My light skips and jumps from shadow to doorway to overpass and buttress. I am searching for something in the dreams, but I know not what. Something finds me, it is inevitable. It comes creeping at first, hiding from my senses as though frightened of me; all I hear is the skittering of disturbed gravel or the crack of a baked clay tile snapping under foot.

The city opens up around me as my path leads me up a hill. Narrow alleyways become first roads and then thoroughfares and I begin to see the bodies. They hang from light poles and lay sprawled in the streets. I can sense the thing that is following me, and instinctively I know that there are more of the creatures. They are beginning to surround me. I have to get to higher ground.

I begin to run, no longer the hunter.  I am now the prey. I leap over half-seen bodies and blasted piles of rubble as my hand light casts a strobe-like effect over the scene. I can hear them now. Occasionally I catch a glimpse of one, a scaled hand or snapping tentacle at the edge of my vision. My blood pounds in my ears and I push myself faster.

Houses fall away on either side of me; tenements become houses and then mansions, each one set further from the road then the one before. It is a part of the city that I don’t know at all and I begin to feel terribly exposed, but now at least I can nearly make out my pursuers, dead eyed and red mouthed.

All of a sudden I come to the precipice, a great jetty of stone shooting out over the greater part of the city. Over the narrow places, the dirty places, where the real people live, and I can see the skyline shrouded in fog. There are lights at the tops of the buildings, burning gold and pale; beneath them, mystic green, glowing spires stab towards the sky.

I stop for too long, staring entranced, and when I look down I see that my pursuers are crawling up towards me, swarming up the rough worn stone. Behind me they are closing in, I cannot get out, cannot escape.

So I rush back to the street and there, in the ring described by a wane streetlight, I drop my light and take the sword in both hands. As the flashlight rolls into darkness my foes flinch from its rays. I stand, feet apart waiting for the first of the things to enter the ring of light. I wait, jaw set, to die.

They encircle me, taking all the time in the world—but always, as the first darts forward, I wake up.

#

It’s raining. I lay huddled in my long coat on the third floor of a partially collapsed building. Once upon a time it was a school. I live in what was once a science classroom. I have a nest of blankets in the space beneath the teachers desk and I can close the sliding doors to further hide myself from prying eyes, and I store the books and ephemera, the tools that keep me alive, amongst ancient beakers crusted with chemicals in a locker at the back of the room.

The roof leaks, but I am tall and reluctant to fold myself under the desk so long as I feel safe enough to avoid that fate, so I am damp and cold. I stand and stretch as I prowl the perimeter of my lair, checking that the line of salt remains unbroken. It is almost meditative, renewing in grease pen the runes of warding that shield me from scrying and those who would peer into the future.

Satisfied, I cross to the locker whispering words that ripple in the air, for those that know how to see, but that are heard only by reality. I grasp the lock. It pops open with a faint click and I swing the door wide. From the locker I take a pendulum and a deck of cards; each card is densely crowded with runes and intricate diagrams that seem to shift under close inspection. These I tuck into the pockets of my coat, but not before taking the old leather holster from its peg above the spooled guts of a Bunsen burner and fix it to my belt. The revolver rests on my right hip.

I walk out of the room and snap my fingers. The locker swings shut.

Outside it’s gray and dreary, and burnt posters for shows that will never be shown rustle in the dirty wind. What few rays of light pierce the leaden cloud cover seem only to highlight the cracks in the road and the dust on broken storefront windows. It’s been eleven months since The End, since the bombs went off and the survivors fled. Eleven months since those of us who practice the Art have been able to sleep without dreaming of the other side—without visiting the world beyond the Veil, where we are hunted by creatures of nightmares. It is the place from where we draw our power, taking sustenance with each of their deaths. Energy is conserved, even with the Art, and they feed off of our dead as we feed off of theirs, and there has been so much death here that the hunters have begun to cross.

They are still just shadows here, but every day those shadows grow longer. I try to shake off the black mood overtaking me and carefully make my way down the street, always keeping my third eye open, peering ahead for danger. Today, I make it to my destination without incident.

The market lies in what used to be a central line subway station. Hundreds of men and women gather to swap scavenged goods, buy or sell foodstuffs and services and the little things that we can still make. More importantly it provides us with a place where we can remember what it is to be human.

Descending the three flights of stairs, I enter the bazaar. Before me sprawls two miles of densely packed humanity. A sizable portion of the city is represented here, some say as many as ten percent of the survivors at a given time pack into these precariously supported tunnels.

Lights are strung from the ceiling, powered by the engines of the old trains—some of the only artificial lighting left in the city. In the moments it takes my eyes to adjust I am offered an apple, a blow job, and a fortune telling. All from the same stand, the same young gentleman wrapped in silken scarves. I pass him by with a wave of my hand and begin to swim through the crowd. There are few people that don’t recognize me here, even if they don’t know my name.

“Michael!” I call out, “You lazy swine, where are you?” My favorite breakfast stand is tucked into a gap between two concrete support pillars. In the space behind a plywood counter he has rigged a rudimentary  water system out of scavenged pipes, as well as an oven and small stove top from oil drums, metal grating, and two or three backyard barbecues. It is a kitchen that would have made Rube Goldberg very proud.

“Coming, coming…” echoes the genially ornery reply from around the corner. A slightly portly older man with a heavily lined face and gruff demeanor soon follows. “Ah, freak,” he says, “the usual?”

“If it’s not too much trouble.” He fills a chipped coffee mug with the black sludge he calls coffee before turning back to busy himself with the food on his griddle. After a few minutes I receive a plate of sauced scrambled eggs and a wedge of dark bread. While I eat he keeps up a stream of discourse with the several other patrons that gravitate to his counter. He is determinedly difficult, and despite his successful shop, eager to gripe entertainingly on almost any topic.

As I finish off my eggs he turns to me, “You paying today?”

“I suppose so.” I keep a running tab with anyone I do regular business with, “What do you want me to do?” A favor is the hardest currency that I have ready access to.

“Nothing much, delivery run is all.” He licks his lips, uncharacteristically nervous.

“And what precisely would I be running?” It wasn’t the sort of job I was normally asked to do. Anyone can do transportation, they usually ask me for something a bit more difficult; shore up the foundation of a house so that it stops collapsing, or purify a vat of water. Anything they would have relied on machines for a year ago.

“Meat.”

“Meat?”

“Meat. There was a slaughter last night on the north side, Warehouse 49. Jim Gattis runs the place and he owes me a hundred and fifty pounds of assorted meats, I need to get them over here and cured before they go bad, but there’s no way in hell me or any of my people are running meat from the north side these days.” Coming out of the winter the dogs were hungry and hunting in packs. It was something we were having trouble getting used to.

“Alright, I’ll see what I can do. Send your scrip with me so he doesn’t ask questions.”

“No shit.” from his apron he produces a grubby book of yellow paper, stapled at one end.

Thumbing through it he finds a relatively grease-free page and tears it out, scribbles a few illegible words with the stub of a pencil that normally lives behind his ear, and then signs it with a flourish. He hands it to me and I tuck it into my left pants pocket.

“You have a good morning, I’ll see you in a couple hours.”

“I’ll see you, freak.”

