Updated Campaign Map

 

It's been a few weeks since my last post, but life got busy. I've used the legendary DMG Appendix B to flesh out the results of the various mapping expeditions that were underway during training downtime and have generated the above map.

A few observations from the above and the first 7 sessions of solo play:

1. So.Much.Content! This map contains a mere three fully populated 6 mile hexes and look at how much content they contain! Specifically:
• 4 cities
• 13 villages
• 4 independent castles/fortresses
• 23 ruins of various sorts
• Over 120 one mile hexes that can be rolled for random encounters as they are traversed
  
  
2. The Bros Are Objectively Correct! The three core AD&D books (the Holy Books of PHB, DMG, and MM) are probably the best value in gaming if you have even a modicum of creativity and are willing to jettison all notions of the necessity of post-1989 "gaming products".
   
   In all seriousness, ignoring the BrOSR shit talk posturing, which some find distasteful (not me - I think it's hilarious), they are objectively correct in one important fact. You don't need to buy anything outside of properly designed core rulebooks to enjoy endless hours of TTRPG fun. I think I'll post a separate rant about this, but this is enough for now.
   
   The three Holy Books are all you need to generate literally years worth of adventure content for your group. Master the concepts of downtime actions, patrons, faction play, 1:1 time, and figure scaling and you'll never need anything else for literal years of fun. You will never need to "buy product" because the campaign will spontaneously come alive on its own and the players will be invested as never before (...and yes DM, you too are a player in this game).
   
   
3. I'm quite sure that the above map as-is could easily keep me occupied for the rest of the year with no further effort. "No prep" gaming might be a little bit of a stretch, but minimal prep is absolutely achievable. Get PDFs of the Three Holy Books, use an online dice roller, and you can probably generate months worth of gaming material while you're trapped at work or during a lunch break. Ka-ren, Queen of the Harpies, and your immediate supervisor, will even think you're working on TPS reports and praise your diligence! Smiles everywhere!
   
   
4. Build factions early and don't wait until name level. Henchmen and hirelings are force multipliers, instruments of power and plot generators. Look at what my Bros have been doing, all within the rules and prior to name level:
• Blastikus has purchased a property to create a lab and start brewing potions and writing scrolls as soon as he is able. He's hired a couple of henchmen (obtained from a randomly rolled encounter) as guards and is making moves to eventually set himself up as a local power. Will he make Eilifsdalsa his future base of operations or is it merely a feint in some more clever plan? Will Bilious Yarena allow this upstart to carve out his own fiefdom so close to hers?
  
  
• Brogallo, by hiring mercenaries and giving them some bonus combat pay, now has a sizable mercenary company of 23 mounted men-at-arms under his command. This already establishes him as a non-trivial minor warlord and may get him noticed by the right (or wrong) people. What will Lord Jirex and Bilious Yarena have to say about Brogallo's increasing power?
  
  
• The Mighty Redneck, obligated to donate his excess wealth to a worthy "communal or institutional cause" (PHB pg 25) has done so in two cities, extending his influence and reputation for goodness. He has been noticed by the druids during his latest training period. Will they allow him to be initiated into the deeper mysteries of the wild? Are they angry with him for expanding the prestige of "civilization" via his urban (gasp!) social institutions? Time will tell.
  
  
• Kleptikos is laying the groundwork for his future thieves guild by quietly recruiting a network of spys and beggars, right under the nose of his ostensible "brother-in-arms", Redneck!  Remember Kleptikos is Neutral Evil and has zero problems exploiting anyone at any time for any purpose. If the goofy hillbilly wants to squander his wealth on street urchins and starving veterans, why shouldn't Kleptikos secretly leverage Redneck's gullibility for his own gain?
  
  
• Brother Sully and Brother Fitzy quite unexpectedly got noticed by one of the Chaos Gods with some pretty fearsome future implications. Why did they get noticed? Per AD&D DMG pg 38, cleric spells of third, fourth, and fifth level are obtained through the aid of supernatural servants of the cleric’s deity, so something is paying attention to their new found ability to cast 3rd level spells. 
  
