The Shaman's Block and More

If you've not been following along with this series, you'll want to start with this index post, with a list of the foregoing content relative to what's written below.

Before continuing with the Stavanger 9th century adventure [content below], I'd like to press the subject of game feel and tragedy a little further.  The reader may remember I drew out six mechanics relating to player participation: agency, response, context, sensation, meaning and boundaries.  I recognize that it is difficult to keep these things in mind, as it is with any list, just as it is hard to remember the seven rewards that we want to provide players (wealth, toys, power, status, novelty, enlightenment and purpose), or the four points we want to provide for building blocks (service, personality, adventure and value).  I count 17 terms that the reader was unfamiliar with just a month ago and, no doubt, it is next to impossible to keep all these things in one's head at one time.  Add to that the 24 petards and it is enough to make anyone throw their hands in the air.

I suggest deep breathing.

For years you've been looking for frameworks that would help you better construct adventures. These are the frameworks.

Let me quickly paraphrase what we've established with this recent Stavanger adventure.  The chieftain wants to expand the village; he is dealing with four recalcitrant bully boys; the bully boys may or may not have been lax in their work, resulting in the death of a child, who was killed by a wolf.  The wolf has been caught by the shaman.  The shaman has organized a hunt.  Whoever kills the wolf will sleep with the dead child's mother and a new child will be born.

This, as far as I know, is a novelty in terms of player reward: a kind of adventure introducing problems that haven't come up before.  Are the players offended at the idea?  Possibly.  Would they take part if they did kill the wolf?  Some players, definitely not; others, perhaps.  Few, I think, would be champing at it.  But even if the idea is offensive, it is still new.  The players are not being denied their agency.  In fact, they are being given an opportunity to establish their agency.  They can say, No.  And face the consequences.  Those consequences being uncertain, given that the whole village seems ready to take part in this adventure.

So the player's response is in jeopardy.  They may, if they wish, escape from Stavanger at once and set out for another place ... but any party of mine, having played in my world for even a few sessions, knows that there's just going to be another similar dilemma put in front of them.  We cannot improve our lives by running away from difficult-to-thread situations.  Run away, and any reward is lost.  Rewards come from the party making up their minds, standing their ground, taking the consequences, and winning through.  They may choose poorly ~ but that is the risk inherent in this game.  Here are two, perhaps three, questionable options, any one of which could lead to tragedy.  Choose.  Respond.

The players will naturally seek context.  They are told by their family to see the shaman.  So we describe the shaman's block.  This is the last block I'm going to create an image for; by now, the reader gets the idea.

The shaman's lodge, as I said earlier, is occupied by the lowest residents in Stavanger. These are people without clans, whose people have almost entirely vanished, or who come from outside Rogaland, though likely not further than neighboring Agder, or Hordaland, that surrounds Bergen ~ which I've twice confused with "Haugaland."  Fixed those instances on the blog now.

These hangers on have no real influence, and are entirely dependent on the shaman.  Effectively, they exist as a cheerleading squad for the shaman, and as protection.  A player wouldn't be able to lift a spear in the shaman's presence without being mobbed.  A hit on the shaman would find a follower in the way ... making the shaman virtually invulnerable.  The personality of the hex IS the shaman; somewhat spiritual and quietly fanatic (no one speaks until the shaman does).

The shaman knows everything that goes on with the adventure, but what he chooses to tell depends on how the players affect him (basically, how well he is treated, how polite the players are, how smart are the questions they ask and so on).  In this case, it doesn't matter how much the shaman tells the party ~ knowing everything won't spoil the adventure.  But I would hold back information if the players did not ask a particular question, or if they were oblivious, or they were rude.

We could make the shaman oppose the chief's agenda, but we don't actually need that conflict.  And it is cliched.  The shaman would love to see the players kill the wolf, and here's why: if a player, as a hero, is the father of the future chief, that chief will be a mix of the Haralds and the Sands, but because the players are outsiders, the child will be somewhat unique.  So it is the shaman's agenda to say that he foresaw the arrival of the players [he's lying], that they were meant to kill the wolf [he hopes] and towards that end, he will give them a token that will ensure that if they take part, the bearer of the token will be the one the wolf attacks.  This isn't true, but the party will think it is true, particularly since we as DMs intend to attack the party with the wolf.  But afterwards, the party will find the token has no magical value.

The Shaman does not intend to have the hero player sleep with the dead child's mother. This will be planned so that the father sleeps with the mother, but it will look like the player did.  This will be the case no matter who kills the wolf.  The chief, and the village, will believe the falsehood.  However, it will be easier to convince the party, a group of outsiders, to participate in the ruse.  The shaman will provide a +1 spear (reward: toys) for the brave player who will carry the token.

So now the players will receive wealth if they kill the wolf (gifts), status from the chief, a toy from the shaman ... and they have context as to what's going on here.  The shaman will warn the party that if they do participate, there may be conflict with the Orre clan, so "Be careful."

Let's look at the whole village again:

What is the party's sensation, then?

Throughout all that happens, we want to emphasize how it feels to be in this village.  Look at the trees surrounding the shaman's lodge, how relatively peaceful and isolated it is ... and how quiet and contemplative.  Remember the sound of the wolf's jaws and the cage as the wolf hurls its body against it. The wash of the waves on the shore of the lake, the glint of the sun as it reflects off the water.  Think of young cousin Alfdis's eyes as they stare at the party, being touched by the amazing existence of family who come from so far away, a place Alfdis has only heard about.  Think of the chief's gruff voice; the shaman's gentle, patient tones; mother Yulene's snapping at the children while complimenting the party.  THINK of the actual scene, how it would be, how it has to invest itself into the minds of the players.

We have a tendency to think we need great sweeping descriptions of Stavanger, but we don't!  People remember small things.  How cold the water is.  What does the turf covering the roofs of the dugout houses smell like?  How dark and juicy does the cooking meat look like?  How does a pouring rainstorm change the grassy, stony compounds?  How does it feel to wrap one's own furs tight around oneself, in front of the campfire.  Think in small details, then say them out loud when they occur.  You won't be good at it, not at first.  But if you get one good one in per session, players will remember that one good one and forget the rest!

Now, this adventure.  What does it mean?

That's tricky.  We can couch this in a number of ways ... how the events will be remembered by the party, how it will give them experience and tools with which to become stronger and fight their next adventure; we can fit the next adventure somehow into the details of this one, so that the "meaning" is that it made the second adventure possible.

But there's are higher meanings, too ~ I mentioned one already.  There's the notion of facing down a difficult situation and overcoming it, and how that makes the player feel, as opposed to getting out of town when things offend or look hazardous.  There's the sense of seeing the fictional townspeople, who don't actually exist, as existing anyway, because it is immensely satisfying even to pretend that we are doing things for other people (the oxytocin hit is the same).  If we can relate to things like that ... then we can see, as players and as DM, that the adventure becomes about how this series of events will affect the village.

And this is how purpose evolves ... when players feel a direction emerging that doesn't start and end with, "What do I get out of this?"

That brings us to boundaries.

The village, and the immediate wilderness, is a boundary.  Leaving the village before resolving the adventure is a punishment only in that the players won't get the reward.

But IN the village, they must accept the rules of the village: that there are other clans, that will try to block their intentions.  That other members of the village have agendas of their own, unknown to the chief and the shaman.  That the wolf is an unknown variable.  That other unknown variables might be anywhere.  Staying in Stavanger, knowing that there's an adventure in play, puts the players at risk of ... well, anything we might create.

