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!)

Elesalia - The Rose Blades

The Rose Blades are an order of female paladins, or paladines, who operate from a settlement near the Lake of Light. They have a close connection with the holy community on the Isle of Aleandar. They are named for the distinct pinkish hue to the metal of their swords.



Recruits for the order comes from all over Elesalia, from Helfgel in the west to the elven human protectorates in the eastern forests, from the Sultanates to the northern barbarians. It is said that the warrior goddess of the paladines, Siranis sends visions to those whom she has chosen when they reach sixteen. Those who have sufficient courage and determination to follow their visions make the journey, which can be hundreds of miles in some cases, to the Lake of Light, where they are received by the order. Worthy candidates for the visions of the goddess are few and many turn back or fall by the wayside into slavery or death at the hands of men or monsters.



Siranis is the Yirovian goddess of guardianship, faithfulness, dignity and duty. She requires no less in those who worship her. She is said to be stern but kindly, forgiving of all save infidelity in whatever shape or form she finds it.


HISTORY

In the year 640BP, there arose a great evil in the Yirovian valley. Some say Dusanbakh, a sorcerer discovered the power that had driven the Empire of the Snake and sought to recreate that evil again. He raised the undead from their graves and flung them against the forces of law and goodness.

Under the influence of Gal Haktal, the green avatar of Tiamat, whose realms included choking, decay, disease, fungus, poison, envy and malice, Dusanbakh and his hordes attacked the isle of Aleandar, a shrine to Clerestris, goddess of healing and mercy. It was captured and defiled.

The sorcerer was only defeated through much effort, battle and sacrifice. The wizard Crusios, a former adventurer and native of the city of Jemorria, who had helped the forces of good retake the valley, was later asked to join the Mages of Power.

Amongst the many brave warriors who fought for Yirovian and to liberate the Isle of Aleandar were four paladines, two senior and two apprentices. Peranta, Maskis, Romavel and Jehatia.



They did not begin as a group, but each pair was drawn to the conflict by a determination to fight evil and drive back darkness. Romavel was killed during the fighting and her body laid to rest on the Isle of Aleandar, in what is now known as the Chamber of the Broken Heart.

The remaining paladines had little time to rest, since the scattered undead, still infesting the valley, were a long time clearing. When eventually they returned to the sanctuary of the Isle, they found a new task waiting for them.

Following the liberation and reconsecration of the Isle of Aleandar, it was decided that the sanctuary required guardians. It could clearly no longer rely on its benevolence and neutrality to protect it and so the three surviving paladines formed the order of the Rose Blades, to fight for law and goodness and to protect the sanctuary. They obtained weaponry and training from the Khereseth and over the years built up a powerful force of paladines with the new recruits that Siranis sent them year by year.

In the year 442BP, a bond-pair of Rose Blades, Nelessia and Trema together with Chamis, a silvering and Delanda, a cleric of Clerestris joined with others in an attack on the Shadow Hands, who had struck a foul blow at the heart of the human settlements in the Ghafan region. Both Nelessia and Delanda were killed. Chamis, though badly wounded was granted full Rose Blade status by Siranis herself.

The Rose Blades are still in existence, pledged to defend the Isle of Aleandar and to seek out threats to law and goodness all over Elesalia. There is no saying where they will be encountered; they voyage at the whim of the goddess and consider it an honour to fight and die in her service.

SOCIETY AND ORGANISATION

There is no formal hierarchy within the order, but older paladines who have retired are consulted on matters of importance. Direction and leadership come through the influence of Siranis and the holy women who live on hermitages on the islands of the Lake of Light.

New arrivals come at the rate of perhaps two a year to join the order, which tends to cover the natural wastage of death from old age and combat.



The paladine receives her rose blade at the discretion of the goddess Siranis, if the girl’s performance, devotion and piety have pleased her. Most, if not all of the paladines become Rose Blades by the time they reach 20. It is possible that a girl will not be awarded the rose blade, in which case she is destined always to be the junior partner in a bond-pair or what is known as a silvering - a sort of associate Rose Blade, obliged to play the supporting role whenever another sword is needed.

Bond-pairs are formed by mutual agreement between paladine and apprentice; it is by no means unusual for a paladine to remain a solo operator.

When the senior paladine of a bond-pair reaches an age where she deems it too much to be adventuring or wielding arms any more, she hangs up her sword and goes through a ceremony where she officially hands over seniority to her pair partner, who then has the right either to become a lone paladine or to take a junior partner.

