The Children of Vaeturia

So, the OSR Discord’s been playing around with a neural network webtoy that you feed a prompt like “Available player character classes are fighter, magic-user, cleric,” and the network completes it with “… ursine or wizard.” and a bunch of other material yoinked from various RPG sites.

So of course I fed it some lines about the history of the Nine and Thirty Kingdoms setting to see what came up.

The odd book review at the end might be interesting at some point, but the first part got me thinking about secret kingdoms that call themselves “The Children of Vaeturia”. They were real physical kingdoms, founded shortly after the end of the Wyrm Times, but something happened and all their towns, cities, fortresses, and armies were shifted into an ethereal state. So, they can see and hear the real world, but in general can’t interact with it.

Individual citizens of “The Children” have found ways to re-materialize, but the bulk of the kingdom inhabitants are trapped in a shadowy existence. Those with the ability to re-materialize work as agents for these shadow kingdoms, destabilizing “real” kingdoms and searching for powerful magic that can re-materialize their kingdoms completely, re-establishing themselves as real, geographical kingdoms.

In some cases, younger kingdoms may have built new settlements on land ethereally occupied by “The Children”. They will just have to go. Inexplicable acts of arson. Ghosts driving people out of the territory.

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9 and 30 Kingdoms Campaign: Player Handout

You may remember the world-building handouts posts (Part I, Part II, Part III) that I did a while back to illustrate some things I was saying about keeping campaign background information to a minimum, so that players don't have to memorize massive amounts of information just to play. I promised to do a sample handout showing which bits of world-building background would be available to players.

It's done, and you can down load it here: 9and30handout1.pdf.

It's two pages, but only one page is written information. The first page is a local map, just a quick reference for what is nearby and the names of a select few distant places. There's actually another tiny map showing the entire Great Fettered Sea on the actual handout page. It took a little bit of time to do the main map, but not as long as I was expecting. The hard part, really, was including it in the PDF with the proper resolution and placement.

For reference, here is a phone pic of the original map I used about ... five years ago, I think? It's pretty crude and beat up. And really, that was the only handout I used at the time. I did give a quick run-down at the time of a couple bits of information that are in the new handout, but I really didn't take that long to explain the setting. It's a pretty simple setting.

World-Building Handouts, Part III: Starting Area

Continuing the player handouts series:

1. Part I
2. Part II

(These are in response to a discussion on the handouts list post.)

Kingdoms Factoids

• Very distant kingdoms include Lesanggio and Deogosika.
• Somewhat distant kingdoms on the way to the sea: Seraphia, Senanpa, Sofaria, Senalia, Soconia, Tir na Diabhal.
• Home base is Port Skar along the banks of the Scarlet River where it is joined by the Great Murky River

The first two factoids are only hinted at, mainly on the local map handout. Originally, I only indicated Sofaria and Tir na Diabhal as direction arrows at the edge of the local map and didn’t mention other kingdoms.

In the Nine and Thirty Kingdoms, a kingdom (or barony, duchy, principality) rarely contains more than one city, from which the territory generally takes its name. That city controls several towns, villages, and hamlets.

Local Landmarks Factoids

• West of the Scarlet River is mostly fields and farmland, while east of the river becomes wild forest and hills.
• Nearby settlements Norskar, Weskar, Suskar, Arkandia
• Major landmarks: Devil’s Tower, Ivory Tower, Giant’s Causeway, Ziggurat of Mammon
• Nearby points of interest: Jagged Monolith, Mystic Dome, Dark Spiral Chasm

Only the first one of these is a player factoid, but some of the remaining information is on the local map handout.

My original map handout is kind of messy and hard to scan, but I plan on working up a new version with a sample handout collecting the info from this series.

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World-Building Handouts, Part II: History and Culture

Continuing with my handouts examples (see Part I here,) this time zooming in to history and culture factoids. This means I’m skipping over 2-6 in the original handouts list because it makes more sense in the context of my Nine and Thirty Kingdoms world. I’ll come back to those in future parts of the series.

History Factoids

• Thousands of years ago, Vaeturia conquered or colonized the entire coastline of the Great Fettered Sea, establishing a mighty and advanced empire.
• In The Wyrm Times, enormous vadwyrms destroyed most of civilization and scattered humanity.
• Three centuries later, dozens of tiny kingdoms, all a pale shadow of the nearly-forgotten empire, compete to become its replacement.
• Most monsters, including the vadwyrms, were created during Vaeturia’s decline.
• The island of Vaeturia still exists somewhere near the center of the Great Fettered Sea.

