N is for Northern Wastes

I missed the April A-Z Blog Challenge this year, so I'm doing my own...in June. This year, I will be posting one post per day discussing my AD&D campaign, for the curious. Since 2020, this is the ONLY campaign I run. Enjoy!

N is for Northern Wastes. That is to say, Canada.

As I've written in earlier posts in this series, there are some things one wishes to have in one's "generic vanilla fantasy" setting. Dense jungles. Life sucking deserts. Sky scraping mountains. Evil empires. Well, add frozen/cold/arctic areas to that list as well. 

From Howard's The Frost Giant's Daughter to Leiber's snowy Nehwon tales ("Stardock," etc.) to Shackleton-inspired adventure stories the Lovecraft's Mountains of Madness to the Viking sagas and those who would novelize their legends...fighting the hostile elements of cold, snow, and ice (while also dealing with monsters, etc.) are a big part of tropey fantasy worlds.

Fortunately for me, my world includes British Columbia. 

There's not much I care to write about B.C. specific to my setting. Like our real world, the bulk of the population lives within the southern third of the territory. Only something like 5% of it is arable land. Much of it is mountainous; more than 60% is heavily forested. And the farther north you travel the colder it gets, until you hit the Yukon,..pretty much certain death away from the coast.

As with all of my setting, there are are a LOT fewer people than our real world. The Washington State of my campaign is home to about two million persons...a little more than a quarter of its actual population. Using the same ratio, B.C. would be about 1.3M in total. And yet, of Washington's two million, only about 1.5M are human (maybe)...I've been tweaking the numbers based on historic populations (literally: I'm looking at census data 100 years before present). If I do the same for British Columbia (and why would I not), there's a bit more than half a million humans living in the Northern Wastes...a territory a LOT larger than Washington State.

But uninhabited by humans, doesn't mean "uninhabited." This is where you'll find giants: all the major ones (i.e. the ones from the MM), and probably some of the lesser types as well. The hill giants lair in the more temperate parts of B.C., the frost in the colder, the fire giants within volcanic caverns beneath the mountains, etc. Not so far away as to be outside of a long trek from determined adventurers, but far enough that they're not a general nuisance to the southlanders.

Until they are. 

But much as I am anticipating (and looking forward to) running the Giant series for my players, right now I'm working on other plans for Canada. Specifically, the tournament adventure I'm developing for Cauldron 2025 is set in B.C. specifically along the Fraser River (or the"StoLo" as it's called in my campaign). People said they enjoyed the tourney adventure I wrote last year, but some considered it, perhaps, a bit "too easy." Which...Heavens!...that cannot be allowed to stand!

[personally, I'm not sure what they're talking about...when I ran it for my home group the result was a TPK. Maybe I'm just mean...?]

So the new adventure...titled Rivers of Blood, Death, and Glory...should be a skosh more dangerous. Maps have been drawn, stocking finished, pre-gens generated, and I'm just trying to pare down the writing to something manageable. Originally, I'd hoped to playtest it yesterday (on Father's Day)...but then my kids had four soccer games on the docket. Which...sure, it's a bit maddening (because I have other adventures I also need to playtest in the next couple-three months). But priorities are priorities. Plus watching my kids play in the sunshine? With other soccer parents handing out beers from their cooler? I mean, come on...it was pretty awesome Father's Day. Diego scored three goals in two games, and both kids’ teams crushed their opponents (combined goal differential was something like 17-4...all wins). D&D can wait...Wednesday is looking pretty free in the afternoon.

Sorry. I'm digressing.

Anyway, I'll wrap up by saying Canada gives me a nice sub-arctic environment to play around with (yes, I understand it's temperate in the lower elevations)...which lends itself to increasing the diversity of adventures I can offer my players. That's a very good thing, and yet another reason why I am O So Satisfied with the PNW for my setting.

Later, gators.

: )

Majestic beauty...and giants.

In Search Of The Unknown

So...huh. Looks like I do have another post or two left in me before 2023.

