Ten Baseline Assumptions About How the Game is Run There is a whole set of assumptions about how a DM runs

his game that are never really discussed when a new game starts. I think often, these are the very things that lead to a flaming trainwreck a few sessions later, when the players have been operating under a different set of guidelines than the DM. I'm not talking about things like the campaign setting or the theme for a particular campaign; I'm talking about the underlying principles of playing in a roleplaying game; the things that form the foundation for being able to tell a cooperative story. 1. Whether or not the world conspires to make the PCs heroes. Some people believe the PCs are born heroes, and that the universe should be constructed in such a way as to make every session challenging but ultimately very beatable. Others believe that the world is the world, and the PCs are just another group of adventurers. In such a world, it is the player's responsibility to make sure they don't walk into a battle that is way too tough for them. The players could stumble into a red dragon's lair at 1st level, and the DM would decree that they had brought it upon themselves. In My Games: I consider my games to fall somewhere in the middle of these two extremes. There will probably be a fair amount of "happy coincidences" in the level of monsters the PCs fight, but it will always be possible to get in over your head, especially through bad (or no) planning. 2. Whether or not the PCs can make mistakes. This may seem strange, but I know that in some games, the DM changes the plot to make whatever the PCs decide to do end up being the right thing. In other games, the DM will run a combat in the way it was conceived, even if the PCs make the worst tactical mistakes possible. The latter game is usually more deadly, because it requires the players to predict what sort of mistakes would be disastrous and then not commit them. It is also more realistic. In My Games: Players are responsible if they do stupid things, and they hopefully learn not to do them again. Or they get killed. 3. Whether the game is static or active. In a static game, nothing happens except when the PCs are in the room. Lots of early D&D dungeons went with this method, and it is simple but wildly

unrealistic. In an active game, a situation can often occur "off-camera" of which the PCs aren't aware, and may NEVER be aware. Things may happen that won't make sense until later, when the secrets are revealed, or may never make sense. I'll be honest, this type of world is MUCH harder for the DM to run, because it means keeping track of things that are going on in other places, all the time. One of the drawbacks is that it requires trust on the part of the players that the DM is not just making things up to screw them; if the players are suspicious of the DM, they are likely to conclude that things are unfair. In My Games: I use a mostly active world. In my last RL campaign, there were plots unfolding over the course of a year (real time) that happened entirely off-camera. Plot threads dangled for months before making sense to the PCs. It is completely unreasonable in my game for a player to expect that they necessarily will have access to all of the events influencing the present. On the other hand, on the small scale, certain encounters will happen only when the heroes enter the area. There's not much point in having wounded herald stumble into the throne room when the heroes aren't there to hear his message. 4. How much information the players are given. In some games, all Spot/Listen/Search/Sense Motive checks are rolled by the players, and the information earned through a success if given out loud. Players may even be in charge of determining when to make such a roll, such as by saying, "I want to make a Spot check," and then rolling it. In other games, the DM rolls checks in secret and passes notes back and forth (or otherwise communicates) with the people who succeeded. In the latter type of game, the players with low Spot and Listen scores will probably feel like things are jumping out of the bushes all the time at them and they have no chance to see them. But, then, that would probably be how the character feels too! This too requires trust between the players and DM; if the players don't believe the DM is trustworthy, they will assume he fudged all rolls that led to their surprise. In My Games: The only time I don't use the note method is when it is something that is about to be irrelevant anyway, such someone springing from the bushes in such a way that he can't possibly be hidden afterwards. It is the responsibility of the players to either share or not share information they get from such notes. 5. Whether or not NPCs fight logically and in according with their backgrounds and mental ability scores. In some games,

monsters pretty much charge the PCs and try to just beat them down. Every time. Normal human warriors fight to the death over any situation. In other games, the monsters use every advantage they have to ensure their own survival: terrain, cover, concealment, escape, treachery, deception, flanking, the 5-foot-step, reach, feat selection, even surrender are all part of the NPC's bag of potential tricks, assumingthey are smart enough to figure them out. If a creature has a missile weapon, they will take cover behind something. If they can get higher ground, they will. If they can run with their lives, they will. And if they can get reliable advance notice of the arrival of the PCs, they will use all of these advantages and more. According to one theory of war, in a standard battle, the defender chooses where and the attacker chooses when. An ambush, however, is when one side accidentally allows the other side to choose where AND when, and it is usually a slaughter. In My Games: NPCs do not want to die, and will do what they can to prevent it. PCs are encouraged to think the same way rather than walking into battle after battle. If you're not taking cover, you are saying, "I am OK with being shot at." 6. Whether NPCs are just extensions of the DM's will or speak for themselves. Often, players assume that if an allied NPC says something, it must be information that the DM is trying to impart to the players. In more roleplaying-intensive games, however, the NPC will have his own hopes, dreams, and desires that may even directly contradict what the DM wants. In My Games: NPCs tend to say what they are thinking, not what I am thinking. Often, I have NPCs bring up points that are deliberately false (though the NPC doesn't know this) as a way of helping the players "shake out" false leads from a mystery. During my last game, I was blessed to have two NPCs with entirely conflicting viewpoints: a battle-hungry warrior and a pacifist cleric (later, this conveniently switched to an enchantress and a warriorcleric). I was able to have them present two opposing viewpoints on any situation that would then have to be judged by the players through the filter of their personalities and knowledge. Thus, I was helping the players by giving them things to think about while still not handing them the answer. 7. Whether or not the game is fair. For some DMs, being impartial is more important than having the story go the way they want. For others, the story is King and they will bend the rules as they see fit

in order to let their villain escape or to capture the PCs. In My Games: I divorce myself from the plot when I am making game rule decisions. Whether or not I want the bad guy to get away, if you come up with a way to stop him and succeed, he will be stopped. That being said, it is entirely appropriate for the villain to have means to stop you from preventing his escape, and I won't hesitate to give intelligent villains those means when I am statting them. 8. How much the players talk to each other. This one doesn't involve the DM at all. Some players will turn and share every scrap of information their character gets with the rest of the party, while others will hoard their secrets until the perfect dramatic moment. In My Games: I leave this choice up to my players, but I don't allow one player to get angry with another for keeping secrets. 9. How long players are allowed to argue. In most games there is a point where the DM will no longer allow arguing about the rules. Although I have seen games where the players are allowed to continue to argue forever: the game falls apart, or the DM caves in even though he believes he is right. In My Games: A player can argue as long as they continue to present new information. Once they get to the point where they are restating evidence I have already looked at and rejected, we're moving on. 10. What the intensity level of the game is. What I mean by this is whether the game is casual or serious. Not that it can't be funny and serious; what I'm saying is, does the DM expect the players to care deeply about what is going on, or is the game largely a social activity? Will the players keep track of things that happened last session on their own? Will they mentally turn the latest ongoing mystery over and over in the shower five days later? Or will they forget the name of the city they are in five minutes after they are told it? An intense game can be a very rewarding experience, but it is also a lot of work. Not everyone enjoys putting that much energy into their game. The problem is, these games can only come to life when all the players are on board. In My Games: I only DM intense games. Or rather, I always try to make my games intense. I want to play the emotions of my players like a fine violin. I want to spin a tale of such scope that it begins to invade my player's dreams. I have had varying degrees of success; I know there are people reading this who will have immediate visceral reaction to the

name "Goldblade." And my campaigns definitely invade my life; I keep a tape recorder by my bed because I got tired of losing perfect plot twists I thought up as I fell asleep. What is Texture? Welcome to the first in a series of articles about improving your roleplaying experience by adding texture to your game. What do I mean when I use the term "texture"? I'm talking about all of the little details that add up to create a complete description. Texture is the color of a sword's hilt, the sound of distant thunder, or the smell of baked pies as one passes through a village. It's knowing the reason why the villain is so villainous, and hinting at secrets that are never revealed. Everything that makes the world feel like a place where people live, rather than just an exercise in problem-solving. Chances are you already have some texture in your game. If you are running a pre-published adventure or world, there are almost certainly many little details that you normally don't see in your selfgenerated adventures. And that is really the point of these articles: to allow you to add enough texture into your game so that your players won't notice the difference between a store-bought adventure and a homebrew. I use the word "texture" for these details because for me, they are the difference between a flat, predictable description and one that is alive and vibrant. When adding details to your game, your goal should be to have enough volume so that the descriptions blur together into a patina of verbal imagery. Texture cannot exist in a vacuum; if one part of an image has texture and the remainder does not, it will be obvious. Players should not be able to pick out what is important to their plot based on the level of detail in your description. For example, pretend your gamemaster gave you the following description: You enter the wizard's study. There are some bookcases, a desk, and a chair. There are books all over the place, and a single red quill pen, eight inches in length, stands in a brass pot of ink on the desk. Nine out of ten players will go immediately for the pen. Why? Because it was the only item in the room truly given texture. The rest of

the area was painted in only in the broadest of strokes. If the gamemaster was trying to set that quill up as a clue of some kind, he has now robbed the players of the opportunity to discover that on their own. Now, consider the following alternative: You enter the wizard's study. A musty smell fills the air, and swirls of dust follow you as you move. A pair of oak bookcases sit on opposite sides of the room, each filled with leather-bound tomes of assorted shades of brown. On the left bookcase, one shelf has broken, spilling its contents over the shelf below and the floor. A massive desk, at least seven feet in length, fills the center of the room, with dozens of tiny brass-handled drawers. A large book lies open on the desk, near a single red quill pen, eight inches in length, standing in a brass pot of ink. The gamemaster has given the exact same description of the pen, but has instead hidden its importance by giving detailed accounts of the room's furnishings. He knows that the only important clue in the room is the pen, but the players do not. Their actions will thus deal with the entirety of the room rather than the metagame thinking that would lead them to the pen. One might decide to check out the broken bookshelf, another might want to check the desk drawers. If they eventually look at the pen and discover its relevance, they will feel that much more of a sense of accomplishment. This example also illustrates one of the key features of texture: it is most often irrelevant. In other words, if the players have a mission to accomplish, most of the texture you put into your descriptions will have no direct bearing on that mission. But that's the point; if I go to mail my phone bill, the fact that I pass a parked police car on the way to the mailbox isn't important. It does, however, tell me something about the immediate area and what might be going on there. This is why adding texture to your game creates the illusion of reality; you are basically giving players proof that the world is turning with or without them. Here are 5 simple ways you can add texture to a room or character description: 1. Color: People spend a lot of energy making sure the things they own are a pleasing color. Anywhere intelligent beings live, there is the opportunity for changing the color of the walls, the doors, the

2.

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furniture, the upholstery, the curtains, etc. Of course, natural settings can also have a bewildering variety of unexpected color. Why talk about a tree when you can talk about a grey-barked tree with yellowish-green leaves? Brokenness: Things break, often. Whether they have been repaired or not is a good indicator to the players about the level of attention a room receives. How well they are fixed might also be a clue; if the bookshelf was propped up with another book but generally left broken, it says that the owner doesn't care too much. Juryrigging: Spaces are often not used in the manner for which they were designed. People tend to adapt a room or object to the purpose they require, rather than the crafter's intent. This is especially true of dungeons, where the current inhabitants almost certainly did not build the place. Think about how they may have altered the room's purpose, and what changes they might have made as a result. Bodily Functions: Living creatures need to eat, sleep, eliminate, and possibly mate. If you set up a monster's lair in a location where the occupant cannot realistically achieve all of these needs, it will be far less believable. Likewise, NPCs also need to fulfill these functions, and often at the worst possible time. Scars: Creatures who fight regularly should be scarred, especially if they do not have access to healing magic. Scars hint at a story that the player's don't know; they imply that the creature has lived an entire life up to the point when it appears "on screen". An owlbear with a jagged scar across its beak is more memorable, and perhaps more fearsome, than one without.

Those are just my opening thoughts on the subject. Next time, I'll discuss breathing life into NPCs by giving them illogical emotional responses. In the meantime, why not head to the message board and tell everyone about a bit of description of which you are particularly proud? Damn it, Spock! Last time, I talked about how adding detail to your description can enhance the believability of your game world. Now I'll focus on a very specific type of detail: emotional responses.

If you've played a lot of D&D, you know that most of the time, the solution to a problem is based in logic. Whether it is the best way to fight a monster or the answer to a riddle, the answers will often fit into a fairly understandable pattern. Even the process of creating and advancing a character is a sort of logic problem: How can I make these rules reflect what I want to play? This deeply-rooted foundation of logic is a good thing, but it can lead to one unfortunate tendency: the assumption that the people players meet within the game world operate on a similarly logical level. But in the real world, people often act illogically, driven more by their emotions than any understanding of "how the game works." The goal of this article is to show how you can introduce seemingly pointless emotional responses in your NPC that can nonetheless be predicted and incorporated into the play experience as a form of texture. Consider the following example: In an old campaign, I had introduced two completely evil villains. Both had plans to conquer the world, and I had let the PCs know that they had known each other a century earlier. When the players discovered that they were working together, they couldn't understand it. "Why help each other?" they asked themselves, "It would make more sense to go it alone." "Wait," said one player, "I bet that one is planning on helping the other up to a point, and then turning on him." They all agreed that this must be the reason for their alliance, and even formulated a plan to "warn" the lesser of the two evils about the other's presumed treachery. This was a solution that was arrived at by a fairly logical process, but it was completely and utterly incorrect. What the players had failed to consider was that the two villains were simply friends. They had grown up together, and trusted each other implicitly despite having every logical reason to not trust one another at all . The fact was that the villains were letting their emotional attachment to each other override strict logic; they had made an agreement to share control of the world, and both were intending to follow through. Further, by contacting the "lesser" villain, the PCs had accidentally tipped their hand that they knew the two were working together, allowing the villains to set up an ambush for the players in a future session. By relying on logic and logic alone, the players had gravely miscalculated their foes.

So, how does one create realistic emotional responses? First, remember that alignment is a guide, not a strait-jacket. Not even for NPCs. Evil characters can love, good characters can hate. This alone will help you add some emotional interest; think of an NPC in your game and name three things he or she loves enough to die for (or hates enough to kill for). How about three rules they will never break, or three laws they feel aren't that important? Next, realize that NPCs can't read the rulebooks. They don't know what manner of fighting is more efficient (except maybe in the broadest of strokes). They don't know that fighting monsters will gain them XP, which will make them more powerful. They don't know what CR a monster has. They only know their immediate visceral reaction to something: Combat is deadly. Magic is strange. Monsters are scary. Things that feel good are good, things that feel bad are bad. Ninetynine percent of the people hope to live their life comfortably enough to pass something on to their children. As a corollary, do not assume that NPCs with PC classes are necessarily different. In the real world, people with extensive combat training generally hope they never have to put it to use. In fact, it's not that much of a stretch to say that to the average 1st level fighter, the experience and skill that might be gained from battle is not worth the very real possibility of dying. Remember, the PCs and certain NPC adventurers are the exceptions precisely because they seek out this kind of thing. Consider a character's level of comfort. People are far less likely to do something that goes beyond their comfort zone. This doesn't necessarily mean that every character is going to balk at getting dirty, for example; for a barbarian, dirt is well within his comfort zone. Public speaking, however, may not be. When creating an NPC, you should decide in advance what sorts of things are outside of his comfort zone, and stick to it during play. Don't allow Diplomacy checks or charm spells to push someone outside of their zone; the proper result would be to have the person be very polite and friendly while declining. Intimidate checks or suggestion magic may do the trick, but usually carries a penalty to the check involved, and the character in question will resist as much as he is able.

Also, keep in mind that a character's comfort zone may not make sense to anyone else. A wizard may be uncomfortable summoning creatures from other planes, despite the fact that he is in no more danger from summon monster I than he is from any of his other spells. Be careful, though, because players can perceive this sort of thing as a hamfisted attempt at railroading them, even when it isn't. If the players meet said wizard, they may well shift into metagame thinking and decide that the DM must not want them to summon a monster. Like last lesson's quill example, the players may make an assumption based on the fact that texture exists in a vacuum. In order to realistically portray such a comfort zone, then, try creating a reason why the character has whatever emotional response you are giving him. The single best way to do this is through childhood experience. Following through on the example, if the wizard's father, also a powerful wizard, once lost control of a demon that trashed half their home, it makes perfect sense that the character is queasy when dealing with fiends. Of course, he has inflated this event into a moratorium on all summoning spells, but in real life we often go the route of "better safe than sorry" when dealing with our fears. OK, list time. I'm going to try to end each article with a list of pointby-point ideas. I think people can digest and use information more easily in that format. Now I'll discuss specific emotions and how to add them into your game: 1. Laziness: For players, it takes just as much energy to say, "I sleep for 8 hours," as it does to say, "I climb to the top of the hill." For NPCs, this isn't the case. While truly lazy characters are a possibility, keep in mind that most people are going to be interested in minimizing the amount of energy expended. A villain, particularly a small-time crook, might abandon the most efficient plan as being too labor-intensive. Instead, he cuts corners; perhaps this laziness is the only factor that allows the PCs to learn of his plot. And this isn't alignment-specific; a knight may not be lazy by any stretch, but he may still balk at the resources and time required to enact whatever elaborate plan is on the table. Just because there are no rules on getting tired doesn't mean it doesn't happen. 2. Overconfidence: This is a big one with the villains, and in many cases is key to the concept of a long-term uberpowerful baddie.

Think about it; if the villain is 25th level, and the players screw up his minor plan at 3rd level, why not just squash them, then and there? The reason is often a combination of laziness (above) and overconfidence. The villain believes that the PCs are incapable of stopping him, so why expend the effort? Again, remember that the bad guy can't read the rules, doesn't know that the good guys are necessarily gaining XP and getting stronger with every fight, and doesn't know that the villains always lose in the end. 3. Family Relations: Consider how your NPC feels about their parents, siblings, spouses, and children. They may feel a bond of love that supercedes their alignment, or they may have utter contempt for them. Any emotional response tends to multiplied by factor of 100 when dealing with family. Perhaps a villain wants to destroy the world, but needs to find a way to save his family first. Maybe a good fighter is being manipulated into doing evil because his children are being threatened. A villain's entire evil plan may be the result of nothing more than a burning need to disappoint his parents! 4. Spontaneous: Players can always think about their actions; even in the middle of combat, they have the entire time it takes to get back their initiative to decide what the best thing to do is. NPCs don't have that luxury; play them as if they were being run by a player who doesn't get to say, "Wait, no, I do this instead." Their first decision is usually going to be what thy stick with, even if it is foolish or inefficient. This should never be more obvious than when a character is in a rage. No, I'm not talking about the barbarian class ability, I'm referring to a level of anger where we lash out without thinking. If you've ever punched a wall, you know what I'm talking about. 5. Irrational Likes/Fears: This is much like the comfort zone issue (above), but I'm expanding it here to include personal quirks that can become interesting traits for even minor characters. A shopkeeper who collects swords might pay more for a unique blade than a orc double-axe, even though the axe has the higher book value. A fighter who is afraid of spiders is going to run away from a monstrous one, even if he could kill it in one round. Remember, fear knows no Challenge Rating. Likewise, characters may enjoy a particular activity even if they know it is dangerous or unhealthy; I don't think anyone in this nation is under the impression that

smoking isn't bad for you, but that doesn't stop people from doing it. 6. Stupidity: Sometimes, it's just this simple. People with low Intelligence scores are incapable of coming up with efficient plans, and people with low Wisdom scores are incapable of determining whether a plan is efficient or not. When players are trying to puzzle out a villain's plan, they will often overthink things, discarding the bad guy's actual plot as being too stupid to be the truth. Hopefully, this has helped you think about giving your NPCs reactions that are independent of their function in the campaign. These people are supposed to be living, breathing characters with an internal life that the players can't know about, and your world will be more vibrant if they act as if they do. Next time: I'll put some of these tips to use in a step-by-step tutorial on making a three-dimensional villain for your game. Villain Workshop Today we're going to talk about villains. When I say the word "villain," I mean a very specific kind of antagonist. Generally, I'm talking about character that not only serves an adversary, but also does so repeatedly, either in person or through his or her secondary influence. Villains usually have an ongoing agenda beyond, "I want to survive my next fight with the heroes." In other words, the ogre in the cave that you fight is not a villain, but the ogre who swears revenge on the heroes for killing his brother in the cave is. Creating villains is easy; we've all seen enough movies to be able to whip up a threatening guy in a black cloak who wants to conquer the world. This article is about creating villains that go beyond stereotypes and clichs, and who are fully realized characters with their own internal logic and emotional depth. It also deals with ways to keep every villain you make from accidentally having the same modus operandi; you can only throw your players against so many evil clerics of evil gods who hate everything good and pure before it starts to get stale! In the interest of making this easy for anyone to use, I'm going to go through a step-by-step procedure for creating a villain for your own

campaign. Along the way, I will use a single example from my own campaign: the Fire King, a half-devil elf sorcerer/fighter. Step X: What is the villain's race or class? I am putting this first not because I think it should necessarily be the first thing determined, but because there is no "right" time to make this choice. Sometimes, the villain will flow out of the choice of creature, other times the creature type will flow out of the villainous plot you have created. Often, you will determine bits and pieces of this as you go through the other steps. The Fire King began as a half-fiend of some kind, but other than that, I had no preconceptions when I began working on him as to his eventual stats. Step 1: Start with two emotions. I really believe all great characters begin with one emotion that drives them. By choosing this first, you make sure your villain will stay true to the very reason he became a villain in the first place. It's kind of a cop out after a while to have villains who are just evil for evil's sake; something had to drive them to be evil in the first place. Options for their primary driving emotion might include Anger, Angst, Greed, Jealousy, Lust, Hatred, Regret, Revenge, Shame, and Sorrow. Feel free to narrow these down as much as possible to get to the core of the villain's persona: Anger is fairly broad; Resentment is a much more specific emotion. Don't forget that "positive" emotions (such as Love or Honor) might lead to villainy as well, if taken too far. But I did say TWO emotions. So what's the second one? The emotion you intend to inspire in your players when they encounter the villain. Not all villains need to be universally loathed by the heroes, and even those that are often have that loathing colored by another emotion. The Fire King began with the driving emotion of Shame, with a good mix of Insecurity and Revenge. He was created from the beginning to inspire stark raving Terror in the players. Step 2: What events in the villain's past brought about this emotion? Whatever emotion you picked, there must be a reason the villain feels that way. It does not need to be necessarily logical, and it

certainly does not need to be something you personally agree with. In fact, often the villains I create will personify an emotional response that I specifically find inappropriate. Part of the fun for me is creating characters with a "twist" away from the expected reaction to the events in their past. Still, it needs to at least be consistent with responses that might be natural for someone, somewhere. The goal is to create a history that sounds reasonable when you read it, but might not be completely obvious when bits and pieces are uncovered over the course of the campaign. I decided that the Fire King was ashamed of his half-breed status. The twist was that rather than being embarrassed for being half-fiend, he was embarrassed because he was half-something else. In his eyes, he didn't live up to the legacy of his father, a powerful fiend of some kind, because he was half-mortal. Without getting into specifics, I decided that he had been through at least one traumatic childhood meeting with other full-blooded fiends, where he was ridiculed or even attacked for his hybrid nature. I also decided that both of his parents were deceased, since it made it easier to give him that "alienated" status. Step 3: What is the villain's scale? Decide on what level you want the villain's actions to have repercussions. Is this a villain that will only harass the heroes and their immediate friends? Is this a villain that threatens a nation? Is it a villain that threatens all of existence? The answer will depend on how often you want this villain's actions to interject into the campaign. If the entire campaign is an epic struggle against this villain, chances are he's going to need to have a scale greater than just one village. On the other hand, the greater the scale, the more likely powerful NPCs will take notice of the villain, and it becomes more difficult to justify them not swooping in to aid the heroes. This question will also help decide what Challenge Rating you should assign to the villain. The Fire King was intended as the primary villain for the entire campaign (which ended up lasting 38 sessions). I decided he worked on a scale that threatened the entire world, but not every other plane of existence.

