Adversaries - Designing for Scope

Fantasy stories involve a wide variety of adversaries for the main characters. I like classifying them into two distinct categories by their agency. A "foe" exerts influence on the narrative for a single scene, challenging the PC’s interests at that moment and then fading into obscurity. On the other hand, a "villain" exerts influence over the course of a particular story - often times off camera and revealed through command over lesser characters. The bog-standard dungeon crawls of yore were populated entirely by foes. I came across my first glimpse of persistent adversaries on the gaming table in “Against the Slave Lords” with the Slave Lords themselves and the “Dragonlance” modules with the infamous Dragon Highlord, Verminaard.

 

Planning for a short shelf-life

I don't like to invest my limited time into elements that don’t apply to the given conflict with the PCs. In a skill challenge or political conflict I don’t need to kit a foe out with a combat stat block - I'll just assume a normal civilian default, maybe round it up to "above average" where necessary. Along the same vein, it seems silly to include negotiating skills and political connections into the profile of an enemy design for an obligatory thug attack. He's got a few ability scores and an attitude problem, and that should be more than sufficient. To run an encounter with foes I do need understand their motivations though. I generalize them for a logical group. "Why are these foes here? What would make quit the scene?" Just those two little questions help make a group of bandits play differently than a pack of mindless zombies. It makes the goblins distinct from their pet wolves. Having every “monster” mindlessly fight to the death regardless of its particular species and intellect always made a game less immersive to me as a player.

Playing the long game

The very act of recurring an adversary creates a story just as two points define a line - so I'd better make it a good one! The tabletop RPG medium is very different from passive, static media like movies, books, and video games. The players have control over a group of characters who monopolize the point of view of the "audience." While introducing an out-of-character glimpse at a vignette can spice up my campaign, it’s much more important (and challenging) to define a villain’s identity through the experiences of the Player Characters. Much of this comes indirectly - through lackeys clearly marked by circumstances, livery, or name-dropping. Confronting PCs face-to-face is very dicey. I've got to think like a villain and have a couple of fallback plans. Some combination of an evasion ability and the good sense to retreat well before outnumbered and surrounded are called for. I try to avoid the “and he vanishes …” mechanics even if the game system does provide for them with things like “Word of Recall” or “Contingency.” They will often just provoke an arms race with PCs for counter-measures. I prefer having another identity in my back pocket for a “man behind the man” reveal if the original would-be villain falls. My main guideline is to avoid repeating the same style of move in the same story-arc. That’s a key point both for plot AND action scenarios. A wizard the casts fireballs, teleports away, and shows up in another scene casting the same fireballs is boring. A villain ought to be many things, but never boring.

Evolving a roster

I like to have a significant number of intelligent adversaries in play, so it's not uncommon to have foes break ranks and flee if the tide turns against them. In addition to spreading word of the fearsome prowess of the protagonists, it also creates a great opportunity to promote a nameless, faceless antagonist into a proper villain. Sure, goblin flunkies don't usually become mastermind plotters, but a vengeful pack of goblin survivors could develop into a plot of their own. Routed foes could also take on a more comical tone as quirky mini-bosses, destined to jump in between the players and their objectives as an obnoxious foil. Taking down an enemy that has a history with your character - someone who's stuck their thumb in your PC's eye - gives a conflict real character. I have to remind myself periodically not to be afraid of handing out a fatal demotion to my presumptive Big Bad Evil Guys either. Sometimes a villain just doesn't click with the players as a long-term element. Maybe I played him too hammy or maybe her tactics are obnoxious. Is it time for a sudden but inevitable betrayal? Does the dark lord grow so weary of these impudent worms that he will see to them personally? The villainous show will go on, even if I have to make a casting-call in the middle of the story.

Assets - Wealth

I love loot. My characters tend to turn out the corpses of every hobgoblin they come across. I bring a mule with me to battle so I can carry the chain mail of dead hobgoblins back to town and resell it. However, I'm not collecting coins so I can swim in my money bin. I love the meaning of loot. The meaning of a Magic Item is pretty clear, but what about all those currency and fungible art objects? If it's just a running tally until my character can by the latest "power up" from a designated vendor, where's the added value from the table top experience as opposed to a video game? I'm not just greedy for coin - I'm greedy for the power of the purse!

