Several
months ago I started a new OD&D campaign called Amberpeak. In the beginning
I decided that I’ll try to reach some English - speaking readers, so all of the
posts concerning the campaign were bilingual. The upside was that English
readers were up to date with all the info on the game just as the Polish ones.
The drawback was that there was quite a lot of confusion: the titles were in
Polish, amount of text was doubled, notes lacked in the legibility department. And,
what’s quite important, there was no introduction to the setting in English, so
the outline of the campaign seemed rather cryptic. Hence I decided to change my
approach and publish English-only notes next to Polish ones. Below you’ll find
a summary of what happened until now and what houserules I adopted. Events from game
sessions from 1 to 10 were already covered in details, you can find the links below.
Sessions from 11 onward shall be covered in future posts.
The Setting
The planet
is divided into separate hemispheres. Knowledge of the cosmic catastrophe which
caused the division was lost in time. The Dark Side is the one inhabited by
humans. The Bright Side is the land of the immortals, gods and titans. Between
the spheres there is the Rift: a dark land never struck by sunlight, prowled by
demons and monsters dwelling in the darkness. There is one way to cross the
Rift and get to the Bright Side: Ascension. It is a complicated magical process
which needs a vessel, called a Dungeon. It’s a somewhat nonsensical and absurd
construction serving no functional purpose but to ascend the constructor to the
other Hemisphere. After the Ascension a dungeon is left on the Dark Side and
usually serves as a habitat for monsters and other chaotic beings. Usually,
Ascension can be reached by individuals only, but in one instance in history, a
whole state was ascended. It happened 742 years ago to the Great Meropis led by
its wise leader Athena and her advisors - the Twelve Titanides. Athena became
the goddess of men who were left on the Dark Side. They believe she can be
reached by priests of Church of Athena:
they claim that the Bright Side can be seen as a reflection on the mirror
surface of Lune - the only moon of the planet. The priests may see reflections
of Athena and the Titanides giving signs to those left behind. The greatest of
the states on the Dark Side is Tanais by the Unhospitable Sea. Tanaisians try
to unite the scattered cities, forts and baronies and prepare for another
Ascension.
There are
other humanoids on the Dark Side. Ancient races who refused to ascend and
embraced Chaos, now demigods leading their degenerate human worshippers. Other
cultures. as old as the planet, who dwell the vast caverns of the Underworld,
never interested in Ascension or human civilization.
The
campaign started in the land of Koban on the west shore of Sea of Mazandarana,
discovered less than one hundred years ago. Tanaissians established a colony
here, in the Delta of Three Rivers, with the Marshes of Pale Lights in the
North, Barrow Forest in the South and Misty Vale in the West. The main town of
the colony is Derbent, a large port on the Sea of Mazandarana. The land was
inhabited before the Tanissians arrived, however the natives have little
concern over the colonists, as long as they do not leave the Delta. Two main
groups among them are the Forest People lurking in the Barrow Forest and
dwellers of Naissus, a mysterious city ruled by dreaded Invincible Overlord
Hespos, Master of the Black Dragons.
Of course, I was inspired heavily by several
sources, in particular From the
Sorcerer’s Skull blog (dungeon as an ascension vessel) and Hemispheres by Rush (mythological feel with a twist).
Adventures so far
Adventures
of the party and further details on the setting are found in ten reports from
our first ten game sessions.
Next
reports will be published in separate posts, so keep track of the blog.
Houserules
1. Hiring
retainers.
In order to
hire henchmen, you need to spend some gold. For each gold piece spent PC has 1%
chance of successful recruitment, so spending 100 gp guarantees 100% chance of
hiring 1 to 10 man-at-arms (i.e. Normal-Men). You need to spend more when
recruiting class-characters: you get -10% for Fighting Men/Women (you recruit 1
to 6 of them), -50% for Clerics (no. recruited is 1 to 3), -75% for Dwarves (1
to 6), -100% for Magic-Users and -150% for Elves (both: only one recruited at a
time). The Referee may adjust the chances, e.g. taking into account CHA of the
character or the renown (notoriety) of
the party.
2.
Wilderness travel.
