DDC – Now What?

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It was only a short session by our usual standards yesterday – mostly down to tiredness and health – but it was an important breather for the group. Having had such a fraught fight previously, they needed to recuperate, and on contacting Auntie (Deadeye Alice) she told them it would take her a couple of days to narrow down where Rufen – or at least the token – had been taken. This was because she could tell he was on the move and wanted to get a definite fix on where he ended up.

With that in mind, the DDC had a quiet day. They divided out the various magic items and weapons thay had taken from Rufen, and tried to use the sending stone they’d taken from one of the trolls to see who was at the other end. A furious and almost gutteral voice yelled back that they were going to kill them and then the stone snapped in half. Despite attempts to fix it, the magic of the stone was gone.

Later, an inhabitant of New Town – a sorcerer who had accompanied one of the stranded merchant trains – came up and asked to use the library and was a bit star struck by Kerne. After some attempts at modesty by Kerne, Katya was allowed access and the two began comparing notes on aspects of their shared specialities. Kerne heard how Katya’s previous tutor had held her back, and so offered to help with their studies. The ended up spending a good portion of the afternoon in the gardens practicing their magics.

Meanwhile, Bennet the Bard who works both in the Hold and in the newly established town below it approached Arwan and Valenia and advised them that a number of the townspeople weren’t content to just sit and wait to be rescued and were determined to start checking for cave systems or unblocked passes to try and find a way out. He’d decided to approach the pair to see if they would be willing to be called on if people got hurt or found anything too dangerous like angry bears. The pair agreed to be on call and to make themselves available as needed.

The next morning saw pillars of smoke on the north of the plains from the direction of the various farms. A quick expedition by the DDC to the nearest one found all the building destroyed and on fire, the wells poisoned and blocked with the bodies of animals, and the crop lands salted and polluted. There were heavy troll footprints and the signs of heavy objects being dragged. Fearing that this might be a decoy to pull them away from the Hold, they doubled back and called for the townsfolk to be called inside the Hold for their own protection. A small number of guards were sent as scouts to the other farmland locations.

Not long after, while Kerne and Karkanna were discussing wedding plans, Caeluma noticed sparks of energy at the dormant portal stone and went to investigate. Small shakes and shudders sent the snow sliding away from the construction, and the sparks began to converge to form a small bubble of liquid-looking energy. Caeluma sent someone to go get the others. As the rest of the DDC began to converge, a portal began to haltingly form. It wasn’t stable, and a lone figure could be faintly made out in the shifting view that was forming. On a hunch, Kerne stood forward and poured raw magical potential from her latent pool of sorcery into the vortex to act as a stable anchor.

With a silent flash of force, the portal expelled the figure within and vanished. It left a battered, frozen, wounded Faye Hagsworn standing on the platform, leaning heavily on a rune-carved staff to which was lashed the petrified claw of a dragon.

Image of Faye Hagsworn - a dragon-like red scaled dragonborn with thorns around her horns. She wears yellow clothing with yellow details that resemble leaves, and a cloak. She holds a spear in one hand, and a fox stands at her feet as a companion

And that’s where we left the session. I have so much lined up in terms of lore and possible events based on what the DDC do next. We’ll see, if nothing else, why Faye has sought out her sister now. The last they’d heard, she was on the run from the Winter’s Knight…

Lore Drop – On The Nature of Trolls

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The Chosen Family of the Circle of Rot are unusual in their drive, but not so much in their nature. Trolls are defined by the appetite and hunger, as well as their incredible resilience. That hunger to consume is at the core of the danger posed by the trolls of the Blackcap Mountains, and may also prove to be the biggest hurdle to their success.

The DDC has already learned that the sisters of the Circle are aligned with the Winter’s Knight. They have also learned that the Knight wants to “consume the Spring so that Summer never arrives” and to bring in an eternal winter. It doesn’t matter if that apocalypse covers the world or merely the valleys of Clan Amberhammer, not to the Knight of Winter.

This matches well then with the drive of the trolls to consume everything. They and the dwarves have been locked in struggle for generations in an analogue of the Seasons. The trolls consume and tear down, and the dwarves build and grow. In a struggle of stories, for that is what it becomes when the fey get involved, the way forward may be obvious while also a fork in the road.

If the trolls exist to consume everything, and embody a principle of rot, then what happens if a branch of that partnership is seen to be vulnerable or begins to fail in the face of opposition? Will the strong consume the weak, no matter their nature, or will the family bonds prove stronger than the story?

