The Builders of Byzantia

As we reconvene the gaming group after Christmas, we decided to continue the campaign by having the party return from the mountains empty handed - driven down by bad weather, perhaps. The Beastmasters of Byzantia were disappointed; it is a very competitive calling, with each man judged on the quality and exoticism of his menagerie. But there would be no Hippogriff eggs hatching in their halls this coming spring. Maybe next autumn the party can launch another expedition in search of Hippogriff eggs. The party overwinter in Gateways, brooding on their failure and drinking away the eyes of D'namnas.

The below is what I wrote for the players, presenting some options for adventure.

Your winter passes in a fug of drink and smoke and salted meat. The weather never turns cold enough to freeze the lake, and while the groans of the undead are unnerving, there was, thankfully, no danger of the shambling remnants of the Second Empire of Humanity crossing from the ruins of the Castle of Gaskell the Black to Gateways. Nevertheless, the snow and cold slows life in Gateways down to a crawl... people huddle at home, little news or novelty enter the town. The party enjoys the Festival of Lights during Frostbite, and watch with grim faces as the Baron and the assembled vicars of the churches symbolically bury the world at the end of Earthdeath. They then spend a full week indoors during the storms (and worse) of the Howls of Chaos, when the Intelligences Beyond realise that they have been tricked and the world yet lives.

When the new year begins with the month of Ashunmoon (named after an ancient Alysian shepherd 'saint'), you are keen to leave town. The religious practice Abstention - from anything and everything pleasurable - between the 7th and the 14th, so as to not enrage any malign entities disappointed that the world did not die. There are enough who are devout in town to make this practice all but compulsory.

The first news that comes into Gateways is bad. Goblins, it is reported, have been putting homesteads and farms to the torch. While drinking away the winter, the party made friends with Stephan, a member of a horsetrading clan, he asks that you help his family transport a herd of (very rare) white horses to the Elven market at Rivalyn. Acting as the agent for his brother Pyotr, the head of the clan, he offers 400SP for the party (who have a reasonable reputation now, even if just for the amount of treasure they have squandered) to act as insurance against Goblin horse thieves.

The ruins of Gaskell's Castle are quieter, the [un]dead presumably returning to their restless sleep, but still sits across the water, a black, brooding ruin.

There has been no more news from Abelorn regarding 'the Rahib', but then there has been no more news of anything much. Likewise, there has been nothing new heard of Elwyn, the renegade cleric, though when Abstention is over the Bishop's court is expected to begin it's 'Circle' of the Duchy.

You also hear of agents for the Gnome King of Underhill, who is seeking men and women of repute to protect the the trade caravan containing a winter's worth of industry as it works its way south to Mirror Bay. Mirror Bay is the seat of the Duke and the only 'city' in the Duchy and, therefore, doorway to the rest of the Known World.

The party chose the investigate the ruins of Gaskell's Castle. I decided to place the pyramid of B4 The Lost City in the middle of the ruins of a castle modelled on a Roman fort - the Second Empire of Humanity had a distinctly Roman styling. The style of the pyramid, however, suggests a remnant of an older civilization. I changed much of the details, while keeping the maps and the distribution of encounters (if not the encounters themselves). Major changes had to be made to the different factions in the dungeon; mine are the Builders, the Judges, and the Maidens. The first faction the party met in their delve were the Builder of Byzantia:

The Builders of Byzantia are a human, all-male semi-secret society; almost everyone knows that they exist, but details of their membership, rituals, and purpose are not known with any certainty. Common understanding of the organization runs from the mundane to the fantastical. Many see it as a guild-like network of elite men, some extend this idea and see the Builders as the shadow government of Byzantia, even a cult dedicated to restoring the glories of the First Empire of Humanity[1]. Some will say in public that the Builders are global conspiracy in the service of powerful supernatural patrons. A Demon of Law, they suggest, given the Builders’ emphasis on the virtues of order and planning. There are, though, whispers that the Builders are a hidden cult of Chaos, searching for the secrets of Escherean architecture.

Sample Titles: Grand Planner, Architects, Surveyors, Builders
Alignment: Law
Values: Civilization, Order, Planning, Labour
Patron (publicly, anyway): Saints Constant and Stankov – the founder of Byzantia and a (mythic?) heroic builder. They represent the duality of human achievement and the taming of the world.
Symbol: A pyramid, over which rests a hinged ruler. At the middle of the pyramid is an eye.

