Why have I stopped RPG blogging?

/ PhilosopherZ / 10 Comments

My last two blog posts were on 23 October (Gamehole convention) and 24 September (my Aufstrag campaign game diary).

I used to blog once or twice a week – what has happened? Why have I stopped RPG blogging?

Most broadly, I have grown tired of social media. Everyone (it seems) is trying to sell something. Everyone wants to be an ‘influencer.’ Everywhere I look all I see are ads and promotions of their own product they are trying to convince me to buy, or they are trying to sell the product of someone who is sponsoring them.

I have simply had enough of the never ending promotions. I have unsubscribed/unfollowed the majority of gaming companies/creators. The never ending emails promoting the ‘next big’ crowdfunding project have nearly all disappeared. I no longer care about buying more game products. When my last few crowdfunding products arrive next year I plan on closing and deleting all my crowdfunding accounts. If there is a product I want in the future, I will buy it the old fashioned way – by seeing it on a storefront (physical or digital) and deciding if I truly need it, considering that I have spent several thousand dollars on RPG game products over the last 5 years alone, the answer is mostly going to be ‘No‘.

This also applies to platforms like Youtube and Twitch. Youtube in recent months began sending me (and others) a warning that if I didn’t turn off my adblocker I couldn’t watch anymore videos. I refuse to watch ads, so I have stopped watching Youtube on their platform.

Social media websites also can take up (i.e. waste) a huge amount of time. I am now down to spending 1 hour per week on social media. Thirty minutes a week is on Discord, and the other 30 minutes covers places like Mastodon. I deleted MeWe a week ago (I want nothing to do with their crypto and NFT nonsense, plus the RPG gamers there have become a small, quiet, bunch, as most have moved onto other platforms since the original Google+ exodus of 2018). I deleted my Goodreads account today (even with recent updates it feels as if its days are done, it is also getting corrupted since many books get review bombed by haters, and other people just go there to rant about an author they have a grievance with, and there is no real constructive sharing of thoughts. Finally, who cares how many books you read each year? It is the quality you get from the books you read, not the numerical number of books, or how many pages you read; this obsession with quantifying everything destroys the joy of simply reading and reflecting).

With only 30 minutes on social media each week, unsubscribing from game publisher/creator emails and promotions that drag you off to a website, you wouldn’t believe how much time I have gained in my real life! I literally have acquired several extra hours each day to be productive and live a real, intentional, life. I haven’t felt this free since I first jumped into the social media communities in 2009 (when I was in university busy connecting with people). Except for my Tuesday Castles & Crusades game night, I now put aside 3 hours every night to read and exercise. Since this summer I have lost over 30 lbs and more importantly, I am physically active everyday of the week walking, cycling, and rowing, which has made me more mentally alert as well. I feel renewed!

As just alluded to, I still have my Tuesday night C&C group and I honestly think we are closer and more passionate about the game than we have yet been since 2018 when this particular group first formed. But now I focus just on them, or more accurately, on us. I am no longer distracted by trying to run multiple groups, trying to write and publish witty blog posts to get more subscribers/followers, or following the latest gossipy drama and distractions of ‘who has done what’ to someone else in the RPG community, what product I need to buy (or, I actually don’t need to buy), etc. I plan and run my game, and then I have other things I do (like continue to learn how to cook, attend academic conferences online, and seek out new pursuits).

One of my game diaries would typically take 2-3 hours to complete. I would look for art to represent what happened in the game session, then write, edit, re-edit, and then share it on multiple social media platforms. By not blogging twice a week I have just saved myself 4-6 hours per week. I do miss the interactions with real people, but although some game diaries got many dozens of visitors, many just saw a dozen viewers. When I write product reviews, those have frequently gotten hundreds of views, and although I think I have a unique perspective and viewpoint to share, at the moment I cringe a bit at being one of thousands of other people throwing my voice onto the web competing for views and attention with everyone else.

Additionally, how many real viewers am I getting? WordPress tells me I have had over 7,000 visitors to my blog this year. But I supect most of those are bots. There are several “people” that randomly like a blog post of mine every week. I know many of them are not real people. About a year ago I had several hundred visits every day for several days coming from from Russia, I changed a WordPress setting and they all disappeared the next day. I once got three “people” who began following my blog over three days, I looked at their blogs and they were all cooking blogs that had nothing to do with what I do, so, once again, bots. I’ve read that 47 percent of internet traffic is from Bots. I don’t find that surprising.

Surely I can just ignore all the bots and just focus on the actual conversations with the few dozen or few hundred people that actually care about what I write? Sure, that is nice (although I can foresee in a few years time the next level of bot will not just be liking and following blogs, but commenting as if they are a real person).

But, at least at the moment, I am enjoying the fact that I am saving a ton of money by simply ending spending on RPGs (Gamehole, in October, was the last time I bought RPG products). The multiple daily emails from creaters/publishers trying to get me to buy their next product are no longer clogging my email. I sometimes can now go a day or two without getting an email! That hasn’t been true for years. Getting away from the gossip is emotionally uplifting. The constant hype and flashing ads are becoming but a memory.

Stepping back from social media has allowed me to realize that most of what is shared on social media isn’t that important.

I now go to the library. I read. I have nice notebooks (e.g. moleskine, leuchtturm, paperblank) where I write stuff down – for myself. You don’t have to share everything with the world (because the world doesn’t see it, perhaps a few dozen or a few hundred people see it and the other hundreds or thousands are non-sentient bots). The internet is buzzing with noise, but it is frequently unecessary noise that we don’t have to listen to.

At this time of the year I usually do a year end blog reflecting on the past year and look forward to the future, but in many ways I have already done that. Perhaps a year end blog with some photos of my Xmas gifts? We’ll see.

Gamehole 2023 Diary

/ PhilosopherZ / 2 Comments

This was my first gaming convention since Gamehole 2021. It was also among my best experiences. I love this convention!

This year I ran two Castles & Crusades games in a scenario I designed: Keep on the Borderlands Defence (Werebeast Assault). Players set up defences during a full moon when Wererats emerged to attack from the sewers, Werewolves attempted to breach the front gate, Werebats flew overhead to attack the ballista on the towers, as well as dropping off Werespiders who tried to set up choke points in the streets with their webs. The players choose a place to start, and then move about depending on how successful they have been where they hear the most cries for assistance. The action is constantly moving and there is little time to rest. Some players also get excited when they get bitten and may contract lycanthropy (I give them a Con save to resist, but even if they fail, they get a mental save to maintain self-control, but even if succeed, will their friends and the guards of the Keep realize they are still allies?). The possibilities are endless! Both groups were great successes (you know a game went well when the players come up to you afterward and shake your hand and exchange contact information with you)! I will be running this scenario again at Con of the North (in Minnesota in February).

These were the players from my second, Friday morning game. Most of the players turned into werebeasts and the Keep was overrun – by them and the minions that now served them!

I also played some games at Gamehole. I have owned Symbaroum for quite a while and have always wanted to experience it, but it was not until this Con that this finally happened. I took part in a 2-hour and a 4-hour intro game session. I love the darkness of the setting, and it is fun to play something that is not some kind of D&D clone. Different game mechanics allow a different feel and possibilities when it comes to character classes, magic, monsters, and what and how you accomplish tasks. These games had greater role-playing, but when combat occurred, I enjoyed how things played out (having to roll your characters attacks and their defence against the monster’s attack is an interesting feature I hadn’t experienced before, for the GM rarely rolls any dice).