I walk away through the throngs of people. Emerging from the station a few minutes later I’m struck again by how quiet the city is. A few figures scurry furtively between buildings but away from the bazaar I hear no laughter or shouting. I smell little but the detritus of wild things. As I walk I re-wrap my kafiya against the wind.

#

When I’ve a mind to do so, I can travel quickly. So long as it is just me, I have no baggage, and the sun is in the sky. I draw the back of cards from my pocket, and thumb through for the Deuce of Spades. There is danger inherent in any magic, and the more extravagant it is the greater the potential consequences. I could step instantaneously to the north side, into the warehouse itself even, but it would light up in the minds of every Practitioner in the city, and I know better than to want that. Besides, it would mean passing wholly across the Veil, an increasingly dangerous proposition these days.

Instead I hold the card between my thumb and forefinger and speak a word of activation. A pall falls over my surroundings. The details outside become blurred and indistinct. Sounds seem to come from far, far away. I stride forward and the city slips around me. I’m frictionless. A few people see me, but none that comprehend what they saw. The spirit of a young girl, dead for some time I believe, is caught up in my wake and buffeted along behind me for several blocks before she is pulled back to her locus with a snap.

Then, dream like, I am standing in front of the warehouse. Even without directions I would have been able to find it; the sickly sweet smell that emanates from it couldn’t be anything but fresh meat. Shaking my I head I rap my knuckles against the steel door several times and then wait, one hand resting on the rough concrete wall.

Several minutes pass without response and I knock again. When I still hear nothing I try the door. Unsurprisingly it does not yield under my hand, meat is a valuable commodity and Gattis knows that better than most people. The nine of spades comes out and the door shivers as I set its magic against the lock. With a sickening crack, the tumblers snap open and I push my way inside.

The warehouse is dark, and largely empty save for several boxes neatly packed in its center. Something is moving in the dimness, something that I can feel more than see. It is not Jim Gattis, he is twisting in mid-air, a meat hook set under his rib cage, his limbs askew.

The warehouse is two stories tall, with windows on the second story. The window across from me is broken inwards, and the floor is scattered with prismatic shards of glass. I draw my pistol and cock the hammer back, no time to play with cards, though the spells written into the diamonds are my best shields and the clubs provide a more nuanced battery of offensive options.

I fish my pendulum from a pocket and let it dangle between the third and fourth fingers of my left hand, which I hold palm up. It describes several circuits of the room as I mutter refinements to the spell of searching with which it is imbued. In under a minute I feel a distinct tugging.

I exhale slowly as I allow the pendulum to lead me. I hold my gun at the ready, eyes probing the darkness, but even taking care I don’t see the dog before it is in mid leap. It is a massive gray beast, with a hollow stomach and burning eyes. I throw myself backwards, rolling to avoid the pounce, and my pendulum goes skittering across the floor, still writhing to face the dog.

By sight alone I can tell that there is something wrong about the creature, it is too quiet, too hard to pick out of the shadows, and most of all it is unnaturally strong and fast. That leap was easily a hundred feet, judging by the tugging of the pendulum, and it had enough force behind it to knock me unconscious if not kill me outright.

Still, strange as it is the dog has to take time to recover from its pounce. I bring the gun to bear and pull the trigger, the hammer falls on an empty chamber and a bolt of pure magical force leaps from the barrel, striking the creature in the chest and throwing it into an empty packing crate that shatters under the impact.

I stand and dust myself off, turning to find my pendulum. That saves my life, because I notice that it is still wriggling, straining towards the crate. Without looking I leap to my left, re-cocking the gun, crooning words of bolstering and destruction.

Spinning around I expect to see the dog standing where I had been a moment before, but it is lying in the remnants of the crate, unmistakably dead. A smoke or mist is rising from its body, pale, effervescent green.

With a curse I make safe the gun and return it to its holster. Scooping up the pendulum as I begin to run. When I risk a glance over my shoulder I can see a figure taking shape from the mist, indistinct still, and ephemeral, but full with menace.

In the far corner of the warehouse I make my stand. Working as quickly as possible I sketch a pentagram in grease-pen and, standing in the center, I lay out the Ace, Four, Seven, Two, and Jack of Diamonds, beginning in front of me and working clockwise. A word of command and the array bursts into ghostly flame before vanishing from mortal sight.

The figure is stalking towards me and where its feet fall pieces of concrete vaporize and join with its corpus. There is only one card in the deck that may effect a creature from beyond the Veil and I know that if it fails I will be reduced to my wits and creativity, and the power of my words. Not for the first time those seem like rather fragile weapons.

Crossing the fingers of my left hand I fish out the suicidal King of Clubs and toss it, casually, towards the oncoming creature. Calling out unheard words that shake the dust from the rafters I see the card beginning to glow, and slow in its flight, orienting itself to hang in thin air before the oncoming creature. I crouch down, and at the edges of my vision I see the ghostly patterns of the wards I called into being moments before, silently I urge them to work.

The figure reaches for the card and my breath catches in my throat as fascinated, it takes the card in its hand.

The shock wave sends cracks running through the walls and floor of the warehouse but, sheltered from the worst of it by my wards, I am able to absorb the better part of the energy from the creatures death.

With a word I dismiss my active spells and look about, wondering how to explain what had just happened to the late butcher’s expectant customers. I will deal with it somehow. After all, I am the Wizard and this is my City.

END

Visit the original post, The Emerald City, by Per Wiger, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

M. K. Hobson leads her readers through an exciting adventure with just a smattering of romance in her debut novel, The Native Star. Set in 1876 in an alternate Wild West, the novel follows Emily Edwards and her unwanted companion, Dreadnought Stanton, across the United States as they seek answers about a mysterious artifact. Hobson’s beautifully crafted world combines steampunk technology with a variety of types of magic, creating a genre that one reviewer refers to as “witchpunk.”

Though the novel begins with a prologue far removed from the main action of the rest of the novel, it kicks things off with a bang. As Hobson gradually reveals more and more of the world, all of the pieces begin to fall into place. The entire novel is filled with suspense and intrigue, and will keep you turning the pages to find out what happens next.

The central character, Emily Edwards, is a Witch of a natural tradition of witchcraft. She encounters a strange stone, and in an act of desperation, grabs it. When the stone fuses into her hand, she and Dreadnought Stanton, a Warlock from a more structured school, endeavor to learn more about the stone and how to remove it from her hand. The stone, a powerful magical item that prevents magic from working in its vicinity, complicates their ability to do this without attracting attention. Along the way, Emily and Dreadnought encounter a variety of allies and enemies with complex motives, making their task more difficult.

The interplay between Emily and Dreadnought, rivals who must work together in order to survive, is wonderfully written. Throughout much of the book, their enmity makes you wonder how this book could be called a romance. It does not contain the trappings of a usual romance, with heaving bosoms and strapping men. But the romantic elements that are present are far more delightful and realistic than those found in a traditional romance novel.

It is difficult to pick out anything in particular that I didn’t like in this book. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and I honestly think my only complaint would be a few loose ends that weren’t tied up by the end of the novel. But as this book is the first in a series, it is not surprising that some of the plot threads woven in this book would continue into future books.

