Of Gods and Dragons: Meet the Characters - Lethanin

This is the third and final installment of out "Meet the Characters" series for my upcoming campaign, Of Gods and Dragons. In our first chapter, we met Brokk, the orc-demon fighter-warlock who has chosen a path of non-violence. Then we met Aurora, the Fae-powered spellcaster with a past mysterious even to her. Now it's time to meet our last character: Lethanin, a gnomish musician who can tap into magic with his musical instruments. Lethanin is being played by a longtime collaborator in my D&D world--they've played Ell in the Eastweald campaign and Ais in the mystery campaign in the past (and played a fascinating paladin in the campaign where I got to play Asp). Lethanin was a character who was still being developed when we sat down to do his intro session, so a large part of the session was in letting his player figure out exactly how his custom class works and what motivates and intrigues Lethanin. That's what an intro session is for, after all, and after getting our feet wet in this session, I'm looking forward to seeing how Lethanin fits in with the rest of the group and the campaign itself. 

Relatively little about Lethanin was decided going into this session--only his hair and eye color (both silver) and the outline of his custom class. That class is worth delving into, especially since it's one of the most freeform approaches to D&D I've ever taken. Lethanin is a "Musician of the Spheres." To build this class, I modified the Bard base class with some features of the Wizard and the Rogue classes, so he's fundamentally a character who uses musical ability to create magical effects, also empowered by some focuses on spellcasting (and less on the Bard's more support-class structure) with some improved stealth and dexterity capabilities. But the Musician of the Spheres is nothing like a standard Bard. Bards choose from a fairly limited array of spells that mostly buff allies, but the Musician of the Spheres creates spells from intention and feeling rather than from a set list of abilities. The idea with this class, which is rather up to interpretation, was to suit his player's distinct style as a person. Lethanin's player is themself a talented multi-instrumentalist musician who enjoys dabbling in the abstract spaces in life which require interpretation. Together, they and I have done all sorts of creative work together that's utilized this kind of thinking, from playing together in a band to our art criticism and theory podcast. So the intention to create a very abstract and open-ended class was highly intentional, and the result is a class where the player declares an intended effect and describes a musical performance style, and the result of a Performance check determines how closely the actual effect matches the intention. For examples of how this works in practice, read on to see how Lethanin's spells work in the intro session. 

I must again reiterate how unformed Lethanin was when we sat down to play--everything about the intro session was improvised based on a few simple questions about where in the gameworld Lethanin would choose to be and what sort of goals he might have in the moment. From the answers to those questions, I picked a piece of in-game lore that corresponded to Lethanin's interests and just ran with it. This means that the three intro sessions in this series were all radically different experiences. Brokk's player and I performed a roleplaying session through a messaging program (which allowed for a healthy amount of planning as we went) over the course of a few days; Aurora's player and I sat down for two lengthy in-person sessions I did a fair amount of planning for; Lethanin's was an entirely improvised video chat over the course of a few hours. To some DMs, this might seem like a flaw in that it means the characters are beginning on different levels. But for this campaign, I tailored the intro sessions to what worked best for each player. Brokk's player and I have often done mini-campaigns over text, and Brokk is a character he's worked with a lot; Aurora's player and I live together and were fleshing out our dynamic as a gaming unit and needed to cover a lot of backstory; Lethanin's player wanted a hand with the mechanics of setting up their character sheet and a blanker canvas to work with to figure out who the character really is. So the approaches all differed wildly, but the effect was that each player got what they needed to be ready to play. 

So let's get into Lethanin's intro session. Lethanin's player decided their little gnome musician would likely be in the city of Torga at the start of the session, just generally exploring a big diverse city with some tension in it--Torga is marked by a divided government and lots of drama between criminals and law enforcement. So the session begins in Torga, where Lethanin is simply out and about looking for something to get interested in. (We established quickly that Lethanin is a somewhat passive character, looking for things to investigate rather than pursuing his own agenda.) Strolling around Torga, Lethanin sees a group of orcish beggars who seem to be up to something who are being hassled by a group of dwarven guards. The beggars argued that they were not breaking any laws, which the guards contested. They began to argue--the beggars said they weren't violating the letter of any law, while the guards claimed the spirit of the law was more important. Taking the side of the beggars, Lethanin played a tune on his viol that agitated people nearby to the point that a scuffle broke out. The scuffle distracted the guards from the beggars for long enough for the beggars to slip away, and Lethanin stealthily followed them through town to a tavern in the poorer districts. 

In the tavern, a group of four Daltoners come in and start raising a fuss--they were upset that a local academic was spreading the idea that all the racial groups on the continent are descended from one common ancestor rather than divinely created. The Daltoners claim that this belief was racist, and they argue that the idea was being used to tarnish their place in the world as the supreme group. Lethanin, in an effort to stir them up, plays the national anthem of the Daltoner military extremely poorly. Half of the Daltoners take this as the insult it was meant to be, but the others mistake it for support for their argument. To drive home his point, Lethanin plays a song about Daltoners being nothing but country fools with excellent musicianship, which causes the Daltoners to become furious. They menace him at his table, looming over him. Lethanin talks circles around them, being evasive when they oppose him directly; they eventually challenge him to say something straightforward. In response, he suggests that only a small mind is afraid of complexity. The Daltoners threaten to break Lethanin's viol, at which point he plays a calming song to soothe them and make them forget why they even threatened him in the first place. 

