00-Roll with Advantage

Whilst not centered on creating elements of an adventure these posts are still part of my process.

Maw of the sea god

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Hi all and welcome to a bit of a random adventure night. Tonight I had fond memories (as I was sitting down watching kids movies) of watching some classics, and some new favourite movies. I wanted to create a sea adventure. So I bring you Maw of the sea god.

Now heavily inspired by Sinbad and a bit by the visuals of the “How to train your dragon” movies I wanted to have it focus around a put in the ocean.

The idea behind this is that the party have been given a quest to go find a missing heir who was sailing before a storm hit. The son’s faithful hawk was returned with a note with the last known heading of the ship attached to its leg in a small bottle.

It’s a sea adventure where coming up towards the hole they can see the plume of mist and sea spray for hundreds of feet, and some drifting barrels of something floating on top of the waves as if they were thrown overboard.

The hole is actually extinct volcano that has gradually been worn down by the sea leaving a gaping maw. However what lies beneath and that lives in the maw is from another age. Winged creatures that swoop and try and take the sailors and passengers of ships as they get close. Large tentacled creatures (not a kraken.. although it could be a kraken) lunge out from the deep water around the maw to attack the boats thinking them whales or some other food.

And there in the mist, a large mast with a tattered flag fluttering in the breeze can be seen through the spray.

The prince and a few of his men (most of the crew in fact) at on their ruined boat. Unable to turn in time to avoid the maw until it had them.

So apart from this idea I also wanted to do a bit more. So I did what any sane, sleep-deprived maniac would do and I created a map to go with the easy adventure.

Made with Inkarnate.com

Thanks for dropping by tonight to look at the Maw of the Sea god map and adventure plot. Don’t forget tomorrow our party face the Ice queen in the end of week write-up so make sure to come back for that. And as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

Too much preparation

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Good evening and welcome to another Saturday random-topic discussion piece. Tonight I wanted to touch on when you can have too much preparation and some wandering thoughts I had on it.

Now I am probably prone to going too deep into world building from the get go. I normally have a rough plot, some segues (relatable secondary hooks) and a rough idea from how to go from session zero to session 26. But I then tend to go super deep into it establishing the origin story for the homebrew setting, complex political movements, secondary (and even tertiary) powers who oppose the player and main plot and so on.

I then create new races, new religions, new creatures, sometimes new classes and subclasses and before I know it I have a whole book worth of content before I even have my players. This well of ideas, lore and history sometimes doesn’t translate well when my players rock up at the table and begin to discuss their back story.

Sometimes empires shift. Relationships, cities and outcomes of battles may change based on what the party members have achieved or where they have come from. Sometimes I get bogged down in too much preparation that I fail to factor in a fundamental step that I weave in with my games.

The simply fact that, the players and their characters tell the stories.

I recognise that some of the re-work, potential-frustration as well as mental fatigue and exhaustion that I go through with world building and campaign setting could be removed if I was to simply involve my players early on. Maybe having session -1 where I have the players get involved in the world building.

Simply telling them about the world and giving them the opportunity of asking me questions they care about. What races are there? Is there any political drama? Where do elves fit in? Simple things like this could help me, the DM, in build the world for them to explore.

After all there is game without the players so why not involve them earlier in the process of creating it.

This also serves a secondary purpose – to get your players invested in this world. If they asked what gnomes were like in this world and you explained that they happened to be extremely military perhaps they could expand why. Maybe Gnomes are military because dwarves invaded their lands? Perhaps a certain gnome family or village was the reason for the banding together of the gnomish people into this warrior state. Maybe one of the party was a descendant of the king that brought them together and they now are trying to broker peace with the elves.

Getting investment from your players

Little things such as these questions can grow into bigger investment for your players. And this is a great thing because after all, we want them invested in the world. We want them to show up each week to go “I need to make sure that my people continue on the right path.” With a greater level of investment the greater chance that those players will prioritise a slot in their calendar for D&D night.

What a fantastical notion. In fact the breaking down of the DM role’s walls and exposing the inner workings to your players could be the best thing you could do.

The future

I think that my next adventure, which I hope to start in the coming months after a lengthy break, will be a collaboration between player and DM. Getting my players to explain the world, perhaps build parts of it for themselves will help tie their characters involvement in with it.