Again, only the first three factoids (in bold italics) would be included in the player handout. The last two wouldn’t be difficult to learn by asking the right scholars, but other information is GM-only and developed as needed: how and why the vadwyrms and other monsters were made, why things went out of control, how to get to Vaeturia, and what may be found there.

Religion Factoids

• After The Wyrm Times, a religious schism created the dominant monotheistic Church of Urizen and drove believers in the rest of the old pantheon underground.
• The Fist of Urizen crushes remnants of the old faith and heretical ideas about Urizen.
• The distant West revived belief in Urizen’s female companion as the Mysteries of Ahania, while a small mystical cult, the Children of Los, tries to maintain the full pantheon.
• Druids follow the old pantheon, mostly Urthona, but Chaos Druids and orcs revere Red Orc (not necessarily the same way.)
• The original schism began before The Wyrm Times, not after.

The first two factoids go on the player handout. The third can be discovered during play. If players ask, The Church of Urizen is roughly equivalent to the medieval Catholic Church, with saints and the like. Their relationship with the Mysteries of Ahania is similar to that of Christianity and Islam just before the Crusades. The Children of Los are basically Qabalists.

William Blake is the source of the pantheon, of course, but I use his ideas very loosely and don’t expect any player to read or memorize anything from Blake. In fact, I prefer players to make up their own religious beliefs about Urizen. It helps encourage heresy.

Cultural Factoids

• Languages change quickly over short distances
• Magic is unpopular in rural areas and with some urban commoners, especially witchcraft (any magic that doesn’t rely on books/scrolls.)

This section is short, because most cultural details will be generated as needed during play, using the guidelines already established.

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World-Building and Player Handouts, Part I: Cosmic and Continental

It seems like ages ago when I wrote about limiting info in handouts so that players – including yourself – don’t have to do tons of homework to play in the world. A couple people asked for a walk-through for the “factoid” approach I suggested, which means in general only describing each thing with about three short sentences and only filling in the details on the immediate locale. I’m going to break up the example over a series of posts.

Cosmic Scale Factoids

• Isolated Fairy-tale Europe tiny kingdoms in a seemingly endless wilderness centuries after an apocalypse
• Anything in European legend or Greek/Roman myth is common knowledge, even if few if any have seen these things
• Humans are the norm, but there about a couple thousand elves, dwarves, and orcs in the world. Any other “race” is one of a kind or just a handful of individuals
• Monsters don’t breed, they are created by magical accidents or lingering curses in regions.
• There are no other “planes”, but there are ethereal and astral states. There is an invisible topography co-existing with the physical world.
• The gods may or may not exist, but faith does exist, and lesser spirits can be commanded by those of strong faith.

The first three bold italic factoids would be in the player handout as something players would need to know to understand the campaign. The other three factoids are mostly for the GM, although players could learn these things in various ways. Long-time readers of my blog will have seen previous posts on all these factoids. Factoid #5 about the absence of planes is covered in the Infernal Neighbors posts and PDF, for example, and Factoid #6 is Clerics Without Spells.

Continent Factoids

Normally, factoids at this level would begin with the name of the starting continent, but because of the first factoid above, among other things, “continents” aren’t even necessarily common knowledge.

• The Great Fettered Sea is like a supersized Mediterranean Sea turned 90 degrees clockwise, with the northern straits leading into the sea blocked by the Endless Ice
• Middle regions on both sides of the sea are mostly forest and mountains, while the southern coast is more arid.
• For improvising details of distant coastal kingdoms, use the equivalent Mediterranean country for the equivalent language and culture.
• The further inland you travel, the weirder things become.

Again, only the first two factoids would be included in a player handout, perhaps with a crude map like the one below.

The third factoid merely means that, if a player asks a question about distant lands I haven’t mapped yet, I use medieval versions of existing reference points. You can see on the map that I have an elongated “clock” superimposed on the crude suggested coastline, and there are different coastal regions labeled based on what country they would be if this really were the Mediterranean rotated 90 degrees. Spain is roughly 2 o’clock, France at 3 o’clock, Italy at 3:30, and Greece at 4 o’clock.

