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 ....

Campaign Setting - Shaping Icons

Worlds Are Theoretical; Campaigns Are Alive

I love game world settings that come with compelling pillars and features, but leave an overwhelming majority of the map under a shroud of ambiguity. It gives me a lot of room to work with as a Dungeon Master. I don't have to run the same world the same way for different groups of players. I can fill out a massive campaign bible for various places ahead of time, and leave other places in a quantum sort of state - only finalizing their states once the players go to observe them. It's also great for encouraging players to build the world with / for me as we go. In this regard I've always preferred running my games in settings like the Nentir Vale setting from D&D 4th Edition or the Dragon Empire from 13th Age. I also love how games like World of Darkness turn well-known cities and towns into a completely uncharted wilderness full of horrors.

So we have a campaign game going now, and as Arturo and Vinto venture out into the world we have to start solving for some of these variables - in particular it means hashing out the Icons with whom they interact. When the players came up with their backgrounds they deliberately supplied their own hook into the adventure. Their idea is that the two "brothers" have been coerced into some sort of dangerous quest due to running afoul of the law. Arturo has been something of a malcontent in his social station and fell in with what the player's described as a some sort of shadowy syndicate. But when his associations caused Vinto to wind up imprisoned he took rash action and engineered an unsuccessful escape attempt, compounding the issue. Benefactors in the syndicate managed to expunge the offenses from the official record - but such things do not come without a price.

An organized crime syndicate in the Roman Empire? This Sounds like a job for the Gray Weaver icon. Mobsters from Sicily, nobody will ever see that one coming .... In particular, though, this forced me to consider what kind of interests this Icon had, and his relationship with the Empire itself. So the skeleton needs to be a bit more fleshed out. We already have an historical character for the Emperor (Justinian the Great) and there's a major historical event tied to smuggling and shady mercantile affairs in this era - the smuggling of silk worms from China into the Empire. So now an idea took shape - one I've been familiar with from many years with the Legend of the Five Rings franchise - an Icon who works as the Underhand of the Emperor. Of course, an organization like that needs mysteries and motives - so I did a little more digging and spun up just the right person (more on that another time).

So the Gray Weaver is ultimately working for the increased prosperity and security of the Empire as a whole, but is happy to use nefarious means and odious men to accomplish his goals. He'll obviously be concerned with the looming crisis of succession (Justinian is in his late 70s with no son and unable or unwilling to favor any of his nephews) and has his fingers in many pies. If the PCs distinguish themselves he'll start to take a personal interest. If he finds common cause with them, he may fold them further and further into the heart of his grand conspiracy. On the other hand, if he fails to see redeeming qualities in their character he won't hesitate to play his pawns ruthlessly ... even crime bosses have their standards.

 

World Setting - Icones

Icons make the world ago ‘round …

One of the best things about the use of Icons from the Archmage Engine is that they were implemented from the outset to be pillars that define the game setting. So in this Byzantine Age setting it was important to set those proverbial stakes in the ground before letting the players make camp in the world. Icons fall into 3 general categories with some bleed over here and there: Romans, Neighbors, and Barbarians. 

The Roman Icons define the public aspects of the Empire itself. The Emperor in Constantinople is the main force of law and culture within the Imperial borders. The Praefectus in Antioch represents the military influence and interests of Rome. The Archemagos concerns himself with those who use arcane magic to serve or threaten the Empire. The Pope’s main spheres are those of religious practices and moral philosophy among the people of the Empire and beyond. The Grey Weaver, on the other hand, is a mysterious figure whose main interest is the flow (licit or otherwise) of wealth and information across the Empire, a shadowy hand that’s influence could be felt anywhere. Depending on the time period and theme of the individual campaign, these roles could be filled by different characters (and some of their loci might even change) but their core functions in defining the Empire are largely the same.

Neighboring Icons obviously define zones immediately outside Imperial dominion. These relationships can be a lot more flexible campaign-to-campaign, but they presume a civilized power with diplomatic relations between themselves and Constantinople. The Rose Prince and High Thane represent the relevant Elven and Dwarven civilizations. The Sassanid Persians are lead by their own emperor. While these people may technically be “barbarians” in the strictest Roman sense of the word, no well-educated Roman would want to make a fool of himself to dismiss their civilizations so casually.