If this happens to a bond-pair and the junior partner is a silvering, then she must apply to another lone paladine to take her on as a partner. It may be that the 'junior' partner turns out to be older than her 'senior' partner.

When on a mission, a bond-pair often takes with it auxiliaries, being clerics (from the Isle of Aleandar) and women-at-arms. In the early days, male fighters were hired as supporting swords but it was found that although generally they behaved themselves, there were incidents that led to deaths and it was decided that a woman-only rule should be enforced. It also led to fewer casualties on missions since men were more likely to try foolhardy rescues.

The age range of paladines is, at any one time,
Teens 8
20s 20
30s 20
40s 20
50s 20
60s 20
70s 20
80s 2

The numbers in each age range may vary by one or two, depending on whether more have been killed in combat but the total number in the order will never exceed 130.

88 of these will be in their 50s or below, and therefore of reasonable military age. Of the 88, perhaps 30 will be lone paladines, 58 being in 29 bond-pairs. From 4-6 of the 88 paladines will be silverings.

It will be noted that those over 50 would tend not to be peregrinatory and may well have moved into mentoring or become clerics at the behest of the goddess. At most, a quarter of the paladines get a peregrinatory calling and of those, perhaps 10% die on adventures. They have the right to be buried on one of the islands of the Lake of Light, although only truly exemplary paladines or those who died in extraordinary circumstances can be laid to rest on the Isle of Aleandar.

Occasionally, Siranis informs a paladine through dreams and omens that she has been chosen for motherhood. This often happens when the soul of a dead paladine is required to be reincarnated - the goddess might have in mind a specific destiny for which she is needed. To ensure that the prospective mother is worthy of the honour, the goddess will send her visions of her future mate and it becomes a holy quest for her to seek him out. Once found, she must then woo and mate with him. This quest she must undertake on her own, and it is for this reason that the choosing of a paladine by the goddess often falls upon a lone paladine, rather than one in a bond-pair, because if it is the latter, the bond-pair is almost always broken by this event.

If a bond-pair suffers a casualty, then depending on the grief with which the survivor takes the loss, she sometimes retires from paladinhood and becomes a holy woman, setting up a hermitage on one of the smaller islands of the Lake of Light. Sometimes, she may become a cleric, sometimes a mentor for the new arrivals each year.

A bond-pair will live in a small complex of two houses, joined at communal chambers. Each complex has a training yard, stables and an armoury. Most have a garden where the paladines tend fruit trees, vegetable patches and herbs for various culinary, medicinal and magic purposes. Older bond-pairs may well have acquired servants who will be housed in rooms adjoining the complex. Amongst the complexes are small shrines where retired paladines live and tend to effigies of Siranis, or of Clerestris, the goddess of mercy and healing.



A Rose Blade is a very serious character, much like Siranis herself. She will be faithful unto death itself if she has given her word. Though the joys of the world have not become strange to her, a paladine of the Rose Blades can sometimes allow her determination and duty to make her appear somewhat humourless. Rose Blades will take a very dim view of oath-breakers and will associate with them only in extremis and then only for a very short while.

As has been noted, the establishment of the Rose Blades was accompanied by an influx of training, weaponry and armour from the Khereseth. Over the next 222 years, the master weaponsmiths continued to supply the paladines with the fruits of their forges so that it can now be honestly said that the Rose Blades hold one of the largest hoards of Khereseth armour and swords anywhere in Elesalia.

Elesalia - the Khereseth

The Khereseth were a force of warriors and weaponsmiths whose martial prowess was unrivalled in the history of Elesalia. Even today, a Khereseth sword – if it can be found - is a prize worthy of only the best fighters. It was said that their blades could cut the air in two and their armour could turn back lightning.

HISTORY

No-one is quite sure of the origins of the Khereseth. They first appear in Elesalian history in the years immediately following the eruptions of Mount Terarnis and the Dragonspine Mountains in the year 1129BP. These eruptions destroyed the city state and civilisation of Prelnax and plunged the area into the chaos of a huge humanoid attack from the mountains, spearheaded by a phalanx of fire giants. Out of this chaos came the Khereseth, their valour and martial prowess a key factor in the defeat of the humanoids.

It is speculated that they may have been refugees from an as yet unknown city, survivors of the city watch; there is rumour of the elves covertly directing them in their rise to become warrior knights. Their name itself comes from an ancient root “Q’RES” meaning “to watch” and their society was organised into wards and precincts. It is also possible that they may have been a force of fighter adventurers roaming the land in search of opportunities for glory and battle.