You also can’t go wrong playing in one of Stephen Chenault’s (the CEO of Troll Lord Games and all-around nice guy) Castles & Crusades games (usually with 14-24 players). It is always a great deal of fun, but watch out for rivers, for crossing a river in one of his games will be a challenge you won’t forget! Surprisingly, in this game, our scenario began after we had already passed over the river and lost most of those travelling with us. However, in the end we had to head back toward it after fighting orcs, giants, and encountering an ancient dwarven Ring of Brass travel conduit. As always, a memorable game!

Of course, it is the people you meet that make a convention stand out, and this convention included some of the best interactions I’ve yet had. I spent time with old friends from Troll Lord Games (the folks that make Castles & Crusades), and met new members of the Troll Lord family. Castles & Crusades is the game I moved to half a decade ago and have since run 100’s of games, at game stores, conventions, and at my home. C&C is the best RPG game I’ve played and has given me the best gaming experience of my 40 years gaming. Furthering my contact with the folks in this family is always a positive experience.

Black Oak Workshop is also a company I adore. Craig, the owner, is a genuinely nice guy, and I always enjoy speaking with him and increasing my dice collection from his choices. The Adven-ure Calendar is a standout item he offers for the holiday season, for who can deny themselves – or loved ones – the joy of opening a little door every day for 24 days straight and getting a little dice present! Check out the website I linked so that you can view these as well as his dice bags and dice (which are larger and have a different font from other generic dice).

I love to browse the work of artists at Gamehole, and this year I discovered the work of Lindsey Burcar. It was her dragon prints that caught my attention the most, and I purchased a few of them (see my “loot” pictures below).

All in all, this was one of my top – if not my top – conventions that I’ve attended. Everything just seemed to line up and there were no issues or problems that arose. Gamehole is the convention that I plan to continue making my one ‘road-trip’ con every year (I live in Minnesota, just over 4 hours from Madison, Wisconsin, so it is a pleasant drive breathing in the cool autumn air and seeing the vibrant and rich autumn colours on the trees flow on either side of me).

Loot includes: art prints from the incredible Lindsey Burcar, World of Aihrde fiction from Stephen Chenault, Into the Cess & Citadel, an Into the Wyrd and Wild GM screen, the always great Advent-ure Calendar from Black Oak Workshop, and a canvas print from the C&C Monsters & Treasure from Noble Dwarf, and a C&C cup.
A nice variety of products: Forbidden Lands expansion, an extra C&C GM screen, extra dice (mostly from the incredible Black Oak Workshop), a playmat with art from Lindsey Burcar, and a great dungeon encounter book from Pacesetter Games.
I purchased some prints from previous Gamehole Cons, including work by Jeff Easley, Larry Elmore, and Alayna Danner.

The Narratives of Aufstrag (A1), Entry 14

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[We continue the story around a group of adventurers exploring the frontier lands located north of the crusader kingdoms of New Aenoch and south of the corrupted region of Aufstrag. This entry (like the previous one) is written from the perspective of Svala, a Viking Seiðkona (sorceress), who is accompanying the group.]

Our Centaur hunter Oryan led us through the rocky and forested area atop the Blacktooth Ridge and got us to the location of Neelge, an ancient Fraonoth Witch. This group had met her once before, and Kazik, a Molfar [Shaman] member of their group, remained behind to study the spirit world with her. Now they sought her out to return our Paladin, Desmond, who had been transmuted from flesh to stone by an Iahneal Dragon’s breath attack. They offered her thousand of gold pieces worth of gems, but it was not sufficient, so as we sat around the bubbling cauldrons that surrounded her in her forest sanctuary, along with her dwarf and pixie/sprite followers, she worked her witchery on him. I believed she partially brought Desmond back from his stony state, entered his mind, and offered him a deal. He accepted, and she returned him fully to his physical, fleshy, state (I wonder what he will have to do for her as payment for his return to life?). It was good to see him back (even if he is a worshipper of the Saints and what those folks call the “one true god.” These henotheists who think their god of the saints is more powerful than all the other German, Slavic, Norse, Celtic, Greek, and Faerie gods, can sometimes be quite insufferable, but Desmond reigns it in well. The cultural variety he is being exposed to with this group, I think, has tempered the normal one-sided paladin zeal).

As the group gathered around the campfires and rested and feasted for the night, I made my way to Neegle. As a Sorceress and Perceptive, I have been given powerful gifts from my god and patron – Baldur. Neegle knows so much! As an immortal being that it is said emerged from the Void (Ginnungagap in my Norse faith) into the world in its youth, I couldn’t help but want to inquire into her wisdom. I had so many questions. The night didn’t last nearly long enough (although sometimes it felt as if I was learning faster than what normal time would allow). I gave up many of my precious gems that night for her insights.

The next day, her dwarf assistant Gunald and the faeries led us in an expedited way through the forest under Neegle’s control, and we arrived near where our map fragments said the Vargolg was located.

The Vargolg is an ancient underground complex used during the great Winter Dark, that one thousand year span where The Horned One – Unklar, ruled these lands. Although once used during the Winter Dark, the Vargolg has since been used for many purposes since. Oryan, and Kazik, our Molfar Barbarian, led us to the entry point through thick forest thickets. Graz, the Dwarven Rune Mark and I used our mystical abilities on some ancient inscriptions, with a most puzzling ancient script and riddle. Although we were not able to make sense of it, we proceeded further anyway and entered the complex. From a different direction from where we had approached, there were trails where carts and wagons brought supplies, and the complex was big enough for all of us to enter (even the Centaur). We made our way through the initial guard room – which was unguarded as the Goblins meant to do so could be heard in a room further north playing games, drinking, and cooking. Working our way into the entry hall, we darted off to the left and found a room full of loot, but we decided to hold off exploring it in detail until after we had taken care of the Goblin dark fey. Moving off to the right, we found a refuse room. Again, we acknowledged this and did not waste (that pun was intentional) time exploring it.

It was around this time that goblins began wandering from the room where they were eating and gaming and our Centaur Archer attempted to take them out with his bow, but he missed, and more goblins came as reinforcements. We all came out of the rooms we were in and attacked the goblins in the large main entry hall. Kazik, the Molfar Barbarian also fell a little short in his attacks (he has been trying to impress me ever since we met at Neegle’s forest home. It has only been a couple of days and I have already lost track of the number of times I have looked over at Astrid – an impressive Cleric of Eir, a Valkyrie goddess – and rolled my eyes at his failed attempts to impress me with his masculinity). Overall, though, our group is large, and it seemed easier than we thought to take them down (the Goblins did not use their dark faerie abilities and were not in a rush to attack with their weapons, although they did call upon the power of Unklar to empower them). But upon further reflection, after we downed them, we realized they probably have worked with other mercenary groups, and they may have first been unsure if we were actual intruders, or just another group bringing in loot from raids on nearby Botkinburg.

Vargolg map created by Jack Neller.

