#golarion has some really cool settings

[honourablejester]

PF2e Alkenstar Character Concepts

Not the AP necessarily, just characters knocking around the city and its environs. I’ve been watching a youtube channel called Mythkeeper who goes into the lore of Golarion, and he recently had a regional deep dive on Alkenstar and the Mana Wastes. I’m loving the simultaneous noir, western, steampunk and fantasy vibes here. So. Some Alkenstari concepts:

Elda Willwright, dwarven gutter press journalist (printer background, investigator class, might also take the archaeologist archetype, in the sense of ‘digging up dirt’). Strongly built around the Society and Thievery skills, she has her fingers in a lot of pies and a lot of post boxes, and keeps particular tabs on gruesome murders around the city. For her readership, of course.

Ingra Darkrend, tiefling/dwarven back alley doctor and gunslinger. Re-using one of my first PF2e character concepts, but she fits really well, with just a little tweaking of her background to fit better into Alkenstar specifically. She works a lot in the Ironside Quarter and the Undercity, defiantly providing medical help to mutants and other undesirables. Will likely take the medic archetype along the way.

Lydie Low, fleshwarp back alley teacher (teacher background, rogue class). One of the aforementioned undesirables, Lydie was a respected instructor back in the day, but a mana storm mishap put an end to that. Now a resident of the Undercity, she knows she’ll never regain the respect her education once brought her, but other people might. She runs hidden classes to try to give urchins, street toughs and whoever else wants them their basics of reading, writing and mathematics.

Thoughtful Claw, gnoll inventor with the saved by clockwork background. Mostly I wanted a bespectacled gnoll, but ‘work smarter not harder’ is a listed gnoll ideal, so inventor actually fits quite nicely. I feel like she got dragged in out of the desert missing a limb, and got herself a shiny clockwork replacement, and just got enchanted by the idea. Clockwork. Just fell head over heels. I’m also curious how that works with gnoll ancestor worship and bone recycling. Would your grandmother’s bronze clockwork prosthetic punching arm be a suitable vehicle of ancestor veneration?

Jessie Screwlark, human street urchin swashbuckler. Specifically the braggart swashbuckler. One of the many urchins from Hellside who spent their lives scrambling around the cliffside shanty town, Jessie is a scrappy, pugnacious little teenage hellion who’s bound and determined that she’s gonna be an Observer one day and fly dirigibles for the city. She’s got big dreams, and she talks to match.

Essaru/’Essi’, Iruxi wandering snake oil saleswoman and thaumaturge (charlatan background). A tough and breezily practical wanderer of the Spellscar desert who drifts into town every so often, Essi deals in little magics, both real and entirely false. There’s a fool born ever minute, and she sure can pick ‘em. And hey, sometimes the tinctures and talismans she sells are the real deal. Just for a change of pace on occasion. Or if she likes you.

I’m trying really hard not to make them all dwarves. But. I also love both gnolls and lizardfolk, and I adore fleshwarps, so the Mana Wastes and their small mutation problem is a fantastic excuse to make some. And I’ll throw in a human too, just because they’re a lot of the population of the city. Class-wise, because of the whole ‘unstable magic’ thing, I have largely erred away from spellcasters, which is fine, because I’m liking the western vibe. This is such a fun setting!

[dailycharacteroption]

Forgefather’s Seeker (Paladin Archetype)

(art by Straban on DeviantArt)

Another paladin archetype today! And this one comes from… Ah, Construct Handbook again.

I’ve made my general disappointment with the book well-known, with the dearth of character options meant to make building constructs more fun and easier, and the overabundance of archetypes that are just for destroying them, so I don’t think I have to go into that again.

And yet, here we are, with another archetype centered around the destruction of constructs. It’s cool, we’ll just gird our loins and try to remember the things we actually like about the book.

The head of the dwarven pantheon, Torag, is not simply a god of the forge and of creation, but also one of righteousness and good. As such, he passes judgement upon creators for what they create, and what they use their creations for.

When someone creates constructs through vile means, such as those fueled by souls, suffering, and the like, or that are used for horrible acts such as slaughtering innocents, the Forgefather frowns upon such deeds, and his Seekers, warrior paladins that revere his aspect as a patron of artificers, may be guided by his hand to bring low such constructs.

Of course, you could theoretically use this archetype with any deity with the artifice domain that a paladin could reasonably worship, but obviously what constitutes the proper use of constructs will vary by deity.

Additionally, while the majority of these warriors in the Golarion setting may be dwarves, there is no such restriction.

Unsurprisingly, these holy beings can sense constructs, as well as any aura they might have, useful if the construct is sapient can capable of morality.

Their smite is geared towards destroying constructs as well. While it can be used on other targets, it is weaker, and has no special benefit against the classic paladin enemies.

They can also grant this special smite to allies, unsurprisingly.

The weapons that they and nearby allies wield are also blessed to pierce the durable materials that constructs are typically made from as well.

Naturally, the power these paladins wield at the zenith of their abilities is also modified. While they still gain greater protection and produce exceptional healing from their touch, instead of banishing fiends, they can attempt to unmake a smote construct with a single blow.

Constructs are a relatively rare creature type, depending on the campaign, so taking this archetype and being effective really depends on what sort of game your GM is crafting. In a traditional dungeon crawler it may see moderate use, while others might not get much out of it at all. Meanwhile, a campaign set in a region undergoing a technological revolution might benefit from their special abilities every single session. In any case, most of their abilities not tied to smiting or fighting certain foes remain intact, so you can still build them as a support combatant.

