The gang returns to Milham

Kane caught up with the party as they camped in the forest outside the dungeon.  He'd heard some rumours that the captain and a few of the guards at Red Towers were looking to teach Henril some respect.  Henril was willing to march right back to Red Towers and challenge them but the rest of the party thought it would be better to leave well enough alone.  They had found the scroll they had been looking for (although much of the monastery still remained unexplored) and so they decided to head back to Milham and see what was what with the scroll.  They had a little loot, most primarily a suit of plate mail possibly belonging to St.Ulthur.  Even regular plate armour is a big deal in Beacon - costing upwards of 300gp and taking some time to craft.  This was fancy stuff and even if the gauntlets were missing, it was likely worth a small fortune.  It was also possibly a holy artifact - but don't let that bother you - they also had schemes of fencing the devotional silver bowl and ewer once they got back to town.  They fought a giant bat that evening - and were initially somewhat terrified that it might be the manticore that they had unwittingly set loose.  Good times.

it looked something like this
 - but with rocky death instead of water

They didn't meet anyone on the road north.  Kane wanted to see if they could retrieve his brothers body as they passed the spot by the hollow tree where Ann had told him the goblin warren was.  They made a short foray into the ruins, but were stymied as the goblin scouts fled before them and cut down the rope bridge as they ran.  The ravine the rickety bridge served to cross was some 50-60 ft. across and probably over 100 ft. straight down onto some decidedly pointy rocks and shrubs.  They surveyed this and decided to acquire a grapple and some proper rope in Milham before attempting to go any further into the ruins.  Henril made a point of telling everyone that if he were to die he'd not expect anyone to risk profitless death just to lug his meat back out of some dirty hole.

Once back in Milham they tried to track down the old 'abbot' who had asked them to retrieve the Trials of St. Ulthur.  He was gone, the owner of the Seven Stones said that he had left soon after the party had - presumably returning back north.  The barkeeper's son, an old friend of Klypt, gave them some sage words of advice and they then chose to retire to their usual haunt - the Scarlet Archer, before seeking out the old sage in the morning.  Henril was please to reacquaint himself with the barmaid who had been the bridesmaid at his disastrous wedding and Sannur the barkeep was eager to see some paying customers and had their usual rooms made up.  The next day they visited the sage, gained some information on the time of Ulthur and realized that aside from the documents they had, there was little else known about his sainthood aside from that it was likely some four centuries ago in the time before the new men and the current kingdom.  The sage was keenly interested in their scroll and could only tell them that the other two churches mentioned in it were in Whitewater to the north and Linmere to the east.  He was excited to see some new information from those dark ages.  Henril asked Tim about the history of Ulthur and Ulgar aftrewards remarkking that the entry bar to sainthood was rather low - primarily consisting of having some nice armour, smiting things and having a 'U' in your name.  Henril decided to have the plate mail refurbished for his own use and spent his last coins having the the leathers replaced and getting it fitted.  He wisely didn't mention it's origin to anyone.  Brother Tim took it on himself to purchase the silver devotional and bring it to the abbot in Milham's church.  The abbot was also very excited that the relics had turned up and spoke of sending word to the Bishops in Old Church and perhaps someday returning them and reconsecrating the monastery in the south.

Not a lot of action, but some work got done and most importantly the players seemed engaged in tasks that mattered to their characters beyond mere survival/looting.  They did realize that they might need to do a bit more ruin exploring however.  The goblins they have encountered on the road rarely carry more than a sharp rock or some horrible cheese in their pockets, and bats, spiders and manticores don't even have pockets.

What Kane was doing pt.3

Kane sprinkled more ash into the bowl and reached for another root. This was not a part of The Life that Kane enjoyed.  There was a long road to walk between the thrill of using your power and the drudgery and discomfort in acquiring it.  He rubbed some warmth back into his hands.  The light was going and he knew he had to finish with these roots while he could see.  He could save the rest of the grunt work for fire light, but not this.  He glanced over to the woman on the porch.  She was inspecting the scroll he had finished, holding it up to the setting sun, looking for flaws.

“You do good work.” she finally said.  “I'm so glad I didn't kill you.  If the other two are of similar quality I’ll let you take a quick peek.”  She mimed lifting her skirt and then laughed.  Kane feigned a smile and went back to his work.  She could dance around naked in the moonlight, the only peek he wanted was at her notes and they both knew it.  He was so close now he could taste it.  He catalogued the information in his head, he knew the words but not the forms.  He just needed a couple more pieces to complete the puzzle and in three more days and he’d get his chance.  He quickly put it out of this mind and refocused on his work.  He had to fulfil his part of the bargain first, and one mistake would ruin the whole batch.
He finished the mixture and set it to the side as the last light faded from the tree tops, leaving a red glow against the wall of the cottage.  He eyed the pile of wood he had collected that morning, just enough to keep the fire going through the night.  He might be able to doze a while tonight, if it didn't rain anyway.  He was tired and his fingers ached from the cold.

“Tell me news of the Academy.” she asked suddenly.  “Do they still prance and preen for the king’s favours?  Have they widened their net yet, or are they still content to pull minnows from the pond?”

“You know the answer to that”.  replied Kane.  “You wouldn't be here otherwise.  You’re wrong though, the Academy is the best way, the surest way.”

“And what about you my little fish, swimming out into the wide ocean?  If you’re not careful something nasty might snap you right up.”  She flashed her teeth.

“I came after my brother.  He thought he would be a hero, the one to recover a lost phrase or some precious roll of parchment.  All he found was a grave.”

“Still, here you are.”  she said,  “And who can say what other things lie in the ground here.  Perhaps it will be you that finds that parchment... or something more lively.”