These are the boundaries the players have to win through.  Why would they?  Why do we play games at all?  Consider the video games that you, the reader, personally like to play: side scrollers, first person shooters, puzzle games, whatever. You drift to those games, specifically, because you like the particular boundaries they create.  How many shots you have, how fast you can run and how hard is it.  The agency, yes, carries weight for you, but you like games with a certain kind of boundary.

Role-playing is the same.  If your DM fudges, and you like it, that has to do with the boundary to your play that satisfies you.  If you like the boundary including a virtual guarantee that you'll survive the adventure and succeed at it, and it is enough to go through the motions, because it is interesting for you, fun, pleasant, relaxing, then you'll keep playing those games.

Me, I like games where the boundaries are unpleasant and off-putting.  Where I feel like I'm making progress, and I'm not moving in a circle, or staring at an insolvable problem, but the progress costs.  I like games where the boundaries are not immediately visible.  Where they are virtually inexhaustible in their design.  Where after playing the game for 40 years, I'm not exactly sure where all the boundaries are.  Not yet.

Sand's Block

If you've not been following along with this series, you'll want to start with this index post, with a list of the foregoing content relative to what's written below.

In the morning, after a long chat with the chieftain of Stavanger the night before, the party will be gently asked where they spend their second night, as the chief's long house will be closed.  Two options will be given: that they can visit the shaman, and possibly be allowed to dwell in his house, or they can seek their clans people and seek their hospitality.  Either will do, but we'll start with the clan of Sand, which the reader will remember is the party's clan.

Now, parties will tend to wander about aimlessly, making enemies with the Verda or the Orre, by stumbling into those parts of the village.  As the party will be recognized instantly as Sand clan, by the way their clothes are made and the motifs on their leather garments, as well as the shape of their head and their noses, the party will get little out of this rubbernecking except to get themselves thrown out of Stavanger by a chieftain who wants only peace.  So I suggest that we create a guide, a nice big fellow who can clout a rude party member in the chief's name if someone gets too friendly with people who don't want to be friends.  We'll call this person Nidhogg, because it will be remembered (as at least extravagantly different, until heard often enough).

Nidhogg takes the party over to their people and they are immediately met by their cousins ~ no direct family, those are all in Haugaland.  The party means three young men named Knut, Dag and Ulfmaerr, and two women named Alfdis and Norna, and of course Mother Yulene, who is the head of the clan.  I've gotten all these names from this invaluable site, which can be sorted by name origin.

Let's define the block's character.

• Personality: welcoming, loyal, friendly, supportive.  This is the party's family ... and they will act like a family, because they will also recognize the features of the party that define them as Sand.  This is a low-development characteristic, that helps define the 9th century Stavanger culture (and cultures in my world that exist at this level in the year 1650).
• Player Needs: a home, food, company, potential allies, information about Stavanger in the way of rumor and story.

To unlock the rewards the block offers, the players must adventure; and when they arrive in the block, as DMs we must measure their worthiness of that adventure before revealing what the reward would be.  We want to play our cards close to our vest.

The players can't stride haughtily among their people, led by Nidhogg, and then stick out their hands and shout, "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!"  Though that's exactly how I've seen parties act, when told, "This is your game family."  We've all seen players who treat their family like some third arm that exists to perform instant favors ... which is strange, given that families are usually the last people in the world willing to do anything for you without strings attached.  Families are often prone to high expectations, giving advice, refusing aid "for your own good" and otherwise resisting our choice to pursue this adventuring life when we ought to be at home, working, marrying, producing kids and acting all respectable and like.

So we should expect Alfdis' father to push the girl on the most attractive member of the party, and to have Norna's mother waiting to do the same when it is her daughter's turn.  We should expect Mother Yulene to break it up, with, "It can be talked about later," while starting a litany of inquiries about home, family, who's recently been married or whatever else she can get out of the party.  We don't need to concentrate on details ... but we do want to measure the players' love of their existing family in Stavanger.

Yes, love.  If the Sand clan is ready to feed and house these strangers, who happen to have similar habits, it's only fair that the players show pleasure at meeting their family, a show of generosity, some curiosity about how old Alfdis is (she is quite attractive) and appreciation for that which they are receiving.  This is almost impossible for players.  Embarrassing, even.  Words like, "I pick the little girl up and swing her around, and ask how old she is, and tell her she's a brave child," just do not turn up on the lips of strong tough adventurer fighters ... which is all the more reason why this is a unique and interesting situation.  And why a lack of friendliness should be noted.

Oh, no one should say anything outright.  But we should describe the appearance of the Sand clans people as diminishing: "They seem disappointed; they are looking at your suspiciously; the way you're all sitting together, in that aloof way, has caused your family to draw away from you; several are looking at you, then talking about you, then looking away with worried, upset or judging looks on their faces."

We might mitigate this a little by saying, before Nidhogg shows the way, "People, these are your family; they are very close to you in ways and speech; you feel comfortable around them.  You've heard tales about these people told by your fathers and mothers.  These are not wholly strangers ... so be careful to show them respect and kindness."  But, sigh, I know parties, and that probably wouldn't work.

But let's say that it does, and the party gets a tour of the block.  They spend the night around the fire in the wide clearing, they see the forest and take note that there's an eight foot high wall of brush and thorns that has been built between the trees, they are shown the tanning tents and at one, the tent on the hex boundary in the map above, they meet two friendly fellows from the Orre clan: Ingharr and his brother Ingemar.  The discourse is brief and suggests there's some tension, but this tanning area is nevertheless shared.

The party is shown the enormous rock, marked by the letter A.  This rock is 20 feet long and ten feet high.  It it like a cairn laying on its side; it has been carved and it serves as a monolith for Stavanger.  The whole village has permission to come and read the rock, and touch it. The images tell of the destruction of the froglings, the final successful battle of Harald Fairhair that made him King of Norway, the Viking tradition and, most recently, the founding of Iceland, that took place 18 years ago.  These things hardly touch Stavanger directly; this is just too backward a village to take part in such escapades.  But the villagers know about it, and Chief Horik certainly has ambitions to teach his people how to build galleys and sail.  Those things will not come to Stavanger for centuries (in my world), but they will come.

Marked by the letter B will be a tanning tent that will, instead, contain an enormous cage that contains a large wolf.  This is the wolf that killed the child, that the party learned about in Horik's house.  The wolf was not captured, it gave itself up of its own accord to the Shaman, who led it into the village two nights ago and then into this cage (built ready for the Shaman's return).

The wolf is snarling and vicious, and obviously dangerous.  When it howls, the air shakes.  It hurls itself at the wooden wand bars of the cage, made of saplings, and the cage trembles as though it will break open.  The story is told that the spirit of the child that was killed is still tied to the wolf; that it is the child trying to break free, not the wolf.  The Shaman has been in communication with the child and has learned what must happen, for the good of Stavanger.

The party is told that in two days, the wolf will be released into the woods east of the village, where it will be trapped between the village and the sea, except along the south edge.  Every hearty male in the village will be waiting in the forest, to hunt the beast.  Whoever succeeds in killing the wolf will become the child spirit's guardian. This male must then take the place of the child's father, and lay with the child's bereaved mother, whereupon the spirit child's kin will be implanted into the mother and the spirit child will be freed.  The clan that kills the wolf, and the Harald clan, will be bonded together forever.  If a member of the Harald clan destroys the wolf, this will be an especially good omen, telling that the newborn child will one day become Chief of Stavanger.