Let's pause for a second to delve into the Magician of the Spheres class. Lethanin intended to pacify the Daltoners and to make them forget why they would threaten him. First, Lethanin's player described a type of song--something soothing and lilting which could ease their anger but also confuse them a bit. This song's music matches the effect, which is a bit of flavor that Lethanin's player and I deliberately built into the class. It doesn't necessarily have an effect on the outcome of the spell, but it does help to show the way that Lethanin's magic would actually function. Then, Lethanin has to roll a Performance check for the spell. In the above example with the agitating spell, Lethanin's player rolled very well--a 25--which meant the spell occurred exactly as intended. But in the case of the pacifying and forgetting spell, they only rolled a 15, which means that spell generally works, but not on a complete success level. So the Daltoners were in fact pacified into not outright attacking Lethanin or breaking his viol, but they didn't forget why they were harassing Lethanin in the first place. As a result, Lethanin is safe for the moment but still has the Daltoners unhappy with him. The Daltoners leave Lethanin alone, suggesting that he join them in opposing the academic, who they identify as Calies Tasselman at the nearby Spellbound bookstore. On the way out of the tavern, Lethanin plays a warbly tune to induce clumsiness on the Daltoners, causing them to spill their drinks on the people at the table they've gathered around, which in turn makes another fight break out. 

Lethanin goes to Spellbound, where he finds a book about the science of music that provides a guide on how to create musical instruments from scratch. He buys the book from the shopkeeper, a nervous one-armed man who says his shop was recently attacked. Lethanin asks about speaking to Tasselman but is evasive about why, and the shopkeeper grows more nervous, suspecting that Lethanin is up to something. Eventually, Lethanin mentions being a fellow academic of sorts, and the shopkeeper goes to bring Tasselman down to meet him. When Tasselman arrives, Lethanin is again evasive about his intentions (something that Lethanin normally does--he avoids saying what he means directly, or perhaps doesn't have direct intentions in the first place), and Tasselman acknowledges that he and the shopkeeper are anxious given the fact that they've been attacked recently over Tasselman's studies. [Out of game, Tasselman and his studies are a significant part of the D&D podcast I did many years ago now, in which Tasselman was a major NPC who dispensed information to the player characters.] Lethanin says that he means no harm and is simply interested in Tasselman's research, at which point Tasselman takes him upstairs to his study. 

Upstairs, Lethanin is shown a small study where Tasselman lives and researches. Tasselman's work includes a roughly-drawn diagram of the idea he proposes--that all people in Evanoch share a common ancestor. Further, Tasselman contends that humans, elves, and orcs are brethren in the genetic tree and that halflings are an offshoot of elves; he also believes that dwarves descend from an alternate route on the family tree and that gnomes are an offshoot of dwarves. Lethanin comments that better quality drawings will be necessary for the theory to catch on. Lethanin looks further, learning more about Tasselman's ideas, and notices a strange orb made up glittering gemstones. The orb displays the shape of Evanoch on one side and a massive shape on the opposite side; the gemstones display types of land--garnets for mountains, emeralds for forests, sapphires for oceans, rubies for volcanic islands, and so forth. Lethanin questions Tasselman about the orb, which Tasselman calls a globe, suggesting that the world is not flat but rather a huge sphere like the globe. Lethanin asks Tasselman where it came from, as it is obviously of exquisite craftsmanship and is unspeakably expensive, and Tasselman says it appeared when he was praying to Boccob, the deity of knowledge. Lethanin speaks to Boccob aloud, asking if Boccob is listening, and Lethanin's vision grows blurry when looking at anything but the globe. Curious, Lethanin plays his shawm, trying to focus his magic into the globe, and the globe spins. Lethanin alters his playing to be very complex and structured, and the globe slows to a stop, rotating so that Torga is precisely in front of him. Lethanin asks Tasselman if it is possible to help the academic, and Tasselman replies that protecting the shop would be ideal if Lethanin is capable of it. 

Lethanin goes downstairs and plays the bagpipes, trying to craft a spell that would repel people with negative intentions from the bookstore. But the roll for the spell's effect was not terribly high, and the four Daltoners who Lethanin had encountered in the tavern earlier come to the shop to hassle Tasselman. Lethanin offers to help find the Daltoners books in an attempt to insult them, implying that they know very little and need education. The Daltoners threaten Lethanin and Tasselman, at which point Lethanin plays a quick tune on the bagpipe, which successfully created the effect of the Daltoners growing uncontrollably itchy. The Daltoners scratch themselves feverishly and inquire if Lethanin is responsible for the effect, and Lethanin is again evasive in answering. After some back-and-forth in which Lethanin is unwilling to answer directly, the Daltoners commit to fighting him. But before they can act, Lethanin plays an uncomfortable-sounding song on the bagpipes which, with a critical success, results in each of the Daltoners soiling themselves. Embarrassed, all of the Daltoners simultaneously make excuses about needing to leave and stumble out the door. Grateful, the shopkeeper give Lethanin back the cost of the book on the science of music. 