Kane snorted and added some sticks to the small fire.  She had a point, he had seen more in his short time in the south than he had in years at the Academy.  The Royal Academy was the real jewel in the King’s crown, there was no doubt of that.  There were all too few new men and without the Academy they would have been overrun countless times by the natives these past centuries.  The traditions were the glue holding everything together.  He watched her retire to her small cottage and settled himself in for a long cold evening tending the brazier.  He looked out into the dark wood and considered her remarks.  There was a danger in only looking inward, in relying only on traditions.  The old people had retained some of their lore, no doubt dwarf magic at it’s heart.  And there were other things out here as well, older than man or dwarf.  Powerful things, you could feel it. He made a motion with his hand and muttered a short phrase. A handful of twigs rose up into the air and fed themselves into the fire. Ah, now that was the part he did enjoy. Tradition was important, but in the end it was all about the power.

What Kane was doing pt.2

The morning sun broke over the hills and burned off the hanging fog.  Kane shivered and drew his cloak tighter around him, but the man to his right laughed and stretched out his arms to embrace the light.
“I thought you northerners were used to a little chill.” he exclaimed. “This is fine weather for travelling.  No bugs. The mud is firm.  And the air doesn't smell like shit and snakes for a change.”  He leaned back against the sacks of grain filling the wagon behind them and flicked the reins lazily.  “You get a rougher ride if they smell a snake.” he continued, indicating the plodding horses.

“My father liked the winter. He said it built character being a bit cold,” replied Kane. “My mother always wanted the hearth well fed, character be damned.  My father took a sword in the stomach fighting The Pretender’s men at Hyntmor and bled out all over the snow.  I take after my mother.”  He was lying of course, but fighting men respected the son of a veteran and it deflected many questions about his lack of sword or bow.  The man grunted, the old folk didn't like to think about The Pretender, many of their fathers had been on the wrong side of that war.  He pointed to the road ahead.

“Just past this turn is the brickworks.  We’ll be heading on for a bit to deliver this and check the road, but that’s where you want to go.  The foreman is a bit of a prick, but he’ll answer your questions if you let him show you how clever he is.”  He spat over the side of the wagon.  “You won’t find no inn there, but there’s a barracks set up for the mudders.  It should do you, if you can find a bed, and if you don’t mind rats.”   Kane thanked him and climbed down off the wagon, then watched as the small supply train wound its way down the road.  

The brickworks was a long greasy red stain on the side of a hill.  Men and women alike toiled to cut away slabs of clay rich mud and carry it on to be mixed and shaped and then stacked high on long hard pallets to be fired with wood from the nearby forest.  Kane studied the trails of the worker ants scurrying along with wood or straw, or buckets of muddy water and sought out their queen.  He found him, a short fat bald fellow, scowling beside a mountain of logs and branches stacked three times his own height.

“What you want?  Not a job from looks of you.” rasped the man. “Your hands don’t fit no shovel and I need no more bookkeepers if that’s your mind.  Season’s near over here, you have to go begging for your winter board some other where.
“Oh I am journeying south from Kingstown and decided to travel here having heard of the quality of this brick.”  said Kane casually.  “I see how you've packed earth around the clamp.  That’s very clever, I bet you get a better burn.”   The man turned to him and smiled.
“A better fire, and more good brick too.  It’s my own process.  It catches heat that slips out the cracks.  Like cooking a duck eh.  Mind you, you have to make sure enough air can get in.”  Explained the man excitedly.

The next hour found Kane feigning interest in the use of green and aged woods, the importance of wind direction, and the best methods for laying out a firing tunnel.  Only when the fellow had thrice exhausted his rather short list of brick-making innovations did it occur to him to ask Kane about his business.
“I'm looking for an old friend who lives nearby in the forest, perhaps you know of her?”  said Kane.  “Ghat.”
“You’re talking about the madwoman.  She lives alone somewhere in the forest, west of here I think.  She comes sometimes to trade a brace of rabbit for a shirt or the like.  She rarely talks. I don’t know how she manages over winter, but she somehow does. What business could you have with her?”
“My own.” he said, then quickly “My pardon friend, it involves an old family debt.  Of interest only to an old family.  I should leave you to your work.”
“Perhaps on your way back we can speak of some of the firing techniques used in Kingstown?” called the man as Kane picked his way through the muddy workers.
“Yes, perhaps.” said Kane.

What Kane was doing pt.1

Kane stopped just outside the gate, there was a mark on the red brick wall of the keep. He moved closer to the outside wall, ignoring the questioning glance of the soldier on watch at the gate. Curious eh?  I should light up his feet like a cat on a stove and see how curious he is, he thought to himself.  Still, better to remain unremarkable. Unseen.   He made a show of brushing dust off his cloak and looked closer.  Yes, there in the shadow of the overhanging brick someone had inscribed a message that only those versed in arcane lore might see.  The message was a simple one, a single name, “Ghat”.  That single name however was enough to know that whoever made the mark was a mage, and that they were looking for others.  He pretended to rub some shit off his boot, and then hurried to catch up with the others.

On returning to the inn, if it could be called such, Kane sent the mendicant off to fetch him some mulled wine and to rid himself of the man while he gathered his thoughts.  The idiot went off quickly enough, but not before some glimmer of resistance appeared around his eyes.  Something would have to be done about that as well.  He removed his cloak and leaned into the fire.  It was getting colder, soon there would be snow even in these forsaken lands. The thought took him back to his life in Kingstown, his time at the academy, and then to Hollaway.  Hollaway who followed after him always and constantly, and who got in the way and who was always bothering him and his companions. Hollaway who cried when he left for the academy and then embarrassed him utterly by again crying when he joined him two years later.  Hollaway who was always so full of excitement and interest and so full of life.  Hollaway who was dead in a dirty hole somewhere a few days ride from here.  He tossed his boots against the hearth and looked down at his worn stockings, where was that bastard with the wine?