If the wolf escapes, surely, this will be a Bad Omen.  There is no telling what will happen.

Whereupon the party should be asked, "Will you hunt the wolf with us?"

The unlocked reward of the block, then, is the opportunity for experience, combat, the respect of the village even if the players takes part, and the risk that a player will have to perform in bed with a woman of the Harald clan.  Obviously, this would result in a connection with the Haralds, and other opportunities. Status is involved, but more especially wealth, as success in this venture would bring many gifts.

Horik's Block

If you've not been following along with this series, you'll want to start with this index post, with a list of the foregoing content relative to what's written below.

There are still some threads I need to pull together before I can start creating an adventure around this old Stavanger village I've posited.  First, we need to return to those four keys that a village block ought to possess.  I'll just repeat them here, adjusting the language a bit.

1. The block should service the players' needs.  In the construct of the world, think of the block as being a microservice ~ functioning as an application to provide for a particular need.  This could be a market, or an embarkation point, or a source of information, or whatever other everyday service we might expect the world to provide for the busy player on the go.
2. The block should have a personality ... a recognizable, though interesting environment with a character that can be predicted, examined, interacted with and challenged, according to the basic "rules" of behavior and respect that the inhabitants require.
3. The block should offer an opportunity for adventure.  Essentially, this means the presence of a conflict of some sort that the players might choose to resolve, if they're willing to risk failure.
4. Finally, enacting the value the block provides, winning over the inhabitants and successfully resolving the conflict should "unlock" some sort of reward.

This Stavanger village from 892 is not the Stavanger of my world.  It is an exercise that I am employing in order to demonstrate block and adventure creation to the reader.  If this were my game, I would set up a few of these blocks initially, then add more as they were needed.  The concept of the module, where every block needs to be specified, is the model that says the DM should not learn how to fish, but to let others do the fishing so the DM can eat.  My purpose is to teach the DM how to fish ... and I don't need to make every block here in order to do that.

I would like to make seven blocks; this will enable seven types of reward, as stipulated by the link above: wealth, toys, power, status, novelty, enlightenment and purpose.

Because I intend to go through this process with each development level of Stavanger that I intend to show going forward, over the next few months, I'll ask the reader to continue to imagine running characters that are very low-tech and crude in terms of both motivation and worldliness.  Let's say the player characters are all fighters, all from the clan of Sand in Haugaland.  We can make more sophisticated parties later, when we discuss more sophisticated environments.

Let's start with this hex.  On the above map, it would be 0302.  This is the hunter's lodge, or perhaps more correctly the chieftain's lodge.  The residents of the hex are overwhelmingly of the Sauda clan; most of the lodge itself is Sauda, or owe fealty directly to the chief.  This numbers about 55 persons.  Three of the sod houses are Sauda; the other three belong to the Loda clan. While the Sauda also stretch into other hexes, these three sod houses are the whole Loda clan in all of Stavanger.  All of about 15 persons.

Now, remember, this hex is only 435 feet across. That's 142 yards.  I used to be able to run the 100 yard dash in just over 12 seconds, when I was in Junior High School track.  So remember how small this area represents.  And yet, seeing the map, having a grasp of the scale, we can imagine we're here, can't we.  We can see the boats moored on the mud flat, the grass roofs of the houses; the smell of the trees as we lean against the side of the lodge.  That's the sort of tactile understanding we want.

We can talk about the smell of the fish drying, or the fish guts, which are used to attract sea birds that are then killed.  But really, we should talk about what sort of person the chieftain is.  Remember, point 2 is that the hex should have a personality.  The personality of this hex relies on the chieftain's character.  As I said, we have those 24 motivations to choose from, each positive or negative; we want to start there.

Because this Stavanger was founded only 20 years before, and because we know it is going to develop into an important city, I'll visualize this chieftain ~ we'll call him Horik ~ as possessing social intelligence.  That is, he's empathic of others, and he's very concerned with directing the behaviour of his people towards a better, more comfortable life.  Horik has some understanding that a better existence involves everyone working to improve the village, make it more secure, promote the birth rate, build new and better boats (though how is an issue) and bring everyone else to his way of thinking.

He isn't any smarter than his people, but he knows that others are smarter and he knows a good future is in acquiring knowledge.  But he doesn't know how to read, or do much of anything, except to hunt.  And thus we are setting up a conflict: Horik wants, but he doesn't know how to get.  And between Horik and the village, he sees, but the rest of the village potentially does not.

Horik's block is the most diligent.  The Sauda work hard, as do the Loda ~ though the former are hunters and the latter are fisher folk.  There's virtually no conflict with these two groups.  There is a conflict with the rest of the village.  Most of the clans support Horik and such, but there are six young men ("bully boys") in the village that do not.  Four of these are Orre clan; one is Erfjord; the last is a Verda boy.  The chieftain Horik has had trouble with these; but he doesn't want to start a clan war and he needs everyone.

As the party arrives in Stavanger, they are pressed to visit Horik and declare themselves.  They may wish to visit their relatives first, but these are distant relatives and what there might be to say is put off in favor of letting the chief know there are strangers in Stavanger.  The party meets Horik, hopefully acts properly (respectful, supportive, curious, perhaps moderately generous in giving a gift if it occurs to anyone), and Horik offers his hospitality for one night.

So, we have conflict; and we have personality.  The party watches everyone work to make a meal ready for 100 people and wins respect for themselves if they help.  They win respect if they ask good questions. They win respect if they give a gift.  They win respect if they listen to what others have to say and do as they're told.  The puzzle here is for the party to win respect.

If they get it, they will hear a story, told during dinner, by several Sauda clanspersons.  The party is seated no where near Horik, but everyone talks about the chief.

About two months ago, the bully boys were told to rebuild one of the enclosure fences, a defensive line make with brush and thorns, near the clan of Harald.  About a week later, a big wolf broke through that defense and killed a six year old child belonging to the Harald clan.  Everyone suspects that it happened because the bully boys slacked off and didn't properly mend the fence.  But no one knows for sure.  And now the issue has hung over the village like a cloud, without anyone knowing how to resolve it, Horik included.

The available reward here is STATUS.  Status comes in many forms.  Winning respect is one.  It lets you be recognized by clan leaders, who then treat you well, and potentially share information.  It makes what you say matter to the listener.  It entitles you to stay in Stavanger, and to come and go as you please, knowing that when you return you'll be welcome.

Having privileges given is much more.  Privilege gives the right to do things, like build a house, walk freely around the town, teach others how to do things, take part in hunting parties, ask for a place to sleep, sit near the chief and thus speak freely with him.  Eventually, you may be allowed to build here.  Or marry someone.  And have your children be considered part of the tribe.

In a role-playing game based on only this much technology, these things are very, very important.  Not having them means being completely outcast.  There is no other village in Rogaland; and the next village might be no more advanced.  It might be run by a real bastard, and you'll have no clan of your own that you can turn to if you're in trouble.  You really don't know what's out there, because this is 9th century Europe and things like trade, learning, an abundance of food, even actual population centers, are very few and very far between.  Most of Europe hasn't been founded yet; and it's a long, long way to the parts that are, without roads.  It's very important that the people around here like you.

So Status is something that you're going to want.  And the person who can grant it is Horik.  So in effect, you need him a lot more than he needs you.  He has a whole village under his control?  What have you got?