Lifestyle Expenses

“Drive sports cars, date movie stars, buy things that are not for sale... who knows, Master Wayne? You start pretending to have fun, you might even have a little by accident.” – Alfred, Batman Begins

Different tiers of lifestyles are a fact of life. Some people are waited on hand-and-foot and others are begging in the street. "Meet at the Inn," type adventurers tend to start out counting every copper and pursuing life-threatening escapades for meager bounties. Then at some point that dynamic fades out while PCs are looting dragon hordes and destroying armies of undead. The idea of ditching the rustic tavern scene for something a bit more upscale has come up in Living Greyhawk and Dungeons and Dragons, 5th Edition but it's always come across as more of a tax than a benefit to me. The number-crunching gets absurd too - an adventurer idling or retiring in style after killing a couple of dragons is untenable due to constant drain while NPC expenses are hand-waved. I replace that paradigm with the idea of a sustainable lifestyle. Peasants, merchants, and sell-swords have the assets to keep up their lifestyle, and so should PCs. If a character has a sufficient Wealth rank his or her sustainable lifestyle automatically increases.

Operating Budget

"Some assets work for money, others believe in a cause. The most effective incentive though is a combination of the two." - Michael Westen, Burn Notice

One the advantages of Wealth is that it makes it easier to generate an income. While other assets provide more concrete models for estates and businesses (and adventure hooks), Wealth levels can be squeezed for a certain baseline of income per week. The part that overruns lifestyle expenses can provide a basic weekly budget for the adventurer out on the town. This might be used to cover a few non-incidental purchases, grease the right palms, or help the struggling poor. These are the kind of expenses that are constrained by a short-term budget, but aren't relevant to carry week-to-week or episode-to-episode. Just know your limits and you shouldn't need to muss up your character sheet.

Capital Expenses

"Pay a man enough and he'll walk barefoot into Hell." - David Xanatos, Gargoyles

These are the one-time expenses I'm the most familiar with in a swords-and-sorcery RPG. You pile up a bunch of GPs and you buy something with them. Most commonly it's a "power-up" like a scroll to scribe into your spell book or a magic sword. From time-to-time it might be a pricey service like a Restoration or Regeneration spell. However, with an Assets system there's a lot more than usual to buy. Money can buy a lot of things - land, buildings, and employees are pretty common. That's the core premise of things ranging from setting up a small shop to a huge castle and sprawling demesne. You could also spread around money to cultivate things like contacts, allies, favors, glory, or even buy a political office. These all represent large, one-time outlays of cash for value you can't easily convert back into coins. In a wealth system you can liquidate one of more ranks of Wealth to finance these sorts of expenses.

Spare Change

"Laws are a tedious business and counting coppers is worse." - Robert Baratheon, A Game of Thrones

There comes a time in every successful adventurer's career where keeping track of the extra silver pieces you tipped to loosen the bartender's tongue just isn't worth it. You want to buy a couple of vials of oil for your lantern? I (the DM) don't want to waste the precious seconds of game time marking down that gold piece. (You're a 9th level Wizard, Harry - why are you even using an oil lantern in the first place?) Rather than micromanage expenses that's are out of scope for your character's assets, certain Wealth ranks provide you the benefit of just waiving these petty expenses away for the rounding errors they've become. Come to think of it, you should probably let the peasant children loot the loose coins from your couch cushions on the holidays.

Rough Tiers - Wealth by Rank

So here is my rough draft of a Wealth tier system for Byzantine Age. Prices are given in Double-Denarius, a silver coin with the equivalent purchasing power of a Gold Piece in the standard D&D setting. I suppose you could even assign a negative value in this Asset to represent squalid poverty or crushing debt of some sort if a character's situation called for it.