Ghat was probably not the wizard’s name, it was however the name he’d be using in town and the name Kane should ask for.  It wouldn’t do to be overly curious either, no use pissing off the man he was looking for, that would make the next bit even more unpleasant than it was already going to be. The idiot returned with the wine and now was standing over him annoyingly.

“Here’s your wine.” he said in his slow dull voice.  Kane reached for the wine and otherwise ignored him.  Off on the other side of the common room an already raised voice broke out into a shout.  

“I want the best ale you can manage, not this swill!  Do you want my coin or not?  I have plenty of it. You! Lackwit! Come drink with me!”  Kane didn’t know if he should be annoyed or relieved when the man stopped standing over him, hesitated for only a minute, and then joined the shouting man and his companions.  This was his hired man and Henril was treating him like a travelling companion.  That was trouble.  He considered their confrontation in the monastery ruins and how the whole party had undermined him, letting the idiot keep that valuable dagger and even a share in the treasure.  He would have expected it from the priest, and that traveler waif probably knew nothing beyond the cook pots and tinker forges of her youth, but Butterbridge was a civilized place and people from there understood a contract.

A local boy Kane had seen before came into the inn. He ignored Kane and ran up to the rowdy bunch sitting on the other side of the room.  That lad is a sharp one, thought the mage, he knows exactly when Henril is in his cups and when to part him with his silver.  He listened through closed lids as Henril shouted a greeting and then after a short minute ordered the lad to fetch him some apples.  As the boy ran past Kane raised his hand to intercept, a silver penny shining between his fingers.   
 
“Here now lad, do you know a man named Ghat?  He’s an old friend of mine and I’d like to pay my respects.”  The boy looked him in the eye but said nothing.  Kane moved his finger to expose another silver penny but still the boy said nothing.  Swearing to himself, the mage reached into his purse, pulled out three more silver coins, pressed all five coins into the lads hand and glared at him.

“Ghat lives down in the forest near the brickworks, but sometimes he comes for supplies.  It’s a morning's walk to get there but the road is safe, the patrol passes there twice daily.  They know of him down there but not well. You already know your friend doesn't take kindly to strangers poking into his business.”  The lad smiled and ran off, then turned in the doorway and shouted back, "Oh, and he’s a woman."

Found in the ruined monastery

Brother Abelard's Treatise on the hobb

Now it be knowne to alle learned men that the goblyn wiffe will bear her young in the same manner as to the dwarfe and likewise they shall be served by their broode.  However it is to my minde knowne a wondere and fact gained from my studie and after much discourse with those beeste called puca which men name hobbs or hobbgoblyn.  Much tyme I have passed in discourse with both men who traded with the hobbgoblyn and even one tyme I spake myself with a verry olde hobb whom was a friend to the church and also considered wise.  This I have learned.
 
As the goblyn wiffe will beget a litter or broode as to her kind, so will that broode change in their manner and character as to her aliments and lodging.  If she doth dine on mutton or meat her broode will be strong and sauvage yet if she dine on weeds and grains they be meek.  Now a learned person might reasone thus surely should she dine on the fleshe of men her broode shall be terrible beests indeede for they will growe as fromme terrible deeds.  What a wondere thus to find that the broode of the goblyn fed of that fleshe is both vigorous and learned among it’s kinde.  It is knowne goblyns are wilde and sauvage however the hob being wilde too yet is industrious.  Where goblyn will think only to steale and break, the hob will trade when they cannot take.  Men say the hobbgoblyn is more dire than the goblyn as they fight with greater skill, yet more will fear a goblyn which is as a ferocious beest and they knowe no reasone.

A Return to Milham

Some months have passed in the town of Milham and the character of the place has changed somewhat since the plague.  Perhaps one third of the population has died or left, and although the disease has abated for the most part, it will be a long time until industry and trade return.  The surrounding manses that provided food and jobs have turned inward either to deal with their own losses or to protect themselves.  The price of food is five times what it was in the spring and with no harvest coming, it will continue to rise.   Those now residing in the city are the unemployed field workers or poor craftspeople without means.  Many of the remaining townsfolk are sick and hungry   There are few homeless however, most of the town houses stand empty and squatters have taken up residence in the homes of those dead or otherwise moved on.  Those still living in their homes no longer recognize their neighbours and the handful of city watchmen who remain no longer patrol the streets at night.  Milham is a meaner and colder place than it was.

And so it was that when Kane the mage came to Milham by the north gate he was greeted by a lone guard who told him to return to the north.  Kane was seeking word of his brother the mage Halloway who had come to the southlands some many months ago in pursuit of adventure and riches.  His search of the town led him to the Scarlet Archer inn and to a pair of capable mercenaries, Henril of Butterbridge and Anistanja the Traveller.  Also along the way he couldn't manage to avoid hiring a very insistent porter/guide who, despite having a very low intellect, knew a meal ticket when he saw one.

I'm not sure how much the players were excited to get back to playing Beacon or returning to the town of Milham after almost a year, but I was pretty excited to be back running a game in this environment.  I did dabble a little in the setting when I was camping, but I was interested to see what my regular group would do with the rules changes.  I was also interested to see who would take the option to create new characters and who would make the changes in HP and Skill selection to translate their old characters from the previous version we'd been using.   So we got a chance to roll some dice and try out the new combat system and I got a lot of good feedback.  And that's great because it was fun, and it gives me stuff to write about here.

Back from the wilderlands

Fire up the Coleman it's game time!

Beacon in a screen tent via Coleman lantern and clip on reading light went very well.  I had five players, which is the best number of players I think, two fighters, a cleric, a druid and a rogue.  We played three short sessions and after a bit of a slow start I think it went really well. We had two players entirely new to RPGs playing and we dived right into play which I think was the best way to handle the situation.  I had rolled up two characters, a cleric and a fighter and the newbies picked which of these they wanted based on a very brief description.  I have to say they filled out their characters very well, the Fighter was Fitomashika a tough lady 'not from these parts' and Hamiltaniousopholis a holy man with a big heart and a very small head.

