The Cost of Living

I’m still experimenting with upkeep costs for my fantasy campaign.

Based on the costs in the Savage Worlds Fantasy Gear Toolkit, and assuming three meals per day, food and accommodation would cost:

• $270 per month for someone living cheaply (cheap meals, room shared with 5 others)
• $390 per month for the average character (good meals, shared double room)
• $780 per month for someone living well (feasts, private rooms)

So, starting wealth being roughly one month’s upkeep still seems about right, once you allow for entertainment (all right, ale and whores then), ammunition, spell components and so on. It also matches $1 being roughly one copper penny historically, but there’s only one of my players who might know that, and he won’t care, so I’ll leave $1 as one silver Moon.

Where I’ve been going wrong, I think, is in charging PCs this much one per session – once per adventure seems more reasonable, since an adventure typically covers only a few days of game time but can take 3-5 sessions to complete.

However, to discourage people leading a string of ponies around behind them (The Warforged, I’m lookin’ at you), I shall charge them the "living cheaply" rate for each horse as well.

Hold Nothing Back

How many cool ideas should you keep back for the next campaign?

None.

Shadows of Keron took a holiday this week, as Gutz’ player wanted to GM Shadowrun. Since the Saturday afternoon session is the only one we can all make, I let him take a slot for a taster session – more on that tomorrow.

That meant my prep time this week could be used for longer-term thinking about the campaign, and I realised that I was holding back scenario ideas for the next campaign, after we move on from the Dread Sea Dominions. This makes a number of assumptions, any of which could be false:

• That there will be a next campaign;
• That it will not be in the Dominions;
• And that I will run out of cool ideas, so I have to save some for later.

So I’ll abandon that line of reasoning, and throw all the ideas that fit the setting into Shadows of Keron. Most of the ideas come from monsters that interest me in the D&D or Pathfinder bestiaries, and anything Graeco-Roman or Cthulhoid will fit in the Dominions; the only things that don’t really belong are goblinoids and orcs, and Valk or Nandals can stand in for them.

Squid-headed brain eaters whose Names May Not Be Mentioned without intervention by the dreaded Gods of Copyright Law are my favourite Cthulhoid type monsters, and they will fit right in. Medusae or minotaurs – Greek monsters, advance and be incorporated. Monstrous vermin of all descriptions may also enter.

Likewise, I’ve been thinking about resurrecting Irongrave as the base city for a future campaign. Most of the city ideas can drop straight in to a Dominion city; probably Gis, as that’s the party’s current destination. Time enough to worry about the next campaign when I’ve run out of scenarios for this one.

More about all of these in future posts. Meanwhile, the recommendation is, hold nothing back!

Shadows of Keron Episode 12: The Uninvited Guest

Kenaton is a big city, and the players have been travelling towards it for months, so even if it isn’t the eventual destination, it deserves a couple of adventures. There are none specifically set in Kenaton, and the few urban One-Sheets don’t look suitable. OK then, what do we know about Kenaton?

Reading through the relevant sections of Beasts & Barbarians and Citadel of the Winged God, I see that Kyros City and Kenaton have been allies for a long time, and that both cities provide troops to the Golden Guard, whose aim is to make the Gold Route (which follows the Sword River) safe for trade. This is a land and river route from the northern countries to Kenaton, where it crosses the Brown Sea to Lhoban. Kenaton is thus both a seaport and a major trade hub.

That’s it. Actually, that’s about the level of detail I like; enough to get me thinking but not prescriptive or over-detailed. I can do pretty much what I like, and it’s about time Jughal the Restless came back; he shouldn’t give up until the party either kill him permanently or give him the gems, in which case there will be tears before bedtime. I imagine he is tracking them because of some mystical connection to the gems, possibly he can see through them – yes, I like that. So, Jughal knows that The Warforged is carrying the Eyes on his person.

Jughal’s objective is to recover the Eyes, and thus gain control over his own Weakness. If he can get them without violence, so much the better – less risk to him that way. He knows of several treasure caches and will happily trade one or more of them for the Eyes; after all, once he is completely invulnerable, he can always get them back.