The Builders encountered in the ruins of the Castle of Gaskell the Black wear heavy leather aprons marked with the symbol of the Builders. They carry a variety of tools and measuring equipment, and tend to favour warhammers as weapons. Most are NM, others are Level 1 Specialists. Their Leader is Isoclesus, who is a Level 3 Specialist. Classed Builders tend to have skill points in Architecture and Tinkering. Of course, NM Builders will also be proficient in their trade skills (but will be less competent in other aspects of adventuring).

Goal: The Builders in the ruins are looking for technology that pre-dates the Second Empire. So far, they have found a few (inoperable) bits and pieces, and a keen to recover whatever may lie unfound in the depths.

Demeanour: The Builders are friendly towards parties that are friendly towards mostly human (and male) parties, though some heterodox Builders see Dwarfs as admirable fellow men. In general, they see adventurers as the first, crude wave of civilizers; they clear the wilderness of monsters and barbaric humanoids. They are sexists, and disparage the Maidens of Symmetry in vulgar terms. Valuing function over form, they regard the Maidens as the embodiment of their views on women; decorative rather than productive. They fear and despise the Judges, whose adherence to laws as well as Law, and the bloody purges they are wont to engage in, makes them an enemy of progress and human achievement.

Isoclesus is a plump man, generous with his hospitality – such that is possible in ruins. He is fascinated by ants (and other social insects); by their ordered society and prowess as builders. He keeps a glass ant farm in his quarters, and has brought several rare books on entymology with him to the ruins. The distillation of ant scent that keeps the Builders safe from the vicious Black Ants that infest the upper reaches of the ruins is a result of his own research. The Builders ability to move safely among the Black Ants protects them from the other factions.

The party (4 players, 8 PCs of Level 1 and 2) ended the first session deep in the pyramid, having just defeated a handful of Skeletons. That was the only combat encounter in two-plus hours of play, such was the caution of the players, and their intention to find ways down without delay[2]. I also think that they might think that I am a 'dick' DM; at one point I had to say, "If there was writing on the door I would tell you outright, you don't need to keep asking. I'm not going to say, 'Aha, the door said 'trap' and now you're all dead. Ha ha!' Trust me, I will tell you of anything significant unless it is actually hidden." I'll write a play report once they have completed their delve - with a game due tonight (possibly), before I run a different group through  my version of U1 The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh using DCC RPG tomorrow! And I plan to submit a revised version of an academic paper this week too - busy times!

[1] The First Empire of Humanity fought a war against the Gods and won, driving them into the Heavens. This victory was won at great cost. The war tore through the fabric of reality and allowed the Intelligences Beyond (of Law and Chaos) into the world, and Humanity fell into a long dark age as the other races of mankind came into being.

[2] For all their tactical caution (opening doors, investigating tombs, etc. - to the extent that the lead PC was roped to the rest of the party, to be hauled clear of any pit traps, falling blocks etc. [I'd give a bonus to the appropriate Saving Throw, I guess]), strategically this party can be very reckless, in previous sessions plunging deeper into a dungeon when there are the sounds of angry humanoids behind them (ending in a TPK), and following an evil Mire Sprite (a Mixie) as it beckoned them down a narrow path (which nearly ended in a TPK), for example. So, trying to not be a dick DM, I think I might have to warn them (remind them) that, generally, the deeper you go, the more dangerous things get, and then let the party live or die by their own decisions.

Gods on the Moon

That the old gods of Hammerstein! (and My-Stara) are exiled on the Moon is an idea that draws on a number of sources. Of course, the Moon has been associated with one god or another, or with the supernatural, in most human cultures. That something lives on the Moon isn't a particularly Modern myth either; Lucian of Samosata, in the second century AD, wrote a story of Ulysses' journey to the Moon. Flying boats, eh? I told you that they were cool.

Mystara has its own Moon dwellers, the samurai cats of Myoshima. Not the Samurai Pizza Cats (my wife refused to believe such a thing ever existed, until I showed her the YouTube video [warning: awaful theme tune]). But the real superhumans on the Moon that I'm referencing are these:

Kirby also drew The Mighty Thor (and the rest of the Asgardians), and characters such as Hercules also find a home in the Marvel Universe, and so the idea that the once Gods of the world of Hammerstein! exiled on the Moon is meant to evoke these kind of characters. Superhumans, immortals (some of THE Immortals of Mystara, perhaps), but diminished greatly since the era in which they made the world from clay, now trapped in their Olympian domain. Some still worship them, for sure (some of the Vikings of the Northern Reaches are confirmed Lunatics), but the main religious focus in the Modern Age is the Church of Humanity, and its myriad saintly cults.