Of course, as the executioners of wayward constructs, the tools of slaughter, and their creators, we can’t help but wonder how they interact with fully sapient constructs, such as the construct-like androids and of course any construct that achieves sapience either by itself or by design. Do they quietly judge these beings, or welcome them as children of a new and wondrous form of life? How bitter must it be to have to destroy a sapient construct that refuses to see a way other than bloodshed and evil?

Dollhouse is a commune of soulbound constructs and awakened poppets that exists above the ramshackle streets of Shalan’s docks district. While people know of the community, some suspect they may harbor evil constructs in their midst, which has the Gearguard interested.

The ruins of the sunken civilization of Paradi have long been haunted by not just undead, but also the machines that once served as their primary offensive force. Among the cecaelia that also live in these ancient cities, there are those that take on the mantle of construct-hunters, empowered by their god to destroy these ancient idols of hubris and bloodshed.

A dread infection from beyond the stars has come to this world. It is a mechanical malady that slowly transforms flesh, living, dead, or undead, into mechanical equivalents, creating hybrid horrors that serve the source of this plague. What’s more, the illness has claimed many champions, such as the graveknight Brondstein and his vukoldlak steed. Specialists that can fight effectively against these mechanical horrors are needed.

[monstersdownthepath]

Do you have any favorite dnd settings?

None of them have really captured me to the same extent Golarion has! though I suppose I can cheat and say that some of the realms from Magic: the Gathering visited by D&D are cool.

[queen-scribbles]

throwing the question back at you ;) Jas, how do you feel about your companions?

(answering as things currently stand in her game, so 5/6 of the way done, just finishing up with Irovetti, timeline wise)

“Let’s see, how do I feel about my companions…” She taps her chin with one fingers and swings her feet as she considers her reply. “Well, Amiri’s pretty cool,that’s for sure. Totally reckless and kinda bloodthirsty, which has been fun and frustrating by turns if I’m honest. But I love her enthusiasm, and she’s always ready for a fight, which is handy when you have so many people out for your hide.

“I appreciate Valerie’s… intensity? I guess you’d call it?” She shrugs and curls a lock of hair around her finger, tugging as she picks her next words. “She’s very stubborn and very loyal, both of which make her great to have watching your back. At first I thought she was being a little unreasonable with the paladins of Shelyn, but when I saw how far some of them were ready to take their devotion…. I can definitely see how that would be a wearying atmosphere if you were less gung-ho and not similarly minded. After our confrontation in the temple, I can’t really blame her any more. Still think she could be a little less vitriolic about the order as a whole; it was just a few of them who got really nasty where she was concerned.

“Linzi is the best! We talk all the time, and she’s such a talented writer, and I love having someone else around who’s almost always cheerful–well, Octavia does a pretty good job there, too-and of course, I’m honored she wants to tell my story.” Her lips quirk in a small, wry smile. “She does…. embellish a little more than I would in some spots, but that’s just Linzi. She’s so enthusiastic and excited about everything, it all gets cast in the most dramatic light possible, which I guess is part of why she’s such a great storyteller.” She giggles, bites her lip,.

“Um, who’s next…. “ Her nose wrinkles. “Y’know what, let’s get this out of the way. Jaethal always creeped me out. We disagreed about almost everything, and honestly, I’m surprised she stuck around long enough for things to end… the way they did.” She shifts uncomfortably in her chair and looks down at her lap. “And if I’d known they were going to end… like that, I never would’ve agreed to help her. So much death for absolutely nothing. It was awful and gave me nightmares for days. 

“On a less grim, if still somber, note, Harrim’s a gloomy gus, but I think he cares more about his people than he admits. Or maybe even realizes. And Groetus has given him a lot of neat and really useful abilities that Tristian and I don’t have, so that’s really helpful.” She winks. “For all his groaning about death and the end of the world being inevitable, he’s sure saved me from it enough times since we met.

“Octavia and Reg… I kinda have to talk about the two of them together, don’t I?” She laughs. “They’re fun to have around, ‘specially Octavia. Reg doesn’t know when to stop sometimes, and” –she leans forward to whisper conspiratorially–”I’ve been really tempted to shove him in water troughs more times than I can count. But I’m too short, so I just roll my eyes and deal with it. I know he means it in fun. Most of the time. And Octavia’s really fun and sweet and had some really great ideas for things I could do with my hair.” She tugs on the loose lock again. “She’s one of only a few people who can handle this mess. And she somehow makes it look gorgeous whenever I let her do her thing to it. But great as it is to have a friend who can actually help me look the part of, well, Queen now, what I really love about her is her heart. She’s been through hell and came out determined to keep others from suffering like she did. She cares so much about people, especially the ones most would forget. It makes her a wonderful person to serve as regent and that’s a decision I’ve never regretted.

“Jubilost…. Jubilost is a piece of work, He’s a pompous, sarcastic ass, half the time his tongue might as well be coated in the acid he throws at people, and Dreamer save me, I’ve definitely wanted to strangle him on more than one occasion. But the man’s one of my best friends in the world, one I’ve thrown myself in front of various massive beasties to protect with neither regret nor hesitation.” She pulls up one side of her shirt, showing a scar along her ribs.  “Manticore thought gnome steaks sounded good for dinner ‘til I smashed its face in. It wasn’t too happy with me, and magic can only do so much. Jube’s honest–to a literal fault, sometimes–principled, bold, determined, and loyal. Wouldn’t trade his friendship or knack for treasury-keeping for all the gold in Golarion.