I think that readers who have enjoyed the books in the Parasol Protectorate series by Gail Carriger would also enjoy The Native Star. While Hobson’s protagonists are generally more serious than those in Carriger’s novels, there is a nice amount of humor that comes out, particularly in the interactions between Emily and Dreadnought. The Native Star is a different sort of alternate history than the Parasol Protectorate series, but both worlds make good use of steampunk technology as an integral part of the setting.

The second book in Hobson’s series, The Hidden Goddess, came out in April of 2011, and continues the lives of the protagonists from The Native Star. Two additional tentative titles in this series, The Warlock’s Curse and The Unsteady Earth, have also been announced. I can only hope that this series will continue beyond these four novels, as I very much enjoy Hobson’s storytelling style and the world that she has created.

EDITOR’S NOTE: You can follow M.K. Hobson’s progress on her current novels at her blog, Demimonde.

Visit the original post, Clockwork Reviews: The Native Star, by M. K. Hobson, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

Illustration © 2011, Rob Torno

The Unofficial Official RPG Blog Carnival Logo.

February belongs to Cupid – it’s a month of love and lust, want and wonder. On the flip side, it’s also a month of scorn, disappointment, and frustration for some (and we  pity them all too). So, being that we’re all gamers and we all love our RPGs to death – the topic for this month’s RPG Blog Carnival is “Things to Love, Things to Hate!“ 

The possible things we could explore that we love and hate about our hobby could go on forever. So, let’s keep things focused on Game Systems and/or Adventures we love or hate, and why. Some quick suggestions might include

• What are the best adventures made of? What about the worst of them?
• What kills an adventure before it even gets off the ground?
• Some say it’s all a matter of opinion, but I say some game systems are clearly just better than others (read:more fun to play). What’s your favorite system? What are the things you love about it most? WHY?
• With [insert new edition of some cool game] on the horizon, I’m sure you have an opinion  regarding what the next edition should or shouldn’t be once it’s out. Share your thoughts. Let your readers know where you stand and who you love!

So, go forth and blog it out. Just make sure to link back here or to leave a comment so that I can include you in the end-of-the-month round up too! If you don’t have a blog of your own, but have a burning desire to get something off your chest, why not guest blog on Nevermet Press? A carnival is a great way to start – heck, the topic is already picked out for you! =D

And… while you’re waiting for the RPG blogging community to response – why not check out last month’s carnival: “Fantastic Locations” hosted by Keith Davies. Over 40 (!) posts on new made-of-awesome places to set your adventures. What an amazing response! Nice work Keith!

Want to host a future month of the carnival? Check out the archive and sign up there.

Visit the original post, Things to Love, Things to Hate: February RPG Blog Carnival, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

When a person leaves anything that he or she loves doing, deep-seeded reasons have to be involved. What follows is an attempt, after a 15-year hiatus from TTRPG, to delve into the reasons for my abrupt departure. It’s the first time I revisit this period: who knows what I’ll find deep inside of myself. I approach this post as an adventurer would approach a cavern entrance that has barely legible inscriptions warning of dangers within. Therefore, I jump right in: on my guard…but excited!

The year was 1995. I was barely out of my teens and the world beckoned to me like a siren to sample its delicacies. I had come to the big city of Ottawa from my small town of Kapuskasing in northern Ontario, ready to indulge in the pleasures that such a change brings; an overflow of cultural possibilities, a vast mosaic of unknown beautiful women, new friends of varying types (much more varied than the small-town template could offer), and perhaps most importantly: freedom.

Naturally, my AD&D 2nd Edition books had made the journey to the big city as well. Part of the wonderment and anticipation of moving to a metropolis was, quite honestly, the prospect of gaming shops! Ottawa had a few of them in those days, including one that still survives right in the downtown core, Fandom II. Money that should have been used for—oh I don’t know— textbooks, was instead diverted to rounding out my Dark Sun collection (note: if you’re reading this, Mom, it’s not true – the previous sentence was artistic licence). Luckily, many of my gaming friends had also chosen Ottawa as the city for their post-secondary education. Hence, a resumption of my DM’ing of the Dark Sun campaign was expected.

Once we got together for the first time in Ottawa to play, something was off. I don’t know and can’t recall if anyone else expressed that sentiment, but I remember feeling it very keenly. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. There seemed to be a general blandness to our adventuring, a lack of focus. It was as if we were all going through the motions, trying to keep at least a part of our hometown with us. Perhaps that’s just 15 years of wisdom being thrown at that particular cold case mystery. Nevertheless, the important thing here is that after a few sessions, we quit.

I quit.

Image Credit: Kevin Pelletier

I no longer had the thirst to read the game manuals, nor the hunger to prepare gaming sessions. A lot of stuff goes on when you’re 19 years old and released from the shackles of a small town. There were now a plethora of entertainment options to take up my free time. I suppose a part of me was embarrassed about my gaming hobby. I didn’t want my “cool” new friends to find out that I really liked to be a fantasy storyteller, guiding a bunch of D&D “geeks” to loot and lore. Presenting myself as a music nerd, a political junkie, a sports aficionado; all of these seemed better suited to my newly-found “hipster” status. Let’s face it: trying to impress a girl you like with “Why don’t you come back to my place, I’ve got this great collection of U2 bootlegs for us to listen to” sounds so much more suave than  “Hey, I know how to calculate THAC0 – wanna be my gnomish bard?”.  (For the record, the U2 thing never worked…)

Visit the original post, Hunting the Beast: The Real Reason I Left D&D (Only To Return), at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

This series aims to offer small, system independent locations that can be dropped into a particular campaign easily and provide a jumping-off-point for side-treks and adventures. The first few PoaM articles will introduce Ashid, a small settlement built around an oasis that could appear in any desert on any fantasy world (or tweaked slightly for more modern settings as well).

Palm Tree by Ik Ikrig - www.publicdomainpictures.net

Ashid & The Oasis of Del Foor

Built long ago around the oasis of Del Foor in the Waste, Ashid had humble beginnings. Between a few shady palms hid a small trader’s post, tavern, and inn. Travelers would arrive to replenish their supplies, possibly spend a night or two to rest or wait out a storm, and be on their way. The oasis was little more than a clear pool of water, and a handful of trees, buildings, and tents.

At least that was how it started…

In the last 100 years, Ashid has undergone an unusual change. Some oases shrink naturally over time or stay the same size for years, but Del Foor has grown larger. The desert people may not understand how the change has come about, but they can adapt quickly to embrace any advantage that nature’s miracles may provide.

Since the growth began, the oasis has doubled in size every few years, creating a few problems for business owners but also creating new opportunities for profit. What was once a reluctant way station has become a choice location for first brief, then longer vacations to enjoy what the oasis has to offer. Ashid is now home to more than 100 people year-round and has between 500 and 1,000 visitors in any given year depending on the weather in the Waste. Some years are more forgiving to desert travel than others.

And then there’s the small case of the disappearances… Each year since the oasis began to grow, at least one visitor never left. As you might expect, local business owners don’t publicize that fact. Until recently, those travelers lost in Ashid were limited to criminals and other undesirables. Unfortunately the number of missing visitors has shot up sharply in the last handful of years and hasn’t been limited to those who wouldn’t be missed. This has many people concerned.

Initial Impressions and Description

When characters first see the oasis, it seems like a tropical island in a sea of sand. Many may initially discount it as a mirage brought on by the pounding heat of day. Occasionally a lone traveler will happen across Ashid, but local guides know its location and benefits as a point of resupply and entertainment. (For some pictures of oases, check out this article at Environmental Graffiti.)

