My Idea of a Ranger

I think something like this fits my idea of a ranger much better than a duel-wielding badass:

"In 2006, Joss Naylor ran 50 miles up and down seventy Lake District fells, ascending more than 25,000 feet in 21 hours. Not his best performance, but to be fair, he was 70 at the time."

That post gives more context about fell running and a video. So, you have someone who's already had children if they wanted to, they've had a long life in the area and know it as well as anyone can, they can run for days, ghosting invading forces.  Hell, with the abilities these fell runners have, they could keep tabs on an enemy's position by running back and forth between it and wherever they're reporting.

Okay, maybe add in proficiency with a bow, but I see them mostly as scouts.  Not an interesting archetype to play I suppose, especially in a group where you wouldn't be able to utilize your running ability without leaving them in the dust, but this will probably be the standard for wilderness roaming rangers in my world.

The Travel Triangle

Flying by the seat of my pants, with no world map, and a party that may be setting sail soon, I started thinking about the bare minimum I needed to have prepared.  And what I came down to was the fact that in fantasy literature/movies dramatic travel choices generally can be abstracted to the long safe way or the short iffy way.  Thus, I present to you the Travel Triangle:

Okay, it doesn't help you much as a DM, because you still need to know why the short route is dangerous and probably have different encounter tables prepared for both routes.  But if the travel comes up at the end of a session, you might quickly improv a travel triangle choice that a) your players can decide for next time and b) you can flesh out in preparation for whatever decision they might make.

Let me explore the idea a little.  The easy route may involve taxes, social interaction with guards, or other less dangerous costs of its own, but usually its just longer, takes more time to traverse. The short route is generally the shortest distance between the two points, but the difficulties it entails may actually make it take longer to travel.  But what are the various reasons the short route might be treacherous:

• A named monster: giant spider, giant, dragon.
• Terrain: quicksand, swamps, lava, caverns, reefs, whirlpools, canyons, mountains.
• Climate/Weather: tornado alley, desert, frozen pass, glacier, ice cave, lava.
• Humanoids: cannibals, headhunters, orcs, berserkers, raiders, slavers.
• Architecture: ruins, gates, crumbling mines, crumbling bridges.
• Magic: fairy woods, bermuda triangle, blighted lands, demon halls.

It seems there are two important factors involved with this travel choice 1) how much of a difference is involved between the two routes and 2) how much does the party know about the conditions of each.

It seems like the short route should be at least a third shorter to be tempting at all and maybe half the distance/time to travel as the other.  As far as knowledge, the party might know nothing, thus stumbling into the dangers of the enticingly shorter route.  But the real drama seems to be when they have at least ominous rumors for the iffy route.  Too much knowledge and the choice might become a sort of dry accounting, but knowing something called the Blood Saint lives along that path: "Hmm, we might want to take the longer way."

Which makes me think of issue 3) what is at stake behind the decision.  In literature/movies time is almost always a scarce commodity that forces the protagonists to take the route they know is more risky.  I think I'd rather set up the geography of these triangles in my sandbox somewhere and then wait for players to get themselves embroiled in plots that put that time pressure on themselves.

I wonder if there are other dramatic travel choice patterns I'm not thinking of.

note: it would probably make more sense to draw this choice as a semi-circle, but Travel Triangle is just catchier :)

The Curse of the Faceless Coins

I'm two session reports behind and thought I might catch up.  Today seems appropriate because I'm thankful that I have such a large group of smart, funny people to game with.

So, two Fridays ago the crew looked like this:

Gail MU
Mollie DP
Alamon DP
Toral DP + hirelings
Darius F
Yestlick MU

Knowing that the latter three in that list had been cursed by removing some faceless coins from the Sodden Temple, and that they had spent them all over Nidus, the party set out to get them back. They offered a 2-for-1 deal on gold coins and drain much of their wealth in exchanging for the coins that were brought in that way.  But . . . that didn't bring in all the coins, there were still some missing.  So they sought out one of the vendors.  On arriving at where his shop used to be they encountered what turned out to be funeral music.  Seems this armor vendor would go down into the Maw, into some catacombs and collect armor there to sell.  This time he didn't come back.

So, the party went down into the Maw, into the catacombs and found his body with some of the coins still on him.  On the way in, there was an abandoned golden chalice that Darius picked up and put in his bag.  And near the vendor's body was a large, heavy-looking chest.  Putting a dagger into it and shutting the lid made the dagger disappear.  One of the clerics asked their god successfully where the dagger was and they got the sense it was far away. There was a little back and forth where the party had to prevent Darius from getting in the chest.

