Every Hex worth Crawling

I'm guilty of a very nebulous planning style as of late, developing the High Country hexcrawl. Coalescing the scraps and tidbits of encounters, monster ideas, and hairbrained dungeons has been most of my sandbox planning, with nothing put towards tables, solid planning, or keyed-out hexes. Crunch time's looming and with that I've– shocked gasps– actually going to have to work out something substantial.

I'm flirting between two design methods here. The first is my current method for "statting out" a hexcrawl– Create a map, knowing the general terrain of general areas. I'll detail in important locales in a hex key (dungeons, cities, all that), and fill in the rest of things using a dynamic system of encounter tables (everything from monsters, to wild magic, to amicable encounters). 

But maybe it's time to graduate away from the random table. Things like random tables are a blessing to get a rapid prototype up and running, as I can literally create encounters as they're encountered. But it soon enough becomes a limit; sure, certain types of enemies are populous across the whole region, but I'm not running an ecosystem simulator. I'm running an RPG game. 

So what if– what if– we created individual entires for each hex. Every hex has something going on, even if it's just minor– setting dressing, another traveller on the road. Things like locales still get their focus, but no random tables (or very basic ones) are generated because I'll know what's in each hex every time. This'll also probably lead to more exciting "encounters on the road" than 2d6 moss-goblins, then 1d3+1 Wilk-Hounds, and peasants up to the same d6 activities. 

Sure, this isn't revolutionary. Wilderlands of the Magic Realm did it back in 1979, and the more-recent Lamentations of the Flame Princess's 2e Carcosa hexcrawl had this going in 2011 (Note: buy that pdf if you're on the fence. A brilliant mine for the weird, wonderful, and downright science-fiction to be transplanted). What I'm concerned about is whether it's worth my time, or whether I'll downright burn out. I have the time (ah, summer), but do I have all the creativity?

Thoughts, dear Peanut Gallery? Or my players? 

High Country Grab Bag pt. 1

Hedge Wizards (Sorcerers) 

The peasants of the High Country live close and cramped alongside the mythic, magical wilderness. This produces a good deal of trouble– Wilk-hounds and followers of the Beast Kings a constant threat– but it also leads to a necessitated symbiosis. Many a rural fellow will pick up tidbits and tatters of magical ability, coalescing into a form of magic unlike that of the stuffier, scholastic wizardry. Rather, this Hedge-wizardry relies on wells of whatever natural magic it can find, drawing from reagents, components, and ambient natural magic about to create far less predictable spells. 

Though far less bookish and easier to learn, it does come with side-effects. Wild magic is just that– wild. And it tends to use the sorcerer as much as the sorcerer uses it. A hedge-mage will find himself besot with all manner of magical affect: Followed by strange birds, unable to talk in anything but forgotten languages, smelling and hearing colours, et cetera. Sometimes, they'll find their magic works better if they dress, act, and speak in a way that the magic likes– a common manifestation of this is wearing strictly green clothing. Hedge-wizards wear lots of green, including fantastic wigs. 

There're Giants in Them There Hills

Giants live and wander the High Country on their rangy legs and dangling arms. Big, faintly blue-tinged, and wearing the most fantastic beards possible, they are born relatively independent and are abandoned by their parent(s) soon for this reason. Giant's bodies, organs, and bones never stop growing, and never show signs of wear: The only downside of this is their brains grow at an exponential, rather than more linear rate. Meaning a juvenile giant is little more than a territorial, sword-swinging Gigantopithecus until the age of about 150, and becomes a towering, mystic sage revealing cosmic secrets by age 300. 

Giants keep well away from each other (more fear of territorialism than territorialism itself). To keep each other updated on the goings-on of the hills, a long, complex, and remarkably intricate language of glyphs and symbols has developed to be carved into cliff-faces and cave walls. Giants each have an equally complex glyph that represents their name, but because they'd take more letters than a scrabble bag to read out, giants tend to adopt local human names for ease.

Speaking of which, giants are great friends with the "Small Folk". Being big enough to swing a greatsword with abandon, and with little other to do than hunt and hang out, (non-juvenile) giants are welcomed in most small towns as someone who is known for slaying evil for nothing more than a nap in the hay-stack and a small mountain of food. 