I believe that with less focus on the world building and more focus on the involvement will help me level up as a DM. Perhaps it will help my players level up as players too. Regardless the new year and next few months should be a learning curve for myself and my players as we build a world together.

I will hope to post a few updates on here when the times comes to get involvement from my readers. So if you have questions for me in the setting I will creature let me know. I will have some more info on this coming December and hopefully the new year brings with it a new adventure for me and my players to begin.

On that note don’t forget to visit me again here tomorrow for the end of week write up. We have a few hidden things to work through and a mammoth week next week to prepare for. So, lastly, don’t forget to roll with advantage and I’ll see you tomorrow,
The Brazen Wolfe

One-shot challenge – Avian Raiders

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Welcome to a what-ever Saturday where tonight I am looking excitedly at Avian Raiders.

This is a one shot generated using a tool I stumbled up on today – Goblinist RPG Tools and the random encounter it gave me for 4 level 7 characters. Now use at your own risk Goblinist looks like it doesn’t have all the security certification that’s out there so user discretion is advised.

Before we get into the one shot let’s go over some ground rules.

I will try and stick to 30 minutes, the same as my other challenges. The one shot also has to have the basic elements of an adventure (what I cover weekly):

  • Plot
  • NPCs of note
  • Twist or secondary hook
  • Extra Stuff
  • Stat block

The extra stuff normally being a map may be a bit tough to do in Inkarnate so I will see what I can flesh out within the 30 minutes. So without any more chatter let’s see how we go with the one shot.

Time started: 10:11pm

Avian Raiders

The rattle of the pottery that lines up against the edge of the warehouse was the first sign that trouble was afoot. The hired guardsmen of the wealthy merchant, who also owned the dairy and mill, looked around more alert now and drew their werapons as they stalked the outside of hte e wood clad building.

As the moments went by the very ground shook as a horrifying screech boomed down from the hills where the flocks grazed. Spooked the guardsmen run but only after hearing the screech echoed many more times. In the morning the guardsmen returned top find the warehouse ransacked, not a valuable item was left or a scrap of food remained within. Other than frantic hard to read footprints the only trace these the raiders left were seven large feathers

Plot

The party is hired, sought out in fact, by a wealthy merchant. The merchant believes that a giant bird had raided his warehouse at command of the local herbalist. The only proof that he has that it was her is an argument that they had where she threatened to unleash the wrath of nature upon him and, seven large feathers.

The herbalist has been established in the growing village for many decades and provided the village with many tinctures, balms, salves and other potions that has saved many lives. However over the last few months the forest where she gains many of these items is slowly being cut down. The merchant has been expanding his land to get more grazing farm-land to produce more milk, meat and cows for trade. The herbalist has warned the merchant that his greed will be the downfall of the town and that she wouldn’t let him destroy the city for selfish means.

The party need to talk to find out who or what attacked Samwells’ warehouse and bring them to justice. Sam urges the party to check with Jane as they may find that their investigation is over before it rally has to o begin.

NPCs of Note

Samwell Goldfellow – a young ambitious merchant who has done exceptionally well at his trade. Starting a small general store a few years ago he has built up his empire to control the generation of grains, milk and meat (mostly) in the village of Tollenbrooke. But this wealth has left him paranoid and afraid of his efforts being taken from him. To prevent his paranoia taking over he has armed guardsmen, paid thugs from around the village, guard his warehouse an, dairy and mill to ensure nothing happens to his business.

Ironbark Jane – as she has been called for years, is a forest gnome who is fiery rather than timid. She has been in Tollenbrooke for many years and most parents of the current generation of townspeople remember Jane from their childhood and swear by her cures and potions. Seen as a bit of a town mystic and holy-woman the town will rally to her defence and aid unprovoked if they believe that she is threatened. To this effect Samwell’s actions to try and remove her (as competition and a blocker of his progress) have been met by boycotts of his business which eventually see’s him leaving Jane alone.
However lately Jane has been finding that the forest that she tends nearby has become more and more sparse and that Samwell’s bordering farmland seems to grow with each passing week. Jane has also seen strange omens and markings in the forest which she has warned Samwell about but her advice falls on deaf ears.

