CROSS PLANES: Blogfest

Showing posts with label Blogfest. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 1, 2025

A to Z of the Polyverse: A is for And then there was light! (A to Z Blog Challenge 2025)

This is the A to Z of the Polyverse.

What is it? Glad you asked.

The Polyverse is what I call the setting of the various DnD campaigns I have run stretching back to the early 90s starting with ADnD 2E's Haunted Halls of Eveningstar. It was the first module I ever ran and my first time running ADnD 2E. I made a ton of mistakes. A. Frickin. Ton.

I had read the Avatar Trilogy and stupidly had Lolth tempt a player who wholeheartedly tried to kill the rest of the party. As they chased him out of Eveningstar he set fire to some grasslands to cover his tracks.

Those actions created a group of Elven terrorists who are plotting to take back their homeland known as the Kinn'A'Nacht.

From there a high level Wizard named Dunwich began recruiting for a secret society known as the Circle of Fire with the ultimate goal being to kill the Gods and replace them with him and his fellow members.

Then I didn't run much DnD for a long time.

However, when 5E came out I started making up for all of that lost time. The Polyverse saw the murder of Tiamat and the ascension of Ashardalon as the God of Chromatic Dragons.

Then Saint Cuthbert was trapped in the Demiplane of Dread known as Ravenloft. The last group who tried to rescue him wiped each other out when one of the PCs found the Hand of Vecna.

The City-State of Jarlsburg and Duchy of Saint Cuthbert/Saint Albus both became major areas for my games.

In my most recent game the city of Greenway and its Hexenschule came into focus and a plot by the Elves to murder Lolth and replace her with her brother Vulkoor was revealed. And Dunwich and his secret society began to set things into motion in the open by recruiting the PCs...it just took me over 30 years to get there.

Things are very much afoot.

Wednesday, August 4, 2021

RPGaDAY Day 3 Tactic

Hmmm...Tactic. Many of the RPG groups have used tactics to varying degrees of success. My Divine Soul Human Sorcerer, Clete, isn't very tactically inclined. He's the only Arcane caster in the group and most sessions the only healer. As a Sorcerer, I try to focus my Metamagic to bolster healing with things like Twin Spell and the one that lets you make a touch spell out to 30 feet. It's refreshing to play healer as it's a whole different mindset to the game focusing on the action in a support role and to be willing to not for the big damage numbers...that is what our two Paladins are for. I've used Greater Invisibility as our group started going down to keep myself up and able to bring some allies back up.

I guess tactics is just a holdover from our wargame roots? Or maybe people just like fighting games? I've had sessions without any combat and its just as rewarding as a fun fight but in the end the tactic, in my opinion, are about taking out the bad guy.

Monday, August 2, 2021

RPGaDAY 2021 Day 2 Map

Map

As a young Dungeon Master, I started planning my first Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Second Edition game by drawing a map of a continent named Talanta. It was a fusion of the words Atlantis and Talislanta which I'm sure I'd seen an ad for in Dragon Magazine. The setting was heavily inspired by Tarzan which I watched a ton of on Sunday morning on a local TV station. Humans had become shipwrecked centuries before and their society was similar to what we saw of Tarzan -- loincloths, no armor, complex homes in trees, etc. The other primary race were humanoid rats, which I'm guessing was inspired by Warhammer's Skaven, known as the Rath. I was pretty proud of myself and kept that map for many, many years. I never did anything with it though because I was kind of scared of how the setting would be received by my group. While I loved Tarzan I didn't know if anyone else did and that scared me.

I like drawing maps but I often get caught up in setting up various types of terrain and locales which in turn raises my anxiety. Thirty years later I'm just as nervous now as I was then.

Senses

I try to describe other sensory inputs besides sight and hearing as a DM and I've found smell and taste are often good options to set the tone of a scene. Telling someone that the skeletons in front of them smell like a dead skunk or that the mutant right in front of you makes your taste buds experience maple syrup can be a surprising tool to bring mood to the game.

Plan

I'm a terrible planner, probably too lazy, I like cooking ideas up but am not very good at writing them down, except for this blog. As a DM, I'm more comfortable having an outline and rely heavily on improvisation and letting the players pick the direction of the game.

Voice

I've always liked doing voices as a DM but have been fairly reticent about it as a player until this most recent Avernus campaign. My Sorcerer, Clete, has a very distinct voice and after months of playing him, I get into the mindset once I start doing the voice. Clete is an asshole with a lot of problems and for a period of time, he had a separate personality, Chauncey, whose voice was very distinct from Clete.

Our Avernus game has seen Clete evolve from a Neutral Flaming Fist to a Lawful Good worshipper of Lathander and its been a fun ride.

Sunday, August 1, 2021

RPGaDAY 2021 Day 1 Scenerio

Scenario.

I think of "modules" or "adventures", published ones that for years I avoided. As a young Dungeon Master, I had plenty of ideas and while it all wasn't improvised I'd generally have a loose framework of where I'd like to get to each session. It's funny to look back on your youth and to think "it was so much easier back then", except it wasn't. I had problems then too, just different ones. Nostalgia is a buxom mistress.

Aside from published adventures the word also reminds me of the Greatest American Hero TV show, which I was a huge fan of. If my memory is accurate Robert Culp's FBI agent Bill Maxwell used the word quite a bit. I always loved new words, one of the many great things about comic books, and my Dad bought us this HUGE Webster's Dictionary that had to weigh 6 pounds. I'd pour through it looking up words to use for the Super Heroes I'd create. It even had a large section in the back with species of flora and fauna, constellations, and other cool stuff. That whole section was in full color.