Lethanin talks more to Tasselman, asking about the origins of the proposed common ancestor of all people. Tasselman proposes that all modern people come from a single group which came to Evanoch from the large continent on the other side of the globe. Lethanin probes for more information, learning that Tasselman believes they either arrived by boat (explaining why most societies exist near or on coastlines) or via tunneling directly through the globe itself, arriving in different places in the Underdark. Lethanin asks if there were large questions left unanswered by Tasselman's theory, and Tasselman notes that the existence of racial deities does raise questions--why should an elven god or gnomish god exist if all people are descended from a common ancestor? Lethanin decides to follow his musical intuition, searching the bookstore for other helpful texts and ideas. He finds a book that he feels vibrates on a musical level, a record of sightings of dragons across recorded history. [In this setting, dragons are occasionally sighted but not a confirmed phenomenon, not unlike UFO sightings in the real world.] Lethanin takes note of a few key facts: dragons of particular colors seem to be sighted in the same geographical regions (red dragons near dwarven territories, for instance, or black dragons near elven lands), and the last sighting of a copper dragon (which was several thousand years ago) involved the dragon apparently being wounded. Lethanin goes back upstairs and pores over Tasselman's research without asking permission and sketches the globe for his own notes. Intrigued by Tasselman's ideas and the way he was drawn to the book about dragons, Lethanin decides to leave Torga and go to the site of the last report about the copper dragon: the Liggen Forest. He packs and prepares before setting out for Ringsdale, a city at the southernmost tip of the Liggen Forest, and journeys until he arrives at the industrial city a few days later. 

We ended our intro session there. There is again a large divide between the ending point of the intro sessions. Brokk ended up with a tighter connection to his allies and a way to keep living a quiet life. Aurora ended up with an ugly reminder of her past and an established system of friends and allies. Lethanin gathered a handful of important ideas and set off for a new area where he might further investigate those ideas. Together, we have a network of themes and plot points that should allow this campaign to get off on a strong foot. With Lethanin in particular, the establishing of ideas about gods and dragons will be a great foot in the door with this campaign's namesake, and I'm very eager to see how he responds when gods and dragons become more than an academic interest. 

Next time I update this series, it will be with the first session of play! In the time it's taken to get the characters ready to go, I've pretty drastically revised my plan for beginning the main story, and I truly can't wait to see how it all goes and what the characters do to get started. Now comes the hard work of a DM--getting schedules to mesh, playing the role of organizer, and generally attending to logistical details. But soon, we'll be rolling dice and pitting the players and their characters against something more fun: the biggest and most complicated NPCs my world holds. I hope you enjoy the journey along with us. 

Until next time, folks! As always, happy gaming! 

Of Gods and Dragons: Meet the Characters - Aurora

This is the second installment of our character introductions for my upcoming campaign, which I'm calling "Of Gods and Dragons" (for reasons which will become evident pretty soon). Our first installment introduced Brokk, a half-orc/half-demon man who left behind a life made for violence in order to live a quiet life helping people. Brokk is played by a longtime friend and game partner--you may remember him as Carric in the Eastweald campaign, Beor in the mystery campaign, or the DM of the campaign where I got to play Asp. The situation with Aurora, today's character, is about as different as possible. Aurora is not a menacing person at first glance, she has no memory of her past, and she has sought out a life of adventure. And also very differently, Aurora's player is someone who hasn't really played with me much before. In fact, Aurora's two intro sessions are the first time Aurora's player has ever dealt with my brand of roleplay-heavy, storytelling-focused gaming. But rest assured, reader, Aurora and her player are an excellent fit for this campaign and this style of game. Oh, and bonus points--the player is my wife! She's great, and after our intro sessions, I can't wait to see how Aurora fits into the world and party. So let's get into this character!

Aurora is a young woman whose story very much begins with her intro session--for reasons that you will see in the summary below, she is unable to remember anything about her life before the first moments of the session. She's relatively unassuming in appearance, at least aside from the wooden sword that is always at her side (even when she tries to get rid of it). She's a quirky and imaginative person with a brilliant mind, and she uses her mental faculties to dream up clever solutions to problems and remake the world around her as she sees fit. But she isn't careless or selfish--she cares deeply about people and always chooses to be nonviolent and even sweet if she can. In terms of her location and occupation, I'll leave that to the intro session summary, which I think better conveys how she ends up where she is at the beginning of the campaign better than I could with simple description here. One final valuable note: Aurora uses a custom class adapted from my custom magic system, glyphs. That is to say, essentially everything about Aurora is heavily homebrewed, and so if the below summary sounds like a departure from typical D&D magic use, that would be because she's using an entirely from-scratch reworking of the rules of spellcasting.

Below is a summary of two introduction sessions that establish Aurora as a character and bring her up to the current moment in the campaign's timeline. We opted for two rather full intro sessions rather than one given that Aurora's backstory is fairly complex for one, and also because Aurora's player is relatively new to roleplay-heavy, story-driven gaming, which meant that getting comfortable in the gameworld was an important factor as well. There are several time jumps in this sequence, which we chose to do so that we could cover all of the most important moments and milestone's in Aurora's character arc and get Aurora's player really comfortable inhabiting the character's mental and emotional headspace. (On that note, the event at the end of this intro session made Aurora's player visibly shaky, so I'm confident she's in the right headspace at this point.) 

Enough preamble! Read on to become acquainted with Aurora. 

