The Tao of D&D

If you are a fan of D&D at all, you owe it to yourself to read Alexis Smolensk blog, the Tao of D&D. The Tao, which is nearing it's 10th anniversary, is like a master-class in running the game we all love. He's current in the process of unifying his world-building system, which contains a fully-functioning trade system, maps based on Earth, a hex based infra-structure system(!), and a development/technology system. I assure you that these systems are deeper and more robust than anything else you can written about D&D. (His latest magnum opus is chronicled here.)

But it's more than just about his incredible systems. Alexis uses a wealth of knowledge to make you think differently about how you run the game. By getting down to the level of detail that he does, the world simply comes alive.  I don't have words for all the praise that he deserves. If there was justice in this world, his name would be mentioned alongside the founders of the game.

Irith - DMG - Core Assumptions

I've played D&D for over 20 years. In the past, whenever a got a new RPG rulebook, I'd read it cover to cover. (I was lonely, and had a lot of free time.) As I've gotten older, this has fallen off quite a bit. I read the 3.5 core books all the way through, but for 5th Edition, I've only read the Player's Handbook completely. In order to get a new perspective on world-building, I'm going to look at the resources provided in the Dungeon Masters Guide, and "work" my way through them as I build Irith.

I'm on page 9 of the DMG looking at the Core Assumptions.

Gods Oversee the World

I'm not sure how I feel about a pantheon as this point. I've tried making my own pantheon in the past, but I wasn't happy with the result. I'm leaning towards using the Dawn War Deities listed in the DMG, but I'm not all-in on the initial description. Rather than having the gods exert their influence directly, I may go with having them be more cold and aloof. They would still grant spells, but I'm not liking lines like this "The agent seeks to further the ideals of that god and defeat its rivals". People are going to worship gods, clerics and the like will proselytize for them, but there's not going to be any crusades in their names, and they're not going to be making any appearances.

Much of the World is Untamed

I am all in for this. There are kingdoms, some of which share borders, but there is a lot of untamed wilderness to explore

The World is Ancient

I like this as well, but I'm going to leave the ancient civilizations intentionally vague. I'm not looking for something like the Dwemer ruins from Skyrim, or the pre-Eldrazi ruins of Zendikar. I want there to be places to explore, but they don't need to be tied to specific times periods.

Conflict Shapes the World's History

I'm kinda "meh" on this one. I usually go very heavy on all the cults, factions, conspiracies stuff, so I'm going to lay off for now. Right now, I'm not planning any world-spanning groups. That might change later.

The World is Magical

There's definitely going to be magic in the world, both arcane and divine. There will be magic creatures, and magic items. But I will try to err more on the side of low magic, than high magic. A stone stone is cool, but I'm not feeling levitating cities.

Looking at the "It's Your World" options in the DMG, I think I'm going to pass on the most of them as written. I'm going to have the gods exists, but be distant, and I'm going to have magic exist, but be more "special" and rather than usual. Here's what I'm going for with my starting assumptions for Irith.

-Gods oversee the world, but are distant from day-to-day affairs

-Much of the world is untamed

-The world is ancient

-The world is magical, but magic is still special 

 

Irith - Finnwyck - Brainstorming the 3 Duchies

Here's some more brainstorming about each duchy in Fynnwyck. These are the things that I want to keep in mind when I'm designing the map. Again, I used names derived from the list of generic place names in the U.K. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_forms_in_place_names_in_the_United_Kingdom_and_Ireland) I like how the names are hanging together well. If I expand the world into other kingdoms, I'll use the place names from other countries to make them seem really foreign.

Duchy of Braedon - "Hilly Forest"

Location: Northern-most potion of the kingdom

Ruler: Prince Bryant Kenway

Landscape: A small amount of fertile plains, giving way to forests and hills, which give way in turn to rugged mountains

Resources: Grains, Lumber, Ore, Cattle, Fruits (orchards), Stone

Imports: Textiles

Exports: Ore, Lumber

Cities:

• Ashfield, Capital City of Braedon ("Ash Tree Clearing")
• Norleigh, Border City ("Northern Clearing")
• Whelsten, Mining City ("Stone Mine")

Duchy of Langstead - "Long Pasture"

Location: Middle portion of the kingdom

Ruler: Princess Lyneve Kenway

Landscape: Fertile plains, with many rivers and lakes

Resources: Grains, Textiles

Imports: Stone, Fish, Lumber, Ore

Exports: Grains, Textiles

Cities:

• Keldstow, Capital City of Finnwyck as a whole ("Holy Spring")
• Stokemore, Capital City of Langstead ("Large Farmstead"
• Chipping Cully ("Narrow Market")

Duchy of Mardwin - "Great Fort"

Location: Southern-most portion of the kingdom

Ruler: Duke Owain Maddox

Landscape: A few fertile plains, but dominated by arid grasslands; Rugged hills and mountains; Deep forests to the south

Resources: Lumber, Grains, Fish

Imports: Ore, Grain

Exports: Lumber, Fish

Cities:

• Sutchester, Capital City of Mardwin / Border City ("Southern Camp")
• Hobbton: Port City

New Beginnings - Urith and Irith

I've decided that I'm going to change the spelling of "Urith" to be "Irith". I kept wanting to pronounce Urith as "UR - ith", rather than "EAR - ith". By spelling it "Irith", I'll be able to pronounce it the correct way. It may not seem like much, but it's all part trying to make iconic names stick for this campaign.