“People are surprised at my friendship with Ekun , b’cause we’re so opposite; tall and short, quiet and loud, loner and social butterfly” –she giggles at the comparison, playing with her holy symbol–”but I think we’re friends to balance each other out. He’s loyal and driven and I think he’s so strong to keep going after what happened to his family. If I lost mine…. I’d probably curl up in a ball a straight week and cry a new river.

“Kalikke and Kanerah… They’re both something of a mystery, if I”m honest. I haven’t really spent much time with either of them, especially Kanerah. Kalikke and I get along pretty well, but I still haven’t spent much time talkin’ to them.” She wrinkles her nose. “I should prob’ly fix that. It’s kinda rude.

“Nok-Nok’s exasperating and I gotta be honest, Lamashtu kiiiiiinda turns my stomach, especially after…” She clears her throat. “Well, anyway. He’s really good to have in a fight, but I mostly just tolerate havin’ him around. 

“Guess that just leaves Tristian.” Her whole face lights up like she swallowed the sun. “It’s not really any kind of secret any more that we’re together, and let me tell you, despite everything that’s happened since I established Sparrows’ Nest, I don’t think I’ve ever been happier. He’s so sweet and cares so much about everyone–even people who tried to kill us, he’s interceding for their lives–and he’s such a good healer. I’ve never more than halfway gotten the hang of healing myself, so his talents in that area are extremely useful.” Her smile dims slightly. “What he went through with Nyrissa’s just… awful, and I don’t really like dwelling on it b’cause it makes me so damn angry how she treated him. Not trying to absolve his responsibility for what he… what he did, but….” the words trail off and she bites her lip. “It’s not important anymore, anyway, ‘cause he’s confessed and sincerely apologized and is trying to help me set things right, stop Nyrissa. The strength that takes…. how could I do anything but forgive him,  welcome him back?”  She giggles, then add, “And fall even more in love with him. I’ll take however much time we get, however we get it to have it, because meeting him, falling in love… it’s the best thing that ever happened to me. And whatever I have to fight to keep that, Ill tear its damned head off. ….Assuming I can reach.”

[dndeed]

Critical Role Miniature Rollout: C2E34

With Andrew Harshman

A summary and review of the minis used on Critical Role.

Two episodes without miniatures and more without Yasha. What a welcome return to sword and board, combat-heavy, high adventure in this episode. Mighty exciting indeed. A reasonably long list of miniature assets and about a half dozen new miniatures to profile and review. 

Rearm yourselves and flush a philanderer, it’s time for Critical Role Miniature Rollout Campaign 2 Episode 34!

The List

Campaign Coins DEVEN RUE COMPASS ROSE

Dwarven Forge Monster Sewer

Dwarven Forge Dungeons

Dwarven Forge Water Tray

Dwarven Forge Erinthor Mountains Set

Dwarven Forge Castle Builder Cube Spacer

Tiny Furniture Agricultural Sacks 

Rusty Dragon Inn Dressing: Crate 

Rusty Dragon Inn Dressing: Barrel

Dwarven Forge Barrel

Axe N Shield Single Flyer Risers - Clear Mithril 

Real Game FX Fog Monster Remote Controlled LED Terrain

Real Game FX Fog Monster Fog Machine

Hero Forge Custom Miniatures Painted By Iron Tusk Painting

Hero Forge Custom XL Beau Miniature Painted By Matthew Mercer 

Steamforged Games Critical Role Miniatures

Elemental Evil #020 Water Elemental

Pathfinder Battles Erasmus, Human Medium

Legends of Golarion #049 Djinni

Blood War #38 Large Water Elemental

Desert of Desolation #32 Rot Scarab Swarm

Deadly Foes #017 Dwarf Slaver

Monster Menagerie #005 Jarhild Stoneforge

Reaper Miniatures Bones Spell Effect: Shadow Tentacles

Archfiends #49 Cursed Spirit

Custom Lollipop Spiritual Weapon

The Monsters

Water Elementals Elemental Evil #020 Water Elemental

Thank the gods this was not a sewer dungeon crawl. Sewage Water Elementals are bad news. Luckily, all the Mighty Nein had to contend with were normie Water Elementals. 

For my money, a good elemental miniature is one that carefully walks the line between looking environmental and looking humanoid. An elemental should look like the element they are made from but at the same time have subtle human physical qualities such as limbs, a face, etc. 

The Elemental Evil Water Elemental looks a little too much like water (as strange as that sounds). The humanoid shape and facial expression are both too vague for my taste, they are too difficult to make out. However, the sculpt, translucent plastic, and paint look brilliant, which mostly makes up for my minor, personal gripe. A very good miniature.

Genie Legends of Golarion #049 Djinni

This is an excellent genie figure. A dynamic pose, sculpt, and nice prepainted paint job. This figure has the appearance of flight without the use of a finicky flight stand and with a physical design that doesn’t compromise the durability of the figure. 

