The Village of Gallowsthorn

Using Inkarnate to do simple ISO maps of the villages and settlements on my regional map. This is the village of Gallowsthorn. Back during the bad old days of the Kingdom of Asmogar there was a prison here where they used to inter and execute those who fought against the Wraith King. The prison is just a ruins now although one of the wizened old hanging trees can still be seen out front.

There is a comfortable Inn in the small village, The Rosethorn Inn, which was built before the Kingdom of Asmorgar and has been the only tavern and Inn within the village for nearly three hundred years.

An overgrown old segment of road, now a barely visible trail leads off to the Southwest where another tumbled ruins from the Kingdom of Asmorgar sits.

Hate for the OSR?

Over the last year or so I've been somewhat perplexed by the hate being sent online in the direction of OSR writers and game designers.

It seems to me that a few isolated instances of bad behavior by a few bad actors has been used to try to throw shade over the entire thousand or so people who have been involved in OSR fandom and creativity from the beginning.

I don't believe for a moment that the motivation at the core of the anti-OSR movement is based in some altruistic attempt to create a safe haven from the mean, bad wrong, exclusionism of old white men and their dungeons and dragons hobby.  The anti-OSR movement is about identity politics.  Namely it is about labeling people as insiders versus outsiders, good people versus bad people, with the goal in mind of ripping the hobby out of the hands of the people who were there all the way back at the beginning so that some younger, more "enlightened" group, namely the handful of actors at the center of the anti-OSR movement can become the money makers and gatekeepers of that segment of the hobby.

When you step back and watch the anti-OSR crowd play out in their own forums they are more about social dynamics and who is "in" and who is "out" in certain social circles than in anything regarding the creation of cool RPG games or campaigns based on the original rules of dungeons and dragons.  In fact very little of anything that is being produced, if anything at all, has to do with the rules from basic dungeons and dragons or 1st edition D&D - which was what the OSR movement was about in the first place.

I think that one of the things that sticks in the craw of the anti-OSR leadership is the fact that most of them cannot share a direct personal experience where they were growing up in 1976 to 1982 when RPG's were in their infancy because they weren't even born at the time.  As someone who was there and lived through the infancy of roleplaying games and early RPG clubs, I can say from direct personal experience, that we were one of the most inclusive and safest havens for people from different racial, cultural and sexual backgrounds of any social group in high school or college at that time.

Our circle of gamer friends included men, women, people who were black, hispanic and asian and several friends who were out of the closet gay or lesbian (to those of us in the game club, where they could be themselves) who were still in the closet elsewhere in their lives because of the general intolerance of the times.

The D&D kids were very welcoming.  We were the punk rock kids.  We were the metal kids. We were the goth kids.  We were the art and theatre and the band kids.  We were the math and computer nerds.  We were, together, all of us, the social outsiders of our age and we stuck together and forged bonds of friendship which have lasted for more than thirty years.

I would ask anyone in the leadership of the anti-OSR movement making spurious claims about how it was all a bunch of mean old white guys from the beginning one question.  Were you even alive and old enough to be playing in an active dungeons and dragons group or club back in 1980?  If not, what are you basing your comments upon other than a bunch of made up garbage about events happening in a time and a place when you weren't even born?

It is with some relief that I can say that I've seen the following of the anti-OSR movement slowly dwindle over the last few months.  Part of this comes from them eating themselves alive in hateful back and forths about who is more self righteous and woke.

The OSR was always about a fandom for the original, simple roleplaying games from the period of the late 1970's through the 1980's.  It was always about writing alternate rules, new dungeons and adventures and material for those out of print rules sets.  Period.

The OSR was never about excluding anybody from any walk of life from contributions of their own ideas and materials.

With this one caveat.  As with any writing or creative endeavor, it IS possible that any writer or artist may find their work not well received because it is poorly written or poorly executed or just poorly received by the audience.  While the OSR is very inclusive, if your bag is writing Furry sex roleplaying material, your work is going to probably only be of interest to a very small subset of the OSR community.  Why?  Maybe because its just not fitting into the core hobby interest of that group - which is 1970's and 80's vintage roleplaying games and not Furry fandom or sex roleplaying games.  Now there is a pretty huge furry fandom culture out there where that particular kind of RPG might find a wider audience.  Which is cool and awesome and have at it.  But don't walk into the Star Trek fan club with your game about Star Wars and get all offended when none of the hard core Star Trek kids have any interest in your Star Wars stuff.  In the same way if you want to hang out with the OSR kids then at least bring games and adventures written for those 1970's to 1980's era games with you to the club meeting.  Otherwise your exclusion has zero, zippo to do with your race or sexuality and everything to do with you bringing completely off topic material into a hobby group.  Like...bringing your passionate love of RC airplanes to the model train club.  Take your RC airplane stuff to the RC airplane club where it can be appropriately appreciated.  You won't get very far waving your RC airplane in the air screaming against social exclusionism and unfairness at the model train club...the people there who would otherwise be happy to have you join them to talk about - model trains- (go figure) will just look at you like you are completely bonkers.

So.  The OSR crowd will keep writing adventures and dungeons and zines for the hobby that they love no matter what crazy arm waving and hate spewing the anti-OSR crowd is throwing their way.  Because after all...we put up with a lot of bullshit from the jocks and the popular kids going all the way back to high school when we were the punk rockers, metal heads and goth kids in our D&D groups back in the day and we survived all that rash of BS and hate without any problem, thanks very much.

Maybe when this particular subset of the woke crowd figures out that we were woke twenty years before they were even born, they will come play D&D with us and stop throwing hate.  Like I said.  The D&D kids were always one of the most accepting groups at school, even thirty to forty years ago when it all started and there will always be an open chair for the new kid who wants to play at the table...so long as they aren't taking a huge verbal dump on one of the other players at the table.

The Town of Bolgrad

Bolgrad is the only significant town on my current adventure map.  There are several other smaller villages, much smaller really compared to Bolgrad and I plan to do these Inkarnate maps for each of them.

Bolgrad is situated on a tall plateau left behind by the activity of glaciers in the region hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Within the walls of the town there is a substantial hill.  The hill is the highest point on the plateau and it has steep grass covered slopes leading up to a stone statue of the Northern god Balder, the god of warriors and heroes.

Within the hill and below the town in the limestone rock of the plateau, there is a substantial network of natural caverns.  The caves closest to the surface and entered through a large cave mouth on the South side of the hill, have been used as burials for the people of the town since it was established, two hundred years ago.

Bolgrad is the major trade center for the surrounding lands.  The next closest substantial town of this size is the Warhold of King Gudbrand, roughly forty miles to the Southwest.

DCC RPG - After Report

So.  I managed to get to play DCC RPG as a player tonight.

It was ok.

The DM was super nice and did a great job.  The players were super nice.

What got in the way, for me, of the game being fun was the game system.

Simple rules does not always equal fun in a game system.  Yes I know.  I am a super big advocate of early RPG games but when you create an introductory game experience for new players where the zero level characters are so ineffectual and paper thin that a single average roll...not even a bad roll...but an average roll means instant death, it just leaves me bored and unimpressed.

I felt absolutely zero investment or interest in whether any of my characters lived or died, were successful or failed and as a whole I think that most of the players were feeling the same way about their characters as well.

The comedy of your character gets shredded into a thousand bloody pieces is funny, sure, the first time or two but two hours into the "funnel" it was just boring.  No.  Boring is not the right word.

Stupid.  It was stupid.

All together I think we played about a four hour session.

At the end we got to roll to see how our "stars aligned" to get us ready to convert the characters from zero level throw aways into first level throw aways, or at least that was the impression I got.

Get this. If you rolled lower than a six on 1d20 your character, that you just did your level best to keep alive through this funnel despite only having three hit points and no actual skills or abilities to draw upon to make any of it even vaguely interesting...if you rolled less than a six, your character was zapped back in time as if nothing ever happened and you had to turn them over to the DM.

Yes, that is correct.