The oasis of Ashid lies in the middle of the Waste, a desert that stretches for vast distances in the middle of the continent. The oasis itself occupies a roughly oval shape if it could be seen from a height, with a large pool of water serves at its center. Much debate has raged over where the fresh water comes from, but most believe it is a blessing as the oasis is far from any other large source of fresh water. The pool is calm and shallow at the edges, but very deep at the center. The oasis itself now stretches nearly a mile along its long axis and half a mile across at its center.

Around the pool is a ring of date palms, used for their fruit and leaves as well as for shade. In small tended gardens beneath some of the trees, locals have planted crops of small fruit trees (figs, small oranges, and apricots mostly) and vegetables. These crops, as well as the small number of animals raised in the oasis, are used to supplement the traded goods arriving by caravan and sparse edible vegetation (roots, berries, nuts) found elsewhere in the Waste.

Backstory

About 100 years ago, a traveler lost in the Waste stumbled on an ancient tomb in a hill not far from the oasis. Nothing was visible but the tomb door, which the visitor found when he tripped over an exposed corner of stone on his way to fetch water. He dug out enough of the structure to use it for some small shade from the sun. While he rested, a strange voice enticed him to open the sealed door with a promise of power and riches. Weakened by hunger and thirst, but a greedy man above all, the visitor agreed to the request and followed his unknown benefactor’s directions to open the sealed door.

The visitor’s name was Roovi El Vaz. He is now 130 years old and the most powerful man in Ashid. He owns several businesses, holds much power and riches, and a dark secret. Each year he wishes to maintain his power, he must provide a sacrifice to his benefactor. Each year he wishes to increase his power, he must provide two sacrifices.

El Vaz has lived with his secret for a century. As a result, his power and the oasis grew. But he has been patient, slowly growing his domain over generations to avoid attracting unwanted attention. And he has avoided asking any questions of his mysterious benefactor for fear of learning too much.

Unfortunately another visitor stumbled upon the tomb three years ago: Maaz Al-Yad. By this time, the tomb was well within the oasis borders and hidden in the basement of one of El Vaz’ businesses. And El Vaz’ benefactor was all too happy to make a similar deal with Al-Yad. However, Al-Yad doesn’t have El Vaz’ patience. He has decided if one or two sacrifices a year would provide wealth and power, more sacrifices would yield that much more wealth and power. He has since gone mad with a lust for power and murdered dozens of innocent victims for sacrifice to his new master. Now, having proved himself, he is willing to do much more to please his new master and garner more power for himself.

What El Vaz stumbled across in the desert was the smallest portion of the underground complex where the Benefactor resides. The demon Beyesh was trapped by the protector of the oasis in another time and buried deep beneath the sands. Sometime after the tomb complex was built, the desert swallowed the oasis in a massive sandstorm and the priests tasked with keeping the demon at bay all perished. The oasis eventually recovered, but the tomb of Bayesh still waits just beneath the surface to be discovered. Now that the demon has once again had some exposure to the outside world, he is plotting and scheming, waiting for an opportunity to break the spells that bind him to the oasis and hold him in his tomb…

Next time…

Next time we’ll focus on the people in Ashid and their relationships and motivations. What are El Vaz and Al-Yad hiding? How can so many lives simply have disappeared without anyone noticing?

Visit the original post, Points on a Map: The Oasis of Del Foor Overview, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

Adventures are often linear, “rail roaded” scenarios designed around getting maximum play-time out of a single product, reducing GM prep time, and maintaining story arcs across “adventure paths”. While there is nothing inherently wrong with this approach, I still think there needs to be room for free-form roleplaying, chance encounters and so-called “sandbox campaigns.” One way to mix things up a bit is to introduce side-track mini-adventures into your campaign, and that’s the goal of this series of posts. Homebrew games can be created the same way, so try this for yourself you’ll see how fun it can be.

“A Fork in the Road” aims to set up a dynamic mini-adventure where the outcome hinges on player choices, not scripted design choices. The PC are invited to a local noble’s estate and hired to help him quell a local rebellion. Once the PCs meet the rebels, however, their choices are suddenly not so clear.

Editor’s Note: It should go without saying, but if the monster stats and encounter set ups aren’t appropriate for the PCs, simply retool the storyline of the encounter a little bit.  Again, this article is designed for 4E D&D.  There is no reason why the encounters can’t be used in any system or setting though!

A Fork in the Road – A 4E D&D Mini-Adventure

Read the following background to the players to set up this side-trek adventure and get them started. The proper names for this scenario are generally generic, so please feel free to change them to adapt to your own campaign.

The state of the Duchy is in flux. Several recent violent disputes between the county’s royal family and the commoners have occured, so Duke Regibald Darimus is calling for the aid of “independent individuals” (Adventurers!) to come to the aid of the ailing duchy.  Nothing the royalty or their direct agents can say will calm the populace at this point, and they are worried that things may get out of hand before you have come to their aid.  As court convenes, the time has arrived for you to discover what is happening in Duke Darimus’s territory and what you will do about it.

The PCs could hear about this general call for help through a town cryer, or perhaps be invited personally by the Duke depending on their notoriety and how it suites your campaign. As the PCs travel to the Court, they might hear rumors of unrest, fight a small battle with brigands who are capitalizing on the country’s growing unrest, or perhaps receive a warning letter from the leader of the Rebels. The exact nature of the perceived injustices by the people at the hands of the Duke’s rule should be tailored to your specific campaign setting: excessive taxation, land grabbing, religious persecution, or widespread corruption are all common themes that could be played upon. This initial phase in the adventure sandbox could last for one or more sessions, or none at all if the PCs want to get straight into the meat of the adventure.

The Duke’s Court

Eventually, the PCs will arrive to the Duke’s estate. Have them be welcomed by the servants and their horses and other belonging cared after by the Duke’s staff. They will escort them promptly to meet with the Duke in his audience chambers. The PCs should get the sense that they are not the only ones who answered his call for help.

After a brief journey, you arrive at the Duke’s court chambers, a grand room of marble adorned with golden chandeliers and red velvet tapestries. The floor is checkered, and covered with dozens of overstuffed cushions on which a few other Adventurers are already lounging about, idly talking amongst themselves. The mood in the air is solemn.  The Duke stands at the far end of the room speaking to several advisors. Two downtrodden guards standing nearby.  Duke Darimus then turns and makes an announcement:

“Thank you to all that have come to my calling.  The Duchy is in dire need of your help.  After some recent altercations, the commoners have taken it upon themselves to rise up in rebellion.  I seek your aid in restoring order to my lands.  If you will help me with this cause, stay here in court.  I will approach you and task each of you myself.   There will—of course—be rewards for your loyalty and actions to support my rule.”

Sounds of yelling, an argument perhaps, are suddenly heard from outside the court chamber. The two guards spring to action—blades drawn—and stand to protect the Duke. The double doors to the court chamber swing open and slam into the walls. A moment later, two men and a woman walk in. Two of them are dressed in cheap, but effective looking battle garb.  The third carries a white flag.  He steps forward and addresses the court without being introduced:

“I come on behalf of the good people of the Duchy.  We will not see the injustices against us go unpunished. Surely the Duke has claimed our cause is selfish, but it is not.  Any of you who wish to help us to rebel against the royals that have abused us, come to me before I leave.  I will tell you where you might meet one of our leaders, Citizen Strauss. 