The kids were super eager to get things rolling, having played their characters before (now slightly updated but essentially the same) but I started things out a little slower as the old hands met up with the new folks via a traditional meeting in the Scarlet Archer, the 'just right' tavern in Milham.  Introductions were made and stories of past adventures were told.  Finally, a strange old man in the corner couldn't help but introduce himself and make mention of possible adventure to be found in an old abandoned monastery to the south.  At first he mentioned an interest in providing quick cash in exchange for holy relics, however once  Hamiltaniousopholis revealed himself to be a holy 'persuader', the gentleman became quite pious and expressed his concern that any relics be safely rescued for the church.  Evening passed as simple plans were laid and the next morning and a quick trip to the market later, the gang was tramping south along the road lured on by vague rumours of valuable relics and treasures.

There were no woodcutters, goblins or giant scorpions on the south road through the hills.  They journey was pretty uneventful.  My sister-in-law wanted to know how I figured out what happens and I showed them the encounter charts on the Beacon GM Screen which probably didn't explain much but it does look nice and official.  I think one of the hardest parts of the RPG experience to explain to new people is the role of the GM.  Some people like to know the rules of the game and having a 'rules arbitrator' is a little foreign to them.  Again it was more show and not tell and I tried to keep away from suggesting options or examples of play.  It really helped that the kids chimed in with advice and suggestions on how the game worked.  My youngest was especially helpful and kept saying that 'you do what you want to do and he tells you what to do' as the mantra for the first evening.  They barely made it to the monastery the first night, their time mostly spent searching for the monastery hill and an entrance to it while I failed to roll up an encounter. We had to play in short chunks as we only had about an hour and a half to play each evening after we had finished all the night jobs around the camp and before we crawled off to sleep.  I was a bit worried that we'd not pick the game up again the next day, but the kids were pretty eager to play and the adults did not seem to mind trying it again.

The second evening was pretty fun.  The gang got to chat with some giant ferrets, beat up some goblin guards and scare off an attacking gang of swamp dudes before finally finding the entrance to the monastery.  The combats went well and the non combats went very well as both kids and adults instinctively tried to work encounters to their advantage and use violence as a second resort.  I think the two phase combat round worked pretty well but it was a little hard to explain why they could throw a dagger in the missile phase but had to wait to melee phase to stab someone.  I think it's just one of those things where the game rules are going to serve the game and are not going to be realistic.  Realism is not the goal anyway.  I did like how casting had to be declared during missile combat, and the phased combat really prevented the problem of intitative being so decisive, especially with a five character group.  They pretty easily dispatched these small mobs, but they also took a suitable amount of damage doing it, and everyone got in a shot or two.  Also a lot of the damage that they did take could have been avoided had they played the terrain more or tried for surprise.

I was eager from the beginning that they get to the monastery because up to this point the kids had only ever encountered goblins or large animals in game before.  I had wanted to up the ante a little and so the first time they encountered undead it was going to be especially exciting!  I ratcheted up the room descriptions and the scenes of charred tapestries and long dead monks were obviously creeping everyone out a little. When my older daughter went over to check out a old corpse for some lootz she nearly jumped out of her seat when it reached out and grabbed at her (and I grabbed her hand at the same time!)  Everyone was excited and dice flew as they sliced up the zombie.  I was worried the gore might be too much for the kids, but in fact they loved it.  It was a great place to end the second night and everyone was talking about the monastery and all the 'dead' monks they might yet encounter all the next day.

The third night it was all business as the party came together to figure out the history and to stomp some monster butts.  So far they had not found any treasure (I don't generally give wandering monsters treasure - the ferrets had offered them a dead rat and the goblin guards had nothing more interesting than some string and a hunk of sparkly quartz) and although they had only just started exploring the monastery they knew that it would soon be getting dark and goblins and other things might arrive to cause even more trouble. They started to explore and piece together some history of the place, however they did not make a map.  I didn't draw out any rooms for them either, all they had to go on was descriptions by lantern light.  They were pretty good keeping spatial relations however and a couple times I was surprised with astute observations they made about how the rooms were related or where a corridor should continue past a ruined wall. I'm not going to go into the specifics of the encounters because I would like to use them again*.  Suffice to say that there were traps and monsters and everyone seemed to have a very fun time playing. We didn't finish the adventure before the camping trip was over and my in-laws had to head back home, but I think the prevailing opinion was that we would be continuing this game at a later time.

All in all I think it was an unqualified success.  I have to thank my fine wife, my persistent children and my sister-in-law and her husband for the great game.

*Spoilers for my players but of interest for other readers: for this adventure I basically bolted a 2012 One Page Dungeon called Hellmarsh's Monastary by Andrés Cuesta onto the roof of Dyson's Delve with a little narrative glue and a name change from marsh to mount.  (I'll leave the links off to take away the temptation to peek - you can google it folks).  I'm being pretty liberal with the history of the monks, cherry picking from both adventure sources, but figure that they were an old order that was wiped out some 50-60 years ago.  Pretty much all my Milham Beacon games are using short adventures or location materials found on the web.  Thanks to all them folks that publish them.

Thoughts on an intro adventure

The Friday game group I'm in has started playing Legend of the Five Rings and specifically started out playing an adventure designed for a purpose - to introduce the game.  I'm not sure if this came with the game or was a  supplement, and I'm not sure how much is in the material and how much is coming from the GM, but it is a very good introduction to the system.  The players choose between the available Clans and have to compete/cooperate in a competition called the Topaz Championship.  The various competitions staged allow the GM to gradually introduce game mechanics as well as setting information and tone in a way that doesn't overwhelm the players (us!).  In L5R it's hard enough to get a handle on the clans, the setting history, and the names of people and things, so this really helps - even though most of us have played many game systems.  I find it fascinating how this was done and I think it's a good idea for any system to try to put out some sort of intro adventure - even if the game is pretty rules light.  The effect of using this adventure to introduce the game and setting has been to really fire me up to play this now that our characters have passed our challenges and are ready to have our gempukku ceremonies and become samurai.  We're gonna kick ass and take names and really clean up this town - just you wait and see.