After destroying the goblin scum, we had a brief look in the upper left room, where they slept, ate, and gamed, before heading to the upper right room to find another refuse dump. We then made our way further north to the long hall where they had placed their wagons and carts to unload the loot. Two Gnolls were there waiting for us. They may be large beasts, but can be quite stealthy when they need to be. They attacked with their long bows from behind several of the wagons (not with their massive and devastating body bows, fortunately, but large long bows nonetheless). They could’ve hurt us, but one thing we have on our side are numbers – 13 of us to be exact – and Graz, the Rune Mark, used her Agnosia ability to cause confusion in one Gnoll. He looked confusingly at his bow and mistook it for a harp and began trying to strum it. We took him and his companion out. But it was at this point that things became more complicated. For you see, just north of the long hall was the entry chamber to what we think was (is?) a throne room. We could hear dozens of Goblins, and they heard the noise of some of the equipment in the long hall breaking during our fight with the Gnolls. They shouted at the Gnolls asking what was going on and sent some Goblins in to investigate, and although a few members of our group made an attempt to imitate these creature’s voices, they failed, and the Goblins raised the alarm for intruders in the complex. With the alarm now officially raised, the Goblins are not going to be cautious and hold back. Fortunately, I have virtually all my sorcerous magic at my disposal. Let us see if the dark faeries can hold up against the power of Baldur!

The Narratives of Aufstrag (A1), Entry 13

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[We return to the stories around a group of adventurers exploring the frontier lands north of the crusader kingdoms of New Aenoch. This entry will be written through the eyes of Svala, a Viking Seiðkona (Sorceress), this Norse-themed class can be found in the Codex Nordica. She also is a Perceptive. The Perceptive is a part of the Magic-user class, which allows the character to detect magic, read magic, and locate magic items. Castles & crusades half classes can be found in the Players Archive. This story entry covers the last two game sessions.]

It is mid-May and I have arrived in Botkinburg, a small town in the northern frontier with about 300 humans and over 50 hobbits. Of course, as Lunacy approaches (that time of the year when both our moons become full and the werebeasts emerge in their empowered packs for a mighty hunt), everyone seeks shelter in whatever town is closest to them, and Botkinburg expanded by another 100 souls. Everyone took shelter in the walls of the Keep and any other walled-in area in town. The Oak Grove Shrine where people pray to the gods of nature does provide protection on dangerous nights like this, and as the sun set and the moons rose nearby oaks came to life in the outskirts of the town and protected us as the werebeasts came to hunt. On this night, it was the weresnakes that slithered in to constrict and poison us. Weresnakes possess the ability to charm venomous snakes, and the ground seemed to move in an uneasy way, the fact that it was raining added to the moving of the grass which made us all queasy.

Some of the people who had entered Botkinburg prior to Lunacy included a rather large group of adventurers. Apparently split into two groups, one half had followed the Drunderry River from the southeast, and the other followed the Hruesen River to the south and both met at Botkinburg. I counted nearly a dozen of them. During the night of Lunacy, they took up watch at various points around town to keep the moon beasts away. One Centaur hunter, armed with a mighty bow on the east side of town, nearly fought off a weresnake and a large number of its venomous charmed snakes single-handedly, only needing help at the last moment as the poisonous snake bites whittled down its strength, and it was being constricted by the cursed weresnake. A Dwarven Rune Mark located on the west side of town used her mystical abilities to set up skeletal sentries outside the village, and the few that made it past them and the sentient oaks were taken care of by the adventurers.

After the night of unrest, there were only 6 fatalities, all farmers from nearby lands who had been taken by surprise by the snakes slithering through small gaps in the farm buildings. It could’ve been so much worse.

For the next few days, we all celebrated the end of Lunacy for this year and feasted. It was also a time to continue where we all had left off a week before sheltering. Botkinburg had recently had two twins go missing, and with the raids from the dark fey goblins and red caps, it was thought they had been kidnapped. I had heard of a place called the Vargolg located to the east between Fromkins Pass and the Fallow Falls where the goblins practice their dark fey practices. Additionally, my own research made me aware there is a Fraonoth, an ancient, possibly immortal witch creature born of the void, and as a sorceress, I am most interested in studying and learning anything I can from such a creature. So I introduced myself to the group as half of them split off to head southeast for the Vargolg and the other half was heading off to deliver some cargo to Ludensheim (the large city of several thousand located a week away in a northwest direction).

Traveling with the Hruesen River to our south and the Blacktooth Ridge to the north, it was just a matter of days before we encountered an Iahneal Dragon. It used the scintillating wing pattern to bewilder several members of the groups before it came in for attacks with its claws, bite and tail attacks. The group destroyed the mystical serpent, but not until after it used its breath attack on Desmond, the paladin of the group. The cloud of dust and stone transmuted the paladin’s body from flesh into stone. This would shake many group’s resolve, but the Dwarven Rune Mark simply created an extradimensional space, placed the paladin “statue” within it, along with the dragon’s scintillating wings, and they were prepared to move on, for they believed that if they could make contact again with the immortal Fraonoth (where apparently a Molfar [a Shaman class from the Codex Slavorum] companion of theirs remained with her as a student to study the spirits). Their hope is to convince the witch to restore the paladin (but what will she ask in return?). I do hope the immortal void witch can restore the paladin, and I look forward to seeing the creature.

One of the arcane spellcasters in the group, who happens to be undead, tried to retrieve the dragon’s gas breath weapon organ, but he failed, punctured the organ, and the burst of gas that sprayed out nearly transmuted his flesh to stone as well!

Iahneal Dragon, Castles & Crusades: Monsters & Treasure of Aihrde

As the days progressed, and we further travelled along the Hruesen River and Blacktooth Ridge, a pair of Fire Drakes launched themselves from nearby trees and came in for the attack. Swift and careful arrow attacks from the archers took one down before it could attack, but the other required more effort. The undead illusionist again tried to remove these creatures’ fiery breath weapon organs and failed, requiring assistance afterword from the fire burst. Luckily for him, he may be an illusionist, but he also had trained as a monk and fighter, and had decent fortitude against failed attempts like this!

Fire Drake, Castles & Crusades: Monsters & Treasure

More days passed, and we were passing near Fromkins Pass and the group wished to avoid a nearby waterfall, so we climbed up Blacktooth Ridge to go over and across the river, rather than pass underneath a waterfall. It was as we were looking for a good location to pass the swift moving river leading to the falls that nearby trees proved not to be trees, but strange crow people that had used Barkskin magic to alter themselves into trees and attack us by surprise from behind after we passed them. There were six of them, and they summoned what we thought were undead hounds from the woods, but would later learn after the battle were illusionary undead hounds. After multiple battles over recent days from flying creatures, I cast fly on myself and joined them in the air and used my shocking grasp magic to drop several of them to the ground. This battle took some effort due to their aerial attacks with bone daggers, confusing our senses with their caws weakening our ability to sense the illusionary hounds, and several people fell from their mounts from their injuries.

Jara-Tuor, Castles & Crusades: Monsters & Treasure of Aihrde

We now need to heal up and cross the river. The Fraonoth is apparently only about a day away, although apparently she can alter the density of foliage of the forest around her and make paths easier or more difficult to pass. However, if their Molfar friend is still with her, and she remains friendly towards the group, perhaps our path to her will be swifter? Either way, it looks like I will soon get to meet her, Desmond may get transmuted back to flesh, and we can make our way to the Vargolg to take on the dark fey goblins, discover some of their secrets and plans, and free the twins.