You spend four hours of your life playing the game trying to be clever and keep a couple of your paper thin goons alive and at the end of the game, one low dice roll and randomly nothing that you did, no creativity, nothing, allows you to keep that character. 

So.  I am going to keep playing DCC RPG in the hopes that somewhere down the road the game gets better.  I own the books.  I've read through good chunks of them and I am hopeful but reading through something and actually playing it are two very different things.

For now I am giving DCC RPG - the introductory play experience in the funnel with zero level characters a one half star out of five. 

Descriptive words for the published adventure for the funnel I would use are boring and overly simplistic.  Descriptive words for the introductory experience playing through the zero level part of the game would be...boring, uninteresting and a waste of four hours of my life that I will never recover.

If you haven't purchased DCC RPG - I would hold off until you play it a few times to make sure the game is worth the money you are going to drop on the books.  The books are cool looking and like I said, the rules once you get playing seem interesting so I am holding out hope that this will improve.

Hopefully when I post again about DCC RPG I will be able to rave about how awesome the game is after you create a level one character.

The Wraith King of Asmorgar

The Wraith King of Asmorgar

Pazuran-Sin was the provincial governor of the city of Hasna-di-kifo on the Western border of the Necrogarchy of Leng. A successful garrison leader and cunning magician, he was called before the secret masters sealed beneath the capital city of Pi-Atum three hundred and twenty years ago and ordered to prepare a mighty army for war.

Pazuran-Sin had only ten years to organize and plan for his undertaking and by recruiting and slave raiding throughout the wilderness called the Outlands of Dust, he was able to raise any army of a hundred thousand warriors.

The army of Pazuran-Sin was one of three great armies of the Necrogarchy of Leng which were readied for a full scale invasion of the Kingdoms to the West. Immediately before the invasion, Pazuran-Sin was rewarded for raising such a significant force by being granted the undead form of a lich and the title of Necromaster of Hasna-di-kifo.

The army of Pazuran-Sin was unleashed against the three central Kingdoms of Daria, Etruria and Kyrene. The marching of the armies of Leng into the Dragonsmarch, the violation of the Xianian frontiers of Iranam and the invasion of the Griffonwild began the most devastating period of warfare in the written history of Chimera.

The Nightshade war raged across almost all of the Eastern and Central kingdoms and territories of the known world for one hundred and fifteen years.

Pazuran-Sin suffered a significant defeat at the hands of the Guild Mages of Kyrene and Daria when the Great Weatherstone of Icegale tower was purposely shattered. The destruction of this powerful artifact resulted in the death of most of the Guild Mages involved, the explosion and ruin of the Guild's primary magical fortress in the area, namely Icegale Tower and the plunging of a wide region into a permanent winter.

Fully half of Pazuran-Sin's forces were present at the battle of the Icegale and most of these were flash frozen when the artifact was shattered.

Pazuran-Sin managed to barely escape the disaster but realized that his failure would not escape the punishment of the secret masters of Pi-Atum. Instead of returning to Pi-Atum in chains and in disgrace, Pazuran-Sin fled into the West, protected by a hand picked bodyguard of a hundred of his best troops.

Ultimately Pazuran-Sin left his old identity behind and wandered from place to place until finally arriving by ship in the territories of the Northmen, roughly two hundred years ago.

Once he established himself as a warlord within the barbarian lands of the North, Pazuran-Sin adopted the persona of the Wraith King and successfully subjugated the lands which are now the Kingdoms of Sorthvik, Zavdir, Hraedir, Ostvick and Western Morgwen. All of these lands fell under the red banners of the Kingdom of Asmorgar.

Pazuran-Sin ruled over the Kingdom of Asmorgar under the disguise of the Wraith King for just over a hundred years.

During his reign, Pazuran-Sin managed to seduce roughly half of the Druidic groves in the North into abandoning their devotion to the spirits of nature with promises of immortality and a greater domination and eldritch might wrought from the black void between the stars.

He used the evil spells he was taught during the Nightshade war to impart a supernatural strength and endurance to those warriors who swore to serve him as his Captains. The Wraith King's promises, of course, always came with a hidden cost and while long lived and powerful, all of the Captains of the Wraith King ultimately slipped into the shadow realm of undeath, being cursed forever to dwell as wraiths, entombed and imprisoned by their own master.

The Wraith King always carried with him a massive battle axe, which would have required two hands to wield by any mortal. Pazuran-Sin was so powerful in his Lich form that he could wield the weapon with a single hand and either leave his left hand free for casting spells or use it to bear a shield.

Pazuran-Sin's axe was named Soul Grinder and the blade of the axe was made of a single enormous and faceted red gem. As a lich, Pazuran-Sin was required to secure his own soul within an object and he chose the unlikely location of his primary weapon to serve as his phylactery.

Fifty years into his conquest of the lands which became the final extent of the Kingdom of Asmorgar, Pazuran-Sin embarked upon a crusade to hunt down and kill all of the Druids who had resisted his overtures and who remained loyal to the spirits of nature and to the welfare of the common folk living in the free Warholds of the North.

These were the Ragged Cloak Druids, who were also lycanthropes, shape shifters and skin changers. It is interesting that a part of the process of joining Pazuran-Sin and becoming a member of the Druids of the Henge, was the curing of the lycanthrope disease which each of the Druids carried.

Pazuran-Sin hunted down as many of the Ragged Cloak Druids as he could find, often personally, like a wealthy lord might run down a fox using hounds and mounted hunters.

Near the end of his reign barely a dozen of the shape shifters were left and all of these were isolated to the lands of the Kingdom of Skyerga, the territory controlled by the then young and beautiful Queen Gerrid.

In fact, it was Queen Gerrid herself who organized an ambush of the Wraith King, using one of her shape shifting brothers as bait to lure Pazuran-Sin into a hunt and eventually cornering him somewhere within the Ogre's March Hills.

A vicious and bloody battle was fought. The Wraith King was destroyed. His mighty enchanted battle axe Soul Grinder was shattered into four pieces and the North was finally free from the tyranny of that undead monster.

Queen Gerrid kept one of the four jagged pieces of Pazuran-Sin's enchanted battle axe. Aided by her friends among the Dwarves living in the settlement of Two-Beards Delving, Gerrid had the shard fashioned into an enchanted dagger.

Gerrid's enchanted dagger is named Dark Splinter. It is a +2 enchanted dagger to both attack and damage. It contains none of the artifact powers once possessed by the battle axe Soul Grinder, except that it can slice through any unenchanted material with a single, strong blow.

Example: If Gerrid is confronted by an enemy carrying a two handed steel great sword, she can draw forth Dark Splinter and slice straight through the blade of the great sword as if it were constructed of paper.

Yet, final victory was not to be handed to Queen Gerrid so easily.

The Wraith King's allies among the Druids of the Henge arrived just on the setting of the sun on the day when Pazuran-Sin was slain. Before the Queen could grind and burn the bones of the Lich to ash and further destroy the fragments of Soul Grinder, the evil Druids arrived in force. They managed to drive off Gerrid and her shape shifting allies and secured the skull of Pazuran-Sin along with all three of the other fragments of his enchanted great axe, Soul Grinder.

Because his skull was not destroyed, and because the magical weapon used as his phylactery still exists, albeit in several pieces, it is possible, that the Wraith King could be returned to his Lich form.

If this were to happen, Pazuran-Sin, The Wraith King of Asmorgar would almost certainly desire to rain down horrible retribution upon all those who had contributed to his defeat. He would almost certainly attempt to rebuild the lost Kingdom of Asmorgar.

It is equally true that the Druids of the Henge would immediately rise to serve at the side of the Wraith King.

Pazuran-Sin was defeated and destroyed a little more than a century ago. While all of the former towers and strongholds of the Kingdom of Asmorgar have been pulled down or otherwise exist only as ruins, the Warholds which once were contained within its territory have only known freedom for a few short generations.

Tea Ceremony and Dungeon Mastering

Tea ceremony is a beautiful cultural treasure of Japan which has resonated through history for hundreds of years.

I see some parallels between tea ceremony and Dungeon Mastering.