But also, I match up the east coast of the sea with the west coast of North America, so each coastal region is a pseudo-medieval cross between a Mediterranean country and a modern day Pacific Coast urban area. France, in this case, is also the San Francisco Bay area, the dominant city being Sofaria. The starting locale in my campaign is upriver from the pseudo-French kingdoms, in Port Skar, which is on the edge of where things begin to get weird.

History and culture factoids will be covered in the second post of the series.

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The Hoarded God

East of Port Scar there is a heretic temple called the House of Authority. The bearded brotherhood of the House do not worship Urizen, Ahania, or even the rebel gods Urthona or Red Orc, but some unknown deity they refer to as The Hoarded God. The brethren are known for making enigmatic statements about The Hoarded God, such as "I keep my god in the bottom of my chest" and "I keep my god behind me." When asked what this means, the brethren only smile and say no more.

The inquisition of Urizen in Port Scar has made much noise about doing "something" about the cult of the Hoarded God, but so far the Council of the Scarred has held firm to their principle of "Open hostility closes markets." A decade ago, the Fist of the Faith formed a lynch mob to march on the House of Authority with the intent of dragging the brethren from their temple and setting them to the Yoke of Urizen, but returned empty handed and subdued, saying only "the House wasn't there." Since the temple was plainly visible the next day, no one is sure what happened. But those who joined the mob never brought up the subject again.

Dungeon Tax

A couple days ago, Zak posted about how dumb the tax to enter Castle Greyhawk in a late-edition module was. And yesterday, Peter looked at dungeon taxes more closely, trying to separate good versions of the idea from bad versions of the idea.

I don't think it's out of the question, since in many other cases, there's a tax on treasure or goods when you enter a city. And in the official rules, there's a cost of living charge of 1% on all treasure (Per week? Per month? Still under debate...) which presumably includes taxes, without any associated role-playing. Essentially, that becomes a tax on entering the dungeon that's been postponed until after you leave.

There's a tax or fee to enter Blackmoor dungeons, I think. I was just reading The First Fantasy Campaign and seem to recall that. But that is a dungeon in the middle of a town. I think some kind of official control of entry into a dungeon is not only reasonable, but necessary, if the dungeon is in or extremely close to a settlement. Of course, in some cases, the "control" is a patrol that keeps people away, unless bribed.

I had a plan for a dungeon near Port Skar in the 9 and 30 Kingdoms setting. After the wormpocalypse, one exposed exit point of a great worm allowed access to phenomenal raw gems, which triggered the boom that resulted in the founding of Port Skar. The easy pickings on the upper levels are mostly tapped out, and the lower levels are dangerous, but there's still some traffic, and there are guards in place. I'd certainly set up some kind of legal restriction on lower level access, but I think I'll make an outright tax something the city already tried, provoking outrage. The city's income is now a tax on trade.

The eZine and the Kingdoms

I've been debating whether to include 9 and 30 Kingdoms setting material in the ezine. I've been getting the urge to write up some of my campaign ideas as material to be used by others, particularly the elf and goblin material. But it doesn't quite fit the focus of an ezine I plan to call "The Last-Minute GM". I'm conceiving it as being mostly practical tools, rather than campaign-specific interpretations.

Perhaps instead I should plan one or more modules/adventures, each focused around a specific 9 and 30 Kingdoms-related concept, plus additional material related to that concept. For example:

• A goblin dungeon built around my idea of insane, semi-intelligent goblins instead of a " savage humanoid race with a legitimate, if primitive, culture", with a section on the goblin backstory from the 9 and 30 Kingdoms, which can be adopted by others as the backstory for all goblins in their campaign or just one small tribe.
• An adventure to find/loot one of the lost elven homelands destroyed by the worms, again with the material on elves and other backstory that can be adopted for your entire world or just for that adventure area.
• An adventure that features both neutral and chaotic orcs and chaos druids, plus backstory for the cult of Red Orc.

It's very tempting, but I have no idea how interested people are in really divergent interpretations of the traditional races.

The Way Scrolls Look

All this talk about cantrip scrolls makes me want to post a little about the way scrolls look. I can't be certain, but I'm guessing most people imagine a scroll to be about the width of a tabloid newspaper, but instead of multiple stacked sheets, the sheets are connected at the top and bottom, with small rods attached to either end, so that when the scroll is rolled up, it's a tube a little over a foot long and about as thick as a half-used toilet paper roll. (Not the half that flushes...) This would mean that the incantation written on such a scroll would be rather wordy and should take a pretty long time to read aloud, unless maybe there are a lot of large magical symbols embedded in the text which the caster skips over during the incantation, but which magically glow as each is viewed. Perhaps a scroll of this size takes at least a half-turn to read/cast, making it impractical for combat casting, but fine for things like Knock or Wizard Lock?