Twist and secondary hook

Jane offers to show the party to the place she was seeing the omens in the forest. If not she draws a highly detailed map which is written in the way a herbalist would try and find a route (listing out plants, trees, natural landmarks from a gnomes perspective). Once there the party find that there are large claw marks in the trees and dirt that indicates that there was something large and clawed in the forest not long ago. Further on they find a smashed clay pot and congealed white substance inside that reeks (turned/off milk). Taking it back to the town they notice that are guardsmen acting erratically at the warehouse. When they approach the guardsman he requests that the party help him bury a cow. When they either refuse or accept he goes on to frantically explain that he found it this morning when it didn’t show up at the dairy. Believing he could personally find the raiders he searched for the beast and found it dead and half eaten. He fears the repercussions from Samwell and wants the party to help him.

Investigating the corpse they find a large feathered arrow in the beast (under its body and pressed along the ground.) there are large clawed tracks around the corpse as well as several more large feathers however the tracks look to be a many legged creature that has between six and eight legs.

When they return back to the village they are just entering the town with the evidence that they have found that night and they hear a blood curdling screech from the hills.

Extra Stuff’s

Map of the farmstead and wheat crop.

Original found at Inkarnate.com

Fight-night

Created at Goblinist.com

Thanks for joining me tonight. Unfortunately this took a lot longer than what I had hoped to. WordPress seemed to want to time out and not register entire paragraphs of typing for upwards of 10 minutes at time so I had to do it in short bursts or hope that all the words I was touch-typing were accurate.

But it did give me time to work on a map whilst I waited for the words to load so enjoy that – made in Inkarnate as always.

Tonight’s encounter is relatively simple. Hobgoblins and their tamed owlbears (terrifying thought) attack the town and raid it because they wanted to. The owlbears were pushed out of the dwindling forest and trapped and tamed by the hobgoblins before they were used to attack the human town. Not super complicated with no dark master behind this one just a standard night-raid.

Don’t forget to come back tomorrow night for the end of week write-up and as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

Railroading or Player-Centric plot?

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Good evening everyone and welcome to a bit of a discussion around Railroading or Player-Centric plot.

When it comes down to the definition of railroading it boils down to, basically the following. “The DM taking control of the outcomes of the adventure despite the actions of the players”.

The beginning

When I was a 5 year old boy learning D&D from my dad railroading wasn’t a concept. No really. It wasn’t. You would play an adventure, go from point A-B. You would track the bandits to their lair that had been overrun with stirge’s, find the mcguffin and bring it back to the nearby village. That was it. The adventure really became a single road leading to adventure, combat and loot. Even the adventure books that came out during that time also were of the same page. A single adventure, albeit longer, where you went from A-B and then to C after you had found out that NPC1 was really BBEG2. Or something like that.

This made it easy to DM. In fact all you needed was one adventure, the plot hook and all you had to do was run it using your prep sheet. You had to improvise around the decisions during the adventure of course but this wasn’t hard to do. As the DM you knew your NPCs, the map and the creatures. You didn’t have to worry about what was off the beaten track and your players knew it.

The players came in expecting adventure, they were trained mercenaries, henchmen or heroes and they had a job to do. They had to explore the hidden dungeon, find the mad alchemists lair and defeat the golems within. These heroes didn’t care for the nearby keep – that was another adventure and this alchemist was dangerous. And so the adventures went like that. Each session a new adventure, a new story and new things to see and explore – but all prepared for by a Dungeon Master who spent hours on it for the players, and their, enjoyment.

The shift

You remember Skyrim? maybe it was your first RPG. For me Neverwinter nights was my first digital RPG and boy was it great. You could move through the towns, buildings, dungeons and sewers and learn and do anything. But there were doors that needed keys and those keys were kept by holders of the plot. You couldn’t continue to the next town until you had done the quest before hand. And you couldn’t do that quest until you completed the one currently assigned to you. Yes the bakers wife would ask you to kil lrats in her basement as a side quest – but you didn’t leave the city until much later.

With the rise of open world games and bigger RPGs, like Skyrim, we saw the humble style of fun weekender-one-shots step aside for long winded campaigns that were completely driven by players decisions. This makes it harder to plan and organise for the DM, which is 100% fine. But the counter argument is if the story is that an evil wizard is in a castle to the north you want the party to find that castle. You don’t want them exploring the swamp-islands to the south where the cannibalistic tribes of Kuthrapika hunt the marshy waterways. Though – that does sound fun now doesn’t it?