Anyway, I kept hearing Maxwell use that word and I had to look it up...or at least I remember it that way.

Wednesday, April 8, 2020

A to Z of My D&D Campaign: C is for the Castellan Keep

The Keep on the Borderlands.

Castellan Keep.

It is a lonely, alluring, exciting, and terrifying place.

The kind of place that calls to Adventurers, Mercenaries, and Blackguards.

You can make a name for yourself at the Keep and your actions will dictate whether you achieve fame or infamy.

The Keep is a tiny shard of Law trying, valiantly, to keep the Chaos that surrounds it at bay.

There are strange caves, tracks of blasted earth, mysterious hermits, and even a dungeon or two within a short ride.

It is a place to make a new start or an early end.

The War may be over, but the battle is joined.

Just remember to return to the Keep before nightfall.

Sunday, April 5, 2020

A to Z of My D&D Campaign: B is for the Broken Lands

The Broken Lands, as published for the DnD Rules Cyclopedia, was home to the Orcs of Thar and was North East of the Republic of Darokin.

For the purposes of my Campaign, it is now wedged North of the Grand Duchy of Karameikos between Rockhome and the Emirates of Ylaruam. Thar was not an evil nation filled with evil Orcs and Goblinoids. It was a thriving experiment of how the Orcish people could form a nation and build treaties with their surrounding neighbors. Except Alfheim, the Elves to their West always distrusted them and came to despise any nation that dealt with Thar.

Thar was the name of the visionary and brilliant Orc who united his people all across the face of the continent of Brun and built a nation that stood as an equal to its fellow nations. Three-Hundred years later, Thar was a bastion of commerce, discipline, and expression. Not only did Thar welcome other Races inside its borders but by following their Founder's teachings Orcs were welcomed elsewhere, as well.

It was Thar that was attacked on the 11th night of Thaumont by Archon Dryden'Octrar and her Blood-Red Legion. While, Alfheim claimed that Crown-Prince Ugar Tharreign had abducted Nephilim Sora'Tra for nefarious purposes. Archon Dryden acted on behalf of the Nephilim's mother, Hekate Olora'Nokt, a powerful Wytch and former lover.

Thar's allies in the Grand Duchy and the Emirates sprung to their defense and soon Darokin and the Five Shires joined with Alfheim while Earthome sold weapons to both sides.

The War lasted five years and only ended because Darokin and the Five Shires chose to changed allegiances after the Tarrasque was summoned in Tharza, the Orc nation's capital. The battle against the Tarrasque lasted forty-seven days and scarred the land with constantly shifting grounds due to ever-present earth tremors, volcanoes spewing forth lava or noxious gases, geysers, scalding mud pits, and dust storms. The air is heavy with the fumes blown from sulphuric puddles and fissures venting often toxic gases from deep underground. The climate is equally as fierce with the surface being blasted by the sun throughout summer or frozen by fierce winds during winter. On top of this savage landscape, monsters roam the land and are hypothesized to be the creation of some of the terrible magic that was used during the War.

However, Thar's inhabitants refuse to give up on their home and have founded New Tharza on the ruins of Anram, which was sacked by Typhon Ergar'Dunn, also known as the Grim Elf of Feador.

The Broken Lands are a daily reminder of what the people of Brun are capable of both good and bad.

A to Z of My D&D Campaign: A is for All Along the Watchtower

I'm running late with the Blogfest but I think this would be both a good exercise and a distraction.

This year I'm doing the A to Z of the DnD Campaign I start running tomorrow night on Roll20. This Campaign is being played by some dear old friends who I rarely get to see. They are wonderful friends, the type of friends that you might not see in a few years but you pick back up as soon as you are around each other. True friends. Well be running DnD 5E and we are starting at 1st level.

A is for All Along the Watchtower.

Its the name of the Campaign on Roll20.

I've chosen to set the game in Mystara and at least the first several levels will be in and around the Keep on the Borderlands, also known as Castellan Keep, which is on the North-Eastern edge of the Grand Duchy of Karameikos.

In my version of Mystara Karameikos has recently finished a terrible war with Alfheim and Darokin to its East which drew in Rockhome, the Five Shires, Thar, and the Emirates of Ylaruam. Alfheim, in a last and desperate bid to shatter the enemy nations that surrounded it summoned the Tarrasque and watched its enemies and their entire world tremble. It took forty-seven days to defeat the monstrosity and in the end, the Broken Lands* were all that remained of the homeland of the Orcs of Thar.

Its been two years since the end of the War. The Occupation of Alfheim gets more and more complicated each day as the Church of Zinzerena wages a guerilla war against the Confederacy while also rounding up the Archons of Lolth.

Many who fought in the War simply want to forget and Castellan Keep is a good place to do so. There are ample opportunities in the Altan Tepes Mountain range and the Borderlands between the Grand Duchy, the Emirates, and the Broken Lands.

The Keep and even the Borderlands is a fresh start away from the War and its horrors. There are cairns and hidden tombs to plunder, pilgrims to protect from monsters, and land to settle.

*For the record, the Broken Lands are actually North East of Darokin, but for my purposes, they are what remains of Thar after the Tarrasque was finally stopped and take up a portion of Rockhome and the Emirates. That's the beauty of DnD and RPGs in general, I can stand on the shoulder of Giants and still make their works my own.