Are children intuitive railroaders?

A couple of years ago, I was reading an article which discussed the tendency of children to ascribe purpose to everything and pondered if this effectively hardwired them to a theistic view of the universe. Whilst that is in itself a very interesting article and worth a look, it’s not what I want to discuss today, although I have purloined and slightly altered the title.

The recent account of the Christmas dungeon run by Junior Grognard will have shown just how railroady it was, although this is not to take anything away from his achievement in writing it and running it. All I’m saying is that there was a specific goal, a pre-determined path and no substantial deviation had been planned for.

This surprised me at the time, since he and his friends have been playing a very sandbox, player-agency driven campaign for a number of years and I had thought that this playing style might have rubbed off on him to a certain extent. The reasons why it hadn’t intrigued me.

It may be that since birth, children are exposed to story, either in the written format or in the televised version. The stories they encounter in this fashion are very linear; A leads to B, leads to C, concludes at D. There’s no concept of the possibility of alternative outcomes; the text is inviolable, created by an unseen source, presented as a given. When children begin to write or otherwise create their own stories, they often adhere to the beginning-middle-end format, not necessarily examining motivations but letting actions fuel their narratives. Indeed, to change anything about the narrative alters the end and this is not something that children find easy to contemplate unless alternative resolutions are addressed by a specific exercise. 

Since the emergent story is often hard to discern from the pre-planned, pre-existing version whilst running dungeons, particularly if the DM is skilled in making random events mesh seamlessly into a coherent and unfolding experience, the existence of other ways of creating stories may not even be apparent to child players. That the party was ultimately victorious against the giants in the fire chasms seems to them a logical outcome, their destiny fulfilled. Something that was always meant to be. Returning to the nexus points where specific decisions turned an entire adventure onto another (and unexpected) track can show how player agency affects outcomes but it seems not to sink into the child mind.

Another possibility is that sandbox is by its very nature formless, unpredictable and places a large amount of responsibility onto the players for their own fates. I don’t know about your family but in my experience, a childhood is not often the place where there is a lack of predictability, a feeling that anything could happen (good or bad) and a whole shed load of personal responsibility dumped on a child (well, not until they get into their teenage years.)  Junior Grognard gets up at a particular time, goes to school at a particular time, eats what I buy and cook, goes to bed at a particular time, takes holidays we choose, has specific areas where he enjoys freedom and others where he knows not to venture (often involving hot, fragile or sharp things). That might seem controlling but he’s only nine and he’s the only one we’ve got. Asking him to suddenly take on the responsibility for the choices, actions and fate of a character, even a fictional one is a big leap. It’s possibly why players become more adventurous in their teenage years as they begin to realise that what they do affects what happens to them and they are allowed to do more. A campaign where there are few choices, things are set up so that they know where they are going and the outcome is predetermined does give a fair degree of security.

There’s also the possibility that the child’s mind as it grows is just not equipped to handle the kinds of uncertainty and choice that sandbox presents. It’s documented that the frontal lobes don’t fully integrate into the brain as a whole until the early twenties. These are the parts of the brain that deal with outcomes, judgements and controls a person’s impulses and emotions. Being able to make informed choices from a range of options and to estimate the consequences of those choices is much harder without fully formed and integrated frontal lobes.  However, whilst the frontal lobes are the parts of the brain that take longest to develop, the nucleus accumbens is a part of the brain that plays an important role in reward and pleasure. Children are biologically prone to seeking out experiences and activities that give the most reward for the least amount of effort; one reason why child RPG players are very easy to hook with shiny magic items and piles of treasure, leading to XP!

So, given the preceding, is it worth running sandbox games with kids?  Should we just switch to adventure paths where the amount of player input is minimalised?  I’d say no; my players, as I’ve said have been adventuring in a world where, unbeknownst to them, events are being driven by the choices and actions that they take. That they don’t entirely realise the mechanics behind the world in which they are playing is immaterial; the philosophy of choice, player agency and lack of constrictive DMing is seeping into their still-forming minds and come the day when they can handle the concepts that underlie sandbox in its purest form, they will be ready for it, rather than addicted to the quick fix and the easy option.

That’s my take on the issue; I’d be interested to know if other DMs who play with kids in their groups have encountered the same things or if other evidence is going to blow my hypothesis out of the water.

Running a Call of Cthulhu pbem - Part One

Last week, I posted a long list of links that I had accumulated during the seven months of being the Keeper for a Call of Cthulhu pbem. This week, I want to start posting on the insights and ideas that I came up with over the same period.

These eighteen areas of play will, I hope, outline a method by which an aspiring keeper can set up and run a CoC pbem and do so in a way that is very close to sandbox. Some of these ideas may be obvious to certain readers, but others may find them informative and insightful (I hope).

I began with a very simple premise and then let the actions and reactions of the players guide me as to where the adventure went. The game that resulted from that was a very different one from many CoC games inasmuch as there was no predetermined adventure outline and goal as there often is with published modules. I think that this gave my players the flexibility to explore the setting and feel that what they did made a real difference.

So, without further ado, let us address Point One:

A lot of bloggers have commented, whenever the subject of Call of Cthulhu comes up on a blog post, that they love the game and would dearly like to play it, but cannot find players out there. As I have mentioned on a couple of occasions, CoC is probably one of the best games for running by this method. Combat-light and atmosphere-heavy, a sandbox version of it is almost a horror novel that writes itself.
The blogosphere is, therefore the perfect place from which to recruit players who don’t even have to be in the same country as their Keeper.

So, if you want to play, put the call out. See who responds and once you have the right number of players (which in my experience is usually about three or four), you need to move on to establishing a few ground rules for the way the game is going to play out.

Ensure that everyone knows what to expect from - and what they need to give to - the game. This may need formalising if the players are new to each other. Many players, if they have never gamed together, will have different styles and ways of going about things. A short e-mail from the Keeper to establish some protocols will serve to make everyone aware of what will happen and how. The sort of thing that this e-mail will cover will involve such things as regularity of updates, reply times, house rules and variations to the rule sets that players may have, secure dice rollers, etc.

A mention also needs to be given to the period in which the game is going to be set. When CoC first started out, the Lovecraft era was taken as a given, but now there are a great many different settings and periods and some players may have a preference that differs from other players or the Keeper. This needs to be established before play can begin.

If the players are already known but the game has a new Keeper (our campaign has rotating Keepers for adventures), the agreement may need to be changed. The new Keeper may not have as much computer access as the old one, they may have a busier lifestyle or may have a different take on certain rules that they want to discuss. The accession of a new Keeper is a time of change and a good opportunity to renegotiate.

As an adjunct to this, the Keeper needs to ensure that everyone knows when the next session is going to be. If you have got into the habit of updating the game every day and there is going to be a hiatus, let the players know when you anticipate being able to update things again. E-mails have been known to be less than reliable and an email sent and not received is indistinguishable from an email not sent. Request Read Receipts if there is any hint that an internet connection is less than reliable.

Real life has a habit of intruding into game space and holidays and prolonged periods of absence need to be communicated – to all players if the Keeper is going to be off line, and to the Keeper if a particular player is going to be absent. Sometimes, however the interruption is unexpected, and in order to cover this, the Keeper may need to NPC a particular character until that player is able to take up the reins again. Generally, the agreement of players for their characters to be NPCs under the control of the Keeper or of another player is contained within the starting agreement.

If a player’s character has to be run as an NPC, this works best when the action is fairly low-key and no dangerous situations are expected. Pounding the streets and talking to beat cops, librarians or the local priest require little in the way of life and death decision making. When things start to get hairy, either contact the player and explain the situation or have another trusted player make the rolls and decisions. The player may wish to supply a set of stock actions that their character will take in the case of danger and this can be handy in determining what happens in such a situation.

Once everybody knows where they are, what they are doing and how they are going to do it, ensure that they have a copy of the rules or, at the very least, a copy of the Chaosium Quick Start rules. They can then get their characters rolled up and equipped.

It may be an idea for the players to run their ideas for characters by the Keeper before the game starts. The reason for this is that, to begin with, players will not be communicating with each other, only with the Keeper (for obvious reasons – their characters have not met yet) and therefore have no way of knowing the characters that others have chosen. The Keeper will be able to judge the make-up of the party and guide players if he thinks that a combat-heavy or research-heavy party is developing. As with all parties, a broad spectrum of skills and specialities is best equipped to deal with Mythos eventualities.

Well, we’ve covered the initial logistics of setting up the game and establishing protocols. Next week, I’ll be discussing adventure hooks and the first session of the game proper.

Mentors, Meatshields and Mary Sues

I’m running a campaign for a new player starting at 1st level; the way that the campaign is going has brought to the forefront of my mind the concept of mentors. In this post, I’ll be looking at these, why they might be needed, when to kill them off, and their cousins, the meatshield and the Mary Sue.