Railroading or Player-Centric plot?

The rise of “your decisions, your story” is putting the classic “Your decisions, my quest” in a negative light in some circles. This unrealistic expectation of the DM shifting, changing and maintaining multiple story lines and bending the game that they facilitate (yes.. the big F word..) makes it harder to convince players to come along with you on the journey through the adventure you have crafted.

The old saying of “it takes two to tango” is so true with D&D these days and the real quest is getting the players to care about your story enough and stick to it and not go looking for adventure but trust that you have it in spades, waiting for them to come along for the journey.

Well that’s it for me tonight. Don’t forget to come back tomorrow night where I will take you through the weekly write-up and look to finish up this month. If you have a different view on railroading let us know, let’s talk about it openly from players and dungeon masters alike as the game has changed heaps since I was a kid and the adventure needs to work for both DM and player.

Don’t forget to read up on the past week, look out for new stat-blocks and potential new items for our adventurers in the coming posts and, as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

Driven onwards…

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Well it’s been a wild weekend.

Sadly a lot of Dexterity and Constitution saving throws were failed this weekend which resulted it nearly no time for the blog during daylight hours nor last night.

As such I have updated last night’s encounter overview with more of my thoughts from my external notes as what I managed to publish last night wasn’t what I was happy with so I spent a bit of time polishing it a bit tonight.

Tonight I want to do a creative piece focusing on the scenes from yesterday, well tonight, but still Friday’s post.. any way. Enjoy.

As the creature took the sky and spread its wings wide a screeching chorus of wind and sound burst forth from it Jason looked back into the wagon at the other three passengers, Kyoko having sunk an arrow into the beast somewhere moments earlier.

“Brace yourselves! Close the doors and hatches! That beast is doing something!” and with that he whipped the horse as hard as he could, spurring the old horse to dash forward to try and break free of the valley. As the wagon passed the furthest part member back Jason screamed the same to the party, to flee and run as quickly as they could – but his words were taken from his mouth and thrown to the cacophony that the creature summoned as two mighty spears of ice launched from it into two peaks, one either side of the valley, embedding it deep into the ground and rock causing a rumble of complaining earth to answer.

Moments of nothing but a distant rumble could be head, mere heart beats before a splitting like ice and rock cleaving in two before an entire ice shelf shifted and began to fall down the steep valley walls, catching and bringing more ice and snow and rocks into its cause as the avalanche became a living entity all on its own – baying for the lives of all in the valley as it broke trees, shattered rocks and hurtled towards the party and the wagon.

The party were keeping pace with the Wagon, if not slightly in front as they horse found it hard to gain traction and pull the wagon through the rocky road. A body, tired and weary threw itself onto the bench next to Jason as Ester hauled herself onto the wagon that was moving just about as fast as it could, but the wall of ice, rock and snow was moving faster. The creature was swooping the party and wagon now, getting glancing blows on them as they made a break for the mouth of the valley where the snow would spread outwards and not funnel directly into them.

“Jason!” he heard Kyoko cry from the sealed wagon behind him, but he already knew, the wall of the avalanche was about to hit the wagon.

He lashed himself to the seat and threw the rope to Ester to do the same as he gave one final spur of encouragement to the horse as the wagon lurched forward as the first rocks and snow hit the back of it – pushing it forward at the same time as it started to bury it alive, and whole – the sound of rocks, wood and ice scraping against his wagon was the last thing he heard over the roaring of the avalanche-come-beast as he saw the creature swoop and take another swipe at another party member before the white, cold embrace of snow engulfed him – still pushing him, his wagon, horse and passengers down through the valley whilst burying them under feet of snow and debris.

Thanks for joining me tonight and for sticking through this week, well month really, until the end. Tomorrow you may start to notice some differenced with the blog, small things hopefully but as the week goes on perhaps you will notice more smaller things and some larger changes here – which is exciting times!

Don’t forget to come back tomorrow for the end of week writeup and, as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

Place of note – isle of beasts

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Now tonight I want to take a pit stop at a place that could appear in any Adventure that’s above or, with some creative thinking, below the surface of the waves – the isle of beasts.