Step 4: What is the villain's goal? Every villain needs a final goal, no matter how grand or insignificant. Keeping in mind the villain's scale, determine what he wants to see happen. It can be as simple as wanting to be very wealthy, wanting to kill a specific person, or wanting to seize as much power as possible. Many goals are completely unattainable, such as winning a specific person's admiration or being the most powerful wizard anywhere. The villain can still cause a lot of heartache for the heroes on the path towards that goal, though. Remember that the villain only needs to believe their goal is attainable; it is necessary that it actually be so. I determined that the Fire King ultimately wanted to live up to his father's expectations, as well as come to dominate the full-blooded fiends who mocked him. Therefore, his final goal was to seize control of his home plane, Hell. Step 5: What does the villain need in order to be able to achieve this goal? In order to devise an appropriate plan, it is crucial to understand what the villain thinks he needs in order to pull off the "end stage" of the plot. If the villain wants to destroy the multiverse, he needs to have some source of power that allows this. If the villain wants to drive the gnomes out of Sunlight Valley, she needs something that will make the gnomes want to leave. By visualizing what resources the villain needs in order to make the goal a reality, you firm up what steps the villain will need to take along the way. Note there will almost certainly be multiple paths to accomplish the goal, so your villain has chosen either a.) only one, or b.) to enact multiple simultaneous plans as a failsafe. Often, the means to accomplish the goal will be fairly esoteric; feel free to make up whatever powerful artifact, lost magic, or obscure ritual you need to give the villain the tools he needs. These are the things that the players will need to stop, or delay, or what have you, and from there, adventures will be easily derived. You can also break the goal into several "subgoals," each with its own requirements. The Fire King determined that he needed virtually unlimited magical power to accomplish his goal; at least as much power as that of the current rulers of Hell combined. To that end, he learned of a ritual to absorb all of the world's magical energy. The ritual had very stringent requirements: it could only be undertaken by a sorcerer who was

genetically unique in the world and a native to that plane, but a mortal could not survive the inherent energies involved. As a native outsider, however, the Fire King was uniquely suited to the task. I would later decide, due to the high level of coincidence that this created, that his father had spawned him specifically to serve as the focus for this ritual as part of an older, failed domination plot. Step 6: What obstacles must the villain overcome? The easy answer here is, "the heroes," but it isn't the right answer. The fact is, the heroes won't even know to oppose the villain until they encounter some other part of the plan. There needs to be something (anything) standing between the villain and his goals, or else they will be achieved with no chance for interference on the part of the heroes. Since your goal is to create opportunities for conflict, that won't fly. Once you establish the obstacle, you can then go back to Step 5 and determine what steps need to be taken to overcome that obstacle. Then back to Step 6 for what obstacles are in the way of those steps. And so on and so forth, until you have enough steps to flesh out a fully realized plan of action. The big stumbling block for the Fire King was the line in his ritual about being "unique." I decided being a half-fiend wasn't sufficient; he needed for his base creature type to be the only one in existence. Obviously, that was not the case currently. His solution, then, was somewhat grandiose but befitting the scale I had chosen for him: slay all creatures of the same base type, everywhere. It was at this point that I decided he would be half elf, half devil. The elves in my campaign world are somewhat unpleasant, and I liked the idea of one villain trying to wipe out a race that others would find inherently villainous in the first place. Plus, it set up another automatic obstacle: there were certainly plenty of high-level elven wizards walking around the world, meaning that the Fire King could not simply start slaughtering elves left and right without attracting their attention. Step 7: What is the villain's primary means of projecting influence? The final step before setting down the villain's ultimate plan is to decide what sort of actions he or she prefers to take to set things in motion. Is the villain a manipulator, turning others to his end without their knowledge? Is he a leader, convincing others to side with him

through strength of personality? Does she use her own personal power to accomplish her ends or does she rely on others to do her dirty work? Does he move openly or in secret? The Fire King was primarily a manipulator. While I decided he would be a very powerful sorcerer by this point, he was aware that if he moved openly with his plan for genocide, the heroes who would act against him would number in the dozens (or hundreds). He could not stand against that kind of power, so he worked to turn those who would interfere with his plan against one another, whittling down their power until it was safe to reveal himself. Step 8: What are the villain's resources? This step's importance cannot be underestimated. If the villain has infinite resources available, they are essentially omnipotent. Limiting the people, places, and things the villain can successfully use to enact his will leads directly to adventures, because the villain must then use these resources in such a way that allows him or her to acquire more. Don't forget to include abstract resources, such as "genius-level intelligence" or "knowledge of the future." I decided quickly that I would differentiate the Fire King from other stereotypical villains by sharply limiting his starting resources. This was not to be a villain with an entire organization fanatically backing him; this was a guy with the equivalent of the shirt on his back. I listed his resources as the following:

Genius-level intelligence and a fine strategic mind Superb leadership and deception skills The power of a 12th level Red Sorcerer (that is, mostly fire-oriented spells), including appropriate magic items. The ability to pass in elven society without being detected as anything other than an elf, even via magic. The inherent tension between the human and elven civilizations, a result of centuries of enslavement in the distant past. Also, the natural dissatisfaction of the elves with the state of the world. A handful of minor devils who had owed loyalty to his father and were willing to throw their lot in with the son as well. His sister, another half-devil elf, with the skills of a 9th level rogue and a knack for seduction.

As the campaign began, he also reestablished the loyalty of another powerful villain, with his own elaborate backstory, that had worked with his father. While he later came to manipulate large armies of elves, I didn't count these as true resources because the elves were not part of his plot; they were the victims of his plot. Step 9: If no heroes were to interfere, what would the villain's plan to achieve this goal be? Now that you know all of the goals that need to be accomplished and the primary means by which the villain intends to do exactly that, you can set down the villain's plan in loose terms. Try to not take into account the specific actions of the players; even if the villain hatches his plot with full knowledge of the heroes, he is unlikely to assume that they will defeat him. It is entirely likely, however, that he might take general steps to limit their interference. This step is likely to produce the most work, because in effect it is an outline of the way in which the villain will interact with the heroes and the campaign world. The villain's plan might have dozens of steps to it, and each may turn into one or more adventures for the players. If you find the plot has more steps than the number of times you would like this villain to show up, simply decide that the villain has already accomplished one or more steps before the heroes are even in play. Alternately, you could have some steps occur "off-camera," but you run the risk of the heroes deciding to take steps to stop them when you really haven't planned to run that particular adventure. The Fire King's plan began years before the heroes began adventuring. Finding his greatest asset to be his ability to work within the very society he was attempting to wipe out, the Fire King spent 20 years infiltrating the house of an elven noble, until such time as he quietly seized control of the elf's noble title. With this title, he was able to attend gatherings of the elven emperor's court, where he quickly made a name for himself with several outspoken opinions that he used his other resources to make happen exactly as he had predicted. The Fire King further endeared himself to the boy-emperor by introducing him to his half-fiend sister, who easily seduced the young elf. Soon, the emperor began listening to the Fire King's advice almost exclusively, and then the plan moved into high gear.

Whispering lies into the emperor's ears, the Fire King convinced him that the empire needed to recover past glories or die out. He began gathering and training a new elven army, which he then used to lash out at the neighboring humans, destroying border towns and killing hundreds. The emperor was easily impressed by these early victories, and ordered the invasion of a nearby human nation. The Fire King manipulated events so that only "soft" targets were attacked, lulling the elven court into believing that a full-scale war against humans could be won when he knew that the human nations were more powerful. He took control of the invading armies personally, urging elven commanders to commit horrible atrocities that would incense other nations. In this way, the Fire King hoped to provoke the humans into slaughtering the elves for him, thus achieving his goal. Meanwhile, he began personally seeking out and eliminating threats to the plan. While the drums of war began to beat between the humans and the elves, he struck at various power centers on either side that might be able to bring the rush to war to a halt. It was through these strikes that the heroes learned of him and his plans. Had nothing gone awry, the Fire King would have struck down or manipulated those with an interest in stopping the war, allowing the humans and elves to fight it out in a bloody war to the end. Eventually, the Fire King would have been able to simply mop up the surviving elves and enact the ritual that allowed him to seize all magical power in the world. With this power at his command, he could transform the planet into a training ground for an army of billions with which he could conquer Hell. Step 10: What are the villain's boundaries? There should be at least one thing the villain is not willing to do to achieve his goals. They may have a code of honor, or simply have a strong distaste for some kind of act. This detail will give your villain a realistic feel, as well as crossing off certain options that might be difficult for the heroes to eliminate through their actions. For example, the villain may be unwilling to traffic with demons, which helps you explain why he doesn't just summon a bunch of balors to do his dirty work. The Fire King was intensely loyal to his friends. Growing up as basically an outcast wherever he went, he was not about to throw away friendships over something as minor as world domination. Thus, he was

not ever going to betray anyone who was within his inner circle of confidence, and he did not consider any of them expendable. Step 11: What is the villain's personal threat level? In other words, is the villain a danger to the heroes if encountered personally? How much of a danger? Some villains might be just puppeteers, capable of influencing the world but unable to stand up in a fight; think of this as the "Lex Luthor" model. Others might be equal in power to the party, while still others may be so much more powerful than the party that a direct confrontation would be suicide. This last option is ideal if you want the players to become aware of the villain long before you expect them to defeat him. The Fire King was a serious physical threat by any standard. When first encountered, he wreaked such destruction on a village that further encounters with him prompted the heroes to simply run away. As the campaign progressed, he gained in power but at a slower rate than the heroes, so that by about the time the heroes were 12th level, he was a beatable (but still very difficult) challenge. Often, I put their encounters in the context not of direct combat, but of achieving goals. The heroes once managed to rescue an NPC that was about to rat out the Fire King's plans by being able to outrun him, for example. Step 12: How does the villain treat his minions? How do the minions feel about the villain? Not all villains inspire loyalty to the death. Giving the villain servants who are less than blindly obedient can increase the opportunity for roleplaying, as heroes try to convince henchmen to abandon their evil ways (or at least accept a healthy bribe). Whether or not the villain treats them well will influence this decision heavily. A villain who sends his servants on suicide missions time after time had better be powerful or charismatic enough to ensure their absolute obedience, or else he will find himself on the wrong end of a mutiny. I had already determine that the Fire King had a good relationship with his true allies, so this step was kind of redundant for him. Although I did clarify that he was willing (in fact, eager) to send as many of the elven soldiers serving in his army to their horrible deaths as he could.

Step 13: What are the villain's visual quirks? A good villain has a look that will be remembered long after the campaign is over. Once the players are aware of the villain, further direct encounters should be recognizable solely based on his look. Try finding things that distinguish him from others of his race and class. Also, methods of fighting and preferred tactics can add to the villain's style. Using a unique weapon or a favorite spell not only flesh out the character, it gives the players the opportunity to plan a countermeasure for their next meeting with the villain. The character thus becomes a part of their world in a fundamental way. The Fire King, as his name implies, always used fire-based evocations when attacking. Because he was immune to fire himself, he enjoyed casting fireball as a melee spell. He also wore black adamantine full plate armor while doing so, which terrified the more metagamingprone players. They spent a lot of energy figuring out how he was able to cast arcane spells in armor, which kept him alive in their thoughts even when he was not "on-screen". Step 13a: What would the villain's theme music sound like? OK, this one really isn't a necessary step, but it's one that helps me imagine the villain properly. Whether you intend to actually play it during the game or not, come up with a song or orchestral piece that evokes the emotional impact of the villain. I've found that playing the song for myself before I DM a game where the villain makes an appearance helps me roleplay him. If you've ever played Final Fantasy 8, you have heard the Fire King's theme music. I chose the theme from one of that game's early villains (Edea, who later becomes a friend) as the Fire King's theme because I felt it represented the right mixture of cunning manipulation and raw personal power. As the driving force behind a massive elven army that was marching to its untimely end, the piece's chanting helped convey to me a sense of impending doom. To this day, I think of the Fire King when I hear it, not Final Fantasy 8. Step 14: What is the villain's escape plan? This is semi-optional too, but if you intend to have the players encounter a villain repeatedly without a decisive victory, you need to think about it. I cannot emphasize, however, that such a plan needs to be keeping within the

rules of the game AND within the villain's reasonable expectations for the future, or else your player's will cry foul. Just having the villain run away and not letting the players follow feels cheap. On the other hand, if your villain is a powerful wizard, making sure he prepares at least one teleport for those sticky situations is not only helpful; anything less would be foolhardy. Even then, it is usually helpful to have such an emergency plan come with a price: the villain must abandon his goal or one of resources to save his own skin. Thus, even when he escapes, the heroes have earned a victory. Early in the game, the Fire King was so much more powerful than the heroes that he didn't run from them, they ran from him. As time went on, he learned to teleport away once he could no longer accomplish his goal. Step 15: What is the villain's name? Trickier said than done, coming up with a good name can make or break a villain. Anything that can be easily mocked will lessen his impact. Anything too complex will lower the chance that the players can remember it, and they can't fear what they can't remember. Ideally, a good name should inspire respect. Also, give some thought as to when you will reveal the villain's name; during their first meeting, or at some later point? I decided at this point that this character didn't need a name as much as he needed a title; a self-proclaimed station to attempt to live up to. With his inherent embarrassment over his elven blood, he would seek to escape from whatever name he had been given by his mortal mother and forge a new identity for himself. Hence, I named him the Fire King, which I thought had the right sense of dominance without actually being a real title. Of course, this was his name for himself, and he used a different title when among the elves. Early on, the heroes had no idea what his name was at all, and referred to him simply as the Red Wizard (they didn't know he was a sorcerer) for months. By this point, you should have a very good idea of who your villain is and what he needs to do in your game. With all of the plotting you have done so far, you should have created the rough framework from which you can build a series of adventures without having any foregone conclusions or railroading. By understanding the villain and his aims, you can have him or her organically alter their plans based on how the

heroes manage to thwart sections of it, all without pre-ordaining the outcome. As a way of working further on these issues, I'm going to go and create a completely new villain over on the message board, using this checklist as a guide. If you enjoyed this article, I encourage you to enter the Villain Design Contest I am going to hold on the message board; feel free to use either these guidelines or your own methods to come up with the most badass bad guy ever. Next time, I'll talk about texture for players (rather than DMs), also known as "How to Have Seven Classes and Have Each of Them Make Sense." Making the Tough Decisions Since this series was originally conceived as a series for DMs, I was thinking "Texture for Players" would be a one-article subject. But as I got into it, I started to see more and more ways that a little extra thought about your character can improve the game. So I'm going to start here with a few thoughts about making decisions. Really, that's 90% of what a player does in a roleplaying game; he or she makes decisions. But too often, players fall into the mistaken belief that certain decisions are not really theirs to make, or are foregone conclusions. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here are two ways in which you can always choose for your character to act differently, which will add an extra level of realism and fun to your game. Throw Caution to the Wind: One of the most common problems I see is when a player thinks of "roleplaying" as what you do during a diplomacy scene, completely separated from what you do during combat. Bzzz! Wrong answer. Everything you do, when talking or when swinging your sword, is roleplaying. A well-developed character will have a fighting style that extends beyond his selection of feats, and will have a consistent and believable response to any obstacle they encounter. If you turn off your character's personality just because the dice come out, you are missing out on a whole range of roleplaying possibilities that would add depth to your character.

A good place to start when thinking about your character's combat roleplaying style is to consider what your character thinks of as an "acceptable loss." Does your character balk at the thought of being wounded, running to the cleric whenever he's hit, or does he stand in melee long after he probably should have withdrawn? Is his focus on staying alive at all costs, or defeating the enemy no matter what? This could partly be determined by alignment, but a particularly stubborn character might fight to the bitter end despite being Neutral. Another choice concerns how willing he is to use renewable (or nonrenewable) resources, such as spells, potions, scrolls, wand charges, rage uses, etc. He may have a cavalier attitude, feeling the party will always be able to rest or restock, or he might never use any resource if he can win a fight without it. A barbarian, for example, might rage as soon as he sees a tough band of foes, or he might wait until he is wounded and could use the extra hit points. The choice reflects his personality: if he saves his rage, he might be a cautious pessimist who knows that things always get worse, but if he rages right away, he may be saying that he is confident that the heroes will win quickly. If he's a spellcaster, does he liberally burn a spell every round, even in an easy battle, or does he miserly save his spells for desperate situations? A sorcerer who revels in his magic and flaunts it at every opportunity probably falls into the former category, while a greedy wizard who covets all magical knowledge might be the latter. What these issues boil down to is how cautious the character is. Caution is at once very important and entirely overrated. It is important for players to be interested in the imaginary world and be invested in their characters' lives. But at the same time, too often players let caution overwhelm them, spending hours carefully proceeding in a calculated manner that may well belay their characters' stated personalities. The key, then, is to forget about succeeding. Your goal as a player in a roleplaying game is not to succeed; your goal is to have fun. An entertaining defeat is better than a boring victory, so let go of the need to always take the most effective route every time, and try taking the route your character would, even at great cost to that character. Obviously, that's hard to do. There's a natural desire to do well, and really, your character does want to succeed every time. The key is to

separate in your mind what your character thinks from what you think. That's how you add texture, by giving your character views on how to proceed in battle that are different than your views. Your character will take every advantage that he or she perceives, but you, as the player, have the benefit of determining what sort of advantages are within your character's perception. Some examples might help. I recently finished a year-long campaign playing a samurai. On the very first adventure, the child the samurai was supposed to guard was kidnapped, and as one might expect, Isawa Shojo was willing to sacrifice anything to get him back. Now, the DM had set up this long series of tunnels that were trapped repeatedly. I ran right into the first trap, because we didn't know any better. Once we knew the tunnel was trapped, the prevailing opinion was to slow down and have the party rogue search for traps. At this point, though, I made a decision that would more or less define my character's reaction to danger: I kept running down the hall, knowing that there were more traps. As a player, I knew this was probably a Bad Idea, but I decided that my honorable samurai felt that getting hit with the trap was acceptable when weighed against the need to hurry. He reasoned that even if the traps killed him, he would have sprung the traps and allowed his allies to get to the end safely. By having him react without caution, I was able to show that he was a man who was willing to sacrifice his life for his duty. As the campaign continued, Isawa often ran headfirst into danger, not because he was foolish, but because he was willing to die if it meant success for his team. A caveat, however: if you decide to play a character who takes risks or acts rashly, you should let yourself get talked out of it from time to time by the more level-headed characters. Isawa, for example, often suggested wildly inappropriate courses of action, which the far more cautious paladin Adhemar would convince me to not enact. Throwing caution to the wind is fun once in a while, but if done during every encounter, it gets annoying to the other players. Decide to React Differently: Have you ever had a party break down into fighting over the actions of one of their members? Has a character ever threatened repeatedly to leave the party? Often, intraparty fighting boils down to one player declaring, "That's how my

character would react." Heck, often you'll be the one saying it; it's a common reaction when alignments or codes of ethics clash. However, it also creates a logjam where neither side wants to back down. The key to resolving this problem is to decide to react differently. You are not your character, and your character is not a separate entity with reactions that you cannot control. I can't tell you how many times I've heard a player state that their character's actions are not under their control. Every decision your character makes is your decision first. It is possible and even preferable for you to craft a personality that is consistent but also accommodating of the characters the other players wish to play. When you think about a situation, ask yourself, "Is this the only way my character can react to this?" Chances are, the answer is, "No." Try to refine your character so that you can deal with situations that conflict with your alignment/ethos without resorting to ultimatums, threats, etc. This will often mean thinking in terms of compromise and concession to your fellow players, or at the very least an agreement to disagree. Here's another example: In a campaign I DM'd, the party's bard lifted a magical sword behind the back of the party's Lawful Good monk. The monk had basically decided that the bodies of several fallen knights would be buried without looting, and rather than argue, the bard just grabbed the sword. The bad news was, the sword was cursed; it was the blade that had belonged to a ghost that roamed the castle, and whenever the bard drew it, the ghost materialized and attacked him (and only him). Eventually, the bard 'fessed up that he had stolen the sword. The monk (and the monk's player) became furious, and declared that he could no longer travel with the bard. Either the bard had to leave, or he would. It became a huge argument between characters and players, and it was entirely unnecessary. The monk did not have to react with an ultimatum; the monk did not even have to be angry, no matter what his alignment was. The bard had already suffered the misfortune of having his Charisma drained by the ghost repeatedly; the monk could have chosen (for example) to lecture the bard on how his theft had brought him nothing but misery. He chose to create player conflict when it was just as easy to not.

Personally, I blame the paladin for this. The original paladin class created the precedent for one player thinking he has the right to dictate the morality of other players. That drives me nuts. Ever since, players who select a Lawful Good character automatically assume it is up to them to police the rest of the party, and too often, the rest of the party lets them. As far as I'm concerned, no player has the right to tell another player how to act. Lawful Good is not the "right" way to be, and it is unacceptable to push your character's ideals on other players whether they want them or not. Another useful application of this concept involves accepting story hooks your DM gives to you. Try to never just say, "My character isn't interested in that adventure." A lot of people mistake this for good roleplaying, because you are asserting your character's personality. Wrong. Good roleplaying should never bring the game to a screeching halt. One of your jobs as a player is to come up with a reason why your character would be interested in a plot. After all, your personality is entirely in your hands, not the DM's. Come up with a reason why the adventure (or the reward) might appeal to you, no matter how esoteric or roundabout the reasoning. If the paladin is to blame for the last problem, this one belongs to the druid. Druids have such a specific set of principles that players often mistake them for being a free pass to demand that each adventure revolve around their goals. Raiding a dungeon for gold doesn't appeal to the druid mindset, so what are you to do if you play one and are presented with that goal? You improvise. Maybe the gold will enable you to purchase magic items that will let you protect the wilderness. Maybe the ruins contain unnatural monsters that need to be killed regardless of the treasure. Maybe, just maybe, the other PCs are your friends and you are willing to help them just because. Too often that last part is forgotten; I don't think anyone reading this has never spent the night doing something they'd rather not because a friend asked. So if you're really paying attention, you may be thinking, "Hey, don't those two points contradict one another? First he says to separate what your character thinks from what you think, but then he says your character doesn't have its own reactions." Well, no. Separate your character's thoughts from your own thoughts, but don't forget who is in control of both personalities. The division between your personality and

that of your character only goes so far as it helps the game; once it begins becoming a disruption, a player has a responsibility to alter his or her character's decisions in the interest of the group. In the end, your relationships with the people you are sitting in someone's living room with are more important than your character's internal consistency. OK, so I originally said this article would be about backgrounds, but it ended up about something else. Next time, I promise. The New World, Part 1: Purpose and Style This is the start of a new project to create a campaign setting, from scratch, in full view of you, my loyal readers. The idea is not only to craft a complete setting that can be used by others but to also show the decisions and processes that go into a final product. This will essentially be a sort of "design diary" of my thoughts and choices, written in a sort of semi-stream-of-consciousness format; you will get to see me consider and discard each idea, and I will talk about my reasoning as we go. So, where to start when building a world? That's a big question, one that I can think be answered by looking at what my goals are. As I see it, there are two main reasons to create a new fantasy RPG world: either to use with your local gaming group, or to publish (however limited that publication ends up being). They are not mutually exclusive; publishing a product does not in any way keep you from running it for your group, for example. But they do tend to suggest different approaches to the problem. If you are focused primarily on running a good campaign with your actual players, you will be more concerned with the small scale than the large. It will be more important to have one city or nation well defined than it will be to have an overriding theme to the world. Local rumors, individual characters, and adventure hooks will take precedence over other considerations, You can also use a build-as-you-go method, developing a region only as your players move into it. Building a world for publication, on the other hand, is a whole different thing. You need to look at the large-scale issues early on,

because they will define the nature of the world and how it differs from other products. Cosmology, geography, and history are important facets of a published world, even if the players who actually adventure in that world are only going to be tangentially aware of them. You will need to also consider how much you can borrow from other worlds, as well as how close your world is to those already published by companies with a lot more resources than to which you have access. Creating a world defined by the struggle between good and evil dragons is fine for your local group, but a stranger may look at it and think, "Oh, it's a knock-off of Dragonlance." For my purposes, I'm going to assume this world will be for publication, even if that eventually only means a PDF you can download from my site. Basically, I'm going to start from the top and move down from there. This is how I generally prefer to work anyway, because I have always found that once you have made the big decisions, the small decisions trickle into place themselves. I imagine the information to be like a tree, where the twigs need to grow from the larger branches, the branches need to grow from the boughs, and the boughs need to grow from the trunk of the tree. If you have a solid concept at the outset, you can make sure that all your details flow organically from that original idea, rather than trying to shoehorn odd ideas in at a later point. The question is, what is that core concept? There are a couple old standbys, chief among them the idea of the "Overriding Story;" in other words, an ongoing conflict that sets the tone and defines the entire world. There is one Big Evil out there that is the source of all the problems. Personally, I don't care for this method for an RPG setting. Invariably, you end up with a situation where the players either achieve victory and thus alter the entire setting, or can never achieve victory and thus are superfluous. I believe that in order to be a compelling setting for an ongoing game, the setting has to support multiple villains with varied goals and unrelated plots. If you create a setting with one villain, you are really making a campaign, not a campaign setting. As a corollary, there aren't going to be any novels set in this world, so I do not need to create any iconic adventurers that might serve to accidentally eclipse the player characters-this would be the "Elminster Problem," which I hope to nip in the bud right now.

Having rejected the Overarching Story, I still need a general sort of plan to proceed. Looking at some of the other successful campaign settings in existence, it's easy to see that those without a strong plotline usually have a compellingly different style. They have significantly altered the core fantasy roleplaying experience in some manner to differentiate themselves from the same old, same old. Some have wildly different climates, levels of technology, magic systems, cosmologies, etc. Without such a stylistic difference, a setting is just different for the sake of being different. If you are working on the theory that a setting is going to be published, you have to accept that attempting to break into the market with "Established Setting X, Only Better" is a sucker's bet. Just adding a few idiosyncratic preferences will not move your world, because any DM could do the same thing. A medieval high-magic fantasy setting with active gods and all of the default races and classes is a sure path to obscurity, because it is the same thing as Forgotten Realms. Make your world a different choice; make sure that no one who flips through it will ever mistake it for another setting. So I'm looking for style now. And don't confuse "style" with "gimmick." Making your world "Greyhawk, but on a giant tree" is kind of silly. Better to consider what sort of world might really evolve on a giant tree. Sorry, got sidetracked. Style. Well, I know I don't want to increase the basic technology level; I'm a little tired of steampunk. Not only has Iron Kingdoms done it so well, but Wizard's new Eberron setting has a Renaissance-level of technology anyway. For that matter, so does Illumination, my existing home campaign setting. In fact, I may want to regress the technology a bit-go with Dark Ages instead of high medieval. Cut out the full plate armor and crossbows in favor of chain mail and bows. It's a thought, but not enough to hang the world on. I'll come back to it later. How about the physical nature of the world? This one is a bit of a trap, because it may lead to the gimmick I mentioned above. When I created my world of Illumination way back, it was a cube. I thought that was unbelievably clever when I was 15. Now, I look at it and wonder how I could confuse a cheap flashy quirk for real substance. So while it may end up that the physical world is not a standard planet, I think I'll let that flow from the core concept later, if necessary.