New Beginnings - Urith and Hobbton

I missed a few days of writing, but now I'm back. Right now, the important thing is for me to write when I can, and to not get discouraged by missing days. Eventually, it will become a habit, and I'll start looking forward to it.

I've made some more steps in world-building. I've decided that the world itself will be called "Urith" (pronounced "EAR-ith"). I found it while perusing a list of female names, and took an immediate liking to it. I usually pick the name of a new campaign world by searching for translations of the word "Earth", but I've exhausted those. This name is clean and simple, and not too difficult to pronounce. Urith was a British maiden who was supposedly martyred in the 8th century. More info can be found here. Apparently, the word also means "mole" in Albanian . The more you know, right?

The duchy of Mardwin is taking shape in my head. It's the southern-most province of the kingdom, and I'm picturing that it only connects to Langstead on it's nothern border. The rest of Mardwin will jut out, peninsula-like, from Finnwyck. The western border of Mardwin will be the sea, and the eastern border will be composed of mountains, which taper off into hills as you head west. The extreme northern border shares fertile farmland with Langstead, but only a very narrow band. The majority of Mardwin is grasslands which receive little water, making them unsuitable for farming. The grasslands continue south, eventually running into a large, unsettled forest. This forest acts as the southern border of Mardwin, and the edge of civilization. However, logging has begun to chew away at it's northern-most reaches.

 The campaign will begin in the port city of Hobbton. Hobbton is the largest settlement in Mardwin, which isn't saying much. The large natural bay is used by the inhabitants for fishing and shipping. Hobbton imports grains and metals, while exporting fish and lumber. Because it's located at the ass-end of the kingdom, Hobbton attracts citizens who are on the run, or have "washed out" elsewhere. This city, and it's environs, are their last chance, so they tend to be fiercely loyal to it. However, it's very much a frontier area, with the general lawlessness that entails.

New Beginnings - The Royal Family

Usually, when I start a new campaign, I don't concern myself with the political structure of where the party is starting. They are assumed to be in a nameless kingdom, surrounded by other nameless kingdoms. This time, I wanted to get that structure down from the beginning to add flavor to the world. Even if the party never ends up meeting the Queen, I can have the smallfolk swear by her name, or they can hear rumors about the Duke of an adjoining duchy, etc.

A quick jaunt to my favorite name resource, Kate Monk's Onomastikon, has aided me in selecting names for the royal family of Finnwyck. May I present to you, the Kenways:

• Queen Carina Kenway
• Princess Lyneve Kenway, Duchess of Langstead
• Prince Bryant Kenway, Duke of Braedon

There's a little bit of a cheat on my part here. Both "Queen" and "Carina" have similar starting sounds. It's the same for Langestead/Lyneve, and Bryant/Braedon. I started doing it by accident, but then decided that it would help me remember who ruled which duchy. I mean, Stan Lee did the same thing with superhero identities like Bruce Banner and Peter Parker, so why not stand on the shoulders of giants?

Since we're starting in the Duchy of Mardwin, here's the government structure that concerns us the most.

• Owain Maddox, Duke of Mardwin
• Glyn Llewellyn, Marquis
• Rhonwen Vayne, Sherriff

Note that I kept the same initial sound in Maddox and Mardwin, but that the third Duke is not part of the Kenways. I liked the idea that the Queen didn't have enough children for each duchy, and that Duke Maddox has the worst duchy, being on the border and all. Did he do something to offend the Queen, so she shipped him off to the frontier? Is he young and trying to make a name for himself (and perhaps win the Queen's hand in marriage) by expanding Finnwyck's borders? We'll find out later.

Because Mardwin had Celtic/Welsh influences, I decided to go with those same influences for the Marquis and the Sherriff. It's little details like this that I hope will tie the world together in a way that's been lacking in my other campaigns.

New Beginnings - What's in a Name?

I am starting the process of building a new world for my next D&D campaign. I'll be playing with some friends from high school who I haven't played with in years, and some of their friends who are completely new to D&D. Before this group came together, I really wanted to run the Dolmenwood campaign. While that campaign is fantastic,  I feel it isn't well-suited to new players. Instead, I'm starting a new world. I'll begin by fleshing out a small corner, and then expand it as I go. (If all goes well, I'll bring in Dolmenwood later.)

My starting assumptions are:

• This will be a wilderness exploration campaign.
• The party will need a city that serves as a home-base to operate out of.
• The city will be on the border of an unexplored frontier. It's not a frontier between two kingdoms; it's the frontier between civilization and the wild.
• Being as this is the frontier, it's not going to be a huge city, but it will be big enough that they probably can't sustain themselves entirely by farming. Therefore, it's going to be a port city, which will allow them access to various types of fish, seafood, etc. (That will also allow the party access to water-based adventures, exploring islands on the coast, etc.)