Backgrounds, Again

Trying for a second time my hand at remedying the starting inventory dispensed in the AFF rulebook. Earlier this week I posted about the very same thing: However, it still didn't get to the heart of what I wanted, which was a simple way to tie the characters into the world and not to a certain inventory. So let's fix that bitch.

First of all, a character starts with cash to spend equal to 2d6 x their social class +1. Of course, this cash can be spent on buying basic equipment, weapons et cetera before the game begins, or kept if a character's feeling especially frugal.

Second of all, and here's the rub; a character's social class is determined by/a character gains a few perks & items from their past, a working name for the handful of entries below. They're things you did and whatever skills and tools you picked up while doing it. Old habits die hard and old skills come in handy. Yes, everyone is assumed to start with a befitting set of clothes, and magic-users a book of spells.

Pilferer. SC 0. You make money taking other people's things. Sometimes, that's a good enough reason to go adventuring. +2 to any two stealth skills that befit your particular pilfering tastes. One weapon that's quiet and not incredibly huge; a plethora of lock-picking tools OR a grappling iron with 2d6 meters of rope.

Yorao Slaver. SC 0. Yorao's merchants don't only trade in gold and electrum. +1 bargain, +2 to one extra language. You get a mace, a leather cuirass, a pair of shackles, and a remarkably prickly attitude.

Veteran of the Red Overking’s War. SC 1. You're old and tired of the long-roving Royalist bands still plaguing the high roads. +1 to two combat skills. Start with polearm or a sword of some kind, a leather cuirass and a small shield OR a breastplate, a horn of Toskar wine, and gambling ephemera.

Militiaman of Hrad. SC 1. Keeping the horrors of the wild off the walls since you can last remember. +1 to a combat skill, +1 awareness. A weapon, a torch, leather cuirass, and a surcoat with Hrad's arms displayed in glorious blazon.

Gladiator from Hyrdzia. SC 1. A fighter from a realm where it is always night. +1 awareness, +2 in one combat skill. Two weapons of your choice and enamelled ceremonial armour with similar morion.

Minstrel-Warrior of Toskar. SC 2. Toskar– where the warriors handle a broadsword and barbiton with equal potency. +2 to a combat skill, and you're an excellent musician. A weapon, a barbiton, garish clothes, and a scroll of sheet music which could be sold or used as tinder.

Merchant from Distant Yorao. SC 2. The lighter side of Yorao's trading coin. +1 evaluate, +1 awareness. There's a bejewelled dagger stuffed somewhere in your turban and a water buffalo laden with 2d6 pounds of precious goods following you.

Yellow Magi of Ommon. SC 3. Known for their inappropriately- and unexpectedly-timed yelping or chanting, only wearing yellow, and semi-religious devotion to the Grand Ommo. +1 You've got a saffron robe and a delicate sword OR a rhinoceros-horn box of Yellow Powder (2d6 doses).

Sartullan Companion of Ong. SC 3. Worshippers of Ong, King of the Anti-Sea, Slayer of the Horrors-in-the-water. +1 religion lore, +1 sea lore. A tasselled chiton and draped fish-scale cloak (will count as a chainmail hauberk for one use, breaks after). A mace.

Persimmon Initiate. SC 4. Initiates into the Mystery Cults of the Persimmon, devoted to wandering in search of the City of Orchards. +2 religious lore, +1 survival. Pilgrim's staff, rations amounting to 1d6 days, and the sombre orange vestments of your order.

Apprentice of the Grand Helix Lord. SC 4. You were apprenticed to the Grand Helix Lord at his tower in Kemmoria, but you were discharged as you didn't suit his purposes. Your knowledge is still very valuable though. 1d6 chance you fled and he's hunting you. +2 to two lore skills. violently blue robes, curly hat, strange artefact: enormous blue star map OR device for telling the weather OR lenses that provide +2 second sight when worn.

Postulant of the Blood Sun. SC 5. The priests of the Blood Sun are strange, but the closest thing to a real religion that people can follow in the Kraje. So you're loved. +1 to any social skill, +1 religious lore. Red robes with golden streamers and tassels, a golden knife, and the Four Books of Ivshank (the Most Mad and Most Holy).