P.S. My vision of extra-planar travel has always been VERY Kirby...   

Hammerstein! Demihumans

In the world of Hammerstein! (and in what I’m calling My-Stara, the heavily modified version of Mystara that our group is currently exploring), Humans are the oldest sentient race. They were created by the by the trickster god Humaman. They were made in the in image of the Gods, and they shared their passions and vices, though on a mortal scale. At first, the Gods were amused, and congratulated Humaman. They walked amongst the humans and played with them, damaged them, and disposed of them as a spoiled child does with his toys. 

But Humaman’s joke wasn’t intended to offer the Gods amusements to idle away the eons. It was a vicious satire that built to a terrible punchline. While the Gods played at being Emperors and basked in worship, Humans got on with making History. Without an eternity to while away, mortal Humans are creatures of action and progress. Ages passed, countless generations, but eventually Humans built a civilization that rivalled the power of the Gods – the First Empire of Humanity – that wielded great magic and constructed enormously powerful machines. Having mastered the world, the First Empire made war on Heaven.

The war destroyed the world spanning Human Empire, buried cities, rent great wounds in the landscape, and left magical residue that brought into being all manner of Men-Kinds; Beastmen, Goblins, etc. and the proliferation of monstrous creatures. 

The war also damaged the Gods terribly, and they fled the world to their city on the Moon. But before they left, they created the Elves and the Dwarves. The twin gods of Time, Moment and Eternity, took the Man Rune, first carved by Humaman, and used it to create races that were meant to hold Humans forever in check. 

The Gods were alarmed by the ability of Humanity to create History. Moment, created the Elves in order to distract Humanity. Moment set the Elves down on the back of a LEVIATHAN, upon which they built their homeland, ELVENBONE (in My-Stara these Melnibonean Elves replace Alphatia). Moment gave the Elves the impulse to explore every sensation that can be experienced in mortal life. Experiments in food, art, sex, drugs, and violence fill their lives, and the lives of the Humans that they live among, with anything and everything other than the drive of History. They are agents of CHAOS.

Face it. He's a Elf. An urban/e one.

And this guy is an Elf too. My-stara's version of Alfheim will be a bit more... punk.

Eternity created the Dwarfs as a conservative check on Humanity. Eternity set the Dwarfs down within IRON MOUNTAIN, and gave them a complaining, suspicious character. The Dwarfs took the task of recording all of History within their great mountain vaults. Eternity ensured that the Dwarves would be a force for LAW. If there is one thing a Dwarf dislikes more than change, it is progress. If things must change, they should change slowly. That is the Truth every Dwarf is taught.

Unfortunately for the Gods, and for all the Men-Kinds of the world of Hammerstein!, some Dwarves became ever more extreme in their pursuit of Law, in ordering the world, while whole communities of Elves took to the worship of Chaos itself. The very essence of the world had been damaged during the war between Humans and Gods, and through these wounds crept the alien intelligences of primal Law and Chaos. Under the influence of an Angel of Law, the Human’s built a Second Empire of Humanity, a terrible continent spanning death cult, which only ended when the barbarian king, Hammerstein Heartbreaker, stormed the Ziggurat of Permanent Order and killed the demon, bringing into being the current era of free men and petty kingdoms. 

This used to be a place...

Chris Kutalik of Hill Cantons has written a couple of posts [here and here] ostensibly talking about Greyhawk’s population density, and comparing it to what we know of Medieval Europe. Shorter: Greyhawk is largely empty, at least given the demographics that Gygax proposed. Whatever Gygax’s intentions – and it seems to me that Greyhawk is intended to be much more populated, settled and civilized than the population densities imply – this produces a suitably post/near apocalyptic world, in which settled peoples are living on a knife edge, in which to play D&D style games.

Why is this world covered in ruins and packed with lost treasure? Why are all the lords 9^th level fighters, all the archbishops 9^th level clerics, in a world/system in which that degree of advancement can only be gained by a life of great danger? Why is there anything adventuresome at all for lowly 1^st level characters to do? Well, as Edgar Johnson says in the comments, “this used to be a place once, but now it's not”, which is the best summary of what a D&Dish setting should be. Sure, for a game in which character advancement can be achieved by engaging in diplomatic plots, or subtle schemes, etc., a well settled, civilized place is fine. But if the game system describes a world in which personal (and political) power is derived (only) from adventuring, from risking great danger and looting the remains of dead societies, the world that accompanies such a system needs to be one of ‘howling emptiness’.

