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OBSIDIAN PORTAL CAMPAIGN OF THE YEAR 2023!
GET READY TO CAST YOUR VOTES!
Voting will open Monday December 4th, 2023 and will last through Monday December 11th!
It’s that time of year again- you guessed it, it’s Obsidian Portal’s Campaign of the Year 2023! It’s the ultimate showdown between some of the best of the best Obsidian Portal has to offer: The winners of our Campaign of the Month 2023! Voting is open to anyone who wishes to contribute- be sure to keep an eye out on the OP Community Forums, the OP BLOG, Facebook and Twitter for more information!
We have some great prizes in store for both the first place winner and our first runner up! In addition to winning Free Ascendant membership time, this year we have some AMAZING prizes generously donated from some of the best in the industry, including Paizo, Frog God Games, Limitless Adventures, Crit Academy and Mongoose Publishing!
FIRST PRIZE includes:
– Digital copies of both Starfinder and Pathfinder Second Edition Beginner Boxes and/or Core Rulebooks from Paizo,
– Physical copies of Traveller Core Rulebook and the Paranoia Core Book from Mongoose Publishing,
– Digital copies of Limitless Encounters 1, Limitless NPCs 1 and Limitless Monsters 1 from Limitless Adventures,
– A gift certificate worth $200 to select any digital items in store from Frog God Games,
– Physical copies of Bountiful Bounties and Aelx’s Bombastic Oddities from Crit Academy,
– 1 Year Ascendant Membership from Obsidian Portal
RUNNER UP PRIZE includes:
– A gift certificate worth $100 to select any digital items in store from Frog God Games
– 1 Year Ascendant Membership from Obsidian Portal
A huge thank you to our sponsors for this years prizes!:
Obsidian Portal Campaign of the Month October 2023: Thieves & Kings
Well met and welcome to Argoth, the land of Thieves & Kings — our October Campaign of the Month winner! GM Robling is no stranger to our crown of conquerors, and adds to his accolades with some of the best world-building and writing you’ll read this side of the City of Bright Sails. Thieves & Kings has been many years in the making and promises to take adventurers from humble inns to fey courts to powerful portals into the realms beyond understanding. Warm your worn hands by the common room fire and listen to our tale…
What’s new in your life since your Campaign of the Month win in 2014 for “Battletech (Farscape): The New Breed”?
Practically nothing, though, fundamentally, COVID changed all our lives, neh?
“Thieves & Kings” has many chapters and hundreds of gaming sessions spanning seven years of real time. We know it would be impossible to sum up everything, but could you give us an overview of the story, so far?
Overview, hmmmm. It started with six players, each representing a character, who had been fostered for their youth to various clans across the realm of Shem, being informed their adopted father had died and left them his farm. They gathered and discussed matters, and were immediately involved in an assassination, and fled the town of Hexwater a few steps in front of the local law. Over the next few months, they established themselves in the region of Thornkeep, and discovered the local mystery around a troll invasion, the local fey creatures, and mistakenly (?) began hunting a former fey hag as their chief enemy. As the years progressed, they began to acquire divine powers and discovered that their former enemy “Blackmaw” wasn’t so bad, really, and that she was fighting someone who was far worse, “The Great Hunger”, her former lover. At present, the survivors have decided they wish to embrace these offers of divine power, and are sorting-out how to achieve true divinity as a Demi-God. But their enemy, The Great Hunger and his followers, know them and work to unravel their plans as they unravel his.
The continent of Argoth and the world of Kethira as a whole is extensively catalogued in your wiki — it’s a veritable library of information that has been built up since your school days. And the character section is absolutely full of people and stories. What were your favorite bits to write and what parts of the site do you find most useful?
It’s extensive because of the years of effort both I and my players have placed into it. The efforts of today’s campaign reflect in the campaigns to come, and that forms a very wide amount of information that never makes the WIKI or Portal files, but exists, nonetheless. The ability of the Obsidian Portal website allows a wide disbursement of information, including bios, stats and even connects them to items and other characters, because each has their own story to tell and share. I’ve found if you approach each NPC as a real person, and treat their reactions as real and honest from *their* point-of-view, it enriches the encounters with the players, and then influences future encounters.
At the end of the wiki for “Thieves & Kings” there is a section on customized rules for the campaign — many adapted from various supplements and systems and modified to fit your needs. The Rulership and Thieves’ Guild Operation rules were especially interesting. How have these worked out for you and your players during the game?
I established each for the players to read and decide which version they wished to implement for various campaign management operations. Most were discarded, as the group slipped away from large-scale management of armies and realms, and decided to concentrate on small, close-knit organizations of their own, dealing with dozens of people, rather than hundreds. The “Thieves’ Guild” operations remain important, as one of the players has worked to establish their control over the underworld of Mornhaven, and allows us to abstract that aspect of the game enough to concentrate more on the role-play and combat. Which was kinda the point of them, really.
According to your Obsidian Portal bio, you have tried out many game systems and have a lot of experience with a variety of settings and game mechanics. From your perspective, what are the advantages and disadvantages of 5th Edition D&D compared to other games? Was shifting Argoth from other editions into 5th Ed. a challenge? Are there any plans to convert it into other systems in the future, if needed?
The advantage of 5th edition, I feel, is that it remains very robust in sliding back and forth between combat and role-playing, and allows exploration to be easily adapted to the encounters. If you compare it to early editions, it allows a great deal of mobility and movement to combat, which allows players to shine, rather than simply two characters beating on each other, whittling away HP as they go (*Cough Cough* 2nd Edition *Cough*). Pathfinder is nice, but too dependent on Prestige classes and Feats determining each encounter, whereas 5th Ed allows simpler math and makes the combat flow swiftly. I don’t think we’ll be transitioning into D&D One anytime soon, if ever, and the recent “home rules” introduced by Larian Studios “Baldur’s Gate 3” are intriguing and show how simple rules changes can make a difference in playstyle and encounters, and bears scrutiny.
The Adventure Logs for “Thieves & Kings” feature a clever format — a quotation, an inspiring image, and a video link to help set the mood. Are these atmospheric touches selected prior to a game session or afterward? Do you find that reinforcing the moods or themes during gameplay to be important or is it better to let the players create their own impressions?