• Rank 0: Sustain a Modest Lifestyle indefinitely 
• Rank 1: Ignore expenses less than 1dd (1GP D&D)
• Rank 2: Budget of 10dd/wk
• Rank 3: Sustain a Comfortable Lifestyle indefinitely
• Rank 4: Ignore expanses < 10dd (10GP D&D) 
• Rank 5: Budget of 100dd/wk 
• Rank 6: Sustain a Wealthy Lifestyle indefinitely 
• Rank 7: Ignore expenses < 50dd (50GP D&D) 
• Rank 8: Budget of 500dd/wk 
• Rank 9: Sustain an Aristocratic Lifestyle indefinitely 
• Rank 10: Ignore expanses < 100dd (100GP D&D) 

Ludus Siciliae - V

In the last session, the two rangers Arturo and Vinto had destroyed the Redbrand Ruffians and captured the group's leader, Glass Staff, forcing the wizard to confess his secrets before leaving him in the custody of the noble Sildaro. On the advice of a family of small-folk farmers, they set out for the ruins of Thundertree Village to find Reedloth the wood sage and gain knowledge of the goblin hideout, Cragmaw Castle, where they hoped to rescue their employer, Gundren Rockseeker.

The two woodsmen manage to surprise the druid when they find him in Thundertree. He agrees to help them in exchange for aiding him against a green dragon who has taken up residence in these cursed ruins. He insists calling in a legion to drive off the beast would cause more harm than good, since the battles that occurred nearby during the two great invasions in the previous century have left a stain of death that lead to the undead menace that overran the village. Still, he does not expect the two men to just walk in and slay the wyrm either. Upon observing their successful attempt at purge twig blights from the area the druid suggests that, upon their oath, they should return to pay their debt after their own urgent mission - bringing allies, plans, or tools that would help evict Venomfang.

(The young green had destroyed a colony of deadly giant spiders when it seized the ruined tower, giving Reedloth some notion of just how deadly it is.)

Having so sworn the Maretia 'Brothers' successfully retrieve the reward promised by the widow they had saved from the Redbrands, a valuable gold-and-emerald pendant left behind when the village was overrun. Putting on his most enterprising merchant's demeanor, Arturo approaches the entrenched dragon cultist on the edge of town and gains access to their leader attempting to sell them the item. It does seem like a suitable offering piece, but their leader isn't willing to offer a fair price. Seeing the travelers walking away from the deal, however, the cult-leader tries a new tactic - a wager over a game of skill. He wagers a magical potion worn around his neck against the jewelry as stakes in a game of Latrunculi. Unfortunately for him, he's challenged the best player in the entire province of Sicilia (Arturo's One Unique Thing). Eventually an innocuous move turns the tables on a seemingly won game and after a lot of hemming and hawing and stalling the cultist tosses the tiny vial at Arturo and declares that his win was nothing but fool's luck before stalking back to their safe-house.

(Vinto's used his own O.U.T. a couple of times, but this was the first opportunity to introduce Roman chess into what's largely been a wilderness adventure. It seemed like a dramatically appropriate time for a hustle, and Arturo's efforts to engage the cultists got positive reinforcement.)

By now the hour has grown late. The stalling and wriggling on the hook that Arturo's opponent had done wasn't just a futile effort. The two hurried to make their way back to Reedloth's house as night fell among this damned village. They are set upon by two massive spiders emerging from their nest to hunt. It's an ugly fight in a tight ally between buildings and overgrowth as Vinto tears himself from the spiderweb bonds and Arturo lodges one of his blades into a window frame. Rather than expose himself to unnecessary risk, he draws the masterwork blade he'd looted from the Redbrand hideout. As he lashes out with it, a small voice whispers in his mind, What shall we kill today, sir? It is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. In the end, one spider is slain and the other is grievously wounded and flees. However, Vinto is on the ground and unable to move, even after receiving healing. In fact, restoring him to consciousness just makes the experience of paralysis a bit more traumatic. Arturo quickly carries his brother to Reedloth, who assures him that the effect is only temporary.