Mentors

The mentor of a PC fills the role of a Gandalf, an Obi Wan or a Yoda. With new or inexperienced players, or parties that are new to the campaign world in question, the mentor can be a lifeline, preventing unnecessary loss or damage until the party finds their feet.

The function of the mentor is more advisory than anything else, training, developing, nudging and hinting rather than turning up with a lightsabre and cutting the opposition to ribbons any time the PCs get into trouble. That’s moving into Mary Sue territory and I’ll be discussing that later. Indeed, page 39 of the DMG specifically states that magic users serve an apprenticeship with a ‘wise old master’ of at least 6th level. Why more is not made of this, I don’t know. Does anyone keep in touch with their ‘wise old masters’?

And mentors have only a limited lifespan. Both Obi Wan and Yoda ‘died’. Gandalf died but then he came back again, albeit with a respray. Indeed, there is a specific time to kill a mentor; usually when the PCs get to about 3rd level.

Why? Well, it’s about then that they have come to rely on the presence of the mentor. They know that having a mentor is not a Get out of Jail Free card, but if played well, the mentor can become a friend, an older brother figure, even a parent in a way.

And 3rd level is an interesting level. In fact, the odd-numbered levels are, I find, the more interesting to play. I’ll be posting about that later. Suffice it to say that by 3rd level, the players are probably thinking to themselves “I’m still alive. I didn’t die at 1st level, made it to 2nd and now I’ve done sufficiently successfully that I’m at 3rd; it might be worth investing some time to personalise my character, get a set of aims and objectives together, start imagining them as a person rather than just a dead PC waiting to happen".

And that is the time that the mentor has to go. By 3rd level, the character has enough personality and history with the mentor that the loss will be all the more meaningful. If the death of the mentor can be in some way attributed to the actions of the character, a whole raft of guilt issues can be introduced. Rich pickings indeed for future adventures with the character in question.

In fact, the loss of the mentor figure is necessary if the character is ever going to become an independent and self-reliant person. To keep the mentor present, or indeed to twist the mentor into a Mary Sue is to keep the character in a permanent state of psychological childhood.

There’s something about the character of a mentor; there may be a sense of resignation, sadness even about their attitude. Their advanced age means that they have seen a lot, often so much that their philosophical approach can be mistaken for blasé. Their protégé may well be the latest (or last) in a long line of trainees but now, it’s the twilight of their career and there is a sense of handing over the baton. It’s almost as if they know they’re going to die soon. (Sooner, if their DM has read this post)


Meatshields

I’m using the term Meatshield for the purposes of this post to refer to big fighter-types that accompany the party for the purposes of being the first to get hit, soak up the damage that would otherwise fall on the PCs and generally show the players what danger they’re in without actually killing a character. Occasionally, they may survive, at which point they often get a sort of honorary (if associate) membership of the party.

In the current Elesalia campaign, Junior Grognard’s party has made friends with Sergeant Subaras and his town guards. It happened rather by accident; an ettin had been reported and the guards were heading off to check it out. The party had the choice of going or staying and they chose to go; the fight was going to be a tough one but Subaras was 3rd level and his two guards were 1st. Their contribution to the fight was going to be providing extra firepower and decreasing the likelihood of any of the PCs getting hit (a one in ten chance of death is a lot better than a one in six)

Subaras and his men also accompanied the party on their expedition to the Spider Farm. They were instrumental in the success of the party but not utterly essential; the party may well have succeeded but at greater cost.

There may come a point at which, purely by chance, a randomly-generated meatshield starts to take on the role of Mentor. It’s very sandbox when this happens. Suddenly, the meatshield gets a name, attribute stats, a description and a personality. In this situation, the character’s new stats should be determined by the dice. And this is the reason why.

Mary Sues

There are times when the DM realises that the party is short a character. Maybe no-one rolled up a cleric and there are undead aplenty in the dungeon. Maybe they’ll be confronted by locked doors and the only thief in the party has just collided with an ogre. Either way, the DM-controlled NPC is often the quickest way round this.

However, this route is fraught with danger. The DM will want to make sure that the NPC created is the best NPC for the job. No-one wants to have a second-rate thief trying to pick that lock, or a cleric whose Wisdom is too low for bonus spells, or whose combat skills make them more of a liability rather than an asset. So the NPC is naturally going to be the best that they can be, which is logical if they are being created for a specific role rather than rolled up and at the mercy of the dice.

Being the best NPC possible is going to make that character rather more fun to play than would be the case for an average NPC. And the more fun something is to do, the more one is going to want to do it. Unless the DM is very careful (and very self-disciplined) they’ll find themselves falling in love with the NPC and that’s a bad place to go.

Soon, the NPC is proving their worth, saving the party’s bacon time after time. The party may become collaborators in their own enslavement, initially liking the fact that they’ve got a Get out of Trouble Free card and playing it whenever they can. This not only makes them lazy and addicted to the NPC, but also gives the DM positive feedback for the use of that NPC. Before you know it, the DM has worked out that if NPC equals good, then more NPC equals better. And total NPC must be perfect. We have arrived in Mary Sue town.

Another problem with the DM playing an NPC is that, like everyone who plays a character, they’re going to start projecting aspects of themselves onto that NPC and identifying with it. Some DMs might have inadequacy issues and find a kind of fulfilment through playing an NPC who is just better at doing things than they might be.

Although it’s initially nice to have a ‘big brother’ for the party, someone who can take on the tough guys and fight through to the treasure room, leaving the party to pick up the gold pieces, this happy state of affairs can’t last for ever. There’s going to come a point at which the NPC does something that the party wanted to do, kills a monster that they had been gearing to up to defeat, makes them realise that in fact they can take no credit whatsoever for the completion of the dungeon or adventure. They’ve just become the NPC’s fanboys.

In the worst-case scenario, the players might decide that they are going to kill the offending character. It doesn’t take a genius to see how this is going to spell disaster. The DM is addicted to this character by now, and no way is he going to give it up – the buzz is too good. In fact, there may be an even greater buzz from defeating the attempts of the party – actual flesh and blood players – to kill the Mary Sue. How much cooler will that make the NPC? Of course, attempts to kill the Mary Sue are doomed to failure – the character is going to have the best stats, the best magic items, and 101 things will mysteriously ‘go wrong’ with any party plans. What it boils down to is an attempt, albeit indirectly, to attack the DM himself – or that’s how he’ll see it.

In the end, the only thing that’s going to die is the campaign itself.

Team Adventure Campaign Log Session 5

You will remember that the team was stuck down a deep cave in Burnt Man’s Haunt, having just despatched two flame zombies. JG decided that as they had no idea how many more were down there, and they had already taken damage, they should make a strategic retreat. As they headed back towards the rope, they heard running footsteps in the dark and some very weird sounds, a cross between gibbering and whimpering. They held their fire as out of the dark came a dirty, shabbily dressed man, badly burnt down one side of his face and upper body. He started to babble about flames, fire loving us, wanting us to join the kingdom of ash, and so on, and advised them in no uncertain terms to run as fast as they could. They started to climb and Alurax, Akurath and Elise (again controlled by JG as Mummy Grognard was not playing this session) had already made it to the top when three flame zombies appeared out of the darkness. They joined hands and projected a fireball up after the fleeing adventurers. The rope caught fire, as did Zhastar’s cloak. The doughty hobbit lost his grip with one hand but held on with the other (bad Dexterity check, followed by very good one).

They arrived outside the dungeon to find that their donkey was still alive, not having been eaten by any passing thing with an appetite. They set off back down the trail, with the sound of percentile dice checks for wandering monsters rattling in their ears. They didn’t get a positive result until they were nearing the Clawbriars, when one happened that may well change the entire direction of the campaign. I’d rolled “Party of Adventurers 3-4 level” and having acted out a rather terse stand-off, they decided to pitch a joint camp as the prospect of crossing the Clawbriars in the dark was not a good one.

As they set up camp, I had the NPC party leader, a cleric called Pharas ask Team Adventure about their activities. This was a device by me to get JG to try and recapitulate the party’s doings so far and ensure that he could remember what had been going on. He did remarkably well actually.

During the talk at the fire, the cleric said that his party was coming back from Firebreath Forest, where they had been looking for the lair of a dragon reputed to be sitting on a hoard of gold. They had not found the lair, having run into some too-tough monsters and were returning to town to get more supplies and reinforcements. JG immediately thought to himself that his foursome would be ideal reinforcements for the adventure.

The dice had decided that the members of the new party were as follows:
Pharas, a 4th level cleric of Telgar, god of battles. martial prowess and honour, male
Hergest, 3rd level Magic User, male
Vulis, 3rd level fighter, female
Yerenna, 3rd level fighter, female
Galitia, 3rd level fighter, female.