Adding People

If you've not been following along with this series, you'll want to start with this index post, with a list of the foregoing content relative to what's written below.

I can hear what you're thinking.  We've created a map that is substantially no different from any other urban map we might find online.  That's not right.  All that writing and thinking and explaining, and what the hell is this?

Thankfully, this is not the end.  For this post, I wanted to start with base outlay of the town, to help explain how we're going to add depth to it.  The reader will remember that we divided the town into three groups: the fisher folk, the hunters and those who found themselves in the orbit of the shaman.  In this series, I haven't explained shamanism; for the present, I'll leave it to the wiki.

In reality, the division of labor is simple, but not so simple as that.  I had also said there was leather to be tanned, primitive weapons and other tools to be made, raw materials to be gathered (firewood, sapling wands for fencing, peat, fresh water, reeds and more), enclosures to be maintained and boats to be repaired or built.  We know the fisherfolk are near the water; and that the hunters are settled in the outside circle of the village, against the forest, but what can we do to make sense of this ... mess?  How does this become an adventure?

Okay, let's step back.  There is one matter I have not brought up, which would seem pertinent to the map above.  Who lives in Stavanger.  Each rural enclave that we explored was dominated by a single clan; where is the single clan that occupies Stavanger?

I'd argue, there isn't one.  In the mere 20 years of this Stavanger's existence, members of the other clans have walked or paddled their way into Stavanger.  They came as warriors, as marriage partners, as petitioners, as impoverished, as people looking for a better life, as slaves and tribute, or just to see what was there.  And stayed.  So the answer to the question is all of the clans are represented in Stavanger.

But not to the same amount!  Some clans-people came in small numbers; some dominate the town.  The clans from the sea make up the fisher folk that are here; the hunters come from the south and from Haugaland.  The chief himself is a member of the clan of Sauga.  Let's look at the map again ... and this time, I'll add the clan names, with the size of the name denoting their importance in Stavanger:

Let me stress that the handicrafts and occupations on the map are not trade references; these are subsistence
pursuits, needed to keep the residents alive and well.  References refer only to things produced in enough
abundance for trade.

This gives us a lot to work with.  The four principle clans, Harald, Sauda, Osthus and Orre, represent the four parts of Rogaland: west, north, south and center.  The Osthus are fishers and boatmakers, but they live on the lake (Breiavatnet) and not the sea (called Vagen, or "bay").  The Orre are toolmakers and hunters.  The Harald are fisher folk, and dominate the long house.  And finally the Sauda are hunters and the chief clan.

The Verda and Randa clans are hunters, and somewhat important; the Sand, who are tanners, also have some sway.  Erfjord is hardly represented here; they are toolmakers; perhaps weaponmakers and perhaps also boat makers.  The Vormed, too, are unimportant. They are hunters and tanners.  The Skudea are fishers, but on the wrong side of the mud flats ... but still, it is only a few hundred yards from their boats.  Finally, the Loda are fishers, too.

Now compare the groups with each other.  Orre and Verda, remember, are adjacent clans in the south; here, they settle far away from each other.  Perhaps they are relatively unfriendly?  And the Skudea, despite being from the coastal grouping of the Loda, the Harald and the Osthus, are utterly isolated. The Sand stand apart from the Sauda, though they are adjacent clans in Haugaland; and the Sand support the Vormed, and to some degree the Erfjord.  Perhaps this helps explain the politics of Haugaland?

Or is it that Haugaland clans have settled in a way that enables them to control both sides of the village?

This helps a lot.  For one thing, we can set ourselves to giving personalities to whole clans, rather than struggle with five hundred individuals.  Not that everyone in a clan is the same, but we can use some generalizations to help establish the base personality of a group of inhabitants. Which parts of the village are friendly?  Which clan is most likely to approach a stranger with a greeting or with a weapon?  Which is the most diplomatic, or energetic, or indomitable?

Is there a pecking order?  Who pays tribute to whom?  Do the clans intermarry?  And if so, who has the chieftain married?  Who has married the chieftain's sister?  We have plenty of opportunity for making a mistake and stepping on the wrong toes, if we're not careful.

This does not, however, actually create an adventure.  And we have all these blocks to define: not just those containing houses, either.  The hex 0204 could, if we want, be a potential block.  Who knows what's out there in the bushes, just a hundred yards away?

This is something we can take up with our next post.


Post Script

Been a lot of crickets out there this week; and hey, I don't mind, I'm certainly challenging a lot of stereotypes and bringing mounds of ideas and information into the conversation. It would be hard to address that without already having been part of the conversation.

I will remind the reader, however, of when I asked if you could please spread what you're reading and liking to other people.  Post this series on reddit.  Mention it, with as little fanfare as you like, on a bulletin board.  Wave it, hash tag it, write it to a game writer on twitter.  Help a new person see it.

Building Stavanger with Blocks

If you've not been following along with this series, you'll want to start with this index post, with a list of the foregoing content relative to what's written below.

The next goal would be to create an urban map of the dev-5 Stavanger that we've described, made of building blocks, then apply some of those base needs that those blocks need in order to create player experience and adventure.  Remember: we're not making the town for its own sake, but as an interactive tool ... something the players can walk through and thus become invested.

Before getting into that, however [and sorry for the tease], I must address some relative points regarding scale and the actual town of Stavanger ~ because whatever system I might try to create, it is never going to reflect, or simulate the real world.

This is a google image of Stavanger's downtown, centered on the oldest building in the city:

Note how we're allowed to call the Norwegian name, St. Svithun's Domkirke, "Stavanger Cathedral," but
we're still required to pronounce "Qatar" as cutter.  Pedantry is inconsistent and stupid.

St. Svithun's Domkirke

According to my reading, the church was built between 1100 and 1150; with the principle architecture and towers in place by 1125.  It creates a problem for me that I'll address later, but that's not important just now.

The reader may recall that I had settled on a block size of 3.7 acres for my town map hexes ... and that has been a devilishly hard thing to conceptualize.  Thankfully, Google Earth has come to the rescue.  The circle above, centered on the cathedral, is a space of 3.7 acres.  Which is rather clear.

Additionally, I've come across this marvelous document, discussing (among other demographic things) the number of persons per housing unit in various cities, as well as the number of rooms per housing unit, in obscure places around the world.  I have come across several references to low density villages possessing four housing units per acre; and the document here gives me reason to settle on a convenient number of 2 to 5 residents per housing unit (as it gives data for very low development parts of the world, such as Gambia and Malaysia-Sabah.  It's not a fully reliable number, but it is ballpark enough that if I say that a primitive culture might have 32 to 80 persons per urban game block, I'm not utterly talking through my hat.  This may not matter to some, but it matters to me.

Okay, let's get around to mapping Stavanger.  I know this is the part that starts to get out of control.  Everything up to here is conjecture ... but we are, effectively, going to build an adventure, and we're going to need a map to do it.  I'll see if I can't give the reader some tools to handle the problems that arise in creating an interesting framework upon which to hang pre-made adventures and on-the-fly adventures alike.

Let's start by superimposing the map above onto a field of hexes:

Now, all the hexes are the size of "blocks."  We can decide from here how dense the village of Stavanger is going to be.  We know from the links, and other content that I've covered, that 225 people per block would be very dense; some of the blocks above, of downtown modern Stavanger, probably are that dense.  But our village will be a lot less so.  I've suggested that 32 persons per block would be the low end; that 80 would be high.  I've already described long houses in a previous post, saying that there are three in my Stavanger of 892.  We can say that those three each have 80 or so people; and then stipulate, say, the independent family dugouts have an average density of 32 per block.  And I said that Stavanger had 553 people.