I found this adventure was different than what's usually given as an introductory adventure - the very basic "oh you read the scroll - you will be a magic-user, you picked up the sword - you will be the fighter".  It was the type of adventure geared towards players who may or may not know how to play in a particular setting or with specific rules, but do not need to be told how to roll a d4 or to "picture in their heads a character from a storybook".  I'm sure there's a need for that other type of introduction to RP gaming - the very basic concepts - however I think most of the time players need setting and system information but not an introduction to the hobby.  You only need to learn that once, and I believe most new gamers will be learning how to play with other established players, and not from a solo adventure in a rulebook.  No-one is likely to pick up and play Beacon cold if they haven't played D&D or been introduced to it via a game group anyway.  I think I am really noticing the difference here because I've been reading Adventures in OZ and the Adventurer Conqueror King PDFs I recently picked up on RPGnow and they spend a lot of page on those real basics.  Maybe L5R does as well but I didn't read that part of the book - just dived right in.   Its one thing to do this in a 600 page rule book, but in a smaller game or PDF maybe that space could be better used.

Just from our small game group and from playing with my kids, I've found that there is little or no practical difference in the ability of our least experienced player to deal with a new game system than the more experienced ones.  Any concepts that might be unfamiliar, like initiative order or attack modifiers, or saving throws is pretty quickly transmitted through play. We have a player in our group who has literally only ever played the games we've run, Beacon, Trail of Cthulhu and this L5R game, and she seems to be just as able as the veterans to pick up the mechanics either by emulation or by intuition.  I don't think a paragraph on how to read a d4 would have been useful to her.

I think you can guess where I'm going with this.  I really liked the L5R adventure and I'm much more interested in writing up a sample adventure to be used with Beacon than I am with beefing up the explanatory text in the rules because I think that there's more bang for the buck to be had this way.  I am torn however because the way I run my game is to basically set up a skeleton of a sandbox and then dump in adventure sites and situations from existing modules.  On a side note I've been a bit antsy because I really wanted to write up some posts about the cool adventures I found and used for the play test, but I don't want to ruin the campaign I was running by posting links and discussing the material when there was a chance the players would see it.  I don't distrust them, and I edit things a lot during a session, but I think it could certainly spoil some of the surprises.

So I can't see doing a simple dungeon crawl or mega-dungeon supplement for this purpose. I would like to design a couple smaller installations (cause it's fun!), but really there are so many good ones already I don't see a lot of value in mapping out yet more shrines, cities and abandoned tombs.  What I can see value in however is some sort of area adventure guide that detailed some setting and NPC information, encounter tables, and contained liberal hooks designed to introduce concepts to players and GMs.  By doing this as a sort of gazetteer instead of an adventure, I could even call out to the modules I used to populate specific sites with notes as to how I used them.  I could even include some small notes on why I chose those adventures for those areas.  I think that that might be even more useful than a prepared adventure.

Rounding out the group

Back in May I posted some back stories for the characters rolled up for this play test.  I wrote the back stories in order to give flavour to the setting without doing the long exposition you might feel the need for to introduce players to your game setting.  I feel you really do need to give them something to work with - even if it's going to be a simple beat-em-up-get-the-treasure campaign.
Here are the backstories from the two new characters

Anistania (halfling rogue)
When the New Men came from across the sea, Travellers came with them.  Small but quick, they worked in the rigging and down in the holds and they were also quite welcome to be cooks for they have skill with a pot and a knife.  Barely a sackful they were then, but since the landing they have done well, and now more than one Traveller camp makes their lazy way between towns in the Soundlands.  They have been called by lots of names by the bigger folks, such as the little people, halfling, tinker, or even gnome (perhaps to an old fellow but never to a lady!) but to themselves they are called the Travellers and they love the road.
Born near Marshmill you grew up with the family Caravan as it made the yearly rounds through Hayfork and Hyntmor, idling and working as tinkers and cooks and entertainers as it suited their mood and the weather.  It was a good life full of songs and schemes and good food, but you wanted to journey further.  Perhaps the caravan was growing too large or perhaps you and your two cousins were born under brighter stars, or perhaps your reputations were growing too large, but you all decided to journey to the west and see the mountains.  Unfortunately you were waylaid by goblins on the south road, and now you find yourself with no possessions, your cousins lost, and in the company of strangers.

Colin (human fighter)
As a young boy walking the streets of Oldchurch you learned very quickly to respect, obey and even fear the priests and clerks. Life in Oldchurch revolves around the ancient Cathedral whose bells ring out announcing when to wake, to eat, to pray, and most of all announcing this massive building is all that remains from before the Fall, so many long years ago.  Early on you were singled out for your size and strength and groomed to serve in the Blue Order, the prestigious cathedral guards.  However you were too jovial and too good natured and some small part of you could not submit to the single minded discipline required of this position.  You refused an order collect tithes from a poor merchant and fell out of favour with important people. You were dismissed. Unable to find work and to spare your family, you left town to seek your fortune in the south.

Aside from Drothgar the Dwarven Cleric, there was one other PC who didn't die, but dropped out of the game.

Aurorila(elven druid)
A thousand years is not a long time for the elves.  When the human and dwarven kingdoms fell your elders watched and did nothing as the servants of chaos ran rampant.  This was not the first time.  Many many thousands of years ago the elves left their great cities and took up a life of wandering and since that time they do not involve themselves in the affairs of others.  Only the very oldest might remember the reasons for this, but since then no records are kept and no interest is taken in the workings of the world.  For reasons of your own you have left the forest and now come to human lands where you are viewed with wonder by the men from across the sea and ignorance or hostility from the dwarves and men who found no aid from your people when chaos ravaged their cities.