If the dwarves – and by extension the DDC – exist to build, then how much destruction is acceptable to break the cycle? Is breaking the cycle the best thing to do – or is there something else at play?

NPCs – Riklun’s Raiders

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I made these models a while back and thought I’d bring them up as another example of a group of mercenaries for a game encounter. I’ve nothing particularly made up for them, but I like the designs and thought I’d share them

Riklun - dark skinned dwarf with a prosthetic right arm, dark tunic, and strange energies darting from his outstretched left hand
Orc warrior in chainmail with sword, shield and helmet obscuring most of their face
Orc warrior in chainmail with sword, shield and helmet obscuring most of their face
Orc warrior in chainmail with sword, shield and helmet obscuring most of their face
Orc warrior in chainmail with sword, shield and helmet obscuring most of their face
Lamech - heavily muscled and green-skinned warrior with blue leather armour and a battleaxe held in one hand
Farrd - hulking ogre with a spear and rough furs as a mantle on his shoulders. His spear and arm are stained red with blood up to the elbow
Barrgh - large ogre in tattered blue rags easily hoisting an enormous stone bludgeon above his head

These mercenaries are led by Riklun Steelfist – a duergar psionicist who lost his right arm in a skirmish and had it replaced with a darksteel prosthetic. With his original warband destroyed in the encounter, he sought out and slew the leader of a small orc mercenary group, offering new direction and more profitable work. He rounded out the group by recruiting two ogres and an ogrillon as extra muscle and worked up a number of simple but effective ambush routines with simple labels.

Riklun portrait
Orc mercenary portrait
Orc mercenary portrait
Orc mercenary portrait
Orc mercenary portrait
Lamech portrait
Farrd portrait
Barrgh portrait

The Raiders have a small but growing reputation for tracking down bandit groups and for retrieving goods stolen from merchant trains. These jobs are often undertaken away from civilised eyes and are brutal and sudden strikes bolstered by Riklun’s stealth and psionic powers.

The two ogres – Farrd and Barrgh – defer to the ogrillon half-ogre Lamech when it comes to plans, and so those three are sometimes split off from the main force to act as reserves or a nasty surprise to close a trap. Riklun sometimes joins his orc mercenaries as obvious guards for merchants and has the ogres take a parallel path, ready to rush in when summoned in the event of an attack

Riklun token
Orc mercenary token
Orc mercenary token
Orc mercenary token
Orc mercenary token
Lamech token
Farrd token
Barrgh token

So there you go – a ready made mercenary band that can be allies or enemies as your game needs – feel free to grab the tokens and have some fun!

Lore Drop – Vasselack and Feerwrack

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One of the dangers of the DDC’s fight against the trolls of the Circle of Rot is that if a troll is not finished off, it will eventually come back to literally bite them. Another danger is that nobody yet knows quite what the capacities and resources of the three sisters are. Something that has started to be noticed however is that some of the more unusual trolls have an empowered khyber dragonshard crystal embedded in their chests. One was noted in Vasselack – the spirit troll that slew Lord Bentane Amberhammer. Others have now been seen in a troll that sweated and spurted venom, and another that radiated fierce cold and brought a frost to everything he touched.

Vasselack survived the attentions of mindflayers before being brought into the service of the Circle, but Feerwrack is something far more dangerous. Vasselack is motivated by a mixture of gratitude and rage, but Feerwrack is a believer in the aims of the Circle. He is a fanatic.

Cicular portrait of a bald and translucent shambling troll in tattered rags - Vasselack
Circular portrait of a bald and translucent troll in tattered furs - Feerwrack

Emboldened by the success of Vasselack’s assault on the dwarven stronghold, the Circle looked to find more survivors of the psionic ravages of mindflayer assaults. They were unsuccessful in that, but they were able to further attune their magics with a device they call the Eye of Khyber. Where they found it is unknown for now, but at its heart is an enormous Khyber Dragonshard seething with energies. Fragments struck from this core and bound to the flesh of trolls warps and mutates their already unstable physiologies. Sometimes, rather than grotesques with extra limbs, a truely remarkable mutation occurs – and it is this process that Feerwrack volunteered for.

Driven by his trollish hunger to consume, he passed through the destructive embrace of the machine and came out the other side a virtual twin to Irreck’s lone executioner. At a stroke, Irreck’s assassination capabilities were doubled.