He is a lich, so his main strength is that he knows almost all the powers in the book. I decide that he can see through the Eyes, and knows their direction and distance at all times, but he can’t hear through them. So, he has to follow along behind the group, which limits his chances to lay traps. Once they reach Kenaton, however, and settle in to trade, relax and so forth, he can act – but he will still act swiftly as he doesn’t know their plans.

He has three basic strategies available to him; deceit (persuade the party to give him the gems), stealth (steal them), and brute force. Of course he could just ask nicely, but where’s the fun in that? Someone this old and sneaky knows enough about power to kick off all three approaches and go with the one that bears fruit first. I decide to expose the party to the visible signs of his plans, then wing it, letting the session go wherever they wandered. It’s a long time since I’ve run a completely improvised session, wouldn’t want to get rusty.

-o0o-

Resting up in Kenaton, the group sells off unwanted possessions and enjoys the comforts of city life for a while. They decide they are staying at the Headless Chicken Inn, part of a chain stretching across the continent, which amuses me.

Ahmed the Jeweller, whom they befriended while selling off gems, asks to meet them and tells them he has been ordered by a mysterious stranger to make a pair of matching ruby earrings, quickly, or die. The rubies he describes are an exact match for the Eyes of Jughal. Can the party help him find such rubies, or alternatively intervene with his patron? As it happens, they can.

When a thug from the Thieves’ Guild comes around to check on progress, they show him the Eyes and offer to sell him The Warforged (clearly some kind of automaton). He sets up a meeting with the Guildmaster for the following day.

While The Warforged guards the jeweller’s shop, the others go into the seedy side alleys, looking for information on the Guild. In addition to that, which doesn’t help them much, they learn that someone has dug up a few dozen bodies in the city cemetery. Nessime goes there and discovers evil runes carved on the tombs, then alerts the local Temple of Hulian, who respond by girding their loins and staking out the cemetery.

Something sneaks into the jewellers’ that night and tries to cast a spell on The Warforged, but fails.

Day 2, and at the meeting with the Guildmaster, the party learns that the mysterious stranger has offered the Guild 50,000 Moons to retrieve the rubies, which is far more than they are worth. The Warforged proves he has them, then offers to double that if the Guild will set up a meeting with the stranger. The Guild agrees.

That night, the whole party camp out in Ahmed’s shop. Something sneaks in, uses Puppet on The Warforged (he has a weakness, and it is his rubbish Spirit trait) to persuade him to hand over the Eyes of Jughal, then Teleport to escape. Unfortunately, the parting instruction to The Warforged is “kill them all”, which triggers a second Spirit save – this one, he makes, and as it is now raining, a humanoid figure can be seen limned in raindrops in the alley outside. The party charge into contact, firing ranged spells, and Shake their opponent; it is none other than Jughal the Restless, whose Invisibility drops when he is Shaken. He Teleports again, but The Warforged manages to snatch back the Eyes before he does so.

Day 3, and Nessime alerts the Temple to Jughal’s presence. They are not angry, but very, very disappointed that the party released Jughal from his tomb. Nessime spends the day being debriefed before the Temple sends runners off in all directions to raise the alarm.

Meanwhile, The Warforged and Gutz meet the Guild to tell them the deal is off. The Guildmaster explains that this means he is 150,000 out of pocket, and he would be happy to take that in cash. Immediately. This leads to an argument, and shortly thereafter, missile fire from rooftop archers who have The Drop on the party. However, it takes more than an arrow to drop The Warforged, and Gutz is happy not to be the primary target. Both sides retreat before things turn to melee.

The Guild is no longer the party’s friend.

That night, again the whole party camps out in the shop, and they are rewarded with a mass zombie assault during the small hours – Jughal is responsible for the raid on the cemetery, and has used it to raise some disposable troops. Blast spells dispose of most of them, but they are just a diversion, as Jughal Teleports inside the shop and unleashes a Fear spell on the party. This has no effect on Nessime or The Warforged, but Gutz has to spend a benny to avoid a fatal heart attack, and is Shaken for a number of rounds.