(Just a single line hinting at a personality was enough to hook Arturo's player. His descriptions of sword-work and noteworthy hits with the weapon let it assert a distinct identity. He even ascribed a later fumble to the sword's resentment over him taking a turn to heal his ally instead of skewer a foe.)

The next morning the two warriors return to the scene of the assault to recover their dropped weapons and gear. They find the spiders' nest with a corpse inside. It turns out to be be an elf, recently fallen as prey - an usually sight in the backwoods of a Roman island so far from Hyboria. In his pouch he carries a note written in elvish script they can not read. They bury the unfortunate man before heading off for Cragmaw Castle. On their second day they happen upon a band of marauding Orcs patrolling from the Wyvern Tor camp and manage to slay them in a difficult battle. In a moment of dire need, when his brother's life seems grievously imperiled, Vinto awakens an unsettling ability honing his desire to slay the attacker. His vision seizes upon a single vital spot that seems to be crying out to his hunter's senses and sets an arrow right through an orc's neck, slaying him in a single mighty blow. After the battle Arturo shows Vinto a reflection of his left eye - now staring back with the appearance more fitting a wolf than a human. After a brief rest the effects subside, but it is still awkward and disturbing - though Vinto insists it's nowhere near as odd as these one-sided conversations Arturo's begun having with his "talking" sword that no one else can hear.

(The wolf's eye effect is an alternative take on a "Magic Item" reward. Rather than adding a random +1 longbow to the treasure somewhere we've introduced an innate magical ability. It draws from Vinto's hazy background, "a wild orphan boy who was adopted by the Maretia family," and adds a sense of mystery.)

Upon arrival at their destination, the adventures discover an ancient fortification that's suffered hard years. Of Carthaginian or Phoenician construction, the castle predates Christ and Caesar by at least three centuries. All in all it's in fair shape for perhaps 8 or 9 centuries of decay. The two wilderness scouts eschew the obvious entrances of the front and rear gates and instead find a hidden path leading to a concealed hole in the walls. They manage to ambush a pair of hobgoblin guards and silence them before an alarm can be raised. In a nearby room they overhear an argument between a female humanoid and the fierce goblinoid king, discussion of a dwarf and a map, and some evidence that their employer my be inside. They storm the chambers of King Grol and launch a vicious surprise assault. Arturo manages to lash out with a cascade of blades before Grol can even reach for his weapon and shield. In the meantime Vinto's arrow-shot rips the massive bugbear's ear clean off from his head. Howling in rage, Grol unleashes his wolf and grabs his arms. The lupine companion launches itself at Arturo's chest and begins mauling him on the ground. Grol uses his shield to block Vinto's arrows and attempts to smash the human. A female elf (presumable the one debating Grol earlier) attempts to sneak over to Gungren's unconscious form with knife in hand, only to be menaced by Vinto's loyal mastiff hound. Vinto and Arturo manage to dispatch their foes quickly thereafter and capture the woman at sword-point.

Upon reviving Gundren they are warmly praised and welcomed. He tears the chamber apart until he finds his map (and a stash of treasure for the party). However, Gundren has no love for their prisoner. He knows she's the emissary of someone called the Black Spider, who is likely responsible for the disappearance of his brothers. The elf trades her life for revealing the fate of Gundren's brothers - they are in the Lost Mine, seized by the Spider himself. She advises Gundren to surrender his map and barter for his brothers' lives since all hope is lost. Vinto then shoots an arrow past her face, cutting off a piece of her hair as his way of signalling that the conversation is over. On the way out to deliver Gundren to safety, Arturo makes it a point to scold his "little" brother for discouraging enemies from monologue.

Ludus Siciliae - IV

In the previous session Arturo and Vinto depopulated the village of Phandelvia of Redbrand Ruffians and scouted out two entrances to the ruined villa nearby, the gang's hangout. The new session begins with Vinto persuading his new canine companion to sniff about in the concealed tunnel leading into the hillside. With the coast clear, the two foresters head inside and infiltrate the Redbrand base in the villa cellars. They attract the attention of a horrible arcane abomination hiding in a ravine in the center of the room. While the creature's necrotic magic can't seem to get hold of them, its psychic intrusions make for a maddening encounter. Having tasted enough of their steal, it begins exploiting the darkness of the ravine and at one point even throws a rickety bridge at the adventurers before they tire of the game of cat-and-mouse and press onward and downward.