I have found my players don’t typically pay much attention to them, until suddenly in the middle of an encounter they remember the title of the episode, or the picture, or the video, and it all falls into place in their minds. That’s the point of it, really, to hint a little and to provide some real physicality at a key part of the episode. Sometimes, however, they ignore it completely, and go out into left field, and the title proves irrelevant, as they choose to follow a new line of investigation from what they said they wanted to at the end of the last session. But that’s okay, because, ultimately the Players have the power, and choose where they want to go and what they want to accomplish. I simply provide options.
As to mood, I’ve found sometimes that you can lead the players to the encounter,and set the mood, but if they’re not into it, they won’t care. Sometimes they just want to chew gum and fight, and they forgot their gum.
What have been your favorite moments in the campaign, so far?
The sudden realization that one of the main characters, Blackmaw, wasn’t really so bad after all. She’s unabashedly NE, but they have accepted her as an ally, because she doesn’t see them as rivals, and sometimes they prove to be useful pawns to play. Her reveal of her love for her monstrous children to the party was especially precious, and one of the players said it was the highlight of the campaign to her. “Blackmaw” is my favorite NPC of all time.
Also the moment they were confronted with the knowledge there were actually seven children raised by their father, and they had another “sister”. At that point, they realized that the place they had been investigating was called “The Hall of Seven”; and they realized a truth they had known for months, but never clued into. Later, she swindled them to acquire a magical artifact with them, and during that reveal, they realized they’d been utterly taken advantage of, and never trusted anyone for a long time afterwards. They really didn’t like or trust her for a long time, though now they are openly working with her. “Skazzy” is a favored NPC this campaign.
Without giving too much away, what hints can you give us about the plans (if there are any) for the conclusion of the tales of “Thieves & Kings”? Or is this the kind of adventure that might go on for as long as possible?
The players know the ultimate goal of the campaign is to achieve demi-godhood, and the defeat of The Great Hunger. Only a couple of levels away from that, they understand their goal, and know that their characters are going to become demigods in the campaigns to come, so they have a vested interest in achieving this goal. Back when they gained their first “Divine Level”, they established the path of their cult, and its worship, and now it’s all about following-up with this to achieve their proclaimed status. We just started talking about what the next campaign might be…
During your first interview with Obsidian Portal for your prior Campaign of the Month win, you wisely advised GM’s to avoid being adversarial and to “Be the storyteller, and make the players the focus of the campaign.” In the years between then and now, what other insights have you gleaned regarding the craft of game-mastering, writing, and world-building?
Don’t plan too much. While I run an open-world campaign format, and for the most part, the players are quite willing to stay close to home. They really have so much to explore closeby, that they don’t *need* to travel much. Just have a couple of adventures handy that you know well and can adapt on the fly, and apply, whenever the players decide to “go rogue”. And they will go rogue on you in an open-world format. Otherwise keep plenty of notes so you can allow them to explore the world around them, and forge their own destiny. If you have notes from previous campaigns handy, they can travel over lands from previous campaigns, and realize what their previous characters have done, and how much effect their actions have at the moment and reaching into the future.
If you want the Players to travel, provide them with the means; Teleport Circles and Flying Boats (Spelljammer), or even just normal boats, allow them to travel extensively and explore across the worlds you design, and let them explore other genres of gaming, such as Oriental Adventures, Fallen Empire ruins and even isolated rocks in space at need, and give them a tie to the campaign world that they will treasure and love. In this campaign, they adore their flying ship, the “Emerald Angel”, improved their ability to get across the map quickly, rather than slogging across mountains for weeks, they can travel across the planet in days, or reach the markets at Mornhevan in a couple hours, rather than a couple days, making them able to concentrate on the task at hand, rather than the means to get there.
Otherwise, my campaign advice remains the same, keep it open-world, keep copious notes, and let the Players explore themselves as they explore your world, and they will develop the stories you will replay and talk about for decades.
Thus concludes our tale of Thieves & Kings, for now. Our thanks to Robling and his Players, once again, for sharing their creative might. Go forth now, fellow adventurers, with this edict: find us more worthy campaigns upon which to cast our eyes, so that our circle of judges may bring you fresh insights and inspirations. Bring your treasured discoveries to the forums, here.
Obsidian Portal Campaign of the Month August 2023: Theophagie
This month we take a step back in time, joining GM AshleyMcdniel and party in their campaign, Theophagie. Set in the Iron Age, Theophagie explores a world impacted by an event known as the Theophage, where the majority of the male Greek Deities were killed, leaving large power vacuums and spawning the creation of matriarchal societies throughout Greece and Gaul. Here the Gods and aren’t just concepts- but real beings that walk the earth and see fit to involve themselves in mortal affairs. Join us in talking with GM AshleyMcdniel as he shares his insight, tips and tricks!
First off, feel free to tell us about the person behind the GM screen. Where are you from? What do you do aside from gaming? Alter Egos? Life partners? Family? Where can we interact with you on the internet?
My name is Ashley (He/Him) and I live in San Antonio, Texas. Besides table top RPGs I also play Magic and Battle Tech. I also enjoy swimming, fishing and target shooting. I live with the love of my life Charlie (they/them.) If you wanted to chat about gamming you can PM me on Discord at scarecrow#2992
Tell us a little bit about the setting of your game. What made you choose our own world for the game?
Theophagie is an anachronistic game set in Europe. It is a way to explore the myths and legends of several cultures and ask see how they interact. A friend of mine name Josh found obsidian portal and introduced me. I feel in love and have been using it ever since.
Tell us a little about why you chose Dungeons and Dragons 3rd edition for your game system. How do you feel this system supports the type of game you are running?
I have a lot of fond memories of DND 3.5. However, it is not without flaws. I looked at it as a place to start and made a huge amount of home brew to change the flavor of the game. DND 3.5 has a huge amount of very high-power class and feat combinations. I wanted to have a more dangerous, high risk feel so I made all new class progression, level progression and an array of feats that allowed for that. Then I used my player base to provide feedback so they had input and buy in to the world and its development.
Let’s talk about the visualization of your campaign. What made you choose this design (color schemes, banners, dividers, etc.)?
The design really started with the picture of the trireme on the home page. The red, white and black made the picture pop. Then we just stuck with that.
You chose to share your design with the community and release the CSS code. It was so important to you that you placed a link to it on the home page of your campaign. You also give credit to the artist whose images you used by linking to their work. Why was this important to you?
