2023/03/19 Session 2: Charnock House Part 2 (Campbell, Doug, Gryffon, Madeline, Ronn, Zak) 19 Deepsnow 5023 VA When last we left our band of gentle adventurers they had regrouped in the secret cellar beneath Charnock House . A place showing all the indications of being used as living quarters for a large group of nerdowells, brigands, pirates, or outlaws calling themselves the Redbrands . Lanterns wash the room with their warm glow, a large pot of stew simmers on the fireplace, two captives sit with bound hands upon the floor, and large red letters scrawled upon the barred door at the far end of the room warn of some “DANGER!” beyond. After questioning the captive Redbrands, and at the prompting of the former captive Ned Shakeshaft , our band entered the DANGER! room. Beyond that clearly marked door they faced a half-dozen animated skeletons intent on adding the band to their number. While the fight raged, the brigands were able to free themselves and Ned retreated from the room...

2023/02/19 Session 1: Welcome to Eureka (Campbell, Doug, Gryffon, Madeline, Ronn, Zak) 18 Deepsnow 5023 VA After an eighteen hour sail up the coast on the Golden Enterprise , the troupe arrives in Eureka with their shipment of mining supplies. After an over-long discussion about the price of an inn stay and how comfortable they need to be, the heroes chose the Bayside Inn to make their home for their brief stay in town. In an effort to find some mischief to get into, the team ended up at the Diver Bar . After some light conversation with the bartender, the group is directed to one Blaine Glostic who can often be found at the Empty Net tavern. The Empty Net generally maintains a crowd rougher than that of the Diver, but off the adventurers go seeking the stories of this mad townsman. For the price of a pint (then another and another) of ale, Blaine tells the story of his visit to Charnok House one dark and stormy night. In short, he was confronted by a banshee, a ghostly apparition a...

16 Deepsnow 5023 VA While acquiring mining supplies for Gundren Rockseeker and his brothers from the decommissioned Fort Bragg , the garrison commander dropped several interesting bits of conversation. A large fire swept through Eureka in mid-Fellnight (14th) and more than half the town burned. Prices and tensions are high as the rebuilding continues. The garrison is being pulled back to San Francisco despite the increased monster activity in the local wildlands and throughout the entirety of the Lost Coast region. The decommissioned garrison is being taken over by the Union Timber Consortium .

31 Frostmoot 5023 VA DM. Your meeting with Gundren, on the outskirts of the quarantined city of Chico , went well. He convinced you to aid the three brothers in their endeavor to reclaim the lost Phandelver Mine . The next day you set off for the coastal garrison of Fort Bragg , a trip that should have taken 7-8 days, maybe 10 days if the mountains proved difficult… It took your party 15-days to make the trip. Why? What happened? Horatio. Turns out the druid (Eyrowyn) found a hidden message in Druidic inscribed on a tree. We wandered the forest for hours, trying to find the clearing that it mentioned, but got separated. Each of us saw something of which we cannot speak. When we finally found our way out, days had passed. We walked in silence until we saw the fort in the distance. DM. Sounds like you may have been walking the veil between the Mortal Realm and the Lands of Faerne . You are fortunate to not have become subsumed into the essence of the border region. And more fortunate...

I put together a 2-page handout for the players to give them an overview of the first stop on their adventure. Welcome to Eureka. OUR STORY BEGINS in Eureka, a large harbor town tucked into the rugged wildlands of the Lost Coast on the shore of Humboldt Bay. Welcome to  EUREKA Humboldt County Seat Population 5,900 Eureka is the principal port town and county seat of Humboldt in the Redwood Empire region of the Kingdom of Ajwain. The town is located on the Old Coast Road on the shores of Humboldt Bay, 270 miles north of San Francisco and 490 miles south of Portland and 150 miles west on the Trinity Kingsway from Redding. Perhaps more significantly, it is 100 miles south of the contested border with the Kingdom of Cumerin. The town occupies the largest protected body of water between San Francisco Bay and Puget Sound. The bay is also the only deep water harbor between San Francisco and Coos Bay, making Eureka the largest port on that stretch of coast and the only one that can accept ...