I have a pretty good idea of what it will look like in my mind, so right now, I'm working on the names of the area. This is always a difficult prospect for me, as it seems like the names that I select are not memorable, or clash with one another. In my last campaign, I had names like "the Tomb of Neheb" alongside "Corum's Vault." I didn't fell like those were very cohesive names.

Rather than try to invent everything whole cloth, I decided to base my names on real-world toponymy, the study of place names. Some searching online lead me to this wonderful page, which breaks down place names in the United Kingdom by origin, meaning, and even position in the world, like prefix or suffix.

Looking at the list, I chose descriptive meanings that I liked, and then played around with combining prefixes and suffixes until I got something that stuck. I also picked out a prefix/suffix, then found a match for it. The name elements will help me flesh out the description of the areas when I develop those. Here's an example of the process:

Right away, the prefix "fin" (meaning "holy") caught my attention. I scanned through the list of suffixes and found "wyck" (meaning "place"). Finwyck had a good ring to it, and I was intrigued about a kingdom that's called "holy place". What does that mean? Holy to who? It was rich with potential story ideas. I decided to add an extra "n" to end up with "Finnwyck".

Here's what I came up with so far:

• Kingdom of Finnwyck ("Holy Place")
• Duchy of Braedon ("Hilly Forest")
• Duchy of Langstead ("Long Pasture")
• Duchy of Mawrdwin ("Great Fort")

The process of choosing these names gave me more story ideas. Langstead, with it's long pastures and farmlands is the breadbasket of the nation, while Braedon is much less suited to farming because of it's hilly forests. The Queen awarded both of her children with duchies. Langstead went to her daughter, who she favored, and Braedon when to her less-loved son. We've got some intrigue there already!

Since I've settled on UK-type names for place names, I'll use the same type of names for the inhabitants. I've got a plan for those as well, which I'll share in the next post.

The Battle for Bablovia

I've been a huge fan of all of the "Un" sets that have been released for Magic:the Gathering. I got as many packs of Unglued as I could when it first came out. I did the same for Unhinged. Several years ago, I built my "Crazy Cube" featuring cards from those sets, as well as proxies of the "holiday cards". For the rest of the deck, I put in crappy rares like Trained Orgg and outright terrible cards like Sorrow's Path. I also had a couple of Vanguard cards that could be drafted as well. Good times.

When Conspiracy came out, I added some voting cards, drafting matters cards, creatures with dethrone, and some conspiracies themselves. While the cards worked great in multiplayer, they really outshone the rest of the cube. Enter Unstable. I took first place in the local pre-release, and spent a bunch of Christmas money/gift cards buying pack after pack. It's an amazing set, but it's designed as being more cohesive than the previous "Un" sets.

When the time came to update the Crazy Cube, I ran into a problem. I couldn't just put the Unstable cards in the cube and call it a day. The mechanics they used were too parasitic for the type of cube draft that I ran. I decided to try something different. Using the Unstable factions as a guide, I raided the Crazy Cube for other "Un" cards and ended up building seven new decks. My plan was to pit these decks against each other instead of cube drafting. Thus, "The Battle for Bablovia" was born.

I wanted to make a sort of tournament around these decks, so I came up with some options for each faction to score "points" for winning and fulfilling other goals. The points would stay with the faction, rather than the player, so players could experiment with different decks. I wrote up a first draft of the rules here, so you can check it out for yourself if you like.

The Battle for Bablovia - First Draft

Jandek and John Darnielle?

I'm a huge fun of the Mountain Goats. I discovered their music via Moral Orel after my divorce. The song "No Children" got me through a lot of tough times. That led me to exploring Tallahasse, and to the rest of their catalog. I was fortunate enough to be able to see them when they came to the Twin Cities in November 2017. That was a great show!

I have an uneasy relationship with Jandek. Some hosts from my local college radio station, KMSU, think extremely highly of him and have introduced his music to the area. (In fact, they even brought him to Mankato for his first ever Minnesota show.) I haven't listened to a ton of his work, but I've loved some of what I've heard, and I've hated some of it as well.

At any rate, I was listening to a bootleg of his Mankato performance and reading his Wikipedia page, and I saw that John Darnielle is listed as part of his fan base. I went on Google and found a link to this article about John playing with Jandek! I'm really curious as to how that turned out, but I didn't see the album listed on Corwood Industries. It looks like it was at Chapel Hill on 02/22/2009.

If you stumble across this post, and have a copy of the show, let me know!

Explorations

"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time." - T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

It's time for me to start writing again. I've always wanted to be a writer, but I've never put the time and effort into it to become skilled. I wrote some extremely bad fantasy stories during high school. During college (over a decade ago now) I was able to write serviceable essays for class. I write emails and instructions for work, but that's just to get my point across. I want to write about what I want to write about.

I'm going to get this blog rolling again. I'm going to put content out here for myself, and I don't care if anything likes it, hates it or ignores it. I'm going to try to add a few things, maybe several things, a day. These will run the gamut from RPGs to Magic to video games to books I'm reading to my political thoughts, etc.

Buckle up!