Our protagonist (who is not named Aurora at this point in time), is a fledgling alchemist, out in the forests of northeastern Evanoch, foraging for ingredients for potions. In an attempt to gather what she will need for a basic healing potion, our protagonist captures a few butterflies in a jar. Suddenly, our protagonist hears rustling from some reeds behind her; turning, she sees a small faerie with oversized butterfly wings. The faerie tells our protagonist she wants the butterflies to be freed--in fact, the faerie will make a deal: free the butterflies and agree to a favor in the future, and in return, our protagonist will forget everything about her past (which tortures her) and the ability to "make yourself into anything you want." Our protagonist considers this and agrees to despite not knowing what exactly the faerie means by some parts of the deal. Instantly, our protagonist forgets everything about her life except for what occurred just moments before meeting the faerie; she also suddenly understands a language she has never encountered before but now intuitively knows. Suddenly, a boar charges out of the nearby woods. Thinking quickly, our protagonist (who has now forgotten even what her name is) speaks the new language in a command for the boar to calm down. The words she uses manipulate the energy and matter of the boar, and it stops charging, coming in to be pet. Our protagonist uses the magical language to summon food for the boar, and then she realizes her predicament: she has no name, no past, no connections, and only vaguely knows that she has some alchemical knowledge. She searches her mind for the most socially diverse and accepting city she can think of and comes up with Torga, a port city on the southeast corner of Evanoch which is socially progressive, filled with moral criminals, and easy to travel to and from. [Torga is a city I know well as a DM--it was the home of my D&D podcast, Listen Check, and I DMed in it for nearly three years.] Our protagonist uses the magical language to transport herself to Torga, appearing in a clearing just north of the city. To mark the place where her new life truly began, our protagonist magically creates an earthen statue of the faerie in the clearing and sets out for Torga. 

On the road to town, she meets an old elven couple and asks if she can experiment with her new magical abilities by refilling a spent magic wand. The couple agrees, and she is able to successfully restore charges to the wand. Reaching the city gates, she speaks with the guards, whom she gives a few pieces of magically-generated platinum, though she later discovers that the platinum transforms back into basic stone after about an hour. Our protagonist decides to seek employment and begins to scout out the apothecaries in town. After investigating the three most respectable-seeming shops, she decides on one called The Mortar and Pestle, run by a warm halfling woman named Heather. Heather proposes a test: create a healing potion of sufficient strength, and she'll take on our protagonist as an apprentice. Our protagonist creates her best healing potion, and Heather cuts a deep gash into her own arm and applies the potion to test it. It heals her well, and Heather accepts our protagonist as an apprentice. Heather asks what our protagonist's name is and is puzzled when she cannot remember her name. Together, they decide on the name Aurora because Aurora likes the idea of a beautiful natural phenomenon that can be seen from her new home city, especially given the meaning of casting light in the dark. Heather immediately sets to teaching Aurora how to improve her skill as an apothecary. While they work together, they are visited by a dashing sea captain, a half-elven woman named Zamira. Zamira orders a massive amount of healing potions and tells Aurora that she is literally glowing, which Zamira believes to be a sign of power and potential. Zamira leaves, promising to return in a while for the potion order, and Heather entrusts Aurora with getting a start on the order while she goes to get lunch. Aurora explores the potion shop, discovering a work and storage area, a pair of bedrooms, a library, an altar space, and a mischievous orange tabby who she names Pumpkin after the gourd the cat seems to like sleeping on. Aurora bonds with Pumpkin, making him her familiar, and Pumpkin helps Aurora to make a large amount of potions before Heather returns. When Heather does come back, she is impressed by Aurora's work and industriousness as well as the fact that she has befriended the chaotic orange tabby, and she sets to work helping Aurora to complete the order. As they work, Heather teaches Aurora other potion recipes, and Aurora makes suggestions on how to increase profits using her skills at math, which surprises Aurora--she had not realized that math was something she was good at and doesn't remember learning it. Zamira returns and happily buys the potions; she says Aurora is still glowing, and she says that she'd like to take Aurora on as a member of her ship's crew once Aurora completes her apprenticeship. Aurora is immediately interested in a life of adventure, but pledges to stay with Heather until her apprenticeship is complete. 

After some more work, Heather gives Aurora the rest of the day off to explore town and celebrate starting a new life. Aurora finds her way to the docks and discovers the ship that Zamira captains, the Edmund Fitzgerald. There, she meets the ship's carpenter, an orc named Gurrik, and one of the foremost sailors on the crew, a dwarf named David. Gurrik and David take Aurora through the taverns in town, searching for Zamira, and find her drunkenly swinging from a chandelier in a tavern. Aurora drinks with Zamira, Gurrik, and David for a while, and she uses her magic to create a small glass model of their ship. Zamira tells Aurora that she sees potential in her, and though drunk, very seriously offers to allow Aurora to be and become anything and anyone she wants to be, as well as to give her a family in the crew. Aurora agrees to genuinely consider the offer to join the crew once her apprentice with Heather is completed. Zamira walks Aurora back to The Mortar and Pestle, and Aurora reunited with Pumpkin, telling him they had lots of work to do for their future. 