(Vinto's player rolled a "1" during the psychic contest. We agreed that he owes me a truly deep, dark secret from the character's past as homework before the next session.)

Listening to a door at the bottom of the stairs, Arturo hears the all-too-familar gutter-tongue of goblinoids engaged in some sort of torment. After quietly peering in, Arturo and Vinto invade the room to ambush the bugbear occupants, closing the heavy door behind them to help muffle the sounds of battle. The initial barrage of arrow and blade let's Arturo overwhelm two of the hulking goblinoids in a bloody melee, but the third sorely presses the archer in the confined space of the barracks. Arturo has just brought down the second beast when he turns to see the battered black mastiff standing protectively over Vinto's sprawled form. The last bugbear and the wounded swordsman's eyes meet - and the human conceives and executes a desperate gambit.

(I really appreciate my player stopping for a moment and considering the dire situation. Unable to sustain another blow, facing down a perfectly healthy bugbear, his partner making death saves, and backed into a literal corner behind enemy lines. In play were two dead bugbears, a primed escalation die, a desperate gambit, and two successful, painful attacks - the Charisma check was just a formality at that point - well played.)

With a high-pitched imitation of the tortured little goblin victim laying unconscious on the barracks floor he charges forward screaming in the goblin tongue about "his" torment and vengeance. His strikes are telling blows that viciously wound the bugbear. In the face of a seemingly possessed  and murderous fiend, the bugbear makes for the exit behind him to get reinforcements. However, the mastiff hound guarding the fallen archer mauls its leg as it tries to pass, dragging him to the floor. The beasts screams are cut short by spartha blades, and Arturo quickly sets to work helping Vinto recover, barring the chamber doors, and eventually striking up a conversation with the goblin they "rescued." The goblin proves obsequious and helpful having an extensive knowledge of the area and its secrets and no love for the "pink-skins" that would join in on his abuse. A few kind words and a shared meal reveal the relative location of most of the other dungeon inhabitants and a secret passage leading directly to the wizard Glass Staff's inner sanctum and earn the little monster his release into the forest.

The Maretia 'Brothers' use the bugbear leader's master key to lock the nearby ruffians in their own common room before making their way to he secret stairwell and launch a surprise attack on the gang boss. They catch him completely unawares at his writing desk, not ten feet from where the secret door opens up. Using the element of surprise, Arturo rushes forward and knocks the eponymous staff from its resting place, far out of reach of the flabbergasted mage. Unprepared and ill-defended, Glass Staff is is overwhelmed immediately and wounded before he can even cast a spell. He quickly surrenders and pleads his case to his captors.

As it turns out, Glass Staff is really Iarno, the contact Sildaro was supposed to meet in town. He felt forced to abandon his original agreement to raise a town guard to secure the area because a strange Numidian elf (as Iarno describes him) calling himself Spider had already gained control of much of the area. So long as he's allowed to complete his real mission - to gain access to whatever remains of the legendary Forge of Spells beneath the mines on behalf of the Archemagos - Iarno really doesn't care who opens the mine (or has to die, for that matter). Seeing the path of least resistance (or "the non-suicidal path," as Iarno would call it), Iarno took up the role of Glass Staff.

(I changed Iarno's background, and those of most other NPCs from their Forgotten Realms organization in the original adventure to Byzantine Age Icons. Sildaro is associated with the Emperor / Imperial Court as a noble. Iarno is an agent of the Hermetic Order. The Grey Weaver has his hooks into the syndicate the PCs were working with. The priest in the previous episode is an obvious connection to the Pontifex, while one of the local retired veterans in town is a hook to the Praefectus rather than the Realm's Order of the Gauntlet.)