The code part is easy. If someone wanted to know I did something they can just look. Now for the art. So, I have quite a few friends who are artists and work on commission. Now the first campaign in the setting was run in Gaul that was under Greek influence. I was looking around the internet for pictures of gods and found a wonderful picture of Hera and loved the style. I tracked down the artist and looked at the rest of what they had done and fell in love. I found their contact info on Deviant art. Turns out they live in France. Messaged them on FB and paid them to use it. They up to that point had just done it for fun and told me they had never been paid like that before so that made me feel pretty good. Since then, they have even published a book and are selling it on Amazon.
You have given a great deal of thought to the integration between your game system and your settings. Tell us a little about this integration (for instance, classes are limited by location).
Well, I wanted each nation to be an opportunity for a different flavor. So, the way the magic classes work in Egypt, Britain and Greece are all different. This also means that each God has a different type of connection to their disciples. I felt it was natural for Druids to be native to Britan and Bards to be native to Scandanavia. After doing some expansion and talking with my players we all collaboratively figured out what classes belong where and leaned into the mystisim from that area for insperation.
Tell us about your change log in the wiki page. Why do you keep it and why is it public?
The players wanted to be kept up to date about additions and the feature was a useful way to do that.
Tell us about the Adventure Log. You seem to have run several games in this setting already. How does that work? Do you play several games at the same time? Or one after the other?
The first game was centered around Gaul. After that Campaign was over one of the PC’s had died. One of the players Josh very much wanted to run a game in the setting so he took the second adventure. It was a sailing adventure in which we took the body from Marseille to Delphi so we could get the gods to resurrect them.
Tell us about the way you arrange your characters. I see characters have few tags with names. How do you keep track of the NPCs? How do you know the context under which each NPC was created?
The NPCs are any person have the opportunity of meeting along the way. Most are reoccurring unless they die (which is also a tag.) Most of time I will tag a location with the person and then the person at the location on the wiki. Below is an example.
Then on the other side of the link is also a reference to the person.
How do the players contribute to the world design, if at all?
They do a lot. You can the best designed world but if the players do not feel like they have agency in it they are not going to have as much buy in. They are able to interact with the world any way they want. As an example, we are currently playing in Carpathia which is the setting of werewolves and vampires. A count was a little to cruel and evil for their liking so they defeated him and took over responsibility of the area. This is also reflected in the wiki.
If you had to pick just one thing, what would you say Obsidian Portal helps you with the most?
Consistency. It allows me to organize my thoughts and present the world in a consistent way.
What would you say is the biggest highlight of your game so far (please also provide images and links if possible)?
So, Mike was playing his first character in our first campaign JAQULEENE GRAVOIS. They had been a charisma-based character and a talker. They went to go get an item out of the ruins of Notre Dame. They kicked open the door and started to make a speech to intimidate them. There were a number of skeleton archers on the other side of the door which are both immune to being intimidated and also immediately only shot at him because they had been the only person they could see. One of them rolled a crit, we rolled a location dice which landed on head and they took more damage than they had HP. They also failed a con check and immediately died. That single choice set up the path for us to have a second campaign but also what we planned to do. It also hit home that the game could be very lethal during combat if you are not careful.
Okay, as a last question, we always ask for the GM’s “pearls of wisdom”. What GM insights can you offer the community this month?
Request feedback. At the end of every game, I ask the same questions for every player. Likes and Dislikes. Long-term and short-term goals. In addition, we vote for MVP and the winner gets a little extra XP. It is a way to celebrate each other when we role play well.
That’s all for this month folks! Don’t forget to head on over the the OP forums to nominate your favorite campaigns for our next Campaign of the Month!
Obsidian Portal Campaign of the Month April 2023: Torg Rise of the Storm Knights
This month we enter the fascinating world of TORG, with the Savage Worlds system, where six brave adventurers cross worlds in their quest to defend the multiverse. GM Elvathadrin will take us through his game, Torg Rise of the Storm Knights and tell us a little about the process he has with his players to bring their stories to life.
First off, feel free to tell us about the person behind the GM screen. Where are you from? What do you do aside from gaming? Alter Egos? Life partners? Family? Where can we interact with you on the internet?
I am from New Jersey, lived here my whole life, don’t really have much of an online presence even though I am on the Obsidian Portal Discord. Outside of gaming, I enjoy hanging out with my friends watching movies. I also paint miniatures and when I can play miniature based games like Warhammer 40K and Xwing, I also play World of Warcraft, and Star Wars the Old Republic/this is the game I also RP most evenings in, and have for quite a few years.
Let’s talk about the visualization of your campaign. Did you make the animated banner yourself? And the video? What made you decide to place this video on your campaign’s landing page? Why did you decide to explain about your campaign in such a way? Are you the person speaking in the video?
The Banner was created by one of my good friends who’s also a player in my game. To be honest I found the video on YouTube, and why did I put it on the Landing page because after watching it I found it explained the universe of TORG perfectly, in an easy to understand and concise manner. I am not the person speaking in the video.
Is the narrator in the video meant to be the same person quoted in the description on the landing page?
The narrator in the video is not mean to be the same person quoted on the landing page, the man quoted on the page is an unknown individual that saw the initial events with his own eyes and lived the tell his tale.
I noticed that there was over a year’s time gap between your original start date in July 2021, and the next adventure entry in January 2023. What was the cause of this gap?
This is an easy question to answer, I started to work on the website a good year plus before the game we were playing ended, and I knew I had a lot of information I wanted to impart to my players, and knew it was going to take time to put it up and make it easy to read.
I see that you are using the Savage Worlds system. Can you please talk about what made you choose this system? How does the system support the campaign design and your game style?
I chose Savage Worlds because I was talking to a few of my friends about wanting to run a TORG game as I love the universe but not a fan of the system it uses, so they brought up Savage Worlds. The system in question is designed to be extremely malleable, and since TORG’s universe requires the ability to meld multiple of genres and make them fit with each other, Savage Worlds was perfect as it already did that so it made things easy to fit everything together without one overpowering the others. Savage Worlds had already put out different books that where all designed to work together from the beginning so it made it that much easier.
You seem to be integrating many characters from movies, tv, etc. Can you tell us a little about how you bring these characters to life? Do you study them from their respective franchises? Do you try to imitate their mannerism/voice?
Most of the characters I use are from TV shows and or games that I and most of my friends have already watched so they already know these characters, I do try to keep them in character and how they react and or help the group with their expertise in relationship to the universe itself.