We cut then to a year later, on the final day of Aurora's apprenticeship. She suggests a picnic to Heather, and they head off to enjoy a meal and a bottle of mead at the statue of Aurora's faerie friend outside the city. Seeing the statue of the faerie, a few memories suddenly come flooding back to Aurora--memories of where she was before she transported herself to Torga. Aurora and Heather discuss their futures and the shop, Heather telling Aurora that she'll be fine without an apprentice and that she wants Aurora to be able to have the future she dreams of. Aurora blessed the mead, invoking the name of Yondalla (who Heather worships), and the mead makes both of them feel dizzy yet invigorated. Heather tells the story of her childhood and how she learned to become an apothecary--without help after being abandoned as a child--and wishes Aurora well in heading off into a future with a better foundation. At Aurora's request, Heather describes halfling culture a bit more, and then gives Aurora the rest of the day off to celebrate finishing her apprenticeship. Aurora goes to a government building and draws up paperwork to have Heather officially adopt her before heading back to the shop and working on some healing potions, which have become the most trusted healing potions for miles. Using a team of servants magically made from physical force, Aurora manages to complete a huge collection of potions for the shop and make an elaborate dinner for Heather. Zamira shows up, and Aurora invites her to join her and Heather for dinner, which Zamira gratefully accepts. During dinner, Aurora presents the adoption papers to Heather, who tearfully signs. Zamira asks Aurora to join the crew, which Aurora accepts; Zamira recommends Aurora as a future Quartermaster for the ship. Heather presents Aurora with four sets of handmade clothing (styled as an apothecary, a sailor, a ship officer, and an elaborate version of Aurora's simple outfit). After dinner, Aurora goes to the shop's backyard and creates a statue of herself and Heather in an embrace, blessing it with magic. In the morning, Heather makes breakfast for Aurora and promises to send Aurora a letter at every port she's bound for, and Aurora sets off for a future aboard the Edmund Fitzgerald. At the ship, a sailor named Alexandra shows Aurora around, and Aurora uses a well-stocked apothecary's quarters to create inventory for the ship. Zamira comes to check in and discovers Aurora hard at work, with healing potions, alchemical shields, and flying potions; Zamira is floored by Aurora's capabilities and uses the moment to introduce the other members of the crew to Aurora in an attempt to impress them into approving of Aurora as Quartermaster. 

We jump again to two years later--Aurora has served as Quartermaster for most of her time onboard the ship and is generally well-liked by the crew, especially due to her work in improving the profits of the ship. Aurora has only sparingly used magic aboard the ship, trying to keep that part of her skillset relatively quiet. One day, the ship spots an armored fishing vessel being fired on by a pirate ship. Aurora asks Zamira to pilot the ship towards the pirates and uses a powerful spell to create a seastorm that tears apart the pirate ship; the storm disappears as the Edmund Fitzgerald draws closer. The crew begins to loot the pirate ship and take the pirates captive, and it becomes apparent that the captain of the pirate crew is missing, presumed drowned with the remains of his ship, so Aurora casts another spell to transport him onto the deck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The pirate captain appears there, coughing up water, and is bewildered to be alive at all. Zamira questions Aurora about her magical abilities, and Aurora offers an earnest explanation--she can speak her intention in her magical language, and the effect usually happens. Zamira is shocked and asks Aurora to only use her abilities in responsible ways that will help the crew, and Aurora agrees. The ship turns around and picks up the man in the armored fishing boat only to find that he cannot speak. Aurora uses a spell to form a mental connection with him, but he does not communicate that way either. Looking for solutions, Aurora tests the spell with Zamira and even tries connecting Zamira and the mysterious man, but nothing yields results. Finally, Aurora asks the man to identify himself through writing, at which point he says his name is Hyrum Gotham, a man of no rank. Hyrum points to a map, indicating the city of New Dalton, and offers a bulging coinpurse; Zamira peeks inside and agrees to change course back to the city. As the ship pulls into the docks of New Dalton, Hyrum comes to Aurora's quarters. He speaks, saying that he had been trying to find her for a long time. He comes at her with manacles, and she casts a spell that withers his muscles, rendering him no longer a threat. Hyrum asks why Aurora is pretending to not know him, if she thinks she can escape her past, and why she is pretending to have forgotten everything about Pelor's Mercy. Curious, Aurora uses a spell to probe through Hyrum's memories. She sees him in a fancy home at a split in a river, often beating prisoners. She also sees him being ordered by a bearded human man to find someone, but the name becomes static-y, and Aurora cannot understand it. Aurora sends Pumpkin to bring back Zamira and contemplates what to do about Hyrum. Aurora explains what has happened to Zamira, who asks why he had come for her. When Aurora does not know, Zamira says that Aurora is a risk--her crew may not be safe given this revelation--but she believes that Aurora is a risk worth taking. Zamira asks whether Aurora would like to kill Hyrum or have someone else do it. Aurora cast a spell that tried to remove Hyrum's memories of her, but Zamira explains that it's too dangerous to risk him learning who Aurora is again and coming back--he must be killed. Aurora lies to Hyrum, offering him a "healing potion" which will actually render him unconscious, and Zamira helps her to weight him down with cannonballs and throw him overboard. Zamira reveals that the coinpurse Hyrum had was filled with gems and sets sail for a northern city called Xale, renowned for its jewelers, and promises to return to Torga next to give the crew and especially Aurora time to recover from the incident. 

That's where we ended the intro sessions. Aurora's quirkiness doesn't come off in this summary as it does in-game; as a for instance, after making the pirate captain appear alive on the deck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, she simply asks his name and rank despite his absolute bewilderment at the situation. Zamira's crew regards Aurora as an odd but reliable and powerful ally, and by the time we arrive at the current moment, the crew owes Aurora their genuine allegiance. Out of game, we established that Heather sends consistent letters and enjoys occasional visits from Aurora and remains an important emotional part of Aurora's life. Aurora's use of her custom magic system is obviously rather powerful, aided in part by the fact that Aurora's spells' efficacy is partially determined by Arcana rolls, which Aurora has a significant bonus to. The combination of Aurora's quirkiness, sweetness, naïveté, and intelligent use of considerable power is a fun mix to DM for--you never know if you're going to get a genuinely kind and emotional moment like the adoption papers or statue of Heather and Aurora or something bone-chilling like the sea storm or mind-probing of Hyrum. All in all, Aurora is going to be a great fit for this campaign. 

