zechariah as well as by Josephus created a massive chasm in the earth within spitting distance of the PCs base of operations (whether that be in the Northern or Southern Kingdom). Vile creatures have been pouring forth from this chasm, raiding and pillaging.

Thus, there is a source for monstrous creatures, a dungeon complex in which can be found treasure close to the PCs base of operations  and a rich political tapestry that forms a bunch of background noise that PCs can take advantage of at higher levels.

For myself, I would be tempted to dip my toe into re-imaging the Slave Pits again, especially with the new release of Against the Slave Lords due out this week with the new introductory adventure Danger at Darkshelf Quarry. A quarry can easily be re-imagined as a chasm and Edom would fill the role of the Slave Lords very nicely, especially if one of the families was delving into a market that it wanted kept secret from the other families.

For other ideas to fill out an Amos-inspired sandbox, check out some of my other posts on OT prophets here, here and here.

Saintly Saturday: St. Argyra the New Martyr

Today is one of the feast days of St. Argyra the New Martyr. She lived in Bithynia (northwest modern Turkey) during the 17th and 18th centuries. At the age of eighteen, she married a pious Christian and they moved into a predominantly Muslim neighborhood. Within days, a neighbor and son of the local magistrate declared his love for her and tried to convince her to become Muslim. When she retorted that she would rather die than marry a Muslim, she was brought to trial. Using false witnesses, who claimed that she had agreed to the proposal and then changed her mind, she was sentenced to flogging and life in prison. Witnesses (fellow prisoners) testified that she transformed her prison cell into a monastic cell through prayer and fasting. She was martyred in April 5th, 1721 (her main feast day). We celebrate April 30th because this is when her relics were discovered to be incorrupt and were moved to the Church of St. Paraskeve on this day in 1735.

The title Martyr normally refers to someone who is killed for their faith during the first three centuries of the Church (normally by the Roman Empire). With the rise of Constantine as the first Christian Emperor, the era of the Martyrs came to a close. This changed with the rise of Islam (and Communism after that). The title New Martyr refers to those killed for their faith in this new era of Martyrdom.

This may have to do with the fact that over the course of the past week there have been a bunch of posts about sandbox campaigns, but the idea of the New Martyr and the moving of relics reminds me of a very important aspect of running any kind of campaign, especially of the sandbox variety. Personally, I have found both as a player and as a referee, that if the campaign world doesn't react to the actions of the players, the campaign will fail.

These reactions need to be of all shapes and sizes and they need to be logical consequences to character action. For example, very early on in my Lost Colonies campaign, the party chased down a rumor that bandits were responsible for the lack caravans coming to Headwaters (and therefore a lack of supplies). Not only did the party take care of the "bandits" (which were really hobgoblins and carnivorous apes), but after increased trade with the bandits cleared off, they have periodically patrolled the road between Headwaters and Trisagia in order to keep it bandit-free. In turn, that began to attract people to Headwaters, especially after the party started to invest in building such things as a tavern, a cheese factory and a dwarven home. Although these things may seem mundane, the party feels as if they are a part of the community of Headwaters and are literally invested in its future. The growth of the town is a direct consequence of their actions.

Another example are things that can be remembered in time. People in Headwaters will talk about the battle against the skeleton army and the festival highlighted by the arrival of a cloud giant tower for years to come. Bringing these topics up in NPC conversations helps ground characters in their world. In a more concrete example (and one that closely adheres to today's feast), whenever (if ever) Dn. Goram returns the Two Swords to their proper place, this recovery of holy relics will become a feast within the local Church.

Of course, there ought to be negative consequences as well (and there have been plenty in my campaign), but, ultimately, I find that it is the positives that really help ground players in the campaign and create the sense of a living, breathing world.

Saintly Saturday: St. Meletius, Archbishop of Antioch

Today is the feast day of St. Meletius, Archbishop of Antioch. He lived during the 4th century, when Christological arguments swept across Christendom, threatening to pull the newly Christian Roman Empire apart. The most potent heresy was that of Arianism, which denied the full deity of the Son of God. When the Arian bishop of Antioch died, both the Arians and the Orthodox vied to get one of their own to become the next bishop. Metelius was very popular with both sides. Mistaking him to be like-minded, the Arians pushed for his elevation. They quickly realized their mistake, however, when Meletius immediately started to preach that the Son was of the same essence as the Father. Meletius lived until 381, when the Second Ecumenical Council was convened in Constantinople. He was so highly regarded that he was asked to preside over the council.

During the fourth century, there were several Roman Emperors who sided with the Arians over the Orthodox. So, when priests and bishops like Meletius staunchly defended the Orthodox position, they came into direct conflict with the head of the Roman Empire. Interestingly, these priests and bishops were not imprisoned, tortured, burned at the stake, executed, etc. The picture we have of the bloody conflicts among Christians, as we saw in Western Christendom after the Reformation, is the exception rather than the rule. Meletius was punished for defying the Emperor — with banishment. Over the course of his life, this happened three times.

This brings up an interesting background theme that could bring a lot of meat to the end-game of D&D. Given a typical sandbox campaign where the PCs are at the edge of the wilderness in order to explore and eventually tame that wilderness, a good motivation for the PCs and their NPC allies would be banishment. For theological and/or political reasons, they have been thrown out of the civilized world to the edge of the wilderness.

When PCs get to building their strongholds, this would bring them into direct conflict with those who banished them in the first place. Suddenly, the end-game of D&D becomes wonderfully geo-political and full of potential high-level adventure and conflict.

As a side note, given James' and Roger's recent musing on the subject, this also allows an interesting way to keep an old campaign current while going off and doing things with new PCs. When it comes to geo-political stuff, not every mission is appropriate for the high-level PC. Thus, entire campaigns could center around playing out missions for the high-level PCs with new, low-level characters. While players would be exploring new characters, the old high-level characters will be current and present through the background motivation for the on-going campaign (and, I should point out, return the game to a proper meaning of "campaign").