It is custom that, even in the worst of times, the white flag bears total neutrality and peace for immediate time. Several of the members of court mutter and grumble to themselves that these rebels should be detained and executed, but the Duke, though fuming, but he does not signal his guards to detain them and permits them to leave.

The PCs now have a decision to make: should they stay and defend the Duke and become agents of the state or exit his Court and seek the Rebels at their hiding place. There are, of course, numerous other choices. Perhaps the PCs might opt to leave the kingdom entirely (effectively ending the adventure), or become a peace keeping force of their own focused on having the two sides find common ground.

What do you think? What other options do you see for the PCs? In our next post, we’ll set up the adventure to explore these options to pursue helping the cause of the Duke.

Visit the original post, A Fork in the Road: Starting the Adventure, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

1.

They stood on the ancient ramparts together, watching the refugees stream into the city. The sunset behind them, the long shadows of the delicate spires of the great Aldohthiir City looked like dark teeth, raking the very land itself.

She wore her battle regalia, finely wrought, delicate-looking breastplate of bronze covered in runes and script, and leather pants with matching bronze greaves and bracers. Her arms, tanned and sculpted from her days campaigning in the Queens service, were bare save campaign tattoos and a collection of scars.

He stood next to her, his rightful place as lord-commander of her majesty’s armies. His armor, no less finely wrought, was mangled and dented. Deep gouges and scratches marred its surface. He wore pauldrons and a chain-scale skirt of bronze as well, his helmet lost on some distant field.

She turned to face him and he saw there were tears in her eyes.

“It’s all going to burn, won’t it, Marcus?”

“Just things, Zarana. Just things. Buildings can be rebuilt.”

“But it’s our home.”

“Not anymore. Now it’s a piece of history.”

She turned back to watch the refugees.

“I-I have to go.”

“What? Where? The armies are defeated. Even the Handmaidens are passing through the Gate.”

“You should be with them. You’re their leader.”

“I know.” she turned to him again, “I just wanted to look one last time.”

He nodded his understanding. This was the view they’d both enjoyed more than thirty years past, as young adventurers, tramping across the countryside, cutting a swath of daring-do, fighting the Great Orcs, almost single-handedly winning the first war. It was Marcus Tenibrass himself who struck the killing blow against the demi-god bastard of their beloved queen, sending the Great Orc hordes fleeing into the dark north.

“So where are you going? Won’t you be escorting the Queen with your Shayleen?”

“Zarana, the Shayleen are all dead. I’m going to hold the walls as long as I can, while you all pass through the Great Gate.”

“By yourself?” She was shaking her head, her typically unemotional demeanor lost. As the First Handmaiden, she was Master of the Queen’s Assassins and Protector, a position that required a level head at nearly all times.

“No, there are about two hundred of us that will stay.”

“I’ll stay to then.”

“No, I think you won’t. The Queen will need you, and the Handmaidens will need you.”

“Orc-son! You’re trying to keep the glory for yourself,” she tried to joke with him.

“We’ll be the last through, I promise.”

She moved forward suddenly and embraced him. He held her in turn, gently, though his armor made it awkward and then drew back. He looked into her eyes, slate and storms swirled there. He acted as if he were going to say something, but closed his mouth and left her, Zarana, First Handmaiden and Protector alone on the ramparts with her memories of their wild youth.

2.

The Gate was ancient, and few knew exactly how its magic worked. The elder sorcerers and magi had consulted the most ancient scriptures and realized that the Gate was built into the city itself, and would consume settlement wholly. None of the magi or wizards or sorcerers could offer an explanation of what would happen to the city as the magical energies that fueled the Gate surged through it.

Many were optimistic, suggesting that the ancients knew this day would come to pass, and that the entire city would be transported through the gate.

Zarana, part of the Queen’s inner circle, had heard the archmages talking in hushed tones to their ruler. Many elder magic-users believed the energies required to open the gate, to rend open reality itself, would eat up the city, burn it to ashes from the inside out, leaving the refugees and their monarch alone, on a strange world.

A world without orcs, at least.

Zarana and her seven Handmaidens rode in a protective circle around the Queen’s carriage, Zarana at the rear, her tear-brimmed eyes ever watchful for that last threat, that final encounter that would render her decades of service inert. She’d told the courtiers that not even the Great Orcs of Northwild knew of the Gate, that their fears were unnecessary. It was a lie of course. In her years at court she’d learned to be diplomatic and outright treacherous when it was called for. She’d been warned by Marcus one day to never become the viper she guarded against so vigilantly.

She looked back, thinking of him, hoping she’d not become that viper.

The Gate loomed before the Queen’s entourage. A massive arc of stone, some hundred feet high, engraved with runes so old, so alien as to not even be recognized as ancient Aldothiir. They where strange and angular, jagged and altogether alien. Their meanings could only be surmised by even the most learned.

Zarana could hear the chanting of the mages grow louder, their strange words at once guttural and poetic. No stranger to wizards and their scuttling ilk, she reigned in her horse, a white mare with a golden bridle decorated with rubies, a gift from queen herself. She patted the beast’s flank and whispered nonsense words to it.

3.

From the foremost gatehouse, using a spyglass, Lord Marshall Marcus Tenibrass could see his castle in the distance burning. He’d named it The Watcher’s Fortress when he ordered its construction. It was the last bastion of defense before the city, a wondrously advanced castle, complete with engineering marvels of his own design, a griffon aerie, and more. He’d personally collapsed the two-mile tunnel that led to the city, a tunnel that had taken three years and three thousand dwarves to cut through the very earth. It’s didn’t matter now he told himself, the griffons are all dead.

Much closer than his flaming home, Marcus saw the Great Orc horde, led by a vengeful albino orc, known as Ashkevar. The origins of Ashkevar were a mystery, but with him came thousands of white and grey orcs, covered in thick, short hair. They were the masters of the Northwilds, come to claim the southern lands as their own.

Comparatively few in number, the Aldothiir, with their war colleges and sorcery couldn’t stem the flow of orcish filth. It was the way of the Orcs, to breed in great numbers and overwhelm their foes, masses of them dying in the process. Marcus was shaken from his musings as a stone tipped arrow struck him square in the chest, shattering against his once-magnificent armor.

“That’s range, Balthasar.” He commented absently to his adjutant.

“Aye, Lord.” Balthasar, a young man of excellent stock, raised his arm and bellowed out the order for the last few archers to open fire with their flaming and poisoned arrows. The Great Orc drums could be heard over the din of onrushing war, and Marcus felt that rare and dangerous excitement grip his soul. He drew his sword, also a gift from the Queen, so long ago. The blade was called Marethuresa and was said to contain the spirit of a woman cavalier, a knight-errant of such virtue that she drove herself to madness pursuing the very source of evil upon the world. When she found it, Marethuresa knew there was only one way to combat it properly. She sought out an artisan and bade him craft a long sword of adamantine-silver with angelic wings and a red eye so baleful that evil would cringe and shrink from its gaze. This he did. Then Marethuresa took the blade to a powerful wizard whose name was lost in antiquity, the first of the war-casters, and offered her own soul to keep the blade alight with wrath. This he did.

