Greyhawk Session 5

At first I thought I'd lost my co-DM, but apparently he's made arrangements to be able to stay in the group.  As such we had a full group of players so the party consisted of...

Synecdoche -- an unlucky dwarf with a strange accent
Leerc -- a stoic fighting-elf
Nilrem -- a sinister wizard
Slimey -- a mischievous thief
Akzey -- a shieldmaiden of Kos, God of Dooms
as well as their small force of hirelings and henchmen

They began by meeting on an overcast Patchwall day in the Green Griffin Inn.  This was Starday, which was the day they had agreed to go into the dungeon, and so they left the Griffin's smoke-filled chambers and went out into the Thieves' Quarter of the Old City.  Before passing into the Warrens -- the local name for the East Side -- they ran into a group of well dressed men who seemed to be protesting.  They asked what was going on, leading to a few "Occupy Greyhawk" jokes,  and found out that the Dung Gatherers' Guild wanted a place on the ruling council.

The party found it odd that the Dung Gatherers were dressed so nicely, but not missing an opportunity to cause havoc Nilrem and Slimey attempted to coax the protesters to riot.  As they were doing so, a noble and his retinue of toadies and armed thugs appeared on the scene.  His chief sycophant announced that he was the most gracious of all men, and so Synecdoche asked for a small donation.  Taking the patchy-bearded dwarf for a beggar the noble Lord Thirston, gave him a few pieces of silver.

Slimey decided to sling some filth from the street onto the noble lord, prompting the Dung Gatherers to join in.  Soon rocks, shells, and other hard objects were being chucked at the noble and his retinue.  Lord Thirston was knocked on the head, and immediately his own toadies began removing his valuables from his person.  Afterwards they began to battle the Dung Gathers as the party attempted to leave the scene.

They passed by a number of guardsmen heading out of the Warrens and towards the skirmish.  Slimey looked for their guardhouse, and was extremely disappointed to find that 14 guards had stayed to hold down the fort.  With that, they made their way through the Warrens, out of Castlegate, and to Castle Greyhawk.

Very little exploration occurred.  They decided to peak down a tunnel they had not ventured down yet.  They were confronted by a long hallway with several doors.  Slimey kicked one open to find that it was a small, bare alcove.  The party searched this for secret exits but found nothing.  Nilrem, growing impatient with his meandering partners, opened the next door.  Unfortunately for him the room beyond possessed several poisonous centipedes.  These crawled up his cloak and injected him with their terrible poison.  He made all of his saves except the last one, and with his dying breath uttered "Pazuzu... Pazuzu... Pazuzu..."

I rolled to see if the demon prince appeared and got a 10 on a %.  Technically this was too high, but due to it being his dying words I ruled that if I got a 1 on a 1d6 he would appear.  I did.  Soon the 7' demon was staring them in the face and demanding to know who had summoned him.  Akzey and the hirelings and henchmen fled to the exit as quickly as possible.  Synecdoche meekly motioned towards the body of Nilrem, which the demon lord took and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

I then checked to see if any monsters came to investigate the noise.  Strangely, four skeletons did so.  The three remaining party members engaged them in a fierce battle, but Synecdoche was hindered by his lack of a blunt weapon.  Leerc was knocked unconscious by one of them, but Slimey and Synecdoche were able to defeat the remaining ones in time to stabilize him and return to town.

I wasn't feeling very well, so we agreed to end it a bit early.  Before we left, I managed to get the players to divide up our Greyhawk map among themselves.  My wife took the North East corner because she wanted to detail a dungeon in Rift Canyon.  My co-DM took Dyvers.  Nilrem's player took the area around Verbobonc, since he wished to run the Temple of Elemental Evil or a homebrewed version thereof.  Finally, Chris of the Polyhedral Dicebag took a section of the Bright Desert.  Slimey's player said that he would only take a section if it could be the Pathfinder or 3.5 section.

This wasn't really my best session, and I think my co-DM was a bit miffed that I allowed the extra chance for Pazuzu to rear his misshapen head.  Slimey's player has also expressed dissatisfaction with the "dungeon" as a concept, preferring a "story;"  however, Chris seems always to want to skip to the dungeon parts each session.  Still, it wasn't a terrible session, and I did have fun.

