Dungeon23 February Retrospective

Another month, another section of Alhamra put to bed. But before February gets too far behind us, I wanted to post my thoughts on the month that was.

I’m not exactly sure why I was determined to feature an “underwater level” in the ruins. Probably because when you look at the history of Petra, the inspiration behind Alhamra, water and cisterns play such a big role in its history and success. Or maybe its just because I’ve never devoted the time and effort into creating an underwater dungeon. Well, no time like the present. Consider the time devoted.

The verdict: I now see why there are so few underwater dungeons written. Building this level was painful. Before I started work on it, I didn’t realize how little support there was for something like this. Now it’s done and while I feel it will be a fun addition to the dungeons of Alhamra, I’ve no interest in repeating the experience.

So what makes building an underwater dungeon so damn hard?

• Very few freshwater aquatic monsters. Even making freshwater variants of marine creatures, there just isn’t much to play with.
• Its harder to incorporate faction play
• because of the inherent difficulties of exploring underwater zones (spell/magic resources), you have to include strong, clear incentives to explore those zones.

This month was also the first month were scheduling interfered with my journaling. Fortunately, these were things I could plan ahead for, and thus work ahead a few days. What I didn’t expect was that it would be harder to get back into the routine after the issue had passed. So in hindsight, maybe it would be better to push through and make the time rather than give myself the time off. Food for though, anyway.

So what is next? I’m going to take on some low hanging fruit for March. The Arena. AKA the Theater of Pain. Equal parts WWE, Gladiator (the Movie), and Caves of Chaos (B2). Here, a menagerie of horrors perform and do battle for the pleasure of the Sultan and Sultana of Alhamra, and their court. Imagine what bands of different humanoids would do if you gave them a gladiator arena to play with. The unexpected benefit here was a proliferation of factions (patrons and their adherents) that suddenly could populate various nooks and crannies of the city ruins. Each week, I’ll be detailing a new faction.

• the leader
• their champion
• their standard
• a prize (a special monster this faction has contributed to the menagerie)
• something else (maybe a secret, or their horde, or some info on the faction’s domicile)

In the end, that will give me 5 factions in addition to the Sultan and Sultana. Plenty of roleplaying opportunities for the PCs to take on.

So until next time: just say no to underwater dungeons!

7th Sea Retrospective and Dungeon23 Update

2023 is off like a bullet and the challenges are flying left and right. And between those, I’m doing my best to make time for gaming and creative expression. But sometimes it ain’t easy. I totally understand why so many people take long breaks from gaming at this stage of their family.

This month, we bid farewell to the Atabean Sea and the world of Terra once again. So lets talk about that first.

7th Sea Retrospective (once more, with feeling!)

I wasn’t ready to leave. And neither were my players. There was so much left to see, to explore, to get to the bottom of. We had pretty much wrapped up everyone’s first big story arcs, but the stage was set for even bigger things on the horizon.

But we had to go. I had to leave. The journey wasn’t over, but my tour of Terra needed to come to an end.

But at this stage in my life, I just cannot juggle too many different game systems. It’s very hard to compartmentalize and find a good creative balance that doesn’t also consume my work and family life. At work, I’m blessed with the opportunity to not only run RPGs for students during their lunch break, but last year I started managing an after-school D&D club with five other teachers! My role in the equation has been creating content. Lots of content. At this point, I can no longer count the 5-room dungeons I’ve built on both hands. Meanwhile, during the lunch break, we are playing Pirate Borg, an OSR-adjacent game of grimdark pirates. Right now, all my creative juices are steeped in D&D-esque fantasy. I just don’t have the energy to do that all day and then shift gears to 7th Sea, no matter how much I love it.

And let me stress that I love this game. I love it more than I did when we first started playing back during the release phase in 2016. It’s still a challenge to run, and that may be why I love it. I think stepping away from the game for two years was very helpful in figuring out what it did well and how to lean into those things. I love the depth and breadth of the setting, but I also feel the system does things no other game I’ve played does in such an engaging way. I want to keep playing it, to get better at it, to feel that synergy between creativity and play. But sometimes, when you love something, you have to let it go.

And so, for now, we are leaving distant shores of the Atabean for something more conventional. But I will be back.