Marcus breathed slowly as he held the powerful war-tool in his hand, feeling it tremble. The artillerists fired their siege engines, catapults, trebuchet and arbalests and still the orcs would not scatter. Still they came on. Marcus took Balthasar’s hand and nodded to him.

“It was a good life, Sir.”

“It was.” And Marcus leapt over the wall.

4.

Zarana felt the air charge with energy, unnamable but palpable energy. The setting sun, normally an orange rose in the sky became green and the sky a deep purple, as the ritual encompassed the Aldothiir city. She watched the stone arch light up and radiate a keening sound. Colors took on shapes and sounds became raw sensations. Her horse stamped the ground, nearby one of her handmaidens was thrown from her mount. Great peals of thunder, consecutive and angry shook the ground, in the refugee column women and children cried out, men shook in silent terror. Zarana’s long, black hair began to stand up, to rise as energy coursed through the city, through her. She felt her heart begin to race as only it had in her youth when she foolish ran into battle alongside Marcus and her other companions, hacking her way through impossible odds. She grinned wickedly through her delicate gold-chain veil. The Magic was working.

5.

For Balthasar, who’d grown up on stories of the exploits of his Lord Marshall Marcus Tenibrass and First Handmaiden Zarana, a chance to see his commander in battle, though he had no delusions it would be the last, was thrilling. The martial culture of the Aldothiir would not allow Balthasar to not enjoy this moment, the finality of it. His orders were clear however, and he stood with a few other apprentice swordsmen and watched the phenomenon occur.

Marcus had trained from the age of ten to fight with a long sword, his natural ability was stunning, and he soon mastered the various styles of the Aldothiir. He was given a dagger for his off hand and he became twice as deadly. Balthasar’s favorite story was during the First Orc Horde, before the final confrontation, when Marcus, clinging to the back of a mighty water serpent gouged out both its eyes with that dagger before returning to the surface. Then there was the Lord Marshall’s duel with the Queen’s own son-in-law, an uppity princling looking to usurp the throne.

None of the tales however, compared to what Balthasar and the others witnessed that dusk at what became known as the battle of Aldothiir Gate.

6.

Marcus hit the ground in front of the main gate seconds before the orcs first reached it. Coming along was a battering ram, pushed by the seven foot Great Orcs, smaller orcs in elaborate and heavy plate armor followed along. In the distance, their leader, an albino orc in white furs rode a mighty snow drake. It was in that direction Marcus was heading.

He raised Marethuresa in his hand and set to his grim task. The first and nearest orc was beheaded in a single blow, the next had his throat opened, the next howled as his entrails were spilled tripping other orcs in bile and feces and flesh. The next died as a thrust speared his eye, and drove into his brain. The next found his weapon hand cleaved entirely from his arm, blood like a fountain, spraying Marcus’ and the nearby orcs. The next was also decapitated; another fell clutching his abdomen, another his throat, one screaming crawled off without his leg below the knee.

Marcus for his part was only warming up. The orcs were no match for him, even in greater numbers; they dared not get too close. He found himself chasing them back into their own oncoming allies. He leapt upon the approaching battering ram and swatted the heads from three of its haulers, then dropping behind it, to clove the rear axle with two quick, powerful blows.

From the ramparts and gatehouse, Aldothiir archers fired their arrows madly, supporting their frenzied commander. Orcs attempting to sneak up on Marcus from behind were holed through, the Aldothiir marksmen taking careful aim to put their arrows into the soft spot in the base of the great orcs’ skulls.

Marcus continued his ferocious assault, coolly dispatching orc after orc. Sparks flew in great arcs as his blade Marethuresa chewed through the enemies armor and then on into bone. In great droves the orcs fell, this one too slow, that one not strong enough, the next in the wrong place with his parry. The sight was magnificent and horrific. In decades and centuries to come, any bard who told the tale would begin by saying the traditional lines “Though story teller I be, I have but a few of the words that do justice to the heroism of those who stayed behind. And for your sake, I dare not speak the words that accurately explain the violence unleashed by the Lord Marshall.”

Balthasar saw the battering ram collapse and drew his own blade. “Time to die with a hero!” He called, leaping from the gatehouse ramparts. A cheer went up amongst the Aldothiir elite, who leapt after him into the fray, great peals of thunders followed upon their heels.

7.

Zarana, her handmaidens and the queen’s entourage were among the first Aldothiir to actually pass through the gate. The sensation was sickening, painful even. As the world resolved itself once again and time took up its normal march, Zarana found herself dismounted, one of her Handmaidens was gathering the horses, another trying to awaken those who had fallen unconscious. The sky was a brilliant azure stippled with daisy-seed clouds. Beneath her was a soft earth with grasses and foliage growing up between her fingers. A dense forest spread out around them, its canopy thick and the wind smelled sweet and stick, like fresh sap. As Zarana took in her new world, more and more Aldothiir began to materialize. It looked as if their spirits were materializing first, then their bodies.

“We’ve made it,” she whispered aloud.

8.

Balthasar was killed when an orc crushed his knee with a heavy iron mace, and then on the return swing, stove in the young warriors face. Taken over completely by his bloodlust, the orc swung twice more, pulping the young Aldothiir’s skull.

Next to Balthasar was Tutra A’lis, another of the Lord Marshal’s students. He died when a heavy black blade landed on his shoulder and sunk deep into his body. The orc swinging the blade put his foot on Tutra’s chest and pushed off in order to free his broadsword from his victim’s corpse.

Pareth of House Narh, one of the few nobles to stay behind, was bleeding from a hundred minor cuts, nicks, and wounds when finally a combination of blows knocked his helmet free and sunk a blade into his face, across the ridge of his nose and bursting his eyes. He died a moment later as he was decapitated.

And so it went, as the elite of the Great Aldothiir nation fought desperately to buy time for their beloved queen and their friends and families. The enemy paid sorely for every foot of ground they advanced, the butcher’s bill counting well into the thousands of limbs, hundreds of heads, hundreds of thousands of buckets of blood.

Two hundred heroes fell that day, as the sky turned vile and the earth melted away around the Great Aldothiir city.

As for Lord Marshall Marcus Tenibrass, it was the last time he was seen on that world, chasing after the Orc Chieftain Askevar himself…

9.

It took two years to build a settlement with a high enough wall to consider it safe. The Queen of the Aldothiir, who had known Zarana from a very young age, bade asked her to marry her last remaining son, Reenoran. Tired, and heartsick for the home she knew she’d never see again, for the friends she’d lost on that tragic day, Zarana quietly agreed, and retired from her life as Handmaiden and Protector of the Queen. She was became a princess, and simply existed.

It was difficult for her, watching the younger Reenoran try to rebuild the Aldothiir nation. The Queen seemed to have aged greatly since that day, since the Battle of the Gate, and she quietly withdrew from public life. The Aldothiir people, barely twenty thousand of them, could get on without her, she said.

Often she called Zarana to her to share honeyed drinks or wine. The Queen would ask stories of Zarana’s adventures in her service, and sit quietly listening to the tales. This always made Zarana sad, though she tried to hide it from the Queen. Each story included Marcus, the lost Lord Marshall. The Queen noticed this and one day spoke of it.