There's climate, but there have been multiple desert-worlds published already. I already have a world I created, called Steel Dreams, that takes place during an Ice Age, so I don't want to duplicate that work. I've seen at least one third party world (or was it just a website?) detailing a world that was one giant forest. I could do an allunderwater world; it would be unique, but I think ultimately too constraining. Both as a writer and as a DM; committing to 30+ games underwater for a full campaign does not seem like that much fun. Frankly, those are the only climate-based ideas I can come up with, so I guess I'll discard climate. How about a setting that breaks some of the underlying assumptions of the D&D system? This is another tricky idea because it potentially creates some problems with the players themselves. If you eliminate too many of the things players expect to see when they sit down to play the game, you make the learning curve for your setting much higher. Still, there are so many assumptions made in D&D that it is probably safe to trash a few of them. I'll make a list of, say, 10 assumptions that are usually true if you follow the core rules. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Humans dominate the world. Gods are real and active. Magic is real and can be used by anyone who learns it. Opposite alignments fight each other. Arcane and divine magic are inherently separate. The wilderness is separate enough from the cities to justify 3 wilderness-oriented classes. 7. There are hundreds of intelligent species of creatures, but 99% of them are considered "monsters". 8. Arcane magic is impersonal and requires no "deal" with a supernatural being. 9. Beings from other planes of existence try to influence the mortal world, usually on behalf of gods/alignments. 10. Magic items are assumed to be available, and game balance proceeds from that assumption. 11. Magic is consequence-free. OK, looks like I got 11; hey, it's an experimental process. Looking at these, I like some right away, while others are less certain. I think most players need humans as a baseline from which to proceed when

creating characters, even nonhuman ones. I'll keep humans as the dominant (or a dominant) race. The wilderness issue has always bugged me, but I'm not about to cut the barbarian, ranger, and druid from the lineup without compelling reason. Unless I'm creating "Cityworld," where the entire universe is one big urban sprawl, there's not much reason to drop those classes. Looking at my list, I notice that #5, #8, and #11 are really similar, or at least related. As I think about it, I realize that wizards making dark deals with a supernatural force is a deeply-ingrained part of real-world mythology, but exists nowhere in the D&D game. That might be in order to deflect claims of devil-worshipping by certain fundamentalist groups, but there's no reason to limit arcane deal-making to evil demons. Perhaps in this world, all magic must come from an external source, and it always comes with strings attached. I like that, it certainly is a departure from the "magic as technology" feel that is prevalent in certain worlds. I also like the idea of removing the Good vs. Evil aspect of the game, or at least blurring the lines. What if there was still a philosophical clash, but the sides were not so clear cut? What if instead of Good vs. Evil, or Law vs. Chaos, the world has Blue vs. Red? A conflict that is not inherently determined by morality, where either side could be right? It might not even be a violent conflict, just one where the two sides are mutually exclusive and players support either one or the other. This has my creative juices flowing. I have always like the idea of Zoroasterism, the ancient Persian religion that defined reality as a dualistic struggle between a god of Good and one of Evil. It is a type of religion that really doesn't exist anymore, because their version of Evil was an equal to Good; neither was the creator or chief of the other. Their eternal struggle gave rise to everything, according to Zoroaster. Now, I don't want to base things around Good vs. Evil, but the idea of a dualistic religion is appealing. Further, I don't want either side to be "right." I don't want one god to be the Good Guy and the other to be the Bad Guy; I want there to logically be people of both good and evil alignments following each of the two deities. So I am going to list ideas that are polar opposites without either one being morally superior. (Yes, I like to make lists; it helps me organize my thoughts.)

1. Male and Female 2. Light and Darkness 3. Fire and Ice 4. Life and Death 5. Left and Right 6. Land and Sea 7. Sword and Sorcery 8. Truth and Deception 9. Yin and Yang 10. Active and Passive 11. Mental and Physical 12. Offense and Defense 13. Sun and Moon I'm starting to get a good idea here: two gods, the Sun and the Moon. The Sun is aggressive, formal, and slightly lawful; the Moon is defensive, more chaotic, less straightforward. The Sun God is all about being direct and open, while the Moon God is about guile and trickery. The entire world knows and acknowledges these two gods; they are the only choices in town. They are also apparently uncaring; there is no divine interventions or steering the course of mortal events. As a result, the followers of each side are not in some great clash of ideologies; there is no holy war between the Sun and the Moon, they both just are. In fact, the dualistic nature could apply to the entire setting. Everything falls under the influence of the Sun or the Moon; for players, it is as much astrology as religion. Everyone born during the day is a Sun, everyone born at night is a Moon. The player gets to choose which, of course, but it is as defining a characteristic as race or class. Of course, neither one can be inherently more powerful than the other; we can't have, for example, Sun clerics channeling positive energy and Moon clerics channeling negative energy, because positive energy is a superior choice for a player character. Stereotypes would dictate that the "passive" Moon God be female and the aggressive Sun God be male. Which is as good a reason as any for that to NOT be the case; I think my Sun Goddess will be a strong valkyrie-type, while my Moon God will be a sneaky trickster. Think Athena vs. Hermes instead of Ares vs. Aphrodite.

That seems like a good start for a world. The dualistic aspect can be played up as much as I want, and the lower technology and potential nature of arcane magic are already giving it a very truemedieval feeling. In fact, the dualistic religion is only a short hop from monotheism, so this world is shaping up to hew closer to real-world history than most others. Whether that will stay true as I proceed remains to be seen. The New World, Part 2: Class Decisions I left off last time after coming up with some of the major themes I want to inject into the world. To recap, so far I have a world with a dualistic religion that influences all aspects of the world, based on a Sun Goddess and a Moon God. I have some ideas about arcane magic not being so different from divine magic as well. Looking at the last article again, I think clearly the "supernatural agent" I discussed as a source for arcane powers needs to stay tied in to the Sun/Moon theme. Perhaps all magic of any kind flows from the Sun or Moon, though that turns wizards and sorcerers into clerics, thematically. Unless, as I suggested, the Sun and Moon are indifferent to their worshippers; they simply exist as a source of power, to be tapped in whatever way the caster can. If every mortal is born under the sign of one of the two, the power of arcane magic may flow as much from the caster as the Sun or Moon. But then, that slips back into arcane magic being impersonal. OK, let's look at this from a game point of view. There are three types of casters: Intelligence-based preparatory, Wisdom-based preparatory, and Charisma-based spontaneous. Traditionally, Wisdombased preparatory is the only type of spellcasting that requires an ingame relationship with a god. One type allows armor to be worn, the other two do not. Now, I'm thinking of eliminating the concepts of arcane and divine magic; the obvious replacement would be Sun Magic and Moon Magic. That sounds nice, but it already doesn't fit exactly; divine magic allows armor, and there are two primary arcane caster methods (Intelligence and Charisma) but only one divine caster method (Wisdom). Plus, it severely hampers the creativity of players. Not everyone who plays a cleric is going to want to be Sun, for example, if each deity has the kind of connotations that I briefly touched on earlier.

So rather than having Sun Magic be a cipher for divine and Moon a cipher for arcane, what if both Sun and Moon Magic contained casters of all three kinds: Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma-based? That starts to sound better; that would give us six possible primary spellcaster types. It also begins to suggest some ideas for altering classes; removing wizard specialists in favor of Sun Wizards and Moon Wizards, for starters. But I am still hung up on how to differentiate, ingame, between Sun Clerics and Sun Wizards. If the power all flows from the same source, why can one class wear armor and one can't? Why can one class heal and the other can't? One solution would be to alter the classes so significantly that you have wizards who can heal and clerics who can cast fireball, but I don't think that's a good idea here. This is a setting, not a new RPG, and the more fundamentally I change the classes, the less usable material from other sources will be in a campaign run in this world. So I want to keep the classes similar to their existing nature, but just tweak the story behind their powers. I'm thinking now of the wizardry being more of a secret cult rather than a science. Wizardry involves the summoning and binding of spirits associated with the Sun and Moon, and then using words of power to extract magic. It's not as harsh as it first sounds, though, because the Sun and Moon ultimately created the spirits for that purpose. The wizards may worship their benefactor, but ultimately their spellcasting is essentially a craft, not a religious experience. In fact, what if the familiar was replaced with a Sun or Moon spirit made flesh, that was a literal sign of the wizard's bargain? I kind of like that, it has an old medieval feel to it. Since most citizens of the world worship the Sun or Moon, the idea of binding their servants is unpalatable, resulting in a need for secrecy about the wizards' means and identities. Wizardry might even be a capital offense in some nations, depending on local customs. That leaves us with divine magic as more or less unchanged from the standard model: servants of a god that draw magic from their worship. Sun Clerics and Moon Clerics can basically divide up all the existing domains, and the idea of Sun Druids and Moon Druids is a very cool one. Moon Druids might only take on nocturnal animal companions,

for example, and be more into shapeshifting. Heck, that might lead to a whole variant druid class for the Sun Druid. Now what about the sorcerer? I don't want to leave him as the wizard's poor cousin; I think he needs a major overhaul, conceptually. Forget dragon heritage, or the idea that the sorcerers just have a "knack" for arcane casting; I want their magic to have a unique power source. Let's look at this logically: wizards take their power from the gods, clerics ask for their power from the gods. What does that leave for the sorcerer? How about they are given their powers by the godswithout being asked first? A sorcerer is someone who has been "blessed" with magic that they cannot necessarily control. As the gods do not reveal their intention, the sorcerer is left to figure out what purpose he is expected to fulfill. They are always respected, even revered, by the populace as holy men, but they don't really know how to react. I like this idea because it is an about-face from the "sorcerers are hated and feared" stance of the standard rules. Ultimately, this take on the sorcerer may require a complete redesign of the class. I wouldn't mind giving them their own spell lists, with a mixture of arcane and divine spells, to emphasize the dissolution of the old division. What about the rest of the classes? Well, fighter and rogue are so generic I can't imagine altering them significantly. I imagine there will be barbarians and monks as well; I like that there may be Sun Monks and Moon Monks, too, so maybe I will look into adding a bit of customization to that class. Rangers are a bit tricky, but if there are Sun and Moon Druids, I can apply the same logic to rangers. Maybe I can use the Combat Style as a dividing point between the two. Then there is the paladin and the bard. As I have defined it, the paladin is soooo Sun and the bard is completely Moon. Maybe that's OK; make both classes only available to followers of the appropriate deity. Then toss the alignment restrictions on both; turn them each into ideals of their particular deity, a kind of personification of that god's priorities. If I do that, though, I'll tweak each class a bit. Probably give them a very specific place in the cultures of each nation.

Well, the class choices for players are shaping up pretty well, as is the definition of magic in this world: magic is the way you access and use the power of the Sun and Moon. There can be no magic without the Sun or the Moon, which makes the choice of which to serve very important. Players will not be able to multiclass between Sun and Moon classes, so if you are a Moon Wizard, and want to multiclass to cleric, you must be a Moon Cleric too. Of course, while the two camps are mutually exclusive, they are not violently opposed. An adventuring party might include a Moon Wizard, a Sun Cleric, a Sun Monk, a fighter without any strong affiliation, and a rogue/Moon Bard. Looking back at this, I realize I am making some strong changes to the class system that goes a bit beyond the level of mere campaign setting. But if I'm careful, I won't completely invalidate existing material while creating a class system where there is a lot of room for customization. Also, notice how I used the needs of the game experience to help me define the fictional reality of the world. This is an important concept that I can't stress enough when creating a world: don't fall into the trap of making a decision for your world that hampers actual gameplay. First and foremost, your world needs to be usable in a real game with real players, all of whom want different characters and have different ideas about what they like about D&D. Every time you change a rule to conform to your setting, you run the risk of alienating a player, so carefully consider each alteration. The New World, Part 3: Race Decisions Let's look at what races might inhabit this new world I am creating. As always, I'll start from the point of view of the player and look at the choices for player characters. I've already decided that humans aren't going anywhere, so I'll skip them for now and examine the remainder of the PC races. First up, elves. Immediately, I think of how sick I am of elves. Every world has their different elven subraces so that you can play exactly the type of elf you want. Even my own campaign world, Illumination, has five varieties. Considering that I am really happy with what I did with

elves in Illumination, I think I am just about "elved out". I'm crossing them off the list. No elves, and thus no half-elves. What about dwarves? Well, they are not quite as clich as elves, and there are fewer varieties in other worlds, leaving me more room to create a unique dwarf culture. On the other hand, they kind of seem out of place in a world dominated by what's going on in the skies. I'll set them aside for now. Halflings don't thrill me either. I mean, I like playing halflings, but they are so closely associated with Tolkien that I think they may have to be scratched too. I want to break the bonds of stereotyped fantasy, here. Let's put them aside for now too. Gnomes. Hmm. I do not think I have ever seen gnomes as a major player in a setting. In fact, in almost every setting they are an afterthought; an add-on, often for comic relief. They never have major nations, or political influence, or any kind of meaningful history. Yeah, I think gnomes are going to be important in this world. As the only completely non-Tolkien player race, emphasizing them would immediately bring a different tone to the setting. And since I axed elves, the role of the ancient and magically-talented race is open and available. I'll tweak out their talent with illusions and make them simply the world's most powerful wizards; I'll switch favored class to wizard (either Sun or Moon). And let's lose the technology aspect; this is a Dark Ages setting, the gnomes aren't crazy inventors, they are secretive masters of lost knowledge, keepers of secrets best not discovered. That is perfect, I love it, gnomes are in. Which means I think dwarves and halflings are out. Each one steps on the toes of the gnome in some way; halflings are the same size, dwarves have the whole underground thing. And without a compelling reason for keeping them, I'd rather ditch them and replace them with another race. Half-orcs? Well, I've never been fond of a half-breed as a main race, but I've already struck out four PC races. I think I'll keep half-orcs, unless I come up with another race that really fits the same role.

Now, what to replace them with? I've cut out a wizard-race, a fighter-race, and a rogue-race, and shifted the gnome up to be the new wizard race. That means I need, at the very least, a race that makes decent rogues, since the half-orcs are as good at being fighters as they are barbarians. I'll look through the existing Open Content monsters and see if I want to promote any of them to a main race. Goblins and hobgoblins are interesting choices, but I already use these races to major effect in my Illumination setting. Centaurs are interesting, but they aren't available as 1st level characters; I'll put them on my list to develop as an alternate choice. Gnolls have a lot of potential too. I'm tired of kobolds; they get too much play these days, in my opinion. The planetouched are interesting, not so much for what they are as for what they suggest: races of humans with some influence of the Sun or Moon on their bloodlines. The idea of having Sun-touched or Moon-touched characters mixed into human society is very appealing, and since I will have to create them myself, they can remain balanced with the core races. Of course, they will essentially be humanvariants, so I still need to provide more nonhuman races for players who like to play something a little more oddball. I briefly consider some kind of anthropomorphic animal race, but reject the idea. Not only is that a little sillier than I want this setting to be, but Arcana Unearthed had a few animal people if I'm not mistaken. At any rate, the last thing I want is to add yet another cat-person race to the world. The more I think about it, the more I want sentience to be limited to a small number of creatures, rather than there being hundreds of races. I want civilization to be the purview of humans and gnomes primarily, with maybe a few barbaric races that are not thought of as being intelligent. What I don't want is orcs and goblins and hobgoblins and bugbears and kobolds and whatever other races that are really all redundant. Once you get beyond civilization, you are mostly going to encounter nearly-mindless beasts, not little camps of creatures that are just as smart as humans but are arbitrarily less advanced. This may require me to lower the Int score of a lot of creatures in the monster books, but I like the flavor. It helps the medieval feel, I think, for monsters to be Monsters-creatures that are unknowable and frightening.

I have an idea for a winged race. The image of an angelic-looking species fits my Dark Ages theme, and I can just as easily picture them existing side-by-side with a human civilization. It might be tricky to make them balanced with a core race, because flight is a huge advantage. Still, at this point, image is more important than rules, so I'll put an as-yet-uncreated winged human race down. That brings us to 6 definite races: humans, gnomes, half-orcs, Moontouched, Suntouched, and winged people. Right now that feels a bit thin. I'm thinking right now that these races will live in a region where there are political nations that cross racial boundaries; in other words, nations will be based on political distinctions rather than race. This region will be the focus of the setting, I think, which gives me an idea for a seventh race: a race of seafaring humanoids, extremely exotic and unusual to the people of the core region, who travel from a far-off homeland to trade. My idea is they should be to the people of the main continent what the Chinese were to medieval Europeans; mysterious and very different in culture without being a military threat (due to their homeland being so far away). I could adapt an existing race to this function, but I think they will be more exotic if I create them for exactly this purpose. I'm picturing a tall thin humanoid with blue or green skin, possibly with aquatic traits. For now, we'll call them the Traders. Half-orcs are starting to feel wrong now. The existence of half-orcs implies the existence of orc tribes somewhere, and I think I am on the verge of shelving that particular concept. Instead, I think perhaps I'll have a race of half-orc-like humanoids that are basically second-class citizens under human rule, maybe even slaves in some nations. This is an idea I've used in Illumination, but there I use half-ogres; this race will not be a halfbreed of any sort. I could use the orcs to serve this purpose, but again, I think it helps the setting to divorce it from preconceived notions about certain races. I just considered adding dwarves back in under this very different kind of burden, until I remember that in Dark Sun, dwarves and half-dwarven Muls were regularly enslaved. Looks like I am creating another new race. Looking at my races, I think the Traders will be natural rogues, while the winged people (let's call them Flyers for now) will be fighters. I'll make the Suntouched's favored class paladin and the Moontouched's

favored class bard, to reinforce the special roles I've set up for those classes. That covers a good mix of PC options, including all the major favored classes represented in the core races. I still like the idea of gnolls, but not for a PC race now. I'm thinking that they may in fact become one of the threats in this world; an organized, brutal gnoll civilization outside the reach of "civilization" will make fodder for adventuring. Now that I've established what races will be dominant, the next step will be forming these races into nations and other organizations. Note that I've left the details of the race's stats for a later point; their sociological status, however, should emerge as the political landscape takes form. The Right Tool for the Right Job So this will be interesting. I've been mulling over my campaign world since I wrote the last two articles. It's kind of tricky, because the original point of these articles was to do the thinking as I was writing them, but I can't help it. I do my best thinking when I can't sleep, when I am waking up, in the shower, on the subway, anywhere I don't have anything more pressing to occupy my mind. Anyway, the point is, I've been thinking and coming up with what I really wanted from this world, and to tell the truth, some of the choices I made in the last two article are starting to bug me. I loved the Sun/Moon dualistic religion, and I really loved the Dark Ages setting, but I was starting to feel like some of my other ideas were not going to work. I had wanted to cut away the differences between arcane and divine magic, but didn't because I was worried about players balking at such a major change. I have also been thinking about eliminating magic items from the setting. The reasoning there is that magic items tend to increase the interest in loot and quick rewards, as well as serving the role of technology. If I am going to set a world in the Dark Ages, I want life to be more of a struggle. Plus, the economy of that period does not support the Magic Shop Model; people in that age acquired objects through barter, traded favors, and force. They did not go buy things at

a store, much less mystical objects. I want to capture that feeling of a non-commercial economy, and the wealth-by-level rules and the costs of magic items seemed to contradict that. Plus, there were clearly balance issues. I took the topic to the fine folks at the Nifty Message Board and asked what they thought would need to be done to balance the game if I stripped out all magic items. Their opinions confirmed my suspicions: spellcasters would be dominating if the fighters and rogues of the world were forced to live without items that magically increased their armor, saves, and ability scores. So I began thinking of all the ways I could either rebalance spellcasters, or boost fighters, and it started to feel like this project was turning into a new game system. That is not what I wanted. Further, I was starting to see issues with party-composition. In a Dark Ages setting, I imagined the prototypical group of heroes being a cadre of knights serving a single lord. Sort of like the Knights of the Round Table; sure, they were all knights, but each had their own schtick. But in D&D, characters tend to be wildly different, partly because of the system. A party of 6 fighters may have some variety, but not enough to support the interests of the players or the mechanics of the system. I imagined wizards and clerics being rare, but then considered that every adventuring party would probably have one of each, ruining the verisimilitude of the setting: "Sure, spellcasters are rare, except, uh, you know, in every group of adventurers." Considering there was the possibility they would end up being the most powerful classes if I couldn't figure out a way to balance them, there may even be an abundance of player wizards! In the end, I had a stroke of inspiration: what I needed was a lowmagic, no-magic-item system that inherently limited spellcasters while supporting fighting- and skill-based characters. What I needed already existed, I just hadn't thought of it because it waswell, kind of out there. D20 Modern. Think about it: d20 Modern already is balanced for low-magic, and the core rules are put together on the assumption of no magic items and limited equipment (meaning that there is not a steady progression of equipment upgrades as your character advances). Spellcasters are all advanced classes, meaning that they wouldn't even find their way into the game until 5th level or higher. It seemed like it

might be a good (if strange) fit, so I started to look a little closer at the ruleset. The profession rules might seem strange, until you think that they could be used to simulate social class and birthrights; you would be able to pick either a noble or common "profession" that would grant certain bonuses and wealth levels. It will also let me separate being a priest from being someone who can cast spells. Priest will be a profession, which won't necessarily mean you need to learn the spellcasting class that goes with it. And the Wealth system is perfect, because it allows players to acquire items with an abstract system. Sure, the mechanic was set up to represent modern checking accounts and credit systems, but it could just as easily represent influence and the ultimate ownership lords have over everything on their land. You won't buy equipment in this new setting, after all; you'll ask your lord to grant it to you. The Wealth system works great for that. So, I am pretty set that this will be a Dark Ages fantasy setting for the d20 Modern ruleset, so let's look back at some of the decisions I had made in the last two article. The class decisions will clearly need to be replaced with series of appropriate advanced classes, but that's OK. I like designing that sort of thing, and I think it's better to create new material than to put out a book that consists of rewrites of existing classes. Inevitably, some poor DM will be playing at a table with a player who likes the standard versions of the class he picked better and won't ever stop complaining about it. "What do you mean my wizard can't cast teleport? This game sucks!" All-new material is easier to swallow. Plus, I can leave the base classes of d20 Modern untouched, and just work on the advanced/prestige classes. Back to the point at hand, I think I will stick with my original idea to have all magic be of the same type. No division between arcane and divine in this world, magic will simply bemagic. That's easier with these rules because I get to craft a mage class from the ground up, including both cleric and wizard spells on the same list. And then, as mentioned, the decision whether you want to be a priest or not is one of roleplaying, not mechanics. The Sun and Moon will provide magic to anyone who masters the technique. While many priests will choose to learn magic as a way of honoring their gods, plenty won't. Likewise, not everyone who masters magic is going to be particularly interested in

praise and worship. I think I will keep the idea that the church frowns on non-worshipping magicians, though; the idea of secretive wizards hiding their powers appeals to me. But that will be a political aspect of the world, primarily. The bard and paladin concept can be kept, but transformed into a pair of advance classes that really do what I want them to do. Like priest, druid will be a profession, not a class, while ranger will probably be a Dex-based advance class. Now on to the races. I have to say, after writing that article, I was not so sure of my choices. I had images of a party with one of each of the races I had proposed, and realized that it would completely squash my image of a realistic Dark Age adventure. The fact is, I think this world needs to be either all-human, or close to it. I still have a soft spot for the gnomes, though, and they are visually close enough to humans that I think they can stay-although they will need new d20 Modern stats. The Suntouched and Moontouched can stay, because they are essentially humans born under extraordinary auspices. But the flying race and the generic half-orc replacement race are now officially gone. For that matter, while I still like the feel of the Traders, I am hereby relegating them to NPC-only status. The fact is, someone playing a character of a mysterious race instantly makes that race less mysterious. Oddly, the name "the Traders" is starting to grow on me; it implies mystery even about who they are and where they come from, as if all humans know about them is that they trade. Perhaps neither race can understand the others' language, so they are forced to simply barter with simple signs. I like that a lot, actually. (Note to self: make sure the mage class does not have a Comprehend Languages spell!) Well, there you have it: I've switched systems! Some of you may be thinking, "But I don't run d20 Modern! These articles just became useless." Not so. First, I don't plan on dwelling on the specifics of my mechanical changes in this column. I need to save some surprises for the finished product, after all. But more importantly, these articles will continue to talk about the procedures I take when making decisions, which should be adaptable to anyone creating any world, for any system.

I hope you'll join me next time, when I'll probably reverse everything I just wrote. The New World, Part 5a: Politics Time to start thinking about the historical and political distinctions of this new world. Since I have already decided on a Dark Ages style, I'll start by trying to nail down exactly what that means. What I'm thinking about is setting the world in a Carolingian time period, drawing more from the time of Charlemagne than later feudalistic states like England and France. I did a little reading on Charlemagne, and I learned that he pretty much held his empire together with constant warfare. And I'm not talking about the threat of warfare; I mean the component barbarian groups were almost always in some level of revolt, requiring him to bring his armies in every few years to quell dissension. I'm not sure I quite want that level of social upheaval in this world; it needs to be able to support independent adventuring, after all. That means that the civilization needs to be stable enough for the player characters to travel from town to town without getting pressed into someone's army or caught in the middle of an armed revolt. Looking a little deeper into the history book, I see that Charlemagne's empire was split up by his son and left to his three grandsons. I'm starting to get an idea: a generation or two ago, there was a Charlemagne-esque leader who conquered much of the civilized world. During that time, there were indeed constant revolts, but eventually there was a form of stability forced on the world. His reign and the reign of his son cemented a sort of peace on the region, but a few years before the campaign setting's "starting point", the son died, splitting up his empire on his deathbed into three kingdoms. Those three kingdoms are fairly new and tensions are high; each of the three sons would like nothing more than to control the land of his two siblings. The nations themselves are varied based on what group were inhabiting the land before the empire was formed, and as a result has little loyalty to their king beyond what force of arms provides him. Nobles maintain their own armies, and scheme to seize lands away from the Three Kings.