Next time, we'll be meeting our third and final character, who is currently being developed. They will be played by another veteran gamer in my world, the same person who played Ell in the Eastweald campaign and Ais in the mystery campaign. Delving into this final character, Lethanin, will give us a good sense of what we have in store. After that, we'll dive into our first session and see how the characters adapt to this unconventional campaign. 

Until next time, folks! Happy gaming!

Of Gods and Dragons: Meet the Characters - Brokk

After a long reprieve from DMing serious campaigns (at the time of this writing, it's been nearly three years since the end of the mystery campaign, in large party because I've been playing as Asp in a now-concluded campaign), I'm gearing up for another campaign. I'm calling this one "Of Gods and Dragons," as it heavily utilizes my homebrew setting's deities and dragon NPCs in what promises to be an exciting and world-exploring adventure that will punctuate a great deal of the overarching storylines of my major campaigns as a DM. 

One of the players in this campaign is a veteran of games with me. He played Beor in the aforementioned mystery campaign and Carric in the Eastweald campaign, not to mention being the fantastic DM who ran the campaign in which Asp, my last character, played. I'm excited to see how he handles the lore-heavy campaign I have planned, and I think that his character is going to really shake things up. So let's meet Brokk, the half-orc/half-demon warrior. 

Brokk, who towers at a massive 7'9", is the offspring of an orc and a demon, bred to be a deadly fighter who specializes in slaying elves. This plays on the opposition and hatred between elves and orcs that runs through classic D&D lore and which is consistent with my homebrew world's take, where orcs and elves hate each other despite having a great deal in common. Brokk has green skin like an orc and is covered in complex purple tattoos; he wears a black-and-purple leather coat with a hood. While Brokk is meant by his people to be a killing machine, he has done incredible work to overcome his violent nature, and is an even-keeled, thoughtful man who seeks peaceful resolutions to everything he encounters if possible. Brokk lives, interestingly enough, in the land of the elves, in a small town called Drumchapel, not far from the major city of Finiel, with his trusty dog, Dog. Drumchapel is a friendly, leepy little town surrounded by forest and pear groves. There, Brokk works as a fisherman with his closest friend Marq, the owner of a family salmon-fishing business. He also spends time with Hannah, the waitress at the town's cider bar, and Cali, a priestess of Ehlonna. Several locals, like the local guardsmen, farmers, and sailors rely on Brokk for help and advice. He's a highly-regarded member of the community despite his background, and he's carefully made a simple, quiet, decent life for himself. 

At least, until the campaign begins (evil DM smile). 

A while ago, we did an intro session for Brokk, which I've summarized below. I think it shows who he is as a character while also sticking a toe into the waters of the campaign. So here it is--Brokk's introduction to the gameworld I run and his adventures in it:

Brokk begins our adventure drinking a pear cider in Drumchapel. A sea captain and covert privateer who frequents town, Xurk, enters the bar and invites Brokk to sit on the docks with her. Xurk describes her anxieties about growing older and needing a protege in the odd field of privateering, suggesting that Brokk might be a worthy candidate, but Brokk deflects, remarking on how he's had several lifetimes to master sailing as a part-demon. Xurk asks for Brokk's help getting an impression of a crewmate who may be a future captain who will carry on Xurk's most private business--smuggling dissidents out of dangerous cities. She also asks, more urgently, for help sizing up a customer who wants help disappearing from the elven part of Evanoch. Brokk agrees and stays near Xurk's ship while she slips away to give him space to talk to the customer. 

The customer, a young elven man who later identifies himself as Xelin, approaches Brokk and complains that he's experiencing an unfair situation in life. Brokk gives him a hard time, suggesting that he's likely wronged someone to earn his unsavory position. Xelin says that he condemned the elven military (even as the son of an elven military official), which ruined his future in academics and even earned him death threats. When Brokk asks if he can sail, Xelin say he is a trained chef and is willing to earn his keep aboard Xurk's ship, so Brokk takes him to Xurk for introductions. Brokk vouches that Xelin has a strong sense of justice and can contribute, and Xurk agrees to take him aboard. But soon after, an elven mercenary shows up in town looking for Xelin. Brokk and Xurk help him to hide. The mercenary questions them about Xelin, but Brokk uses a friendly but intimidating tone to dissuade the mercenary from looking. When the mercenary persists, Brokk uses a magical power to take on the appearance of dreadful demon, and the mercenary quickly leaves the bar. Once he is gone, Brokk apologizes for being so forceful with the magical effect. 

Xelin asks Brokk about starting over--how to pick a new job, learn to answer to a new name, create a new life. Brokk says that the answers are surprisingly simple, and that the answers are inside you. Xelin asks to be called Lenix from now on, using an anagram of his name to honor his past. Lenix recites a poem about freedom that he wrote and drinks with Brokk and Xurk. Brokk chats with waitress Hannah while Lenix and Xurk discuss the details of the voyage, reminding her that Lenix has a right to start over. Xurk tells Brokk that Lenix is inspired by her mission to rescue dissidents and wants to learn to do what she does, and Lenix and Hannah flirt at the other end of the bar. Xurk announces that it's time to leave, and Hannah plants a kiss on Lenix before he goes. Brokk helps Hannah close the bar before leaving for the night. 

