Campaign journals, reviews of TTRPG stuff, and musings on D&D.
| Prompt | Result |
|---|---|
| Daily | Renew |
| Question | What |
| Mood | Proud |
| Subject | Lesson |
Prompt interpretation:
What lessons should be renewed with pride?
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| Prompt | Result |
|---|---|
| Daily | Overcome |
| Question | Where |
| Mood | Excited |
| Subject | Character |
Prompt interpretation:
Where can characters expect to get overcome with excitment?
The vault of notorious dark elf Lesyraen Kilduis is rumoured to hold riches beyond mortal comprehension. Little is known of, or about him, except that he was extreme even by the Woelands standards. He was last spotted in the Wilderlands couple of years ago, searching for something in Hara valley and Eyestone jungle.
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| Prompt | Result |
|---|---|
| Daily | Deceive |
| Question | How |
| Mood | Envious |
| Subject | Adventure |
Prompt interpretation:
How does one deceive envious adventurers?
Easy. Be nice to them. Pay them. Give them gifts. Ask for help. Compliment them. Tell them what great heroes they are. Tell them they are fighting for freedom and for good of the people. Offer to run their estate for them while they are away, adventuring. Give them what they are asking for and be grateful for it. Spread rumours to turn local populace against them. Offer your help to “calm the situation down.” Don't challenge them face on, you will surely lose. Instead get them to self-destruct. Hang them the noose and they'll take care of everything else.
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| Prompt | Result |
|---|---|
| Daily | Mystery |
| Question | Who |
| Mood | Proud |
| Subject | Rule |
Prompt interpretation:
Who takes pride in mystifying rules?
I... I don't know? I hope that most of the mystifying, perplexing, and obtuse rules stem from incompetence and lack of writerly rigour and discipline, than some perverted source of pride. “Huhu, my rules can only be understood by most dedicated scholars.” There will be no scholars if your game sucks. HackMaster 4E was deliberately written with a very tongue-in-cheek tone, drenched in High Gygaxian, so perhaps that one would qualify as taking pride in deliberate mystification. Oh, what a pity that it isn't readily available any more!
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| Prompt | Result |
|---|---|
| Daily | Darkness |
| Question | Who |
| Mood | Excited |
| Subject | Rule |
Prompt interpretation:
Who gets excited by rules relating to darkness?
Surely not players!
Especially when I inform them their elf or dwarf still can't see in the dark because they were gazing straight into torch/lantern/coin with continual light just moments ago.
Now their eyes need time to adjust to pitch black.
How long? Alas, only one way to find out. Will you stand in darkness until you see once again? Or would you prefer to light another torch and see the horrors that await you?
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Goodman Games has put up their whole 3E and 4E catalogue up for sale, with most of the publications going for $1. See my previous “throwback sale” recommendations here. Spend responsibly!
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| Prompt | Result |
|---|---|
| Daily | Path |
| Question | Why |
| Mood | Grateful |
| Subject | Person |
Prompt interpretation:
Why am I grateful for encountering Robert Conley on my path?
I am grateful for meeting a great deal of people on my gaming path, but today I wish to share more about my encounters with Rob. When I set out to run a new campaign, I was mesmerised by Wilderlands of High Fantasy, one of the original D&D settings.
That was quite recently, in 2022, and I quickly realised I have arrived to the party quite late. Judges Guild was gone, courtesy of ill behaviour from its owner, print copies that were once cheap, were now difficult to get, and digital stuff mostly existed as fan made supplements. But I found Rob was selling his updated maps of the Wilderlands. I bought them all! And then I picked Barbarian Altanis as the campaign starting point.
I quickly realised something was off on the map, and reached out to Rob. He sent quite a thoughtful and exhaustive reply. That's when I started to pay more attention to his work—Blackmarsh, Majestic Fantasy RPG, and Points of Light in particular. Since then Rob published an amazing how-to guide on sandbox campaigns and Majestic Fantasy Realms, a spiritual successor to Wilderlands.
Besides that, I found him to be generous with his time and insight, which is indeed vast after playing and running open-ended sandbox campaigns for over forty years. How could I not be grateful to be able to learn from such a fellow!
