[CAMPAIGN JOURNAL] The Inverted Tower of Hyél Singh

I bring you news of glory and death from the City of Vultures!

Four adventurers, sworn to take revenge for the destruction of the fair city of Avendar, have conspired to track down and assassinate their penultimate target, “He Who Is Not Known”, who has so far drawn many veils of secrecy around him. By now, dead was Isomarg, Maker of Images, identified at a ball of the rich and influential, and hunted down in his own residence. Dead was Ardaviraf, He Who Slumbers Deep Beneath, roused from his drugged torpor to which he had consigned himself, and confronted and killed as he emerged to a higher level of the Underworld. And dead was Vifranavaz, He Who Walks Beyond, followed to the Crystal Palace, an orbital pleasure resort, and found already dead in the dark vacuum of space among the stars he had sought with such obsession. But the price had been high: many of Avendar’s finest agents were also killed in action, with new operatives taking their place. The sole survivor of the second team (after the ill-fated first was unmasked and neutralised) was Farzan, Savant of the Seven Mysteries (Magic-User 9, recently reaching name level), and he was joined by Bron the Elder (Fighter 8, who could calculate the exact value of any object with mathematical precision due to a strange device implanted in his skull deep in the Underworld), Tigran Zard (Cleric 7, a servant of the baleful Sea Demon), and finally Farsi the Younger (Thief 6, Farzan’s created simulacrum).

Two more foes remained: Mehersimin, the Faithful Companion, who had chosen to abandon high society and marry the dreadful Kwárü Khan, a subterranean horror whose very name was only spoken in whispers; and “He Who Is Not Known”, who had practiced complete anonymity. A few fractions of information were known: that “He Who Is Not Known” was a high-ranking priest of the Temple of Jeng; and that he had once infiltrated Avendar’s avengers under the name “Jamal”, and feigned his death when he had presumably learned what he wanted – the latter fact revealed in the mirror of the vampire-mage Riamos in his sealed tower. Divine prophecy could not find “He Who Is Not Known”, only that he was hidden even from the eye of the gods. It was eventually theorised that “He Who Is Not Known” might be using an amulet of proof vs. detection and location, and the company’s objective was thus focused on tracing the route of these items through the City’s trade networks.

In the previous episode, Bron the Elder and Tigran Zard had masked themselves as desert nomads, and visited one Lady An-Raydn, an aristocratic socialite running the most exclusive trading house on Uugen’s Market. Here they learned that these items were indeed for sale, but in such high demand that there would be a long waiting list. Bron and Tigran Zard nodded, and took a good look at the document where the lady’s scribe had recorded their aliases. The same night, a quick heist was conducted to enter the trading house, procure the document, and make a copy – and leave quietly. The names had, indeed, revealed a clue: an amulet was purchased by one Hothog Mirza, as an intermediary for the Temple of Jeng. The infiltrators were left pondering in a dark street about their next move…

[STUFF] The Nocturnal Table – Fantasy Grounds Integration

Now Even More Nocturnal

Guest Post by EOTB

I am pleased to announce the release of the Fantasy Grounds version of The Nocturnal Table. This version of the city adventure game aid was developed by EOTB for the virtual tabletop, and integrates the different features of the supplement into a complex system. You can use it to generate encounters and local colour, with all statistics and details at your fingertips.

I have to stress that this is a tremendous work that takes a loosely interrelated collection of “idea” tables, and not only connects them in a way that makes sense, but adds fine-grain detail on the level of individual statistics, and features like caravan generation (something that’s fun but rather busy work on paper). It should be a formidable toolset for FG users who like city adventures. Whether you prefer to use the general encounter system, the 300 more specific entries, or the “local colour” tables to generate inspiration for your games; individually, as a whole, or in unimagined combinations: these tools are here for you to use at your leisure! I am much indebted to EOTB for his conversion effort, and particularly with sharing the results with the gaming community. Much appreciated!