At no point do I try to imitate their mannerisms or voices as I know I would never be able to do them justice.
How do the players contribute to the world design, if at all?
My players helped me with ideas for some of the new COSMS I have introduced into my universe that are not in base TORG, the ones they helped with where The Galactic Empire, The Big Heat, The Holy Roman Empire, Middle Westeros and The Main.
I see that you have a very detailed wiki section. How helpful is the Wiki for your players?
From what my players have told me it is extremely helpful, as it is referenced at least once most sessions, especially when they go into a new COSMs, the maps I created have also been extremely helpful to give my players an idea of where they are.
Can you please tell us why you choose to open each adventure log with a “wild cards” section which seems to include all the PCs? What is its meaning?
The reason I include the PC names is similar to the reason a TV show has credits, to remind the reader who the characters are in each session and if anyone new reads any Adventure log they know who was involved.
If you had to pick just one thing, what would you say Obsidian Portal helps you with the most?
Obsidian Portal helps with keeping all the information in one place and helps make it easy to find, if it wasn’t for the site I would never have been able to run this game.
What would you say is the biggest highlight of your game so far?
That is not the easiest of questions, but if I have to choose one, I would say the group was going after a Forest Dragon in Aysle the Fantasy COSM, the dragon preferred to hang out under water, so David the mad scientist of the group decided to create primitive depth charges. The idea was to drop them from the Quinjet.
While he was creating them, he created three by the way, the first and third where created without a hitch, unknown to anyone, David made a not so minor mistake on the second depth charge. When they went to use them, the first dropped fine and hit the water as it was supposed to, as they were getting ready to get the second in place the jostling caused it to explode prematurely while still inside the Quinjet, causing the jet to take a nose dive forcing Astoron to re-right the jet before it crashed, unfortunately he disconnected and completely froze forcing Ellistrae to quickly jump into action and right the jet. David the one that created the depth charge took the quick action to jump on the charge hoping to contain the blast, he succeeded in containing the blast not the concussive force that caused the jet to take a nose dive.
Okay, as a last question, we always ask for the GM’s “pearls of wisdom”. What GM insights can you offer the community this month?
I am still a fairly new GM, as I have only GMd four games, so most of my wisdom comes from that, I would say for those afraid to GM for the first time, don’t be afraid, because you will make mistakes, you will stumble as a GM, not everything you do is going to work, your players are going to throw monkey wrenches in your plans, from my experience, let them.. This is a collaborative effort, if your players come up with an off the wall idea, let them do it. It will make the game that much more fun and memorable.
Always remember you are the story teller, and it’s supposed to be fun for everyone, keep a light hand, don’t be heavy handed with your rulings.In the end as a GM always learn from your mistakes, because no matter how many games you run, you are still going to make them.
That’s all for this month folks! Don’t forget to head on over the the OP forums to nominate your favorite campaigns for our next Campaign of the Month!
Creator Spotlight | An Interview with Author Lou Anders
This week, we’re talking to Lou Anders of the acclaimed Thrones & Bones series!
Fans of all things Viking should be particularly excited, because Anders’ world is an ode to the rich history of the Norse legends and traditions, with some personal tweaks of his own that make for a truly fantastical setting. Based on the titular book series set in the lands of Norrøngard, Anders has brought his world into the world of tabletop gaming (currently compatible with D&D 5E, but read on for a sneak peek on what else to expect), allowing fans of the books an immersive experience of gameplay, and a whole new audience chances to tell their own stories in this richly-detailed world.
He has a whole line of materials that flesh out the world with playable classes, monsters, and adventures all stemming from Norrøngard.
He offers us insight into how he created this series, what it was like to bring that world to a different format, and what else we can look forward to from him in the future!
What initially drew you to the Norse mythos as an inspiration for your world, and what was it like to adapt your research into the world of Norrøngard?
When you say “initially” we have to go back to 2010, because the world was born first in the pages of my children’s novel before it was an RPG. In 2010, I was an editor in science fiction & fantasy publishing, running the Pyr books line, but noted anthologist Jonathan Strahan and I teamed up to co-edit a sword & sorcery anthology for Simon & Schuster called Swords & Dark Magic. It featured new and old authors of gritty fantasy writing S&S, including Michael Moorcock, Glen Cook, Steven Erikson, Garth Nix, C.J. Cherryh, Tanith Lee, others. During all this, I got inspired and tried to write my own short story (not for the anthology) about a “female Conan” who was half human, half frost giant. The story was, frankly, terrible. Really bad. But the character wouldn’t leave me. She stuck around, and then one day I realized that what was interesting about her was not her as an adult, but her childhood, what it was like to grow up half human in a village of giants. And that became my novel Frostborn. But I’m not a fan of monocultures. I never wanted to write “Viking Planet,” so from the start it was important to me that Norrøngard was just one country on the edge of a vast continent. Before I even started plotting, I had worked out their history across thousands of years and who they had interacted with in that time. I think I had twenty or so countries, many with their own gods and naming conventions and detailed history, before I ever wrote a line of prose. But as I started working out Norrøngard specifically, I looked at both history and mythology to build their culture. A lot of it was building out a backstory for a country the same way you’d build a backstory for a character. Figuring out where they came from, what they’d been through to get where they were, and who they were today. Also, it’s not 1:1 Norse myth. The Norrønir have their own creation myth, a different if analogous set of gods, a slightly different afterlife, and are at least a century passed their raiding period and living under an era with a Norrøngeld with their nearest neighbors (a “tax not to raid” that the king collects, inspired by the Danegeld of our world.)
What was the process like to shift this world from a set story into a world that people can play in?
A lot of hard work! In Frostborn, we start in a human farm and a small giant village, visit only one city briefly, and spend most of the book in the wilderness. For Thrones & Bones: Norrøngard, I not only detailed the city of Bense but nine other Norrønian cities, with maps, details of their histories, key locations, their jarl, etc… Just the lore itself went through a major expansion, which doesn’t even begin to talk about creating the mechanics of ancestries and subclasses and rune magic and a bestiary, and all of that! It was a massive project that took over a year of full time work.
What was it like having multiple groups playtesting these supplements, and were there any surprising insights you can share about the playtesting process in general?
The best advice I can give about play testing is sign up way more groups than you need because half of them will never get to it and the other half will decide to veer off the rails and go in a direction that doesn’t help you much!