The Narratives of Aufstrag (A1), Entry 12

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It’s been a month since the last narrative. My game has continued every Tuesday during that time, but since it was a connected adventure, I felt it could wait until it was complete. Also, I swing back and forth in my excitement for blogging, there are times when I blog three times a week, and there are times – such as the last three weeks – when I think “does anyone care?” and “do I fell like blogging?” August has had the RPGaDay, and near the end of July I was getting excited to perhaps take part in it, and then I asked myself “do I really want to blog Every. Single. Day?” No, I didn’t as it turned out. I’ve been doing other things recently during the time I normally blog, such as: get back to reading philosophy, trying out new cooking, and doing more outdoor cycling. I am getting mentally and physically more fit, I am eating better, and I am losing some weight as well.

But, back to the story of my Aufstrag group. Let me just give you my GM perspective of the group over the first 8 months of this campaign. I have taken Troll Lord Game’s epic 3 box set Aufstrag campaign and have put it in my developing campaign world. For the first 5 months of 2023 the group followed the adventures in the first box set In the Shadow of Aufstrag. That group of 8 characters worked their way north along the Drunderry river from Malforten to just being a day away from Botkinburg as they followed the Aratok Mountains and Blacktooth Ridge to the east. However, my players had 8 more characters they made (we all love LARGE adventuring companies which allow players to build up an incredible variety of skills and capabilities, especially since we make use of C&C’s Expanded Class options that allows amazing multi-classing). This second group followed the roads from Malforten west to Hrueset and then north along the Hruesen River past numerous towns that I created myself, making use of Philip Reed’s marvellous Fantasy City Sites and Scenes I, II, and III to fill them with intrigue and adventures.

As my players moved through those home-made adventures, I was worried whether my players would like the shift from our previous theatre of mind and VTT maps shown on a large monitor, to a new gaming table I set up next to the normal one where I set up Loke Battle Mats for more tactical encounters. It so happens they enjoyed the change up!

With my new playable undead Remnant and Changeling ancestries, my players get to try out new ways to develop characters and this campaign has so far been very heavy on character development as well as profession development, for I am also making great use of The Ultimate Guide to Alchemy, Crafting & Enchanting (Nord Games), the Vault of Magic and Deep Magic (Kobold Press), and the Tome of Alchemy (Frog God Games). All the PCs in my campaigns choose professions, and those that chose Alchemy are having quite the time collecting journals and notebooks with unique recipes drawn from these books! This campaign has (thus far) made less use of conventional magic items and stronger use of what the PCs themselves create through research.

In the next game session, this group should arrive at Botkinburg, and we will continue where we left off with the first group at the end of May. They then get to choose which members of group 1 and 2 they want to use to visit a dungeon known as the Vargolg, and the other members will most likely end up in one of the other adventures from the In the Shadows of Aufstrag box set (that is, one group may do A2 and the other A3, and then they’ll gather together afterward to see how they’ll divide themselves up for the next couple of adventures). I think it is very interesting to have multiple groups that mix and match over time, each going off based on rumours they hear and doing one of the adventures, and then coming back to together in a town and tavern and regroup to head off in different directions for the next series of adventures. With so many PCs (we’ve got 16 so far and my players still want to make more as they come to understand the themes and possibilities of the campaign!), levelling up is slower, but since most of the PCs use the C&C Expanded Class (so many have 2-3 classes), and each of my players role-play two characters, it means each adventuring party of 8 characters has about 12 character classes among them, so they are versatile enough to handle what the Aufstrag adventures present to them.

Let me end this entry with a brief summary of the last three adventures. The adventurers passed through the towns of Claethorpes, Woodhurst, Woodpine, Hempholme, Ormkirk, and Alryne. Passing through each town, they picked up work guiding and guarding wagon supplies from one town to another for some extra cash and had some encounters on the dangerous roads that took them further from the civilized city of Hrueset. Upon entering Alryne – a town filled with many Remnant undead (my new playable ancestry), they visited the remains of an old sewage system that belonged to a city that once existed there before the 1,000-year Winter Dark left it in ruins. In the sewers, they were looking for Godfrey, a Remnant black marketeer specializing in alchemy and cadaver caterpillars (i.e. carrion crawlers) that have been bred to hunt and paralyze other undead! My player who has a Remnant Vampire Hunter/Assassin named Lucas wants to acquire one as a pet so that he can better hunt down the Darakhul ghoul(s) that killed him and his family.

To free Godfrey, they had to confront Darakhul, Shadowmancers, and Necrophage Ghouls (I’ve brought these great creatures in from the Kobold Press Creature Codex). The group ended up getting teleported into a Darakhul tower in Ghoul Crest and fought a Darakhul alchemist name Archibald. They defeated him, but as you can see from the condition rings, most of the group was paralyzed, charmed, or blinded due to his clever use of hypnotic patterns on walls, and his ghoul powers and magic. Some players thought a TPK was immanent, but I told them there are far worse things than death, since Archibald had other things in mind for them…such as transformation into undead!

Upon defeating him, they headed off to Harmstead and next week Lucas will get his cadaver caterpillar pet, and they will then head to Botkinburg.

The Narratives of Aufstrag (A1), Entry 11

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[Aufstrag is a product of Troll Lord Games for the Castles & Crusades RPG, but it can be used for D&D since the systems overlap. I have heavily home-brewed Aufstrag with other products and placed it in my own world and altered the lore as I need.

For this entry, we are following on from the previous entry and going to see what the adventurers did through the eyes of Tristan, a guard captain in the Merchant District of the city of Hrueset.]

My Lord,

I write to bring further news of the adventurers that are beginning to make a name for themselves in the New Frontier lands of New Aenoch. After dealing with the Midnight Stalker, the group – after paying for an Adventurers Licence – expressed a desire to delve into the sewers. Obviously, the threat of the Darakhul Ghoul Imperium is ever present, with their hunting of our people through their trained Carrion Crawlers and Gelatinous Blood Cubes that hunt down, capture, and paralyse us, and then bring us back to them to feed on our still fresh bodies. Something had to be done, and this group was willing to do it.

We sent them down initially with two of our own sewer patrol to serve as guides (Ricard and Arne). They reported during their day of delving that they encountered a Darakhul Carrion Crawler, a Gibbering Mouther (which are created in our sewers as a side effect of multiple bodies inside a Gelatinous Cube amalgamating together and then get excreted as waste), and one of our Otyughs (which of course we use as waste management by letting them devour the waste that flows into the sewer; it cuts down on the rats).

The sewer explorers had quite a time, between some wandering away confused due to a Gibbering Mouther’s gibbering, getting paralysed by a Carrion Crawlers tentacles, or getting entangled in the tentacles of an Otyugh and nearly getting devoured by its huge maw. Ricard and Arne came away exhausted from the combat, and the adventurers were very low on health and needed some fresh air and a place to rest for a few days to get their health back.

One thing that Ricard and Arne told me during the few days rest was that an undead hunter in the group named Lukas had no smell at all, very peculiar. Was something blocking it? You don’t wander through the sewers and not pick up a unique scent! [GM Note: Lukas wears a cloak that hides smells, including the fact that he is a Remnant, and undead playable ancestry in my game]. Also, an hour into their journey into the sewers they picked up a sudden smell from Sebastian, some type of Mage [GM Note: he is also a Remnant, a Wild Mage Arcane Thief that uses home-brewed Cantrips and 1st level spells to cover up his undead status, and the spells had expired]. Both these individuals looked sickly, but now I was worried. Could undead have infiltrated this group? There is a paladin in the group named Desmond, and I was certain that we needed to let him know that undead were in his group and that they would have to be slain, for as we are taught, undead are universally evil and the Church of the One True God wants them all dead.