With that, I give the floor to EOTB!

--Melan

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This Fantasy Grounds module requires the Fantasy Grounds rule set for 2nd Edition AD&D for use. Three (free) community additions or modifications to that base rule set are highly recommended to fully use The Nocturnal Table's ability to generate content in addition to table results:

OSRICfor2Emod found at: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?60442-OSRIC-conversion-for-2E&highlight=OSRIC

OSRIC Magic Items Mod found at: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?61083-OSRIC-Magic-Items

AD&D Core 1e Extension (if you want to use the module in the most 1E-like environment possible; not really required if preferring to use OSRIC content in a 2E rules engine) found at: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?37986-AD-amp-D-Core-1e-Extention

The Nocturnal Table - Fantasy Grounds adaptation (39.8 MB)

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Adapter's Notes

A good set of tables is gold to the harried DM. The 1E DMG is still used by referees of many varied systems just for its tables; other supplements have similar utility. But for urban encounters, The Nocturnal Table by Gabor Lux (Melan) is one of the best table supplements this adapter has ever encountered.

The book itself is not very large - 56 digest-sized pages. But like all excellent sets tables their impact to the game can't be counted.

In adapting these tables for Fantasy Grounds in my own campaign, I sought to leverage their utility by ensuring all the content they indicated was pregenerated. I wanted the tables to produce gameable results in Fantasy Grounds as opposed to mere direction or ideas. This necessitated creating all the various record types implicit to the tables, and linking them their output. The very useful OSRICfor2E mod by Sterno , and OSRIC Magic Items mod by AlterZwerg were drafted for contributions to the effort (many thanks to you both for you great work!), and their entries are prominent throughout this mod, but the unique flavor of Melan's implied setting demanded many new records of varying types.

Please note there are some table results which draw upon content in the above modules. The user should load them if desiring all of the entries to auto-populate . Otherwise such results will generate a error message. (The user may still manually generate details in these cases)

These mods are freely available at:

• OSRICfor2Emod : https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/s ... ight=OSRIC
• OSRIC Magic Items Mod : https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/s ... agic-Items

It is hoped that in addition to serving up results for immediate play, that the templates bundled into this mod ease and speed the creation of adventure modules and other content. While OSRIC monsters are well-represented in existing mods, this mod contains an NPC of every character class from levels 1 through 12, including new types from Melan's world such as Amazons, and the Kung-Fu Monk adapted from Kellri's Dangerous Dungeons. There are also types of fighters with appropriate equipment, such as Northmen, Pirates, Nomads, and more. All of these include such conveniences as XP formulas, with a maximum XP value pre-entered (to be modified according to the appropriate XP formula as the DM sees fit).

Use of Celestian's 1E Extension

This adapter uses Celestian's extension with the 2E ruleset, to get as close to the "OSRIC Experience" as possible in Fantasy Grounds. In using non-monster NPCs this requires a compensating effect for To-Hit rolls and Saving Throws in the combat tracker, as NPCs by default use the 1E monster to-hit table and fighter saves - and the monster to-hit table is particularly generous at low levels compared to most non-fighter class types.

These compensating effects, found in the "Effect Features" area of the main tab on NPC entries, may not be useful if using this module without that extension, or different ruleset. If so each DM should remove those entries.

Celestian's 1E Extension is freely available here:

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/s ... -Extention

Adaption Choices

Due to the layers of "pulls" required by the multiple levels of tables in The Nocturnal Table, the tiers of tables are set up and named alphanumerically; beginning with a number, lower numbers belonging to higher-order tables so as to make them appear first on the lists. Odd-numbered tables generally apply to encounters; even-numbered tables generally apply to "dressing" or "colour". The basic structure as follows:

• Primary tables in the group "The Nocturnal Table - Encounters" are named starting with an "00", "01", or "02"; however, for the most part "00" tables don't pull playable content directly - I am not sure why, perhaps there is an upper limit to how deep in a table structure FG can pull into an encounter. The "00" tables are primarily to determine which of the largest "01" tables will be used, anyway, but when embedding the "01 tables into the "00" tables, no results returned. Unlike when using the "01" tables directly. So use the "00" tables as direction only, unless they return a "special" encounter - which they would pull directly.
• "02" tables comprise most of the "urban dungeon dressing" type tables in the book.
• "03" tables feed the "01" encounter tables; e.g., a table of fighters is an "03" table that feeds an "01" result that could be any of multiple character classes.
• "04" tables feed the "02" tables; these are less numerous but many of the colour/dressing tables are implicitly two layers deep as they contain a null chance; so the first layer yes/no choice is a "02" table, while the "if yes" table with all the individual colour entries is an "04" table.
• Late in development it was determined to add systems for pilgrim and caravan generation, as these are table results comparatively hard to wing (and rarely do DMs have a few caravans or pilgrimages just lying about). These also followed the two-tier system with the main tables taking "05" designations, and their sub-tables "07"
• treasure results are "06" tables in their own group, feeding other tables as needed

• A fully numeric system proved hard to search in related groups as the table list grew. So, while it is admittedly ugly, relevant abbreviations were used and tiered. This kept groups together and also allowed quick searches such as "npc" to pull up small lists of related tables, such as when generating pilgrimages.
• It is hoped that by maintaining list proximity and search distinction, that users will be able to navigate the many tables should they need to find a feeder table quickly. But the main tables, always near the top of group lists, should be the only necessary references in normal play.
• One item to be aware of: FG doesn't seem to perform multiple sets of die rolls into one encounter; e.g., an encounter with travellers will generate the leaders(s) into the encounter but not the second set of random number of common travellers. Some few table results direct you to manually ADD a random number of some NPC type to an encounter result generated.

Every adaption requires choices to make certain things work. A close comparison of the tables in the original work with the table structure in this module reveals some structural differences; e.g., in Melan's tables you generated a fighter and then rolled the fighter's level. In FG, to generate a working encounter record it is necessary to have a subtable of pregenerated fighters of the entire level range, that the master table draws upon. While the structure may vary slightly by necessity, every effort has been made to ensure the table function is maintained.

In some instances of low probability, this would have required even more tables than is included. An example is alignment. I was faced with a choice of generating multiple tables of alignments so that classes with restrictions wouldn't return incompatible results. It was chosen not to do this, as incompatible results are possible but not frequent; the DM should instead review and modify in such instances. But this and similar examples are few and far between.

Often the complexity of the table interactions raised questions as to which type of output (chat, story, encounter, etc.) was the most efficient selection for inserting results immediately into play while also recording/transmitting to the DM the most useful information provided by the tables (sometimes which output omitted the most useless data squibs the interacting tables generated, too).

In each case the DM should consider their own preferences vs what this adapter has set, and change as they see fit. Encounters, stories, and chat are the most frequently used for results other than treasures.

ALWAYS CHECK THE RAW ROLL RESULT IN CHAT AGAINST THE APPROPRIATE TABLE ENTRY

Most encounters have a random element to the number of NPCs appearing. When output to chat you will see this number; when output to an encounter this information is not provided. In testing, the fastest path from "encounter has occurred" to the combat tracker was to have the encounter box and type auto-generate and throw dice to adjust the number appearing in the box, rather than get the number appearing and manually create an encounter box. If the other method is more convenient, reset the output type to "chat" from "enc" in the top-level table.

Here a ghoul entry was rolled and a ghoul encounter box was created, but it only has "1" ghoul in it. Cross referencing the roll of 41 showing in chat with the table, we see there are 2d8 ghouls encountered. Those dice are thrown and the encounter box is updated to 12; I hope there's some elves in the party...