Your work clearly respects the Norse tradition and practices and having an actual Norse language consultant proves your dedication to authenticity. What was it like to work with an actual translator, and how much of their input helped to mold the world outside of just spelling suggestions?
Trond-Atle Farestveit is wonderful. He didn’t just translate things for me from English to ancient Norse. He’d work with me to get at the heart of what I was trying to do and help me pull from the culture to make sure it made sense in those terms.
-You’ve got a seriously robust bestiary, and aside from the Linnorms, my personal favorite is a tie between the Butter Cat and the Iron Dwarf. What was it like to playtest all of these creatures?
Playing with something you created yourself is a blast. Hearing from other folks playing and enjoying it is even more so. I’m really proud of a lot of those creatures and how their traits and actions keeps to the heart of how they are portrayed in myth and folklore.
Will fans of the books be able to see any familiar faces in these guides?
I deliberately kept the principal characters out of the game. The timeline in the RPG picks up one year after events in the books, and while I haven’t settled exactly where Thianna Frostborn goes after her journey to Thica, I know for a fact she’s not in Norrøngard right now. Neither is the dark elf Desstra. Karn *may* be back on his farm, or he may have gotten sidetracked heading home. But I didn’t want to “stat them out” and make them NPCs. So Stolki’s Mead Hall is in Bense, and Helltoppr is still in his barrow, but other than that, the RPG is populated with new characters. That being said, there are illustrations of them in the books – so you can technically see them.
Personally, I’m a sucker for any type of in-world games and activities that players can play as their characters. What was it like to make Thrones & Bones, Knattleikr, and Flyting as playable in the game?
Thrones & Bones came first. It dates back to when I was writing the first novel, Frostborn. The Norse played a game called hnefatafl before they discovered chess. In the novel, my female protagonist, Thianna, is a skilled knattleikr player. When I realized I needed a male co-protagonist, I wanted to give him something to be good at and it couldn’t be sports. So Karn Korlundsson because a hnefatafl player. I realized early on that I needed to know the rules—and there aren’t any. Not that we know. The Norse never wrote them down. There are quite a few reconstructions based on what we do know or can infer, and the various games in the tafl family can differ from each other a lot, right down to how many squares on the board and whether dice are involved. The more I looked into it, the more it made sense to create my own original game in the taft family. I built a board. Then I cherry picked rules from several of the best hnefatafl reconstructions, mixed in some of my own rules, and then play tested. I was fortunate in that my two oldest nephews were both chess champions in our state at the time, so I took them to Starbucks and set the game down between them, and they played each other for hours. I actually had to pry it out of their hands! That’s when I knew I had something. When it came to translating the novel into the game, including the game-within-a-game was a no brainer. Knattleikr came next. The rules for the sport are the only bit of text in the core book I didn’t write entirely by myself. I’d written rules, but then I hired designer Brian Suskind to write an adventure for the companion book, Sagas of Norrøngard. Brian didn’t like my rules and rewrote them. He fixed some things, but then he had me thinking about it, so I took what he did and made some changes, and we passed it back and forth until we had something we both liked. Flyting was a late addition, but I realized I needed all three of these Norse pastimes in the setting guide. And then it ended up coming into play in the second starter adventure.
You offer a lot of unique ancestries and class options for players in the Player’s Guide, what guided you through that process of progression, and do you have a personal favorite character build to make?
With all the designs, I wanted to go to the actual Scandinavian myth and folklore, especially with monsters and subclasses. My favorite build, and one that’s proving popular with players, is the huldra völva. Originally, the huldra were just monsters. But they are the “hidden folk,” and they interact so often with humans, I realized there were probably a lot of huldra living among the Norrønir in secret, and if they are there, then you should be able to play as one! The völva was tricky. But mostly because I put myself into a corner and then had to see my way out. My neighboring country of Araland is a faux-Celtic setting, so in my mind Araland is where you get druids. I was thinking of the völva as another spellcasting class—the name translates as “carrier of the magic staff” so I was trying to make them wizards—and it was just so much trying to force them into a box they didn’t want to go in. Finally, I took a step back and looked at what the völva actually were – wandering seeresses who could shapeshift, see the future, and control the weather, and I went, “Doh! That’s a druid.”
To take a quote from the introduction to your setting guide, “A map is nothing without a viewer.”
What has your experience been like working with artists to bring the world of Qualth to life with visuals with world and battle maps?
Working with artists is tremendous. I was an art director in SF&F publishing for 10 years, so I come to game design with experience working alongside illustrators and a deep appreciate for their talent. I’ve always been a visual thinker, so when I was writing novels, I was commissioning artwork and maps as I wrote—not for publication (the art in the book falls under the purview of the publisher’s art director), but just to help me visualize the world as its being created. From the start, I commissioned a lot of art from Andrew Bosley and maps from Rob Lazzaretti, while Justin Gerard did a lot of work for the novels that he kindly let me reuse for the game. When it came time for battle maps, there was no question it would be Heroic Maps. They are hands down my favorite cartographers in that space. I’m fortunate to have several great artists for the game I’ve worked with more than once—folks like Ksenia Kozhevnikova, William O’Brien, Craig J. Spearing, and Bryan Syme. One of the fun things too has been to work with William on “aging up” my three protagonists Thianna, Karn, and Desstra (she joins in book two). They are around 13 years old in the novels, but the game isn’t targeted at the same age group as the books, so I wanted to include “what they look like now” illustrations of older versions of my heroes. Then Effincool Minis actually made a 3D printable sculpt of the older Thianna, which thrills me beyond words.
One of my favorite items you’ve made is the Brúsi Shield (found in Sagas of Norrongard), a special shield that can summon a spectral goat’s head to make ramming attacks a few times per day. What has it been like to make unique weapons and artifacts, and what was your process to playtest them?
So, the Brúsi Shield is a bit of an in-joke. “Brúsi” is the Old Norse word for “he-goat,” and the earliest version of the tale “The Three Billy Goats Gruff” we have comes from Scandinavia, De tre bukkene Bruse. It’s a small spoiler to say so, but the shield is found in the adventure “From Svartálfaheim, with Love,” right before you encounter a troll on a bridge… As to playtesting, that’s the best part isn’t it?
Your game materials cover far more of the world than Karn and Thianna are able to visit and see, was there any area in particular you were personally excited about getting to explore in more depth?
