Mapping

It occurred to me the other night that there must have been someone out there that used the civilization 3 map editor to create their own fantasy kingdom at some point.  I fondly remember creating maps for civ 3 and for Warcraft 2.  This might have been where I got my mapping love from.  

Much like everyone has a "fantasy heartbreaker" set of home brew rules, I'm also starting to believe that people have their own "fantasty hearthbreaker" world.  Whether it's actually in use, or just in their imagination.  In working on the nightwell barony, I started to think about my old basic fantasy campaign (read the play reports here),  And Crimhuck.  

What I may do when I have some time is amalgamate the BF campaign world and the nightwell barony, and possibly crimhuck into a large continent using Inkarnate (or maybe the Civ 3 editior!).  Alternatively I can always jump into hexographer (Which I'm still amazed that I found a mac osx version of!).  

The idea that these players co-exist has crossed my mind before.  Who knows what will happen when I draw out the areas that are "known", and what happens with the unknown regions? Maybe the muse will be light and I'll find new places for my players to explore (plunder and maybe die?).  

*******

I need to delete facebook.  I've said it before and I'll say it again, its an epic waste of time.  I intend to use my tablet in the mornings having coffee and catching up on things.  I used to spend a lot of time on twitter, and may post there more often.  What I am going to do, which is FAR more productive is put my tablet away in my footrest and leave AD&D books beside my coffee table.  When I think "Hey I should see what is up on FB" I"ll grab a nerd book instead.  Wish me luck. 

There are so many places to find like minded RPG nerds nowadays, but I still long for G+. 

The problem with spending time online, is that I don't really get anything done. 

*********

Does anyone know of a primer for teaching 5e players about 2nd Edition? I know that they are very similar, but the style of play is vastly different in my opinion.  The endless "I'll make this check" rolls d20 is starting to get to me. That and I have a TON of AD&D books that I want to use again. 

Maybe its time for a new campaign! hahha.... Shane finish the one you are on..... finish it.....

Okay that was a TON of ADHD today.  Have fun kids! 

The village of Longtooth starts to take shape

Longtooth has become the homebase for my 5e group.  I think inadvertently I've been working on the Gygax 75 Challenge.  I will likely start that again, with the Nightwell Barony.  I managed to get a bit stumped the last time around, but because I've been running this (Mostly off the cuff) its started to take some shape.  I already have some ideas, its just a matter of getting the pen to the paper.  The nice thing about putting it down will be the fact that I have a better document to work from as the adventures continue.  

I posted the other day about the Friday Five Minute map thing that used to be a lot of fun.  I went ahead scanned it and detailed it a bit. 

After sending out the completed image to the Grognard chat on google hangouts (well its not called that, but a bunch of us who play games together have a long running chat about all kinds of random things), I got a message back from Vance at Leicester's ramble, he went ahead and created a backstory for Longtooth! 

https://leicestersramble.blogspot.com/2020/12/taking-rest-stop-at-longtooth.html

Lots of good stuff there, and some of it isn't too far from what I had in mind.  I'm going to likely borrow a bunch of ideas from it.  Thanks Vance! 

As it stands what i have for longtooh is the following: 

There is a small marketplace at the crossroads of the Town.  Andre’s mill is further up the road to the southwest. 

1. Test

2. Test

3. Crazy Arnie’s Outfitting & General Merch 

4. The Wicked Wench Inn & Tavern 

5. Test

6. The One Horse Stable 

7. Wynthorpe The Mayor’s House.

Obviously Crazie Arnie's is going to be replaced with Vances far superior idea! The village is currently made up of mostly humans and halflings. It doesn't have much in the way of a town guard (and doesn't really need it either, at least not at this point). It is part of the barony and owes taxes to the higher ups in Port Nightwell, however the village doesn't get a helluva a lot of support from the capital. Once a year a tax collector makes his way down to the village for the money that is owed.

The stable is legit a one horse stable, much like the town is a one horse town. Everyone is quite poor and horses are a luxury. As well goods are very limited in the town. Most of the townsfolk are farmers, mill workers. It is a quiet place, where not much happens.

Which is perfect for the PCs to fuck up. hahaha.

Here is the living document link for the Barony: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aD5Cc4-oFUZTLiD6YoGYnis1fVOotXSs21XOnRqqpD4/edit?usp=sharing

The players do have access to it. I am doing my best to try and keep any information I write about the barony in one spot. I tend to have random files saved in a pile of different places!

Which reminds me I should probably start downloading and trimming all the random stuff I have on google drive. Or pay for more storage!

Happy gaming!

Nightwell barony session 3 play report

 Just finished up the session and boy was it fun!  The PCs left off at the edge of the city ruins.  In the morning they got up and ventured in.  The city is all stone buildings, lots of rubble.  Some vegetation creeps up here and there becoming overgrown in spots. 

The follow what's left of the road thru the city and come upon a fork.  They can go southeast or southwest.  To the southeast they can see a bridge in the distance.  To the southwest they can see the inner part of the city where there are far less destroyed buildings. 

They decide to head towards the bridge. 

They are smart enough to sneak around the city (they are halflings) along the edges of buildings, staying in the shadows as much as possible.  They hear a moaning sound coming from a little ways away. 

The wizard hafling roscoe sends his wolf/sheep to investigate the moaning sounds.  They quickly stumbled upon a well and find a trapped human way down at the bottom.  

The realize quickly that they don't have a rope.  She however does and throws it up to them.  A few dex checks later a halfling grabs on to it.  This is where a question of weight ratios comes into play.  A very light halfling is at the top of a well holding onto a rope with a reasonably heavy human at the bottom of a well!  Thankfully with a combined strength check they managed to get the cleric up to the top of the well.  

Her name is Walda, and she has been sent into the ruins to banish a great evil.  She dreams of a giant floating eye with huge teeth and tentacles.  This is what her god wants to destroy.  

They set off with the cleric in tow.  

They stumbled upon a building that is in decent shape and decide to search it.  They find a room full of skeletons.  A fight breaks out and the PCs managed to get the upper hand very quickly.  Mostly due to acid spray on the part of the wizard.   

Searching the room they find a weird metallic object in the form of an L.  It turns out to be a blaster gun.  Wildly futuristic.  

The world is a fantasy world based upon a civilization that had an apocalypse.  That race was the an advanced version of Elves, very technological.  

They also find a hackcard for a computer. 

They head off towards the bridge, see a sign that is crudely painted that says "pay the toll or die".  Sneak around a bit, and notice a gurad on their side of the bridge sleeping.  As they are sneaking they make a bit too much noise and the bandits on the other side of the river start firing a trebuchet at them. 

They manage to kill the guard on their side, who has stumbled awake, drunk and searching for his sword.  

Sprinting across the bridge they nimbly get thru stones that are falling from the actual bridge, and rocks being shot at them from the trebuchet.  The wizard catches the trebuchet on fire and 2 of the bandits run down to the crick (super shallow river) and attempt to put out the fire.  Yeah they are a bunch of morons!  

They kill the bandits save one and interrogate him.  Eventually they get enough information from the stuttering scared for his life bandit to know exactly where the bandit hangout is. 

And that is where we left off. 

*******

I drew this map today, it's longtooth.  It's a five minute map.  I believe Matt Jackson was the guy who started "friday five minute maps" on google plus.  I'm going to keep doing that.  It's something to get over the curbside pandemic boredom. 

Check out Matts Maps here 

http://www.msjx.org/