The Warforged returns the favour, but zombies are immune and Jughal has enough Spirit to shake it off. Jughal and The Warforged nod at each other, having established that Fear won’t work. Jughal next casts Puppet on The Warforged, takes the Eyes from him, and runs out.

The party pursues him into the night, whereupon he uses Fly to get up onto the rooftops. A lucky Bolt brings him down, and before he can recover (he’s out of bennies by this point) the party are upon him.

After much debate, they place the Eyes back in Jughal’s sockets, immobilising him. The liche is then dismembered, with his head (including Eyes) in the Temple at Kenaton, and other parts dispersed around the continent. The Warforged consents to this so long as he is paid rent for the use of the Eyes. Although disappointed by this, the Temple decides 5 Moons per week is a small price to pay for the continued existence of humanity, and so the deal is struck.

-o0o-

When next we see our heroes, they will have moved on to Syranthia, site of the Great Library. What could possibly go wrong?

A Triumvirate On My Own

Fresh from the Achiever-Explorer-Killer-Socialiser view of my players, I now turn to the threefold model. A quick recap:

• Gamists focus on playability, without worrying too much about story or realism. ("We should use a square grid for the battlemat because it’s easy.")
• Simulationists focus on realism over story or playability. ("We should use a hex grid for the battlemat because it doesn’t give an unrealistic advantage to units that move diagonally.")
• Narrativists prioritise the story over the game. ("We don’t need no stinkin’ battlemat.")

I haven’t done a survey for this view of the group, but I’ve played with them long enough now to have a feel for where they sit. As usual, I refer to the players by the character name, to protect the innocent…

• Alihulk, Garstrewt and Gutz are gamists with significant narrativist tendencies. They read up on the setting background between games, and have interesting but so far unexplored backstories, but once at the table they want to play a game, and so long as it’s fun they don’t mind about accuracy.
• Athienne is almost a pure narrativist. For her, the story comes first, second and third, and the game exists only as a framework for it. However, her interest is mostly in the story of the protagonists, whereas Alihulk and Gutz are interested in the story of the setting as well, and Garstrewt is only interested in the setting.
• Nessime and The Warforged are unashamed pure gamists. They don’t follow the story, and have no interest in historical accuracy. So long as there are puzzles to solve and fell beasts to slay, they don’t mind why.
• Peter is a narrativist with gamist tendencies. A favourite quote is that he likes rules which are simple enough not to get in the way of the story. Although he has more actual, practical knowledge of real-life adventuring than the rest of us put together, he carries that lightly and lets us get away with murder in terms of what you can really do with a horse, a knife, or a sucking chest wound.

This suggests I should focus on the game first, the story second, and historical accuracy not at all, because nobody is interested but me.

Beasts & Barbarians Indiegogo

For the past couple of days I’ve been thinking, what I need is more One-Sheets or Savage Tales suitable for use in the Dread Sea Dominions – short adventures which would occupy a session each. There are a lot of One-Sheet adventures around, but most of them are for Deadlands, and I’ve found converting them harder than I expected. Ideally, I’d have enough that I could pick a suitable one from the pile for whatever group turns up on Saturday.

And lo, no sooner is the wish made than I see GRAmel has set up an Indiegogo campaign to fund Beasts of the Dominions, ten new monsters each with a Savage Tale attached.

I’ve pushed a few bucks their way, and if you’re minded to do the same, click on the link above sometime before June 12th.

The normal schedule will be resumed tomorrow.

Shadows of Keron Episode 11: Citadel Part 4 and Thieves in the Night

Citadel of the Winged Gods, Part 4

After a week off to reflect, the party decided that their tactical position was not good, and they should do something about it. Noticing that one side of the pyramid was devoid of tribesmen, they made a fighting withdrawal to that side, then turned and ran into the jungle, pursued Indiana Jones style by howling savages. A standard five round chase ensued, during which they nearly lost their native guide, Kiran, but managed to grab him and drag him off with them. Eventually losing the savages in the jungle, they settled down for a damp, cold night which they spent wondering what had happened to their companions.