Greyhawk Session 4

Sadly, it looks like Xel’s player will have to indefinitely leave the group due to his work schedule, but we had a full complement of our other players so this delves roster included:

Akzey, a shieldmaiden of Kos

Leerc, a stoic fighting-elf

Synecdoche, an unlucky fighting-dwarf

Slimey, a thief from a dark and foreign country

Nilrem, magic user of sinister countenance

as well as their bevy of hirelings and Baldric, Nilrem’s bodyguard and stooge

Leerc himself attracted a hench(wo)man.  She was a female fighting elf who looked something like a member of the East German swim team.  They all met at the Green Griffin and planned their expedition into the underworld just as a terrible storm poured torrential rain down the filth-filled streets.  Slimey suggested that the group wait out the storm, with some concordance from Aczey.  Nilrem, on the other hand, suggested that a rainy day is as good a day as any, and convinced the party to set out for Greyhawk Castle.

The soon arrived, but found that Xel had taken their map with him when he left on Gnomish business.   As such, the party decided to map a bit more methodically this time.  Synecdoche suggested that they head south, since his Dwarven nose could determine directions in the dungeons confines, and that they continue south until they could go no further.   This brought them to the magic mouth chamber.  Slimey elected to scout ahead into it, and the party – fearing another encounter like the one from their previous excursion into that room – agreed with his decision.

Slimey, it turns out, was ultimately after mischief.  He waited for the Magic Mouth to begin its message, then seeing that it was on the ceiling he lay on his back and attempted to urinate into its mouth.  Though the odds were against him, Slimey succeeded (I gave him a 1 in six chance).  The magic mouth seemed indifferent to it and continued its welcome, dribbling urine back down onto Slimey in the process.

After this, the party continued on their way.  They ignored several doors and side passages instead seeking to determine how far the one passage led.  It turns out this was quite far, but they eventually found a dead end.  Suddenly, they one of their porters was struck with an arrow.  He fell dead as more of the wicked things shot through the parties ranks.  Turning, they were confronted with a number of orcs blocking the exit. 

The party elected to duck into a nearby door.  This they spiked shut and after doing so the party split their time studying the room’s contents and negotiating with the orcs.  The orcs pounded heavily on the door with their leader belching “Milk man!”  Synecdoche , as the only one who could speak to them, informed them they didn’t need any milk and insulted the speaker’s intelligence.  Another orc laughed at this jest, infuriating the orc who had spoken.  Soon the orcs were stabbing and beating each other.

The room itself contained a fountain decorated with images of frogs “playing leap frog.”  Its water was cool and clear, and Slimey through caution to the wind and decided to drink from it.  He found that the hangover he possessed, or that he claimed to possess when he defecated at the entrance of the dungeon – a separate incident from the magic mouth – disappeared.  The fountain immediately emptied like a flushing toilet.

At this point, the battle outside quieted down.  Synecdoche and Slimey removed the spike from the door and peered out into the hall.  They saw what seemed to be the only three survivors.  Two were carrying a third, wounded one down the hall while snorting and squealing with glee.  The party gave chase, killing two with ranged weapons, but decided to let the other one escape when it became clear they would wander off track.

Since there was no obvious exit further south, they decided to search through the nearby rooms.  They found most of these served some sort of storage purpose, but several of them had already been looted by someone in the recent past.  At first they thought this must have been themselves, but they soon realized that none of them remembered the particulars of these rooms and so began to expect some other power. Exploring down a side passage, they found some similar rooms.  

This caused them to become a bit reckless, and one of the rooms they opened without checking contained six gnolls.  Unfortunately for the gnolls, the party won initiative and soon were tossing bottles of flaming oil into their ranks.  After one round, only two survived.  They, being of a cowardly and opportunistic race, decided to surrender rather than fight.  The gnolls showed the party the location of a hidden treasure before asking to be released.  Nilrem and baldric set upon the surrendering creatures, killing both of them before Synecdoche and Aczey could stop them.

With these creatures slain and their new treasure gained, the party returned to the surface and the session ended.  They were rather surprised when I gave them full experience for the orcs, but they were (indirectly) responsible for those creatures’ deaths.  All in all it was a good session.