That makes 13 blocks; 3 big ones and 10 smaller.  Good enough.  But where do we put them?  Randomly scatter them over the map?  That's a very poor idea; we have a map of an actual place.  We can do a little forensics and decide for ourselves how to arrange those blocks ~ and use some of what we already know about Stavanger to do it.

So here's Stavanger again, only now I've muted the real city so that I can label some of the local colour that we can take into account:

If this is your fantasy world, you can always take any real place from anywhere in the world and deconstruct that place a little.  That's all I'm doing here; I'm just taking advantage of the real Stavanger to create a fictional one.

I have no idea if the land between the lake (Breiavatnet) and the sea was swampy; but that seems likely, particularly as the modern images show the lake shore and the sea shore have both been encased by concrete.  I'm suggesting, then, that 0402 and 0403 are left empty ... except as places where fishing boats could be landed during the night, where they could take advantage of the tides (which are not a great change, but critical).  0402 could be a mud flat, barely a foot above sea level, which might rise enough to let the fishing folk ease their boats out in obedience to the tide.

The best access to both the sea and the flat would be 0301 ~ which becomes the future market, someday.  That's a good hex for the fishing folk's long house.  The hunter's longhouse can be nearby, where present government buildings are ... with fair access to the fresh water of the lake and the forest.  A grouping of lodges (the secondary density blocks) can encircle the hexes between these two longhouses and the forest, following around the edge of the lake.

The present location of the church (which will be built 200 years later) can serve as the shaman's longhouse.  The access to the sea is up to us.  We could stipulate that the mud flat extends into 0401, 0501, even 0601, cutting the shaman's house well off.  That could serve the shaman's purpose, however; the shaman is, in a sense, the balancing power against the hunters and chieftain, and certainly doesn't need access to the sea.  We can then stack the remaining lodges behind the shaman and have our village laid out (knowing why it was built that way).

I'll let the reader think about that for a bit, while I go and make a map ... then we can get into further methods of sorting out our adventure building.

Building Blocks & Stavanger Index

The series on urban adventures and the description of Rogaland/Stavanger is getting so long that I feel I need to organize the relevant posts.  Read the posts from the beginning and bookmark this page.  Here they are (and I will expand the list as new posts are added):

Part One: Building Blocks

What Good are Town Maps? ~ Introducing why town maps don't deliver on all they promise regarding adventure support.

Putting Down Roots ~ How are towns formed; how do people and processes accumulate over time?  And what sorts of conditions create what kinds of towns?

The Steady Urban State ~ Misconceptions about how towns are laid out, discussing how money and labour divide the motivations and designs of one neighborhood from another.

Dogpiling ~ Why it is hard for players to adventure in a town, what makes a town especially dangerous and how a DM can circumvent those issues.

I'll Ask Again: What Do We Want a Town Map For? ~ What do the players want?  What informs them about how to see the environment, and what matters when it comes to adventure.  How time presents as a factor in town adventures, and how urban environments in real life defy our ability to effectively explore every nook and cranny.

How Much Can You Search? ~ What is an ideal scale for designing a map that will separate out the bits and pieces of how a player can search, given limitations on time?

Building Blocks ~ Defining a city block, both in terms of its size and why that size is the subject of study for urban planners.  What can we know about density and how can that knowledge inform our game design?

A Day at the Beach ~ An example of how a particular, obscure urban block can be expanded into a role-playing and adventure opportunity, just by knowing how the people in that environment live, and what they know.

We Know Already How This Works ~ Using city blocks as a tool, what are the four purposes that we should keep in mind when having a party hex crawl through a town, or through an game space?

One Block at a Time ~ A conclusion to the subject of building blocks, with what a designer should keep in mind.  Some examples of blocks, with the understanding that such a list could easily contain hundreds of possibilities.  My intention to keep expanding the list in the future.

Part Two: Building Rogaland

The Failed Plan ~ My original plans for explaining and expanding on my development-infrastructure worldbuilding concept, which I have tried before without success.  I had a new strategy, it got bolluxed by the death of wikispaces and now it is my intention to unveil the process piece by piece.  Includes a 6-mile hex map of Rogaland.

Haugaland ~ Introducing 5 development cultures (dev-5), starting with the NE corner of Rogaland. I discuss wilderness vs. rural lands, and how the wilderness can be subjected to a random die roll to create building blocks of adventure.  Relating the way adventures can be designed according to topography, terrain and relationships between wilderness and civilization, as opposed to whim.  Description of rural/wilderness blocks.

Making a Standard that Creates Distinctions ~ Further discussing how to breathe life into a low development culture, to make it into something that players would care about and feed adventures.  What makes this primitive rural clan hex different from a slightly less primitive rural clan hex?  How nuance is all important.

More About Rogaland's Dev-5 Culture ~ Describing the rest of dev-5 Rogaland, excepting the settlement of Stavanger.  How isolation creates separate entities that can, in turn, build conflict ... and that although different rural blocks may have similar characteristics, that does not mean that we can't invest those blocks with unique ideas.

Stavanger's Initial Growth ~ Describing a primitive settlement in a dev-5 culture, and how that settlement morphs over time to become slightly less primitive, with an influx of people and without any fundamental change in the environment, culture or technology.

Building Stavanger with Blocks ~ Once we decide to make a village map of Stavanger, how do we decide to lay out the various buildings?  This post gives a shorthand way of thinking it through.

Adding People ~ Buildings and even occupations are not enough. A settlement is made of people, who interact with each other, promoting group personalities and conflicts.

Bend Your Mind ~ Setting the mindset for building an adventure from scratch: what are we looking to achieve, how is the adventure going to make our players play, and what sort of motivations will the players uncover as they investigate the adventure?

The Village of Stavanger, 892 AD

Horik's Block ~ Introducing a short adventure surrounding the village of Stavanger as it existed in the year 892.  We meet the chieftain, Horik, and examine the benefits gained with Status.

Sand's Block ~ The players meet their family, and learn a little more about what's going on in Stavanger, and what is about to happen.

The Shaman's Block and More ~ A discourse on the wider Stavanger adventure, told from the perspective of the six principles of game feel, expanding on earlier posts discussing this idea.

The Town of Stavanger, 1237 AD

Stavanger Development 6: Introduction: An overview of what's changed in Stavanger with the introduction of certain technologies and culture, in the last 345 years.

More to come ...

Stavanger's Initial Growth

Prior to this, in the posts about Haugaland and about West Rogaland, we've been talking about rural culture.  As Rogaland in general possesses a 5 development (dev-5), these are hunters living on clan lands without much technology.

Stavanger is an actual village, the only one in Rogaland in the year 892.  It is but 20 years old.  Already, it has jumped to a type-6 settlement ... but before we describe that, let's for a moment remember that it would have been a type-7 settlement for a brief while.

I hate that I keep having to explain this, but a type-7 settlement is the lowest form of settlement; a type-1 would be the highest.  Between 7 and 1, the characteristics of a settlement are modified, according to a complex scheme that does not only account for size, population and production, but also for what happens to be produced as a reference in my trade system, and the cultural development of the region.  The idea here is to unify the various worldbuilding systems I've been describing on my blog for a decade now: trade, my maps, my hex-generated infrastructure system and the late coming development/technology system.