In the morning, after a few minor setbacks, they found their way to the Lost City they have been looking for these past few sessions. Dodging arrows in the ruins led them to discover such survivors as there were, but their discussion was interrupted by Kumal the Smiling, their recurring nemesis, and a dozen Valk archers who have been trailing them through the jungle and looked decidedly the worse for wear. This was planned as the big climactic fight of the adventure, but ridiculously lucky dice rolls on Fear and Blast powers wiped out the Valk in a couple of rounds, before they could do any serious damage. All the Valk except Kumal the Smiling, that is.

Now, Kumal should be dead by now, but for some inscrutable reason of their own, the Dice Gods love him. He has been blown up, stabbed, thrown down a well, perforated with arrows, blown up again, stabbed again, and he just keeps on coming. I’m not even using any bennies on him. So, it should come as no surprise that one of the city’s guardian beasts carried him off to an uncertain fate. By this stage, he may have developed a grudge against the party. If he survives the guard beast – and you can imagine how tempted I am – I foresee a crusade for revenge on his part.

The party found sufficient loot for them to consider their time well spent. As I misread a paragraph in the adventure, this includes two giant fighting hawk eggs, since hatched. Oh well, never mind – I’m sure I can make them regret that.

Thieves in the Night

Since we finished early, I dragged out my emergency one-sheet and trimmed it to fit the remaining time. This was Thieves in the Night, also by Umberto Pignatelli, from Savage Insider #3.

This is an everyday tale of tomb-robbing folk, and venturing into a step pyramid in the minor Kyrosian city of Gilaska, the group emerged, more than somewhat bedraggled, heavy of purse and light of Wounds and bennies. While the Carnival at Nal Sagath uses the random card draw method to generate a dungeon, Thieves in the Night uses Beasts & Barbarians’ other approach, presenting a list of rooms and encounters in sequence. Since I skipped over half of these to fit into the time limit, I plan to respray the pyramid and use the rest of the encounters again later.

Lessons Learned

Athienne’s player wasn’t able to attend much of this adventure, which is a pity as she had all the right skills and could have taken a turn in the limelight. I need to think about how I can cope better with not knowing who is turning up to any given session; that suggests a swing away from multi-part adventures towards one-sheets, and possibly a return to the megadungeon concept.

I should also read the scenario more carefully in future to avoid burdening the party with too much treasure.

On the plus side, having a short spare scenario in the back pocket is a useful tool.

Radar Love

Spurred on by tension between players in the last couple of sessions, I re-analysed the recent player survey responses and used them to rate each player on the classic four motivations… to recap quickly:

• Achievers like finding loot and leveling up.
• Explorers like finding stuff out about the rules or the setting.
• Killers like killing things, sometimes other players.
• Socialisers like talking to NPCs and other players.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with any of them, but if Player A’s motives differ too much from Player B’s, it’s harder to craft a session that appeals to both of them.

I then plotted the results on a radar chart, which you can see below. (Yeah, I know, I take this stuff way too seriously.)

Some things leapt out at me…

Externally Focussed Parties

These groups should stick together, and the main conflicts should be with monsters or NPCs.

• Peter and Gutz can operate in any party, but work especially well together. Their radar plots are so close they overlay each other perfectly.
• Athienne and Garstrewt work well together, but both prefer to avoid fights.
• The Warforged and Alihulk work well together as long as the party is in combat.
• Nessime’s interests overlap with everyone’s except Athienne and Garstrewt, but never by more than half; so Nessime will usually be slightly at odds with whatever is going on.

Internally Focussed Parties

Here, the main conflicts will be between party members, so I expect the party will split up in play.

• Athienne or Garstrewt with The Warforged, Alihulk or Nessime; these two groups have opposing interests.
• The Warforged and Alihulk, if there are no fights.