I rolled another encounter during the hours of darkness, this one being “Wraith”. Yerenna and Galitia came back with armfuls of firewood and reported that they had heard strange noises and an eerie feeling from a ruined building nearby in the trees. Pharas decided that he and the two clerics in JG’s party should go and investigate.



They arrived, decided to circle the building and break the door down. It was remarkably resilient, withstanding three attempts at Open Doors. In the end they decided to go in through the window. Alurax and Akurath went in first, and were confronted by a figure darker than the darkness which came towards them, making eerie moaning sounds. They thought “Zombies!” and dived back out through the window to report what they had seen. Pharas considered that zombies were an easy job, and - with Yerenna and Galitia - finally managed to get the door open and burst in, holy symbol held high. Pharas managed to make his turn roll with a 16 and forced the wraith back into a corner, where the two fighters laid into it with +1 swords. Unfortunately, the wraith made some good to hits and ended up draining a level off each of the fighters. Realising that it would not be long before the wraith could come at them again, and unsure of his ability to turn it a second time, the cleric called retreat and the entire party headed back to the camp fire. I ruled that the wraith was tied to the building and so did not pursue.

The next day, they arrived at the river crossing, and signalled the boat to come across (JG remembered to use the mirror to flash the signal). The boat arrived, crewed by Pellis the boatman and his assistant Ozas, and did two journeys to get all nine of them, plus the donkey, back to Antiar’s Landing.

The first thing they did was book another week’s stay at the Soaring Falcon, then have a discussion about whether they should sign up for the trip back to the dragon’s lair and whether they could trust the cleric and his friends. The fact that the lair was in a place called Firebreath Forest hinted at it being a fire-breathing dragon and there’s only one colour that can do that sort of trick.

At this point, Pharas and Hergest turned up and wanted to talk turkey about their trip. They proposed to leave the next day, and would spend most of that day buying supplies and another pack animal. JG was still committed to going with them and we left it that they would meet up down by the river crossing the next morning.

So we reach the dawn of Day 10 since the party arrived in Antiar’s Landing. They’ve already killed an ettin, taken on a pack of marauding goblins, been across the river, met flame zombies, a wraith and are about to set off for the lair of a Red Dragon. And no-one near 2nd level yet.

In case anyone is wondering, the XP so far are as follows:

Zhastar 483
Elise 605 but divided by two as she is multi-class
Akurath 513
Alurax 505 but divided by two as he is multi-class

I’m not sure what’s going to happen on the next session. Firebreath Forest is at least twenty miles south of the river, and that’s a lot of wandering monster rolls. And Pharas, from being just the result of a die roll or two is now shaping up to be rather over-confident and extremely ambitious. Yes, there are nine of them now but that’s only 18 levels between them, which is not much if they come up against something nasty. And why do I get the feeling that Pharas is not telling them the whole truth?

I got an incredible feeling of excitement when I realised that the campaign had taken an unexpected turn. Whilst I now need to get something in place for the party, that work is part of the fun of running a sandbox. In the newer, story-driven campaigns, the encounter with the NPC party would have been scripted, planned and fully statted up before it even happened. The place of the encounter in the great story arc would have been established as well and, had the party been on another railroad, no amount of enticement from the NPC party would have been allowed to divert them from it.

Yes, Team Adventure may end up as ash; yes, they may run across something in the wilderness that finishes them off. But that’ll be their decision, not some fiat from the DM. And they may encounter something that sends them off in yet another unexpected direction. They don’t know until it happens – nor do I, and that, for my money is what the fun of being a DM is all about.

Team Adventure Campaign Log Session 4

Previously, the party had enjoyed some success and monetary gain on its jaunt to the Spider Farm. On this session, JG had asked Mummy Grognard to participate, to which she had agreed, with certain preconditions. Viz. no trying to take over, no issuing orders and doing things for her character, etc.

So we began and what seemed like a simple task - go and get some armour - suffered an attack of ditheritis, ended up taking about an hour or so to decide what to do, despite me trying to orchestrate a meeting with the party that had come back across the river with casualties (JG didn’t pick up on this and I had no way of making him without it becoming a bit railroad).

Eventually, they decided to go across the river and have a wander around. I had no stats for the Clawbriars ready, so I thought to myself, they'll probably run into a wandering monster, have a tough time but be ultimately victorious, return home with XP, job done.

Not so - in fact, they bought themselves a donkey for the travelling equipment, got across the river, set off south along the fairly well-travelled track that led away from the river. Pretty soon, it split into three, one going towards the Grey Ravines, one heading south into Redstone Ruins and one going towards Burnt Man's Haunt. They took the final one and headed up into more hilly terrain, making camp for the night near some craggy highlands.

MG's character Elise decided to go off for a jog and whilst doing so, came across a large patch of burnt undergrowth with no sign of a camp fire as such. She went back and told the party, also that she had seen what appeared to be a cave entrance further up the high ground. As it was getting late, they decided to camp down for the night.
In all that time, since crossing the river, I'd rolled for wandering monsters and had got a consistent string of 'nothing'. It was like the last few sessions of TD all over again. In fact, JG even sussed what I was doing, when nothing much seemed to be happening and then he heard the sound of the dice behind the DM's screen and said "Uh-oh, wandering monsters!"

The next morning, the party approached the dungeon entrance. They had initially decided to leave the hobbit to look after the donkey and camp; I however observed that if they had managed to load all their stuff onto said donkey, why not tether him outside the dungeon and then go in?

Good idea, they thought. And in they went. Within about sixty feet or so, they found a charred body, burnt to a crisp, in the epicentre of a large area of sooty deposits on floor, walls and ceiling. Having checked to see if there was anything about it that could tell them about what had happened, they pressed on and reached a crossroads. They chose the right-hand turn and this led them on to a choice of three tunnels, all of which were lit with a strange dull orange glow. At that junction were two more bodies, both charcoal but from the way they were lying, they were facing the tunnels with the glow, rather than moving away. What could have caused these strange deaths?

The first tunnel they tried brought them out into a room in which was a strange shaft that led downwards, with no sign of a bottom. Out came the fifty foot of rope and iron spikes and soon Alurax was going down to see what could be seen. He emerged at the bottom of a twisting passage where it seemed that some sort of pile of boulders and rubble had fallen into the tunnel, leaving a gap above it through which access could be gained to the beyond. There were also, he could hear, strange noises, like a dull groaning and footsteps approaching.

He hurried back up the rope and informed the party of what he'd found out. They decided to go down en masse and confront whatever it was. At the bottom, they saw two shambling figures coming towards them; the creatures seemed to be animated burnt figures, with smoke issuing from their mouths and noses. They closed in on the party and combat was joined.

Almost exactly like this but without the sword

It was a brief but vicious battle, with Zhastar the hobbit going down to -6 and Alurax to -3 before the party, with a judicious use of the d30 managed to put paid to the monsters.
Unfortunately, at this point JG was getting very upset and frightened at the way the adventure was going and MG was getting concerned that it was all too much for his tender years. Although they had won the combat, they were in a dark cavern in the depths of the earth with unknown creatures coming at them. I thought that we had best wind it up there, and started to pack away; fortuitously as it turned out because MG's parents appeared about five minutes after the decision to finish.

What were the strange creatures they encountered? The answer can be found in an excerpt from my sketchy notes regarding this hex:

Burnt Man's Haunt - I thought that this could be a situation where a group of hunters/poachers/etc stumbled across a rift to the Elemental Plane of Fire and some were possessed by fire spirits, becoming Flame Zombies - a bit like the Harginn in MM2. They can only be doused, as it were, by holy water blessed by a sufficiently high level cleric. A party managed to seal them into the cave where the rift is by use of Move Earth or some such, but now a landslide has set them free and now we have burnt bodies littering the landscape. Maybe a fire-deity cleric seeks the rift to set free some serious fire elementals to run rampage.

I had not anticipated that the party would get this far and the vast majority of it was done on the fly, with the Harginn used more or less as statted in the MM2. This accounted for the fact that apart from the flame zombies, the rest of the tunnels were suspiciously empty.

I could probably write up something more organised in the week forthcoming but I reckon that MG and I need to have a good think about the way that the campaign is going and if it's too much for JG with the emotional intensity that he has to experience on the sessions. So I'll hang fire on any more work on Burnt Man's Haunt until I get some indication that it'd be worthwhile.

Looking back on the way that the session went, I probably could have done to have had a recap so that JG would have remembered some of the hooks that he had discovered on the previous sessions. The vague and directionless first hour was a result of me not taking care of this.

The adventure picked up when we got to the caves; I had been probably over-reliant on the wandering monsters to give the party a tough fight and provide some experience points for them on their steady climb towards second.

Forced to DM on the fly, I started to plumb the darker side of my ideas bank; the atmosphere that I created was perhaps a little intense for JG and it was for this reason (rather than anything to do with the system, which some have suggested) that we decided to end it where we did.