Holiday playdates have been going on this week...Wednesday, we had Maceo over and Lo and Behold, the kids did not want to play laser tag, sing karaoke, or show off their Minecraft creations. Nope, they wanted Dungeons & Dragons and nothing but. 

Not only that, but they're starting to get to the point they can sit and engage with the game for hours without needing 'brain breaks.' Kid got over to our house around 12:20 and after 15-20 minutes or so of the usual catch-up with buddy you haven't seen in weeks, they had butts at the table and ready to go. And stayed that way till 5pm. Could have continued, but we had to kick the kid out at 5 since we had plans to hear Beethoven's 9th at the Seattle Symphony in the evening. 

[it was magnificent, by the way]

However, the kids did NOT want to run with their beefy, mid-level (elven) assassins. Instead, they wanted to make brand new 1st level characters. Reason being: level restrictions. Knowing they were starting to reach the top end (well, being more than halfway there) and seeing the writing on the wall, they decided to move onto new characters rather than invest more time in the old ones. The new characters: an elven thief ("Donc"), a human ranger ("Luther von Dink"), and a human cleric ("Brother Dank").

[yes, Dink-Donk-Dank...there was some silliness involved, and that's fine. Always some jitters/nerves when starting out...we can always retcon and rename later if we want]

Luther had a rolled strength of 18/93, which makes him the second-strongest ranger to have graced our table (Diego had previously had a ranger with...natural!...18/00 strength that perished in Hommlet). Using my updated height/weight tables we determined he was 6'2", 313# , giving him roughly the same size and build as Drew Desjarlais of the New Orleans Saints (I pick Drew because he's from Ontario and most rangers should be modeled after Canadians). 

Donc is typical of elven adventurers in my campaigns: a lowdown scoundrel with a debased and incorrigible disposition. I don't get it, haven't these kids ever watched those LotR films?  I suppose Diego ran a Legolas clone in his early days, but...well whatever. Mace just likes roguish wastrels with pointy ears. 

Sofia refuses to play elves (half-elves are okay). She joined the game a little belatedly, jumping in with a new cleric to round out the party. Clerics aren't her usual shtick, but so long as her character can wield a flail (her preferred weapon) she's generally unbiased in what she plays. 

SO...yeah, new characters, so no Desert of Desolation reclamation project. Which is, you know, fine. It's not really ready anyway...and, as with my (similar) Ravenloft project may end up being for lower leveled characters than the 5th-9th range, more like 3rd+.

[what I'm actually doing is reworking the whole thing as a more open "sandbox" environment for exploration with various interconnected plots/factions, all laid over a map of southern Idaho...however, the dungeons/monsters get bigger/meaner/tougher the deeper one gets into the desert. Fewer purple worms in the west than in the east, for example]

New characters need a new adventure and I decided to run B1: In Search of the Unknown, an adventure that I haven't ever run "straight" (at least, not in recent memory). For my world, Quesqueton is located in the Cascade foothills, just outside of Issaquah, up the side of Tiger Mountain in what the internet tells me is "the Issaquah Alps" (I have never heard this term and I've hiked Tiger dozens of times over the years). The party was hipped to the location by a local thief ("Garbo," halfling) who was willing to sell them a map to the 'legendary stronghold.' Little did they realize this is just the local scam business, and all number of adventurers have picked the place over during the last couple-three decades.

Turned out to be a fun little romp. My players are pretty solid with regard to adventuring logistics...outfitting themselves with lanterns, oil, donkeys, saddlebags, rope, rations and water. Upon locating the entrance to the old fortress, their first priority was building a shelter for the animals and a base of operations for themselves. Initial scouting found old guard stations that...with modification...could act as a makeshift stable. Thus securing their pack animals, the delve proceeded.

It was soon apparent the the place had long been picked over by prior invaders. Various vermin-type monsters were found and dispatched (giant rats, a pair of primitive troglodytes), as well as humanoid looters (gnolls..."we hate these guys"). A small tribe of goblins were found to be squatting in the fortress barracks and negotiations were struck up with them and bloodshed avoided altogether. 