However, due to the years under the rule of the empire, these lands share many common cultural traits. While they may squabble with each other, they are likely to come together when threatened by outside forces, like barbarian raiders or gnolls. It cuts both ways, though, as nobles from one kingdom may feel comfortable allying with those from another in plots against their king. Each kingdom is human, with a large gnomish population. Gnomes have basically been absorbed into human civilization from ancient times; the two races are basically inseparable politically. Gnomes brought knowledge of magic to humans, while humans brought security and strength to the gnomes. Today, gnomes are almost like the priest class of Carolingian times; at once separate from human hereditary politics and yet undeniably involved with it. Gnomes are neither noble nor common, they are justgnomes. Obviously, social class is going to be a huge factor in this setting, which I think is cool. There is really no middle class for this time period; you are either a noble or a commoner, and commoners do not have much in the way of rights. Being a noble will be pretty easy and available to PCs, though. Still, this more authentic (and earlier) ideal will change the game in a lot of interesting ways. It will be more likely to that player characters will need a patron to support their efforts, whether that be a lord, a king, the church, or another organization. Then of course I need to add in the Sun and Moon churches into the political landscape. Because they are equal and opposite, neither one should have the kind of dominant political power of the Catholic church in Carolingian times, but both are still major forces to be reckoned with. Each of the Three Kings has a bishop from each church as advisor, for example. The churches are more or less unified across the kingdoms as well, so the church can subtly keep the nations at peace through their influence. The churches will provide lots of the resources for certain characters, particularly those with clerical powers. OK, so let's look at the major political units we have: three remnant kingdoms of the empire, the barely-controlled nobles that make up the baronies and counties of those kingdoms, a few odd states that managed to break away from the empire, two equal and opposed churches with various schemes to gain power for themselves, several

human barbarian nations that were never conquered by the empire, a gnoll nation that would love to overrun them all, and a collection of unknown Trader ships that have no political affiliation. Sounds like we're starting to get a decent social system with lots of factions to struggle against one another. But heck, let's add some more. The setting could definitely use some Viking influence; sure, the time frame isn't exactly right, but it is a fantasy. But we'll paint these Vikings not as heroic warriors, but as the Europeans saw them: murdering thieves who snuck into towns at night and pillaged. How about a group of islands in the north that was thus isolated from (and never conquered by) the empire? This makes them a nice unique culture with some evil tendencies and no central power structure or defined base of operations-perfect for adventurers to fight! I guess this sort of falls under the category of "barbarians," but I like the specific flavor thinking of them as Vikings affords me. By the way, in case you haven't noticed, one of my favorite techniques is taking real-world material and twisting it before inserting it into my world. The fact is, aspects of the setting that are reminiscent of history ring more truly than anything made up out of whole cloth. After a few thousand years of human history, it's hard for an imaginary world to compete with the level of complexity of the real thing-so why not steal a little of that density of information? In particular, I find that looking to the real world helps me avoid accidentally writing the world's history to be too logical and organized. What I mean is, from a dispassionate point of view, splitting your nation up among your sons is a recipe for political disaster, but it happened. Studying the real world helps put me into the shoes of the men and women who shape my imaginary world and think about how they won't always (or even usually) make the best decisions. On to our three kingdoms. If you've ever read King Lear, you know that Lear divided his kingdom up based on how much his daughters kissed his ass. (Maybe not the summary my high school English teacher would have gone with, but still.) I'm picturing a similar scene in this world; the old king, son of a much stronger man who conquered the whole continent, is dying. He calls his three sons-actually, make it two sons and a daughter-together to his bedroom, where he has the finest

chart of the land that gnomes can draw. He asks them each to choose one of the empire's cities, which will be the new capital of their kindom. The oldest son picks first; he's a greedy man, and so he picks a city near the mineral-rich mountains. He dreams of mining gold for his coffers and iron for his armies. The middle child, the daughter, chooses the largest port city, where The Traders bring their goods to sell. She schemes to gain political power over the others eventually, and thinks the large number of subjects and resources will aid her in that goal. The youngest child picks a small farming town, one so small that it's barely on the map. The other two children laugh at him, and the father scowls and questions such an odd choice. The youngest son replies that the town is at the heart of the richest farmland in the world, and will thereby ensure those he rules will have the best harvests. The dying king grants their requests, and the three kingdoms are formed. Now, this story has a few purposes in my plan for the setting. It helps me define the natures of the three kingdoms, and easily telegraphs those to players reading about the setting for the first time. The youngest king is clearly the Lawful Good king, concerned with his subjects and interested in peace. The oldest king is the most belligerent, but rules rocky and difficult countryside. The daughter is most prone to intrigue; spies and assassins and manipulation are her tools. It also starts to suggest appropriate geography, as well as being an important part of the history. Other ideas will flow from this core story of the founding of the kingdoms; for example, I can now see that the youngest king's castle is still unfinished, as it is being built in a rural area. That's kind of an intriguing image, and very appropriate, as Dark Ages castles took years (if not decades) to finish. OK, enough for now; there will be more decisions to be made on the subject of politics next installment. The New World, Part 5b: Politics (Continued) (My discussion on politics continued...) Then I need what I could call the "fourth kingdom": a nation that broke away during the current monarchs' father's rule. The second emperor was not as strong as his father (the one who built the empire),

so an outlying region was able to fight back and gain independence. I think this nation should be on the other side of a difficult geographic region, such as mountains; this would explain how a small region defended against the large empire's army. This nation was heavily influenced by the empire, and thus has many related cultural traits, but since leaving they have reinstated some of the older traditions of their barbarian roots. Rather than a king, they have a Council of Elders for the entire nation, though in practice they are little more than shared dictators. Still, they are relatively benevolent. Now, the nations of the two oldest children of the old emperor (let's call them Kingdoms A and B) would both love to conquer the fourth kingdom (Kingdom D). However, doing so would expend enough resources to possibly weaken them against attack from the other. Further, Kingdom D just recently established a very public alliance with the youngest son's lands (Kingdom C), and it is unlikely that A or B alone could defeat both lands if it came to all-out war. Of course, if A and B had an alliance and fought together, they would win, but neither ruler trusts the other sibling enough. Thus, there is a delicate balance of power between the 4 kingdoms, where any shift could lead to war. How about the barbarians? In the interest of symmetry, let's have there be three main barbarian nations that were never conquered by the empire. Though unlike the civilized nations, they are based strictly on ethnic ties rather than geography or law. These three nations would fight each other frequently before the empire came, but now they have something of a truce. They often have to deal with groups of knights riding out from the kingdoms, looking for resources or conquest, and they have to deal with gnoll attacks from the far north as well. Every year they lose more people than are born. Their druid religion is hated by the formal church, who encourages its priests to convert druids to the formal worship of the Sun and Moon. Basically, their way of life is dying and they are just too stubborn to go quietly. It's important when making a campaign world to be certain that any potential character concept can actually be played successfully. For example, I just established that barbarians are essentially in a state of aggression with the civilized kingdoms. But what if the DM is running a campaign revolving around a particular lord's estate and one player wants to play a barbarian? I don't want to make it difficult for that

character to move around the nation, and I don't want him to be attacked on sight or anything. Thus I need to put an "out" into the setting; a way in which barbarians can travel through civilized nations without always being hassled. My thoughts are stuck on this for a while, but I think I've come up with something. The civilization that exists has only been around for three generations; not that long in the grand scheme of things. Many of the people living in the kingdoms might still maintain certain "barbaric" styles, making it less certain as to who might be an outsider. Plus, the barbarians are not going to be fantasy stereotypes with bearskin cloaks and oiled muscles. A barbarian is going to be more like the Celts or the Goths, someone who follows a different culture but is just as advanced (or perhaps a touch less so, since they will not have cities and such). So even being able to pick out a barbarian from a commoner will be difficult. In fact, let's ditch the word "barbarian". With no D&D class of the same name to support, I can call those nations whatever I want. I'll think on that and get back to it later. I'll put in one last piece of the puzzle: When the dying emperor split up the kingdom, he couldn't let the seat of the two churches, Sun and Moon, lie in any of the three newly created nations. To do so would give that heir a distinct advantage in terms of public support. So he created two independent states, each one just the size of a city, each one controlled by one church. They are more or less defenseless-just a small corps of dedicated defenders-but each kingdom knows that any hostility towards either church-state would result in a large-scale revolt of their populace. Of course, the churches don't reciprocate, and constantly poke their noses into the politics of the other kingdoms. I think I have a firm grasp on the way these nations relate to one another. Next, maybe I'll start considering geography.

The New World, Part 6: Geography

Time to finally talk a little about what the world actually looks like. Keep in mind that much of what I'm about to say is a gross oversimplification of real earth science, but it's good enough for our purposes. To start, I know a few things about how I want games set in this world to feel. I want there to be a lot of overland travel, rather than travel by boat, because I want the feel that places you need to sail to are distant and exotic. I also want the possibility of major land wars, complete with cavalry and such. All of the major factions need to be able to try to invade one another without crossing any major body of water. Plus, many of the world's nations were once part of a continuous empire, one that was held together for at least two generations. These all lead to the same conclusion: one large continent upon which all of the nations exist. Rather than being centered around a sea or ocean, the civilizations will cover one large land mass, and contact with other land masses will be scarce. In fact, I'm not even going to draw other continents on my map; let them be the purview of individual DMs, should they ever wish to expand the world. So I draw the following basic shape:

You'll notice I am already using a basic guideline for drawing realistic land masses: peninsulas usually lead to islands. In fact, that is really just a corollary of a bigger guideline, which I'll call "Elevation determines everything." What does that mean? It means that every aspect of natural geography can be derived from the height above or below sea level. Actually, elevation itself is partly determined by the movement and position of tectonic plates, so it should be called "Tectonic plates determine everything," but frankly, the players will never encounter tectonic plates. Thus I just cheat that part and start with elevation. So, how do I determine geography using elevation? First, try to think of the planet not as land and water, but as simply land, like a big bumpy patch of ground. If you then pour water onto that bumpy ground, parts of it will immediately be submerged, while other parts will stay dry; the water will flow down to seek the lowest regions. Those regions will be the seas and oceans, and the paths the water takes to

get from the highland to the lowland are the rivers. If you think about it carefully, you'll realize that there are places where the water flows in and covers much of the region but not the highest points, creating islands. Mountains usually form when two plates (the giant masses that form the planet's crust) crash against one another. They thus tend to form in lines, representing the borders between two plates. This is important, because mountains in vaguely linear shapes are a lot more believable when you look at them; think of the Appalachians, or the Andes for examples. Another important point is that these linear forms will tend to be parallel to coastlines. After all, a coastline is nothing more than the point where the elevation becomes high enough to break the water's surface. Mountains can't be parallel to ALL coastlines, though, so what happens when they meet the ocean? Usually peninsulas, and thereafter, islands. The mountains become lower and lower until water starts to flood between each peak. By this point, they are hardly recognizable as "mountains" per se, but they are still elevated land, at least compared to the ocean floor. But remember, I'm partly working backwards. I know, for example, that Kingdom D needs to be separated by mountains, and I know that Kingdom A needs a lot of hills and mountains for mining. I know that I want nearby islands with shallow water for my faux-Vikings. So I'll draw in to my maps "peak lines," representing the paths of the highest elevations. (They are the lines in magenta.) After seeing them, I see that they converge in the northeast, so logic says there should be some more islands over there. I add them, and my map now looks like this:

This is working out well: I have a huge flat open area to serve as the seat of civilization. I'm starting to picture South America, with a ring of mountains and an extensive river system, only with a more temperate climate. Let's add rivers next, then, because they make the best borders and are virtually a prerequisite for city placement. Rivers, as mentioned, flow from the highest peak to the sea, always seeking the lowest land along the way. Smaller rivers will flow into larger rivers; rivers only "split" if you are traveling upstream. I draw rivers in to the map, concentrating on the major ones; I assume there are more tiny streams and rivers than I would even be able to map. I added a few lakes, too, because lakes are great settings that are underused in fantasy gaming, in my opinion. Lakes are important in tales of Arthur (Lady of the Lake, anyone?) and kind of have a European connotation that I like. There aren't many lakes in other settings that I've seen, either, so sure, what the hell; this world has a lot of lakes.

Time to sketch in our kingdoms. First, I'll shade in the area that was controlled by the old empire at the height of its power (yellow shading). This area was held with naked force, though, and the edges of it represent how far the armies ever conquered. During the reign of the first emperor's son, the empire contracted to those regions they could safely and securely defend (orange shading). This is a crucial point, because it explains how there can be people of "barbarian" nature within the kingdoms. So the history map looks like this:

Now we divide up the old empire into kingdoms. Reviewing our story from Part 5, we know that the eldest son chose a mountainous and mineral-rich area; that looks like the southeast part of the empire. The middle child, the daughter, went with the trading ports; clearly, those would be on the main rivers, giving her the western coastline. The area in the northeast of the empire has lots of rivers and lakes, so that would be prefect for the youngest son's rich farmlands. Kingdom D, the breakaway, goes far into the southeast, on that peninsula, separated from A & B by the mountains. Interestingly, this means that it shares no borders with its ally, Kingdom C, which strikes me as great fodder for adventuring as couriers from C to D must pass through enemy territory to deliver messages. I like it a lot. How about the nations that were never part of the empire? As they are organized by blood ties rather than geography, we'll draw them with very irregular borders. One will hug the coastline (F), while another only inhabits river valleys (G). One (E) will butt right up against Kingdom C;

that's the most peace-loving kingdom, after all, and we can't have them all peaches and cream. Let them fend off the barbarians at the big lake. And the faux-Vikings end up on the islands (H). Oh, and the gnolls (J) need a good chunk of territory at the very northernmost reaches; I like the idea of them being arctic and barbaric. Finally, I'll draw in the church-states (K). Their location is now obvious: the point where all three major Kingdoms touch, at the fork in the river. I'll block in roughly the capital cities for each kingdom; the "free" tribes don't really have central seats of authority.

For now, that's good enough. I still need to define the exact terrain types for each region (forests, mountains, hills, plains) but that can come later, when I am ready to make a final map. This is enough for me to continue to flesh out the setting without tying me down to tightly to a specific geography.

The New World, Part 7: Names and Cultures of the Civilized Nations Im going to kill two birds with one stone here, discussing both the cultures of the world as well as its naming conventions. This is partly because they are tightly intertwined in my mind, and partly because I havent done one of these articles in a few weeks and need to do a double-sized one to get myself back on track. First, culture. As seems to be the case in a lot of these articles, I should define what Im talking about. Im talking about a mixture of ethnicity (as opposed to the way race is used in D&D) and defining lifestyle. And that lifestyle includes art, clothing, weapons and other equipment, traditions, and personal religious beliefs. To relate it to the real world, think of everything that separates the Aztecs from the British, both of which had monarchies; thats what I mean by culture. Ive already gotten a jumpstart on this by deciding on a Dark Ages time period and level of technology. But I am definitely not going to limit myself to the kinds of cultures that existed in Europe at the time of the Dark Ages. My idea is to fuse that time with cultures from other times and locations to create civilizations that feel realistic but are unique to the world. Some will be close knock-offs of real world European groups, but I hope to give them some twists too. But what does this have to do with naming things? Everything, really. One of the biggest flaws I see in fantasy settings and even fantasy novels is to create names for people, places, and things in a vacuum, without regard for the cultures that coined those names. If the nation is called Eagleclaw, the capital should not be called Xithcal, and the river upon whose shore it sits should not be named the Chijcothuru River. Names of related places should relate linguistically, generally speaking. If they dont, it should be on purpose, as a way of indicating that the region was named by another civilization or species. This is why the United States has such a hodge-podge of names, given as they were by settlers from many nations or swiped from what the indigenous people used. Thus, you can have Manhattan island (an Iroquois name) in the Hudson River (a Dutch name), which is part of New York City (an English name), and looks out onto the Atlantic Ocean (a Latin name).

But if you look at other nations, all of their names come from their own language and culture. For our world, we want a little of each. The Three Kingdoms were organized and conquered by one group, but consist of the ancestral lands of several different nations. Thus, there will be clumps of related names, interspersed with places more recently named in the tongue of the empire. The wild lands, though, will be named solely by the tribes that live there, to further separate them. When choosing names, remember that people play roleplaying games by speaking out loud. Names that look good on paper are no good if the players or DM cannot pronounce them. Xzymrotchit might strike you as a cool name for the elven capital, but I can guarantee you in an actual session, the people sitting around the table will call it, that big elf city. And that takes them out of the mood for that fraction of a second every time they say it. And heres a pet peeve: I dont use apostrophes in the middle of words. It drives me nuts, and yet its all over fantasy literature and gems as the poor mans method to make something sound exotic. Well, forget it, no apostrophes.

The first group we need to consider are the conquerors themselves. These are the people who, under the leadership of the first emperor, went out and seized control of other lands and nations. Since we know that we want the worlds general civilization to reflect the Caroli ngian period of the Dark Ages, its clear that these people need to personify that ideal. Before the formation of the empire, they already had a culture very much like what we see now: nobles, castles, chainmail, etc. In fact, when choosing names for the people and places they founded, Ive decided Im going to use plain English (or a very slight corruption thereof) to emphasize their central place in the culture. When they name a town, it will be something like Blackriver rather than an invented word. People will have real-life (if medieval) names: Charles, Leon, William, etc. However, rather than having surnames, people will have titles, such as the Great or the Hammer or even the Bald.

The People: Like the Franks that gave rise to Charlemagne, I need a name for the culture that birthed the empire. It needs to be simple and to the point, as well as able to be easily turned into adjective form easily. In this case, it doesnt need to have a meaning, a s long as it sounds vaguely Anglo-Saxon. I have two ideas: The Carns (adj: Carnish) or the Thrans (adj: Thrannish). Upon further reflection, Carn can be too easily misused as carnal (as in carnal knowledge) or cornish (as in Cornish game hens). I think Ill go withthe Thrans. This would make the now-defunct empire the Thrannish Empire. The Conquering Emperor: This name has to be important, as his tales will be the backdrop for the entire civilization. Obviously, Charles is out, as is William; too close to the real thing. I also want to make sure that the name, while having a real European origin, is not one that modern readers will associate as wimpy. I was strongly considering Edward the Conqueror, but decided it would probably not be taken seriously. Instead, I think Im going with Garrick the Forger, or simply King Garrick. It kind of feels medieval, and as an extra bonus, Garrick means powerful with a spear. Which reminds me; when looking for names for peoples, dont underestimate the value of a boo k of baby names. I used this baby name website when looking for names, for example. The Second Emperor: Now this guy needs a wimpy name. After all, we already know that he let Kingdom D break away and was foolish enough to divide his kingdom up on his deathbed rather than maintain the empire. I come up with Royce the Quiet, which also implies the kind of guy who never stood up to his more powerful father. The Rulers of the Three Kingdoms: How about Royces progeny? (Wow, its so refreshing to finally be able to refer to someone by name.) First, we have the young and idealistic son, the noble and fair king who thinks of his people first. How about Alden the Dark? So named because he has dark hair, but it would also serve as an ironic comment, as fantasy books tend to make the word dark synonymous with evil (and Alden is anything but). The eldest son, on the other hand, is greedy and self-involved. He demands a more sinister name; I first want to go back to Edward, but now that is too close to Alden phonetically. I decide on the spot that

this guy has to not be the warrior-type, despite having the blood of the mighty Garrick in his veins. So what would cause the eldest son of the emperor to never master the art of war? A permanent injury of some kind; he was born with a clubfoot. While not really that crippling, it is noticeable enough to give the character a distinct visual appearance. I think Bryce the Game will work as a name.Game is an obscure synonym for lame, as in having a crippled leg, and Bryce echoes his fathers name, Royce. And, like Aldens title, game has a second meaning that speaks to his personality. Lets hold off on the daughter for now; I have an idea percolating that will come up later in the article. The Three Kingdoms: We have to name the nations themselves, of course. Knowing that Aldens kingdom is based around its rich and fertile farmland, Ive decided to name it Vertland (vert is a synonym for green, particularly a forest green). Bryces nation is rocky and rich in metals, but also militarily aggressive (possibly to compensate for Bryces shortcomings). I decide to name it after a weapon of some kind, but I dont want to make it one of the weapons still part of the core game. I settle on Fauchard, a type of hooked spear. While I havent named its ruler yet, the daughters kingdom needs a name as well. It is a land of major rivers, with a long shoreline; it also relies on commerce with the enigmatic Traders from across the sea. I think a water-based name might be appropriate. In fact, Aquitaine was the name of a portion of Charlemagnes empire; I come this close to directly ripping that off, but in the end decide on Redwater. As soon as I come up with the name, I decide that there should be some kind of red clay deposits along regions of the shoreline to explain the name. Conveniently, I now know one of the nations primary export goods: pottery. Playing on these names and identities, its easy to come up with names for the three seats of government. Redwaters capital, the largest center of trade from oversea, will be named Riversend (literally at the end of the river). Fauchards heavily defended mountain castle will be called Greycliff. Finally, Vertlands capital is still under construction if you remember, so well call i t Latecastle.

But wait! Weve only discussed the names and culture of the dominant civilization. Even within the Three Kingdoms, though, there are still connections to the nations that existed before the Thranish conquest. These groups need some for form cultural separate from that of the Thrans, so Ill brainstorm some ideas. First, I think a pseudo-Celtic tribe would be interesting. Theyll be a group that is definitely only half-assimilated into the Thrans culture of nobles and kings while still having a Dark Ages feel. But they wont be an exact replica of real Celtic culture; in fact, I think they will have dark skin and be almost a Celtic-African fusion culture. One of my other personal issues is that I think its important for anyone who picks up t he book to be able to relate to the people in the world, and thus there should be a variety of skin tones in the characters depicted. I need a name for these people, naturally, and I want to immediately convey their celtic-ness. That means ys, gs, double ns, and hard ks, among other sounds. And I want to drop the reliance on English words with identifiable meanings. How about Kylnnet(pronounced KILN-et)? It sounds Celtic but is utterly made up. They will have lived in the western part of the empire, in forests and plains that are now northern Redwater and western Vertland. (Man, I cant tell you how much more convenient it is to finally have names!) Now, heres why I held off on naming the queen of Redwater: in my mind, Ive determined that I needed a way to explain why certain groups have not revolted against the Thrannish monarchs. As I picture them, the Kylnnet would be the most likely to lead such a revolt, so why hasnt it happened? Easy: Royce the Quiet married a Kylnnic princess as his second wife, thus binding them into the empire. In fact, all the Kylnnet who were related to this princess instantly became landed nobles within the empire, and have subsequently passed those holdings to their children. Redwaters queen, therefore, is half -Thrannish, halfKylnnic, and I want her to have a Kylnnic name (that is, a Celtic name) to reflect this. Persuing a list of Celtic and Gaelic names, I pick Katrionna; I dont think I need to give her an official title.

As a side note, I think I just determined that Royce had at least three successive wives, one for each of his offspring. That works fine, as it makes it more likely that they have no familial emotional ties to one another. Now, I have a large mountainous region, mostly within the kingdom of Fauchards borders, that would have been inhabited by noncentralized tribes of miners and such. Since this world has no dwarves to steal this niche, we have a place for a culture of hardy mountain men. Im thinking heavily Germanic for the names; Wilhelm, Reichard, that kind of thing. Ill call them the Stahlmen; they didnt have enough of a unified culture to survive the assimilation by the Thrans, but they still have traditions and language connections that survive. Lets end there temporarily; I still have the culture of the gnomes and the various barbaric nations to deal with, as well as any additional cultural groups subsumed by the Thrans. But this article is long enough, and Id like the decisions I made here to simmer in the back of my mind for a bit before going forward. The New World, Part 8: Names and Cultures of the Gnomes Lets talk about gnomes. Ive already determined that gnomes are going to be the only major nonhuman race, which means they are going to be a focal point of the setting. The gnomes therefore need to have a compelling culture that can withstand close examination. It also needs to jettison most of the sillier aspects that have hung around the gnomes necks like a big honking albatross. No tinkers, no pranksters, no long unpronounceable names or fast speech. These gnomes are going to be seriousmaybe even a bit sinister? I want to focus on their role as the loremasters of the Thrannish Empire and the Three Kingdoms. They are the masters of magic and the keeper of secrets. With no elves, they can easily settle into the role of the most magically-skilled race. But lets not underestimate the difference in connotation between knowledge and secret. I see the gnomes as being hoarders of lore, only

parceling out to the humans what is necessary to accomplish their aims. History: How did the gnomes come to be intertwined with the Thrans (and thus, humans in general)? Good question. I can picture a time, long before Garrick lead the Thrans to conquest, when the gnomes lived on their own. Interested even then in the knowledge of cultures long dead, they lived in and around the ruins of older ancient culturesthe equivalent of the Greeks and Egyptians, in our world. Of course, their delving into the lore of these dead people yielded magical secrets and great knowledge, but they were not able to defend themselves against barbarians who sought to loot the ruins for treasures of the ancients. The gnomes chose to make an alliance with one of these tribes, the Thrans, and share a small portion of their knowledge in exchange for protection. Even the least of their secrets allowed the Thrans to overwhelm their foes, and the alliance was solidified through a period of years. The gnomes, however, chose to hold back the bulk of their magical secrets, instituting the rituals of the Church of the Sun and the Church of the Moon as a means of keeping their magical lore out of the hands of all but those humans most sympathetic to the gnomes. As time passed, even the knowledge of this aspect of the Churches purposes faded from the gnomes memory, as it was never recorded in the histories. Thus, contemporary gnomes are not aware that the Churches began their existence as a means of keeping control of the Thrans. An aside: this does not mean that the Sun and the Moon are not really gods. Its just that in this world, they are largely impersonal and uninvolved gods. They dont care about the rituals that pervade the Churches, and one does not need to follow the Churches dogma in order to draw on their magic. Of course, the Churches try to suppress the knowledge of this fact, which is why magic-wielders outside the religious hierarchy are persecuted. In a way, this ties back to the Churches origin as a means of control.