I was also forgetting, having done so much of the Training Dungeon with JG that MG had not had any real experience of the game system. I have put measures into place that should overcome that and we’ll see how they work out in the next session.

(Postscript - I'd not see that picture before I went searching Images for 'burnt bodies'. It's surprising just how close it is to what I saw in my mind's eye when thinking of the Flame Zombies)

Team Adventure Campaign Log Session 3

Introduction

I have acquired an office whiteboard, which is more or less the width of our playing table. This, along with a couple of marker pens serves us very well as our battlemat – ideal for sessions when the action takes place outdoors or in areas that would not really work with conventional dungeon floor plans.

Readers should note that this session is based on the Spider Farm module from Dragonsfoot.

The Adventure

Having received the alert from the escaped farm worker about the seizure of the farm by goblins, the party set off up the trackway towards the Spider Farm. Pretty soon, they were there – the distance was only about three or four miles.

I sketched out the overall layout on the whiteboard and the party decided on their strategy. They were accompanied by Sergeant Subaras and Trooper Prebor from the West Gate, with whom they had adventured before and Trooper Frell from the East Gate detachment.

Again, they decided on a three-pronged approach, with Alurax and Akurath and Subaras heading towards the central spider pit to see what it was, Elise and Prebor taking the right flank and Zhastar and Frell on the left.

As it was daylight, the party did not encounter any goblins out and about, since they were not aware that their presence was yet known in town. Zhastar and Frell were the first to find something; listening at the wall of one of the dormitories, they heard some groaning and whimpering, some harsh voices and the sound of punches. They scurried off and got the rest of the party together and, with weapons drawn, they burst in to find two goblins busy beating up the farmer while another four stood around watching.

Sergeant Subaras and Prebor took the goblins wholly by surprise and took down a couple. On the next round, the party came hurtling through in strength (apart from Zhastar and Frell, who were keeping an eye on the outside). Some vicious fighting took place, with the four observer goblins hacked down and backed into a corner where they were soon finished off. Subaras and Prebor made short work of the torturer goblins. In all, I don’t think that anyone in the party even suffered a hit.

Alurax was on the point of getting Elise to give the farmer a Cure Light when Zhastar and Frell arrived back with bad news – there were shouts of alarm and the sound of movement from the farm’s dining hall, the next building up.

No time for regrouping, the party made straight for the main doors and as they burst in, they met goblins in serious numbers coming out. Battle was joined in the doorway. Elise felled one with her Lucerne hammer, Alurax went blade to blade with what looked like a goblin leader. As the goblin facing Elise fell, two goblin archers popped up from behind the counter at the back and opened fire, hitting Elise and taking her down to –2. Prebor dragged her to safety as Subaras manfully stepped into the breach.

Meanwhile, unnoticed by the party, two goblins who had been near the kitchen area vanished form the table. Where had they gone? We’ll see.

The melee in the doorway was going the party’s way now, with Subaras weighing in, taking down another goblin and Alurax opening fire with his bow on the goblin archers. Several goblin arrows came very close to hitting either Subaras or Alurax but none did.

As the fighting inside the dining hall came to an end, Akurath was taken wholly by surprise as the two goblins that had sneaked out of the back door came hurtling round the corner of the building and attacked. Fortunately, they both missed, and Akurath and Frell took them out with little effort.

The final goblin archer tossed down his weapon and offered to surrender but Alurax was having none of it and Elise, having been the recipient of the only Cure Light of the whole game, was sent in to finish him off with her hammer.

As the party regrouped, they came under bow fire from the corner of the next building. Four goblin archers had appeared and were busy trying to turn our heroes into pincushions. Alurax, Akurath with his newly-purchased heavy crossbow and Trooper Frell with his crossbow were returning fire. It must have looked like some sort of Western gunfight, as neither side made any attempt to close, just exchanged missile fire.

Eventually, the party’s superior to hits told and two of the goblins fell. Only Akurath had taken any hits and as his HP were 10 to start with, he wasn’t that bothered. The two surviving goblins took off into the forest surrounding the farm.

It was then that Zhastar mentioned that he thought that he had heard muffled voices whilst in the dining hall. The party headed back there and soon fond a trapdoor at the back near the kitchen. When they opened it, there were five surviving farm workers, very glad to be rescued.

A cursory search of the outbuildings revealed the bodies of five other workers in two buildings, and the party was on the verge of investigating the pit in the centre of the farm when the farmer told them that this was where they kept the spiders, and there was definitely no need for them to go down there.

Flushed with the success of their mission, the party headed back to Antiar’s Landing with the chink of gold in their pockets (the farmer had rewarded them with 100gp) and some hard-earned experience points; okay, only goblins, but every little helps where you’re first level and in the case of Alurax and Elise, multi-classed as well.

We will see in the next session what happens when the party gets back to town.

I had downgraded the opposition from Shadow Goblins to normal goblins, because I surmised that with their illusionist and thief abilities, they would be able to run rings round JG and his party, even using Subaras as the DM proxy. As luck would have it, they managed to locate and kill two of the goblin leaders and four of their men in the first fight and the second large group of goblins were only in the next building so it was a simple follow-on for a party that was already fired up. If they had been obliged to split up and search the farm again, they might have fallen prey to goblin ambushes, but even then I would probably not have consigned any of them to certain death; I would have had them captured and prepared for sacrifice to the spiders, with a generous chance to escape if they had used their heads and not done anything stupid. As it was, I didn’t have to worry about that. If a DM wants to run this adventure with younger players, I think that this is probably a good choice to take; it gives the party a chance, there is mortal peril and the players are encouraged to think up ways of escaping with what is lying around.

Team Adventure Campaign Log Session 2

It being half-term in Merrie England, JG and I had time enough for two sessions this week. This is the first - the second I'll post tomorrow.

You join us on Day Three of the campaign (I decided it was the spring, since that's a good start to the adventuring year).

The day after the encounter with the ettin, the four surviving party members traipsed down to the armourer's. There are two in town, Zhallak and Severan, and JG decided on Severan. To get the image right in his mind, I compared the place to the ski hire shop that we'd visited on our winter holiday December 2008, so it was complete with a kind of hot chocolate urn at the door to greet visitors and comings and goings from newbies, old hands and such like. With the small amount of money that they had, they were able to upgrade Alurax and Zhastar to scale mail, AC5. Akurath bought himself a heavy xbow and Alurax also replenished his stock of arrows. I did a tick box schematic to make it a bit easier for JG to keep track of his arrows and bolts. Whether he remembers to use it is another matter.

(Regular readers may be wondering where the two new starters that were rolled up last week had got to. JG decided that he wanted them to arrive later and I thought that this was quite canny since if he gets more cash as a result of his next adventure, he can afford to upgrade the weaponry and armour of the new guys as well. Whether being under-strength is going to cause a problem, only time will tell. It also gives me that little bit longer to work out a way in which they can enter the campaign and bring a bit of the sandbox to life while doing so).

In the afternoon, Elise and Alurax started going through the spellbook that they had acquired in the Training Dungeon and that, as a 'present', I had decided to let them have. They'd taken nothing else from the TD, and I wonder if JG actually remembers any of the stash.

Because it might be a bit complex for JG to remember min and max spells, etc, I ruled that each character had to make a Know Spell roll for each 1st level spell that they were trying to copy out into their spell books. And to be even kinder, I allowed both characters to learn from the same book (yes, not really the done thing, but it was quite generous of JG to allow Elise to share the book in the first place).

Elise now has
Read Magic, Enlarge, Affect Normal Fires, Detect Magic, Magic Missile, Dancing Lights, Ventriloquism, Hold Portal, Identify.

Alurax now has
Feather Fall, Affect Normal Fires, Charm Person, Read Magic, Magic Missile, Ventriloquism, Hold Portal, Enlarge, Identify.

They still only get one learned spell per day, but I'll give you three guesses as to which one it'll be...

The party retired to bed after a good meal and late that night, Alurax was awakened by the sound of breaking glass from downstairs. He jumped out of bed and saw two shadowy figures in the stable yard. He woke the others and they hurriedly donned their armour and grabbed their weapons. As they came into the kitchen, they saw one of the figures climbing in through the window. Alurax fired his bow and missed, at which point the shadowy figure dived back through the window, closely followed by Alurax. The others were struggling to get the kitchen door open.

In the yard, Alurax came face to face with a short sword and was hit for 6 points of damage. He went down to -2. As his attacker was about to finish him off, he was struck down himself. The rest of the party burst through the door into the stable yard and chased the second shadowy figure down the alley to the street. Alurax, with a freshly-slain corpse atop him was slowly bleeding his life away when the corpse was pulled off him and someone he'd never seen before starting administering first aid.