[the 10th anniversary of this blog is in just ten days; say something nice]

To explain briefly about the map: Stavanger shows four food (bread slices) and two labor (hammers).  Because of the infrastructure number (type-6), the hex naturally supplies 2 food and 1 labor.  Note how Randa, with type-7, has no labor bonus.  Stavanger gets +1 food from the fish reference.  Note how Osthus, which is also type-6, but has no settlement, also gets a +1 food from a completely different fish reference.  Finally, Stavanger gets a +1 food and a +1 labor from being a type-6 "settlement," rather than a rural hex.

To get a sense of how Stavanger grew, let's go back to when it was a type-7 settlement, rather than a type-6.  It is a year or two after Stavanger was founded, say 874.  There are some 150 people living there.  What might that entail?  First, that food production is noteworthy; not just because the hex itself would likely be the most productive in Rogaland, but because tribute to the tribal chief and bartering would cause food to find its way to the region's center.  The requirements of the chief, the need to protect and elevate the chief's family, the conditions of Norway's climate and the associations between the chief and the population would result in the building of a long house, to shelter most of the people.  A warmer climate might have a scattering of huts, but this is Norway; it gets cold.

The present labor of more than 75 strong-backed residents would mean it could be a fairly substantial long house, large enough to house all of Stavanger.  The house would be near the water, as fishing is the primary occupation (note the fishing symbol, or trade reference, on the map above).  Inside and out, there would be areas for assembling raw materials, making tools and garments, tanning leather, carving, cleaning and drying fish and building primitive boats.  Many of the residents would be transient; paying fealty and tribute to the chief, seeking shelter when shunned by their clans, small nomadic groups stopping before moving on and, of course, the occasional outsider.  The clan leadership itself would be minimal; the "chief" would be a figurehead, but he or she would likely have no real power without strong support from the main body of villager leaders.

Not a very exciting place.  Or, rather, tremendously exciting compared to life in the forest.  It is all a matter of perspective.  From a player character viewpoint, if our party of primitive fighters were to show up, this is where intrigue would be found, with varying leaders pushing to have their agendas addressed, for their personal gain.  The party would enter this milieu with their own agendas, being pressed to make more friends than enemies as we role-played the game.

All right, it is 892 again.  Stavanger has grown to 553 people ... still a village, but too large for just one long house.  Let's say there are three of note and a group of lesser shelters, of the sort depicted above but more distinctly built about six feel below ground-level (with turf on top) and large enough for two or three families (we'll get to why in a bit).  The three noteworthy buildings are divided according to their occupations.  Most of the fishing folk dwell in one that is nearest to the shore where the boats are protected.  The hunting long house, or "lodge," is closer to the forest; and it houses the more powerful chieftain and more influential and official body of village leaders, or elders.  Finally, a third longhouse, less ornate and protective, shelters much of the common folk; and this house is the residence of Stavanger's shaman and small body of the shaman's personal servants.  People who cling to the shaman in order to have a place in the village hierarchy.

The amount of free labor is greater ~ thus we add another labor to the symbols shown on the map above.  That accounts for all the benefits Stavanger gets from being a settlement (remember, it got a +1 food when it was just a type-7 settlement, back in 874).  This labor is applied to more boats, more tools, the making of weapons to protect the chief and the region (stone-and-wood weapons), possibly crude armor (cloth and shields) and the collection of more raw materials.  Brush and other wooden enclosures, less sophisticated than a palisade, have been built along the forest to protect the village.  Most of the wood nearest to the village has already been cut down for firewood.  During the day, much of this labor is gone from the village; the hunters into the forest, the fishing folk out onto the water.  Only the children, the women and the shaman's followers remains (the shaman might disappear for days at a time, seeking mushrooms, herbs, a vision, whatever).

So we can see the evolution of the village.  If we started our game in 892, the players would never see the type-7, early Stavanger that was there before.  But we want to have some of it in our heads; so that we can envision where the residents came from, what they see as important, to them ... and where do they want to go in the future?  But we will get to that.

Okay, I mentioned that I would come back around to families.  I will; but I'm going to start a new post with it, to help maintain one principle subject per post.  I know that this is a tremendous wash of information for the reader, and that it can be overwhelming trying to imagine keeping all this in one's head.  Keep this is mind: we are not talking about rules.  We can simplify rules until the cows come home, but we're still stuck with the necessary proposition that creating a believable, fascinating world with depth is an unbelievable, monumental task ... one that, again, the official company simply ignores, pretending that every adventure can be made entirely out of stereotypes.

If we can see how the village of Stavanger works, we can put ourselves and our players into the place; and help them to walk around, watching the residents work, watching the interaction between the residents present itself ~ and understand what is important to these people.  What would change their lives?  What would they want?  How does the party fit into that equation.

Until the next post, then.

More About Rogaland's Dev-5 Culture

I'd like to try and get this post squeezed in today before I have to go do something else ... so I'll give it a try.

On the right, we see the rest of Rogaland, as it appears in a stage of 5 development (or "dev-5").  Haugaland, that we covered in the link, is not shown, is attached to the upper right corner of the map.

With Haugaland, we can loosely divide the region, or tribe, into four parts.

The clan of Harald, at the top of the map, is off by itself, and from the type-7 hex, we see that it isn't any more than a very obscure enclave.

At the bottom of the map, the two clans of Verda and Orre form an enclave around the lake of Orrevatnet.  Again, both are type-7; we may assume they are interrelated and friendly, but that is not necessarily so.

Finally, in the middle, surrounding the mouth of the Bokna Fjord, the large circle of water that surrounds the islands shown, we have four clans ~ Randa, Osthus, Loda and Skuden ~ and one actual village, Stavanger.

We can see that it is the end point of a circle of communication, which we presume extends overland to Verda-Orre and up the shoreline to Haugaland, pulling the Land of Roga together.  Stavanger is the only settlement ... all of these other hexes are clan lands, without agriculture, where hunters are able to sustain themselves on the rich natural game, fish and other forage that exists.  There's nothing here, except for Stavanger, that is different from what we learned about Haugaland.

I want to stress that this is in our favor.  By designating these places as "not much," we don't necessarily make them cookie-cutter replicates of each other.  All it gives is a very definite sense of what players would find there if they went: foragers, who fish a little and hunt a little, living a subsistance lifestyle.  It doesn't say every hex is the same!  A hex could have a special shaman in it, or an object that could wash up on the shore in only this hex, that the players could only find if they chose to explore there.  We are freed, however, of having to invent a whole culture from scratch in every one of these places.  These are basically all clans belonging to the same tribe, with the same basic beliefs, the same anthropological social structure, the same familiar foods and habits ... and representing something to the players that can be embraced as a reliable consistency that can be banked upon, exploited, used as crutch or however the players want to see it.  There's a weakness in making everything staggeringly different; the inconsistency becomes a malaise, which the characters just don't embrace.  We've all created a bit of something we consider imaginative and ready for adventure, to have experienced players respond to with a shrug.

There is something comfortable about consistency that we should not discard, thinking that everything about the game world has to be jazz hands and sparkly fire streamers.  Players are going to grow familiar anyway ... why not make your preparation process as a DM a bit easier by giving the players a bit of what they want?