Lots of neat discoveries...B1 has a lot of "interactivity" within it, leaving aside monster encounters and plunder. The famous "pool room" accounted for quite a bit of fun, with the players using fish from the "fish pool" to test the waters of the various magical pools. Much harm was avoided in this way, though the cleric still managed to get himself magically silenced, prompting the adventurers to depart (no voice, no spells).

The treasure take wasn't bad for their initial excursion: in addition to a scroll of clerical spells, they recovered a bit more than 500 gold pieces worth of salvage, with some 'big ticket' items (a marble statue, a beautifully carved rosewood bedroom set) left behind and marked for later carry-out. Plans were made to return to town and hire mercenaries, using acquired loot, for the removal of these exceptionally heavy/bulky objects (the statue in the lounge has no weight but is described solely as a "life-sized" marble statue; the Venus de Milo is a bit larger than life-sized and weighs some 900kg. Based on some rough dimensions and the density of marble, the statue probably comes in somewhere between 1500 and 1800 pounds).

But, overall, it was a successful little venture. Three-ish hours of delving netted the characters a good amount of experience, and if they can somehow recover that statue, they should all level up (even the ranger!). Personally, I would have tried to harness the goblins as a work gang, but they'd still need some sort of cart to get the thing back to town (some seven miles distant on foot). An interesting quandary.

Anyway. Good fun. Not sure what 2023 is going to hold as far as gaming is concerned, but it's nice to see the kids are still interested in that old edition magic.  If I get another post off before year's end, it will probably be some sort of "review" or discussion on new resolutions. Time to make the kids some breakfast. 

Happy Friday, folks!

: )

Making The Insanity Work

This is more about this nonsense posted earlier.

I'm going to come right out and say it: I have a newfound appreciation for Dragonlance, the project/product. There is a crap-ton of work that was put into these original adventure modules by the staff at TSR...the artwork, the maps, the story line, the box texts. Just immense. So much, in fact, that if one considers their objectives with regard to the publication, one could almost forgive the thing's failings as an actual D&D adventure. 

Almost.

But "appreciation," I say, and I mean it: a lot of brows sweated to create this thing. There's a lot of crappiness in it, I won't lie, but they get props for the effort in the undertaking. Truly.

Making it work for my own game is pretty ridiculous. There is...hmm...just so little that is actually of use, given that I'm not even intending to use the world of Krynn. And there are LOTS of folks (I can think of one for sure) who would reach through my computer screen, grab me by the lapels, and give me a good shake if they could. Yell in my face, "My God, man! Make your own silly campaign! Don't sweat over this pile of horseshit!" Call it my way of honoring and paying back the enjoyment I received from the DL novels 'back in the day.' I owe those folks, something. Maybe.

But let's talk about these (first world) problems in depth. I've got four modules I'm working with: Dragons of Despair, Dragons of Flame, Dragons of Hope, and Dragons of Desolation (collectively: DL1-4). I do have a practical reason for limiting myself to these four: the only DL products I own are DL3 (picked up a while back from a used bookstore), and the Dragonlance Classics Volume 1 collection (originally published for 2nd edition) which includes all the info found in DL1-4. This one I also picked up used, but it's more or less word-for-word the same...text-wise...as the original modules; you just don't get the PC updates.

[not that my copy includes the PCs anyway...that handout was lost sometime before I ever picked the thing up in a bargain bin]

My "Series Bible"

Each of the four modules features a string of quantum events (the "Dragonlance railroad" one hears so much about) based on the ongoing "story" of the series, and each features a single dungeon. By "dungeon" I mean a static adventure site with a keyed map that includes traps, monsters, and treasure...often plot required treasure.