In contrast, some people think of scrolls more in terms of a legal-size piece of parchment that's been rolled up. The text on the scroll is shorter and more reasonable for use at the beginning of combat, if not actually in the middle of combat; you could imagine such a scroll taking a single round to read. Also, it's much less of a burden than the other style of scroll. The "tabloid scroll" would probably be about as cumbersome as a dagger, but the "one-page scroll" would maybe be only half a pound. This difference in scroll models may explain why some people were shocked at Brendan's suggestion that 5 scrolls would weigh the same as 5 daggers; those people probably see the ratio closer to 4 scrolls = 1 dagger.

I see scrolls in a more extreme way, more like traditional talismans than scrolls.  I think of a little square of parchment with symbols and names of power inscribed on it. The parchment is rolled into a small tube, sealed with wax, and an invocation phrase written on the outside. The whole "scroll" is no bigger than a finger, or one of those "horoscope scrolls" you can buy at grocery store check-out counters. The weight is negligible; ten to twenty of them would fit in a belt pouch and would weigh the same as a dagger. The big problem with such scrolls is not the weight, but the cost... and keeping them sorted so that you can find the right scroll when you need it. To invoke the power of this kind of scroll, I envision a magic-user reciting the magic words while breaking the seal; breaking the seal releases the power, and the magic words direct the power instead of allowing it to dissipate. A side effect of this viewpoint is that "talismanic scrolls" don't burst into flame or crumble to dust when their power is evoked; the seal can only be broken once, so there's no need for it to be magically consumed.

If you want to go the other extreme, think about sacred scrolls for various religions: rods about three feet long and long, long sheets of paper, with the whole think being about as bulky as a backpack. These are an armful, and are probably better suited as a model for alternative spellbooks than as individual spells. You could use this model for extremely rare ritual spells, though, such as if you don't allow memorization of 7th level or higher spells, but allow them as scroll items. Figure these would take one hour per spell level to read and may even require assistants to unfurl the scroll for the magic-user.

As you can see, the fluff surrounding scrolls can have a big impact on actual play.

20 Questions, Part V: Magic and Miscellany

Here's the last part of my answers to the 20 questions:

15. How are traps located? Description, dice rolling, or some combination?
    5+ on d6 when blundering along or to notice hidden clues when moving carefully. Other actions make traps noticeable without rolls: see my post on search techniques.
16. Are retainers encouraged and how does morale work?
    Get retainers, get hirelings! Typical hirelings desert on 5+ (on d6) when any hireling is injured (use damage roll,) or when facing magic, supernatural, or superior forces (separate d6 roll.) Extra roll if leader seems to be defeated or betrays them, or if party takes 50% losses, and again at 90% losses. Loyalty determines morale adjustment.
17. How do I identify magic items?
    Standard spell research rules, for safe ID. Otherwise, trial and error.
18. Can I buy magic items? Oh, come on: how about just potions?
    If you can find an M-U, you can buy scrolls. Potions usually require a wizard, who is much harder to find, but a priest may have blessed healing potions. Otherwise, you must commission magic items from a wizard.
19. Can I create magic items? When and how?
    M-Us can make scrolls at any level, 100 gp/spell level. Otherwise, only wizards can make items. Use standard spell research rules.
20. What about splitting the party?
    Probably not a good idea, but you can risk it. Avoid secret communication whenever possible.

I won't cover searching for traps, since I've covered it in detail earlier. The d6 roll is basically a save, not a skill roll. The morale rules are standard, except that I've switched to 1d6 to make such rolls easier; I can use the damage roll for the first person struck to determine what the hirelings do, and if there are large groups, roll a handful of d6s, 1 per 5 hirelings, to see how many bolt. I also use this as a "following orders in combat"  test, when things get confusing. The TPK featured the fleeing hireling not dropping a bag of treasure that the players suspected was cursed. He didn't register what he was hearing for a while.

The magic rules are mostly pretty standard, except that high-level NPCs are rare and I've added the Holmes modification to scroll creation.