Objects in mirror

48!?  Who's been touching my lucky dice?

Well it's been almost a year since I started this design blog for Beacon and I just noticed I just posted my 100th post on September 1st.  Last September I was busily working away on my own little fantasy heartbreaker and I had just gone from reading blogs about role playing and playing Microlite with the kids to starting this blog and signing up with a local game group, getting ready to play some real grownup RPG.  Since then I've been introduced to Savage Worlds, Atomic Highway, and Hero system.  I've also had the chance to run a good play test of my Beacon d20 rules.  Ya 100 posts in a year isn't a lot really but then again I tried to keep this about Beacon and not so much about all the other things I like.  Maybe if I could come up with a good name I'd start an alternate blog and post about books and video games and other things.  Maybe that would be too much work.

Next Friday will be the first anniversary of the Beacon site and serendipitously it will also be the last in this series of Beacon play tests.  Now we're going to play some other games and even though I have really enjoyed the DMs chair again, I'm excited to get back into the player seat for a bit.  We will have played 7 sessions and all the characters will have made level 3 or be near enough that it makes no matter.  I am hopeful that we will return to Beacon again later on to continue the fun testing, either with the existing characters or new ones starting out at level 3 - or some mix of the two.  I also hope to release the 5th draft of Beacon this fall and incorporate the lessons learned from this play test.  A lot of the work I have been putting in this summer has been in the setting of this play test and even though much of it is sandbox, I've grown fond of it.  I believe I am going to try to put together something in the vein of a sandbox guide to the world appropriate for use with Beacon and hopefully easily adaptable for any low level d&d based campaign.  I don't expect it will be a hefty grimoire in the vein of THE WORLD OF BEACON! but it might be a nice PDF.  I really enjoy the sandbox full of plot nuggets campaign approach (for some reason I'm thinking of a catbox now...ugg) but I'm not partial to the pure hexcrawl.  I find that unless I have a general knowledge of the area the players are running about in, it's hard for me to run a decent game.  Maybe putting together some short world overviews and a couple maps will appeal to those of a similar bent.

Curses!

You might notice that in the Beacon divine spell list there is no Bestow/Remove Curse.  My noble play testers remarked on this recently.  I might be wrong, but I believe I did this for a reason. If you are running a game it's only natural to want to have actionable mechanics like "ah ha!  He casts Bestow Curse: take -6 to your ummm Dex and -4 to all your rolls Chumley."  Yes yes I realize that this is just a quick spell description and you would skin this to make it much more freakalicious in your game and all, but it still really limits the vast boundlessness of Curses into a simple fighting mechanic and thus not really scary.  Curses can cover a lot of ground - pricking your finger on a spindle and falling asleep, turning into a frog, objects possessed by spirits of past owners, objects that try to eat your spirit- oh there really are so many storytelling type things that could fall into this.  In the stories however folks are pretty freaked out by curses.  There's also the problem that  removing curses is really YMMV even in the SRD.  You can cast Remove Curse at 5th level and remove the effects of a cursed item, or maybe you can if you are high enough level compared to the curse, or maybe if it's not a special curse, or maybe something else entirely, on Tuesdays perhaps.  I just don't think it's a good mechanic. Lastly, a lot of traditional curses are simply spells or enchantments (for example Blind, Baleful Polymorph or Flesh to Stone) - and these all have their in game remedies and would just get buggered up by treating them as also as curses.  So I want to stay away from generic Curses and instead try to focus on types of 'curses' not already covered,  for example spiritual possession and influence.

Boogity boogity you interlopers!

Specifics time:  Over the last few game sessions, Thedric found a helmet you might consider to be cursed.  I had an idea that it should be haunted by a dwarven spirit.  There was no actual curse flag attached to his character sheet like in a video game - it wasn't physically welded to his head and impossible to remove/destroy but you can bet that if it was removed and given to someone else it wouldn't make him all better suddenly either.  It didn't effect his stats (yet) but it did make him all creepy and stuff.  I didn't think that a cleric would be able to simply whip off a remove curse and they would all be off on their way.  I suppose I had some idea that it would make use of the spirit related spells I was working on lately, especially Manifest.

So I kind of dropped the ball on this one.  They had the head cleric of Foxhollow remove the helmet - it was all behind closed doors and howling and spooky lights - but it was off camera.  I should really have had the party be in the room with the master cleric when he cast his Manifest spell and then they could have had a good duke it out with the dwarven spirit.  To be honest I hadn't thought the issue would come up so quickly and I figured that they would have left poor Thedric alone for a while longer.  If Henril hadn't been so eager to pull the helm off Thedric's head and causing him to do the funky chicken - or if he hadn't offered gold to a poor peasant woman to try to slap the helm on her head I probably would have gotten around to basing an adventure around speaking to the spirit in the helm, having it made manifest and then beating it up.  No blame on the players - they will always do the unexpected and focus on the things you aren't prepared for.  I wasn't prepared - so we lost an opportunity there.

Thinking back on it however I can see how those spells would work out, at least with possession type curses.  They would be fun. I don't know if they solve the entire 'curse' question however.  For example I can see needing some way to sanitize or corrupt areas in the name of religion.  I can see having ways to confound demonic imps much as as you would confound the undead.  The problem being this is mostly setting based and not universal game mechanic.  Not all setting would be interested in the old order/chaos pseudo christian religion I'm using in my game and so not all the spells I might like to have clerics use would be generally useful.  Yes yes, people can always DIY things and add them into their campaign but I also think the basic game should cover most of the bases.  