Let me step out of that argument a moment and bring up the fact that there are no type-5 hexes here.  Even the settlement of Rogaland is type-6.  Type-5 hexes in a dev-5 culture are rare.  We can imagine them as a sort of sylvan paradise; the atmosphere that is usually associated with the elven settlements of Lorien or Rivendell.  Places where we do not have merely common beauty, like an emerald-green forest or a field of flowers, but startling, eye-popping beauty, with waterfalls, or magnificent oak trees hundreds of feet high and a thousand years old.  Where the fish leap out of the ponds and into your bucket.  Where the water is so fresh that your grandparents can taste it.  These would be places of pilgrimage; where the tribe would gather once every five years, or where the tribal chieftain would be crowned.  And they would be places where rare herbs were found, where faeries would congregate and remain in contact with the common tribe.

Most of all, and I cannot stress this enough ... not every part of the world would be lucky enough to have such a place.  Rogaland does not.  And before we move onto where we describe Rogaland as a more developed culture, a type-5 hex will have a different meaning. In a more sophisticated culture, a type-5 rural hex won't be occupied by hunters and gatherers; it will be occupied by people who till crops for living, who grow things.  Whatever the hex was when the land was mostly empty will have been altered.  There may be a sylvan  hex-block in such a culture ... but it won't be the sort of sylvan hex that exists in a completely hunter-gatherer culture.

Too, there's nothing that says that a sylvan hex has to be associated with any civilization.  Just as an eradicator monster such as a lich or a beholder can wipe out all life in a hex block to make a home, a faerie culture can expand life, making an obscure sylvan hex block as beautiful as an eradicator hex block is ugly.  The key is to imagine that the world makes sense, then to set up those hex blocks in a pattern that evokes adventure, rather than crushing it.

I need to talk about Stavanger, but time is running short.  I can put it in its own post.  This will suffice for now as content.

Haugaland & Hex Types

The various sorts of building blocks I described in the post, One Block at a Time, need to fit into appropriate places; there's no logic to a careenage that's no where near the water or a beastland that is adjacent to a hex where a quiet family clan resides.  I recognize that some world designers will think the latter is "kewl," but in fact it is pretty stupid and obviously geared to teach players that the world they're running through makes no gawddamn sense at all.

To that end, I've started defining hex "types," based on vegetation and circumstance.  I include a list of what I have so far at the bottom of the post, but I want to stress that all this work is in progress and therefore should not be considered complete.  "Complete" is something that would come from a lot of work.  At present, I'm concerned with demonstrating how a hex type or a building block ought to function, rather than creating a list of building blocks that would be useless if we did not know how to put them together.

Let's look at the northern part of Rogaland Dev-5, that I introduced with this post.  I've come across the name Haugaland, but now that I'm being watched by a resident of the actual Rogaland, I hesitate to say this is what this region is called in the actual world.  I'll just say this is what I'm going to call it for my world (and let's just assume this is always the case):

There are not many hex types that I've defined that fit the area ... and that's a good thing.  We want a lot of distinction, but we want the distinction to be in the nuance.  For example, the Erfjord, Vormed, Sand and Sauda clans all occupy coastland hexes, they are all arable, and they are all borderlands.  Remember, none of these are "villages;" they are likely a single long-house with a yard and everyone sleeping together, as this is Norse culture.

All the hexes are watered, but they are not all "well-watered," which includes only that area along the river (which is called Sundalslagen and is flowing through a valley that doesn't exist, because it should actually be flowing south of where the Vormed clan is, but it doesn't matter because it's my world and I'll stop bringing this up now).  Here's a table listing these hex types and others that I've developed so far:

The four clans exist on the map above because my infrastructure system put them there, the same system that I've pushed on my blog for years.  I'm simply using that infrastructure to say, "These are hexes where a deliberate effort has been made to transform verdant land into arable land.  The rest of the map is, by my reckoning at least, "verdant."  I want to stress the distinction that verdant does not mean a land of tremendous abundance, but rather a land with sufficient vegetation that it will support a herbivorous, and therefore a carnivorous, population.  The mountains of Haugaland aren't anywhere near as green as the watered lands of the Sundals river, but they are covered in lichen and short grass and they do support a population of wild goats and reindeer, and presumably a wide range of sizeable common monsters that an area such as a wasteland would not would not support.

[Just a note about "deadlands" that were described in the One Block at a Time post ~ I've separated this into the two kinds of hex above; an eradicator land would occur in either kind of hex, barren or waste, but a beastlands hex would only occur in a barren hex; just the way I see it].

The hex type is meant to be a useful short hand.  The blocks we should expect to see on the map could include, according to hex type:

• Arable.  Boat yards (if there was any boatbuilding, which there isn't), careenages (there would be one for the Erfjord clan, since there's access to fish), fishing huts (all of the clans fish, though the Erfjord clan does better), hut villages (none of the clans, as there's no settlement in Haugaland) or a sacred place (which we could say occurs with a 1 in 6 frequency).  Rolling dice, I find none of these clans are organized around such a place; but as a DM, if I had a reason, I could hand one over to any of them. Sauda, for example, which will eventually become a village.
• Borderland.  Earlier, I mentioned only one block that might apply to the borderland, that being the hunting camp; however, hunting camps are organizations of professional hunters, something that arises from a more sophisticated culture.  Represented here are four small clans, of about 30-90 people each, which we could think of as the Haugaland Tribe.  There are no professional hunters, and won't be until this region develops above its present state.  All we can say about these being borderlands is that they're fairly vulnerable to outside attack by who knows what.
• Coastland. Again, everyone is on the coast; but the fishing ground by Erfjord makes that hex unique.  I want to stress that the boats used by the inhabitants here are not viking ships!  They are not even sailing vessels, but rather primitive boats that are safe only to travel in coastline hexes.  There are viking ships in Norway at this time, but not here in my Haugaland; there isn't even a nearby market where one could be purchased and no training for any of this population in how to mange such a vessel.
• Verdant. There are lots of grazing lands, literally every other hex on the map apart from the four clan hexes.  The best hunting is bound to be along the well-watered hexes beside the river, but as my version of Rogaland has only grazing lands, the hunting is only fair.  Good enough to sustain the small population inhabiting Haugaland (using the food as a guide, about 140).

As the reader can see, from this I already know a huge amount about Haugaland, from just a few easy to fix details.  It wouldn't be hard to build an adventure that would fit the circumstances.  But since I did say that 1 in 20 grazing hexes would be a barbaric village, why not roll to see where those villages might be?  I'll even go one step further and make a suggestion for what they could be, based on the version of Norway I've imagined for my world, one in which gnomes, halflings, stone giants, trolls and kobalds inhabit.  We won't include any killer frogs; that lair, the one investigated by the online party, is near Stavanger.  I'll roll for half-hexes on the border but not for the line of hexes right on the bottom of the map (though they are eligible).  I also won't roll for the mostly empty hex on the far left, directly west of the Vormed clan.  I count 30 possible rolls.

I got three.  Of course, this is pretty simplistic.  Any one can write "gnomes" on a map and it hardly counts as an adventure!  Though, to be honest, that's what I've seen on a lot of maps these past ten years blogging.

What it does is give us a few blocks to build with.  We can decide that the gnomes are friendly, that the party has to make contact with the Vormed clan, make friends, get a Vormed fellow to lead them to the gnome village.  The gnomes are perhaps a bit aggressive, as they're not too fond of the human incursion that has incurred in the last two centuries, but with a little live and let live the party can convince them that they're need to find the kobald village in the mountains is crucial.  We can say at this time the players know nothing about the trolls.

