Wyrdspeak

There are dozens of ways to build and travel through cities for your RPG games that are concrete, solid, and have a decent amount of crunch. I'm too much of an idiot to use these kinds of methods, so here's my really subjective way, based on a popular earlier post , without needing maps but still having a physical representation to keep track of player location. Crawlspace Method - Settlements ( Sam Hogg ) 1.  Choose a die. A D4 represents a village, a D6 represents a town, a D8 represents a city. 2.  Choose at least two faces on your die. Mark down these faces as gates . These are areas that the players can freely enter and exit the village/town/city grounds through this location. 3.  Start writing down the contents of each face. Each face represents a major landmark or general district. Generally, you should do the Last Gasp method of describing districts/landmarks/other locations by giving each place a wealth rating (Poor/Middling/Rich) along with descriptio...

So, I've given you some background about The Ashen Age, but many things still wait to be defined. Among the things that wait to be defined is magic, which is a particularly hard topic due to its weird nature. This relationship only gets more complicated due to the events  that have happened to make the Ashen Age what it is today. Now, let's chat and try to decipher the splendor and misery that our characters may discover. Let's chat about the fall of the gods and their new brood. Let's chat about the lost art of magic and the secrets of godhood... A Deal With God ( Markus Neidel )  The petrification of the gods was a catastrophe in all ways, a perfect disaster. The initial shock of the god's petrified body parts crashing with the world and killing almost all surface dwellers was felt heavily among the survivors. Of course, there were other implications to this disaster as well. Clerical magic ceased to work, as no god could supply miracles anymore. Due to th...

I once had a particularly solemn dream, a dream that seems like it would only appear during a fever or restless nights. There was a towering door before me, then came a voice that blew out all the candles. It was the scream of a beast, screeching about how merciless strength is the most powerful virtue of all. I smashed my pulse against my pillow, but I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if the beast's words were heeded. I'm not above joining the bandwagon of creating homebrew settings. It seems like everybody has one, and I have seen some great things come out of them. So, I'm going to create a setting, one with dragons and gods and heroism in the face of suffering, hopefully one that you all and my players will enjoy. The Ashen Age ( Markus Neidel ) Once the basilisk ascended to godhood, the people of the world thought that this was the end of everything. It had been a good run. Their lives had been uneventful, simple yet sustainable, free of inconven...

Creating something from nothing is REALLY hard, especially when it comes to world-building. I've always ran with the platitude of "start small, think big later". When creating a setting or main adventuring area, I've got a process I run through that generally helps get the creativity flowing and that doesn't need to be performed in any real order: The History: This is just a general three-sentence description of the history of the setting or area the players are going to be adventuring in. It doesn't necessarily need to just be three sentences, but I've found that this is a good amount of space to let creativity branch out later. The Encounters: If you've been reading this blog for any amount of time, you'll probably know that I am a BIG fan of small tables . I generally like making a small table of encounters to gauge what enemies or allies may be seen when going through whatever fresh hell your players are going through. The Bestiary: Th...

The sound of sandals on soft dirt precedes the adventurer’s entrance into the pitch dark chamber. The light of the torch cowers from the darkness of the chamber like a scared child. For the past hour, the party of three had been pursuing a mysterious person who seemed to be made out of incense smoke. They were hoping to ask the person for directions out of the dungeon, they had been horribly lost for longer than they had been pursuing the mysterious man. The three hadn’t let the catacombs stop them, and they certainly wouldn’t let a dark and dank chamber stop them now. The light soon revealed the walls made of packed dirt, the ceiling with several strange potted plants hanging from iron chains, and a large statue of a twisted worm god. A true eyesore, the statue almost looks like it is shifting and squirming in the dim light's presence. The smoke person disappears into the statue, a groveling voice forms inside the depths of the party’s heads. “Would one of you like to pray?” The...

With every new year comes a multitude of new adventures, whether it be in real life or in an RPG. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a proud person. I occasionally get into writing ruts and look online for adventure seeds for ideas. Most are pretty generic, many don't provide a good location for adventure, and some feel incomplete, even for something as broad as an adventure seed. To celebrate the birth of a new year, here are a few adventure seeds of increasing weirdness. Just so you guys and gals know what's coming and what I think when creating adventures. When creating the framework for an adventure I usually ask myself the following ten questions that don't really need to be answered in any specific order: The Occasion/Dungeon: Where is the dungeon? What is the dungeon? What is the safe haven near the dungeon? Is there one? The Speaker/DM: Who is the main antagonist? What does the antagonist want? What tools does the antagonist have to achieve ...