Another Map Experiment

I think it's fairly clear that the rather famous Greyhawk map doesn't show but a small portion of the total settlements in Greyhawk.  Otherwise, Furyondy is a barren wasteland, as is most of the rest of the World of Greyhawk.  As such, I felt I should develop the settlements around my campaign area.  For the most part, the players have yet to go outside the two hexes containing Greyhawk and the infamous castle.

Assuming we go with my plan, here is what the countryside around Greyhawk might look like:

click to embiggen

I somewhat followed the Welsh Piper's automated system, but I halved the amount of farmland in accordance with a post by Rob Conley I can't seem to find.  I also fudged a bit so that I'd have to detail slightly fewer towns.  The area on the Greyhawk side of the Nyr Dyv relies on farming feeholders rather than a manorial system.  As such, It would have significantly fewer villages than the Furyondy side.

I'm not entirely happy with it, but I can't quite put my finger on why.

Every Man's Dungeon is His Castle

At the end of Tuesday’s session (report coming soon) my co-DM attempted to give out a hook for the nearby village of Hommlet.  When he did so one of the players objected.  It seems that he has been waiting anxiously for the day that he could run the Temple of Elemental Evil, and so we agreed that he could do so if he wished.  Then my wife expressed interest in making a dungeon and running it.

Thinking about it today, I was reminded of a section from EPT wherein Barker states that eventually players should make their own underworlds and cities in the world of Tekumel.  I've always been fascinated by the concept, and now I see the potential to enact it.  

Here is my idea:  any player who wants to DM should either pick a large module or make a big dungeon of their own.  They should place it somewhere on the map below.

click to embiggen

Once placed, the player should detail the wilderness area around the dungeon itself (the area contained in the square).  The DMs should come up with some common assumptions and a skimpy setting bible so that reality doesn't shift too greatly, but within those parameters one has complete control over what goes on in his or her square.

The player should make two rumor tables.  One will be rumors about their dungeon, and the other will relate to the surrounding wilderness.  These will all be combined on one large table that every DM will use when the players go in a tavern.  I may suggest a system that would cause the rumors gained to skew towards those areas which are close by, but that is up for debate.

Whenever the characters are headed to your square, your character stays behind to handle party business in the other areas.

While I think it'd make sense for me to get Greyhawk and its environs, I'm willing to give it up.  Nightwick abbey seems like it would fit in well in the Shield Lands...

(Really Ugly) Map Experiment

I recently mentioned that I've become interested in the Harn setting.  This happens to me from time to time, probably because it tickles some part of my medievalist brain.  Still, whenever the Harn bug bites I find myself wanting to create my own low fantasy world rather than use Harn wholesale.  I think it's largely due to my distaste at the idea of Tolkien's Dwarves and Elves running around my twelfth-century England or France.

Enter The Welsh Piper's Medieval Demographics Online.  Erin had pointed me to it when I asked about farmland in the Dark Country.  At the time, I was working on a much more High/Dark Fantasy setting; however, it seems like the perfect thing to scratch my current itch.

As an experiment, I decided to make a small island based on the island of Sark.  Mine was considerably larger, but it still serves as an acceptable test run.  I guesstimated the area, assumed that it would be a rocky and inhospitable island, and punched in the numbers.  Here is the result:

The Town contains a little more than 3000 people, and the surrounding farmland (the green hexes) contains some 69 villages.  The Keep probably serves to keep some small humanoid tribe that lairs in the heath or the hills from carting off villagers.

I must say that I don't entirely like the look of it yet.  I'm beginning to think the "Mystara Style," as Rob Conley termed it, is a poor match for a setting where one must map farmland.  There just seems to be something off about the farms covering whole hexagons.

I'm also not entirely sure how a DM whose pressed for time, as I am, would detail 69 villages, but maybe that'll be the subject of another post.

Folio Project: Peoples and Pantheons

I want to stress that the Folio Project has little to do with the version I'm currently running. Still, I thought I'd continue developing it in anticipation of the day that I run Greyhawk without a co-DM.