To cut a long story short, the rest of the inn was soon roused, including Mobok the landlord and Rulla the stable-lad. When lanterns were lit and the rest of the party returned, they found Alurax propped up against the wall on 0, and his rescuer standing guard to make sure no-one else was about to attack. He introduced himself as Bosla, who had been on his way home when he heard the sound of glass smashing and decided to investigate. He found the fight going on and weighed in to help Alurax who was on the ground...

[If you're thinking that this is as fishy as Billingsgate on a hot day, you're right]

JG, on the other hand was only too pleased that his life had been saved and that he had made a new friend. Mobok the landlord wanted to close up and, having got Alurax a cure light, the party went to bed.

The next day, after a visit by the police, investigating the break-in (they insisted that Alurax tell them everything that happened, because I wanted to get JG to fix it in his mind) they decided to go and check with Arazak, the 1st level dwarf cleric who had been left to look after the shrine after the previous cleric had gone across the river. Arazak greeted Akurath in the dwarf language, and asked Zhastar if he was a homelander or a settler. Zhastar answered the former, which was correct. Arazak wished that his cause should prosper and that one day, his home would be free.

Hrazhkag, the former dwarf cleric, went off with four dwarven adventurers, who had come to him very mysteriously talking about dwarven magic items and a dwarf hero who had died in the area now known as Dwarf's End, beyond Redstone Ruins and the Watchful Eyes. That was the previous autumn. Nothing had been heard of any of them since. JG got very fired up with the idea of going across the river and trying to find out what had become of them.

As a parting courtesy, Arazak offered Akurath a tankard of dwarf beer. JG decided that Alurax should try some too. I ruled that as it was so strong, he needed to roll below his CON to avoid any unpleasant effects. He failed the first roll and ended up spitting out the beer all over the floor of the shrine that Arazak had just swept. Undeterred, Alurax had another go and this time rolled a 20. I ruled that this time, he fell over backwards and had a shaking fit. He was groggy and dizzy for the rest of the day. Akurath and Arazak had a good dwarven chuckle about this.



(It occurred to me that I need to get some Elesalian drinks sorted out - various beers, spirits and wines from various areas that can add a bit of flavour to the proceedings - excuse the pun. I don't want it to be like that Alistair McGowan sketch spoofing EastEnders, when the cast go into the Queen Vic and ask Peggy for a pint of non-specific).

The next day, the party was disturbed during breakfast by Rulla the stable-lad (yes, he has a speaking part this week) who came rushing through, shouting "They're back! They're back!". JG though that he might be referring either to the robbers or the dwarven party, and this was reinforced when they followed Rulla towards the river and saw a boat being rowed across. But when they got to the docks, the boat was just pulling in and there were no dwarves on board. There were four adventurers and two wrapped body-sized bundles. When Rulla saw this, he broke down in a fit of screaming and crying and had to be dragged back to the inn. It transpired that he was a bit sweet on one of the dead adventurers.

The party hung around to chat with the new arrivals, and while the bodies were taken off to the temple court, everyone went back to the Soaring Falcon to have a valedictory drink for their comrades (as yet unnamed). Whilst there, the new guys were telling JG's party about their voyage across the river and into the wilds. They had, it transpired, been as far as Ratman's Hill, beyond Redtooth Peak and Goblin's Pass. I dropped a hint of Dwarf's End in there, but I don't think that JG picked up on it. The returners had come under attack from marauding humanoids and had lost two of their party as a result. Dire warnings were issued about not going across the river unless a party was up to it. JG was starting to get cold feet about the whole idea of crossing over. The returners did say that they might be looking for extra numbers for a second trip but warned that it was going to be tough.

JG's party were left to mull this over, but they didn't have long, because just afterwards, Sergeant Subaras and trooper Prebor came in and suggested that they come down to the guardhouse quickly as something interesting had happened. When the party arrived, they found a battered, bruised and terrified man, clearly in shock, who had just arrived in town having run all the way from his workplace, a farm up near the hills, where spiders are raised for their body products. All he could say was "G..g..g..g..g..g..goblins!"

And that's where we left it for today. No prizes for guessing what happens in the next session, which may be this week or might be at the weekend, depending on schedules.
So again, a good session; if JG's attention wandered a little bit, that's to be expected. There were a lot of new things to take in.

Now we have more detail about what lies across the river, a new friend (or is he?) for the party and some possible ideas for adventures that the party might want to explore (but, as always, it’s up to them). Next time, the party embarks on its first scripted adventure – what will become of them?

(thanks to Mr Gone for the boozy dwarves picture - superb!)

The Training Dungeon is over...now the real adventure begins!

As promised, here is Junior Grognard's first foray into the world of AD&D without the soft corners. The rules have slightly changed for Team Adventure. In the campaign proper, they will get experience points and the chance to advance but once a character dies, unless they have access to raise dead or resurrection, that character stays dead.

Just so you know.

I started by going through the character sheets and explaining a bit of backstory for JG, who hadn't got round to thinking about it yet. This grounded the characters in Elesalia and gave some hint as to the possible pasts that might come back to haunt them. It also avoided the old ‘you are gathered together in an inn, when a mysterious stranger approaches you…’

They arrived at the frontier town of Antiar's Landing, which is just across the river Elfwater from the start of the wilds, and were let in by the gate guards, who gave them the once-over and not much else. JG misunderstood me when I said that they needed somewhere to stay - I guess that in our day, the first thing that you did when you arrived somewhere was hit the local tavern but despite my hints, he decided that he was going to find some wood and build himself somewhere.

(bless!)

The local timber yard was not particularly keen on people just walking off with half a hundredweight of wood, so Team Adventure went about a mile or so outside town and cut down two trees which they dragged all the way back to town. A bit of hacking with swords and axes, much to the mirth of the gate guards and voila, a bivouac to make Ray Mears jealous.

Well, that night (it had been a long time making this thing) there was a heavy thunderstorm (I rolled on Chgowiz’s weather chart) and they all got rather damp. However, during the night they did hear something moving about in the dark, and it wasn't the thunder.

Because of their bivouac escapade, the next morning, the party was in the right place at the right time as a panicked horseman rode up to the gate guards and started talking to them, then pointing up the road and looking very scared. The sergeant came up to the party and said

"You want to earn yourselves some money, get your weapons and come with us. Something big's come across the river, we reckon and we're going to sort it out"
The party needed no further bidding and off they tramped up the track that led west from Antiar's Landing.

I should note at this point that the guard party consisted of Sergeant Subaras and three men, Volse, Qual and Prebor. No-one ever remembers these guys. Subaras was 3rd level, the others were 1st.

They came to more or less the point at which they had chopped down the trees the day before. Only now there was a swathe of trampled undergrowth, snapped branches and big footprints headed off into the woods (the rain had made the ground very muddy). After what can only be described as dithering whilst I waited for JG to make a plan, Sergeant Subaras took over and divided the party into three; himself and Volse in the centre, with Qual on the left and Prebor on the right. They were hoping that the centre would encounter their prey and the right and left would come in on the flanks. JG divided the party into three groups of two, each group with one of the guard prongs.

However, the prey decided to have a bit of fun with this plan and so guardsman Qual was leading his two Team Adventure members (Hruthnor and Elise) through the undergrowth when something very big and very fierce came bursting into sight and smashed him to absolute pieces with a mighty swing of a big club. Our doughty party members took one look at this and ran like ***** for the safety of the central group, with the enemy in hot pursuit.

Subaras and Volse deployed arms and Volse, who was armed with a bow, opened fire. Other members of the party braced for impact.

What was this fearsome opponent? Well, I'd rolled for a wandering monster for the hex that day and as (bad) luck would have it, an ettin came up. Two heads, ten hit dice, one bad attitude.



The central group, which included Alurax and Lannius weighed in - the right flank (Akurath and Zhastar) would take a round or two to arrive. The ettin was not waiting around for the odds to get worse and splattered guardsman Volse to pulp with two heavy blows from his clubs. Attacks from the party rained down on him and he took some damage but not quickly enough. I diced for the unfortunate individual who got the full brunt of the ettin's attack and the bad luck fell to Hruthnor - a bang and a crash and the stalwart axeman departed for the dwarven afterlife in a hurry.
JG was not particularly happy about that, and even less so the next round when, despite having whittled the ettin down a good few hit points more, and having got at least a couple of twenties (how do kids do that?) the fickle finger of fate fell to Lannius.

Right, I thought, he's got AC2 which means that the ettin needs an 8 or better to hit him.

Both d20s came up 8.

Lannius took 23 damage - at this point, JG needed a Daddy Grognard hug; things were getting tearful. Undeterred (well sort of) an oil flask was recovered and with the use of Affect Normal Fires (a lesson he’d remembered from the Training Dungeon lesson) the ettin was set ablaze - a bad die roll or two meant that the damage didn't finish him off but, stupid as he was, the two-headed one decided to leg it at that point.