Getting back to the gnomes, though, we can see that as the combined Thran-gnome culture grew, it became more powerful both militarily and culturally. While the gnomes kept separate from the Thran rulers, they were in many ways the power behind the throne (such as it was). The unifying teachings of the Churches also helped form the Thrans into a nation rather than a loose collection of ethnically-similar tribes. At some point, two gnomish high priests of the Sun and Moon crowned the first true Thrannish king, and several generations later, this crown fell to Garrick, who turned his eyes to the rest of the continent. Culture: The gnomes are not inherently magical beings, but the study of magic is integral to their identity. Almost all gnomes have some minor magical tricks they can perform, though only those who study at the Churches (or strike out to do research on their own) truly master the art. Visually, I picture the gnomes as having a slightly ancient style, as they admire the dead cultures of the past. Loose robes and such, circlets, lots of jewelry, and sandals. At least, thats how the priests and scholars in the cities will dress; adventurer gnomes are more likely to adopt more protective clothing like the humans around them. I also see them as being more colorful, literally, than the humans. Their clothes will have reds, golds, and purples, while the humans wear brown, brown, and more brown. The gnomes will have their own language, which will be a complete secret. They are utterly forbidden by centuries of tradition from teaching their tongue to humans. Were the knowledge slip into the human population, they would be able to read the texts of ancient gnomes and learn some not-so-pleasant truths about the early gnome-human relationship. Politics: The gnomes exist oddly separate from the human concepts of nobles and commoners, despite living in the same nations. Humans treat them as essentially their own class, with many of the privileges of nobility though none of the wealth or clout. Within their own groups, however, status is directly related to age and magical knowledge. Gnomish laborers and craftsmen,

while respected, do not have the same opportunities allowed to a scholar. Gnomes can theoretically serve any role in the unified civilization, but they rarely take on the most menial or unskilled tasks. Even a simple artisan is likely to have great freedom to move and determine his own fate compared to a human commoner skilled in the same craft. Gnomes also have greater opportunity for social advancement; a gnome silversmith who decides to study the lore of the Moon could easily join the Church and rise through the ranks, while a human would need to be raised from early childhood before being initiated into the priesthood. The division of the Thrannish Empire into three competing kingdoms is of some concern to the gnomish leaders. During the reigns of Garrick and Royce, gnomes spread beyond Thran, serving Churches or studying magic in all corners of the empire. The death of Royce, however suddenly broke the empire into three groups, but the gnomes had no real loyalty to this new order. To deny the sovereignty of the local ruler, however, was a sure path to suspicion and ultimately destruction. Thus, the gnomes have taken to paying homage to the regional authority while often maintaining true loyalty to the race of gnomes as a whole (and to a lesser degree, to the two Churches and the high priests thereof). A gnome from Redwater and a gnome from Fachard are likely to see each other as brothers and allies, even though the nations they live in have strained relations. The biggest seats of gnomish power are the twin cities that hold the respective temples of the Sun and the Moon. I just realized I need names for these cities, and now is as good a time as any. Im not going to get too fancy here: the Sun Citadel and theMoon Tower. This will actually be the name of the city as well as the actual temple; one might be a merchant in Moontower without having any relation to the Church of the Moon per se.

Ok, cool, I have a pretty good idea for now of how they fit in. Ill move on to other topics for now. The New World, Part 9: Names and Cultures of the Barbarians Time to try and get this Names and Cultures thing finished up. First and foremost of the nations yet to be defined is Kingdom D. Lets review and expand upon what Ive already decided about this place. Kingdom D is geographically isolated by mountains from the rest of the continent. This is going to be crucial, I think, in that whatever culture exists is going to have been completely different from the pseudo-European Thrans. Further, I think this means that they must have been slightly less advanced in the ways of war, because they were conquered by Garrick the Forger fairly easilyespecially when you consider that I just established that Garricks troops had to get through impassable mountains to attack them. Thus, in the present day, we know that while Kingdom Ds culture will be very different from the Thrans, they will have adopted their military techniques and equipment over the last 50 years. Kingdom D revolted from Royces rule at some point. Further, I think it was more a war of intimidation than full-scale assaults. I dont want there to have been a 20 year war of independence here. I picture that the Kingdom Ders managed to pull off a few very devastating strikes against their neighbors on the other side of the mountains, the Stahlmen. Now that I think of it, this dovetails nicely with Fauchards hostility towards Kingdom D; these battles might well have been slaughters, and the Stahlmen and Thrans of Fauchard still remember these assaults. Heres what I am thinking of, then, as a cultural basis for Kingdom D: India. Im picturing Kingdom D as a fusion between ancient India and the Dark Ages of Europe. Their knights wear chain mail armor with colored silk; their government is a mix of feudalism and a strict caste system. Basically, they were different enough to never truly fit in to Garricks empire, but absorbed

enough that they are now technologically equal with the other three kingdoms. I think theres a lot of potential there for a unique visual look, which is something I find really important. I want someone to be able to understand the differences between the different nations by looking at a warrior from each. Now, I need a name for them. Ive grown so attached to Kingdom D as a name, though, that I want to keep the name starting with D. So, and Indian-sounding word that begins with d. How about Dharta? Its pure invention on my part, but the dh spelling feels right. My new nation of Dharta doesnt have a king or queen, though. That is part of what is going to separate them from the other nations, and part of why they revolted in the first place. Dharta will be essentially an oligarchy, ruled by the highest caste. It wont be entirely benevolent, but because they are Dhartan in nature and not foreign conquerors they have the complete support of their peoplefor now. But if Fauchard and its allies were ever permanently dealt with, this upper caste might face the fact that those below them are now far better armed and armored than ever before in their lands history.

Lets move on to the proto-Viking culture in the northwest islands. These are going to be an analog of the Vikings, but not the Vikings of stories today. These are thieves, bandits, raiders, and generally unpleasant people, not noble warriors. They are going to have more in common with rogues than barbarians. Their boating skills will be superb, naturally, allowing them to scour most of Redwater with raiding parties. They have no horsemanship skills, but this serves them well as they live in lands ill-suited for cavalry tactics. This, more than anything, is why Redwater knights have so much trouble ending their threat. They can kill a raiding party, but they cant wipe out the source.

This will also not be a unified nation in any sense of the word. Each set of villages will be ruled by a warlord with only casual relations to the others. This frustrates Queen Katirionnas efforts to sue for peace; she appeases one warlord with chests of gold, only to find the armies of three others knocking on her kingdoms doors. In a sense, though, this is their weakness as well. If the various warlords ever banded together, they could sack Riversend itself. They still need a name though; Vikingish, but not too obvious. How about Ordnings? Hmmm, kind of awkward to say. Wait, what about Westlings? Its kind of a play on the Vikings being called Norsemen, or Northmen. These raiders come from the westernmost islands and peninsulas on the continent, and they dont have enough of a unified nation to have picked a name for themselves, so they are called by the name other tribes have always referred to them.

That takes care of the H Barbarians (harkening back to ou r map), lets look at the F Barbarians. These are the most northern human settlements, brushing right up against the arctic gnolls. When thinking of northern, arctic cultures, fantasy worlds seem to always go in the same direction: big burly blonde guys with horned helmets. Blech. Clich, and plus I already have a culture leeching off the Vikings. I want a new arctic culture that Ive never seen used. How about Eskimos? Not literally; no igloos, for example. But an arctic oriental culture, kind of a mix of Inuit and the northern reaches of Asia. This immediately sounds interesting to me, because Ive been wrestling internally with whether to include a typically Asian nation. My fear was that once you have samurai and such, you lose the Dark Ages feel. But this would be something new and interesting; villages of hearty spear fishermen living on the northeastern bay. Theyre simply too far north to have been conquered by the Thrans, but they might have goods worth trading, resulting in the occasional traveler. In fact, I think they might be the only barbarian collective on good terms with

the civilized nations. Theyve got too much to deal with from the gnolls to fight with the other humans. Lets give these people a name. Pulling from the Eskimo/Inuit thing, Im actually going to give them TWO names: one they call themselves, and one others call them. For their common name, Ill go with something descriptive: Icemen. Simple, direct, to-thepoint, and probably loathed by the people themselves. They refer to themselves, however, as theAyoo TunI. Which explains why the southerners cant be bothered to remember it.

E Barbarians next. These people are right up against Vertland, but are not part of it. They were, however, under Garricks direct military rule for at least a decade, before Royce retreated from their lands. I imagine they would have to be pretty hostile to avoid being assimilated. So it occurs to me that it would be interesting to give them a guiding cultural belief that actually prevented them from being absorbed permanently. In fact, I am going to give them a very strict druidic religion that will have a very different take on the Sun and the Moon than the Churches doctrines. I dont know what it is yet, but I think it will include the belief that the gnomes are demons. Little, stubby demons out to corrupt the souls of tall, strong men. Bam! Instant ideological conflict with both the nations, the Churches, and the gnomes themselves. I like it. As far as culture, I think Ive defined them enough wit h the religion, so well keep them basic Dark Age villages, with no fancy real-world analog. But I suspect they will have shades of latterday concepts like witch trials and inquisitors in their tiny villages. And since it looks like their lands cover the best trading routes between the Icemen and Vertland, theres plenty of opportunity to run afoul of them during a campaign. Finally, their name. Ive been looking for something a bit on the poetic side; I think they refer to themselves as the Children of the Twelve. Frankly, I have no idea who or what the Twelve

are at this point, though I imagine it ties into their radical religion. Well worry about that later, for now, I like the sound of it.

Were on the home stretch. G Barbarians next. OK, lets look at where I drew them: in unconnected river valleys in the north. While all the barbarian lands are not unified, what if these valleys were actually completely isolated from one another? Just getting there is a huge ordeal. And what would be the logical consequence of isolation? A backwards undeveloped society. These guys are still in the Iron Age up there, with no idea about whats going on in the rest of the world. Theyve got their own little set of mini -kingdoms, each different from the next but all way behind the rest of the continent. I like the idea, not only because its fun to have people who are awed by the sights of the cities, but because its good setting-building to include an area where a DM can create his own independent kingdom. Sometimes plots just demand you to be able to kill a king without disrupting the status quo of the setting. So collectively, well call these the Valley Kingdoms. Well name a few if it comes up as important.

Hey, I think I finally finished naming everything major. Only took me like 3 months. Next time, I finally move on to something that will have some seriously helpful tips for any campaign setting: Organizations and their roles. The Cast

Adi Piperberg: Adi is a human warrior, born and raised in the Lytton Monarchy. He has olive skin and long brown hair; his frame is athletic but slight. He is somewhat reserved and suspicious of nobles, but ultimately an agreeable and honorable man. Adi has been trained in the bastard sword, and carries sword and shield with him at all times. Alestan Thistledown: Rogue, cleric, mapmaker, and explorer extraordinaire, Alestan is a typical halfing, at least appearancewise. He stands a little over 3 feet tall, and weighs no more than 30 lbs soaking wet. He wears his brown hair long, although it is usually tied, either in a ponytail, or a topknot. His eyes are the color of hazel and are always looking around, as if trying to soak in every kind of stimulus. His face is childlike, and casual glances often mistake him for a human child. Larannen Dox: What does a spoiled rich boy from Cerrus need? If you ask him, he'll say "a life of his own". Desperate to get away from his rich father's influences, this 5'11", dark haired, blue eyed pretty-boy tries to make a name for himself in the sprawling metropolis of Skullsport. Dressed in simple, but well tailored clothes, and carrying an ornately carved walking stick, young Dox follows his dream of financial independence.

Napoleon, a.k.a. "Nappy": Our umberbarbarian, known as Napoleon, was born into a nomadic tribe on the Bandit Stretch. He stands 7 feet tall, weighs 350 pounds, and has dark braided hair past his shoulders and dark eyes. A veteran of many fierce battles from his homeland, his imposing frame is marked by numerous scars on his thick tan skin. A man of few words, his innate wild heart is tempered by his sense of loyalty and curiosity. With the strength of several men, "Nappy" is a formidable foe. Sparrow: It always seems that Sparrow is surrounded by shadows, his face and cold eyes hidden beneath a dark green hood. Wearing a camouflaged cloak, he practically fades and melts into the deep forest. The Ranger communicates with his owl rather well, and it is evident that they have been working together for quite some time. The only visible weapon is the mighty composite longbow, which is painted in green tones to blend into the woods as well. Quivers on each side and one on the back, filled with black feathered arrows, indicates that the bow gets heavy use.

The Graveyard of the Fallen

Lily Snowflower: This young snow elf woman gives the phrase "drop-dead gorgeous" a whole new meaning. Her slender, feminine figure stands five feet tall, and her long, cobalt blue hair frames her perfect face. Her milky white skin, large blue eyes and eyelashes are perfection. Body art paints her neck with a waterfall of foreign images. Although very faint, it almost seems she has silver dragon scales along her back. Her beautifully tailored navy blue coat is embroidered with exotic flowers and dragons, indicating the poles of her being, while her mighty composite longbow--"the fast & the furious"--makes this cute little ice princess a truly dangerous beauty.

Noteworthy People of Adros:

Cap'n Dani Captain of the pirate village, Cap'n Dani kidnapped an attractive young man from a merchant ship. Owner of Snipsie, a deadly blue crab. The Dragongard The militia of Rincali. They are recognizable by their black-and-purple tabards and the dragon-skull insignia on their shields. Adi Piperberg is wanted in Skullsport for escaping their custody. Echian Dox Founder of the Dox family business and longdead grandfather of Larannen. He built a magically-warded tower on the south shore of Solith. "Grandfather" Mysterious leader of Brownrock's underworld; he ordered the death of Jilla's uncle. Grey Ninja A female human of unknown allegiance-suspected of being an ally of Tenkazu--who eavesdropped on the adventurers outside the University.

The Honor Battalion An adventuring party of extremely powerful champions of all that is good and true. They defeated all opponents in Cestia's Battlefest. The "Hunters" An organization or guild of unknown purpose or membership, but believed to be connected to Tenkazu and his master. "Hunters" may not be the full title of their group. Jilla Wornstone Hill dwarf hunter and tracker, Jilla Wornstone joined the party after they helped her avenge the murder of her uncle in the town of Brownrock. Not very good at speaking to people, she is an accomplished wilderness warrior. Jilla has long brown hair that she wears in a single long braid; she wields a dwarven waraxe in her right hand and a handaxe in her left. "Likeen" An as-yet-unknown contact for an organization known as "The Ravens." He is a regular at the Crow's Nest Pub. Oko A powerful warrior of the rhinoceros-like race of the Koth. Oko does not speak Cerran, but joined the team during Battlefest once Zharad agreed to translate. Professor Quarad Professor of archeology at Skullsport University, Quarad is Larannen's former teacher. The head of the univesity's history department, Quarad controls the funding for expeditions to lost ruins. He has been willing to conceal the team's whereabouts in the past, possibly out of friendship with Larannen. He is a middle-aged human man with grey hair and beard. Professor Aratogan Burrowwind The gnomish professor of local history, Burrowwind is interested in uncovering the secrets of Rincali's past. His particular focus is on the Troll Incursions and their ramifications, and is interested in records dating from that time period. He is a short figure with wrinkled acorn-colored skin and pure white hair. Professor Irina Lightwake Former professor of geography at Skullsport University, Irina is a powerful cleric

(and retired adventurer) who slew Lily Snowflower in an altercation at her home. She seems to be somehow connected to Tenkazu, but did not hire him directly. She appears to be in her late 30's, with dark hair and olive skin. Professor Siriniak Professor of prehistoric studies at Skullsport University. He was born in Peleneas, the swampy nation to the north of Rincali, but moved south to study (and subsequently teach) at the school. The youngest of the four instructors, Siriniak is tall for a human and has shoulder-length black hair. The Red Lizardman Originally a member of the rival adventuring party that attacked in the Lost City of the Snake-Men. Though last seen diving after the Mysterious Staff, he broke into Professor Quarad's office to steal a map to Felliak. It is believed he is in search of a magical dwarven hammer of some kind. Tenkazu Samurai warrior of unknown allegiance. His master ordered him to lead the rival adventuring party to retrieve the Mysterious Staff. To this end, he attacked the adventurers in the Lost City of the Snake-Men. According to Zharad, Tenkazu did not meet up with the red lizardman afterwards, however. A strong Tochian warrior in his early 20's, Tenkazu wears midnight blue great armor and wears his dark hair in a traditional topknot. Weak-Willed Pete An easily-swayed pirate that agreed to aid the party escape the pirate village. Zharad A swashbuckler and self-proclaimed greatest warrior alive, Zharad aided in the daring raid on Cap'n Dani's pirate lair. He later was employed by Tenkazu in an effort to retrieve the Mysterious Staff, during which he secretly aided Alestan. After escaping from the Lost City of the Snake-Men, he and a female halfling were dismissed from Tenkazu's service. He later helped the team by enlisting the aid of the Koth, Oko, to join their team for Battlefest.

Important Objects: Lily's Ashes A blue crystal vial containing the cremated ashes of Lily Snowflower; worn around the neck of Adi Piperberg. The Dwarven Statue A 200 pound sculpture of a dwarven warrior retrieved from a ruin near Brownrock, it contained a wealth of information about dwarven culture in central Ghar, circa 1600 Y.F. The Mysterious Staff Found in the most heavily-protected room in the Lost City of the Snake-Men, this black wooden staff is 7 feet long and smooth to the touch. It is topped with a round crystalline stone that displays a constant swirl of green and grey. The staff itself radiates strong Prismatic Magic, though the magic of the crystal is both more powerful and less readily recognized. It was last seen falling into the inky darkness beneath the Lost City of the Snake-Men. Treasure Map Swiped from Cap'n Dani's cabin, this map shows an island somewhere off the coast of Ghar and the path to claim its hidden booty.

Larannen tried his newest spell as a mass of blue web plastered the enemies to the wall, ruining the concentration of the enemy druid, who lost his summoning spell. The caster turned to using a flame blade spell to cut through the web, and the creatures escaped - just in time for Nappy to charge into the room. The barbarian cut down the two remaining archers in one blow, then followed up against one of the druid's protectors while Adi and Jilla combined to finish the other. The druid itself went to sleep, courtesy of Larannen's spells. Lily's attempt to interrogate the druid met with nothing but zealotry, so Nappy broke the creature's back, killing it. Moving up to the second floor of what appeared to be a temple of some kind, the group found a heavy stone door with warning runes carved in some ancient dialect of Draconic. No one in the party wanted to be the one to open the door, despite Alestan's assurances that there were no traps present. In the end, Nappy's impatience won out, and the umber agreed to open the door. (The remainder of the party hid on the first floor.) Nappy had no troubles opening the door and was not harmed; he discovered an elaborately appointed room bearing three

massive statues, identical to the three that had been found earlier. In the center of the statues sat an altar holding a black wooden staff. The staff was perfectly smooth and topped with a round stone, the surface of which seemed made of moving grey and green swirls. Overcome with the beauty (and potential resale value) of the staff, Lily rushed into the room, the warnings of her compatriots unheeded. As she moved towards the statues, a field of electricity sprang into being between the figures, and a powerful bolt of lightning struck at the elf. She was able to avoid the brunt of the blast, though it knocked her back several feet, but her pet dog, Luigi, was not so lucky. Electrocuted by the current, the canine was little more than a smoking blackened corpse. While Lily grieved for her pet, Alestan went about attempting to disarm the trap. However, Lily and Larannen managed to persuade the halfling to ignore his more cautious instincts and try to simply dodge the lightning. The halfling made a spectacular rolling tumble through the circle, nimbly avoiding the lightning altogether, until he arrived at the center. Another trap disarmed and the altar's locking mechanism disabled, and the halfling was able to drag the staff back to his allies. Happy with their powerful new toy, the team proceeded back to the center of the lost city to begin exploring another path. When they reached the center hub, however, a lone human man of Tochian birth was waiting for them, dressed in strange blue armor. He introduced himself as Tenkazu, and informed the party that his master had sent him to retrieve the staff that Lily was now carrying. While he answered some of their questions, he was either unwilling or unable to explain why his master desired the staff. He made it clear to Larannen that if they were unwilling to hand it over, he was prepared to fight for it. This was all Lily needed to hear, and she cast her newest spell, vanishing from visible sight. The disappearance of his prize prompted Tenkazu to action. The samurai sprung towards Alestan, drawing his sword and striking in one clear, powerful stroke. The halfling was cut deep and immediately fell, and Tenkazu followed through to strike Nappy as well. Adi and Nappy attacked the warrior, only to hear the sounds of an invisible spellcaster nearby who healed Tenkazu as he became injured. Invisible, Lily dashed away from the battle along the suspended walkway, but the red-scaled lizardman they had heard about earlier made an appearance,

blocking the other end of the bridge. A second invisible spellcaster summoned a violet wolf right before Larannen, which Jilla moved to engage. Meanwhile, the dying Alestan found himself healed by yet another invisible source. He recognized the voice of the bard Zhirad, one-time ally, advising him to stay down until the fighting stopped. Alestan obliged for the time being, surreptitiously drinking a healing potion to regain more of his strength. The battle raged on around him. Tenkazu proved to be a deadly warrior as he struck Nappy and Adi again and again, only to take attack after attack from them as he continued to get healed. The summoner of the wolf soon revealed herself-a halfling Violet Sorceress appeared on one of the hub's moving platforms. She conjured several orbs of acid, splashing Adi with the caustic liquid. Larannen could not strike Tenkazu with his debilitating energy ray, though the red lizardfolk was an easier target. Jilla finished off the wolf and ran first to Alestan's side and then, seeing him healthy, into the fray. Desperate to keep her new staff, the invisible Lily tried several times to activate it, not knowing even what its intended purpose was, to no avail. Her attempt at using a command word alerted the lizardman to her presence, however, and he soon closed with her. With the invisible cleric appearing and paralyzing Adi and Nappy battered and bloody, Lily resorted to the most desperate of gambles. Dropping her invisibility spell, she held the staff over the dark abyss and ordered Tenkazu and his minions to stop fighting or she would drop the staff. The samurai never got the opportunity to respond, however, because the halfling sorcerer hurled two more orbs of acid at the snow elf, burning her flesh and knocking her unconscious. She dropped to the deck of the walkway, but the staff fell silently down into the darkness. The red lizardman immediately leapt from the bridge after the staff, and the rest of Tenkazu's team began retreating. The sorceress and the invisible Zhirad activated one of the hub's three lifts, despite Larannen's attempt to put the wee mage to sleep. Adi and Nappy attacked Tenkazu and the cleric furiously, with aid from a revitalized Alestan. The samurai was wounded several times, even falling momentarily unconscious, before the cleric healed him once again. His objective out of hand, the

warrior as moved towards one of the lifts and activated it, leaving the cleric to his fate. That fate was not long in coming, as Nappy liquefied him shortly thereafter. A few attempts to shoot Tenkazu as he rode the elevator platform to the top of the dome were futile, and most of the party, angry at the loss of the staff, took to healing themselves. Alestan, however, leapt onto the third and final lift and followed up to the surface. As he neared the others, he shot wildly at the Violet Sorceress, only to get another blast of acid for his troubles. Zhirad looked down and implored the halfling to abandon the chase, convinced that his former ally would perish at Tenkazu's hands if he continued. Alestan, meanwhile, tried to convince the bard to switch sides, but the bard was being paid too well (and was too scared of Tenkazu) to agree. He warned the Alestan that a sixth member of their team was waiting at the dome's apex, which forced the halfling to admit he could not defeat them at this time. The halfling sent the moving platform back down, and Zhirad, Tenkazu, and the halfling woman escaped. Returning to the hub, Alestan and the rest of the adventurers were too wounded and drained to give immediate chase, and made preparations to rest. But the team seemed determined to pursue eventually; whether they seek the staff or simply revenge remains to be seen. Episode 8: The Day the Music Died Licking their wounds from the beating Tenkazu and his allies dished out, the adventurers rested for a week in the Lost City of the SnakeMen, giving Professor Siriniak plenty of time to study the ruins' archeological significance. When it eventually became time to leave, the group waited until nighttime before sending Alestan and an invisible Lily up to the top of the dome to scout. They saw that while the guard torches had been extinguished, a small legion of lizardfolk were ready to attack at the base of each of the three sets of stairs down to the ground. Each group also was led by an ogre-sized lizardfolk with particularly thick scales; clearly, they had been alerted to the party's presence. Lily snuck into the village to set a distraction fire while Alestan returned to gather his friends. They decided to simply try to barrel past

the guarding lizardfolk, with Larannen trying to put as many to sleep with his Blue Magic as he possibly could. As Nappy and Jilla led the charge, however, they were met with a deadly surprise as the giant lizardman opened his mouth and released a deadly cloud of acidic gas! While hearty, both the dwarf and the umber were badly wounded and were forced to fight a defensive battle until Adi and Alestan could get into the fight. Lily hurried back to help in with a song and a few wellplaced arrows, but in the end, Nappy and Adi cut the half-dragon lizardman down. The team fled into the swamp before the other two groups of guards could be summoned, and soon lost their pursuers. Over the next week, they made their way through the dense bogs of Peleneas back to Rincalin territory, and eventually back to Skullsport. Upon greeting and paying them, Professor Quarad was shocked to learn that another band of adventurers had assaulted them, seemingly under the direction of someone who had given them a copy of the map Quarad had provided. After some discussion, the list of possible leaks was short indeed, and the team decided to question Professors Burrowind and Lightwake as to what they might know of Tenkazu. The team engaged in a bit of shopping, courtesy of their recent mission, taking advantage of the many merchants who were too confused by Larannen's smooth talk and too dazzled by Lily's beauty to object to some very unreasonable prices. Lily even took the time to purchase a replacement for her beloved dog, Luigi: a nasty attack dog named Bruiser. With the vicious dog in tow, Lily, Larannen, and Alestan set out on an ill-fated trip to question Professor Irina Lightwake. Arriving at her home near the edge of Skullsport, Larannen and Lily agreed that the snow elf would use her magic to suggest that the professor answer truthfully. They knocked on the door, only to be called around back; the professor was harvesting the vegetables from her personal garden (it was mid-autumn, after all). She recognized the trio from their dealings with Quarad, and Larannen asked her to examine a map he had brought-a transparent pretense to distract her while Lily cast her spell. The professor proved cannier than they had reckoned, though, and was neither fooled by Larannen's ruse nor lulled by Lily's magic. Becoming alarmed, she began backing away, demanding to

know what was going on. Lily responded with another spell, trying again to plant a hypnotic suggestion. This time she was successful, but her request-that Irina answer any questions truthfully and calmly-did not preclude her from retaliating when not speaking. The professor was soon revealed to be a cleric, as she attempted to paralyze Lily while backing away from the suddenly hostile adventurers. Lily's elven blood worked in her favor, however, and she shrugged off the spell. Eager to keep her from running, Alestan ran forward and hurled a tanglefoot bag at the priestess, covering her in thick sticky sludge. Larannen attempted to diffuse the situation with diplomatic words, but Irina was having none of it; three mercenaries and their attack dog had entered her backyard and magically assaulted her! Lily, meanwhile, pressed her magical advantage and asked the professor two questions to which she could only respond truthfully: "Did you send Tenkazu?" and "Were you aware of the Mysterious Staff?" She answered negative to the former, but was alarmed when she blurted out a confirmation of the latter. Visibly distraught by the deteriorating situation, the panicked professor weaved her most powerful spell to repel the intruders. A column of white-hot flame shot down from the sky, immolating Lily, Larannen, and Lily's dog, Bruiser. Alestan watched in shock as all three were burned horribly, and ran back in time to save a dying Larannen with his healing magic. But it was too late for Lily and her dog. The fire had consumed her entirely, leaving nothing but ashes behind. The halfling and the sorcerer gathered the ashes quickly as Irina Lightwake escaped, calling for the Dragonguard as she ran. Realizing they would be better off not facing the law right now, the pair beat a hasty retreat to the University. Here, Larannen was able to easily convince Quarad that Irina had attacked them without provocation (mostly by avoiding inconvenient truths), and secured the dean's help in fleeing Skullsport. After some discussion, the adventurers agreed they would lay low in Cestia for a while, at least until things settled in Rincali. Quarad asked them to send a messenger when they arrived in the nation across the bay, so that he might alert them as things developed. Sad for the loss of their friend, Adi collected her ashes into a vial that he placed around his neck. Lily had made clear in life that she did not wish to be raised from the dead if she died, and the team respected her wishes. The group agreed,

however, that revenge against the (now former) professor would eventually be necessary. Gathering their belongings hastily, the team left the University for the ferry to Cestia, uncertain when, or even if, they would ever return. End of Book One...