This conversation was happening as a local lord – Lord Ekbert of Onryx and his Friar Brother Aethelstan were nearby working out trade arrangements with the Crown. He overheard the concerned stories of my sewer patrol and joined the conversation. He told us of a previous assignment he did for Empress Pryzmira and New Aenoch Crusader Kingdom in the Borderlands, where there were vast Barrow Mounds filled with undead. He spoke of a group of adventurers he knew who travelled with an undead fallen Paladin that was seeking to redeem himself. He warned me and my guards that we should relax our youthful idealism and black-and-white crusader zeal, for the world is not as cut and dry as we are told in the church, that real life gives us shades of grey. [GM Note: Ekbert and Aethelstan were NPCs in my previous Barrowmaze campaign. In this campaign they have now retired and taken up land ownership, Ekbert’s references were to things that happened to the PCs in the previous campaign. I have roughly 100 Barrowmaze game diaries if you are interested.] One takes the advice of an honoured warrior of Ekbert’s standing seriously, so I held back on ordering the killing of the possible undead adventurers.

Several days later, after everyone healed up and no longer suffered from exhaustion, they reconvened for fresh entry into the sewers. This time, I sent in two additional sewer patrol members – Olivia and Sabina – to ensure any evil or undead would be despatched more efficiently. Lord Ekbert was now completing his final trade deal with our bureaucrats, and approached as I asked Desmond if he knew there were two undead in his group. He did indeed know and said he trusted them for what they’ve done for the group so far. Lord Ekbert clearly saw something familiar in Desmond and spoke of seeing young men like him in years past lose themselves and die, and asked that the young Paladin stay true to himself, stay strong, and said he would be praying for him [GM Note: the player who portrays Desmond also ran two Paladin characters in the Barrowmaze campaign that eventually became insane and/or died and needed to be cared for by Clerics under Ekbert’s leadership at the time].

Although I am still a bit wary of undead adventurers not being evil, I took Ekbert’s advice and decided to trust Desmond’s ability to sense evil in people (Desmond says there was none in the undead) and they descended into the sewers with my four guards.

The Hobbit from Botkinburg – Elanor – had made markings on the walls with glow chalk high up on the walls when they were last in the sewers days before, so they were able to retrace their steps easily. Soon they found secret stairways that descended into another lower level of sewers. These were sewers from an earlier time, and here the sewage was not moving as swiftly and this place was under the influence of the Darakhul. The group’s wanderings took them to a place where a Darakhul was busy packing up a library of documents onto cars pulled by undead oxen to be taken deeper into the Underworld. He also was engaging in a ritual to his Undead God of Hunger – Vardesain. The group tried to interrupt him by attacking him from behind, but he had a half a dozen swift moving Zombie Dogs with him, and they darted out toward the group.

The Darakhul summoned forth strange magic and green globs of energy shot out toward his dogs, and they acquired some kind of frosty appearance. Sebastian has the ability to steal other people’s spells, and attempted to steal the Darakhul’s, but the attempt failed. Lukas is an Alchemist, and had prepared Alchemist Fire, and as the dogs charged through a choke point, he threw his concoction, and they all caught on fire and burned.

At around this time the Darakhul, who had been approaching them slowly at a walking pace, paying careful attention to what they were doing, suddenly disappeared.

The Zombie Dogs, thought dead, rose again, and the group had to close in to do final blows to ensure their complete death.

Now the Darakhul suddenly emerged from invisibility and attacked the party. He struck with an Iron pick, claw, and a bite. The blows were powerful. One of the bites were made on the Paladin Desmond. Many others were being battered viciously by the powerful Ghoul. Elanor sneaked up and attacked from behind, but attacking from behind in close combat can be dangerous, and sometimes your sling bullets miss their mark and hit a companion, which happened here. People were being battered badly, and I lost 2 of my 4 guards – Ricard and Sabina – in this battle to the horrible Darakhul! Eventually the group surrounded the monster and killed him, but with two dead guards and several others that were unconscious and exhausted, the battle had taken its toll.

Map of a portion of the Hrueset Sewers, made from Loke Battle Mats. The travelling of the PCs took place over a much larger space, for whenever they left the border of one area, we just continued it from the other side of the map to simulate the vast expanse of this underground world.

After healing up a bit, the group approached the mostly dismantled library and shrine to Vardesain. They found ledgers that documented in careful detail the documented killings the Darakhul had made over the centuries. For some reason, when they hunt on the surface world and attack villages and towns, they document the families they devour or turn into their own. Why? To what end? What purpose does this serve? Our Clerics and Undead Inquisitors will need to look into this more. We know the Lords of the Underworld want to make a move on the surface world again, but we are getting distracted by stories and murmurings that dark forces are stirring in Aufstrag, and we need to be wary of that.

There were also two braziers that had what Alchemists call Un-Coal that creates Un-Fire that illuminates that aspect of reality that connects the Living Realm with the Undead Shadow Realm as it overlaps with ours. The light produced apparently allows any Incorporeal Undead to be seen, or illuminated, by its light. You effectively get a glimpse into the Spirit Realm. I find this all very peculiar. Lukas, the Alchemist Undead Slayer, was most interested in this alchemy and the ledgers, and spent a lot of time examining what was located here.

So, my Lord. That is all I have to report at this time. The tale I have just told was relayed to me by my surviving guards Arne and Olivia, so if anything ends up being too outlandish or false, then we can explain that as the misinterpreted observations of inexperienced guard patrols misunderstanding what they thought they saw or heard under pressure.

I must say, though, this group of adventurers is most impressive. They will soon be heading north towards Botkinburg, but I would recommend them for any future assignments we might need doing.

Many years of long health to you, my Lord,

Tristan

The Narratives of Aufstrag (A1), Entry 10

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[Aufstrag is a product of Troll Lord Games for the Castles & Crusades RPG, but it can be used for D&D since the systems overlap. I have heavily home-brewed Aufstrag with other products and placed it in my own world and altered the lore as I need.

For this entry, we are going to see what the adventurers did through the eyes of Tristan, a guard captain in the Merchant District of the city of Hrueset. The adventure is based around Nemes Mihaly’s monstrous transformation and murderous rampaging through the streets at night. This story idea was borrowed from Philip Reed’s Fantasy City Sites and Scenes and modified for my campaign.]

My Lord,

It is I, Tristan, reporting recent news in the Merchant District in Hrueset. Adventures recently were escorted into town by paladins of New Aenoch (and worshippers of the One True God). The adventurers and paladins had captured the wizard murderer Pertag in the nearby town of Mirstone and came to collect their reward. The assessment of the Mirstone paladins and our own paladins (who detected the moral quality of these adventurers) made us aware of their potential (although sadly, most of them are pagans worshipping the gods of the Greeks and Norse). Still, seeing hope, the guard captain of the watch before me – Captain Randolph – enlisted their help to hunt the Midnight Stalker, who has been murdering townsfolk and guards for many months. They agreed, paid the fee for their Adventurers Licence within the city walls, and worked out how they were going to case out the Merchant District in our most beautiful town of 4,000 souls.

Just as suspected, as midnight came (on an unfortunately rainy night, which obscured sound, sight, and long range combat), the Midnight Stalker emerged onto the wet streets barely lit by the orange glowing oil lamps. As the monster swung his double bladed axe, he dismembered a half a dozen of our townsfolk and their pets with but a single blow. When this monster strikes, the poor souls drop, and we can only hope they find their way to the heavens.