  Up until now, I've been pretty light on the cosmology since this is a solo campaign but I decided the DMG quote means I should come up with some sort of pantheon. I'm going with Michael Moorcock's Lords of Higher Realms motif but putting a secret society spin on it. Exactly what does their order represent? The low level mooks will never find out, but the movers and shakers will slowly be initiated into the truth. Let's see if Fitzy and Sully learn the new secret handshakes and silly walks as they level-up. 
  
  Note that Fitzy is kind of a good natured dope (hence his friendship with Redneck), but Sully is clearly running his own program by building up Fort Rackham with refugees and survivors who all owe their lives to him in one way or another. Is Sully just being practical or is he, in fact, laying the groundwork for a new cult loyal to him and him alone? Everyone else has been going along with his suggestions since they were mutually beneficial, but how long will that last? What will the druids in the area have to say about this through their possible agent, Mighty Redneck?
  
  
5. Downtime and 1:1 time tracking is vital if you want to have a true living, breathing campaign that actually interests people! Everyone at the table should have their own motivations for advancing their character's agendas and these can be carried out in downtime. Encouraging this adds a lot of dynamic verisimilitude to the game without soaking up time at the table!
   
   If this were an IRL party of multiple players instead of my solo campaign, would Brogallo's player want to waste time listening to Kleptikos laying out the details of his urchin and whore network? No!! The group probably only has a few hours per week available to roll dice and slay dragons! All of this other stuff is nice character flavor that the group may appreciate, but free time for adults with family responsibilities is at a premium.
   
   
6. PvP is inherent to the game, but not necessarily in the way that it is popularly misconstrued. Does your group want to have the thief backstab the magic-user in the middle of combat "because that's what my character would do"? My guess is a resounding "FUCK NO" (and kick that fucking retard sociopath out of your group, by the way), but it's quite another thing if all players have competing agendas that run constantly in the background (i.e. use downtime and 1:1 time). This is even better if you have multiple player groups active at the same time since they could screw with each other via downtime actions or by swapping DMs/stories.
   
   PvP makes alignment a meaningful choice. Is the assassin going to say "Lolz - I kill people for coin and sadistic kicks!" to the NG ranger? No, he's going to keep his mouth shut and pass off his badass combat skills as "lessons from the school of hard knocks since I can never hope to develop your martial skills". So why is the assassin in the party? Because he wants to use these dopes as cover and subvert their factions for his own ends without revealing himself. Maybe the druid senses the truth about the assassin and keeps his mouth shut since he may have a future need for his services when the ranger morally objects to some necessary unpleasantness required to "maintain the balance".
   
   Study real world history, especially post-WWII to expand your viewpoint. "The party" is not The Super Friends (blecch!) or The Getalong Gang (double blecch!) - it is the Allied Powers of World War II. Remember that the "Big Four" - the United Kingdom, United States, Soviet Union, and China - did not ally because they had a deep and abiding love of each other. They were facing a threat to their hegemony from an organized and determined enemy. It was in their mutual interest to pool resources (somewhat) and coordinate military activity to eliminate a threat. They certainly didn't toast marshmallows and sing Kum Bah Yah around a campfire, in spite of the fairy tales they still like to tell about their "fight against evil". Oil, land, global financial restructuring, and monopolizing natural resources had nothing to do with it, right?
   
   
7. Don't get overly attached to any character when running AD&D RAW. I forgot how shockingly lethal this game is when played correctly. Look at The Book of The Dead post. As of this writing, eight of sixteen generated PCs have been sent to Valhalla which translates to a 50% mortality rate (for those of you who are too stoopid to figure that out on your own). How does that compare to reality?
   