Eventually, the gnomes lead the players over the pass and down to the kobalds; depending on the adventure we have in mind, this might lead to a parley, in which the kobalds reveal the trolls and the true presence of the Mcguffin or whatever we choose to base the adventure on.  Or it might be a slogging fight, where the kobalds are led by a troll, who escapes, and must be followed, leading the party to the troll village ...

I've added a roll to barbaric villages for my own purposes, which declares that 1 in 20 of these is a dungeon.  Now, if my whole world were just Rogaland, than I would probably make the kobald village a dungeon, and the troll village a dungeon as well.  But I have a gargantuan world, with 40,000 verdant hexes ... I can afford to spread my dungeons thinly.  Besides, I like outdoor fights in monster villages.  They can be hard scrabble for the players and it still ends in a potential heap of treasure.

I have more to say about Haugaland, but this is enough for now.  We'll pick up with more discussion of the sort of blocks that make up the clan-lands of the region.

The Failed Plan

Back in December I had a plan.  I was working on the development-infrastructure system, which has been floating around the blog now for two years, in the hopes of building a demonstration that would more clearly reflect what the system could offer in terms of world design.

My plan was to create five versions of the county of Rogaland, the provincial unit of Denmark & Norway in which the online players are adventuring.  In my world, I had determined that the actual development of Rogaland was 9 ~ which is hard to explain, since most readers here don't have enough experience in history to compare the number, or even the link, to anything in their experience.  Worse, the link calls it "technology 9" rather than "development 9," which I adopted after it was determined that readers bristled at my use of the word technology in this manner.  And that was fair.  We don't have to go into it.

For clarity's sake, a development of 9 would be a fairly backward culture for the 17th century.  Most of the things that were present in the rest of the world would be rarely seen and treated with some disdain, just as many people in backward parts of the United States continue to treat books as a bad idea, unless it's the Bible.  Most concepts, such as things we'd identify with the Enlightenment, would be alien. The people of Stavanger in the 17th century were barely out of the 10th; though Christian in name, most of this was a sort of "folk Christianity."  The idea of established churches and priests, the habit of reading and writing, and the widespread use of metals was something of a new thing.  These things were common in other parts of the world, but not in a backward, far to the north fish port like Stavanger.

To bring this home, I had planned to design a map and description of Stavanger as a development-9 region.  But I also had a plan to design Stavanger as a development-8 region, as a development-7 region, as a development-6 region and as a development-5 region.  I hoped that by remaking the same province over and over, I would show how each development level would create a markedly different cultural and structural setting, which could then be made to apply as a background for role-playing and adventure.

My ambitious plan was to make these five versions all ready, and then post them one after another on five successive days.

In December, I was putting the plan in place.  I had worked out the kinks for development 5, 6 and 7, and was working on 8 ... but I was finding the challenge fairly steep.  As each layer was built, it complicated the project, as each earlier layer had to be updated in turn.  Fishing at dev-5, for example, would work differently for dev-6, and differently again for dev-7.  With each new layer, the differences multiplied in number, as it became more and more difficult to keep the big picture clear in my head.

But, no worries, I thought.  The restaurant where I work was going to do a remodelling in late February.  I would have three weeks of time all to myself.  Until then, I would just gather information and when the break came, I'd use the time to bring it all together.  I was champing at the bit to put the information up; I was leaking bits and pieces and the new year came on.  I anticipated wildly the week when I would start putting up those posts.

And then ... just before the break, wikispaces, my wiki host, announced that it was ending its website.  And although I had until July, supposedly, to move the wiki, my unease about the certainty of that resource suddenly became my only concern.  As a result, I burned those three weeks, and six others besides, moving more than 1,100 pages, with more than 5,000 links that had to be changed.  Not only did I not work on the development project ... I put so much distance between putting down the project and picking it up again that I now feel staggered at the idea of producing five versions of Rogaland all in a single week.

I felt bitter, and angry ~ and yet I kept my silence about the plan in the hopes that I might still put it up as I had originally planned, perhaps in July or August.  But truth be told, I would rather spend that time working on the Fifth Man.

I haven't talked about the Fifth Man in a while.  The note on the sidebar remains, quietly stabbing me in the side every day, though I haven't updated it since June of last year.  Speaking of things that distance has made difficult to access; but I think about the book nearly every day.  In my mind, I have solved some troublesome aspects that would have weakened the latter third of the book.  I think, to be honest, that it will be a better book for the distance I have gained on it.

My plan is to pick up the book sometime this week.  It will be slow progress to start.  I need to familiarize myself again with several passages; I hope I can keep the continuity straight. I have had to admit that only eight of the podcasts have proven workable for this first season. I am sorry Vlad, and sorry Archon ... I think the conversations were good, but having to do the interviews over the Skype phone, and not through the computer, did not make a good sound quality.  A better technician might be able to save them.  I'm inadequate.  I just don't know enough about Audacity or sound.

So, once the podcasts are done, and there's a lull before I start the second season (which will be coming), I'm going to work on my book, and not on making some grand splash with the development system.

I will, I think, continue to make five versions of Rogaland.  But I'm going to release them without a schedule, when I feel ready to move on.  And if, doing it that way, it turns out that I reach a point where I can't finish, that's too bad.  The book really is more important.  I owe it to a lot of people besides myself ~ and to tell the truth, my soul will be better off when it is behind me.

The post, One Block at a Time, gives most of the information I need to work up a dev-5 version of Rogaland.  I'm not going to work on arranging those details in the right order tonight; I have to go crash soon so I can work in the morning.

However, I am going to post a map of Rogaland that I made five months ago.  It is a "6-mile hex map," built out of my more commonly posted maps of the world.  The link shows the older version of this map; I tried some new ideas in design, to make something that would have a deeper, visceral impact:

I think the reader might appreciate this somewhat.  The notion is that the unshaded map would be the county of Rogaland as it existed in the year 892, just twenty years after Stavanger, the only village, was founded.  Stavanger is a village, the only settlement in the region, with a population of 553.  In 892, there is only one economy: fish.  If the reader looks carefully, three small fish symbols can be seen on the map; these are the places where fish congregate, what I called "fishing grounds" in the One Block at a Time post.

The white names on the map ~ Erfjord, Skuden, Orre and so on ~ are not villages, they are clan names. It has bothered me for some time that there is no proper, elegant way to label hexes on a hex map; unlike a squared map, a grid with letters and numbers like "G4" isn't possible.  But the idea of naming hexes after the primary clans appeals to me.  Clans become towns and the name remains.

What I like about the above mapping system is that it gives me the precise edges of treeline and occupied land, however small the latter might be.  I'm not bound by the shape of the hexes. The trees can pour up into valleys between the mountains, which are variously upland heath (pale green) or rocky tundra (grey).  The distances ~ one hex = 6.667 miles ~ are isolating enough that it is easy enough to imagine various clans coming into conflict over raw hunting ground.

The total population is a mere 1,349.  Those clans are not very large.

Remember what one of the blocks I included in the One Block at a Time post: grazing land, that was wilderness and possessed inconsistent hunting.  And 1 in 6 grazing lands, I wrote, would contain a barbaric village.

Every hex on here without a clan name is a grazing land.  And many of those may be occupied by kobalds, froglings, fur-covered gnolls ... perhaps even a clan of trolls.  Who knows?