This is what is wrong with Mystara as a D&D setting (even as Mystara is lots of fun, and a perfectly decent setting for a system that doesn’t rely on the same method of character advancement) – so much civilization makes D&Dish adventuring implausible. Most fantasy settings are too settled, indeed, it is one of the mistakes I almost always make when engaging in world building (embryonic worlds that mutate and are reborn with each campaign re-setting TPK). That is why I wrote myself a Titanic Lesson Plan – with point 5 “Pay no attention to real medieval settlement patterns. Civilisation exists as pockets of light amid the fantastical peril. Culture can vary tremendously within a short distance - European inspired fantasy can sit alongside fantastical names inspired by a trip to Thailand”. I did this to remind myself that in order to remind myself that I’m not writing novels, I’m creating the locations for fantasy adventure gaming, and ‘game’ has different demands to ‘story’. The setting has to fit the game, and if the game is D&D…

Adventurer, Conqueror, Queen? They look like late 1980s, early 1990s D&D adventurers, don't they?

Mystaran Bullet Points

So, I have established the key concepts that I am borrowing from Titan. As I wrote, these are the sort of things that I must continually remind myself of when building the world of Hammerstein!, else it degenerate into pseudo-historical beige, unfit for adventure. But what about Mystara – the D&D world so lovingly detailed in the Gazetteer and Creature Crucible supplements, and the Voyage of the Princess Ark? What can I take from this world, and what must I rule out?

For more Mystaran goodies, including Thorfs wonderful recreations of the classic hex-maps, see the Vaults of Pandius.

1. Pseudo-Vikings as neighbours to mock-Arabia, which is right by fantasy Rome, is a feature not a bug. Variety is the spice of play. Every place should have a strong ‘theme’ – who wants to trek through umpteen ‘realistic’, barely distinguishable medieval towns? – and there need not be a ‘realistic’ logic to their arrangement [All the Gazetteers, essentially]. This complements onto point 3, 4 and 5 of the Titanic Lesson Plan.

2. The world is post-apocalyptic, and conceals hidden cities [B4 The Lost City] and lost valleys [B10 Night’s Dark Terror]. There were once powerful civilizations, and their treasures and secrets are waiting to be discovered, as well as their twisted, degenerate remnants [see also the DA Blackmoor series, and the Azcan, Oltecs, Nithians etc. of the Gazetteer prehistories and the Hollow World]. In Titan we have the War of the Wizards, Carseopolis, etc., but the more thoroughgoing the apocalyptic prehistory, the more dungeons there are in the world. See point 1 of the Titanic Lesson Plan.

3. Ships are cool. When, thousands of years ago, I moved on from the dungeon bashes of the D&D Basic Set and opened the blue box of the Expert Set, I was immediately excited by the idea that adventurers could not only explore the forests between the town and the dungeon, but they could buy, hire, or steal a boat and journey to the Isle of Dread. Or the Island of the Lizard King. Or explore the Seas of Blood. Sea travel, especially to islands, presents the possibility of filling the world with unexplored areas, and with cities and cultures that are radically thematically different. Again, this can keep the world small, varied, and civilization isolated (points 3, 4 and 5 of the Titanic Lesson Plan). Also, pirates.

4. If ships are cool, flying ships are cooler (but rare) [the Voyage of the Princess Ark, PC1 Top Ballista!]. These are present in Titan, too; there is at least one, the Galleykeep [Creature of Havoc, The Trolltooth Wars].

5. Mageocracies are fascinating. In small measures. Thus, Glantri > Alphatia. In a world of magic, at least some places will be the domain of wizards and sorcerers. Not all of these powerful magic users will be one of the multiple big bads of Titan. Indeed, given that the world is inherently fantastical, magic plays an important role in all societies, even those that are not ruled by magicians.

6. And finally, for now, adventurers are rock stars (see point 8 of the Titanic Lesson Plan). The only way I can fit something like GAZ 4 The Kingdom of Ierendi into a world that I could comfortably run is to combine Ierendi with Titan’s Fang [Deathtrap Dungeon and Trial of the Champions], maybe with a dash of Blood Bowl. Many adventurers are motivated by fame, more than they are by power, or even money. They are psychologically different from normal people, even ‘normally’ powerful people, the kings, generals, merchant-princes, thaumaturgic professors and bishops of the world. As an aside, in a world of magic, gods, and demons, it is entirely right that these non-adventuring powerful people are more often than not ‘high level’ (or game equivalent) people in their own right. The D&D standard of having all bishops  be level 9+ clerics, all kings as level 9+ fighters, etc. makes more sense (see counter-lesson 2, below) in this kind of world (while it certainly doesn’t in settings that attempt to emulate a historical period with a bit of magic glossed on top), as long as there is the XP mechanism for advancement other than by adventure. This path of non-adventuring advancement could be just for NPCs, though I dislike systems that mechanically differentiate PCs from NPCs, or from monsters even.