Curiosity #3 – Captains Book

Last entry.

The crew have returned to the ship, I don’t blame them after what we have seen on this island and I don’t have the heart to tell them that it won’t do them any good. We set down anchor on this island to make repairs after a freak storm broke our mast and pushed us against the reef causing us to take on water.

We were about to abandon Red Tides, my ship, then we saw the peak of mountain which promised land. Limping our way to this cove the tall peaks of the island, hot dense forests and fresh water made it look like a god send so we went ashore to find supplies to mend the ship and stock up for the journey home.

Making our way into the forests we found suitable trees, saps and the like to repair the hulls breach and a suitable trunk to replace the mast. All was fine until we heard a sound like thunder, a rumbling that spoke of the old Dwarven gods Dwaine would tell us about. Investigating we came across a cave that was home to some of thr largest eggs we have ever seen, reptilian, avian or dragon we could not tell but on our hastened flight from the cave we stumbled upon a pack of apes the size of giants… They ate the first of the crew to run in terror and then the slowest of us.

Birds whos feathers could be sails for skips picked a few of us off and centipedes got a few of the crew who were preparing the mast.

By nightfall we had the mast ready to install, it cost us a few more men and women to retrieve it but we had it, but not the manpower to hoist it up. A few of us returned inland again to get supplies for the rowboats to get a the remaining crew back out to see but we were discovered by something… Else.. words cant describe it but it wasn’t no beast I have seen before. It slowly followed those who ran screaming to the ship and ignored those who hid. For now. The ship and crew will be lucky to survive the night with that thing following them. I’ve decided to take a boat in the morning, if I last that long, and any who survive and get off this island with what little supplies I have.

If you find this journal beware the isle that appears after a storm, its an unholy place and it brings death. Best bet is to drown at sea instead of coming to this place…

Whether discovered on the island or in a shop somewhere little books that hint or tell of an island that none can find but appears as if sent by the gods are commonplace in RPGs. They can drive players to seek the island, push them to leave such a place or set an ominous tone for if the party does find themselves in a storm with an isle appearing suddenly. They can be a good place for a one shot, can be mysteriously set in the underdark (see movies like journey to…) and are common enough in movies and literature that inspiration is aplenty.

Thanks for joining me tonight for a little adventure inspiration, I am busy this weekend sketching out some core rules for an RPG I want to create so time is a bit short. Don’t forget to come back tomorrow for the end of week write-up and, as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,

The Brazen Wolfe

Creating atmosphere – setting the mood and building tension

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Good evening and welcome to a bit of a casual weekend write-up around setting the mood and building tension.

Now a disclaimer, my memory isn’t super great so I may have covered some of this before and I will definitely touch on it again as I learn more, develop more techniques and explore what it means to facilitate a TTRPG adventure.

This week we have the slow build of the approach of a herd of spooked Glimmer Stags, a kind of elk with fox-like tails. The idea behind this is to play on the sensations that we would feel during the lead up which perhaps could be a slight rumble of sound that could be distant thunder, to the vibrations, a flock of birds hurrying away from the approaching creatures and past the party. Anything that we can see from film or read about in literature for stampedes could help this week. But how do we do that for a RPG?

Sound. Mimicking the sound, animals calls, drumming your fingers on the table or even having sound clips playing could all help set the auditory atmosphere of the scene for the party to help describe whats happening or whats not happening quite yet.

Describing the other sensations like feel, touch, temperature or visual queues can also be help develop the atmosphere. For me trying to describe the vast lack of visual queues or the build-up of these can be challenging as as humans we either see something or we don’t and when we have characters that have darkvision in our groups they normally can see everything. But having a bright light or the sense of movement without defined vision can to start paint the picture.

With any atmospheric building it needs to be described as either a stark contrast that triggers a feeling of foreboding, uneasiness or uncertainty or gradually build from a flicker of recognition to the realisation that something is different or wrong. Some rpg podcasts out there do this very well and generally the horror variety of rpgs really highlight both tempos of atmospheric development.

For me in prefer gradual addition of atmosphere. Starting with normal then adding more, like a sprinkle of salt to emphasise flavour, then another and so forth until its more salt than soup. This enables me to use audio cues as well as play with describing the other senses being influenced as well. Focus on one sense then throw in another to emphasise the build up to the crescendo of the piece.