It’s funny, I don’t revisit a lot of rpgs. When I run games, I tend to run one for 1-2 years in a stretch, then set it aside and move on to something else. That’s what I did with 7th Sea 1st edition. And as much as I loved that game, I really had no desire to go back to it (though I did attempt to adapt it to Savage Worlds a few times). But 7th Sea 2nd edition is different. Maybe because the game works and plays so differently from everything else in my collection. Plus there is so much of the setting that I want to explore! I WANT to run clash-of-cultures game set in Vestenmannavenjar. I WANT to play a game of swashbuckling intrigue set in Iskandar. I think it might even be fun (and educational) to run a monster hunting game set in Eisen (yes, I think I have enough distance from Witch Hunter to enjoy that now).

So one day, the sirens’ call of Terra will lure me to its distant shores again. And I think my players have enjoyed their visits to go along with me for the ride. But for now, we have other fantastic vistas to explore.

Dungeon23 Update

Today is January 31, and Dallas is consumed by successive waves of ice storms. School is closed, and I have completed the last entry of the first dungeon of Alhamra, my Dungeon23 project. The Under Gardens (aka “the Green Hell”) is complete. Tomorrow, I’ll be shifting gears to the Cistern level (aka “the Night Waters”).

What are the Under Gardens? Here’s a really simple boilerplate I wrote for someone on Reddit:

The Under Gardens lie amongst the old underground cisterns that were the lifeblood of Alhamra. They are sort of a dark mirror of the ceremonial gardens that once decorated the heart of the city and the processional to the temple district. They have their own eco-system at this point, full of giant/strange insects and such. They were originally home to the custodians (giant leaf-cutter ants with a sort of intelligent “hive mind”) and the nox (a dim witted neutral goblin variant). But then came Ditty May Knucklebones, a green hag, who had her own ideas about how to run the place. Then, a goblin tribe took refuge here from another adjacent dungeon. Together, they’ve managed to run off the nox and wrest control of the place.

So far, this has been a fun project. I’ve been able to keep up pretty well once, only having a few days were I’ve had to back fill entries. I’m fortunate that my job allows the occasional 10 minutes of calm to scribble something down that’s vaguely coherent. I started with a vague idea of what the level was going to be and let it evolve organically from there. Here are a couple of things I think have helped me succeed, in case any of you want to know:

• I haven’t worried about mapping. I just expect that I’ll go back through at some point and draw a map and reorganize the entries.
• Each week, I try to focus on a “sub-theme”, usually built around a faction.
• I try to keep my entries short. The shorter the better. I usually fit 4-5 entries per page. When I have time and space to creative, I’ll embellish.
• I let the dungeon reveal itself to me one day at a time. I started with a very vague plan and built on it with each entry. If I had a good idea, I’d either put it on my cover sheet or grab a post it note and slap it in there.
• I didn’t really worry about writing every single day. Again, a quick slap dash on a post-it note gave me something I could go back to and fill in later.
• I found that I had fewer days in the month than I rooms I wanted to explore.
• I think the structure of the garden level helped a lot this time around. I didn’t have to worry about empty rooms or mapping because most of this level is a vast, open cavern. The next level is going to be much more challenging.
• I don’t feel any pressure to post every entry I make to social media, nor keep up with everything post on the subject. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen some beautiful work from some people, and gotten a spark of inspiration from a post or two, but I just don’t have the time or energy to get involved in that too much. I’m glad other people do, but that is not my situation.

So what’s next? What are the Night Waters? According to my mad scribblings, these are four partially submerged dungeon zones accessible via a few passages in the Under Gardens (including one very macabre sinkhole that goblins use). Three of the zones are accessible, but one is sealed. It must be “opened” to be explored (not exactly sure how that’s going to work yet, but I have some ideas). One thing I’ve already discovered is that D&D (all editions) are absolute crap for aquatic dungeon environments that aren’t sunken cities in the middle of the ocean. Oh, you can find sprawling lists of aquatic monsters, but none of these are broken down for more specific environments (like, say, partially submerged subterranean sub-levels of a larger dungeon complex). And these dumb, click-baity Top 10 lists aren’t helping. So I’m having to invent my eco-system almost from scratch. Also this level will require more mapping. It’s also going to need some cool treasure or rewards for exploring it, because otherwise it would be easy to ignore.