The system
is simplified. Each hex is 6 miles and the number of hexes possible to be
travelled per day is from 1 to 3, dependent on the terrain difficulty (at the
Referee’s discretion, 3 is suggested for plains etc., 2 for hills and woods and
1 for rough terrain such as mountains or swamps). The Referee is free to speed
up or slow down the travel, e.g. +1 hex per day for following a road or a trail
or riding a horse on a plain, -1 for over encumbered characters or using a
horse in a dense forest. The travel pace should not however drop below 1 hex
per day. In case of exceptionally difficult circumstances (such as forced
marched through a desert) the Referee may order a withstand check (based on
CON) or the characters may lose some Hit Points.
3. Clerics
and Magic-Users.
I decided
to replace vancian spell slots with Spell Points (SP). Each character shall
have a SP number determined by level, casting each spell shall cost SP amount
equal to the spell level (i.e. a first level spell costs 1 SP, second level: 2
SP and so on). All SP regenerate after a full rest. The amount of SP shall be
modified by INT (for Magic-Users) and WIS (for Clerics): +1 for an attribute
greater than or equal 15 and -1 if the attribute is 6 or less.
Table 1. Spell Points.
Level
|
Clerics
|
Magic-Users
|
1
|
0
|
1
|
2
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
2
|
5
|
4
|
4
|
8
|
5
|
6
|
11
|
6
|
13
|
14
|
7
|
23
|
20
|
8
|
30
|
27
|
9
|
36
|
32
|
10
|
45
|
43
|
11
|
51
|
51
|
As you may
have noticed, the number of SP is calculated as a sum of spell slots as
indicated in Men & Magic (first level slot is worth 1 SP, second level 2
SP, etc.)
Regardless
of the SP amount, a spellcaster cannot cast a spell of a level higher than
indicated in original OD&D rules.
Table 2. Experience levels vs spell levels.
Level
|
Max Cleric spell level
|
Max M-U spell
level
|
1
|
-
|
I
|
2
|
I
|
I
|
3
|
I
|
II
|
4
|
II
|
II
|
5
|
II
|
III
|
6
|
IV
|
III
|
7
|
V
|
IV
|
8
|
V
|
IV
|
9
|
V
|
V
|
10
|
V
|
V
|
11
|
V
|
V
|
12
|
V
|
VI
|
I also
allow Magic - Users to counter other spellcasters in a similar fashion as in
Chainmail. There is a chance of failure in countering in case the caster is of
higher level than the M-U attempting to counter (1 in 6 if there is 1 level
difference, and so on, if the difference is 6 or more levels, the lesser M-U
shall always fail to counter).
Each casting
class shall start the game with Detect Evil (for Clerics) or Read Magic (for
Magic-Users) spells and a number of additional random or chosen spells
dependant on WIS/INT level respectively.
Table 3.
Additional starting spells.
INT/WIS
|
Additional spells
|
3–8
|
random first level spell
|
9-12
|
chosen first level spell
|
13-15
|
1 random and 1 chosen
first level spell
|
16-17
|
2 chosen first level spells
|
18
|
2 chosen first level
spells and 1 random second level spell
|
Since the
Hemispheres setting has an ancient Greek feel to it, I changed the titles of
Clerics. Priests and Priestesses of Athena (the dominant religion among men in
the setting) have now level-titles referring to Greek Orthodox Church which
sounds pretty “ancient”.
Table 4. Clerics of Athena level titles.
Level
|
Title
|
1
|
Deacon
|
2
|
Presbyter
|
3
|
Protopresbyter
|
4
|
Archimandrite
|
5
|
Exarch
|
6
|
Suffragan
|
7
|
Eparch
|
8
|
Arch-Eparch
|
9
|
Metropolitan
|
10
|
Patriarch/Matriarch
|
Stay tuned
for future posts. All the English-titled ones are for you.
Pomysł na setting genialny. Z pewnością się zainspiruję, jeśli będę miał okazję do prowadzenia. :)
OdpowiedzUsuńDziękuję, chociaż mam poczucie, że sam go nie wymyśliłem, tylko pozlepiałem z różnych inspiracji;)
Usuń