Tea ceremony requires attention to detail, personal preparation, the creation of a space where a theme or experience can be shared among a small group of friends.

Tea ceremony is not performed for personal gain or for profit.  It is an art which incorporates many different forms of artistry into bringing people together in a present space.

Now, for many of us Dungeon Mastering might be the sloppy American cousin of tea ceremony complete with orange stained fingers and Mountain Dew, but there are some interesting parallels and it makes me think, and maybe hope, that Dungeon Mastering can ascend to be something a little more, a little better than unprepared off the cuff adventures and bags of nacho cheese Doritos.

I admit that I am attracted to the idea of Dungeon Mastering or Game Mastering being a distant but similar relative to tea ceremony.  I believe that informal schools of different styles of Dungeon Mastering have been evolving over the last decade.  Certainly running a top notch RPG for friends can demand a range of artistic talents.  There is writing up the adventure, the making of maps and an entire dramatic world to immerse the player characters into, even if the world is tiny, only a few dozen miles from end to end to start with.  There are those who prepare terrain or draw battle maps, paint miniatures, pick out appropriate music or sound sets for their games.  Some of us invest a certain amount of time and preparation into the gaming space, including the sharing of food with friends which can range from pizza and pop to sushi and glasses of wine.

When you list out all of these specialized artistic endeavors involved in preparing for a top notch RPG night with friends and you look at the list of art and protocols involved in preparing for sharing tea ceremony with guests you can see that these two social gatherings are both profoundly different and profoundly similar.

I also love the notion that working to become a master of tea ceremony is an act very much worthy within its own right.  You don't need any other reason to want to master tea ceremony other than the personal dedication that this is a part of who you are and who you want to further become.  In the same way I feel that it is perfectly worthy to want to improve and master the art of DMing or GMing your favorite RPG game for your group of friends.  There needs to be no other outside reason for doing so.

The desire to be a great Dungeon Master is sufficient in itself. 

Druids Lair

I was going to do this picture later in the week but decided to put it together during a short break in writing.

This is the home of the evil Druid, hidden away within the shadows of the Old Woods.

Week of March 20th - 24th

This week is largely devoted to the continued writing of my book.  On Wednesday or Thursday I plan to finish out one of two final encounter maps for that project and I will probably post it up here.

With so much of my time this week concentrated specifically upon writing I am not sure where that will leave the blog.  Probably a little quieter than I have been over the last month.

I would like to do a new vlog entry which I will share here.  In it I will discuss some of the plot hooks in the adventure I am working on.  This will mean spoilers for any players who might decide to play through this adventure.  No direct spoilers of the two adventures included in the book itself, just on personalities and back story / history information.

The book will run at eight chapters with two and possibly three appendix sections when it is complete.  It will contain many encounters and two full and very different types of adventure.

I hope to run some people through parts of the adventures in the book during the month of June with the goal in mind of seeing it released into the wild by late July.

I am not sure of the final page count.  I will be breaking the project into different pieces to put it in front of some friends for editing and review.  Likely no one will get handed more than fifty pages of the thing and it might well come in at around a hundred and fifty pages in total when everything is said and done.

Interior Map for the Giant's Crown Inn.

Here is today's map.  The interior map for the Giant's Crown Inn, illustrated in the previous post.

Today I also finished two important client map projects so no write ups for NPC's or the interior as of yet.  That will have to wait a little longer.

Today's morning map is an exterior illustration of The Giant's Crown Inn. I plan to pair this up with an interior map.

If you came to visit looking for the map just be patient.  I should have that up and attached to this same blog post over the weekend.  I plan to include a full write up of the Inn, the NPC's who own and operate it and a couple of interesting guests.

The Giant's Crown is a small roadside Inn located along the Eastern end of the Sodden Ride within the borders of Ostvick Warhold.

In this part of the North, few Inns or shops hang an actual sign. In many cases the owner will paint an illustration representing the name of the place onto a round shield and have this next to the door. I did a sort of tribal image of a giant holding out a crown for this.

Growing on the left side of the entrance is an herb garden with a common plant called Weedle. Weedle in the South is literally an invasive weed which is usually burned. Here in the North they realized that if you dry certain parts of the plant and grind them into a powder like tea leaves you can put this into large jars and ferment the stuff in the sun. Exactly like making sun tea. The drink is a weak but easy to produce alcohol and has a pleasant taste which can be mixed with berries.

To the right of the entrance is a large clay pot containing fresh water. This is part of a custom whereby guests are expected to rinse off their hands and (if they are feeling especially polite) dampen and comb out their hair and beards before entering a house. Most homes have such a pot somewhere close to the door and any Inn or Tavern of quality makes it a point to have one.

In the upper floor a guest has slung his round shield so it is displayed out of the window. This is a tradition used by warriors currently available for work to let others know that they are present and willing to negotiate their services in exchange for coin.

D&D is not a storytelling game...

If you are a fan of shows like Critical Role, you might easily be under the impression that Dungeons and Dragons is a storytelling game.

I should preface this by saying that I have enjoyed the heck out of Critical Role but I realized early on that it is a scripted show with actors and a more or less predefined end point.  I love the actors involved.  Matt Mercer runs a great game of 5th edition D&D but the show and others like it should not be confused with running an actual live campaign of dungeons and dragons.  Critical Role would be in a very unfortunate position if the dice rolled poorly one episode and they experienced a TPK only three shows into the new season.  Likely they start out with a known beginning, Matt has a clear idea of where the story should go, the actors follow his lead and do not deviate from the course he has set out for them.  Along the way the voice actors play D&D more or less and engage in some hilarious and fun improvisational theatre.  Towards the end of the show though everything has to get steered to the predefined end point for that particular episode, otherwise the whole thing would never work.

In a real D&D campaign of any edition are there stories to be told?  Absolutely.  Every DM writes up histories, mythologies about the gods, details about magic and how it works in their campaign or at the very least writes up a brief history of the dungeon to be explored or outlines the encounter or mission at hand.  This is all pre-game story.  When the players arrive, pick up their character sheets and their dice however, the DM steps out of their role in writing pre-game story and turns the reins over to the players.

What happens next is that the players explore the world, the adventure module, adventure book or the encounter that the DM has laid out for them.  The players may decide to go into the haunted tower next to the starting village, or they might not.  They might decide instead to become a group of highway bandits or they might strike off into the wilderness to explore and see what they might find in a nearby forest.  Story is happening...and the players are in it but the DM is not telling or driving the story.  The story has become whatever the player characters decide to engage in during that night's game.  The story has become what they will retell their friends and reminisce about with the other players, twenty years later about the fun they had exploring and roleplaying their characters in the DM's world. 

There are roleplaying games specifically designed to be storytelling games.  Dungeons and Dragons is not one of them and has never really been constructed to be that sort of experience.  Dungeons and Dragons is about immersing your imagination in the fantasy world your character is in.  It is about exploring that world and overcoming great obstacles.  Sure...there can be a ton of lore or back story all throughout the campaign but when play begins, the DM stops being the one to drive and write the story and everything is turned over to the players.

The DM should never come to the table with a strictly linear game leading the players by the nose from encounter to encounter and always to the same plot ending no matter what happens.  Well, ok they can, and many do exactly that but that can be the worst possible style of DMing imaginable, especially when you have experienced the other kind.

Being a DM, drawing maps, populating the maps, writing up interesting and compelling NPC characters and populating your maps with all sorts of histories and encounters, treasures, traps and other wonders is a demanding task.  A good DM who is running their campaign, not just off the cuff but with some deliberate thought and preparation; can easily spend days, weeks or even months preparing everything so that the player characters can immerse themselves.

In the old days you used to describe how you'd search the hall for pit traps.  If you found a chest you'd cautiously test it for lethal spring devices and when you opened it, you were careful to describe to the DM that you were not standing right in front of the thing.  If you had to climb a wall but you didn't have a dice roll to fall back on, you asked the DM to describe the wall.  Was it perfectly smooth?  How steep is it?  Are there any obvious hand holds?  Can I jam some iron spikes into the cracks to help me climb it?  OK, I take off my plate armor because that isn't going to help me, secure it in a bundle and tie it off with a rope so I can haul it up behind me once I'm up.  Over the years the game has evolved from an open system, or mostly open system (thanks Rob Kuntz for clueing me in on this reality) to a closed system.