2023/01/28 Session 0: The Call to Adventure (Campbell, Doug, Gryffon, Madeline, Ronn, Zak) Campaign sales pitch. Discussion of Game Play. Characters created. Backgrounds intertwined to create established relationships. A party is brought together and an adventure embarked upon. Our Cast of Characters : Chane Titanoak , 19-year-old male homen, martial prodigy, and sergeant in the Ajwain Infantry. (Zak) Dartina , 20-year-old female homen, disciplined monastic, and one of the masses in the court of proles. (Campbell) Eyrowyn Cwycyshyn , 210-year-old female aelfar, wanderer of paths unknown on both the Mortal Realm and the Faerne. (Madeline) Garnet Stormsoar , homen male, champion of Heliod, and sergeant in the Ajwain Cavalry. (Gryffon) Horatio Helkat , 40-year-old homen male, scribe, sage, and academic at the Lyceum Arcanium in Ajwain. (Doug) 28 Frostmoot 5023 VA Gundren Rockseeker sent word for our cast of characters to gather at the city of Chico in Ajwain’s northern Sacramento Valley ...

What a pleasant surprise. One of the players in this new Dungeons & Dragons campaign we're starting, Adventure: The 3-Dragon Problem , surprised us all with a nice gift. In addition to hosting the game, he presented everyone with these neat leather/faux leather dice scrolls.  Because, who doesn't need a place to store their dice. Also, I think it offers a bit of protection to his rather nice wood table if anyone shows up with those annoying, but popular metal dice which can leave such ugly divots and scratches in the finish of wood tables. As an aside, please keep that in mind when you show up with your heavy, sharp metal dice. Please also bring something to roll those dice in that will keep them from damaging a friends table. Anyway, back to the gifts... They've got a zippered storage compartment which will hold two sets of dice and a mechanical pencil, at least that's what I put in mine, and they roll out to provide a dice mat. And they're embossed with a d20 ...

In order to give my player's a starting point into the upcoming game, I put together a campaign primer and turned it into a .pdf file. Covers most of the basics, the world, races, classes, factions, gods, etc... Here, I'll just share it with you and you can check it out. The world is an alternate earth. The gods are pulled straight from Mythic Odysseys of Theros. Most of the rules are straight up D&D 5e, with some tweaks. It's what I gave them and what they had to work with.  

 The Lost Coast region lies between the Kingdom of Ajwain in the south and the Kingdom of Cumerin in the north. Both of these kingdoms claim much larger tracts of territory than they actually control and they are in contest with each other, with Ajwain being the stronger of the two but also much more involved in internal strife. Saffor is the nation on the other side of the mountains and is made up of large numbers of displaced native scro people who have gathered together with the Saffor nations.

This will continue our examination of the more interesting creatures of the world, Haerth. Our emphasis will be on the region of Marsilon, but we shall pepper in those creatures of particular interest from the world at large. This evening's lecture will focus on the invisible world of the sky and the thraefaestir in particular. You may be more familiar with its name in the common parlance, the aerial servant. Much of this information comes from the writings of the MageKing, Cyrill Kikendall, who was the last spellcaster powerful enough to summon such a creature. Also, sadly, or not so sadly, depending on your politics, he was the last to be slain by one as well. The rest of our information comes from deciphered fragments found by scavengers, extractors, and researchers. Enough preamble, let us proceed. AERIAL SERVANT ( thraefaestir ) The aerial servant is a semi-intelligent form of gaseous creature that can be found high in the sky; living, hunting, and procrating amongst and abov...

DougCon 2022 is fast approaching, Oct. 21-23, and while it is primarily focused on board games, this year there may be a couple three table top roleplaying games in the mix. Well, I know there will be at least one… assuming I get my shit together in time. I’ve offered to run a game of Dungeons & Dragons for anyone that might be interested. Nothing fancy, just a little five room dungeon (5RD). My plan is to run something in 3-4 hours for 4-5 players. A thing I have not done since 2004-2005 in a game system I haven’t run before. Should be a cakewalk. The basic structure of a 5RD varies a bit, depending on the particulars of the dungeon and who is telling you about it. I’m using the following guidelines which might make up the ‘traditional structure’ for this type of adventure. Room 1: Entrance And Guardian Room 2: Puzzle Or Roleplaying Challenge Room 3: Red Herring Room 4: Climax, Big Battle Or Conflict Room 5: Plot Twist The term “Room” could be read as an area, challenge, encounte...

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...