I’ll report back at the end of the month with another update. Maybe.

Alhamra and the ancient Kingdom of Raqmu

One last glimpse of wondrous Alhamra before we begin the challenge of developing the dangers and dungeons that remain.

ALHAMRA

aka The Vermillion City, the Jewel of the Desert, the Desert Rose

The ruins of Alhamra rest in the eastern Gygean Mountains on the Mesphosian peninsula. The region is claimed by the Empire of Mesphosia, but is rugged and rural with little in the way of the sophisticated grandeur of the coastal cities. Those who live near the ruins believe them to be a lure for the greedy and reckless.

Historic Timeline

• Founding predates the Age of Adepts (–2800 After Adepts Fall (AAF))
  • Small caravan outpost with a cistern
• Rise of the Raqmurean Tribe; the kingdom of Raqmu (city-state)
  • Capital city: Nabat (original name)
    • nomadic tribe from the Banir Wastes settled in the region
    • driven out by tribal conflict
• Shifting loyalties between the Lelemquel and Cozadi Empires
  • largely independent vessel state
• Survived the Cataclysm and the fall into the Savage Age (0 AAF)
  • A beacon of hope and enlightenment
  • A sanctuary for travelers, merchants, and pilgrims
  • City renamed Alhamra
  • Conversion to the Suakadian Faith
    • Grand temple blessed by Ishtar, Suakadian goddess of life, health, law, and war
    • Rise of an immortal priest-king
      • A remnant of the prior age?
    • A site of holy pilgrimage
• The priest-king and his clergy grew wealthy and decadent
• Fell to invaders from western Uropa and the Banir Wastes (approx 500 AAF)
  • Looted for spoils and slaves
  • Priest-King disappeared
• Haunted, blood soaked ruins eventually became a haven for humanoids and monsters.
• Current Year: 2023 AAF

The Ancient Raqmureans

The Raqmureans were typical of the people of the Middle Seas region.  Tall and slender of build, with olive skin and dense, curly black hair.  Their eyes were often hues of hazel, olive, or even gold.  Eagles, sphinxes, griffins and other winged creatures were sacred to these people and often decorate their tombs.  Their religion predates the Suakadian faith, but there appear to be similarities.  When the city converted to the Suakadian faith, many of its monuments and temples were repurposed, making it hard to find identify distinct differences.

As a people, the Raqmureans are believed to have valued subtlety, diplomacy, and pacifism over direct conflict.  However, as time when on, their descendants became increasingly enamored of wealth and hedonistic pursuits which eventually contributed to their downfall.

One area where the Raqmureans were particularly advanced was in their use of sophisticated irrigation and water technologies.  The Raqmureans had a tremendous understanding of the natural flow of water in the unique surroundings.  Water infrastructure included terraces, channels, settling basins, aqueducts, dams, rainwater harvesting, flood harvesting, groundwater harvesting, a large range of size and types of cisterns, reservoirs created by dams, water distribution tanks, and springs.  Many of these remain operable despite centuries of neglect.  There are hundreds of wells and fountains all connecting to the cisterns beneath the ruins of Alhamra.

The Ruins of Alhamra (and other #dungeon23 thoughts)

Alhamra, jewel of the desert. This will be the subject of my #dungeon23 efforts. I’m basing it somewhat on the lost city of Petra in Jordan. As such, it is less a traditional “megadungeon” and more of a series of interconnected smaller (2-4 level dungeons). To give you an idea, here is a map of the ruins of Petra:

Now imagine each of those points of interest is a dungeon. These can be accessed from the surface, but many are interconnected either through tunnels, fissures, secret passages, and magical teleporters. The dungeons will range in difficulty from level 1 to level 10.

I’m not going to do them in order of level, but in order of interest. So I’m going to start with the cisterns, which will be divided into three levels: the Gardens (a weird subterranean arboretum, also known as the “Green Hell” by the denizens of the ruins), the cisterns, and a flooded, underwater level beneath them.