With everything codified now you just roll to climb a wall or search a hall or check for a trap.  All of that glorious immersion and detail where you placed your imagination into the center of a world full of wizards and dark dungeon corridors is a weak shadow of what it once was.

It turns out that Dungeon Mastery is not for everybody and indeed there are damn few DM's who invest more than a handful of hours in preparing for their campaign.  This is unfortunate because investing some real time and hard work into your world can be very entertaining and rewarding, easily as much fun as playing the game itself.

That's all for tonight.  See you on the flip-side tomorrow.

The Village of Langerklif - Village #3 Done

This morning was busy.  I was having trouble sleeping, which sometimes happens guys when you hit your 50's, so I was up at 5 am.  I got a good hour of writing in before waking up my teenagers to get them ready for school. 

After getting home I put in a good hour and change on a client map.  That's a large project and in color so I am chipping away at it an hour or two a day.

After that and some coffee I broke open village map #3 and managed to take it through from blank paper to finished before lunch time.  Listening to some YES helped keep my brain in creative, imagination mode without need to take a break.

Langerklif

There are three isolated villages within the Old Woods and this is the one furthest up the trail from the main road.  Despite being the most remote it has better water access and receives a little more traffic from boats moving along the coast.  Because of this it has a fairly good sized Inn, constructed on a raised area of reinforced stone and masonry laid over a section of logs, driven into the top of the cliff to protect the whole thing (at least a little) from the cliff degrading over time.

At the base of the cliffs is a natural cavern where the villagers sometimes store goods intended for trade with the passing boat traffic. 

Unfortunately the horrors at work in the surround forest have so far managed to create wreck and ruin on the entire Northern third of the village, where none of the structures remain standing. 

The Northmen in Langerklif are sturdy and while they have been beset by the evil plots of the Druid for the longest they have managed to weather it all a little better when compared to its neighbor to the South.

Busy, busy, busy...and new village map!

Taking on some amazing cartography jobs.  Including one for Mr. Rob Kuntz.  I had to shuffle around my daily schedule a little bit.  Right now I have three hours set aside per day for meetings, cartography and art for my own book projects.  I have two hours set aside per day for a Kickstarter project some friends are working on and a block of three hours to work on Rob's and the occasional request for a custom map I pick up from players.

Then I take a bit of a break and come back in the evening for about two hours of just writing on my own book projects.

So ten hours a day of awesome RPG writing, meetings, cartography, drawing and all sorts of sundry other oddments (building a company website being one of these).

As things ebb and flow I will probably jump in a sixth day on the busy weeks and ease back to four day work weeks when things slow down.

Brief Personal Advertisement

Speaking of cartography.  Hey!  I make maps for Gamers and Publishers.  I can do a very solid and nice OSR style hand drawn map or ISO map or I can do a very professional digital map for your project or for your personal campaign.  Want a 18x24 hand drawn, inked and colored - beautiful map on parchment of your personal campaign world or favorite fantasy city?  Give me a shout.  Having some custom maps of your world to hang up on your wall can be pretty awesome.

Today's Map

Today's village map is number two in a string of village and town maps I am cranking out for my own campaign and adventure projects.  This is the remote village of Kaldrboth Steading.  This village has seen even more trouble than Kalbeak which is closer to the border of the woods and further to the South.  Here the villagers have holed up in the higher levels of the settlement, building barricades and largely abandoning the lower level of the village where three of the family dwellings are nothing more than burned shells and rubble.

New Scanner Incoming

Next week I'm picking up an art scanner with a large scan bed!  Its about time.  I have enough cartography and illustration stuff going on to finally justify the added expense.  Really excited by this development.

Village of Kalbeak - Hand drawn ISO map

Here is yesterday's map for the village of Kalbeak.  I decided to go with all hand drawn maps for the villages in my current adventure project.  I have one of these slated to knock out every two days or so over the course of the next two weeks.  When these are done I will have an ISO map for every single village and town on my regional map.  Pretty excited by that prospect.

I will post up all of these village maps as I knock them out.  Having a great time doing these.

Grid Map A - Encounter Reference

Here is a revisit of Grid Map A whose encounter locations are entered just below in some previous blog postings.

Grid Crawl Maps

I enjoy grid maps for overland adventuring.  Here is one from an upcoming adventure entitled Witch Hunter.

The green squares indicate light woods.  The camo green squares indicate areas of dense woods. The dark green squares indicate areas of deep forest where encounters are the most dangerous.

Grid maps help me to create the terrain = encounter level style of wilderness I am aiming for.  On a grid you can more easily drop in a more dangerous section of terrain, forcing the party to make the decision to either find a longer way around or to risk cutting straight through.

Combing this style of map with major encounter areas directly related to an adventure, minor encounter areas which may or may not be directly related, custom random encounter tables and terrain description cards creates a very immersive experience for the players.

Plants, Herbs and Trees Fantastical

I have been writing on my Kingdoms Chimerical or World of Chimera D&D campaign for a long, long time.  Over the years I have had a lot of fun fleshing out some of the dusty corners that often get forgotten in homebrew worlds and one of these is creating your own fantastical plants for your game world.

As some of you already know, two factions of Druids wrestle over power in the Warholds of the North.  These are the Ragged Cloak Druids, who are lycanthropes and The Druids of the Henge, which broke from the traditions of natural magic and were seduced by the Dark, Cosmic Sorcery of the Kingdom of Asmorgar.

All of this comes out of writing up a world over many years which includes notes about whole varieties of plants and herbs which have direct interactions with the world around them.  In Chimera you can sometimes tell that an undead creature has risen in a graveyard because the presence and properties of certain plants will tell you this.  A knowledgeable player character, someone playing a spell caster with an interest in lore and occult knowledge will pick up in real player knowledge what plants grow where, and why.  They can look around the natural world and get clues about what has been happening in an area or at the very least find interesting and useful specimens for brewing their own herbal concoctions.

Chimera has three moons and a wheel of stellar constellations which directly interact with the ancient standing stone circles scattered around the world.  Reading the sky can tell you whether a ley line of magic is waxing or waning or whether a new branch may be appearing or an old area of magical power fading. 

I have a long list of many herbs and plants from my Dragonsmarch adventures over on my campaign web page.  The Dragonsmarch is the heartland of my world of Chimera, made up of the Kingdoms of Daria, Etruria and Kyrene.  For the last year or so I have been working hard on adventures more in the North, in the lands of the Warholds of the Northmen and because of this I have greatly expanded upon the original list of herbs and plants written for the heartlands area.  Unfortunately time being what it is, everything is a balancing act of deciding where you invest your time.  Do you focus on the book(s) you want to get out for the North?  Do you write the blog?  Do you update the old campaign website?  Everything has to be done with a certain care for priorities.

Here are some glimpses into some of the herbs and plants I've made up for my world.  At the end of this short sample list I will include a link to the Dragonsmarch list of herbs and plants which has simple rules for what happens when you combine them at the bottom of that page.

Butcher's Grass

Butcher's Grass grows in broad sharp stalks often as tall as a man's hip. The edges of these sturdy blades of grass are a light green but the center of the grass stalk in a deep red growing more black in the center. Butcher's Grass grows native in the far East, in places like The Necrogarchy of Leng or the Ancient Kingdom of Petrurias. It is believed that seeds of this grass were carried in the rotted armor and rotten clothing of the undead army driven into the Kingdom of Daria by the Necromasters during the Nightshade War. Today Butcher's Grass can be found in scattered patches wherever the ground is soft and damp and where shade is abundant. Butcher's Grass does not grow in dry or sunny locations well.

Butcher's Grass is tough and resists cold and even the heat created by a natural fire. Harvested with a scythe it can have the sharp edges trimmed away and be woven into sturdy baskets or twisted to create fibers for making rope.