Law-speaker of Dalibar. SC 5. You told the law in your home city until you told it wrong, and now they want your head. +2 law, +1 to some skill involved in your escape. A woad-coloured robe, a short sword, and gold triangle medallion of your ex-station.

New House rules for AFF: Matchlock weaponry, Item Sets

House Rules

As cool as AFF is, a handful of things need to be changed. the beauty of the system is that it's very accomodating to this, and so we've gone ahead and begun the no-doubt ultimately-dismantling process of accreting house rules.

Matchlocks and Matchlock Accessories

Blackpowder weapons– known as fire-snakes, dragon-lances, or otherwise– are prominent throughout the Disk, and the Kraje are no exception. Here are the rules for such weapons. Note that using these weapons falls under the bow skill (yes, it's a radically different concept from a bow, but crossbows are also in there and both are known for being very simple to master).

Special: Alongside the usual snake-eyes, rolling double 2s will also result in a fumble whenever using black powder weapons.

Arquebus

Costs: As crossbow.

Damage: 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6

Blunderbuss

Costs: 90/110/130 gp

Damage: 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5

Special: Expend 1 LUCK to fire upon another adjacent target (maximum 3). Counts as part of the same attack.

Serpentine Pistol

Costs: 80/100/110 gp

Damage: 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5

Other accoutrements associated with the use of matchlocks:

Powderhorn. 1 gp/12 sp/2 gp.

Blackpowder. 2/2/4 gp for 20 shot’s worth.

Leaden Shot (20). 3/3/5 gp.

Blunderbuss Pellets (20). 6/9/15 gp.

Background Item Sets

The starting equipment afforded to each Hero during character creation are upsettingly drab: The same items for anyone, regardless of their lifestyle, origin, or employment. Here are item sets to replace that, based around common adventuring types in and around the Kraje. You should decide first based on what seems most appealing, obviously, but when in doubt go for the one that matches most with your character's career just before becoming an adventurer. Anyone with points in any magical special skill is also afforded a spell-book of their known spells, as per usual. 

Veteran

2d6 gp

2 weapons of the same special skill the hero has points in, plus 1 box/quiver/horn of ammunition if necessary

Small or large shield

1 leather cuirass, provided the Hero has points in the Armour special skill

Strong boots, weapon belt, woolen trousers, woolen tunic

Woolen cloak

Large blanket, rations amounting to 2 days

1x musical instrument OR 1 deck of cards, set of bone dice, or other gambling ephemera

Monastic

2d6 gp

1 weapon the hero has special skill in

Holy symbol of their monastery/faith/hairbrained splinter faction

Linen robe, leather shoes, cheap belt

Holy vestments (allow you to be recognised as a member of your order)

1 jar of a curative salve

Herbs, for cooking or burning

A reason for leaving/fleeing/being sent from your temple

Criminal

2d6 gp  

1 small, concealable weapon and 1 weapon the hero has a special skill in

1 leather cuirass, provided the Hero has points in the Armour special skill

Cheap boots, leather trousers, leather belt, woolen tunic, woolen cloak, leather gloves

An invaluable rag of linen (for masking the face or tying a wound)

Torch OR 3 candles

2d6 metres of rope, Grappling Iron

Militiaman of Hrad

2d6 gp

1 Polearm and 1 weapon the Hero has special skill in

1 leather cuirass, provided the Hero has points in the Armour special skill

Cheap boots, woolen hose, woolen tunic

1 Panther-skin OR Surcoat emblazoned with Hrad’s coat of arms (the blood sun & mountain-shield)

Lantern, flask of oil

Sack of Carrying

Merchant of Yorao

3d6 gp

1 weapon the Hero has special skill in

Silk robe, silk belt, cheap (and curly) boots

impossibly large turban

1 pack-mule or ox, saddlebags

2d6 pounds of trade goods (spices, herbs, silver, etc.)