An interesting creative detail is that this genie has a cool looking fancy sword and an equally fancy sheath. But their shapes don’t match! First of all, genies don’t wear pants, so where’s this sheath hangin’? Secondly, can’t a genie just magically summon their equipment? And finally, what’s this genie doin’ with a sheath that doesn’t work with his sword?! It must be a fashion accessory or some sorta sheath-of-holding pocket dimension sheath. And if that’s the case... gimme that magic item! 

Large Water Elemental  Blood War #38 Large Water Elemental

A great example of an elemental miniature that looks like a natural element, but also has recognizable humanoid features. The mini can easily represent a regular body of water or an elemental creature. This figure has a noticeable pair of hands and a face. It looks humanoid without being distracting. And the wave appearance makes it perfect for any adventure with an aquatic, pirate, or surfing theme. 

The Villains

Dwarven Bodyguard  Deadly Foes #017 Dwarf Slaver Mini images in this section sourced from minisgallery.com

It’s nice to have a classically “bad guy” looking dwarf miniature. This is an Uncommon, so it’s relatively easy to get in boosters and is cheap on the miniature aftermarket. Pretty perfect for an encounter involving the large number of lackies from a dwarf-centric evil organization. The quality of the paint and sculpt work makes this a suitable PC or villain miniature as well. 

Other Dwarven Bodyguard Monster Menagerie #005 Jarhild Stoneforge

Get a load of this hairdo! Shaved sides of the head with a french braid. Definitely best in show hair for this episode. Put under that hair a quality action pose with some solid detail work and you’ve got a good mini.

Al Gore Algar Pathfinder Battles Erasmus, Human Medium

A bit of trivia, this miniature appeared previously in the World of WarCraft CelebriD&D Episode as the PC of Troy Baker. This as a great figure from a great line, the Pathfinder Battles Iconic Heroes series. All the Iconic minis are based on the canonical Pathfinder Iconics who are established class archetypes that exist in the Pathfinder universe. 

These characters seem to always get a little extra attention in sculpt resolution and paint work detail. Erasmus has a bunch of awesome details, distinct hair color, fingerless gloves, hand of tarot cards, and even a massive patterned scarf. These all match the original character art and are brought to life in miniature form quite successfully. 

The Spells

Hunger of Hadar Reaper Miniatures Bones Spell Effect: Shadow Tentacles

Hadars gonna hunger. Reaper Miniatures has some really wonderful spell effect miniatures, this one being the most obscure and specific. Very nice minis. If I did not already own an array of tentacle miniatures, I would surely purchase these. Shadow Tentacle is a solid name for a mindflayer btw. 

Hexblade Summoned Specter Archfiends #49 Cursed Spirit

This is a tricky one to identify, not a lot to go on. I reviewed the Alpha and YouTube footage like a bigfoot hunter with the Patterson film. Sadly this was the best angle I could get. The specter that Fjord summons is barely visible along the left side of the above screenshot. I should think we will see this class feature in the future and hopefully we can confirm the identity of this mini then. 

If it is indeed the D&D prepainted Cursed Spirit, I wholeheartedly support the use of this mini. It’s a fine looking ghostly figure. The sculpt and paint is so good it doesn’t have to rely on fancy translucent plastic to appear incorporeal. There is a version of this sculpt that does have translucent plastic, but the lack of paint on that iteration makes it difficult to see the details in the model. I prefer this, the original version.

Closing Remarks

The sluice is loose! What a sweet episode for combat, miniatures, and terrain. Thus far I’m enjoying Nicodranas immensely. 

#criticalroleminiaturerollout

[dmsden]

Worldbuilding – Don’t Know Much About Geography

Welcome back, Gentle Readers. This is the second in a series of articles about designing a new campaign world. In the first article, I mentioned my usual starting processes and outlined the basic feel of the campaign – medieval Europe with a sort of “points of light” aspect, deliberately recalling times like the Interregnum period of the Holy Roman Empire and the Anarchy period of England, when there were no strong central powers, and many people took advantage of that fact to establish their own little footholds of power. 

Besides doing lots of reading on these periods, my next step is to start to define the world further in terms of geography. And for that, I need….a map. 

Conventional wisdom right now says that there’s no point in a DM designing a whole world. What needs their attention is just the small part of the world the next adventure happens in. 

Now, I can agree with that on some levels. It probably isn’t necessary to develop an intricately detailed culture for the Kingdom of Kalduras if it’s on the other side of the world from where you’re setting your campaign. But I do think it’s worth investing at least some time knowing what else is out there. Some players like to know a little something about the places they come from in order to develop their character backgrounds. This is why settings like the Forgotten Realms, Westeros, Middle-Earth, and Golarion are all relatively well fleshed-out places. 

While I won’t develop everything about everywhere, knowing what the major continents are…or whether your world even has continents (or is more like, say, Iomandra)…can help you later on when the players are asking questions. Yes, there are many islands, and piracy is rife in those regions. Yes, I can find a home for your Aztec-flavored shaman character. And so on. 

Having said this, it’s also good to simultaneously start small. If you’re going to have the players spend a protracted period of time in one place, it’s good to know something about the place they’re spending time in. Are there going to be recurring NPCs? What services are available to them? Is there a Temple where they can be healed? 

For purposes of this campaign, I intend to use the setting outlined in the classic module The Keep on the Borderlands, so a lot of the starting small details are all set for me. Instead, I will concentrate on a “Big” element that I always like to have before the first session – a world map. 