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| Character | Race | Class | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ludd Nuck | Human | Fighter level 1 | A lad from the farm, still wet behind the ears and smelling of dung whom became an adventurer to impress a village lass who jilted him. |
| Sted Jalen | Human | Assassin level 1 | A mass of burnt scar tissue hidden by layers and layers of actors' slap. Rather taciturn. |
| Arete | Human | Cleric level 1 | Young cleric of Athena, seeking to establish himself and gain more knowledge. |
| Nandos | Dwarf | Fighter level 1 | Grew weary of clan politics and doing low level hired muscle work, so decided to become an adventurer instead. |
| Ambros | Human | Cleric level 6 | Follower of Aniu, Lord of Time. |
“In the name of Aniu and Forseti, Rise!”
Ambros performed the holy ritual on Arete's stiff corpse. Deceased cleric of Athena twitched and jerked, skin drawing over his bones, eyes popping open, now nothing but black pearls of hatred. An unearthly scream escaped his open mouth, and then he disintegrated. The ritual succeeded, just not in the way Ambros had expected it to.
Arete was slain by an undead creature most foul, whom had drained him of life. From then on, the cleric was cursed to a wretched existence of misery and hatred. But good Ambros had relieved him of fate worse than death. Ambros exhaled and turned his attention to captured brigand leader and his lackey.
Answers he got were unsatisfactory to him.
“Marlon, make him speak.”
“Gladly.”
Knight grabbed the brigand by the back of his neck with his left hand. Then he drove his mailed fist straight into the brigand's face. Teeth, blood, and facial tissue splattered the wall. Marlon slid his left hand up the neck, grabbed the man's greasy hair, and smashed his head into the wall. Then he jerked him back, threw him to the ground, and stomped his belly. Brigand leader vomited blood.
“I-I 'm r'dy t'” the man struggled to speak articulately “s-s-s-sp'k.”
Having learned nothing, Ambros stood pensively. He knew what he had to do, but was reluctant nonetheless. A year or so a group of adventurers vanished after stepping into a teleporter. Will the history repeat itself?
⁂
Nandos found the secret doors leading out of the diamond shaped chamber. But it had no visible mechanism. It was just a thin groove forming a tall rectangle on the wall. The dwarf tried to wedge his crowbar into the gap, but the tool was way too thick for it.
“Behold.” Sted flexed his muscles and pushed the wall portion open. Straight, dust covered, corridor revealed itself. Nandos and Sted, backed by Talik and Dalkanarion, investigated it further. It was seventy feet long, ending with a wall. Half-way in was a junction. South bend went on for twenty feet, ending with a wall, will north bend turned left twice before hitting a wall. Straight corridor had empty torch sconces every ten feet or so.
The diamond-shaped chamber filled with light and chatter as Ambros and ten heavy footmen suddenly appeared in it. He quickly caught up with four adventurers. Nandos continued his winning streak. First he found that secret doors can be opened from inside the corridor by pulling down on the sconce on the south wall. Then he found another secret door, just down the corridor. This too opened by pulling on a sconce next to it.
But this time it was different. There was no dusty corridor with stale air. No. This time it was a large chamber, with wet, disgusting smell. A stone bath, some eighteen feet long, seven feet wide, and four feet deep dominated the chamber. It was filled to the brim with rank, foul smelling water. Open archway on the east wall led down the dark corridor, while weak light shone underneath the doors on the south wall.
Ambros approached the doors and swung them open. He was surprised to see Marlon with perplexed look on his face. Adventurers had found their way back to the antechamber, arriving from the north side. Since they spent the day marching and adventuring, the party had decided to retreat back to the surface in order to rest and recuperate.
In order to maintain their foothold in the dungeon, they planned the following rotations. First, Ambros and a squad of heavy footmen would take the midnight watch. Then Marlon and a fresh squad of heavy footmen would take the pre-dawn watch. Finally, Dalkanarion backed by another fresh squad of heavy footmen would take the morning watch. This would give everyone enough time to rest.
“Make way! Make way!”
“High Priest has been taken down!”
“Men! To arms!”
Marlon jumped up, alarmed. There was great commotion in the camp. He slept sitting on a small stool, still dressed in his armour. There was yelling and running about.