The next time history called on the Khereseth, they were established on the shores of Lake Gharzish, at the south-eastern end of the Aman Hexu. Here, they were steadily building up their strength, honing their skills of fortification and weaponsmithing and making their expertise invaluable.

In 1050BP, the expanding Empire of the Snake moved out of the Yirovian region and towards Lake Gharzish, intending to add the southern lands to its black, bloodstained orbit. It fell to the Khereseth to stop them, and stop them they did. It is said that the plains that day were dotted with piles of skulls, expertly separated from their surprised owners by the sharpest blades the world had ever seen. The Empire drew a line and did not cross it again.

When, over two centuries later, the Empire began to collapse in on itself with an inevitability matched only by the utter cruelty and mayhem of the process, the Khereseth joined a coalition made up of exiled Yirovians, resistance fighters and the newly-arrived Sea Raiders who had landed on the shores of the Aman Hexu. This force swept into the Yirovian valley and cleansed the land of the Empire’s evil in a campaign of slaughter so complete that the ravens were too fat to fly thereafter.

Over the next eighty years or so, the Khereseth continued to provide the Ghafan Kingdom with cadre troops to bolster its own army, as they had done since the Kingdom’s founding in 1049BP. However, by about 755BP, decadence and corruption had started to seep into the Kingdom, tainting it like mould; this alienated the Ghafan traditionalists and the principled Khereseth, who withdrew their involvement with Ghafan’s military.
Deprived of a military cadre, and seeking to protect themselves, the cities within Ghafan started to establish their own forces, orders of knights, each headed by a cleric. This was one more step towards the eventual collapse of Ghafan.

At the surreptitious behest of elven agents, the Khereseth were also involved in the establishment, training and armouring of the Rose Blades, an order of female paladines who became settled near the Lake of Light after the defeat of an evil sorcerer who had risen in the Yirovian valley and desecrated the Isle of Aleandar, a shrine of peace and healing.

The evil that lurked in the Dragonspine Mountains still had plans for the human nations of the Ghafan area and in 445BP, they enlisted the aid of the Shadow Hands, a sinister and secretive band of assassins to attack and destroy two key elements of the human resistance – the priestesses of Sultimaris and the central temple of Kallia, goddess of fire, whose network of shrines gave protection to the scattered human towns and cities of the Ghafan plain.
In a counter-strike, a band of human and elven adventurers, including a squad of Khereseth fighters struck back against the Shadow Hands, destroying their base and killing a large number of their operatives.

In 435 the Great Desiccation began, as the forces of evil below the mountains cut off the source of the rivers that irrigated the Ghafan plain. Then began the humanoid attacks, small to begin with but getting larger and larger by the year as drought bit harder, like a pack of hungry jackals, into the human lands.



The campaign came to a head in 418BP, when a huge assault on the weakened humans was launched. Wave upon wave of humanoids – a snarling, howling sea of hate - poured out of the mountain caves, headed by fire giants, eager to repeat their destruction of Prelnax, over seven centuries earlier. The scattered human forces and their elven allies answered the call to arms but they could not gather their forces in time. All looked lost until the Khereseth army rode to meet the enemy. In a ferocious battle, they were all but wiped out; their enemies were halted in disarray and by the time they had resumed the offensive, human and elven fighters had managed to mass and won a hard-fought and bloody victory.

With that sacrifice, the Khereseth passed from history. Rumours of survivors endured for a long time – or perhaps it was a forlorn hope - but no revival of the Khereseth has ever been seen.

Although the Khereseth are long gone, rumour remains of their hidden fastness where the master weaponsmiths hid their secrets and – it is rumoured – weapons of ultimate workmanship. This place is said to be guarded by mechanical contraptions such as iron golems and gorgons – the metal-plated bulls of legend.


ORGANISATION

The Khereseth based their military organisation around the number five. Each group of five was known as a hand (khurota) whilst at peace, and during combat was known as a fist (khushoth).

A fighting unit was twenty-five strong, divided down into five squads, each of four soldiers and an NCO. This 25-strong unit was led by a quarter-captain. The next one up was one hundred and twenty-five, led by a more senior officer.

The unit would form the shape of a pentagon in combat. The points of the pentagons would face outwards like bastions in lined formation. At each point of the pentagon, two soldiers' shields would link together at an angle (they were also constructed so that they could hook together to make a jointed shield wall) - the linked point was called the beruta.