Other than a couple of lists of potential encounters, I’m not really going in with much of a plan. I’m going to go room by room. However, at the beginning of each “level” in my notebook, I’m going to include a sort of overview to keep me on track. This will also be filled out as the rooms develop. I’m intentionally leaving space for important details. Here is a rough draft of one of them (yes, I make rough drafts of things like this):

A couple of thoughts about each of these.

Connections. First, I’ve already dropped the above/below notes and replaced them with Connections. This will tell me, at a glance, what areas these dungeons connect to.

Factions. While I’m not leaving space for this info here, I’ve done a bit of thinking about what a faction needs to be interesting. Each faction needs the following:

• a goal/agenda
• an opposing faction (either on this level or an connected level)
• a leader
• a rival (someone who wants the leader’s job)
• a traitor (someone willing to sell out the whole faction for a pound of silver)

Three Things Worth Discovering. This one came to me when I asked myself the question: why the hell do I want to explore an underground arboretum?! Why would I not say, “hell to the no!” and return to the surface in time for happy hour? I envision these are more “mission objectives” that you would go here looking specifically for, either because you heard a rumor, found a map, or some other hook. What is something worth discovering? Here is a vague and incomplete list:

• secret bypass to another level
• secret history details
• treasure horde
• clue to a larger mystery
• dungeon enigma

Anyway, there will be plenty of more to say about Alhamra as time goes on. Probably in two days.

One More Thing. For the last decade, I’ve kept my game notes in composition notebooks. I was inspired by John Doe’s cache of journals in the movie Seven. I like to customize them, adding ribbon bookmarks and custom endpapers. If you look on the Downloads page here under B/X Dungeons & Dragons, you’ll find a link to my B/X Notebook Reference. Print this on 8.5 x 11 label paper. Make sure you set the print dimensions for Actual Size if you are printing for a composition notebook. (For a full sized notebook, select Fit to Page). The reference includes info from the B/X Dungeon Design section as well as the AD&D DMG. Feel free to download it and slap it inside the covers of your #dungeon23 book.

#dungeon23 and 7th Sea

While I am going the traditional route for the dungeon23 challenge, the thought did occur to me: why? Why not 7th Sea? Hell, why not really challenge myself and do Talislanta?! But no, the challenge of writing something thematic every single day is going to be challenge enough. And besides, as I’ve stated previously, I have an agenda for this project.

But what about 7th Sea? I mean, this IS a blog about *swashbuckling* fantasy. I know a lot of my friends in the 7th Sea community are (still) reading. This is not really a game that lends itself to dungeons, especially not megadungeons. But as so many people have expanded upon the concept of the #dungeon23 challenge (#hex23, #city23, #facility23, etc.), if a dedicated (and obsessive) 7th Sea GM (not unlike myself) were to take up the challenge in the world of Terra, how might one do that?

Of course, I’ve thought about it. And yes, I have some ideas.

Now, if you are completely lacking in imagination, I suppose you could go with #Sea23, and produce an island each week with 7 points of interest on each. That’s a lot of islands. Might be fun for a Atabean-centric game. But if you want to take your skills up a notch, you could do this approach set in THE 7th Sea. Now we have a license to get weird, and to stretch our imagination.

But okay, no really. How could you do it. How would I do it.

See, where D&D is a game about exploring unknown places, 7th Sea is about exploring stories: the players’ stories. And so we need something that can easily socket into that framework. We need something the players are going to be able to interact with, fall in love with, and ultimately have to choose between breaking it irreparably or sacrificing a part of themselves to save it. How do we do that with #dungeon23?

The Alternate Method

I see two ways to approach the challenge. Both are simple and will net you useable, gameable material. The first is a riff on the #city23 variant of the challenge. The second is slightly more 7th Sea-centric.

For the modified #city23 challenge, choose a city in the world. This could be Five Sails, or Aragosta, or the Painted City. Any place you would want to base a game. I would either go with war-torn Altamira in Castille/Montaigne or Vendel in Vestenmannavnjar. But instead of focusing on the locations in the city, I would focus on the people.

Each month, a new faction. Each week, a new cell within the faction. These cells could be rivals or allies. They may not even be on friendly terms with one another.