One sickly looking human [GM note: he is an undead playable race I made called a Remnant], and a resourceful female Hobbit were watching from the rooftops. They blew their whistles, alerted their friends from many blocks away, and as their friends came running – as well as our guards – the rooftop watchers attacked with their ranged weapons.

Map of a portion of Hrueset’s Merchant District, made from Loke Battle Mats.

The Midnight Stalker one-by-one took on the adventures as they arrived at different times from different parts of the Merchant District, and one-by-one, he dropped them to the ground unconscious (luckily not killing any of them!). Those who possessed clerical healing brought them back up to fighting – albeit with some level of exhaustion from nearly dying [GM Note: I use exhaustion rules from Into the Wyrd and Wild. Whenever you come back from negative hit points, or don’t get a night of uninterrupted rest, you can get exhaustion in my game].

The battle was very tough indeed, my Lord! Some of the adventurers nearly died several times, and the corpses of the pets and people of the town fill my soul with sorrow. But eventually the adventurers surrounded the monster, flanking him from all sides, and lunged in, killing him with a flurry of blows from their weapons.

It was then in death that he changed form back into a once well known warrior and trainer for the town – Nemes Mihaly. The next day we sent our clerics and wizards to his home and found evidence that roughly a year ago he had been cursed by someone (a witch, warlock, sorcerer, or undead? We do not know.). We happily gave the adventurers their reward – 1,000 gp – for their deeds, and added several days to their Adventurer’s Licence.

The group then expressed interest in exploring the sewers of Hrueset. Initially, I had been reluctant to admit the problems we have to deal with in regard to the Darakhul [GM Note: I use the Darakhul Ghoul Empire from Kobold Press, with, unsurprisingly, a good deal of alteration for my world] – the Ghoul Lords of the Underworld that exist beneath our feet – but I have been told that we can’t spare any more guards to patrol under the streets, for there are rumoured stirrings of dark forces gathering within the sinister gray lands near Aufstrag. Is this true? We rid ourselves of Unklar 60 years ago. What could be happening now? I so much want peace for us. We fought for a thousand years for peace. I continue to pray for it every day. So, it has been decided that it is best to take the Adventurers Licence fee from bold adventuring parties and let them deal with the situation with the Ghoul Empire that works itself into our territory underground through their endless subterranean tunnels.

Tomorrow, I will tell the adventurers of the Otyughs we breed and place in the sewers to take care of the disposal of human and animal waste – it helps keep the rat population down with the waste being devoured so quickly – although sadly there are always a few casualties when careless people get within reach of their tentacles. There are also the cadaver caterpillars [i.e. Carrion Crawlers] that our wizards have bred to specifically hunt down and paralyse the Darakhul ghouls and bring them to us so that we can interrogate them. The cadaver caterpillars hunt carrion anyway, it just takes a little more biological work to make them hunters of the undead! Our wizards have also modified Gelatinous Cubes to hunt the undead. Unfortunately, the Darakhul have also bred their own Gelatinous Blood Cubes to hunt down the living, and after they have devoured our guard’s armour, clothes, and weapons with their acid, the Darakhul can then eat the bodies. Due to a perverse side effect of the Darakhul’s alteration of the Gelatinous Cube, some of the human refuse is ejected from the cube and floats down the sewers as Gibbering Mouthers!

It is all so dangerous down there! I do hope they live, though, and can find some Darakhul to kill to make things safer for all of us in Hrueset!

I must now depart from further writing, my Lord, for a regional lord from Onryx has arrived, a Sir Ekbert, and his loyal friar companion, a Brother Aethelstan. As the most recent individuals to be made lords of the towns in the New Frontier Lands based on their service to the Crusader States of New Aenoch and Empress Pryzmira (God save her), I must ensure that a proper trade and security network is set up to ensure future growth and prosperity between Onryx and the Merchant District in Hrueset.

I send prayers for your health, my Lord,
Tristan.

The Narratives of Aufstrag (A1), Entry 9

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[Aufstrag is a product of Troll Lord Games for the Castles & Crusades RPG, but it can be used for D&D since the systems overlap. I have heavily home-brewed Aufstrag with other products and placed it in my own world and altered the lore as I need.

For this entry, we are going to see what the adventurers did through the eyes of Freya Schauer owner of the Freya Schauer’s Tenement House in the town of Mirstone. The Tenement House is taken from Fantasy City Sites and Scenes III and modified for my world.]

Freya Schauer’s Diary
Finally, they are gone.

Pertag Kostoyan has been a mage staying in my tenement homes for well over a month. I heard rumours that he had killed someone nearby, for posters had been posted at The Crossroads, a day’s travel from here. There have also been missing people in Mirstone (rumoured to be murdered) and I have suspected that another tenant of mine, Sarmat Dzgoev, was responsible for them. The poor murdered individuals were a Pereldar [the unique identity I have given to the C&C Half-Elf], a Melcorian [the unique identity I have given to the C&C Half-Orc], and a human. I have been worried about how to deal with the questions I’ve had, for you don’t want to challenge a mage, for who knows what kind of magic they wield, and as for Sarmat, I could never make heads or tales of who he was. Do to his clothing and mannerisms I couldn’t decide whether he was Human, Elf, Pereldar, Melcorian, or something else. As I learned later, he was a shapeshifter that adopted the forms of all the people he kidnapped and murdered!

Fortunately, before I could enter the local taverns and try and recruit someone to look into this for me, some adventurers out of Malforten arrived in Mirstone after seeing the wanted posters for Pertag in The Crossroads and came looking for him. They settled themselves in a tavern and just scanned the place utilizing their unique skills and magic. There was Elanor, who I think is some kind of Hobbit guard from Botkinburg. There was Desmond Brooks, a paladin of St. Semalion from Hrueset, A Heisen Fodt [a Dwarf race-as-class available for C&C], a warrior and wizard out of the Greek town of Katidaea, and a few others I can’t remember.

Some of the streets of Mirstone. Created from Loke Battlemats ‘Towns and Taverns.’

Desmond used his holy powers and picked up the moral corruption from a few people in the busy tavern, and Elanor approached Pertag who was hiding in the shadows of the tavern to feel him out a bit in conversation. He used his magic to alert Sarmat of what was going on and then used more of his magic to weaken her and made his way out of the tavern. Sarmat received the magical message from the mage, changed his shape into one of the people he murdered, and headed out as well. But these adventurers were bold and alert, and followed both of them out into the streets.

Noticing they were being followed, Pertag launched a Fire Bolt at the group, but missed and put a nearby fence on fire. He then turned himself invisible and tried to sneak away, but a few of the wizards in the group could detect magic and picked up a magical trail he left behind, and Desmond was trying to follow the trail of residual evil that apparently was left behind.

One of the adventurers had paralysing darts and struck Sarmat, freezing him in place. This happened in front of another tavern, which happened to have Aenochain paladins from Hrueset relaxing inside, and they came out to figure out who caused this. One of the adventurers (who looked a bit sickly) [he is a Remnant, an undead playable race in my game] tried to convince the paladins he was just a drunken “friend” who had passed out. As they brought him inside and lay him on a bench, the paladins were made aware of the fence post nearby that had gone on fire, and they rushed to put it out before the fire could spread to the nearby buildings and burn the wood and thatched-roof buildings down. Shouts of “fire!” were also ringing out up and down the streets, and people began to leave nearby buildings in a panic.