“I know, Zarana, that you do not love my son as you might have loved others.”

Shocked, Zarana shook her head in denial, and stammered an explanation. Had she been unsubtle? Had she been cold or callous towards the prince in some way? During some official function?

“Shh. Child. Mightiest of the Handmaidens you may be, but I am three hundred years older than you. I see, still. I know.”

“Your Highness-“

“Shush. Bear him a strong son, and get you a headache. We’ve lost so much. You and I, Zarana, our lives were never our own. Yours was mine, and mine was theirs.” The Queen gestured to the growing city their balcony overlooked. Zarana turned her head and saw the chimneys of forges, signs of industry, the market was bustling and hawkers could be heard over the laughter of children in the streets. A town had grown up around their refugee camp, and commerce had begun and the young were once again being trained in the disciplines of the arts, craftsmanship, war and even magic. The Aldothiir people would live.

“My queen.” Zarana bowed her head.

The Queen stood and left, her skirts rustling as she did so. As she moved past Zarana, she touched her shoulder and squeezed it.

Visit the original post, Exodus, by Eric Staggs, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

I hadn’t heard of – well more like read anything – by Brandon Sanderson until recently. A few of my friends discovered Sanderson, and his work, in the wake of Robert Jordon’s death. Sanderson was brought in to finish The Wheel of Time series, the last book due later this year. As such I only recently came across Sanderson’s work and was swayed into reading The Mistborn Trilogy on a recommendation from a friend and its premise: “What if the prophesied hero had failed to defeat the Dark Lord?”  Really though—who wouldn’t be intrigued by that?

One of the biggest things I loved about the series is that I virtually inhaled it in five days. That might not sound impressive, but each book in the Trilogy goes just over the 700 page mark. I bring up how long it took me to read because lately, although there have been a few good books in my hands, none have had me defy sleep to find out what happens next. It is classic “page turner” fantasy. I loved it.

The short version of the Trilogy goes something like this: there is a Dark Lord—although to be honest there’s always some dark/evil overlord figure right?—and yes he is creepy and old and not to forget: very, very powerful. There’s a race of people who have been enslaved for centuries, and if they just worked together things would change, but as usual there are countless reasons why that hasn’t worked. Yet, despite being all kinds of miserable, there is still that all important thing, HOPE [insert oooh aaah music here]. There is a mastermind – in this one criminal – and of course the ever present unlikely heroine: a street urchin. So far, sounds like your typical fantasy book, right?

The Trilogy tells the tale of what happens when the criminal mastermind,  and a street urchin band to together and bring down a government that has oppressed its people for 1000 years. It’s a gritty take on High Fantasy that is not seen enough. And of course there’s the oh-so-cool magic system that is exquisitely worked out and executed with brilliance. I often find magic systems in Fantasy to not click with my understanding of the world, or they’re all too similar to other works of fiction. In The Final Empire, and the following two books, Sanderson’s magic isn’t this careful balance, nor is it something very easily abused; it is rare and characters with the full complement of casting abilities are rarer still.

Five take-home points to The Mistborn Trilogy:

• There are enough plot twists to keep things well paced, and keep you from knowing just what is going to happen.
• Character development isn’t placed to the side for the sake of action.
• There is enough time given to each character to aid attachment. This is always a bonus for me, the attraction of serial fiction lies in being able to know what happens next to your new friends – well they seem like friends to me, hence the sadness when done with a book (or when they are killed mid-way in the story…).
• There are a few great laugh out loud moments too, mostly from social interactions related to the slight girl meets boy moments.
• Great scene and character descriptions without being long-winded or just there with no real purpose.

As an added bonus—there is a new novel set in the world 300 years later, The Alloy of Law, and there is a Mistborn RPG too! The new novel has a slight Western feel to it, but I’ll leave that for another time. In the meantime, get out there and borrow the Mistborn Trilogy from a friend—or better yet, buy it.

You can follow Brandon Sanderson at his blog to find out more about his upcoming novels in 2012 – like the grand finale to the Wheel of Time.

CLOCKWORK REVIEWS is a new, regular column on Nevermet Press covering the current books in genre fiction and table-top roleplaying games. It comes to you every week, on Thursdays – like clockwork!

Visit the original post, Clockwork Reviews: The Mistborn Trilogy, by Brandon Sanderson, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

Silver Surfer © 2012 DEZE via http://deze.deviantart.com/

An RPG Blog Carnival Post

Once again – Happy New Year to all you readers out there! This month’s RPG Blog Carnival post is taking us to Fantastic Places.

After role-playing for so many years in so many different genres, systems, and settings, I have grown bored with the 10 foot hallways, random villages and wooded areas just as this month’s host, Keith J Davies, has. What this boredom has led me to in recent months is to blur the lines between the different genres. Often times people will see a laser gun in a fantasy game and say “Eeww, you got sci-fi on my fantasy!” I, however,  like to think this is what veteran gamers need to keep gaming enjoyable. There are only so many times I can play a moody, brooding vampire in the modern day without having a want to travel into VR space or live in ancient days and control cavemen.

So, my fantastic place is meant for a fantasy game, but it can be used in other genres if you blur the lines one way or another.

The Ghost Outpost & The Great Beyond

The basic setting is a city of your choice, only this city has two things that make it quite unique. First, a small moon known as The Ghost Outpost is locked in a geosynchronous orbit with the world, directly overhead the city. This small moon blocks out the stars directly above and the light of the sun as it approaches noon each day. Within the city, the second unique feature is a wizard’s tower in the shape of a massive leaning “L” that towers over it’s surrounding neighborhood. Atop this tower is the only means to travel to and from The Ghost Outpost.

The details of the city are relatively unimportant – that’s up for the GM to design and should be tailored to fit the existing campaign. What’s important here is the small moon orbiting above this urban expanse and the teleportation device located at the top of the wizard’s tower. When activated (again, how this is done is entirely up to the GM), characters are instantaneously transported to the Ghost Outpost in the sky via a bright, but brief, beam of light. They then find themselves in a small frontier town of the same name.

Some believe the strange realm the hangs overhead in the night’s sky to be another plane of existence, but those who are knowledgeable of the planes understand that the Great Beyond simply sits upon the outer edge of the material plane; or the World at it’s center.

The Ghost Outpost
The Ghost Outpost itself is a small frontier town. This town is only settlement on the moon that dominates the sky over the city on the planet below. The residents of The Ghost Outpost largely live below the surface, inside craters and canyons that dot the surface on the asteroid.

The city with the teleportation hub is quite literally invisible to the naked eye, a spec on the surface of the World lost in it’s epic beauty. Characters who have seen maps of the world can look up from the shadow barren rocks of the Ghost Outpost and recognize the World above’s continents, oceans, and rivers that stretch for thousands of miles. Along the horizon line, the World and the Ghost Outpost share the same Moon – which orbits into view twice each day.

The World is visible in all its beauty to everyone who looks up, looming overhead like a great blue and white pearl in the sky. What little light that reaches the surface of the Outpost comes early or late in the day, or is reflected back up off the surface of the world from the passing Sun.