We are going to follow the alternative schedule for our weekly output, with some changes, of course:

• Monday: Leader (within the faction)
• Tuesday: Location (a place in the city that is important to the faction)
• Wednesday: Lackey (someone loyal to the Leader)
• Thursday: Device (a thing that helps the faction get things done; could be just about anything from
• Friday: Lackey (someone else loyal to the leader, but maybe not to Lackey #1)
• Saturday: Foil (someone who opposes the aims of the faction, maybe tied to another faction you’ve created or will create in the future)
• Sunday: Rumor (about the faction)

So each week, you’ll be creating four NPCs, a location, a thing, and a rumor. By the end of the year, that’ll give you a full city of agendas for the players to interact with.

Alternate-Alternate Method

If that feels a bit too ambitious for you, you could stick a bit closer to the #city23 design (still with the alternate schedule):

Each month, a new district. Each week, a new neighborhood.

• Monday: Location
• Tuesday: Person (someone important/influential who operates out of this neighborhood)
• Wednesday: Location
• Thursday: Person (someone important/influential who operates out of this neighborhood)
• Friday: Location
• Saturday: Faction (that operates out of this neighborhood; tie one of the persons and locations into it)
• Sunday: Rumor (about one of the locations you’ve created this week)

Easy enough and recognizable. You won’t be a island onto yourself with this approach. But I don’t think it creates as satisfying a result…for 7th Sea anyway. But either approach is going to give you something you can use at the end of the year.

As with the other challenge variants, lean into random generators to help you out. Every person needs a name, a background, a personality, plus a physical quirk and an agenda. Locations could have physical description, a history, maybe a secret. Keep things brief. Just a few lines. Don’t put too much thought into it. Don’t worry if everything makes sense or follows some grand design. Just write something. You can always clean things up in 2024.

#Dungeon23 Resources

I won’t be starting the formal process of building a dungeon until January. But that doesn’t mean I’ve been sitting on my hands. One of the things that has excited me about this community effort is the number of resources creative types have cooked up to assist with the process.

It occurs to me that I’m sitting on a lot of resources and idea generators for building a dungeon or campaign for old school D&D, but I’ve never really used a lot of them. Not in concert anyway for any sort of large scale project. Since I don’t generally run D&D, or games that lean into the dungeoncrawling experience—Fantasy AGE and Savage Worlds can do dungeons, that’s just not where they excel—I’m used to whipping up smaller, less extensive dungeon environments. So one of my personal goals for this project is to use everything I’ve got: prompts, random dungeon generators, idea generators, you name it. I want to see how well they work together and maybe assemble something of a workflow for using them.

Anyway, I’m up to page 14 in my notebook. All references and resources. Most of these are available out there to anyone willing to do a shallow (or deep) dive on a search engine. But I’m going to post links to some of the stuff I’m using here. Both for myself and for anyone else interested.

Ready? Here we go.

• Dungeon23 Worksheet (I’m not using the worksheet other than for prompts of what information to include in each room).
• Lone Archivist Dungeon23 Asset Pack (because my notebook needs something on the cover)
• The Daily Design Book: Dungeon23 edition (again, not for the booklet format, but for the fun collection of prompts it includes. Nice stuff to have at a glance!)
• Master Dungeon Map Key from the d30 DMs Companion
• A curated collection of resources on Duvelman’s Vault
• Another curated collection on itch.io
• 52 Prompts from Sean McCoy (at the bottom of the article)
• Megadungeon Links from the Rusty Battleaxe Blog (so much stuff, I’ll surely use something, right?)
• Keying Corridors from the Dragon’s Flagon Blog (some great ideas on making hallways and corridors more interesting)
• Old School Dungeon Design Guidelines compiled by James Maliszewski on Grognardia (yeah, I know some people have issues, but this checklist is worth setting aside your grievances)

Print/PDF Published Resources

If you don’t mind spending a little money, these are some great resources to have for the project:

• d30 Sandbox Companion (New Big Dragon Games Unlimited)
• d30 DM Companion (New Big Dragon Games Unlimited)
• The Dungeon Alphabet (Goodman Games)
• The D&D Monster and Treasure Assortment (Sets 1-3) (TSR)
• CDD#4 Encounters (Kellri) because its amazing!
• I’m going to assume you already have a copy of either the AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide (1e) or the 5e DMG. Both have lots of great tables.
  • If you don’t than download a copy of OSRIC pronto! Chapter 4 is your friend.
• If you can find a copy of AEG’s Toolkit or Ultimate Toolkit, both have lots of weird and fun tables for generating interesting rooms. Neither appear to be available on Drivethrurpg, which is a shame.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my own curated list of resources for this project. I hope you find something fun and worthwhile amongst it.