The best way to develop a world map that’s going to best fit your campaign’s needs is to draw it yourself. Whether you invest in a program like Dundjinni or Campaign Cartographer or do it by hand on paper, this allows you to draw details that you intend to set adventures around, which is, of course, the whole point of having a campaign world in the first place. If you intend to have adventures where the players seek a forbidden temple in the middle of a mountain range, it’s probably useful to put that mountain range onto your world map, so you know where it is. There are lots of articles out there on how to draw a world map, and I don’t intend to replicate their advice here.

There are many resources of fantasy world maps that other people have created out there. A quick search for “Fantasy World Map” reveals dozens of web sites with cool maps available for use. Choose one, and go to town. 

For this campaign, I’m delving into my pack-ratty nature. Way back in the late 80s, early 90s, I collected a number of products for the now defunct Hess Games. Hess Games produced a number of very high quality maps, including castles, dungeons, cities, and a world. These came in colored 8×11 envelopes, and I snapped up every one of them, because I love those sorts of products. But for some reason, I’ve never used a single one of them. They’ve sat on my shelves for over 20 years. 

But no longer! 

I decided as I began this project that I would use all of these map packs to help develop my new world. When I started working on it, I pulled out the world map (the image at the top of this article) and had a look. I’d looked at it before, of course, but my thought was always, “This is beautiful…but I have a campaign world already. I don’t need this.” So it would go back into the envelope and get put away. But now, I have no campaign world, and I could finally use this high quality map. 

I’m very fortunate in that the world map comes with both a big, beautiful poster map and a small 8×11 map of the same world. That will allow me to scan the map in so I can work it in Photoshop, adding layers with colors, texts, and details that I can have as DM-only and hide when I show the map to the players. 

Looking at my map, the first thing that strikes me is that there’s really only one continent. Could there be others on the opposite side of the world? There absolutely could, but it might be interesting if this is the only continent on the planet as well. I don’t have to answer this question now. It may be that there are other lands, but this is a big enough real estate chunk for me to not have to worry about it for now. 

The second thing that strikes me is that there are three very distinctive circles on the map. These appear to be made up of both islands and the natural curvature of the continental land mass. It immediately makes me think “impact craters.” I’ve always loved images of incredible craters…ones that formed lakes miles across. I once misunderstood something I heard in relation to the Chicxulub Crater on the Yucatan peninsula and believed that the whole Gulf of Mexico was an impact crater. Although I’ve since come to understand that’s not the case, it fired my imagination, and I’ve wanted to include something like that in a campaign.

The real world has coastal features that are actually made up of impact craters, such as Chesapeake Bay. These three sites on my map could be massive fantasy based impact craters. Are they the sites of terrible Far Realm creatures falling to Earth? The detritus of a cataclysmic battle? The footprints of a God? I don’t know yet, but I look forward to figuring that out. 

I note that there are also many islands, including some that might be large enough to be thought of as sub-continents or even continents in their own right. I’m glad there are many islands, because another module I’d like to use as inspiration is The Isle of Dread and it seems like it would fit right in. 

Alright, so we have our feel (Interregnum Europe) and now our map (taken from this old Hess Games product). We still don’t have some crucial elements, like a theme or a name for the campaign, and we’ll look at some of these pieces next time.

For anyone curious, Hess Games seems to have been out of business since the late 80s. That is why I am comfortable scanning and using this map.

[pathfindernerds]

Worldbuilding Stuff

So, for the longest time, I’ve mostly played/run games set in the Pathfinder setting of Golarion. It’s a good setting, with lots of interesting stuff, and it’s one I’ve spent a lot of time reading about. But, as I think is the case for a lot of GMs and aspiring GMs, I’ve always wanted to make my own setting.

I’ve tried it before. A few times, actually. The first was an exercise in hubris, where I sought not just to make An Entire Planet, I decided to make a whole system of 9 Planets (one for each alignment), each created/ruled by a homebrew God. In the end, I made a single planet poorly, and I’ve long since abandoned that attempt at a setting.

My second attempt was really only half an attempt. I believe I had drawn up a rough world map, and I had roughly outlined a few countries and their loose politics, but that’s about it. I got sidetracked by other things (namely college and the other games I was running at the time), and my interest in that world waned.

I’m not yet ready to make a third attempt. I’m far better prepared than I was before, but I’ve neither the time nor the energy currently to put pen to paper and draw maps, nor set any names in stone. However, there have been a few very rough worldbuilding ideas that I’ve had bouncing around my head for a while now, and I want to put them out here to A) potentially inspire others to use them and 2) have a place I can look back to so I remember, should I find the time/energy/etc to actually begin to build a world again. This might go long (this has already gone long), so the rest will be under a Read More.

1. Ritual Magic

I really like the idea of Ritual Magic. By that, I mean I really like the idea of, if you’re not a Wizard (or maybe just not a good enough one), you can still cast Scry by taking a pitcher of spring water that was taken under the light of the Full Moon and placing it in a silver bowl under the darkness of a New Moon while holding something representative of the target of your Scry and burning the proper incense. Obviously this is just an example, but you get what I mean.