There are, however, two things that I cannot take from Mystara when building the world of Hammerstein!

1. Nations. The whole of the Known World is covered by nations. With borders, routes of communication, standing armies, etc., it is difficult to envisage that civilization exists as points of light amid fantastical peril, or that the world is small world but fantastical threats make travel perilous [points 3 and 5 of the Titanic Lesson Plan]. Cities might cast a civilizing shadow on the nearby countryside, but actual nations should be unusual and/or loosely bound.

2. A preponderance of high-level characters. “What? You’ve just written that high-level characters are justified.” Yes, I suppose this is a system rather than setting problem. It depends on the power scaling of the game. The power scaling of D&D works better in world where almost no-one is name level (which is always the impression that I got from AD&D1e, with the low demi-human level caps implying, to me, that even though humans could go further, only the superheroic did so). In Mystara, there are thousands of 36th level magic-users, and that’s just for starters. In a game world in which there are tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of people with high-level adventuring skills, what is a PC to actually do? However, in a game where even ‘high-level’ characters are vulnerable (WFRP, AFF2e, or a BRP/RuneQuest game, somewhat like OpenQuest, say…), having 150% in close combat or knowing a vast array of sorcery spells is all well and good, but you’d much rather those crazy adventurers dealt with the dragon than risk your 15 hit points…

I’ll get round to what I want to borrow from the world of Warhammer soon.  

Perfect 10

My adventurer's foray into Deathtrap Dungeon ended in the shortest number of sections that I can remember reading, at least when not taking the certain death option for a laugh. Ten. 10. Including section 1.

My adventurer was baked to death in the tunnels of Deathtrap Dungeon. It is difficult to remember whether the liquid in the bamboo container is a trap or not 20-odd years on.

This tunnel is getting a little hot. I'll press on - I've got a LUCK of 11. Oh, what, surviving a hot tunnel is a test of SKILL? But I rolled a 1 at CharGen!

I didn't learn very much from this read of Deathtrap Dungeon, but every time I think about Fang and the Trial of the Champions I am reminded of the way in which I can solve the 'Ierendi problem'. You can keep much of that Gazeteer's zaniness - a key part of Classic D&D - if you add a dash of the Deathtrap Dungeon/Port Blacksand flavour to spice it up a little.

Known World, Old World

The Known World was my first fantasy role-play setting. A little continent of archetypal fantasy settings in the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) Expert Rulebook (1983), with a short description of the setting in the accompanying module, The Isle of Dread, it was expanded in great detail throughout the 1980s, mainly by way of the superb Gazetteer series, until it became the world of Mystara. It is a high-fantasy setting with a light, humorous atmosphere. And it is a lot of fun if played that way.

The Old World is the world presented in the first edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP) (1986). A faux-Renaissance Europe dominated by the Empire, corrupted from within by petty human failings and the shadow of Chaos, it was a setting richly detailed in the superb The Enemy Within campaign. It is a low-fantasy setting with a dark, humorous atmosphere. And it is a lot of fun if played that way.

In two imaginary worlds, and their associated game systems, we have neat encapsulations of the gulf between American and British pop-culture. One the one hand you have the Justice League of America, on the other the Justice Department of Megacity One. The Known World of D&D is bright, clean, and [super-]heroic. The PCs survive (mostly), save the world, defeat the evil, and grow powerful and rich. The Old World of WFRP is dark, dirty, and a grim struggle. If the PCs survive (and there’s a good chance they won’t), they merely forestall the spread of chaos, before they are permanently disabled fighting a pickpocket in a filthy alley, grow sick, and die in poverty.

And for a GM, or player, these two worlds and systems have, between them, all the rules and well-presented colour to run fantasy campaigns of whatever flavour you want. I have recently returned to roleplaying after a long period away – getting a degree, becoming a husband, getting a PhD, becoming a father, and breaking my body on the rugby fields of Yorkshire and South Wales. Those 15-20 years have given me a different perspective on what I want from a roleplaying game. This blog is about the Known World and the Old World, the game systems that they were built around, and my thoughts on playing these classic roleplaying games.