#dungeon23

One room a day, one level a month.

That’s the idea anyway.

If you want to read more about it, start here.

I know it’s been very quiet around here for a long time. Work. Family. House. Gaming. Blogging is somewhere way down on the list. But I did want to come up for air to talk about this one.

For the past three summers, I’ve been part of a team running D&D summer camps for teens at my wife’s school. Each year, I spend a good month cracking open the ‘ole D&D nerve center of my brain to do a fair bit of story building and dungeoncrafting. After last year, I started thinking maybe…maybe…instead of cooking up a new story each year, wouldn’t it be cool to create a huge old-school funhouse dungeon that the campers could explore year after year. There would always be a new corridor to explore, a secret door to some new sub-level, new mysteries to peel away at, a new faction to interact with. More “open table” than “west marches”. Each year, returning campers would bring with them a bit of lore to share with new campers. They only have five days worth of sessions to have at it. Then, the doors close for another year before they have a chance to go at it again.

Sounds fun, right?

Okay, maybe not. But it sounds like a lot less work than to come up with a new week’s worth of adventures ever year. And these are kids who cut their teeth on Twitch videos and Critical Role screencasts. A classic megadungeon is probably something they’ve only heard about and never experienced. Hell, I started playing D&D in the 80’s and **I’ve** never seen or played in a fully realized megadungeon before.

So, yes. Consider me intrigued.

And then, as if on cue, here comes the Dungeon23 challenge. One room a day, one level a month. No rules other than that. An entry doesn’t have to be word salad. No minimum word count to qualify. Just come up with one cool room idea each day.

Okay, dammit. I get it, Universe. I’ll do it. Starting Jan 1, one room a day. That should get me around 6 levels worth of megadungeon by the time my camps start. At 30-ish rooms a month, that’s 180 something rooms ready to be explored. Sounds like a plan.

Of course, with me, it can’t be just a bog standard wizard’s tower in the middle of a cornfield. No, I’m basing mine roughly on the ruins of Petra, setting it in a vaguely Sumerian-inspired corner of the Legendary Earth, the Empire of Mesphosia, in the Gygean Mountains. Instead of 12 levels straight down, the “dungeon” will be spread out over some six zones, each between 1-3 levels (or more, maybe). This makes it easier to explore in bite-sized chunks, which I think will serve our needs even better.

Yeah, it doesn’t sound very swashbuckley, but it sounds like a fun exercise. And maybe I’ll get some additional miles out of it.

What about you? Got a megadungeon that’s been burning a hole in your brain for 20 years? Why not let it breathe a little. Here. I have some graph paper for you.

Zeroing in on Session Zero

With our Fantasy AGE game wrapped up. It was time for our group to choose a new game and a new story. The votes were close, but when the smoke cleared, the majority had spoken.

Goin’ Back to Théah

We were returning to Terra, the world of the 7th Sea. This time to the Atabean Sea, where a new jolly band of pirates will set sail on the Corwith Cramer to swash, buckle, and plunder their way to fame!

I’m personally thrilled about this. 7th Sea remains one of my favorite all time settings. And the rules system, despite its brevity and lack of crunch, is one of the more challenging systems to play well. Since our last 7th Sea game ended, I’ve had plenty of time to reflect on the game, how it works, and what makes it shine. So I’m really eager to put those thoughts into practice with a new crew (only 2 of my regular players were part of the old campaign) and new collection of stories.

Hopefully my GMing skills will be up to the task.

And so, last month we held a session zero to get things kicked off. We needed to make characters, discuss thematics, and just figure out what the players wanted to do.

Does Anyone Else See a Problem Here

This is my third session zero to be held online. And it just feels…off.