Barbaric Icons obviously do not represent everyone that the Romans would consider barbarians in the world, but they are the four who pose the greatest threat in the current era. Ironscales and his fellow draconic disciples hold sway beyond the Rhine and Danube in Germania - a land where many past foes and invasions of the Empire have begun. The Brazen Khan is whatever horse-lord has managed to consolidate the loyalty of those marauding bands in the wild plains north of the Black Sea. The Winter King is no man at all, but the fearsome Lord of the Giants in the Frozen Wastes beyond Germania. The Eternal Pharaoh was once a man, but has returned as an unliving mockery ranging from the Upper Nile to plague the rich province of Aegyptus.


While the inhuman monsters are solidly in the Barbaric Villains category and the Praefectus and Imperator are at the heart of the Roman Empire -  it is very easy to shift the other Icons up or down depending on the historical period, individual character, and minor historical adjustments we want to have in our campaign. Go back a couple of Emperors in real world history and Rome herself (and the Pontifex Maximus) aren’t even a part of the Empire anymore. It’s very easy to conceive of Dwarves and Elves that are openly hostile to Rome due to Caesar trying to conquer Gaulia Hyboria or Caligula sending wave after wave of men to die in a vain attempt to seize some “impudent” Thane under the Alpine Mountains. Likewise the Bronze Horde or the Draconic Order could have reached some manner of truly civilized accord with Rome as a client-state or trading partner years earlier. Each campaign can be drastically different due to modifying the relationships between Icons.

World Setting - Alterna Historia I

Campaign World: Custom Terra with fantasy fictionalize history

Campaign Setting: The Province of Sicily, Roman Empire; 33rd year of the Glorious reign of Flavius Petrus Sabbatius Iustinianus Augustus in Constantinople; 560 A.D.

Campaign Mechanics:

    Dungeons and Dragons, 5th Edition is the primary mechanical base for the campaign. The character attributes, class features, ability checks, and combat mechanics are played directly out of the Player’s Handbook. Pretty much everything else is taken from the Archmage Engine system or the 13th Age Rulebook. Instead of selecting a background from the PHB each player invents a single Background in the 13th Age style. when one would normally interject their background points into a check under the Archmage Engine, instead the character gets to add their proficiency bonus to the check. The Escalation Die mechanic is used in combat. The Montage Technique is used for travel and non-combat group challenges as appropriate. Stunts are also handled under the 13th Age style. Icon Points are introduced to player characters over their first 3 levels, one at each level - preferably over the course of play.

Setting Icons:

    Each Icon is represented not only be a figurehead, but also by a particular organization. The icon relationship represent any relationship that would have sway over the greater part of an organization. Each organization is also associated with a powerful Locus - a physical area where they hold the greatest sway and the fortunes of which are directly reflected upon the organization. Many of these have obvious analogs to familiar faces in the default 13th Age setting - and rightly so. The Icons of the 13th Age were crafted to fill some of the most common, yet flexible NPC pillars the commonly occur in fantasy game settings and literature. There’s no reason to discard an old trope out of hand.

ICON LIST:

Imperator - Constantinople

Praefectus Oriens - Antioch

Archemagos - Alexandria

Pontifex Maximus - Rome

Grey Weaver - Syracuse

High Thane - Khazad

Rose Prince - Hyboria

Ironscales - Germania

Sassanid Emperor - Ctesiphon

Brazen Khan - Sarmatia

Winter King - Utgard

Eternal Pharaoh - Thebes

Ludus Siciliae - II

Tonight we completed our second session of play, continuing down the Lost Mines of Phandelver adventure. When we last left off Arturo and Vinto had made their way to a cave. There they expected to find the bulk of the band that had waylaid their employer, Gundren Rockseeker.

The two rangers were still traveling overland attempting to avoid detection, and the goblin lookouts near the cave were inattentive as noted in the adventure guide. The party's stealth checks were more than adequate to go unobserved until they were nearly inside the cave, where upon they spied the ambush blind and surprised the goblins. A well-placed arrow and a pair of swords made quick work of the lookouts.

The entered the cave cautiously. The explored the first room, a kennel with a pair of wolves. An initial attempt at casting Animal Friendship failed, and I think it might indicate a problem with making charm spells against dumb animals (it had an Intelligence limit) save against Wisdom (which D&D animals tend to get bumped up to enhance their perception scores). However, a bit of animal handling and some food managed to placate the animals adequately and let the two search the area and discover the chimney-like shaft leading to the upper area. This would come in handy when their keen eyes spotted the goblin sentry on the bridge further along the stream. Their lantern gave away their position, and rather than walk into an ambush the two quickly doubled-back to the kennel - neatly evading the flood trap the goblin triggered.