Butcher's Grass has a reputation for growing where a considerable amount of blood has been shed, usually through some violent deed. It is believed to commonly grow around gallows or in patches where battles have been fought.

Herb Lore - When boiled Butcher's Grass releases an agent which can add to the potency of salves and potions which heal wounds. Herbal wound salves and potions generally add 1 or 2 points to the rate of natural healing over the course of a full days rest with limited or no physical activity.

Value: 1 Gathering = 3 to 5 plants = 3 silver pieces.

Bar Weed

This plant has broad leaves like a fern but covered in a light fuzz. The plant remains green most of the year until well into the winter when it becomes dormant and its leaves and stems die leaving only the roots intact to regrow the next spring. Bar Weed can be identified from other ferns because of the soft velvet feel of its leaves and the slightly purple sheen the leaves have when turned in the light. Bar Weed stalks are edible and have a satisfying crunch like celery. The roots of the plant are also edible and have a peanut flavor. Bar Weed roots are sometimes used in cooking. The leaves of the plant can be left in a jar of water out in sunlight for a day and they will turn the water into a potent tea with very nearly but not quite exactly the same flavor as a cheap American beer.

This tea can be left to sit for several days and it will ferment slightly becoming a weak alcoholic beverage popular among local farmers and small villages. In most places the drink created with Bar Weed is known as Weedle. The halflings in particular are fond of brewing up batches of the stuff as Bar Weed grows wild and can be found almost anywhere in the Shire. Family secret recipes are closely guarded and might include berries or potatoes or even bacon for flavor.

Most taverns in the Dragonsmarch keep at least a barrel of this poor man's ale handy. A tankard of Weedle sells for 5 copper coins on the average while a tankard of proper beer or ale will usually run a full silver coin. In the large halfling village of Kettlebee there are annual competitions which involve the baking of pies, stews, the brewing of all manner of drinks including recipes of Weedle.

Value: 1 Gathering = 5 plants = 1 silver piece. One gathering of Bar Weed is sufficient to brew five gallons of Weedle.

Cave Whistle

This strange fungus grows like a cane plant but in caverns. The stalks grow about three inches every hear but the fungus is very hard and sturdy like bamboo. Air currents which blow over the open holes and tubes of this cavern dwelling fungus create soft whistles and moaning noises sometimes attributed to monsters or a ghostly presence. Cave Whistle can be cut with an axe or other sturdy chopping implement. Left to grow long enough the stalks of this plant can grow up to fifteen feet in height. Subterranean dwelling intelligent races have used Cave Whistle as an underground substitute for wood when crafting items, constructing huts or underground buildings.

1 Gathering = 3 feet of cane stick = 1 gold

Crawler Berries

These inedible berries are a bright lemon yellow in color. They produce a strong smelling paste when crushed which can act as a repellent against giant centipedes, giant ants, giant spiders and even the dreaded carrion crawler. Goblins and Orcs sometimes cultivate bushes of the stuff to use in keeping dangerous creatures away from their tunnels. The down side of this goop is that it produces a very strong reek detectable to even the nose of a human out to a distance of 120 feet. The odor produced has been compared to that of a wet dog rolled in a pig trough and then pelted with cow dung. In short the stench is very close to the smell one detects commonly in an orc or goblin lair.

The creatures repelled by this berry will retreat to a distance of at least 120 feet and will avoid making contact unless attacked.

1 Gathering = 1/2 Pound of Berries (Usually 20 to 30) = 2 Silver Pieces

Darkling Tree

This is a strange tree with a leafy appearance bred by magic to consume the slight negative magical aura generated by darkness rather than sunlight. The trunk and the branches of this tree are bone white and smooth, they grow slim and crooked. The upper side of the leaves of this tree are a dark purple and the underside of the leaves are a dark red. It is said that the Elves created these trees for gardens built deep underground, for reasons which are now a mystery even to the greatest minds. Dwarves dislike these trees and say that they attract the presence of evil wherever they are found. Dwarves complain that the roots of these magical trees are corrupted and that they weaken the stones in the area where the trees grow.

Darkling Trees are found in strange areas deep underground, in the darkest areas of the deep forest and sometimes in the ruins left behind by the civilization of the Elves.

1 Gathering = 1/2 Pound of Wood = 10 Gold

Elder Root

The Elder plant is a green shrub favored for gardens because its branches grow together in a dense fashion which allows the plant to be easily pruned into amusing sculptures and shapes. The root of this bush can be crushed, chopped and dried. The dried form can be brewed into a tea which soothes headaches, eye strain and helps the user relax. Elder Root tea is favored by sages, wizards and other characters who spend long periods of time each day reading or studying.

1 Gathering = 1 Plant / Roots = 3 Silver Pieces

Gallows Slipper

A Gallows Slipper is a flowering plant with a structure very similar to that of a common daisy but with violet petals so dark as to appear very nearly black. This wild growing flower is sometimes worn in the hair on tucked into the button hole of common folk on their way to a funeral or during somber religious observances. Condemned criminals sometimes have wreaths of these flowers delivered to them prior to their execution. In the Kingdom of Etruria and in other places laurels of woven Gallows Slippers are put on the heads of individuals shortly before they are hanged.

Gallows Slipper grows wild in field country or in and around cultivated lands. It can be found in areas of light forest growing at the base of trees or along roads next to stone walls or fences.

1 Gathering = 10 Plants = 2 Silver

Graves Blanket

Graves Blanket grows in masses of pretty white flowers about the size of a person's thumb. These flowers are planted in and around graveyards because they change from their usual white color to an unmistakable purple coloration like that of a deep bruise whenever they are exposed to negative or necrotic energy, the sorts of energies usually associated with undead. Those who tend to graveyards use these flowers as a sort of detection against the presence of undead who may be drawn into the area seeking a hiding place or for some other nefarious reason.

1 Gathering = 3 Plants = 3 Silver

Plants and Herbs - World of Chimera

Wraiths, Mummies and Liches

Wraiths

The Wraith first appear in the Warholds region just two hundred years ago during the evil Kingdom of Asmorgar.  It is said that the King of Asmorgar was a Necromaster who came to the North after the defeat of the armies of the Necrogarchy of Leng in the Nightshade War.

The Necromasters developed some occult agency to both mark their chosen Captains and to make them fearless and nearly indestructible.  The side effect of this eldritch gift was that such a soul marked Captain in service to the Necromasters who finally died, usually slain in combat, would rise as a wraith within a week of their death.

Wraiths are powerful undead and usually independent of the control of magicians.  Even the Necromasters rarely command these beings and so the dead Captains of the Kingdom of Asmorgar were buried quickly and often deeply in stone lined barrows so that the rising wraith would appear well away from the settlements and business of living men, or their former master.

A barrow is more than a simple stone cairn.  It is structured in such a manner and certain talismans and objects owned by the wraith in life are buried there so that the creature is tied to its barrow.  Wraiths cannot venture forth from their barrows during the daylight hours and few, except the most powerful can wander more than a few dozen yards from the barrow after darkness falls.

When a wraith kills a mortal, that mortal's spirit returns as a Shadow and is a dull witted and cursed being with no real memories of who they were in life.  These shadow creatures sometimes accumulate within a barrow where graverobbers have foolishly come poking around.  The shadows are tied to the Wraith and must serve its will, often they cannot exit the barrow within which they were slain.

A soul marked Captain of one of the Necromasters of Leng, slain and left to rot in a field or hang from a gibbet would rise as a powerful and independent from of undead.  That wraith would be free to roam and attack at will, whenever it was night and conceal itself in dark places during the day, lest the light of the sun destroy it.  Such a being would bring plague and suffering on the world, consuming the spirits of the living and turning them into Shadows which would follow in its train, constantly having the victims of the wraith add to their strength and numbers.  A free roaming Wraith like this who has accumulated a dozen Shadows to serve it becomes a Night Gaunt, one of the most dangerous and terrifying forms of undead in the world.