All of it. I really worked hard to make each of the new cities we explore its own unique place. So Herkeby is laid out like a giant Trelleborg (ring fortress), Sindholm sits above an enormous cavern in which longships dock, Umsborg is bisected by a lava flow, and so on. With the recent Kickstarter, Vengeance of the Valravn, which takes place in Sindholm, we have adventures that take you everywhere but Oslendhom and Umsborg (though the lore from these two locations is, of course, in the core book). There are still places I want to explore one day though!
What work might fans look forward to in the future from you?
There is so much in the pipeline, and the recent OGL kerfluffle has only upped the number of projects. With the usual caveats about the “best laid plans,” here’s a run-down. Vengeance of the Valravn is in copyedits now. I hope to have it out in March. Then I’ll immediately Kickstart the already-written Tales from Stolki’s Hall. After being out of the editor’s chair for seven years, I’ve put that hat back on and reached out to some of the best fiction writers I used to work with. Stolki’s Hall is an anthology of adult fantasy stories, written not by me, but by ten other authors, set in the land of Norrøngard. It’s fantastic, and I can’t wait for people to read it. I’ve also just signed contracts for two conversions of the campaign guide, Thrones & Bones: Norrøngard, to two other systems. I’ll probably turn to Kickstarter again for those, not for the budget (it’s a done deal with budget already set aside), but for the visibility. Beyond that I’ve got an idea for something “mythos related” in the world of Qualth that I want to do. I’ve already outlined and started commissioning and receiving art for the next Big Project, which is the first adventure set outside of Norrøngard. It starts off in Nelenia, a country that is in the middle of the continent of Katernia, about a thousand miles from Norrøngard, and modeled loosely on Switzerland. I’m really excited about this adventure, which I hope to announce by year’s end, but given the aforementioned list of projects, it might slide into 2024. When it does debut, it will most likely be multisystem, so they’ll be 5e, Pathfinder 2, and other versions. I think it only makes sense going forward not to put all the eggs in one basket, which means my tiny indie, Lazy Wolf Studios, is set to grow whether it wants to or not!
Lou Anders is the author of the novel Once Upon a Unicorn, as well as the Thrones & Bones trilogy of fantasy adventure novels (Frostborn, Nightborn, and Skyborn), and the novel Star Wars: Pirate’s Price. He has also done role playing game design for Kobold Press, River Horse, and 3D Printed Tabletop. In 2016, he was named a Thurber House Writer-in-Residence and spent a month in Columbus, Ohio teaching, writing, and living in a haunted house. When not writing, he enjoys playing role playing games, 3D printing, and watching movies. He lives with his wife, children, and two golden doodles in Birmingham, Alabama. You can visit Anders online at louanders.com, on Facebook, Instagram, and on Twitter at @Louanders.
Obsidian Portal Campaign of the Month February 2023: The Domain of Dread Council Meeting.
It may have been some time since you have heard the name “Ravenloft”, but in this DREADFULLY exciting campaign, you will hear it again. GameMaster ElMuggs has concocted a scenario where some of D&D’s BADDEST ever BADDIES have got together to remind people the true meaning of FEAR once again, in The Domain of Dread Council Meeting.
First off, feel free to tell us about the person behind the GM screen. Where are you from? What brought you into the world of TTRPGS? Where can we interact with you on the internet?
Well I grew up in rural Australia and was introduced to Dungeons and Dragons when my stepmother caught me playing Castle Adventure on my Dad’s computer and asked ‘Are you playing Dungeons and Dragons? You know some people played that on acid and KILLED someone?”
Being a seven year old girl this very much left a impression on me as obviously Dungeons and Dragons had to be the coolest, most extreme game EVER! But being that there was nobody to play with I had to rely on the videogames until in 2017 I stumbled upon three people sitting at the back of the room at the game store that had opened up in my home town.
They were the Redbook Roleplayers and did a total OMG You’re Playing Dungeons and Dragons can I play tooo OMG !
Yeah I’m that cool. I don’t use much social media but you can find me on the Obsidan Discord or Twitter (while it lasts!) as @ElMuggs
You have described “The Domains of Dread Council Meeting” as “a comedic misadventure through the mists of Ravenloft”. In a “nutshell” please explain to the Obsidian Portal Community what your campaign is all about.
Well that’s basically it, but to see why this campaign is a bit different let me ask the characters what they think it’s about?
Strahd (Vampire Ruler of Barovia): It is my duty as the first and greatest Dread Lord to show these lesser nursery rhymes villain what it means to be terror incarnate! Honestly these modern day dark lords, they can barely manage to lure backpackers into the woods, or leave a blood soaked message on the wall! Back in my day you had to do better than a jump scare or two! Here now Vecna, let me tell you how we used to do it in the old country! I’d climb into a coffin and lie in wait for hours on end, even weeks, just waiting for the right time to jump out and go BLEAGH!!!!
Daniel (Unkillable Tiefling): I don’t know? The Awesomeness of Awesome? I’ve been though the dark and the light and the light and the dark and it’s all the same. Apart from my Super-Awesome Domain but theres nobody in it, just me and the Hamstercows – but that was the Mistake. Maybe Llamacows? Then I found the perfect people to bring along but SOMEBODY ended them. Terrible Train accident! I’m all shiny though – got a shiny butt!… Problem with Tieflings though is that they can’t wear hats.. uh.. What was I talking about?
Vecna (OG Litch and God of Secrets): It’s my unjust punishment for getting involved with the other Lords of Dread.
Tasha (Witch and Best selling Author): Pft, always so dramatic! In truth Poor Vecna hasn’t had much to do for years, and Strahd.. well he’s so just so PRIMITIVE. He really needs to move with the times as the scary vampire in his castle pining over a poor women he’s obsessed with is just so cliche!
So then I thought why not invite one of these new Dreadlords to our secret little Council? The invisible one had the wonderful idea to ride out and spread some fear. But then Daniel showed up, Strahd got us lost and things have been going downhill ever since!
You seem to have started out the campaign with players taking on the main PC’s at HIGH LEVELS. Did this present any issues in building up the characters of the players?
The Campaign started by accident after a bit of silly in-character conversation between our ForeverDM talking about his love of Curse of Strahd. Soon he was roleplaying Strahd talking about how he was the greatest big bad in DND and it was hillarious. I immediatly wondered how Vecna would react to this? It didn’t take much to convince the others to jump in with their own characters.. and session 0 quickly ended up with the characters riding out on their first adventure.