Back in town they heard another vendor had left town on a sea voyage.  Asking the gods about the location of the faceless coins again gave the result they were far away.

They made a trip into the Sodden temple and deposited the coins they managed to collect back into the brass urns.  That room also contains the rotting carcass of an elephant and the party was attacked by huge maggots with some human features (an ear on the back, a human tongue).  Gail was rendered unconscious, and Darius splintered a shield saving his life.  He unfortunately took damage in the battle that will not heal until the curse is lifted.

Next Session:

Derek F +hireling
Sarah MU
G F + hireling
Z F + hireling
Hugelina F
And a MU whose name escapes me

Derek has found out that he too is cursed.  He, though, spent almost none of it.  So the plan is to re-enter the Sodden Temple and put the cursed coins back in the brass urns.  The journey is rather uneventful, they did rescue some prisoners and fight a few rats.  They found a well that led down to a lower level and at one point the party was strung through 4 rooms trying to decide what to do.  Caution finally prevailed and they made it back to town safely.

Some Thoughts
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One problem with session 1 was we had an additional player I didn't know was coming until an hour before.  He's played some 4e but never been in my game before.  The party was already immersed in their own storyline of trying to lift the curse and he seemed left out a little. If I'd know he was coming I would have tried to design a perk or something to make him important for the night.

An interesting thing, the human features that the maggots had was a player's suggestion!  I rolled with it and they were duly creeped out as one of the maggots licked Mollie's shin with a human tongue before biting.

You can never predict what players will do. I thought, having learned they had spent the cursed gold, they would make a list of the vendors they spent the coins at and try to track each down.  But perhaps the time that had passed and the shifting nature of Nidus made that seem unlikely to them.  So, their scheme to buy back at 2-to-1-- a huge money sink!  I think most of that party is flat broke now.

Interesting to say that party, because inadvertantly, it seems there are enough players to make up two parties. I would have never predicted that.  The last session, because of some miscommunication, I found out the day of the session that our normal host was in Vegas!  So a quick change of venue led to two of G's roommates playing with us.  It was also Derek's player's birthday so his wife agreed to come try playing.  So, in that session, 3 of the 6 players had never played before.

This time I knew the birthday boy's wife was coming so I prepared to make her a ship captain.  I printed out several images of ships and named them in different languages.  But at the last minute I didn't give one to her because as they rolled up characters there was talk of going back to the temple and I didn't want them to think they had to go to sea. Also, there was plenty for her as a new character to think about.

Most of these trips back to the temple have been pretty uneventful.  But they party has remained mostly on level one of what wasn't too dangerous a place.  It is almost too little danger though, might need to make sure they encounter stiffer opposition next time they enter or they'll start feeling bored.

I am currently trying to work out a rough sense of my world, ships, and, ocean encounters because I imagine the next step will be for them to follow the last few coins. But then, who knows, maybe they'll climb into that chest or go down into the maw again.

Have an Island

Part of me doesn't want a map because it feels each detail cuts off a multitude of possibilities (thus the abstract city of Nidus).  But I'm at the point where it isn't really fair for players, now that there are several locations they've encountered, to not let them know how places are situated in relationship to each other.  I could have drawn my own map but the old simulationist in me starts whispering: "But what of the geology? The scale?" and I start researching island geology and I end up spending hours and still have no map.  So hell, I'll just use a real map and give myself freedom to fudge any details on it that don't work toward my ends.

In tracking pictures that were sources of inspiration for Nidus, one place I ended up was this old map of Santorin Isalnd that struck me as just the right style.  I was ignorant at the time that it was the quite interesting ancient island of Thera. Here is the public domain map from 1848:

Here is a version where I've removed most of the place names and some details to allow for customization:

I always imagined Nidus as a cliffside city facing the open ocean, but here the water inside the ancient caldera is the much safer harbor, so I'll probably say Nidus is located where Thera actually is, although it's bigger and climbs higher.

One thing cool about using a real location is that you can find actual satellite pictures. So, if the party finds a magic carpet or tames a flying beasty I can show them this:

Of course, I'd probably want to edit out that airstrip first.  :)

Back

I've been consuming-- movies, video games-- and miss making.  Although, I did have two fun sessions I haven't written up yet.  With Thanksgiving I have a little breathing room now.  I'd like to post some things.  Sorry to C'nor; I set comments to older posts to need approval so that I don't miss them like I used to.