The following morning, the mercenary from the previous night returns with an intimidating elven warrior. The warrior opts for a more diplomatic approach to the situation before offering a bribe to be allowed onto Xurk's ship to search for Lenix. Brokk speaks intimidatingly to the warrior, telling her that Drumchapel is a simple town and that she should move on. The warrior mentions a geas, a spell that compels someone to do something until it is completed. Thinking she means she will cast the spell on one of them, Brokk casts "Suggestion" on the warrior, compelling her to leave, and calls Hannah to get the mayor of town. But in pain, the warrior explains that the mercenary has cast the geas on her, and Brokk dispels the geas from her. The warrior thanks Brokk for his help and recognizes that orcs are not the outright villains she has been trained to believe. 

The mayor arrives and asks Brokk what needs to be explained, quickly putting the mercenary in chains and escorting him to the town's small jail. There, Brokk describes the incident, lying that Lenix never showed up to Drumchapel. The mayor sentences the mercenary to over two years in jail for illegal attempt to search a ship and for attacking the warrior with a spell impairing her freedom of choice. Brokk heads to the docks and joins his boss and friend, Marq, to head out on a day's fishing expedition. They perform the day's work, and Marq points out to sea at a brewing storm that has been showing itself over the last week. He remarks that it seems always to be gathering, but never rolls in. He says that he hopes that the storm just breaks before it gets too bad, hoping to avoid a more devastating storm in the future. 

We ended the intro session there. As you can see, Brokk does indeed prefer to settle things not only without violence, but also without force of any kind. When faced by powerful people who wish to overwhelm him and force him to behave as they want, he thinks of ways to intimidate them into cooperating without actually forcing anything on anyone. You'll also notice that Brokk has access to some powerful magic, and he only uses it for things that are morally good, like protecting Lenix and freeing the warrior of being controlled. People can't seem to help but like Brokk once they get past his intimidating exterior, and his wisdom is trusted by just about everyone who knows him. Brokk is a formidable character, and having him in the mix for this campaign will be a real dream as a DM. I'm really looking forward to having a veteran roleplayer at the table with a character like this for what I have planned. 

Next time in our "meet the characters" series, we'll be meeting Aurora, a human girl with a mysterious past--mysterious even to her, for reasons that will become clear in our next edition. Aurora's player is someone new to my new games, and I'm excited to see what she does with her character. Later, we'll be meeting our third and final character, Lethanin, who will be played by the same person who played Ell in the Eastweald campaign and Ais in the mystery campaign. Then we'll get into our first session and really get things underway. 

Until next time, folks! As always, happy gaming!

How to Design Player Character Notes for In-Game Books

In-game documents can be a great addition to your game; they can allow your players to uncover information in an organic way, and they can allow you to reveal information in a way that adds drama and excitement to the story. I've already addressed how to create in-game documents, how to develop narrative through documents, and how to develop a full in-game book. But you don't have to go to these lengths to provide your player characters with the information they need. You can also write notes for the player character which highlight the major points of the document, which creates a more personal sense of what the player character can do with the information. Read on for a guide to creating notes for an in-game book. 

Recently in the mystery campaign, Beor borrowed a book from noted mage Polly Bridgerman. The book in question was about natural magic and ways to apply it for healing practices. I faced a choice at this juncture: I could write enough of the book for Beor's player to get a sense of the book and its information, or I could write notes for Beor from the book. I chose notes for a handful of reasons. First, the book itself would have loads of helpful information; Beor wanted a book on natural healing, and the book is entirely about that. I would need to develop almost an entire real book to recreate the sense of its full contents, whereas notes would allow me to highlight the key information in a much more concentrated form. Secondly, Beor's interest in the book was primarly ways to benefit the healing business, which means that as long as I provide information helpful to that goal, Beor and his player get what they want. Finally, part of the impetus for borrowing a book from Bridgerman was to have a physical object to use while scrying her, so my treatment of the book is only part of the equation; since the player has ulterior motives, the actual content of the book is less the focus of the action, and we can provide information in a more limited fashion. 

When you're deciding whether to create a full document of simply notes, these are important features to consider. But they're not the only ones. You should also ask yourself whether a player wants to have specific information or big ideas (which relate to full texts and notes, respectively), whether the player character would find specific ideas helpful or not (a magic-phobic character would likely write less about magic than another character might), and whether the information you want to reveal would be best served by a shorter or longer format (big reveals of relevant information should be granted the extra space of a full-text where you can rather than hiding it in notes). But you might also just prefer the notes method of document creation, and that's okay too; work with what suits you best. 