Subaras and Prebor attempted to shoot him as he fled, but it fell to Alurax to let fly with the bow and skewer the ettin between the shoulder blades. Four damage was inflicted, but the ettin only had two left and fell into the bushes, a dead 'un.

JG, I think used the words 'epic take-down', which I think was justified. A first level party (with help) kills an ettin.

Sergeant Subaras sent Prebor back to town to commandeer a cart for the ettin's body and another for the four dead heroes. The town was quite agog at what had come trundling in and after a trip to the local dwarven and elven shrines to see if anything could be done for their fallen comrades, Team Adventure were taken to see Yugaz, the town's baronial representative, who congratulated them and doled out 50gp to each survivor. In addition, I calculated the XP for helping in the ettin's demise, divided the total by half to take the guards' efforts into account and then divided the remainder up amongst the four survivors. Result - 322xp per party member living.

They are now staying the week at the Soaring Falcon, which is one of the two adventurer taverns in town. Also, after a visit to the elven shrine, Alurax is now a follower of Sessilis, the elven god of archery, hunting and wilderness survival.
Akurath, who took Hruthnor's body to the dwarven shrine met Arazak, the 1st level dwarf cleric who explained about Hrazhkag, his predecessor, who went across the river and vanished into the wilds. If news could be found of this individual, then perhaps something might be done for Hruthnor...

(I had rolled up on a d6 the level of the clerics in town, and had got a 1 for the dwarven cleric. I then had to come up with a good reason why the dwarven shrines would be staffed by such a lowly character)

And Alurax has now earned himself a surname...Ettinslayer.

They also have enough money to start looking at upgrading their armour and equipment and have earned the interest and mild respect of the townsfolk and of their fellow adventurers.

Next week, I may well dangle the Spider Farm from Dragonsfoot in front of them to see if they bite.

After the session, JG had a go on the Dragonsfoot character generator and after a few tries that were decidedly average, rolled up two new characters to step into the gaps in Team Adventure left by Hruthnor and Lannius. They are

Zhudar, an elven MU/Thief
S 10
I 17
W 13
D 16
C 12
C 15
HP 3, base AC8, starting gold 25.
I'd have made this one a female, but JG's attitude is probably No Girls Allowed so a male it is.

Argid, half-orc fighter (interesting choice)
S 17
I 12
W 13
D 12
C 14
C 11
HP 2, base AC 10 , starting gold 80

Remember the names - they'll either be covering themselves in glory or appearing on next week's obituary sheet.

At least the party have got a thief with them, so that’s all their class bases covered.


Why, Professor; this Sandbox of yours actually works!

The first session of the campaign and what a result – from a couple of interesting choices by the party and a wandering monster roll, the setting has started to unfold. We have several new NPCs who will have an impact on the party and their doings and the hints of some possible future adventures.

Before I started this week’s session, I had no idea what was going to happen. So much could have gone differently and for me, that is the key feature of Old School sandbox style play. This style of game gives all the choices back to the players in a way that adventure paths don’t.

Many years ago, I remember first encountering the Narnia stories of C S Lewis. In one of them, Aslan the lion revives creatures that have been turned to stone by breathing on them. Wherever he breathes, the stone turns to living flesh. That, in a way, is what happens with a sandbox campaign – wherever the players touch the setting, it starts to come alive.

Elesalia - History 101

I might as well say it now – I’m a top-downer. In fact, I’ve said it before. I know that there are those that disagree with me, but I need a framework. So here is the way that I worked out the campaign history.

There is, as far as I can see, no contradiction between being a top-downer designer and creating a bottom-up sandbox for your players. It all depends on how much the players know. The DM can have the world worked out to the nth degree, with a history going back a thousand years, but as far as the players know, the world has no name and does not exist further than the six hexes that surround their base. They’re going to find out otherwise, but in the fullness of time.

Where I think that top-down designers have got a bad name is that, having put all that work into their world, they seem determined that the players should know all about it, so that their efforts are appreciated. Few people design worlds for their own sake (am I in a minority of one here?) and everyone likes a little recognition. Where the line has to be drawn is the point at which the DM hands out a thirty-page campaign history for the players to read before gaming even starts.

If the DM wants to share the experience of the players, exploring the world as it unfolds, letting the unknown carve out its own shape, then that’s their call. Each to their own. If the top-down aspect of world design turns you off, skip the rest of this post.

I’m just a junkie for campaign histories. I appreciate that a lot of mine will mean absolutely nothing to anyone outside the rather limited Elesalia fan club but further posts on the features of Elesalia will make reference to the history, so I thought I’d better get it on now.

As I’ve mentioned in the introductory Elesalia post, I had a list of things that I knew I wanted in the campaign. I wanted a recent war or two – in this case, two; the Kaldak Forest war which in my world is the equivalent of the battle against the Temple of Elemental Evil – which I’ve resprayed and will be using, and the Ice Wars, in which a horde of frost giants, white dragons, cold-using creatures of all sorts swarmed down from their mountain fastnesses and cast half the Veriel valley into a permanent winter. This was only defeated by concerted action from the forces of good who had, until then, been bickering and squabbling in the way that puts the petty into Petty Duchies. Result – desolate but slowly recovering northern lands, masses of refugees and social stress on the lands who took them in.
So in the past forty years, there have been two big wars. This, for me justifies the presence of many experienced soldiers and warriors who are now thinking about retiring. There is therefore a vacuum for new and upcoming adventurers.

Having taken care of recent history, I started to work back. I knew that the Veriel Valley duchies were the result of a recolonisation of land lost following the collapse of a previous civilisation. I worked out the history of the duchies and their origin in the fortress city of Stonegarth Hold.

At the mouth of the great river, I wanted to have two cities – Old Palintor, a ruin on one bank and New Palintor on the other, bustling, sprawling and a crossroads for the campaign, a city to which all would come, through which all would flow and where, it is said, one can get anything – for a price. The ruins would be the lair of monsters, the haunt of villains, the location of sewers and catacombs, lost temples, hidden vaults. So the city needed to have been sacked or ruined. And the new city needed to have time to grow up. Start calculating, perhaps sixty years here, eighty there, what might have done the damage? Where did they come from? Lightning campaign or slow advance?

Before Palintor grew – and how long did that take? - who founded the old city in the first place? I had the name “The Sea Raiders” in my mind, possibly a borrowing from the Sea Peoples of Bronze Age Mediterranean history, a vigorous and aggressive incomer culture who found a land riven by chaos, overgrown by dark forests and overrun by monsters. But why was it like that? Answer – the Empire of the Snake, an evil and decadent power that had crushed half the continent in its bid to dominate. It too needed its own timeline but because evil is inherently unstable, its duration was shorter but packed with more vents.
Who did the Empire overthrow? I knew that I wanted a halcyon stage of history that would make its overthrow all the more tragic so I came up with Guirioch, a hippy druidic Celtic land, all happy and in tune with nature. Admittedly, it didn’t have that name to begin with – for a good while, it was just known as The Nice Kingdom. It would have no answer to the all-conquering Empire of the Snake and would go down in blood and fire.
And tracing the history of Guirioch back, I posited that in the early years, it had been nurtured by the elves, seeing the emerging humans (possibly at the early Bronze Age or even more primitive) as worth protecting after the chaos of the Kin Wars in which the dark and light elves were forever sundered.

It was there that I decided to put a halt to the rise and fall of empires and kingdoms. For sure, I could have gone on and on, but in the end, the amount of work involved compared to the amount which would actually be encountered by the players made it impractical. Besides, I now had over a thousand years of history to flesh out. What’s not to like?

I tend to think in fits and starts and sustained invention often peters out. I would sometimes leave the history file open on my computer and dip into it as I got more ideas. I also had concepts and subjects that I knew I wanted to use, and just had to work out where on the history they would fit, and how long they would need to happen. In some areas, events in different parts of Elesalia overlapped – were they connected? It was a question worth asking. New plots and ideas may well result from the answers to those questions.

Now, when I am describing ruins, I can say “The Empire of the Snake, that fell into turmoil over eight hundred years ago…” rather than just say “These ruins look really old…” I don’t have to go into detail on the Empire, just like someone might say today “This coin comes from the time of the Romans, nearly two thousand years ago…” without having to give a three-hour lecture on the rule of Vespasian. If the characters want to find out about the Empire of the Snake, that’s their option. It is a sandbox, after all – not just physically but historically as well. And I know that when I give these little bits of information out, it’s internally consistent and I’m not going to have to retcon a few months down the line.

So we arrive at the inclusive timeline for Elesalia. I am aware that a lot of the detail will mean nothing to readers at present. You can skip this if you want, or keep it handy for later reference, since much of what I’ll be posting in weeks to come is going to refer back to it. It is best read in conjunction with the main map and the larger scale maps that I’ll be including with future posts.