Yellow Magi of Ommon

2d6 gp

1 weapon the Hero has special skill in

Ochre-coloured silk robe, silk gloves, billowing pantaloons, silk shirt

A fearsome graven mask (as the sorcerer’s component, black facemask) OR a box of Yellow Powder (the cheap kind, which tends to kill long term users)

Quill, Ink, & a hefty tome of skin-paper

A pot for cooking stew/eye of newt

Lawspeaker of Dalibar

2d6 gp

1 weapon the Hero has special skill in

1 leather cuirass, provided the Hero has the Armour special skill

Woad-coloured robe, silk sash, pointed woolen shoes, silk trousers

1 copper ring of light

1 hourglass

1 hefty wooden travelling chest (can carry a great deal, but you’re all out of slaves to carry it)

Basilisk Hunter of Sartulla

2d6 gp

1d4+3 javelins and 1 weapon the hero has special skill in
a leather cuirass, provided the hero has the Armour special skill
Silk sash, tasseled cloak, patterned chiton, leather sandals
Salt fish amounting to 2 days of rations
Throwing net, silver mirror
An idol of the Great God Ong, slayer of all watery horrors

Races of the Thousand Kraje

Aaahh, the book came. AFF is finally here and rearing it's head to be played– and it looks incredibly promising so far. This week I'll be dropping rules and write-ups for my players to create their AFF characters with. First of these are the races of the Kraje:

City Dwellers
The argest cities of the Kraje usually hold cultural hegemony over the rest of the Kraje. Their languages, fashion, hair-brained philosophies, et cetera serve as a standard for the culture of most.

If you have any ideas for other, backwater, smaller Kraj– and want to be from one– chat with me. 

Men of Hrad. Happy is he whose walls rise high and whose voulge strikes true. +1 LUCK. +1 polearms, +1 city lore (Hrad). +2 Empiric, +4 Hradic.

The men of the border-city of Hrad guard the expansive, wooly, & wild Kraj of Hrad. Known for their polearms, walls, pretending to be close-minded, and thick moustaches. 

Men of Yorao. A city that always seems distant; known for merchants, gold, and lion-baiting. +1 LUCK. +1 bargain, +1 city lore (Yorao). +1 Empiric, +4 Yaorese.

Of the distant, gold-littered city of Yorao– and the ebon-skinned, fierce, and wise people who live there– little is known but the vast riches and rarities they trade in foreign lands. Players are welcome to spread rumours and tall tales about their homeland. 

Men of Ommon. Where the Yellow Powder is made, the people are addled. +1 LUCK. +1 Second Sight, +1 City Lore (Ommon). +2 Empiric, +4 Ommonian.

A strange place caught up in their own pageantry and the distillation of the Yellow Powder– that granular spice which ignites a sorcerer's powers. Being around all that Yellow Powder makes Ommonians particular experts at detecting arcane meddling.

Men of Dalibar. Lawspeakers live and rule this stone city of justice. +1 LUCK.  +1 Law or Con, +1 world lore. +3 Empiric, +4 Dalibad.

A city ruled by a caste of green-wearing lawspeakers and a hub of travel through the Sunken Sea. Protect themselves from barbaric neighbors with roving fleets of brutal corsairs. Known for their ornate clothing, vanity, and draconian legal system.

Men of Sartulla. There are One Thousand Tongues in Sartulla. +1 LUCK. +1 Sea Lore, +city lore (Sartulla). +4 Empiric. +1 to two foreign languages.

The great "Ivory Port" of the Kraje and a city of endless travel and merchantry, the distinct culture of Sartulla– once a place of ancient ocean mystery cults– has been washed away. Nevertheless, it has adopted the thousand ways and languages of the caravels and treasure-ships that grace her ports.

Outcast & Oddity

Tieflings. Mutated punishment-babies gifted unto wicked mothers. +1 STAMINA from all that hellblood. +1 religion lore, +1 secret signs. +3 Empiric, +2 one language from where you grew up/were thrown out from.

Every so often a demon from the hellspace manages to worm it's way into a womb. What results is a horned, scaled, and often corrosively-salivating creatures of various hellish shapes and sizes. Understandably thrown out from their homes. 