The Maretia 'Brothers' take the prisoner to Sildaro and the four of them manage to get the remaining Redbrands to surrender themselves. In exchange they are promised not to face trial for treason - the only crime where a citizen can face execution as punishment. While the potential to die a galley or mine slave in such a judgment is very real, Sildaro and the Town Master seem keen on the idea of putting them to public use. A family is rescued from being sold into slavery, though the father has been killed. His loyal hound was the one that lead the adventurers to his remains and now stays at Vinto's side. They finally kill the lurking abomination to retrieve the poor man's corpse, and find a treasure cache in the ravine that includes a masterwork blade.

The mother mentions an abandoned heirloom in a now-ruined village that the adventures would be welcomed to as a reward. As it turns out, a local halfling family says a wise druid just headed off towards that same village not two days ago - and if anyone knows the location of this "Cragmaw Keep" where Gundren Rockseeker was taken, it'll be the well-traveled mystic. A few other townsfolk seek the fearsome heroes out with petitions, but most will have to wait until the Gundren is brought back safely.

Assets - Vehicles and Real Estate

Following up on the earlier article: Assets - Rewards Beyond Money and Magic, I wanted to go over a few other example scales I've drafted for our Byzantine Age game. Just keep in mind is that whatever scale and system you come up with, we're just dealing with rough metrics here, not recipes. They help me (the DM) eye-ball the distribution of rewards / spoils among party members as well as how much of a stake each character has in the game world beyond his character stats. Also, each Asset Type has its own scale, don't just assume the "relative bigness" of, say, a Rank 4 Ally translates to the same scale as a Rank 4 Contact or Vehicle. There's nothing wrong with trying it, but mileage will vary based on how combat-heavy, role-play-intensive, political you want your game to be.

Sample Scale - Vehicles

1: Mule / Ox

2: Draft Horse

3: Wagon w/ 2 Horses / Oxen

4: Skiff

5: Charger

6: Barge

7: Caravel / Longship

8: Galleon / Galleas

9: Ship of the Line

10: Airship

Alright, so maybe that scale is complete rubbish or maybe it totally works for your game. Heck, I'm not even sure I want to have Airships in my game. However, the part that matters is how this list came about. I took the "smallest" vehicle (in terms of value) I could bother quantifying and and biggest I was willing to tolerate. Then I started thinking about everything that fell in between and filled in an arbitrary number of data points sorted out. Yes, there's no entry for a row-boat, but is it hard to find an equivalent? Some broad sub-categories start to shake out: things the peasantry has access to, things merchants and knights have, and then things like military vehicles above that. Maybe you want to run a Planescape adventure or something? What does your scale look like if you have a Spelljammer at the top of the chart?

Sample Scale - Real Estate

1: Shack / Cabin

2: Cottage / Apartment

3: House / Workshop

4: Small Farm / Store / Warehouse

5: Large Farm / Mine / Dock

6: Manor

7: Tower

8: Keep

9: Small Castle

10: Castle

So here we go again. The scale is probably rubbish (I didn't even include an entry for a floating sky-fortress that shoots laser beams and roosts a flight of dragons). I started with the most modest thing I could see someone owning as personal property (rather than renting - lots of peasants are merely tenants or serfs). Then I decided a full-sized Castle was probably the largest individual holding I wanted to have on this scale. Controlling a city like say, Ravenna, isn't really covered under Real Estate as much as it would be by Station. The town around a decent castle is probably pushing it already. But this also illustrates that you'll have bleed-over and that's perfectly fine. If you own your own manor you're part of the landed class, so a reward of a manor inside the Empire itself is going to have to be go with some sort of minor Baron title at the very least. Also, instead of paying some ridiculous fee to operate a holding my players are going to be responsible with finding staff and making their holdings productive. The idea of needing to raid dragon hordes every few months just to pay for your "owning a castle" habit is a sign things have swerved horribly off-course.