It just remains to be seen where he will place his blades next to shake the core of the DDC

The Week Won’t Quit

Tim Maidment1 Comment

Last week was a bit of a pain, even if it was generally productive. This week seems determined to continue the trend but I must remind myself that its largely my energy levels that are making things feel a bit more of an effort. Feeling tired this morning was at least partially self-inflicted as I’d made plans to meet up with Lady G to mark her birthday – which was back on Sunday. A couple of hours after work down the pub included some worldbuilding for the DDC campaign and some NPC activity to brighten the players’ days – probably.

It was a bit of a late night, but not stupidly so – so a couple of coffees this morning had me right as rain to take on the next batch of meetings and updates with an eye to keeping some reserves for the Librarian game this evening. That, alas, didn’t quite happen due to life getting in the way but we did have a great natter and lots of laughter happened.

Tomorrow looks to be more meetings and project updates, but they’re mostly checking in and making minor tweaks; or discussing more strategic issues for the staff network with our executive sponsor.

So what do I do as a distraction? If you said make maps and random creatures in HeroForge – you’d be right – here’s some works in progress…

hyena-headed warrior with a bill-hook polearm and crude armour
rabbit man with axe and shield in defiant pose
rabbit-man with axe and shield kicking out with one leg
faun woman with sword and shield in defiant pose
minotaur with downward pointing horns, with large violet glowing sword
minotaur with upswept horns and large violet glowing sword
cat-woman with hooked blade and shield on guard
cat-man with hooked blade and shield advancing and ready to fight

I’ve some vague idea of adding them to my virtual tabletop as a very diverse set of mercenaries, hence the same red, grey, and white checked pattern on their robes and armour. We’ll see. Was fun to make them.

Recharges All Round

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I’ve needed a slow day, and as I’m working this weekend I’ve taken today off. It’s allowed for a slow pace. With Lady M not feeling fantastic after a broken night, I did some grocery shopping, gave moral support to a member of staff who was having a bad morning, and was just settling with an audiobook when boy s asked for help with getting out of the flat to do some shopping of his own. Then having done that I had a message from Lady T saying she was on the way round for a coffee, a little unexpectedly as I knew she’d been unwell herself the last couple of days.

Green skinned and brutish figure with tusks, a dark mohawk, big boots and ragged trousers, and large multicoloured moth wings out his back. He is brandishing a green sword in the air against a background of a wooden-framed building

So a quick trip back down the road while boy s recovered from the stress of being out in public while battling agoraphobia, and a quiet afternoon of coffee and nattering with both Ladies M and T, putting the world to rights.

I started the day thinking I might struggle to get much done, and forced myself to the shops in the first place to battle that. It turned into quite a social day.

Having dropped Lady T home, I’ve just been quietly playing around in HeroForge and watching old Time Team episodes on YouTube, leading to this odd fellow appearing that I have labelled “Fairy Nuff”

Sometimes the old jokes are the best – in this case based on memories of stories told and retold in my family based on the Lobey Dosser cartoons by Bud Neill that started in 1949. In the comic strips, Fairy Nuff wore “tackety boots and spoke only in verse” There’s something that has resonated for years and become the focus of shaggy dog stories and jokes – most particularly by my grandparents when I was young. Today was obviously time for Nuff to step forward again…

No Game, Just Preparations

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With the ongoing application of common sense that the real world takes precedent over the game, we didn’t have our D&D session today as a couple of people had to unexpectedly pitch in at work. As is my usual tack then, I’ve warned everyone this just gives me more time to come up with strange additions and quirks for the story.

Illustration of a black, yellow, and red banded snake-woman with a white long sleeved top and hood, Curled and ready to strike with two large khopeshes against a sandy background

More maps have been created, more mercenaries and odd NPCs created in HeroForge, and abstract patterns drawn in my notebooks while I ponder the best complications to throw at our plucky adventurers.

Case in point – this amazing lamia which is absolutely nothing to do with the DDC’s adventures. I just got liked the model and wanted to make something a bit different.

One thing I did do before we went our separate online ways was to ask the group what they had in mind to do next in the aftermath of last week’s conflicts.

They said: wedding planning

I mean, sure, they’re in the middle of a siege with ravenous trolls tearing apart the countryside and trying their best to tear the Dwarven lands asunder – and they just survived a pitch battle and stole the gear off the son of one of the troll’s leaders so why not have a light contrast.

I’m sure the trolls won’t be doing much of anything in retaliation. Well, nothing dangerous. Well, nothing that can’t wait. Yeah, the trolls will probably be regrouping or something because they need ages to heal up. I mean the Archfey manipulating the whole thing is a patient entity.