Vulgards. Taking yellow powder is fatal & disfiguring to non-sorcerers*, but survivors seem to shrug off fatal wounds. +1 LUCK. +1 healing, +1 from any other city's choice. Languages as 1 other city.

Nobody knows for what god-forsaken reason they do it, but certain people take Yellow Powder without sorcerous ability. It warps and eats at the flesh, often killing in a remarkably agonising and unsavoury way. However, managing to survive results in a hard-knock body that can recover all but the worst wounds. 

The Thousand Kraje

Though this post is mapless and largely useless from a play perspective, I wanted to give my players a brief flyover of the setting that is to come. This post lacks in any crunchy details, but it has everything I've devised so far for our AFF setting (plus some bloody good art by Matthew Adams).

Without further ado, I present

The Fluid cultural and political successor polities of the Overkingdom now referred to as

The Thousand Kraje

An innumerable handful of kingdoms, free cities, crowns, marches, colonies, and petty empires once united under the simply-named Overkingdom. Stretching between the Wyrd-less realms of the north and the Greater Wyrd of the south.

The Wyrd.

Set between the Greater Wyrd and the Corelands, magic functions here, but civilization has rooted itself as well– albeit tentatively and often temporarily. The entirety of the world (and perhaps the universe’s) human population exists in these polities, considered barbaric by the outside world for their lack of racial union.

Rippling amidst these settlements and crawling between them haunts the Wyrd, where the borders between the magical and the mundane disappear entirely; the realm of the weird, malignant, and wonderful creatures of distant realms and ancient epochs. Whole areas exist where distant planes, ancient times, and strange creatures threaten the safety of the status quo. This cosmic gonzo produces an incredible density of adventures and locales to be charted and explored, even along the best-travelled roads of various Kraj.

The People.

Though various other races exist (strange, tainted, and sometimes entirely unique), they are without fail (and often itinerant) outsider minority to the diverse humankind that exist here. Humans themselves are in turn a divided and splintered minority compared to the races of the world, making them an ambitious and pugnacious people around others. Often, they fail to let sleeping dogs lie, proving themselves to other, more prosperous races; Lady Luck tends to favour them in this. Why she does this is unknown to all and bloody irritating to most.

Their Languages.

The people here generally speak Empiric, also affectionately known as man-babble, which is a pidgin of all the various other tongues spoken about the Kraje. (Based off of the super-cool Mediterranean Lingua Franca and Mozarabic). These other tongues are as widespread and various as the humans who speak them, sometimes differing between neighboring cities. If this bizarrely twisted linguistic map wasn’t enough, the other races who visit tend bring with them the other tongues of their people.

The Old Donkey Dies

Recently, I've been hankering for something from D&D 4e that it just can't provide: looseness. The crazy combat and crunchy rules are something amazing, but too much crunch is too much crunch– and it begins to get in the way of things.

As such, the game is receiving a well-deserved mechanical makeover. Over 4e– forever in our hearts as the grumpy, loveable, "back in the war" senile old man of RPGs– Advanced Fighting Fantasy has been chosen. From what we've seen, it's a great system: enough crunch and depth to the rules to provide an interesting experience, but absolutely no bars on what you can change, create, or add. And that's something I've always wanted.

As AFF brings with it some wonderfully weird and different ways of playing the game (that 3-letter sorcery system has already garnered hype), this mechanical change brings with it a bit of a setting change. We'll be keeping with the current world (as a whole), but moving, changing, and otherwise shaking things up to work with this new system.

All I know now about that– as most of the finer points of this change will come when my copy of the core rules arrives– is that with a cast of new characters we'll be moving the focus of play to somewhere else in the world. I really enjoyed the low-prep sandbox I created for the Hinterlands early on: I'd love to try that pure, stringless sandbox again. I think it might start somewhere new, without that baggage of all the things I created for the Hinterlands before I knew what was useful or not.

However, that doesn't mean new characters are required (though somewhat encouraged; as a DM I always enjoy a fresh roster). Feel free to bring any character, new or old, to the table, lads.

So, a fresh system, fresh region, and fresh characters (largely). Hopefully, this'll allow us to play the game free of the mechanical limitations of D&D.