Don’t misunderstand, character creation went down just fine. I’ve got a great group of players and, as I expected, they gave me PLENTY to work with. No, I’m talking about a sort of vague disconnect with the medium. I feel like Discord and Roll20 just don’t really offer tools to help facilitate a Session Zero.

For a session zero, in addition to character creation, I generally like to prompt the players for additional information:

• Character entanglements (relationship links and bonds between their characters; I use a list of options built off of the one on Sly Flourish)
• A Personal Contact and a Rival (a condensed version of the Serenity RPG 3x3x3 pdf)
• A Favorite Location in the Base Town (in this case, Aragosta)

But other than flooding the chat field, neither of these programs really have a good way of recording that information, for collecting it, or organizing it.

Part of the problem here should be obvious. The average group might run a single session zero every 6 to 12 months. So there just isn’t a lot of reason to invest resources building tools for a function that would get minimal use.

As I currently work in education, I wonder if a lot of the online tools teachers use to increase participation and student engagement couldn’t be used to make our Session Zeroes more engaging for players and more helpful for GMs too!

• Padlet seems like a no brainer for this one. It’s basically a big bulletin board of sticky notes that users can leave notes on and organize in a variety of ways. The GM could host a session zero, then return to the site later and collect the information there as needed.
• Flippity and Kahoot! both allow you to create mini-games that could easily be repurposed into some of the random elements of character creation.
• And, of course, there’s Google Forms.

Or some combination of these tools. As it is, I think using a virtual presentation (google slides, maybe) that as a hub to string together these online tools in a meaningful way that could make virtual session zeroes a bit more fun and easier to collect information from.

Our 7th Sea game should last through next summer (at least). In the meantime, I may experiment with a few of these to find out what works.

But what about you? What tools do you use (if any) when you host a session zero online? Do you find they enhance the experience, or just drag down the flow? Please report your experiences in the comments section.

Adversaries: Hobgoblin

Hobgoblins are a primarily nocturnal and commonly subterranean malicious fey creatures. They average height of three and a half feet with a rotund body and a dark crimson cast to their skin. Their long and sharp nose and wide toothy mouth are framed by large pointed ears.  Although they cannot transport themselves as do some of their smaller kin, hobgoblins can become invisible, and in such state they are able to harass and confuse foes.

Hobgoblins enjoy nothing more than harmful pranks, coarse humor, and cruel jokes. They are concerned mostly with ease, revelry, and devilment of hapless victims; they shun labor assiduously – much to their detriment at times, for they are often caught unprepared by wily foes. 

Elite Hobgoblins

A Hobgoblin Troubler is a sort of group leader, and one will always be present in any group of 6 or more hobgoblins, and in large arrays of them, one in 10 will be of this sort.  Add 1 pt to Constitution, Fighting, and Strength.  Add the Communication (Leadership) and Strength (Mighty) Focuses. Health is increased to 34 (17).

In each hobgoblin community, there will be two to four hobgoblin Shamans in each community, and at least one with any force of 30 or more Hobgoblins.  Add 1 pt to Accuracy, Communication, and Willpower.  Add the Accuracy (Arcane Blast) and Willpower (Courage) Focuses.  Typical Arcana include Fate, Illusion, and Shadow. Health is increased to 32.

A Hobgoblin Chief (Heroic), one to two per community or one leading a large force of 50 or more Hobgoblins will also appear.  Chief’s have the Mighty Quality (below).  Add 2 pt to Fighting and Strength, and 1 point to Accuracy, Constitution, Communication, and Willpower.  Add the Communication (Leadership), Strength (Intimidation), Intelligence (Evaluation), and Willpower (Morale) Focuses.  Health is increased to 44.