If the referee wishes a spread of hit points among large numbers appearing of the same type, drag-copy that NPC type in the encounter and assign; e.g., the referee wants to throw five militia with 2, 4, 6, 6, and 9 hp at the party. The one militia entry in the encounter box should be drag-copied three times so that there are 4 militia entries; each entry assigned one of the hit point results and the entry of militia assigned 6 hp set to two appearing. If one entry for the militia type is used in the encounter box and hit points are left blank, the number of hit points will be randomly rolled (once) on 1d10 but all militia will have that same random roll result of 1d10 hit points. If it doesn't bother you that all militia in the encounter have, perhaps, 4 hp, then none of the above is necessary of course.

The more detailed encounters numbered from 100-399 are listed in story entries and include embedded encounter and parcel entries. We've discussed adjusting the encounter boxes, but also review the parcels to ensure the appropriate amount of equipment loot remains after an encounter completes. Some number of each type of loot is already in a parcel, but this will rarely be accurate for common equipment to that encounter as-played.

Purely random encounters generated from the tables won't have parcels pre-made; the referee may manually generate one and add such treasures and items to it as are appropriate.

To reduce the size of the file, common armors were not added as discrete items to NPCs or parcels, but if taken by PCs as loot these can be added as necessary to parcels via drag and drop from The Nocturnal Table or OSRIC Items group(s). Likewise, experience points derived from an encounter likely require adjustment for number encountered, possibly hit points rolled, and the value of treasure taken.

Every effort was made when customizing a base template for a specific NPC to update associated stats; e.g., if different armor resulted in a different movement rate, or if morale was higher or lower than base template morale for this level. However, each time I review results I'll find another instance where some aspect was missed. If you notice any anomalies between the record entries and any story entries, presume the anomaly is an omission and correct it. The 3rd level fighter in standard plate mail shouldn't have a move rate of 90 or 120; the stray thief or assassin with a high dex but utterly standard thief ability scores should be adjusted, etc.

There are magic items, spells, and other odds and ends named in The Nocturnal Table as published in hard copy which aren't detailed; the detailing is left to the user. In Fantasy Grounds I have put some flesh on those bones in order to provide a useable game item for play, but that flesh is my best guess and not further direction from the author. In all cases you, the user, should modify such items at will.

Near the end of production this module was back-ported to FG Classic due to issues with the Author extension that creates the module from the entries, and also embeds the illustrations, not yet being compatible with FG Unlimited. This introduced some anomalies in that multiples of D4, D6, and D8s were dropped from items, spells, etc. (e.g., weapons doing 2d4 damage, etc.) and also some text were re-rendered with formatting artifacts. Every effort has been made to locate and correct these anomalies, but if some are missed you have the adapter's explanation, and they may be corrected by inputting the missing information.

Lastly, this adapter is still a novice at Fantasy Grounds, ignorant in coding and unable to work in the raw data files, scouring wiki pages and forum posts when unable to find a way to produce a result. It's entirely possible, and likely, that a FG pro would notice parts of these tables constructed inefficiently, or even clunkily, because I didn't know a better road to Rome. In these cases, I apologize in advance.

[MODULE] Baklin: Jewel of the Seas (NOW AVAILABLE!)

UVG dice not included

I am pleased to announce the publication of Baklin: Jewel of the Seas, a supplement describing the eponymous merchant city, including its rulers, criminal underworld, establishments, and three-level Undercity.

Illustrated by Denis McCarthy (who also did the cover art), Stefan Poag, Graphite Prime, and Jerry Boucher, Baklin is more than twice the size of the average module – 72 pages’ worth of adventure-ready material, a players’ map of the city (with a players’ map of Erillion on the back side), and a GM’s map including the labelled city map, and three dungeon maps describing the Undercity’s storerooms, forgotten shrines, and weirdo inhabitants. This is two identical-length modules in one: a city guide with 39 major locations and a dungeon setting with 112 keyed areas, connected and bound together via multiple secret entrances, plot threads, and NPC agendas.