Background music, only if timed well, during the description or during the planning of it can help us with planning the encounter. We need to feel the build-up to as these weavers of story so we can convince ourselves of whats happening. We are our toughest critics and the first people who we need to get on side for this adventure to be a hit so sell it to yourself first.

Well, thats all I have for tonight to touch a bit more on setting the atmosphere for our rpgs. Don’t forget to come back tomorrow for the end of week write-up and, as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,

The Brazen Wolfe

Saying farewell

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Hi all and thanks for dropping in for tonights writeup around saying goodbye to a character or NPC.

Now occasionally we will have a PC die and how we handle that generally is based on the circumstances around said perishing. But what about NPCs?

Now I’ve had some campaigns where a random NPC becomes a mascot or sorts and the party would’ve mourned thier passing under most circumstances but as a DM we have full control over when and how NPCs die.

This month, really its been rough for the NPCs, we have had a few NPCs die whether from the Nat attack or after that in defence of Kyoko. Deciding the right time to pull that level and watch the players reactions, who deal with death daily is something that is hard to come to a decision on and for me I am myself a few questions.

1. Is their death driving the plot forward? If the plot progresses and the chance for more adventures and growth for the players and their character then it could be a good time to move on.

2. Does the NPC growing and taking up more and more “screen time” then the players? If yes then its another indicator that it could be the right move.

3. Will the players continue down their adventuring path without this NPC, are they still relevant for future sessions? This one is tricky. If its a no then you can move on easily, but if its a yes then you may need to consider what else you can do to help drive the narrative as a side player. A magical journal that contains the knowledge of the NPC is a common crutch to fall on, or, bringing them back as a guide or spirit. It cheapens their existence and can also grate on some players nerves but if the answers to #1 and #2 were also yes then #3 is almost always a sign for the tigger to be pulled.

I’ve been looking at what can be my mid campaign shift and the migration from one arc to another for a while now and moving from having ” a guide with a plan” to being relatively blind is probably the next step for kyoko and the Party. It outs more emphasis on the party to do more but also fits well with the goals of thr NPCs so it doesn’t feel like a “rocks fall” moment – as much…

When deciding to remind an npc in full or partially from the scene as long as it benefits the story and players then normally it will end fine.

Don’t forget to come back tomorrow for the last of the months Brazen Wolfe Tabletop content and as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,

The Brazen Wolfe

Inspiration points

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So I find myself at a crossroads tonight – having had to regretfully pause my games (of Soulbound or dungeons and dragons) for some time but that doesn’t stop my imagination running with the smallest inspiration. Hanging out clothes and having an Ant bite my foot this morning, looking at my ice-themed dice set on my typing desk, the dozens of miniature paints littered through my room or the two odd book shelves, different in so many ways but suiting the same purpose – inspiration can some from single word, a single spark and for me its a constant, distracting and enriching thing to experience.

So tonight I want to share a days, my day today, worth of inspiration with you all.

Animals can be a big inspiration for adventures, taking the smallest (and maybe least favourite – except for centipedes, those things are the worst!) of creatures and one that people are naturally fearful of we can create two adventures complete with hooks, sub hooks, NPCs and places to explore. Let’s look at two animal inspired adventure hooks.

Ants.

For a very long time ants have always bothered me, mainly for my dislike of socks and the enjoyment I get while walking bear footed across paddocks, roads, yards and so forth. For the town or Berokovia the ants have changed.

Ants the size of dogs have appeared in the villagers barns and houses and the farmer that killed a single ant was seen being dragged into the soil by an ant the size of an ogor. The crops are slowly dwindling but not as fast as the herds of animals which seem to be the preferred prey for the invertebrates. Regardless of aid coming in with the depletion of their livestock and land there isnt much hope for the town of Berokovia.

Bats

“Demons!” the first shrieks from a frightened city watch guard filled the tavern as the door slammed shut behind him. “There’s demons in the street, swooping down on large wings to grab at any they can find” behind the panicked shrieks chittering could be heart from the streets.