The Khereseth were not only great weapon makers but superb armourers, always looking for ways to improve their armour. Khereseth armour is often up to 30% lighter than conventional armour and, like their weapons, confers a +1 to +4 depending on the maker.
Khereseth preferred melee rather than missile combat; anything further than hurled axe or spear range was too far for most. There was, however a forge that lent itself to working on crossbows, which satisfied them since they were partly-mechanical. Longbows on the other hand were regarded as elvish, being mostly wood or bone.

Units of the Khereseth were used frequently to train and bolster local forces as needed and before the fall of the Ghafan Kingdom, they were utilised as cadre troops. There were two separate classes of trainer within the Khereseth, the first (known as Khith) who trained only Khereseth soldiers, and the second (known as Tathish) who left the Forge Lands and went to train foreign troops as required by the Forge Masters (Rokhuseth).

The Khereseth were slave-owners. It was part of the culture in that part of the world and they had no qualms about using slaves to provide the food, cook and do municipal duties. The Rikheth were household officers who oversaw the running of households and the domestic side of forge life.
Only those fathered by a Khereseth warrior, known as forge-born (bokhtar) were eligible to belong to the Khereseth. Slaves (ashrath) taken or outsiders wanting to join the ranks were treated as second-class (tethshath), never quite being trusted.

Khereseth also had herds of livestock (oshir) the care of which they contracted out to bondsmen (oshireth), freed slaves who were nevertheless under the control of the forges. A department of the Khereseth known as the herd masters (Shikoroth) appointed overseers (karath) of the bondsmen and controlled the logistics of the herd, including slaughter, flaying, preparation of the meat, etc.

The reason for the Khereseth mistrust of elves is not known but mistrust them they did. It meant that in their approaches to the Khereseth, the elves had to work in secret, using either agents or elves in disguise. The Khereseth, without realising it, gave valuable service to the elven cause over the centuries.

LANGUAGE

Some Khereseth words.

Ashioth - a precinct, sub-division of the Khereseth.
Shathat - officer in command of an Ashioth.
Beruta - two linked shields at the apex of a pentagon formation.
Barathot - shield wall.
Berathor - shield maker, one of a twinned pair of armourers who lived at each forge.
Bokhath - the forge.
Bukhath - forge staff, stokers, bellows-men, fuellers, quenchers.
Rabuthat - member of the horse corps, who provided messengers, mounts for officers. The Khereseth had no real cavalry, preferring to fight on foot.
Rabut – horse.
Rikheth - household controllers, those who oversaw the running of households gathered around the forge.
Rokhuseth - the Forge Masters.
Rushat - swordcraft, its study and practice.
Teth - outside the forge.
Sath - the verb to come, to arrive from somewhere else.
Khurota - hand, the unit of five in peace time.
Sariath - the 125-strong unit.
Sharath - senior captain, commanding a Sariath.
Shethara - armour, its study and practice.
Khith - tutor or trainer of Khereseth warriors only.
Shakhoth - the forge that specialised in crossbows.
Thakhir - the 25-strong unit.
Takhrat - a quarter-captain.
Thesharut - literally 'small blades' the study of daggers and the shorter swords.
Shethorat - armourer, one of a twinned pair who lived at each forge. Along with his berathor, he would work on all aspects of armour and shield.
Rashithor - sword maker.
Shuth - a ward, sub-division of the Ashioth.
Eshothat - officer in charge of a Shuth.
Tathish - trainer of foreign troops.
Oshir – livestock.
Oshireth - bondsmen who looked after the Khereseth livestock.
Shakha - the study and science of mechanical weapons.
Khushoth - fist, the unit of five at war.
Shikoroth - the herd masters.
Karath - an overseer. This word was used not only for the overseers of herd bondsmen but also for those who organised the acquisition, processing and care of slaves.

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.

Elesalia - a world is born.

As I’m going to be running a sandbox in my campaign world, and will be making references to the world and its history, I thought that it would be a good idea to introduce it and its creative process, as well as many of the events, personalities and such like that exist therein.

Ever since I started to reactivate my interest in D&D, I had known that I would need a campaign world. I enjoy world design, so much so that I could do it all day as my good buddy Old 4 Eyes knows (and if anyone wants some world-building sub-contracted, I’m your man). So, rather than start with a blank sheet of hex paper and work out from a starting base, I wanted to get the world sketched out and then zoom in, making progressively more detailed maps until I had an area that I considered was suitable for setting the sandbox in.

There’s been a lot of talk just recently about the virtues or otherwise of keeping the campaign focused, of not creating more than you have to, of too much detail cramping creativity.