There is a fortified primary structure on the surface that is a transportation and commercial hub of the moon and the Great Beyond. It is run by a powerful merchant cartel that is fair, but expects everyone to on the moon to respect one another no matter what the dispute is over. This fortification is where anyone teleporting to the moon from the surface first finds themselves (such as the PCs). It’s a tough place, since most of the Outpost’s residents represent powerful noble houses and wealthy wizards from the World below. Nonetheless, the purpose of the outpost is to serve as a foundation on which expeditions can be staged for heading deep into the voids of the Great Beyond.

The Great Beyond
The Great Beyond is a deep, dark blackness that is filled with very few solid objects. There is no ground to walk upon. It is essentially space as we know it. To travel at a reasonable pace, characters have to rely upon Utineech, creatures that were first found after the discovery and establishment of the Ghost Outpost. The merchant cartels and noble houses use the Utineech as a means to explore the furtherest reaches of the Great Beyond. From fields of distant lights that punctuate the blackness, to floating bodies of rock drifting the depths of the Beyond; it is these places and more that hold the secret treasures of the universe that the nobles and wizards seek.

Utineech
As was mentioned above, The Great Beyond is navigated by making use of Utineech. These creatures are flat, board-like creature of super-animal intelligence. They are naturally docile when left to their own whims, but what makes the Utineech special is their psionic link they can form when first “boarded” by a World-walker. When a character steps upon a Utineech’s back, a link instantly forms with the character that allows the Utineech to take them anywhere in the Great Beyond they desire. The Utineech travel at exceptionally fast speeds, and confer near total protection to their passengers, often called Pilots, while traveling.

The tight knit bond between human and Utineech strengthens over time, and some Pilots have become almost acrobatic in their abilities to control the Utineech while in flight. Many of these “Dogfighters” have taken residence at the outer reach of the Great Beyond and often fly in groups to raid and pillage expiditions heading to explore new areas. Combined with spell casting and other forms of traditional weaponry, these space pirates make the outer reaches of the Great Beyond a terribly dangerous place to visit.

Couple this with space debris, sub-lightspeed comets, shifting asteroid fields, and blackholes and you’ve got a great place to run some crazy space fantasy adventures in the Great Beyond. Together all these locations are a compelling attempt bring a feeling like a 1980′s style sci-fi fantasy surf board riding action flick. Enjoy the idea and make it your own!

Anyone played Spelljammer lately?

Visit the original post, The Great Beyond – Surf’s Up!, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

In April of 2011, I came home to Dungeons & Dragons after a 15 year absence. It was a decision made outside the vacuum of the TTRPG community, hence totally oblivious of the “Edition Wars” I’ve come to know about since that time. It was a decision made purely out of a desire to revisit an aspect of my life that had been integral to my development as a human being in my teenage years. It was a return I have not regretted for one second.

The first thing I did was I checked if D&D still existed. No, seriously: that’s how far removed I was from the TTRPG community. A quick Google search confirmed that yes, indeed, D&D had dropped the “Advanced” from its name and was currently in its 4th edition. Being an impulsive person, I promptly spent $200 through Amazon.ca on core rule books and other stuff. It never even occurred to me that people would still be playing previous editions of D&D – this was the new and shiny edition, so it’s the one I acquired.

You might be saying to yourself “Wait a second here…you bought all that stuff on a whim, without checking to see if anyone would play with you?”. That would be correct. I wanted to make sure I was committed to this before roping in friends and family.

That commitment did not take long to establish itself once I started reading the 4e Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide. I was instantly transported back to the wonderful world of D&D with its Armor Class, Initiative and Kobolds (with the happy realization that  THAC0 was history). I felt like I had come home to be enveloped with a warm blanket and a cup of hot chocolate. Without really thinking about it too much for 15 years, I realized just how much I had missed it.

Trips to my friendly neighbourhood Amazon.ca were now being made almost daily, as my hunger for D&D knowledge became insatiable. Xbox 360 controllers were left collecting dust as I suddenly preferred spending hours on end in my study writing a campaign for an as yet undetermined group of adventurers.

From then on, I mentally started working through a list of people who I would invite to play. Since this new edition called on a party of 5 adventurers as its basis for all stats, I decided to go with that amount. I settled on one returning player from our old group, with four 30-something newbies rounding it out (including my lovely fiancée – getting her on board was going to be key to spending so much time on this. Pure genius, that.). This endeavour was now getting real.

Let’s rewind a bit. Why did I seek out D&D again? First, there was the now-famous Community episode where everything revolved around a D&D session, which filled me with all kinds of nostalgic feelings. Beyond that, however, it’s obvious my motivations were completely selfish. I had been reading (for the 2nd time) Jack Whyte’s “Dream of Eagles” series, and started wondering if it would be possible to re-create the conditions that led to his re-imagining of the Camulodian Legend (namely, that the Roman Empire in Britain is collapsing and a group of breakaway legionnaires form a Utopian city called Camulod out of self-preservation). I had a fleeting thought that if I were still a DM I could recreate this scenario in the Forgotten Realms and use my adventurers as a case study in post-apocalyptic sociology. Yeah, I know – pretty Machiavellian of me. Despite this sinister strain, I forged ahead.

Little did I know that the Wizards RPG team had handed me a ready-made post-apocalyptic campaign setting with the Forgotten Realms’ Spellplague! I spent the summer months researching and building my own corner of Faerûn, encouraging my newly-recruited players to acquire their own copies of the Player’s Handbook and creating their characters. I also decided that, for the purposes of learning this new system and shaking off the 15-year accumulation of rust, we would play through Keep on the Shadowfell (with a few of my own plot hooks from which to build once Kalarel was defeated).

This unholy stew was brought to a boil, and what was served up was a cleric, a paladin, a rogue, a ranger and a wizard; a motley crew of traditional classes. I play-tested some solo sessions with a few of them to establish the overarching story before having the entire group meet in Winterhaven to begin to unravel the mystery of this death cult of Orcus.

I’ll spare you the details, but one thing I noticed right away was that combat was taking much longer than I had anticipated. I was enjoying the addition of a battlemat, which brought the visualization of combat out of our imaginations and into the physical plane. Consequently, however, our imaginations were no longer the limit of what we could propose in combat – everything now seemed accounted for and quantified by the rules. It was an advantage for me as DM but also a constraint for the players. I shrugged this off at the time, accepting it as the new way to do things.

Have you ever been on a strict diet for a few months and then been able to delight in a favourite food of which you had been depriving yourself? That’s the best analogy I can think of when describing how that first session went. We all felt it—even the newbies (only for them it was more like tasting delicious Indian food for the first time).

There is something distinctly unique that happens at a D&D table when things click that cannot be reproduced in real life. I suppose sitcom writers must feel that way when they’ve written a particularly funny episode, or when a music group experiences acute chemistry on a given night. It’s the feeling of having put your creative juices to work, collectively, and coming out on the other end with something tangible to point at and say “Wow, we did that!” That’s how our weekly D&D sessions have gone since September, and not one of my adventurers wants to miss an appointment, despite our busy lives.

For myself, I’ve gotten a particular thrill from seeing my creation come to life. I’ve finally found an outlet for my creativity that had been boiling under the surface, aching to be released. It’s left me pondering “Why was I away from it so long? Why did I even leave it in the first place?” Would you look at that: I just found the premise for my 2nd post!

Visit the original post, Back From The (Un)Dead: How a 15-Year D&D Hiatus Ended, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.