Wraiths as a whole only appeared during the Nightshade War, when the Necrogarchy of Leng invaded the neighboring Kingdoms of Etruria, Daria and Kyrene within the lands known as the Dragonsmarch.  It is believed that the Necromasters went about perfecting their ability to soul mark their most loyal Captains as a part of their plot to invade and conquer all of the free Kingdoms in the heartland of the world.

Mummies

The Rakian Empire is a great and powerful place whose lands are now overtaken by vast stretches of parched desert.  The Piper and the Rag Man are some of the dozen or so strange and horrible Immortals long worshipped in temples and shrines throughout the great cities of Rakia.

Rakia is ruled by a class of elite priest kings, each of whom commands absolute power over their particular city state.  Over the priest kings is the strongest and most powerful of all of these warlords who bears the title of God Emperor and whose word is law all throughout the Rakian Empire.

The God Emperors of Rakia have long extended their ability to remain in power and rule by the slow and horrifyingly painful process of mortal mummification.  Through this process certain organs are removed and sealed in carefully prepared jars and wrappings and packings of bandages bearing powerful spells are used to keep the individual alive even after their mortal organ has been removed.  In this fashion the God Emperor passes from mortal life into an immortal, undead state of existence.

Yet even the spells animating the God Emperors of Rakia have their limitations and after a hundred and fifty years of rule, the God Emperors find wakeful action more and more exhausting and they retreat to the cool silence of deeply buried sarcofagi to rest for longer and longer periods.  Over the following decades the God Emperor fades from power and becomes one of the sleeping lords of Rakia who only arise when their dreaming is disturbed by the presence of the living, usually grave robbers bent on plundering the tomb complexes which surround them.

This process of slow mummification is one of the most ancient methods whereby a supremely powerful and wealthy ruler may obtain a certain immortality through undeath.

Lich

The secrets of mummification were eventually stolen by the Sorcerer Kings of Leng, roughly a thousand years ago.  These Sorcerer Kings sought the means to greatly extend their lives and ability to rule over their Kingdom, even beyond that which had been achieved by the God Emperors of Rakia.

It was the most powerful of the Sorcerer Kings who finally came upon the means to transform themselves into a Lich, by securing their spirit within a phylactery and applying some of the spell inscribed wrappings used in the process of slow mummification over their slowly desiccating physical bodies.

Today, a council of five Necromasters rules over the Necrogarchy of Leng.  All of these rulers are by design powerful sorcerers and Liches.  A Necromaster, by tradition, is allowed to retain their seat on the ruling council for two hundred years.  After that time they are supposed to retire from active government to join the Dread Lords who slumber for longer and longer periods in a great and secret chamber below the capital city of the Necrogarchy of Leng.

The current ruling Necromasters sometimes go down into these vaults to seek the guidance of their forerunners or to insure their favor over the current decisions of the council.  Occasionally, should the ruling council greatly displease the Dread Lords, they have been known to rise from their stone seats to march up into the city above to level death and horrible suffering upon the population of the city.

Cartography / Art / Adventure Module Business

Progress continues to be made on publishing a couple of adventures and some campaign source material over the course of the summer.

I have an official logo and I now own the domain name VintageDM.com where my art and map portfolio, price lists, projects and links to books will be located.

Lots of work to do still on everything but over the course of this year I hope to have a nice little business venture going.

Book of the North: Map A - Encounters 13 to 28

Encounter #13 (H9)

Ulf's Camp

The farmer rumored to have gone missing while trying to pull treasures out of Grolbeak Swamp, constructed a semi-permanent base camp amidst the trees in this location.  Here there is a simple A frame cottage with a roof of branches and thatch.  It is only a single story structure with a stone hearth and small fireplace set into the North wall.  The cottage has one window on the South wall and a single wooden door on it's West side.

Outside of the cabin there is a medium sized stump from a Cedar tree which has been carved into a totem for the Northern god Gymir, Winter god of feasts and gold.

The single door into the cabin is closed with a simple wooden latch and is not locked.  Inside the cabin is furnished with a large wooden frame bed with a rope mattress covered in thick layers of pelts, the small stone fireplace and hearth, a narrow table and above that a trio of shelves lined with clay jars filled with salt, pastes of herbs and dried jerky.  A short bow of yew leans in one corner with its string wrapped around the haft.  Next to this is a quiver containing nine arrows.  A hand axe hangs from a leather thong next to the table along with a large curved knife.

There are two simple stools for sitting and a chest.  The chest is secured with a heavy iron lock.  Inside of the chest there are several sacks containing strange curved pieces of a shimmering metal.  The metal pieces have occasional marks and runes on them.  A careful study will reveal these to be debris of some ancient elven origin.  Also in this chest there is a velvet bag containing 9 of the valuable glowing gems, coins of the ancient elven civilization.  These gems are worth 20 gold pieces.

A lightly worn foot trail leads from this cabin to the Northwest in the direction of Grolbeak Swamp.

Encounter #14 (G8)

The trail from Ulf's camp leads to this grotto which cuts into the steep cliffs surrounding the swamp.  The trail cuts back and forth down the grotto at a steep descent.  In places where the terrain because steeper than can be easily traversed, Ulf has added short sections of steps, all made from rough hewn wooden planks.

This is one of the only easy ways to descend down to the edge of the swamp.  For miles around the cliffs are sheer drops of up to a hundred feet and would require a descent using ropes and spikes.

Encounter #15 (F6)

At the center of Grolbeak swamp there is a shallow, brackish lake.  At the center of this lake a large rock formation rises up, towering more than a hundred feet into the air.  The rock has a strange appearance, almost as if it were once a carved tower but which was somehow melted in the ancient past.  It is said that there is an opening up in the side of the rock which leads into some strange interior chambers, long ago abandoned by an unknown race.

The swamp is dangerous, filled with many sink holes and boggy spots.  Animals which sometimes escape and wander into this area usually become mired.  Farmers usually abandon any animals which wander down into the swamp because of the danger involved in trying to recover them.

Note:  An entire dungeon adventure entitled "The Abandoned Outpost" is written for Grolbeak Swamp and the spire of rock at it's center.  This adventure will be available in a few months.

Encounter #16 (G4)

A small group of Gnoll scouts have set up a lookout at this spot.  The Gnolls are encamped in the areas of light woods further to the West.  Over the previous weeks the Gnolls had spotted Ulf as he came and went through the swamp, sometimes hauling sacks of something back towards his cabin.  The Gnolls tried to ambush Ulf a few weeks prior but Ulf turned out to be much tougher than they had counted on.  Here there are always three Gnolls.

The Gnolls may send down a small raiding party of 10 members to attack the adventuring party while they are traversing the swamp.

Encounter #17 (B2)

Here amidst the tall grass fields full of herbs and wildflowers between the Old Wood and the hills of the Ravensfeud there is a small village of Neanderthal.  The Neanderthal have dwelt in this region for thousands of years but over time they have dwindled in numbers.  Confrontations between the Neanderthals and Northmen are fairly uncommon.  The Neanderthals avoid settled areas and do not raid.  The Northmen, for the most part, have come to understand that the Neanderthals just want to be left alone.

This village is a circle of seven large round huts.  These huts are cut down into the earth about three feet with walls lined by flat rocks pulled from the surrounding fields.  Walls of wood are constructed in a circle for the walls of each hut and the roofs are cones made of wood covered in a layer of turf.  At the center of each hut is a hole for allowing the smoke of an interior campfire to escape.

There are fifteen Neanderthal warriors dwelling at this village and forty more who are females, elders and children.  The Neanderthal hunt with spears and stone axes.  They usually have a supply of excellent pelts on hand for trade with humans who might wander nearby.  The Neanderthal are usually interested in trading for bows, arrows and weapons made from iron.

The Neanderthal are led by Grook, a tremendously beefy and muscle bound chieftain who stands a full foot over all of his warriors.  Treat Grook as a 6 HD monster.  He has 36 hp.  He wears a mix of hide and mail armor, a suit traded to his Father by the old Jarl of Bolgrad after saving his life.