• In DL1 Dragons of Despair, the dungeon is Xak Tsaroth, a ruined sunken city. A black dragon has been tasked with guarding platinum "holy disks" that could usher back faith in the True Gods to the people of Krynn. PCs are expected to kill the beast and retrieve the disks.
• In DL2 Dragons of Flame, the dungeon is Pax Tharkas, a mountain fortress. The PCs' hometown was wrecked by an evil priest (and his red dragons) and characters are supposed to infiltrate and free the enslaved townsfolk form his clutches.
• In DL3 Dragons of Hope, the PCs are presumed to be leading a ragtag band of 800 refugees, liberated from Pax Tharkas. Hoping to find a place of protected shelter, the dungeon they plumb is Skullcap, the ruined fortress and last resting place of the archmage Fistandantilus, which supposedly holds the key to finding the secret, lost dwarf city of Thorbardin. Spoiler alert: yes, the key is there, as well as Fistandantilus (now a demilich). 
• In DL4 Dragons of Desolation, the dungeon is a floating tomb that holds the hammer of Kharas, a magical artifact players need to recover to pay off the dwarves for letting the refugees stay with them. The tomb has a bunch of traps, but only a single creature (a gold dragon) that the PCs probably shouldn't be fighting. 

These adventures are pretty terrible. I know Bryce doesn't do reviews of old stuff, but I'm sure he'd have a few choice words here regarding usability, linear nature, lack of factions, and overuse of "box text" (among other things). Of the four dungeons, the one I find most interesting is Skullcap (from DL3): it has some of the more interesting encounters (a shadow dragon, stone golems, skeletal warriors!), interaction with potential NPC allies, some gigantic treasure hoards (nearly 500K g.p. worth of non-magical items), and a potential TPK in the demilich...plus Skullcap itself is perhaps the most evocative of the Krynnish dungeons, even if it is (in many ways) a bit of a Tomb of Horrors knockoff. 

Still, I can't see how most DL campaigns wouldn't END after a foray into Skullcap, either due to a total party kill (more than one encounter here is pretty deadly for the 6th to 8th level range of the module) OR because the characters are going to pick up a vorpal longswords, plate +3, and multiple dwarven artifacts.

[seriously: a stone golem? and not one fire-breathing 12 HD iron hydra but two? And the party magic-user is 5th level with only tongues and phantasmal force as his top spells? Come on, Hickman...looks like you got tired of the project by DL3 and wanted everyone dead!]

But...whatever. Here's the thing with regard to MY campaign: I don't intend to run the thing as a railroad, nor even as a larger "war story." So there's no pressing need to - for example - find the "lost dwarven kingdom" or the dwarves' missing artifact of power. And because I'm not running the War of the Lance, there's no urgency in involving the PCs in politics, trying to organize elven allies or send missions to Palanthas, Solamnia, and Tarsis...not that these places even exist in Washington State (my default map).

Oh, there can still be a sense of urgency with regard to Wenatchee being burned to the ground and its people being hauled off to Cle Elum (about where I'd put Pax Tharkas), but this isn't the post-Cataclysmic world of Krynn. Rescued refugees could be taken to Ellensburg or Yakima (albeit with similar food issues if winter's coming on), but PCs could just as easily choose to flee to greener pastures...the Tri-Cities to the south or the Red Empire (Spokane) in the east...rather then stick around. Verminaard's band of fanatics will be able to conquer the area within a day's flight from Pax Tharkas, but overextending his "army" would show, well, a profound lack of wisdom for a cleric.

SO: enemy stronghold (Pax Tharkas)...check. Ancient lich-ridden ruins (for high level characters)...check, by placing Skullcap in the foothills east of Yakima (same area as the tomb of Bendan Fazier). Sunken ruin with black dragon overlord? Checkity-check...deep in the swamplands surrounding Lake Chelan (not the jet-ski vacation spot of 21st century Washington).

And, sure, I've even got a Thorbardin-like dwarf city (which may or may not have a floating tomb citadel in a nearby, hidden valley)...it is the ONLY pass through the Cascades unless someone wants to take a hundred mile detour south through Yakima, and Rimrock Pass is full of giants and monsters and whatnot. Currently. the [yet unnamed] "dwarfgate" remains closed...not because of any Dragon War or Cataclysm but because few folks are willing to pay the exorbitant tolls the dwarves demand. It is, however, the most expedient passage to western Washington (Sea-town and all the rest), which PCs will surely want to visit at some point. 