In this panic, Sarmat, who although paralysed in one of his stolen shape-shifted forms, triggered a shift into another of his forms and the doppelgänger, with his new metabolism, managed to overcome the paralysis and sneaked out of the tavern through a back door and the paladins and the adventurers were none the wiser.

Meanwhile, other adventurers were trying to track down the invisible mage, Pertag, and he emerged out of his invisibility under partial cover behind a building and used his exhausting magic on another adventurer and one of the paladins before climbing onto the roof of a nearby building. By this time, Sarmat was also jumping from rooftop to rooftop to avoid the adventurers and paladins amongst the chaos of people running through the streets. Elanor, with her sharp and alert Hobbit eyes, noticed movement on the roofs and moved up there to follow and confront them.

As adventurers began assembling on the ground nearby the buildings where the fugitives were lurking on the roofs, Pertag’s Imp familiar appeared and began attacking the adventurers as Pertag launched more fire bolts at them, whittling them down until they were nearly at their end.

Sarmat leaped down at one point and got a powerful sneak back attack in on an adventurer and paladin, but you don’t mess with a Heisen Fodt, and Sarmat was killed with a mighty axe blow before he could make his escape and resorted to some kind of featureless humanoid form in death. Still, his blow struck deep, and some of these heroes were left on the ground, and we wondered briefly if they were also dead. Magical missiles as well as mundane missiles were being fired up onto the roof at Pertag and his imp. The imp resisted some of the magic, but Pertag fell from the roof into a nearby pond and began drowning. But Desmond used his paladin healing and brought Pertag back to consciousness to stand justice for his murderous ways, and he was bound up to be taken to Hrueset as prisoner by the group and the local paladins.

We may have the occasional bar brawl in Mirstone, but nothing like this! To think that Sarmat was a doppelgänger and to see and hear about the magic and powerful demon creature Pertag had working with him was terrifying to think about! You really can’t know the type of folk you allow into your housing developments these days – I really must be more careful about the people I take money from for room and board! But then again, I don’t have the unique skills and magic these adventurers have. I may have to consider hiring – if I can afford it – folks who can sense people’s moral character (I wonder how much paladin’s charge for this service?).

Well, I am running out of ink and I have an overdue payment I need to follow up on, so it is off to the shops for more ink and a visit to one of my houses to get some much-needed money. Inflation these days is just awful!

D&D 5E and OGL-free fatigue

/ PhilosopherZ / 7 Comments

It is now six months after the OGL fiasco that Hasbro pulled on the RPG community, and we are probably 6 months to a year away from OneD&D. Two things have happened because of the OGL fiasco and the OneD&D ruleset, first, many companies chose to produce new, non-OGL versions of their games, and secondly, those that wanted to stick with something similar to D&D 5E began working on their own 5E clone. In this blog post, I will discuss my mixed and contradictory feelings on these changes and the game-change fatigue that has set in.

New takes on D&D 5E
I left D&D 5E five years ago and haven’t purchased any Hasbro/WotC material since then. I do, however, like elements of 5E and have been happy to support companies that make 5E-related material, such as Kobold Press, Nord Games, and Ghostfire Gaming. Although I will not support OneD&D, I constantly see the never ending discussions about the new rule changes that are coming and people’s good/bad reactions to them. For a system that I think is okay, but not great, I am surprised by the energy people put forth on this. I shouldn’t, of course, I felt similar passion when 1E went to 2E, 2E went to 3E, and 3E went to 3.5. But I am just weary of edition changes (or edition tweaks, or whatever OneD&D ends up being), perhaps that is why I went to Castles & Crusades (C&C), which claims to have not changed in its 19-year existence (more on that in a bit).

But some companies are planning on making their own versions of D&D 5E, such as Tales of the Valiant by Kobold Press. I was initially interested in what Kobold Press would do, and from what I’ve now seen, I am just not that excited. Getting rid of Spell Level and replacing it with Spell Rings works (new players to D&D have rarely understood why Class Level and Spell Level don’t match, so I am happy to see that legacy of the past pass away in their new system). But when they have chosen to get rid of monster Hit Dice, they lost me. I convert everything to C&C, and in C&C the monster’s hit dice (or level), is the number you use for the monster’s attack bonus with your d20 roll, as well as their saving throw bonus on a d20 roll. It is slick and easy to manage monsters using this system. But by getting rid of that, any future monster books Kobold Press publishes – as well as their adventure books (which have monsters in them) – are now useless to me. Apparently, Tales of the Valiant may have the monster hit dice in a table somewhere, but that is like looking up saving throws in tables or using ThacO charts from 20th century D&D, that is not optimal game design and there is a reason modern gaming got rid of looking up key information you need to check every round in a table. I like to use monsters on the fly, so taking time to look up the hit dice in a chart is a no-go (Pathfinder 2E also got rid of monster hit dice, which is why I only use Pathfinder 1E monsters).

New non-OGL games
Other, non-5E D&D-like games are also making changes to remove the OGL from their game. I was initially quite excited by that, since I saw this as companies breaking free of generic D&D and do something more creative (having run/played D&D for 40 years, vanilla D&D is boring since I’ve already seen everything they produce before – I want to see something new).

There is still some hope in this regard. Shadowdark really excited me. I have also supported the 2nd edition of Knave. But both of those games are relatively new (especially Shadowdark). A lot of OSR games just reproduce the old game systems from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. I may be an old gamer, but for me those days are gone, I might play in a retro clone for a one-off at a convention, but I don’t run retroclones any more. I am not the same person I was 30–40 years ago. So these “new” old school games – like Shadowdark and Knave – created by people who weren’t even alive when Original D&D, or 1E came out excites me, they are not just regurgitating the same old ideas – they are doing something new. I have long since lost interest in yet another ‘white box’ or ‘wood grain box’ or ‘orange spine’ book with the 1E font. I want to see something different.

But here is the contradiction in my thinking. I say I want something different, but Troll Lord Games (TLG) is close to Kickstarting a new non-OGL version of Castles & Crusades. C&C has a lot of OGL material in it. It will require a lot of work to remove it all. TLG has said that there are no new editions in C&C, just new printings when old ones sell out. But as of the current 9th printing of C&C, there have been enough changes in rule tweaks and wording changes over the last 19 years that my players and I firmly believe that the game is different (the arguments over differences between just the 7th and 8th printing have taken up noticeable game time). With the new OGL changes, C&C is, in my view and that of my players, a 2nd edition.

I’ve seen a glimpse of what that might look like, since TLG is in the process of releasing a non-OGL version of their world of Aihrde. Their new Monsters & Treasures of Aihrde has some nice new approaches to monster alignment, biomes/ecology, etc. And since I am the GM, I can take or leave what I want and none of my players will be the wiser. But the potential upcoming changes in C&C classes, class organization, spells, spell names, etc., concerns us. My players have spent about $1k between them on C&C products, and I’ve spent $3k on C&C. The new non-OGL 2nd edition may be a great game, but we do not want to re-invest in new products that contradict earlier ones (because of these contradictions we have already agreed not to buy any future printings of the Players Handbook since even with new printings the changes were too much of a headache to deal with).