“What is going on?!”
Men dragged paralysed Ambros out of the underground complex. He had bloodied scratch marks on unarmoured part of his arm. Marlon learned that Ambros went to investigate screaming sounds just south of the antechamber. There he ran into a group of undead feasting on the brigands' corpses. He was surprised and taken out by them. Soldiers fought bravely, pushing on into certain death. They managed to grab Ambros and pull him out. Two men were lost in the process, taken alive by the ghouls. Forseti bless them.
⁂
Ambros played with his holy symbols—gold gavel and silver hourglass—as he marched into the dungeon once more. It took him almost two hours to regain his facilities.
“Begone! I banish thee!”
Foul creatures screeched and wailed and fled into darkness. They fled in panic, leaving behind half eaten corpses of two loyal followers of Forseti.
There were no further disturbances. Marlon took over. There were no disturbance during his watch either. Dalkanarion took the final watch, backed by a fresh contingent of heavy footmen. Ghouls returned, but were slain by the might warrior wielding The Oathkeeper.
⁂
Adventurers descended into the dungeon once more. Marlon and a squad of heavy footmen were assigned to guard duty—they were to hold the antechamber and ensure it remains a safe rendezvous point.
Ambros, Nandos, and Sted Jalen, backed by a squad of heavy footmen, decided to explore the northern chamber with foul bath. Sted found out that bath was filled with floating turds on the top, and goldish coins on the bottom. They forced the non-beaten up brigand prisoner to dive and fish out all the coins. The man barfed and retched, but did what he was commanded to do.
Soon they had a very smelly pile of treasure counting five hundred electrum pieces, one hundred and ninety five gold pieces, a silver dagger, and a small jewel encrusted bull idol. Soldiers refused the carry this foul loot.
Exploring the corridor behind the archway led to an abandoned study, filled with nothing but rubble and dust, another corridor terminating with two dead ends, and doors leading into a corridor with statue in the middle of the square chamber.
Approaching the statue from behind, the adventurers could see it was of a tall, feminine shape. It held a bow in its right hand, and cradled something in its left. Coming closer revealed there was a groove in the ground, indicating that the statue could possibly be rotated. After much hewing and hawing, Nandos and Ambros gently grabbed the statue and turned it counter-clockwise.
Originally the statue faced south. Once it faced east, adventures got blinded by bright yellow glow of their armour and weapons. The glow slowly abated into soft glimmer. It disappeared with an audible popping sound.
“What was that?!”
“I don't know, but I don't want to turn it again!”
The statue was indeed that of a tall human female dress in a toga. She carried a bow in its right hand, and a lyre in its left hand. Her mouth was open, as if she was singing. The party left the statue behind and returned to the antechamber.
“Where to next?”
Discuss at Dragonsfoot forum.
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| Prompt | Result |
|---|---|
| Daily | Flavour |
| Question | What |
| Mood | Excited |
| Subject | Accessory |
Prompt interpretation:
What makes an accessory flavour exciting?
I must confess that I prefer minimal flavour. I am not interested in accessories with pages and pages of fluff, heck, I am not interested in any item that has multiple paragraphs of fluff unless there is a very good reason for it. Now, I understand I might be conflating fluff with flavour, and that might not be entirely fair. But then again, minimal fluff is what makes flavour more palpable to me, and therefore, more exciting.
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| Prompt | Result |
|---|---|
| Daily | Origin |
| Question | How |
| Mood | Confident |
| Subject | Rule |
Prompt interpretation:
How confident are you in a rule's origin?
Good question. I am always curious about the provenance of a rule at hand. Is it from the author themself? Did they take it from someone else? Is that person credited? Can I trace the rule all the way back to its origin point?
I wonder about those not because of ownership but because I wish to understand how much playing has the rule seen. I am not a professional game designer. I play role-playing games for fun and recreation. I am confident in making a ruling, and even writing it down. And I respect rules that came out of thousands of hours of play.
Gary and Dave played a lot. I will always give their rules the benefit of doubt, even if something they wrote doesn't make sense to me at first. I will extend the same courtesy to any author that convinces me their rules have seen actual play. Especially if they have been tested by competitive players who actively tried to break and exploit the rules.
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