Episode 9: Laying Low With the death of their friend Lily fresh in their minds, the team was forced to flee Skullsoprt, taking the ferry across Dragon Bay to Cestia. They arrived on the docks at the city of Happytown, which it soon became apparent was badly misnamed. The town was rundown, filthy, and apparently lawless, as thugs bullied citizens openly on the streets and human corpses rotted in back alleys. But the town nonetheless attracted tourism from Rincali, largely due to its thriving casino industry and the massive Arena that overshadowed the city. The adventurers disembarked and procured lodgings and made a quick trip to the bank for funds. Adi and Alestan tried their hand at gambling a bit before souring on it and looking for other action. The buzz around town was all about something called "Battlefest," and Larannen was able to ask around and discover that it was in fact the annual amateur gladiator festival there in Happytown. After hearing of the seven-man team event, with a top prize of 75,000 gp, Larannen became convinced that him and his allies had little chance to win a contest that would draw out more powerful adventurers than they. However, they found that they had little else they wanted to do in Cestia, and boredom compelled them to at least head over to the Arena and check out the registration process. A crowd of hopeful combatants crowded in the Arena's courtyard, waiting to sign up for the Battlefest. Most were humans, halflings, a few umbers, and a pair of ogres, but one figure stood out: a powerfully muscled twelve-foot-tall humanoid with thick grey hide and a head that resembled a rhinoceros. Alestan and Nappy were shocked to see that the strange creature appeared to be teamed up with none other than Zhirad, the bard! The adventurers attempted to hide themselves from

the bard's eyes, but he spotted Nappy on his way out from Arena and waved to the umber. Nappy, not knowing what else to do, called out to Zhirad. He and his mighty companion approached Nappy, who tried awkwardly to engage the bard in small talk, while really trying to discover whether the hated Tenkazu was in the city. Zhirad answered in the negative; he had not seen Tenkazu in weeks. He relayed that he had been dismissed from the samurai's service about a week after they had last encountered one another. Tenkazu's team had waited at a prearranged rendezvous point for the red lizardman to bring the staff, but the creature never showed up. Abruptly, Tenkazu had paid Zhirad and the halfling sorceress and dismissed them. The bard had taken his winnings back to Skullsport and sailed across the bay for a little gambling when the rhino-man had approached him. They were now entering the Battlefest in the two-man team competition; they wished Nappy luck and exited the stadium. While the adventurers had originally planned on killing Zhirad or torturing him for information on Tenkazu, it was now clear that the bard no longer had any relationship with the man who had led the attack on them. Instead, they turned their attention to whether or not they could enter the seven-man team tournament. They only had five combatants though, and Nappy loudly bemoaned their lack of a good archer. Suddenly, a scruffy-looking human man approached them. Saying he had overheard Nappy's complaint, he offered his services as an archer in the tournament. Going by the name of Sparrow, he had already signed up for the archery tournament, but was willing to try to win the big prize. In an uncharacteristic display of trust, the team agreed to let the man join their team, but they still needed a seventh man. The idea of asking Zhirad's friend, the powerful rhino-man, to join their team was floated, though there was concern that they could not actually speak to the creature, who apparently only spoke his native language. Still, with nothing to lose, the next morning they sought out Zhirad and his friend at breakfast. As the creature consumed a twelve-course meal, Larannen broached the topic with the bard, who agreed to ask his friend (whose name they learned was Oko, and was of a race known as the Koth).

Alestan surreptitiously cast a spell that would allow him to comprehend the language the two spoke. Zhirad asked Oko if he would be amiable to joining their team. The koth related that he was looking to gather as much money as possible to fund a battle against his peoples' hated enemy, the Bone Elves of Avernia, and every battle he could win would increase the funds he could bring back. He agreed, but Zhirad had a condition. Since he would be required to translate, he demanded a halfshare of any winnings the combined team produced. The group reluctantly agreed. Returning to the arena, the new seven-man team easily defeated a group of animated training dummies that the Arena staff used to weed out the inexperienced from the Battlefest fight card. But the Battlefest was no scheduled to start for two weeks, and the group still had little to do. Asking around the bars, Larannen heard the tale of a wealthy Rincalin who had been jailed beneath the Arena for a minor offense, and was scheduled to fight one of the professional gladiators the next day. Alestan immediately wanted to help the imprisoned man, but the rest of the group was wary until they decided they could demand the man pay them afterwards. Under cover of night, they approached the Arena. Larannen managed to bribe the guards at the prison door, but once inside, Nappy betrayed their presence by accident. They fought a battle against a squad of guards, led by a heavily armored dwarf captain and a powerful ogre warrior. An invisible Alestan snuck through the cells, looking for the imprisoned Rincalin right under the nose of other guards, but to no avail. Larannen was forced to draw the guards out of the hallway for Nappy and Adi to knock out. This allowed Alestan to take his time searching, and eventually found the wealthy man, crying on his prison cot. They released him from his cell, but demanded 5000 gp for escorting him from the Arena. The man tearfully agreed, and the team began planning their escape. Alestan desperately wanted to free the remaining prisoners, but allowed himself to be talked out of it by Sparrow and Larannen. In the end, he simply threw the keyring into an occupied cell, hoping that the prisoners would be able to all free themselves. The team bribed the guards again on the way out (Nappy was carrying the prisoner, who had quaffed a potion of invisibility) and they soon were free. Shortly thereafter, they escorted the man to the bank where he withdrew 5000 gp to pay them before heading for the docks to leave Happytown forever.

With cash in hand, the group decided to do some shopping, and got down to the business of planning their strategy for the upcoming Battlefest Episode 10: Let's Get Ready to Rumble The day of the first round of Battlefest arrived and the group made their way to the Arena. The city overflowed with spectators from around the world, and the Arena was the focal point for the festival, with large glass spheres displaying images to those who couldn't get a seat in the stands. Magical mouths also relayed the voices of two announcers as they introduced each team and commented on the matches. Upon arriving to the pre-fight area, the team learned of their first opponents: a clan of hearty barbarians from the snowy northern continent of Tharta. Prior to the fight, the adventurers planned their strategy carefully, knowing that they needed to advance to at least the third round before they could earn any money back. Alestan devised a strategy to hamper spellcasters; the halfling would carry a tanglefoot bag upon which he would cast a silence spell. This would then be hurled at any wizard or cleric, hopefully rooting him or her to the ground and trapping them within the silent area. Sparrow took a trip to the local alchemist and stocked up on potions that would increase his agility, while Larannen prepared to use a Green spell to enhance the strength of Nappy, Adi, and their new allie, Oko the Koth. With these preparations in mind, they entered the Arena. They assembled themselves in the blue starting zone, hidden from the view of the other team across the 140-foot long Arena by men carrying a large cloth curtain. The battle arena allowed each team just a 30-count by the referee to cast spells or drink potions beforehand, so Alestan and Larannen hurried to complete their predetermined spellcasting. Soon, the curtain dropped and the team saw their opponents. Dressed in furs and armor, each man had the stout look of a warrior. A few were literally frothing at the mouth with excitement, and one had been magically enlarged to 12 feet in height. A man with an antlered headdress kept to the back, protected by a pair of archers, while the remaining four advanced.

Sparrow advanced, attempting to get a better shot at short range, but the enemy archers were not so cautious. Seeing Larannen as the only unarmored person on the other team, they opened fire and wounded him badly. Nappy, Adi, Jilla, and the Koth charged forward, meeting the barbarians in the center of the field. Alestan, with his enchanted bag, snuck towards the antlered cleric, using the six stone columns that dotted the field as cover. With relentless power, the Koth and Nappy smashed the enlarged barbarian into the dirt on the left side of the field, while Jilla and Adi flanked another on the right. Larannen put the archers to sleep, while Alestan finally made it down to the end of the field and entangled the cleric. This prevented him from healing his allies, and the four warriors cut their way through the Thartans. The crowd cheered in bloodthirsty approval as Sparrow, Nappy, and Adi showed no mercy, killing several of the men in what was never intended as a fight to the death. The Koth proved more cautious, choosing to simply knock his opponents out cold. Either way, the Sons of Tharta were defeated in short order. Two days of bed rest followed as the team regained their strength to face their next team: the Eagle's Claws, a band of rangers from the frontier nation of Tokken. Having found success with their preparation strategies, the adventurers saw no reason to alter them, except that this time, Nappy was given the enchanted tanglefoot bag (as the umber's stride was much greater than Alestan's). They soon found themselves in the blue end of the field once again, awaiting their opponents. When the curtain fell, they saw a band of six humans in leather and chain, all wielding longbows, and a single grey wolf. The archers were quick, and chose the largest target: the Koth. A dozen or so arrows flew from their bows, many penetrating the Koth's thick hide and steel armor, wounding him badly. Sparrow, rather than returning fire, held his focus on the one man who was clearly a druid, waiting for him to cast. Adi and Jilla cautiously advanced, using the columns for cover, while Nappy charged towards the druid. Larannen's Blue Magic put one archer to sleep, but that only served to bring him to the attention of the Tokken archers, who pumped six arrows into him, sending him to the dirt. Eventually, Sparrow gave up on attempting to ruin the druid's spellcasting and joined the fight, trading arrows with the skilled rangers. Adi and Jilla vanquished the wolf, the Koth fell to another volley of arrows, but Nappy made his way up the field. The

umber threw the tanglefoot bag at the druid, but missed, and the Tokkenese man was able to simply exit the silence effect. Nappy followed up with a devastating sword attack, but the druid merely stepped back and healed himself. By this time, though, Nappy had been turned into a pincushion by one of the rangers, and he lost control of his temper. Rather than finishing off the druid, he broke away and charged the archer woman, cutting her down. From long range, Sparrow managed to pick off the druid himself. With the caster down, the warriors were able to corner and defeat the archers handily. Once again, the willingness of Lily's Champions to kill their opponents outright on the Arena floor won them cheers from the crowd, and they advanced to the quarter-finals. However, the bard Zharad was able to gather some information for them about their next team, who called themselves the Crazy-8's. It seemed the team revolved around a massive eight-head dragon-like creature and its attendants, and that the creature had actually devoured two gladiators in its previous match. Worried about their chances, the Larannen and Alestan went shopping for magical scrolls to give them new options. Alestan purchased a scroll of flame strike, noting with sadness that this was the very spell that had slain his friend Lily, while Larannen acquired a pair of greater invisibility scrolls. Both were concerned that the magic contained within these three parchments was beyond their expertise, but they decided the risk of spell failure was ultimately acceptable. When they next found themselves within the Arena (in the red zone, this time), the curtain revealed exactly as had been foretold: a massive reptilian beast with eight snake-like heads. Surrounding him were a squad of five archers and a heavily-armored cleric. Alestan reacted first, and unleashed his fiery strike without error. Three archers fell to the flames (one was incinerated), while the cleric and the beast were injured. Much to the team's surprise, though, the wounds on the beast healed as it lumbered forward, leaving it uninjured in mere seconds. Larannen had granted the gift of invisibility, via his scrolls, to Nappy and the Koth prior to the fight, and the two invisible juggernauts charged the hydra with savage attacks. But the creature's remarkable metabolism healed many of the wounds they caused, and its eight vicious mouths were able to taste the blood of the two warriors as many times as not despite the invisibility. Stunned by the creature's

ferocity, Larannen sought to weaken it with a blue-black bolt of weakening energy, to great success. While the beast laid Oko low, its attacks were now far weaker, which allowed Nappy to stand up to it. Adi and Sparrow shot arrow after arrow into the thing as Jilla and Alestan stepped up to heal the fallen Koth. The battle became one of attrition, as the adventurers struggled to inflict more wounds on the beast than it could heal. Just as the tide seemed to be turning, however, the enemy cleric stepped up and dispelled Nappy's invisibility, rendering him an easy target for all eight bites. Nappy was forced to retreat, seeking the healing of his buddy Alestan. Larannen stepped up to try to stun the hydra with a color spray, only to be shredded by the creature's teeth. Then, inexplicably, Nappy charged the cleric rather than returning to fight the hydra. His teammates yelled for him to get back into the fight, but the umber struck again and again until the cleric fell. By this time, however, many of the wounds inflicted on the hydra had healed, and the Koth was still down. Alestan and Jilla healed him once more, and he stood up with just enough strength for one mighty blow from his hammer. It was enough to turn the tide, though, as Nappy once again charged the creature and Jilla and Adi both stepped in to cut into its scaly hide. The hydra staggered, and then Adi thrust his bastard sword deep into the creature's chest. In a torrent of dark blood, the beast fell to the ground. Taking no chances, Nappy and the other surrounded the creature and hacked it to bits, cheered on in their butchery by the crowds. Unfortunately, this put them into the semi-finals against a team known as the Honor Battalion. A team of righteous adventurers from Skullsport, the Battalion were the prior year's winners, and were heavily favored. The team faced off against the Battalion, but was cut down in seconds by the fireballs and lightning bolts of the more experienced group. Luckily, the Honor Battalion was careful to alter their magic and attacks to only stun rather than kill (a tactic not practiced by Lily's Champions), and no one was seriously injured by the crushing defeat. The exalted adventurers went on to win the entire Battlefest, while Lily's Champions made due with their 10,000 gp prize. As they paid Zharad his share, the bard let loose to Alestan that while he had traveled with the female halfling sorcerer, she had mumbled that Tenkazu (or perhaps Tenkazu's master) belonged to a

group she called simply "the Hunters." He hoped the information would be useful to Alestan in retrieving that staff they seemed so intent on recapturing. Meanwhile, Larannen received a message from Professor Quarad. The museum had been burglarized, and several maps stolen. Sensing it was related to ex-professor Lightwake or possibly Tenkazu, he urged Larannen and his friends to return, but to keep a low profile. Their business in Cestia thus concluded, the group prepared to sail back to the city they had fled two months earlier. Episode 11: Busted After some shopping that took advantage of Cestias adventurer friendly taxation policy, the group boarded the ferry back across the bay to Skullsport. The trip was uneventful, but when the boat docked and the passengers began disembarking, it was clear that the Dragongard was interviewing those entering the country from Happytown, looking for fugitives (such as, for example, them). Larannen suggested that they split up to avoid arousing suspicion, and Alestan used an invisibility blessing to ensure Nappys safe passage through the checkpoint. Sparrow, who was not actually connected to the events that had brought the group under scrutiny, was able to enter without any problems, but as Alestandisguised as a gnomeapproached the guard, he felt the tingling aura of a zone of truth. The halfling was able to resist the compulsion to only speak the truth, and his true identity was not exposed. Similarly, Jilla and Larannen were able to resist the magic and bluff their way past the questioning guard. Adi, however, was less fortunate. He too shrugged off the spells effects, but he was utterly unable to convince the guards that he was, in fact, named John Smith, and was not wanted for questioning in any crime. While Nappy and Jilla headed towards the teams favorite inn, Sparrow, Alestan, and Larannen witnessed their fighter companion being disarmed and brought into the guardhouse for further questioning. Larannen tried to convince the guard that he was innocent of any crime, but not even the Blue Sorcerers silver tongue could convince the shrewd guard captain. Inside the guardhouse, the Dragongards employed first a cleric and then a Gold Wizard to discover the truth: that he was associated with suspects wanted for assault and unlawful enchantment.

The guards began to hatch a plan to use Adi as bait to lure his criminal associates out to be captured. The captain had already pieced together that the man who had tried to talk him into releasing the fighter was probably Larannen Dox, so it was just as well that the sorcerer had decided to go seek help. Only Sparrow and Alestan were still present when the captain, the cleric, and the Gold Wizard emerged from the guardhouse to escort their prisoner to the prison at the citys center. Unaware that another three guardsmen in disguise were shadowing this procession, Sparrow and the halfling plotted to ambush the guards and free their ally. Running ahead, the pair found a narrow street with many alleys. They climbed to the rooftops of two different buildings, and laid in wait for the Dragongard. Both were lucky to spot two of the three disguised guards, but the third continued to elude their notice. When Adi and his captors passed, Sparrow leapt up and fired flaming arrows into the chest of one of the disguised guards, setting him on fire. Alestan hurled a tanglefoot bagenchanted with a silence spell, as they had used in the Arenaat the Gold Wizard, gluing him to the spot and prompting him to curse in silent rage. He followed up immediately with a flask of alchemists fire flung onto the cleric, which burst with a fiery splash among the guardsmen. Both attackers then retreated from the edge of the roof, melding into the shadows as best they could. Adi, knowing a good thing when he saw it, ran. His heavy plate armor slowed him down significantly though, and while the cleric and wizard were occupied, the two out-of-uniform men drew shortbows and fired in rapid succession at the fleeing warrior. The guard captain took up the chase, charging behind the encumbered Adi and hacking at him with his sword. The cleric managed to put out the flames in time to paralyze Adi for a mere momentjust long enough for the captain to catch up. He wounded Adi badly as the chase continued. The biggest shock for the would-be rescuers, however, came when the third and final disguised guardsmen threw down his cloak to reveal the wings of flying the guard captain had secretly requisitioned for this trap. On magical feathered wings, the guard flew up to the rooftops in search of Sparrow and Alestan. While he could not find the hidden pair, neither could they help Adi without revealing their location. They slowly crept to the edges of their respective buildings until Sparrow was able

to drop over the edge to the ground below. Falling two stories, he hurt himself as he smacked into the gravel road, but was able to bite his lip and keep silent. He melted into the sparse crowd of civilians on the street as Alestan followed his lead and fell to the ground. Battered and bleeding, Adi had little choice but to surrender to the captain. The guard began leading him back towards the archers and the cleric, and Sparrow decided to take a risk to free his new ally. When the captainwho had not seen Sparrow at all during the battlepassed by, the ranger drew his sword and stabbed the man in the back. Adi seized the opportunity to grab the hilt of his confiscated sword from the captain and draw it, leaving the guardsman with an empty scabbard and, soon thereafter, a severe abdominal trauma. The captain fell to Adi and Sparrows combined attacks, while Alestan stepped out of the crowd to provide missile support against the guard archers. When one was downed and the second too badly wounded to continue fighting, the three adventurers broke and ran, disappearing into the early evening crowds on the streets of Skullsport. The entire team reconvened at the inn, and it was decided that their latest tangle with the law required them to act promptly. They hurried over to see Professor Quarad at the University, and he showed them where his office had been burglarized two nights prior. The shutters had been broken from outside, and Alestan was able to find scratches on the windowsill, as if from a claw. Quarad was able to ascertain that the map that had been stolen detailed the city that was the spiritual center of the dwarven Old Kingdom, far to the south. Jilla was able to locate lizardfolk tracks outside the professors window, which lead all to conclude that the thief was the red lizardman last seen diving after the Mysterious Staff. This further called them to believe that Tenkazu was ultimately behind the break-in, but that seemed not to add up. After all, it was known that Tenkazu had some relationship with Irina Lightwake, the cleric-professor that had killed Lily, but Quarad sheepishly admitted that he had forgotten to change the locks at the University, so that Irina could have stolen the maps easily, had she so desired. As the group discussed the theft and its ramifications outside the University, Sparrow noticed a figure moving away from the group surreptitiously. Saying nothing, he left the group and crept across the

street before drawing his sword and charging at the woman. His sword struck her deeply, but she reacted with impressive martial skill, stunning him with a jab to the throat that left him retching in the bushes afterward. As he regained his composure, the grey-clad spy ran up the side of a nearby building and disappeared into the night. The group had two leads left to explore, in their eyes. First, if the lizardman and Tenkazu were traveling south in search of something in the dwarven ruins, they would need to charter a ship to do so. Larannen thus led most of the group to the taverns near the port in search of information on any recent expeditions south. Jilla and Sparrow, meanwhile, followed the lizardmans tracks. Despite many ales purchased and many sailors questioned, Larannen was unable to find a single man who knew of an expedition such as that for which they searched. The two trackers were more successful, following the footprints out of the city and to a small riverside cave. Fearful that the red lizardman might be within, Jilla ran back to retrieve the rest of the team. When all had assembled, Larannens pet viper, Sith, scouted out the cave, revealing it to be empty. Within, they found that someone or something had lived in the cave for a few days, but had left. Most interestingly, they found a small crude drawing on the cave wall: Piecing the drawing together with the presence of the grey ninja spying on their discussions, Sparrow and Larannen were able to deduce that the lizardman was not, in fact, working with Tenkazu anymore. Alestan was able to remind them that Zharad had, just the day before, told them that the red lizardman had failed to reunite with the samurai after he dived into the murky darkness after the Staff. Sparrow guessed that the ninja he had spotted worked with Tenkazu, and had been spying on them precisely because he did not know where the lizardman was planning on going (at least, until now). The lizardman clearly felt that if he acquired both the Staff and whatever type of magical hammer was shown, he would be extremely powerful. With a firm lead on the whereabouts of the Staff they still desired, as well as a very good reason to leave the city again anyway, the team gathered their equipment from the inn and left town that same night. Traveling south towards the trackless jungle, they felt that whatever

happened next, all the players in their little saga might well be headed for that great ruined city of the dwarves. Episode 12: Welcome to the Jungle The adventurers then left Skullsport, stopping at a village nearby to procure a few horses for the long trek to the Zotaa Jungle and the ruins of the Old Kingdom. The road led south to the hill dwarf nation of Midland, where Larannen was easily able to talk their way past the border guard. They rode through the rocky valleys of the land until Sparrow spotted a large figure lurking on the road ahead. He cautiously stopped the group, calling out to the stranger to identify himself. The cloaked figure, an ogre by the looks of him, indicated that he was known as Sparks. When Sparrow asked why they called him that, the ogre smiled, took a deep breath, and let loose with a devastating bolt of lightning-breath. While Adi reacted fast enough to block much of the lightning from the rest of the team, they were still scorched badly from the bolt. Adi charged the half-dragon ogre, but the creatures sword knocked him cold. Luckily, Sparks was not looking to kill them; as Adi slipped into unconsciousness, the ogre declared that he was worth more bounty money alive than dead. The dragon-ogre bounty hunter continued attacking the party until Nappys sword drove him back. Unfurling his massive wings, he took to the air, drinking a healing potion while staying out of reach of every attack, save Sparrows arrows. The archers efficiency proved his downfall, though, and Sparks used a magical rod to encase the archer in an orb of viscous goo. With Sparrow glued to the ground, the dragon-ogre dove from the sky to skewer him, all attempts as subdual abandoned. But Larannen has been patiently waiting for the ogre to near the ground once more, and unleashed a shower of blue sticky webs, trapping Sparrow, Nappy, and the ogre within. Now unable to escape, the bounty hunter faced off in a toe-to-toe battle with Nappy the Barbarian, and Nappy won. While Larannen dismissed his web so Alestan could heal the dying Sparrow, the umber took it upon himself to lop off the ogres head.