If the players split the party, I try not to use note-passing or pulling characters aside for secret sessions. I don't generally care if some players hear the description of a monster only one character can see; if they're fairly close, I assume there's some shouting, and if they're far, the other PCs can "on a hunch" run to help another PC. It keeps everyone involved. The recent posts on doppelgangers and possession indicate some of my thoughts on how to avoid secret communication even in more extreme situations.

20 Questions, Part IV: Bookkeeping

This installment of the 20 questions deals with the two big areas of bookkeeping: encumbrance and experience.

12. How strictly are encumbrance & resources tracked?
    Countable resources (like torches): strict. Encumbrance: Loose.
13. What's required when my PC gains a level? Training? Do I get new spells automatically? Can it happen in the middle of an adventure, or do I have to wait for down time?
    Must return to town to gain a level. Training is required for switching classes or gaining non-class abilities, but not for level increases. Spells must be researched.
14. What do I get experience for?
    Treasure, defeating monsters, other.

I have been asking players if they are marking off torches and oil, but I should probably keep track of them myself as well. I haven't been tracking encumbrance very well, though. My intention is to only track it in terms of masses equivalent to the character: human characters can carry up to half their own weight at Move 9 or up to their own weight at Move 6, with anything more (up to twice their weight) halving Move again. But maybe I'll measure it out in "sackfulls". One large sack holds 300 gp, and the typical human is equivalent to 6 to 8 sackfulls. So, eyeball current encumbrance, figure out how many more sacks they could carry, and just count sacks.

Increasing levels and gaining spells are pretty much by the book. I figure if the character can switch to another class (prime ability 16+,) there's a restriction that the character must reach at least 2nd level in the current class and must go through some kind of training: find or purchase a 1st level spell book and learn how to cast spells, spend some time at a church or monastery in prayer, or train with multiple weapons. Figure the base costs for training equals the minimum amount of experience needed to gain your first level in that class: 2,500 gp for M-Us, 2,000 gp for fighters, 1,500 gp for clerics, 1,200 gp for thieves. This is the "crash course" price of training for 1 week; deduct 2,000 gp to become an M-U if you have captured a 1st level spell book, reduce the remaining cost based on the reaction of the trainer (i.e. they're willing to cut a deal,) and divide the cleric cost by the number of weeks spent in service to the church.

I'm pretty standard on what gets an xp award. Monsters: 100 xp/HD (but no adjustment for special abilities, so pick your battles!) Treasure: 1xp/gp, must be brought back to town and spent or otherwise ostentatiously displayed. I'm considering an additional award for other actions, probably a variant of the rule I've proposed before: base ability score x10 xp for extraordinary acts to impress others.

20 Questions, Part III: Threats

These three questions from Brendan's 20 questions deal with what kind of threats the players can expect to face.

9. Will we need to run from some encounters, or will we be able to kill everything?
    Yes, but just about anything can be defeated in some way, if not killed.
10. Level-draining monsters: yes or no?
    Yes, but recovery is easier.
11. Are there going to be cases where a failed save results in PC death?
    Yes, but if you think you can prevent it, try it!

I can't think of any monster that cannot under any circumstances be killed, but I won't rule it out. There will definitely not be much balance in my dungeons, though. I have been keeping the danger pretty low so far, but even that resulted in a TPK last time we played.

So far, level drainers haven't shown up. However, when they do, I will explain that the characters lose levels but not xp, a house rule I've explained previously. Thus, you can regain one level per adventure until you are back to normal.

We've already had one failed poison save resulting in a character nearly dying, but last-minute intervention averted actual death. So death as a consequence of a single failed roll is possible, but it can be circumvented with a clever response.

20 Questions, Part II: Combat

Part II of my answers to Brendan's questions covers basic changes to the combat rules.

5. Initiative: individual, group, or something else?
    Based on surprise, Dex, and weapon length.
6. Are there critical hits and fumbles? How do they work?
    Situational only.
7. Do I get any benefits for wearing a helmet?
    Helmets (and shields) shall be splintered!
8. Can I hurt my friends if I fire into melee or do something similarly silly?
    Yes (5+ on d6 if you miss your target.)

I don't use standard initiative at all.  Based on my research, initiative was originally just a roll to see which player goes first, with the actual order of effects based on weapon length. I've been mostly going on weapon length only: first strike to the longer weapon, longer weapon also goes first when fighting animals or other tooth-and-claw attacks, but otherwise shorter weapon goes first. I'm going to change that a bit, keeping "longer weapon gets first strike," but otherwise going in Dex order (substituting Move for Dex for most monsters.) Weapon length is now a tie breaker.