5th Edition has rules for “Ritual Magic,” but that’s just “it takes longer to cast but it doesn’t burn a spell slot.” You still have to be high enough level to cast it. I want magic that literally anyone can do, even a level 0 commoner, if they have the time, patience, resources, and know-how. It’s not Easy, but it allows literally everyone to have some degree of magical ability. Because, after all, it’s High Fantasy, and the world is filled with (made of?) Magic.

Not everyone is a Wizard/Witch/Sorcerer/Warlock/etc, but everyone can potentially be a Magician/Thaumaturge.

2. No Gods, only gods

Pantheons are cool, but one thing that always kind of bugs me is thinking “okay, but what is Sarenrae doing now?” Because as far as I know, for most Gods, there is no great answer for that. Like, Pharasma is judging the dead, that’s her thing, but what’s anyone else actually up to? I guess you can play the “It’s not for Mortals to know or even be able to understand the plans of the Gods” card but also I find that remarkably uninteresting. So, no Gods. But, instead, gods.

Lower-case gods. “Gods” that are just really strong spirits, or maybe Fey or Demons or Angels or Whatever, all of which have gained a following. The power of that Prayer boosts them, but never to Capital-G God status. Maybe there is a God or Gods, but they’ve long since fucked off and left this world to whatever may happen. So, instead, gods. Lots of little gods. Dozens of them. I guess more Shinto Kami style is vaguely what I’m thinking, but I also don’t know nearly enough about that belief system to officially say that.

But yeah, the folks of Town X pray to the spirits of the nearby River, or the Forest, or the Bird species that always seems to caw just before something bad happens, giving just a little heads up but only to those who remembered to leave out a few berries right before they went on their most recent hunt. Some are good, some are bad, some get along, some are fighting. Maybe the Spirit of the River gets overcome and defeated/devoured by the Spirit of Industry that took up residence once the factory got built upstream. Then, sorry buddy, the followers of the River Spirit are out of Divine Spells until they can either find someone else, or take out that Industrial Spirit and get their now-weakened River back in order.

And yeah, there would be some that span more globally. Sky and Rain and Water and Earth would be pretty strong and pretty universal, but because of that they’d also be a bit more Neutral about things, not really stepping in to help much, but granting Divine spells to anyone who worships them right. Worshiping them is something pretty universal, and I don’t think there’d be anyone who doesn’t do at least the occasional rite to the Sky, but arguably more practical for the Adventurer is to perform rites and worship the Crow. ‘Cause Crow looks out for those who look out for them. Feed the crows, do the right rites, and now you’ll have something of an advance warning system any time there’s a Crow around.

Or, if you’re worshiping a particular Angel or Demon or Some Other Kinda Outsider, maybe they actually step in every now and then when you really need it. After all, you spread word about them, and 3 folks in that last town built little shrines to them because of what you said and did. So hey, don’t worry about that bandit camp ahead, ‘cause one of the bandits suddenly found themselves overcome with rage and went a little nuts with his crossbow. Or maybe a few wolves decided to prowl in and take a few strategic throat-bites while everyone slept. Or, just possibly, a big Holy Orbital Laser blasted them all to oblivion, but holy cow I gotta take a nap for a bit so don’t get into too much trouble and hey if you could burn a little extra incense today that’d be great.

Both of these things will obviously take a lot of time and effort to flesh out. I mean, a whole new system of magic, and considerations for the nearby Spirits, as well as what “Deities” would be powerful/prominent enough to be worldwide (or at least country-wide or region-wide). Like, a lot of work would have to go into these systems/ideas, but they’re definitely something I want to make happen when/if I ever actually decide to make a full Setting. I don’t know if that’s ever gonna happen. I’m pretty happy overall with Golarion, and hopefully the open-world game I’m running there will last a long time and I won’t need to think about this stuff. But yeah, who knows what the future will bring?

[oldlymeyguild]

Inspiration

Pictured Above: The cast of Tales of Alethrion, an animated series by Sun Creature Studios. 

Here is a list of fiction, art, philosophy, and history that inspires the campaign. I will try to explain how or why I include this in my writing, but I may just leave at “this is some cool shit.” Hopefully that’s enough! This is also an ongoing list, so check back if you’re interested in more insight into my wild world-building process.

1. Tales of Alethrion - A wonderful online series of cartoons by Sun Creature studios (available for free on Youtube). If I was directly emulating anything with this campaign: this is it. I wish I could create half the world, humor, and story-telling they do without a single word. I would consider this required watching for this campaign.

2. Pathfinder Society - Operated by Paizo and an army of eager, knowledgeable players, Pathfinder Society is the mechanical and narrative origin of this campaign. Pathfinder is a wonderful roleplaying system and Golarion is probably my favorite fantasy setting of all time. If you’re interested in running a session or looking for ideas, please look into Pathfinder Society.

3. Absurdism - A 20th century philosophy focused on the "conflict between the human tendency to seek inherent value and meaning in life and the human inability to find any.” The conclusion of this philosophy, as opposed to nihilism or existentialism, is that you must accept this and then go on completely ignoring it. To put it in very poor terms: since there’s no meaning anyway, you might as well have fun. This has influenced the campaign in two ways: 1) I try to focus on fun, rewarding gameplay (because if it isn’t, then why play at all?) and 2) the world itself is under these assumptions. There is no natural order, the gods all mad, and good guys might not always win. If you try to make perfect sense of it, you’re only going to make yourself more confused. 

4. Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law - An early Adult Swim show where classic Hanna-Barbara cartoons are put on trial for this various antics. This show moves a mile a minute and builds an insane language of in-jokes that builds beyond your wildest imaginations. Nothing really makes sense in Harvey Birdman, but it happens so fast you really don’t have time to question it.

5. The Adventure Zone/The McElroy Brothers - The Adventure Zone is an incredible D&D podcast featuring three brothers and their father. The campaign plays fast, emphasizes character, and puts the players in front of situations you’ll never see coming. The unique humor of the McElroy Brothers is one I try not to steal from too much, but it’s magnetic cadence is hard to ignore. I suggest giving The Adventure Zone a listen and if you want an intro the McElroy Brothers themselves, I recommend their TV show My Brother, My Brother, and Me on SeeSo.

6. Samurai Jack - The 16-year journey from Cartoon Network that just recently concluded and I think all you went on it are changed. This campaign does attempt to emulate the quiet introspection of Jack’s quest, but it does seek to capture the hodge-podge world he is thrust into. If he can fight demons, robots, and magical Scotsmen, why can’t we?

7. Rick and Morty - Come on guys, this one is just obvious.     

[thesoundofplunder-blog]

Savage Worlds as a D&D Surrogate

It occurs to me that many people who have tried Savage Worlds probably started their RPG experiences elsewhere.  Most likely playing some form of Dungeons and Dragons, since that game is synonymous with the whole tabletop roleplaying genre.

And for anyone who came to Savage Worlds expecting a derivative of D&D, it probably came as a shock to learn that in spite of its flexibility, Savage Worlds does not really have an equivalent campaign setting to the likes of Eberron, Faerun, Golarion etc.  That isn’t to say that you couldn’t utilise one of those campaign settings in your game - Savage Worlds is, after all, designed to be highly adaptable.  But even the Fantasy Companion falls woefully short of recreating the same feel that players get when they play Dungeons and Dragons.

To be clear - I’m not saying that it has to.  And I’m not trying to argue the merits of trying to turn Savage Worlds into D&D.  I can almost hear the cry of “if you want to play D&D then go play D&D!” from the Savage Worlds faithful.  What I’m pointing out is that for players who have known nothing else, this can be a jarring change.  One of the things I loved most as a player (not as a GM, mind you) was the wealth of choice when it came to magic items and spells.  Even though Savage Worlds presents a versatile system to create your own flavour for any existing powers, the cynic in me says that this is akin to handing someone a pencil and paper and saying “now you can make your own spells!”  What I hoped the fantasy companion would provide was a host of configurations of the base rules suited to a fantasy setting.  So rather than saying “here’s bolt, now add on whatever trapping you want”, I want something like “Melf’s Acid Arrow” or “Magic Missile”.  These things just sound cooler.

Maybe I’m just being lazy.  After all, trappings ARE the solution.  One of my players decided she wanted to cast lightning bolts, despite the fact that this lowered the damage by one die type.  It later allowed her to fry four enemies at once when they were stood in a pool of water.  It was easy to make that happen, but a lot of players don’t bother with trappings.

Thankfully someone on Reddit recently pointed me towards Zadmar’s Savage Spellbook.  I’ve come across Zadmar’s work before, but for some reason the Savage Spellbook had slipped under my radar.  But it does exactly what I was looking for, in that it bundles up a bunch of different spells and trappings, giving them cooler sounding names than “Acid Bolt”.  There are a bunch of useful resources in that respect at the bottom of Zadmar’s Savage Worlds page.

The other issue is equipment, although I think the Fantasy Companion does a better job in this respect by adding more armour and weapon options.  In fairness, these are just numbers, but I like the idea that reinforced leather is +3 toughness, unless you are hit with a raise, in which case it’s only +2 (as if the extra D6 damage wasn’t enough).  In terms of magical items, there are a good few to choose from, but what I tend to do as a GM is write a bunch of cool magical items down on flash cards and then hand them out randomly whenever the party loot something big.  This usually avoids the boring “+1 damage” kind of items and forces me to think of interesting mechanics that inventive players will use to break my game at a later date.

Anyway, that’s the end of this train of thought for now.  It’s really just an excuse to link to Zadmar’s Savage Worlds page, since it’s been a valuable tool to me in the past.

[honourablejester]

Starfinder Adventure Concept: The Silent Citadel

While I’m on the topic of Space Dwarves, I want to go back to some Starfinder thoughts I had back in this post:

“I’m probably not going to manage to be more intelligible than this, but. Space dwarves. In flying star cities. Hyperspace-capable flying star cities. The concept makes me so happy I want to eat it. You could have a lost dwarven star citadel fighting eldritch beasties in the Drift. There are canon Star Citadels in the Diaspora asteroid belt, mining and trading with the other inhabitants. The cities can move. You could park a Star Citadel anywhere one could reasonably survive. Or find the haunted remnants of ones that drifted where they couldn’t reasonably survive. You could have a player character who’s the last haunted survivor of a fallen Star Citadel, or one looking for their home Citadel that went missing while they were crewing a trade ship, or just a gruff dwarven asteroid miner who goes home to a Diasporan Citadel when they can to say hello to the family.”

Starfinder dwarves and their Star Citadels, city-sized Drift-capable mobile space stations, are just so cool to me. So cool. Starfinder dwarves just built massive star castles and sailed out into the void in them, and as a concept I still want to just eat it. Seriously, I’m vibrating at the thought.