Conclusions

In descending order of frequency, I expect the three commonest party makeups to be:

• Group A: The Warforged, Nessime and Gutz. For this group, I should prioritise fights, with loot and puzzles in joint second place.
• Group B: Group A plus Athienne and Garstrewt. This will be the hardest one to manage, as I can literally please Athienne and Garstrewt, or The Warforged and Nessime, but not both pairs at the same time. The best I can do here is time-slice between puzzles, combat, loot and NPC interaction.
• Group C: Group A plus Peter. In terms of scenario focus I can treat this as if it were Group A.
• Group D: Peter, Abishag, Alihulk and Borg. Puzzles are more important than for Group A, but fights are still good.

If I’m not sure who is coming to a session, which I am usually not, I should go with Group A, but need to consider how I can keep Athienne and Garstrewt interested if they turn up.

Shadows of Keron, Episode 10: Temple of the Frog God

Most of the players couldn’t make this week’s session, so when one turned up unexpectedly I had 20 minutes to figure something out. The process went something like this…

SETUP

1. I can’t carry on with the current adventure, so let’s have a flashback. Buster has jet black skin and is kind of evil, being a drow originally, so he’s obviously a High Tricarnian. An earlier adventure together would work.
2. The last couple of things I looked at were the Pool of Endless Froglings in WotC’s Book of Challenges, and canals in the Dominions. OK, something is eating canal slaves in Tricarnia and the dynamic duo are sent in to sort it out.
3. I can use orc stats for the degenerate Frog Men and orc chieftain stats for the boss. I’ll make him a priest, so he can have AB (Miracles), Boost/Lower Trait, and Bolt.
4. Need a map. First thing out of the drawer is a pile of Wydraz hex dungeon tiles, they’ll do.

At this point I pick half a dozen tiles that look interesting and slap them on the table to make a map, like this:

Then I need to scribble some scenario notes, which look like this – you don’t need more than this unless you’re going to publish the scenario.

PLAY

Buster and The Warforged entered from the canal bank. Nobody in Tricarnia much cares about dead slaves per se, but fewer slaves means less rice, thus less food or money, and the local Priest Prince isn’t standing for that.

They walk brazenly across between the pillars in the entrance hall, and are noticed by the half-dozen Frog Men in the barracks, who attack immediately (neither PC knows this, but they are defending their spawning pool, so they’re in no mood to parley).

Six resprayed orcs was enough to get Buster down to two Wounds and one benny, and The Warforged down to one Wound and one benny, so the CR was pretty much bang on. I think I could have killed Buster with wild attacks and gangup, but he made good use of the pillars to restrict how many Frog Men could get at him at once.

Once the Frog Men were down, the crocodile in the opposite room decided to take advantage of the free lunch. The PCs locked themselves in the barracks, and since there was food lying around it didn’t have to fight for, the croc had no reason to pursue them.

It was at this point the PCs realised they had no healing magic, and only Buster had the Healing skill. Rolling at –4 didn’t help, so they waited for the croc to finish and then snuck back to town to get healed up, which drained the cash they’d found in the barracks area.

Returning, they pressed on to the pool room, where they found bits of missing slave floating in the pool while something they couldn’t see nibbled at them. The Warforged realised that as long as he had bennies, his chances of blowing himself up were very slight, so unleashed half a dozen Blast spells into the pool as a fantasy version of grenade fishing. Since one of them reached the giddy heights of 37 damage, I decided any swarms remaining would go and hide somewhere for a while. The Warforged walked across the pool bottom while Buster used his superior climbing skill to go around the sides.

Next up, the altar room, where the Big Bad and two minions awaited them – I figured while they were healing, he’d work out what had happened, and close up to protect the spawning pool. The minions parked themselves on either side of the door, and neither PC wanted to go through, so the Big Bad amused himself firing Bolts through the door at them (with a trapping of “big sticky frog tongue”).