I don't do "crit on 20, fumble on 1". Instead, I'm only using critical hits or fumbles in specific situations (magic-user wielding a two-hand sword in close formation? OK, but on a missed attack, roll a d6 to see if you hit a friend.) The firing into mêlée example in question #8 is one such "fumble".

I mentioned in passing at the beginning of our local games that I will be using "Shields Shall Be Splintered", but no one's tried it. I should make it more explicit in a written handout, and mention that helmets, like shields, can be sacrificed to block damage. This decision must be made before damage is rolled, and some attacks may prevent such a response (helmets are ineffectual against snakes biting your leg, for example.)

20 Questions, Part I: Characters

Lots of people have been putting up lists of their house rules, based on these 20 questions posed by Brendan on the Untimately blog. I wasn't going to participate, originally, even though I do need to get together some kind of house rules handout for my group. But then I realized I haven't had much else to post about lately, so I might as well go for it. In the interest of keeping it from being a dry list, though, I'm going to break the questions up into sections and add an explanation of my answers. And, as it turns out, the questions do separate pretty clearly into sections: Questions 1-4 are about character creation/replacement, 5-8 are about combat, 9-11 are about threats, 12-14 are about bookkeeping, and 15-20 are miscellaneous (with a block of magic item questions in the middle.)

Part I deals with how to create characters, when you will be forced to replace them, and how replacements will be integrated into the party.

1. Ability scores generation method?
    3d6 in order
2. How are death and dying handled?
    Damage => hp = death in 1 turn, in most cases.
3. What about raising the dead?
    If you can find someone who can do it. Survival check to see how intact the body is.
4. How are replacement PCs handled?
    Can take over hireling mid-adventure, otherwise join party at town.

There's not much to say about the ability scores, other than to emphasize that low scores are not bad scores, when talking to someone new to OD&D. Damage requires more explanation: I prefer to add up damage instead of subtract from hp. The upshot of this is that once the total damage is equal to hp, the character is dying; excess damage is ignored. For standard death in combat, "dying" means death in 1 turn unless some action is taken: a coup de grace by an enemy or first aid or magic from an ally. Some attacks (beheading) count as an immediate coup de grace, while others (psychic attacks) don't cause death, but some other effect, like a coma.

I've mentioned before that I have a much sparser distribution of high-level types in the world of the 9 and 30 Kingdoms, so the problem with raising the dead is finding someone able to do it. Players should expect to lose some characters forever. I do plan on using a "survival check", basically a system shock roll, to see if the body is intact enough to raise from the dead, but failure doesn't mean permanent death; it means permanent death until steps are taken to correct the problem. I do not dock Con points for resurrection.

I'm not that fussy about how a replacement PC joins the party. If the PCs trust the new person immediately, merely because the players know the new character is a player character, that's up to them.

Oops!

TPK today, Partly because it was a small party, and partly because I may have made a normally weak monster more dangerous than I should have.  I'll have more on what I intend to do about that tomorrow, after I rest up.

First Kill

We had our first death of the new campaign. Dern the Dwarf is Deceased. Slain by a rather large worm with paralytic saliva. There were almost two other deaths from a pack of rat-sized beetles, but the party made it out alive with a chest full of a substantial number of coins. They managed to haul that chest up the 180-foot shaft of the Great Spiral Stair using nothing but a bunch of 50-foot ropes without incident; if that chest had dropped, man, it would have made a great noise.

Wheelbarrows

No really substantial posts planned for today, but I'm about a third of the way through this article on the history of the wheelbarrow and it's pretty damned interesting. Not only does it provide some useful information about transportation in a low-tech setting, it's pretty good at capturing the feel of a setting like what I'm aiming for in The Nine and Thirty Kingdoms campaign: any infrastructure that may have once existed has decayed so much that it's nearly useless, and people stick close to the rivers as their primary transport, but would use things like carts and wheelbarrows for the rare times they depart from the waterways.

Unprepped Mayhem

The second session of my new local OD&D group went well, despite the fact that I prepped two dungeons and a couple miscellaneous encounters which the adventurers never found, instead going to a ruined tower across the river I'd just barely started on. But I had some material to rely on:

- I had drawn some floor plans for "standard towers". I even knew that there would be a "standard tower dungeon" with barracks, prison, storage and armory, so I could use that as my "Level One".