I don't have an answer for this right now but I am considering adding in some Rituals to the Divine spell list.  Rituals would be different than spells in that they would take longer to cast - hours not rounds.  They would also possibly have material components.  Either there would be one per spell level, say some sort of Cleansing ritual at first level,  or there would be a small number that could be learned as character advanced though the church.   These rituals would be primarily there to deal with weird religious shit like more traditionally cursed items or effects, 'evil' presences, keeping out chaos minions etc. My initial instinct is to make this setting material and not put it in the Beacon rules - but if they turn out really good and useful I might change that opinion.

A brief history of the Baronies

I thought I'd throw up some of the short notes I have jotted down on game I'm running.  I do appreciate the old drop down a handful of orcs is a cave philosophy, however I can't stop myself from thinking up back stories and history to flavour the stew.




A brief history of the Baronies.
It only took one generation for the men from across the sea to leave the island and cross the Strait of Daggers. Rickard the Tall founded the city of Freeport (since renamed Kingstown) on the mainland and established himself as ruler of the sound in year 30. As the new men spread out from Rikard's Landing they settled the shores of The Sound and absorbed or conquered the natives who were scrabbling out more modest existence. More warlords than barons, there was a short period of expansion as the ambitious second and third generations spread their reach onto the mainland. The first villages and towns they established were in The Soundlands. Also in this time some order was restored in Lakshire, which had much of the most intact infrastructures from before the Fall. Some of the older towns in Lakshire like Swale and Oldcastle never entirely fell in the dark times and inhabitants in some cases could trace their lineage back to the old empire. This was also a period of great rivalry between the new men and the men from the old empire with stronger leaders rising from both groups. The Middlemarch was resettled not long after and for a short time there were a number of small independent kingdoms constantly striving for manpower, resources and dominance. Paradoxically the constant fighting caused large population booms as for the first time since the old empire there were men defending the land and roads and the wild creatures and dark creatures were pushed south. Farming once again became widespread and roads and walls sprang up all across the land.
By the fourth generation, these settlements had aggregated into three large baronies and two major factions vying to control it all. In year 103 The army of Rikard One Eye, the great grandson of Rikard the Tall defeated the forces of Gallien the Strong and became king of all three regions and the independent towns of the west. To the houses that supported him most he gave over the two baronies of Middlemarch and Lakshire, keeping the royal seat in The Soundlands.
In the year 146 King Bartal, son of Rikard, awarded the lands and independent towns on the western border to his greatest supporter among the military, a war leader named Ottol the Fat whom had been a popular leader during years of unusually active raids on the west by goblin and hobgoblins from the south. Ottol took the family name Arnulf and became the fourth baron in the kingdom and ruler of the Westmarch. The Arnulf family was a popular choice to rule and although the independent towns did loose some autonomy, they had long been used to supporting the military and many retired soldiers had settled there so the transition was peaceful with only minor incidents.

Religion

One thing that really bugs me in many settings is the pantheon of gods idea where you have a section in the setting book about all the gods the clerics can select from.  Gods like Chauncey: God of Light Transport, and Swee-tah: Goddess of Those Who Died from Poor Dental Hygiene.  Don't get me wrong - I love things like the Street of the Gods in Lankhmar, but in a campaign it doesn't work for me unless the different clerics had play differences and/or unique powers - or if there were no clerics.  That being said, I think for setting materials I will be going with a single church model.  A single model doesn't mean that all the clerics are of one mind or on the same sides - I would certainly expect factions or even different orders within this church.  I don't think that the concept of a personal (even chatty) relationship with a Deity is the right one for this model because having a very aware and communicative God would have too much impact on the world.  If a God was to take part and speak plain and direct to their flock like this, the world would become something more like a game of Populous or Civilization.  Leave a little mystery I say.

I'm going with something like... the Lords of Order.  Who are they?   Well they carved the world out of Chaos.  What are they? We don't really know.  What do they want?  They want to keep Chaos at bay.  What is Chaos?  That's what exists outside the world, from before the world - that's where Demons come from.  Are they good and just or cunning and evil?  Well um... both - that's why we cure and heal people and worship them but also that's why there are devils and suffering and injustice.  Why both - because both might and mercy are required to establish order.  Do we have free will to choose?  Yes you can choose to be good and merciful or mighty and evil, however both good and evil must be opposed to the destruction of chaos.  Is the Church good or evil?  The church strives to spread mercy, might needs no help to spread.  How many Lords of Order are there?  We don't know.  How do they grant you special powers?  We don't know, they choose people some for mercy, some for valor, some to smite chaos and some for reasons we don't understand.    Do demons also grant special powers?  Yes to some - those are cults and they need to be stopped from bringing chaos upon us.

Some of the 'Lords of Order' are going to be Godly and angelic beings, however some are just as obviously going to be Devils and Lords of Hell.  All beings of Order have their place in their hierarchy and abide by rules when dealing with people and each other.  A devil can't corrupt a soul by force and won't forswear themselves even if they will try to trick or intimidate a character.  On the other hand, demons are just in it for the destruction and have no problem with creating undead or possessing characters or going back on their word.

So one church and yes, I'm sure GM's and players will invent doctrine and saints to follow or invest particular attributes to certain Lords of Order to make things interesting.  Given that you have a church that can actually grant miracles, it will be assumed that they are very influential socially and the only thing stopping them from being the major force in society is this ambiguous theology, well that and the three way struggle between mercy-might and chaos. 

This goes back to an old school small scale vibe where you have the forces of Chaos nibbling at the periphery of  society in the form of goblin bands and mad cultists and horrible demons - and the adventurers are going in and stomping them down.  No alignments in Beacon so players can play selfless paragons just as easily as opportunist swords-for-hire.  They are all skulls for the skull throne.

The Land of Beacon

Since the Beacon PDF is in a semi-fixed state now I've been turning my thoughts to the campaign setting I want to pair it up with.  Obviously in doing something like Beacon I have in mind things I like or want to explore with the rules that I have put together and given those rules, it's not going to be High Fantasy.