HOBGOBLIN

Minor Threat

No. Appearing: Gang (4-9), mob (10-24, plus 1 troubler), band (10-100 plus 100% non-combatants plus 1 Troubler per 10 adults, and 1 Shaman), or tribe (100-400 plus 100% noncombatants plus 1 Troubler per 10 adults, 2-4 shamans, and 1 chief)

Weapon Groups: Axe, Bow, Light Blades, Spear

 

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Accuracy: 3 (Bow, Light Blades, Spear)

Communication: 0 (Deception)

Constitution: 1

Dexterity: 3 (Stealth)

Fighting: 1 (Axe)

Intelligence: 0

Perception: 1 (Hearing, Seeing)

Strength: 1

Willpower: 1

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SPD	HEALTH	DEF	AR
12	27	14*	4

*Spiked Buckler and Heavy Leather Armor

WEAPON	ATK	DMG
Dagger	+5	1d6+5
Throwing Axe	+3	1d6+2
Short Bow	+3	1d6+2
Throwing Spear	+5	1d6+5

SPECIAL QUALITIES

Favored Stunts: Knock Prone, Set-Up, Skirmish, Taunt

• Darkvision
• Invisibility:  Hobgoblins can become invisible as a Minor Action, and in such state they are able to harass and confuse foes, but not cast spells or employ weapons to do deadly Harm. Any attack by an invisible Hobgoblin with a weapon automatically destroys the non-visible state.  As noted, they are invisible, but not immaterial, although they cannot be seen or otherwise sensed by normal means other than touch when invisible.
• Pack Tactics

Chief Hobgoblin Qualities

• Mighty

FAGE Oaf Ancestry

Artist: Timothy Truman

A second race that I’ve pulled from Gygax’s Lejendary Adventure frpg is the oaf.  I suspect oafs grew out of Gygax’s use of half-ogres in his original Greyhawk campaign (Dragon #29).  Roger Moore did a more expanded write up of the race in issue #73 of Dragon magazine that was later reprinted in Best of Dragon #3.  Half-ogres are the epitome of the big dumb fighter and share all the questionable hallmarks of the half-orc.

Oafs distill things down to a single fey race.  (LA doesn’t have half-races.)  They are tougher, but not as bright as orcs, but can be equally cunning.  Basically, they are big fey brutes, great for mercenary shock troops.  In FAGE terms, that means a race tougher and stronger than orcs, but not as versatile.  I didn’t expect lots of folks to want to play them.  Back in the day, my good friend played an oaf character he later adapted into his Living Greyhawk half-orc character, Tog.  He had a blast with the character: a sort of Forrest Gump meets Andre the Giant.  Tog’s favorite downtime activity was challenging others to a rousing game of Catch the Spear.  So for anyone reading this and thinking, “why?”, you can thank Tog.

Oaf

Oafs are tall, heavy, strong, but usually dull-witted Humanoids native to the feywild.  They are a savage, uncivilized race, aggressive and avaricious. Oafs live and travel in large, tribal bands.  Despite these racial tendencies, oafs are quite adaptable will conform to the norms of any adopted society.  To those who earn their respect and treat them well, oafs can be quiet loyal and devoted.

Oafs tower over the other fey races, standing between 7 to 8 feet tall.  Their features include a pronounced jaw, large sloped ears, beetling brow, etc.  Shoulders slope to long arms terminating in large hands with short, thick and powerful fingers. Being somewhat dull-witted does not preclude either cunning or trickiness on their part.

Oaf Characteristics: Competitive, cunning, driven, impulsive, powerful, reliable, short-tempered, tough, tribal, trusting.

Playing an Oaf

If you choose to play an oaf, modify your character as follows:

• Add 2 to your Constitution and Strength abilities. Then subtract 1 from your Intelligence and Perception abilities.
• Begin with the following Ability focuses: Accuracy (Brawling), Constitution (Stamina), and Strength (Might).   You may not begin play with any Ability focuses in Communication or Intelligence.
• You have Dark Sight, which allows you see up to 20 yards in darkness without a light source.
• Your Speed is equal to 10 + Dexterity (minus armor penalty if applicable).
• You can speak (but not read) Goblin and the Common Tongue (or equivalent regional dialect).
• Roll twice on the Oaf Benefits table for additional benefits. Roll 2d6 and add the dice together. If you get the same result twice, re-roll until you get something different.

2d6	Benefit
2	+1 Perception
3-4	Focus: Perception (Smelling)
5	Focus: Strength (Intimidation)
6	Weapon Group: Bludgeons
7–8	+1 Fighting
9	Weapon Group: Heavy Blades
10–11	Focus: Perception (Empathy)
12	+1 Willpower