Now it's time to dive into writing the notes. I personally like to start with the most basic information: the title of the book being annotated and the author's name. These give us a good starting place that lets us work from the central details outward. In this case, it's a book about natural healing and ways to do it. For such a clinical text, I thought a descriptive title with little ambiguity would be good: I decided on "Natural Healing and Its Applications." This title is direct and to-the-point--it clearly indicates that it is about natural healing and how to use these techniques. For the author's name, I always start with a race; I'm partial to gnomes and their ingenuity, and a gnome might as well be the studious investigator of this corner of magic and apothecary. So I gave them a gnomish name: Norrim Fastbiter. I also decide at this point what the personality of the author is like--how do they view the subject? How do they write about it? I like the idea of Fastbiter being studious and responsible as an author, but very exciteable about the subject. So Fastbiter is someone who clearly has passion for the subject, but also who gets carried away with themself at times. So in the notes, we'll have Beor acknowledge that Fastbiter has written in these ways. 

Where with full documents, you need to present the big picture with many supporting details, notes only require you to indicate the big picture and provide only minor details where very important. So when we present details about the document's topic, we strive for important ideas only--the kind of things that a player character would find worth copying down. As you write about a vital idea (one of the player character's bullet points), think about what comes next. My first few points in the notes I've copied below is that natural magic can be more reliable because it does not involve the gods, whos roles in healing magic can be troublesome. I offer a variety of expressions of this idea: four bullet points in a row point to the specific ways that divine and natural magic are different. Likewise, the mid- to end-of-list bullet points are specific recipes and spells, which I reasoned would be located together in the book, towards the end. 

But this isn't the only concern to take into consideration. We also need to consider what the personality of the player character is. After all, you're taking the player character into your hands, speaking for them, thinking for them, and handing them back to the player to deal with. It's a big responsibility to take another person's character into your hands, so take it seriously. In this case, Beor is a pretty solemn guy. He's interested in this book specifically to learn how to succeed in the healing business. He is himself a natural healer, so his interest in the book is more academic than practical in a sense; even though he's looking for solutions to the business problems, he's already a natural healer, so the information he learns would be conceptual rather than based on specific actions. This all tells me two important things about Beor's notes: they should take the subject seriously, and they should focus on information Beor wouldn't already have. This is why the bullet points are mostly selling points for natural healing (all the drawbacks of divine healing are outlined in the first four bullet points) and a collection of potions and spells that can be used in the business (the majority of the rest of the bullet points). Beor's final note (that this book has a sequel which could be useful) is something that the book it comes from would hardly seem special--it's just an advertisement for another book. But because it contains additional spells and natural magic information, it may be helpful anyway. So I included this final note to give Beor's player the ability to further his research should he so choose. 

Let's take a look at the final product: 

Natural Healing and Its Applications

By Norrim Fastbiter

• Fastbiter argues that natural magic is related to divine magic in that it pulls its source of energy from a powerful existing force, but natural magic can be more reliable because the wills of the gods are not a factor. 

• Healing performed by natural magic supplements the body’s natural ability to heal, whereas divine healing treats the body with foreign energy from the god. 

• There are reports from healers of more obscure gods such as Kord (god of strength) or even Nerull (god of death) can sometimes backfire, causing the healed party to take damage instead. Apparently, the god’s opinion of the healed party factors into the equation. Natural magic has no such associated drawback. 

• Unlike divine magic, which requires a bond between the caster and their god, natural magic can be learned by anyone with enough dedication. Fastbiter provides examples of isolated communities developing natural magic as a way to deal with everyday health issues, meaning that natural magic is generally more practically-minded than divine magic. 

• Fastbiter explains a lengthy anecdote in which he claims to have learned an anti-venom spell from a willow tree that he spoke to magically. He says that plants which have survived for generations of humanoids often have significant information if the person is willing to work for it. 

• Healing Potion Recipe #1: two sprigs rosemary, a handful of tall grass, a salamander tail, and a dash of clean spring water. This potion, when ground and mixed, creates a pale grey liquid which will mobilize the body’s healing mechanisms at extraordinary speed. Fastbiter notes that the sensation of healing can be unpleasant, but that the potion works wonderfully. 

• Healing Potion Recipe #2: one toad’s eye, three raven feathers, a cup of fresh milk (any animal), and a patch of moss. This potion is mixed and left to brew for two days. The end result is a bright green paste. When applied as a salve to the areas that need healing, the potion quickly soaks in and will relieve all diseases tested in Fastbiter’s research. It also creates a numbing sensation in the healed party’s face, and it can restrict clear communication for some patients. 

• Healing Spell: Bone Mending. While traditional healing spells will repair and set broken bones, the process is painful and the result is a more fragile bone than before the healing. With Bone Mending, the patient’s bones are repaired and strengthened to a greater state than before the break. Additionally, there is little pain, as the spell creates a sense of euphoria in the patient that lasts until most of the pain from the break has resided. 

• Fastbiter closes the book by promoting his next book, Natural Magic in History, which he describes as a chronicle of natural magic users and the development of important spells throughout time. It may be a good resource for further natural healing spells should Bridgerman also have the second book. 

That's more or less all there is to the process of creating notes for a player character. You can take the text you've created, put it in a handwriting font, place it on a sheet of parchment (either in real life or digitally), and give it to your player. You might also handwrite the notes for added authenticity. (I like the font route because then you can distinguish your player characters by handwriting, but whatever works for you is fine.) 

Now you have a representation of an in-game document, boiled down to the most important ideas and made easily available to your players. And it didn't take much work, just thinking about how you present which information to your players. So take your players' interests in documents, create some notes, and let your players get ever more lost in your world. 

That's all for now. Coming soon: technologies to be available in your gameworld, an argument against min-maxing, and an age calculator for D&D races. Until next time, happy gaming!

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