Assets - Rewards Beyond Money and Magic

Personally, I've always been the kind of player who could never be satisfied with Experience Points, Gold Pieces, and Magic Items. A large part of the charm to systems like World of Darkness is that it allows you to spend points for things beyond super-powers: influence, allies, access to information - whatever they lack in exoticism they make up for in sheer utility. Even more critically, they are incentives for characters to be immersed or invested in the game world beyond wherever they happen to be standing at the time. I got my first taste of this in d20 game hording boons and favors from Living Greyhawk modules and the introduction of Icons in the 13th Age game setting and Factions in the Fifth Edition of Dungeons and Dragons revisited the idea. So in Byzantine Age, I really wanted to bring all these different kinds of rewards together into a general category called Assets.

Below are my Asset Types, and yes the number ten was completely arbitrary. There's no pressing need to even bother quantifying this stuff in many games, but some categories and examples helps reassure my players that are otherwise worried about overreaching. These kind of things are meant to be a bit wibbly-wobbly, but useful.

Magical Resources: Permanent Magic Items, Supernatural Abilities, Divine Boons
Vehicles: Warhorse, Carriage, Pirate Ship, Pegasus
Wealth: Access to Adventuring Gear, Lifestyle Expenses, Fungible Investments
Real Estate: Workshop, Farm, Tower, Manor
Servants: Slaves, Employees, Lackeys, Minions
Contacts: Access to information, people, markets, etc. if you make it worth their while
Allies: Go out of their way to provide aid, though the resources and dedication will vary
Favors: Boons, Debts, Blackmail
Glory: A relative measure of personal fame (or infamy)
Station: Earl, Archbishop, Guild Officer, General

I've also fallen into the habit of sticking some sort of a number value on these things - less of a price-tag and more a squishy scale of relative "bigness." Some categories need more than one number; Allies, Contacts, and Favors are usually dealt with individually (each alliance or favor rated by itself), while wealth is just a single lump of everything you have available (coins, art objects, etc.). Some categories are easier to peg than others. Take Station, for example. Here's a scale of station for our Byzantine Age game. While a character might have one rating relative to the Empire, it doesn't mean the same thing on the Germanic side of the Danube or in the sands of Persia.

-4: Proscribed: Exile
-3: Hunted: Wanted Criminal
-2: Outsider: Barbarian
-1: Bondage: Slave
 0: Servitude: Serf
 1: Citizenship: Commoner
 2: Taxpayer: Artisan, Yeoman
 3: Privileged: Soldier, Steward, Man-at-Arms, Priest, Mayor, Guild Member
 4: Peer: Landless Nobility, Knight Errant, Military or Guild Officer
 5: Minor Lord: Baron, Lieutenant, Guildmaster, Bishop
 6: Lord: Earl / Count, Commander, Patrician, Archbishop
 7: Major Lord: Duke, General, Doge, Cardinal
 8: Sovereign: King, Warlord, Consul, High Priest
 9: Overlord: Emperor

I actively encourage these kinds of assets to bleed over into various categories and interact with one another. A simple example would be starting a self-sustaining business. One would typically convert some Wealth into the purchase of some Real Estate (in this case a tavern) and put in the effort of finding a reliable sort of Servant to manage the establishment. Once the business is up and running it should provide the owning character with a fair bit of income as well as be a source of information, contacts, and fame.

It also provides the Dungeon Master with a variety of potential encounters and hooks. Do the PCs put in the effort to find the right person for the job? That could be a side-quest unto itself. If they don't put in the effort, they may have to deal with issues of mismanagement like incompetence or embezzlement. Have the PCs created enemies or rivalries that could come home to roost? Such events should be doorways to opportunity though, rather than turn their assets into a poisoned prize. That defeats the entire purpose of the exercise.

Interviewer: Well, can you... blow up the world?
The Tick: Egad. I hope not. That's where I keep all my stuff.

Ludus Siciliae - III

The third session of our Sicily Campaign took place entirely in P'andelvia. The Rockseeker brothers started their operation to reclaim the Lost Mines from this village, but no one has heard from them in weeks. Our PCs, Arturo Maretia and Vinto, arrived in the middle of the night, delivering the wounded knight Sildaro to safety. While the wagon with the Rockseekers' supplies had arrived earlier that day, they sit idle now. In the morning the two warriors intend to ask around town to discover the whereabouts of this so-called "Cragmaw Castle," the place the goblins said their bosses took Gundren Rockseeker and his map.