- I had a random encounter key for woods in the general area. I may have intended for the adventurers to explore the woods on the village side of the river, but I had something to fall back on when they surprised me.

- I had a "local mythology". I knew there was a now-eradicated "old faith", so I knew that the Elder Tower was tied into that old faith, and to its eradication. I could answer questions about the history of the tower, even before I'd consciously worked it out.

So I had something to work with; I wasn't completely in the dark. And not being prepped may be a blessing in disguise, because I intended for this dungeon to be the really tough one in the area. If I'd written everything out, not realizing the players would pick that as their second adventure, it would have been a TPK. Now, I can scale it down from what I was originally planning...

(Actually, although I'd barely started designing the Elder Tower, I did have a few notes already. Including my version of stirges roosting in the upper levels (I don't call them stirges, but it's the same basic idea: bloodsucking evil birds.) Turns out the stirges came close to killing a few party members, but fortunately they've survived, so the adventure can continue when we all come back from vacation.)

The Nine and Thirty Kingdoms Live!

I haven't GMed in a while, only played, because of travel and schedule issues, but I got to GM for a small group today in what now seems to be the first of several sessions. And that means I got to use the actual Nine and Thirty Kingdoms "sketchbox" setting I've been talking about. The session went well, although the party came close to ticking off the locals a couple times. No enraged villagers with pitchforks yet, though!

The small party (elf, dwarf, cleric) spent a lot of time just trying to figure out how to get into one of the two dungeons I'd prepped for this area, but eventually they found the easier "backdoor". Centipedes were diced and smashed, skeletons were shattered, and the elf's Charm Person spell came at just the right moment to avoid what might have been a humiliating defeat at the hands of a tiny bat=winged humanoid made of stone. Technically, Charm Person probably shouldn't have worked, but I decided to give the spell a chance, and I ignored the fact that the elf was wearing plate, even though I'd said beforehand that spells require removing non-magical armor. Maybe I'll loosen that restriction to a one-third chance of successfully casting a spell while armored, modified by Dex.

The dwarf diligently checked and double checked for traps in every location except where two traps were actually present.

The cleric almost bit it when a centipede injected a mild poison, but wine saved the day!

Treasure haul was small, but we were all getting used to a new group and new setting, with two of the players being completely new to OD&D. Good times!

Medieval Tourism

I want to point everyone to a current event: the theft of the Codex Calixtinus from the Santiago de Compostela cathedral in northern Spain. The Codex is a book made for early 12th century pilgrims traveling to the cathedral.

I'm drawing attention to it not only because it's kind of shameful to think of the possible loss of a historical artifact because of greed, but also because the Codex itself illustrates something we should all know already about medieval times: people traveled. Not as much as today, certainly, nor as far, because transportation was pretty primitive. But there were many pilgrimage sites throughout Europe and established pilgrimage routes to reach them, with places to stop along the way. It was common enough that some guy named Chaucer was able to write a book about a large group of pilgrims traveling together telling each other tales. It was common enough that, after the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem was destroyed in the 11th century, the Muslim Caliph realized that Christian pilgrimage was a lucrative operation and allowed the Byzantines to rebuild it (but this action was too late to stop the Crusades.) After various epidemics (including the Black Death,) the Flagellants formed traveling self-mortification parades that went from city to city, preaching the end of the world and the need for extreme piety; Bergman depicts an example of this in The Seventh Seal.

Travel is more restricted in the Dark Ages, particularly after the Fall of Rome, because the ex-Legion Germanic warriors turned to banditry and conquest, carving out tiny kingdoms and basically threatening anyone trying to get from one place to another. This is why I chose this time period as my model for my Nine and Thirty Kingdoms setting I'm developing: it gives a claustrophobic feel, makes places a short ways away in the wilderness seem more mysterious, and makes the actions of adventurers more important.

Still, it's important to keep in mind that there are historical documents from these periods describing travelers arriving from distant locations and being accepted as news-bearers. Even if we take the extreme view that everything written in the Dark Ages and Middle Ages was complete fabrication, the people writing these tales seemed to think that other people sometimes traveled from one place to another, and there was nothing that strange about it, even if it was rare. If you want a medieval or merely medieval-ish feel in your game, you need to walk a tightrope, scaling way back from modern attitudes towards communication and travel, but not going so far as to depict medieval society as a bunch of isolationist idiots.