Baklin is meant as both a campaign hub a party can depart from and return to (with numerous hooks for wilderness adventures), and as a complex adventure location of its own. It can be used along with the materials published for the Isle of Erillion mini-setting (Echoes #02–05), or it can double as almost any neutral-aligned port town in your own setting. In any case, Baklin is meant to be played: it is focused on city intrigue, exploration, and dungeon crawling. Go shopping for great deals in port or at the stores of the reclusive Masters’ Guild; be careful not to fall afoul of the Sea Laws or anger the Knights of Yolanthus Kar; discover what lurks in the Tower of Gulls; and brave the Shrine of Roxana and the Thrones of Judgement!

Baklin: Jewel of the Seas

"Oh Baklin, Jewel of the Seas, great gateway of Erillion! Minstrels sing of its wealth and marine power; and of the refinement and taste of its magnates and nobility. Minstrels of all kinds, of course, are prone to grandiloquence; and perhaps Baklin is neither as mighty nor as fair as the ballads claim. And yet, there is reason the minstrels sing so, for Baklin has wealthy patrons, its fleet is not inconsiderable – and are its streets not the loveliest within so many weeks of travel? Indeed, those who brave the high seas often believe so… and they will gladly pay for a song to remember their visit. This booklet presents a complete city supplements describing the streets, personalities, and conflicts of a bustling port town, from the heights of power to the deepest undercellars. In Baklin, all streets lead to adventure – and a single life would not be enough to complete all of them.”

The print version of the modules is now available from my Bigcartel store, while the PDF edition will be published through DriveThruRPG with three months’ delay. As always, customers who buy the print edition will receive the PDF version free of charge.

[MODULE] The Nocturnal Table (NOW AVAILABLE!)

The Nocturnal Table

I am happy to announce the publication of The Nocturnal Table, a 60-page game aid dedicated to city-based adventures, lavishly illustrated by Matthew Ray (cover), Peter Mullen, Stefan Poag and Denis McCarthy. Originally conceived in 2010 as an article for Knockspell Magazine (but only published in the Hungarian), the supplement has since gone through a lot of active play over multiple campaigns, and been expanded with additional material to offer a handy guide to design and run adventure scenarios in a large, sinful city filled with action and intrigue. This is a game aid designed for regular table use, and formatted to be comfortable and accessible. Whether your pick is Lankhmar, the City State, the City of Vultures or Imperial Rome, this supplement will help generate much of the texture of the streets – from illicit warehouses to the monsters and madmen who prowl the night! Citing the back cover…

“The City is a maze. A labyrinth of alleyways, plazas, shortcuts and hidden thoroughfares, it isn’t any less treacherous to navigate than a dungeon. At least during the day, the worst one can expect is a greedy patrol of guards eager for a shakedown, or a thief in the crowd, ready to make a grab and run for it. At night, the sensible and the timid hurry home and bolt their doors. Ecstatic revellers, madmen, assassins, religious fanatics, thrill-seekers, enigmatic apparitions and tiger-headed opium nightmares prowl the streets. And the guards are still not helping. 

The Nocturnal Table is a supplement intended to bring you this city by way of an encounter system, random inspiration tables, NPC and monster statistics, as well as a giant nighttime random encounter table, whose three hundred entries can serve as interludes as well as springboards for complicated investigative scenarios and fantastic conspiracies.”