The bounty hunter must have made a decent living at his task, as the team found his headless corpse to be a veritable cornucopia of magical treasure. Even the ogres angelbane sword was picked up by Adi to replace his own well-worn blade. After a brief stop in a dwarven village to recuperate, the group continued through Midland without further trouble. By the end of their third week since Skullsport, the Zotaa Jungle lay before them. They entered the tropical forest led by Sparrows wilderness skills, with him and Nappy cutting a path through the undergrowth with their swords. While it had been almost winter in Rincali, here it was hot and steamy. Birds sang constantly, and lizards scurried up trees as the group hacked their way past. They fended off snakes and other natural dangers, but a week passed with no true dangers. Until the blue monkeys attacked. Springing from the branches of an ancient tree, the pair of giant blue-furred primates leapt on the party with little notice. They unleashed an eerie enchanted howl as they charged, which gripped Nappy and Jilla in such terror that they immediately dropped their weapons and ran for their lives! The beasts landed on Sparrow, ripping into him with their deadly bite. The team tried to fight back, with one third of their members fleeing, but the creatures were preternaturally quick, dodging Larannens spell rays with ease. Ultimately it was Alestan who stepped up to stab the creatures in their vitals, teaming up with Adi to simply slash the beasts again and again. Sparrow was nearly killed by one of the monkeys bites, but Larannens web once again sprung into existence around him, gluing one monkey to the spot. Alestan and Adi were thus able to kill the one, then turn and engage the webbed monkey with ease. By the time Nappy regained his senses and returned to the battle, both monkeys were dead. But the near-fatal attack had yielded a serendipitous clue. Jilla was able to track the giant blue monkeys back to their lair near a river. By following the river, the adventurers were certain they would be able to locate the Bay of Titans, and within it, the islands that held the remains of the dwarven Old Kingdom. Episode 13: Descent Into Darkness, Part 1: Broken

By following the river, the adventurers were able to find their way to the site of the long-ruined spiritual center of the dwarven Old Kingdom. They could see only a lone tower breaking the surface of the wide river, which was almost a half-mile wide at this point as it became the Bay of Titans. Knowing they could not swim with the current, Sparrow led Nappy and Alestan in constructing a crude raft. They dragged their construction upstream and pushed off into the water, with Adi, Nappy, Jilla, and Sparrow keeping the makeshift craft on course. They noted that the river was filled with deadly piranha fish, and congratulated each other on their decision not to swim. As they neared the ruined tower, Alestan threw his grappling hook perfectly, latching on to the stone securely and allowing Nappy to haul the raft up to the structure. The tower was made of ancient stone, covered in ornate dwarven sculpture that was in turn covered in thick ivy and weeds. The building now leaned at a steep angle, and was in fact broken halfway up so that the top few floors tilted dangerously upstream. Securing the raft, Sparrow and Adi used another rope and grappling hook to scale the slippery stone, pausing at the point where the tower was broken to ready another rope-and-hook. Sparrow threw this second rope up to the top floor, where four archways appeared to be the only entrance. The grappling hook landed with a clatter on the stone, and a flock of bloodred hawks loudly cawed and fluttered from their roost within. Sparrow and Adi tried to clamber back down to the raft, but the birds, clearly aggressive, swooped down upon them, tearing their flesh with their razor-sharp claws. Unable to defend themselves properly while clinging to the wall, the pair were torn apart by the birds of prey while their friends on the raft tried hard to drive away the attackers. Sparrow, now woozy from the loss of blood, lost his grip and fell from the wall, splashing into the piranha-infested water. Alestan and Nappy struggled to pull him up before the fish devoured him, and Alestan managed to heal the ranger back to consciousness. As Adi managed to climb back to the raft, the hawks followed, swooping in on Larannen, Adi, and Nappy. Now able to strike with their swords, however, the trio was able to make short work of the birds, with Nappy skewering two in a single stroke. With the birds eliminated, the team was able to climb the broken tower unmolested. They found the top floor contained only the nests of

the blood hawks and pooled water, but a square hole led down to the interior. Larannen summoned blue light to banish the darkness in the tilted lower room, which appeared to be half filled with water that had failed to drain. Alestan lowered a rope and climbed down to take a closer lookonly to be grabbed by a bizarre aberration living in the water! Seeing the halfling as a tasty bite-sized snack, the creature pulled him off his rope with a powerful claw that tipped its strong tail. The creature was content to then disappear below the surface, holding Alestan underwater in hopes of drowning him. Adi and Nappy leapt down into the water with a loud splash to save their little buddy, swinging their swords blindly into the water until Nappy managed to sever the creatures head in a lucky swing. They pulled the drenched halfling from the depths, and the rest of the group proceeded down into the tower. Another trap door revealed that the floor below was the one that had been partially destroyed, leaving a drop of 80 feet before the next level. The adventurers used a series of ropes to lower themselves to the surface before noticing that part of the room showed signs of habitation: a crude hammock, a dirty mirror, and a cooking pit told them that something was living hear. With no sign of how to proceed further down into the tower, the group was forced to search for hidden trap doors. As Larannen used a simple Prism spell to detect the presence of magic, however, he became aware of a moving aura of White magic in the area. Certain it was an invisible creature, he asked Alestan to join him in using detect magic to try to pinpoint the beings position. Larannen was able to find the creatures general area again, but as he attempted to speak to it, the dirty mirror had caught Alestans eye. He picked it up and cleaned it off, discovering that it was in fact a magical buckler. The invisible creature used an trick to throw its voice to another part of the room, commanding in a (false) booming voice to leave the treasure alone. Larannen was able to talk the creature into revealing the presence of the secret exit in return for leaving without taking anything, but Sparrow did not trust the invisible creatures directions and refused to go where it indicated. The voice became agitated, and rather than calm it down, Larannen tried a different tact, demanding that it show itself or else they would steal all of the treasure. Angry at the sorcerers threat, t he creature showed itselfby slamming Larannen in the face with a spiked chain.

The creature was in fact a slight female humanoid with green skin and hair; she managed to get a good shot on Adi before the teams warriors surrounded her. She turned invisible once again, and attempted to climb up the walls and escape through the hole in the ceiling. Larannen filled the hole with blue sticky webbing, but Sparrow and the others were unable to hit the unseen woman with their arrows, and she escaped. Alestan gathered the treasure and soon after found the secret exit, exactly where the woman had said it would be. Descending the stairs down into the tower, the team fought two groups of furry humanoids with ursine features before finding themselves before a large chamber. A deep even voice commanded them to enter, their light revealed a thirty-foot long serpentine creature that regarded them with darkly intelligent eyes. A mass of tiny tentacles hung from its jaw, each tentacle wearing a ring or amulet of some kind. Sensing that this creature had great power, the group complied, entering and speaking with it. The snake-beast revealed that the bearhumanoids had been its minions, and it was quite put out by their slaughter. However, the team was able to strike a bargain with the creature by agreeing to open the magically sealed hatch to the next level. The snake agreed not to devour them if they successfully breached the hatch that he had failed to disrupt, even with several spells that exceeded Larannens in power. With no real knowledge of how to proceed, Alestan began toying with the trap door, which was covered with white runes and bore the inscription, Those who can defeat the horrors within may pass. The rogue tried to disable the runes with no success, and then simply began experimenting, calling out random magical command words and waving his hands. His efforts backfired, releasing a pulse of uncontrolled magical energypositive energy. Sensing a possible connection, Larannen advised the halfling to channel his own positive energy into the door. The halfling did exactly that, and the hatch opened slowly. As the door opened, however, a quartet of long-dead dwarves sprung out. With decaying flesh and ancient blood staining their mouths and beards, these were clearly the horrors below that were referenced in the inscription. As the adventurers turned to fight the undead ghouls, the magical snake-beast chose to betray them, summoning his Red Magic to set the room ablaze with a

massive fireball. The party fell into disarray as Larannen hit the ground and Jilla was paralyzed by the cold touch of a ghoul. Adi and Nappy stepped up to cut into the snake-beast with their swords, but their efforts (while impressive) paled next to the deadly aim of Sparrows well-placed shots. The ranger practically stapled the beast to the wall with arrow after arrow while the beasts stinger -tail impaled Nappy, poisoning him with a sapping toxin. Cornered, the creature sought to flee up the stairs, but as it turned and fled, Adi and Nappy were able to slice into the beasts scaly hide. The creature fell before it reached the door, but the party had been badly injured. Jilla sealed the hatch once more, confident that they now could open it at will, and the team began preparations to rest. Only by regaining their strength could they hope to tackle the halls of the undead that waited below them in the Temple of the Forsaken Episode 14: Descent Into Darkness, Part 2: Forsaken After a much-needed rest, the group searched the snake-beasts lair, finding many magical treasures--most notably, a necklace with four red beads, each one enchanted with a powerful incendiary spell. They then once again cracked open the sealed hatchway and descended into the dark corridors of the ruined dwarven temple. The air was putrid and stale, with no trace of life within. Death, on the other hand, was present in abundance as the rotting corpses of dwarves long dead stalked the halls and rooms of the temple. The group easily slashed their way through rank after rank of dwarven zombies, with Alestan surprising them all by obliterating whole groups of the foul abominations with a wave of his diminutive hand. Moving carefully through the once-sanctified halls, the team found more deadly opposition from roving packs of dwarf ghouls. Even when they could hear the ghouls coming, they often found themselves struggling to defeat the hungry dead. At one corridor intersection, their plan to ambush a band of the creatures was thwarted by being surprised themselves by hidden undead reinforcements. They overcame being surrounded by ghouls, but one escaped. Following, the group found themselves against an array of ghouls with a stench so foul and unnatural that Adi and Nappy were overcome with sickness. Alestan was able to disintegrate a row of skeletal archers, but soon four of the

teams warriors were paralyzed from the ghouls numbing bites. Larannen and Sparrow managed to pull out a victory, thanks to skilled archery and Blue Magic, despite their allys falling prey to the undead. Soon they faced a powerful dwarven ghoul-magehis grey pallid flesh scarred from head to toe with glowing red runes. His scorching rays held Larannens Blue Magic in check while his ghast minions tore at Nappy and the others. While Adi cut down a legion of zombies in a single sweeping cut, Sparrows archery was interrupted when he realized that Jilla had wandered down a side corridor alone and disappeared from sight. Worried, he followed, but found only a barred door. Unbeknownst to him, the tough dwarven warrior-maid had been hypnotized by a second ghoul-mage into leaving the party. The first undead scourge was destroyed, and the remainder of the team gathered at the stuck door, concerned for their missing teammate. With Nappy, their usual door-opener, still overcome by the Red ghoul-mages nausea, it was up to Sparrow and Alestan to burst down the door. The walking dead were waiting for them, though. Six ghoul archers pelted the pair with arrows from behind a makeshift barricade, while the second ghoul-mage released a stench cloud that filled the room. Larannens blue webbing kept the archers at bay while the team recovered from the stink. Adi decided to use one of the four red beads they had found upstairs, and ignited the webbing in a spectacular pyrotechnic display that finished off the remaining undead. Now very worried about Jilla, they hurried down the stairs in the room to find a pair of armored undead dwarves flanking the entranceway to the next level. These creatures spoke to them, however, urging the adventurers to follow them to their Master. Not trusting them, Sparrow let fly with three precisely-aimed arrowswhich utterly failed to wound these undead guards. Not wishing to take on these powerful creatures, the team allowed themselves to be led through the next level, passing corridor after corridor of hissing ghouls. Finally, they entered a massive vaulted hall that was once the main sanctuary of the old temple. The room was filled with ghouls and a halfdozen of the heavily-armored guards. At the opposite end, a skeletal dwarven cleric stood over Jillas bound and gagged form.

Presiding over this court of the damned sat a mighty undead dwarf knight, his dead flesh a deep midnight blue. He wore ornate black platemail and held a massive greataxe as if it were a scepter, and he spoke to the living in Khordok, the tongue of the dwarves. Larannen was silently thankful he had asked Jilla to teach him the language, and he translated the knights words for the others. The dark warrior explained that he ruled this nation of undead trapped in the ruined temple, but it was a nation of only men. He desired an undead bride with which to spend the eternity of undeath, and had chosen Jilla for that purpose. Larannen attempted to dissuade him, but the knight had few needs that the sorcerer could fill. Even given the chance to leave the temple and ravage the outside world held little appeal to the knight, who (it was discovered) could exit through the lower levels somehow. Running out of options, Sparrow suggested that one of them face the undead knight in a one-on-one duel for Jillas freedom. The rest of the team stared at the archer in astonishment, but his offer was accepted: Sparrow would face the blackguard in solo combat. Nappy gave Sparrow his sword to use in the battle while Larannen and Alestan laid several enchantments on him. With the others backing off, Sparrow squared off against the dark knight, but things soon took a turn for the worse when he found even Nappys magical blade could not cut the warriors dead flesh. Laughing heartily in a booming voice, the knights greataxe cut deep into Sparrows livi ng body, wounding him grievously in a single strike. Sparrow immediately realized he was in over his head and called out to his teammates. With little regard for the deal they had made, the remaining adventurers sprang into action; Adi and Alestan each slung one of the magical fire beads into the assembled undead, burning the room clear of ghouls. The undead were slow to react to the sudden interference by the others, so Nappy turned to engage the seemingly-invulnerable undead guards. With his sword in Sparrows hands, the umber drew his morning star, a secondary weapon he had never before used. All were surprised when the mere touch of Nappys weapon caused the creatures dead flesh to sizzle and burnthe pure cold iron of the weapon was an anathema to these undead! With renewed confidence, the battle was on.

Larannen tried to stun the undead with a spray of color, but found too late that the spell had no effect on their deceased brains. The ghouls soon cut him down while Alestan was kept busy healing the fighters to keep them in the battle. Sparrow ducked away from knight, leaving him to Nappy while he went to rescue Jilla. He was caught in a second explosive bead, but shook off the worst of the fire, convinced that the whole battle was for naught if their friend was not saved. Dodging the skeletal cleric, Sparrow untied her and held the guards at bay while she retrieved her waraxeher cold iron waraxe. Cursing furiously in Khordok, the angry dwarf-maid charged the black knight, cutting into him again and again. His last plea for her to join him in eternal life was interrupted by her cold iron axe splitting his skull clean in two . With the knights death, the enchantment laid upon the other guards was lifted, allowing normal steel weapons to harm them. The remaining undead were still a tough battle, but Adi and Nappy were able to defeat them at last. Just as the team feared they might all fall, the last of the undead perished. They collapsed in exhaustion, amazed that they had defeated the assembled horde of undead. Jilla thanked them for their effort to rescue her, taking time to thank the newcomer Sparrow for his willingness to fight for her freedom. Such loyalty would, she predicted, serve them well as they continued to plumb the depths of this impossibly deep dungeon. Episode 15: Descent Into Darkness, Part 3: Abandoned In a secret chamber behind the undead dwarfs throne, the group found a massive trove of treasure, both magical and mundane, including chests overflowing with gold, silver, and copper. While they rested the day, Larannen was able to melt down some of the silver to serve as a reagent in enchanting Adis mithral shirt, but there was still more coinage than could be conveniently carried. Every member of the team carried as much gold and silver as they could, intending to leave the less valuable copper behind. Nappy, however, had other ideas; he was fully intent on lugging hundreds of pounds of copper just so it wouldnt have to be left behind. With the umber lumbering under the extra weight, the team descended into the rough-hewn tunnel that led from the secret room.

The passageway was lined with ancient dwarven runes, which Larannens magic told him were a barrier to prevent summoned creatures from leaving the area they were entering. At the tunne ls end, they found a massive cavern honeycombed with dozens of random passageways. At the center stood a large pool filled with what appeared to be pure liquid stone. The team began arguing over whether to continue ahead or further examine the pool when suddenly, a deep female voice reverberated throughout the cave. Rising from the pool, a tall female form emerged, apparently made of liquid stone herself. The creature identified herself as the Stone Oracle, and told the adventurers that she had been summoned through the pool from the Elemental Plane of Earth centuries ago by dwarven clerics. When disaster struck the Old Kingdom and the mountain was sunk, the dwarves died and she was left on her own. Creatures from her plane flooded into the caverns, looking for new sources of food. Some, not wishing to return, stole the runestones that held the portal open, leaving the Oracle unable to return home. She asked the adventurers to return the runestones to their proper place around the edge of the pool so that the portal might open again and she could leave. She further promised that once this was done, her oracular powers would return, and she could answer them each one question that was within her ability to discern. The team grudgingly agreed, but with the understanding among themselves that if they found the red lizardman first, they would not spend any extra energy looking for the stones. They began to crawl through the narrow and winding tunnels, often disagreeing on what direction to travel. They soon found a cave filled with rocky humanoids that attacked them on sight. While they were not particularly powerful, Nappy was frequently hampered by the mass of copper he was carrying. After a few short battles, the group defeated their leader, a cleric, and found the first purple runestone. On the way back to the pool, however, they became lost as Alestan kept leading them down random tunnels. They finally lucked into the way back, but Nappy finally dropped the copper, giving Larannen a few handfuls to use as a means of marking their path. They turned back into the tunnels and continued searching, and Larannen dropped copper coins at each intersection so they would not become lost again.

Within minutes, however, a trio of bizarre scavenger monsters-each with three arms, three legs, and three eyesmelted through the stone walls as if it were water, surprising Nappy from below. The smell of so much copper still clung to the umber, and these beasts found the scent quite appetizing. With tough rocky skin and vicious toothy maws, the monsters were a deadly menace. Adi whirled his sword repeatedly in a wide arc, striking them all, but was unable to prevent them from savaging Larannen and devouring half of the sorcerers treasure purse. After much blood spilled, the team killed two and drove the third to flee through the floor. Adi cut the dead beasts open to find the second glowing purple runestone. The group healed their wounds and began backtracking only to learn that the metal-eating creatures had devoured Larannens breadcrumb trail of copper pieces! Wandering once again among the myriad featureless tunnels, they came upon a cave where a third runestone sat, unattended, in the center. Suspicious, Larannen summoned an invisible servant with his magic to retrieve the stone. His fears were warranted, for as soon as the magical conjuration lifted the stone, a giant three-armed scavenger burst through the floor to devour it and the stone. This gargantuan foe was exactly the same as the three beasts they had fought earlier, only much bigger and much more powerful. Its first devastating bite practically swallowed Larannen whole! Nappy and Jilla attempted to hold the beast at bay while Adi leapt in and out of reach of the creatures three flailing claws. The creature was too deadly, however, forcing Nappy and Jilla to retreat to swallow healing draughts. With the creatures full attention focused on Alestan and Larannen, Sparrow rushed into combat with his sword to keep it back. Alestan, knowing that things were getting grim, produced and read a scroll he had found in the treasure trove. Immediately, a mystic barrier sprung into being around him, Larannen, and Sparrow. The creatures attacks recoiled in pain from the silvery light, which allowed the halfling to dart around it to heal his buddy Nappy. Soon, the umber was able to strike the killing, cracking the stone creature into a shower of gravel. Within its remains, the team found the remaining four runestones. They rested, healing their many wounds, before returning to the Oraclefearful that she would turn on them as the snake-beast they had encountered earlier. These fears, while prudent, turned out to be

unfounded. They placed the six runestones around the stone pool, and in a flash of violet light, the pool began swirling. The portal was open, and with a single command, the Oracle summoned all the wayward earth creatures in the mountain to return home. One by one, the various xorns, elementals, and stonechildren entered the cave and sunk into the pool, returning to their own plane. When this was done, she spoke words of magic and healed the adventurers remaining wounds. Finally, she turned to them and asked them for the questions they would ask her to answer. One by one, the adventurers stepped forward and asked the Oracle one single question Episode 15a: Questions and Answers Sparrow asked, How do we get to the Armory? Rather than answer this question verbally, she leans down and cast find the path on the ranger. She tells him that for the next three hours, it will show him the path towards the armory. Adi asked, What does the staff we found in the Lost City of the Snake-Men do? She casts vision after he describes what it looks like and where it was found. Her eyes glow and she says, in an otherworldly voice: The Staff of Warding has the sole purpose of protecting the magical crystal atop it from damage or any magical effect. The Staff was crafted by elven wizards at some point in the distant pastlong before they decimated the goblins--to protect the crystal from being damaged. When the trance leaves, the Oracle looks sheepish. Hmm, she says, That didnt really answer your question, did it? Maybe if I tried casting a vision on the crystal itself. She generously begins casting again, but after a few moments of concentration, her brow furrows and she stops. Im sorry, she says, I cannot seem to wrest that items secrets from the aether. Powerful artifacts sometimes are crafted with enchantments to hide their true purpose from spells such as this. Larannen asked, What does the hammer sought by the red lizardman do? Unfortunately, he cant give the Oracle much more information than that, and tells him she knows vision will fail as a result.

Instead, she casts divination, looking for a means to discover more about the hammer. She repeats the following passage to the Blue Sorcerer: The Hammer exists only in the minds eye of its creatorbut not for much longer. The Oracle shrugs, hoping he can understand what to make of that. Alestan asked, What is the relationship between the crystal and the hammer? Again, the Oracle usesdivination to receive a cryptic clue: The key opens the lock. It means little to anyone, however. Nappy asked, How is Professor Irina Lightwake involved? The Oracle once again turns to her more reliablevision spell: Irina has served the Grey Hunters for years, and the Hunters seek to bring the crystal into their Masters possession. Jilla asks: Show me the face of the crime boss known in Brownrock as "Grandfather". The Oracle begins scrying in her pool. Soon, a scene of a number of scruffy dwarves being spoken to by an older dwarven man in a dimly lit room. Jilla gasps! "That's the chief of the Brownrock division of the Dragongard! He's Grandfather? No wonder he has so much influence." The Oracle stops her. "No, while that man may be the chief of whom you speak, that is NOT who I am scrying on. Look closer." She points into the shadows..."There, THAT is who I am scrying on." Jilla is dumbfounded as the Oracle points to...a pasty-skinned dwarf with large reddish-orange sores on his face, wrapped up in black clothes. "A blight dwarf! In Brownrock! I've never seen one before, much less running things!" As she gapes, though, the figure in the image suddenly turns directly towards Jilla and stares back. A raspy voice intones, "I see you, Jilla Wornstone." And he disappears from view. The Oracle finishes her last spell and once agains thanks you for opening the path back to her homeland. She dives under the pool, which then sucks all of the liquid stone down to the bottom, like a basin emptying. Episode 16: The Shattering

Sparrow led the way down through the tunnels, with the Oracles magic guiding him every step of the way. They quickly passed through several levels as a result, until they found themselves directed to pass through corridors held by several kuo-toaevil fishlike humanoids that had settled in the sunken dwarven fortress. The kuo-toa were no match for the adventurers in small groups, however, despite a powerful lightning attack they could summon in groups. Eventually, the creatures merely hid in the dark water that pooled at the bottom of the tunnels. With no way to swim through the water safely, Larannen surprised everyone by unveiling his latest mastery of magic: a spell that allowed them each to crawl across the ceiling like spiders. With each member of the party so enchanted, they skittered safely across the top of the flooded hallways while the kuo-toa hid. Soon they arrived at a massive hall that had once held a thriving dwarven town, but was now flooded, infested with kuo-toa. The team began crawling across the caverns ceiling, but they soon saw their path would bring them near a cluster of electrically-charged kuo-toa standing on the roof of a half-submerged building. As they were unable to effectively fight while stuck to the walls, the group quickly scattered across the ceiling like the spiders they were mimicking. The kuo-toa fired a powerful lightning bolt, but were only able to strike Nappy and Jill before they were all out of range. The kuo-toa cursed in their bizarre fish-language, but the adventurers were able to follow the Oracles magic out of the cavern and into an upward-sloping passage. The passage opened into a room with a large stone statue of a dwarven warrior blocking another exit. Alestan sensed a probable danger situation, and Larannen confirmed that the statue radiated Green magic. Hearing all he needed to, Adi charged into the room and struck the stone form with his bastard sword. The statue, predictably enough, animated and struck at Adi, crushing his bones with his stone hammer and fist. Larannens magic was utterly ineffective against the golem, and Sparrows arrows bounced harmlessly off of its stone form. Only Nappy, Adi, and Jilla were having any luck chipping away at it, but the golems devastating attacks drove them back. Nappy and Adi were forced to retreat to let Alestan heal their wounds leaving Jilla in battle against the golem alone. The construct, once animated to protect dwarves, broke the dwarfm aids body until she was on the brink of death, but she held on. Sparrow rushed in to battle to feed her a

healing potion, but rather than retreat and let the golem advance on Sparrow and Larannen, Jilla kept it tied up in melee. Adi was healed by Alestans blessing and hurried back into battle in time to witness the golem bring down both of its stone limbs squarely on Jillas head killing her instantly. With anger, Adi cracked the golem in two, but it was too late for Jilla. Saddened at the loss of another friend, he used his dagger to cut one of her two braids and hang it from the same necklace that held Lilys ashes. Nappy decided to carry Jillas fallen body back to Skullsport, either for a proper burial or, perhaps, even restoration to the land of the living so that she might complete her mission of vengeance against the mysterious Grandfather. Their hearts heavy, the adventurers heard the sounds of metal clashing with metal in the distance: the dwarf Armory lay before them, and someone was forging at that moment. They resolved to finally learn what Jillas sacrifice had been about and proceeded up the corridor towards the forge. Being the stealthiest by far, Alestan silently padded his way into the Armory, a massive room surrounding a pool of active lava. A round platform in the middle of the pool held four anvils and a forge heated directly by the lava. Only a narrow walkway rose to the platform, where the halfling spotted the red-and-yellow lizardman that had captured the Mysterious Staff so many months before. The creature was clearly engaged in forging something on one of the anvils and failed to notice Alestans tiny form slipping from shadow to shadow. He soon returned to the hallway to relay what he had seen, and the adventurers devised a plan. Alestan and Larannen returned to the Armory, with both under the effects of invisibility magic. Before leaving the corridor, Larranen blocked it full of web behind the party, in case the lizardfolk attempted to escape. The invisible pair crept up onto the suspended walkway, but Larannens relative inexperience at moving quietly betrayed his position to the lizardman. Tenkazu! the creature called out, I know you are here! Show yourself! Thinking quickly, Larannen used a Green spell to shift his body into an approximation of the samurai, hoping it would fool the creature, and then revealed himself.