• WWII Mortality Rate for USSR: 13.7%
• WWII Mortality Rate for Nazi Germany: ~8.5%
• WWII Mortality Rate for USA: 0.3%

This information is from Wikipedia - you can argue about the absolute veracity of the numbers but the scale is accurate IMO. Medieval/ancient battles are tougher to calculate, but this thread has some good info. If we go with a super high estimate and use 25%, it means AD&D is insanely lethal when compared to reality. Session zero, extensive backstory and "muh character" is for theatre kid dopes, not devotees of True AD&D.

OK, long post but I was on a roll (Ha! See what I did there?). Back to gaming in the next post...

Session 2 Downtime: The Fine Art of Carousing

Having reconnoitered the area, our crew decides to return to town to see if they can dig up some information on their newly discovered sites. They hit the local taverns and learn that the Croaking Castle of the Miraculous Toad (Hex 300.298) was a derelict stronghold that has existed for hundreds of years. It gained its moniker due to the herds of ice toads that inhabit the keep's moat and always seem to protect the castle master, regardless of who it might be. 

Recently, Kophyn Mizzar, a human female warrior of local renown, has taken possession of the castle and started taxing the nearby villages for "protection donations", ostensibly to rebuild the castle and secure the surrounding areas. She has attracted a group of followers and utterly destroyed four sizable warbands of orc marauders, and the peasantry has gone along with the taxation imposed by their new "lady"...for now.

The Croaking Castle and its eternal batrachian watchers seem to have likewise accepted the new mistress. Several local tradesmen have left Valthrun to join her stronghold staff directly and rumor has it that Kophyn has begun excavations in the nearby ruins (Hex 299.298). No one knows for certain what she's doing, and numerous wild tales are swapped in drunken confidences by the tavern hearths throughout the city.

Lord Jirex, overt master of Valthrun, has remained silent on the latest developments and most assume he is indifferent to Kophyn's machinations don't impact the flow of trade to the Obsidian Portal. If she wants to practice her swordplay on the orcs and squeeze the peasants a bit, who cares? As long as she knows her place and doesn't develop delusions above her station, all benefit.

Less is known about the small keep to the east of the Croaking Castle (Hex 302.298). The master of the keep is Belgos Trith, a very famous human male fighter who had great success against the savage barbarian horsemen far to the west and has seemingly retired to this keep to enjoy some well earned rest. He has patrolled the surrounding areas for years and rescued countless caravans from various monsters and bandits on the North Road. He collects reasonable road tax for his services and rumor has it that he secretly made a mutually beneficial agreement with certain hidden hands to ensure trade, and the fat merchants that accompany it, flow uninterrupted to Eternal Valthrun. Whether or not these rumors are true remains to be seen.

Of course, the true masters of Valtrun, Kirenos the Thief and the Night Hag Bilious Yarena, do not care at all what happens with these petty lordlings. So long as the trade flows and these delusional upstarts do not interfere in the affairs of their betters, they are of no interest...for now.

Eternal Valthrun, the Black Citadel of the Cold Wastes

Based on the rolls we used to define our starting hex, I've fleshed out the background of our starting environment. Notice that this is pretty much straight out of the rolls with minimal editing to flesh this out and make it a (hopefully) enjoyable read. Seriously, AD&D DMG Appendices are content creation machines! Enjoy...

Eternal Valthrun, the Black Citadel of the Cold Wastes, World's End, the Portal to the Dark - The City has many names and countless stories told about it for as long as men have told tales. Ancient beyond memory, the city has stood in the wind-blasted steppes of the north for countless eons and has served as the hub of communication and trade between the rich demon cursed holds of the Inhumans to the north and the Realms of Man to the south. All manner of goods, both fantastic and mundane, flow in both directions through its cyclopean black walls. Some say the Men that currently are merely the latest upstarts to think they rule its labyrinthine roads and age-darkened halls, others say the Inhumans abandoned it after seizing it from its prehuman creators, but the truth is nobody knows who built the city or when it was founded. Although there are numerous remnants of previous civilization, both familiar and not, surrounding and beneath the steppes around Valthrun, none have yet revealed any cultural, architectural or historical connections to The Black Citadel.