Yeah.

Oh, and then there’s an angry dragon out there too. What’s the worst that could happen?

We’ll find out soon, I’m sure…

Maps and Revisions – Farm Buildings

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I’ve spent a good portion of this afternoon doing some map work for tomorrow’s game – largely setting up relatively blank canvases that I can use for set-pieces and for random encounters depending on what direction the group goes. With the massive battle last week, I suspect there may be an attempt to regroup and plan, but I’ve been wrong before.

With that said, I’ve also been quietly revisiting some of my older maps and updating them, especially where new updates have added options to ease the process of filling out the spaces with details. In particular I’ve been playing around with the various options to paint things like undergrowth and natural features rather than manually editing things in so much.

So – for comparison here is a map I made when Dungeon Alchemy first launched where I was just trying to work out how all the buildings could be made to work. It’s called Farm Buildings, and had the concept of being a farming community around a pond or small lake:

Overheap map view of a cluster of buildings around a small lake. The lake has a large mound sticking out of it. Scattered trees stand around the buildings and various small hillocks

It’s plain and simple with fields, gardens, various farmsteads and associated features. I think I spent more time trying to work out the rise and fall of the ground so it wasn’t utterly impassable or impractical. There’s no grand design. To be fair, the changes made today haven’t addressed anything like that, but I’ve got a more definite thought about how I’ll likely use it in the near future:

Overhead map view based on the previous image but with far more undergrowth and foliage and natural features as discussed in the main text body.

This feels more like a nestled collection of buildings even though all I’ve done is add rock features, trees, and bushes. Oh, I also exported this with a more 3D presentation than the more plain orthographic settings of the original. Its a bit on the large side compared to most of the maps I use in sessions, but it could work well with some larger or more mobile opponents on it to make better use of the space. All in all it feels a more naturalistic space just with these extra details painted in. It would almost certainly never exist in the real world, but it feels like it could.

I’ve a few more of these, so I’ll sprinkle them from time to time – so there’s that to look forward to

That Was Definitely A Week

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I’m really drained today after a week that has seen a lot happen, just not necessarily in the order I’d planned. Most of it has been very positive or has brought great outcomes for people on the work side of things. The biggest relief has been that the boy s has been able to access some mental health support through his GP. Now all we’ve got to do is help him get his housing sorted. Meanwhile Lady M has been storming through all barriers and has multiple nominations for awards in diversity, being an excellent manager, and a host of other wonderful things.

There’s even sunshine – and with the door open I can hear families playing out on the estate. It feels an absolute age since I’ve heard that. I’ve even been able to get in touch with my parents and have a catch-up chat. Beyond a quick dive out first thing to get groceries for the weekend I’ve otherwise been curled up on the sofa – though that’s also because its the weekend before payday so budget constraints have reinforced the idea of staying home. I’m just very aware I need the rest.

In gaming news, I got a bit bored the other day and worked up a redesign of Lady M’s character token for the DDC Sunday game, so I’ve spent a bit of time today uploading that to the virtual tabletop (Roll20) so its ready to go tomorrow.

circular frame of different colour swirling mists around a portrait token of a bronze scale and horned dragon-like figure
top-down token of a bronze scaled and horned figure in flowing blue robes and skirt. A wooden staff is held horizontal to the ground in the right hand, and green and yellow lightning is bursting from the left hand towards a target
Full length portrait of a female bronze scaled and horned dragon-like figure in blue and green robes and skirt. They hold a wooden staff nearly horizontal to the ground in their right hand and they are turning to the left, casting green and yellow lightning from their left hand. The background is an out of focus path in the woods

Who knows, maybe this week Kerne won’t be quite so caught up in life and death struggles. My magic eight-ball isn’t so sure…

Nearly The Weekend

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I was enjoying my Friday and then realised it was a Thursday. Its an old joke but I have no shame and used it in a conversation today. It’s been another full day. Thankfully it’s mostly been a positive day, but between negotiations and outreach, with a side sprinkling of mental health first aiding and worrying about the boy s it has drained me.

I’ve been sitting quietly, trying to shed the load off my shoulders, and waiting for the top of my head to stop feeling like it has peeled open. Watching a film and paying Destiny hasn’t done more than briefly distract me, so now it’s time to see if sleep can hurry up and catch me unawares while I meditate.

That would be nice. See you on the other side for Friday Part 2