After a few of those, The Warforged threw a Fear spell into the pack, causing the minions to flee, then charged into melee with the Big Bad, while Buster followed up the minions and killed them. A lengthy melee ensued, ending with the Big Bad bleeding out on the floor.

They discovered that moving the emerald Frog God statue made the whole temple shake in alarming ways, so put it back while they searched the rest of the complex. At the bottom of the chasm, I put an exceedingly large and angry Frog Thing (resprayed Giant Worm) as a warning that the scenario was over. So of course they tied off a rope to give them an escape route, and jumped on top of it, managing to Shake it with a violent Bolt first. Once it recovered, they started climbing back up. only to realise the Big Bad was crawling over to the chasm intent on chopping their rope before he died. Unfortunately, he died first and they got back out.

Completely failing to think of putting a weight on the statue’s plinth, they grabbed it and ran. The complex collapsed, making a huge hole in the side of the canal – this may be why they left Tricarnia in the first place.

My creativity must be recharging.

The Dread Sea Dominions on $500 per Session

I wanted some way of siphoning off the huge quantities of money some PCs are starting to build up, and as a group I don’t think they are ready for the savings rules in Beasts & Barbarians, however much I like them.

So, my compromise is to dock each character an amount equal to their starting funds after each session in which the player shows up. (If the player doesn’t show up, the PC has no chance to increase their funding, but is assumed to be paying more attention to spending it wisely rather than blowing it all on ale and whores.)

Most of the characters are already skint as a result, and even those with multiple thousands of silver are starting to feel the pinch. However, the players accept it as the price of doing business. So, a success all round, I think.

What do they spend it on? I think that depends on their Hindrances.

• Abishag has so many Hindrances it’s hard to choose, but I reckon most of it goes on bribes so officials will overlook the trail of bodies and crime in his wake.
• Alihulk and Gutz are definitely in ale and whores territory. (I could also believe Gutz buries piles of coins and gems all over the Dominions like a squirrel.)
• Athienne and Borg, as Outsiders, are wildly overcharged for everything.
• Garstrewt, I don’t have to worry about. His player is having too much fun buying and categorising an enormous list of mundane objects. It’s not how I roll, but so long as he manages his equipment list and not me, I say let him enjoy the game in his own way.
• Nessime is a true paladin, so most of her loot goes to good causes. Alms for the poor, donations to the temple, and so forth.
• Peter’s Clueless Hindrance, and his desire to prove himself worthy of being a nobleman, mean he buys stuff to keep up appearances, and gets overcharged for it.
• The Warforged, as well as converting all his loot into metal for the modifications he uses to justify his advances, has a warhorse and a string of Valk warponies to feed.

Shadows of Keron, Episode 9: Citadel of the Winged Gods, Part 3

I’m feeling a bit under the weather, so a short writeup this time. There wasn’t much progress this session; the group meandered through the jungle, fighting off flesh-eating apes, poisonous snakes, and environmental hazards, before becoming trapped at the top of a ruined building, besieged by jungle tribesmen.

When we called the session, the group were about halfway through killing off the tribesmen, as per the picture below. When we break halfway through a combat, I find it easiest to snap a picture of the setup using my mobile phone, rather than scribble on rough paper (which always seems to get lost).

The Warforged was actually wounded this time, which considering how much armour he wears and that his first action is always to cast Armour on himself, is quite impressive. Admittedly he did it himself, by critically failing a Spellcasting roll. The jungle tribesmen swarmed him, but even with wild attacks and gang-up bonuses they were unable to get through the armour.

The main noteworthy thing about the session was the huge number of jokers drawn for initiative – very nearly one per combat round, and sometimes two.

The kobold represents Jura, the gargoyle Kiran. The central 4×4 area is a building on top of the ziggurat, and the biro is a Barrier spell cast by Kiran to seal off one side of the building from attack. The yellow poker chips represent areas of staircase blown up by The Warforged’s Blast spells. Currently there are 17 tribesmen left off-tile to the top, 13 to the right, 4 to the bottom, and none to the left.

Credits: Dungeon tile, WotC; figures, WizKids and WotC.