[however, I somehow doubt the dwarves will want PCs despoiling the magical tombs of their fallen heroes]

If all this seems like a very small scale operation compared to the Dragonlance saga (even just the first four modules): it isn't. The places I'm choosing to place these locations are quite to scale with "the lands of Abanasynia." I mentioned before that Washington feels a little too "small scale" for a campaign world, but Krynn is REALLY small.  Distance from Solace to Xak Tsaroth? 40 miles. Distance from Solace to to Pax Tharkas? 60 miles. Distance from Solace to Skullcap? 100 miles. That's only a five day hike from your idyllic fantasy treetop village to the blasted, ancient fortress of Krynn's (historically) most powerful archmage! There's even a decent road to ride on for most of the way! The fantasy equivalent of taking Interstate 5 from Seattle to Bellingham (on the Canadian border)...something we'd do on a Friday night back before we were old enough to drink legally in the U.S.A.

[actually, we'd go all the way to Vancouver...about 150 miles. But we'd be back in Seattle the next day in time for brunch]

That's the thing: if you remove the idea of the Krynnish gods invading the world and massing an army of dragons and whatnot...well, all you're left with is kind of "small potatoes" adventures. Ones with neat maps and some interesting antagonists, but nothing particularly epic. And that's okay, because my players aren't at a level where they need anything "epic." Let's just give them some interesting things to explore (hopefully with decent loot to acquire). That should be enough...for the time being.

Anyway, that's the progress report. Happy Friday!

O Canada

Currently typing from a darkened hotel room in Victoria, British Columbia as my family rests up from the rather long day we had yesterday. Yes, it's morning, but the kids aren't used to waking at 5am just to bust ass up to the ferry terminal in Anacortes. Then (because the only cheap hotel room we could find on short notice is in some sort of fancy golf resort) the boy and I hit a couple hundred balls on the driving range before hitting the pool for a couple hours. Absolute exhaustion set in before 10pm (early for my kids).

I, on the other hand, was up before 7 this morning...but then, eight hours of sleep is a lot more than I'm used to, and that was after a two hour nap yesterday evening (I'm not much of a pool guy). So, while my family sleeps the morning away, I get a little "me time" with the laptop and the self-serve hotel coffee (not sure why the Starbucks roast tastes better in those little machines than it does in an actual Starbucks...one of life's great mysteries).

I do like this part of the world. It's cooler than Seattle, but not uncomfortably so. I find the grey sky to be quite pleasant. It's very "Pacific Northwest"...it reminds me quite a bit of Port Angeles (where my father is from) and that isn't surprising given the proximity of Vancouver Island to the Olympic Peninsula. I haven't been here since I was a small child: I remember playing with Bozo the Clown playing cards on the floor of the ferry ride over. Damn, that was a long time ago (I'd never yet heard of Dungeons & Dragons).

Saw a pod of orcas yesterday, being pursued by two packed boats of "whale watchers." The ferry captain, bless her heart, stopped the boat so we could gawk, too. Truly majestic animals. Never remember seeing them before in the wild.

(*later*)

Another beautiful morning. 8:45 now (though I've been up since 8); kids still sleeping however (wife is in the shower). Spent yesterday in downtown Victoria, mainly at the harbor (excuse me, "harbour") front and the Royal BC Museum. Idiot American that I am, I had no idea that Victoria was the capitol of B.C. until I saw the provincial legislature building. What a vibrant city this is. Yes, it's a bit touristy, but not in the way of say San Francisco. I think it benefits immensely from being tucked up here on Vancouver Island, hard-to-reach except by those in the know. Plus, better seafood than I've found in most parts of the world (still prefer Seattle)...I'd like to come back when the shellfish season is in full swing.

I'll be a little sad to leave this burg.

I know it's semi-fashionable for lefty Americans like myself to talk about "moving to Canada" whenever a Bush or Trump type gets elected to office. I've never seriously contemplated emigrating myself...fortunate as I am to live in Seattle, many of the woes that plague other parts of the country don't have nearly the same impact. What's more, I've lived outside the United States...I appreciate how good we really have it (compared to most parts of the world).

Still coastal B.C. is pretty nice. And I'd very much like to return to this town some day.