So instead, Arturo climbed slowly up the narrow shaft to the upper chamber, quietly observing some goblins in the dim glow around cooking coals. Pressed flat among the rubble, he lowered his rope and helped Vinto up to the top as well. Revealing their light source finally got the attention of the bugbear Klarg and his two goblin servants who were less than pleased about their dinner being ruined. Klarg's bluster didn't cow the humans, and neither did his wolf. Arturo met its charge and turned it aside, lancing it two quick stabs in the haunches. He also deftly evaded the Bugbear's nasty spiked club and one goblin's butchering knife. However, the goblin with the red-shot fire poker managed to catch the brave swordsman on the hip (with a critical hit). Lastly, Vinto put an arrow into the back of the distracted canine's head.

Klarg bellowed with rage and brought his spiked club around in huge, sweeping arc - crashing flat into Arturo's back as he unsucessfully attempted to dodge. The swordsman was laid low on the cold stone floor with that single, devastating blow and did not stir. Vinto took distance into the cave before feathering the bugbear oaf with an arrow that suddenly sprouted ensnaring vines! Klarg howled madly and tore at the vines while his cook helped by cutting them away with his knife. The fire-tender scurried across the cavern floor and hit the archer with his fire-poker. The uncommon display of goblin valor was immediately rewarded by an arrow in the face.

The ranger ducked away behind Klarg's treasure 'hoard' - a pile of stolen goods crates mostly, and the burly brute charged across the cavern and smashed into the pile, sending boxes and bails flying back on the human. The last little goblin gamboled over the debris but could not get into grips with the ranger before he loosed another deadly shaft. This one caught Klarg square in the shoulder, causing him to lose his grip on his weapon. Shocked from his rage, Klarg ordered his minion to attack while he himself made for an escape down the chute. On his way he kicked the party's lantern down the hole too, eliminating the human's light-source, save for the dim embers in the cooking pit. Realized Klarg was making a break for it, the last goblin followed suit. Vinto could still hear them arguing in goblin in the cramped descent as he quickly worked to drag Arturo away from death's door. While the two adventurers were recovering, they heard the sound of booming water rushing out and a couple of gurgling shrieks.

Klarg's little treasure hoard was a nice find and Arturo had to spend his last hit die and his last spell slot to cast cure wounds, but they were able to press on after a short rest. The goblins in the next chamber had no idea what hit them. While not taken unawares, they were dismayed to see the humans that were supposedly flushed down-river suddenly coming out of Klarg's sanctum. Their swords were sharp, but Arturo's blades were more so. Taking two glancing blows, he returned each one in kind with a mortal strike. The third fled to the bridge, cursing out the sentry before his neck erupted with Vinto's next arrow. The bridge sentry fled screaming down the hall.

Arturo applied the healing balms (potion) to his lacerations before the two continued on into the goblins' den. The goblin under-boss, Yeemik, met Arturo's bold demands of surrender with an offer to trade them his hostage (Sildaro, Gungren's traveling companion) if they would kill Klarg so that Yeemik can be the new boss. Arturo, at this point covered in quite a bit of goblin blood and gore, informed Yeemik flippantly that Klarg's already been chopped up and drowned in the flood. Yeemik interrogated the goblin bridge sentry:

"You flushed the boss?"
"Me? NO! No ... um ... maybe ... er ... I mean ... sorta ... yes ... very yes ..."

At any rate, Yeemik conducts a wary trade that ends hostilities. The two rangers manage to patch Sildaro up and get into Phandalin village at around midnight. The wagon they'd sent on ahead arrived safely, so they weren't completely unexpected by the watchman on the road and they manage to wake up the innkeeper and clean off the blood and gore before going to sleep, exhausted.

P.S.: Klarg and his minion both managed to barely survive the flood (2HP remaining each). If the PCs don't double-back to the Cragmaw cave, Klarg will lick his wounds for a couple of days and return when he things the coast is clear. Yeemik will be very unhappy. Yeemik and the Bridge Sentry (who I've taken to calling, "that little bastard") will flee before someone rats on them to Klarg. Then I'll be looking for an opportunity to reintroduce Yeemik and his sidekick as well as Klarg and his minion. It might happen as soon as the PCs deciding to steal back the lost supplies for their rightful owner in Phandalin. One or the other could show up at Cragmaw Castle as an extra mini-boss fight. Whatever happens I've got to plan out a way to make it loud and entertainingly campy.