The big challenge was getting a grip on the lore as playing with Strahd, Tasha and Vecna required doing a deep dive into the history going all the way back to 2nd Edition. Vecna had been a Dreadlord back in 2nd edition but escaped and outside of Critical Roll he hadn’t really been seen in 5th edition. Likewise Tasha also had a lot of gaps in her history as Wild Beyond the Witchlight hadn’t been released yet.
Then there’s Daniel who was a PC from our first campaign together. While we loved him there was the small problem that he died and being brought back to life via Wish had left him immune to the Dead condition! If that’s not wild enough for you there’s also the Invisible Person. Their unique power is that they are so invisible not even I know where they are at all times. This is because the player works, and so doesn’t make it to many games, so when they arrive I ask them where their character was and we fill in the gaps from there.
All of this works because I tend to avoid worrying about balance and CR ratings and instead look for what makes the most interesting challenge for the players? A lot of the game is about leaning into the personality of the characters.
What version of Dungeons and Dragons have you used for the campaign and what inspired this decision?
Our group has always used 5th edition+ UA Playtest material and a good chunk of Homebrew. In terms of story it takes place sometime after the events of Wild Beyond the Witchlight.
I like 5th edition because it gives you plenty of space to shape the rules around the story you want to tell. While DND is simpler then 3.5 etc. it’s also really flexible both for players and DMs. As a new DM the biggest issue I find is that if there’s a ‘Rules as Written’ sometimes you can end up feeling trapped because it doesn’t make sense for the situation or story you’re trying to tell.
The other reason is that it’s very easy to slip in rules from other games and editions. One of the Domains turned the characters into teenagers and had they stayed there I was planning to bring in some of the rules from Tales from the Loop to go with the 80s suburbia vibes.
Likewise the ‘Levelling for Dreadlords’ rules call back to 2nd edition as my first experiances playing Baldur’s Gate II. In earlier editions Vampires where much scarier as they could drain your XP and suddenly you’d lose all those levels you’d worked hard to gain! There’s also some older edition spells that were missing in 5th edition that also make a comeback in this campaign.
You obviously have a great love of the Ravensloft campaign. How long ago did you first play in or GM that campaign, and are any of your current players returning from that time? Have there been any issues in updating the concepts to suit your current campaign?
So first up I need to give props to James Haeck’s Strahd Must Die Tonight – in Space! https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/895-strahd-must-die-in-space which inspired the idea of bringing in new genre’s to provide a new take on old DND adventures. Having now had to deal with Ravenloft Castle I have a lot of respect for Will who DMed this for us as a Halloween One Shot back in 2020.
It was the first time most of us had played in Ravenloft and set up the events that lead to Castle Ravenloft no longer being part of Barovia.
One reason I’m excited about people learning about this campaign is that the Setting Information is what I like to call the “Ravenloft Remix” as I really wanted to set up each Domain to really feel different from one another. So it was a chance to really bring in things that my players wouldn’t expect and each domain has it’s own little world. Because it’s the players that provide the comedy there’s really nothing to stop someone else using the material as part of a more ‘straightforward’ adventure.
Our group has a long history of working from older editions. The actual world that this campaign fits into is a big Planescape adventure that’s been run by multiple people over probably 10 years or more? We’ve done all sorts of crazy things from Tomb of Horrors to escape Dark Sun and Spelljammer (before it was 5e).
To date the biggest challenge for me as DM has been going back to Ravenloft Castle. I wanted to make sure I was keeping it in line with what the players knew and remembered of the campaign while avoiding any major spoilers for Curse of Strahd. I decided to use the map from the original 2nd edition adventure and age-up the Castle so that just enough things had changed while Strahd was away that even he didn’t know what to expect.
The timing was also perfect to bring back two of the heroes of the original adventure! Poor Strahd came home to find that his Castle now belonged to a young, handsome elven vampire who looked like he’d just stepped out of an Anne Rice Novel. Meanwhile the top half of the Castle is a fallen Solar who’s hell-bent on ensuring the Castle is destroyed!
There are some very innovative design modifications in your campaign, including a custom built navigation board. Who is responsible for your overall campaign design? Can you share any useful “design tips” with other OP members?
That would be me! At high school I wanted to be a web designer so I learned a lot of HTML and CSS. The nav bar is a recent addition and at some point I’ll probably find myself getting curious about what kind of Javascript functions are possible.. but not today!
Looking at past COTM was really inspiring early on to see what was actually possible but the hardest bit was deciding what to do. Odd as it sounds I wanted to try and replicate the feel of a mouldy old book the players might stumble across in Strahd’s attic. So a lot of work went into using code to capture that sense that it should smell of old books.
In terms of tips, One thing I learned studying CSS and web design is to be careful with images. You need them big enough to not be blurry, but too large and the file size will cause your site to become unusable. This site uses a lot of repeating elements because once you load an image it’s usually cache’d so you can use it over-and over again without any problems.
The other big trick is the Google Web Fonts – I have a love/hate relationship with them as when they work they’re amazing, but they can also be a pain because you often need to adjust the text size to make them readable. The Adventure Log uses a lot of them – but the actual posts just use a normal font. This is because it’s not easy to read a full page of text in script, so most of the time it’s usually just used for headers and special effects.
Finally learning to find your way around the Inspect Elements tools can make it a lot eaiser as you can test things without actually changing the site itself. There’s also nothing to stop you making up your own tags like this:
Lets me mimic those ‘comment’ boxes from Tasha’s Cauldon of Everything:
How important are the Adventure Logs to your campaign? Who creates them? How involved are your players in the process?
The adventure log is intentionally subjective, sometimes they might include the direct notes from a campaign but more often than not they’re pieced together from memory and whatever notes survived the session. Often I will forget small details, names or ‘what happened in what order’ but my players are always great at reminding me.
It’s very important to me as a DM as a way to keep track between sessions as sometimes months may pass between games. So it’s been great now that I have it and can start working on the Adventure Log the day after the game while it’s all fresh in my head. This way I can get everything updated, provide the players an update on Inspiration, and get ahead on any changes and planning for the next session.
It’s also has an in-game use as spells like Legend Lore exist so Characters could actually read the Adventure Log if they wanted to. This is because it’s canon in our games that there is a Library that records everything that ever happens – and one of the players is DMing a campaign set in it!
I’m still working on getting my players to use the Portal as it’s still very new – but I love the way they can post their own ‘thoughts’ on events and have the ability to add to it over time.