Who are you? Did Tenkazu send you? the lizardman demanded. Realizing that his disguise attempt was only partially successful, Larannen reacted with his most powerful Blue spell to date: he demanded that the lizardman sit on its hands quietly, and the power of Blue magic caused the creature to comply! But Larannen had worded the spell poorly, and the creature immediately sprang back up seconds later, its task completed and the spell thus broken. As the lizardman collected the still-hot object it was forging, Larannen tried the spell again, demanding that the creature stay seated until told otherwise. This time, the magic took hold fully, and the snarling angry reptile was compelled to do as the sorcerer demanded. Larannen then used another burst of Blue magic to try to compel it to answer his questions, but it shook off the effects of the magic. He tried one last time, insisting that the lizardfolk answer all of his questions, quickly and truthfully. This time, the spell appeared to work, as the creature began answering questions. He spoke excessively fast, however; a seeming side effect of the letter of Larannens command. Sparrow, Adi, and Nappy finally entered the Armory and began helping Larannen interrogate the lizardman. They learned that the creature had stolen the crystal from Tenkazus grasp because the samurais unseen master wished to possess it. It claimed that it would rather destroy the crystal than let it fall into the masters hands. It further stated that it did not know what the crystal did, only that it belonged to the lizardfolk and should not be allowed to be used by outsiders. It had come to this buried forge to craft a hammer capable of cracking the magically-reinforced crystal; only adamantine could break the sphere, and only special dwarven forges like this one could melt adamantine. The adventurers took his answers to heart, especially when Alestan got him to agree to take up arms with them against Tenkazu in order to defend the crystal. Adi and Sparrow agreed that they should destroy the crystal, on the theory that it was better off gone than in the hands of Tenkazus master, of whom they knew nothing. Larannen argued against it; while he also did not want to see the crystal with the samurai, he was concerned that perhaps the crystals power could be useful in some fashion. In the end, though, he backed down, and used

his weaponsmithing skill to finish the forging of the special adamantine hammer needed. No sooner had he passed the completed hammer to Nappy--their strongest memberto break the crystal than a loud noise was heard in the webbed corridor. A split-second later, the samurai Tenkazu burst through the door, passing through Larannens web as if it were insubstantial. He leapt to the top of the catwalk and struck the sorcerer down in a single blow. Adi and Sparrow rushed to the walkway to hold Tenkazu back while Nappy broke the crystal, but the warrior had not come alone. Irina Lightwake, the cleric that had slain Lily with her column of fire, flew into the room, her armored form held aloft by magic. Nappys hammer came crashing down on the crystal just as her magic froze the barbarian in place. Alas, only a small crack appeared in the stone. Desperate for aid against the deadly Tenkazu, Alestan verbally released the lizardman from Larannens compulsion. The creature leapt up and snatched the adamantine hammer from Nappys paralyzed hands, intent on completing the crystals destruction. But he, too, only brought the hammer down one time before Irina struck him blind with more magic, causing him to fumble the hammer and almost topple into the burning lava. Meanwhile, Tenkazu struck viciously at Adi, demanding that they turn over the crystal to him and not destroy it. The party ignored his threats. Back on the platform, Nappy shook off Irinas spell and once again took up the hammer. He swung the hammer with all the power his half-ogre muscles could provide, and the crystal shattered into a million glittering pieces. A glowing red energy unwound itself from within the crystals remains, hanging in the air like a coiled snake made of red energy. Sitting blinded on the platform, the lizardfolk began to laugh loudly, a harsh sound that all knew meant it had lied to them. It had never been compelled by Larannens final spell, but had fooled them into believing it was so with clever lies wrapped in truths. It had indeed sought to break the crystal, but to release something that lived within, something Tenkazus master had seen fit to try to prevent. Tenkazu shrieked in anger as he saw the energy snake grow above Nappys head, and Irina attempted to disrupt the form with magic, but to no avail. In a flash, the energy sought out the laughing lizardfolk and filled his mouth, nose,

and eyes. It began to twist and mutate the creatures body, filling it with its energy and transforming it into a massive black snake, over 40 feet in length, that soon filled the forging platform. This new beast had three white snake heads, each with a pair of glowing red eyes. The adventurers began to worry. In anger, or perhaps seeking help ending his life in penance for his failure, Tenkazu threw himself at the snake-monster. His katana shattered on the snakes scales, and th e three heads tore him into shreds, killing him. In a panic, Irina summoned a blue-skinned humanoid with golden feathered wings, instructing him to whisk her away to someone named Lord Yun, whom she felt needed warning of the events that had just transpired. Nappy and Alestan, still on the platform beside the snake, began running across the platform before a disturbing triple-layered voice stopped them: Do you not wish to be rewarded for your task, my liberator? At the sound of the word reward, the umberwho days before had refused to leave so much as a bag of coppers behind stopped and turned to speak with the snake. The creature offered to grant Nappy three wishes in return for his act. Quickly, Nappy first wished for the beast to tell them who he was and where he came from. The snakebeast obliged, spinning a tale of millennia past: The snake-beast held nothing less than the spirit of the god of the lizardfolk. It had been trapped in that crystal since the dawn of elven civilization. Indeed, it was the fall of this god, named Seessla, that had allowed the elves to rise to power over the reptilian races. But a few thousand years ago, the elves and dwarves had rebelled against their oppressive gods and slain them with powerful magic. They did not stop with their own gods, either, and destroyed the gods of every race that walked Adros. But the snake-god lay trapped, unknown to them, in a lowly crystal sphere, and thus survived. Now with the sphere broken, Seessla was free to gather his worshippers once more, certain that he alone held the power of a deity. Needless to say, Alestan was starting to become somewhat concerned by this story, while Larannen felt it important to remind everyone that he had opposed breaking the crystal.

Nappy, however, was still caught up in making wishes. Sparrow cautiously floated the idea of wishing to revive their fallen comrade Jillaan idea Nappy flatly rejected. Instead, her second wish was for each of the adventurers to be granted a powerful magic item. And in an instant, a mighty artifact appeared before each of the five living party members. Each cautiously accepted their item, unsure whether or not they were safe. They were soon won over, however, as each object mentally revealed its powers to its wielders. Finally, with a mischievous grin, Nappy made his third and final wish: to be able to fly, permanently. Granted, intoned the snake -god, and a large pair of black reptilian wings burst from Nappys shoulders, stretching and twitching practically on their own. Nappy was thrilled by his new appendages, but also knew that something inside him had changed by his dealings with this creature. He had accepted the bounty of the snake-god, and was now marked by its reptilian power forever. With no further comment, the snake-god vanished into thin air, leaving the adventurers alone to ponder what had just happened. End of Book Two... The Cast

Artus has blond hair, blue eyes, pale skin and the pointy ears that unmistakably mark a member of the High Elven race. The eyes reflect not the characteristic conceit normally found in his ilk, but instead an overt attempt to hide some inner struggle. In attempting to seem deep, this man strikes you as shallow. It's easy to tell that some people might feel sorry for this elf. Underneath a fine travelers coat, you see the shimmer of highly polished bright green chainmail; the shimmering hilt of a sword peaks over his shoulder.

Asa Elriksdoitter is the ambassador from the human barbarians of Tharta. She has red curly hair pulled back in a long braid. It is obvious she is a noble among her people, due to her nice clothes and jewelry as well as the way she holds herself. Her face is young yet serious.

Dane Maeron: Of about medium build with dark fashionably unkempt hair and well trimmed goatee, Dane is a human with a constant smile or wry smirk on his face. He wears simple yet fashionable clothes and has a rapier strapped to his waist.

Emma Lee Hollowmoon Emma stands a hair under three feet tall and has a slender build even for a Halfling. Dark brown hair spills down her back, which she normally wears pulled back and up into a ponytail. Large brown eyes peer out from beneath thick lashes. Matching daggers are strapped to each leg, and a longsword and wellworn composite longbow on her back. Most of her gear is carried upon her riding dog, Apple.

Lionel Frost is a 22 years old human, 6' 2" tall, and weighs 190lbs. His reddish brown hair has not been cut since he left home and he usually ties it in a top knot with a piece of cloth given to him by his mother. His intelligent green eyes beguile his burly farmer's physique. Lionel is usually in his traveler's outfit, but when danger is suspected or combat is imminent, he is quick to suit up in his father's masterwork plate mail.

Jack Phelan is a human who stands almost 6 feet tall, with deep brown eyes and perfectly black hair. He wears his messy hair parted along the right side. His face is covered in two-day-old stubble and smudges of dirt. He is of slight build but is well-toned from his physically demanding professions. His clothes are often nondescript and utilitarian, and he is never without his rapier at his side and some form of armor under his clothes.

Xylos is a bone elf dressed entirely in black with a long robe and a wide brimmed hat. A scarf is wrapped around his neck, failing to conceal a gruesome lich like face. He carries a staff and his waist is ringed with small pouches. Combined with the fact that that a large raven perches on the end of his staff he is obviously a wizard.

Episode 1: Gains and Losses The scene opens at the theater, on the opening night of the city's newest play. New Thartan ambassador Asa Elriksdoitter is in attendance, as are a pair of elves (Artus and Xylos). The play turns out to be a dud, overly concerned with the minutiae of high elven culture; of all those in attendence, only Artus gives it a standing ovation. The wealthy and elite of Skullsport then gather for a garden party, where Asa hobknobs with the rich and privileged while Artus drags his bone elf compatriot to meet the playwright, Suki Lilantern. She had been drowning her sorrows with her good friend, bard Dane Maeron, but Artus' entirely unjustified praise lifted her spirits. She invites the elves to dine with her, over Dane's objections, where they are seated next to Asa and her senator host. The group talks about the play and other events for a while until the party breaks up. Asa returns to her newly-purchased townhouse only to find that is in fact haunted by a spirit that has taken to appearing randomly. The next morning, she sends he manservant Jorczek to find the learned bard she had met the night before, as well as to gather a group of bodyguards (with instructions to select as broad a range of skills as possible). Meanwhile, Dane is asked by Suki to apologize to Artus, to whom the bard had been quite rude. On the way to meet the elf, Jorczek catches up to him, and the bard leads the servant to a part of town where mercenaries wait for caravans to guard. Once there, Jorczek gathers a group of warriors and other mercenaries: a halfling woman and two human men, as well as the pair of elves and Dane himself. Bringing the group back to Asa's townhouse, he allows her to describe the haunting. She tells of the ghost: a glowing blue spirit of a man dressed in extravagant clothes, with three puncture wounds in his chest. The only sounds he makes are the word, "Blaaaannnkk," and an eerie moan of "eeeEEEEEeeee." The group immediately begins to investigate the situation, with Jack Phelan, a man of dubious background, conducting a search of the room. Soon, the group split up: Emma the halfling hit the bars where the locals spent there time, looking for information about the previous owner and his servants, while Dane met the others at the Skullsport Landowner's Office. Perusal of the files there revealed the city had seized the house when the owner, a "Lord Gythur," had been killed without heir. No

details of the death were listed however. Emma learned that few even knew he had died. That night, Emma and Jack took on a more detailed search of the house while the elves meditated in the haunted room, while Asa (disguised as her maid) slept nearby. The search was interrupted when the ghost was discovered in the dining room; Jack summoned the rest while Emma hid. Upon arriving, the group sees the ghost turn to face them. Over the objections of her new bodyguards, Asa reaches out to touch the ghost. Suddenly, the flesh melts from its face and its scream sends chills down everyone's spines. Emma and Xylos, overcome with stark terror, flee the scene immediately, running from the house and not looking back. The ghost then turns to touch Asa, and the group springs into battle! However, it soon becomes clear that steel has no effect on the apparition. Asa summons a sphere of flame to burn the ghost, but the rest of the team has difficulty disrupting the ghost. Soon, though, Dane has an insight. Drawing a wand of healing magic, the bard smites the ghost with positive energy, the antithesis of the undead creature's existence. Asa also drew her own wand, and the pair attempted to destroy the ghost while their allies, unable to strike directly, aided them in their efforts. In time, Dane struck the final blow with his wand, and the ghost dissipated. But before it left the plane, the ghost showed all in the room a final image: the scene of its own death. Killed by three arrows somewhere in the midst of farmlands, Gythur's final thoughts revealed what was tying him to his undead limbo: "My blankkeeee." Asa deduces he must be seeking his security blankie, and the team returns to their beds to rest and prepare for the search for Gythur's personal effects. Episode 2: Dazed and Confused The group wakes after a sound sleep that followed the temporary defeat of the ghost of Lord Gythur. Over breakfast, Dane, Lionel, and Xylos discussed their backgrounds and qualifications while Asa looked on (and Artus was completely distracted). Soon, the conversation turned to devising a plan to locate Gythur's possessions. While everyone agreed that the neighbors would a good source of information, there

was strong disagreement between Asa and Artus on how to go about questioning them. Artus believed that inviting them to the haunted townhouse was an unnecessary risk, but in the end Asa firmly stated that the decision was hers to make and that the risk was minimal. She sent her manservant Jorczek out to knock on the neighbors' doors and invite them to afternoon tea. Dane and Xylos went out to acquire some Energy Water, in case they need to fight the ghost again. Xylos knew this positive-energyinfused liquid burns the undead on contact, while Dane was familiar with one of the healer's guilds near the theater of Skullsport. Called the Healers of Harmony, this hall is a gathering place for clerics and bards who use music to bring health to the body and soul. One of Dane's theater friends, the bard Rall, spotted the pair and was happy to sell them seven vials of energy water. The pair returned just as Jorczek did, bearing news that four neighbors had accepted invitations. Soon, the guests arrived and tea began. The guests were Firi, a level-headed gnome Blue Wizard; Ky Strongwell, a bombastic retired warrior; Velonia, a rude (but sexy) heiress; and Senator Dyrock Greenhammer, quiet dwarven representative from Votok Province. The guests were able to share general impressions about the eccentric Lord Gythur, but none were close friends with him. They explained that he was skittish and afraid of just about everything, only leaving his house for boat trips to Cestia to feed his gambling addiction. They were largely unaware he had died, thinking he had simply moved. In the kitchen, Lionel attempted to ask the servants a few questions, but his lack of tact merely annoyed them. The tea ended without any decisive information. The seductive Velonia was quite taken with handsome Dane, who was all too happy to escort her home. Upon arriving at her palatial mansion, she waved away her servants and invited the bard up to her bedroom. She poured two cups of a strange liquid for the pair, drinking the concoction first. Velonia was clearly affected, but Dane drank up anyway. The hallucinogenic poison had an immediate effect on Dane as well, causing his perceptions to alter substantially. The bard was able to stay conscious just long enough to enjoy his time with the heiress-very much. Afterwards, a pair of servants dragged the barely aware Dane down to the kitchen, where they washed and dressed him. As they

worked, they casually discussed what they had overheard during tea. One mentioned a former servant of Gythur's, named "Lanky," that had fallen on hard times and was shacking up near the Spine. Then, with little ceremony, the servants dumped the woozy Dane back on the street. Meanwhile, the rest of the group searched the city auction records for clues as to whom Gythur's possessions were sold. Coming up empty, they returned to the townhouse in time for Dane to stumble in the door, muttering, "Lankyspine" Asa immediately deduced he had been poisoned, and they rushed the bard back to the Healers of Harmony. The cleric on duty was clearly disgusted by Dane's ingestion of the poison, but he grudgingly reduced the severity of the poison (for a fee). Dane regained enough of his faculties to spit out the name and location of Gythur's servant, then returned home to sleep off the rest of the effects. The rest of the team headed to the Spine, the stretch of massive dragon-like vertebrae that ring the northeastern portion of the city. A shantytown of Skullsport's homeless and disenfranchised had sprung up in the bones' shadows, which protected them from the hot summer sun. Artus began shouting loudly for someone named "Lanky," which only attracted a dozen poverty-stricken men claiming to be Lanky. A quick display of martial prowess by the elf convinced them that they did not, in fact, want to be Lanky. Asa managed to convince one trustworthy man to lead them to their quarry, who turned out to be a rustic halfling horse-groomer (called "Lanky" on account of his near four-foot height). The halfling was able to recount the exact circumstances of Gythur's death, as was riding behind the carriage on the day of the attack. He related how the Lord had decided to take a trip, along with many of his valuables, towards the city of Wright's Cove. About halfway there, mounted archers savagely attacked the procession, slaying Gythur and most of the servants. Lanky beat a hasty retreat, but when he returned with the Sheriff of a nearby village, the bandits were gone and all baggage was stolen. The halfling could not remember the exact town, but was happy to accompany the party and point out the location. Asa graciously offered the down-on-his-luck halfling a job as her stablehand, which he gladly accepted. The team agreed that they needed to head

out and find the bandits and the Sheriff, so preparations began for a trip to the country. Episode 3: Country Living With the halfling, Lanky, to lead them, the group set off into the Rincalin countryside. Dane unfortunately was still recovering from his poisoning and opted to stay home in bed; Lionel stayed behind as well, to look after him. The remainder of the group rode north into Hartland, the province surrounding Skullsport. An evening at a roadside inn almost sparked trouble when Jack chose to camp by the side of the road rather than renting a room-only to find out from the local patrol that camping within 2000 feet of the road was illegal. Another two days passed on the road, until Lanky lead them to the village of Hancot. Here, they talked to the sheriff that had investigated the crimes, learning that the bandits had struck only a handful of times, and were very difficult to track down. He mentioned that he had attempted to set a decoy caravan, using Gythur's abandoned cart, but the bandits had not fallen for the ruse. Xylos surmised that the bandits were getting inside help from someone in the village. The sheriff was able to send the team to Rao's general store, where the carriage was resting. Jack examined the cart thoroughly, which had been stripped of all valuables. He did finds a reddish brown dried crusty substance on the spoke of one wheel, which Xylos was able to identify as mashed beans. The group then talked to Feria, the healer, who had examined Gythur's body. They asked her whether there were any bean farms in the area, and learned that one own by Ravik Taverson was a few miles up the road-not far from the ambush site. Lanky led them to the site, where they searched a copse of trees on a rise above the road. Jack managed to spot someone hiding in the bean fields watching them, but let him turn and run back before alerting the others. Convinced they had to move quickly, the group turned to approach the bean farm. Jack and Emma sneaked through the fields, keeping pace with the wagon (with the two elves atop), Asa, and Lanky, the latter pair

mounted. The group decided to go directly towards the larger of the farm's two houses, a two-story white farmhouse. The road caused them to pass very close to the longer one-story house, and no one in the wagon saw the quartet of archers waiting in the windows to open fire! Jack and Emma saw from their hiding place, but were unable to react before a volley of arrows flew, striking Asa, Artus, Lanky, and Xylos with deadly precision. Lanky was immediately knocked from his pony and into unconsciousness. Battle ensued, with Emma dropping several of the hidden archers while Xylos used a web spell to trap a number of escape-minded bandits inside the longhouse. An umber charged from the house only to meet Jack's hidden rapier the hard way, while Asa summoned a very effective dire badger. Jack and Artus tore into the umber while the badger dealt with a tiny man with a poisoned sword that had followed. While seven bandits managed to flee on horseback (most had ran for the stables as soon as the scout returned), the group killed 5 bandits and captured another 4. Asa interrogated the captured bandits, learning that stolen goods were fenced by their boss, the farm owner Ravik, who lived in the white house. Meanwhile, Emma and Jack took their time searching the larger farmhouse. Jack eventually found a locked secret door down to a hidden basement, and picked the lock. He then opened the door, only to be met by a deadly arrow to the chest from the basement's hidden occupant! Jack collapsed, and Emma tried to trade shots with the assailant but couldn't see in the basement's darkness. She yelled for help, and the rest of the team came running. Xylos suggested they should flush the archer out; a suggestion Artus took the wrong way, The foolish elf charged into the basement to flush out the attacker, only to meet another precise arrow that killed him outright! The rest of the group used a bit more strategy: Asa summoned another dire badger and cast a light spell on it, sending it in to sniff out the enemy. The badger found him, but was unable to get his claws into him as the archer switched from bow to heavy flail. Xylos' wand was unable to enfeeble the rogue, who was taking cover behind a few crates of stolen goods, and Emma's arrows were equally blocked. The rogue was able to crush the badger, which unfortunately meant the light vanished as well!

Faced with an archer rogue that couldn't be seen, Xylos closed the basement door, and the group began discussing their tactics. Unfortunately, Ravik had keen ears, and soon knew that the team was running out of options. Shouting through the door, he offered a deal: If they let him walk out with his money, he wouldn't attack. Emma was prepared to accept the deal (they were there for the blankie, after all, not his money or even him), but Xylos shouted down that they refused. The rogue then fell silent, and Asa began healing Jack, bringing him back to consciousness. A few seconds later, Ravik threw open the door. Xylos immediately tried to shoot him with another ray of enfeeblement, but the combination of the man's agility and the proximity of his allies (Asa and Jack) caused the beam to miss. Jack struck feebly with his rapier, while Emma shot him once, but in seconds the man ran for the stables. The group decided to let him go at this point, and he fled the farm on horseback. Emma and Jack searched the basement, finding Gythur's blue blankie in a pile of his clothes. They also found a small fortune in stolen merchandise, a large portion of which Jack carefully loaded onto his wagon. While one of their captives had escaped during the second fight, the other 3 were turned over to the sheriff of Hancot-who, luckily, believed Emma when she said they had only carried off Gythur's possessions. With blankie in hand, the team's return trip to Skullsport was uneventful. Lionel welcomed them home with a hearty meal for the victorious team, and Jack and Emma began to sell off their looted items for cold hard cash. While the group never learned the secret of how the bandits were able to predict the coming of wealthy caravans with such accuracy, they accomplished their objective: the retrieval of Gythur's security blanket. Epilogue: After returning to Skullsport, the group gave the ghost of Gythur his security blanket. The ghost howled and vanished in a swirl of bluish mists. Their mission completed, the group split up to pursue individual interests. THE END.

The Ninja Story

Most "Funny D&D Moments" involve players doing something stupid, but here's one where the player does something smart.
My character is Isawa Shojo, a lawful neutral samurai in a campaign focused on a normal European-style region. Basically, there's an elaborate backstory of how my lord has loaned my services to this Northern noble who blah blah blah. Anyway, the point is, I had been adventuring with a paladin (Adhemar), a rogue/sorcerer (Daverick), and an NPC cleric in the North and had been the brunt of any number of cultural misunderstandings, (many of which begin with, "What do you mean, we can't kill the peasant?"). This is a lot of fun for me, because I like personal conflict but dislike intraparty fighting. So for 8 levels, my character had been getting constant rules and reminders about Northern etiquette and what he is and is not allowed to do. Then, our DM sent us to my homeland for a few weeks of adventuring. I seized the opportunity to "school" my companions in every aspect of behavior, dredging up every cultural taboo and restriction my mind could come up with (and many I, the player, made up on the spot), so that they would know what it felt like to be Isawa. I informed Adhemar that he couldn't wear his armor in the city and warned Daverick that if he walked around dressed in black and carrying daggers and a short bow, people would think he was a ninja. "What's a 'ninja'?" he asked. I told him never mind, he didn't want to look like one. As an extra perk (for me), no one in my homeland speaks Common, so they had to rely on Isawa to talk to everyone (Isawa has a Charisma penalty, naturally). Having seen few Northerners, my countrymen were inclined to stare and whisper about these strange men I brought with me-pretty much the same reaction I get going anywhere in the North. During the course of our stay, there was an assassination attempt on a daiymo's heir (not my lord, but one of his allies). Because we are the PCs, we sprung into action, wounding the assassin, but she was capable of limited shapechanging and eluded us. We decided to split up to cover more ground. The DM followed each of our individual searches, until he got to Daverick. The rogue got extremely lucky and stumbled over the

assassin as she was binding her wound. She ran and he pursued. She fled down an alley and right towards an imperial guardsman. The DM then described the assassin (who looked like an average peasant woman) talking excitedly to the guardsman and pointing at her pursuer, the strange-looking Northern rogue (remember, Daverick can't speak or understand the language). The guardsmen gets a determined look on his face and steps forward, adopting a protective stance in front of the woman, and shouts something challenging in the foreign tongue. Daverick begins to panic; he points and blurts out the only word he knows: "Ninja!" The guard takes a momentary glance back at the woman, who has started running away, and figures out what's going on. We are, of course, howling in laughter in real life; it was the perfect thing to say at the perfect time, and it so caught us all by surprise (we were sitting around going, "aw, man, he's toast," before). The woman wasn't even a ninja (she was a yuan-ti, as it turned out), but the word had the right connotations of deception that the guard understood. The word "ninja!" still cracks our DM up when he hears it.