So perhaps you can see my problem. I want innovation, but in so many cases one change may be good, but others I find annoying, and since it feels as if every game designer is currently making changes to their games, whether to D&D5E or OSR/non-5E products, I feel enveloped in this chaos, and I am finding it challenging to pick and choose the things I like/don’t like, and as a result I now find myself backing away from wanting to support and purchase anything new until things settle down, and I can take a deep breath and try and make sense of everything. Six months ago I was filled with such excitement, but now, mid-way through the year, I simply don’t want to hear any more about OneD&D, Tales of the Valiant, or yet another game with slight tweaks. I actually feel myself wanting to step away from all this gaming “noise.

art from Wizards of the Coast

The Narratives of Aufstrag (A1), Entry 8

/ PhilosopherZ / Leave a comment

[Aufstrag is a product of Troll Lord Games for the Castles & Crusades RPG, but it can be used for D&D since the systems overlap. I have heavily home-brewed Aufstrag with other products and placed it in my own world and altered the lore as I need.

For this entry, we are going to see what the adventurers did through the eyes of two people. First Zhanna Naifonova, owner of the House of Charms in the town of Pathstow. The House of Charms is taken from Fantasy City Sites and Scenes III and modified for my world. Next, we will shift to Eupraxia, who lives in the Greek town of Katidaea. The action takes place in a tavern called The Trireme, which is taken from The Book of Taverns Volume One and modified for my world.]

Zhanna Naifonova, Letter to The Eliphaz Warlock Circle
Brothers and Sisters of The Eliphaz Warlock Circle, I hope this message finds you well. I, Zhanna Naifonova, Initiate of the Circle, wish to report on the progress we’ve made in stopping the encroachment of the Crna Ruk sorcerer assassins into our territory. A group of adventurers saw my postings regarding the assassination of the Chronomancer Sorcerer Ganondorf at the Crossroads. They arrived at Pathstow’s Inn, and successfully killed 5 of the 6 Crna Ruk Initiates responsible for this death. The Crna Ruk that escaped was the leader and I knew they were going to seek revenge, both on the adventurers, and me, for putting up the postings. Sure enough, our Warlock Circle received information of an imminent attack on my shop – the House of Charms – and I recruited the adventurers to arrive at night and kill the would be assassins.

They once again proved their skill. A Hobbit Rogue from Botkinburg set up caltrop and marble traps on the balcony and inside the ground floor near the windows. Others took up hiding inside the ground floor in darkness, inside the 1st floor connecting with the balcony, and a wizard hid in the bushes across the street observing my establishment.

art from Fantasy City Sites and Scenes, p.15

As midnight approached, two Crna Ruk attempted to break into the windows on either side of the ground floor, and two others climbed up toward the balcony on the 1st floor. We all know how dangerous the Crna Ruk are, but these adventurers have learned a lot from their previous encounter with them. It didn’t help the Crna Ruk that it was lightly raining that night, and when one assassin leapt over the side of the balcony, they slipped and disarmed themselves, both from the marbles and the wet surface they were trying to get purchase on. Elanor, the Hobbit moved in and took care of both of them swiftly.

On the ground floor, as the two assassins tried to leap through their respective windows, the mage outside hit one of them with a magical missile, and a wizard on the inside of the ground floor hit another with magical missiles.

The traps they had set and their carefully thought out plan worked splendidly, and 3 of the 4 Crna Ruk were killed. The one that remained was bandaged up till he was conscious again, and after being bound up, I had him placed in one of my silenced rooms.

My brothers and sisters of The Eliphaz Warlock Circle, I encourage you all to come to the House of Charms, and we can interrogate the intruder. We can then head into my cellar and, through rituals and summonings, delve further into the secrets of the Crna Ruk. The Crna Ruk want to bring Unklar back, but, being Warlocks, we need to understand what and how they plan to do this. I have also invited a Warlock Initiate of the Warlock Lodge of Shacklebane, which specialize in Demonology and Spirits. If the Crna Ruk plan to bring back a being from a distant realm, then we need to consult the most knowledgeable people who understand those realms and beings.

I can’t tell you how helpful my black cat Shadow has been in quietly and silently monitoring everything that goes on around me. Without her help, the Crna Ruk would surely have killed me by now. Her clearly supernatural abilities have been priceless (although I must say, there are times when she gazes at me that I feel a little unsettled – what is she thinking?). If any of you have enhanced catnip from your herb supplies, I would encourage you to bring it to the ritual in my cellar, I am sure Shadow would appreciate it.

The adventurers have now headed off to nearby Katidaea (several of them are from that Greek enclave), they will probably return in a few days, I have offered them potion discounts for their assistance, and I am sure they will want to stock up on some good potions.

Letter of Eupraxia to her friend Gregorios
My dear Gregorios,

It is I, Eupraxia, with delightful stories of the weird things I see in our port town of Katidaea. I was relaxing in The Trireme Tavern enjoying some Kippya’s Temple Nectar and listening to the lively discussions of The Philosopher’s Consortium on matters of ethics and metaphysics, when I noticed a most interesting interaction. Atticus, a rather slippery philosopher, was losing a debate he was having and slipped some root extract into the mead of one of his interlocutors, from what I could see, this extract would most likely force the poor fellow to rush to the nearest chamber pot. That in itself would’ve been amusing, but as this was happening I saw a Hobbit female approach the table and the drunken philosophers treated her like a server taking drink orders. She spoke with a Botkinburg accent (if I heard it correctly) and took their orders and their money (they were stingy on their tips) and wandered off. But she then never returned!

Curious, I got up and headed to the main bar and saw her sitting with a bunch of folks from all walks of life (they were clearly adventurers, a couple of them were clearly locals, they were probably all just relaxing after an exciting adventure). She had clearly bluffed the Philosophers, pocketed their coin and then just rejoined her friends! Oh, how I do love the Hobbits!

Atticus showed up wondering where his drinks were, but the proprietor made it clear that they did not have a Hobbit in their employ. He confronted the Hobbit, and she cleverly made a fool of him with her quick wit and reasoning, which the inebriated Philosopher could not match.

If that was all, it would perhaps not be a story worth putting down onto paper and sending to you, my friend, but you see, had been drinking some of the First Tier of drinks – Vulcan Fury – to be exact. One of the drunks was a Heisen Fodt (Dwarf) Barbarian. He was most likely not going to suffer any long term after effects to the drink due to his enhanced Dwarfen metabolism, still, he was simply not used to powerful Greek spirits, and he entered a drunken dream world and began to think he was a legendary blacksmith. A Heisen Fodt Barbarian is not someone you want to deal with if they become violent, so the adventurers decided to play along with the Heisen Fodt and try and carefully guide him away from doing something stupid.

However, he was not the only inebriated person. There was also a human that looked like death had already taken him [GM note: the PC is an Undead Remnant] began to hallucinate and half the group had to split as the Heisen Fodt began charging about claiming that goddess Sif had made him the greatest of all blacksmiths, and the death-warmed-over human wandered in aimless directions through the streets.

Eventually the Heisen Fodt was picked up by Hyginos and a companion, two of the local watch, and the Human was picked up by Hypatios, who led another town watch patrol. Both the drunks ended up in the local gaol. I suspect the rest of the group bedded down for the evening at the homes of the two locals and will retrieve their friends from gaol the following morning. I wish them luck, for I noticed that the local town pickpocket, Isokrates, was also in the gaol, and he always seems to find a way to leave the gaol with more than what he came in with!

Much love to you my dear Gregorios, I shall write to you soon!

Eupraxia