I also am not too keen on building up a elaborate structure of nations and peerage and  knightly orders and high society.  It might be fun to play a court intrigue game, but in that case there are probably better systems for it.  I could just ignore social constructs all together but I have an idea that it would be hard to explain away who runs the roads and protects the towns from the goblins and bandits.  I like the idea of some simple feudal structure because it's simple to understand and you can build dramatic stories in it.  It also explains how them solders and castles and roads get paid for.  I think that a good way to do this is to make the setting conform to a small map and a fairly new and smallish kingdom surrounded by unexplored territories. Like this map from back in September:

The map

Looking at that map I can think of some things happening there - the city is the largest population, it presumably controls the shipping trade (with who?) and would command the coast and the island and probably be the most wealthy with all that trade, the wine and fish and livestock.  It would be the place where the Ruler would be.  The tower and the two keeps would be places where large forces of fighting men were - obviously to protect the surrounding lands (and tax the inhabitants).  Really that's 3 powerful nobles - lets call them Counts for now although they might be the Ruler's children, his relations or simply very good fighting men.  The Count in the tower to the south west would have access to the output of the mines and the two nearby towns.  The Count in the middle keep would have those 3 towns all that grazing land to manage.  The Count in the eastern keep would have a bit of everything, mines, lake towns and the river town in their domain.  Something like this:

The 4 counties

The Ruler is the strongest of the counts who tax the the towns (governors or mayors) and the landowners (the landed gentry).  Freemen live in the cities and do trade and business.  Peasantry live on the land and farm and supply men for the army.  Simple.  Also where there is trade and craft - there are guilds.

That leaves some territories and towns outside, either as independent or as parts of other political organizations for foreign traders, elves, dwarfs and gnomes to come from.  There's also those ruins up in the northeast - well this isn't the first kingdom to hold these lands.

What spells can say about the setting.

I hate to harp on these obvious things but going over the spell lists really brings home how the rules, and especially how spells rely on features of the game setting.  For example here's a pretty simple 4th level Cleric spell from Beacon:

Ethereal Ward:
Range:  Radius 25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels.
Duration: 10 min/level.
Area is impassable to Ethereal creatures and effects (including spells such as invisibility and Mage Sight, but not greater invisibility).  When the spell is cast, ethereal creatures already in the area are ejected and Ethereal based spells stop working.

So what does this say about the setting?  Well it says that the Ethereal plane is pretty damn important for magic users since it appears that the invisibility spell utilizes it in some way (It wraps the target in Etherealness to be specific).  So Arcane mages (or at least the high level ones or the sages) are probably pretty somewhat versed in Ethereal lore or mechanics to have come up with something like this.   You may not want to do anything with planes in you game (inner or outer) but there it is in the rules and your players are going to be exposed to it.  They are going to want to know what other Ethereal based spells and creatures are out there.

I put this spell in Beacon to replace the SRD spell Dimensional Anchor because that spell made a whole different assumption about the setting - namely that there are a butt-tonne of creatures called outsiders zipping around all these exotic planes and you might want to nab one of them before they flit off to the Lawful Indifferent Plane of Left-handed Smoke Elementals.  Having a 409 alternate planes might be great for your Pathfinder campaign but I DO NOT WANT.

Ok this is a bit of a straw-man argument because Dimensional Anchor is a pretty nice spell and does not necessitate having a lot of planes of existence - you could just use it for a Demon bashing campaign (I will probably do this actually, just with a different set of spells).  But the basic idea is I'm trying to remove some of the baggage.  That's the other reason I am reworking the spells instead of just using the SRD.  The main reason is just a rebalance because you have more spells per day in Beacon and a lot of SRD spells get pretty powerful if they are usable on demand and aren't taking up a precious spell slot.  Also there is a hell of a lot of overlap in the SRD and that's just lazy.

SO, you might not agree on my idea of a fantasy setting but if you use the Beacon spell lists there will be no adventures to the Lawful Indifferent Plane of Left-handed Smoke Elementals like you get when you use those nasty SRD spells.

The Town of Milham

This is the Town of Milham done in Gimp with layers to separate the different features.

Milham 'the GM's copy'*

Here's Milham using other layer choices and some blending:

Milham 'the handout'

I still sometimes can't believe things like Gimp are free.


*ok ok I didn't print the keyed encounter layer because I might use this and there are spies everywhere you know.

The Land of Map

It's Friday and it's game night and for a change of pace I want to write about something on the periphery of the game but that actually has a lot of impact on putting together the core rules - the setting.  Most GMs will haberdash together their own settings for a game but most good game systems have an implied setting - even if it's just the one used in their examples.  I think that one of the reasons I'm taking so long on how to package the magic section for Beacon is that magic is one of the variable systems that can really be impacted by the setting (XP is another).  And by setting I don't mean the location, I mean the entire 'setting' package - the locations yes but also, how much treasure is out there, how much fantastic vs grit.  How many wand and healing potions would you expect to find? 

I like my adventures to be more gritty than fantastic - you are more likely to be exploring an old ruined temple than a mad wizards death-maze.  If you do run across a death-maze then it's probably only got one portal to the netherworld and a small number of magic fountains.  So from this you can assume that magic is somewhat uncommon in my preferred setting and therefore I'm not likely to have a long list of random magic items and artifacts in the treasure section or wish spell on the Mage spell lists.  Normally you'd be correct but I know that not everyone plays this way so should this go into a core 'rule book' or should it be part of a separate setting book so that the core rules can be used with other more setting appropriate material if the GM chooses?  Does this mean I should have a separate document for the spell lists so that folks can use the SRD if they prefer?  I don't know.  I expect I'll figure something out.

I have a map you know.  I made it in Gimp and it has layers (some, like the encounter layer, I'm not going to display to you).  Here it is.

The Land of Map