Also, whilst I have nailed my colours firmly to the mast as regards top-downing, in most cases, the entries are all that there is at present about the events. I have a vague idea about things like the Great kin-war, the sinister Shadow Hands, the Iron Legion and such like, but until it becomes necessary, mere mentions is all that they will stay. There is, I suppose, room for DM-player interaction to flesh them out but the timeline ensures that such expansion will not be contradictory.

Nevertheless, I like to pepper my sandbox with little titbits and this is where most of them will come from.

All dates are BP (before present)

The Age of Ice
The Age of Water
The Age of Fire

1368 The Great Kin-war, elves and dwarves vs. drow and duergar
1360 The start of the Age of Earth. The first flourishings of Guirioch, which eventually occupied the area from Seknir, up the Veriel to Gelnaris and Stonegarth Hold.
1129 Start of the rise of the Empire of the Snake in the mountains at the northern end of the Yirovian valley. Large-scale volcanic activity around Mount Terarnis and the Blackstone Mountains. Destruction of the city of Prelnax.
1050 Thurgoland and Helfgel invaded by the Empire of the Snake
1050 The Khereseth stop the advance of the Empire of the Snake.
1049-1045 The war that establishes Ghafan (where the large desert is now) as a major power
1045 Empire of the Snake invades Guirioch in a three-pronged attack
1043 Sack of Khlossoth, the Guirioch capital. Start of the supremacy of the Empire of the Snake.
Beginning of the years of Ash and Blood for the peoples between the sea and Stonegarth Hold
990-992 The Red Fox rebellion against the Empire of the Snake
953-956 Rebellion of the Emerald Brotherhood against the Empire of the Snake
950-930 refugees from the Empire of the Snake arrive in what will become Helmer.
862 Outbreak of feuding and civil strife in the Empire of the Snake
840-830 Arrival of the Sea Raiders.
830 Downfall of the Empire of the Snake. Big battle near the marshes north of the Wolfgard
Mountains
818 Successor regime to the Empire of the Snake sets up in Seknir
805 A band of adventurers raid a temple to the god of decay in the Great Marshes.
782 Grazakar dwarves launch an attack on the regime in Seknir, toppling it.
775 Seknir as it is known now is established
771 Demerus, one of the Mages of Power, flees to carry on his lich process. Three of his fellow mages are killed. One died trying to stop Demerus and the other two were killed in the attack on his mountain fastness, after which he disappears from history.
765 Foundations of proto-Palintor
760 Start of the settlement of Gelnaris
740 Start of the colonisation of the South Marches
735 Start of the settlement of Artumnald
708 A slave revolt overthrows the decadent Ghafan Kingdom.
707 Start of the war that leads to the break-up of the Ghafan Kingdom
700 Gelnaris settled. Start of the settlement of the area now known as Danorin
699 The war concludes with the establishment of a balkanised area where Ghafan once was.
698-690 Elves establish the Immortal Priestess cult, in a bid to keep human unity in the Ghafan area alive.
695-671 Battles between humans and elf alliance in the eastern forests.
680 South Marches settled
675 Artumnald settled
665 Humanoids attack the eastern forest elves
664-655 Elves and sympathetic humans fight wars of liberation to drive back the humanoids.
649 Two members of the Mages of Power killed.
640 The area now known as Danorin settled. An evil wizard arises in the Yirovian valley and causes much mayhem and suffering.
628-625 Dwarves of the Grazakar clan attack and overrun Artumnald, defeat the Gelnaris forces and
drive them back beyond the Arimas river.
602 The Galakmur clan of dwarves are forced out of their mountains by giants and humanoids.
580 The great swamp begins to expand under the influence of the god of decay. The halflings are forced into exile.
575 The Fall of Galassos, the successor city state to Prelnax, to fire giants, humanoids, etc.
535 Final destruction of the Mages of Power by forces unknown. The only survivor is the mage Apsiokt.
523 Apsiokt founds the Keil
510 Rise of the Shadow Hands
492 Gelnaris with the help of Palintor (that’s old Palintor) drives out the Grazakar from occupied Artumnald
466 The fall of Selstone – a shock runs through the whole region as this city had been in existence since before the 1129 eruptions.
445 The Shadow Hands destroy the heart of the Immortal Priestess temple network and the temple of Kallia.
444-442 Adventurers and warriors attack and destroy (or so they think) the Shadow Hands in retaliation.
435 Start of the Great Desiccation
427 Humanoids start their attacks
418 Battles in the war against the humanoids, where the Khereseth are virtually wiped out to buy time for the humans to mount a counter-attack which routs the humanoids.
417 Exodus from the desiccated areas begins
361 Sultanates achieve trade dominance of the Aman Hexu
348 Old Palintor destroyed
343 Fleet of the Sultanate destroyed in the Aman Hexu
341 End of the civil war that led to the establishment of the three modern
Sultanates – Kilgish, Amiantur and Nariaz.
330 Siege of Stonegarth Hold by the Vengansar/Khrast forces and the breaking of said siege – humanoids routed and destroyed.
310 Start of the baron-strife in the Danorin territories
307 The end of the Iron Legion
300 The newly-established state of Danorin begins to expand
290 Arkil is added to Danorin’s control
275 A band of adventurers leads an effort to end the Wolf Wars
267 First towns in Narli founded
245 Danorin completes its settlement of the South Marches
227 The start of the humanoid attacks on the Wolfgard dwarves and elves
167 Humanoids achieve dominance in the Wolfgard mountains
142 Destruction of the towns of Narli
141 Start of the years of skirmishing between the Jhoriz and the humanoids
97.5 Danorin gives the northern barbarians a good thrashing
80 The beginning of Danorin decline. Tremantor throws off the Danorin yoke
78 The South March secedes
77 Humanoids driven back to the Wolfgard mountains by the Jhoriz nomads
41 Danorin starts operations into Valgor to try and seize mineral resources
37 Danorin’s operations in Valgor are broken off by the impending ice war
36.5 Ice War begins
33 End of the Ice War
32 Kaldak Forest campaign war begins
27.5 Kaldak Forest campaign war ends
20
The present


Having looked at all this, I reckon I need to pay a visit to Obsidian Portal and start me a wiki.

Seventy-three hooks

Okay, here's an early Christmas present. Regular readers will remember that some while ago, I did a post in which I listed geographical and evocative names that might be put into hexes as hooks, suggestions for what might be there if the party ever arrives and starts wandering round. Some people seemed to like them. As a man who never knows when to stop B-) I now offer seventy-three more, for your delectation and delight. Some are fairly obvious, some rather more enigmatic. Take them, use them, make of them what you will.

1. Boarspine Ridge
2. Grave of Giants
3. Lightning Peak
4. Sapphire Falls
5. Copperhead Canyon
6. The Seven Fists
7. Stonefall Vale
8. Hill of Lost Gods
9. Bearskin Forest
10. The Fiery Brothers
11. Demon’s Cauldron
12. Bloodqueen’s Bower
13. Thunderfist Top
14. Deathspawn Marshes
15. Devil’s Pathway
16. The Gargoyle Gate
17. The Weeping Skulls
18. Wyvern Ridge
19. Treeclaw Dell
20. Soulstone Gate
21. Shadowrift
22. The Hunting Forest
23. Doomsmouth Trench
24. Stalking Glen
25. Boulder Run
26. Tumblestone Heights
27. Bog of Dead Ships
28. Razorfish River
29. Stonesnake Valley
30. Sureshot Peak
31. Spearshaft Barrows
32. Slaughterer’s Bend
33. Tunnels of Gloom
34. The Men who Walk No More
35. The Skin Taker
36. The North Wall
37. Crackstone Ring
38. Emerald Tower
39. Red Sword’s Rest
40. The Wall of the Damned
41. Forest of Screaming Souls
42. Lion’s Leap
43. Longbone Valley
44. Greenscale Forest
45. Hill of Walking Bones
46. Nightmare’s Nest
47. Scorpion Pass
48. Ghostsnake Gorge
49. Mournfields
50. The Bull Gate
51. Winterdeath’s Palace
52. Hellcat Hall
53. The Blood Cascades
54. Soulblaze Hill
55. Nightblood’s Fastness
56. Circle of Teeth
57. Batwing Butte
58. Valley of Venomous Rain
59. Ten Dead Daughters
60. Goldencliff Fortress
61. Blacksoul Temple
62. Waterdeath Falls
63. Forest of Razors
64. Talonwood
65. Bloodhammer Chasm
66. Manhunter Mountain
67. Banshee’s Haunt
68. Fangmarsh
69. Jackal’s Ridge
70. Flaywind Heath
71. The Howling Heads
72. Silverbones’ Ruins
73. Hackblade Hollow

If anyone does manage to make something out of them, let me know. Always interested in what folks do with my stuff.

Comign soon - campaign history. Dates and Kings and things.

Developing the sandbox hooks and doing a bit of hexcrawling.