Ludus Siciliae - I

Tonight we played the first game of my Byzantine Age campaign setting. R and D sat down to formal character design with their character concepts from earlier and the week and settled on a pair of rangers.

Arturo is the son of a family with significant mercantile interests, supervising shipments east and west around the island province. He's a quick hand with paired spatha, a style considered barbaric due to its unsuitability for fighting in proper Imperial military formations. It's a pity considering he's the best Latrunculi player in the province - a skill usually found in those gifted in military tactics. However, his disreputable combat style complements both his attitude problem with authority and his predilection for risk-taking. Such traits are those that Res Monetae are happy to utilize. He's been making a solid margin off the book by combining his shipping activities with basic courier work.

Vinto has a different story for every day of the week for anything, including his own life. Arturo's heard most of them by now, but still could only vouch for things since they day they met when they were 7 years old. Vinto wandered into town, a strange, slightly feral orphan from the backwoods - interesting and amusing. Arturo's father took the boy in as a free servant after Arturo's drastic tantrum when he discovered some unscrupulous men had tried to pass his new friend off as a barbarian slave. In addition to his gift for story-telling Vinto is a dead-eye shot with a bow and good with animals. Both boys spent countless hours in the wilderness around the family villa, sometimes disappearing for days at a time hunting or exploring.

R and D had come up with the premise that they were sent on a dangerous adventure to avoid a severe legal punishment. Vinto had been jailed due to a small riot breaking out over a matter of gambling. Arturo had impulsively engineered a jail-break that didn't end cleanly. Miraculously, no one died in the struggle and there wasn't any significant property damage, but the damnum (fines) levied against both were potentially damaging to the Familia Maretia. That also assumed that Arturo's family bothered to bail him out in the first place. Being sold into servitude was the other option on the table, but the officer in charge of the jail happened to be a member of the Res Monetae himself and proposed an alternate arrangement. So Arturo and Vinto were shipped around to the other side of the island to the port of Parnormus, where they were to take positions working for the Rockbreaker brothers in their expedition to restore an ancient dwarven mine. Their fates will be tied to ensuring the success of the venture and giving the Concern enough information and leverage to gain a controlling interest in the business.

Between Arturo's fluency in Dwarven and their skillfulness in the local environs the "brothers" had no problem convincing Gundren Rockseeker to acquire their services delivering his supplies to Pandelvarus, two days ride into the highland back-woods of Sicilia. They took a fraction of their own pay and hired a wagon-driver and then used their talents to simply ghost his route along the road from alongside. In the middle of the second day they came across the dead horses of Gundren and his human companion Silvaro blocking the road. They noticed a poorly concealed Goblin ambush (Gobs rolled a natural "1") and made the first initiative roll of the world. Vinto rolled the first miss as his arrow hit a tree. Two goblins rushed out of the thicket and attacked Arturo, rolling the first critical hit and the first normal hit, and left him a nick away from dropping. Arturo's blades failed to find their mark and then the third goblin sniper in the other thicket tried to shoot the wagon driver, panicking the horses.

Naturally the PC's continued flailing hopelessly with 8's, 4's, and 1's - but thankfully the goblins' dice go cold as well. Arturo wisely disengaged when he saw the panicked horses charging down the track. The horses cleared the corpses but the wagon damaged a wheel coming over the bodies, threw off the driver, and crashed into the two goblins on the track. One failed his save and died horribly. The other ducked into the thicket only to emerge and clamber over the damaged wagon to try and get sight of his prey. Arturo obliged by bursting from the foliage and making his first successful attack rolls. The goblin archer took one more parting shot before ducking over the high ridge alongside the road. Vinto calmly let an arrow fly in an arc over the hillside, largely out of spite, but his Disadvantaged attack rolls came up with a pair of crits. A pained scream came from the other side of the ridge and Arturo shook his head in disbelief as he tended to the wagon driver. Given the unlikely critical hit I ruled the goblin pinned to the ground by his shoulder, helpless and compliant to interrogation. Once they had everything they could use from the goblin, they put him out of his misery and headed to the Cragmaw hideout. The primitive traps along the trail were no match for seasoned hunters in their natural environs and they arrive at their destination without further complications.

We finished the session by leveling Arturo and Vinto to level 2. With their fighting styles, spells, and second hit die they aren't made of glass anymore so the encounters going forward should involve less rocket tag. While 5E is very well suited, in general, for smaller parties in general, a short-handed party at 1st level is very challenging due to the high variance (few actions) and low tolerance (HP) in combat.