This may well be true for some DMs. However, as will be seen, the size of the world that I have set about creating is such that months, if not years of creating detail will never fill it to the extent that there is nothing more to say about it. With reference to an example, I know – thanks to my world history – that 360 years before the present, the Iron Legion, an army of vengeful dwarves set off to liberate their mountains from a horde of humanoids and were never seen again. That’s all I need to know at present. That’s the level of detail that I want to have when working on my campaign. I can now drop hints and suggestions into play without having to write a 100-page story about what happened to the Legion. I’m sure that I’ll find out. But I had to have that initial detail done, so that future creations ‘on the fly’ don’t contradict what I’ve already created. Otherwise, the entire campaign might as well be run on retcon.

I knew that I wanted the campaign world to have certain things in it. I sat down and listed out the features that I wanted it to have, the sort of things that I could imagine leading to whole series of adventures, such as

A young civilisation, rising from a period of chaos and war.
Large distances to make for epic journeys – not a case of “Oh, the temple of XXXX? That’s a couple of hours in that direction”
Pirates and corsairs.
A long-fallen empire of evil magic.
A wide variety of terrain types and landscapes.
Wild, humanoid-infested wilderness where hard-pressed humans strive to hack a civilisation out of the chaos.
Desert cities, full of mysterious viziers, fat sultans, houris, lost cities drowned under seas of sand
Settled lands – a wide valley of little kingdoms and baronies, all with the potential for conflict if need be.
A doughty fastness from which adventurers could go off to explore the wildlands.
Explanation for the animosity between dwarves and elves.
Towering mountains beneath which swarm countless multitudes of humanoids.
Wild northern barbarian hordes.
Mercantile city port, full of travellers, adventurers, freebooters, rogues – a bit like Lankhmar.
Stronghold of magic, wisdom and lore.
Fallen and ruined cities, full of peril and ancient treasure.
Major city, the nexus and hub of all goings on in the world – comes complete with ruined city and dangerous sewers and catacombs.
Slave merchants.
Hobbit nomads – the diametric opposite of Tolkien’s homebodies.
Giants in the mountains.
A dark forest where evil secrets lurk.
A tough clan of warriors with super-sharp swords who fell against the forces of evil many years ago.
Clans of elves, taking a paternalistic and distant view of the human johnny-come-latelies.
A sinister band of assassins and spies who have been driven underground (but not defeated) by the forces of good.
A lost cavern complex infested by undead but home to fabulous riches.
Dragons to be a natural predator menace, but not some organised force for evil.

I also wanted a milieu into which any of the existing modules could be dropped if I needed to use them. For example, I needed mountains for the G modules, a string of islands where a slaver confederacy lived for the A modules, a recently vanquished evil cult for T1-4, a large marshy area for the location of Tomb of Horrors, etc.

After a couple of abortive attempts at drawing up a world map, both of which failed to pass my notoriously self-critical standards, I went back to the drawing board and started to google ‘world building’, hoping that there was some advice on the net. For sure, I found a lot of how-to and step-by-step sites, the advice in which I absorbed, but then by serendipitous chance, I came across the website of Chris Wayans, a site that I thoroughly recommend to world-builders and anyone interested in speculative geography.

http://www.worlddreambank.org/P/PLANETS.HTM

Chris takes Earth and spins it through a number of different scenarios, from extreme global warming resulting in a rise in ocean levels, through a steady-state ice age, an Earth turned over on its side, and an Earth wholly inverted. I’ve used several of the images to prompt continent-building for the campaign world of my good buddy Old 4 Eyes, for whom I am doing some cartographic design work.

The results of Wayans’ experiments are fascinating but what caught my eye was on the world named Jaredia (for Jared Diamond and his book Guns, Germs and Steel) a map of an ice-free Antarctica.




The more I looked at it, the more it started to feel as if I’d stumbled across a serendipitous nugget of inspiration. It seemed to have everything I was looking for and seemed to be about the same size as Greyhawk. I could hear the sound of boxes being ticked.

Using some rather low-tech devices, like tracing the map onto plain paper by holding both up against a window on a sunny day, I soon had a version that was ready to be fleshed out; very little work was required to turn the original Wayans map into my own campaign world.

For a long time, it had no name, but I thought recently that if I was going to share it with others on this blog, it was going to have to be named. And a few shuffles of letters later, its title came to be.

Elesalia.



(my apologies for the cropping,as I'm only just mastering the art of scanning to jpeg).

In the next post in this series, I’ll be zooming in on one particular part of the world and explaining how I set about making the sandbox.