Your campaign seems to have been running from around the end of 2020 up to the present day. Have there been any modifications you have had to make to the way you play in relation to the worldwide pandemic?
We’ve been playing online via Roll20 since I joined the group in 2017. Playing virtual was really what made it possible to have weekly games because Australia is a really big place! Most of us also have crazy scheduals of work, study and other commitments so each week means looking for a notification to say there’s a game on.
I honestly prefer DMing online because you are not constrained by what you can hide behind the DM screen or fit on the table. So I found it really freeing in that if the characters want to do something crazy I can hide my face, take a breath and quickly look up whatever is needed to keep the game going. It’s created a game where I’m just as excited as my players to know what will happen next, as my version of prep focuses more on the first five minutes at most, then seeing what the players will bring to the table.
By far the hardest thing about running the campaign is that being a backup game that I run when there’s not enough players for the main campaign or the DM needs a break there’s often big gaps between games. Often I don’t know I’m DMing until the night and rarely do I know what will happen next.
This means needing to keep a lot of secrets from players to avoid spoilers for Domains and characters they might come across in future – or return to one day.
How long have you been using Obsidian Portal? What brought you to the site and what keeps bringing you back?
A few months? I found the site when I realised it was going to be impossible to run Ravenloft Castle without a proper system for keeping track of the 88 map markers. When I looked at others they where really locked-in on what kind of ‘style’ of campaign you could run – while they might look more ‘fancy’ I really just wanted something I could use while DMing to quickly get things at a moment’s notice.
I love how the Wiki section is really free to being used to store whatever campaign information you want, rather than being forced to use a format set for a particular game system or campaign style. I like how Items and Characters both have their own ‘section’ as these are things are repeatedly pop up in games, and it’s handy to be able to build up a database that you can quickly go back to when you forget a name or thing that you mentioned in an earlier session.
The GM section and Secrets are very important for my campaign and it’s great that my players can be given their own version of events. Plus, as a visual person, I love that I can share the artwork that inspired parts of the adventure, and give a lot more personality to the world.
If you had to pick just one thing, what would you say Obsidian Portal helps you with the most?
It really makes it a whole lot easier to run games. Normally finding a specific NPC, picture or location would take combing through folders full of images and random documents on my computer or the internet. These days I keep the Obsidian Portal open behind the Roll20 screen and I can quickly run a search to find what I need.
What would you say is the biggest highlight of your game so far?
So what’s been really fun DMing all of this has been how it really pushes you to ask the big questions like: ‘Would an angry Ultraloth consent to being Polymorphed into a T-Rex?’ “How many hit points does a black hole have?” Or the big one – ‘What happens if a Dreadlord dies outside of their domain?
So I thought I might share the story of how one of these questions lead to a series of events leading to what I like to call ‘Blobfish Strahd’.
This started with a classic question: What happens if a vampire is diseased by an Aboleth to only be able to breath underwater?
By RAW the answer is nothing – because apparently there’s one line in the 5e Monster Manual that says vampires don’t need to breath. But this is Ravenloft a land of poetic justice! Unlucky for Strahd I didn’t have the Monster Manual, I was using the 2nd edition Domains of Dread where there was no such comment. Nor did it make sense that a Aboleth would have a disease that didn’t work on certain types of creatures. So I ruled that was true, he didn’t need to breath BEFORE he was diseased by the Aboleth.
I wouldn’t have done this but being a high level party it shouldn’t have been too hard for them to find a way to cure the disease right? It was then that we learned that this party of Dreadlords had no clerics, no paladins and the only healing spell anyone knew was Wish!
So sadly for Strahd they missed out on curing the disease and the party was forced to seek help. However the player ended up deciding NOT to cure Strahd and instead stay in mist form. So, on entering Vecna’s domain I was given another big question:What happens to a vampire in mist form when subjected to the intense gravity of a nearby black hole? Turns out that under intense pressure a gas doesn’t become a solid – instead it turns into a SuperCritical Fluid forming Plasma!
So over time Strahd’s gaseous form grew smaller and smaller until he became a Plasmoid that could best be described as ‘Blobfish Strahd’. Which the player LOVED so much they set their Discord picture to this little guy:
Okay, as a last question, we always ask for the GM’s “pearls of wisdom”. What GM insights can you offer the community this month?
If I have one bit of advice for ForeverDMs it’s that if you want to play, challenge your players to try DMing for a night! This is how I made the jump from player to DM. Our ForeverDM was feeling burnt out after taking us all the way from Level 1 to 17 over a course of 3 years!
So, For New Years 2020 we were given a ‘challenge’ for three of us to run a game. My first game was supposed to be one-shot and had a proper map, detailed NPCs, Monsters traps etc. All the players had to do was escape. I had some ideas of HOW they could do this but apart from the setup the players where free to ‘solve’ the problem however they wanted.
This is how it started:
This is what it looked like by the end:
For this campaign, I got rid of the map and swapped to Theatre of the Mind so that there was really no limits to what could happen. This also had the perk of being able to give the players more power.This happens in a few ways over my campaign. The most obvious is when Dreadlords are in their own Domains they can use Inspiration to shape the Domain to their will. But a more subtle trick is that when dealing with crowds or where there’s a lot of decisions to be made on the fly, I’ll ask the players to help me out. This way if there’s a party split or whatnot you don’t have a character stuck waiting around with nothing to do.
Instead, I give them a job! One Player might be asked to describe the NPC’s appearance, while another might decide what the room looks like, and another gives them a name. Other times I will offer them a NPC’s during a party split or if they arrive without a character.
The first time I tried this was when a friend popped into the game to say Hi. We were in combat so I gave them a NPC Guard who was in the unlucky situation of facing down Strahd, Vecna and a room full of Strahd’s minions at the end of Man vs Machine > https://thedomainofdreadcouncilmeeting.obsidianportal.com/adventure-log/cyrelons.
While in my hands he was just another Guard for the party to kill, making him a Guest NPC changed everything! This guard managed to stab Vecna and hold them off for two full rounds – everyone was excited to see how long he’d last. We learned this nameless guard had taken the shift to avoid being at home with his wife and nine children. He died a hero – turning what might otherwise have been a forgettable encounter into this epic last-stand.
That’s all for this month folks! Don’t forget to head on over the the OP forums to nominate your favorite campaigns for our next Campaign of the Month!