When I first started this project, I decided to tie the various ethnic groups of the Flanaess to pantheons from Deities and Demigods.  This action served two purposes.  First and foremost, it acted as a historical short-hand for the various cultures.  Second, it helped me define the major gods of the setting.  My initial ideas looked something like this:

Oeridians: Greek (possibly mixed with Norse)
Baklunish: Indian
Flanae: Finnish

I imagine that the Baklunish is the weird one on the above list.  I see them as various Turkic peoples, but my decision to associate them with the Indian Mythos was based on the Karaks from the 3.5 version of the Wilderlands.  I put the Flanae with the Finnish Mythos because according to the map on page six of the Folio they exist in tiny, disconnected pockets across the Flanaess.  This made me think of the Finno-Ugric language group in Europe.  I'd probably mix in some Slavic stuff, which I imagine would offend both parties, but I know far more about early Russia than I do about Finland.  The Oeridians I think are fairly easy to figure out.  I thought about making the Great Kingdom be the home of the Greek Pantheon, and the further you get away from there the more Norse the pantheon becomes.

Most Greyhawk fans probably noticed the absence of the Suloise from the above list.  They have been the great enigma of the Folio Project.  I had based most of my treatment of them off of their desert origins.  Perhaps the would be similar to the Phoenicians, and possibly use the Babylonian or Sumerian Mythos so that I could still use DDG.  This becomes complicated when one notices that the southern banks of the Nyr Dyv, i.e. Greyhawk, are heavily Suloise.  I want Greyhawk and its neighbors to be pseudo-medieval in character.  Some may find that a bit boring, but I'm a fan.

It was only when I met with my co-DM that I became aware that their supposed to be pseudo-Norse.  This seems to contradict their origins, but it makes sense with their current situation, especially in the case of the Snow Barbarians.  I suppose I'll go with that, though it does rob me of the ability to have the Scarlet Brotherhood be Ziggurat building sorcerers obsessed with human sacrifice.  More is the pity.

Treasure: What Hommlet Tells Us

Yesterday I discussed one possible solution to the problem of slow advancement due to small amounts of treasure in AD&D.  As I mentioned, this was a problem that particular loomed over my Nightwick Campaign.  I found this somewhat odd as I was generating treasure more or less by the book, so I decided to look into it. Yesterday's solution focused on increasing the amount of xp a single gold piece provides.  Today I'll talk about the method I'm actually using in the Greyhawk campaign: increasing the amount of treasure.

This method is not without precedent.  Quasqueton at EN World was kind enough to do some of my work for me.  Since it is a starter module written by Gary Gygax and designed specifically with AD&D in mind I'll be primarily focusing on T1: The Village of Hommlet.  According to Quasqueton's figure, whcih I sadly have not had time to confirm, the total value of the treasure in the module is 30,938gp. 

A large sum, especially when compared to the amounts suggested for a first level dungeon in the DMG.  In total, the moat house consists of 35 rooms, well below the hypothetical 100 I used for yesterday's example.  It somehow manages to provide ten times the amount of treasure that would be allowed using the DMG's method.  How do we square this?

It's likely that Gygax was aware of the slow pace of advancement with the above system and that he inflated the treasure to compensate.  The method I used in my version of Castle Greyhawk provided a similar amount of treasure.  Obviously that's a much bigger structure, but there is quite a bit more empty space in it than there is in the moathouse. 

This method works best if one maintains the other rules as they are.  Upkeep and training are designed to take away this excess coinage so that the players don't screw up the campaign economy -- which is different from the economy of the milieu.  It strikes me that Gygax likely sought to solve the new problem created by training costs rather than changing everything over to a silver standard.  I'm not sure what his motivation would be, but I've more or less replicated his fix so I can't complain too much.

Now to put a fly in the ointment.  Yesterday, -C commented "I thought AD&D changed the rules so that you recieved 1xp per 5gp, so that you would accumulate more money between levels, allowing you to pay for things like training."  This makes some sense; however it wouldn't solve the bigger problem of the pace of advancement.  If you use the rules in the DMG as is, it would take even longer to level up because each PC would still be only getting 600gp on the first level.  Now they only have 120xp from gold.  Even the inflated amounts don't hold up to this metric.  The moat house would only give a total of 1,031xp for treasure, which isn't even enough for a thief to level off of.

Ultimately, I think it's best to use whatever works for your campaign and your group.  If you're looking for a more realistic economy, then increasing the xp from gp is probably the way to go.  If you prefer piles of coins to realism, then it's probably better to just use the rules as is and up the treasure substantially.