The Hooks in practice.

In the previous post, I gave a list of names that I had keyed to the hex map for my sandbox. Now I’m going to outline some of the ideas that a few of those have generated.

I have already written up Skeleton Tower, an ideal introduction to the area for new players. I list below some ideas that have sprung to mind following the hooks that I listed above. Associated with that is the Shrine of the Silver Knight, which has links to Skeleton Tower but can be played as an entirely stand-alone adventure.

Redstone Ruins
Some great slaughter or combat at this location has left an evil legacy - the blood stained into the stone, and it's given the stones a taste for blood. Perhaps they've got some sort of sinister, malevolent intelligence, keen to see more killing, sending out suggestions to all and sundry that they ought to get their blades red. Illusion and mental manipulation will be the order of the day.


Burnt Man's Haunt - I thought that this could be a situation where a group of hunters/poachers/etc stumbled across a rift to the Elemental Plane of Fire and some were possessed by fire spirits, becoming Flame Zombies - a bit like the Harginn in MM2. They can only be doused, as it were, by holy water blessed by a sufficiently high level cleric. A party managed to seal them into the cave where the rift is by use of Move Earth or some such, but now a landslide has set them free and now we have burnt bodies littering the landscape. Maybe a fire-deity cleric seeks the rift to set free some serious fire elementals to run rampage.

Ogre's Point.
A big gang of ogres used to live here. They were regarded as stupid and slow-moving, the first port of call for any young blade that fancied a scrap. Then an ogre mage happened by and whipped the ogres into shape, so much so that they creamed a 3/4 level party and got the town panicked. Some tougher adventurers eventually killed the ogre mage and quite a few of his gang, and all fell quiet again. The ogres are now a sorry bunch, who hide in the forested hills, skulking in caves and fighting back only if they are pinned into a corner. But of course, someone might happen along again with thoughts of stirring them up. The ogre mage's skull and bones are now part of their shrine, deep in one of their caves.

The Grey Ravines
I’m still sketching this out, but I know that it will include rock and stone creatures, such as the boulder roller and galeb duhr from MM2 and a pack of gargoyles who pretend to be outcrops of stone during the day and swoop on unsuspecting parties at twilight. There is also some sort of dungeon there, with a trapped tiled floor in one of the rooms. On two or three of the tiles are some stone figures, in positions of horror. What happened was that a party of adventurers were crossing the floor when the leading female MU trod on a stone that polymorphed her into a medusa. Before she realised what had happened, she had turned to her party to see if they were okay - with obvious results. The ones that made their saves fled, and she was stuck with the knowledge that she was now a monster and had killed two/three (not sure how many) of her friends. She is now a bit bonkers.

Clawbriars – thickets with very sharp thorns, possibly some stirges that live there, or tiny creatures like jermlaine and pesties. Vampiric plants, all sorts of plant-based nasties. Yellow musk zombies.

No prizes for guessing what lives in Firebreath Forest.

Wandering Monsters for the Sandbox

Whilst looking at the A4 hex sandbox that I published in the previous post, I had an epiphany (albeit one that I suspect many other DMs have had). I suddenly realised that I should treat the whole thing as just one huge dungeon. Each hex is like a room in a dungeon, with its own static feature, either a monster, trap, trick or puzzle. The players can approach a hex from a variety of directions and feel their way across the map, hex by hex. Some hexes they might miss, others they might deem too strong to take on. Some they will clear out after a good fight, and then when their backs are turned, something nasty creeps back in, unless they are astute and work out some way of stopping it.

And then there are wandering monsters. Basically, either
a) the whole map,
b) a cluster of hexes or
c) each hex
has its particular wandering monster roll and whatever comes up is whatever is prowling that particular hex of the sandbox. It could be a really tough monster, in which case, run away! run away! (brave Sir Robin) or it could be remnants of something, bones, bodies, clues, NPC character classes, other adventurers (but only to 6th, methinks, at first), bandits, brigands, military personnel, crazy cultists, etc. Or it could be a bombardier beetle! Going through the MM, I realised that some monsters are static, some are peripatetic. The former can be used as feature creatures, the latter as wandering monsters. Some might fall between the two stools and be static but with a range of a couple of hexes.

I listed out every peripatetic monster that might conceivably be found in the wilderness, including the naturalistic but giant-sized animals and NPC parties up to 6th level, and interwove an equal number of No Encouner rolls, then scored it up and came out with 200 different possibilities.

Once a static monster has been deemed present by a die roll, it will be noted as present thereafter on the map unless the party has wiped out all that they encountered.

The wandering monster list is also useful for deciding what, if anything, might wander into a previously-cleared hex and decide to take up residence.

Once the march of civilisation has moved south, the hexes that have been cleared will be checked for on another table, that for semi-civilised lands. It is not guaranteed that there will be no hostile incursions, but their frequency will be much reduced.

Next time, I’ll be handing out another list of name hooks for your consideration and use, and making a start on the campaign history.

Elesalia - a closer look.

Zooming in.

In the previous post, I gave an outline of how I drew up the overall world map. Now I had it but it was on a massive scale. One sheet of A3 covered thousands of miles. I knew that if I wanted to get closer, I had to get local. Then I came across the large-scale maps of the Flanaess, drawn up on Corel by Anna Bernemalm. If you haven’t come across these yet, do yourself a favour and take a look.

http://ghmaps.net/maps.html

Each of these map sheets seemed to be about 300 miles west to east and about 400 miles north to south.

I divided my main map into a grid and numbered each box. Then I started working on the larger-scale maps, concentrating on the area around Stonegarth Hold, the fastness that I intended would serve as the jumping-off point for the wilderness exploration.



I selected an area on the 300 x400 map, on the border between civilisation (Tremantor) and the wilderness. I decided to have a river port there, which would serve as the base town from which the players would explore the sandbox. Just beyond the south-east corner of the hex sheet, about a hundred miles from the base town would be the megadungeon, the Monastery of Doom.

The Sandbox.

I had originally, following from the How to Build a Sandbox series on Bat in the Attic,

http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-make-fantasy-sandbox.html

set the scale at 6 miles per hex, but this didn’t quite ring true for me; with a party travelling at anything up to twenty miles a day, they could be across the map in a week or so. Ten miles seemed a better scale for me. Another reason for increasing the scale was that it allowed each hex to theoretically harbour a number of different threats and features without them all being virtually on top of each other.

I tried initially to generate possible encounters for each hex by use of the wilderness encounter table in the DMG but after some giant rats and a bombardier beetle (oh no, not bombardier beetles – it’s Tomb of Horrors all over again!), I gave up on that and came up with a different solution. Whilst not planning every hex out in intricate detail, I came up with a list of geographically evocative names that I thought might serve as suggestion points and hooks for possible adventures when the party came to that particular hex. I wanted them to be suggestive enough to give me ideas but not so restrictive that they constrained my spontaneity. And as only I see the map, there's nothing to stop me changing one if the need arises.

I list them here, just in case some out there might not be able to read my writing (it has been known!). If anyone wants to borrow some or all of them, feel free. There are many more to come.

The Bone Highway
Deathrider Dale
The Shades
The Shallows
Broken Shield Deeps
Silver Wolf Marshes
Moaning Caves
Shadowholt Wood
Crow Fields
Ogre’s Ford
Skeleton Tower
Shrine of the Silver Knight
Axehead Hills
Gnoll’s Dell
Rustblade Hills
Dead Elf Dale
Bloodsword Cliffs
Burnt Man’s Haunt
Clawbriars
The Grey Ravines
Bugbear Bluffs
Firedrake Wilds
Griffon Wastes
Troll Tunnels
Trollsblood Vale
Slaughter Field
The Bog of Reth
Stakehead Dale
Hellspring Mountain
Crumbling Castle
Darkshade Caverns
The Knife
Catacombs of Sharnassa
Ironstone Cliffs
Greyshale Valley
Krag’s Grave
Dog Solitude
Wolf’s Maw Mountain
Firebreath Forest
Moon Mere
Valley of Dead Horses
Claw Wood
The Grims
Watchful Eyes
Redtooth Peak
Ratman’s Hill
Wolfsfang wood
Bear Canyon
Spider Wood
Dwarf’s End
Goblin’s Pass
The Cold Mounds
Burnt Tower
Black Wood
Orcskull Hills
The Old Fortress
Sunblood Temple
Trapsoul Forest
The Empty Miles
Singing Sword Hills
The Fearstones.

Rolling dice to randomise the distribution (so as to avoid any unconscious bias on my part as to what I wanted in each hex), I came up with the following map, which will serve as the sandbox for the players. They will start from the river town of Antiar’s Landing and make their explorations across the river and into the Wilderness.





In the next post on this subject, I’ll be outlining a few ideas that some of the hooks above have generated and talking about wandering monsters and wilderness encounters.