Neanderthal

No. Enc:  1d10 (4d10)
Alignment:  Lawful (neutral)
Movement: 120' (40')
Armor Class: 8
Hit Dice: 2 (12 hps)
Attacks: 1 (weapon)
Damage: 2d4 (weapon)
Save: F2
Morale: 7
Hoard Class: XX
XP: 20/320

Encounter #18 (E15)

The East Bridge

This long wooden bridge crosses the Warfang River.  The river marks the border between the Kingdoms of Ostvick and Morgwen.  At all times a small patrol of guards, sworn men loyal to the Kings of Ostvick and Morgwen are present, each guarding the side of the bridge respective to their home territories.

Mounted patrols of warriors arrive at the bridge every three days from the village of Bolgrad on the Ostvick side and every two days from the village of Soddenford on the Morgwen side. The patrols check the status of the guards at the bridge and should a problem be encountered it is likely that both sides will heavily reinforce the bridge within forty eight hours.

Orcs and other monsters dwelling in the surrounding countryside avoid the bridge because the road and the bridge in this area are so heavily patrolled.

A cabin and shelter for horses has been constructed on both sides of the bridge.  The cabins are two story with an attached watch tower and surrounded by a stone wall.  The cabins have sufficient room to provide a barracks for the men guarding the bridge.  There are always a dozen warriors assigned to guard the bridge from each Warhold.  The guards take in turn to stand post on their end of the bridge in groups of four.  Four guards are usually busy performing duties at the cabin and four are sleeping.

The guards on both sides are first level human fighters, each group is led by a second level leader.  Both groups are attended by a cleric.

The guards will cooperate to defend the bridge from outside threats.  Because they spend a considerable amount of time assigned to this post, the guards on both sides get along reasonably well.  Individuals who use the bridge are expected to pay a toll of 2 silver coins each.  Mounted travelers are asked to pay a 3 sp toll.  Persons bringing goods over the bridge in a wagon or cart are expected to pay a 5 silver coin toll.

Encounter #19 (F13)

Here a whisper thin trail cuts North away from the Soddenride and up into the surrounding trees of the Old Woods.  The start of the trail is marked by a tall wooden carving dedicated to the Goddess Gullveig.  The statue looks like a long haired woman whose braids cascade down to her feet.  Her brow is encircled by a carved crown of snowflakes and ice cycles.  The statue is surrounded by a small herb garden.  In front of the statue is a smaller flat stone for offerings.

Three isolated farm steadings are known to exist up this trail.  These villages are inhabited by Northmen more or less loyal to the King of Ostvick but who are known to be odd and reclusive.  Few outsiders travel up the trail beyond the first village which is called Kalbeak. 

Referee's Note:  An entire adventure entitled "Witch Hunter" is written for the Old Woods and the villages up this trail.  The adventure will be published in a few months.

Encounter #20 (E13)

At this point along the path any travelers are forced to make a saving throw versus the spell generated by the "Dark Heart" monster located at encounter area #21.  If the save versus spell is successful, the individual is aware of the creeping touch of strange, evil magic but they are otherwise unaffected.  If the save fails the character will slip into a trance where they will stand in place, dropping whatever they were holding in their hands and stare, doing nothing else for a full thirty minutes.  Taking damage will allow the character to make a new saving throw versus spell to shake off the magic.

Encounter #21 (E11)

Here, hidden away in a landscape of deep woodlands, where overarching limbs and moss covered trunks of black oaks cast a shroud of dwimmer dark over all, is the pulsing "Dark Heart" responsible for the recent magical assaults against Kalbeak Steading to the East.  Only the pale, immobile face and fingers of the left hand are visible of the victim ensnared and used through guile and evil to create this Druidic abomination.  Thick mud encrusted roots rise from the base of the nearby trees and wrap all about the victim's body and a thick oozing amber colored sap has been excreted from the roots to entomb almost the entire form of the once human villager in a gigantic clot which pulses and glows softly, filled with eldritch wizardry and menace.

This is but one of several horrors which assail the folk of the Northman steadings up and down the whisper thin trail connecting their homes and hearths to the Sodden Ride, the main road leading through the heart of the Kingdom of Ostvick.

Referee's Note: A full write up of this monstrous creation is found in the Witch Hunter adventure I've been writing up for this area.

Encounter #22 (C12)

The Tanner, who once dwelt in Kalbeak Steading is buried here.  His grave and monument stone were set a far beyond the borders of the village on account of his having hung himself.  His beloved wife rushed after another of the village children called out into the surrounding menace of the Old Woods but stumbled out shortly after, throat slashed near to the bone by nobody knows what, and no sign of the child anywhere which prompted her to chase it into the trees.  When the Tanner's body was found, swinging and creaking by a rope of twisted rawhide from the rafters of their cottage it was blue white as river ice and all covered in a layer of frost.  Both of them were laid out and what prayers could be managed spoken over them but come but a few hours later to wrap the bodies in their grave coverings the Tanner's wife was gone and spattering trail of her dead blood leading down under the boards of their raised floor and out towards the village walls, skirting from building crawl space to crawl space until a thick smear of it marked where...whatever she was now, dragged itself right up over the palisade and off into the woods.

Horrible and more horrible.  No one from Kalbeak will willingly go into the light woods to where the Tanner's stone marker is set.  Since his death and burial the trail leading North from Kalbeak has grown increasingly dangerous.  A few folk have vanished altogether and nobody travels from Kalbeak up towards Kaldrboth these last weeks and none come down the trail from Kaldrboth either.

In a hollow of a vast and half rotted ancient tree just a stone's throw to the East of the Tanner's grave marker is where his wife, now turned into one of the monstrous creatures called a Kinder Ghoul lairs.  The child formed Kinder Ghoul what slew and damned her into this undead form is there along with two others, victims of the pair of those they have tricked and stalked and slaughtered trying to travel up the trail.  All the machinations of the last Black Druid of the Henge still in The Old Wood, their order thought to have been cleared out of this forest years ago by the King's Father.

Referee's Note:  Stats on the horrifying monsters known as the Kinder Ghoul and the plot of the last Black Druid of the Henge in the Old Wood are detailed in my adventure "Witch Hunter", coming soon.

Encounter #23 (B9)

Here the "Dark Heart" responsible for the destruction of most of the population of Kaldrboth Steading resides.  The brave Northern hunter who set out alone, trying to track the vile Druid is the victim here and the Druid has him suspended upside down, dead eyes and outstretched arms dangling down trapped within the glowing amber clot within wrappings of roots and thick vines.

This source of evil in the woods has been here longer, months rather than weeks and so it has had a longer time to root and grow and become a mark of blasphemous power in the Old Woods.  Destroying this menace will be more difficult than the first.  A Witchling protects it and a half dozen Kinder Ghoul which hunt the surrounding forest after dark like a pack of the damned gone feral.

Encounter #24 (A7)

Here is the site of the Old Grove, the ring of tremendously antiquated standing stones covered with undecipherable markings which are said not to even belong to this plane of reality is here.  The surrounding dense forest of the Old Woods presses in so heavily that traveling for miles through it is impossible for someone attempting to travel by mount.

For centuries this was the powerful grove of The Druids of the Henge who sought to maintain power over the Kingdom of Ostvick.  The Druids of the Henge traced their origins all the way back to the evil Kingdom of Asmorgar which once controlled all of the lands of Ostvick and Hraedir.  The very wise and scholarly know the legends of how the Necromaster, that dark and terrible sorcerer of old, came into these lands after the defeat of the Necrogarchy of Leng during the Nightshade war.  Here he was opposed by The Ragged Cloak Druids, the original order of Druidry in the North.  Through treachery and enchantment the Necromaster seduced and corrupted some of the Druids with promises of greater power.  The Druids split and the rebellious members of the Druids of the Henge began to interact with the strange and very, very old standing stones found scattered throughout the Kingdoms of the North.  Nobody in those days knew much about them.  The were said to predate the arrival of men into these lands, thousands upon thousands of years ago, but the Necromaster knew.

After the fall of the Necromaster and the burning of Asmorgar the Northmen in these lands were free but the Druids of the Henge still remained.  They still sought to exercise their own power and rule over the Kings and peoples of the North and for generation after generation the Chieftains were required to provide them with human sacrifices to avoid their displeasure.