Valthrun is a city of narrow roads, steep windowless buildings, and iron doors protected (some say imprisoned) by 40ft thick black stone walls that rise unbroken to heights of 75 feet and surround the city of 150,000 souls. Its physical properties are a mystery. The stone used in its construction is unlike any that naturally occurs within a thousand miles around The City, and sages have yet to discover its like anywhere in the Known Realms. If the Inhumans know anything of its source or how it was so expertly worked, they do not speak of it to the humans. The avaricious dwarves speak with grudging admiration of the great artifice shown in its construction. The decadent and degenerate elves say nothing of it, too concerned with their relentless pursuit of unfettered hedonism. The insane gnomes, in rare moments of lucidity between their madness-inducing narcotic journeys to the Outer Dark, admire the supreme skill of the creators but quickly degenerate into ravings about the Horrors that were and will be again. The halflings? No sane Man would willingly risk life, limb and soul by deigning to speak with these naked cannibal savages to see if they even possess enough lucidity to converse naturally.

The buildings and their architecture are unique, sharing no commonality of culture or aesthetic with any other civilizations in the Realms of Man. All are made of the same dark stone as the city walls and are protected by 1ft thick wooden doors that never seem to rot, or need repairs. Visitors find the doors to be extremely unsettling - are they meant to keep the threats out or to trap the inhabitants within? There are no windows on the ground floor of any building in The City and are only seen on the upper stories. This, coupled with the narrow winding streets, turns Valthrun into a trackless maze for the numerous visitors, most of whom wisely pay local guides to escort them through The City as they conduct their business.

For it is business that is the lifeblood of the city. The City is the nexus of numerous trade routes among the Known Realms and the ancient cities of the inhuman empires. While various groups may be bitter genocidal enemies outside the black walls of Valthrun, all observe a truce while within its environs and those that do not, quietly disappear leaving behind the bloody rags of their once fine clothes as the only testament to their miserable existence.

Valthrun has a functional government ostensibly headed by Lord Jirex, Guardian of Portal. The real power lies with two radically different patrons: Kirenos, the Master of the Thieves Guild and Bilious Yarena, a Night Hag from the depths of Hades. Jirex, in reality, is largely a figurehead put in place by Kirenos and has no real power beyond the administration of quotidian affairs (such as city patrols, tariffs and the like). Jirex is, of course, well compensated for his role and sees little point in upsetting an eminently agreeable situation.

Little is known of Bilious Yarena since she (it?) takes great pains to ensure no mortal knows of her existence, goals or agents. Based on scattered records recovered from the Cold Wastes and other places, she has been part of the city for at least 1,000 years and quite possibly more. There have only been a few confirmed sightings of the foul hag in this vast period, and she has largely remained invisible, pursuing whatever her goals may be. She always operates through a vast network of operatives, only some of whom know their true employer, and has, so far, never interfered in the mortal affairs of Valthrun (at least far as anyone can determine).

Only slightly more is known about Kirenos, for he too prefers to keep a low profile. Nobody knows for certain his age or appearance, but all are aware that he will do anything to ensure the flow of trade is never disrupted and that every merchant pays their tax to him. If some choice items disappear, well, that's the price of business in The City.

The most famous site of numerous ruins scattered the Cold Wastes surrounding Valthrun is the Shrine of Lethria, some mile or so beyond the walls. Numerous adventurers have journeyed to the Shrine and explored its eerie depths, but very, very few have ever returned. Who can say if these poor souls met their doom in the Shrine's twisted depths or rather fell to the hill giants or leucrotta herds that roam the Wastes? The handful of brazen fools that have survived and returned did so with great wealth and doubtlessly fabricated tales of horrid undead and twisted dimensions that nearly broke their sanity.