Giant bats, larger than their normal giant kind, have suddenly started to attack the the City of Milfords Rest, built up around mining in the nearby mines. A new rich gold deposit had been found and the miners, the merchants and prospective prospectors have flocked to the city to work and earn their fortune – however a few nights before the winged mammals appeared in the city people started to go missing in the mines, near the new tunnels opened and all but one were lost. The one that was found was a husk, dried, shrivelled and his face frozen in fear and pain.

Objects. Easily enough I have a set of dice on my table and the d100 is nearly perfectly clear with the sligtest tinge of blue which makes me think of ice. On the other side of my desk is my kids tea-set. A saucer, tea cup and a little wooden spook which was left there from a earlier tea party. Both can inspire adventures just as easily as ants or bats.

Permafrost Dice.

“Woah, hold your horses on that one.” the merchant said as my hand hovered over a nearly clear single dice. “That dice has story behind it and its not a good one” he said as he massaged his, actually quite terribly looking beard.

“They say that the dice belonged to a priest of Lathander who trekked into the far north, past where the sun sets and into the frozen waste lands beyond. There he found a keep which belonged to an ice witch who worshiped one of the devil-rulers from the coldest layer of hell – sworn to end the morning lord. When the two opposing powers finally clashed Lathander ultimately won but not before a blast of frigid hell-rime hit the priest high in his chest – where he kept his lucky dice pouch, they say the dice saved his life that day. He had a complete set too but they have been slowly pawned and distributed across the lands but the owners all die in some way and each time the dice move closer together. I had two of them until a day ago a street urchin ran up and snatched one. I dare say the other dice will be stolen soon and end up in the same horde as the first – but the thief” the man paused tsking. “he will be cold as death soon.”

Tea party

As the party enter the Birchwell woods they come across a curious scene, a man, a dwarf and a sprite sitting down around a felled log having tea. The man and the dwarf look up with fear and sadness in their eyes and start shouting towards the party but some trick of the thick birch trees catches their voices but it looks like they are asking for help.

When the party approach the two they burst into tears. “We told you to run, not to approach. Its too late now, he has seen …”

“why hello there, greetings and good salutations. I am Pix, the Pixie and I want you to join me for a tea and some games!” Pix the blue pixies exclaims excitedly as he flutters overhead an removes a piece of old fabric from a chair revealing the skeleton of what appears to be an elf from quite some time ago. Pushing the bones off the seat and to the forest floor he gestures for the party to come and take a seat. “come, once you start you never want to stop! I promise!” Turning and running as fast as they can the other way the party turn a corner out of the clearing and looking up they see the same scene – Pix grinning at them. “Take a seat, I implore you”

Cinema. It’s now new-age practice for people to borrow plot ideas from cinema. Rings of power, magical swords, wizards, vampires that sparkle instead of burning in the sunlight.. ok maybe not the last one – but movies and TV shows are an easy way to get inspired for adventures and I have two sources today – but they are a bit different to normal inspiration.

200 yards

As the boots met the ground the crowd of spectators cheered for their favourite team, one city against the other, a dozen warriors either side ready to fight – but with a difference. Today they put aside their regular armour and their weapons of choice and today they fight with spiked boots, padded armour with flowing tabards and balls made from leather and magic.

The two sides met in the middle and greeted each other, there was no hostility which was for such a clash as The Blue Wolves were fighting against the Golden Giants – two elite forces who had clashed before. An intense rivalry could be felt across the field into the stands as the two captains stood in front of each other but before the ball could be thrown between the two teams four players from the Blue Wolves fell over, their heads bouncing on the field as they lay motionless except for the steady rise and fall of their chest.

The team was short 4 players and, as it so happened the party had been gifted with front row tickets from a mysterious benefactor just that morning which gave them the chance of filling in for the team if there was need. The captain jogged over and looked worriedly over the party. “Well, you’re not my first pick but let me explain the rules pups. Apart from killing anything goes, we need to get past the other team and throw or kick the ball between the two obsidian pillars. That’s it. If we lose Clovia will take control over the fishing contracts of the northern lake which will cost the city a wagon full of gold. Without those contracts our city will starve. We are relying on you” the captain said as the field guard handed over blue and grey robes and padded armour for the party to don.