The Maretia 'Brothers' awake the next morning and get a quick lay of the land from the windows of their chambers. The inn is converted from an old design of insula (Roman apartment building) that housed miners in service to whoever owned that villa on the edge of town - back before it became an overgrown ruin. The innkeeper is busy preparing for a large rush at lunch-time, and indicates to the crowd of villagers coming out from a house across the way. There's a positively ancient-looking priest leading the congregants in some hymns and giving a sermon after the Mass has let out. A motherly-looking figure breaks away and quietly crosses the road to the inn, greeting the two brothers warmly.

She introduces herself as Haelia, the operator of the local miner's exchange, and expresses her condolences on their difficult travels and the loss of their patron, Gundren. Without ever losing her tone or expression she subtly menaces them with a table-knife in a manner more fitting a gangster. It's quite apparent that she is their local contact with the crime syndicate that dispatched the "boys" on this mission in the first place. Without ever breaking her Stepford Smiler facade, she mentions that if she has to report their failure on top of the problems she's having with this Glass Staff character setting up a protection racket on her turf - well, things are going to get unpleasant.

Speaking of unpleasant, rather than disbanding into the informal feast the innkeeper hoped for, the end of church services has become a scene. People are escorting their children away and man are clearing the streets as a band of young toughs in leather armor wearing red cloths on their belts are now menacing the old priest. Despite efforts to break up the altercation with common sense (Sildaro), appeals for decency (the priest), and subtle intimidation (Arturo) all Hell breaks lose and Vinto has take a shot on someone. That draws the attention of the two oafs to charge across the town square at him. Before the injured man can follow gives him a fatal sword-fighting lesson. The reluctant, younger gang member flees into the improvise church in horror. A few more arrows are shot and the two thugs a couple of hits on Arturo but they are left dead in the dust.

They come back to the church area to see the priest unsuccessfully trying to save his former assailants life and resigning himself to performing Final Unction for the man. There's a brief sidebar about priests not being the same thing as adventurer-type clerics - the crux of which I'll cover in a World Setting article soon. The two rangers spare Eduardo, the teenager hiding in the improvised church. He's panicked and insists they all flee town before Glass Staff finds out what's happened. Arturo reuses some of his father's old lecture material and gets the kid coherent again. Ed insists that they are in terrible danger. The guy to cross the boss-wizard was fed to a hideous monster in the pit, and his wife and kids are getting sold as slaves! Plus the boss has "these giant goblins" working for him now.

Arturo and Vinto get all the useful information they can out of the Redbrand defector and leave Sildaro in charge of him. Ignoring the verklempt town master, they mosey over to the Sleeping Giant Taphouse to pick another fight. They pull out an old merchant's trick, bribing the bartender quietly to give them watered wine while they appear to be ordering the harder stuff the Redbrands are pounding away. A rigged drinking contest ensues, after which the inebriated thugs decide it would be best to get back to their billets. Their two new drinking buddies (who one of the Redbrands is still trying to recruit) follow them outside and promptly assassinate them. The three thugs suffer Disadvantage from the poisoned condition and just flail around until they are gutted like fish. Most the NPCs aren't thrilled with the idea of them completely depopulating the gang in such a fatal manner (a few of the locals have errant kin like Ed) and both Sildaro and Haelia wants some young, fighting men under thumb for their own reasons. The local undertaker, on the other hand, is thrilled.

We wrap up the game with the two adventurers scouting the villa, investigating the main entrance first and then the one in the woods that Ed had mentioned. Near the concealed tunnel Vinto comes across a mastiff hound that looks the worse for wear. It shows signs of recent abuse and starvation, but stubbornly refuses to leave the entrance area. He feeds the beast at it seems trusting enough of him, but it seems very sour on Arturo. Near as they can tell, the dog doesn't like something about how the swordsman smells ....