The role of adventurers has evolved throughout the editions of the Dungeons & Dragons game. Initially, they were dungeon delvers, mercenaries, and treasure hunters. But the newer editions portray and depict the player characters as the heroes of epic tales. And yet many groups are little more than lawless murder hobos terrorizing the realm with their insane power levels and destructive capabilities. So I ask you, what would be the opinion of most folk be of these adventurers?  "What is an adventurer? One who goes on adventures? I say that an adventurer is a hero. And what is a hero? A hero is someone with the strength of heart, courage of spirit, and the might of will to go to strange lands and enact violence on the things there. We go to places where there are things that must be destroyed, and we destroy them. Wandering from town to town, getting into trouble, meeting in flophouses and taverns, and getting into scrapes with the law, and otherwise finding ourselves engaged in...

  2023/08/12 Session 5: Welcome to Weaverville (Campbell, Doug, Gryffon, Ronn, Zak ( on Zoom ) ) 1 Winterwane 5023 The members of The Order of Righteous Peregrination arrive in Weaverville late in the day seeking a hot meal, a strong drink, and a room for the night at the inn. Before any of that can happen, the group is questioned on the road outside Weaverville by a trio of red-cloaked sentries. The Order had seen enough of these cloaks to recognize a Redbrand ruffian when they saw one. These three seemed to be, and in fact, claimed to be working under the authority of the mayor. The hobgoblin, Vranden Charoz , was forbidden entry to the town. Yet another show of goblin intolerance and racism in this region. The Order was set to contest this, but seeing no support forthcoming from Sildar Hallwinter , they conceded to the local ordinance. Brandon shrugged it off and set to find a campsite outside of town. Eyrowyn Cwycyshyn left the party to join him. In the end violence was neit...

I screen captured some google maps with the labels turned off and stitched them together. Then I tweaked the color, contrast, and depth. Put the whole thing in Photoshop and started rebuilding it. It’s not done, but I’m not really sure what else will get added, removed, or changed. I just know that I’ll make changes or additions. It’s kinda what I do. I scaled the map down to 4k resolution, but it’s still a big file (3.5Mb). You’re looking at an even further reduced file. The scaled version here is 1440 by 2560 pixels and its hard to read. If you click on the map you’ll open the full-size image. This is the Player Map, I have a DM Map that has all the various adventure locations marked on it. Adventure Campaign Map Cities are marked with castle icons. Towns look a little like the capital building. Villages are a handful of little houses. Hamlets and thorps are the black circles. It’s mostly ridiculous that I’ve put villages on the map, normally I don’t show anything smaller than a tow...

I’m going to reveal the secret formula that turns the real world into the Realms of Adventure. So here’s where it starts. Take the 2020 census population number of any given place and divide by ten. Bam! You know the size of that same place on Marsilon. Pretty easy conversion. For the most part that reflects pretty well the world I’m trying to portray. But you’ll note that both Weaverville and Eureka don’t reflect that formula. central region of the big map Weaverville would be a Hamlet of 331 people, which is not large enough to support the businesses that I want to put there. That number is probably good for the map of Phandalin as presented, but we’re not using that map. The map being used shows Weaverville back when it’s population was 1,000 people. I’m going to turn some of those buildings into ruins to reflect the rebuilding going on in the region. That will drop the size of the town, I think we’ll set it at, say, a population of 931 people. That’s large enough to support an inn ...

I don’t want to run the Ghosts of Saltmarsh parts of my Adventure in a giant city like Waterdeep or Greyhawk, but I think the town as presented in the book is a little on the small side. Also, the source material seems at odds with itself over how big the town is. Is it a place with a population of 2,000 or a place with a population of 5,000? That map seems too small for either number. So I’ve gone back to the Sanborn Maps I mentioned in my Weaverville post and I found a few I like. Eureka, 1886

Sunday, I had a list of outside chores to do, but it rained on and off all day. So, instead, I did laundry and worked on my Adventure project. I spent a lot of time on it, but I’m not sure how much I actually got done. It was that kind of day. But there was a big announcement coming from the other side of the state… No details have been forthcoming, but the announcement was made this past weekend that one of the most anticipated game conventions in the Midwest will be back this year. DougCon ’22 will be held October 21-23, 2022. I’m looking forward to it. It was a lot of fun last year. DougCon is traditionally focused on board games, but I may put together a short D&D scenario if there is any interest. I’m thinking a small 5-room dungeon with pregenerated characters and a clear goal. Could be doable in a short block of time. It’s something to think about.