Puppets

As the man moved his troops into a steady line to ward off the right side of the battle board he grinned at his opponent who looked at the encroaching lines with worry. The cavalry, their horses restless for battle moved behind the line troops ready to counter charge, their warriors restless and eager for their blades to meet flesh.

Seeing an opportunity to counter play the opposition requested that his archers advance, peppering the horses with arrows as they did so, but the horses either didn’t feel the sting of barbed tips or didn’t care.

“I need a break, need to replenish the supplies.” the man controlling the cavalry said as he stood, the massive chair he stood on pushed back against the great stone blocks.

Sighing and resting his head on the table the young man looked at his warriors – who looked back.

“Why are you making us do this” they asked, their fear of the giant now not as great as they feared the zombies and undead cavalry who moved across from him. “We don’t want to be part of this sick game! Please let us go home. I have a family.” shouted another.

The giant wiped tears from his eyes. “I am sorry, truly, this is the only wan I can get my family back. He controls the slave market and he agreed that If I beat him in a game of his choosing then I will get my family back, but if I lose then I don’t.”

His elite troops, ones that he had paid a considerable lump of gold for stood near the other humans who were bound by magic in much the same was as the undead were bound to un life. Moving closer to them he spoke as lowly as he could.

“I am counting on you, my heroes, this is the last chance I have and I can’t lose my mother in the same year I lost my father. Please help and I will ensure you are set free with any riches that you want”

Both of these are simply taken from two videos I watched today. 1 – The Australian football Rules I walked in on whilst trying to get my son towards bed and 2, watching a video for a Warhammer reveal today – both can inspire adventures. One was relevant to the genre, one was not but inspiration can come at any moment.

Hopefully what inspired me today can inspire you on your next adventure. Take a moment and consider how the small things, the mundane to us could be magical or mystical – how things taken for granted in our every day lives could actually be something that adventures are made out of.

Thanks for dropping by, don’t forget to come back tomorrow for the end of week writeup and as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

You don’t always need new..

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Welcome to a Saturday night pondering system where I out forward the ideas, methods and principles I have for my RPG systems.

Now tonight I wanted to touch on something that I break constantly but never need to, what already exists out there in the dnd 5e ruleset. What I mean by this is, taking last night’s post as an example, you dont need to create new spells to suit a characters play style, theme or otherwise. As an example the creation of an, albeit stronger, new spell that functions like mirror image was primarily to have a bit of flavour added to the spell and make the combat feel foreign and exotic. But just changing the mirror image spell to create bodies made from insects instead of being an illusion would have easily sufficed. The same can be said for, well the original 5e players handbooks list of spells having only a very small number of cold based spells. Changing fire bolt, burning hands, shocking grasp, melfs acid arrows or even fireball to look like frost based spells (ignoring the damage element shift for now) can give the thematic shift that we care about but avoid the balancing act of creating a new suite of spells for our cryomancer.

But if the cold damage replacing the fire damage is really important then the dm (us) can make the changes if it makes sense and doesn’t break the game. From fire to cold isnt that different but from fire to force or radiant/necrotic? Yeah thats something that could have ongoing issues.

We would’ve seen moments on our favourite live play adventure videos or podcasts where the spell is different to what we know it to be, the visuals are different and cool, exciting and fresh and thematically significant for the player. Having a water genasi summoning water bolts and throwing four of them to batter and pierce their enemies as a flavoursome magic missile spell is cool. A cleric of Gond, worshipping artifice and craft could have cogs, gears or divine engines powering their spells like guiding bolt or sacred flame. To take it further that same cleric may summon a mechanical golem or a steampunk piston driven axe as their spiritual weapon. The amount of flexibility and creativity is only stopped by us saying “thats cool, I dig it, what does that look like to you?”

Monsters also come under this. The oni from a few weeks back would have been ideal for a lift and rename from the hobgoblin, and they almost were. Adding or adjusting some flavoursome abilities to suite your campaign can be a great thing, or additional effort for very little value. Instead of making the Toad-kin I could have just given the goblin statblock amphibious trait and call it a day to fit my idea of these toad-like people.

Everytime we go to make a new item, spell, creature or whatever its a balancing act between effort, balance and value. Sometimes the simplest option of a re-skin is the best and can wow your party just as much.

Don’t forget to come back tomorrow for the end of week write-up and, as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,

The Brazen Wolfe