It was during the younger days of King Gudbrand's Father that he and a host of his sworn men marched in secret, protected by a weave of sorcery cast by Queen Gerrid herself.  They killed most of this particular grove of the Druids of the Henge, pulled down some of the stones and scattered those few who survived.  Of the thirteen original evil Druids only three remain.  One, has become a reclusive enchantress dwelling somewhere in the wild hills of the Ravensfeud to the West.  Another, the heir to the title of Grand Druid of that circle now wanders the territories of Ostvick, Hraedir and Morgwen Holds.  He doesn't dare travel into the lands of Skyerga Hold where Queen Gerrid rules for the Druids of the Ragged Cloak are there in numbers and they would hunt and kill him if they could find him.  The last of the three returned to the damaged circle, the site of the Old Grove three years ago and has set about his own plots of dark revenge and murder against the folk of the Kingdom of Ostvick.

Encounter #25 (A13)

This is the location of the camp of Narl, Ragged Cloak Druid.  The Druids of the Ragged Cloak are the original spiritual leaders for the human barbarian clans which settled here in the far North.  They get their name from a practice whereby local villagers would come to the Druid to ask for wisdom or healing and as a ritual payment would sew into the fabric of their large cloaks a piece of leather or cloth made by themselves.  Thus the cloaks of the Druids were this chaotic patchwork of hundreds and even thousands of small scraps, each one a offering and blessing sewn into their cloak by someone they had helped.

The Ragged Cloak Druids are especially connected to the Northern Immortals called Gerda and Freyr.  Gerda is the Goddess of the Spring and Freyr is the God of the Autumn.  Both of these immortals are shape shifters.  All of the Ragged Cloak Druids are also shape shifters.  They receive the mark of lycanthrope as a blessing instead of a curse.  In my world lycanthropes have preferred animal forms they can shift into but they can also transform themselves into other animal forms, usually for much shorter durations.  A wolf shifter is not aligned with evil.  They are just a Druid (usually) who is a lycanthrope and able to change into a wolf.

The Ragged Cloak Druids are led by Queen Gerrid, the ruler of the Kingdom of Skyerga.  She is a prophetess and although she looks to be a woman of noble bearing perhaps in her late forties or early fifties she has sat on the throne of Skyerga for more than a century.  Some say she has elven or faerie blood in her.  At any rate she is unusually long lived.

The Ragged Cloak Druids and the Druids of the Henge have been enemies for hundreds of years, going all the way back to the days of the evil Kingdom of Asmorgar.  Narl was sent to this area to keep an eye on the evil power rising again in the Old Woods.  He is not allowed to cross the Warfang River into the Old Woods to confront the evil personally as this would violate a long standing cease fire between the still powerful grove of the Druids of the Henge which operates in the Kingdom of Morgwen and the Ragged Cloak Druids.  Queen Gerrid has sent him to make sure that whatever evil is growing in the Old Wood does not successfully cross the Warfang River into the woods on the East bank.  Meanwhile Queen Gerrid and King Gudbrand are hoping to dispatch a party of mercenaries into the Old Woods to deal with the evil there.  Gerrid knows that the power rising in the Old Wood is Druidic in nature but her gift for the sight is blocked from penetrating the borders of the Old Woods.  Even she cannot say with any certainty who exactly is behind the evil growing there or what its exact nature is.

A small number of villagers from the Old Woods have crossed the Warfang River into the Eastern woods and have found sanctuary under the protection of Narl.  In particular some of the few villagers holding out in Kaldrboth Steading know that if one can safely cross the Warfang River and get to the Eastern woods that protection awaits them there.

Encounter #26 (A19)

Halfdan the Old has ruled over the Kingdom of Morgwen for 40 years and this area of forest lies well inside his Western border which runs along the length of the Warfang River.  Halfdan the Old has partly remained in power by aligning himself with the last powerful grove of the Druids of the Henge, which is located in the Eastern lands of his kingdom.  Halfdan's connection with the Druids of the Henge has put him at direct odds with Queen Gerrid and the Ragged Cloak Druids who are in the Kingdom of Skyerga on his Southern border.

Over the last several years border skirmishes and flare ups between the rival orders of Druids has escalated into a period of open warfare and raiding across the border.  To supplement his body of sworn warriors, Halfdan has opened his Kingdom up to every imaginable type of brigand, mercenary and pirate imaginable.  Some of these have adjusted well enough to serving in his war band but there are still those who are simply too corrupt to be trusted even with raiding over the border into Skyerga.

This location is an encampment of some of those brigands who at first joined Halfdan's war band but who later deserted and have plied a trade in banditry ever since.  There are twenty six bandits camped here at a semi-permanent location set up deep in the woods.  For now the bandits have made it a habit to scout the East Ride from just about a mile or two East of the bridge to about ten more miles down the road as it passes the woods.

Halfdan the Old's warriors have been to tangled up in the border raids and back and forth fighting with Skyerga to have the resources to track down these bandits.  The guards posted at the bridge from Morgwen are aware of the bandits but they lack the manpower to do much about them at the present time.

Encounter #27 (D17)

Just a few short miles East of the bridge are the remains of an earlier bandit attack against a pair of merchant wagons.  The attack happened weeks ago but the two wagons still rest abandoned off to the side of the road.  There are no bodies here and no dead animal remains.  All of that was discovered and cleaned up by the patrol of guards days ago.  A few arrows still stick out of the wooden sides of one of the wagons and a large stain of old blood remains in the back of the other wagon.

Just to the South where the bank next to the road rises up into the surrounding fields there are five stone markers set up.  None of these bears any specific inscription or identification outside of the simple drawing of a skull in white chalk.  This mark is a common symbol found on graves which is meant to invoke the power of the Immortal, Death over the soul of the deceased.  There are no treasures remaining here and the dead merchant and his several servants were dumped into their graves blissfully free of anything of real value other than the clothes on their backs.

Encounter #28 (E19)

"Hunter's Camp"

Several miles South of the East ride, off in the midst of an area of rolling plains full of waist high grasses and purple to white wild flowers one can stumble upon the camp of a trio of hunters.  To a casual observation this appear like any temporary camp with a simple stone ring around a small fire, a couple of small, low to the ground tents constructed with waxed animal hides and a wooden frame where four fat rabbits hang awaiting the next meal.  Next to the tents are several large packs wrapped in rolled hides and furs.

The three hunters here are well equipped with studded leather armor, strong longbows with quivers filled with broad headed arrows.  Two favor one handed battle axes for hand fighting and one wears a sword on his hip.  All of these hunters are in their late twenties to early thirties, making them prime age for fighting in the war band of King Halfdan the Old who rules over these lands.  The men wear cloaks and wrappings of fur both for warm and to obscure the decorative arm rings every sworn warrior in Warholds region wear.  Arm rings adorned with animal or creature heads and shapes meant to identify which Chieftain they have sworn their allegiance to.

This is because all three of these hunters are spies from the Kingdom of Skyerga to the South.  They keep a hunting camp in the general vicinity of this region of wind swept plain because it is very rarely travelled.  They are here to provide support to the Ragged Cloak Druid, Narl who is watching the goings on in the Old Woods further to the North and also to be a way station and stopping point for Queen Gerrid.

Gerrid is something of a risk taker.  Fierce, independent and seemingly unafraid.  She occasionally slips out of her own lands accompanies by a small body of Ragged Cloak Druid bodyguards, all of which are lycanthropes, and travels through the wilderness along the Eastern side of the Warfang River up to this general vicinity.  From here she will ford the Warfang River some miles South of the bridge and ride into the lands of Ostvick to an arranged meeting place where she can speak directly with King Gudbrand the Cruel.  Gudbrand and Gerrid are close allies and Gerrid seems to be of the mind that she would rather do most of her negotiations and discussions personally instead of sending a rider whose messages might be intercepted.

The "hunters" keep their camp available as a safe stopping point for the Queen on the occasions when she makes the trip up to see her ally.