At the core of The Nocturnal Table is a 300-entry table of random encounters and odd events you can run into at night in a busy fantasy metropolis. From a patrol of guards carrying a slain comrade, to a sinister beggar-catcher soliciting the aid of dishonest adventurers, or a skeleton covered in grey ooze, its eyes glittering gemstones shambling towards the party, all the wonder and menace of a city-crawl are at hand. But that is not all. With The Nocturnal Table, you can…

• …create general encounters with the aid of a comprehensive encounter system. A caravan in Hightown threatening the party? Six jackalweres offering secret information near the port at night? Or a magic-user accusing a PC in the bazaars? That could be the beginning of a story (or the end of one).
• …generate merchants selling strange and fantastic goods (as seen in Echoes From Fomalhaut #01 – that table would have been a crime not to reprint here). Is that jovial guard selling weapons as a form of bait? Are that credible horseman’s sugared fruits really from a foreign dimension?
• …find out what’s in their pockets. The guard came up with a pouch of 12 gold and a folded hood, but that horseman? His 50 silver, 5 electrum and 10 gp was also accompanied by a weird diagram.
• …generate local colour on the fly. Ominous, gurgling pipes overhead? A drunk who insists he has just seen a party member go the same way “just a while ago”?
• stock warehouses with exotic goods to plunder! Leave those odd, primitive swords and the rustic carpets collecting dust in the corner, and find out how much those ceremonial globes may be worth.
• …and set up secret meetings and investigation sites. The meeting will place behind the old, crumbling mosaic – but don’t touch the drink. And the trail leads on, by the sign near the mortuary… just take care: the children are spies!

Guidelines are also offered to re-use the encounters and chart contents for the construction of bizarre plotlines and sinister conspiracies which rule from the shadows… while the City sleeps (these guidelines have been previewed on this blog). All that, and more are at your disposal in… The Nocturnal Table!

The print version of the supplement is available from my Bigcartel store; the PDF edition will be published through DriveThruRPG with a few months’ delay. As always, customers who buy the print edition will receive the PDF version free of charge.

Do note that a flat shipping fee is in effect: you will pay the same whether you order one, two, or more items (larger orders may be split into multiple packages and shipped individually – this does not affect the shipping fee).

[BLOG] The Conspiracy

The Conspiracy is a simple, play-friendly method to describe interaction and conflict between city-based interest groups or conspiracies, reusing the entries of random encounter tables. Individually, random encounters represent local colour, complications in an ongoing scenario, or the beginnings of mini-adventures. By placing three or four next to each other – whether by design or chance – the result is often an adventure that can fill much of a session. Yet cities are even more complex, and they are filled with hidden social structures with dangerous agendas. 

In the Conspiracy, the nexus points of a pre-drawn, blank “connection network” are populated with random or semi-random encounters, and once finished, a coherent design is created around the existing network.

Sample Networks

The resulting network has multiple benefits. It shows who is associated with whom, and it also shows which way clues lead from one point to the next while the characters are investigating the network. The links can, furthermore, represent command structures, dependencies, and especially the conduit of information. They can be one-sided (marked with an arrow) or mutual. Stronger links may be marked with bold lines, and weak, tentative ones with dashed ones. Some connections can be dead ends, but important nodes – the „heart” of the conspiracy – should be located close to the centre, approachable from multiple directions. The deeper details of a network usually follow logically from the connected nexus points.

These networks are individually fairly simple, but they are often well hidden, and a large city has several of them. They are often connected, too – but how? Does it all form an enormous spider web, with a particularly clever conspirator pulling all the strings? A hierarchy, with a leader or group on top of the all-seeing pyramid? A matrix that seemingly leads nowhere? Or multiple networks vying for power and influence? All configurations have their potential in the game.

Example: The Gamemaster wishes to develop a conspiracy centred around Prince Alkoor, a double-dealing aristocrat. Selecting the second basic layout, he rolls up seven encounters [these are drawn from The Nocturnal Table, a forthcoming supplement for running city campaigns, and are abridged here for demonstration purposes]:

• 137 Bricks fallen from a nearby wall are all stamped with the mark of a cat’s eye, reveal entrance to forgotten part of house sealed up long ago.
• 151 City guards: 1d4*5 militias (Fighter 1) battering down tenement door, suspected tax-dodgers.
• 212 Hermit, an animalistic, nameless wreck, digging in street garbage. Cursed priest.
• 239 Mob: 2d4*10 men looting neighbourhood
• 312 Robbers: Yusuf Muraad Khusi (Illusionist 4) and 2d6 robbers (Fighter 2); the hunchbacked Yusuf, hiding in a curtained hiding place, creates the illusion of several more companions surrounding locale.
• 110 Alchemist Multiphage of Lam (Illusionist 6) selling 1d6+1 potions from beaker of potions (01-40 delusion); also provides horoscopes (all ambiguous)
• 356 Thief Smardis (Thief 4, deep blue turban, 4*opium), smoking a hookah and offering empty tower apartment for sale at 140 gp.