And in terms of a seed for an adventure, I do want to go back to that idea of finding the haunted remnants of a star citadel that drifted somewhere they could not survive.

And the recent Drift Crisis event has added a nice set up for that. Because the citadels are Drift capable. And the Drift recently crashed, and randomly flung anything that was in it at the time out into a random point in the universe (or, you know, ate it, and it’s drifting around in the Drift, with all the alienness you’d find in there).

But I kind of want … I don’t want the Drift Crisis itself to have been what killed it. I think I want the Drift Crisis to be the thing that discovers it, but I’d want a bit more mystery in the dead star citadel itself. So.

A Pact Worlds ship that is caught up in the shockwave of the Drift Crisis gets spat out into an unknown, silent star system, an incomprehensible distance from the Pact Worlds. The system appears to be mostly uninhabited: a small dwarf (ha!) star, barren, rocky worlds, a vast asteroid belt. Maybe a couple of distant moons look sort of habitable. And the system is empty, or the system appears empty. There are no structures or evidence of habitation, at least as Pact Worlders would understand it, anywhere. Until they notice something in the asteroid belt. There’s something in there, a constructed thing. And they’re aeons from fucking anywhere, and they’ve no idea what just happened, and their ship is damaged, so they start limping towards the only thing that looks like civilisation in the area.

It's only when they get close enough to get a proper scan of the thing that they realise it’s familiar. Not necessarily personally, but from a Pact World POV. It’s a Star Citadel. It’s very clearly a good old fashioned Golarion dwarf Star Citadel. And it’s silent. It’s dark. It looks dead as the grave. But it clearly didn’t get spat out of the Drift just now, like the ship did. It’s been here a while. So a) how did it get here? And b) what killed it?

And c) how ‘dead’ is it really?

How long has it been here? How did it get here? Which Star Citadel is it? Is it an unknown Citadel? Is anyone alive in there? If not, where did they go? Is there anything in this system that could sustain life? Can the Star Citadel still sustain life, and if so, why was it abandoned? Is there any evidence of damage? What the hell happened here?

Some of the Star Citadels, like the Ironstar, sailed out into the Vast in a continued Quest for the Sky.

“Ironstar. The largest of the dwarven Star Citadels, the Ironstar is a massive space station equipped with a Drift engine and ruled by a council drawn from the leaders of its major churches, clans, and guilds. It travels through the Vast on a centuries-long Second Quest for Sky, seeking a mythological promised land for its dwarven inhabitants.” (Starfinder Core Rulebook (3rd Printing), Pg 462).

So some of them went far. And they’ve been going since Triune dropped the plans for Drift engines 3 centuries ago. But maybe …

It might be fun to find evidence, mineral traces, radioactive half-lives, some form of scientific dating, that suggests that this Star Citadel has been drifting in this system for a lot longer than 3 centuries. And that’s impossible. Even if Star Citadels existed during the Gap, they wouldn’t have been Drift capable, as that technology was only possible after Triune ascended. For a dwarven star citadel to have made its way all the way out here, wherever the fuck ‘here’ is, before Drift drives, either it’s been moving on reaction drives for a really long time, or it was using some other form of FTL drive, or there’s something stupid like time travel involved here somehow. The Gap was thousands of years long, it’s sort of feasible that it could have come out here the old-fashioned, generation-ship way. Which, if it’s a pre- or intra-Gap citadel, would explain why it’s unknown. But that’s an amazingly unlikely circumstance, isn’t it? But then what are the alternatives? Did the Drift breaking also break time? Did it fling a modern Star Citadel out here some unknown number of centuries in the past? (And if it did, is there a risk of something doing that again, to the other shiny new ship in the area?) Or did a dwarven star citadel out in the Vast find something … else? Or build something else? Some other artefact or technology that would let either a pre-Gap citadel cover distances that only Drift technology has allowed since, or that would allow a modern citadel to travel in time?

Basically, I want every ‘rediscovering a haunted deep space hulk’ plotline ever, but with dwarves. Are the dwarves still alive in there? Are there ghost dwarves in there? Is the citadel dead and empty, or is it now the home of other things?

You know that standard dwarven plot of ‘dug too deep’? That, but in space.

And why this system? Why did it fetch up here? Why did our ship fetch up here? Was it random chance, the Drift breaking, or is something calling ships here? Is the system as empty as it seems? Are there dwarven survivors in the depths of that silent citadel that can give us answers? Or a dwarven AI, a ship’s computer, or in this case citadel’s computer, that could give some answers?

The Star Citadels are … It’s not like a ship. That’s a city. That’s a whole city-sized space station that moves, and a race of tough, hardy, determined, bloodyminded people that built them and flung them out into the stars at least partially in an endless religious crusade to find a mythical homeland. They’re big, they carry a lot of people, and they go far. And they get into weird shit. And in the midst of weird space shit, it’s still dwarves in there. It’s still stubborn, pragmatic, dogmatic, bedrock dwarfishness that’s going to react to the weirdness.

I really cannot over-emphasise how much Starfinder dwarves, their whole concept, makes me so deliriously happy. The idea of fallen Star Citadels is … that’s a city-sized dungeon for you to park in whatever weird, horrifying ass-end of lovecraftian science-fantasy space your little heart desires. And it’s full of dwarves. It’s just. It’s excellent. It really is.