Prince Alkoor's Conspiracy

With some more rolling and interpretation, the random entries yield a decent criminal enterprise. It appears that Alkoor’s game is to expropriate plebeians through aggressive tax-collection (151), as well as inciting looters in the slum areas (239). He buys up properties on the cheap, and sells them through one of his agents, a skilled thief named Smardis (356). Alkoor is mostly careful to work through intermediaries, a loyal robber gang (312), placing his orders in a secret meeting room in a sealed house (137). However, a more immediate connection can also be established via the City Guard – perhaps he has been stepping up the collection efforts and leaning on the officials. This is only part of his racket, though – and perhaps an entirely lawful one!

We have two more entries to consider. It seems Alkoor is related to a nameless pariah (212), who could be a victim or a secret associate – the GM elects to make him an effective spy most characters would not suspect. Finally, the alchemist and potion-seller (110) is tentatively connected to both of Alkoor’s main activities, without being linked to the robber gang. Perhaps he is not even a formal part of the network – just someone who had made a fateful connection, and can offer the important information that the two activities are somehow connected… or someone who’d had his own fingers in the pie, but is now in over his head.

And how does it all unfold? Does Alkoor end up losing his head, or does he have an offer the players can’t refuse? Are those connections with the robbers and the City Guard good enough to hound the company out of the city before they jeopardise a perfectly good get-richer scheme? Well… The conspiracy described above should serve as a sufficient framework to provide the right kind of pointers, and let the characters connect the dots on their own. The adventure can take the shape of a mission, or arise spontaneously from the logic of the campaign: in any event, minor puzzle pieces can form a pattern; and patterns, a grander design.

Cloak, Dagger, and a Few Magic Missiles

[STUFF] In the Name of the Principle!

*** *** BE VIGILANT! *** ***

At the end of Summer in the year 3995, Solon’s calendar, the Highest Synod of the **Arx** issued the following brief proclamation, numbered #3775 and disseminated through the usual venues:

*** *** *** In the name of the Principle! The **Arx** hereby declares that Megakrates, Lord of Akrasia has transgressed fundamental philosophical values in governing his city state, and, even after repeated calls to amend his erroneous ways, he has failed to issue the necessary corrections. Consequently, the Highest Synod of the **Arx**, acting on a vote of eleven to ten, hereby sentences Megakrates and his unrepentant band of conspirators to DEATH, and, furthermore, orders the immediate seizure of all their movable and immovable possessions, including but not limited to the city state of Akrasia. The judgement is final and subject to immediate implementation. Swift and effective measures will be enacted by a special delegation of the appropriate experts, appointed on authority of the **Arx** to carry out the necessary operations in the city state of Akrasia. *** *** ***

So declared in the city state of Propyla, in the year of Solon 3995, day 237.”

Slightly later, a mounted company on picked horses left the city state of Propyla. Turning southwest from the major trade route, they rode on a less travelled road towards Akrasia...

In the Name of the Principle is a scenario for a party of 5^th to 7^th level characters, focusing on espionage, subversion and open-ended problem-solving in the city state of Akrasia. It was originally run as a tournament scenario on an old-school mini-convention, offering a concentrated dose of the ideas in our Fomalhaut campaign. The English version, translated in mid-2014, was intended to be published in Fight On #15, but since that never came to pass, it is offered here as a Christmas present.

Download (2 MB).